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TIEN MAO, YOU LIVE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, WATCH YOURSELF.
[kidding.]
[well, sort of.]
I quite liked X (and not just because he looked like Joaquin Phoenix), but as the season went on, I was more and more uncomfortable when he was out there - not quite Victor Diaz-level uncomfortable (I swear I had grey hair last summer brought on entirely by Victor Diaz’ presence in RF), but I was never 100% sure he was going to be able to generate the rubber arms and Roadrunner-like legs that an outfielder seems to need as part of his arsenal (except Carlos Beltran, who, while he will dive when the situation warrants, carries himself with elegance). I always breathed just a little easier when Endy was out there. Endy would get to that ball or die trying.
And maybe I don’t know anything about stats - although lord knows I try every day to learn a little bit more - it would seem that my gut instinct is supported by the numbers - acknowledging of course that Endy doesn’t quite have the hits yet either. But he is fast and furious and full of spirit.
Apropos learning about numbers, TBF and I set up a private wiki a while ago so I could ask my baseball questions and get my baseball answers and have everything aggregated in one place, and also so I could refer to it and not have to keep asking. This is important, because explaining the infield fly rule to me a year ago registered about [] that much, and maybe reading and re-reading it again right now gives me a whole other set of questions to ask. So I can add it into the wiki and TBF can see that I added something. While I love sitting down and asking questions while we’re driving or eating or watching a game, sometimes it makes more sense to write it down and get the answer written down, and I love that it is all tracked in one place.
It’s worked well for us, we’re just sorry we don’t have more time to spend on it now. We had included lists of games attended, and the promotion schedule, and pictures from the wire services that we liked.
One of TBF’s graces is that he never, ever, ever, ever grows tired of the questions, or the asking, or the explaining, or the re-explaining, or the, Oops, sorry, I know you explained all the trading deadlines last year, but I didn’t know enough then to care about them, so how about you go through them all again for me, honey? He will explain anything multiple times, in more detail than you could ever possibly want, with as much enthusiasm as he did the first time. “Can I ask a baseball question?” is always met with “Of course.”
(...something that those of you bemoaning the fact that your S.O.’s can’t stand baseball might wish to take under advisement. :-) )
“We just traded Xavier Nady for relief help.”
I look at the clock. 3:26pm.
“Wow, Omar has half an hour.”
“They said they knew about it last night, but kept it quiet so they didn’t get ripped off in the trade.”
“Shouldn’t you be impressed that I know that the trade deadline is 4pm?”
*pause*
“Wait a minute - how DID you know that?”
My head is spinning right now. Is it always this bad?
TBF is inconsolable. The title of this post was the subject line of the email that sent me this piece of information.
So this brings me to something I have been thinking about: acts of God (accidents), acts of stupidity (like sports players who engage in extreme sports during the season), and acts of bravery (think: the Beltran-Cameron Collision of ‘05). Everything can be rolling along fine and then disaster strikes.
This is something you cannot plan for. As a former manager of mine used to say, “Unfortunately, this work is being done by humans.” It’s the inexplicable force, brought by the human factor, that makes the sport and the performance of it such a joy, but it’s also the same thing that can make it an almost-tragedy (and realize that I am exaggerating in the case of Duaner for effect here, but also, it’s not like he was a trivial force in the bullpen).
It would drive me insane. A sports team is project management on the grandest scale.
TBF’s t-shirt (scroll down) hasn’t even gotten here yet. Glad we made a shirt instead of a jersey. =(
So when I first started going to Mets games, I found the whole concept of walk-on music to be FASCINATING. If you have read some of my posts about games, you may have noticed how I pay more attention to this than, well, most sane people. And, this year, now that I understand enough to be able to pay attention to things peripheral to the on-field action, I really started getting into this… to the point where I now regularly update the Wikipedia article called Baseball Walk-on Music. (I am aware that there is currently discussion about discontinuing the page, but I rank the importance of engaging in that discussion right up there with sweeping the dust bunnies out from under the couch: I have 19 million better things to do with my time.)
At this point, keeping track of the at bat or intro music has become a full-scale obsession. I NEED TO KNOW what the Mets players are using. The extent of my obsession can be chronicled as follows:
I took my friend Kate to a game earlier this year. Kate is all about intros; she’s a musician, with her own band, and had never been to a professional baseball game before. She, too, was fascinated by the music, and we spent the game discussing what we would use as our walk on song if we were baseball players. My choice was “Even Better Than The Real Thing” by U2 or “Jumping Jack Flash” by the Stones.
What would you use?
I was going to pull a TBF and talk about everything under the sun except the game - his usual modus operandi when we lose, and lose badly - but that stopped me from posting last night (did ANYONE watch the whole thing last night? I mean, besides TBF? Most of the Tues-Fri regulars in our section were all grumping how they just couldn’t f’in watch the damn thing), AND the game beforethat. And the whole point of this is to chronicle the experience, and sometimes the experience is about WATCHING THE GODDAMN METS LOSE…
...three times in a row.
To the CUBS.
