Friday, October 27, 2006

well, that was a mistake

When we were walking home from dinner, TBF floated the idea of checking out the game tonight. “It’s an elimination game, you know,” he helpfully provided, because I was not supposed to be paying attention to the game (and for the record, neither was he).  This seemed okay to me; I figured I was over it by now.

So I turned on the game when it was the top of the 6th inning, and turned the sound on at the top of the 9th inning. TBF is on the phone in the other room and is missing out on the festivities, as it were, and rejected my offer to put the game on pause.

I should have turned the damn tv off. Of course it was nowhere near as bad as it was that Thursday night for us, but it was some of the same feeling: pins and needles. edge of the couch. stomach hurting. whispered prayers - and they aren’t even my damn team! Knowing how it feels when you have the tying runs on base and your one last hope comes to the plate.

I am glad, though, in a way, that the baseball is over now for the year. Not glad, because I miss watching it, which is how I got roped into watching the game tonight, the rhythm of pitches and runs and hits - it felt so good to be seeing that again. But glad that the tension is over and maybe now I can get over the fact that I was supposed to be at the World Series this week.

Maybe.

-----

beltran at the bat

I don’t know how I found this, somewhere through the server logs, and it is so very well done (although, of course, so sad; the fact that it is so well done makes it even sadder to me); the adaptation from a science fiction writer.

Some people blog when the Mets lose, others adapt poetry.

It is funny to see in the comments people who clearly do not realize that it is a loving tribute to this work.

11/4: Mets Weekly final episode, starring…

Okay. Not starring. But I was interviewed this afternoon (along with the rest of the blogosphere), and provided I didn’t sound like a complete rambling fool, you will see yours truly on the last episode of Mets Weekly for the season, on tomorrow 11/4 [thanks, Z.] at 12:30.

How will you know it’s me? Well, they interviewed two women: myself and Zoe. Zoe is wearing a pink hat and her Cliff Floyd t-shirt. I am not. There, that should make it easy for you.

Please, be kind in your comments, that is all I ask :)

Thursday, October 26, 2006

‘stache vs. the hobbit

Yes, I know. You are a grumpy curmudgeon-type and internet polls are stupid (especially when it comes to baseball) and don’t matter (especially when it comes to baseball) and you are tired of every possible advertising-tie-in baseball poll that they are shoving down your throat (especially when it comes to baseball).

I know this full well, and I agree with you. But I also know that letting The Hobbit of St. Louis (aka David Eckstein, that nice Jewish boy [JOKE ALERT: I know he’s not]) win over our Jose (no, the OTHER Jose) is a travesty.

So vote! Vote early and vote often.

Voting for “Advertising Tie In Of The Week” aka “The Look Again Player Of The Year” is here.

[Thank you Zoe.]

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

he’s not watching, either

This was the back page of El Diario this morning, which is the newspaper most widely read on the train I take to work. It did my heart good.

“Since 1972, Major League Baseball annually has presented an award which recognizes the player who best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team.”

[Hey, St. Louis, take a gander. You might see something you don’t recognize.]

Childishly, I was glad to learn that, even though Delgado was in Detroit yesterday, he didn’t stay and watch the game - from Newsday: “Delgado didn’t plan on staying for the game because he found it painful to watch. ‘I think we were the best team in the National League,’ he said. “We just didn’t win the series that we needed to win. At the end of the day, St. Louis is going to say, ‘We won it and we’re in the World Series.’ We congratulate them, they played well, but in my mind, we were the best team in the National League.’”

Hey, Carlos: in our minds, too.

-----

Sunday, October 22, 2006

HUGE news flash!

I spent the whole season in search of this: Carlos Beltran’s at-bat song.

No? You spent an entire season not wondering about this? He used the same song, every single time, period.

No, seriously. This was a big deal. We could make out a few words, but we are white kids from Connecticut and Long Island, respectively. Even the sisters who sat next to us got in on it. We would watch people sitting near us to see if anyone was singing along; if they were, we would have leapt on them and begged them to tell us what the song was called. Alas, we never found anyone who seemed to be familiar with the song.

To my delight, a few days ago metsgrrl.com reader Phil B. wrote in to say: Having searched the whole season for it, I understand your pain. However; here’s the info you’ve been hunting for: El Esta Aqui by David y Abraham.

