Demeter might be Greek to you

But it's just a guy from Oklahoma to me

We'll briefly return to 1986 as baseball season is about to open in the Metrodome, where every day is kind of a dreary fall afternoon.

Three hours before game time the Oakland A's are stretching in unison on the floor of the Dome.

This stretching is not the random, "I'm done playing cards" progression of events that's so common at ball yards across this great land of ours. This stretching routine is the U.S. Olympic Water Ballet Team or, for you older folks, a scene from a Busby Berkeley musical.

A's Manager Jackie Moore had decided the team suffered too many injuries the previous year, so the A's hired a carnival contortionist, or perhaps it was some nubile dancer from a gentleman's club, to lead the team through these stretches.

Don Demeter

A's outfielder Jose Canseco isn't even trying. All the veterans are extending those ham strings, but the lanky rookie is kneeling, propped up by a bat as he gazes around at the majesty that is the Metrodome, a ball yard that clever architects designed to resemble a football stadium.

It's clear the 21-year-old Canseco has been, for some time, excused from the rudiments of life in which others are expected to engage.

Moore has emphasized his innovative stretching regimen to the media as the A's proceed down a zig-zag path to the World Series - where they will arrive next season after Moore gets axed in favor of law school grad Tony La Russa. Despite the publicity about the stretching program, it doesn't dawn on Canseco how bad his bold indifference makes Moore look, or if it does dawn on Canseco he does not care.

After the Angels win the division this season, Minnesota and Oakland will begin a half-decade streak of American League Championships. Minnesota will accomplish this without steroids, to the best of anyone's knowledge.

Bad news bearings

A couple decades later - after a career of being ostracized by teammates for his attention-getting behavior in the early '90s, after a career of antagonizing fans so much that one day paying customers at Yankee Stadium tossed garbage on him - Canseco does a rumba across the noggins of baseball executives. A book with his name on it is published just as the season is about to begin. The book reveals that the A's won their titles with a few guys who injected steroids.

All hell breaks lose.

Word of steroids in baseball reaches members of Congress where there is naturally alarm. Or is it a publicity opportunity? Anyway, some strip miner from North Dakota who is masquerading as a politician suggests the single-season home run title that belongs to an accused steroid user revert to Roger Maris, or at least to Josh Gibson, who hit 62 home runs in a two-month barnstorming tour played on fields the size of a high school gymnasium.

Bud Selig, baseball's commissioner for life, should have responded with the obvious fact that pitchers can buy a syringe, too. "You don't think all these pitchers are returning from hinge surgery and throwing five miles an hour faster because of better suture, do you?" Bud could have asked. This at least would make people consider that there might have been cheaters on both sides of the baseball and maybe some of these hitting accomplishments aren't so out of whack.

But Bud's not even smart enough for that, and steroids receive round-the-clock CNN coverage as baseball season nears.

Demeter rising

Alas, opening day arrives. Everyone is talking about people named Adam Dunn and Richie Sexson. These are names to make people forget about steroids? Yup. And once again people realize you can sew a scarlet letter on a big-league baseball jersey but it always comes off in the spin cycle.

Baseball shakes off these wintry frosts because of Demeter, and maybe not even the Greek one, the earth goddess loved by rural folks and Long Islanders alike. Never a great fielder, the official scorer gave Demeter - the Greek version - an E-8 in regard to her daughter, Persephone; a costly error that allowed Hades to carry Persephone to the hoary netherworld.

Demeter and Hades eventually worked out a player-to-be-named later deal so Hades would keep Persephone for just five months of the year. That's the five months when nothing grows, Demeter pouts and watches Dr. Phil. It's the time when people are forced to watch hockey, football and basketball, three sports that were originally scheduled to be over by spring.

Spring is when Persephone gets custody of Demeter, stuff blossoms and people forget about things like Jose Canseco getting someone to write a book for him largely because he dislikes being yesterday's news.

Baseball even produced a namesake to make folks forgot about Demeter's bobble of Persephone. The game trotted out Don Demeter, a long-necked, 6-foot-4 Oklahoman with a little pop in his bat who had better hands than the Greek version. Don Demeter once set a big-league record by playing 266 games in the outfield without making an error.

Don Demeter is over 70 now, and for at least that many years when opening day has rolled around - traditionally first in Washington, D.C., later in Cincinnati, and these days on ESPN2 during Parka Night in The Bronx - solar waves flow through us.

And Demeter has a big smile on her phiz.

Baseball essays

Will it be too cold on Opening Day in Minnesota once an outdoor stadium is built?

The Twins usually opened the season around mid-April when Metropolitan Stadium served as the team's home, not in the first week of April, which has often been the case in the Metrodome.

The team's last home opener at the Met was April 9, an unusually early home opener. Minnesota native Jerry Koosman started that game for the Twins.