I do not wish to rub salt in wounds. However:

Dear Mets, let us introduce you to Senor Johnny Cuest. Sorry you have to meet him in this way, as we are going to take the series from you. No hard feelings about those 96 mph heaters blowing by you, ok? But hey, we left you with a gift this weekend - your guys started hitting a bit, too. Don’t give up, and stop booing your players. It’s early in the season, and you guys have some good ones.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Let’s remember that this was a game in which the opposing pitcher STOLE SECOND.

It was lovely to see The Good Oliver again, and if this is how he performs because his mother’s coming to town tomorrow - well, I would say we should take up a collection so she could come to everyone one of his starts except that Ollie can certainly afford to make that commitment himself.

I wish I could feel cockier about today. I wish I could really feel like the Mets are starting to show us what it will be like this season. But on a day where even Scott Schoeneweis doesn’t get booed, things have to be looking up.

And I have to thank Gary Cohen for explaining the rule about what happens when a team bats out of order in such elaborate detail that even I could explain it back to TBF (not that he needed me to explain it to him, just doing it to see if I understood) when he got home from visiting his folks. That had to be one of the most absurd things ever.

--
We didn’t go last night. At the end, we decided to take the refund and put it back into the playoffs fund - and then at the last minute took it back out again when TBF found good seats in our price range at the House of Evil next Sunday. (I know, I know, but it’s the last year, we should go one more time.) I miss Tuesday night’s game since I am going to see Mike Ness with Ms. Coop. I generally try hard to not schedule concerts for game night but I love Ness solo and he has another love, the amazing Jesse Dayton, opening for him. Jesse Dayton never gets outside Texas much so it was not difficult to make the decision that rock and roll trumped the Mets against the Nationals.

Created by the curmudgeons over at the Crane Pool Forum, whose motto is “Intelligent, lively, and provocative discussion of the Mets, Ed Kranepool, and, on a good day, the Ramones.” (The latter comes from something Gary Cohen said on-air once, I believe.)

(The only unfortunate thing is that despite their Forest Hills origins the closest to baseball fandom I can tie to the Ramones is Johnny’s equally unfortunate Yankees loyalties.)

That segment made me sad because it seemed like such a waste. Because there are thousands of stories at Shea. Every game I see someone that I’d like to know more about. Instead we get footage of more drunk Mets fans going “LET’S GO METS” in the parking lot or at a bar. I realize that this will be taken as me “slamming” them again, but I’m not the only who feels this way - I’m just the only one who actually cares enough to think about the program and review it.

I got this email the other week from the producers of the Mets fan documentary “Mathematically Alive”. Now, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about:

We want to hear about your most memorable days at Shea.  Maybe it was Buckner’s goof. Tom Terrific’s near perfection or Ventura’s grand slam single. Or more memorable still was your 1st opening day.

We want to hear all the stories. Join us in creating Heckuva Day: Stories from Shea Stadium

“The Directors of Mathematically Alive: A Story of Fandom have just announced that they will be working on a tribute video to Shea Stadium called Heckuva Day: Stories from Shea Stadium. The best part of this video is that everyone makes the cut! According to the filmmakers, there will be no time constraints for this project so everyone who is interviewed will be included in the video. The directors said that they shot over 150 hours of video for Mathematically Alive and the worst part about it was making the cuts. They said they plan to use some of that extra video, but want Mets fans to meet up with them to talk about their best memories of Shea. Again, any fan who would like to be a part of this video should email the filmmakers to find out where and when they will be conducting the interviews. 

They plan to unveil the video at a “Mets Everything” event that they will host in September 2008. This event will be filled with Mets fans, bloggers, authors, etc.  The event is set to happen before the last game at Shea and will be a celebration of the wonderful memories that Shea has given to so many people.

Hope you’re all in and please feel free to pass this on to every Mets fan in the world. Check out the trailer on YouTube.

