Out of My League

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve read far too much into baseball’s Opening Day, seeing that first game as full of signs and portents—a sort of vague microcosm of the entire season to come. The fact that this theory has proved, over the years, to be completely and obviously false has done little to dissuade me from re-examining it every spring. This year I’m hoping to be even more wrong than usual, since with a rainout in the Bronx and a blown lead in Queens, neither New York team’s home opener was what you’d call a rousing success.

The Mets and the Yankees both have new stadiums looming over them this season, and the ensuing nostalgia for Shea and Yankee Stadium seems likely to swamp the entire season. Each now has a counter out in centerfield, marking the dwindling number of home games left to play in each doomed location. (Lest fans get carried away by the pure emotion of the moment, the Mets’ sign is sponsored by Lincoln Mercury, the Yankees’ by MetLife.) It’s the last first game at each ballpark, the last second game, the last third game; it’s your last cigarette leaning over the edge of the Shea ramps and your last chance to boo Kyle Farnsworth from that particular seat. But as is only fitting for such dissimilar teams, the new buildings have very different meanings for their respective franchises.

On March 31, with a steady rain falling, Yankees fans waited around for hours past the scheduled first pitch before the skies finally began to clear: At which point, oddly, the team announced that due to the forecast, the game was rescheduled for the following night. It wouldn’t rain again all afternoon. The disgruntled fans, many of whom had called in sick to work or school, displayed a healthy skepticism as they trudged in slow, thick streams toward the subway.

“They just had to keep us around long enough to sell some hot dogs and beer,” one father explained to his young sons. “They get an extra day of sales now.”

“They had to wait ‘til they made their quota, then they call it.”

These may seem like strikingly cynical thoughts to have about your own team; but then again, the Yankees have earned it. The current Yankee Stadium, despite bearing massive scars from its 1970s renovation, is still the third-oldest park in the country, and it’s seen more historic and memorable moments than just about any other baseball field on the planet. But it’s still being converted into a parking garage in the name of luxury suites.  There’s been surprisingly little outcry about this: What little there was came mostly from community activists, who were, as usual, roundly ignored. Either most people don’t care much, or a new stadium simply seems inevitable.

What I find infuriating is that I’m powerless to resist the nostalgia. It’s just good business, of course, but the Yankees get to have it both ways: They build a lucrative new park, then profit further off of the old stadium’s death throes, as saps like me pay to see the place one, two or seven last times. I doubt the Yankees needlessly cancelled their home opener for a little extra beer money, but they did benefit from the rainout in another indirect way: After spending more than two hours huddled in a jam-packed, dank and filthy bleacher concourse, with miles of bathroom lines and rusty water (God, I hope it was water) dripping onto the crowd, the idea of a new and improved Yankee Stadium does seem slightly more appealing.

It’s just too bad nobody I know will be able to afford to see it from the inside.

“We tried to reflect a five-star hotel and put a ballfield in the middle,” Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost told the AP earlier this year, describing features like a video conferencing room and concierge service. With comments like these, and with their “Yankees Premium” website—promoting the new stadium’s luxury suites as “An Exclusive Experience... For Those With Discerning Tastes... Who Seek The Very Best... Life Has To Offer”—the Yankees seem to be deliberately appealing to ostentatiously wealthy snobs who might or might not enjoy having a baseball game on in the background as they show off for potential clients. What price shorter bathroom lines?

the Mets have similar motives in moving to a smaller, shinier, pricier home—one named after a bank no less—but it’s very difficult to argue that Shea isn’t well past its due date. Even the most blindly devoted Mets fan will admit that, no matter how many wonderful memories it holds, the place is a dump. Sportswriters argue over who would be the first in line to push the button that blows it up. And practical reasons aside, it’s also beginning to seem that after the emotionally scarring disaster that was the Mets’ September 2007, a change of scenery and a fresh start might do everyone some good.

It didn’t take long for the usual optimistic Opening Day mood to turn sour at Shea, though the crowd poured off the trains exuberant to have baseball back and thrilled to lay eyes on Johan Santana, David Wright and coach Howard Johnson, if nobody else. Things began well enough, but when the suddenly hated Phillies began to rally off the Mets’ bullpen—last year’s late-season goats—the honeymoon came to a screeching halt. Lefty Scott Schoeneweis was booed on arrival, as he had been during the team’s introduction earlier that day. To no one’s surprise, he was ineffective; and the crowd—at least in Mezzanine Section 15—began to plead with manager Willie Randolph, becoming increasingly frantic as the inning unraveled:

“Willie, get him outta there!”

[Single, hit by pitch]

“…Yo Willie, you wanna try to win this game?”

[Throwing error]

“…WILLIE, WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?!”

[Single]

Next inning, Schoeneweis was replaced by Aaron Heilman, who was no better and was likewise jeered off the mound. The Mets lost 5-2, and it was a remarkably riled and irate group that began trudging toward the exits in the eighth: the sort usually seen in August or September during a losing season, not in April of a still-promising one.

“Hey dude,” said one twentysomething fan to a pal walking past a merchandise booth, “why don’t you buy a Heilman jersey so I can burn it?”

Most of the Mets fans I know take pride in having been hurt before—while maintaining, if not always faith, at least hope. Hell, even Rays and Royals fans have hope during the first home game of April. But belief at Shea now seemed both optional and unpopular.

Back on the 7 train, heading toward Manhattan, a cluster of friends who’d taken the day off from work stood in the middle of a car and dissected the loss.

“Willie won’t say anything. He’ll just say it’s early.”

“You know what he’ll say? He’ll say he likes his guys.”

“When does Santana pitch again? I mean, they won’t score any runs for him, so it’s not like it matters.”

“I almost hope we keep losing 1-0 when Santana starts. You know what, I do. We don’t deserve him.”

Shea has become part of the underdog identity that Mets fans have embraced— underdog here being a relative term that only applies when compared to the Yankees. But it may be time to switch things up a bit—for the mental health of the team and fans alike.

The Mets don’t deserve Santana? This isn’t a common sentiment, and it’s certainly not one you’ll hear at Yankee Stadium. There the prevailing attitude seems to be that superstars like Alex Rodriguez are lucky the team has condescended to accept their presence in the city and on The Field Where Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig Played.

Of course, in less than a year, it won’t be that same field anymore. There are just 74 home games left at Yankee Stadium.

This exercise in futile melancholy has been brought to you by MetLife.