Wednesday, May 07, 2008

GHOST NOTES.

This is a post about a lot of things.

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.]