Tuesday, May 01, 2007

PARK LIFE. [4-30-07]

Welcome to the upper deck on a Monday night, against the Marlins. El Duque on the DL. To quote TBF, “Hmmm. Pitcher called up due to injury, four letter last name - where have I seen this movie before?” You’ve all seen this movie before, because it’s called The Pitcher Sucked Was Not Great, and The Team Was Asleep.

I know. The same wind that should have carried our balls out over the fence also carried THEIR balls out, over the fence, against the scoreboard, and, mysteriously, out of our gloves. There was one inning-ending play so bad (when Reyes, Easley, Green and Delgado, if not Alou too for good measure, all went running for the ball, with Reyes ultimately dropping it) that I just started screaming along the lines of: “ALL FOUR OF YOU??! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” The crowd starts to boo Park and I join in, feeling the need to clarify, “I’M NOT BOOING HIM, I’M BOOING THE FOUR OF YOU, YOU KNOW BETTER!”

The team wakes up, rallies back to regain four runs, only to let them get another two. People were leaving in droves, and honestly, I don’t know how much I blamed them. It was windy, and the Mets didn’t seem to care, why should they?

You know it’s bad when the highlight of the game is the addition of Sr. Oliver Perez to the faculty at the Jose Reyes Spanish Academy.

Moments from tonight’s game:

“I don’t know any swear words in Korean,” I said.
TBF says something unintelligible, but that sounds like Korean.
“What’s that?”
“It’s ‘hello’. It’s what Jae Seo used to say during the ground rules.”
“That’s not helpful right now.”

Rick Peterson walks out of the dugout. “‘Coaching visit to mound,’” TBF comments, in his best Gamecast imitation.
“What’s he going to say? ‘Chan Ho, do you like kimchi? And do you like ice cream? Do you like them together? Well, right now it’s like you’re putting kimchi on your ice cream,’” I attempt.

[more after the jump]

Monday, April 30, 2007

THE MAINE EVENT. [04-29-07]

Yes, I realize that last season, I demanded that whoever was bringing those signs to Shea cease and desist immediately, but today, when he left the game, I was ready to make one and hold it up myself. But Johnny Maine gives me that warm fuzzy feeling inside, and no that was not from the crab fries at RFK Stadium.

Saturday night, we had a family dinner, so we found ourselves listening to the game starting with the 5th inning, then parking the car and running into the house to watch the rest of the game, and then we had friends going onstage at 10:30pm in a bar in the neighborhood. We say, “It’s okay, we’re recording the game, no one at Matchless is going to talk to us about the Mets.”
We get to the bar and there is suddenly a TV in the corner, broadcasting the game. But at 10:30 we had to stop watching and go watch the band play until 11:40.
Once the show was over, I was terrified someone would blow it. “Just walk straight out,” TBF admonishes me as we leave the bar. “Don’t even look at the commercials.” We ran home again, and watched the rest of the game.

All of that is a fairly boring and tedious attempt to try to explain how we ended up going to DC today at the spur of the moment. I don’t know when I grabbed the laptop and typed “nationals.com” into the browser window. We’re going to the game on Monday (thank you, Andrew, for giving us your blood donation tickets). We have our plan seats for Tuesday. It’s RFK Stadium, not exactly a park we’re dying to see.

At some point I turned the laptop to TBF and showed him the best available seats. I was waiting for him to shut me down.

*bzzt*

So we found ourselves up at 7am and in the car by 8, driving south.

[More on the trip, and photos, after the jump. C’mon, click below!]

Sunday, April 29, 2007

DC bound

I don’t even know how this idea germinated, all I know is that TBF and I are setting alarms for 7am and driving down to DC tomorrow.

Tonight’s best quote:
Me, Franco at bat: “Please, get us a hit. if you get us out of this i promise to stop making fun of you.”
TBF: “I’ll lay off you for a while. Not forever.”

Friday, April 27, 2007

FRIDAY PHOTO.

In tribute to #44, who is regrettably on the DL after a great season so far down in New Orleans.

