There is something about Opening Day in baseball that looks back even as it looks forward, a Mobius strip twist in time during which the past and future co-exist. The T-Mobile magenta carpet is rolled out, then rolled back for another year. One elevator attendant wore a button proclaiming this to be their fourth opening day; another, their 23rd. The pageantry at the ballpark is familiar, if staffed by new faces: different kids running around the bases and announcing “play ball”; a national anthem from a member of a band many of us have been listening to since the days of burning CD mixes. A different Mariners legend throwing out the first pitch: this year, Nelson Cruz, taking his place in the firmament of Mariners stars by signing a one-day contract to retire as a Mariner. He threw to Félix Hernández, himself already ensconced in eternal Mariners glory, in a perfectly chaotic first pitch that involved Nelson—who said he blew out his biceps tendon in one last farewell tour of LIDOM—spiking the ball into the ground, then recovering to lob in a pitch that Félix summarily dropped. Chaos ball, is that you?
Cruz was teammates with Mitch Haniger; when asked pregame to reflect on what Haniger was like in his “younger” playing years, Cruz smiled and said Mitch had always been very mature as a player. Haniger, making his return to T-Mobile Park, enjoyed a loud ovation when he ran down the magenta carpet, a Mariner once again: when he came up to bat for the first time, the fans gave him a standing ovation, something Mitch recounted warmly postgame, calling T-Mobile a “special” place to play.
But that ovation was nothing compared to the noise they made when Haniger homered to give the Mariners their first runs of the season:
While Haniger has historically gotten a lot of his power from the pull side, this ball—102.2 mph off the bat, 372 feet to the opposite field—showed some of the improvements he’s made during his time away from the team, something he credits to a deeper swing path and different rear-arm and top-hand mechanics.
Also so back: Dylan Moore’s power. After an injury-hampered 2022, DMo—pinch-hitting in the seventh for Mitch Garver—absolutely demolished this sinker from lefty Joely Rodriguez, crushing this pitch at 104 mph 409 feet. (Scoring on the play: Mitch Haniger, who had singled, natch.) DMo’s one job is beach, and by “beach” we mean “crush lefties”; if he can be back to his power-hitting form of the past, that’s an incredible boon for this ballclub.
Per Mariners PR, that makes DMo only the second player to hit a pinch-hit home run on Opening Day, joining Roberto Petagine on April 3, 2006. Unfortunately, that game was also a loss. The Mariners have generally had a good record on Opening Day, even in the fallowest years: per stats guru Alex Mayer, the Mariners have a .655 winning percentage on home openers, third-best among all active franchises. But tonight’s game will not join that rare air.
Luis Castillo had a lot of life on his pitches but poor command, and a patient Red Sox lineup was able to sit on his pitches and exhaust his pitch count early. The Sox drew first blood in the third inning, when Rafael Devers did what Devers does best and reached across the plate to pop this sinker that didn’t quite sink over the left-field fence for a two-run homer.
I was sitting next to Alex Mayer for this game and he immediately recalled (because he has an enormous baseball computer for a brain) Devers hitting a home run off a similar pitch from Sewald in 2022, so I looked up Devers’s zone splits and dang. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap.
The Sox would get another run off Castillo in the fourth: Triston Casas singled, and Masataka Yoshida doubled, bringing Tyler O’Neill (who is with the Red Sox now!), who had hit into a force out, to third. O’Neill would then score when Josh Rojas almost made a great play, snagging a sharply hit grounder from Ceddanne Rafaela and touching third for the force, but then his throw home hit O’Neill in the helmet. D’oh. Another run crossed home in the fifth, again with Devers providing a big hit with a double, pushing speedy Jarren Duran to third; he’d then score on a force out.
Speaking of Tyler O’Neill, he made some history of his own tonight, becoming the first player to homer in five straight Opening Day games, torching Cody Bolton for a solo shot. For O’Neill, the achievement was probably even sweeter coming against the team that traded him away. Everything that’s old is new again (derogatory).
That gave the Red Sox six runs, and the Mariners two two-run home runs. The Mariners lineup threatened at times tonight: they had a good chance in the first, when Julio worked an 0-2 count to a 2-2 count and doubled, followed by a single from Jorge Polanco, but Mitch Garver hit into an inning-ending double play. Later, Garver would double, but be stranded by a Cal Raleigh inning-ending groundout. J.P. Crawford hit two balls with exit velocities over 107 mph, right at defenders. That’s how things would go for the Mariners tonight: the sequencing luck just wasn’t there, even as the process was. Postgame, Haniger said the results weren’t there for the team tonight, but he likes the process, and he feels like this is the most complete Mariners team he’s been a part of—significant words coming from the man who was once Nelson Cruz’s teammate.