Email me at kforonjy@mathematicallyalive.com if you’d like to be included in the video

This also compliments Steve’s rants over at The Kranepool Society about how he can’t fathom that the Mets aren’t sponsoring anything to commemorate the end of Shea - no old timer’s day, no chance for fans to get on the field, no recreation of Banner Day, nothing, at least nothing that we know about, which leads him (and me) to believe that they don’t plan on anything.

Think about this: you have a day when the Mets are on the road. You open up the stadium to allow fans to have photos taken on the field, in the dugout, with Mr. Met, with their name on the scoreboard, and all the money charged for this (depending on what you want) goes to charity. That would go a lot further than, say, charging fans to get onto the back fields at PSL for open workouts, or donating $100 to have your name on the sidewalk in front of Citi Field. (We want to get a brick that says, ‘THIS IS ALL WE COULD AFFORD AT CITI FIELD’ but we are pretty sure the Mets will say ‘no’.) And before you say it can’t be done - The Mariners do this for Christmas, and as a result, my friends have a photo of their family with the Mariner Moose in a Santa suit with their names on the scoreboard behind them - all for a donation to charity. I realize more people would want to do this than they probably want to do in Seattle (although I’m not so sure) - so what? The Mets could make it happen. They just don’t care or want to.

Get the stories. Get the history. Get the memories. Get it now. 

However, this post makes me question the intelligence of the average Red Sox fan:

5:10 PM Ben: wanna go see santana on saturday afternoon?  i have a ticket seat’s not great but it’s free
[I frantically search Pollstar and Santana’s web site, wondering why I don’t know about a Santana concert happening on a Saturday afternoon in or around New York City. I am baffled.]

But we are troopers. We traipse all the way over to Gate B so we can go to Mama’s (because of course given the huge crowds at Shea tonight, security couldn’t make an exception and allow us to walk around on the field level). We traipse all the way back to third base. We find Miriam and Julia and settle in in Section 12, where the security guard is being utterly ridiculous and not letting people sit in seats other than the ones they are ticketed for.

We eat sandwiches while Miriam and Julia drink. We’re having such a good time we don’t really notice how bad it’s getting until the rain started blowing sideways.

I put on another shirt. I put on my playoffs sweatshirt. I now have two shirts, a fleece and a sweatshirt on. I rummage for gloves and crankily scold TBF for forgetting a blanket.

When they started rolling a cart onto the field around 8pm, carrying what looked like square insulated bags, my first silly thought was: “Pizza going to the clubhouse!”
But no.
The person rolling the cart went into the dugout.
They started loading up the coolers.
And then they started loading the equipment bags.
The Rain Hotline tells us that the game is going to be played tonight.
TBF is turning on WFAN when a curmudgeon in Section 10 yells, “Day-night doubleheader tomorrow at 8:10pm.”
We wait a minute or two for an announcement, but when we see the field level stalwarts heading up the aisles, we say “fuck it.”

We are clearing the new team store near the subway when we finally hear the announcement… and that was with a stop in the Diamond Club lobby to try to find Coop (who was sensibly ensconsed there with her cousin). I’m still trying to figure out why there was at least a FIFTEEN MINUTE DELAY between the announcement on WFAN and the announcement IN THE PLACE WHERE THE PEOPLE WHO NEED TO HEAR IT THE MOST ARE WAITING, cold and wet.

When something similar happened to That Team In The Bronx last year the media jumped all over them for not calling the game until everyone had trekked uptown and spent some money. I know, Cincinnati isn’t coming back this year and no one wanted a day-night doubleheader, but this was also bullPUCKY.

Here, have a cannoli:

Since I was going to be missing tomorrow’s game for Mother’s Day (don’t ask, we do it on Saturday and not on Sunday), at least I get to see a game this week.

It didn’t stop at Court House Square. Which is our stop. Normally an express stop on the 7.

“We can get off at Queensboro Plaza and get the same bus,” I argued. “Or get the local, it’s one stop.”
“But Court House Square is the only connection to the G and to the rest of Brooklyn. I’m going to write the MTA.”

