6
2012
Opening Day and Other Insipid Thoughts
An article by Doug Branch
To a diehard baseball fan Opening Day is Thanksgiving, Christmas, and your birthday all rolled into one glorious day. What two other words, except “Lottery Winner,” could evoke such passion?
Even if you are a Mets fan, hammered all winter and spring with negative news, this is one day-one game to give it a rest. Now, it doesn’t hurt that the Mets are the titans of Opening Day. Posting a MLB best winning percentage (.647, 33-18 after yesterday’s 1-1 win) and ahead of the second place Yankees (.586, but the Bombers have participated in a ton more.)
According to Wikipedia, from 1968-1983, the Mets won 16 openers. Thank you Tom Terrfic! Seaver started 11 times for the Mets and posted a perfect 6-0 mark. If you were a young fan during that time, Opening Day was a slam dunk victory.
And, wasn’t it always a convenient coincidence that there was always a half-day of school on Opening Day? As a high school junior, I remember biding my time in the morning before bolting and catching the 7-train to be at Shea by the time the luminaries and debris had been cleared from the field.
Recently, I poured over the box score of the 1975 opener that I attended (the Mets had acquired Joe Torre from the Cardinals and Dave Kingman from the Giants, among others, to create a palpable buzz) on Baseball Reference.com.
Off the top of my head, I could tell you, Torre stroked a 9th inning base hit to score Felix “The Cat” Millan for the 2-1 victory. I didn’t recall that Seaver faced Steve Carlton of the Phillies, a Hall of Fame match-up.
Each hurled complete games, with Seaver scattering 6-hits, and Lefty only 4 (but one long homerun to Kong). Moreover, they pitched like they were double-parked-in an economical 2:02-and home from school right on time.
Imagine, the announced attendance was only 18,527? No wonder I purchased a mezzanine box seat without incident, minutes before the first pitch. With nary two nickels to rub together in those salad days, the ducket couldn’t have exceeded a sawbuck ($10) back then.
As I read the box score, I noticed that under “weather conditions,” it read, “unknown.” My fellow faithful fans, I can report it was sunny and mild, in the high 50′s at game time (thank you Dr. Frank Field).
Conversely, Opening Day 1970, which I had to witness the raising of the World Championship banner, a frigid low 40′s with a biting wind. When the Pirates tied the score with a ninth-inning rally, a collective groan could be heard through the stone-cold grandstands.
Just a few of many memories, and of course Johan Santana only added to the list yesterday. His return was a welcome sight.
For all the talk of gloom and doom this club could use a few breaks. I intend to not miss many Ike Davis or Lucas Duda at-bats this year. And, root for the kid, Reuben Tejada to develop into a serviceable major leaguer. And, root against the Marlins!
With Jon Niese in the fold for the next bunch of years, hope he brings the consistency the high numbers registered on his new pay stub affords.
Most importantly, give Jason Bay some rope and hope he doesn’t hang himself (figuratively folks). The man could use some sunshine to break through darkened skies. I mean ZERO RBI’s in 45 spring at-bats is putrid. 15 strikeouts. Oy!
If he doesn’t hit the ground running he might have to keep on trucking (make it look like you’re leading a parade, not being run out of town, Jason). Bay’s bat is still vital.
If he bats fifth and produces, that separates the lefties (Davis, clean-up and Duda, 6th) nicely in the order. Add David Wright and the pesky Andres Torres, and just maybe the offense flourishes. If it sputters, Bay might want to borrow Bobby Bonilla’s ear plugs.
Hope that Frank Francisco isn’t the second coming of Armando Benitez (or Mel Rojas) and Jon Rauch is better suited as a power forward for the Knicks.
All the cacophony of questions died down to a dull roar yesterday, the roar of devoted Mets fans welcoming their team back home prevailed – as it should.
About the Author: Doug Branch
Doug has been sports writing since 1983. He first wrote about the Mets at spring training that year, and his first interviewee was surly catcher Ron Hodges. He currently writes for Mets Inside Pitch, among other magazines published by Scout Publishing-which is owned by Fox Sports. He began following the team during the Wes Westrum era, and redeemed many Borden milk coupons for free Saturday baseball. The night of Tom Seaver's imperfect game against the Cubs, he was in line to buy a ticket when the windows slammed shut and abject disappointment ensued.
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Nice job Doug. The Mets rule the roost on opening day!
Uhhhh Doug? There was a baseballreference.com in 1975 to have a buzz?
I was one of the first people on the planet to have internet access and I didn’t get it until 1989 where it was limited to usenet and ftp. TCP/IP wasn’t invented until 1982! LOL
The Web went live in the early 90′s so I doubt very highly there was any buzz on baseballrefernece.com back then! LOL We all did our telecommunication via BBS’ back in those days! I ran one that was quite popular in NYC.
But I can understand the faulty memory here…LOL I saw a lot of those games you did (Season Ticket holder in 70′s and 80′s) and I have tried to forget those Met years in the 70′s as well!
