Posts Tagged ‘Opening Day’
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Indians Shoot Up the Standings, Tigers WatchMay 16th, 2008
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Don’t look now, but finally there is a team taking control of the American League Central. Unfortunately for Tigers fans, it’s not your team.
The Cleveland Indians have recovered from their first month’s struggles, taking reign over what many expected to be baseball’s most competitve division. Much press has been devoted to the remarkable string of games the Indians rotation has put together, not surrendering an earned run in 48 1/3 consecutive innings. Cliff Lee has forgotten he’s Cliff Lee, C.C. Sabathia has shrugged off his horrendous beginning, and Fausto Carmona has given up more than three runs in a start just once. This leads to the obvious question, why can’t Tiger hurlers overachieve?
Appearing to be destined to disappoint, Detroit starting pitching looks both inexperienced and old. Wild, ineffective, and wildly ineffective would also sum the group up. Kenny “The Gambler” Rogers is now called The Gambler because every time he takes the mound, he is gambling not giving up three runs in the first inning. Speaking of giving up a boatload of runs early, Nate Robertson has put together one good start in eight games. Jeremy Bonderman has not grown out of his first inning troubles, but is earning a hefty $8.5 million this year. And Dontrelle Willis cannot fairly be judged because of injuries, though his first start was unique and unimpressive—five innings of one-hit, seven walk baseball. That leaves Justin Verlander, the supposed ace of the staff. He is two-for-nine in quality starts and has mysteriously lost five miles per hour on his fastball.
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Detroit’s Attendance Not SufferingApril 13th, 2008
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Fan support in Detroit has not dwindled despite the Tigers’ rocky beginning. Expected to sellout a majority of the 81-game home schedule, Detroit drew a Comerica Park record 44,934 fans on Opening Day. The new mark was made possible with the addition of 778 seats over the winter, including a new section of bleachers atop the Pepsi Porch in right field.
Perhaps more impressive than Opening Day, 37,032 fans showed up for the second game of the season, the highest attendance ever for a second game in Detroit. Excitement for the team peaked in the off-season after the acquisitions of Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis, and Edgar Renteria. Increased media exposure and ticket demands provoked a surge in sales—at least 26,000 tickets have already been sold for each contest. More than half of the 41,782-seat stadium will be accounted for all season long.
With so many tickets secured, it will take much more than a bad couple weeks to scare people away from the park. Neither a series sweep at the hands of the long-suffering Kansas City franchise, nor temperatures in the forties and fifties turned Tiger fans away last week. Detroit hosted the Chicago White Sox in their second series and welcomed over 34,000 people to each game. The middle match hosted 42,381 fans, the second largest crowd of 2008.
A total of 222,197 have already walked through the gates of Comerica Park, compared to 180,903 at the same point last year. Experts believe, as long as the Tigers stay competitive, they will beat last year’s season attendance record of 3,047,124.
So far, Detroit fans have proven that no matter how ugly the reality, they will continue to show up. At 2-9, Comerica Park is sure to be packed when the Tigers return home April 14 against the Twins. April tickets are the hardest sell of any month, but Detroit has drawn at least 32,000 for each game to date.
Perhaps backup turnstiles should be ordered for the summer.
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Looking for a little RISPectApril 12th, 2008
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It’s called “Runners In Scoring Position”. And it is something the Rangers might want to start thinking about a little bit more often. And some catching and throwing might be a decent idea too. But you know what? The Rangers are sitting at 5-5 after the first 10 games. Got the nice (and vital, even this early) sweep of Baltimore on Thursday. Didn’t get rained out for the home opener, and you can’t stress how much that would have been the pits (yes, St. Louis, we are looking at you). And they’re still pitching like maybe there should be a different name on the front of the jersey.
Opening Day wasn’t a great game, but it was still Opening Day. It’s never fun to lose the game, especially if you get it pretty well handed to you. This year, home teams only went 14-16 in their own Opening Days (14-17 if you include Oakland losing at home and in Japan). And two of those teams lost by as many as 7: Texas and Colorado, both putting up one run versus eight.
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Opening DayApril 7th, 2008
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. . . Say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of the Morning
It was cold all last night. The sky was clear and the streets were quiet and the wind blew hard from the north against the house. But it is late March now, and the wind blew against the inevitable. And so when I awoke this morning the day was warm and the world breathed with an ease that only comes with the return of the flowers, and the seventh-inning stretch. Opening day. Ah spring, ah baseball.
Baseball is a sport that has so tied its identity to the seasons that to describe the time of year is often to describe the pennant race. No summer’s endless march through the doldrums could be complete without interminable Royals’ losses to mark the days. Each autumn, as surely as the leaves will fall, the birds and the Cubs will head south. The baseball universe and bears share a den for the long winter. And of course, most joyously, the sun and the old folks poke their heads out each spring as the games return.
