Baseball leaves fans in the cold

BALTIMORE.

As a favor to their fans — icicles on the cake after raising tickets prices following a 71-win season — the Baltimore Orioles decided to play their 2004 season opener at night.

It was a wonderful gesture, giving the crowd at Camden Yards for last night’s game against the Boston Red Sox a chance to break out their football-watching clothes, a tribute to the neighboring Baltimore Ravens.

“Are the Orioles playing tonight or the Ravens?” one stadium worker asked jokingly upon arriving at the ballpark earlier in the day, when the temperature was still in the low 50s and high 40s, although the wind chill dropped it considerably.

Cold weather on Opening Day is hardly news. Everyone remembers last year’s bizarre snow squall in the middle of the game that left the ball nearly invisible. Ernie Tyler, the legendary umpires attendant who has sat behind the plate for 43 straight Orioles openers, said, “I don’t remember too many that weren’t cold.”

But the difference between when the sun is up and when the sun is down is … please forgive me … day and night. “Having it during the daytime helps a little,” Tyler said.

It would have helped Orioles fans, who paid ticket prices that increased anywhere from 9 to 22 percent. When they showed up last night, the temperature was 43 degrees with winds blowing at 20 mph. It was the coldest temperature for an Orioles opener since 1987.

How cold was it? As baseball philosopher Mickey Rivers once said, “It was so cold out there I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walking.”

That makes as much sense as a so-called opening night of baseball when the season officially opened a week ago in Tokyo. That makes as much a sense as choosing to play this rite of spring at night in such cold temperatures.

That is what makes last night’s cold different from typical Opening Day weather woes. It was by choice.

The Orioles jumped at the chance to be on ESPN2 for the Sunday night opener, even though anyone who has been to an Opening Day in Baltimore knows the conditions are often much worse at night. And when you spend money to come to the ballpark and make a commitment to sit for three hours, a little warmth from the sun, even through the clouds, helps those fans who have made that committment — even the five who show up from Northern Virginia. (By the way, the so-called “10th man” — the fan selected from the crowd by the Orioles to represent the fans — was a kid from Virginia for the second straight year. What a coincidence, heh?)

For the Orioles, those fans never entered into the equation.

“Major League Baseball approached us back in December and asked if we would like to be considered for the Sunday night game,” club spokesman Bill Stetka said. “It was discussed among a number of people here, and it was unanimous that we do it.”

If they took a vote at the ballpark last night, they might have found a dissenting opinion — albeit one that didn’t count.

Stetka said the club wanted to play the game for “prestige and profile, the value of playing on national television on opening night, the attraction of a national audience. Hopefully someone will be looking at us and say they would like to go to Camden Yards in July.”

Not, though, on the night of April4, with temperatures falling into the 30s during the game. Few in the national audience (not even ESPN mind you, but ESPN2, the home of lowly rated morning show “Cold Pizza,” which likely was what most fans were eating last night by the time they got back to their seats) were envious of the hearty souls who spent their hard-earned money to support their team in the dark, cold night.

Not everyone was that cold, though. New Orioles manager Lee Mazzilli recalled some brutally cold openers in places like Chicago and said, “I don’t have to go out and play now, though. I can sit close to the heater.”

It wasn’t heater night at the ballpark, though.

In the scheme of things, cold weather on Opening Day doesn’t mean much. Most fans are so devoted they will come day or night, freezing or warm, for the first day of baseball, and no one among the 47,683 — the second-largest Opening Day crowd in Camden Yards history — was booing the conditions last night. It was an enthusiastic home crowd that welcomed the prospects of better times ahead at the ballpark with the addition of free agents Miguel Tejada, Javy Lopez and Rafael Palmeiro and the 7-2 win over Boston, although half the park was empty by the final pitch.

But the bigger picture here is one more slight by the game toward the fans, part of a disturbing pattern of arrogance that governs major league baseball these days, from opening the season in Japan to refusing to put a team in the nation’s capital. It all fits the pattern of freezing out the fans.

Cold? Let them eat pizza!