April Showers

By Shari Forst
Posted Saturday, April 21, 2007

The weather this week absolutely stinks on ice - literally. Snow in early April?

A few games in Cleveland were snowed out already and the northeast was hit by a major league Noreaster Sunday night. The heavy rains and winds lasted until late Tuesday going into Wednesday. The Mets-Nationals game was washed out on Sunday, and the Mets were again rained out in Philadelphia on Monday.

If my birthday wasn’t in April I would completely despise the entire month.

Now I will get to my point - should the baseball season start later in April? Once again I will reach back to my childhood and when I started watching the Mets in the late 1970’s. I don’t recall opening day being much earlier than the second week in April.

When I attended opening day at Shea , my friends and I used to go the second week of April, and it was usually opening day around the league.

The last few years we have opening day starting March 31st and April 1st. I could see this if the league made the schedule so the teams that play in the colder climates opened up on the west coast or even Florida. This has not been the case though and we see teams playing in what looks like ski-masks, bundled up like they are ice fishing in Antarctica.

The entire month of April thus far has been nothing short of ugly, weather-wise. There has not been a day above 45 degrees during the day, and the nights have been simply awful if you have to be out doing regular things, no less trying to play baseball.

This weather I have to admit gets me angry. I have the week off and was looking forward to watching some Mets baseball without feeling guilty that I am monopolizing the TV. My husband Dan doesn’t watch baseball, and he does work nights so when he is working I feel free to enjoy Mets baseball without the guilt. He is great about it and says he doesn’t mind. However, if I were him and not into baseball - 162 games can be a long summer for someone who doesn’t like to watch it, and I would be bored silly. I would certainly mind, but he is nicer than me! So far two days of games washed out, and who knows if they will play in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Even if it’s not raining the field conditions can be really bad for the players.

They did finally play this past Tuesday night it was clear that Tom Glavine was having all kinds of trouble dealing with the cold. Usually a guy with pin point control, he loaded the bases and walked in a run. Luckily, veteran that he is, he managed to get out of the jam, and that one run was the only one he gave up.

Nowadays with older players filling a lot of the teams' rosters, you have to worry about them pulling muscles and aggravating older injuries on a perfectly warm sunny day. Playing baseball in rainy cold conditions in early April doesn’t help in this area, to be quite honest I don’t know how football players play in cold, rainy and snowy conditions.

The pitchers can’t feel the ball in this weather and they end up walking a lot of batters, or even hitting them. The ball doesn’t carry off of the bats either. Traveling is hindered for a lot of teams with these deplorable weather conditions. For me March 31st and early April starts are kind of ridiculous because they end up rescheduling the games anyway, or they try to play through them with a million stoppages for downpours. They will do anything not to play a double header to make up these games; Hey! Remember when double headers were actually part of the regular season schedule?

I sure do my first met game ever was a double header in June 1977. I used to love those, it was like seeing a double feature at the movies. Now you only see them because of the rain outs, or in this season’s case snow -outs.

I live for baseball, and believe me I chomp at the bit by late March for the regular season to get underway. Now I think they are rushing things, pushing it for the almighty dollar.

In a way it backfires because these early April games don’t seem to end up getting played. So why do it? I think loyal fans of the game could wait until the third week or even last week of April for the season to get started. Lets face it, a few years back they only played 154 games anyway, so if they scaled back the games and started the season later I think the fans and the players would be just as happy. The fans wouldn’t have to sit in rainy wet and cold stadiums, and the players wouldn’t be sliding around on muddy outfields, and basepaths.

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