It’s Baseball Season! 12 Games Set Today
By the time Frank Thomas steps into the batter’s box today to face Cy Young winner Pat Hentgen, one of the biggest changes in baseball this season will be obvious.
Standing in SkyDome’s on-deck circle will be Albert Belle in a White Sox uniform. The next night in Toronto, the Blue Jays show off their top newcomer when Roger Clemens pitches against Chicago.
Opening day features 12 games. No interleague games are scheduled. Those begin in June.
This is the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, and the season is dedicated to his memory. Special commemorative balls have been made by Rawlings to mark the occasion, and will be used in every team’s home opener.
Another change for 1997: Having seen a snowout at Fenway Park, a snowy afternoon at Yankee Stadium and freezing temperatures at Tiger Stadium and Wrigley Field for early home openers last year, baseball adjusted its schedules in an attempt to beat the cold weather.
As a result, all five domes in the majors will be in use today, and every West Coast club in both leagues will begin the year at home.
Sounds like it was a smart idea, too - a freak snowstorm hit the East Coast on Monday.
Cincinnati and Baltimore, which traditionally play at home on opening day, are the only typical cold-climate clubs playing at their open-air parks.
“It is in response to last spring,” N.L. vice president Katy Feeney said. “It’s hard to make it a 100 percent warm-weather schedule, but we did the best we could.”
Among the top players who won’t be with their teams on opening day are second baseman Roberto Alomar of Baltimore and pitcher Pedro Martinez of Montreal. Alomar will start serving a five-game suspension for spitting in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck last September. Martinez must finish a suspension imposed for a fight last season. xxxx TODAY’S OPENERS American League Chicago (Navarro 15-12) at Toronto (Hentgen 20-10), 10 a.m., ESPN-TV Milwaukee (McDonald 12-10) at Texas (Hill 16-10), 11:35 a.m. Kansas City (Appier 14-11) at Baltimore (Mussina 19-11), noon N.Y. Yankees (Cone 7-2) at Seattle (Fassero 15-11), 5:05 p.m. Detroit (Brocail 1-5) at Minnesota (Radke 11-16), 5:05 p.m.
National League St. Louis (Stottlemyre 14-11) at Montreal (Bullinger 6-10), 10 a.m. Colorado (Ritz 17-11) at Cincinnati (Smiley 13-14), 11:05 a.m. Chicago Cubs (Mulholland 8-7) at Florida (K. Brown 17-11), 1:05 p.m., ESPN-TV Philadelphia (Schilling 9-10) at Los Angeles (R. Martinez 15-6), 1 p.m. Pittsburgh (Lieber 9-5) at San Francisco (Gardner 12-7), 1 p.m. N.Y. Mets (Harnisch 8-12) at San Diego (Hamilton 15-9), 2 p.m. Atlanta (Smoltz 24-8) at Houston (Reynolds 16-10), 5:05 p.m.