Monday, October 01, 2007

MetsGrrl’s Make A Difference World Series

This post is actually not about the New York Mets, but I’m hoping you read it anyway.

I’m joining the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge. I don’t know if you’re familiar with DonorsChoose.org, but it’s an organization that facilitates fund raising for teacher-initiated projects in public schools. I personally think that public school teachers are 1) brave and 2) saints, and know how positively my life was impacted by great teachers who tried to make a difference.

The entire fund raiser is facilitated through DonorsChoose.org. This is a small, modest fund raiser, with two projects that are 1) in Brooklyn and 2) involve baseball as a tool to help motivate students, and help them learn and grow.

Think about what you would have spent at Shea during the playoffs on food and beer. Think about what you would have spent on one night at a sports bar, watching the games. If you’re getting a refund from the Mets for playoff tickets, would you miss $20 from it? Then read about what these teachers are trying to do with baseball, and consider making a donation to one or more of the programs.

I’m doing this because I believe in the organization and because I selfishly wanted to do something to make me feel better about not going to the playoffs. Small-minded as it may seem, the end result is all that counts. Even $5 can make a difference.

Mets bloggers, feel free to drop a line if you want to join in this challenge, or go ahead and start your own! The more the merrier.

Click on the graphic below to get started, and thank you for your support.

LAST TO DIE. [09-30-07]

The MG+TBF house was in a fever pitch from, well, the last pitch last night, and we were up early, at Shea just shy of 11, parked under Northern Boulevard for the first time in over a year. I wanted to wander around and take pictures, and hoped we could find the “Meet the Mets” camera and tell them, We know the second verse, let us sing! I want to say that people were cautiously optimistic, not quite ebullient, but hope. There was plenty of hope. There was a drop line at the box office, and plenty of people looking for tickets. I saw one group of three boys with a sign asking for 1, and took their photo - only to see a father with a stroller and two other young children in tow stop, ask them, “You’re not selling, are you? Just don’t sell it,” and handed them a ticket, gratis.

And the signs. There were signs everywhere. I considered a sign, but we were in UR1, Row O, which means no room to hang a sign, and with a camera and a notebook there is no extra hand to hold a sign. But I thought about it, hard. We were in WRIGHT and FLOYD (it seemed the right thing to do), and TBF was wearing the crappy hat he used to wear to work on playoff days and I was in the stylin’ hat he refers to as my “big pimpin’ hat,” but I prefer to think of as my special occasion hat, which he bought me at the New Era store on 4th St., paying far too much money for a baseball hat, but he cannot resist being able to buy me things that say METS on it.

We were quiet, though, very quiet, after our initial ebullience, when we settled into our seats and realized the Mets were, indeed, quite serious about providing pre-game entertainment from - no, seriously - The Yiddish National Theater. While I appreciate that Sundays are usually the days that The Mets Welcome… the various yeshivot and B’nai Brith and JCC’s of the Tri-State area, but, speaking on behalf of my people, I assure you that EVERYONE would have understood if the Mets had made the last-minute decision to jettison “Bei Mir Bist Du Schein” for “Living On A Prayer” and “Welcome To The Jungle” at full volume through the PA.

As the entertainment began, we sat there with our mouths open (think Beavis & Butthead watching Milli Vanilli) and then, very quietly, TBF suggests:
“How about… in honor of Yiddish Day, here’s a song by someone from David Geffen’s record label?”
When I picked myself off of the floor, I was still laughing, and continued:
“Here’s a song by a band whose A&R guy uses the word ‘schmuck’ a lot.”
“Here’s a song by a band whose members really, really like matzoh ball soup.”
Maybe it’s not that funny now, but it was much-needed hilarity to cut the undertones of solemnity.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

AND THE 2007 MVP IS…

The fans.

I’m still not ready to write about today’s game, but I wanted to put up something, and what I decided I wanted to put up was photos of everything EXCEPT the players. We were there all season, giving the Mets the highest attendance record in the history of the franchise, and making them untold amounts of $$$$$ in the process. The fans, who were waiting in line, begging for tickets; who brought signs and banners and whistles; and, when they couldn’t get into the stadium, stood on the steps to the 7 train rotunda just for a glimpse of the field.

Some highlights are below, but please check out the rest of the set, too. (I’d put a slideshow together but it slows down the main page of the site too much when I do.)

