Setting Us Up the Bomb

After a season more regrettable than Kyle admitting he is praying for tender groins, the Amazin's are in desperate need of a sign that the future will be brighter. Opening Day would be a nice place to start. It isn't any more important, logically speaking, than the other 161 games, yet we all know that it gets extra, deserved coverage for ushering in the return of our favorite sport. In fact, because it marks the beginning of the season, the only way an Opening Day can be even remotely bad is if we lose in such a way that all the optimism of a new season is sucked out of our brains. It takes a terrible loss to turn a diehard Mets fan into a faithless waffler, or Red Sox fan, whose expectations for his team embark on a roller coaster ride after every game, and generally trend downward into painful-to-hear blather about curses and fate.

Last year, as you know, we endured such a disastrous opening move. Tom Glavine did not last four innings against the Cubs in the season's inaugural contest. He was not a good pitcher last year. If that seems to you an understated description of his performance, rest assured that it is the only one I can verbalize with reasonable economy of profanity laced with exclamation points and question marks.

By comparison, Al Leiter was good, Steve Trachsel was phenomenal, and Jae Seo showed promise. Leiter is one of my favorite players. I still keep a yellowing copy of the Times sports page after Opening Day in 2002, when Leiter beat the piss out of the Pirates ("Leiter Looks Like the Ace the Mets Need") and Roger Clemens gave up eight runs and got hit in the hand with a bouncer up the middle in a 10-3 Yankees loss ("Clemens Gives Up Big Hit After Being Hit"). I keep it mostly for the panoramic shot of the Pirates and Mets standing shoulder to shoulder down the foul line at Shea, with the freshly painted 40th anniversary banner dominating the foreground. Another reason I still have it is that directly below that beautiful photo are the Yanks and Mets recaps. For a day, we were not the embarrassment - they were.

I don't know what the Times sports page looked like the day after last season's Opening Day. What I do know is that even if it is impossible to beat the Yankees so directly (they open in Japan, perhaps in the shadow of Mt. Gonzaga), all I really want to see is a game that's better than Glavine's meltdown. A real ball game. I don't really mind that management feels compelled to drop Tom the Bomb on the hill because they're overpaying him so much. It's silly, especially when Leiter or Trachsel really deserve the appointment, but I can understand it. What I don't condone is setting us and Glavine up for a miserable bout of deja vu, as he goes against the one team that is certain to knock him around.


Yes, the Braves lost a lot of hitters. I'm not sure that matters:

Glavine, who is 48-24 with a 3.27 ERA in 104 career games at Turner Field, says he is past the mind games that plagued his starts against the Braves last season, adding that he wants to "jump right in and get it over with."

Getting it over with? That's what our Opening Day starter is most concerned with? At least the mind games ("I'm a Met! No, I'm a Brave! Met! Brave! Oh, hell, I've made a horrible mistake, I'll throw this right over the plate and let Chipper decide!") aren't troubling doughty Tom any longer.

Now, it's possible I'm being too hard on him. After all, if Andruw Jones thinks he'll be better this year, he probably will be (Scoop: The Shea Hot Corner):

Count Atlanta Gold Glove winner Andruw Jones among those who believe Tom Glavine will benefit from Mike Cameron's presence in center field. "He got used to having center fielders like Otis Nixon and Marquis Grissom," Jones said from Braves camp in Kissimmee about his former teammate. "Then he went to a team that had like five different center fielders. That's not comfortable. ... If you have a good defense behind him, he's going to win games."

Who better to listen to than my favorite player in the major leagues?

I'm making too much out of this, I know I am. Glavine will pitch like the league average starter he's become, we'll win or we won't, and that will be that. It won't be anything like last year's debacle. It only seems like we're shaping up for a rerun, but as Yogi Berra once said, "Nothing is like it seems, but everything is exactly like it is."

(Ok, that feeling you just got, after reading something Yogi Berra said? That mental groan? Translates my present feelings to a big fat washed-up T.)