Acing Opening Day

After losing their first eight Opening Days from 1962 to 1969, the Mets finally got their first W on the season's first day in 1970, when they beat the Pirates, 5-3, in 11 innings. From that day forward, they're 31-9 on Opening Day following today's game in Cincinnati, and that .775 winning percentage is baseball's best in that span. Add in those eight losses for a 31-17 mark, and the .646 winning percentage still leads MLB.

Unlike some won-loss records in baseball, this one has some weight to it. Whereas some team-vs.-team records (or pitcher-vs.-team records) are a bit hollow -- because the players on both sides change, rendering the numbers little more than uniform-vs.-uniform -- the Mets' Opening Day mark is an indication of just how strong the front of their rotation has been over the past four decades. If the franchise has come to be known for developing a certain type of player over its nearly 50-year existence, starting pitching is it.

A look at their Opening Day starters shows a few Hall of Famers or potential Hall of Famers (and one who was believed ticketed for Cooperstown before derailing his career with substance abuse): Tom Seaver, Dwight Gooden, Tom Glavine and Johan Santana among them. Seaver started 11 openers, including 10 straight from 1968-77; Gooden had eight scattered from 1985-94; Glavine took the ball for four of the five from 2003-07, with Pedro Martinez getting the other one; and Santana has had the last two.

Those five hurlers account for 26 of the 48 openers including today, and with this afternoon's win, the Mets' record in those 26 games is 19-8. Also scattered in there are starts by Bobby Ojeda (a win in 1987), David Cone (a win in 1992), Al Leiter (a loss in 1999, wins in 2001 and '02) and Mike Hampton (a loss in 2000). Those arms don't belong to journeymen, at least not at that stage of their careers (particularly in Hampton's case, who was an ace when he arrived via trade but quickly fell to journeyman status when he signed with Colorado). They were all considered solid No. 1 starters, if not traditional aces, and their Opening Day starts led to a 4-2 mark, bringing the team's record in this selection of games to 23-10.

With that kind of pedigree on the arms the Mets have sent to the hill for the first pitch of the season, it's no wonder they've won more than 75 percent of their season openers since 1970 and 64 percent overall.

Saying no to Zito

As far as I'm concerned, the Giants can have Barry Zito. Seven years?! $126 million!? Dude's not Randy Johnson in '98. He's not even Nolan Ryan in '88. He's a curveball pitcher, a soft-throwing lefty with good control who benefits from a strong defense and pitch location. He's Tom Glavine, minus 12 years, and the Mets already have one of those.

Zito would've benefitted from coming to Shea Stadium, from playing for a team on the verge of the World Series with a good, young core. He still gets the move to the National League, which will help, and he's playing for a team in an even but weak -- save the Dodgers -- division that gives the Giants a chance at the postseason just for playing. But the Giants don't have the supporting cast that the Mets do, and once the injuries start hitting the ancient bodies of Barry Bonds, Ray Durham, Omar Vizquel and even Pedro Feliz and Matt Morris, Zito and Matt Cain and others will be doing all they can just to keep San Francisco in games without giving up more than three or four runs, hoping the offense can manage to scratch out just one more run than the opposition.

Zito would've been a good fit for the Mets at their price -- five years and $75 million, probably 80 -- but not at his price, which is to say Scott Boras' price. That prick can have his money, and Zito can too. Good for him for getting it, and if he'd rather be rich than have a ring, that's his choice. But to think that the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history (at least according to one contract) is Barry Zito is astonishing when guys like Johnson, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens (perhaps) are still pitching.

As for Zito and the Giants, we'll see how it works out. It worked for Kevin Brown and the Dodgers and Mike Hampton and the Rockies, didn't it?

Oh, wait ...

Five in a row, 36 to go

For five years now, I've been giddy with anticipation for the first or second week of April. For me, the start of the baseball season does not just mean the return of my favorite sport. It also signifies warmer weather, outdoor activities, weekends at the beach, barbeques in the backyard. There are four seasons on the calendar, but New Jersey is one of the lucky states that gets four changes in the weather to correspond with those solstices and equinoxes. In some ways, the baseball season is the national OK that tells us we're allowed to go outside and play again.

What's really excited me about the start of the season is the now five-year tradition I have with two friends from high school, Dave and Gayle, who have joined me at the last five Mets home openers. It began in 2000, when the Mets opened with two games in Japan against the Cubs. The three of us and a former co-worker of mine had seats down the right-field line, where we watched a 1-1 duel between Al Leiter and Sterling Hitchcock carry on into the eighth. Moments after a fan behind me speculated what a great start to his Mets career it would be for Derek Bell to hit a home run leading off the eighth, he lined a pitch into the bleachers in left field, and we roared when Armando Benitez came in to shut the door.

The next year, it became an annual affair when we couldn't pass up the chance to watch the Mets raise the NL Championship banner while hosting the Braves, who had failed again to turn a division championship into a World Series title. They won that one 9-4 with the help of the first home run by a Japanese position player when Tsuyoshi Shinjo launched one to center. By the end of the game, the sun had warmed us up and we relaxed as the crowds filed out, enjoying the spring air.

In 2002 it was the true Opening Day, the first game of the season between the Mets and Pirates. Another win, 6-2, and another great dinner at the ESPN Zone watching the other ongoing games on the dozens of TVs.

Last year we froze our asses off despite box seats in the left-field mezzanine that had us in the sun all day. It didn't help that the Cubs whipped the Mets 15-2 and my gut feeling of a lousy season was dead-on.

Monday, my mom made her first Opening Day trip and when we finally reached the upper level and passed our section to get food, she looked up at the sign above the tunnel. "Rows A-V ... Are we at the top???" Indeed, we were. Up there, the wind whipped us from front and back, but by the sixth inning, we weren't complaining. A 10-0 Mets lead made it more bearable and the falling rain didn't touch us under the overhang. As some folks began to leave to get out of the packed parking lot or into somewhere -- anywhere -- warm, we moved down two or three rows and already felt much better.

As expected, the bullpen turned a 10-1 game into a 10-6 game with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth, but it merely meant an earlier Shea appearance for new closer Braden Looper than we'd expected back when it was a 10-run lead.

Two pitches, double play, Mets win.

I'll never get tired of Opening Day. Mike Hampton started for the Braves and could only get eight outs, allowing seven runs in the process. Because he was once a Mets hero -- the last time I saw him pitch live, he chucked a complete-game shutout to put the Mets into the 2000 World Series -- we took delight in hailing him with the slow chant of "HAM-pton ... HAM-pton ... HAM-pton." Some tried to mock the tomahawk chop, but that's been done. I prefered the personal touch, despite the hit my fantasy team ERA took when I didn't follow my gut feeling and kept Hampton in the lineup (I erred the wrong way last night, benching John Thomson and missing out on eight innings of one-run ball in a win).

On Opening Day, you get the best pitchers -- Kerry Wood last year -- and catch new Mets and visiting players in their team, major-league or home debuts. Other than the aforementioned Bell and Shinjo, it's meant Tom Glavine and Kaz Matsui, who, along with Mike Cameron, gave us plenty of reasons to cheer on Monday.

It was my 85th game overall since I first saw an Angels-Yankees game in the Bronx in August 1983 and the 42nd that has involved the Mets. The win put the Amazin's at an even .500, 21-21, in such contests. At Shea, they're 20-15.

Despite the prices, despite the attitudes and abilities of the players, I doubt I'll ever tire of taking an April Monday off to spend the afternoon at the ballpark in Queens. I've got a long way to go to match the one person who was congratulated for his 41st consecutive Opening Day at Shea -- each one the stadium has had -- but I'm only 27. There's still time.