Homework for my financial accounting course. Salt.
But AFTER that? Mets-Tigers, baby, what one local scribe is dubbing The World Series That Wasn't. Today, as I write this actually, baseball is back on SNY. It's been too long.
The exciting possibilities are endless. Oliver Perez started para los Mets today. Perez is always fun to watch, largely because he's either sure to be dominant or to melt down in truly awesome form.
According to MetsBlog, the lineup today is set to feature the regulars, with the exception of Damian Easley subbing in for Jose Valentin at second. Speaking of second, that's where Carlos Beltran is hitting -- looks like Willie finally got the memo! (God, remember that debate? Does Fire Willie read this site? Has he ever repented for insisting Beltran would forever fail as a 3-hitter?)
I feel like it's a little unusual actually that the Mets would be going with so many regulars this early in spring training. I could be wrong about this but I thought teams normally reserved their starting lineups for later spring training games.
One way or another you'll see a lot of players for the first time this afternoon, a lot of No. 63s and 71s, but still, it'll be fun to see Wright, Reyes, Paulie Thumbs and all the rest dig in today, if only for one at-bat or two.
Here's my question: Will Gary, Keith and Ron be there? I doubt we're going to get the trifecta. Given that Keith couldn't be bothered to work playoff games last year, I doubt he'll be in the booth for the first spring training game.
(One of the things I love about Hernandez as a broadcaster is that he kind of seems like he hates what he does, or that he's annoyed by it. This is evidenced by him giving an audible sigh when he's asked questions that are obvious to him but not to people who don't understand the game the way a former major leaguer does, his frustration when games run long, and, again, his disappearing act last October. It's just part of the package with him, and I find it really entertaining.)
In any event, the broadcast will almost certainly feature Chris Cotter's replacement, Kevin Burkhardt (Bizarro Mike Chaberski). I like what I've seen out of Burkhardt, but let's remember that the man is replacing a legend here. Not everybody does it at as gracefully as Paul Lo Duca.
Anyway, sorry if this post seems a little frantic. I'm really busy here today and I'm racing to get everything done so that I can do my accounting homework, watch the Mets and catch Friday Night Lights.
If you haven't done so already, be sure to read Denver D's' piece below. Remember those t-shirts they started selling at Shea last year, the ones that had "Your girlfriend likes MY team" printed on the front? Maybe I'll get one of those and wear it around the next time I'm with him -- that'd show him!
The New Rox: Losing Games and Girlfriends with J.C. in Tow
(Note: Guest post for you today as Denver D's takes the reins for the morning session. A.F.O.M.G. will be in with a post later this afternoon.)
It probably happened to all of us at some point this fall. After watching him hit, run, clap and—god help us—dance though the playoffs, our girlfriends fell in love with Jose Reyes.
It started innocently in my case. “Is he good?” “How old is he?” Then a little bit closer to home: “Is he married?” But finally the real knife twist. “So basically he is cooler than any player the Rockies have ever had. Ever. Right?”
My girlfriend is free to crush on whomever she wishes, with the exception of Tom Brady of course (long story). But this last comment hurt. I was surrounded by all of my Met-fan college buddies in New York, had just watched my team sputter through July, August and September, and now I had to be reminded by my girlfriend that even one Met was way cooler than all of those New Rox put together.
Everything had collapsed so quickly. Little known fact: last year started off promising for the Rockies. Sure there hadn’t been any big acquisitions, and I along with many others had suspected that some of our young talent was a bit overrated.
But with a staff of homegrown pitchers and the humidor up our sleeves, it seemed that things might actually turn out OK. Jason Jennings, Jeff Francis and Aaron Cook were pitching out of their heads at times, and Brad Hawpe, Garret Atkins and Matt Holliday were stepping it up when Helton wasn’t playing well, and later when he caught some ridiculous stomach virus that cost him a few weeks and more than a few “L.B.s”.
They were no Blake Street Bombers, no beer guzzling greasy-haired Larry Walkers or Dante Bichettes, no matador Vinny Castillas and no friendly giant Galaragas, but the team could play ball, and heading into June they were over .500.
That’s when the news hit the wire. It turns out that the trick up their sleeves wasn’t young pitching and it wasn’t even the humidor. It was big J.C. upstairs. In trying to reinvent themselves the New Rox had been “reborn.” There was word of prayer sessions in the clubhouse and bibles on the coffee tables. Galaraga’s chains had been replaced by a big wooden cross hanging conspicuously around Helton’s neck.
Truth be told, as one of their 68 Jewish fans, this didn’t really bother me. They claimed to be accepting and tolerant and there were no signs to the contrary. Plus, I didn’t give a shit as long as they kept winning.
But then they stopped winning, and then I started caring.
The slide was precipitous. The humidor started to hurt our hitters more than the opposing ones. (There were 1-0 games at Coors for god’s sake!) And the New Rox were hitting .227 with runners in scoring position and two outs by the end of August.
Worst of all, though, it never seemed like any of them cared. They didn’t care when they won, and they didn’t care when they lost. Sure, they tried hard as hell, but it seemed like as long as they tried it didn’t matter to them how they finished.
Their stoic, quiet brand of character had backfired in a disaster that culminated with A.F.O.M.G. poking me in the side with a broom after a disappointing sweep at Shea. At a certain point in a 162-game season you need a spark to keep things interesting, and the New Rox didn’t have one.
The point of all of this isn’t that J.C. hurt the New Rox. I always agreed with their basic philosophy that character and chemistry were central to success. The problem it seemed was that their convictions fostered a specific misguided notion of good character.
To the Rockies' front office (most notably owner Charlie Monfort) good character meant things like clean living and not having porno in the locker room. But what does not having porno in the locker room have to do with success on the field? Or success anywhere for that matter?
In order to have a team of good character, you need to have a team of characters. Some of those characters will be workhorses. Others will be goof-offs. There’ll be a Yeah-Yeah and a Squints and a Benny the Jet and of course a Smalls.
These guys will still be good dudes who care about the game. Most of them will live clean, but that won’t be central to their identities. They will each be a different expression of good character. This means that there may be some porno in the locker room, but it also means that the players will get pissed when they can’t hit with runners in scoring position. Sometimes they’ll even get in fights about it.
When they are playing poorly there’ll be a catalyst for changing course, and when they are playing well it will be way more fun for everyone.
Sometimes you may even catch one of them dancing in the dugout.
A lot of mixed emotions over the last couple of days. Beers and normalcy in Tempe, Arizona. Bailey's and chaos in Hollywood, California.
As I once again embrace the West Coast only to get nostalgic for Mets baseball and the East Coast I have found myself engaged in some abnormally heavy thought.
I sat on the plane, it was a short flight, but still there are a million things that can go wrong. I was pretty sure there were no terrorist suspects on the flight. I think I was the only person under 65 on the flight. And takeoff sounded pretty clean. So, on a scale of 1-10 I felt as good as I ever do when I am on a plane. I was a 3.
I tried to delve into "Men at Work", apparently a must-read for all baseball fans and students of the game. 30 pages later I realized I had captured very little. I was too worried about my imminent death and the news story that would awake my parents and make them regret ever supporting my candidacy for business school.
I turned to the Sports Illustrated that I had already read cover to cover on my way to Phoenix when I spotted a little blurb about the Yankees' budding superstar Philip Hughes.
Yankee fans won't shut up about this kid. Not only is he supposed to be great but he also serves as the key cog in the Yankees' return to the philopsophy of building from within, like they did in the mid 90's.
