Monday, October 10, 2011

VOTE! FOR METSGRRL IN THE SHAPE BEST BLOGGER AWARDS.

I think it’s kind of insane that in my quietest blogging year ever, I get nominated as one of the blogs in the Shape Magazine Best Sports Blogger contest, but - I am nominated, and if elected, I will serve, as they say.

Vote for me, so that the Yankees and Red Sox blogs don’t win (and thanks to Matt Cerrone’s retweet earlier today, I’m beating both of them right now).

You do NOT have to register to vote!

Vote early, vote often, and thank you!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

MY GOODBYE TO JOSE REYES.

Tuesday night, I sat in the first row of the promenade reserved infield, leaned over the railing, held my breath and watched Jose Reyes on third base, a base he had obtained by getting a single and then strolling over to second on a throwing error and then, of course, stealing third base.  This was after watching Jose Reyes make the Home Run Apple light up not once but twice, improbably, impossibly, twice - once was amazing but twice just felt supersonic.

And now he was doing what he does best, which is annoy pitchers as he dances while taking a healthy lead down the baseline. He is dancing down the third base line like he is going to steal home and he totally unnerves Aroldis Chapman, flame throwing Aroldis Chapman, and the fans who are in the ballpark erupt in a cheer without aid of scoreboard idiocy and I murmur, wouldn’t that be something? In this 3/4 empty ballpark on the second to last night of the season, wouldn’t that be something?

Wouldn’t that be something, indeed.

Monday, September 12, 2011

DEAR BUD SELIG.

The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball
Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner
245 Park Avenue, 31st Floor
New York, NY 10167

Dear Commissioner Selig:

Your actions at last night’s Mets-Cubs game at Citi Field on 9/11/11 were reprehensible. Not allowing the Mets players to wear the NYPD and other First Responder hats - at a meaningless game you co-opted as a platform to grandstand MLB’s relevancy - was inexcusable.

Learning that you not only denied the Mets’ official request to wear the hats, but that a MLB representative went the extra yard to confiscate them from the team at the conclusion of the pre-game ceremonies, so that no one could defy your order and do the right thing and wear them anyway, makes me ashamed to be a fan of Major League Baseball.

As a result, I will not purchase one new item of MLB clothing, whether a New Era hat, a Majestic Athletic shirt or jersey, or any other officially sanctioned MLB item, for the duration of 2011 and for the entire 2012 season, and very likely beyond that. My household could previously be counted on spending significant dollars in MLB merchandise every year; I can assure you that will no longer be the case.

Sincerely,

Caryn Rose

==

NOW WRITE YOUR OWN LETTER. You have the address. Don’t email, don’t tweet, don’t just blog about it, don’t comment, don’t sign a petition - write your own letter and put it in the mail. That will count. That will make a difference.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

SEPTEMBER 14, “A NIGHT OF BASEBALL STORIES”

I will be participating in A Night of Baseball Stories on Wednesday, September 14.

WORD, Largehearted Boy, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn are pleased to present a night of baseball storytelling (and free beer provided by our pals at Six Points brewery) featuring readers Jens Carstensen, Jason Diamond, David Gutowski, Sean Manning (Top of the Order, Things That Need Doing), Howard Megdal (Taking the Field), Caryn Rose (B-Sides and Broken Hearts). Attendees may be required to sit according to team affiliations.

Details here. Hope to see you there.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

OH, THE SHAME.

We knew it was bad.
We knew there were rumblings.
I had people coming to this site and posting comment after comment insisting that the Wilpons had no money problems, that to say otherwise was bullshit (and worse).
We heard the rumors that the Mets were wholesale dumping blocks of tickets with ticket brokers at deeply discounted prices, who were then recycling them through StubHub and the other broker sites, which was why there were so many cheap tickets out there for so long.

And now, this. This is just about as far rock bottom as you can get. (I was originally going to say “Even the Astros aren’t selling tickets on Groupon” but oh, yes, they are.)

As someone who still holds tickets to six games this year, it’s infuriating. Friday night against the Braves is a discount ticket? When I paid full price (at the season ticket holder discount) earlier in the year? Do you know how much it upsets me to think about the obnoxious calls to and from the Mets ticket office earlier this season, with their arrogant attitude, about why aren’t I renewing my ticket plan? 

Everything I want to say isn’t nice, isn’t polite, isn’t anything except the result of a world of anger and disappointment and misery - the same world that you are all living in. It’s not new. It’s just the bottom of the hole.

Last night I said that I was looking forward to see how the Mets were going to some how spin, obfuscate or otherwise justify the ticket price increase next year. TBF insists they wouldn’t dare. I say, just wait and see.

Six more games. I suppose we will still go, because we bought the tickets, we spent the money, and when baseball is gone for the year, I will miss baseball.

But they’re not making it easy on the fans to show up or give a damn.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

GRUMPY.

You know, I adore R.A. Dickey just like everyone else. I think it’s a gift from the heavens that he’s on Twitter, and know that every fan from every other team is miserably jealous.

But after a miserable, swift, embarrassing 10-0 shutout in Philadelphia, I do not want to see him yukking it up on social media. I just don’t. Especially not so close to the end of the game (given, that end came VERY EARLY LAST NIGHT, but still).

Is it just me? Probably.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA NIGHT AT CITI FIELD.

Call me cynical, but it’s hard for me to read about this and not think, “We just don’t have enough group sales to fill those crappy Big Apple seats so we’ll cave and do one of those social media nights that the kids are into these days.”

For $41:

 
• Seating in the exclusive Big Apple Reserved section  
• $18 food and beverage credit [so essentially your ticket is $23, which is about what the Big Apple seats are worth in my opinion]  
• “Connect” T-Shirt and name tag sticker [Generic MLB shirt with Mets branding]  
• Automatically eligible for in-game Twitter giveaways during each inning

I hate the Big Apple seats and find them to be very, very overpriced, even with a $18 food and beverage credit (because they only do that because they hope that most people won’t use all $18 of theirs) and the rest of me says, “NO ONE ON AT&T WILL HAVE SIGNAL ANYWAY.”

Let’s take a look at what other teams are doing for Social Media Night.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

WEEK NOT GETTING BETTER.

From a West Coast correspondent: Carlos Beltran shirts in the AT&T Park store.

It’s just wrong.

Monday, August 08, 2011

UNCLE.

Murphy out for the year, Reyes to the DL, and the New York Times with the breaking news that casual fans might not have a lot of reasons to go out to Citi Field.

It’s not a lot of fun right now, I’ll give you that.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

ABOUT LAST NIGHT.

Mets v Marlins
8-2-2011-

I never keep score at games. I don’t do it mostly because I can’t take pictures and take notes during games and keep score (although I know people who do all of them). But I am tired of taking photos sitting upstairs. I have some sort of creative block that is making me bored in the extreme and I don’t take any pictures and then I go home and have nothing to work with. So I decided I would stop lugging the camera, and would instead bring the lovely scorebook I bought from Eephus League at the beginning of the season, which I have never used.