DETROIT -- It's opening day, for real this time, and I'm feeling a little extra sappy about the institution.
This happens from time to time, and I'm convinced there's no cure.
The media notes from the Pirates' venerable Jim Trdinich this morning at Comerica Park, where the Pittsburgh Baseball Club will open its 132nd season in the National League, include the following gem: "Today’s tilt marks just the second time ever that baseball teams from Pittsburgh and Detroit will meet in the first regular season game: The Pittsburgh Alleghenys defeated the Detroit Wolverines, 5-2, on April 20, 1888."
I love stuff like that. Baseball runs so very deep in our city's veins. I mean, we're talking about a franchise formed a couple decades after the Civil War, one year before the event cited above.
We had an entry in the National League (1887) before we had the Allegheny County Courthouse (1888), the Carnegie Library (1890), the Pittsburgh Symphony (1895), Kennywood (1898), Allegheny General Hospital (1930), the Steelers (1933), the Pittsburgh Opera (1939), the Original Hot Dog Shop (1960) or the Penguins (1967). Heck, we had the Pirates before we had Fred Rogers (1928), Chuck Noll (1932) or even Donnie Iris (1943).
You've got to swing for the fences than to be older than the Pirates, but in doing this fun research, I dug up the Old Stone Inn in the West End (1756), the Fort Pitt Block House (1764), the Original Oyster House in Market Square (1870), and the inaugural wooden version of the Smithfield Street Bridge (1881).
Never forget that the institution is what matters. The Pirates are a civic treasure.
• They were even a treasure in 1890, a team I cited countless times during the recent 20-year losing streak when something would go really, really wrong. Those coal-mining dudes went 23-113 that year, so nothing was going to beat that, not even Sixto Lezcano, Brian Boehringer and Jeromy Burnitz.
But those dudes also had maybe the best handful of names in professional sports history: Peek-A-Boo Veech, Doggie Miller, Ducky Hemp and the one, the only Phenomenal Smith. The latter was a 5-foot-6 lefty starter who put up a 3.07 ERA that summer, which in the context of the team winning a couple games a month actually was phenomenal.
• Five World Series championships. Thirty-six Hall of Famers. Honus Wagner. Roberto Clemente. Willie Stargell.
Civic. Treasure.
• The emphasis there, for me, is always on the civic. The Pirates belong to Pittsburgh. They're part of who we are. They can never leave.
They just need responsible stewards.
OK, I'm done now.
• Another civic treasure, Andrew McCutchen, made his first appearance in an incorrect uniform last night at Dodger Stadium and doubled off Clayton Kershaw:
Cutch would finish 1 for 4 in the Giants' 1-0 shutout, but the point is that this is precisely the kind of thing truly great players do — make an immediate impression. It'll be a treat watching him bat third in San Francisco's stacked lineup:
Today’s #OpeningDay starting lineup ?#BeatLA | #SFGiants pic.twitter.com/BFeIsyl7GT
— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) March 29, 2018
Honestly, that's Brandon Crawford batting eighth. My goodness.
Speaking of truly great players ...
• Remember that sullen, isolated captain I described from here a couple nights ago?
Well, yeah ...
... that's what he does in overdrive.
• And this, in the spirit of this special day, this is what the Kid did with a bat in his hands facing the Clemente Wall:
Never gets old.
• Good for Sid. Good for the Penguins. What happened here demanded a reaction of the highest order.
• Good for Mike Sullivan, too, in setting a playoff-type tone by not showing lines and pairings in the morning skate, then by loading up his top two lines and top two pairings. Flipping Patric Hornqvist and Phil Kessel has the chance to get a suddenly static 81 moving again with Evgeni Malkin, and bumping up Olli Maatta to the No. 2 pair, as I'd written yesterday, was going to be a boost.
• Look out, though: Another lousy team looms next, with the Canadiens in Pittsburgh on Saturday night.
• Forget the Panthers on the perimeter of the Eastern playoff race, by the way, as they'll have a tough time even catching the Devils now, this after losses to the Maple Leafs and Senators the past two nights. Their next four games include two against the scorching Bruins, as well as the Predators and Hurricanes.
Don't anyone tell the Penguins, but they're in the playoffs:
Now it's a matter of sealing home ice, which matters more than it should this season given the record disparity of 28-8-2 at PPG Paints Arena and 16-20-4 everywhere else.
• Le'Veon Bell tweeted this late yesterday afternoon ...
it’s so hard to be a hero in a city that paints youu out to be the villain.. pic.twitter.com/TBFAHTQJcm
— Le'Veon Bell (@LeVeonBell) March 29, 2018
... and at the time I'm typing this six hours later, it was at 2,398 replies, 2,461 retweets and 14,997 likes.
On the same day, our city's Central Blood Bank tweeted this ...
Still a few slots open for our @penguins Game Day Blood Drive on Saturday. Walk-ins also welcome, but please register if you want to participate in one of the experiences: https://t.co/egIb4PqnID. pic.twitter.com/WveMz9q3Rp
— Central Blood Bank (@centralbloodorg) March 28, 2018
... and it got zero replies, one retweet (mine) and two likes.
One of them is a legitimate plea for help from Pittsburgh's sports fans, to donate blood at Saturday's Penguins game.
The other is pathetic, both Bell's sentiment and the scope of the reaction to it. He's publicly quibbling about whether he's worth $13 million or $17 million next season. He's a child.
Let's raise that Blood Bank number a little, if only so that when the aliens invade, they won't think we're all nuts.
• And on that note: