Thursday, July 24, 2008

THE EDGE.

Dear SportsNet New York:

I am a long-standing subscriber of your network. We will omit the small fact that I have no choice but to be a subscriber of your network if I want to watch the New York Mets on television. Let’s just leave it that I am a loyal customer.

I am writing to bring your attention to a series of commercials featured on your network. While I realize you are not just a Mets station, but rather are a “New York sports” station (as you go to great lengths to remind us), these commercials are played with disturbing frequency during Mets games in particular. I am speaking, of course, of the Ford motor vehicle advertisements regarding one Derek F. Jeter* and his “edge”. These commercials air constantly during Mets games, repeatedly. They don’t just run once, twice or three times, but well over half a dozen times. Sometimes they even run one inning break after another.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I WAS BRUISED AND BATTERED.

There’s a neighbor on our block, an old-timer, owns the entire brownstone. He’s fond of the seasonal decorations, you know, those big blow up snowglobes and turkeys and Easter bunnies. He’s also a Mets fan, which means that the Mets flag hangs outside the front door whenever the Mets are in town. Seeing it hang there yesterday morning on the way to work made me feel proud and happy. Not that our neighborhood isn’t a Mets neighborhood, but it was one of those moments when the sun hits the brick just right and it’s quiet for two minutes and it just *feels* like Brooklyn should feel.

I was excited and happy to get to the game, even if I was so exhausted that I almost slept past the Willets Point stop. When we pulled in, I was sure we were at Junction Boulevard, and had to scramble to get past the tourists and confused and slow people. I was early, and I was happy that I would have a few minutes of peace in Section 12 before the madness began.

I do not fault the Phillies “Phans” for coming north. If I was them, I would be heartily tired of us turning CBP into Shea Stadium South for the past few years. However, the fact that it took an organized effort on the part of Philly Phandom to put the idea of the northern migration into the phanbase’s head says all you really need to know about them.

Monday, July 21, 2008

THE OBLIGATORY CITI FIELD POST.

Earlier in the season, TBF and I found ourselves at Shea with time to kill, so we got in line for the Citi Field preview center. I didn’t expect much - I mean, the finishes of the various suites aren’t going to impact me, now, are they - but I had hoped to learn something.

For the most part, my assessment was correct. (They should really offer two levels of tours - one for those who are seriously interested in suites or boxes, and one for people who just want to see the circus.) They started the tour by saying, “I’m sure some of you are season ticket holders or plan holders and have a lot of questions, and we’ll answer those questions later in the year, we can’t answer them now.” So I expected the tour to be largely irrelevant to TBF and myself.

What I didn’t expect was to walk out of there completely fucking devastated.

The most relevant (and also the most interesting) part of the tour is when you walk into a room that two rows of actual future Citi Field seats of different types and quality. They even (allegedly) replicate the future legroom. You then get to sit there and watch a pretty cool virtual reality presentation on the wall, where they can show you the view from just about every level at Citi Field.

And that was when it hit me.

It isn’t just that we’re going to end up in the last rows of the upper deck. It’s that every seat, from the far edge of the Mets’ dugout to the far edge of the visitor’s dugout, on every single level, will be a club seat.

Period.

So even our humble but enjoyable seats in the current mezzanine reserved, right up from third base, will be off-limits to us in Citi Field.

Friday, July 18, 2008

THE ANTI BILLY JOEL.

I got an email this morning asking me to please post a review and photos of the Billy Joel show.

I realize some of you will find this uproariously funny already. You are the people who get the song references in my post headlines, and who managed to turn a Mets blog into a Pearl Jam blog a few weeks ago. Some other people will have realized that the “grrl” part of MetsGrrl probably signifies that I’m not a big fan of the middle-of-the-road, AOR kind of tunes.

I’m sorry. I hate Billy Joel - or at least that’s what I would have said as a teenager. As a reasoned adult who isn’t getting into a fight on Metro North over the fact that I’m wearing a Clash t-shirt, I will say that I greatly respect Billy Joel, think he has added to the culture, and that there are some songs of his I actively enjoy. But I’m not a fan, and am not going to the show. I have seen my concerts at Shea, and I am fine with that. 