Opening day itself is a grand awakening, a shaking off of the winter’s lethargy, a cleansing. It is a reintroduction to whatever therapy each fan draws from watching nine of their favorite men play a child’s game. Each is reminded why they were drawn to the game to begin with. Men, women and children flock to the ballpark heavy with the weight of five months’ stories—“Wait till you hear what happened to me this Christmas . . .”—and leave refreshed, glad for having caught up with such an old pal—“He looked rather well, don’t you think?”
Perhaps most cathartic of all is the underlying sense that none of the proceedings are too very important. There is an entirely bearable lightness to the thing. The baseball season is long, and strictly speaking the events that transpire on the field do not matter much. What does matter is that those events do transpire, and that they will for the next seven months. For many, there is a hole, however absurd it may seem to the uninitiated, that can only be filled by the baseball season. And so on opening day it’s not whether you win or lose; it’s that you play the game, and that you’ll do it again tomorrow.
Do not mistake me, this is not naïveté. I know exactly what baseball is and what it is worth. It is no remedy, no cure-all. Life is still life and life will have its troubles and sometimes it will rain and they’ll cancel the game. But then there is almost always a game tomorrow. Two if you’re very lucky. I don’t know if the game has solved many real problems, but it has been there for nearly all of them, consistent as a dog, patient as a great friend.
And on opening day, we wake from a long winter’s nap to find that the friend has come back to us. There is no alarm ringing, no a bugle blast, no rise-and-shine rooster. There is a gentle opening of the eyes against the soft new sun that tiptoes across the floor and into one’s bed. And there is the recognition of the friend in the room, back again, and looking just the same as he did when we saw him last. Good morning, baseball. It’s nice to see you again.
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Opening DayApril 5th, 2008
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Let’s just get it out of the way early. No other sport can come close to Opening Day in baseball. Football is trying, latching on to the idea of an entire weekend of weak pop concerts and games staggering out of the gate. Basketball and Hockey can only muster extended fireworks during team introductions, so that the smoke lingers through the first television timeout. But in baseball, Opening Day really means something. It means that you’ve survived another winter. It means that summer, beautiful summer, is on the way. And, unless you’re an Expos fan, your team has not been mathematically eliminated yet.
You’ve been gloating for months about skipping work for Opening Day. You spend countless hours arguing about who should be the Opening Day pitcher. You start watching the 10-day weather forecast 15 days out.
Then comes Opening Day, and the experience is overwhelming, the atmosphere electric. You learn to get there early so that there is time to tailgate and then hit the booths handing out freebies around the ballpark. It doesn’t even matter what they are handing out, you take one. IT’S OPENING DAY AND YOU ARE GETTING FREE STUFF! And the most important freebie of the day? Magnetic schedules for the first 21,000 adults. Front of the fridge, side of the desk, top of the file cabinet, passenger door of the car…you can tell the real baseball fans by exploring their historic collection of magnetic schedules.
Then right after you find your seat, happily clutching the first grilled-onion hot dogs of the season (“Hey! This is fresh grease!”), comes the single most American Moment that you can experience. The teams are introduced, a centerfield-wide Stars and Stripes is unfurled, the National Anthem starts, and if you sit in the upper deck, you can see what’s coming.
Off in the distance, a massive USAF bomber swings in and lines the ballpark up for a low-level flyby. Some years it’s a B-1, some years a B-52, but every year, it is awe-inspiring. If you’re in the lower bowl and haven’t watched it approach, just as the Anthem swells to a close, the bomber suddenly erupts above centerfield, loud and low, rattling the car alarms across parking lots in every direction. Seriously, if you can’t work up goose bumps and a good old fashioned tear or two, then just drop the charade and go report to the coroner’s office. It’s that good. And for just a minute, it doesn’t matter how many times they finish in last place. This is one thing that the Rangers get 100%, absolutely correct.
By the way, opening on the road isn’t the same. Whenever the Rangers are forced to open on the road, as they are this year for the 4th time in a row (Thanks!), you should ignore the first week of games, only watching them through sideways glances and pretending the results are Extended Extended Spring Training. We all deserve a chance to start fresh on Opening Day, and that can be tough to do if your team is 2-4 and three games out of first already…
Finally, if you are wavering about the idea, go ahead and take the kid (or kids) out of school. It’s April, for crying out loud. If one more afternoon is going to make or break them at this point, well, maybe it’s a little bit too late. But if they’ve done their work, gotten good grades, and promise to make up whatever they miss, why not reward them? While you shouldn’t let your kid get a letter jacket in “Hookey” (although it would be cheap enough if you got a “Hockey” letter jacket and revised it…), it’s a once a year, one afternoon deal. Face it, if Grandma died, you’d take them out of school for the funeral. And what does this teach kids? That a horrifying afternoon of mourning is the only thing more important than their education? No thanks. I would rather teach them that occasionally in life, if you’ve worked hard enough, you get to sneak out, soak up the sun, and celebrate the beginning of a something glorious and wonderful: A brand new baseball season. It’s Opening Day. Cue the bomber fly by and Play Ball.
