“Baseball in the Boroughs”
The Introduction
Greetings, hello, hola, hey, ciao, howdy, hi, welcome, a good morning to you all and salutations. My name is Kurt Anthony Schnatz from Long Island, NY and I’m going to attempt to entice you by providing a fresh look at baseball over the next seven or so months. I will do this with information, insight, entertainment and a week by week Major League Baseball analysis for two of the most prominent teams in the Professional League. The twenty-seven time champion, New York Yankees and the foe on the east side of this great city, the ever so feisty New York Mets. The attempt is to be a one of a kind for your reading pleasure while you pass a few minutes at work, not doing your agenda for the day, or maybe you’re the boss and you just gave out the agenda of the day to your employees and now you’ve closed the door to your beautiful office and need time to re-group, or lastly maybe you’re the guy who sits at home from work on disability, probably faking it. Who knows and I don’t care, as long as you can enjoy a decent read, you’re “okay” in my book. That’s my mission…to ensure you with a solid and amusing read.
I love baseball and have all my life. I enjoy reading and watching the history of baseball and understanding how it was back in the day and what it has become in the new Millennium. From the inception of the National League in 1876 spanning through two World Wars and encompassing towards another century you realize looking back, this sport is a part of our American history in so many ways. Remarkable to think of recreation being so important and entertaining to the masses that had the chance to experience it back then for what it was and now for what baseball continues to be. Sure it’s changed, but so has everything around us. Nevertheless, nine athletes take the field, nine innings are set to be played and if you get three outs it’s time to switch sides.
My connection to baseball began early in life, throwing the ball around my front yard with my father and siblings. I remember my sister teach me how to bat lefty and righty just like my favorite player could do. In 1986, at six years-old my memories of the “bad guys” (Mets), World Series run and win was one of the greatest pieces of entertainment I’ve ever seen in my life. I remember that wonderful night in October when my grandfather and the rest of my family chewing on popcorn inning after inning and having that popcorn bowl eventually fly across the room as Jesse Orosco threw his glove in the air. I can also recall the best series I’ve probably ever seen since then. It was in 2001 (I know it’s hard to think about that year Yankee fans, but a huge compliment is soon to follow) when the Diamondbacks stunned the Yankees. However, that series was amazing for different reasons then in 86’…it was, and is the real definition of why baseball, in my mind is so fantastic and heart-pounding especially in New York. Take the series as a whole. Every pitch was so important. Every inning had a twist. Every game was unreal and unbelievable. I would come home later that night after the final out of each game and even though I was a die-hard Pirate fan I would mutter to myself “wow, what a great game…such excitement”. That series also known as the “November Series” featured two extra-inning games and three late-inning comebacks. It was also amazing for the fact that I got to experience it in a bar with those rowdy Yankee fans that never give up, or shut down, or dare to go home and why should they? The Yankees are the most historic team in all of American sports. I’m sorry, I’m not taking sides here in New York it’s just the statistical truth. This is where I stand, in the middle, unbiased. Facts are facts and the most important stat is that these two teams play to the likes of the fine people in these five boroughs and truthful enough that love and admiration spreads across the entire United States. The Mets and Yankees are interesting, respected and appreciated in many ways by millions and millions of people.
To be very honest with you all, I’ve fell on some tough times over the past 18 seasons, which you can and should laugh as much as you want, for it adds up to more than half of my life. This heartache I experience is a result of my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates. They have been God awful. You all know this already about the Pirates and I hear your laugh continuously yacking while I write this. Unless of course you forgot the “Buccos” were still considered a Professional Baseball team, I would then understand completely. Don’t worry, I’ve been trying to think that way myself and Wally Backman is the one to thank for all this pain, but we’ll talk more on that in the future.
Luckily, I live in New York where the “Evil Empire” resides and the Mets try their hardest to thrive…far back, separate, in the distance…on the east side of the many NY bridges.
So with all that said, it has been a dream of mine to write for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but then I thought, who in the hell would read it? Even the residents in the Steel City would crumple it up to start their fires for the cold winters’ as they watch the Steelers win. Regardless, the louder the fans the bigger stage, and we all collectively know the most excitement is here, in New York with the Mets and the Yankees.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know you bastards can’t stand or even bare to hear about each other’s teams like the Cubs and the White Sox fans or Superman vs. Lex Luthor, Tom and Jerry, Donkey Kong and Mario, Auburn and Alabama, Seinfeld and Newman, and the funniest rival or love/hate relationship in the past hundred years Ron Burgundy and Wes Mantooth…you get my point. So if you want to skip the Met piece Yankee fan, skip it. If you want to scroll as quick as you can past the Yankees piece Mets fan, then do it. My goal is for you to be intrigued enough to read it all. I’m doing something different here. I take no sides, impartial…neutral most would say and most important, I enjoy watching both teams religiously. I do this for the love I have for America’s true past time. Maybe, just maybe you’ll have an extra two minutes in your day to read it all.
