Opening Day delay draws sad parallels
This coming Thursday was supposed to deliver Gerrit Cole overpowering a dreadful Orioles lineup at Camden Yards on Opening Day in the free-agent prize’s debut for the Yankees.
Gleyber Torres’ first crack at replacing Didi Gregorius as the Yankees’ shortstop in a game that counted was going to be heavily scrutinized after he exhibited shaky defense under Florida’s palm trees.
For one game, what remains a ballpark jewel in Baltimore was going to buzz on a day a lot of folks believe is much more meaningful than New Year’s.
Because the spread of COVID-19 has forced MLB to delay the start of the season, however, Cole won’t dominate, Torres won’t charge a ball and baseball won’t be featured in the Inner Harbor.
This will be the first time since 1995 when the Opening Day won’t be played as originally scheduled. Then, it was because of a work stoppage that began the previous September and canceled the 1994 World Series. That was in front of us with the players and owners at each other’s throats and highlighted by the owners’ asinine creation of replacement players, who masqueraded as big leaguers until the sides settled at the 11th hour.
This time, it is a virus we can’t see or hear coming.
“Everybody felt that at some point we were going to play [in 1995] because it really hit home first when the postseason was canceled the year before,’’ Tim Naehring, a Red Sox third baseman in 1995 and the current Yankees’ VP of baseball operations, said Saturday from his Ohio home. “There are a lot of similarities because at some point we are going to play. When? Nobody knows.’’
Anybody who says they do is simply guessing.
Former Yankees reliever Mike Stanton was a Brave in the spring of 1995 and was excited about playing the first game of the season, even after the original one was canceled.
The 1995 Yankees’ first game was April 26 at Yankee Stadium. They beat the Rangers, 8-6, in front of 50,425. Jimmy Key was the winner, John Wetteland bagged the save and the Yankees started the season by winning seven of their first nine games.
In 2001, Stanton was a Yankee when the World Trade Center towers crumbled on Sept. 11.
“I would equate this more to 9/11,’’ Stanton said Saturday from his Texas home. “The question then was ‘Should we come back? What is the right time?’ ”
Games resumed seven days after 9/11, when the Yankees beat the White Sox, 11-3, in front of 22,785 subdued customers at Chicago’s Comiskey Park. Alfonso Soriano, Jorge Posada and Shane Spencer homered for the visitors.
With the coronavirus pandemic smothering the world and locking down states, the question of “When will the games begin again?’’ is fading.
“I haven’t heard that question in a week,’’ said Stanton, who hosts a pregame television show for the Astros and works for MLB Network Radio SiriusXM radio.
The Yankees have kept Steinbrenner Field in Tampa open for players to work out. Saturday and Sunday it was closed and there is a chance Florida government leaders will shut it down completely on Monday. That means Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, who are rehabbing injuries, will have to vacate. So, too, will DJ LeMahieu, Clint Frazier and Tyler Wade, who have been working out at the facility.
Unlike the current situation, in which there is nobody to blame, there was plenty of that in 1995.
“It was something we were going through and the country was pissed,’’ Stanton recalled.
Most of that wrath was directed toward the players, because fans are more familiar with uniforms than suits.
This time, it’s an invisible enemy that has robbed the baseball universe of Opening Day.