A little research indicates that David y Abraham are Christian artists from Puerto Rico.

Mystery solved!

Friday, October 20, 2006

say a prayer for the broken hearted

Last night.

What was it like, sitting up there, being at Shea last night? The upper deck shaking and the rally towels waving and the drums and the air horn and something that sounded like a washboard or spoons down on the mezzanine. What was it like, singing along to Bon Jovi and cracking up and smooching TBF because we both hate that song SO much, but last night at Shea, blasting out of the PA, it sounded like the best thing ever.

I want to describe how it felt so I can remember it, because I have never felt anything like that before. Anticipation and excitement and fear and pride and arrogance and ebullience. My cheeks are flushed, my heart racing, my stomach in knots. I can only imagine feeling this way at Game 7. Everything on the line. A season’s worth of hope, 6 years worth of anticipation, decades full of lost prayers.

Last night, it always felt this far from possible. Not once until the end did we have that sinking feeling of ‘we’re never going to pull it out’. Oliver Perez did what everyone said he could never, ever do. For the most part, we played well. We wondered where the bats were but believed they would be coming out any minute now. We may not have pitching, according to the experts, but everyone knows we can hit!

Watching everyone on the rail of the dugout: Cliff, Duaner, Billy Wagner, John Maine. Watching Maine and Wagner and Duaner high-five Perez every time he came back. Watching those jumps over the foul line. Watching his confidence grow every time he walked off the mound. Feeling like, we are going to do this. We are going to have to work for it but we’re going to do this.

The Endy catch. I couldn’t pick up my camera. It was slow motion of the ball going out and TBF’s face falling and then turning to watch as Endy leaped, came down, and threw the ball to second in time for the double play. The color returning to TBF’s face as he cheered like I have never seen him cheer before, not even for Bruce Springsteen. Watching him come back to the dugout and wanting to take a million photographs of his reception but wanting to watch it more.

Maybe the catch is what did us in. Because the catch made us feel like we had won, when it was still only 1-1.

And even at the end, the bottom of the 9th, when I know who is next in the order but I keep glancing over at the scoreboard as though I had never seen the lineup before, I still felt it was possible. And Jose and Endy brought us back to the edge of possible. Even the Cardinals fan next to us who was on the phone making his arrangements for next Thursday shut up for a few minutes.

((This was the same guy before the game overheard saying, “I just hope the game is close.” I thought he was talking about us and was going to admonish him for jinxing things until he put on his red hat.)

I would have loved for Cliff to be the hero but honestly just wanted him to get a base hit.

When that third strike was called on Beltran, the physical reaction was immediate, that of losing the ground underneath you. No! That’s it? It’s going to end like THAT? No. It can’t be over. It can’t be. I have tickets to three World Series games. No. We’re not going to lose here to them.

But we did.

By the time we got back to Greenpoint, TBF was at least vocal again. As we were walking down the street, I asked him:"Which is worse: to get this far and not go all the way, or to never have had a chance?”
“You can’t compare them.”
“Am I a moron for wishing that this had been the World Series? I feel like it would be okay if there was no more baseball.”
“No, you’re not, it would be much easier. It’s going to be very hard to watch the Cardinals play.”

I am not going to watch the World Series. As some of us were joking with Metstradamus this morning, we are hiding in the kitchen cabinet, and if Tommy Lasorda comes in to coax us out, I’m aiming for the ankles. He’s big, he’ll hit the ground hard.

[I would like to admit that I finally understand why people get into fights at sporting events. I wanted to throttle the Cardinals fans next to us. I wanted to “accidentally” fall into the woman next to me so that her phone fell down onto the mezzanine. And hearing about what the Cardinals were singing in the clubhouse makes me understand rage on the level TBF has against Roger Clemens. He uses words to describe Roger Clemens that he never, ever, EVER uses. Not that I care, it’s just totally out of character for him.
Now, I get it.]

The Flickr feed is HERE

my banner from last night

what would make me happy this morning

Would my loyal readers from the following locations comment (even anonymously - you CAN do that) or drop me a line?

• Boise, ID
• Washington, PA
• Hawaii

I see you in the server logs!

only love can break your heart

I was going to blow off posting and go hide on the couch with the cat for a little while, but this is not how Mets Grrl rolls. No.

