Does it feel different to you this time around?
It feels different to me this time around.
Maybe it’s the fact that, for the first time in four years, there will be no labor clouds wafting above the PFP drills and the live batting practice. Maybe it’s because we’ve had our diversions both good — Giants, Rangers, Devils — and not-so-good — hello, Brooklyn Nets — so the gap between final curtain and first stretching drill seems a bit shorter.
Regardless, this week we get pitchers and catchers. This week, they will open the grassy fields of Florida and Arizona, and for a few hours every day we can imagine that the calendar doesn’t insist that it’s still February, we can trick ourselves into believing — especially if the sun shines, as it did so often last week — that we can ditch our coat and maybe drag our pitching wedge into the backyard.
Around here, it’s hard to remember another spring training that opens with so many folks bursting to get on with the business of baseball. We are well-schooled in just how rare summers like last summer were, when no matter what baseball altar you worship, you had an awfully good ride.
Two-hundred wins — 101 for the Mets, 99 for the Yankees.
Playoffs on both sides.
One truly epic season — take one more bow for that, Aaron Judge — and a scrapbook stuffed with memorable moments and momentous memories, so many full ballparks, so many loud days and nights, so much anticipation in October …
And, ultimately, so much wanting.
Wanting in Queens.
Wanting in The Bronx.
That’s the thing about sports, though, especially baseball. As a wise man named Giamatti once warned: The game is designed to break your heart. But we do not care. We are not burned. We are not scared away. If you are a Yankees fan or a Mets fan, you buried your disappointment right around the time you bought your Thanksgiving turkey, and you’ve been counting down ever since.
Two months till pitchers and catchers.
Two weeks till pitchers and catchers.
And now, this week: pitchers and catchers.
It is good that we are all afflicted with the inexplicable amnesia of sports. Especially in this past week, by the gross destruction of the Nets, we were reminded of how much we are really expected to endure to invest our hearts, year after year, and to invest our souls, season after season. It all comes at a cost.
A year ago at this time, players and owners were griping at each other and sniping at each other and despite the prevailing opinion that nobody would willingly light fire to a whole season there were moments it felt that way.
If you are a Yankees fan, the magnificence of Judge’s brilliance was always shadowed by the uncertainty of his future, a tedious toll road despite the happy ending.
If you are a Mets fan, you have spent so much of the past few years waiting for Jacob deGrom to pitch … and now he will never pitch again in that familiar No. 48 blue-and-orange. Justin Verlander is a capable — and, who knows, possibly superior — replacement. You’ll adjust. But your heart knows: It takes time.
Still, it’ll get there, your baseball heart. It’ll start when the doors open in Port St. Lucie and in Tampa this week. It’ll tick louder as the exhibition games begin. It’ll skip a few beats when the inevitable happens — sorry, you know this is true — when someone on the Yankees or someone on the Mets suffers a sprain, strain or bruise playing in a World Baseball Classic that is hard to generate real buzz for.
The reason for that is obvious, and the same reason why baseball on TV annually gets beaten up in the ratings: Baseball, like politics, is local, local, local. It’s all good to see Pete Alonso swat homers for the red, white and blue; it pales to watching him do the same for the orange and blue. That’s just the way it is. The way it will always be.
So yes, this week, our heart finds its rhythm again, all across this magnificent baseball city. Met or Yankee, Field or Stadium, Bronx or Queens, American League or National. It has been a long, cold lonely winter, and the smile’s returning to our faces.
Vac’s Whacks
The Wilpons and friends do realize that they are risking the wrath — actually the re-wrath — of Mets fans if they don’t figure something out with Keith Hernandez on SNY, right?
In my so-square-you-could-divide-it-by-four house growing up, there may not have been a more regular guest, via the family stereo console, than Burt Bacharach and his music. Godspeed to a melodic master.
I have to admit: I’m a sucker for things like the video of Joe Namath knocking in Joe Klecko’s door and welcoming him to the Hall of Fame.
It’s just never going to quite happen for the Islanders this year, is it?
Whack Back at Vac
Guy Miller: Does Sean Marks get to stick around and make all the first-round picks he acquired? If he does, I’m going to apply to Joe Tsai for what are clearly Mob-quality “no show” jobs.
Vac: I would really like to say something funny here, but will instead take the Fifth.
Christopher Sheldon: Hey Mike, with golf’s Waste Management Open and the Super Bowl on the same weekend, does this make it the most wasted weekend of the year? I apologize in advance.
Vac: Try the veal! Please tip your waitresses!
@salespro: Here’s something to consider about LeBron James breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record: LeBron is 38 years old. He scored 38 points in that game. His career point total (after the record) was 38,388. Weird.
@MikeVacc: I love when sports inspires deep-dives like this!
Bob LaRosa: Tom Brady has as many retirements as Dak Prescott has playoff wins!
Vac: You know … the man isn’t wrong.