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Unprecedented Off-Season Leads to Increased Optimism in DetroitApril 3rd, 2008
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Baseball season is back in Detroit, and accompanying the new Tiger players are higher expectations. Long before barbecue grills flare up around Comerica Park and streets swell with excited fans, two major trades over the off-season sent shock waves across baseball, adding three former All-Stars to Detroit’s roster.
On October 29, 2007, the Tigers acquired Edgar Renteria for prospects Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez. This move stunned most fans, as many held Jurrjens in high regard. Unfortunately, Guillen’s poor defense at shortstop, his weakening knees, and the wealth of talented pitchers in the farm system made Jurrjens expendable. With the expected shift of Guillen over to first base to replace Sean Casey, the Tigers pursued and came away with a former Gold Glove winner in Renteria. He has quite an impressive resume over his 12-year career, including two Gold Gloves, five All-Star selections, and a walk-off single in game seven of the 1997 World Series. Reunited with Jim Leyland, the manager of the 1997 Florida Marlins, he adds another bat to the Tigers highly potent line-up. Tiger fans commended GM Dave Dombrowski for his quickness to address the glaring need at shortstop; his acquisition solidified the left side of the Tigers infield.
Thirty-six days after adding Renteria, the most significant move of the off-season stunned baseball fans nationwide, catapulting the Tigers into national spotlight. On December 4, Dombrowski sent six minor leaguers to the Florida Marlins in exchange for superstar Miguel Cabrera and former All-Star Dontrelle Willis. Detroit became an instant force to be reckoned with. Though this deal shipped several highly-touted prospects out of town, most notably Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin, it lowered the average age of Detroit starters. Cabrera and Willis, both under the age of 27, are perceived as players who will be productive for many years to come.
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One Down, 161 to Go…April 2nd, 2008
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In honor of opening day, I figured I’d write a really long post to get you psyched for Indians baseball. Or, at the very least, it got me psyched. In case you missed it, here’s a quick rundown of what happened:
Pitching: CC Sabathia didn’t look great, allowing 5 runs on 6 hits, with 3 walks, although he did strike out 7. He allowed two home runs to Jim Thome, who was previously hitless against CC. Lewis, Perez, and Betancourt all looked human, giving up a combined 6 hits and a walk in two and two-thirds innings. Borowski closed the game in his routine average-Joe fashion, giving up a solo shot to Dye and a walk before getting Crede to foul out to Blake to end the game. Read more
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Colorado Rockies — And the Rain came downApril 2nd, 2008
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Noah may have been mad to see it coming down, but man oh man, was I glad for all that rain on Opening Day. The first day of the season was not supposed to look like this. Not for the Rockies, not for the defending National League Champs. Five to one? In the bottom of the third? Against St. Louis? Look, I know the Cardinals have a pretty good offense, but it’s not like we’re talking about the ‘27 Yankees here. Five to one? These weren’t the Rockies; heck, they weren’t even the Bad News Bears. Jeff Francis looked lost, the rest of the team Read more
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Opening DayApril 2nd, 2008
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As the Phillies disembark from Florida this week to begin their 125th campaign in professional baseball, optimism runs high in the City of Brotherly Love – a town hardly known for its penchant to believe in their beleaguered franchises. Maybe it’s the warming of the weather, the greenest grass that anyone has seen in months on the diamond, or the calendar simply turning over to a month that implies rebirth; Opening Day in Major League Baseball always carries with it the possibility of hope. Ask a Cubs fan. Still, this year in Philadelphia is different. The Phillies are coming off their first division title in 15 years after catching the Mets in a miraculous finish to the 2007 season. Citizens Bank Park will be sold out on Monday Read more
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Opening DayApril 2nd, 2008
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I can’t remember who we played and I can’t remember the score. What I do remember, though, is the smells and what I saw and what I heard and how it made me feel. I remember my Dad waking me up and telling me I didn’t have to go to school today. I was really confused because my parents were sticklers for education and missing school was just not permitted, for any reason other than sickness. He told me to get dressed in my Pirates t-shirt Read more
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