New York Minute

For New York fans, the onset of the baseball season yesterday demonstrated two diametrically opposed outcomes yet two similarly ominous auguries for the coming season.

I'm still trying to digest and understand a few things leading up to yesterday's Yankee opener: First of all, the well-publicized Toronto Star advertisement featuring, at the top, a series of Japanese characters and their English translation: "Boo Matsui." In the middle of the ad was a Yankees cap with bird droppings on it. I hate the Yankees just as much as the next guy but let's face it, the ad doesn't make any sense. Why encourage the seven or eight Blue Jays fans out there to boo someone who hasn't even played a regular season game for the Yankees yet? Didn't someone like David Wells, who issued a wide range of slurs against Toronto fans like calling them "wool-hat wankers" and saying "Stick, puck, ice, missing teeth; this is the stuff these Canucks understand. Baseball seems entirely too complicated for 'em.", merit a full page ad? Jim Bloom, in his first year as their director of consumer marketing and obviously desperate to come up with some ideas on how to keep his job, claimed that they picked out Matsui because he was a "high profile" signing. So what? Jose Contreras was a "high profile" signing as well. Ask any Red Sox fan. Do you think some neophyte moron in the Red Sox promotional office is going to encourage fans to boo Contreras? If anything, they'd boo Steinbrenner, a better personification of any bitterness baseball fans have about the economic disparity between baseball teams. For that matter, if he was worth booing, would Red Sox fans be so stupid that the Red Sox would have to take out an ad encouraging their fans to boo him? I think they could figure it out all on their own.

Paul Godfrey, Blue Jays president and a former newspaper publisher, compared the bird-dropping promotion to a political cartoon. "We had to light a fire under our fans," he said. "We used the Yankees to a certain extent. I acknowledge that." Shares in the communications company owned by Toronto Blue Jays owner Ted Rogers have declined almost 70 percent since 2000. They haven't had a sellout since 1997, a frustrating five-year drought for the team's bottom line but maybe fielding a middle-of-the-road team that only flirts with .500 every season doesn't help. Crying about economic disparities not only doesn't help, it doesn't make any sense in the face of the success of teams like the Minnesota Twins and the Oakland A's, to name a few.

Some other nuggets from last night's game was the ridiculous pre-game ceremonies complete with blaring rap music that had nothing to do with baseball, dimmed house lights, a laser show and some very strange smoke effects which made the Skydome seem more like some cheesy downtown disco than the venue of a baseball game.

When some Blue Jays fans did boo Hideki Matsui, as Sunday's controversial advertisement recommended, Hideki Matsui slapped the first big-league pitch he saw to left for a two-out, RBI single in the first inning, immediately followed by the Yankees bonehead announcer's breathless little cheer: "Welcome to America, Hideki!" -- until he realized a few silent pauses later they were all in Canada, not America, d'oh!

The big news of course, was Derek Jeter suffering a dislocated left shoulder after a violent collision at third base with Toronto catcher Ken Huckaby. Joe Torre and his entire lineup circled around him in quiet concern, waiting in vain for an emergency vehicle as though there was no foresight by anyone in the Blue Jay organization that an emergency vehicle might be needed during the game. This too, seemed almost a comical misadventure. Was it stuck in the snow? Were they trying to make Jeter pay for the economic disparity between the Yankees and Blue Jays by pretending they couldn't afford an emergency vehicle/golf cart with stretcher to ferry him away in?

To add even more unsettling news, Jeter, who was taken to Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital for his X-rays, wore a surgical mask as a precautionary measure against the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus, a mysterious and potentially deadly respiratory illness that has led to Toronto residents being quarantined.

Personally, the most disgusting moment of the evening came when listening to a pre-recorded Céline Dion croak out her version of "God Bless America". First of all, the autocratic and criminal nature of Bud Selig was demonstrated yet again for those who didn't notice the first trillion times he has marred the beauty of baseball with his idiotic Milwaukee bureaucrat mentality. For some reason, Major League Baseball ordered "God Bless America" played during the seventh-inning stretch at all ball parks, including those which are not in America, as a show of respect and support for the American-led war in Iraq. While this is bad enough, having a creepy and talentless washout like Céline Dion sing it, made it even somehow even worse.

*****

On the other side of the coin of course, was the miserable, Titanic-like disaster in Shea Stadium yesterday by the "new" Mets who lost in the worst Opening Day defeat in the major leagues since the Cubs trounced the St. Louis Browns 17-3 in 1951.

"I can rest a lot better after a game like this," Art Howe said, "than if we'd lost 4-2 or 2-1.".

The papers were right, this Art Howe IS a laid back guy. If the Mets play the rest of the season like they did yesterday, Howe will have plenty of time to rest pretty soon. In fact, he can take the second half of the season off because there won't be much point in playing it.

Where shall we start, Met minions? This is 2002 redux only this time, there is no Bobby Valentine, with his fake nose and moustache or his "stoned batter" trying to swing at a 90 mph fastball impressions to keep us loose, only Art Howe and his unnerving unwillingness to appear concerned about anything but being relaxed. Look, we've got more bad defense to look forward to! More mental lapses to anticipate! More incendiary relief pitching count on! More quotes about this being only one game and there being an entire season ahead of us, etc.

It's as though the baseball gods want Met fans to know right off the bat: fuggetaboutit. Glavine's harsh downturn in the second half of last season and his hideous post season performances were a portent of the misery to come. That's why the Mets were able to sign him in the first place. Mercifully, whatever faint Opening Day optimism might have been allowed germinate was quickly killed when Glavine gave up enough runs to lose within the first ten minutes of the game. Some people say he didn't sound, after the game, like a man making excuses so much as a man who knew exactly why and how he failed. So cheer up fans. Glavine isn't washed up. The reason he just looks like he is was because yesterday was cold and windy. He couldn't feel his fingers to feel his change up he says. So let's remember that when it's sunny and 90 degrees outside and Glavine is throwing no-hitters every afternoon.

And do you think Roger Cedeño isn't spending all his free time trying to cook up more excuses for why he looks like he's chasing hot dog wrappers on a windy day when a fly ball is hit his way? "I couldn't see the ball", Cedeño said yesterday of his comical misplay of a fly ball in the seventh inning. I'm not trying to make excuses, but the sun was right there, I looked up and there it was." Absolute genius, I say. He looks up, on a sunny day, and wow, there it was, the sun. He and Cliff Floyd, the Laurel and Hardy of outfield play, will be hard at work all season to explain their mistakes during nightgames for example: "The moonlight got in my eyes?", or "it was too dark to see?".

Yes, the Mets "only" lost one game today, but before the fans get too excited, it should be noted that was only because it's too early in the season for doubleheaders.