Tuesday, September 15, 2009

(4) Comments

New York Mets 2010 Opener And Passover

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I'm out of my knowledge base here, but I will take the comment below at face value (jmp is a regular commenter both on and off the blog) and assume the facts are correct.   Y'all might want to make a big deal (Craig Carton I'm looking at you).  Both the NFL and MLB have been more sensitive about making changes around holy days.

jmp has left a new comment on your post "Mets Open 2010 With - - A Day Game?!?!?!?!?":


April 5th? That's awful!

The 5th and 6th are the 7th and 8th days of Passover, which means that no observant Jews can make it to opening day in 2010, as the 7th and 8th days are festival days. If they were opening on the road, there would be no issue.
 Moreover, they seem to have done away with the practice of having a day game for the second game of the season -- which would be after Passover is over, allowing those of us who observe Jewish holidays to attend.

And here I'd been hoping to be able to take my older son out of school early to take him to opening day. I guess I'll have to wait until that game against the Dodgers on the 28th for a special father-son day...

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4 Responses to "New York Mets 2010 Opener And Passover"
Julia's Rants said :
September 15, 2009 at 6:55 PM
Hmm...taking your son out of school to go to a baseball game? So school isn't important? What message are you sending your son? Why don't you try this one - school is important - we'll go to a game when you don't have to miss it. Yes - I am a parent - 2 teenaged sons - and the only time I've taken them out of school is when my mom died and they missed one day for the funeral. That's important. Baseball game (and I am a HUGE baseball fan) not important enough to miss school. Be a good dad and send the right message - an education before all.
Anonymous said :
September 15, 2009 at 8:45 PM
Seems to me that jmp is sending a message that spending time with his son IS important. Yes school is important, but we are talking one day here. Not a week. Not a month. One day. In this day and age when children see less of their parents then ever before, I would think tihs kind of bonding would be applauded, not criticized.

My Dad would take a day off from work every year to treat my brother and I to a day game mid week at Shea. I cherish those memories more than anything I ever did at school.

Oh and both my brother and I turned out fine thank you.
jmp said :
September 15, 2009 at 10:05 PM
To clarify slightly, my son is three, and his school day ends at noon. If I take him out of school 10-15 minutes early, we can make it to our seats in time for the first pitch. For opening day, I'd try for a few minutes earlier than that so that he could see the player introductions. When he gets older, I plan to be more sparing with taking him out of school, but at an age at which school consists mostly of various forms of supervised play, I don't feel that I'm putting him at a deficit.

As for leagues being sensitive to holy days, I don't expect too much tweaking of schedules, as the Jewish holidays can get very hard to schedule around, but a little work goes a long way. The worst that MLB ever did was managing to schedule two Mets playoff games on Yom Kippur in 1986 (the latter of which got rained out and postponed to the following day -- one of the only times over the last 25 years that it rained in NYC on Yom Kippur).

The fall holidays are the most difficult for the NFL in a year like this one, when there are holidays on 4 consecutive Sundays. Baseball season always overlaps with Passover at or near the beginning of the season and/or the fall holidays at or around post-season time. Because the fall holidays are 2 days a week for an entire month around September-October, it would be impossible to ask MLB not to schedule important games on any of the holidays. Game 1 of the 1986 World Series was on the second night of Sukkot (I remember several of us hanging out near the kitchen, where the kitchen staff had the game on when the rest of us couldn't touch a radio or TV), and Game 1 of the 2000 World Series was on the evening of Simchat Torah.

This, on the other hand, is different. Only the first two and last two days of Passover are festival days, when using a TV, radio, or computer (or going to a game) is prohibited, and in 2010, only the last two days of Passover overlap with the season. Would it have been that difficult for MLB's schedulers to make sure that the teams in the cities with the largest observant Jewish populations opened their seasons on the road? It's not as though the process of selecting the 50% of the teams that will open on the road is anything less than arbitrary (beyond the Reds always opening at home).

This is more MLB's shortsightedness than the Mets', but it's discouraging nonetheless...
Anonymous said :
September 15, 2009 at 10:40 PM
Spending time with your son IS Important but you don't do it during school days.

As for my Jewish friends, holiday observances are very important but ya know, miss a game once in awhile. It won't kill you.

We all miss a game once in awhile. I hope there won't be a bunch of people complaining to MLB about changing the schedule like they do with the NFL.

I understand wanting to see games but sometimes we have things that are going on that prohibit it. Just accept it as a part of life and keep moving along.

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