Layered on every Opening Day is the ghost of other, previous Opening Days: time spent with friends who have moved away, family members no longer with us, and to take stock of the changes for those that remain, steps a little slower, hair a little grayer. For me, this was my first Opening Day without my dad, who passed away this February. It’s hard knowing that he won’t be there to dissect the big plays of the night with me, that he won’t get to see what this team will become. He would have really loved to see Mitch Haniger’s second act as a Mariner. But mostly, it’s hard to know that he will now only exist in memories, the layers that make up every Opening Day experience. Maybe by this time next year it will be a fond memory, easier to see him woven into the fabric of the history of my personal Mariners fandom and the Opening Day experience writ large: another star in the firmament, and a reminder of how inextricably linked what was, is, and will be all are; maybe by then it will be easier to find the beauty in that. Maybe next year.
A Real Estate Authority complaints assessment committee issued a penalty decision in the case, fining both agents $1000 each. Photo / NZME
A Harcourts real estate agent and her supervisor have been found guilty of unsatisfactory conduct for their roles with land where subdivision was not allowed.
A Real Estate Authority complaints assessment committee issued a penalty
Bert Potter (front) and residents of the Centrepoint Community in Albany. Photo / Supplied
A multimillion-dollar Auckland property that was the site of New Zealand’s most infamous commune, Centrepoint, has been withdrawn from sale without finding a buyer.
The huge site in the city’s north has a council valuation of almost $9 million and had been billed as “one of the last significant underdeveloped landholdings on the fringe of Albany”.
It also has a dark history as it was where Bert Potter served as the spiritual head of the Centrepoint commune.
Potter was arrested in 1990 for sexual abuse and drugs crime, with survivors sharing stories of life in the commune in the acclaimed documentary, Heaven and Hell – The Centrepoint Story, in 2021. Many of them had been exploited as children by adults living at the commune.
The commune was shut in 2000 and Potter died in 2012, aged 86.
Since then, the property at 14 Mills Lane has been run as a wellness and retreat centre, before being put up for sale and marketed last year as a big development opportunity.
However, agent Michael Nees, from Bayleys North Shore Commercial, said the property did not get a buyer “so it was withdrawn from the market” at the seller’s wish.
Advertisements for the sale of the site were taken down from property website OneRoof in December.
Council has valued the 7.62ha site at $8.7m, but it is believed the owners had hoped to get more than $10m.
Owners Prema Charitable Trust bought the property in 2008 for just over $4m. The trust operates the Kawai Purapura retreat at the site, which was also home to the Wellpark College of Natural Therapies.
It had been advertised as “an incomparable opportunity” to secure a huge slice of city land where applying for rezoning could generate “considerable value uplift”.
The site sits on land overlooking Albany’s commercial precinct and is close to Albany Bus Station and Westfield shopping centre.
Centrepoint was opened by Potter in 1977 and at its peak had a permit for 244 fulltime residents.
It was based on therapeutic encounter groups popularised in California in the 1960s, promising social transformation by encouraging open communication.
The commune was shut down in 2000 after some leaders, including Potter, were convicted of sexual abuse and drugs crimes.
Potter was convicted and sentenced in 1990 to three and a half years in jail on drug charges and in 1992 to seven and a half years for indecent assaults on five children, some as young as 3.
Other men were also convicted of indecently assaulting minors, sexually assaulting minors and attempted rape of a minor.
A 2010 Massey University study revealed that one in every three children at Centrepoint was sexually abused.
Three survivors from the infamous cult spoke out in 2021, writing an open letter calling for restorative justice for children who were abused.
Christchurch GP Caroline Ansley wrote the letter with two other Centrepoint survivors, who are featured in the TVNZ docudrama Heaven and Hell – The Centrepoint Story.
Ansley said realising she was not the only one who was abused was empowering.
“I had to ask myself what’s worse – fear of exposure or the disappointment of not advocating for the right thing.”
The trio asked in their letter that former Centrepoint members consider “their obligations towards the children of the community” and acknowledge the resulting social, emotional and psychological difficulties many still experience as adults.
“We ask you to hear our voices. We ask you to set aside your complex feelings surrounding this issue and acknowledge our realities. We ask that you work with us to find ways to enable healing and restoration of the history.”
Drugs such as LSD and ecstasy were manufactured on the property and taken in group experiments that involved youngsters.
“This potent mix of social control, parental child neglect, drug use and hyper-sexuality set the scene for child abuse to occur,” the letter stated.
The signatories, some of them anonymous but known to the authors, include Louise Winn. She was only 11 when she was brought to Potter’s hut by his wife Margie. She was later also sexually abused by his son John Potter and other men.
To keep predators away at night, the girl barricaded herself with junk in her caravan on the property or escaped into the bush.