Baseball means spring ... except in the Northeast

When the phone rang, I knew it was my brother, and I knew why he was calling.

It was the morning of May 18, 2002, and my brother was going to rendezvous with me, my then-fiancee (now my wife) and her parents outside Albany, NY, for a trip to Yankee Stadium for that afternoon's game between the Yankees and Twins.

The weather, however, was nasty, and my brother was calling to ask if we were still planning to go. When I told him we were, he replied, "You do know it's snowing here, right?"

While we were just getting rain, my brother, who lived at a higher elevation about 40 minutes away, was indeed getting snow. I reassured him, however, that not only were we going, but that the rain was projected to stop by about 10:30, plenty of time before the game was supposed to start.

I'm not sure how much he believed me, but he came down to meet us, and the five of us piled into the car and headed to New York.

* * * * *

The arrival of baseball season, starting with images of spring training from Florida and Arizona, means spring is on the way.

It just seems like the Northeast is the last place it arrives.

Seeing snow on the ground this morning at my home outside Boston, since it's both March 31 and the more-or-less opening day of the baseball season (minus the Australia games, last night's ESPN opener and the teams who don't start until tomorrow), put me in a mood. I may have referred to where I live as a "frozen hellhole" at one point.

One of the guys who works for me may have been a little surprised, since he knows I grew up in upstate New York. The conversation brought back memories of my high school baseball days, when sometimes we practiced in weather so cold that I couldn't make my hands work well enough to zip up my pants afterward, so I wore my practice gear home.

The game schedule was more or less a wish list, since a lot of them were going to be called off, and getting anything done required a lot of practice indoors. My high school coach had all sorts of creative ideas for things we could do in the gym, complete with several soft baseballs he had acquired for that purpose.

One of those drills was going to be him pitching from one corner of the gym to a batter positioned near the batting net alongside the divider that split the gym in two, where the softball team was probably trying to get some work in of their own. Imagining balls flying around the gym and scattering other players doing their drills, I wasn't quite sure how it would work, but I never got a chance to find out.

You see, I was going to be the first batter in the drill, but while the coach was warming up, one of my return throws slipped out of my batting glove and short-hopped him in the last place any man wants to be short-hopped.

End of drill.

* * * * *

It was cold, but fortunately for us, dry.

When my boy Poopsie turned 30 a few years ago, we celebrated his birthday at Fenway Park. The game the between the Red Sox and Rays the night before had been suspended, and the weather the next night wasn't much better. The good news was that one of Poopsie's friends had connections that let us get tickets right behind home plate, under cover.

So while it was a chilly night, we were at least dry to see the end of the game from the night before, plus the regularly scheduled game. I tried to be clever by wearing my Durham Bulls hat, but since one of the guys in our group used to live in Durham, he realized what I was going for, since the Bulls are Tampa Bay's top farm team.

Since the MBTA only just started realizing people stay out late on the weekends, those of us who took the train had to leave early, but between the two games, we got to see about nine innings of baseball.

However, I'm hoping that the next time Poopsie and I hit a game, it'll be in Philadelphia, where he lives now, and that it won't be freezing.

* * * * *

The weather forecasts I had seen were correct, and the rain pretty much stopped at about 10:30, as we were approaching New York. 

We got there early, so we found a bar near the stadium where we could get lunch and watch Jason Giambi's walk-off grand slam from the night before. We all knew what was coming. We all cheered, anyway.

It didn't rain anymore, but it was cold ... as in wear-your-winter-jacket cold. The cold would have been bad enough, but the wind was also blowing hard from left field to right ... and we were in the right field box seats.

Did I mention that this wasn't March 18, not April 18 ... but May 18?

At least the Yankees won, but ever since then, I've been loathe to go to any games at Yankee Stadium early in the season. If I'm going to freeze my tail off at a ballgame, I can do it a lot closer to home.