By: Jamie Samuelsen

On Tuesday, the NFL announced that the 2012 season would open on Wednesday, September 5th when the World Champion New York Giants hosted the Dallas Cowboys at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. This immediately was announced on ESPN, ESPN.com, 97.1 The Ticket and most other news gathering organizations across the United States and possibly the world. If you listened to Matt Dery, Tony Ortiz or Ryan Wooley do sports updates on the station, you heard the story repeated all the way through this morning as you dropped your kids off at school.

It's big news. And it's only the simple announcement of a game being SCHEDULED!

Fast forward to September 5. NBC will carry the game live preceded by a lengthy pregame show. There will be some sort of concert and I'm guessing Faith Hill will be involved. The NFL knows how to do things and they sure as heck know how to start a season to quench the thirst of long-suffering football fans waiting for their sport to return. It's almost as if Roger Goodell is saying, "We're back baby. Did you miss us?"

So I found it thick with irony that less than 24 hours after the NFL announced WHEN the season was starting with fanfare and electricity, Major League Baseball actually opened its season with barely a peep.

Oh…you didn't know?

Today, the A's and the Mariners opened the 2012 season. I can see how this may have slipped past you. First, it happened at 6 in the morning. Secondly it happened in Japan. Third, it wasn't on television in America in terms of a national broadcast. It's almost as if MLB Commissioner Bud Selig is saying, "Yeah, we're back. But we're going to do a 'soft launch'. Tune in next week when the season opens."

Opening Day is one of the most cherished traditions in American sport. And I think it's fair to say that the NFL has swooped in and stolen it away from baseball. Well done, Bud. The NFL used to shy away from certain baseball traditions. They used to skip Sunday or Monday night football when it was going up against the World Series. But why should they anymore? The NFL is king, and Major League Baseball has simply shrunk from the competition.

I love baseball. And plenty of you love it too. Opening Day in Detroit is a holiday as it always will be. But Opening Day is also a special day across the sport even if the Tigers open up in Kansas City or New York. The NFL gets this, which is why their opener is in prime time, on national TV and features two of the most popular teams in the country. Baseball opens in Japan, a week before the rest of the games start, featuring two teams that nobody cares about, at six in the morning…and the game isn't even televised?

And which league is more popular?

The NFL trumps baseball for dozens of reasons. This Opening Day fiasco isn't some sort of smoking gun. But it's just comical that these two events happen on back-to-back days.

One sport gets it. Another sport doesn't. Never has. Never will.