Collier: Baseball predictably unpredictable
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The rest of baseball might be comforted to know that before the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox can start the 2011 World Series, nearly 2,500 other games still are required by tradition and protocol, the first half dozen of which are scheduled this very day.
The Detroit Tigers are in New York to play the Yankees beginning at 1:05 p.m., which is the identical starting time in Washington, where the Nationals entertain the Braves, if you call that entertainment.
The entire season hinges on that moment -- 1:05 p.m. EDT.
Every conceivable outcome of baseball in 2011 depends on which game starts first. If C.C. Sabathia throws the season's first pitch in the Bronx, then I believe form will hold, a highly predictable summer will approach, and baseball will spin at the appointed rate on its presumed axis. If, however, the first pitch is thrown in our nation's capital by Livan Hernandez, then look for a seam-head planet turned upside down, the Pirates leading the National League Central into September, the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series, umpires enforcing the pine-tar rule, just all kinds of old testament stuff, including outfielders actually hitting the cut-off man.
Don't tell me this doesn't make any sense; I know that. But it makes as much sense as celebrating the start of baseball by predicting the World Series winner, which is completely backward, even if it's the exact same system that's somehow in place for football, where the rampup to Week 1 in the NFL season is buried under two feet of Super Bowl predictions.
The current issue of Baseball America even includes executive editor Jim Callis' annual three-year prediction, in which the Atlanta Braves beat the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series of 2014. Rays fans won't be disappointed by this because Callis has Tampa Bay winning the Series in 2012 and 2013, all in an success-predicting essay that stretches toward approximately 1,000 words, none of which is Pirates.
The Pirates, since you're interested, open Friday afternoon at Chicago's Wrigley Field, and I'm sure the fellas are encouraged by still another tepid endorsement from commissioner of baseball Bud "Bud" Selig. Selig told something called the World Congress of Sports this week that teams like the Royals and Pirates are not as hopeless as everyone thinks, and that the Pirates in particular, have "signed a lot of good young players."
And why wouldn't they, Bud?
First Published March 31, 2011 12:00 am
