The last two instances of the Baseball Equinox, marking the spot when we sit equidistant between the final out of last season and the scheduled first pitch of next season, were rendered inoperative in retrospect once COVID had its way with them. The opening of the entire 2020 baseball season was pushed back to July and the Mets had their first three games of 2021 postponed when too many Nationals tested positive. We can do the math, but we can’t control the science.
But, if you choose to believe that lockouts will be settled and variants will be tamed, this year’s Baseball Equinox arrives in our midst on Saturday, January 1, 2022, at 3:28:30 AM Eastern Standard Time. If you are in the greater New York Metropolitan Area, you’re forgiven in advance for possibly sleeping through it. But maybe you’re the type who saves it all up for New Year’s Eve and you’ll be partying deep into the morning. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll be digging on the WLNY 10/55 Odd Couple marathon (Felix and Oscar will be finishing their stint as mismatched hospital roommates just before 3:30 AM).
If you’re in another time zone in the Continental U.S., you stand a better chance of still being up when the enticing promise of the 2022 season becomes temporally closer than the lingering disappointment of the one from 2021. And if you’re in Hawaii —perhaps hanging with Benny Agbayani or Sid Fernandez as one imagines all Hawaiian Mets fans might — by all means, make the Equinox a part of your extended countdown to midnight.
Offer good in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.