Few things in life are more exciting than opening day at Fenway Park. Well, a Farmtruck backing into my driveway and dumping a load of peanut M&Ms on the lawn would be pretty exciting. And I’d be totally jazzed to find a stack of 1934 $1,000 Federal Reserve Notes hidden behind brick-size gold bars under the floorboards in my attic. That’d be way cool.
OK, I lied. There are many, many, many things more exciting than opening day at Fenway Park, which takes place Friday night when the Red Sox face the Baltimore Orioles in our lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.
Major League Baseball starts its pandemic-delayed 60-game season on Thursday — four months later than originally planned because of the coronavirus shutdown. Many, many, many exciting changes are in store for baseball fans and players in 2020; I’ll get back to those in a bit. First, I’d like to excite you with tantalizing tales of my opening day experiences.
When I was a lad, my grandfather would take me to the Bosox opener every year. We’d take the train from Beverly, hop on the subway and little Billy would be all bug-eyed as we climbed the hill from Comm. Ave. to Lansdowne, passing the peanut vendors, the “Hi, Neighbor, have a ‘Gansett” signs and the poor homeless guys. Papa would buy two bleacher seats — 50 CENTS each! — that very day at the ticket counter.
They say hope springs eternal, but the Sox teams in the early ’60s were hopeless and tickets to their games were readily available, until the Cardiac Kids of ’67 changed things forever. We knew they were destined to mediocrity from the get-go. The Sox usually won those openers, but nevertheless I’d bring my glove along in case the Sox ran out of pitchers and the public-address announcer issued a frantic plea for help from a fan in the bleachers.
One year I accidentally dropped my glove into one of those nightmarish mile-long urinals in the men’s room under the bleachers, and I created quite a scene when Papa refused to let me bring it home on the train or to the restaurant we’d visit every year after the game. At Ye Olde Oyster House near Faneuil Hall we’d have fried fish. Papa would have a few cocktails. Little Billy would nurse a Roy Rogers — the equivalent of a Shirley Temple for boys — which is a sickeningly sweet non-alcoholic mixed drink made with cola and grenadine syrup, garnished with a maraschino cherry. We’d then stagger, arm-in-arm, back to North Station, let the Boston & Maine do the driving, and get home before dark.
Once there, my dad and I would talk about the game — he listened to Curt Gowdy’s broadcast at work — and after supper our tradition was to watch the old black-and-white comedy “It Happens Every Spring,” which starred Ray Milland as a college professor who discovers a substance that, when put on a baseball, repels wood. He would reserve the film at the library, spool it onto a film projector in the den and we’d stare at the wall, laughing at the same jokes every spring … until the film started to burn and melt.
Can you imagine what it’d be like for grandfathers and grandchildren taking the train into Boston for opening day this year. There would likely be a fistfight between train personnel and some Covidiot who refused to wear a mask and shouted obscenities while a trainful of kids watched.
But, of course, fans aren’t allowed into Fenway for opening day — and probably all 2020 games. That’s one of the many, many, many changes facing baseball this year.
As part of its health and safety protocols, MLB is instituting a number of rules changes:
- All players must wear face coverings, plastic shields and propeller hats while on the playing field.
- Spitting of tobacco, sunflower seeds and haggis is prohibited.
- Extra innings will begin with a runner on second base. Said runner must remove one shoe if the batter’s count is 3-2 and the game is held on a Tuesday or Thursday.
- The National League will employ the designated hitter, but said DH will not be permitted to use a baseball bat made of wood, aluminum or stainless steel. Wiffle Ball bats are acceptable.
- Players and managers will be expected to maintain physical distance from all umpires and opposing players on the playing field, even if they are married or dating in real life.
- Pitchers will be permitted to carry a wet rag in their back pocket to be used for moisture in lieu of licking their fingers. Said rag must be drenched in Moxie, be no smaller than 12 square feet and must match the team’s colors.
- Players can no longer scratch themselves or help teammates adjust their athletic cup while TV cameras zero in on the dugout.
Wow. Will America’s Favorite Pastime ever be the same again?
Anyway, every team is in first place at the start of the season. Wouldn’t it be exciting if the playoff schedule pitted the Sox against Terry Franconia’s Cleveland Indians … sorry, they were made to change their name … the Cuyahoga Indians.
In all seriousness, let’s pray a vaccine is successful, there’s a plentiful supply, and America can soon return to its new normal, where the only masks at the ballpark are worn by the catchers and the home-plate umpire.
