Monday, March 26, 2007

spring training, day three

MG is sunburned and exhausted and happy and sad and jesus god am I TIRED. Honestly, I expected to come home every night and write long thoughtful missives and carefully process photos but nowhere in my spring training plans did I account for TIRED.

And I somehow have 256 photos from Sunday, between workouts and the game. No, I am not exaggerating. 256. Some are really kickass. I will post them tomorrow. Along with more coherent thoughts.

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

spring training, day two

TBF and I were up this morning promptly at 7:30, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. We headed over to Tradition Field, the plan being to watch the open workouts and then get back in the car and drive down to Jupiter - split squad playing the Marlins at Roger Dean Stadium.

Rule #1: Don’t go see the split squad on the road. I know you’re all going to write in and tell me that you knew this, but ya know, we didn’t. And it seemed like a good idea at the time, let’s watch David Newhan take four at-bats and let’s watch Lastings Milledge somewhere outside of Shea Stadium, and heck, what’s bad about watching Johnny Maine pitch from seats right behind home plate?

Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Sitting behind the mesh meant that I couldn’t even really get any good photos. Which is okay, I think, but I like taking baseball photos, I have discovered. I started going through them to see if there was anything worth posting, but not really. (Aside from the photo of TBF with Billy the Marlin, which he will not let me post.)

More, likely on the plane home tomorrow night. Tomorrow day, back to Tradition Field, and the Orioles.

P.S. Chan Ho Park drives a Durango. Shawn Green drives a stylin’ brand new black Lexus LS400 with super-black-tinted windows.

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Saturday, March 24, 2007

spring training, day one: mets v. cardinals, 3-25-07

Tomorrow we are off to Jupiter—it’s a split squad, with the Orioles in Port St. Lucie while we watch the whoever gets sent to play the Marlins. We’ll hit open workout again in the a.m., and then off to Roger Dean Stadium.

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Thursday, March 22, 2007

credit where credit is due

Did you see this??? David Wright wants us to vote for his at-bat song. (I forsee disaster here, but that’s an entirely other post.)

This is my idea. No, seriously, it is. (MG says, stamping her feet.) Here, let me take you through it:

At the beginning of Spring Training, I was reading the Post’s Spring Training blog, and at the end of the first column, the reporter said: What questions do you want asked?

You can read my response for yourself by following the link, but to make a long story short, here it is:
3) Have any of the Mets thought about what their at-bat music will be this year? Is Lo Duca keeping the Saturday Night Fever theme? How will David Wright possibly pick his songs without input from Mr. Cliff Floyd (or at least, pick something remotely cool without Cliff’s help)?

The next day, it continued with this post:
Metsgrrl, who commented after first posting, is definitely onto something. How will Wright pick his songs now that Cliff Floyd is not around?

By the next day, it had evolved into “HELP DAVID WRIGHT” with both the Post’s blog and Adam Rubin were asking fans to reply with their responses.

And finally, the final post, with my shoutout.

The problem is that I want these songs to be a representation of DAVID WRIGHT.  I wrote about this last year, and I know I am obsessed with this stuff, but I am obsessed with music, generally, no matter where it is. But especially in the case of the Mets’ at-bat songs. This is probably because when I first started going to games, the at-bat songs were something familiar, something in my territory, something I could latch onto and identify and think about. As my fandom evolved, that grew into trying to figure out what the song was, why that player would use that song, why someone changed their song.  I could like or not like a player just based on what their song was. (I mean, god love Chris Woodward, but *only* Dire Straights? eck.)

So, yeah, D. Wright. We’re going to end up with Third Eye Blind or something vapid and mainstream, and I could deal with vapid and mainstream if I thought it was a representation of what the guy standing in the batter’s box truly wanted. But it’s going to be what the frat boys in the upper deck want. And, you know, eck again.

Someone needs to use James Brown this year. He lived in Queens until 1969. That’s enough of a connection for me.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

guess where i’m going tomorrow?

BASEEEEEEEEEEEEBALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

FLOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s ridiculously cold, my car is still snowed in, but TBF and I are off to Port St. Lucie tomorrow evening. FINALLY!

There’s a 16 pack of AA’s for the camera, a new laptop backpack for the iBook, and I signed up for Gabcast, which will allow me to audioblog via cell phone. (This experiment may or may not be successful - we’ll see how it goes. :) ) We have free wi-fi at the hotel and a whole lot of nothing else scheduled (deliberately) so expect updates & the full spring training report while I’m gone.

