It’s No Surprise That Butler Delivers

Ah! opening day! Hearts are always happy. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, eyes are bright. Hope springs eternal. Balloons soar, doves fly, the spirits lift. Joy in Mudville. Casey won’t strike out this day.

Hearts and flowers. Don’t worry, be happy. Take me out to the ballgame, buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. An American tribal rite.

What could go wrong on such a sunny day? Every pitcher is Walter Johnson, every hitter Rogers Hornsby.

The home nine are the 1927 Yankees. Those other guys are only the world champions, but forget them. On opening day, all cats are gray. No one is the world champ opening day. Or everyone is.

The cry of the fan is heard in the air. “We’re wit’ you, Hideo, baby! Strike the bum out!” The corkscrew windup, the spin return, the ball seeming to come like an object falling off the Washington Monument keeps the hitters so off-balance they look like guys on a banana peel.

It’s opening day when dreams come true. “Cinderella” is a documentary.

Still, it’s a good thing the Dodgers clinched the pennant in March.

They did, didn’t they? I mean, those notices coming out of Florida indicated the season was only a formality. The Dodgers opened the season already 20 games in the lead. They had the pitching, they had the hitting, they had the leadership. Why didn’t the rest of the league just mail it in?

I suppose they were the “on paper” champions of the universe. That’s a baseball cliche. You remember? Every year, some savant would decide the Cleveland Indians--or the Detroit Tigers--had the best team in the league “on paper.” In other words, they led in clippings. They had the gaudy figures, the glittering reputations. They led in ERAs, on-base averages, two-out rallies, third-base conversions or other esoteric statistics. Then the season would start. And the Yankees, as usual, would win.

It began to look as if the only thing the Dodgers would lead in, once the season started, would be left-on-base.

But, not to worry. That’s what opening days are for. To raise the spirits, renew the confidence, stifle the doubts.

Nomo was on the mound and, once again, the opposition could not tell where the ball was coming from. Or when. Nomo deals the ball like a riverboat gambler with his own deck and long sleeves. Arrival time is harder to count on than the U.S. mail.

When the ball finally does get there, you can’t hit it anyway. The batter with one foot in the bucket or, as Lefty Gomez said “one foot in the American Association,” ends up looking like a guy waiting for a bus. Nomo shut out the Atlanta Braves on three hits. And 115 pitches, most of them forkballs you need a tennis racket to hit.

Said Atlanta’s Chipper Jones after the game: “It’s fun to hit against him. If you just make contact with one of his pitches, you’re happy. You don’t know where it’s coming from.”

Rival pitcher Tom Glavine put in: “He probably didn’t have his best stuff, still he pitched a shutout. That tells you all you need to know about his maturity.”

But if you’re looking for the other reason the Dodgers won the home opener--well, the Butler did it. As usual.

Brett Butler is a pest. No pitcher in the league wants to see him up there. He’s like a mosquito in a hot room.

First of all, he makes the pitcher work. Brett swings at the first pitch only if he thinks he can hit a home run off it. And his season homer total last year was one. He likes to lay off the pitcher’s best pitch and wait for the mistake.

He was at bat in the third inning of a scoreless game opening day. He put Glavine in a hole with a two-balls, no-strike count. Butler noticed the third baseman and shortstop creeping in. They play Butler to bunt in that situation, no one on base, one out.

Butler spotted the outside fastball. He slapped it carefully between the drawn-in fielders and into left field.

He took second on a Mike Piazza single to right. Then he scored on a Raul Mondesi single to right. It was the game’s only run.

In the third inning, Atlanta made noises when the leadoff man, Marquis Grissom, with one out, drew a base on balls. He stole second, drawing a wild throw from Dodger catcher Piazza.

The throw went into center field where Butler corralled it. The base stealer, Grissom, took off for third. Butler threw him out. Contribution Two to victory.

In the ninth inning, Atlanta had a runner on third with two outs. The batter, Javier Lopez, hammered a long drive to deep left-center. Butler had to track it as much as chase it. He made a typical Butler catch to end the game.

In the locker room later, Butler recapped the day. On the throw that got Grissom at third, he was whimsical. “I was surprised he did that [got up and ran to third] with only one out. Now, I don’t have a Raul Mondesi arm. But he challenged my popgun arm. I threw him out and the throw took only one bounce!”

On the game-ending fly, Butler brought the cerebral to it. “I played deep. With a guy on third, he scores on a hit anyway, and I know that, on a day like this, a day game in the hot sun, the ball carries. At night, it dies sooner. The ball was long and tailing away. If I’m not playing deep, I don’t get it.”

That’s why the Dodgers keep a Butler in their household.

It was the 35th opening day for Dodger Stadium. The first one didn’t have such a happy ending. That was April 10, 1962, and all I remember is Cincinnati beating the Dodgers, 5-2, on a home run by Wally Post. It went between the flagpoles in dead center and was rising when it went out. “Uh oh,” we thought, “an easy park to hit a home run in.”

Hardly. That was the last home run I ever saw hit there, and they even moved the fences in five feet a few years later to encourage the long ball.

But that’s the kind of thing you remember about opening days. Nobody ever remembers anything about closing days.