My main exposure to baseball began in Seattle, with the Mariners. I moved out there in 1995 (I know, good timing.) I had plenty of “baseball friends” out there who gladly shared their tickets with me - to the Kingdome, and later, to Safeco Field.
I loved the Mariner Moose the first time I saw him. “You mean—the mascot is a big, fuzzy, adorable moose?!” How could you not love that? Combined with the fact that I had a running joke for years about a stuffed moose companion called the Majestik Moose, it was true love.
The Mariner Moose danced.
He rode an ATV.
He popped up everywhere during the game.
He appeared in one of a great series of Mariner pre-season commercials, where he was the road roommate of the unfortunate Jamie Moyer, in which he clogged the bathtub with moose hair, partied too loudly, and then sat on the edge of the bed in his moose boxer shorts and watched moose porn (the wildlife channel) while Jamie tried to sleep.
So the Mariner Moose loomed large in my legend. I was a big fan.
While I definitely came to Shea years ago as a kid (a lot of trips with various Jewish youth organizations), I don’t remember Mr. Met. So I didn’t really have an opinion on his ability as a mascot until 2005, when I first started really going to games.
I ragged on Mr. Met senselessly last summer. “He’s never around. He only comes out for the 7th inning stretch. He’s way too staid and emotionless,” I said.
TBF, predictably, took great offense at these statements, affirming Mr. Met’s dignity and history as a mascot.
He spent way too much time in the Mr. Met section of mets.com, so he could educate me on the history of Mr. Met.
He emailed me photographs of Mr. Met’s birthday party to show me how the other Major League mascots --including the Mariner Moose—paid homage to Mr. Met.
I still maintained my position, that I liked a more active mascot, until I saw thecommercials.
Well.
How could I not love such a resourceful, witty fellow?
Slowly, I got used to the skinny guy with the BIG head. He was more elegant, more suave, more—Metropolitan—than a furry moose. His approach and attitude were more suited to the big city. I grew to appreciate his approach to the business of mascot-ing as more dignified: would Mr. Met would ride an ATV in the outfield so the bullpen could pour water on him?
Not on your life.
Now, once I was obsessed with Mr. Met, I wanted my picture taken with him. TBF would promise me we would get to the game in time to go to Fan Fest, but on Fridays that never happened with work, and last year I had to work weekends. So I would bemoan my inability to get a photograph with the big guy.
Earlier this year, I had a day off, and took myself to the Friday game in time to see BP. As I was packing up the camera, I heard an announcement:
“Mr. Met will be posing for photographs with fans in the Dream Seats in right field until 6:15!”
I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a line. I was almost, well, nervous. As I walked up to him, I somehow felt the need to confess: “Mr. Met, I used to love the Mariner Moose...”
Head shaking. Hands to his eyes. You know that look.
“But you have won my heart and you are now my favorite mascot.”
He takes my hand, kisses it, and gives me a big hug. I am smitten.
“He’s quite the charmer, isn’t he?” says the woman from Guest Services who was babysitting him.
Photographs are taken.
When I get home that night, I email my baseball friends back in Seattle the link to the photo, with the subject line: a milestone is achieved.
You could say I’m a big fan.
TBF keeps promising to take me to breakfast with Mr. Met. I think he’s not arranging it because he’s jealous.
THANK GOD THERE IS BASEBALL AGAIN THIS AFTERNOON.
TBF warned me before the All-Star break: “It’ll get really unbearable toward the end of the week.”
THE TOP 10 REASONS D. WRIGHT KICKED ASS ON LETTERMAN
10) He dressed up for the occasion, abandoning his usual pastels or funky-striped-untucked-button-down for an actual suit. (However, he might want to talk to Beltran, the Mets’ very own sharp dressed man, about a good tailor.)
9) He was delightfully nervous, instead of cocky, but it wasn’t awkward
8) He showed some personality, unlike the bland blog
7) He was a good sport about the earlier ‘betting on sports’ joke
6) He handled Dave’s joshing about The Tongue gracefully, even blushing just enough when Dave said, “I bet that comes in handy on the road.”
5) He came across as sincere - we like to bemoan how he talks in baseball cliches and soundbytes, but NYC is a brutal media town and a young kid can follow some structure or get eaten alive. He managed to not sound too much like a soundbyte machine last night.
4) The story about his brothers calling him after the bare-handed catch was awesome: “Good thing you didn’t use your glove.”
3) Good grooming: He managed to avoid LoDuca’s metrosexual eyebrow mistake even if there was a tiny bit too much hair product in evidence.