It was there. It was so close. We had every chance in the world. Endy rescued us from the pit of gnawing despair with the one of the best catches you have ever seen, the kind of catch Cliff Floyd would have made when he could have, a miracle catch. Watching TBF’s face as that ball headed towards the Cardinals’ bullpen, seeing his heart sink, and then explode as Endy made that catch. “He saved the season,” his best friend sends in a text message.

And I was there in the front row of the upper deck boxes with TBF, just behind the Mets dugout, fantastic, fantastic seats. It was perfect. I was even singing along to Bon Jovi like I meant it - hell, tonight I DID mean it.  The vantage for photographs was fantastic. (And some day I will likely feel like putting them online. Some day. Just not now.) We should have won this game, easily. Easily. Even at the end, snatching victory from the Cardinals in true New York fashion when we loaded those bases and came back to the top of the order… the fairytale ending had written itself.

Except it wasn’t a fairytale and the ending was less than happy. And with that, the season is over, we leave Shea for the last time in 2006, and life goes back to normal.

At the end of it all, TBF was standing there at the railing, looking at the field. This is the same guy who leaves road games we are losing in a tearing hurry, he doesn’t want to see the other team celebrating.
I grab his hand.
“Come on.”
“No. I need to see this.”

I vaguely recall that he and his best friend had a tradition about sitting and watching all the award presentations for playoff games. That is fine and dandy when it is not your team that has lost and when it is not happening in your house. I did not want to sit through that, and rationally, I knew he didn’t either. So I pack everything up and then when I am ready, I grab his hand again. All this time, I have not looked at the field once. I am not going to look at the field, and I do not regret that I did not. I finally managed to coax him out of the box and up the stairs and onto the concourse and through the sea of humanity and onto the 7 train, where I sobbed like a 12 year old boy and TBF sat there stunned and we held hands because we couldn’t fucking SAY anything.

I finally said: “You know, I have no idea how to handle this, I have never been through this before. You kind of have to help me here.”
“It’ll take a few weeks,” is all he said.

Now, here is my vent:

The worst thing about the night was that there were two Cardinals fans next to us. I could have dealt with it if they had had some guts and stood up and supported their team. They only got loud when things picked up, and the girl next to me was a pink hat girl: not that she was wearing one, but she was exactly the kind of girl those hats are made for. When we applauded Oliver Perez as he ran out towards the bullpen, she turns to me and says: “Who’s that? Why are they clapping for him.”
“He’s the *pitcher*.”
“Oh.”
Who the FUCK goes to a playoff game AND DOESN’T KNOW WHO IS PITCHING FOR THE OTHER TEAM??
And, again, I could have dealt with it if she had just been a Cardinals fan. But she would clap for the Mets and then clap for the Cardinals, get angry at bad ump calls against the Mets and then get angry at dumb things various Cardinals did, even though it was so clear she had no real idea what was going on.

To make things worse, she talked ALL FUCKING NIGHT, the exact kind of nightmare girl every guy dreads: she talked non-stop about everything except the game, and when the guy she was with didn’t pay her what she felt was the right kind of attention, she would get upset and pout and make a big deal out of it.

YO! GIRLFRIEND! YOU’RE AT A FUCKING BASEBALL PLAYOFF GAME! IT CAN WAIT, WHATEVER IT IS! Trust me here.

She complained that she had no place to put her phone. She complained that she was hungry. She complained that hot dogs made her stomach hurt. Several times. And then went out and came back with a tray of nachos, because, you know, that won’t make your stomach hurt.

Thank god they both left as soon as the game ended, because I could not have dealt, not that they had the temerity to try to trash talk.

===

Sitting on the 7 train, I called our friends in Seattle, like we have after every other win this year. TBF was not talking and I had to talk to SOMEONE, and I figured if I was talking to Alan TBF would finally relent and get on the phone, which is exactly what happened. I hear him say, “It’s only five months until Spring Training,” and I perk up. I have been talking about going to Spring Training since last year and this is the first time TBF has professed any interest in going.

The train ride would have been better if people had been quiet. Getting on the train would have been better if the NYPD were not assholes. And the whole thing would have been better if losing tonight meant all baseball was over for the year.

I will put up the pictures from the game, because I got some gorgeous shots, and I am proud of that. But, not tonight. Now it is time to go hide on the couch with the cat.