Thursday, September 06, 2007

JOEY VOTTO.

It was all well and good to be charitable to the rookie coming up for his first at-bat on Tuesday, especially when he whiffed all three pitches, especially since we were winning (although that 11-7 still makes me wince). But it didn’t mean much to me until I visited Sister Daedalus at The Church of Baseball ("Reds fan by birth. Nats fan by residence. Baseball fan by the grace of God.") and saw her post reading, “ I sure hope Votto starts tonight...because he’s the only reason worth watching at this point.”

On Wednesday, I had lunch with TBF, and then headed off to a meeting, and couldn’t keep checking the game updates. When I got out later and checked the boxscore on ESPN, and saw that Joey Votto had hit one of those 7 runs, well, I was glad because 1) the freaking Mets phoned it in and 2) the rookie got a HR and 3) someone I kind of sort of know was going to be happy in that way baseball can make you happy unexpectedly, especially someone who is a fan of a team that has pretty much rolled over and played dead in terms of postseason activity. Call me a traitor if you want.

On the note of being a traitor, here’s an amusing anecdote from last night. I am sitting in the running car standing legally on Bedford Ave., while TBF runs into DuMont Burger to pick up dinner. On the way over, we had been listening to the Mariners at Yankee Stadium, hoping for our friends that the Mariners can pull it off. A car pulls up behind me, doesn’t really park, but no one gets out. Another minute goes by, and then someone gets out of the car and comes up to the driver’s side window.
“I’m waiting for you to pull out.”
“This isn’t a legal spot, and I’m waiting for someone inside.”
“Right, but I want the spot.”
“I’m waiting for someone to pick up dinner, and there’s a hydrant here. You can’t park here anyway.”
“Oh. *pause* You listening to the Yankees game?”
“No, I’m listening to the Mariners game.”
“Oh, sorry. Thought you were listening to the Yankees game.”

There is football on the television now, and the only baseball I could watch is the Cyclones. The nights are cool, the baseball tickets dwindling, and I have no idea what I am going to do when the 2007 season ends.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

“LET’S START THAT RUMOR RIGHT NOW.”

Denis Leary and Jon Stewart discuss Kevin Youkilis, Shawn Green (who’s now “that guy on the Mets") and David Wright. You have to wait until about the 5th minute in on this 6 minute clip, but it’s worth it. Warning: do not ingest foods or liquids while watching.

[HEY DENIS, STOP TAKING ALL THE PARKING IN MY F’ING NEIGHBORHOOD ONCE A MONTH WHILE YOU FILM ‘RESCUE ME’. KTHX]

Also via Joan Walsh, Salon’s ”The 18 best Jewish ballplayers.” Avoid the comments if you don’t want to be reminded how terrible people can be. As the girl who avidly leapt upon Dave Marsh’s list of Top 10 Jewish Rock Stars, the vitriol is—well, racism and anti-semitism will probably always surprise me, and I guess that’s a good thing (that I’m not numb to it at this point, not the existence of racism and anti-semitism).

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

CANDYGRAM.

Hey, Keith. THIS is the shark you were freaking out about for almost the entire broadcast the last two days. Feel better now?

Monday, September 03, 2007

PAPA WAS A ROLLING STONE.

It is with great sorrow that I inform you that I am writing this from my couch in Brooklyn, and not posting via laptop hookup to cellphone somewhere on the way back from Cincinnati. Had TBF mentioned on Friday or even early Saturday that he had an itch to drive to Ohio to watch Pedro’s first start, we would have ditched the family barbeque, gotten some sleep, and started driving late yesterday afternoon. As it was, he didn’t mention it until about 8pm last night, and at that point it was too late, really, and too little baseball in exchange for too much driving in one 24 hour period - not that that would have stopped us had the stars been aligned right.

So instead of getting on the road to Ohio and Skyline Chili and hometown boys the Afghan Whigs played at the ballpark (*at the ballpark!*), we stayed home where I made homemade garlic knots, enjoyed Pedro Being Pedro, and opined what jokes I could make about a pitcher named McBeth ("something is rotten in the state of Ohio” or “oh, that this too, too solid pitch would melt"). And, to put the icing on the cake, the 2007 Mets once again showed up to play, and play well. Despite Gary and Keith and Kevin intoning how, by the time Pedro’s start was announced, airfares were $1000 to Cincinnati and so no one would be there, plenty of blue and orange and “Jose, Jose, Jose” resonated from the stands. (Unlike Red Sox Nation, we travel because we can and because we want to and because we feel like we should be there, not because we have to. Although that said—hey, gang, when we’re up by 7 runs, can we simmer down on the “Let’s Go Mets” chants?)

TBF made a comment last week (which may or may not be his thought) that as long as we don’t try to compare the 2007 Mets to the 2006 Mets, it’s a lot less nerve-wracking. The other problem, of course, is that we’re still playing What’s My Line? with the 2007 Mets. They’re not the scrappy, score-five-runs-in-the-first-inning team from 2006, or even the feisty team from the beginning of this season. Reyes has had a slump. Wright has had a slump. Delgado has been AWOL. Endy went on the DL. The faces and personalities we as fans could key off and that the team could key off were down or missing for a lot of the season. I feel like what I’m seeing now is the personality of the 2007 Mets.. but it’s SEPTEMBER, so all I’m really seeing is the 2007 Mets Who Are Trying To Stay In First Place. (As to who those fellows were that put on Mets uniforms and played at Citizens Bank Park earlier this week, I’m going with the theory that the entire team was captured by aliens or that the Phillies had them kidnapped and held for ransom at an undisclosed location somewhere in South Philadelphia. Hey, it works for me.)

Aside from Tuesday night, I didn’t get to see many games this week, and I’m okay with that. The house was so colossally cranky after the Phillies losses that it was probably a good thing that we didn’t continue to subject ourselves to continually running into a brick wall out of choice. It’s supposed to be fun. And when it’s not, it’s time to step back and maybe do something else for a little bit until it is fun again.