Yankee fans have been trained to love this kid over the last couple of years and now we as Mets fans are finally being subjected to all the hype. I got upset, but at least I wasn't thinking about all the things that could go wrong at 30,000 feet.
I kept reading. Plus this, plus that. Great makeup. Yada Yada Yada. I got it. This dude is good.
So then another thought came through my mind and I havent been able to elude it for the last 48 hours. I thought to myself for a second, what would happen if this guy just blew out his arm and never got good? It would hurt the Yankees and their fans which in turn would make me happy. Which led to my moral dilemma... is this ok?
As diehard sports fans are we allowed to root for serious (non life-threatening, more career-ending) injury on another player? When we watch games we pray that the other team makes a mistake. We cheer and high five when our opponent makes a mental error, a moment which can result in lifelong psychological dysfunction. Yet we are not blamed for this.
Is it really that different to want someone to break their leg instead of them making a mistake that might lead them to go crazy, have a sex change and kidnap Dan Marino? (Yep, watched Ace Ventura today).
I assume the answer to this question is "No." It is wrong to wish bad upon someone else. But isn't it bad to boo at them or curse at them or hope they make mistakes? Sports fandom is very much two-sided. We root for our team to win but we also root for the other team to lose.
Now assume that Phillip Hughes has a $50,000,000 insurance policy on his pitching arm? Now is it ok? Now the guy is set for life, he can take care of his family and live an otherwise amazing life. He just won't be able to pitch for the Yankees and become a star in baseball. Sounds like about 6 billion other people, no?
I'm curious to know your guys thoughts on this one. I really don't know what I am supposed to think. What I do know is that today is Tuesday, which means it is time for Two-A-Days, perhaps the greatest show to hit our airwaves since a good man from Polk High School once scored 4 touchdowns in one game.
You May Not Have Three or Four, But You Got One, Man
This really sent me up the wall. I spit some venom at my newspaper when I saw this crap.
To recognize the 25th anniversary of its Air Force 1 sneaker, the company commissioned a song from some prominent hip-hop musicians: the producer Rick Rubin and the rappers Kanye West, Nas and KRS-One.
Here comes the David Spade impression. No, I mean, the song sounds great. I just liked it more the first time ... when it was called "Air Force Ones."
How does this happen, precisely? It's a rhetorical question, don't bother answering. I know Nike wanted a tune it controlled the rights to, wanted the buzz of creating a new song, wanted to give KRS-One a much-needed paycheck.
But it's just disgusting. The damn shoe already had a landmark, No. 1 song about it, by the top-selling artist in the country at the time. Its release prompted a hail of free advertising about shoe culture and hip-hop (the benefits of which rebounded directly to Nike), and put the brand name on the lips of every consumer of MTV in the world.
In fact, there are a couple of products whose manifold benfits have already been well-documented by the bards of their time. I don't care about anniversaries or nothing; these products don't need no more songs about them. The ones we have will do fine.
1. Air Force Ones ("Air Force Ones," Nelly and the St. Lunatics)
Hilarious song, especially when the guy from Nelly's crew raps right in first verse about how fresh his style was. "You couldn't get this color if you had a personal genie." Are you kidding me? Not even if I had a personal genie? Then why exactly am I sitting here rubbing all these old lamps? What a colossal waste of time.
The hilarity follows with Murphy Lee, the guy in the mask, and a couple of other no-talents trying to fill time in between the hooks. Nelly wears his stupid band-aid in the video (between Nelly and "Almost Famous," band-aids almost made the list, but there's no real signature song).
2. Corvettes ("Little Red Corvette," Prince)
See, Chevy's a classy company. When they want to run a commercial about how important their brand is, they get off their ass and pay for the clearances. "American Pie," "My 409," and this gem from the Super Bowl's halftime star himself.
Basically, nobody's going to come up with a better description of the Corvette's attractive flaws. "Baby you're much too fast, yes you are." The love and the fear is practically dripping onto the dashboard. Unbeatable song. Since we just missed the 50th anniversary of the car (2003), I think we're safe for a while.
3. Adidas sneakers ("My Adidas," Run D.M.C.)
This actually gives me pause. There should be no way in hell a company could ever get better advertising than this song, which all but made the shoes out to be the fourth member of the group. (R.I.P.)
My Adidas cuts the sand of a foreign land/with mic in hand I cold took command. My Adidas and me both askin P/we make a good team my Adidas and me.
It's like handing the company a wad of cash in an envelope. Classic song about a classic style, and one of the stalwarts at their concerts.
Two things are still bothersome. First, it's a shoe company, and as seen before, there's no telling what these assholes in marketing will come up with in their free time. On enough Red Bull and ephedrine, the idea of a Gazelles tribute dirge featuring Elton John and Three-Six Mafia probably sounds like the ticket to a corner office. I've seen far too many Geico spots to be kidding.
Also, I don't mean to alarm anyone, but have you noticed where this company seems to be based out of? The weak of heart should not click here, but everyone else ought to take a look at this information I've come up with. I mean, wow. Really makes you think.
4. Fried chicken ("Fried Chicken," Ice-T)
Kind of an obscure one, and hardly a smash hit like the others. But Ice-T's one-verse paean to lipids and excess resonates with anyone who's ever come to his senses, mostly blacked out, at 2:30 in the morning and just needed (NEEDED) something really and truly greasy.
We gotta clean it up/cause it's so dope. Tried the rubbing alcohol/even the Ivory soap. But no matter what we do, the record keeps clickin. FUCK IT! Evil E, give me some of that/damn fried chicken!
Indeed.
5. Most drugs and alcohol ("Purple Haze," Jimi Hendrix, "Thug Passion," 2Pac)
See also: Morrison, Jim; Joplin, Janis; Yankovic, Weird Al.
Exceptions, perhaps, for liquor and brands without signature songs to connect with them. Bombay Sapphire, for example, has carte blanche to pursue a song of its own, but if it were up to me, Tanqueray would be stuck with Snoop's "Gin and Juice." Same thing with whiskeys. Maker's Mark can have a go of it, but Jack Daniels needs to just pick one Guns N' Roses tune and stick with it.
Obviously, Alize and Hennessey are done. Cristal and Moet as well.
A little stream of consciousness from watching far too much sports this weekend…
--So, Ohio State and Wisconsin are allegedly the two best teams in the country? If you read this blog, you know my feelings on the Buckeyes, who are one 2-15 from 3 day away from losing on the first weekend. Which makes it doubly disappointing that Wisconsin couldn’t find a way to score 50 points in their game on Sunday. So, now we’ll be subjected to a whole bunch more stories about Grandpa Oden and his merry men, and maybe a number one overall seed, but I still don’t think too many teams who have at least one capable defensive big are quaking about facing OSU.
--Which led to the OSU fans storming the floor? Seriously? Hey, kids…you’re NUMBER ONE! Number One does not storm the floor. Chalk up another one in the “Why I root for Michigan” column in their annual battles despite a lack of actual caring, right behind “because Michigan’s actually a good school” but just ahead of “Michigan never burns their city down.”
--You want a real scary team? I’ll give you a scary team. (Wait for it. You know it’s coming. That’s right!) How about those Kansas F’n Jayhawks? To borrow a Scott Van Pelt phrase, they are just dump trucking the opposition right now. Granted, most of the teams in the Big 12 are a half-step up from whoever Memphis is playing, but when you’re winning one game 92-39 and leading another 51-20 in one week’s time, it’s time to stand up and take notice. To borrow another phrase from a Goldman Sachs All-Star I know, watch out for Sherron Collins, the frosh dynamo who just puts the ball in the basket in every way possible. Which is, after all, the object of the game.
