Baseball.The Archdeacon's Predictions and Opening Day at Yankee Stadium

By Howard Stringfellow
newSpin's head sportSwriter

20 March 2011
Eleven Days before Opening Day
The American League
Preparing predictions this spring has been agonizing, particularly in the American League with the aging, underperforming, and losing Yankees.

In the Grapefruit League, only Florida has a poorer record than the Yankees' 9-12 posting after today's win over the Phillies, 8-1.  And in the American League, only Chicago has a worse record in spring training.  In the regular season they will probably better their present percentage of .428, but it's a stretch to think that they will make the playoffs though I will be first to cheer them and a most happy man if they play truly significant games in late September.  They could struggle to stay above .500.

In the Bronx, off the field decisions are conflicted, as was indicated by Brian Cashman's absence from the Rafael Soriano press conference.  On the field, the best player is Robinson Cano, who is a fine player, but Jeter, Rodriguez, and Posada are candidates to succeed Methuselah, who, Sportin' Life sings, lived 900 years.  Who are the outfielders?  The rotation thins real fast.  John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman spoke today seriously about Bartolo Colon being in the rotation.  Additionally, the improvement of Baltimore, the steadiness of Toronto, and the winning ways of Tampa will make the AL East tighter with more teams in the hunt than usual.  In the East, the teams will knock each other out, but one will win.

And so as difficult as it is, I have to leave the Yankees out of the playoffs for the first time since 1995.  Facing this prospect has been grim.  More than Postum has been required to steady my hand and to write:

AL East:  Boston
AL Central:  Detroit
AL West:  Los Angeles
AL Wild Card:  Minnesota
AL Champion:  Minnesota

Thank you for your predictions.  Those of you who haven't sent them in, I know, are working on them, and I look forward to receiving them before the deadline of Noon on March 31, Opening Day, that promises to be especially bracing in the Bronx.

On a broadcast recently, I heard it said that however long spring training is, it's a week too long.  It seems that way to me this year especially.  We're down to it now.  Rosters are being trimmed; cuts are being made; careers are ending, and dreams are being fulfilled.  Soon, very soon, real meaning will be carried by the shouting of

Play Ball!

Best,
Howard

*************************************

27 March 2011
Four Days before Opening Day
The National League
The World Series

The word came to me and said, "What do you see?"  And I said, "I see a branch of an almond tree."

"Not that.  Look beyond that, and what do you see?"  "I see men running on dirt in the shape of a square, surrounded by green grass, and they are running furiously, like maniacs.  Their uniforms are black and orange, and there seems to be no end of them."

"Ah, that's it!  Now the scales have fallen from your eyes.  You shall see greater things than these.  In fifteen days, you will see those same men wearing black and orange receiving their World Series' rings before envious Cardinals' eyes, for the Phillies do not come to town until August 4."

And so I think it will be in 2011 in the Senior Circuit, the Manager's Dream and the Fan's Delight.  The Giants will continue where they left off and win the World Series again.  They have pitching. They have hitting.  They have a blend of new and veteran players.  Though they had a hiccough on the field as Spring Training waned, they have returned to their winning ways with victories yesterday against Cincinnati and Cleveland.  The field manager and general manager are superb colleagues.  And they have an energized fan base following the team around and setting attendance records in the Cactus League.  The Giants are not in town one day, and the attendance is 3500.  The Giants are in town the next day, and the attendance is 10,000.  Their season tickets are sold out in San Francisco, and they are taking reservations for 2012 with a five hundred dollar deposit per seat.

My full National League predictions are:

NL East:  Atlanta
NL Central:  Chicago
NL West:  Giants
NL Wild Card:  Philadelphia

NL Champion:  Giants

World's Champion:  Giants

Thank you to all those who have sent your predictions that are welcome from all comers.  Some of you have incomplete predictions and need to fill those in by Noon, March 31, Opening Day.

We're getting really close now to hear the cry that stirs our hearts: "Play ball!"

