It’s always one of my very favorite days of the year: Opening Day for Major League Baseball. For many in the colder parts of the USA, it’s a line of demarcation between winter and spring. For fans of the grand old game, the anticipation towards Opening Day is not unlike a young child waking up at 4:00a on Christmas morning, not able to wait to unwrap their presents. Opening Day is an unofficial holiday for many and an annual American celebration that has included eleven sitting U.S. Presidents throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, dating back to William Howard Taft in 1910. It’s an annual celebration that was enjoyed in 14 different cities today (with the Cardinals and Cubs debuting last night at Wrigley). Through the news feed of Facebook, I can report that I have personal friends who enjoyed this day from Washington to New York in the Bronx to Tampa Bay to Los Angeles to Phoenix.
Today I watched multiple Opening Day games from my home office in Redondo Beach, courtesy of the MLB Extra Innings package. I was able to sample every game this afternoon except, ironically, for the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers. For the 2nd straight season, the Dodgers TV network is only available on Time Warner Cable because the other providers (such as DIrecTV and Verizon FIOS) don’t want to pay the demanded $5 per subscriber fee. Ironic: in the 1970’s 1980’s when I was growing up you could only watch your local teams; today in Los Angeles the only team you could not watch was the local team!
In this blog, I’m going to share some thoughts about today’s games and then reminisce about a classic Opening Day tilt nearly 30 years ago today. Today’s action witnessed cheers in the Bronx for PED-disgraced Alex Rodriguez in a 6-1 loss otherwise forgettable for fans of the New York Yankees. Japanese starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, a sensation last year but pitching this year with a partially torn elbow ligament, looked like a shell of the maestro he was a year ago. With his and CC Sabathia’s fragile health, it could be rough year for Yankee fans.
For the 2013 World Series champion Boston Red Sox from the American League, it was an unusual opening act in a National League park (Philadelphia) and they were matched up against the target of every Sox fan’s desire, ace left-hander Cole Hamels. The Sox proceeded to rap four solo home runs off Hamels, including two by Dustin Pedroia, one by new acquisition Hanley Ramirez and one by center-field phenom Mookie Betts, the young player the Phillies most coveted in a potential trade for Hamels. (Han-Ram would add a grand slam in the 9thh inning to celebrate his Boston debut in style). Meanwhile, the much-maligned and inconsistent Clay Buchholz, deemed unworthy of an Opening Day start by Beantown’s chattering class, tossed 7 innings of scoreless, 3-hit ball with 9 strikeouts. Despite the small sample size of one start, there is a legitimate question about whether Hamels is a good fit in the A.L. East. In 29 career starts against American League clubs (the equivalent of about one full season), he has a 4.54 ERA. He’s spent his career feasting on the N.L. East’s Florida Marlins, Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals, struggling only (surprisingly) against the New York Mets, who have been mired in mediocrity for six years.
In the nation’s capital, we saw the Nats’ newest $210 million man Max Scherzer look, at least for five no-hit innings, like he’s worth every suitcase of Benjamins in a dominant outing against the Mets. Scherzer was let down by two errors from shortstop Ian Desmond, leading to three unearned runs and a Mets win. The $210-million man lost to New York’s 285-pound man, 84-year old Bartolo Colon. OK, Colon will only be half-way to 84 on his birthday next month. (Incidentally last season Desmond, channeling his inner Max, turned down a $107 million contract extension from the Nationals).
Meanwhile, Mad Max’s de facto replacement with the Tigers (David Price) tossed nearly nine innings of scoreless ball in Detroit against the Minnesota Twins.
Today we saw ceremonial first pitches in Cincinnati by the Nasty Boys of 1990 (Randy Myers, Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton), celebrating the 25th anniversary of their World title. The weather was also nasty in Cincinnati but was brightened with the presence of the still-banned from baseball Pete Rose. Speaking of rain we saw a rain delay in Miami, even though they have a retractable roof that cost over $100 million. Hmmmm.
