Saturday, May 31, 2008

COMIC RELIEF, MUCH NEEDED.

[via]

Friday, May 30, 2008

FRIDAY MUSINGS.

• Only in Seattle would this be an issue. On the East Coast, we would of course put this on the Diamondvision and it would be cheered. [Please keep in mind that I am being sarcastic in the extreme, as I find both behaviors almost equally offensive]
• As the Section 12 regulars can tell you, if I EVER got a chance to throw out the first pitch, I would hire a pitching coach. Mariah has no excuse (well, except maybe those heels)
• I’m trying really hard not to miss Carlos Gomez, but THOSE girls aren’t making it very easy. (They’re designing a “Carlos Gomez Quote-A-Day” calendar, too.)

Thursday, May 29, 2008

SUMMER READING FOR THE METS.

Bloomberg offers summer reading suggestions for Your 2008 Mets:

Carlos Delgado—``The Odyssey’’: The 35-year-old could use a reminder that with age come wisdom and cunning. And when he’s done, perhaps Hemingway’s ``The Old Man and the Sea.’’ The central character, an octogenarian named Santiago, is inspired by his baseball hero, Joe DiMaggio, who did great things in spite of obstacles, including injury.

[via]

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

STAND AND DELIVER.

What a night to have been out at Shea.  I got on the 7 train around 6:45 tonight and was envious of the businessmen-types heading out to Flushing, although it was out of the question from every possible angle.  Even settling in to watch the game on delay, I didn’t expect very much; so, we won a game yesterday? Big deal.

But this was different, as we all know now.

Hilarity ensued in this house when Duaner came up to bat, when John Maine came out to run (something I called and got a grudging fist bump from TBF for). This was a night for jumping around the living room and the cat quickly running out of the way so as not to get underfoot.

Like everyone else currently sitting in their parents’ basement in their underwear and typing on their Commodore 64’s about tonight’s game, I am willing to go out on a limb and say, yes, tonight could be the turning point. Tonight is when the regulars didn’t suck, when the regulars stepped up and seemed familiar again, and when the irregulars had a chance to play hard and make a difference. The weekend will be the acid test. 

MUCH OF A MUCHNESS.

Despite the poetry that is Johan Santana pitching (and it is poetry; mid-delivery he resembles an archer or warrior pose in yoga), I left my camera at home for last night’s game. I can always find something to take a photo of, but the Mets are not inspired, therefore it is difficult for me to be inspired.

I cannot find much to say about last night. It is not an omen or an augur or anything except what it is: the Mets won a game. There was not much booing, nor any calls for Mr. Randolph’s head on a platter. There was instead a moron on our left who kept yelling JOSE, YOU STINK and on our right, DAN UGGLA, YOU’RE UGLY - the latter quite possibly the most unoriginal heckle ever in the history of heckling, but let’s consider that it originated from the person who felt the need to voice the opinion that Luis Gonzalez stunk, and as TBF put it, “If you get a walk-off hit off of Mariano Rivera to win the World Series, I’m sorry, but you don’t stink.”

Like I said, there is not much to say about last night.

We were avidly watching the out of town scoreboard, and when the Yankees and the Orioles went to rain delay, and then we came home to find it coming out of rain delay, decided that we should watch it, and I stayed up far too late to watch a game that—well, I was going to say “didn’t matter to me” except that it did. It mattered because there was good and evil, there was effort and enthusiasm, there was heart and drama.

Something sadly lacking in Flushing these days.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

CONTEST WINNERS!

As they say, misery loves company.  As chosen - without input - by TBF, the winners of the DVD contest are Jessica Bader and Ray Stillwell. (Ray, you will be pleased to know that he went to the trouble of verifying that your game did indeed have the historical footnote you claimed it did.) Could you both email me a snail mail address?

The winning entries follow:

Jessica Bader:
July 2, 1999. Fireworks Night, against the Braves. I am 13 years old, and I am with my parents and my younger brother. It is disgustingly hot and humid, and the only thing worse than the weather is the game. After 4 innings, the Braves are ahead 10-0 and the Mets have yet to get a hit against Maddux. Around the 5th inning or so, my mother, who has been complaining about the heat and humidity all night, starts to feel dizzy, as though she is having a heatstroke. We leave. The Mets continue to embarrass themselves in both halves of the remaining innings.

Yes, that’s bad, but not amazin’ly so. What makes it worse is what transpires about a year later. June 30, 2000. Fireworks Night, against the Braves. It is the 8th inning, and the Mets trail 8-1. Associating the present events (Mets losing big against the Braves on Fireworks Night) with the nightmare of the previous year, my parents decide to leave the game, dragging a stubborn, angry 14-year-old girl with them. The rest is history, history that I can only experience via a car radio.

[Ray’s entry after the jump]

Monday, May 26, 2008

IN OTHER NEWS.

You see, I could do what everyone else is doing, which is analyze everything that’s happened, but that to me is everything that has BEEN happening. None of it is new, except for the introduction of the manager’s job probably almost actually being on the line. None of it is new: the lack of stellar play, the irregulars contributing out of nowhere, the new hero who will be our story line until he starts to perform at a level more normal for him (at which point he will be sent packing), Delgado coming up with some burst of performance that will send the beat writers into fond reminiscences of Who Carlos Delgado Was (all of which is good and wonderful but he is not that Carlos Delgado any more and talking about it will not make it so). It is not new to sit and talk about how PEDRO is coming back and PEDRO will be taking his Rightful Place In The Rotation, only for Pedro to come back and be Pedro Martinez in 2008 (whatever that will be - it will however not be Pedro Martinez in any other year, which is what we want and need and he will do it for five minutes before something else goes wrong and he goes on the DL - whatever happened to the sensible routine of putting Pedro on the DL until after the All-Star break?)

It is not new, and it is tiring to write about, and it is depressing to go through. Because every game we sit down to watch we believe will be THE game that will get it started, that will break the malaise, that will extract the monkey’s claws from the collective backs of the 2008 Mets. Every hit, every home run, every stolen base, every positive sign we grasp onto.

HERE’S A RADICAL NOTION.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

ROCKY MOUNTAIN WAY.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

UNSATISFIED.