Tag Archives: opening day

Baseball

Playing Hooky

Just a quick note to let alla youse know that Scratchbomb will probably be on radio silence for the rest of the day, as I am off to CitiField in a matter of hours. Yes, it’s still quite a long time until the game starts. But I got some stuff I gotta take care of before I leave the house. You don’t need worry about it. Here’s a coupla bucks, go buy yourself something pretty.

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be the bearded guy in the Edgardo Alfonzo jersey desperately staving off hypothermia (but also counterintuitively drinking a beer). I usually don’t do the “wearing a jersey outside” thing, let alone to a game. I’m always afraid that if I do and the home nine lose, I’ll be out all day in these vestments of shame. Everyone will know that I’ve been to the game and that I’m sad and possibly angry about how they lost, and feel everyone else’s pitying, mocking eyes crawling over me in disgust.

Ah, what the hell, Opening Day comes but once a year.

This will be my first opener since 2008. How long ago is that? Not only did Ollie Perez start that game, but the crowd waited until the sixth inning or so to boo him. Were we ever so young?

See you there. Unless you’re not going, in which case the likelihood of me seeing you is drastically reduced. But not impossible!

Baseball

Coming this Summer: Lesbian Grandma, Starring Pete Rose

Just in case you missed it, the highlight of MLB’s Opening Day was Pete Rose showing up at the Brewers-Reds game in Cincinnati. Or more specifically, that he raided your grandma’s closet before going to it.

Hundred bucks says there’s an 8-ball on the back of that jacket. Pete would take that bet.

1999 Project

1999 Project: Home Opener

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

99_opening_day_1.pngApril 12, 1999: Mets 8, Marlins 1

Al Leiter and John Franco, both of whom grew up as Mets fans, reminisced to the Daily News about skipping school and watching Mets home openers from years past.

“I know I saw Seaver pitch on Opening Day, I had to, all the times my brother Jimmy and me skipped,” Franco was saying yesterday. “I just can’t remember which one.”

You can forgive Franco’s imprecise memory when you consider that Tom Seaver took the ball on Opening Day for the Mets 11 times.

In Mike Piazza’s absence, Bobby Bonilla batted cleanup for the Mets’ 1999 home opener. He was roundly booed at first by fans who remembered his participation in The Worst Team Money Could Buy, but slightly less so after he went 3-for-3.

99_opening_day_2.pngMarlin starter Livan Hernandez was knocked out by a four-run fifth inning that included a solo homer by his counterpart, Mets pitcher Bobby Jones, not normally known for his bat (or much of anything else at this point in his career, other than a seemingly anomalous trip to the All Star Game in 1997). Robin Ventura drove in two runs of his own but said, “It’s the first time in my career I’ve been shown up by a pitcher.”

The joy of Opening Day was dampened–literally–by a flood in the Mets’ clubhouse that ruined both a $200,000 renovation job and a box of Bobby Valentine’s baseball memorabilia. The postgame press conference was held in the much drier old Jets locker room.

Meanwhile, the crowd of 52K+ was annoyed to find out that scorebook prices had jumped by a whole dollar–and no longer included a complimentary golf-sized pencil.