And if you’re going to be in PSL, look for the sneakers!!! Which will make their debut on Friday morning.

xo
MG

metsgrrl welcomes…

Another woman to the ranks of Mets blogging! Check out My Summer Family.

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Monday, March 19, 2007

barry zito mystery solved (or, Mets Grrl on Sports Center)

So on Sunday, the hits started pouring into Mets Grrl, and everyone was searching on the same thing:

“barry zito’s ipod”
barry zito ipod
the contents of barry zito’s ipod
contents of barry zito’s ipod
whats on barry zito’s ipod

Today, you may have noticed that I put up a post asking why these people were looking for this particular item, and thanks to reader Chris who left a comment, I got the answer:
“He was on SportsCenter yesterday, and they discussed his iPod. He said that somewhere on the internet, people claim to have the contents of his iPod. But that he doens’t listen to half of the songs on that list.”

The post in question can be found here. 

Now, you know, I thought Barry was a smart, hip guy. He hangs out with Pearl Jam. He meditates. Does yoga. I did not think he was so Mr. Sensitive Pony Tail Guy that he would not get a joke when he saw one.

MG: “So Barry Zito has read my web site. This is funny.”
TBF: “Or somebody else read it, and told him about it.”
MG: “That’s even funnier.”
TBF: “I wish he’d just mentioned the name of the web site specifically.”
MG: “But if you Google ‘Barry Zito’s ipod,’ Mets Grrl is at the top of the search results.”
TBF: “This is pretty funny.”
MG: “But - he didn’t get the post! Of course he doesn’t listen to those songs. Was it too subtle?”
TBF: “No, I think it was pretty obvious.”
MG: “Clearly, not.”

Apropos of nothing, I find it important to note that Mr. Zito has lost his status as TBF’s favorite non-Met player (“When he spurned the Mets, he got off that list.”) His new favorite non-Met player is Mr. Cliff Floyd. Which is a coincidence, since mine is as well. (Shocking, I know.)

(I guess that means I’ll win the argument for a roadtrip to Chicago this year.)

why are all of you searching for “barry zito’s ipod”?

Seriously, hundreds of you searching on that query since last night. Is there a contest or something? Please, tell me in the comments ;)

spring training thoughts

In case you’re wondering where are the thoughtful, indepth analyses of games we’ve recently played, I’ll share with you a little secret:

I can’t watch ‘em. At least not on TV.

I want to see how our new pitchers are and I want to see the guys I cheered my lungs out for last year. But I can’t make it through a game (and, truth be told, neither can TBF). Even Saturday, when I had the house to myself, I’d settled in to watch the replay of the game, I started getting anxious about the time it went 4-0. (And, I still like listening to baseball more than I like watching it on tv, honestly. A friend of mine told me last year that that was because the rhythm is different.)

I think Greg from Faith and Fear In Flushing said it best yesterday: right now, we suck, and that’s hard to watch. I realize that if I am going to be a Mets fan, I need to learn to accept the territory of s-u-c-k as a birthright, but it’s not supposed to be like that this year. Right?

At least, hard to watch when I’m not there. Will be interesting to see what my reaction is to our under-performance is on Friday afternoon, live from Port St. Lucie. It’s hard to believe that come April 1 we’ll suddenly stop sucking and start playing like the Mets we all know and love… but I’m willing to be proved wrong.

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Saturday, March 17, 2007

IRISH HERITAGE NIGHT

aka, my gratuitous St. Patrick’s Day-themed post:

As I mentioned in my post about my new sneakers, I was hinting (hoping) that Bono might side with the blue and orange.

A trusted source sent me this mp3 (click to download you can hear it for yourself) and now I am on the fence.

That’s the Larry Mullen Band (which you probably all know as U2) performing live in Los Angeles on October 26, 2000. That’s right, October 26, 2000. “We want them to win… for all the wrong reasons” can be interpreted in so many ways, but essentially, rooting for the enemy is, well, rooting for the enemy… especially that night.

$@#%!@^&# &$^@^!!)*# ARGH. *sigh*

TBF is not going to like this very much. 

[MP3 courtesy the world’s most reknowned expert on Bono’s hair and its current whereabouts, the divine Scatter O’ Light]

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