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Weather extends Pirates’ stay in Detroit

By John Mehno for The 4 min read
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PITTSBURGH — It was a cruel April Fool joke that was played on the Pirates.

They got extra time in Detroit.

Two of their first three scheduled games had to be postponed because of weather, including the Thursday opener and Saturday’s matinee.

So at 6:10 p.m. Sunday evening — about the time they should have been boarding their flight to Pittsburgh — they instead took the field for the back half of a day-night doubleheader against the Tigers.

That’s what happens when MLB opens its season in the last week of March in cities where winter is lingering beyond its official expiration date.

People start yelling that baseball has to do a better job of early-season scheduling, but there’s only so much that can be done.

There aren’t enough warm-weather places and domed stadiums to go around, so teams wind up making that jarring transition from six weeks of spring training in balmy Florida to a season that opens in frosty Michigan.

There’s more at work here than a shortage of Margaritaville-like climates and stadiums with lids, retractable and otherwise.

In 1984, MLB had the Pirates opening in San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with a stop in St. Louis on the way home. It was a 10-game trip. Even though the Pirates swept the series from the Dodgers, they didn’t do much against the Padres, Giants and Cardinals.

They came home with a 3-7 record. Nothing takes some steam out of the home opener quite like a home team with a .300 winning percentage.

So they roll the dice and bundle up. It gives MLB a chance to show off the line of officially-licensed parkas and ski hats. Players from the Dominican Republic can send a snowball selfie to the folks back home.

With the opening series, MLB created a real jackpot by scheduling interleague games for Detroit. The Pirates only make one trip there, so there’s no other alternative for rescheduling.

The day-night doubleheader is inconvenient for everyone. Does anyone think fans want to sit in a ballpark after sundown on Easter Sunday? It was very lonely when the second game ended.

They played the first one, cleared the ballpark, then started the second game.

The Pirates had a quick turnaround from the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader to the home opener against Minnesota, which started at 1:10 on Monday afternoon.

There was snow on the ground when the players arrived at PNC Park.

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Leave it to the NFL.

No sooner than the league gains clarity on the catch rule, it creates more confusion on helmet hits and the appropriate penalties.

Nobody wants to see gratuitous violence (except maybe Vontaze Burfict). Football is a mean and nasty game, played by people who have accepted the considerable risks, both short and long-term.

Now the NFL is trying to judge intent, and that’s a slippery slope. There are occasions when someone’s mean streak gets too wide and there is a deliberate attempt to injure. (Another parenthetical reference to the Bengals Burfict would seem to fit nicely here).

But most dangerous hits aren’t as clear. A player who is moving is trying to hit a moving target. The same thing happens in hockey. A player has no intention of making an illegal hit, but the movement of the recipient turns it into that.

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You already know that the Penguins intermission interviews on AT&T SportsNet are a chance for Dan Potash to remind everyone that he’s the players’ buddy.

The post-game interviews, which are broadcast to the crowd at PPG Paints Arena, turned into rallies a long time ago. Potash in the past has led an “M-V-P” cheer while ostensibly interviewing Evgeni Malkin.

So it’s not exactly Mike Wallace-type stuff, and that’s probably OK. It’s only sports.

But it gets just a little too syrupy when an exchange with Brian Rust ends with Potash’s exhortation, “Go get ’em, Rusty.”

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