But on the subject of “Concerts I Have Seen At Shea Stadium” I did think that perhaps since it was the weekend, I could justify posting something about my concert history at Shea Stadium.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

BRING BACK THE BLUE HATS.

Higher and Higher - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band [live] - mp3, 12mb

“Higher and Higher” was chosen by TBF as his 2008 “Mets Win!” song. We had been listening to Jackie Wilson’s original those odd few times earlier this year it had been appropriate to break it out, until TBF looked this one up (from Boston 3/25/77, with the Miami Horns, aka The La Bamba Horns, aka the Max Weinberg 7 Horns).  Tonight, after this come-from-behind, no we are NOT going to break our 9 game winning streak, [expletive] Cincinnati, win, it seemed appropriate to share with the rest of you.

What a game! What a huge, huge game. They fought. They battled. They got ahead… they fell behind… they came back… they fell behind AGAIN… and they came back AGAIN!

There was shouting.
There was dancing.
The cat hid under the coffee table.
We danced around the room some more.

So far, the after-game playlist has been “Taking Care of Business,” the original “Higher and Higher,” “Mary’s Place,” and now “Let’s Go Crazy.”

Maybe it’s true? Maybe?

When we were discussing our summer vacation plans, and what we want to take out of the joint tour/playoff fund, I said, “Maybe we should wait until the middle of August to decide whether or not we should take any money out.” Right now, I’m going to back that. I’m going to back it because it’s more fun to believe and have fun than it is to slink around and mope. They could let us down again, but right now, at least going to Mets games will be enjoyable again.

APROPOS OF THE REDS.

My Afghan Whigs obsession is well-known to most people of my acquaintance. I will go see or hear anything that Greg Dulli ever does sight unseen/unheard. It’s unlikely my iPod can go more than half an hour without cycling through some Dulli project.

So of course I am thrilled to have found out that not only is he a righteous guy with amazing talent and impeccable musical taste, but he is also the type of baseball fan that TBF could appreciate. (I also heard a rumor that he has a fantasy league, and would give my eyeteeth to know 1. who is on his team and 2. who else is in this league.) Since of course the Whigs are from Cincinnati, The Great American Ballpark allegedly plays Whigs music on a regular basis.

(This is how I am justifying this post as being relevant to MetsGrrl, anyway.)

Here’s the latest Dulli baseball quote:

My Favourite Way To Relax
“I watch baseball, either on TV or by going to a game. I support the Cincinnati Reds, who are terrible at the moment-they have one of the worst teams I’ve ever seen in my life! But when they’re your team, you’re with them for the good times and you’re with them for the bad times.
--Kerrang!

What’s not to love?

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

MINDLESS DRIFTER ON THE ROAD.

I’d like to award the first MetsGrrl “Hello Kitty” Award to the following individuals:

1. BILLY WAGNER.
2. DAN UGGLA.
3. BRAD LIDGE.

I also dedicate the Neil Young original composition from which the title of this post comes from. (No Googling!)

I finally went to bed around 1am, and I remember the radio saying “...and we’re going to the 15th.” I also remember hearing the crowd screaming and hearing Justin Morneau was sliding into home and hitting the radio so hard to shut it off that I consider myself lucky that I still have a radio this morning...unlike TBF, who broke his clipboard - he always keeps score during the All-Star Game - after Wagner blew it. I wanted to include photographs of the carnage, but he duct-taped it together and I was waiting for the game to be over before posting.

I’ll leave my one other comment to my friend Lisa, a card-carrying member of Red Sox Nation. I think it says it all:

Did you stay up for that game?  Holy crap that was long.  Do you
remember where they were playing?  It is on the tip of my tongue…

Karen emailed me this morning that NY has this *other* baseball team
and they are called something crazy like The Metropolitans.  I told
her she was losing it and next she was going to tell me they are going
to put a man on the moon.

Monday, July 14, 2008

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES.

