Baseball Notes

It's been a few days since I've commented on anything even vaguely related to MLB in this space, so in no particular order, here are my thoughts on baseball two weeks into the season.

• The Yankees are not in a race with Boston. There is no such thing as a race in April, and the Red Sox will not be around beyond June. The Yankees' 3-1 series loss in Boston this past weekend matters not because it catapulted Boston to the top of the AL East, but because any series between any teams from New York and Boston, regardless of the sport, act to fuel the rivalry between the two cities. Individual wins in April and May mean very little in baseball, and the Red Sox will be hard-pressed to keep up with what will surely be a torrid win-rate for the Yankees in the coming months.
• Here's the part where I seemingly contradict myself by lending undue importance to an early season game between the Braves and the Mets. What was big about the Mets' win last night was the fact that it continues a bit of early-season success that they so sorely lacked last year, and put them into a hole from which they never fully recovered. Even in spite of lackluster (read: mind-numbingly awful) defense in the infield, the Mets are winning. Piazza had two blasts last night (though I only saw the first), Fonzie is heating up, and Alomar is pulling out of his quasi-slump dating back to opening day. It's going to be a very interesting summer.
• I was going to condense everything I had to say about the Mets into one paragraph, but I had to give this thought its own bullet. I remember back when Interleague play first began, and The Record had a feature on the front page of the sports section detailing the rivalry between the two New York shortstops, Jeter and Ordonez. Even then, the debate was patently ridiculous, for although Jeter plays shoddy defense, Ordonez doesn't even come close to closing the offensive gap. How strange, now, to look back and realize that Ordonez should have been compared to Chuck Knoblauch instead.
• How about dem Indians? It was supposed to be the start of a rebuilding process for the Tribe, and they wind up rattling off an 11-1 start. It won't last, as I see very little chance for the Indians to win 100 games this year, but they do have lots of games against Detroit and Kansas City to look forward to. Maybe I was wrong to pick the ChiSox to win this division...

April 16, 2002 - 10:27 AM

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