--Glad to see Henrik Stenson win the Match Play, and not just because the sportsbook ban prevented me from playing Ogilvy at 35-1. Stenson is 30, but I learned after the match that his wife (linkto: http://www.golfonline.com/golfonline/slideshow/0,17572,1535946,00.html) is going to go to college to play golf this year. Just found that interesting. Dude just beat Tiger in Dubai and won the match play, ranked in the world’s top ten, and his wife is going to college.
--UNC-Maryland was one of the better games anyone’s seen in a while. If you want to figure out who UNC is going to lose to in the tournament, find a team that (a) has athletes, and lots of ‘em, (b) won’t be scared when UNC rips off eight in a row, and (c) will let UNC choke it away in the end. Seriously, every UNC loss is the same now: they get down late, and then they just start chucking despite having an All-American center who is permitted to travel! It’s bizarre but heartening for the rest of us.
--And the next team to beat UNC might be Georgia Tech, who has the athletes and the home court Thursday night in Atlanta. The way that Georgia Tech is playing, I have to admit that I have absolutely no idea how my beloved Wahoos beat them on Saturday. But getting away from the game for a second, my clear favorite moment of that telecast was the announcer’s discussion of who should be player of the year. There are six clear candidates, and any unbiased observer can name them: Dudley, Thornton, Singletary, Hansbrough, Dowdell, and Reynolds. That’s it and that’s all. And the telecast got it right!! Way to go, Steve Lavin and Dave O’Brien! That said, what are the chances that TBPAD® Josh McRoberts screws two of them out of first team all-conference status? If you said 100%, you know the crooked ACC politics. So what if McShuffle isn’t in the top TWENTY in scoring in the conference? He gets lots of rebounds (because he’s tall) and blocks (because he’s incapable of fouling). Mark my words on this one…it’s probably Reynolds and Dowdell who miss first team so The Best Player At Duke gets his rightful spot.
--If anyone tells you they know what to expect from Memphis and their upcoming two seed in the Big Dance, they’re either John Calipari or lying.
--Duke women go undefeated through the toughest schedule and conference in the land. I wonder what idiot left them off the entire ESPN Mag top-8 preview. (Not entirely my fault, though. I’ll think of a good excuse why it happened later).
--Haven’t mentioned UCLA yet. They just keep winning. Howland’s a great coach. But still think something’s missing. Maybe I just can’t believe Darren Collison is as good as he’s playing. If he is, the Bruins are the lock-iest team to get to the Final Four. With him, they just don’t seem to slip up.
--Finally, this is a Yankee-haters site, so I’m pretty stoked to see pitchers and catchers reporting, and the Banks already whining. Deej and A-Rod don’t have sleepovers. Moose doesn’t like Pavano. Mo wants a contract. And all Yankee$ fan$ want to talk about is a 20-year-old pitcher who is assuredly the next Roger Clemens while the current one pitches to his son in Astros camp. Guess what, Yank$ fan$? Phil Hughes ain’t the answer in ’07, which means that you guys have the second, nay, third best rotation in the AL East. Which could mean another tough October in the Bronx. (Note: this item is not meant to spur on 4 anonymous posts regarding the Mets’ current starting debacle; it’s just an observation)
Championship Week starts Thursday…it’s the most wonderful time…of the year!!
I was one of the lucky few randomly selected to purchase tickets to the Mets' home opener or any of the three Mets/Yankees games at Shea. Before I went out last night I set my alarm for 9:41. I wrote "Buy Mets Tickets" on a piece of paper and put it on my alarm clock to guard against the impossible chance that I'd forget why I was awake at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning.
It was all going swell until it came time to check out. I've been attempting to check out for the past half hour now. Every time I click "check out" I get some incomprehensible error message. For instance:
·DTWA000I: Net.Data detected an internal error DTWL000E: Net.Data detected an invalid value in the parameterin function DTW_ADD.
I've been attempting to reach somebody at Shea Stadium directly but trusty (718) 507-TIXX has been busy for the past half hour. The good news there is it suggests I'm not the only one having this problem, but it also doesn't bring me any closer to my tickets.
I run a blog, yes, but I'm not a very techy person. I have no idea what's going on with this ticket lottery. I don't care. I'm happy to wait as long as necessary. My fear though is that I'm going to lose out on the 6 tickets I'm trying to buy.
I was so excited, like, 45 minutes ago now. The thought crossed my mind that I might be able to get better seats through friends or my company, "Fuck it man," I told myself, "these are Mets tickets you're buying."
After four months of dwelling on the ghosts of 2006 and, more importantly, not watching any baseball, buying my first set of tickets to actual Mets games had me pretty jazzed up.
....
Uh-oh.
A troubling new development. Now when I try to click back one page after still another failed attempt to check out I get an error message:
"The page you are trying to view contains POSTDATA that has expired from cache. If you resend the data, any action the form carried out (such as a search or online purchase) will be repeated. To resend the data, click OK. Otherwise, click Cancel."
I really can't win here. On the one hand I stand to lose out on my tickets. On the other hand I stand to suffer repeated charges of $214.50. Eff.
And now I can't click back one page anymore. Clicking the back arrow does nothing. This is horseshit.
Alright, with this blog as my soapbox let me pronounce that I, A.F.O.M.G., as of approx. 10:16 a.m. and as of as late as 10:59 a.m., laid claim to the following tickets:
YANKEES - MAY 18 on Friday, May 18, 2007 at 7:10 pm
REGULAR
UR
13
L
3-1
3
25.00
4.75
89.25
_
YANKEES - MAY 20 on Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 8:05 pm
REGULAR
UB
5-717
717B
1-3
3
35.00
5.25
120.75
I couldn't be more certain that I will not get them. If anyone from the Mets is reading this, let me make a plea: if I'm not the only person suffering from this problem, do the honorable thing here. Reset all the settings and re-run this lottery tomorrow.
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. Youknowthe 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.
I'd been in such a good mood before I checked the news today. Last night I won tickets through the random ticket lottery, giving me dibs on tickets to either the home opener or any of the three Mets-Yankees games at Shea. I couldn't believe my luck.
But then I go to check Metsblog and what do I see? Nothing but a whole lotta chirpin' coming out of that Phillies clubhouse. First it was "Who the Fuck Is" Jimmy Rollins, now it's Brett Myers.
Normally I like to keep these guys' personal lives out of it, but when you read a passage like this it really sticks with you:
"Authorities and witnesses say Myers then assaulted his wife, leaving her sitting on the sidewalk with a swollen face, crying. She told police her husband hit her in the face twice with his fist, according to the police report. Witnesses said he slapped her and then pulled her off the ground by her hair."
So yeah, Brett Myers... not the kind of guy you hope your sister ends up with.
"I hate the Mets," Myers said. "I want to beat them more than anyone else."
These Phillies are really stirring the pot here, and you know what, I don't mind it. It's often noted how curious it is that no legitimate baseball rivalry exists between the Mets and Phillies, two teams who are more proximate than the Yankees and Red Sox.
Easy answer to why there's no rivalry: the two teams have never been good at the same time. It's looking like that could change this year, and with the kind of rhetoric coming out of the Phillies' clubhouse, I'm really, really looking forward to Opening Day at Shea when our boys take on the bigmouths from Philly.
I got an e-mail yesterday from a friend of mine about my column on Wednesday. Big Phillies fan, this guy Chris. It's the kind of back and forth we love about baseball; the late February argument about who's got the better bullpen, and who's gonna win the division.
