Sunday, July 09, 2006

7-8-06: there’s gonna be a showdown

I’d like to write thoughtfully about my feelings about John Maine’s debut, but I thought that game was BORING. There was no spirited offense and the defense was the lackluster performance we have wearily grown used to over the past few weeks.  Add to that the fact that it was a little warm (not too hot, though, and the sun went behind the stadium pretty fast) and the upper deck was crowded (okay, the whole ballpark was crowded, which is why we were in the upper deck) so maybe it was a terrific game if we would have been on the mezz as usual.

It’s not just the physical distance between the field and the red seats that made me feel removed from the action, it’s the fact that a large portion of the upper deck crowd isn’t there to watch baseball (which you *can* successfully do from the upper deck if you PAY ATTENTION - TBF has done it for years and we did it very productively last season), they’re there to eat hot dogs and drink beer and do the wave. The people who actually do care about what’s going on on the field are outnumbered between the bachelor parties and family reunions and groups of guys who bring their girlfriends who proceed to spend the game talking on the phone or getting up and down right in front of you every three seconds. You can’t get a “Let’s Go Mets” chant going to save your life.

Now, the almost-brawl (as illustrated above) was exciting. Am I a horrible person for actually wanting to see a nice, bench-clearing brawl? It’s not like I’m a big fan of violence, it’s just that a brawl would have brought some energy and life into the game, which Duaner successfully did a little bit by deliberately beaning Cabrera.

(Guys I would want on my side in a bar fight: Sanchez, Floyd, Delgado. Remember that game when someone charged Pedro? Who was the first person standing in front of the mound?)

We had sandwiches from Mama’s and enough water to get us through to the 6th inning of the second game, and once the first game was over and we moved down into the second row of the upper level boxes, right behind home plate, everything drastically improved: the crowd, our seats, the Mets.  I like Endy in the lead-off position. I liked Cliff’s home run. And I sure liked Valentin’s grand slam. I liked everything about the game, except for the morons in right field who seemed to be confused as to which stadium they were in, and kept trying to do the roll call. They were even trying to do the roll call for Omar and LoDuca—I loved the comment from the guys behind me: ‘I just want him to call time, get up, and flip them off.’—and except for the fact that THIS WAS THE TYPE OF HUSTLE AND SPIRIT WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SEEING FOR THE LAST FEW WEEKS.  And the fact that it took an almost-brawl to raise this out of the Mets pisses me off just a little.

Oh, yeah, Mike Pelfrey: I just don’t know enough about this yet to make any kind of pronouncements. TBF didn’t seem impressed, although the rest of the blogosphere seems to be.

Other notes:
We don’t like Julio Franco as a starter. He seems to do much better as a pinch-hitter. And could someone help him with some walk-on music? He has some CCM thing.
me: “Oh, look, ‘People get ready, Jesus is coming’”
TBF: “How about, ‘people get ready, some RBI’s are coming,’ Julio?

During the second game, the played the ‘Volare’ bit while LoDuca was at bat. Even with the crowd as light as it was, there was a hearty “whoa-whoa” response.
TBF, appalled: “What was THAT?”
me: “It’s a LoDuca thing.”
TBF: “No, it’s a stupid thing.”

Julio at bat (again), someone nearby yells “USE YOUR CANE!”
TBF: “No, he’s still swinging at bad pitches.”
me: “Maybe they mean, ‘use your white cane’?”

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