I used to be on an endless run
Believe in miracles ‘cause I’m one
I have been blessed with the power to survive
After all these years I’m still alive…

There’s a Ramones song that’s a big favorite of mine. It’s not one of the songs that everyone, including my mother, would know, it’s not “Rockaway Beach” or “Blitzkrieg Bop” or anything that you’d hear on a commercial or played at a Yankees game. The song is called “I Believe In Miracles,” and if you know the name of the album it was on without Googling, you’re definitely a diehard, because it came out in 1989, long after what’s historically considered their heyday (if they even had one, which is both a shame and a national tragedy).

I thought of this song as I watched Josh Hamilton tonight. In the world of rock and roll, we are accustomed to losing and ruining our best and brightest. Addiction and abuse is glorified and saluted, and no one ever believes that someone has conquered their demons and made it through to the other side, it seems like too many people are waiting for them to slip and fall again. Josh Hamilton could have gone the way of many, but he didn’t. He came back when no one would have ever believed it. And watching him tonight, thinking of the the people who gave him a chance and the people who stood by him, listening to that jaded Yankee-centric crowd show they really do have a heart, was awe-inspiring. Feeling as one with every single person who sat on the edge of their couches at home, rooting for him, should have made the most jaded curmudgeon a little misty. The fact that this was a dream that he’d had, but had never been brave enough to tell anyone about made it an even better story, and watching him trying to hit one out onto the IRT tracks, after he sat in the press conference and told everyone he was going to do it is a story that should make anyone feel better about life.

I’m just sorry he didn’t do it.

Yeah, Justin Morneau won - and it couldn’t have gone to a nicer guy - but tomorrow morning, everyone in the subway and the bus and the playgrounds and the diners and the lunchrooms and the water coolers is going to be talking about Josh Hamilton. And maybe there is some guy or gal out there struggling with their own addiction who might just feel a little bit of strength from it. Maybe some people I know, maybe some people you know.

So Josh, this one’s for you.

Eddie Vedder & Zeke cover “I Believe In Miracles” [mp3, 3.1mb]

REVOLUTION 9.

Friday night, we were cautiously optimistic, still. Good Oliver or Bad Oliver? Would there be bats? Would there be hits? Would there be runs? The 2008 Mets we know are the ones who stomp all over the Yankees and then lose to the Mariners, remember?

Going home, we thought: okay, one game. Nicely played.

Saturday afternoon, arriving later than we wanted to (we became Those People who arrive in the third inning, through no fault of our own), we watched Pedro pitch well, the rest of the Mets play well, and, astonishingly, win again. We came home full of plans to go Sunday night, and were creeping around eBay and StubHub when TBF got a call that he had to go home for the evening, and wouldn’t make it home in time.

I’m still not sure why I didn’t just pack up my scorecard and my camera and go out to Shea myself; MG reader Kelsey, in from Denver, was bravely slogging through a weekend of watching the Mets decide to show up and play and actually beat the Rockies, repeatedly, and I could have just gotten an upper deck ticket and self-upgraded. But nooo, I was going to be all responsible and productive and stuff, and watch the game while tinkering with Wordpress for a much-neglected other project.

Could someone remind me of these kinds of things the next time I misguidedly decide to do something like this? Not only did I have to suffer through Morgan and Miller, I missed an awesome game.

Mike Pelfrey, if the team store doesn’t have a shirt for you, I swear I’m going to make one tomorrow. Hell, my 2008 jersey might just end up having your name and number on it instead.  What a beautiful, brilliant, inspiring effort.

On to the All-Star break.  We’re buying extra tickets to that Phillies series to make up for missing tonight.

P. S. Should we be going to Fan Fest? I mean, we decided not to in the end, but are we being dumb about this?

Sunday, July 13, 2008

READY TO ORDER!

I wanted to find another vendor since CafePress sucks.

MAINE-TALLICA by metsgrrl
Create Customized T-Shirts With zazzle

There is a small profit on each one that I’ll be putting towards my hosting bill.

You can choose size/style and I am assured that the finished product will look even better than the mockup. I ordered a shirt from this vendor for the Crane Pool Forum’s fundraiser and it was a great quality shirt delivered super-fast.