This could really be a lot of fun. Phillies fans show up in droves to Mets games; by the same token games at The Vet and Citizens Bank Park are always densely populated with Mets fans.
It'd be different than the rivalry with the Braves. When we play the Braves there's always one or two guys in your section wearing a Braves jacket. Inevitably everyone in his area starts directing the "Ass-hole" chant his way, but that's it really.
But if a rivalry develops with the Phils it could really turn in to something legit -- anyone who's seen Giants and Eagles fans go at it knows that (granted that Philly's more of a football town, but nevertheless). Best of all, both teams have young, solid cores and would seem poised to be playoff contenders for the next several years.
As for this year, I still gotta go with the Mets. In his e-mail, my friend started by saying the Mets were still the team to beat, but he talked a lot like he believed the Phils had the upper hand.
Sorry, Chris, I just don't think so. I think Phillies fans are putting all their eggs in the starting pitching basket. They think the Phillies' rotation is very good while the Mets' is very bad. In actuality, it's more like the Phillies' rotation is very reliable whereas the Mets' rotation is very unknown. That description of the Mets' rotation sounds worse than it is, and I think the description of the Phillies' rotation sounds better than it is.
Remember what our rotation was in the early part of last year? It was Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine, who were nasty, Steve Trachsel, who was terrible all year, and some combination of Brian Bannister (mixed), Victor Zambrano (bad), Jeremi Gonzalez (bad), Alay Soler (bad) and Jose Lima (relentlessly terrible).
No question, there's a ton of question marks with this team's starting rotation, but the idea that this year's rotation would be better than last year's, more consistent, is entirely plausible.
As for the Phillies, Jaime Moyer had horrible peripherals as a Phillie, and he's old. He went from a pitcher's park to a hitter's park, and that won't help a guy who basically allows one fly ball for every grounder. Freddy Garcia had a 5.50+ ERA three months last year. Adam Eaton has never been good. Cole Hamels is nasty. If everyone pitches above themselves they'll have a very good rotation. If they don't they'll have an altogether middling one.
Up against that pitching will be the vaunted Mets offense. I'm confident that the addition of Moises Alou (provided he stays healthy, which is a big if) and the continued development of David Wright and Jose Reyes will offset any dropoff we see from Beltran, Lo Duca or Delgado.
Honestly though, of those three I only expect sizeable decline from Lo Duca; Beltran's in his prime, and Delgado had what was actually kind of a shitty season offensively and still hit 38 home runs and drove in 114 runs. He had tennis elbow and a down year and still had an outstanding bottom line.
Perhaps at some point we can do a position-by-position rundown of the two teams. As for now though, I like Billy Wagner's attitude the best:
“Our motivation isn't to beat the Phillies, our motivation is to win the World Series.”
AFOMG hit it on the nose yesterday. It's baseball time.
If Wednesday night's 20-point loss to the Sixers -- the NBA equivalent of the Royals -- isn't all the indication you need that the Knicks' season should be dismissed, I don't know what will convince you.
But Isiah remains confident in his team. He's not making any moves at Thursday's deadline. Why would he? He made the steal of last year's deadline when he acquired the man they call "The Franchise."
Right now I am all sorts of confused. That may be because Lost has officially gone from "television show that sometimes fucks with your head," to " a complete mindfuck that just happens to be on television."
I'm excited with where the show is at but I'm definitely confused and I'm afraid that when it ends something will be missing. If when this show comes to an end and I am not dazzled by the BIG secret of what this whole island really means, than I will certainly be disappointed.
It all reminds me of my favorite ball team. See, these New Mets are no longer New. To be new you have to be different from when you were old. The old Mets sucked. We loved them, but they stunk.
These Mets have not sucked for almost one and a half seasons now, and like Lost, the expectations are through the roof. As always, Sippy Downer is here to bring you all back to reality. This season should scare the shit out all of you.
Sure, the Mets' offense could be the best in baseball. Who knows what Reyes will do? He is the real wild card. He could really emerge as a top 5 player in baseball. D Wright? We love the kid and god knows he loves us. But last year's second half/playoffs scares me and it should scare you.
As for the rest of the lineup, it can't get any better. Beltran had a career year, Delgado is a year older. We got the most out of Paul Lo Duca that we're ever gonna see. Shawn Green, like Sip, is a Jew, and Jose Valentin's evil alter ego, "Wa-Jose" appears to ready to peek his little head out.
It doesn't mean the offense won't be potent. The lineup will score runs. We know that. But there may be a drop-off from last year, and the pitching, meanwhile, figures to give up more runs themselves.
Tom Glavine is coming off his first real good full season with the Mets. No reason why this guy can't tank. El Duque is somewhere between 35-55 years old and he's coming up lame already.
John Maine, my guy, just needs Rick Peterson to work the magic. This guy has the stuff. I don't claim to know a lot about scouting. I don't know anything about Phil Humber or Mike Pelfrey that I don't read cause I haven't seen enough of them. But as I have said before and said again, the best pitch in baseball is a high fastball. If you can blow that by hitters you will win in these big leagues. John Maine has it.
But then what. Are we in purgatory or paradise? Are the rest of our pitchers dead? Is Oliver Perez a dream or a reality? Chan Ho Park... what?
In short, the Mets are LOST. Like the show there are such great expectations. Like the show we watch some days and wonder how we can ever be beat. And like the show there are other days we are more confused with what we have than humanly imaginable.
In the end, all we we can hope is that 24, Two-a-Days and the rest of the best shows on TV just stay one step behind us. Because the rest of the NL East is ready. There is a ton of lip service being paid to the Phils and everyone loves the Braves as this year's comeback story.
How about those pesky Fish in Miami? That team was a group of rookies last year that was one of baseball's best clubs in the second half. They are my pick for the wild card in the NL. The starting pitching is there and the lineup is there.
They just happen to be missing what will make the Mets NL East champs again, a dominant bullpen. Heilman, Duaner, Mota and Wagner -- they are our TiVo, the greatest revelation of the 21st century.
I think back to the days of Jeff Innis and Greg McMichael and now I almost cry at the thought of knowing that we win games after the 7th inning. That's all. All I'm saying is watch out. This is not straight-forward but in fact, very confusing.
Check out the back page of your favorite New York tabloid today. Check out SportsNite on SNY when at 6 or 10 tonight when you get home. Baseball is back. We're not all the way home, we'll need until April 1 for that, but we're not grasping at straws anymore either.
The influx of actual stories/news is kind of bewildering to me after an offseason in which we spent more time wishing and dreaming about trades or free agent signings than talking about actual, you know, players the Mets had acquired.
But Spring Training is upon us and so are any number of goings on. That's right... I'm going to the grab-bag -- count it!
Who the (expletive) is Jimmy Rollins?
True story, for a moment there I couldn't remember Rollins' first name. That's how much of an impression he's left on me after 7 seasons playing for a division rival. Perhaps it's because he's hit all of .236 against the Mets in the past three years (220 ABs), perhaps it's because the Phillies are a perpetual also-ran, who can say?
The truth is, Rollins has a point here. The Phillies should be good this year. That said, I think Rollins is getting ahead of himself a little bit. The Phillies' starting rotation is better than ours, but I'm not sure that it's going to be dramatically better.
Freddy Garcia should benefit from the switch to the National League, but I'm not convinced he's still a great pitcher. Garcia's strikeout rate has plummeted in the past three seasons, down to 135 from 184 in 2004; in 2004 he allowed 22 long balls in 2004 vs. 32 last year. U.S Cellular Field is a bandbox, sure, but so is Citizens Bank Park. Garcia's still in his prime, but he hasn't been an elite pitcher since 2001, and that's worth remembering.
