Thursday, September 20, 2007

SMALL FAVORS.

I was in an office supply store in downtown Brooklyn late yesterday afternoon. I don’t know if it’s owned by Orthodox Jews, but the place was full of workers in varying degrees of orthodoxy. I was perusing the file folders aisle when one of them noticed my hat.
“I like your cap,” he said, pointing. He wasn’t Hasidic or he wouldn’t have initiated the conversation, but he was definitely Orthodox.
“Thanks.”
“They’re not doing so well right now, you know.”
“Erfhgdhghghm.”
“A sore subject?”
“Did you see that game last night?”
“I was working overtime and I turned it on around 10pm, thought we were safe.”
“Not so much.”

He then went to help a customer, and passed me a few minutes later as he carried a box to the front counter.
“So, you think we have a chance?”
“B’ezrat ha-shem,” I answered in Hebrew. (With god’s help.) And then, worried that I may have possibly blasphemed in a store full of people who were actually religious, followed it up with: “The churches of Brooklyn used to pray for the Dodgers. Perhaps it’s time for the synagogues of Brooklyn to pray for the Mets.”
I got a big chuckle and a thumbs-up in response.

I don’t know who intervened last night but right now I don’t care much.  I am not ready to do the happy dance quite yet, but at least last night I felt like the team actually meant it. And, at least we were not totally humiliated BY THE NATIONALS.

MEMO TO PAUL LO DUCA: Paul, please take a chill pill. I know that someone needs to actually get upset and Willie won’t be that person, but you cannot keep getting thrown out, or close to thrown out. We know. We see it. It’s why the crowd at Shea chants your name at the least provocation. But we cannot afford to have you suspended any more, nor do you want to keep pissing off the umpires.

And can I just say, I [heart] Luis Castillo? No, seriously. Has this guy been anything less than totally stand-up since he got here?