Due to a 95% chance of rain, today’s opener between the Red Sox and the Rays has been postponed until tomorrow. So I’ll be stuck at work wearing my entirely office-inapporpriate Green Monster-green “Entering Fenway” t-shirt (”Love That Dirty Water” on the back) and my “Captain Fenway” Varitek hoodie. And of course, now I’ll have to wear the same get-up tomorrow. But hey, I’ll get to celebrate Opening Day twice! And the delay will give me an extra day to find my entire collection of Red Sox caps. (I remember putting them away somewhere “safe” in November. Apparently, that location was a little too safe.)

How are you celebrating this unofficial, unparalleled holiday? Are you going to catch the game? Let us know in the comments, and if you’ve uploaded pictures, leave us a link!

5:09 – Sorry gang, but it’s looking like my laptop is none too happy. Will try and take care of it and come back.

5:05 - Nothing much is happening in the game. But the New York Megamillion Jackpot is not over $135 million. Thought you’d like to know.

4:48 – I’m embarrassed. The Mets are down in Florida right now and the Mets fans have already begun a “Yankees Suck” chant. Way to shed that inferiority complex, fellas.

4:43 – It’s ludicrous how many Mets fans are there down in Florida. Santana gets through the Marlins lineup 1-2-3 and the crowd in Dolphin Stadium goes wild. What the hell?

4:41 – So here we go with Johan Santana throwing his first official pitches in a Met uniform. That changeup is just killer. Has a nice sink and tails away from the right handed hitter. Hanley matches up with Reyes toe-to-toe and strikes out as well.

4:37 – For all the crap we all give him about his defense, Hanley Ramirez just got a great jump and snagged a flyball that looked like it would drop in shallow left. Well played, sir. Well played.

4:36 – Beltran hit a weak bloop to center – Cody Ross dove for it, had it, then dropped it. So instead of the third out, now it’s second and third with two outs (Castillo walked earlier).

4:28 – Some weird people once said that the first at-bat of the season determines both teams’ fates for the entire year. Reyes just struck out on three pitches. Awesome.

4:20 – We’re twenty minutes into the broadcast. And I’ve already lost count of how many times the word “collapse” was used. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2008 New York Mets!

4:15 – OK, so it looks like we were able to fix the problem we were having with the site. Anyhow, here’s the starting lineup for both teams:

NY Mets:

1. Jose Reyes – SS

2. Luis Castillo – 2B

3. David Wright – 3B

4. Carlos Beltran – CF

5. Carlos Delgado – 1B

6. Angel Pagan – LF

7. Ryan Church – RF

8. Brian Schneider – C

9: Johan Santana – P

Florida Marlins:

1. Hanley Ramirez – SS

2. Dan Uggla – 2B

3. Mike Jacobs – 1B

4. Josh Willingham – LF

5. Cody Ross – RF

6. Jorge Cantu – 3B

7. Luis Gonzalez – RF

8. Matt “Mr. Misty May” Treanor – C

9. Mark Hendrickson – P

It pains me to write “Angel Pagan” in the #6 slot…

It’s incredible how much of a drop-off Jorge Cantu is when compared to Miguel Cabrera.

12:15pm: Today starting at 4pm EST, I’ll try and give this crazy “live blogging” thing a whirl and cover Johan Satana’s regular season debut as a New York Met when he takes on the rapscallion Florida Marlins.

So if you’re depressed that you’re at work or in class or whatever the devil it is that you do on a Monday and wish that you were, like me, at home wrapped in a blanket eating chocolate chip cookies with a cup of coffee, come on by to UmpBump at 4 pm EST.

PS: Did you ever think you’d see the day when Mark Hendrickson will have “Opening Day Starter” on his resum

I’m not one to pick a fight. Whenever the editor of a newspaper for which I don’t work for comes over to my cubicle screaming obscenities as to why the Internet is jacked up, I look down, blush red in anger, and bite my lip.

Loyal UmpBump readers know that I rarely have a bone to pick with anyone (well, except Jay Mariotti, but who doesn’t?!)

But this morning, as I unfolded the sports section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution I came across a column by one Furman Bisher, a pundit I’d never heard of in my life. And his column, “Sayonara, baseball tradition” though eloquent, rich in historical facts, embellished with romantic longing for yesteryear, came across as outstandingly ignorant and scandalous.

Now, as I said, I’d never heard of Bisher, so I brushed up on his bio just to know who I was dealing with, and it’s more than evident that he’s an eminence and he’s earned his place among accomplished sports journalists.

But passages like this have finally broken my impression of printed dates preceded by the number 19 as current or modern; and clearly, like Bisher, those dates belong in the 20th century, and not in the opinion pages of any publication:

Well, not any longer. Money can change any habit. Eight springs ago the Mets and Cubs opened the season, not in Cincinnati. Guess where? Tokyo. That Tokyo, the guys who gave us Pearl Harbor. Some people don’t like you to bring that up, trade with Japan is so hot. But I’ve got a long memory. I saw what a few bombs can do to our property.

Oh, well, ‘scuse me. It’s just tough to get away from it when you turn on your TV in the morning there are the Boston Red Sox playing the Oakland A’s in the Tokyo Dome. Not only that, but the Red Sox pitcher is Daisuke Matsuzaka, who didn’t grow up in Wampole.

I have no problem with Furman waxing nostalgic about Red Stockings and how every season was opened in Cincinnati; yes, tradition is something we all long for and have a hard time breaking off. But when you go from Cubs-Mets in Tokyo, to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, to Daisuke and Opening Day ‘08, it’s time to ignore the senile old man and let him sit in his chair, drinking his sweet tea.

Except, of course, he’s not sitting idly reminiscing on his better days. He’s in the opinion pages of both a major daily and its website!

Bah, who am I kidding. This is the AJC, and this is Georgia, where it’s still illegal to buy beer on Sunday. Too bad old man Bisher doesn’t realize that, much like him, some traditions, for better or worse, will simply not go away.

By Alejandro Leal

Having won the World Series, the White Sox opened the 2006 regular season with quite a yawner. No, it wasn’t like their 2005 opening game against the same Cleveland team, which featured one lone run, scored by Konerko after a Rowand infield single that bounced off the plate. No, last night’s yawner was due to the time it actually ended.

I actually thought the game would’ve been cancelled since at 9:30 p.m. the rain came down hard on the Cell’s tarp, much like the hopes of all those Indians’ fans last year. BTW, I was watching it on ESPN Deportes because ESPN 2 was running ESPN News.

Kind of interesting that the folks up in Bristol, Conn. don’t have alternative programming for their Spanish language station. Sort of explains why they want to turn dominoes into the next ”big televised sporting event” or something of the sort.

Anyhow. The Sox won late, 2:10 a.m. EDT late, but they won, and it was actually quite a show. Jim Thome hit his first home run in a Sox uniform, and if you weren’t counting, that’s 9 home runs in his last 6 games. Two of which [one pictured below], came against the Atlanta Braves during the two-game exhibition series both teams played at the Ted.

Player on the decline, AJC? I Don’t think so.

Photo by Alejandro Leal