Meanwhile, I think our bullpen is dramatically better than theirs, and position-by-position we're better in all three outfield spots (LF is contestable I suppose), third base, shortstop and catcher. The Phillies have a far better second baseman and a better first baseman.
(I hesitate to call Ryan Howard far better than Carlos Delgado even if that's probably a fair statement. Howard could be looking at a far lower HR/RBI count this year if he gets the Bonds treatment, which limited Bonds from 73 HR/137 RBI in 2001 to no better than 46/110 since. Those are still gaudy numbers, but they're a far cry from the 58/149 that Howard put up in 2006, and 46/110 is not necessarily better than the 38/114 Delgado put up in 2006.
I realize there's a ton of fuzzy math and assumptions made in that paragraph... I'm just sayin', the two are actually comparable in a way that Jose Valentin and Chase Utley aren't.)
Anyway, it all makes me recall Big Mo's tirade against Troy Percival, after Percival said that the Angels wouldn't miss Vaughn's leadership qualities. Here's a snippet from the big guy:
"Let me say this: Who the (expletive) is Troy Percival? What has he done in this game... (Expletive) Troy Percival. He ain't done (expletive) to be talking about anybody. And he's a (expletive) pitcher, too. You don't even (expletive) play every (expletive) day and you're sitting there talking about position players who play every day."
Nothing could ever be as good as Allen Iverson's "practice" news conference, but this was pretty close.
Of course, the Angels went on to win the World Series that year, so if the Phillies go on to create some October magic, shit, blame me.
I don't want to be pessimistic, but I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever that Shawn Green has found the flaw that limited him to a measly 15 homeruns in 2006, down from 28 in 2004 and 42 in 2002.
I want to like Green, but let's get real here. Green's days as a home run hitter are gone. Would that it weren't so.
Lastings Milledge, Thug Legend.
Uh-huh, yeah.
Fernando Martinez, The Truth.
I'm projecting this kid for 2009. Beltran will be in year 5 of his pact with the Mets, meaning Young Fernando's gonna have to move over. If this is the case, he should start getting acclimated to those spots sooner rather than later.
I realize centerfielders are more valuable than corner outfielders, but the adjustment shouldn't be forced on him when it's time to play in the big city. Start him in left or right once every four games in Double A and let him start getting a feel.
* * * * *
Anyway, there's a bunch of other shit out there but that's all I have time for today. Be thankful, Mets fans, baseball news is upon us.
It took me 15 years but finally I got back on the ski slopes. I shot up to Tahoe for a weekend with my crew from SF and had a blast. It was like riding a bike, I thought, until I almost broke my leg on a double black diamond.
I definitely have the ski bug. I can't wait to find my next mountain. But as I was driving home I found myself lost in a very difficult question. Is skiing a sport?
See for me, there is one criterion for what makes a sport: it's very simple but I fully stand by it. So what is it that defines as a sport? Has Omar Epps played the sport in a movie? That's all.
Epps has done a whole lot. He has played basketball (Love & Basketball), baseball (Major League II), track (Higher Learning), football (The Program), Boxing (that Meg Ryan movie he was in). God knows he will be cast in the Tiger Woods life story when that needs to come out. To me, those are the real ones.
Random Thought No. 2
As I sit here on this lovely Tuesday morning amped up to watch 24 and the Hills on Tivo, and even more geared up for my favorite show on TV, Two-a-Days, this evening I can only think about the newest drama coming out of the Bronx.
Apparently A-Rod doesn't really like Jeter. Who knew? A-Rod came out and said that his relationship with Jeter is not as great as we all "thought" it was and that he just wants to try and maintian a professional relationship.
This is kind of the equivalent of Johnny Moxon maintaining a professional relationship with coach Bud Kilmer. In plain english, he hates him.
The Solution
So A-R0d doesn't like Jeter and skiing, by the Epps Law of sports, is not a sport. So what does this all mean? The answer... Not a damn thing. It was a long weekend and my brain is pretty much fried. Hopefully you all had a good weekend.
I can make educated guesses as to which parts are him singing, but really I don't have any idea. Either way, this song is butter, and I'm not a fan of reggaeton, generally speaking. To be honest, I'm a little unclear on what reggaeton is exactly. I know it when I hear it, but I couldn't really describe it.
None of it matters here. ENCEN is the truth, and the fact that the Glass Man is involved in this kind of thing, in addition to having 2 kids already and being the most exciting player in the game, further confirms that he's the man.
By the way, is that a Jose Lima shout out he gives at the end of the song? I really hope not.
For the purposes of this post, assume that none of the Mets play golf. You and I certainly know that's not the case, that many if not most of the guys in the clubhouse like to hit the links now and again. But bear with me and just let reality slide for a moment as I make fun of John Smoltz, Jeff Francoeur and Adam LaRoche for playing and losing a round of golf to Tiger Woods Saturday.
Hey Braves! You stink! Tiger whupped you but good, and the article says he did it while eating chocolate chip cookies and talking smack the whole time. That's just embarrassing. I don't care if you were playing against Tiger, Lefty or a reincarnated zombie cyborg version of Byron Nelson. You're supposed to be professional athletes. Where's your pride at?
Come to think of it, why are you playing golf at this time of year anyway? Last I checked, you finished 79-83 last season. That was a whopping one game better than the cheapest group of players money could buy. There was a matter of some kind of streak being broken. Let's be fair -- you were the worst Braves team since "Law and Order" was nothing more than a gleam in Dick Wolf's eye.
If it were me, I wouldn't have much pride left. But what little remained would compel me to work my ass off to get back into the pole position in a division that Mark Lemke seemed to have no problem with for so many years. I'd be doing everything humanly possible to get ready for 2007, hitting the gym like Clubber Lang before the first fight in "Rocky 3," putting a poster of the Mets on my wall and punching it every time I went past. There would be some bloody knuckles in Cheddar Ben's casa.
You seem to be taking a different approach. Don't get me wrong, I expect you had a beautiful time at Isleworth Country Club. I'm sure it was a rip-roaring great outing, full of jokes and good times and not a single passive-aggressive comment about being traded to the Pirates. But I would feel like I was letting my team down. Just a little bit.
Also, I'm not thrilled with the whole golf thing in general. You should know that.
(Note: A piece from Cheddar Ben follows this one from A.F.O.M.G.)
A funny thing happened to Oliver Perez this offseason. On the strength of an impressive Game 7 performance, an actually-not-that-impressive-but-we-all-remember-it-as-impressive Game 4 performance, and the memory of his dominant 2004 campaign, the man who has gone a combined 10-18 with a 6.21 ERA has become the beacon of hope for the Mets' pitching staff.
Mets brass feels its trade deadline swap of Xavier Nady (RIP) for Roberto Hernandez, with Perez as a throw-in, was a steal on the order of the Scott Kazmir desecration. Mets fans gush about his potential. Everybody loves this guy all of a sudden.
I do too. It's really impossible not to be taken with his potential. That 2004 season when he sported a fancy 2.99 ERA on the strength of 239 strikeouts in 196 innings is enough to warm the heart of any fan, casual or SABR'd out as the case may be.
But something occurred to me as I read Buster Olney's piece today. Buster lists Perez as the third most intriguing starter of 2007. Here's a snippet:
Now the Mets, who did not upgrade their rotation with veterans over the winter, are looking for Perez to rediscover his overwhelming stuff again, under the tutelage of pitching coach Rick Peterson. A bounce-back year from Perez might be enough to put the Mets back into the playoffs, considering the strength of New York's everyday lineup and bullpen.
