The clock continues to tick down to Major League Baseball's Opening Day, the day fans everywhere look forward to, beginning, oh, roughly ten minutes after the final out of the World Series the previous year. Hang on, we're down to just over a day left before the start of the new season.
In 2008, of course, MLB proves just how small our little world is getting, as Opening Day will take place in Tokyo, Japan, joining 2000 and 2004 as the only time regular-season baseball games will have ever been played outside of North America.
To celebrate the occasion, the two teams the bigwigs in charge of scheduling at MLB chose to represent the sport on this foray into Asia are, quite naturally, the Boston Red Sox and the...uh...Oakland A's?
Picking the Sox to represent MLB is a no-brainer for a couple of reasons, the most obvious being that they are the reigning World Series champs, and who better to show off the sport than its' crown jewel, based on last season's results?
The other thing that makes the BoSox an obvious selection is the fact that two key components of their pitching staff made their way to the shores of this country just one year ago from Japan - Dasiuke Matsuzaka will fill the Number Two slot in the rotation after winning 15 games in the regular season and striking out over 200 batters last year, and Hideki Okajima came out of nowhere, dazzling major league hitters to the tune of a 2.22 ERA in 66 appearances and making the A.L. All-Star Team in his rookie season at age 31.
So sending the Sox to Japan to kick off the 2008 season makes perfect sense, but Oakland is another story entirely. A glance at the Athletics active roster shows exactly zero Japanese players. It appeared Kurt Suzuki might be a possibility, but he was born in Hawaii, meaning he probably is as familiar with Japan as I am.
Now, I realize the point of the trek halfway around the world is to show off Major League Baseball, not bring as many Japanese players back to their homeland as possible, but given the intense interest Japan's people have shown in following the progress of their native players in the big leagues, wouldn't it have made more sense to send either the Seattle Mariners or the New York Yankees to Tokyo as opponents for Boston, rather than Oakland?
Seattle, it would seem, is the obvious choice. One of the closest teams on our shores to Japan in terms of distance, the city also features one of Japanese baseball's biggest former stars, Ichiro Suzuki. Wouldn't it have been a treat for the fans in that country to see Dice-K face off against Ichiro in one of the two regular-season games?
Or how about the Yankees? In addition to the fact that MLB would have had an opportunity to showcase one of the sport's biggest rivalries, the Yankees also feature one of Japanese baseball's biggest former heroes, Hideki Matsui. The same argument applies to a Dice-K-Matsui matchup that applies to Dice-K-Ichiro, and that is this: It only makes sense to offer the rabid baseball fans of Japan an opportunity to see two of their own people who have made it big in the Bigs, up close and personal, rather than Dice-K facing off against, say, Oakland's Jack Cust.
Once again - big surprise - it appears the people in charge of baseball have shot themselves in the foot. There is no doubt whatsoever the two-game series between Boston and Oakland will be a success and will be followed by other MLB regular-season matchups in the Far East, but come on, Bud Selig, you're pulling down in excess of $15 million a year, couldn't you have used a little common sense in choosing this historic matchup?
I've been thinking about baseball fights recently. Not really for any reason, other than the thought that it wouldn't surprise me to see one or two break out soon. It's hot, players are tired, good teams are feeling the stress and strain of a pennant race, and bad teams are feeling the stress and strain of a season going nowhere.
Baseball fights are funny to watch. In most cases, with the exception of the two guys who started it, baseball fights are nothing more than a whole bunch of millionaires trying to look like they're aggressively defending their teammate's honor, when in reality they are mentally tallying up the hassle of time spent on the DL if they get injured trying to aggressively defend their teammate's honor.
Now hockey fights, those are a different story. Years ago the NHL had to institute new rules designed to keep the players from killing each other. First came the "Third Man In" rule, where if two players were duking it out, the next guy to enter the fray got ejected immediately. Then came the "First Man Off The Bench" rule, where if two guys were duking it out on the ice, the first guy to leave the bench to enter the fray was ejected immediately. Hockey players know how to stage a fight.
But to get back to baseball, have you ever wondered what the inside of one of those baseball scrums sounds like? What do the millionaires say to each other when they're trying to look like they are aggressively defending their teammate's honor? If you have, then you're in luck. It just so happens I have an inside source. It goes kind of like this:
Red Sox - Yankees, Randy Johnson has just hit Manny Ramirez after Curt Schilling plunked Hideki Matsui the previous inning. Ramirez advances on Johnson and the benches and bullpens empty....
Trot Nixon, (amid lots of yelling and screaming): "THERE'S NO NEED FOR THAT BULLSH*T. RANDY COULD'VE KILLED HIM!"
Gary Sheffield: "SCHILLING'S A G*DD*% HEADHUNTER!"
The players grab each other by the uniform jersey, pushing and shoving each other. Sheffield fakes a head-butt, in the process whispering to Nixon, "move away from the pile..." They push and shove each other into short right field, stumbling and bumping into other players aggressively defending their teammate's honor. Soon they are away from the pile of players, out of everyone's earshot.