2) He managed to not say anything that would result in a phone call from either Jay Horwitz OR Cliff Floyd the minute he walked off that stage
And finally, the Number One Reason D.Wright Kicked Ass On Letterman:
1) He’s David fucking Wright, and he’s OURS, and god willing Omar isn’t going to let him go anywhere, ever, and he showed the world that a rising baseball star can be confident and a Nice Guy instead of being an arrogant dick. (No names, really, no names.)
That was the first time I’ve ever seen Trevor Hoffman in action.
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I have all these notes but 1) it’s late and 2) I have no spirit to write the impassioned ode that I was composing in my head during the game—at least until the 9th inning.
I understand TBF taking it hard - although it was difficult to discern since he was keeping score, which kept him too busy to grump - but GOD I am pissed. Disappointed. Disheartened.
One comment on the ESPN morons:
“He’s chosen to use Mariano Rivera as his closer.”
Um, my CAT would choose to use Mariano Rivera as his closer.
My previous associations with gentlemen who were baseball fans gave the All-Star Game an uncertain status in my mind. These other individuals did not think much of it, and my only previous exposure was when it was in Seattle a few years ago (and even then, it only impacted me because Jack McDowell, longtime friend of Eddie Vedder, set up a benefit concert which was held in a tiny stifling club on the hottest day of the year and lasted about 9 hours).
TBF, on the other hand, thinks it’s all kind of neat, so we were all set to plan the beginning of this otherwise baseball-less week around tonight and tomorrow. As it turned out, we had to take a visiting friend to the airport tonight at 8pm, so TBF set up the VCR and we got back in time to see DWright’s second round in the Home Run Derby.
“SIXTEEN HOME RUNS?!” we said, in unison, as we sat down.
“I don’t know if I like that,” TBF said.
“I wanted him to follow Billy Wagner’s advice,” was my contribution.
Of course, that didn’t stop us from sitting there, glued to the screen, for the rest of the second round and then the third round. What a beautiful baseball stadium. It’s TBF’s #1 Stadium I Want To Visit (and was slated for a September visit until we made a decision to go to Seattle to visit friends, and see the Mariners play the A’s in a few weeks).
“I can’t believe it - he’s going to the second round,” TBF said.
“No one thought he would do that. I was betting on David Ortiz.”
“Hell, *I* was betting on David Ortiz!”
“You’ll have to buy me a glove when we go,” I nudged him.
Blank look.
“Is that not cool?” [There are Rules, you know. No one over the age of 10 is allowed to bring a glove to a game.]
“No, gloves are permitted for all ages at the Home Run Derby. The whole point of going is to catch the home runs.”
I loved watching the fielders, the little kids with the t-shirts too big for them, scattering over the outfield like a flock of sheep.
(Okay, fast-moving sheep. Sheep running away from a wolf.)
I appreciated the kayakers in the Allegheny, although you could not pay me to swim in that water. EVER. It doesn’t burn like Cleveland but that water ain’t clean.
I hope there is a better band playing the game tomorrow, unlike that “Big & Rich” that we unfortunately sat through before we left for the airport.
“‘Big & Rich’? That’s compensating for something,” TBF said.
“How about, ‘Lame & Moronic’?” I say. “Puerile &...”
“Going over their heads now.”
“Got it.”
Whatever. There are enough GOOD bands that are baseball FANATICS that would play this thing just for the tickets. Get one of them please. In fact, there are probably enough unsigned bands in Pittsburgh that are better than what was onstage tonight who would write you a rock opera for the occasion.
But, back to the Derby. We did sit and watch all 16 of the round one HR’s once it was over, and - dear Lord. I loved when the mic would cut out after an unfortunately aimed fly or foul ball - it took me a few minutes to realize it was the 7-second delay button in action. I loved DW saying that Cliff Floyd thought he’d hit two, loved LoDuca’s smile when he came up to shake David’s hand after the third round (is it just me or do his eyebrows look completely unnatural? Like he got them done just for the Derby. I’m not seeing LoDuca as the metrosexual type).
I was glad for David, but—well, I’ll quote TBF: “I-just-hope-this-doesn’t-fuck-anything-up!”
A-[BEEP]-men.
(WHY are the NL jerseys so UGLY?! That yellow! A color that MG would never see herself wearing.)
I’d like to write thoughtfully about my feelings about John Maine’s debut, but I thought that game was BORING. There was no spirited offense and the defense was the lackluster performance we have wearily grown used to over the past few weeks. Add to that the fact that it was a little warm (not too hot, though, and the sun went behind the stadium pretty fast) and the upper deck was crowded (okay, the whole ballpark was crowded, which is why we were in the upper deck) so maybe it was a terrific game if we would have been on the mezz as usual.