We are big on writing letters in our house. We write letters when bad things happen and we write letters when good things happen too. However, not since some customer service rep at ESPN acted like a total moron to TBF, necessitating a letter and the forthcoming free subscription, has anything this good ever happened:

Subject: Mets Express
Date: Fri, 9 May 2008 14:41:18 -0400
From: “Maldonado, Rachel” <email redacted>
To: <tbf_address_also_redacted>

Dear Mr. TBF,

You described an oversight in this year’s post-game Mets Super Express in comparison to last year’s service:  the missing key connection at 45 Road/Court House Square for transfer to the G Line.  You were one of three customers who wrote to us about this oversight.

We took your comments seriously and beginning today the Mets Super Express will stop at 45 Road/Court House Square.  Signs were made and are being posted today.  You and many other Mets fans will now be able to enjoy a fast ride and a transfer to the G Line.

We read every message from every customer and use your comments to improve the service we provide to you.  Thank you for taking the time to share your valuable thoughts with us.

Sincerely,

Louis Brusati
General Manager
7 Line

This will mean, however, that we will have to stop hurling invective in the direction of the MTA employees who routinely misdirect us to the wrong train after the game, or tell us there is no express running when one rumbles in as soon as we’re through the turnstiles and on the local platform. At least temporarily.

It’s a post where I offer up any number of reasonable excuses about, say, not posting much about the Arizona roadtrip. The problem I think is that I read what everyone else had to say, and then realized I had nothing else to add. I can add that I would love to go to Chase Field. I can add that we were thinking about doing a roadtrip this year so we could have hit Phoenix and LA, but we rejected it because at the time we were still pissed at 2007. I can add that TBF has been there already.

And I can talk about how great it was that the Mets picked up their asses and won two games. But it feels like every minute part of the games was covered by someone and there was nothing more to add… except that if i had to listen to Eric Byrnes’ at-bat song one more time I was going to kill someone. Because these are the things that I focus on, instead of focusing on Mr. Futility or Mr. Contribution or the rock out in left field.

I watched as much of Monday’s game as I could. I remember previous roadtrips as being not quite as onerous on my sleep schedule, that I was able to watch more and not feel the impact if I watched until the end. When I read other folks, I just feel guilty and inadequate. I don’t like missing things. I don’t like not following what’s going on. I don’t like not having seen important plays, even if they’re important plays when the Mets totally fuck up. On the other hand, who can blame anyone for not wanting to sit through that meltdown? No seriously. I mean, if you are independently wealthy and don’t have a family or other obligations at all, maybe you would want to have spent your time on watching OP lose it, but otherwise, why would you?

Oliver Perez simultaneously irks and elates me. I like the goofiness, I like the leaps over the foul line, the high socks. I like the Good Oliver, I like the fact that he’ll sit in the dugout with a rally cap on and will be one of the first ones out if we win. I hate that this is his last year with us and I hate that he is represented by The Great Satan. I hate that we will lose him no matter what. And I hate when he can’t get it together and completely falls apart and embarrasses the hell out of every Mets fan everywhere (except of course for Willie Randolph, who thinks it’s great they’re not at Shea any more. Hey Willie, go to hell. Childishly, I very much like this idea that we all start booing *Willie* from now on.)

I feel guilty that I didn’t even try to watch last night, even though I like to think I have a valid excuse. One of my best friends in the world is in a band whose first record was released yesterday, and his band was onstage at Amoeba Records in LA just as the game was starting. I was glued to the computer screen for an hour watching the webcast of their performance, and then tried to play catch up on the game while getting ready to go to sleep, since I have to get up at 5:45am on Wednesdays.

“Hey, honey, you need to see this,” TBF would yell, as I was picking out clothes or brushing my teeth and I would pad into the living room, and watch various Mets attempt to do various things, including Moises Alou stealing home.

