MLB: How’s This For Openers?

Little boy, in a baseball hat, stands in a field, with his ball and bat.  Says “I am the greatest, player of them all.”  Puts his bat on his shoulder, and tosses up his ball.  -Kenny Rogers

Public Service Announcement:  Ok, here we go!  Another opening day has come and gone.  Cool Papa Bell once said, “I remember one game I got five hits and stole five bases, but none of it was written down because they didn’t bring the scorebook to the game that day.”  Well, Cool Papa doesn’t have to worry about that today. I brought my scorebook.  I’m writing it down. 

• The Mets win the ball game!  The Mets may not end a season well, but they sure do start off like gangbusters.  With their 2-1 victory over the Reds yesterday, the Metropolitans now have thirty-one wins in their last forty season openers.  Yowza!   They are now the first team in major-league history to win more than thirty opening-day games over a span of forty seasons.
• Cy Young:  “All us Youngs could throw.  I used to kill squirrels with a stone when I was a kid, and my granddad once killed a turkey buzzard on the fly with a rock.”  This Cy Young couldn’t hit the side of the barn yesterday.  Cliff Lee allowed seven runs in five innings in the Indians’ 9-1 loss to the Rangers.  Only three other reigning Cy Young Award winners allowed as many as seven runs in their first start of a season.  Only Roy Halladay.  Only Roger Clemens.  And only Mike Flanagan.  
•  $161 million and nary a strikeout.  CC Sabathia issued five walks without a strikeout over 4 1/3 innings in the Yankees’ 10-5 loss to the Orioles yesteday.  Yickkkk.  That makes Sabathia the first Yankees pitcher in the live-ball era not to strike out a batter in an opening-day start.  That makes me a very happy man.
• Welcome home Junior.  Ken Griffey’s funk blast in the Mariners’ 6-1 win at the Metrodome was his eighth in twelve season openers for Seattle.  Ken Griffey’s funk blast tied funk blast brother Frank Robinson for the most opening-day homers in major-league history.  Who’d have thought they’d lead ya right here where we need ya.  Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back
• Vlad impales the history books.  Yesterday, Vladimir Guerrero went 2-for-4 with an RBI in the Angels‘ 3-0 win over the A’s.  Yesterday, Vladimir Guerrero made history.  That RBI was Guerrero’s 19th RBI in an opening-day game.  That RBI broke a tie with Frank Robinson and Jeff Kent to set an all-time MLB record.  That RBI was special.
• A long time coming.  Ninety-nine years coming to be exact.  Justin Verlander allowed eight runs in three-and-two-thirds innings in the Tigers’ 12-5 loss at Toronto. That was the most runs allowed by a Tigers starter in a season opener in 99 years.  That was the most runs allowed by a Tigers starter in a season opener since George Mullin yielded nine runs in a complete-game loss to the Indians in 1910.  That was just awful.
• You’ve all seen this one by now.  You’ve all seen Emilio Bonifacio’s inside the park homerun by now.  But I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you the last man to inside-the-park home on opening day was a man they call Yaz.  CAAAAAAAAARL Yastrzemski….CAAAAAAAAARL Yastrzemski….CAAAAAAAAARL Yastrzemski….The man we call Yaz, We love him!

Public Spectacle: 

Peace out homies.  Six two and Even!

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