Pinch Hitter Lacks Power

A bit of the magic went out of Opening Day last week when we had to place Thing 1 on the disabled list.

She woke at 3 a.m., crying and moaning. Fever. Headache. Pain in the pee department and up into the plumbing.

It’s no fun having a urinary track infection as an adult, so I’m sure it was worse for an 11-year-old girl. But there are worse and more embarrassing reasons to go on the DL. Just ask former Mets flop Kaz Matsui, whose “injury” may or may not have given a double meaning to his being a switch hitter.

Not that there’s any thing wrong with that.

It was strange being at my first Opening Day without my baby girl in tow since 1999, but her little brother stepped up his game and was nearly perfect.

No complaining about the cold, damp weather.

No whining that he was bored or that he wanted to go home.

Shut off which ever of the 67 different Pokémon games he has for his Nintendo DS the first time I asked while we waited for lunch, then put it away and never brought it out again until the ride home many hours later after the game finished and we toured the gift shops and Mets Hall of Fame exhibit. (Yeah, yeah -- it was a pretty small  exhibit.)

As we sat watching the rather lackluster play of the Mets, he listened politely as I prattled on about the no-doubles infield defense and seemed genuinely interested as I demonstrated how to make a rally cap when his team stood four runs down in the ninth.

“Dude, we need more than rally caps,” I said to him as our home team batters continued to flail meekly at the Washington Nationals’ pitches. “You need to conjure up all the special Pokémon powers you can to make the Mets score some runs and get them a victory!”

“Dad,” he said back without missing a beat, “I don’t think there’s ANY power for that.”