I’m sorry, let me say that again. Moises. Alou. Stealing. Home.

I have to say that play inspired me, and not in a Julio Franco “you’re as old as dirt so everything you do, you are automatically the oldest person to do it” kind of way. People in Chicago worship Moises Alou. We think we get it but I believe we don’t. I would like to think that last night was Moises trying to inspire the team, trying to set some kind of bar for people to live up to, just like Johnny Maine beating himself up or David Wright throwing his helmet or Ryan Church berating himself for not making a catch that neither Xavier Nady nor Shawn Green would have stood a hope in hell of thinking about catching.

And all of that is great, but the fact remains that I have to go to bed or I will be totalled for two days and worthless at the office and I don’t get to do that. It’s one thing to straggle into work when you get home at midnight from some glorious extra innings game that we won, it’s another to watch yet another West Coast Massacre. And if I say what I really think, which is It’s another entirely to watch this team take you on the rollercoaster and then lose at 1am, I would feel unworthy except I’m not sure TBF stayed up until the bitter end either. [He didn’t. The word he used was ‘uninspired.’

I don’t know how the rest of you do it.

As I write this, Johnny Maine is once again being a hero. We don’t need another hero; we just need this team to get their heads and their bats and their acts together.

[My friend Joel’s band, Everest, is on Conan O’Brien next Friday and is at Maxwell’s on Saturday, and if you go to the latter I will personally buy you a beer. And, yes girls, he’s single.]

In 1962, a young girl waited patiently outside the Polo Grounds for her childhood baseball hero, Mets Short Stop Elio Chacon, to autograph a foul ball caught by her father.  Young Lucy Calautti could never have predicted that one day she’d be working at the right hand of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.  Some people spend a lifetime trying to find a job they love, but Lucy Calautti, Major League Baseball’s lobbyist, has achieved that dream.

A Mets fan by birth, Lucy spent her summer nights as a child at the newly opened Shea Stadium, just one subway stop from her home in Flushing.  It was there that Lucy first fell in love with the American pastime.  “My generation of men and women in New York were huge baseball fans.  You rode the subway, you talked baseball.  I mean, that’s just the way it was.”

Definitely worth your time to go over there and read. Hats off to the gals at We’ve Got Heart for a great idea.

[And while we’re talking about women in baseball, a belated, but well-deserved mention to The Church of the Fonz for her article on The Girls Of Summer. A must-read.]

Dude. I know the band is called “The Outfield” but trust me there are 3,426,972 other songs that would work for you just as well and not sound like a cross between the lead singer of Loverboy and the lead singer of Supertramp and a buzzing mosquito.

Instead:

• Kristen and the gals at We’ve Got Heart have a little Q&A with Paulie Baseball
• In a move completely opposite to the current temperature here at home, in Japan, bloggers get to be on discussion panels with Bobby V. and don’t get treated like crap on national televison.
• At least our beer doesn’t cost $10 fucking dollars [oh, wait, call Costas, I used the f-word on my blog. I am not in my parents’ basement, however, nor am I typing in my underwear - more on that below]
• Who am I kidding, no one is online reading anything because we’re all so goddamned depressed and it’s May 1 and I’m sitting here wearing my playoffs sweatshirt (aka something I wear at SHEA to keep me warm) and it’s raining and cold and the Mets are going to Arizona where it will not be the Arizona roadtrips of their past with that guy in the front row waving the broom around. Mark my words.

At 6pm sharp, I logged off at work, changed into my #57 t-shirt, and prepared to walk out the door.
The New Girl at the office looks at me. “You should stay, have some pizza.”
“Sorry, but I have a date with a handsome Venezuelan gentleman who’s a two-time Cy Young award winner, I can’t stand him up.”
Considering that I was standing there in a Mets t-shirt with SANTANA across the back, I thought the joke would be obvious. It went right over her head.

