A Dream Weekend (Non-Korean Peninsula Edition)
Quite a weekend.
Mets win. Yankees lose. North Korea conducts an underground nuke test at 4.2 on the Richter scale. I would say, "Hey, 2 out of 3 ain't bad," but I'm probably out of ICBM range. Talk about East Coast Bias.
There's plenty to be said about the demise of Los Yanquis, especially the seemingly-imminent demise of Joseph Paul Torre, but I'm going to let Sip stick to that. Especially when there's plenty to be said about the Mets' hour of triumph on this bright and beautiful Monday morning, enough to fill a lineup card.
And it will dawn on you every so often, this fine feeling. It will hit you like a moonbeam to the temple, a fluttering notion, and serenity will descend upon your cubicle (or what have you), or your Italian Pride picnic, or your stridently pathetic Native American protest rally, or your couch.
You may hear the voices of angels in the background, but only very faintly, as the human ear is ill-equipped to transmit seraphic chant in its natural form. You are far more likely to perceive a tingling vibration, ghostly windchimes of a sort; a melody forged from once-broken dreams and drams of fine crystal.
And it will sound, I should say, a little bit like this. Omar, take it away.
Mets win. Yankees lose. North Korea conducts an underground nuke test at 4.2 on the Richter scale. I would say, "Hey, 2 out of 3 ain't bad," but I'm probably out of ICBM range. Talk about East Coast Bias.
There's plenty to be said about the demise of Los Yanquis, especially the seemingly-imminent demise of Joseph Paul Torre, but I'm going to let Sip stick to that. Especially when there's plenty to be said about the Mets' hour of triumph on this bright and beautiful Monday morning, enough to fill a lineup card.
- Jeff Wilpon rocks a Treo. That's a little weak, if you ask me.
- It says a lot about this team that they were able to overcome a crap start from Trashel so nicely. This was your basic disaster scenario waiting to happen, but a couple of things saved it from getting to that point, including Willie's wise use of the quick hook. The fact that Oliver then got touched up by Kent is regrettable, but also not the point -- Willie wasn't going to let his hack fourth starter drag the team down in a clinching situation. Absolutely.
- You're Jonathan Broxton. You're listed at 6-foot-3, 288 pounds, which means there's really little doubt you're on the sunny side of three bills. You're throwing some extremely decent cheese, fastball floating between 93 and 97, but you've given up a bullshit double to Cantor Green. You jam Valentin, making sure he doesn't advance the runner, and hand pinch-hitting Michael Tucker a free pass to set up the force. Nothing crazy here. Mr. Glass goes up the middle for an RBI single, tying the game at 5-5. Fine. What really has to drive you crazy are the ensuing RBI singles from LoDuca and Beltran, each of which are, depending on your perspective, "good pieces of hitting" or "lucky-ass flares just over the heads of infielders." 7-5 Mets, and every last shred of momentum. Sometimes, the bar bites you.
- Good bounceback showing from Mota, who earned the Game 1 win despite giving up three runs in two innings. He was doing fine in that first outing, you'll recall, until Valentin decided to commence reading from The Todd Walker Guide to Butchering Second Base (with a new forward by Robbie Cano), and tossed away a key out with a misguided force attempt, almost injuring Mr. Glass in the process. Tom Emanski would not be pleased. Anyway, Guillermo came back strong Saturday, with two scoreless innings in the middle of a couple of rally attempts. He gave up three hits, but he's going to be a big guy in the next series, considering all the right-handed power the Cards have.
- Thirty total hits, 13 pitchers, a ridiculous 3:51 running time. Look, I know playoff baseball can take a while. But when you've committed to pounding beers for the duration of a sporting event, extending that sporting event to the 4-hour mark can have serious consequences, especially for the surrounding wildlife. Now, as it happens, Cheddar Ben's watching pad was equipped with Tivo, so we had a timed delay working so as to avoid commercials during the broadcast. And we how did we set up that slack at the beginning of the evening, you might as? By watching a little "Do the Right Thing." Surprisingly effective at getting you pumped up.
- Marlon Anderson in the three-slot, huh? I guess hot is as hot does, and the guy did hit .375 with seven homers in 64 at-bats down the stretch in L.A. Two hits Saturday ... can't ask for tons more. But for the love of Duke Snider, the guy's career rate stats are .267/.316/.394. Is J.D. Drew that much of a turkey, that he can't hit there? That's a joke.
