A nice baseball story for Opening Day

Baseball season is here, and I'm reading a fine book to kick off the festivities and get me pumped up: "The Bad Guys Won" by Jeff Pearlman, an engrossing wise-ass book about the thoroughly wise-ass 1986 New York Mets. Now I'd like to relate a memorable story from the text, one that to me epitomizes the spirit of the great sport. Remember that Pearlman tells the whole thing in brilliant fashion in his book, so go read it if you want the whole story:

Following the success of the '85 Bears' "Super Bowl Shuffle," George Foster, of all people, spearheaded a move to get some easy cash for the '86 Mets by producing their own ridiculous single. The resulting "Metsmerized" was a big flop, but the team co-opted the idea and wanted to make its own pile of cash. The company it hired had the idea to produce one of those ripoff 30-minute "Making of the Video" videos, and to do that, well, it had to go ahead and make a video.

Only when it was time to shoot the music video, the Mets, led by labor rep Keith Hernandez, informed the director they couldn't do anything since the MLB union hadn't been contacted as per rules for an in-season activity requiring more than 3 players. So they basically held up the production company throughout the entire shoot by threatening to walk, demanding all kinds of stuff as it went on.

But the best part is the initial agreement worked out to get the Mets to begin the shoot: According to Pearlman, each player would get a thousand bucks, a VCR, and (I am NOT making this up) a VHS copy of distributor Vestron Video's "Dick Clark's Best of Bandstand."

That has to be one of the most random pieces of baseball trivia I have ever read, heard, or dreamed. The thought of Jesse Orosco walking off with a VCR, cackling because they stuck it to the man, or Howard Johnson excitedly calling his friends and family over for a "Bandstand" viewing party.

Then there's the music video itself, notable for the ridiculousness of the song, the cheesy lip-syncing and facial expressions from the athletes, and best of all, the part at the end where the director just goes, "Aw, hell with it," and raises the white flag by just running a parade of shots of celebrities like Joyce Brothers in split screen.

Also look for the great moment at 2:12 when Joe Piscopo, doing his sportscaster shtick, taps the head of bobblehead dolls while uttering 3 dramatic adjectives that describe the Mets. Only problem is, there are 4 dolls, making it an awkward sequence.

Why do I tell this story? I tell it because it reminds us what baseball, nay, what all of professional sport, is really about: spoiled athletes making asses of themselves and embarrassing their franchise in myriad ways