Monthly Archives: April 2009

Baseball, Sean from Massapequa

Sean from Massapequa, on His Way to the Citi

seanfrommassapequa.jpgSean from Massapequa just texted me, and wanted me to inform all Scratchbomb readers that he will be tweeting throughout the evening as the Mets open up their new ballpark for the regular season. Last I heard, he still didn’t have a ticket, so I don’t know what to expect from his tweets. But if you want to see what transpires, follow him.

Speaking of which, I’ve already called the Opening Night Phenomenon an abomination in the eyes of god, and I think it’s doubly so that the Mets will inaugurate their new stadium with a night game. If anything opener should be a day game, it should be your first real game in your first real stadium.

Technically, the Mets didn’t have a much of a choice due to MLB rules that state a team can’t play a day game after flying from the West to East Coast. But that begs the question, why are the Mets playing the Padres in this historic game? Why not against a division rival? Or a former division rival, like the Cubs or Pirates?

The Mets are powerful enough in MLB, I would think, to make demands of The Almight Scheduler, if they chose to do so. They didn’t, so despite the league’s weird bureaucratic rules, I gotta lay the blame squarely on the Mets.

At least they didn’t push up the start time for a Flo Rida concert.

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.

1999 Project

1999 Project: Second Series

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

April 8, 1999: Expos 5, Mets 1

pitchermasks.jpgOrel Hershiser killed the Mets in the 1988 NLCS, shutting them down in three games and closing out the Dodger victory in the series-turning Game Four on 0 days’ rest. (Mike Scioscia and Kirk Gibson contributed to the slaughter.) The Mets, clearly a forgiving franchise, acquired Hershiser prior to the 1999 season. He wasn’t the record-breaking Bulldog of old, but still a eater of quality innings, the kind that any contender needs at the back end of its rotation.

This appeared to be a wise decision when Hershiser showed flashes of his old form in spring training, giving up no runs in 12 innings of work. It looked less so during his Mets debut in Montreal, when he gave up five runs and was gone after four innings. Gold Glovers Robin Ventura and Rey Ordonez both committed crucial errors, as did reacquired outfielder/professional clubhouse cancer Bobby Bonilla.

Hershisher didn’t help his own cause by getting picked off of second in the top of the third, effectively squashing a Mets rally. The sole NY offense came from a solo homer by Edgardo Alfonzo, his first of the year.

Hershiser would do some yeomanlike work for the Mets in 1999 (including three innings of vital relief work in The Grand Slam Single Game). But it’s probably games like this that Steve Phillips thinks of when he busts Hershiser’s chops during ESPN telecasts. Never mind the fact that Phillips was the GM who brought him to the team (it’s not like he was foisted on the Mets by a previous regime). And the fact that Hershiser did more in baseball than Steve Phillips could ever do in three lifetimes.

Amid rumors that the Expos might be sold and moved to the US, the Opening Day Montreal crowd was unusually large and vocal. Expos fans cheered a solid start by pitcher Miguel Batista, and the robust attendance announcement of 43,918.

Continue reading 1999 Project: Second Series →