I’ll write about the game later, for closure if nothing else.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

CHICO AND THE MAN.

Praise the baseball deities. It’s down to tomorrow. See you there. Sunday in the Upper Deck. Seems right and fitting, no matter how it plays out.

RIDE THE LIGHTNING.

SHUT UP

RON AND GARY! SHUT UP! SHUT UP NOW! 

SIGNS OF LIFE.

From Ben Shpigel’s blog in the Times:

At the top of the stairs in the Mets’ dugout leading from the clubhouse to the tunnel, someone had framed a photograph of several players celebrating and wrote, “We Worked To (o) Hard, Let’s Finish This.” It was the Mets’ version of the “Play Like a Champion” sign in Notre Dame’s football locker room, complete with the suggestion, “Tap Me For Luck.”

Well, it’s nice to see that someone actually cares.

GONNA BE A LONG WALK HOME.

In the end, it was the right thing to do, not being there tonight. The front row of a Bruce Springsteen concert (and yes, we had our elbows on the stage) is the one place we are guaranteed to not think about anything except the Bruce Springsteen concert. It was good to see the band, it was good to hear the new and the old songs, it was good to see the people we only see in the parking lot of an arena before a Bruce show, it was good for TBF and I to be together at a Bruce show. All of that.

And, it was the right thing to not put both of us through the heartbreak, although we were getting text messages from Shea, and you know we were watching the MLB scoreboard on ESPN up until the second before the lights went down at 9pm, and as soon as the band took their last bows around 11:10, the first thing I did with the phone was check the scoreboard again for the final - and THEN text the friends we were meeting up with.

Post-concert, we had dinner with friends at a tapas place on 9th Avenue, where, despite the television tuned to SNY in the corner, we were able to avoid baseball talk entirely as we dissected the weeks’ setlist within an inch of their lives. And then, around 1, we headed home.
As we drove down 34th Street towards the Midtown Tunnel, TBF said, “Well, at least I have the Bruce tour to keep my mind off of things. Otherwise, I’d be fuckin’ unbearable.”
“It’s really over?”
“We’re toast.”
This, from TBF. Not from me. From TBF. Who not long after that was asking me, “So do you have any interest in going to that game…?” when we were talking about whether there would be a need for the one-game playoff in Philadelphia. He is going to take this harder than me. I’m not even going to pretend to have any claim on that. It would be stupid and foolish to try.

And he’s right. it will be good that we can cover more of the Springsteen tour than we thought. And it will be good that we will have our 2008 seats partially paid for. But that’s not how it was supposed to end, and I’ll never forget that.

But I’m not ready to let go of the Mets, or let go of baseball for this year. I’m just not. But I realize that I have no choice in the matter.

Need some sleep. Need some rest. Need to not think about this for a while. I thought about it all day. And we’ll be thinking about it all weekend.

Friday, September 28, 2007

IRONY’S A BITCH.

Guess what showed up this morning:

There was a moment of silence with me and the other Mets fans in the office.

THE TOP 10 EXCUSES I HAVE MADE FOR THE 2007 METS.

From the home office in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, we bring you tonight’s TOP TEN LIST:

10. “They just need to make Julio Franco a coach instead of a player, and that void in the lineup won’t be a problem any more.”
9. “Omar’s not done making trades yet. He’ll pull some rabbit out of his pocket again.”
8. “None of the beat reporters speak Spanish fluently. How is it possible to be a baseball writer in 2007 and not speak Spanish?”
7. “It’s a cultural thing. We’re making assumptions about their reactions or attitude based on the white cultural hegemony.” (Yes, I really did say “hegemony.”)
6. “It’s been a really abnormally cold spring and it’s been tough on the pitchers. I blame global warming.”
5. “Willie needs to keep a calm front with the press, I’m sure he’s much more inspirational behind closed doors.”
4. “There’s just too much media these days. If there were less people asking what time Carlos Delgado took the garbage out last night, he’d hit better.”
3. “Cliff Floyd was a great clubhouse presence and he’s gone.”
2. “D.Wright isn’t a rookie anymore, and it’s tough to adjust.”

AND THE NUMBER ONE EXCUSE I HAVE MADE FOR THE 2007 METS:

1. “They’re not the 2006 Mets.”