A chilly opening day for Tribe New park, hopes for Pirates

If baseball were golf, the Cleveland Indians would be asking for a Mulligan -- another shot at a game better scratched than scored -- for yesterday's season-opening loss. In beating the Tribe 7-4 behind the strong pitching of David Wells, the Chicago White Sox -- the team that stopped the Indians' streak of Central Division titles last year -- showed that nothing had been forgotten over the winter.
Of course, losing the first game of the season isn't the end of the world, but it's an inauspicious start for a team that needs a lot more excitement if it plans to pack Jacobs Field this year.
Expectations: After Jacobs Field opened on April 4, 1994, it took only one season before the team made the play-offs -- for the first time since 1948. But after watching their team make it to the post-season for the following five years, Cleveland fans expected such success to continue. So the failure to make the play-offs last year made this the first opening day out of eight, that all the Tribe seats weren't gone before the season started.
The 42,606 -- still a sell-out crowd, the team's 455th at the Jake -- who attended the game saw young Juan Gonzalez smack two home runs and Sandy Alomar play his first game in 11 years not wearing an Indians' shirt. They also saw the Tribe leaving four men on base and Bartolo Colon turning in a less-than-sterling performance. But one swallow doesn't make a summer, and one game doesn't make a season.
Fortunately for the Pirates, the first two games -- both losses to the Mets -- played in brand new PNC Park over the weekend didn't count. Instead, they were the last games of the exhibition season. But they did give Pirates fans an opportunity to revel in the luxury of baseball's newest stadium, located on Pittsburgh's North Side.
Real grass: Pirates fans don't have the same level of expectation as Cleveland fans. Of course, they'd like to see their team return to its glory days. But many are just happy to watch the Bucs play on a real baseball field with real grass instead of the half-football, half-baseball artificial turf at their erstwhile home, Three Rivers Stadium.
By April 9, the Pirates official home opener, any little glitches discovered in the park over last week-end should be fixed. Any big glitches discovered in the team will probably take longer to fix.
Baseball is still America's national pastime, even if it has become an expensive pastime. It's probably fortunate that getting tickets for both the Pirates and Indians won't be easy this year, so that the average family can have plenty of time to save for a trip to the ballpark.