Happy Opening Day -- I Hope

Today is Opening Day, the earliest in the Yankees' history. The start the season on the road, with an Interleague game: At 8:05 PM Eastern Time tonight, they play the San Francisco Giants at what is now named Oracle Park.

And, of course, the game will not be on the no-longer-free version of what was once known as "free TV," or even "basic cable." It will be on Netflix. Whoever made that decision needs to get slapped.

I wouldn't mind playing the Giants in the World Series, a matchup which has not happened in my lifetime: The last one was in 1962. But, in the regular season, Interleague Play is just wrong, with a hard G: It's wrong-guh.

As usual, the Yankees begin the season with a loaded lineup and, at the same time, an injury crisis:

* Gerrit Cole, perhaps the best pitcher in baseball when healthy, is not expected to return until late May, maybe early June.

* Clarke Schmidt will also be out of the rotation until around that time.

* Shortstop Anthony Volpe, who had an awful season last year because he was playing hurt, is expected back at around the same time.

* Carlos Rodón is also not going to be rejoining the starting rotation anytime soon. Early May is the best guess for now.

Therefore, until at least early May, the rotation will be Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren and Ryan Weathers, with a few days off eliminating the need for a 5th starter for the time being. In other words, Fried, Schlittler, and hope the hitters can overcome both Warren and Weathers being lousy.

David Bednar is the closer, and even with Luis Gil, who I thought would be a starter, I don't trust anybody else in the bullpen. And since Yankee management apparently no longer thinks Gil should be starting, we could have a lot of 9-8 games.

With Volpe out, and no classic leadoff hitter, and Aaron Boone following Brian Cashman's orders,  so that the best power hitter in the game won't be batting 3rd or 4th like he's supposed to, this will probably be the starting lineup:

48 1B Paul Goldschmidt

99 RF Aaron Judge

35 LF Cody Bellinger

27 DH Giancarlo Stanton

13 2B Jazz Chisholm 

14 3B Amed Rosario

12 CF Trent Grisham 

72 SS Jose Caballero

28 C Austin Wells

With Ben Rice probably being the first bat off the bench.

Oy.

*

To paraphrase David Byrne of Talking Heads, You might find yourself with this team. And you might ask yourself, How did I get here? This is not my beautiful ballpark! This is not my beautiful team! And you might ask yourself, Why do I do this?

I've been over this before. Nick Hornby, the Arsenal fan who wrote the memoir Fever Pitch, and the screenplay for the original film based on it -- not the U.S. adaptation, the horror film where real-life Yankee Fan Jimmy Fallon plays a Red Sox fan who corrupts Drew Barrymore -- came up with the best answer for "Why do we do this to ourselves?" that I've ever seen -- words that remind me that Arsenal just lost the League Cup Final to Manchester City, ending the dreams of a Quadruple and a Domestic Treble, although the European Treble is still available:

Football has meant too much to me, and has come to represent too many things.

After a while, it all starts to get mixed up in your head. You can't remember whether life is shit because Arsenal is shit, or if it's the other way around.

I've been to far too many games, and spent too much money, fretted about Arsenal when I should have been fretting about something else, and I've asked too much of the people I love.

All right, I accept all of that.

Perhaps it's something you can't understand unless you belong....

It's not easy to become a football fan. It takes years. But if you put in the hours, you're welcomed, without question, into a new family. Except, in this family, you all love the same people, and hope for the same things. What's childish about that?...

The great thing is, it comes again and again. There's always another season. You lose the Cup Final in May? Well, there's the 3rd Round to look forward to in January. And what's wrong with that? It's actually pretty comforting, if you think about it.

And there it is. It comes again and again. You fall flat in the Playoffs in October? There's a new season to look forward to in April. Or, nowadays, late March.

And everybody starts out equal. Everybody is 0-0. Even the Flushing morons have reason to hope.

As the late, great Yankee Fan George Carlin put it, "Baseball begins in the Spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the Fall, when everything is dying!"

That's what Opening Day is all about. As former President Bill Clinton would say, "I still believe in a place called 'Hope.'"

Happy Opening Day. Night. Whatever. I hope.