Poor Ian Snell, I thought on the way out to Shea. Here he thinks he’s going to New York to face Oliver Perez, and then, boom, a little rain and now you’re facing Johan Santana. I found the entire situation serendipitous, because 2008 was looking to be a repeat of 2006, where, despite going to 35+ games, I never saw Pedro start once. It was looking to be the same pattern for Mr. Santana, so I was delighted to have his start bumped a day.

My guest at tonight’s game was my friend C. who publishes the delightful blog Scatter O’ Light. She is a sports fan with a respectable Mets lineage and a world-reknown expert in Mr. Paul Hewson. [end plug] We arrived at Shea just after the anthem. The minute I reached our seats, I pulled out a sweatshirt.

It was not a great night for pitching, and a lackluster night for offense, with a few exceptions. Shea was chilly and shivering and the players were clearly not ready for it.
“But he pitched in Minnesota!” Miriam said at one point.
“In a dome,” I feel compelled to point out.
“Oh.”

Fourth inning: my new gloves (photos at a later date) came out, but are then removed to applaud Ryan Church. Now, I think, we just need to wait this cold out. It is the kind of night that you can be excused for hoping that it goes quickly, that we win in an efficient fashion, that there is little drama if any. That you forget that it is a live sporting event and even though they can try to choke the life out of baseball, it is still played by human beings and will therefore never go exactly according to plan.

This was not Johan’s best outing ever. And because I have a guest, who has not been at Shea for many years, and who was eager to see Santana pitch, I feel like the hostess at a party where the punch is not quite up to snuff and the dip bland. The pitch count is high. The wind continues to be cold. Although I warned C. to bring warm clothing, I realize that the warning will never ever make sense unless you have sat through April baseball at Shea and understood just how cold that will mean, or how cold cold is after 9 innings. I’m not even adequately prepared, and wish there was a fleece something somewhere.

Sixth inning: my wool shawl, which usually hangs over my chair at work but was stuffed into the bag as backup, doubles as a blanket.

Seventh inning: I remember I have toe warmers in the tote bag, left over from the ‘06 playoffs. I am uncertain if they will still function but decide it is worth a try.

Forget the Delgado situation, WTF are we going to do about Aaron Heilman? It’s become a blood sport to boo him. There are too many idiotic Yankee fans at Shea at every game these days who can boo our team for us. We don’t need to participate.

Eighth inning: C. goes looking for hot chocolate. Duaner is not terrible but is not quite himself either. Carlos Delgado is spotted jumping up and down in place, and that is when we realize that if we are cold, they are likely pretty damn cold too.

Ninth inning: My dreams of the game ending at 10:19 so I can get home at a decent hour are shattered. Miriam and her mother leave, pleading cold.  C. is still hopeful we will end things in the 9th inning. I wonder if I am jinxing us by putting my shawl in the tote bag, but then I notice the people in Section 10 folding up a large fleece blanket. The thought goes through my head that they are jinxing us.

A large collective sigh, accompanied by an exodus. The Row F twins, father and older brother leave. The New Guys who sit next to them leave.

Tenth inning: C. and I move down to the mezzanine boxes. The usher in our section - the only competent usher I have encountered in three years at Shea - says, “I don’t know why you waited, I’ve been telling you to go all night.” We ensconce ourselves in a box with the nameplate LEX JOE METS. It is brighter here, and closer, and C. is holding out like a champ. “One more inning,” she says.

Eleventh inning: “Now batting for the Pirates, Doug Mientkiewitz.”
“RETIRE ALREADY!!!” yell the teenagers to the left of us, with the confident volume of one who thinks that their heckle will actually be heard by the player.

“I’ll stay until 11 o’clock,” C. says. “You can go whenever,” I tell her. “I just can’t go.”
“You are really hardcore.”
I tell her that it is not so much that I am hard core, but that every time I see an extra innings game on tv I wish that I was there. That I got my stripes as a Mets fan sitting through the chilly April extra-innings games in 2006 all by myself. That there is magic in these early season, extra innings games.