In Kansas City, the defending A.L. champs, derided by the sabermetric community as a barely .500 team this year, clobbered by a score of 10-1 one of the sexy A.L. Central picks, the Chicago White Sox.
And finally, today saw the return of former MVP runner-up Matt Kemp to Los Angeles as a member of the revamped San Diego Padres in a matchup against MVP and Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw. Kemp delivered 3 RBI in his return to Dodger Stadium but that return was spoiled by the 8th inning, 3-run home run by the Dodgers’ new shortstop, Jimmy Rollins.
I’ve been lucky enough to attend several openers in person, whether it’s been the team’s actual opener or their first home opener. It’s always better when it’s the team’s first game of the season but the first home game is the next best thing. I’ll be in San Francisco next Monday for the Giants’ first home game after their World Series win. It will be a great festive occasion at AT&T Park as the fans get to see their team on the field for the first time since Mad-Bum’s legendary performance and the team’s 7-game win over the Royals.
Two years ago, a group of work colleagues of mine and I attended the Boston Red Sox home opener at Fenway. It didn’t matter that it was the BoSox seventh game of the season. It was the first for us; a beautiful day in the sunshine highlighted by Daniel Nava hitting a three-run home run over the Green Monster to break a scoreless tie and set the tone for the magical season that resulted in the bearded Bostonians’ improbable run to the championship.
My favorite Opening Day memory of all, however, one which will likely never be topped, was my first. It occurred 30 years ago at Shea Stadium in New York. I was 18 years old, a senior in High School with Dr. Kent’s English class on the schedule for the afternoon of Tuesday, April 9th. Yours truly, along with seven or eight classmates, decided that Dr. Kent would take a back seat to Doctor K, the Mets’ ace pitcher Dwight Gooden, slated to toe the rubber on Opening Day against the St. Louis Cardinals. Gooden was the NL rookie of the year in 1984 and, at the age of 20 in 1985, only a couple of years older than our group of class-cutting high school seniors.
The group of us attended Horace Mann High School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx; as seniors a couple of us had cars, so we piled in a couple of them and drove straight from our morning classes to the ballpark in Queens. It was a brutally cold, blustery day, not preferred baseball weather by any standard. But despite the cold, the ballpark was nearly full (the announced attendance was 46,781).
There was great anticipation for the ’85 edition of the Mets. In 1984, after seven truly miserable seasons, the Amazins’ posted a 90-win season, finishing 6 1/2 games behind the division-winning Chicago Cubs. The ’84 Mets showed the potential of bigger things to come: 22-year old Darryl Strawberry (the ’83 Rookie of the Year) was emerging as one of the big power bats in the National League and former MVP Keith Hernandez (acquired in an ’83 trade with St. Louis) gave the young Mets the kind of veteran leadership often so crucial to the development of a winning ball club.
But the key reason that the ’85 version of the Mets held such promise for the long-suffering fan base was the off-season acquisition of catcher Gary Carter. The always-smiling Carter (whose enthusiasm for the game and positive demeanor earned the nickname the “Kid”) was already a seven-time All-Star and had been the face of the Montreal Expos franchise. The Mets traded four players (Hubie Brooks, Floyd Youmans, Herm Winningham, and Mike Fitzgerald, no big losses among them) to get the Kid from the Expos. Carter was viewed as the “last piece” to get New York from a 2nd-place 90-win team to a division winner. Besides adding a power bat to complement Strawberry and aging slugger George Foster, Carter was the perfect veteran backstop to guide the Mets’ young starting staff. Besides the 20-year old Gooden, the ’85 Mets featured three other talented young hurlers under the age of 25: Ron Darling (24), Rick Aguilera (23) and Sid Fernandez (22). With Carter behind the dish, all three flourished, with season ERA’s of 2.90, 3.24 and 2.80 respectively. And of course Gooden turned in one of the greatest pitching season-long performances in the history of the game, going 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA. Of course, all of this wasn’t quite good enough for the Mets to make the post-season; they won 98 games in ’85 but that was three fewer than NL East Champion St. Louis.
