Sports

All teams start off tied for first place

Cougar pause

Tom Carpenter

Opening day for major league baseball fizzled like a sparkler instead of booming like a cannon shot as in previous season openers.

By canceling the Oakland Ais-versus-Seattle Mariners opener in Tokyo for security reasons and inviting a former president to throw out the first pitch instead of the sitting president at another game, professional baseball kept a low profile with the season openers that reflected Americansi preoccupation with the war in Iraq.

But not even a war can tarnish the high hopes of every team in April, or the excitement that the start of the baseball season creates in die-hard fans. 

For a few weeks at least, each major league baseball team gets to dream about winning the 2003 World Series. On opening day, every team is tied for first place in its division and in the thick of a pennant race.

Then ugly reality sets in for the bargain basement teams such as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, whose roster boasts 17 players earning baseballis minimum salary of $300,000 per year.

Not even new manager Lou Piniella can stop the Devil Raysi slow spiral into last place, which begins with their season opener against the Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox are the favorites to dethrone the Yankees in the American League East. A $178 million payroll will buy the Yankees another division title and a trip to the play-offs, but not the World Series. 

Yankee strongman Roger Clemens takes the mound for a record-tying 13th opening-day start when the Yankees open their season in Toronto. Clemensi performance puts him into the record book alongside the legendary Washington Senators pitcher Walter "Big Train"Johnson and former Detroit Tiger Jack Morris.

The skinflint Cincinnati Reds boast a new stadium with a patriotic name, the Great American Ballpark, and a healthy Ken Griffey Jr., but the experts pick the Reds to finish fourth in the NL Central behind the St. Louis Cardinals, the Chicago Cubs and the Houston Astros.

With Sammy Sosa aiming for home run No. 500 in his first at bat and Dusty Baker taking the Cubsi helm after leading the Giants to the World Series, the heartbreak Cubs assume the heavy mantle of the dark horse favorite in the NL Central division.

The NL Central could provide the most hotly contested division race in the major leagues with three, possibly four, teams fighting for the division.

The defending World Series champion Anaheim Angels lost their season opener to the revamped Texas Rangers, dropping behind the Oakland in the American League West right out of the chute. 

The Angels might as well enjoy the view, because if the experts are right Oakland will take the fall classic against the potent Arizona Diamondbacks of the NL West.

Pitching dominates, and no staff in the majors boasts two starters equal to five-time Cy Young Award winner Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.

Slugger Jim Thome followed the money trail to Philadelphia and made the usually woebegone Phillies instant contenders in the NL East; but look for the megabuck Atlanta Braves to capture their zillionth NL East title in as many years.

In what could prove to be one of the toughest division races, the Chicago White Sox will fight it out with the Minnesota Twins for the AL Central title.

Ten new managers; 280 seats on top of the Green Monster at Fenway Park; former Japanese slugger, now Yankee slugger, Hideki Matsui; and the oldest hot dog in baseball, Pete Rose, guarantee that this season will be filled with controversy and excitement.

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