The Red Sox brought back 20 members of the 1975 team to Fenway Park on Friday for the club’s home opener. Baseball HOFer Carl Yastrzemski was “escorted to the mound for the first pitch by several of his teammates.” The Red Sox home opener was a “complete success” with a 13-9 victory against the Cardinals before a sellout crowd of 36,462 (BOSTON GLOBE, 4/4). Yastrzemski, the “greatest living Red Sox player, led the soldiers of ‘75 across the left field lawn” in a pre-game ceremony, which included a “moving video montage honoring the late Luis Tiant." The ceremony “boosted the spirits of an aging Red Sox Nation” (BOSTON GLOBE, 4/5).
The Mets home opener at Citi Field on Friday “felt and sounded like” games in October, the crowd “boisterous and bawdy, the baseball crisp, the mood ebullient” (N.Y. POST, 4/4). The Mets drew a sellout crowd of 43,945, though the home opener is “not a true test,” as it “sells out every year.” The attendance for Saturday’s game against the Blue Jays was 37,694, which is about 5,000 more than what the Mets got for their second home game of 2024. The team is “expecting about 40,000″ today for what they are calling “Kids Opening Day” as they “introduce Family Sundays, which feature ticket offers for four starting at $50, pregame entertainment outside the stadium in Mets Plaza and what the club is calling ‘family-focused activities’ throughout the ballpark.” This comes amid Mets owner Steve Cohen’s push for better attendance (NEWSDAY, 4/6). Lifelong Mets fan John “JC” Cannon was honored at Citi Field Friday for “attending each of the ballclub’s home openers for the past 50 years,” and he brought 24 family members along to “commemorate the occasion” (N.Y. POST, 4/4).
The Giants rang in Oracle Park’s 25th anniversary on Friday, but for the first time in the Giants’ 67-year history in S.F., they opened a baseball season “in a world without Willie Mays or Orlando Cepeda." The team has had “no trouble filling the place in the quarter century,” and that was with another the A’s in Oakland. But for the first time since 1968, the Bay Area is a “one-team market again” (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 4/6).
During the Pirates home opener on Friday at PNC Park, fans arrived “looking to send a message to their club’s ownership, and as the game unfolded, their point was made loud and clear.” Manager Derek Shelton along with a few players “were booed while being introduced.” The booing “continued during the game.” On “more than one occasion, fans began a ‘sell the team’ chant.” The Pirates have a “clear problem on their hands,” as the team has “continued to fail in areas it said would be better throughout the entire preseason” (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 4/4).
