"Hope springs eternal" is the most commonly used cliché applied to the start of every baseball season. But I don't like it, mostly because I don't think it applies. Hope doesn't spring eternal for the Royals for more than six weeks, and then they're 14 games back and scouting the next draft. For them, it's more like hope springs for a month and a half.
So for my lead, I'm going to dive back into the bag of tricks and grab, "everything old is new again." It's the perfect way to describe that return of the Grand Old Game, and it applies this year more than ever.
In the rain during Tuesday night's season-opener, Jim Thome made Phillies fans everywhere cringe with a home run that landed in my backyard. The White Sox destroyed Cleveland, and Thome looked like a new man. Chicago looked like the same old team that just happened to win the World Series.
They called that opening night, but it was merely a prelude to the main act.
Monday was incredible. From watching all-world prospect Hanley Ramirez boot balls for a Marlins team I was struggling to name players on to marveling at the first impression left by Seattle's new import Kenji Johijima, who homered in his first major league at bat, there was almost too much to take in.
The Big Tomato (C.C. Sabathia) got hurt, while the Big Hurt (Frank Thomas) hit one of the biggest tomatoes of the day. And most impressively, the Yankees put a big hurting of Thomas' A's, a 15-2 spanking that makes me wonder if anyone other than George Steinbrenner and the New York media can beat this team. Adding the best two-strike hitter in baseball means their already patient lineup will squeeze the life out of many opposing bullpens.
Speaking of squeezing ... juice ... Barry Bonds. I have to stop and say something here. What's happening to Bonds just isn't fair. Baseball is trying to turn its back on the very ugly beast that saved its life. Are we really supposed to believe everyone in the game wasn't implicitly aware of his and others' rampant steroid use when Bonds was hitting 73? Please. Baseball made him, and they should have to deal with him. I can't stand Barry, but right's right and throwing syringes at people is almost never in that category. More on Barry later, there's a season's worth of material here.
Of course, we can't forget Jimmy Rollins. His old hits streak has extended into this year and apparently people are willing to grant the two-season 56 equivalency to the same-season 56, should he ever get that far. Monday night, he extended it, and the fact that it took him until his last at-bat made that hit the most exciting moment of the day. The further he goes with this thing, the better it's going to get, partially because people like Jimmy Rollins.
And like any good party, opening day was a three-day affair. Tuesday night saw the overhauled Toronto Blue Jays unveil their revamped team in front of more than 50,000 fans at the Rogers Centre and there was something coming in the air that would have given Phil Collins goose-bumps.
Despite an absurdly-long 30th anniversary highlight movie and endless player introductions, it was a rousing success with Bengie Molina absolutely crushing a Johan Santana pitch made the place explode like it hasn't since Joe Carter hit one into roughly the same area during the sixth game of the 1993 World Series.
New stopper B.J. Ryan topped out at 91, but he also struck out the last two hitters of the game en route to his first save. For a number of reasons, the Jays have flown under the radar during their busy offseason. But I think it's worth noting that a simple 6-3 win over the Twins on opening night somehow garnered second billing on ESPN.com, even if the top story was NCAA women's basketball at the time. Plus, watching Roy Halladay and Johan Santana go head to head is something you tell your kids about, assuming they don't hate baseball (though I'll probably omit the fact that neither pitched their best game.)
But my potential future offspring aside, there's definitely a buzz around this Jays team, and if they can produce 161 more efforts like they did Tuesday night, there'll be a lot more than Molina's home run reminding people of the 1993 edition. And how hard could that be?
Even as a partisan observer, I can't help but be a bit excited. It'll be a new Jays team, just like old times. We'll have the same old Barry and Jimmy trying to set new records, and of course, me spouting clichés and poorly-constructed metaphors, trying to pass old jokes off as news.
Take a deep breath, there are only six more months to go.
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