Rewind 2023: Revisiting My First Baseball Day of the Year

By the end of this week, the World Series will be over and we'll have officially entered the off-season.  So, it's time to start looking back on some images that reflect what I took in during 2023.  
To start, flip the calendar back to March 30th, at Syracuse Mets media day.  The sky and the trees say that we're somewhere between winter and spring.  There's a freshness in the air and promise of games and achievements to come.  Having lost a Wild Card round series the previous fall, the Mets felt close, very close to making a strong run.  While the roster was built around veterans such as Verlander, Scherzer, Alonso and Lindor, some of the organization's top prospects were also knocking at the door.
Especially Francisco Alvarez.  Just 21 and coming off a tremendous minor league season -- that earned a five-game big league debut -- he likely came into spring training expecting to be named the Mets everyday catcher, especially after the veteran James McCann was dealt away last winter.  So starting the season in Syracuse was likely not in his plans.  Yet, here he was, on a chilly day at NBT Bank Stadium and not Citi Field meeting with a few local reporters and not that big New York media contingent.  Francisco's stay in the Salt City wouldn't be long -- after two home runs in four games (and an injury to Omar Narvaez), he was back  to stay in Flushing.  And while his overall offensive line (lowlighted by a .207 batting average) left room for improvement, Alvarez made more positive impressions than negatives and can expect to spend next summer in the City.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rare Remnant of a Lost Ballpark

Image
When the subject of baseball in Brooklyn comes up, the discussion centers around Ebbets Field, the Flatbush venue most famously home to The Boys of Summer.  Those legendary 1940s and '50s teams that featured such historic and beloved players as Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges. Ebbets Field hosted its last major league game in 1957 and was torn down during the winter of 1960. But decades earlier, just before World War One, the Dodgers were based in the Park Slope area and played at Washington Park.  Once they moved out, the land was occupied by another stadium, which housed a different franchise.  The upstart Federal League, which played in the 1914 and '15 seasons, had a Brooklyn team called the TipTops.  Owned by a local baking magnate Robert Ward, whose company produced TipTop bread, the club took over the abandoned lot along 3rd Street and built a new brick and steel venue. The only no-hitter in the Federal League's two-year r
Read more

Another Yankee Trade

Image
Yankee fans: here's a last look at shortstop Trey Sweeney .  The 2021 first round draft choice was part of the three player trade with the Dodgers that brings reliever Victor Gonzalez and infield prospect Jorbit Vivas to New York. Now seeking to rebuild their pitching depth after dealing for Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, the Yanks deemed Sweeney expendable.  While the Louisville native showed promising power in his three seasons with the organization -- he batted only .248 to go with his 36 career homers -- Brian Cashman has committed to Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza as his young middle infielders.  So Sweeney became a trade chip. ( My images of Trey Sweeney are from the Somerset/Binghamton AA games on July 15th and September 19th, 2023. )
Read more

Will He Wear Zero in the Bronx?

Image
The Yankees bolstered their starting rotation with Thursday's signing of Marcus Stroman .  The Long Island native, who spent 2019 and '21 with the Mets before moving onto the Cubs, brings a 77-76 career record to the Bronx, along with a recent loyalty to uniform number (?) zero.  If he requests that, he'd become the third Yank to wear it, following the path of Adam Ottavino and Domingo German.  Of course, neither of their Yankee tenures ended all that well -- Ottavino struggled badly in 2020, before reviving his career with the Red Sox and Mets; German's alcohol and domestic violence issues sabotaged such Yankee highlights as last year's perfect game. Can a number truly be lucky? You can understand kids in little league or high school ball wanting to wear 2 in honor of Derek Jeter or 7 for Mickey Mantle.  But is there an heroic ballplayer associated with 0?  The closest I recall comes from pro football, where the Oakland Raiders Hall of Fame center Jim Otto wore 00
Read more