4.7.01 ROCHESTER RED WINGS vs SYRACUSE SKYCHIEFS
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I mean it literally when I say that I dreamed of this day for months. The first Opening Day dream occurred, I think, in December. Dodger Stadium was buried in snow. There was so much snow and wind, in fact, that the Olympic women’s softball star couldn’t throw the ceremonial first pitch. It kept falling out of her hand.
Not that winter in Rochester was that traumatic. It wasn’t. Especially compared to what we’d been led to expect by seemingly knowing parents, friends, and, most direly, the natives themselves. I was ready for a serious test of fortitude. I was ready for Siberia. Instead I got pretty much exactly what I’d’ve gotten if we’d spent the winter at a southern California ski resort. It was never colder than twenty degrees during waking hours. I shoveled the driveway maybe half a dozen times, total, half of them more out of boredom than necessity. So it was a little cold outside! So you wear a coat! Big deal!
I mean, granted, perhaps I now better understand the appeal of February vacations in the Bahamas, but whatever unpleasantness we experienced was nowhere near commensurate with the way folks around here talk about it. The conclusion we ultimately reached—affirmed, I might add, by similarly recently-relocated friends whose authority in speaking on such matters draws from childhoods spent in New England and the upper midwest—is that Rochesterians, friendly and good-natured as they seem, might just be a particularly whiny breed.
Nevertheless, by the end of March the whole cold-and-wet routine had gotten a bit old, and when April arrived and snow was still falling I truly began to worry. Happily, the only part of that first Opening Day dream that would come true was the Olympic softball star throwing the first pitch. And she threw it fine.
Now, how cool is it living in a town of a quarter-million people, the scale and geography of which date to a time when the quickest mode of transportation came with four legs instead of four wheels? I can tell you in five words: We walked to the ballgame. It was a longish walk, yes, forty-five minutes or so, but I should point out for the benefit of those unacquainted with this novel activity, this “walking,” that forty-five minutes spent doing it through neighborhoods of gorgeous old Victorian houses, along the banks of the stately Genesee, and through the surprisingly attractive (if not terribly happening) Rochester downtown is at least as pleasant as forty-five minutes spent in the carpool lane of the 10. Yes, even in the Miata. Even with the top down.
And while Frontier Field ain’t exactly Dodger Stadium, it’s not without its charms either, chief among them being spectacular views of the downtown skyline over the right field wall and the magnificent Kodak building towering over left. But you know about that from last year. Sadly, a couple things happened during the off-season that made my return to Frontier a little disappointing. Most notably, there’s now an awning that projects over the down-the-line seats in left field to match the one already in place over on the right-field side; unfortunately, the roof obscures much of the aforementioned Kodak building when sitting anywhere on the left-field side, especially if you’re down near home plate.
Less obviously dismaying is that my other favorite thing about this ballpark from last year—the red tights and black cape–clad cheerleading superhero, Wasteman—has been reincarnated as the green tights and black cape–clad “Recycleman.” A more politically correct moniker, I suppose, and from an environmentally conscious point of view the change is understandable. But Recycleman just doesn’t have the same wonderfully perverse ring to it that Wasteman did. And what bothers me most about it is that this newfound environmental friendliness on the part of Waste Management, Inc., whose logo graces Recycleman’s cape, is reflected in the larger community by exactly nothing. I mean, recycling programs here are a fucking joke! They give you a big giant 60-gallon tub for garbage and a little milk crate for recyclables—oh, and numbers 1 and 2 only, please. It’s turned my wife neurotic. She’s actually sneaking bags of stuff into her work because they have a corporate recycling program there. Me, I just figure, I’m from California. If you guys wanna fill up your state with garbage, it’s no skin off my back.
But I digress. And disappointed though I may have been to learn of Wasteman’s demise, it could do little to dampen my unbridled joy at the arrival of another baseball season. The field looked glorious, the home team resplendent in their red and white uniforms, the visitors handsome in their red and navy, the first Saturday afternoon of spring announcing itself with skies of, well, steely gray, and a bitterly cold wind that made the 49 degrees displayed on the scoreboard seem more than a tad optimistic. But no matter. “Play ball!” shouted the crowd in unison, and we all stood through the entire first at-bat of the season.
Wady Almonte got the Red Wings off to a good start in the bottom of the first when he drove the first pitch he saw over the wall in left for a two-run homer, and starter John Bale held the Toronto-affiliate SkyChiefs to one run through five innings. With the score 3–1 in the eighth, though, Rochester reliever Leslie Brea, acquired from the Mets in the deal that sent Mike Bordick over for last year’s playoff run, loaded up the bases for Syracuse d.h. Cole Liniak. Wings manager Andy Etchebarren went to the pen again, bringing in Chad Paronto, who moments later could only watch helplessly as Liniak cashed in all his chips with a drive to deepest left-center.
FINAL SCORE: SKYCHIEFS 7, RED WINGS 3
FOOD CONSUMED: Two Zwiegles red hots (that’s what they call hot dogs here), with mustard; some decent french fries; one regular Diet Coke; approximately two-thirds of a “flowering onion” (it seemed warm and appealing).