- Great exchange between Trashel and the Daily News' Adam Rubin in a pre-game interview.
Rubin: Can you talk about how the long layoff might affect you and for those of us that don't cover the team regularly, can you provide any details about what took you away from the team last weekend? Trashel: No.
- Uncle Cliffy, according to a report in the Daily News, the ride is over. Now, it's possible this report was a prank filed by the departing Lloyd Grove (that cock), but we haven't been able to confirm that. In either case, it was a beautiful ride, amply filled with gruff witticisms and painful hobbling. Your bat never really came around, and we learned to love Endy Magic in your stead. Such is the way of the game; it waits for few men. But you were a leader in the clubhouse, and clubbed a fine-looking home run earlier in the series. You played through pain in a manner foreign to Yankees fans, a totemic exemplar for your younger counterparts. You deserved this Division Title as much as any Met, and you will continue to be in the hearts of Y2K as the postseason advances. Godspeed. Unless, of course, you're not out for the year, in which case we need you to get your ass over to the training table and make ready for pinch-hitting duty. NOW.
- More on this in the upcoming days, but St. Louis' having to put Chris Carpenter into the NLDS rotation twice was a great thing from the Mets' perspective. He won't be able to go until Game 2 or 3, really, which means we get to hammer on Jeff Weaver or whoever the fuck Tony sends to the hill. Excellent.
And it will dawn on you every so often, this fine feeling. It will hit you like a moonbeam to the temple, a fluttering notion, and serenity will descend upon your cubicle (or what have you), or your Italian Pride picnic, or your stridently pathetic Native American protest rally, or your couch.
You may hear the voices of angels in the background, but only very faintly, as the human ear is ill-equipped to transmit seraphic chant in its natural form. You are far more likely to perceive a tingling vibration, ghostly windchimes of a sort; a melody forged from once-broken dreams and drams of fine crystal.
And it will sound, I should say, a little bit like this. Omar, take it away.
“The only thing you’re going to talk about in New York is National League baseball,” he said. “The only baseball being played in New York is National League baseball. The last time that happened was 1988.”Yes. An outstanding morning to all.
posted by Cheddar Ben at 8:37 AM
3 Comments:
Well said, Ben. And that blissful combination of serenity and schadenfreude is reverberating everywhere, including today's NYT, re-emphasizing the point that come what may (and quite a bit has come our way over the years), Mets don't panic. (To digress for a moment, I would place far more of the blame for the panic mentality on the NYY owner rather than the manager; Torre's strength had been his ability to appear unaffected by his boss's non-stop hysteria, but it seems he may finally have succumbed. Personally, I'm tired of hearing what a great owner Steinbrenner is because he wants to win and is willing to spend. Snore. Evidently there's more to it than that.) Says the Times:
Torre uncharacteristically shuffled his lineup, presumably trying to find a spot where the beleaguered Rodriguez would hit. But Torre made a farce of it, and when he batted Rodriguez eighth in Game 4, it was almost as if he were punishing the game’s highest-paid player for not hitting, perhaps even wanting to humiliate A-Rod for his failures.
The best managers always try to display an air of calmness in situations in which even a look of panic could negatively affect the players. Torre is usually the epitome of calm; what he did with Rodriguez created a smell of panic.
The Mets, meanwhile, are having fun and demonstrating, as they did during the season, that they are the best team in the National League. And Randolph, whom many teams ignored because they felt he lacked managing experience, calmly confronted the Mets’ pitching adversity and didn’t panic.
(End of Times excerpt). I love the fact that Willie comments that you've got to focus on what you've got, rather than what you wish you had. There's a guy with his head screwed on straight, and it's showing in the results he's getting even w/o starting pitching. He's got relief pitching, defense, speed, power and contact hitters (yeah, those were a couple of flares in our big inning, but you don't get the flares or the seeing-eye grounders when you strike out). Willie understands that you can't have everything, and you don't need everything when you extract the most from what you've got. Endy Chavez; Jose Valentin; Beltran's resurgence; Wright/Reyes buddies instead of rivals; many other examples. Willie was always a good guy (let me tell you sometime about the day he gave the ball to AFOMG), and he is the best manager in a very tough town right now.
You go to war with the rotation you have, not the rotation you might want or wish to have.
poetry.
sheer poetry.
Post a Comment
<< Home