*expletive*
Glavine, in a very non-Glavine-like way, let the Cubs drain his mojo with those two homeruns in the first inning. I mean, who could blame him - but this is TOM GLAVINE. Not some kid just up from the minors. This is the guy who uses Guns N’ Roses as his theme song (although I suspect that it has to do with the title and his kids than it does for any nostalgic love for Axl Rose & Co.). This is “The Professional”.
It was a happy, chatty evening, a light wind blowing, not too warm, not too cold. But it didn’t take long for that mood to deflate like a child’s red balloon on a Saturday afternoon at the zoo. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to cheer, we just couldn’t rouse ourselves when we saw the Mets - our Mets - yet again not quite bringing the bats. There was defense, I couldn’t really get angry at much there, but our days of leading early and often seem to be gone, and I don’t understand who thought that was a good idea, or where that went.
The only ray of sunshine for me tonight was #10, Endy Chavez, whose Ariel-like, near balletic acrobatics in right field never cease to raise my spirits. God, I want to love Xavier, really I do, but I always feel better when Endy is out there.
I am reasonably certain that Mr. Willie Randolph on right now in the manager’s press conference, talking about how glad he was that we came from behind and we started to come back, but I’m going to say BULL PUCKY. Sure we did, but where was it the rest of the game?
That last inning, standing there, rally cap in place, the sisters next to me not wanting to look - me thinking, I CAN’T look, but then realizing that I have no choice but to watch every second of it, that this is part and parcel off all of it, the good and the bad, that I can skulk into the other room at home but if I’m going to trek out to Shea then I am going to watch every last second - and then the rollercoaster of hope, me optimistically thinking maybe we’ll get extra innings and forget work tomorrow or how tired I am right now, I can see my first extra innings game with TBF - and then - LoDuca! It’s LoDuca!
It was LoDuca. And after his reaction when he was tagged out at first earlier in the game, I wouldn’t want to be near him in the clubhouse after that last at-bat.
As we were walking in silence back to the car, cutting through the parking lots and over the muddy fields, I took a deep breath and realized that the smell was no longer of summer, but of late summer, of the end of 2006, not the beginning. It’s more than half over now, and now we are 11 1/2 games ahead ofthe Braves (down from 12. down from 12 1/2. down from...), and I wonder if we are both letting it slip away too fast.
Or maybe I am being ridiculously maudlin.
Probably, since earlier the Mets Grrl household bought a Sunday plan for the rest of the year - or rather TBF did, since the Tuesday-Friday is already in my name. Do I have to tell you why?
WOO!
Ah, the rollercoaster.
Somehow, we forgot that tonight was also Merengue Night. In fact, it didn’t occur to us, despite the female security roughing up (that was so not a ‘pat down’), the free t-shirts reading “Los Mets de Nueva York” (omg, this is my new favorite Mets shirt), and the fact that during our usual meander up to the mezzanine we were accosted every time we turned a corner: “Can I help you?” “Where are you going?” Um, to our seats, the ones we sit in every Tuesday and Friday, I mutter under my breath. Upon arrival, Diamondvision clued us in: “Ohhhhhhh.” Oh. We like the idea of Merengue Night - we came last year too - but forgot the lesson we learned last year, is that tonight for most people is about merengue and not about baseball. And we never end up staying for the concert afterwards, because by the end of the night we just don’t want to deal any more.
Despite the deluge, we were going to watch the Mets play baseball tonight come hell or high water (literally). There was too much work and not enough baseball this week for Mets Grrl. I caught half-games or ends of games all week, both good and bad (Duaner! What were you DOING?) I did get to see Vernon Wells hit that killer long ball off of Mariano the other night. Cut to Rivera, and - me: “Oops, I think Mariano said a bad word.") TBF wasn’t even willing to entertain the concept of there not being a game tonight, and at 5:45 the decision was made to get in the car and head out to Flushing, where we navigated security more appropriate to Riker’s and made our way to section 12.
And, magically, 50 minutes late, our 2006 Mets took the field.
I spent the early part of the game coveting the Banco Popular thundersticks, with Dominican flags on one side and LETS GO METS on the other, but not enough to get out of my seat and go look for them. Besides which, thundersticks are great in some contexts, but it’s noisy enough on Merengue Night already - both good and bad. I loved that the crowd was ALIVE, but I also hated that this crowd didn’t give Cliff Floyd the standing ovation he so f’in righteously deserved after That Catch - THAT CATCH!
“Cliff Floyd: The Magic is back,” I cackled on the way home, fist-bumping with TBF.
The clear favorites tonight - yeah, big surprise - the Carloses and the Joses. And - out of nowhere - I almost missed it, it was so busy and noisy and people getting up and down and up and down and saying hello and changing seats and waving flags - that GRAND SLAM from Mr. Valentin. He deserves to be called “Mr. Valentin” now, joining Messrs. Floyd, Wright and Delgado, LLC.