It’s not just the physical distance between the field and the red seats that made me feel removed from the action, it’s the fact that a large portion of the upper deck crowd isn’t there to watch baseball (which you *can* successfully do from the upper deck if you PAY ATTENTION - TBF has done it for years and we did it very productively last season), they’re there to eat hot dogs and drink beer and do the wave. The people who actually do care about what’s going on on the field are outnumbered between the bachelor parties and family reunions and groups of guys who bring their girlfriends who proceed to spend the game talking on the phone or getting up and down right in front of you every three seconds. You can’t get a “Let’s Go Mets” chant going to save your life.
Now, the almost-brawl (as illustrated above) was exciting. Am I a horrible person for actually wanting to see a nice, bench-clearing brawl? It’s not like I’m a big fan of violence, it’s just that a brawl would have brought some energy and life into the game, which Duaner successfully did a little bit by deliberately beaning Cabrera.
(Guys I would want on my side in a bar fight: Sanchez, Floyd, Delgado. Remember that game when someone charged Pedro? Who was the first person standing in front of the mound?)
We had sandwiches from Mama’s and enough water to get us through to the 6th inning of the second game, and once the first game was over and we moved down into the second row of the upper level boxes, right behind home plate, everything drastically improved: the crowd, our seats, the Mets. I like Endy in the lead-off position. I liked Cliff’s home run. And I sure liked Valentin’s grand slam. I liked everything about the game, except for the morons in right field who seemed to be confused as to which stadium they were in, and kept trying to do the roll call. They were even trying to do the roll call for Omar and LoDuca—I loved the comment from the guys behind me: ‘I just want him to call time, get up, and flip them off.’—and except for the fact that THIS WAS THE TYPE OF HUSTLE AND SPIRIT WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SEEING FOR THE LAST FEW WEEKS. And the fact that it took an almost-brawl to raise this out of the Mets pisses me off just a little.
Oh, yeah, Mike Pelfrey: I just don’t know enough about this yet to make any kind of pronouncements. TBF didn’t seem impressed, although the rest of the blogosphere seems to be.
Other notes:
We don’t like Julio Franco as a starter. He seems to do much better as a pinch-hitter. And could someone help him with some walk-on music? He has some CCM thing.
me: “Oh, look, ‘People get ready, Jesus is coming’”
TBF: “How about, ‘people get ready, some RBI’s are coming,’ Julio?
During the second game, the played the ‘Volare’ bit while LoDuca was at bat. Even with the crowd as light as it was, there was a hearty “whoa-whoa” response.
TBF, appalled: “What was THAT?”
me: “It’s a LoDuca thing.”
TBF: “No, it’s a stupid thing.”
Julio at bat (again), someone nearby yells “USE YOUR CANE!”
TBF: “No, he’s still swinging at bad pitches.”
me: “Maybe they mean, ‘use your white cane’?”
So have you all seen the drinking photos yet? I only mention this because I was sharing this information with the two sisters who sit next to us, promising to send them the links, earlier in the evening.
By the second or third inning, one of them leans over and asks, “Were those photos from LAST NIGHT? Because they’re playing like they’re hungover!”
So there was some ENORMOUS group in front of us, that had a surplus of little pitchers with big ears, and since I’m usually the one yelling “CHILDREN!” at people’s inappropriate language—well, this is what I kept yelling all night when I wanted to scream various obscenities.
I could not have possibly conceived of how bad it was going to be. And we can’t blame Jose Lima, although he did get the boos he deserved—um, David Wright? um, Julio Franco? um, Ramon “Darth Vader” Castro? um, Chris Woodward? and - omg - JOSE REYES SLIDING INTO FIRST BASE, WHICH IS BAD ENOUGH, BUT THEN HE GOT A LACERATION ON HIS HAND FROM SPIKES!
Add to this freaking nightmare the fact that I am coming down with a summer cold, somewhere around the 4th inning, the thought of going back to the car, coming home, and getting into bed seemed like an awfully good idea. Of course I didn’t, but it didn’t get any better, now did it?
Where are my Mets? My Mets play with heart. There was no heart tonight. I don’t give a fuck if the All-Star break is next week or how far ahead we are. I come to the game to watch them play, not to watch them phoning it in.
