Last Night In Coney Island

Last night was an historic night at the Brooklyn Cyclones home opener at KeySpan Park. There was a lot of pomp to the Opening Day ceremonies and it was fun. My father and I sat about ten rows from the field behind home plate, just off to the third base side. They were tremendous seats. (Although we had this woman sitting in the same row as us who insisted on blasting a whistle throughout the game. They call her "Monkey Lady." If you saw her, you'd know why.)

But it may have been the single worst baseball game I have ever seen a team I support play.

The Staten Island Yankees scored early and often. They scored 3 in the first, 7 in the second, and 3 more in the third to go up, 13-0. It just got worse, as Staten Island kept adding runs every inning. Everything the Cyclones pitched was getting hit hard, and they gave up 4 home runs. (In the entire five years I've been going to KeySpan previously, I've seen maybe 4 home runs hit into the stands in right field, as it's a deep outfield, and many of these players are new professionals. The Yankees hit three last night.)

The Cyclones made five errors, and looked bad doing it. They left 13 men on base and couldn't score. In the bottom of the fifth, the home plate umpire got hurt when a pitch bounced up and hit him on the right arm. It stopped the game for nearly 20 minutes. (The NYPL only has two umps, so there was a delay.)

My dad and I lasted five innings. We called it a night when it was 15-0.

I'm sure there were a lot of opening night jitters, but the Cyclones looked really bad. I hope this is not a portend of things to come. Like all bad games, throw this one in the garbage. The Cyclones play the Yankees again tonight in Staten Island and Thursday back in Coney Island.

Throughout the game I listened to the Mets game and got the updates on the Red Sox game as well. (When the ump went down, they showed the ninth inning of the game from Shea on the scoreboard.) Both teams won big, and the Sox continued their two-game lead over the Yankees.

At least the night wasn't a total loss.