Nixon: "How ya doin' Sheff?"
Sheffield: "Oh, you know, I'm getting by. Trying not to let George get to me; it's not easy. How come Francona didn't bunt the runners over last inning?"
Nixon: "He hates the sacrifice. I wonder what he's thinking sometimes."
Sheffield: "Yeah well, at least he's paying attention. I'm pretty sure Torre fell asleep in the 7th inning last week during a game against Kansas City."
The players continue pushing and shoving each other, occasionally screaming in the other's face to make it look convincing.
Sheffield: "So how's Kathryn and the kids?"
Nixon: "Oh man, I thought getting around on an inside fastball was tough. Little Trot, we call him Canter, well he's all over the place. I can't keep up with him! What about you, how are De Leon and your kids?"
Sheffield: "The kids are growing like weeds. It's lucky we make the kind of money we do, otherwise they'd eat us out of house and home!"
The players look around and realize calm has been restored. All over Fenway's playing surface, groups of Yankees and Red Sox are splitting up, having renewed old acquaintances while simultaneously appearing to be on the verge of murderous mayhem.
Only Ramirez and Johnson seem to be still angry, and even then you can't be too sure. It looks su####iously like they are exchanging home phone numbers so their wives can set up a play date for the little ones.
Sheffield: "Hey Trot, it was good talking to you."
Nixon: "Yeah man, with any luck, Schilling will buzz somebody next inning and we can catch up a little more."
Sheffield: "Cool. If he does, look for me out here."
Nixon: "You bet."
With that, the two men scream at each other one last time, and shove each other toward the dugouts. The fans howl, knowing they have just witnessed an epic Boston-New York battle between two teams that just hate each other.
Hideki Matsui must have been one surprised man when he discovered that he never appeared in Thursday night's 5-3 Yankee loss to the Boston Red Sox. That was the game in which his streak of consecutive appearances came to an end at 518, second on the Yankees all-time list behind Lou Gehrig's 2130.
Problem was, unless an alien was out there in left field in a Matsui suit, he actually did play in the game in which he never officially appeared, and he has the broken bone to prove it. If you think about it, aliens in left would go a long way towards explaining Manny Ramirez, but that's a totally different story.
Anyway, in the top of the first inning, the Yankee left-fielder rolled his wrist attempting a shoestring catch on a Mark Loretta sinking line drive. The ball rolled just behind him, and Matsui alertly picked it up with his throwing hand as his glove was falling off his left hand, and threw in to second base before clutching his wrist in pain.
The Yankee trainer and Manager Joe Torre came out to check on him, but it was clear Matsui's night was over. X-rays taken at a local hospital confirmed a wrist fracture, and Matsui underwent surgery the next day, potentially ending his season.
According to major league baseball rules, to officially appear in a game, a position player must either complete a half-inning in the field or get one plate appearance. Since Loretta was just the second batter of the game in the bottom of the first inning and Matsui hadn't come to the plate in the top of the inning, he was in the unusual position of getting injured in a game in which he never appeared. Got all that?
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. Whether Matsui's streak ends at 518 games or 519 games is of far less importance to the Yankees than the fact that they now have no regular left-fielder. Because of his age and the fact that he played ten years in Japan before coming to the U.S., Matsui was never going to be in a position to approach Cal Ripken's consecutive-game streak.
However, for a sport that places so much value on numbers and records (if you don't think that's true, just look at the current furor over Barry Bonds' attempt to pass Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list), doesn't it seem just downright stupid that a player could get injured in a game but not get credit for playing in it?
Consider this hypothetical situation. It's September 6, 1995 and Oriole Park at Camden Yards is filled to the brim with fans celebrating their beloved Cal Ripken on the night he's going to play his 2131st consecutive game. In the top of the first inning, Ripken makes a diving stop of a line drive, but in doing so, breaks his wrist and is forced to leave the game.
The fans give their hero a standing ovation as he is helped off the field, chattering excitedly - "at least he broke the record before getting injured, that's a lucky break, excuse the pun!" Later an announcement is made on the public address system that thanks to major league baseball's peculiar system of record-keeping, the hallowed consecutive-game record that Ripken presumably broke would have to be shared by the two men until someone else came along and stayed healthy enough to complete that half-inning and break it.
Earth-shattering? Hardly, but Hideki Matsui deserves to receive credit in the record-books for playing in the game which caused his injury. Now, on to that alien thing. Does anybody really know what happened to Manny when he disappeared into the left-field wall at Fenway last summer?
Hey everyone, I know it must seem like I've dropped off the face of the earth, but it's nothing like that.
I've been busy writing - two full-length novels so far, plus over a dozen short stories - and working hard to try to get an agent. If you are curious and have a few minutes, check out my website, www.allanleve rone.com.
If you're a literary agent or if you know one, by all means contact me! In the meantime, I'll be here when I can - love this forum - and as always, thank you for checking out my blog, especially considering how many great ones you could be reading instead....
