High Wire Act

I didn't catch the end of the Knicks game last night. A.F.O.M.G. and I were out and about in South Harlem having a drink with Y2K faves Nails, Denver Dave and Albuquerque Izzi, the White Phil Ivey and some others. Apparently, the realtors are calling the area "SoHa" these days, allowing me to add yet another item to my ever-expanding list of "Why I Hate Realtors." It's already "Vogue"-length as it is.

So while the refs literally threw a game before a couple thousand witnesses, we were talking to a couple of Nails' friends at the bar, one of whom turned out to work in book publishing. Nails talked up the blog's future potential, as he is wont to do, and the conversation wended its way toward a discussion of fanboy lit. You know the type.

The idea is that such books usually sell very well after the fact (the fact being a highly successful season of one type or another), but are not quite as easy to predict. Nobody gets signed to do a running diary of a baseball season before the championship has been won unless a) they're a popular writer at a local newspaper or magazine or national publication or b) they've got the pitch of the century. The first item isn't particularly rare; the second is much more so.

Everyone's on the same page, and it's a good talk. We go back and forth about the blog, its history, everything like that. Then, she drops a bit of a bomb -- big Yankees fan.

Conversation, um, slows at that point. Nails turns toward her with a look of pure incredulity on his face. He's gripping an inch-plus of Johnny Walker Black with purpose, and I swear you could hear the glass crinkle just a bit. Then, he quickly composes himself. "I really didn't know that."

Well, A.F.O.M.G. and I didn't either. "Yeah, probably not up your alley," he tells her, writing off another potential reader in his head.

But then, she comes back with a promise. "No, I'm definitely going to check it out." Well, hey. We halfheartedly try to joke about it, but she's apparently serious, and repeats it a couple more times.

Now, this could have been her honest feelings on the matter. It might have been the type of thing you say to someone you're meeting in a bar to keep the conversation going. It might have been a way to soften the death stares we had (sort of) unconsciously started winging in her direction. All of these are possible.

We always like new readers, of course, so there was going to be no arguing. Still, it just goes to show how careful you have to be when throwing around a dangerous conversation piece like Y2K in front of folks you don't know. A Mets Web site, that's one thing. A site devoted to loving the 'Amazins and hating on the Yanks in a variety of crude, cutting and occasionally grotesque ways ... well, it's not the sort of thing everyone is into.

You just have to be fair about this sort of things. I know how A.F.O.M.G. would react if we were chilling at, say, Brother Jimmy's, and we got introduced to a chick who told us she wrote for "metsblow.com" (apparently available). We would look at her as if she had just skinned a tabby cat, bit off its head and spit the blood into my working eye. And with good reason.

You know, I feel for everyone out there spreading the gospel of our fair site. It's not always easy, and you're not always certain where to turn. You're putting yourself out there and going out on a limb by telling others about us here, and that's dangerous stuff.

So, I suppose this is my way of saying thanks. And keep up the good work.

P.S. Speaking of feeling for someone ... jeez, the X-Man, I know where you're coming from, brotha. Keep fighting.