Enough about me, I’m not that interesting but I did think it was important to know a bit about who I am and what I’m about. The good thing is that you’ll never have to read this again. With that, let us now get down to business.
THE PLAN
PART 1
First and foremost I will write to you like a real person, a fellow human. There is no filter, no FCC, no cowboy hat wearing CEO type looking over my shoulder or some greasy haired “suit” out-stretching his money clip caring about what some thirty year-old writes about New York baseball or MLB as a whole. It will be real, fresh, and statistical being more or less a fact based objective analysis. The piece will have some opinionated points, but nothing as ridiculous as what you read everyday in any world-wide newspaper.
Every week I will take a football type approach to New York baseball. Monday mornings, I will unveil my review of the Mets and Yankees previous week on how they fared against the competition. Then I’ll take a look ahead at the upcoming week’s schedule. Past and Future…no gimmicks, no politics, no New York wild journalism type propaganda and no hidden agenda. I don’t care, never did care and never will care what is said or done by a particular player off the field. That to me is not baseball news that is celebrity news and I’ll leave that to the paid writers who all share the same subject every single day and use the same quotes in all four of the NY papers. This is simply all about the game.
Baseball in the Boroughs…it’s about New York. It’s a week by week analysis for your reading pleasure, because sometimes that’s all we can take.
PART 2
After the short write-ups on both NY squads, I will give a short evaluation/breakdown on the subject of fantasy baseball. After the Mets piece, I’ll do the National League and obviously after the Yankees piece, I’ll go over the American League, all in three segments.
- Who Killed It? (Top player or players over the past week)
- Who Thrilled It? (Amazing game winners or clutch players through that week)
- Who’s on Deck? (A list of players who I think should have a “sick” week ahead)
Short, sweet and to the point. A ton of people love the fantasy world, as do I. I compare my experience or life of fantasy baseball to the way I play golf. It’s fun, strategic and it passes time quite nicely…however, it can also make you curse up a storm and make your blood pressure rise through the roof with one bad swing or in the fantasy world, with one bad click of the mouse. Don’t get me wrong I’m no Talented Mr. Roto.
PART 3
Next will be a segment I like to call, Adam Hammer’s “Loose Lips”: A quote(s) from Hammer a fellow fan of the baseball scene. Just like myself, he will have no filter (what so ever) and I’m sure he will make you cringe a few times throughout the year. His sense of humor is an odd one, but that’s why he’s got loose lips in the first place. He will comment on baseball whether it is about New York’s teams or Bud Selig himself. Sadly, ESPN is changing their Sunday Night announcers this year as he would have had a field day with those sorry bastards. Nonetheless Hammer will talk, kind of like a weekly “tweet”, but certainly not nearly as ridiculous as the act of tweeting is or sounds.
PART 4
Following “Loose Lips” will be another short piece that will be renewed and revised every week for your best interest.
- Best Series You Just Missed (Telling a tale about the best 3 or 4 game series you just missed in the past week that most New Yorkers probably missed. I’ll give you a quick synopsis of the games and why it was such a great match-up.)
- Best Series for You to Catch (The next upcoming series that should prove to be the best baseball of the week ahead determined by the history between the two teams and most likely the pitching match-ups.)
PART 5
Finally, every week will end with “Last Quip” by Doctor KAS…who knows how well this will translate from my mind to paper, but it’s sure to put a nice period on the piece as a whole. This will deal with current events, useless knowledge or thoughts from the mind of a maniac, oh and baseball of course.
· I’d like to thank you for your time right off the bat, and hope I enticed your interest in joining me throughout this 162 game season of baseball. Hopefully written in a different way than you are used to reading in the past. Like I stated earlier, if you happen to be a Met fan and want to skip the Yankee part please do so and visa-versa of course. Hopefully the piece as a whole will be intriguing enough for you to want to read it all.
· I would also like to invite you to email me at boroughbaseball@gmail.com to join the mailing list and ask any questions you feel the need to ask. I will also be open to read any comments good or bad so I would be able to grow to better suit my “audience”. As I have stated earlier this is a fun little piece for a big stage. I’m here to help you pass time, get some interesting insight on the game and have a few laughs talking about millionaires that get to play the greatest sport for a living. The official first issue of the season will be posted March 28th 2011 and I hope to continuously seek your interest and bond with you through typed words on a computer screen. For added interest next week (3/23 -3/26) I'll be posting preseason predictions.
*Next Issue out March 23th 2011
(Preseason)
…a look into the future
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