First off, I don't think our playoff hopes live and die with Oliver Perez, but that's not my point here. My point is that I think we've really gotten ahead of ourselves here. Perez is a reclamation project. The guy's basically been a punching bag for two seasons. A rag doll. One of those inflatable toys who you punch and knock down only for them to spring back up again.
I think we've all forgotten that. We talk about our rotation this year and Perez is one of the guys who we all expect to make the rotation. We tell ourselves that he could be the ace of our staff next year, and for years to come yet.
And you know what? He could be. He could be all those things because he's been those things before. But he's gotta make it happen, and I wonder whether Mets fans are going to be patient enough to see him get beat up.
I mean, based on his track record the past two years, he could basically be a Jose Lima or Jeremi Gonzalez type pitcher, only with more potential. Funny thing, potential -- it'll get every fanboy on the internet worked up into a frenzy, but until you turn it in to something tangible, potential and two dollars will buy you little more than a one-way train ride out to Shea.
Please don't misunderstand, I'm as excited about Perez as anyone. I love his potential, I love the fact that he could be a dominant left-handed starter, I love the poise he showed in Game 7. If he starts out the season 5-0 with a 2.50 ERA and is blowing away batters at a clip that would make a young Pedro Martinez blush, I don't want to get any told-you-so comments. I'm with you on Perez.
But what happens if he starts 0-5? Given his performance the last couple years, that's decidedly more likely. What happens to the frenzied enthusiasm of this past offseason? Does it get tempered as Perez moves to Triple A? Do we tell ourselves that he can find himself in a low pressure environment? Or does it just go pop? Do we all start insisting that he be removed from the rotation never to be seen again?
I don't know. New York's a tough town, and it's rare that a loser gets a second chance.
Have a good weekend everybody. Before I go I want to give a very special shout-out to A.F.O.Mrs.G., who just got in to our fair city's two finest law schools.
There's still a chance she'll end up in the Cambridge area, but if she ends up in New York I look forward to converting her from the sweet girl that she is into a full on Mets-loving, Yankee-hating Shea Stadium devotee.
What a beautiful day it is! The sun is shining, the breeze is perfect, everything is bright and clear. I love Florida. I am so happy.
Signal, left turn. I missed this car. The vehicles at home are not nearly as nice as this one. Red light. It has such a good smell. I think it was an old air freshener. I don't have another, though. Well, at least it still smells fine. Green light. Foot on gas.
Oh, here is the parking lot. I hope I still have the parking pass Omar gave me. What street am I on again? I've always thought Tradition Field was a funny name for a stadium. Tradition Field. Hee hee. What tradition? It makes no sense. I should ask someone about it.
Ah, here is my parking pass in the glovebox. Is that ... is this candy melted? These are not my jujubes. I don't even like them any more. Who put these in here? It must have been Ramon. It's much too hot for candy. I can't remember the last time I had candy. It must have been at Christmas, I suppose.
Ooh, look at that funny dog! I would go and pet it, but I have all these bags to carry. No, I really want to pet it. Hello! You are so cute! What's his name? Vincent? That's a fine name for a dog.
Oh, yes, I'm feeling fine. I can't wait to play again. Not for a month at least, but I'll be here. Hahahah, okay. Good to meet you too. Take care.
That dog was so funny-looking. Man, does my arm feel great. These workouts Nao has me doing, they do take a long time. Three hours, four hours. It's so much, I lose track of how much time I spend out on the field. It's a lot. But I like it. And my rotatator cuff is doing excellent.
No, it's rotator cuff. Rotator cuff. I should know that by now. That was silly of me. I wonder how that Japanese guy is doing with the Red Sox. Did I grab my keys? Hey, here comes a trainer to pick up my bags. They must know I'm here.
Oh, there are the cameras. Remember to smile. Okay, I'm smiling. My leg itches. Hey, there's that guy from the TV station. He was the one who told me and Carlos that joke during the playoffs.
Hi, what's up? Good, thanks. No, no, it's not blood. I must have stuck my sleeve into the melted jujubes. Yeah. It's a little icky. I'll get someone in the clubhouse to clean that up. I think this is a new shirt.
Should I say something to everyone? Yes, definitely. Make sure you don't have anything in your throat, then start talking. Rotator cuff. “I feel pretty confident, the way I feel right now, that I could be back [in July], but one thing, the doctors are the ones that know. And if they tell me you're going to pitch in September, that's when I'm going to pitch. If they tell me you're going to pitch in July, that you look good enough to pitch in July, then I'll pitch in July. I would love to pitch right now, but I'm not going to go against them. I've been stubborn enough to hurt myself, so imagine how much I want to pitch.”
That was pretty good. A couple of guys in the back are nodding. I don't know them. They must be new. There's the guy from the other network. There's the guy who likes to play cards. I think he used to have a mustache. I'm still made they wouldn't let me bring my shaving cream on the plane. Where am I going to get aloe in Port St. Lucie? My skin is so sensitive this time of year. Maybe I should grow a Spring Training beard.
I hope my plants are doing alright. We have that new fawn lily, and the ipheon and that whole new bed of wood poppies. Aren't we getting more deliveries soon? I thought I heard that. I'm so happy with the way that turned out. I waited way too long to fire that old gardening company. They thought Pedro was born yesterday. Ten dollars for a prarie violet? I got so angry at that guy with the glasses and the ugly suit. I almost slapped him. Ha. So angry.
Hold on, how long has Rick been talking to me? What? No, don't make him start over. Just keep nodding and pretending you're listening. I think he just made a joke. Yes, he's slapping me on the back and chuckling. What should I do? Okay, think ... how about a little giggle? Couldn't hurt. See, there, he looks satisfied. Keep nodding. I hope my keys are in my bags somewhere. Now he's pointing toward the clubhouse. Fine. I hope we're done soon.
There he goes. I guess that could have went better. I think I've got some corn stuck between my teeth. This is really annoying. Ah ... no, not out yet. Fuck. It's still pretty bright out. I've got to put some shorts on. I brought shorts, right? Or do they give them to us in the locker room? I've got to find a toothpick. “Marty, I need a toothpick.” Why is everybody laughing?
Lord, here comes that idiot from the Post. I actually like him better than the other one, but still. Is there anyone else to talk to? Oh, where did everybody go? Stop smiling. Look angry. Maybe he'll go away. No, he's got a photographer with him. He's fat. Who gave you permission to squint at me, fat man? I can see your nipples through your shirt. That's awful. He's sweating, too.
Blah blah blah. I'll take some photos. What do I care? I could really go for a milkshake. Luis told me they bring the chocolate in from New York. They'd better. I really like chocolate. Jose had that friend who had the shop in Queens. Or was that Endy? They won't even be here for a couple of days. Where should I go for dinner tonight?
What does this guy want from me? Whatever. Keep talking, I guess. “This experience has taught me a lot. It has made me more humble than I have ever been. One moment, you're on top of the world. Everybody is telling me, 'Oh look at Pedro, he's the best pitcher in the world.' Then all of a sudden I went boom.”
Point your thumb downward. See, he liked that. That was a little joke. “In just two years. The best pitcher ever, and then boom, I'm having the worst season ever. All this makes me stronger, and it made me realize that life is a time bomb. And so is baseball. You can have baseball today and it can all be gone tomorrow. You just have to leave it in God's hands and enjoy it as much as you can because you just never know.”
Did I just say life is like a time bomb? I think so. What am I talking about? It must have been that movie I watched last week with the guy with the ponytail and the submarine and the knives. He was a chef! It was really funny. I should probably go put on my workout clothes. I'm sore from yesterday. I really need to stretch.
