Hot dogs, kids, baseball – what can be better on Opening Night?

In five to six minutes of cooking time, they turn a toasty brown.

They fit easily in your hand, perfect for balancing a choice of beverage in the other. We’re talking hot dogs, the preferred entree in every ballpark known to man.

“We cook ours in the ovens, and when the ends start to split and turn, they’re ready,” said Ed Mack, the vice president of concessions at Thurman Field, the home of the Modesto Nuts.

What’s the secret to cooking a good hot dog, Ed?

“Having a good hot dog is the secret,” Mack said, his words filled with certainty.

Hot dogs, supposedly bad for your health, remain an indispensable part of the baseball experience. Doctors who’ve written papers about the dangers of cooked sausages no doubt have devoured a few during a ballgame. And loved them. As guilty pleasures go, hot dogs belong near the top, especially at places where home runs are struck.

Mack estimated that about 750 were consumed during the Nuts’ home-opening 5-2 win over the Stockton Ports on Thursday night. Those who didn’t probably felt better Friday morning, but they surely missed the full take-me-out-to-the-ballgame vibe.

Not having a warm-bunned hot dog during the fourth inning is, well, un-American.

Opening Night at home, whether you play Game 1 at your own ballyard or delay it with a six-game road trip – as the Nuts did, going 2-4 – does not change. Baseball romantics treat it as a rebirth of sorts. The long, cold winter is over, and the intoxicating thwack of ball meeting bat, absent at Thurman for about eight months, is back like an old friend.

About four hours before the first pitch against the Stockton Ports, the Nuts filed to the plate in groups of four for batting practice. Those timeless baseball sounds echoed off the empty seats, and coaches exchanged stories around the cage.

“Doesn’t change. Best two nights of the year,” Nuts hitting coach Lee Stevens quipped. “When you open on the road and come home later, you get two opening nights.”

Stevens, who worked the past three seasons for the Colorado Rockies’ rookie league team in Grand Junction, Colo., knows the California League. He played for the Palm Springs Angels in 1987.

Between then and now, Stevens toured the major leagues with the Angels, Rangers, Expos and Indians. But when he returned this week with the Nuts to Bakersfield’s Sam Lynn Ballpark, he scanned the premises and noted the obvious.

“Hardly changed at all,” he said.

Whether it’s contested in gleaming palaces or Class-A-ball hideaways, baseball is one large creature of routine. The game, like coaches and ballplayers themselves, use that as their comfort zone. Even in the Cal League, the repetition of 140 games can numb the senses. Everyday normalcy is required.

One of the few exceptions is Opening Night at home. Players feel the difference.

Catcher Troy Stein, one of four Nuts to return from the 2015 team, got married during the offseason in his native Texas. If he wishes he were somewhere else – like Hartford, Conn., the Rockies’ Double-A team – he’s polite enough not to say it.

Besides, Hartford’s new ballpark isn’t completed yet. No opening night for the Yard Goats until deep into summer.

“It’s special,” Stein said in reference to the first game in front of the home crowd. “It’s nice to be at home and start setting your routine.”

See what I mean?

Baseball has been contested at the Thurman site for about a century. Modesto has been a part of the California League since 1946. The people here know the drill, even if the drills are 2016-inspired.

The hand-held camera, an important part of the modern-day game – fans become instant stars on the scoreboard video screen – nearly didn’t make it on time for Game 1. A glitch was discovered Tuesday, and the camera was overnighted to New York for repair. It arrived at Thurman about three hours before the first pitch.

“It got here this morning,” said Todd Rocha, operations supervisor for the city of Modesto. “Got it done, with a few Rolaids.”

Elsewhere, it felt like baseball. The grass surrounding home plate, a thin and sickly brown in August, shined a fresh-clipped emerald green. A groundskeeper carefully applied the white lines of the batter’s box. Moments later, others attached the bridal white bases to their moorings. The infield, untouched by spikes, sat there in its baseball purity. The promise of the game, and an upcoming season, lay ahead like a distant star.

In the bleachers behind the Stockton dugout, Shelli Stigl and her 15-year-old son, Garret Pilger, shared chicken strips. At Pilger’s side was a black glove, which he has used to snare and collect foul balls for the last four years. They watch at least two games a week at Thurman.

“We love the smells of the ballpark, the banter of the crowd, the games, everything. Last year, Garret told me, ‘Mom, this feels like home,’ ” Stigl said. “We are so lucky to have this right here at home.”

With a tasty hot dog in hand, of course.

This story was originally published April 14, 2016 at 8:10 PM with the headline "Hot dogs, kids, baseball – what can be better on Opening Night?."