Tuesday, September 25, 2007

DEAD MOON NIGHT. [09-25-07]

As it turned out, tonight might likely be my last regular-season game at Shea; it is certainly the only one I have tickets left for. This morning the MG household made a snap decision to attend a concert by Mr. Bruce Springsteen at the Continental Airlines Arena on Friday, and since they were only selling about 2500 tickets for this rehearsal show, felt that it could easily trump the Mets right now. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, if you find people who paid their playoff invoices with more alacrity than we did, I’d like to meet them, and we’re not booking anything on potential playoff nights no matter what. As someone near and dear to our hearts might say, we have faith, but it’s a little bruised and battered right now and frankly could use a night off.

Even if Friday night turned out to be clinch night, I came to the realization a while ago that it wouldn’t be the same as last year—I know that nothing could, that last year was an enchanted year, the kind of year that a baseball fan maybe experiences once in every 20. I didn’t expect lightning to strike twice but I still use TBF as my touchstone, who informed me recently that he had no intention of purchasing any NL East Championship gear this time around, that I of course was free to do as I wished but that he was going to wait to the NLCS before any merchandise was acquired. I hadn’t quite quantified it the same way he had, but there was a similar equation going on in my head.

So in this semi-cranky, semi-resigned mood, I headed out to Shea to meet Will, who was my date for the evening, and see what Your 2007 Mets had in store for me tonight. TBF, calling on his way down to Asbury Park (yes, AGAIN), assured me that all would be well: “Tommy G.’s gonna throw a no-hitter until the 6th inning, you’ll see, it’ll be golden.”

Ah, famous last words.

Monday, September 24, 2007

DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN, IT’S THE *NATIONALS*

FEH.

I’ll be there tomorrow night, with Coop and Zoe and darling Will, who is my date, since TBF will be off in Asbury Park seeing a certain band whose name starts with the fifth letter of the alphabet (a place I cannot be due to the new job, a fact that is not helping my crankiness right now).

HOLY FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER, WHAT IS GOING ON IN THAT DUGOUT????

PAPERBACK WRITER.

“Stop walking so fast,” I ask TBF, as we start walking down 14th Street.
He slows down, but not enough, and I realize that the two of us tethered together by earphones is not going to be conducive to speed. So I abandon the headphones to him.
“Just tell me what’s happening.”
We were late for a party, but we assumed that all the other invited guests would also be late, for the very same reasons. We decide to drive to the subway stop to save time, because we cannot tear ourselves away from the screen. And then we bring the radio down onto the platform of the Bedford L stop, where you can get AM reception. (TBF discovered this earlier this summer, also en route to an activity while a game was going on.)

There is silence, and then more silence, and I finally nudge him and say, “So run the ads down for me.”
“Azek Trimboards - ask your contractor.” *pause* “Foxwoods has the best poker room on the East Coast.”
I could tell he felt dumb but it was better than that OVERWHELMING SILENCE while we waiting for a pitching change or some other crucial business during this game, a game that shouldn’t have meant as much as it did.

We struggled down Avenue A and arrived at our destination, Mo Pitkins’ House of Satisfaction, a stone’s throw from the former MG apartment affectionately known as “The Hovel” (if you know the Lower East Side, it was at the corner of Stanton & Lowell, above The Hat). This afternoon we were invited to be guest of Dana Brand for the launch of his new book, ”Mets Fan“. For some people, it’s a mitzvah to dance at someone’s wedding; as a writer, it’s also a pleasure and a privilege to attend an author’s book launch party.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

PLEASE COME TO THE WHITE COURTESY PHONE.

“Mr. Reaper, paging Mr. Reaper.”

SMALL FAVORS.

I was in an office supply store in downtown Brooklyn late yesterday afternoon. I don’t know if it’s owned by Orthodox Jews, but the place was full of workers in varying degrees of orthodoxy. I was perusing the file folders aisle when one of them noticed my hat.
“I like your cap,” he said, pointing. He wasn’t Hasidic or he wouldn’t have initiated the conversation, but he was definitely Orthodox.
“Thanks.”
“They’re not doing so well right now, you know.”
“Erfhgdhghghm.”
“A sore subject?”
“Did you see that game last night?”
“I was working overtime and I turned it on around 10pm, thought we were safe.”
“Not so much.”

He then went to help a customer, and passed me a few minutes later as he carried a box to the front counter.
“So, you think we have a chance?”
“B’ezrat ha-shem,” I answered in Hebrew. (With god’s help.) And then, worried that I may have possibly blasphemed in a store full of people who were actually religious, followed it up with: “The churches of Brooklyn used to pray for the Dodgers. Perhaps it’s time for the synagogues of Brooklyn to pray for the Mets.”
I got a big chuckle and a thumbs-up in response.

I don’t know who intervened last night but right now I don’t care much.  I am not ready to do the happy dance quite yet, but at least last night I felt like the team actually meant it. And, at least we were not totally humiliated BY THE NATIONALS.