First, some Vitamin Water. Mmm, that's good. I'm going to ask David for some more cases of this stuff. It's so sweet and delicious. Nao says it's good for me, too. Did they change the layout of these fields? Why is the cage there? It's pointing right into the sun. What's that smell?
Oh my GOD! They've got the sprinklers on! All right!
Yesterday I got one of the toughest e-mails that a blogger can ever receive. It was from my close pal and confidant Nick the Voice, my old working buddy who was there when this all the began. He told me thtat I was slipping, that I lost my inner Sip.
He referenced a recent article about Steve Trachsel and mentioned several places where neccesary Keanu Reeves sports film quotes could have and should have been referenced. It got me thinking -- yeah, that's right folks, I still do some of that, in between long nights at Winston's with L. Lohan and BBall sessions with Fred EX and Nellie over at Sports Club LA.
I needed to go back to my roots, the place where it all sort of started, the place where Byrnesy pours coffee on his pancakes... you may know it as the city of brotherly love, San Francisco. Having made the 6 hour trek up here all by my lonesome -- Fact: that was my first time on a trip by myself of more than 8 miles -- I had a lot of time to reflect.
I threw on some Team Facelift to get the juices flowing, some Killers to keep the adrenaline up and then had a nice run with Chris Martin to help me find my inner Keanu.
See, Rod Tidwell had "Quam", Sippy Momo has "Keanu." It's just my word. After 6 hours in the car and a bad Milky Way it all came to me. And so I started writing. 82 pages of pure genius. I was my father's son again. I titled the piece Blogging: The Things We Think But Can Not Say. I went to the local Kinko's and even got a cover that looked like "The Catcher in the Rye". Every fellow blogger I know got a copy, even my good friend Zarko Cabarkapa, who is apparently huge in the blogosphere back in Serbia & Montenegro. I was ready to become whole again.
All of which brings me to today. Fresh off a gorgeous Knicks loss to my formerly beloved Golden State Warriors, I strolled onto the internet to type up my piece. I figured I'd take a crack at Isiah or Nate Robinson -- who I really hate. I'd talk about how the Knicks could lose to any team on any night -- Fact: they lost to a Warriors team missing its two best players and the Warriors are already bad.
So I went to the website where I'm supposed to type up my daily Jawn but there was a problem. It wouldn't let me in. Apparently that little mission statement of mine got me into some hot water with my fellow bloggers. Who knew? I was shit out of luck. AFOMG couldn't help me and neither could Cheddar Ben.
Fortunately for me, there was one man who could help. I jumped in my car and drove to Lombard Street where my good pal and hero Keanu Reeves was filming the sequel to Point Break, in which Johnny Utah gives up surfing and catching bank robbers to drink coffee at local San Francisco coffee houses.
The set was typical Beanery shiek and Keanu wore an elegant "coffee house hat" and birkenstocks. There was no Bodhi; Angelo Pappas was replaced by Keanu's newest partner, fresh to the screen Joe McEwing, who played Keanu's 13 year old son.
In between takes I pulled Keanu aside. Before I could get a word in I had to high five Joey Mac and practice his new handshake that he was saving up in case he got a call up back to the show. When all this tomfoolery was done and I had a second with the master, I knew I would resolve my issues.
"Keanu," I asked. "What should I do?"
"Brah," he responded. "What would Robin do?"
It all hit me. I took a look at my plaque of Robin Ventura getting beaten up by Nolan Ryan and I knew.
It's only after we've lost everything that we are free to do anything. I let my computer run down to no battery (death) and then plugged it in. When I returned, it would all be repaired. Or so I thought. I returned to the website to write today's column, my return to kingdom come, figuring all would be good.
But it was not. I sat there for a few seconds, and drew inspiration from a waitress I met in Knoxville, TN who constantly repeated the words, "I guess." "I guess the burger is pretty good." "I guess the Vols might go on a run." I didn't really draw anything from her, I just kind of wanted to bring that up.
I closed my eyes and thought extra hard about what I could do to resolve my problem. A quick image of Elisha Cuthbert in The Girl Next Door crossed my mind and I knew... I went onto that crazy internet of ours, went to my gmail, and emailed my column to good 'ole AFOMG. I did what any American blogger would do in a time of crisis. I passed my problem along to someone else.
The Mets passed Kaz Matsui to the Rockies only to start winning. Keanu passed up a football career in the pros to chase bank robbing surfers. And today, I passed on trying to resolve this problem, cause I was sure that the big guy could take care of it all. Much to my liking, he did.
I called Keanu to thank him for his sage advice. He told me that he couldn't chat and that he was practicing some new form of a weird Tibetan Yoga. I obviously understood.
I just wanted to let you all know that I am back. No more fucking around. I love you all.
It's a fun time of year, this. One of my favorite activities every February is surfing the internet for the first pictures of the Mets at training camp. Baseball is never fully back until Opening Day, but seeing those first few pictures makes you realize how close you are to having the Mets back in your life. After a long offseason, it's all I ask for.
As a blogger, it's almost like the Mets never left. That's not to say that I'm more of a fan than Coop, Lister or anyone else who reads this site -- I'm fairly certain Lister, for one, knows more about the team than I do -- but I can honestly tell you that blogging about a team changes your relationship with it.
It's different from the journalist's dilemma. When you cover a team for a publication you just root for the best story; drama makes for compelling copy after all.
As a blogger it's a little bit different. You still root for the best story, but you always hope that that story ends the same way: with your team winning. That's the same with every fan.
Where it differs, I think, is in the aftermath when your team doesn't win. I feel like I was left holding the bag in a somewhat different way.
The season stopped but the subject matter didn't. Sure I had the Giants and the Knicks and there are other interests to fill my time, but nevertheless there I was with the Mets, focusing on them, agonizing over their defeat last year and revisiting it, in some form or another, twice a week for the past several months.
I find now that I expect a resolution. I expect the story lines that have played out over the past two seasons to resolve themselves. And the only possible resolution is a title.
I've never been one of those New York fans that needs to win every year. Hell, as far as I'm concerned one of the beautiful parts about being a Mets fan is knowing what it is to suffer.
To my mind, 2006 would have never been as sweet without 2002, 2003 and 2004 coming before it. God knows I don't long for a return to those lost seasons, but I can appreciate that they give me perspective.
But I'm not like that anymore. I feel like I need a championship out of this team. Is it because of the agony of blogging or is it just because I'm a Mets fan?
Any Mets fan would have seen what I saw the past two years. The rebirth of the "Next Year Is Now" season in 2005; the euphoria of 2006 that came crashing down with an improbable Game 7 loss (improbable because it came courtesy of a Yadier Molina home run), that looked like the staging ground for a Met miracle (1st and 2nd nobody out, Cliff Floyd at the plate... then Jose Reyes... then Lo Duca... then, well, you know).
It was the miracle that never came. The anticipation of it has lasted an entire offseason for me, and as we sit on the verge of next year, I find that I'm still expecting the big payoff.
I may not feel the same way later in the season. But let's face it, we lost to a clearly inferior team last October, and then a few days later, that clearly inferior team made the AL opposition look like a JV team. I realize that's not what anyone expected, and that if the Mets had been there instead everything would have been different, but that's the way it went and it's been eating at me for some time now.
Do you guys feel the same way? Do you feel like the powers that be owe you something? I never felt that I was owed anything after the Kenny Rogers bases loaded walk in 1999 or the loss to the Yankees in 2000. But I feel like the agony of that hanging breaking ball to Yadier Molina demands redemption.
