1:05 PM is the first pitch of the 2013 season, kicking off in New York in the stadium we know in Boston as “The Toilet.”
The slate is clean, there are no sinners, no saints, just nothing but smooth sailing from here to October. After this winter of blizzardry and grey nothing is better to lift the sodden hearts of New England than a new season of baseball with a new manager and some new faces.
So Tyler Kepner in the New York Times yesterday predicted the Sox will finish second to last in the American League East, one bit better than the Yankees. Okay. Whatever. At least the complaining that no teams other than the Yanks or the Sox have a chance in the AL East seems to have subsided. And a crappy season means I might move up on the waiting list for season tickets. I am not one for predictions but I came close last year in calling for Detroit. Something tells me Kepner is kind of correct in calling for an off-season for the Sox and Yankees. Neither team made any jaw dropping acquisitions over the winter and the heroes of the last decade are all getting on in years. So much so that the New Yorker has the Yankees posed with walkers and canes.
Now closer to home, the Cotuit Kettleers’ opening day is June 12 at home vs. Orleans. The Cotuit Athletic Association has been busy all winter building a new set of bathrooms and a new snack bar behind the home grandstand and big campaign drive signs exhorting the village to “Have a Hit” are up on the corners of Lowell Avenue. The 2013 roster has been posted for a while now, but I’ve learned from past analysis not to put much stock in the team which always changes due to the whims of the college championships, Team USA selection, and the host of other distractions that siphons players off of the roster and elsewhere on the collegiate baseball circuit.
I may be all serene and spring feverish this fine April day, but by October I doubtlessly be in full Keitel mode (NSFW):
With the exception of the 4:0 opener against the Giants,I completely get the scene.