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No thrills Opening Day just doesn't create much excitement any morePosted: Monday March 31, 2003 11:35 AM
At the risk of sounding like some finger-wagging, graying-in-the-temples baseball purist -- you know, I'd just as soon have someone prop my ears open with toothpicks while James Carville and Bill O'Reilly whine on at 140 decibels -- baseball's Opening Day is simply not the same any more. The thrill, as B.B. says, is gone. There was a time, way back, when there were parades and bunting and marching bands. Marge and Schottzie walked with the elephants at the Findlay Market parade. Kids skipped school. Downtown offices emptied. Sparky Anderson was grand marshal. Opening Day was a certifiable, feel-good mega-event. Now ... well, now is different. Monday is Major League Baseball's official Opening Day. But, really, we ought to stop kidding ourselves. We ought to just start putting the whole thing in lowercase. In the event that you missed it -- not a difficult thing to do -- the baseball season, in fact, isn't opening Monday. It opened Sunday night. In a single game on TV, a few channels away from the war coverage and the NCAA basketball tournament, another baseball season began. Another opening day (or night, as it were) came and went. Didn't you feel it?
It's still big news in some places. In Cincinnati, the 84th Findlay Market parade, which has become synonymous with the Reds' opener, will go off as planned Monday. Tom Browning, who pitched a perfect game for the Reds in 1988, is grand marshal. Pete Rose, afraid of sticking his foot in his mouth while baseball mulls his reinstatement, declined an invite to help open the Reds' new park. But even in tradition-rich Cincinnati, Opening Day is not the same. It hasn't been since 1994. That was the year baseball talked the Reds into opening on Sunday night, the first-ever Sunday night opener. Then-owner Marge Schott balked after agreeing to the game, didn't even sell it out, then held the parade Monday before what she called the real Opening Day. That game sold out. Since then, we've had openers played in Puerto Rico and planned for Japan (canceled due to concerns following the start of the war in Iraq) and openers on Sunday night all the time (this year's wasn't over till way past prime time in the East). The grand old celebration of the opening of another baseball season has gone, sadly, the way of Rickey Henderson. No one wants to sound all puritanical. Truth is, this pseudo Opening Day figures to be better than most of them lately. The Final Four isn't until next weekend, so at least there's no championship game as competition. That helps. And even a watered down Opening Day is better than no baseball at all. Still, Opening Day any more feels like the rekindling of a long, platonic relationship, not the passion-filled start of something new. The sparks that flew in those long-ago Opening Days have died out. The thrill is gone. It's time to move on. Whenever.
As I read the article on David Wells' antics compared to Mantle, Ruth, Martin and Jackson, all I could think was, this fat man is just another opportunistic "athlete" boob with book money on his agenda. The comparisons to those other four gentlemen are insulting to them. Do you think his handlers might have something to do with his latest leap through an incendiary ring of self-promotion? No more Wells, please!
The Pitch on Wells: Mouth obscures some considerable talent.
As a ticket holder for both canceled games in Japan, I find the whole thing rather sad. My guess is it is more dangerous to play baseball in Oakland in April than in Tokyo in March. Bud Selig should check his maps a bit more carefully. Japan may be overseas, but it's nowhere near Iraq. Did anyone ask Ichiro if he felt uncomfortable playing in Japan?
Feel bad for the folks in Japan, I really do. But I still say canceling the would-be season-opening two-game series in Tokyo between the Mariners and A's was the smart thing to do. It's all in the timing.
There Are NO Agonizing Hanging Weights, NO Tough Exercises,
NO Painful And Hard-To-Use Pumps, And There Is NO Dangerous Surgery Involved.
Damn it, I gotta clean out that inbox.
[A's owner] Steve Schott is shamelessly schlepping for Bud Selig when he claims that Miguel Tejada is unaffordable. He's merely unwilling to make the investment in his payroll, and do the hard, uncertain work of growing his customer base -- work that comes with financial risk -- to reap the rewards of that investment. Mr. Schott is letting his chance for WS glory as a championship team owner slip away to advance Bud's misguided agenda. Schott's lips are moving, but it's Bud's voice I hear.
No smart-alecky italic response to Mr. Dave on that one.
If Wells is everything you say he is, then why is such an intelligent mind like you wasting time writing about him? By the way, D-weeb-onovan, have you ever played ball? And I don't mean with your buddies in the school yard, either.
I've never played professional ball, Tim. But I don't have to sample a doo doo sandwich to know what one tastes like. Figure that out.
You know damned well Rose does not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. He is a disgrace to the great game of baseball, a cheat and a liar who compromised the game for his own selfish greed.
Hey, Tresputt, or whatever your name is. Quit screaming already. As far as Pete Rose is concerned, The Pitch says: Reinstate him and put his name on the HOF ballot. But let him work in the game again, especially in the majors, with that kind of record? I don't think so.
Dear Sir, The Pitch reports all threats to the appropriate authorities. John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.
Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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Mike Hampton was running on a treadmill Friday when he tweaked his right calf. The lefty will miss his first start of the season and could be out longer than that. The kicker: The Braves signed Hampton in the offseason because GM John Schuerholz likes his toughness.
"It's the way you go about your business and the way you go about your job that's important. We have to be secure in the fact that we're doing things that are going to make us better in the big picture ... "