While I was one of the fans who felt that Lastings Milledge got a bad rap last year, I was also one of the fans that wasn’t particularly fond of some of the attitude I saw displayed (and I don’t mean the hand-slapping, either). But seeing him in Spring Training was like seeing a brand-new guy out there. In a funny story related to us by someone who works at Tradition Field (but will remain nameless), apparently Willie told Milledge to get a haircut. Overnight the dreadlocks vanished and Mr. Milledge became Mr. Clean-cut. Get well soon, buddy, you may be back up here sooner than you think.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

SPEED KILLS [04-24-07]

What do I love about April baseball? I love that the stadium is empty, I love that it feels like my private club, I love that the lines are short and the section isn’t crowded and TBF and I can stretch across three seats and put our feet up on the back of the row in front of us. I love that most of the people who are at Shea are there because they give a damn (who else would voluntarily give up a Tuesday night to watch the Mets play the Rockies?!), I love a game that isn’t against an arch rival (like the Rockies) so that I can have more of a conversation with the people around us, whether it’s William and Andrew (the redheaded twins - finally! names! - behind us), or random people who are just near us for one game.

I love the common ritual, the repeat elements, singing “Meet The Mets” with gusto (I even know the second verse now), reciting the ground rules (now a “Special Message” from Carvel, the worst sponsor to be this time of year), and what I love is the sheer relaxation that falls on me the minute I reach Section 12 and sit down in my seat.

DEAR METS TEAM STORE

Dear Mets Team Store:

You might want to think about ordering a few CHAVEZ 10 t-shirts.

And jerseys.

And anything else with Endy’s name, face, or vital measurements on.

Just a thought.

xo,

MG

I have to get up in exactly six hours, so I will write about tonight’s game later. But they were chanting EN-DY-CHA-VEZ all the way down the ramps, onto the 7 train, and on the 7 train as we got off at 45th Road-Court Square. (I tried to keep the chant going at the bus stop but TBF shut me down.)

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

JACKIE ROBINSON DAY 2007.

I was childishly pleased that the official Jackie Robinson Day was rained out and moved to a day that I had tickets. This has all recently become a passion of mine, and I wanted to be there for it.

It’s not that I don’t want to know about the history of baseball. I want to know about the history of just about anything. But I kind of had my hands full over the past year learning about baseball and about the Mets. I certainly knew who Jackie Robinson was, and what he’d done, but I wouldn’t have ever told you that I knew the whole story.
But it wasn’t until about a month ago, with Jackie Robinson Day pending, that I turned to TBF and asked, “What’s a good book to read about the Dodgers?”
“That’s easy. The Boys Of Summer. Roger Kahn.”
So I ordered it online, and it sat around for a few days - I was still in the middle of my now-annual (hah) re-read of Roger Angell - until I grabbed it one morning on my way to work.

And almost missed my stop.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

AH, CRAP.

I’m too cranky to write anything else. At least right now.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

“7 TRAIN TO THE BASEBALL GAME”

That was how the conductor greeted us as we stepped onto the 7 express at Grand Central on Friday. This wasn’t the train to Flushing, or Main Street, or Willetts Point, this was the train to the baseball game. I liked that.

We crowded inside, and as the train pulled out of the station, TBF nodded in the direction of the other end of the car, where a handful of Braves fans were standing.
“Oh, don’t…” I said. “Please, the evening is just beginning.”
“I just want to ask them how they feel about John Rocker, given the fact that, well, we’re on the 7 train,” and, of course, the added fact that these fans were Latino and African-American.
Even I had to agree that it was an interesting form of taun, erm, discourse, but the train was too crowded for the discussion to take place (until after the game, when TBF was so cranky and a Braves fan so arrogant and preening - as if we wouldn’t have been had the game turned out different - that I not only let him start the discussion, I facilitated it).

QUOTE OF THE GAME:
“‘Books never written: ‘Bullpen Usage’ by Willie Randolph.” (said by TBF in disgust at some point during the Burgos/Feliciano nightmare).

And there’s really nothing else much to say that hasn’t been said on other sites. We lost. We sucked. We were even sloppy at some junctures.

But TBF is at Shea right now as I write this, and we’re both back there tomorrow.

More on the Jackie Robinson ceremonies in a separate post.

Friday, April 20, 2007

PHOTO OF THE WEEK.

I wrote on Wednesday, forgot to publish it on Thursday, and now it’s Friday, but never too late: Johnny Maine is MG’s Photo Of The Week.

Inspired by Johnny Maine’s Almost-No-Hitter: Last September, we journeyed to Pittsburgh to see the Mets play two games against the Pirates at the beautiful PNC Park. This was a random trip inspired by baseball fever combined with seeing the park during the All-Star Game and wanting to see it in person. We believed the Mets were going to clinch long before that weekend, but instead, it turned into The Weekend The Mets Were Supposed To Clinch (But Instead Got Swept By The Pirates). Instead of images of Pirates fans carrying brooms across the Roberto Clemente Bridge, enjoy one of my favorite shots of Johnny Maine.