Is it blogging that's made me feel this way or is that just the way that all Mets fans feel? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
It took 7 calendar years for this day to finally come. Today, Steve Trachsel is no longer a Met.
What has taken place over the last three months is almost mind-boggling. In a market where Gil Meche gets $55 million dollars, Trachsel, fresh off a 15-win season for the best team in the National League, struggled to find work.
The Mets had zero interest in perhaps their best pitcher from a season ago. The only explanation: This guy is truly the worst. It's not like Steve Trachsel is TO. He doesn't yell at his teammates or speak out to the media.
He did however, ask off of the field in the NLCS against St. Louis. In plain English, this guy must just be the biggest pansy. Teams need pitching and teams need inning eaters. The Mets of all teams need both. Yet they showed zero interest in bringing back Trachsel. We must really hate this guy.
So Trachs is gone, bringing his boring 7-pitch repetoire to charm city where my good friend and Y2K legend J Schubes was recently spotted popping champagne in the club, to celebrate the big signing.
Young J was ecstatic. Steve Trachsel is such an Oriole. He belongs on a team that is young and exciting but has absolutely no chance of succeeding. This guy belongs in baseball purgatory. Can anyone see Trachsel making friends with any of Danny Cabrera, Eric Bedard or Adam Loewen? Of course not. Steve Trachsel has no personality.
But I'm going to miss the man we all called Shitty. Trachsel was the Mets of the early new millennium. We lost and Trachsel bored us. I said last year that a true sign that this team was ready to emerge was when we traded Kaz Matsui. Get rid of the dead weight I said.
I gotta think that losing Steve Trachsel can do nothing but help this team. So what's next? We talked about Trachsel as a Cy Young candidate last summer. How bout the Trax, now under pitching guru Leo Mazzone, winning the trophy in the American League? It could happen. And monkey's could fly out of my butt.
Mark it in on the calendar, all: February 13th is our first official day without Stevey T. RIP Stevey. We will not really miss you, but I guess we all sort of will. You'll always be a Met.
It'll make SportsCenter and it's in all the papers, and I have no idea what Mariano Rivera is whining about with this new contract babble. He's talking extension, and not in a positive, productive, Gary Sheffield-type way. Cue passive-aggressive interaction with reporters outside batting cages .... now!
"I definitely want to finish my career here," Rivera said after a light workout at the team's minor league complex. "But you know, if they don't give me the respect I deserve, I'll have to move on."
Okay, Mo. You've suddenly turned into a leaner, scowling version of Pedro, but that's cool. Any hint to why you've decided to become such a douche all of a sudden to the organization that raised you from a pup, the one that you've always had pleasant business dealings with?
"Bernie's been one of the big guys on this team," Rivera said. "[But] you have to understand this is just business. I would love to have Bernie back. But who am I to say that I want Bernie back? I wish he were here, but you have to move on."
Yes, it sure sounds as if you've moved on. Any other areas of disagreement before we start ragging on you?
Andy Pettitte, who left the Yankees after the 2003 season, will be back in pinstripes this year. 'He should have never left," Rivera said, "but that's in the past.'"
Sweet. I'm sure that's just what Brian Cashman's looking for at this moment, for his cranky franchise closer to break out a bizarre laundry list of gripes right before A-Rod, Jetes, Giambino, Wrasslin' Johnny Damon and Carl Pavano show up in Tampa. Mo, your timing leaves something to the imagination.
Also, when you finally decide to open up and show your true colors as a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee asshole, this is who you choose to make a stand over? Bible Belt Andy and The Guitarist? Curiouser and curiouser.
There's no way I'm going to believe you're friendly enough with Pettitte to make this worth your while, Mo. The guy is a freak show, a Clemens-class hick with delusions of messianic grandeur and a proclivity for secretly masturbating to tapes of "Little House on the Prairie." He's a crappy, me-first weirdo laying it on thick as a family man. As far as I can tell, the only thing you two have in common is you both get injured every June.
Moreover, Pettitte leaving the first time around had as much to do with him wanting to go "home" to Houston as it did with anything the Yankees did. This may not have been to your liking, but putting it all on the New York front office is just wrong. It probably sucked sharing a locker room with the Big Unit and Kevin Brown while Andy was gone (check that ... it definitely did), but Pettitte'll be showing up in a hot minute – why not hash it out with the man himself instead of lashing out through the press?
And Bernie? Oh, wow, talk about a slap in the face of all of your other teammates. The fact is that keeping a non-hitting, non-speedy, non-throwing, old-man-defense-playing OF/DH on the team makes the Yanks that much less likely to get back to the World Series, not to mention win it. Bernie has murdered the team off the bench and in the field for two years running, even counting the two-week hot streaks he tends to luck into. The man is D-U-N done, and we all know it.
You've already got your rings and your legend, so you don't care about anything but keeping the championship core buddies together, I guess. Technically, that's your prerogative. But you might have heard that the rest of the Yankees are sort of interested in picking up a championship too, right? Yes? It's come up once or twice. In fact, taking home a title would make most of their lives QUITE a bit easier in any number of ways. (Cue plaintive reaction shot from A-Rod in 3, 2 .... hit it!)
Yet rather than back them up on a key personnel move, and support a young guy like Melky Cabrera who clearly deserves as much playing time as he can get, you're out there stumping for a useless spare part who's already shown an ability to bitch about undeserved PT issues and drag down the locker room. For a guy who spends most of his time sitting on a rocking chair and softly talking to himself while he picks out an atonal etude, Bernie sure can sow some nastiness. Why cry about all that?
It's selfish, it's counterproductive, and it's not even Spring Training yet. If this was a shot across the bow of the front office about bringing Bernie in, it's not going to work – Cashman couldn't have been more clear during the off-season about his intention to integrate younger players into the team, and this little hissy fit isn't going to reverse months of dedicated policy.
And while it almost boggles the imagination that this stunt could have actually been about your contract, I wouldn't put it past you at this point. It's just so strange – all your other extensions were signed down in Tampa during Marches of years gone by, and you don't even let long toss get going before you start heaving up threats and making like a hard-ass. That final paycheck must have to cover bills at the restaurant, or something.
It's just annoying, that's all. I anticipated a nice long calendar year of mocking Yankee dysfunction, tearing down their posturing and nonsense until the leaves start to change, but you know what? Bloggers need Spring Training too. I can't possibly be expected to be at 100 percent-slapping speed on Feb. 13, not by a long shot. Mo is treating Truck Day like it's a midseason series against the Tigers, and I haven't even been stretched out by the trainers yet, or had my Vitamin Water.
Where's the respect for tradition? Come on, now, Mo, you've escaped being tagged with the "Ugly Yankee" label for so long, riding on your reputation as a player and a great clubhouse guy, a true professional and all that. Don't you want to become hated in the right way, like a man should? Don't you want to do it like Ben Chapman or Dave Winfield or Danny Tartabull would have?
Don't cut corners on this, Mo. Save the childish pouting for another day, until the Yankees really can't afford it. I swear, it'll make everything far more clear, and it'll get you the reaction you're looking for. And maybe, just maybe, then you'll get the respect you so richly deserve.
Normally I like to keep these guys' personal lives out of it, but when you read a passage like this it really sticks with you:
Epps has done a whole lot. He has played basketball (Love & Basketball), baseball (Major League II), track (Higher Learning), football (The Program), Boxing (that Meg Ryan movie he was in). God knows he will be cast in the Tiger Woods life story when that needs to come out. To me, those are the real ones.
