2nd Pitch...the NL

HOU @ NYM: 1962 was a great season for baseball in the National League, especially if you were a fan in SF or LA. If you were a fan in Houston or New York you were just happy to have a major league team...if you can call it that. Both the Mets and the Colt 45's were victims of the Angels success in 1961. Existing ownership was not about to allow these new entries the ability to draft decent players and contend. Knowing that not much was out there for the taking Houston came up with the idea of drafting players that might pay dividends in the future. Since the Houston area was getting it's first exposure to MLB the fans were just excited to have a team. This gave Houston's ownership time to build their club and their fan base. New York's ownership did not have that same luxury. Staring them right in the face a mile across the Harlem River was the 10,000 lb gorilla known as the New York Yankees. The Mets knew that they couldn't compete with the Yankees on the field, but they knew that they could compete with them in the heart's and souls of the New York fan. New Yorkers love an underdog, and this franchise was going to be just that underdog. For 4 years New York was without NL baseball, when both the Giants and Dodgers abandoned "the city" in tandem to go out west and reap the benefits of free ballparks, huge fan bases and no Robert Moses. The Mets plan was simple: collect every old Dodger, Giant and Yankee in the expansion draft and have a traveling Old Timers day show on the field to bring back the fans that were disenfranchised. It worked ! The Mets weren't just bad, they were the worst team ever, but they out drew the Yankees who won the World Series ! They played in the dilapidated Polo Grounds in Manhattan and had Casey Stengel making people laugh, while the team dropped 120 games. "Can anyone here play this game" ? Casey, I'm pretty sure the answer was no !

BSN @ MON: In 1952 the Braves had just about had it in Boston. The Red Sox owned the town and the B's couldn't draw more than 5,000 (if lucky) to their games. Only 4 years earlier the franchise won the NL pennant, but they never built upon that success and the franchise just sunk to the bottom of the NL, where they had pretty much been for the previous 30 years. During the season there was speculation that the franchise would move, but nobody believed it since no team had moved in the past 50 years. The Braves actually had the nucleus of a contender right under their nose. Warren Spahn was well on his way to a HOF career. Eddie Mathews had a brilliant rookie campaign to start his HOF career, and a young rookie named Henry Aaron was signed from the Negro leagues and sent to Boston's farm team. Things were happening...just not fast enough to keep the franchise in Beantown. Montreal had been the Dodgers farm team for years. Greats like Jackie Robinson passed through this town, which always embraced baseball. Tommy Lasorda had a wonderful minor league career in Montreal. In 1969 the NL added two new team and the Expos were the first franchise north of the border added. From day 1 the franchise would be under financed and under appreciated. Their first star would be Rusty Staub, simply know as Le Grande Orange. Expo fans loved Rusty almost as much as they loved that rinky dink Jarry Parc. Fans came out to watch the team play during the summer months, but the cold springs and falls posed a huge problem. The Expos would win their first ever game 11-10 over the Mets @ Shea. Coco Laboy and Mack Davis would have big season at the bat for Le Expos.

COL @ ARI: Early on the Rox learned that hitting the long ball would be the key to the franchises success. Having guys like Vinny Castilla, Andres Galarraga and Dante Bichette in their lineup would bring the franchise instant credibility. In fact they would make the post season in their 3rd season as a Wild Card team under Don Baylor. Unfortunately for the Rox they were pitching starved. This would be a challenge for the franchise going forward. Playing their first 2 campaigns in Mile High Stadium the fans were subjected to one of the worst multi-purpose stadiums in professional sports. It was fun to watch the left field grandstand move in and out on wheels prior to and after games. The D-backs had a plan. The plan was to take on whatever veteran ballplayers they could get that other teams could not afford. While that did not pay immediate dividends on the field in their first season, it did work out quite nicely in year two as the team almost won 100 games and won the NL West. In season #4 they defeated the Yankee dynasty to win the quickest ever championship by an expansion team in baseball. Since day one they've played their home games in the retractable domed stadium simply known as "The BOB". The naming rights have changed a few times over the past decade, but the ballpark still features the pool in the bleachers and the dirt path between the mound and the plate.

NYG @ LAD: Horace Greely said, "Go West Young Man". Horace Stoneham and Walter O'Malley took his words to heard and did just that with their respective baseball franchises when both abandoned NYC for California in 1958. The 1957 Giants limped home to mediocrity in their final campaign in the Big Apple. If not for an all world season by Willie Mays the team could have lost well over 100 games. Stoneham new he was moving and looked to build for the future, when he traded Red Schoendienst to the Braves in mid season. Bobby Thomson came back for one final go round to appease the fans. The pitching fell apart almost as fast as the aging Polo Grounds and the neighborhood surrounding it. By August the team was virtually eliminated and Stoneham announced his move. The Polo Grounds became an empty cavern and the team just really fell apart. Not exactly a great swan song for a once proud franchise. The Dodgers arrived in LA amid much fanfare. The city of Angels was not only getting major league baseball, but they were getting the pre-eminent franchise in Baseball. Since 1941 the Dodgers had won 7 pennant and 1 World Championship. In fact they finished no lower than 3rd place since 1947. Fans expected to get a top notch team. They expected the Boys of Summer, but what they got was the Old men of Spring. Those great teams from Brooklyn had hit the wall. Hodges and Snider were still in their primes, but Reese was done, Campy was the victim of a near fatal car crash that rendered him paralyzed and the pitching staff was in transition. The mainstays of Newcombe, Erskine and Labine were just about done and the young guns Drysdale, Koufax and Podres were on the rise, but not dominant yet. Couple all this with the fact that the Dodgers were forced to play in the LA Coliseum, which was a football stadium posing as a ballpark, so anything could happen. What did happen was Snider was robbed of all his power since the Coliseum was built for righties and the chain link fence in right field was much further than the cozy wall in Ebbets field. This first season in LA gave the fans in Brooklyn something to laugh about. LA got their "old" team. The Dodgers weren't going to be down for long and in their second season in LA the "old guard" and the "young guns" combined to win the franchises 2nd World Championship. What took over 65 years to do in Brooklyn took only 2 in LA, but that still didn't change the fact that in a city based on entertainment, their opening act in 1958 flat out stunk.