I look at where we are in the lineup. I realize that we do not have a backup catcher. That Willie has to play Casanova, he can’t pinch-hit or run for the catcher’s spot. I realize that the only person left in the bullpen is Joe Smith. I pray.

Endy is up. Endy is Endy.
All of a sudden, Shea sounds like a chicken coop. “BALK!! BALK!!” everyone is crowing.
Endy to second.
Marlon is up. This is where I like to see Marlon. Marlon does not disappoint.
No one is sitting now, everyone is up. I have been grumbling all night that there are 32 people at Shea tonight, sit anywhere, it doesn’t matter, but right now there really are 32 people left at Shea.
They pitch around Jose. From this angle, I can see the dirt on his uniform, from that first stolen base earlier in the game. He looks like he should be in a Tide commercial, with the brown dirt on the white uniform.

We boo, and then applaud as Jose takes his base.
I think, okay, Luis Castillo. Even if he completely fails at doing anything productive, we’re still fine. But, *please*, Luis, I think. Please.
Luis walks.
And of course, David Wright is next. I know David Wright is next. David Wright has been out of the dugout warming up and stretching, but I am not even looking at David Wright. I want to say to C., here you go, your dramatic David Wright walk-off is right here, wouldn’t that be an awesome way to end your first game at Shea in forever but I stop that train of thought immediately. We don’t need the ball out in the parking lot. Endy is at third. Jose is at second. We don’t need much.

And then the ball is flying out, out, out, and I am watching it, and I am hearing people groan because they think it is foul, and I can hear my own voice yelling, “NO! NO! IT’S FAIR! IT’S FAIR!” and of course it is, and it was, and Endy comes in and the game is over.

And this is why I always stay for the extra innings.

I will be honest and say that the whole reason I was excited about going to this game was because I was going with Coop and because it was Foam Finger day. I wasn’t going to chalk Saturday’s W up to anything except luck. Once again, the irregulars get on base, and once again, the regulars fail to get them home. I am angered at morons who boo John Maine and morons who slaughter Aaron Heilman, to the point that when I get off the 7 train this morning, I want to go into the Team Store to buy a Heilman shirt except I am not sure that they exist (why would they? nevermind, don’t answer that).

I thought we were in for an afternoon of catching up with the baseball game in the background. I love taking photos from the Coop box. Maybe the Mets could surprise us.

And surprise us they did.

The sages opine, tiredly, that Nelson Figueroa is a flash in the pan, a footnote in the season, someone we will forget come July, when he will stop performing. Others have this set up as the feel-good story of the summer. I think the truth lies somewhere in between, that Figueroa is both more than we hoped for and less than a miracle. For now, I am happy to have someone as a proud example of someone who never gave up, someone whose family is out there cheering him on loudly and proudly. I love that Billy Wagner gives Nelson his private box for every game he starts. There are so many bad stories in baseball, it seems to me to be okay to put the spotlight on this one, even if it seems over-emphasized. There is enough to be tired or cynical about in baseball already. When there is a chance to feel good about something, it would seem like a good time to seize the moment.

Coop and I discussed how the story of the Mets’ failings keeps being (amongst other things) that the irregulars get on base, where the regulars consistently leave them stranded. Today, everything clicked on all cylinders. The irregulars hit; the regulars brought them home. The irregulars surprised us; the regulars slid back into their groove a little bit more.

And then there is C-Del, Mr. Delgado, who earlier in the game I had christened with Coop’s nickname for Moises Alou last year, “Mr. Contribution.” She does not like Delgado, but wants to see him do well, whereas I both like Delgado and obviously want to see him do well. Friday night, I was responding to my neighbors’ deathknells about him being finished with the thought that Delgado’s problems are entirely mental. I don’t think it’s that he’s hurt and not telling anyone. He just can’t get over the mental barrier, whatever it is.