LOL
I think you’re very confused. Baseball Reference has boxscores of all games going back to 1962, whether there was internet back then is really inconsequential as it’s just a data file that was simply uploaded to their site. Most sites get their historical archives that way.
I think your very confused…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball-Reference.com
There was no baseball reference before then!
In fact they provided data to some other site before they put it out there on thier own!
At that time the only stat company being used was Elias and their book was in print!
Follow along with me no matter how difficult it may be for you.
The following is Doug’s sentence:
Recently, I poured over the box score of the 1975 opener that I attended (the Mets had acquired Joe Torre from the Cardinals and Dave Kingman from the Giants, among others, to create a palpable buzz) on Baseball Reference.com.
Now lets remove the parenthesis and read the sentence again.
Recently, I poured over the box score of the 1975 opener that I attended, on Baseball Reference.com.
Now here is what’s in the parenthesis:
The Mets had acquired Joe Torre from the Cardinals and Dave Kingman from the Giants, among others, to create a palpable buzz.
Two different thoughts, two different sentences. Parenthesis are used to interject a separate thought within a sentence.
Class is over.
LOL, I wasn’t sure where he was getting that from until you put that up. Wow, he sure is an educated b…
actually, if FF can put up a typical Benetiz season, it would be a huge bonus to the team. At least in the regular season, AB was dominant. Most of the time.
And when he wasn’t he was walking people like a ticket taker at a free steak dinner! LOL
I would take his output from 1999 or 2000. He made up for BBs by not allowing hits (and as we all know, only BA counts, BBs are irrelevant chatter in OBP!)
seriously, his WHIP those years was right about 1.02, with a ton of Ks. And lots of saves. If Franky can pull that off, it would be a miracle.
Agreed, AB was someone who did not pass the eyes test but certainly passed the stats test. The guy had some dominant regular seasons.
I remember being with Doug on that opening day in 75, and yes i also forgot that Lefty was throwing that day against Tom Terrific.
what joy being a kid and a baseball fan on opening day …
Please get your facts straight: The Mets didn’t win on Opening day until 1970, so they couldn’t have “won 16 straight from 1968 to 1983.” Also, Joe Foy wasn’t the 3B acquired for Nolan Ryan, that was Jim Fregosi. And Ryan wasn’t traded until AFTER the 1970 season. I didn’t bother with the rest of the article; your credibility was already destroyed.
He didnt say they won 16 straight, he said they won 16 from 68 – 83 ..
and where is Joe Foy (for amos otis by the way) mentioned in the article (or jim fregosi or nolan ryan for that matter.
i suppose if you could actually read and interpret data you would have finished the article.
idiot.
he didn’t have to say it. 68-83 is 16 seasons, so by default they must have been straight!
Hey Doug,
We must have just missed each other at that home opener in 1970!
I sitting in section in the mezzanine in short right – got there as soon as the gates opened – and was one of the many who began yelling “let’s go Mets” as some of the players came out to loosen up before the game.
Wasn’t it great seeing the Glider make a surprise run from the dugout to get his ring and that world championship flag being raised on the flag pole? I still remember turning my head back to the Mets dugout and seeing Tommie Agee, standing on the dugout steps wearing his blue Met jacket and having a big smile across his face. And Koozman appeared so poised on the mound waiting for the calls from Grote.
But one play told me this was not the same team as the miracle club. Ron Swoboda short hopped a fly to right in which the go-ahead run scored. He raised him arm high with the ball in his glove,trying to deek the umpire into thinking he caught it. The year before no Met would have tried pulling such a bush league stunt.
Yes, it was frigid and cloudy that afternoon but that was nothing like the opener a year later. I was there as the game started with snow flurries. It was frigid – so frigid that I left in the bottom of the first. The Mets were hosting Montreal and it felt like Jarry Park, not Shea. Got home to see the umpire come out and called the game after four and half innings with the Mets ahead by I believe a score of one to nothing.
Of course, I was also there at the very first opening day of any kind that the Mets won, the 3-0 shutout over the Giants in front of over 50,000 fans. It was a warm, sunny day and we had finally broken the jinx. The closest we ever came to winning was in 1966 when we had a 2-1 lead going into the ninth before bad fielding and Braves hitting turned it into a 3-2 loss.
Oh, also so happy to see the Mets wearing the same type of uniforms that they did those early years.
Joey D: I thought that was you! Thanks for telling us about your memories. It’s always great to hear how baseball experiences are so personal to the individual fan.
Metsie: Don’t worry about it, the Internet still confuses me. I remember when the “Clicker,” was the youngest person in the room (and he changed the dial manually!).
Gregg: You are correct, sir! My bad, Foy was acquired for Amos Otis. I guess the Ryan trade morphs with Otis as the two worse deals in Mets history. Thanks again.
Kevin: It’s all in fun. How much did you pay for a ticket at that Opener? I know mine was under $10.