Feb 10 2013 10:19 PM
A Baseball City to Be Divided on Opening Day
By DAVID WALDSTEIN
Published: February 10, 2013
| At its core, spring training is a seven-week dress rehearsal. The entire enterprise is aimed at opening day, and the rehearsal begins this week for the Mets and the Yankees. For Mets and Yankees fans, this opening day will be like no other. Owing to a whopper of a scheduling quirk, the teams will open their seasons at home on the same day, at the same hour, for the first time, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. At roughly 1:05 p.m. on April 1, barring poor weather, a Yankees and a Mets pitcher — probably C. C. Sabathia and Johan Santana — will unleash their respective first pitches of the season on mounds less than 10 miles apart. For the Yankees, it will be another dazzling marquee event, made even more so because the opposition that day in the Bronx will be the Boston Red Sox as the teams’ rivalry reaches its 110th year. Sure, the Red Sox have fallen on hard times. But they are still the Red Sox, with players like David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia and Jon Lester — probably Boston’s starter that day. Over in Queens, the Mets will host the San Diego Padres in what some will liken to a junior varsity event. The idea that the Mets, usually an afterthought in New York, will have to vie for attention with the Yankees isn’t one either team relishes, especially the Mets. “Nobody is particularly happy about it,” said Katy Feeney, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president for scheduling and club relations. “But it’s unlikely to happen again anytime soon.” Normally, the Yankees and the Mets do not play at home at the same time, on opening day or otherwise. There have been the occasional series when both have played in New York at the same time, including last season. According to Feeney, the simultaneous home openers resulted from several factors. First, this is the first year with two leagues of 15 teams each and the first year there will be an interleague game nearly every day, causing some scheduling difficulties. That trend starts with the Los Angeles Angels visiting the Cincinnati Reds on April 1 for the first interleague opening day game. The Mets-Yankees situation was also caused by a change in the date of the All-Star Game, which is normally the second Tuesday in July. This season it is scheduled for July 16, the third Tuesday of the month, and when every other factor was taken into account, the only way to make it all work was to have the Mets and the Yankees play at home on the same day, Feeney said. The last time two New York teams opened their seasons at home on the same day was in 1956, when the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers did so. In those days, with three teams in the city, it was much more common. And so on April 17, 1956, the Dodgers lost to the Phillies, 8-6, at Ebbets Field and the Giants beat the Pirates, 4-3 at the Polo Grounds. Feeney was not positive, but she said she thought she was at that game at the Polo Grounds because her father, Charles Feeney, known as Chub, was the Giants’ head of baseball operations, and most opening days were a free pass to leave school and head to Coogan’s Bluff. So, what is a New Yorker to do? Michael R. Bloomberg already has a plan for his final opening day as mayor. He will attend both games, according to his spokesman, Marc LaVorgna. No word on which game Bloomberg, who grew up outside Boston, plans to attend first. Maybe it will depend on whether either team asks him to throw out the first pitch. For those who have experienced both opening days as a player, it is hard to say which would be better. Darryl Strawberry, one of the best position players to wear both uniforms, said that picking one would be too tough. “I wouldn’t be able to choose,” he said. “I think that’s a day for a fan to stay home and watch on TV and switch back and forth.” Sounds like a plan. Unless it snows. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/sport ... .html?_r=0