MLB Baseball Opening Day Artist John Robertson Baseball Painting


Opening Day Major League Baseball (MLB)


Is March 29 a national holiday?  Should be, as it is MLB’s opening day of the baseball season.  There should be floats, and the Blue Angels dipping into the stadium – a huge balloon release or five hundred red, white and blue pigeons flying around the stadium.  Fireworks blasting overhead.   For   Every player is nervous with either butterflies in their stomach or a monkey on their back.  It all depends on how their last season ended.  But it is a special day, a birthday for everyone.  Something, somewhere in some stadium something great will happen. 
this is to be the first day we get to see the potential fairy tail team that will go on to win the World Series - or it will be our first sight of a future Hall of Famer.

It is a new dawn with a game opening in a forty degree icebox of a stadium or another stadium opening in a climate conducive to an eighty-two degree warming oven.  Will you be there to see it?  Will you see the first pitch, the first throwing of the hotdog or bag of peanuts?  Are we going to see an opening day shutout?  A no-hitter?  Only happened once. A walk-off home run?  Why not?  It is the ceremonial beginning of spring.

Me?  What will I do?  I will probably create a new baseball painting – something that will remind me of that opening day in late March.  That is what painting is for me – a way of recalling a day or experiencing it again through the act of painting.  It is a part of life that    I can’t let go but need to remind myself of the joys of spring.  Opening day does that for me.  The new year is not in January it is the opening day of spring bringing all the hopes of a great year. 

The baseball sports art painting by sports artist John Robertson is Sports Art baseball painting image of a baseball painting approximately 60“ by 72”, acrylic on unstretched canvas.

LA Dodgers painting Sports Art

LA Dodgers

 Well, I guess us LA Dodgers fans can give a sigh or relief as they did finally win a game that puts them into the playoffs.  I know, I know, at this point in writing and showing the Dodgers art they are in a wild card position - and that is better than nothing.  And considering the Dodgers, at one recent point was considered one of the best teams in baseball, there is some satisfaction in knowing there are a lot of teams, 20 of them, would be thrilled get this far.  Let us hope they start playing to their ability.

The Los Angeles Dodgers expect to win their fifth consecutive division championship and a birth in the World Series.  Good luck.  The way they have been playing for more than the last three weeks it will be a challenge for them to get back on track.  They are in the post-season play and in a few days, hopefully in the next few, they win the National League West championship.  And if they can achieve the best record in baseball this year, (that is still a question) they will have the home field advantage if they make it to the World Series.

 About the LA Dodgers painting

 In the meantime here is a piece of art celebrating the Los Angeles Dodgers – a player sliding into home plate with a Yankee catcher tagging him out.  Like the Dodgers the Yankees hold a wild-card position with the Indians up a couple of games.  The LA Dodgers painting by sports artist John Robertson is ink and acrylic on a variety of maps of Los Angeles.  The painting is 5 feet by 6 feet.

Baseball Art LA Dodgers Catcher Painting


LA Dodgers Catcher 

Painting of LA Dodgers catcher.  The LA Dodgers have two good catchers with each doing a yeoman job with the pitching teammates.  This painting could be of either  Yasmani Grandal  or Austin Barnes as I used a generic catcher for reference to the painting.  As a Los Angeles Dodgers both are having a good season.  Yasmani Grandal:  led all every-day catchers in the majors with 27 homers last season and at the time of this posting his batting average is batting 316.  Austin Barnes: batting 265 right now is a player the  Dodgers were willing to part with veteran Carlos Ruiz, in part, because of their confidence in Barnes.  

About Catchers

 These two catchers have had some good highlights and being on a winning team that have a good shot at the World Series this year..  I am not sure if these catchers do what so many others do, learning in the minor leagues to watch every game on replay.  A catcher wants to do is look at the sequences, go through the at-bats, and consider what other things they could have done - maybe differently.  It was a way of re-thinking the games and that may give them insights for future games.  And this makes any pitcher respect his catcher, knowing that his catcher has done all the homework possible to make the right pitching calls. 