Best,
Howard

**********************

31 March 2011
Opening Day

Dear Croutons,
Today the shout "Play Ball!" was followed by the cracks of bats against pitched balls in stadiums throughout the land.  Solemn assemblies gathered to see the New Season begin, and those beginnings were marked with traditional symbolic acts, such as the throwing out of the first ball and the introductions of the teams.  To me, excitement, adventure, risk, and competition are back.  I love baseball, the trusted doorway open to me that leads to all these things and more.

Nowhere was the occasion more solemnly marked than in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium, "the Stadium" according to The New York Times and "Chan Ho 'Assault and Battery' Park" according to Steve Somers, just alongside the plot of land that lies beneath "The House that Ruth Built."  In Yankee Stadium, the assembly could not have been solemner.  Great occasions trigger great emotions.

The public address announcer intoned before the start of the game, "...Batting seventh...the Designated Hitter...Number Twenty...(hear Steve Carell but think Bob Sheppard)...Jorge...Posada...the Designated Hitter...Number Twenty...Jorge...Posada..."

At this announcement serious Yankee fans were abashed though they knew it was coming.  They remember the old days.  They know the difference.  They marked this transition, from Jorge as Catcher to Jorge as Designated Hitter, this movement into a scary future, this turning of the wheel of the life cycle if not of Fortune's Wheel, by grieving and by leaving their seats, these serious Yankee fans, and standing beyond the right-center field wall at that sacred place known as the Bawling Basin, they sang mournfully as the Basin caught their tears:

Ah, holy Jorge, how hast thou offended,
that fans to judge thee hath in hate pretended?
By throws upended, by thy team rejected,
     O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my reason, Jorge, hath undone thee.
No longer can I thine errant throws not see:
     I demoted thee.

Designated hitter for us you're named;
thine age hath gained, and Jorge hath suffered
for our victory, we nothing else pondered--
     we have surrendered.

For me, kind Jorge, are thy degradation,
thy mortal sorrow, and thy star's combustion,
thy move toward anguish, and thy obfuscation,
     As consolation.

Therefore, kind Jorge, since I cannot claim thee,
I do resign thee, and will ever pray thee,
think on my pity, and my love conserving,
     not thy declining.

[Words: Johann Heermann; tr. Robert Seymour Bridges (1844-1930), alt. (Prince) Hal Steinbrenner (b. 1959)

Tune: Herzliebster Jorge, Johann Cruger (1598-1662)
11 11. 11 5

Ed. Note: Discovered recently in Jorge Posada's old corner locker, cleaned of all baseballs, uniforms, mitts, bats, helmets, caps, shaving supplies, toiletries, Tylenol, pommade, and hair brushes, at the New York Yankees' spring training facility at George M. Streinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida, was a single folio MS. in yellow legal foolscap, ruled, folded in halves until reduced in size to 1.35" by 1.79", written in a fine German blackletter hand with a stylus known as Sharpie, with the text indicated.  The textual apparatus will be published by Charles Scribbler's Sons in a separate volume that includes a complete transcription replete with its textual apparatus, all scribal errors, corrections, and emendations.  Look for it wherever books are sold.  Mel (Allen) Inkhorn, Editor.]

When they finished singing, these serious fans, relieved and refreshed, returned expectantly to their seats for the throwing out of the first ball and the first pitch of the new season.

And they weren't disappointed.  Their grief shed, they made their way to their perch and watched eagerly, poised precariously as on a knife's edge at the limen presented by the start of a new campaign, the first pitch from CC Sabathia, who at 6'7" and 290 pounds is not hard to find on the pitcher's mound, a fastball hurtling at 91 miles per hour and called a strike, on the outside corner, to Austin Jackson, the center fielder of the Detroit Tigers, who would strike out swinging on seven pitches as brisk as the 4l-degree temperature.

On the day, Jorge went 0-4 though he hit the ball sharply, and the Yankees won the game, 6-3, as Mariano Rivera garnered his 560th Save.

And, the Season's On.

Best,
Howard

Comments

[A. Albinson]

Great!!!
You'll not find batting gloves in Jorge's locker. I think he still is the only major league player not to wear them.
Al Albinson