Snow Job: Early Season Games

MLB Early Season

Tomorrow, May 1,  is Opening Day. I am perfectly aware that Major League Baseball now begins its season in March, while it's still snowing, but that is their problem. I have begged the Commissioner's Office without success to begin the season in Florida and Arizona, where all the teams gather and it is warm and sunny. One always has to approach the Commissioner's Office; the actual "C" is like an ancient Chinese Emperor and must be protected from individual fans without an Inc. after their names.

What MLB calls early season games become spring training for me; their "spring"training occurred mostly in winter. Are you still with me? This is the kind of issue that caused me to create a whole new league a few years ago, the Universal Baseball League, with myself as very accessible Commissioner and to become a co-owner owner of the New York Pearls with my friend Mulligan, who needs the carry-forward losses. But that is a good story for another day or the "Mulligan" novel my agent, Goldberg, continues to bug me about.

World Champions

As some of you know, this is a special season for me, because it's the kind of season that only happens every 56 years. The Giants are defending World Champions for the first time since 1955, when I saw my first game in the Polo Grounds ( vs. the new Milwaukee, nee Boston, Braves). Many pundits have chosen the Giants to repeat, but true Giants' fans may know better; they are off to a middling start.

The New York Yankees, Inc. are off to a fast start, winning at a near .600 clip, which will win them a division title if they keep it up. They won't. They have too many pitching holes and Burnett and Joba's shrinks do not travel with the team. The slow-starting Red Sox will eventually light up Fenway like a pin- ball machine against what, in another era, would be AA pitching.

The first miracle of the season (No, not Barry Bonds' acquittal on the serious charges) is the Mets, who have recently won 6 in a row after a fittingly dismal start. They are still below .500, but are respectable on the field, which is the most that Mets fans have hoped for since their beginning in, of all places, the same Polo Grounds. The Times, which has always considered the Yankees to be the only team in town, even when NYC had 3 MLB teams (and when  they owned a piece of the BoSox), has been battering the Mets owners like a Joba fastball straight down the middle.

Now, I must disclose that I am a lapsed Mets fan. Very lapsed, indeed for excellent reasons. One Opening Day, Mets management decided to card everybody buying beer. Everybody. I was over 50, but they still carded me. This created long lines and many missed the first pitch and inning of the season. At another game that same season, it became apparent to fans that the Mets players ran the bases and fielded with an utter disregard for how many outs there were. Also, my former friend, Goldberg, not the agent another one, stopped sending me his free Inc. tickets.

Ebbetts Redux

The final straw was the new "Citi" Field, which pays open homage to the Brooklyn Dodgers' old Ebbets Field and Jackie Robinson, since the owner-Wilpons hail from Brooklyn. Any self-respecting Giants fan would be deeply offended by this grave transgression. This, of course, makes our recent Series victory that much more satisfying (to add insult....this season the "C" has taken over the Dodgers who are a mess at the moment. Golly, that's too bad).

When the Times starts pummeling even hapless owners, when Bernie's People come looking for dough, when you have to borrow from the "C" just to make payroll (as the Mets have done), when you have to let your son run things (see also Knicks/ Dolan, James), and when you field mostly AA-AAA talent everyday, well sir, I start to get interested, because I love the underdog. Plus, you have to love a team that builds a new "field" and makes it so big even The Babe could not reach the fences, but forgets that it doesn't have any pitching to go with it. Oops. Bring the fences back in.

One can only wonder how Casey would explain it all. He would know, because he played for The Dodgers (Ebbetts Field) and the Giants (Polo Grounds), and managed the Yankees (Old Stadium) and the Mets (Polos again and Shea).

But, then again, we wouldn't understand what he was saying anyway. This, in its way, might make him the perfect spokesperson for MLB today or any pro sport for that matter.