MEMO TO PAUL LO DUCA: Paul, please take a chill pill. I know that someone needs to actually get upset and Willie won’t be that person, but you cannot keep getting thrown out, or close to thrown out. We know. We see it. It’s why the crowd at Shea chants your name at the least provocation. But we cannot afford to have you suspended any more, nor do you want to keep pissing off the umpires.

And can I just say, I [heart] Luis Castillo? No, seriously. Has this guy been anything less than totally stand-up since he got here? 

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO THE NEW YORK METS.

Friday, September 14, 2007

IF YOU DIDN’T LAUGH, YOU’D CRY. [09-14-07]

Coop via text: “Score, please”
MG: “Fhdjdjfyryreggd.”
Coop: “Do I want to know?”
MG: “F BRETT MYERS . 2-3 PHUCKING PHILLIES”
Coop: “Anyone but him”
MG: “Word”
Coop: “What happened”
MG: “Books never written: ‘In Game Strategy’ by Willie Randolph. ‘How To Use The Suicide Squeeze When Gomez and Reyes Are At The Corners.’ etc.”
Coop: “Story of our lives.”
MG: ”Yeees.”

Really, you know, it shouldn’t have ended that way. Starting the game with a home run by D. Wright in the first inning is a great way to inspire confidence and tell the Phillies to take an, um, hike. (What’s that you say? That you saw me in Section 12 giving gestures to Chase Utley that shouldn’t be repeated in a family setting? I don’t know what you’re talking about.) There was that great save by Moishe out in Endy-land. Or Luis Castillo stealing two bases in a gesture that had to have more than a little bit of hearty PHUCK U to Grampa Jamie. Even Lo Duca’s ejection (which was completely uncalled for) wouldn’t have killed us. Or a strike zone so large for Jamie Moyer my response was to yell, “HEY BLUE, IS THAT A CHEESE STEAK STICKING OUT OF YOUR BACK POCKET?”

We could have gotten through all of that. The problem was that David’s run sat alone on the scoreboard for far too long, which is the element that continues to be the Mets’ Achilles heel, and is the thing that WILL ABSOLUTELY MURDER US IN OCTOBER.

It will not be the pitching. It will not be Moises Alou in left field. It will not be Carlos Delgado at first base. It will be squandered opportunity after squandered opportunity, players swinging for the fences when a walk is as good as a hit, players bunting to get a hit instead of a sacrifice, players not taking the bat off their shoulder, and so many ducks left on the pond it will start to feel like one of those carnival games where you pick up a plastic duck-shaped object to see what prize you’ve won.

In this case, the prize was the Phillies beating us at home when they shouldn’t have. Period. End.

And then we got home, and I turned on the TV to see if the Red Sox game was still on, and came in just as Papelbon was up. “Good,” I say, “This will make me feel better.”

I guess it was supposed to be that kind of night.

[Flickr feed, such as it is. Reyes being held back by Rickey. Lo Duca being held back by Willie. Dogs on the warning track.]

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

SKY OF MEMORY AND SHADOW. [9-11-07]-

The game, not so much worth talking about.

Friday, September 07, 2007

THE HOT DOGS ON THE FIELD LEVEL ARE BETTER. [09-07-07]

If I even began to tell you what kind of two weeks I have had - okay, wait, how about I just tell you. Let me start with walking into work two Mondays ago and being laid off (from a job I barely started and hoped to stay at for years) along with half of my team. I’ve been pounding the virtual and literal pavement and I am lucky that I have a resume that makes me in demand, but it’s more exhausting than actually working. (This will also, I hope, explain the lightness of recent entries.) Today, I had a 10am interview and then a 2pm interview and then a 3:30 “meet and greet” and I am walking the streets of Midtown in my best suit (which is wool and silk) and heels (not my kind of footwear) and it has been like this all week (and last week too) and I am just WORN OUT.

So when my 2pm finished at 2:45 and my 3:30 cancelled, my first thought was: how quickly can I get home, get changed, and get out to Shea? By the time I got back to Brooklyn, I just wanted a nap, but I knew that I would feel better just being at Shea, even if I only caught 15 minutes of BP. So I changed clothes and reversed course and made it to Shea a little after 5pm. Although I was bitching about the MTA (the reason it took me an hour to get back to Greenpoint from Midtown, and then half an hour from Greenpoint to the 7 again) and wondering if it wouldn’t have been better just to wait for TBF to get home, when I got off the 7 train and walked down the stairs, I realized that just being able to walk around Shea without 60 gazillion people there and have it be somewhat calm and empty already brought my blood pressure down several notches. I walked over to Gate C, around the morons who do not understand the concept of the bag line and the no bag line (e.g., people with no bags go into the bag line and then stand there waiting for their non-existent bags to be searched), up to the field level and down to the row behind the photographer’s pit like I owned the fucking place.

(Which, to some extent, I feel like I do. On some level.)

BILLY JOEL AT SHEA?

This story from Idolator makes me wince, and then before I start to get whatever about it, think about the logistics of getting people and equipment into the stadium for this level of concert, and realize that it’s probably half true: the half true part about it is that Billy Joel wants it to happen. But, I know the editrix and I know she knows 1) her shit and 2) her baseball.

[tip o’ the hat to MG reader krup]