April 9: Mets Opener a Joke Some day the Mets may carry to the moon the message that they have to be seen to be disbelieved. They continually manage to prevail in the face of adversities that would discourage less stout-hearted fellows. It is beginning to appear that no matter what set of conditions are set up to enable the Mets to break the barrier of winning an opening game, they manage to rise up, bust through and embrace defeat. There comes a time for anybody when enough ought to be enough. Yesterday was the time for them to strike a blow against all Mets sick jokes. All right, so they had established themselves as baseball's favorite stumble bums, the Hoboken jokes of the playing field who would get instant laughs even for night-time television comedians. All right, so they had managed to lose in the first inning, in the ninth inning, in almost any which way on opening day. Yesterday was to be the day because the baseball world had seemingly interceded in their behalf. It having become evident that the Mets were still a long way from ever being as good as the other teams, baseball had rectified that by expanding and providing an opponent watered down to the Mets' level. So the Mets finally figured to win an opener. And even if they lost (which was possible, as Mets manager Gil Hodges knew when he said before the game, "On any given day any team in baseball can beaat any other team,") it just didn't seem possible they could lose by getting themselves involved in another one of those "damndest-games-you-ever-saw" kind of spectacles that so often have been the mark of Mets disasters. They just couldn't do something like that again. No way. They just couldn't but they did. Another epic game, another epic loss. An 11-10 loss in three hours and 35 minutes to a team that wasn't in existence last September. And Montreal manager Gene Mauch said, "Damndest opening game I've ever seen." The game broke the international barrier for big-league baseball. The game gave the hope to other foreign ports that when they join the big league baseball constellation--thereby making the World Series a true "World Series"--the Mets will be there to provide memorable debuts for them. To put it another way, it means that people in Mexico City, Havana, Buenos Aires and Japan will have to wait in line for a crack at the Mets. The game was televised on both the French and English-speaking networks throughout Canada. It went to people in Saskatoon and Guelph; places like Marinated Moose in the Yukon that may never have seen a baseball game -- or at least the Mets -- before. The game may have been telecast to places that haven't yet gotten out of winter darkness. After one look at the Mets, the Auroror Borealis may have become a bore. Sudden Thought No. 1: The Mets might not win an opening game if it were played on the North Pole. The Expos, brightly clad in quartered caps and blue-tinted uniforms -- red, white and sacre bleu if yesterday's action is any kind of hint of things to come -- took a 2-0 lead in the first inning. The Mets went ahead, 3-2, in the second, lost the lead in the third, fell behind, 4-3, and went ahead, 6-4, in the fourth. The Expose tied, 6-6, in the sixth, went ahead, 7-6, in the seventh and, 11-6 in the eighth. Great day for Canada and all that; gloom and doom and ignominy for the Mets. Owner Mrs. Charles Shipman Payson can't stand it: she leaves the arena. Mrs. Payson isn't half the Mets fan that Karl Ehrhardt is. Ehrhardt, The Little Old Sign Maker, is a 43-year-old package designer from Glen Oaks who comes to the park with a library of artistic message signs, flashing them with devilishly irreverent wit at appropriate times. He stays for the wildest fun. When the Expos go ahead, 7-6, Ehrhardt's sign reads: "RELAX, ENJOY THE INEVITABLE." When Eddie Kranepool strikes out, the sign is "BIG STIFF." When Hodges reaches for Ron Swoboda as a pinch hittter with the Mets behind, 7-6, and two men on base, the sign reads: "THINK BIG." When Swoboda hits into a double play, it's "GOOD GRIEF." When the Mets are behind, 11-6, in the ninth inning and put two men on base with one out, Ehrhardt flashes, "BIG DEAL." But suddenly it is a big deal and the joint is jumping as Duffy Dyer hits a three-run homer to make it 11-10. When the next two Mets reach base, it puts the tying run on second base with two out. It's time to say, "Anything can happen in baseball but only after there are two out in the ninth inning." Sudden Thought No. 2: The Canadian viewers must be thinking that baseball makes hockey look like a tame sport. With visions of zaniness to end all zaniness in everybody's head, Rod Gaspar then strikes out and Shea Stadium deflates. Ehrhardt's last sign: "SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?" Sudden Thought No. 3: The Mets might win a pennant before they ever win an opening game.
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1. The Amazing Mets 