Baseball Art 


The catcher baseball painting by Sports Artist John Robertson is 48 inches by 48 inches, ink and acrylic on old baseball newsprint attached to canvas.  

Baseball art Painting of Catcher Ramon Hernandez


Ramon Hernandez Portraint painting 
by sports artist John Robertson
50" x 70" acrylic on unstretched canvas

A Catcher is a Backstop With a Good Arm

Catcher Ramon Hernandez MLB Teams

I painted Ramon Hernandez, an excellent catcher (and could play first base) because he was such a great workhorse for any team he played for – and he did play for a number of them.  Ramon with the Oakland Athletics (1999–2003), San Diego Padres (2004–2005), Baltimore Orioles (2006–2008), Cincinnati Reds (2009–2011), Colorado Rockies (2012) and Los Angeles Dodgers (2013.  He moved around a lot but was always a great contributor to whichever team he played for.  He has an interesting position to play.

 About Catchers 

Here’s a funny story about Joe Torre who, among a number of great achievements was a great catcher.  He was once asked why he became a catcher.  “When I was 16 years old, my brother Frank said, 'You'd better become a catcher, because you're too big and fat to do anything else.' Well, I took his advice. It was a quick way to get to the big leagues, and I've never regretted it.”  Now Hernandez never made the choice because he was six feet tall and weighed in at around one ninety.  That’s not big and fat.  Also he was a good hitter with a two-sixty-three hitting average over his long career. 

Ramon Hernandez, like most catchers was the defensive leader on the field. He called the pitches and positioned players on the field and had a pragmatic view of baseball. The great pitcher Bob Feller said, "If you believe your catcher is intelligent and you know that he has considerable experience, it is a good thing to leave the game almost entirely in his hands."


Ramon had psychological insights and had a list of behaviors for each player approaching the batting box. His eyes were continuing to move across the field of play and his mind running the different offensive scenarios in his head. All of this going on with a baseball bat menacingly inches from his head.  That is what good catchers did.

Sports Baseball painting of Minnesota Twins Joe Mauer

Joe Mauer Old Catcher Now First Baseman


This painting of Joe Mauer first baseman and used to be catcher of the Minnesota Twins major league baseball team is approximately 8” x 10” on a 11” x 14” piece of drafting film. Ink and watercolor.

Joe Mauer's main position when he started playing was catcher and sometimes first baseman.  When asked to paint him for a relative he wanted a painting of Joe as a catcher.  As a catcher Joe took a few hits to the head causing some concussions.  On November 11, 2014 the Twins announced that Mauer would permanently move to first base in order to protect their star player from further concussions and the day-to-day physical wear of being a major league catcher.  Since then, like in the past he has performed nicely.

 Painting Inspiration

This painting was created for a  gift to my nephew-in-law.  He is my wife's sister's son who absolutely loves the Minnesota Twins and goes to as many games as he possibly can.   My wife's family is from Minnesota and her sister lives just about a hour north from the Twin Cities.  When my nephew left Minnesota to take a teaching job in Mexico he wanted something that would remind him of his home state.  His mother suggested a baseball player and we somehow found out his favorite player was Joe Mauer.

I did paint Joe as a surprise and it eventually the painting ended up in Mexico.  My nephew comes back to the states for all vacations and, of course back to Minnesota.  And one of the first things he does is go to a Twins game.  We get to see him every summer and a few times he has come to California to visit.   Also, he is moving on from Mexico after three years there he is not sure where his next job will be.  But he does like teaching in a foreign country except for missing the Twins

Nephew likes Minnesota Vikings



What is going to be fun this upcoming summer 2016 is the opening of the new Minnesota Vikings stadium.  Both my wife and I have painted large-scale sports artwork for the new stadium and will be able to take her nephew to the opening in July.  He is excited about the whole process as football and the Vikings is his next big passion.  Don't tell him but I will probably get some prints of the images I painted for the Vikings and they will be a great gift for his return.