Saturday, August 25, 2007

PENNY ANTE. [08-24-07]

I’ve been searching my brain, and realize that I don’t have anything that spectacular or even interesting to say about tonight’s game. I am having train issues, which will not interest anyone. The 7 was crowded, too many guys wearing Mets shirts that don’t shower, and too many idiots who don’t know how to ride the subway. I love the subway. I am pro-subway. But I think I am going to start taking the freaking LIRR so I don’t have to deal with the 1 taking 35 minutes for a 15 minute ride, and the 7 issues as noted above.

I even forgot about Fiesta Latina or whatever it was tonight until I got through bag check and saw the 90 million security guards. Let me get the rant out of the way: Am I the only one bothered by this blatant racism every time there is a Latin-themed event?  Do the Mets pull this crap on Jewish Heritage Day?  Wait, don’t answer that. The only thing that happens at these games that doesn’t happen on any other random Friday night is that people mill around A LOT more. You know how you solve that? BY THE USHERS ACTUALLY DOING THEIR JOBS INSTEAD OF FISHING FOR TIPS. More ushers in the tunnel entrances checking tickets of people who are obviously just walking around. And before you say, “Well, all the people there for the concert try to move down to better seats,” please see above, and if you’re really concerned, how about you treat people with actual intelligence and respect. How about you hand out fliers as people walk in - in English AND Spanish - saying, “Please do not move down to other seats until the game has ended. You can move anywhere you want once the game is over, but you will not be allowed to stand in the aisles.”

But noooo. Let’s have a completely ineffective search - okay, wait. I don’t know if the search is ineffective because I’m a white girl from Connecticut. Just like the NYPD ignores me every single time I walk into the subway and they have a table set up for random bag searches, no security guard at Shea is going to give me a hard time. Both situations are bullshit. Either you enforce security or you don’t. But the disrespect for the Latino community is so blatant I wonder how the Mets continue to get away with it.

[More about the actual game after the jump.]

Thursday, August 23, 2007

POSTSEASON INVOICES!

Thank you for your online payment for 2007 Mets Postseason tickets.

Click on the ticket logo for any game. See the link for postseason invoices at the top. Click on it. It’ll take you where you want to go. (Even if earlier today it didn’t work for you.)

One year, exactly, to the day from last year.

Now the Mets just need to do their part.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

TREVOR TIME. [8-21-07]

Meet Vincent and Francois, die-hard Montreal Expo fans who spotted me on the 7 train and determined that I would be their font of all necessary information to get them to the game. They were in town on their annual ballpark visit, where they pick a couple of stadiums and attend games. As they reminded me, the Expos last game was at Shea, and no other than Endy Chavez was the final out. It was their first time at Shea, and I’m proud to say that they exhibited the appropriate excitement and respect as we pulled in on the 7. I hope they took my advice and self-upgraded from the upper deck down to the mezz, because it was a frickin nasty night in Flushing. It reminded me of April in, say, SEATTLE, when it’s not rain so much as a really aggressive mist.

[Riddle me this: why can you already buy Luis Castillo t-shirts BUT THERE IS NOT ONE THING IN THE BALLPARK WITH #33 ON IT?]

[more after the jump]

Sunday, August 19, 2007

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

Last year, our post-season invoices were waiting in our mailbox when we arrived home after trouncing the Cardinals on August 22nd, 2006. We paid them immediately, and our seating locations were outstanding. Our friends with seats on the loge, who have been plan holders for three times longer than I have been, were on vacation, and didn’t pay their invoice until a week later. Their seats were in the upper deck. Lessons learned.

Accordingly, TBF has been logging in to mets.com every single day to see if the invoice link was online yet. He also emailed the Mets at the beginning of the month, who told him: “Thank you for your email. Once the league gives us permission to invoice our ticket holders we will do so. At this time we do not have any prices and would not know when they would be available.”
“Fine,” said TBF. “Now I just need to make the time to harass MLB for this information.”

While I was working today, TBF did a little research, and found out that the following teams have already invoiced their fans:

Arizona Diamondbacks
Detroit Tigers
Los Angeles Angels
Philadelphia Phillies
San Diego Padres
Seattle Mariners

So where the hell are ours?

Smart money says we’ll see them this week. Be prepared!!

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Q&A: WE’VE GOT HEART.

Kristen & Stephanie are the proprietors of We’ve Got Heart, a great blog about the Washington Nationals. In honor of this weekend’s series, we exchanged questions about being fans of our respective teams. You can read their questions and my answers here.

Did you grow up as baseball fans?
Kristen:  Sort of – The closest MLB team to me was the Pirates.  My dad loved the Pirates and Roberto Clemente, so that sort of stuck with me.  I loved Pirates Short Stop Jay Bell as a kid.  We also have the AAABA tournament in our hometown every year.  My dad was involved with that organization, so I usually went to 3 games a day for that whole week.  There’s tons of scouts and one year, I was an Ambassador to it – selling tickets and advertisements, promoting it in the community and doing in-game entertainment things.  We had a Frontier League team for awhile too (The Johnstown Steal) and we went to those games all the time until they left.  I was so happy to move to DC and finally get my own team.
Steph:  I have always been a sports fan.  I grew up a Military brat so we moved a lot and I never had a true hometown team until the Nats came to DC.  But I used to go to Reds games in Ohio and lots of minor league games in some of the smaller towns I lived in…Seawolves, Wranglers.

What team did you follow before the Nationals came to town?
Stephanie The Nats have stolen my heart – I can’t imagine ever rooting for another team.

Do you have season tickets or do you just buy individual game tickets?
This year, we got a 20 game package but next year we’re getting 40 games.  We’re moving to a new park so it’s a very exciting time for a season-ticket holder.  We’re hoping to sit in right field.  We’ve already been to over 60 games this season, so we’ll just splurge on the extra 20.

[More after the jump.]

Friday, August 17, 2007

C’MON, SHARE THE DRUGS.

If by “heats up” you mean “Backsliding Dodgers come to town to play a team that can’t sweep their back porch,” then, sure.

Otherwise, SHARE ‘EM!

NO COMMENT.

UM, HELLO??! IT’S THE *PIRATES*!!!!!!!!!

$#@!

No baseball tonight. TBF is going to see the Tigers with his dad at the House of Evil, and I am going to go somewhere there is no baseball and get something done.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED.

Roger Angell in the New Yorker on the Barry Bonds saga: I guarantee you he’s the only one who would compare Bonds to Voldemort. Brief but delightful, as always.

ENDY SAYS…

“Make skim milk part of your team,” or something like that.

I hope he’s drinking LOTS of milk to heal those bones so he can come back soon.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

BIKINI BEACH PARTY.

Or, why MetsGrrl is not at the SNY viewing party at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone tonight

The first time TBF and I went to the “Glory Days” exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, the thing that struck me the strongest was all the *women* in the photographs of Ebbets Field (and Yankee Stadium, truth be told). Women in the stands. Women with pennants and scorecards and programs. Women yelling, women cheering, women heckling. Wearing hats and heels and hose, even, they were there, at the games.

And this is odd to me, still, because my perception growing up was that baseball was not a place for girls. I mentioned this to TBF, and he suggested, gently, that I wasn’t exactly around to know, and he’s right. And not growing up in a household that had any focus on sports (although had a strong focus on the three sisters [and one brother] in it being able to do whatever they set their minds on), my perception of professional sports, and baseball, probably came from the media, and more specifically, beer commercials. Everything surrounding baseball seemed to have a NO GIRLS ALLOWED sign on it.

This is why, when I started this blog, I went out there looking for other girls like me. And, like MG reader April (who wrote some very kind words about this blog a few months ago), I don’t know why I was surprised. To be fair, I don’t know if it was surprised so much as delighted. But it’s why I have the girls-only blogroll, and is one of the reasons I go out of my way to read other female baseball bloggers. (The second reason is that they are funny, or incredibly interesting, or amazingly good writers.)

[more after the jump]