While the 2005 season did not come especially early this year, it seems, however, that it just snuck up on us. After all, the offseason gave us little break from Major League Baseball headlines following the crowning of the Boston Red Sox as World Series champions for the first time in 86 years.
And, all too often, MLB's dirty laundry was aired out in the press covering suspicions of players using illegal substances and the forthcoming BALCO trial. The hearings with MLB before the House Government Reform Committee of Congress on March 17th and the later revealed improprieties of MLB's medical director following his testimony, still continue to haunt the Commissioner's office.
But alas, this week as the opening day(s) of the new season began with an evening game on April 3rd between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox at night no less in 42-degree rainy weather, others called the date of April 4th Opening Day when all the other clubs got going. Gone are the days when Opening Day was reserved solely for the Cincinnati Reds (baseball's oldest organization) and their respective opponent. At least this year, we can be grateful that the first game of the season was played on U.S. soil and not halfway across the world in Japan, which Yankee players and fans as well complained about long after their 2004 season-opener there.
And although we are essentially starting anew in 2005 with many personnel changes in both the American and National Leagues, some might say they could have slept all winter only to awake thinking they were still riding out 2004. Where is Rip Van Winkle when you need him?
For example, the three-day series between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox started off right where we left them last October, when the Yankees were virtually three outs shy of going on to the 2004 World Series, with closer Mariano Rivera on the mound. Unfortunately, Rivera's nerves of steel and reliable cutter were not enough then and it became the turning point for the Red Sox as they not only won that game, but the American League Championship Series while ultimately winning the World Series.
On Tuesday, April 5th, the second game of the Red Sox/Yankees series, Rivera blew a save, yet still able to earn a win, as the Yanks came back to win it with a Derek Jeter homer in the bottom of the ninth inning. But on April 6th, Rivera just could not find the strike zone and suffered a loss. Now had it not been Mariano Rivera facing the Boston Red Sox, there would not have been such pandemonium. But it set off panic in the streets of New York and speculation that either Rivera has a mental block when it comes to the Red Sox, having blown four saves in a row to them combined with the 2004 ALCS, or that his recently diagnosed shoulder bursitis is more of a problem than he or the Yankees are willing to admit.
And down in Houston, the 2004 National League Cy Young Award winner, Roger Clemens, put on a pitching master class entering his 22nd season in the Major Leagues and his second with the Astros. He started right where he left off in 2004 and looking even sharper than when helping the Houston Astros get to within one game of competing in the World Series. In his first game back, he struck out nine while allowing only one run on five hits and he even batted in 2 RBI in his winning effort.
This places Clemens ninth and tied with Steve Carlton with his 329 lifetime wins. Whether or not the Houston Astros will enjoy similar success in 2005 that they were able to generate at the end of 2004 remains to be seen, but if this is indeed the Rocket's last season, it would be nice for him to at least equal his efforts of 2004.
Unfamiliar, however, in this 2005 season are the new Washington Nationals, a revamped Montreal Expos club, playing in a retrofitted RFK Stadium with opening crowds three times larger than those that the Expos ever had in Montreal. Although an owner for the Nationals has not yet been decided by MLB, they were able to acquire interested veterans to join their raw, young, talented players which most were not familiar with, given their isolation north of the border while playing a third of the season in Puerto Rico in 2003 and 2004.
And, if all goes well, revenues in Washington will not erode fan support for the Baltimore Orioles as owner Peter Angelos feared would happen, requiring compensation to the Orioles from MLB in order for the Nationals deal to be completed.
And as we hear year after year that the World Series is not won in April, it certainly does play a part when some teams start to run out of gas in August. At the end of 2004 the American League West and the National League West titles, as well as chosen wildcard teams, were not decided until the last week of the season. Had some of the contending clubs generated more wins in April and May they perhaps would not have had to battle it out by the thinnest of margins at the very end. So it is important to a lot of clubs this year to get off to a hot start.
And finally, as much as things change, they remain the same as MLB ticket prices, concessions, and parking fees rose throughout the country for the new 2005 season. With peanuts and crackerjack prices up an average of 6%, double that of the rate of inflation, you best bring some extra cash with you, because as Yogi Berra says, "It's just as good as money."
Leave a Comment