Except, perhaps today he did. And while I understand why he refused the curtain call (although I do not buy the “I hit a home run with no one on base in the seventh inning,” so he didn’t deserve a curtain call excuse entirely - he is too smart to not understand the subtexts) it would have gone a long way towards a little healing and reconciliation on both sides if he had just given us a wave. I don’t condone the booing and I don’t think it’s going to help him or anybody, and I was whining about the Mets not having gone after Teixeira last year (the problem of where we would put him, exactly, just a minor detail in my mind at the time), the fact remains that he’s not some scrub or some despicable guy with low moral character you really wish wasn’t on the Mets. It’s Carlos Delgado. He talks with a New York accent after being here as long as he has. This is a not a guy worthy of hating. Or booing.

Every time a ball would head for the outfield, Coop and I would be all, “Yeah… whatever… oh, wait… no, seriously?” And then have to get up to our feet, and clap, and cheer, and sit down and comment about how we never thought that ball was heading out. 

And by the time Delgado hit that second home run, we were hugging. If you think that’s stupid or girlish then you can, in fact, go to hell. Most guys would kill or die to date a woman who would consider the fact that a baseball player hit a home run to be a huggable event.

Memo to Ryan Church: How is a Christian dude reconciling the Ozzy and death metal? I know there is CCM heavy metal, but that is not what he is playing.

7th inning announcement: “Everyone, wave your foam fingers!”
...and most of Shea promptly starts doing the tomahawk chop with them, turning them upside down so they more accurately approximate a tomahawk. I do not think this is what the sponors of today’s game had in mind, but I find it delightful. I tell Coop the story TBF told me, that in Atlanta they sell foam tomahawks - that are manufactured on an Indian reservation. And that the Chief was quoted as saying, “As long as people will buy them, we will keep making them.” (This is, however, reason #4215 I can never ever go there.)

And then Billy Wagner comes in and is Billy Wagner, and it’s “Takin’ Care of Business” and we all leave Shea a little happier, a little lighter, a little more hopeful, fans singing that goddamn Braves tomahawk chop song as they stream down the ramps. Let us hope this is a harbinger, let us hope we will not let Johan Santana pitch like a champ and then not back it up with offense, let us hope that the Mets have no intention of letting the Pirates walk all over us. Two games out of three against the Braves is huge. Now let’s take three out of three, it’s the PIRATES after all.

I am almost sorry I am not going tomorrow night. TBF is on the road covering the Springsteen tour down south (work obligations made it impossible for me to take the assignment as well), and there is a little imp sitting on my shoulder urging me to head back out to Flushing tomorrow night.

Hmmmmm.

[The Flickr set for today is here.]

In fact, quite the opposite. Instead of putting Mets footage against yet another song by old British guys that no one on the Mets would ever listen to (except maybe Paul Lo Duca, and he can make the Nationals listen to that now), CW11 bucked the trend and picked a NEW song. By a LOCAL band.

However, this is going to be a shameless plug, since the song in the commercial is written and performed by my close personal friends The Shalitas ! Their fantastic song, “Must Be True,” is in the background of the new CW11 commercial you will start seeing all this coming weekend!

A few years ago, I wrote this about the band:
Imagine the Debbie Harry of “Rapture” with more sass, imagine Sheena (of ‘Sheena Is a Punk Rocker") in the Shangri-La’s; imagine the Crystals meeting Sleater-Kinney. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Shalitas.

They are the smartest, toughest, most righteous women singing doo-wop in 2008 that you will ever meet.

AND THEIR SONG IS IN A COMMERCIAL FOR THE METS!!

I am proud to say that I took Kazual Shalita not only to her first Mets game, but to her first professional baseball game ever.

If you dig the song, you can buy it on their MySpace page. Shop early and often.

Here’s the meaty part:

-- but better than the living embodiment of heroism, Derek Jeter.

Read the rest of it - it will crack you up no matter what team you root for.

--
Who’s going to the game tomorow night? I wonder if the Mets will show up.