Baseball begins minus June swoons and roar from the crowd

After taking a two-handed baseball swing and blasting the fuzzy yellow ball onto a neighbor’s short porch, Hanks’ character Rick Gassko flips his racket as if it were a Louisville Slugger, thrusts both hands into the air and — this part is important — imitates the roar of a baseball crowd.

“Yes! Cleveland wins the pennant!”

The Indians could benefit from a multitude of Rick Gasskos Friday when they host Kansas City on Opening Day of a baseball season that will be unlike any other. For starters, it will be on July 24, owing to a virus sporting Bob Feller’s jersey number.

On July 24 of last season, the Indians were 59-42 and trailed the upstart Minnesota Twins by two games in the AL Central. The Royals were 39-64 and 23 games in arrears of portly utility man Willians Astudillo and his Twin Cities teammates.

One of the residuals of COVID-19, besides the imminent health threat — Astudillo was among the Twins who tested positive this month — is that it has compacted the schedule into something resembling an American Legion docket — 60 games, and better hope the starting shortstop can get off work for the weekend series against Post 007, or its MLB doppelganger, the Miami Marlins.

So no June swoons this season.

The pennant races will begin in July. On an Opening Day without spectators.

Catching a buzz

No ambient crowd noise, no soothing background buzz between pitches. At least not the organic kind. Most teams instead are planning to pipe in simulated crowd clatter, like college football coaches do during practice before playing Clemson in Death Valley.

So there will be no spontaneous reaction when Cleveland wins the pennant, or even Game 1 of 60.

“Part of what makes those so special is the reaction of the people at the ballpark,” Aviators broadcaster Jerry Reuss said of Opening Day and the season’s other red-letter days — the advent of spring training, the Fourth of July (when there were doubleheaders), the All-Star Game, the day your team clinches a playoff berth and pops its cork.

“All of that is going to be missing this year.”

Having won 220 games over 22 big league seasons, Reuss has witnessed a plethora of Opening Days and Nights wearing a flannel, pinstriped or double-knit jersey. Or, when he was with the White Sox and the wind was blowing off Lake Michigan, a parka.

In three, he was named his team’s starting pitcher — a cherished honor for those who toss high, hard ones. He would get a fourth Opening Day assignment for the Pirates, when Dock Ellis injured his hand. (At least that’s what Dock, who famously pitched a no-hitter on LSD, told reporters.)

Spring flings

“One thing I liked playing with the Dodgers is Opening Day was just that — it was a day game and it brought a crowd and the anticipation building up to it,” Reuss said from his home in Henderson. “Everything was in bloom. You saw a lot of people you hadn’t seen since the last game of the season the previous year.”

Opening Day, he said, is “more than just a game. It’s a renewal.”

It even felt reassuring in Pittsburgh “the first day we wore those pinstripe uniforms and those ugly (expletive) hats,” Reuss recalled of one Opening Day on which he thought the three rivers for which the stadium was named might turn into a trio of frozen ponds.

So when the man in blue at long last bellows “Play Ball!” I would just pretend that Roy Hobbs is coming up with the bases loaded with the light standard in right field beckoning. Have your pencil and scorecard ready, as they used to say in Chicago. Invite your neighbor over and have him spill a beer on your shoes from a safe social distance.

It won’t quite be the same as Opening Day with spectators. It could always be worse.

If this were April, it might still be snowing in Pittsburgh, and you might be wearing an ugly (expletive) hat.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.