Anyway, on that frigid day in April, the magic of the ’85 season was still a wish, a pent-up desire for the fans who had endured so many awful teams. Gooden and the Mets were facing the team that would ultimately be their nemesis in September, the Cardinals. The Redbirds’ starter, Joaquin Andujar, was a 20-game winner the previous season and had finished fourth in the NL Cy Young voting. The Mets gave their cold fans something to warm their hearts with two first inning runs and Gooden had a 5-2 lead when he took the hill in the 7th inning. But after two singles by Andy Van Slyke and Ozzie Smith, manager Davey Johnson went to his bullpen and Doug Sisk. The right-handed Sisk was awful in ’85 but he had been an effective relief pitcher for the ’83 and ’84 Mets, sporting a 2.18 ERA for those two seasons. However, his success was largely a mirage; he walked five batters per nine innings and was constantly pitching out of jams, something that’s not sustainable in the long term. Sisk allowed the two runners he inherited from Gooden to score but still had a 5-4 lead going into the top of the 9th inning. With frostbite settling in, the throng of fans still in attendance were eager to close out the Opening Day win. Alas, Sisk loaded the bases for Cards’ slugger Jack Clark, who had homered earlier in the game off Gooden. Sisk pitched to Clark carefully and wound up walking him to allow the tying run to score.
So, with the wind swirling on that miserable day, the game would go to the bottom of the 9th. Former Met Neil Allen (who had been traded for Hernandez in 1983) came out of the bullpen for Whitey Herzog’s Redbirds. Thanks in part to an error by 2nd baseman Tommie Herr, Allen loaded the bases. However, he got Mookie Wilson to fly out to center field and extend the misery of the anxious but freezing fans.
Jesse Orosco stranded a runner on 2nd in the top of the 10th inning and so the Mets had the heart of the order coming up in the bottom of the 10th. By now the game had lasted over 3 1/2 hours; all but one of my classmates had left. Just two of us remained, shivering in the bitter cold. Hernandez led off the inning by striking out, which brought Carter to the plate. And then, in a Hollywood finish, the Kid delivered a game-winning home run to deep left field and the Mets had their Opening Day victory. As Carter crossed the plate, flashing that megawatt smile, all was good at Shea Stadium and the tone had been set for a magical season at Shea, one that didn’t end with a playoff appearance but one that turned the back pages of the Big Apple tabloids from Yankees territory to Mets territory. After drawing just over 1.1 million fans in 1983, the ’85 edition of the Metropolitans drew over 2.7 million fans.
This particular fan, inspired in part by that Opening Day win, attended nearly 40 of the Mets’ 81 home dates in 1985 and over 50 in the championship season of 1986. In many ways, thanks to this one game and also a burgeoning friendship with people I had barely known until the spring of my senior year (great Mets fan friends Adam and Stephen), my passion for the game of baseball spiked and I wound up working at ESPN two days after graduating college in 1989.
Gary Carter finished the 1985 season with 32 home runs and 100 RBI, finished 6th in the league MVP voting. The following year, driving in 105 runs, he was an integral part of the 108-win championship Mets’ squad. The Kid finished his career with 324 home runs and 11 All-Star appearances. I had the privilege of meeting him in September 1998 when he did an interview on the Up Close show, for which I was the Coordinating Producer. Carter always had a “nice guy” reputation and I can attest that it was richly deserved. Carter was enshrined into the Hall of Fame in 2003. Sadly, less than 10 years later, he was afflicted with brain cancer and passed away at the age of 57 in 2012.
Every year, on Opening Day, something happens that reminds us of the magic of the game of baseball. It sets the tone for the season and reminds us that the cold of winter is (almost) behind us.
Through the miracle of YouTube and BuzzFeed, here is Gary Carter’s game-winning home run from 30 years ago with legendary Hall of Fame Mets broadcaster Bob Murphy on the mike: