Subscribe 
EXHIBIT 1: Note comment at bottom of page, item #3 specifically.
EXHIBIT 2: Note reply in middle of page.
EXHIBIT 3: Speaks for itself.
Coincidence? You decide. :)
[Thanks to Nancy on Myspace for the pic!]
Okay. First, D.Wright has dinner with the President [I just couldn’t even bring myself to write about that], and now we find him on the cover of a magazine called “Player,” which, according to its website, can be described as “a blueprint for style, substance and sin” - and this is about the time I barf.
I don’t know who is handling his media appearances but he’s starting to be overexposed and inconsistent. The photograph is NOT flattering; it doesn’t make him look tough, street, or anything except cranky. It’s not sexy or tough in the least. If he wants to get away from the All-American Boy image, do it right.
Dear Mets Ticket Office:
With all due respect, this plan sucks eggs.
I have never been to Opening Day. I didn’t go last year because TBF wasn’t home and I already had all these baseball tickets in hand that I barely knew what to do with. But this year, we were going! We were bound and determined. I was going to use one of my floating holidays in order to take the day off (and the other one, of course, goes to Yom Kippur). TBF believes that Opening Day should be a national holiday, but that’s besides the point. I was SO excited! Opening Day of another great baseball year for the Mets.
We had held off making any kind of serious plans for weekends in February, because we believed that during one of them, we would be bundled up in sixteen layers of clothing and sleeping bags, and we had the folding chairs and the hand and feet warmers and polar fleece and snacks in the cooler and I’d emailed my brother (who has every piece of camping equipment known to mankind) about the possibility of borrowing a tent and one of those space blanket thingies. Waiting in line? Hell, we’re pros. It was the price that had to be paid. Besides, we were veterans of waiting in line on the boardwalk in Asbury Park to see Bruce Springsteen - IN DECEMBER. February in Flushing would be nothing compared to that.
Instead, you surgically remove the cameraderie and the ability to earn it with this surgical, unemotional lottery. And I gotta say, not only is it slightly unfair, the reasons are b.s. I can understand - almost - the need to implement a method like this during the playoffs. There’s big money involved, scalpers get nasty, they hire people to wait in line for them, you didn’t want a security problem out at Shea. I can understand all of that.
But for OPENING DAY? You really think *that* many of the alleged influx of fair-weather fans allegedly ringing the phones off the hook in the ticket office are going to camp out in 30 degree weather in February to buy their tickets?
Um, not bloody likely.
You’ve done it this way for years and it’s a tradition, and frankly, it should still continue to be a tradition now that the team has achieved a degree of success. Let your press release be about the huge, unexpected camp out in the parking lot instead of “extensive demand has required we institute a lottery”. As my sister would say, BULL PUCKY.
What’s that, Mets Ticket Office? I can guarantee myself a ticket to opening day if I buy a seven-pack or full season plan? Well, MTO (can I call you that?) I already have a Tuesday-Friday plan, and I kind of think that should allow me access to buy a ticket for Opening Day if I want to. And you know what - we’re so happy to give the Mets our money that we *would* buy a seven-pack, but the “Opener Pack,” the only option featuring Opening Day…
...FEATURES FOUR TUESDAY GAMES! Not one, not two, but FOUR! And, as you should know, MTO, Mets Grrl already bought tickets to all the Tuesday games. So this doesn’t help me. At all.
And - MTO - before you start talking to me about the wonders of the full-season plan, let’s get real: if I had the money, I would have bought in. But the jump from the cash involved to finance Tuesday-Friday to the small fortune involved to purchase a full season is not trivial. C’mon, MTO, deep down inside you know that, even though right now you’re all caught up in the romance of your new sweethearts, all the people who broke your door down waving dollar bills at you, demanding full season plans for 2007.
But, don’t worry, MTO, we’ll be at Opening Day no matter what. Because if that many people truly became full season ticket holders, Stub Hub and Craigslist will be hopping with tickets for sale in a few weeks. So you’re right - it will truly be both “fair and convenient” for me to buy tickets to Opening Day after all.
See you soon!
With love,
MG
Or: HOW MANY DAYS UNTIL PITCHERS AND CATCHERS, PLEASE?!
Mr. W. Randolph will be officiating at the opening of a new Verizon Wireless Store in Harlem on Friday. Ribbon cutting and EVERYTHING. [via]
OMG CAN THE BASEBALL PLEASE START ALREADY SO THE METS BLOGGING COMMUNITY NO LONGER HAS TO RESORT TO THIS LEVEL OF INANITY
——-
The UK Guardian is featuring a fascinating article about how a UK football (soccer) coach is using Moneyball principals.
(I’d never read Moneyball, and then a few weeks ago someone I know wrote asking me a question about it, so I finally ordered the book - which TBF and I promptly played tug-of-war with, until I distracted him with something else and devoured the thing.)
——-
Okay, in a manner of speaking: since Ian only gets his ass over to the US once or twice a year, it’s not like we’re going out for a few pints and some baseball chat, but he does answer his email via his web site:
Mets Grrl: What do you think about the Mets not getting Barry Zito for 2007! I thought the money was stupid; they did the right thing.
Hamburgers picked up from DuMont Burger.
Food on the coffee table.
Mets Grrl and TBF on the couch.
“Hand me the remote.”
“I’ve got it!”
“Fast forward!”
Slowly, a green field surrounded by bleachers comes into view. There’s no sound, and I am beginning to regret that I didn’t make TBF tape the listing noted as “Beisbol” on the Spanish-language channel (I am learning Spanish via podcast, and discovering that any information about baseball in Spanish is likely to make me work just a little bit harder). After a few minutes, the commentary begins, just as we recoil in horror from the sight of Jose Lima on the pitchers mound.
Yes, it is Friday night, and we are so desperate for our fix that we have RECORDED the first game of the Caribbean World Series, Dominican Republic v. Venezuela, which took place at 3pm today. We would have recorded all of the games today, as well as programmed the DVR to capture the whole weekend’s festivities, were it not for the previously-mentioned dilemma that we have about 20 hours’ worth of baseball playoff games on the DVR that we cannot come to any mutually satisfactory resolution in re: their disposition.
We didn’t last all 15 innings, and no, we didn’t get to see Anderson Hernandez almost hit that walkoff home run, but for a little while there, it was Friday night and we had baseball, and everything seemed all right in the world.
On the way to pick up the hamburgers, I started whistling unconsciously. It wasn’t until TBF joined in that I realized that I was whistling the tune to the second verse of “Meet The Mets”. Not even the first verse - the SECOND verse. Clearly, we need help.
March 22 can’t come quickly enough.
You know, they film EVERYTHING in our neighborhood. Law & Order. The Black Donnellys. Commercial after commercial. Dennis Leary is sending people to knock on our door to beg us to let them film Rescue Me (and they take up our parking for days on end).
But freaking $#@! Yankees fan obnoxious $#@! SPIKE LEE (who except for his directorial efforts I can’t be bothered with) can’t even film in his own damn borough?!:
REYES APPEARS IN COMMERCIAL: At 8:45 a.m. yesterday, Mets shortstop José Reyes sat shivering on a sidewalk in Greenwich Village.
Next to him was Twins starting pitcher Johan Santana, who was grilling a hamburger. It was about 20 degrees outside, and the wind chill made it seem like the low teens.
So what were Reyes and Santana doing there?
Along with five other players — Minnesota’s Justin Morneau, Detroit’s Justin Verlander, Boston’s Jonathan Papelbon, St. Louis’s David Eckstein and the Yankees’ Robinson Canó — they were filming a commercial for new baseball caps under the direction of Spike Lee.
The hats, manufactured by New Era, are designed to absorb sweat more efficiently, and they have a new black underside to the bill intended to reduce glare. Over and over, from 7 a.m. till noon, the players filmed the ad with 10-minute breaks from the cold.
“I got an idea about how to stay warm,” said Morneau, the 2006 American League most valuable player, as he shuffled between the street and a dressing room at the back of the store. “I could find all the White Sox hats and light them on fire.” MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Via Bat-Girl.com.
To Whom It May Concern:
The next time you’re going to throw a little shindig for prospective season-ticket buyers, give us a call.
I can assure you that you will not find more enthusiastic prospective season-ticket buyers than myself and TBF. I guarantee that we discuss the possibility of purchasing a full season at least twice a week - more if that week includes overtime hours, a yearly bonus, a lottery ticket purchase, or a trip to Atlantic City.
Plus, I assure you we know how to behave in the Diamond Club. We would not sing “Jose, Jose, Jose” to Jose Reyes, propose marriage to David Wright, or ask Tom Glavine to make a phone call to a Braves fan (we promise that the cell phone would ONLY be handed to a card-carrying Mets fan). And I would make sure TBF didn’t harass Mr. Met and give him pointers as to where, exactly he should be pointing that t-shirt gun.
Just keep us in mind.
Love ya,
MG
——-
The first tickets of the year have arrived!!!