John Maine was consistent. “But did he DOMINATE!?"I mocked Ed Coleman on the way home, listening to the after-show. I know it’s the baseball term, but it’s just so overblown that I can’t use it as a descriptor, ever, and keep a straight face. I do know that I didn’t experience the usual young-starter nail biting that I would go through with, say, a Brian Bannister or an Alay Soler. I did appreciate his intro music, “What I Like About You” by the Romantics. However, either he’s letting someone pick his at-bat tunes for him, or dude has seriously eclectic tastes in music, because he used an Usher song and some heavy metal mosquito music that I insist is something like the Scorpions, but TBF argues is something he’s familiar with, in more of a Whitesnake territory.
While I completely appreciate Jose Valentin’s contribution tonight, I have to say that - personal prejudices aside - the Boyfriend of the Game was decidedly Mr. Cornelius Floyd. When he went back for that catch - That Catch! - I didn’t think he’d make it but it wouldn’t be Cliff F. Floyd (you can guess what the F stands for) if he didn’t try. You never watch a game and think, Gee, he could have hustled a little bit more when it comes to Cliff Floyd - ever. Yes, he gets HBP and maybe sometimes might exaggerate just the tiniest regarding the extent of his injuries, but he is Cliff and he plays with his heart full out and this is why the mental battle is so tough for him.
I think. You know, playing armchair psychiatrist here.
The best sight tonight for me was after that inning - That Inning - after that second big catch of Floyd’s out near the bleachers, him walking back to the dugout arm in arm with Beltran, and seeing Wright and Reyes waiting outside the dugout for him to return.
There was so much to love about tonight, but first and foremost was that I finally felt like I recognized the team playing on the field again. They played nine innings tonight. Let’s keep it up.
And, Let’s Go Mets.
But A-rod is another story, and much probably becomes obvious when I point out that I lived in Seattle for 9 years. It isn’t even what he did while he was a Mariner, because, apparently, being a Mariner turns one into an affable, friendly fellow. It must be the Moose, or something.
(Case in point: I used to LIKE Randy Johnson when he was on the Mariners. No, really. I even had a very amusing story I used to tell about him, which I no longer tell because he’s definitely not the same guy.)
No, A-rod I hate for a very different reason which has to do with his behavior AFTER he left the Mariners, and I have bored TBF with this story so often that I hesitate to repeat it here. He did something incredibly reprehensible towards the Puget Sound area when he first returned to Seattle to play with Texas at Safeco, and even though at the time I didn’t have a particular affinity towards baseball, I just thought it was tacky and in bad taste. In any other city, he would have been CRUCIFIED. But Seattle is the city in which you cannot boo (you are asked to stop because it’s not sportsmanlike) and they refuse to allow YANKEES SUCK shirts into the ballpark (they will ask you to change your shirt or turn it inside-out). Said refusal will make the evening news, interspersed with talking heads discussing how disgraceful those who wear the shirts are. Milquetoast.
Last night we took a gander at the Yankees-Mariners matchup (TBF: “We could watch a movie, or the Mariners...” Me: “Ichiro!") and A-rod’s recent tantrum. I have to say, again, maybe stating the obvious, but why does anyone feel sorry for him? I feel about as sorry for A-rod as I do for all the baristas, bartenders, waiters and pizza delivery guys in our neighborhood. Our neighborhood is immediately adjacent to Williamsburg, so 90% of our service employees are kids from Wisconsin or Idaho or Arizona or Texas who moved to NYC to make it big as an artist of some sort, and guess what? It’s TOUGH, but YOU CHOSE TO COME HERE. No one held a gun to your head and forced you to move to New York City. If you can’t take it, get out of Dodge - but if you’re going to stay here, grow a spine, fast, or we will chew you up and spit you out again - and then you’ll learn or you’ll crawl back home to Mom and Dad.
On a final note, how on earth do Yankees fans expect any sympathy for the players they have on their DL and offer it up as some kind of excuse? No, really. Um, even to a baseball moron like me, a lineup that has Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez and Johnny Damon and Randy Johnson and Mariano Rivera - I’m sorry, we’re supposed to feel SORRY for you? Jeez louise. It’s pathetic.
(I know, and in further news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. But all this specific Yankees outrage is new and novel to me.)
It is appealing, in a childlike, black-and-white way, to know who to hate and who to cheer in at least one segment of your life. Because the shades of grey that shadow the rest of it can be exhausting to navigate.
I worked until after 9pm tonight and in order for it not to be until after midnight, I didn’t listen to the game or ask for repeated updates. But my one comment as TBF was driving me home, and we heard Beltran’s Grand Slam, was: “Is this BOGO month?” You know, buy-one-get-one-free, and I don’t mean Carloses. (Carlosi?)
“Whether or not this fits into Wright’s belief system, can you imagine the hell he’s going to get from Cliff Floyd? Somebody’s going to bring in snakes.”
Word.
Regretfully Johan cannot play every position, although our section did have a way too serious…
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Hey, now, buck up. You’re over .500, it’s anyone’s division, and you have Johan, who’s…
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Good stuff!
Posted to: PUT YOUR HIPS INTO IT.