Monday, April 02, 2007

Opening Day Thoughts

Two years ago, TBF and I had just started dating, and I was stressing about an appropriate gift to buy him to commemorate Opening Day. I didn’t give a damn about baseball, but I knew he did. (I bought him a map of the US with all the baseball stadiums and the ideal routes for a stadium roadtrip marked out.)

Last year - wasn’t a great day for me and I remember coming home on the subway watching everyone heading out to Shea. TBF wasn’t here, and I was still trying to find my way through baseball by myself. I could have bought a ticket and gone, but I didn’t want to go alone. Instead, on one of the worst days of the year, I have to watch the blue-and-orange masses headed out to Shea as I head home.
So, this year was going to be different.

“What opening day traditions do you have?” I asked TBF with ebullience.
Blank look. And a recitation of Opening Days he has missed or the few times he got to attend. A note that he would be keeping score.
I am somewhat - make that very - disappointed, as I expected there to be a long list of arcane traditions that had to be followed, and was eager to do so. I don’t know what you do or you don’t do. I was hoping there was a script I could follow, a tradition I could borrow since I didn’t have one of my own and I felt kind of forlorn without one.

On Sunday, TBF had to work, and I was working on the blog redesign, so it wasn’t like we got to luxuriate in a lazy Sunday leading up to game time. We ran out to bring home buffalo wings and came home to watch the SNY preview and then the first Baseball Tonight, and then - ta da! The Game.
A few innings in, I announce: “There should be presents on Opening Day.”
“Um-hmm.”
“And cupcakes. Baseball cupcakes.”

Luckily, someone got a hit at that moment and I was halted from considering any other elaborations to the day. But I think presents and cupcakes is quite enough, thank you. Unless of course we get to be there next time.

A few thoughts on the actual game:
--I didn’t get to see Joe Smith pitch at Spring Training and I’m sorry I didn’t. I like him. A lot. Some debate at home whether Willie should have left him in or not (TBF voted yes, I voted no.)
--Jose Valentin continues to surprise us when he performs, and I wonder when we’ll start giving the guy a break already.
--I loved the strength and the confidence the team projected. They can say ‘Oh, it’s next year, it doesn’t matter, we’re over it’ as much as they want. It can’t not hurt. It can’t not kill them even just a little bit. Lesser men would let that get to them.
--The woman with the beehive with the seats behind home plate is back. She tormented me throughout the playoffs.

At work this week (where I am surrounded COMPLETELY - no, COMPLETELY - by Yankees fans), I bought a little AM-FM radio so I can listen to the games, switched the photo on my desk of TBF with Mr. Met to TBF on the field level right after we clinched (and about three seconds before Lo Duca got us with the hose), and look forward to adding my Jose Reyes McFarlane figure to my David Wright one.
“How are you?” coworkers ask. “I’m great,” I reply. “Baseball’s started again.”