Wednesday, March 21, 2007

metsgrrl welcomes…

Another woman to the ranks of Mets blogging! Check out My Summer Family.
-----

Monday, March 19, 2007

barry zito mystery solved (or, Mets Grrl on Sports Center)

So on Sunday, the hits started pouring into Mets Grrl, and everyone was searching on the same thing:

“barry zito’s ipod”
barry zito ipod
the contents of barry zito’s ipod
contents of barry zito’s ipod
whats on barry zito’s ipod

Today, you may have noticed that I put up a post asking why these people were looking for this particular item, and thanks to reader Chris who left a comment, I got the answer:
“He was on SportsCenter yesterday, and they discussed his iPod. He said that somewhere on the internet, people claim to have the contents of his iPod. But that he doens’t listen to half of the songs on that list.”

The post in question can be found here. 

Now, you know, I thought Barry was a smart, hip guy. He hangs out with Pearl Jam. He meditates. Does yoga. I did not think he was so Mr. Sensitive Pony Tail Guy that he would not get a joke when he saw one.

MG: “So Barry Zito has read my web site. This is funny.”
TBF: “Or somebody else read it, and told him about it.”
MG: “That’s even funnier.”
TBF: “I wish he’d just mentioned the name of the web site specifically.”
MG: “But if you Google ‘Barry Zito’s ipod,’ Mets Grrl is at the top of the search results.”
TBF: “This is pretty funny.”
MG: “But - he didn’t get the post! Of course he doesn’t listen to those songs. Was it too subtle?”
TBF: “No, I think it was pretty obvious.”
MG: “Clearly, not.”

Apropos of nothing, I find it important to note that Mr. Zito has lost his status as TBF’s favorite non-Met player ("When he spurned the Mets, he got off that list.") His new favorite non-Met player is Mr. Cliff Floyd. Which is a coincidence, since mine is as well. (Shocking, I know.)

(I guess that means I’ll win the argument for a roadtrip to Chicago this year.)

why are all of you searching for “barry zito’s ipod”?

Seriously, hundreds of you searching on that query since last night. Is there a contest or something? Please, tell me in the comments ;)

spring training thoughts

In case you’re wondering where are the thoughtful, indepth analyses of games we’ve recently played, I’ll share with you a little secret:

I can’t watch ‘em. At least not on TV.

I want to see how our new pitchers are and I want to see the guys I cheered my lungs out for last year. But I can’t make it through a game (and, truth be told, neither can TBF). Even Saturday, when I had the house to myself, I’d settled in to watch the replay of the game, I started getting anxious about the time it went 4-0. (And, I still like listening to baseball more than I like watching it on tv, honestly. A friend of mine told me last year that that was because the rhythm is different.)

I think Greg from Faith and Fear In Flushing said it best yesterday: right now, we suck, and that’s hard to watch. I realize that if I am going to be a Mets fan, I need to learn to accept the territory of s-u-c-k as a birthright, but it’s not supposed to be like that this year. Right?

At least, hard to watch when I’m not there. Will be interesting to see what my reaction is to our under-performance is on Friday afternoon, live from Port St. Lucie. It’s hard to believe that come April 1 we’ll suddenly stop sucking and start playing like the Mets we all know and love… but I’m willing to be proved wrong.

-----

Saturday, March 17, 2007

IRISH HERITAGE NIGHT

aka, my gratuitous St. Patrick’s Day-themed post:

As I mentioned in my post about my new sneakers, I was hinting (hoping) that Bono might side with the blue and orange.

A trusted source sent me this mp3 (click to download you can hear it for yourself) and now I am on the fence.

That’s the Larry Mullen Band (which you probably all know as U2) performing live in Los Angeles on October 26, 2000. That’s right, October 26, 2000. “We want them to win… for all the wrong reasons” can be interpreted in so many ways, but essentially, rooting for the enemy is, well, rooting for the enemy… especially that night.

$@#%!@^&# &$^@^!!)*# ARGH. *sigh*

TBF is not going to like this very much. 

[MP3 courtesy the world’s most reknowned expert on Bono’s hair and its current whereabouts, the divine Scatter O’ Light]

-----

Friday, March 16, 2007

yo la tengo

Goddamn it. I completely forgot that tonight was the WFMU fundraising marathon, and the night that Yo La Tengo show up and take requests for three hours in return for pledges.

When I got the email about the marathon from their mailing list last night, I sent a note back warning them to prepare a version of “Our Team, Our Time”. Ah, heck, I wouldve settled for a rousing cover of “Who Let The Mets Out.”

If you haven’t heard YLT’s cover of “Meet The Mets” (recorded during a previous marathon), now you can. (Click to download a MP3.)

[And if you don’t know who the heck I’m talking about and why they’d be playing Mets-related songs, click here.]

-----

a post actually not about opening day tickets

“...he was always a great reader, and he had a history of the New York Yankees and then started talking knowledgeably about Joe DiMaggio.”

Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer

Ah, FECK.

There goes that theory off the upper deck.

-----

LAW & ORDER, PART 2

-----

$50 and Opening Day

$50.

That’s what TBF and I have decided is our limit to pay for tickets to Opening Day.

We debated buying on StubHub; we debated buying a seven-pack; in all cases, it still wasn’t worth the money. The location of the seats in the remaining seven-packs available sucked - not quite Section 38, Row Q suckage (which is the cheapest seat location on StubHub right now, for $78), but still not a seat we would be happy sitting in.

We would both go off and look at the seat locations for both options, not telling the other that we were doing this, and then we’d get pissed off and scowl and not know why.  It kills me that the number of tickets available on StubHub has not gone down, it has only gone up.

Until the other night, when TBF appeared in the doorway of my office:

“You know, Opening Day is cool and all, and I really wanted to go with you, but the truth is that there are going to be games this year that will be far more significant to me than Opening Day, games I would be happy to pay a premium for. I think we should save our money for those games.”

I agreed wholeheartedly, and that’s when we reached the consensus on the $50 mark.

Tomorrow, I am writing a letter to the Mets. I need to stop bitching on here and put my money where my mouth is. At least I’ll feel like I did *something*.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

early morning baseball history

In downtown BK early (I mean EARLY) this morning, I see a historic plaque as I go into Commerce Bank near Borough Hall. Since MG is a geek of NYC history, I make a note to read said plaque when I am done.

And I was amply rewarded:

The distant shot is crap with a cell phone camera, but the gist was: a plaque commemorating Jackie Robinson visiting the offices of the Brooklyn Dodgers, formerly located at the present location.

-----