The setting was Garden City, named after New Jersey, the Garden State. I imagined that Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and environs were one large city, with multiple boroughs like New York, with about 3 million people -- at the time, about the same as Chicago and Los Angeles. I made maps, complete with a rapid-transit system.
The Meadowlands Sports Complex was included, with a baseball team that I called the Garden City Knights, which I named after the fictional New York-based team in The Natural. But they had their own NFL team, the Tornadoes, named after a briefly-existing NFL team in Newark. So, in this reality, the Giants and Jets were still in New York City, not the Meadowlands.
And the basketball and hockey teams at the Arena were old ones, not new ones. Calling the NHL team the Generals worked, but I couldn't think of a good team for the NBA team, and ended up with "Palisaders," which I was never satisfied with.
My main character was a sports columnist for a Garden City newspaper. I named him Donald. This was before Trump went into politics, and before I started working for another businessman from New York named Donald. If I were to start over, I would not name this character Donald.
I set the novel in what was then the near future: The year 2000. Obviously, not knowing that the Yankees and Mets would play each other in the 2000 World Series, I meant for the Knights to go on a Pennant run, winning Game 6 of the World Series in a 16-inning 1-0 thriller, and then winning Game 7 in the bottom of the 9th, on a hit (not a home run) -- by the 1st woman to play in Major League Baseball. (This was before the TV show Pitch, and my pioneering character was a catcher, not a pitcher like on that show.)
One other storyline I put in: I correctly predicted that the Florida Marlins would change their name to the Miami Marlins, and I also correctly predicted that they would have a season curtailed by a disease outbreak. In the book, they were nicknamed the Malaria Marlins.
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Come back to real-life 2020. Major League Baseball does not have a Coronavirus problem. The Miami Marlins have one. One team.
So the Yankees' 4-game, 2-in-Philly-2-in-The-Bronx series with the Phillies was postponed, due to the Marlins having infected the Phillies' visiting clubhouse. The schedule was rearranged and, since the Yankees were already just down the road in Washington, they went up the Parkway to Baltimore, to play a series with the Orioles.
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, regardless of how good the Yankees were, the Orioles were good, and drove the Yankees crazy. The rivalry was rekindled in the mid-1990s, but tailed off once the Orioles did. It got going again in the early 2010s, but the Yankees have dominated the last few years.
At least this time, due to virus restrictions, the Orioles didn't have to deal with Yankee Fans "taking over their ballpark." The only people allowed in Camden Yards were essential employees. Unfortunately for the Orioles, those essential employees included the Yankee players.
The Yankees didn't waste any time. On the 1st pitch of the game, DJ LeMahieu hit a home run off Asher Wojciechowski, who may have Met pitcher Noah Syndergaard's hairstyle, but not his stuff. It was the 1st of 4 hits that "LeMachine" got on the night.
The Yankees scored another run in the 1st, before the O's got 1 of their own. From there, the much-hyped Gerrit Cole cruised into the 7th, before allowing a home run to Dwight Smith Jr., son of the former Chicago Cub Rookie of the Year. Cole was not happy about it.
But he had to be happy about the runs support he got. It included home runs by Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks, and some sloppy Baltimore defense. Yankees 9, Orioles 3. WP: Cole (2-0). No save. LP: Wojciechowski (0-1).
The Yankees improved to 3-1. Elsewhere in the American League Eastern Division, the Tampa Bay Rays are 4-2, the Toronto (Buffalo) Blue Jays 3-3, the Orioles 2-2, and the Boston Red Sox 2-4. The Sox dropped the 1st 2 games of their series with the Mets at Citi Field, before coming from behind to win last night.
The Minnesota Twins and the Colorado Rockies are 4-1, the only teams with a better record than the Yankees. The Red Sox are 1 of 9 teams at the current bottom of MLB, at 2-4.
The Yankees and Orioles are scheduled to go again tonight. J.A. Happ and John Means are listed as the starters. If all goes well -- and I'm not talking about winning and losing here -- the Yankees will have their home opener tomorrow night, against the Red Sox.