Can I have a TRL minute here? Before the game, on the Diamondvision: The gorgeous photo of Reyes and Wright standing back to back, bats over their shoulders, lights ablaze behind them: FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS said the headline. Total heartthrob baseball pinups that both girls AND boys would put on their walls. That HAS to be a poster. I would buy one RIGHT NOW. :::end TRL:::
And the Todd McFarlane David Wright Shea Stadium Exclusive figurines are IN at the Team Store - we were at Shea early and ran in to try one more time to get my Cliff Floyd shirt (finally). Unfortunately I didn’t see the rack until after I paid, exclaiming, “Those were supposed to be available after the All-Star break!”
TBF: “Get one tomorrow.”
I pointed to the gentlemen stacking up 8 or 10 at a time and promptly went back to the register.
(But now I want another one. I hate to take it off the card - I went through this with McFarlane’s Yellow Submarine dolls, I was going to buy two sets, one to keep on the cards and one to display - but after I bought the first set I realized how ridiculous it was.)
(Um, yeah. Hint.)
We traded in the rained-out Giants game tickets for tomorrow’s double-header. It’s gotta be better tomorrow, right? It’s gotta be.
Mets Grrl is something of a geek (it’s what pays the bills) and she loves looking at server logs.
Someone from a large magazine (of the Conde Nast variety) just found my site by searching on “David Wright” and “Man Crush”. This probably has to do with all the press being generated around the All-Star Game and his Letterman appearance…
...or, they could be someone who works there who has a man-crush on DW. Don’t worry, I guarantee you’re not alone. Real men admit they have man-crushes. Come over to the dark side.
The “Sanford & Son” theme Cliff Floyd used as his walk-on music for at least one at-bat yesterday is actually called “Streetbeater” and was composed by Quincy Jones. So now, seems more apropos, but I am sure we still don’t understand the inside reference and never will.
In a way, that was more like it - in another, I just found the game to be decidedly uninspired. Is it just me? I mean, obvs I know we WON and all that, and Duaner was, well, Duaner, and #13 came through admirably, and even Tommy was fine until he was cooked, but the action on the field just didn’t snap crackle and pop the way I’ve come to expect. Is it just me? It probably is.
However, I could have done without the snap crackle and pop that took down #30 with yet ANOTHER injury. Reyes should have known better. From our vantage point, it looked like he had gotten hit dangerously close to the eye with Reyes’ spikes, but I understand they are now saying “light concussion"… let’s hope it stays that way.
(Note to Mets Team Store: WTF is it with your t-shirt display? You used to have them neatly organized by player and now it’s a free-for-all and you only have XL and you have a gazillion Victor Diaz shirts and no Cliff Floyd in a nice size M.)
Other notes:
The Jacket WAS NOT WEARING A JACKET! I wouldn’t have recognized that it was indeed Rick Petersen if it wasn’t for his usual stance and the trademark rolled-up card he takes notes on (if there’s a technical term for this, enlighten me). And even then, when I pointed it out to TBF and our seatmates, no one believed me until each of them took the binoculars from me and looked for themselves.
Can we please find something more inspiring to take the Mets onto the field than “Eminence Front” and “Start Me Up”? This is coming from me, Mets Grrl, who loves both of those bands insanely. (Trust me on this.)
Cliff has discarded his Rick Ross walk-on music in favor of the theme from “Sanford & Son”. I’m sure there’s a really funny joke here that none of us are privy to.
Memo to Ramon Castro: That Darth Vader walk-on music is, like, *so* 1980’s.
I so [heart] hearing “London Calling” in Shea Stadium. I miss Joe Strummer. (And I saw the Clash open for the Who at Shea back in 1982.) I wish I [hearted] more the individual who that music heralds, but I still won’t boo Heilman.
And Finally:
The bleachers today were occupied by the Young Congressional Leadership Program (or something like that, they got to walk onto the outfield like they have been doing with the Little League of North Suburb, Long Island this year). These freaking overachievers couldn’t just watch the damn baseball game (the ones who bothered to do so), they had to turn their bleacher time into a political protest, by holding up a ridiculously badly executed sign protesting genocide in Darfur. Now, before you start lecturing me about the First Amendment and freedom of speech, understand that Mets Grrl is a commie pinko liberal type of the first order, who has protested and marched and a big believer in civil disobedience. What I objected to here was that:
The sign was badly executed. No one could read it from the stadium without binoculars.
Everyone is against genocide
It wasn’t a national tv game so they could get some kind of significant exposure
And finally, the most important thing Mets Grrl thinks she, as an alpha-type over-achiever of the first order, has learned from baseball:
Sometimes you don’t need to overachieve. Sometimes a baseball game should just be a damn baseball game. Sometimes the most important thing you can do for yourself, the planet and your fellow man & woman is to just kick back in the bleachers for a few hours with a refreshing malted beverage and watch the New York Metropolitans WIN.
