The hats - from a place called flyingbirdhat.com - had a switch under the bill that made the birds flap their wings. (As I said to TBF, “I’m not sure this is a sustainable business model. There are, what, three teams?") Every time they thought the Jays were about to hit a home run, they would unfurl the wings of the birds so they could turn them on while cheering. The Yankees fans in our immediate vicinity did not know what to make of these guys. They would not be put in what the Yankees fans thought was their place, they cheerfully endured all heckling (while posing for photographs between innings) and kept up the practice of yelling “MARCO....” ("Scutaro") every time he was at bat. We thought they were hysterical.

Our seats were in the last row of the section, in the shade, padded nicer than TBF’s desk chair, and if it wasn’t the fact that the other team was the Yankees, it would have been a highly enjoyable day. My father got these seats from a business associate (he wanted to get us tickets for the Subway Series, but they were already gone, as were tickets to see the Tigers, the Red Sox, and the Royals). At the time I picked this game, the Blue Jays were good. And we were hopeful for a Doc Halladay start - which we ended up getting, even if he wasn’t throwing his best stuff today.

We were joined by my nephew Zachary and my brother-in-law. It was my nephew’s first major league baseball game. He will be 7 at the end of the month. He was fascinated by TBF’s scorecard, and within a few innings, was making a valiant attempt:

We were thrilled to be at such an auspicious event with my nephew, with one small complication:

Before you get started, trust me that this is not our idea of how we wanted to see him grow up. But, let’s be realistic: he lives in New Jersey. All of his friends are Yankees fans. His father is from Boston, so you can imagine how delighted he was to have to purchase the hat on Zachary’s head as they walked into the stadium (because, of course, there was no suitable headgear in their house). He’s also still a kid. He could grow up and choose another baseball team, he could grow up and abandon baseball altogether, or he could grow up going to Subway Series games with me and TBF and creating some inter-family rivalry. I mean, he’s not even 7 yet. And before you ask why we have not exerted our considerable influence, he’s not our kid, and we were explicitly enjoined from doing so not long after he was born. So showing up with a little David Wright jersey would not fix things, it would just make everybody angry.

Unlike most Yankees fans, he already has a considerable advantage in that he already knows quite a bit about the team’s history, and at least with us around, he’ll learn baseball fundamentals, how to score, and how to not behave like a douchebag at a baseball game. (Why is it when I go to Yankee Stadium I learn new ways to describe parts of the female anatomy that I have never heard before?) So, at least we have that going for us.

When the game went into extra innings, we were originally concerned about getting somewhere to watch the Mets game, but after watching MLB At Bat on my phone and seeing ground out after line out after ground out, we decided that probably wouldn’t be a very good idea. We got home in time for the 8th inning.

We are very, very glad I unilaterally declared the City of Philadelphia off-limits for 2009, and thus had no plans to ever be at these games.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Yes, that is how desperate we are here at MetsGrrl Headquarters: we are resorting to pictures of baby otters to keep our morale up. (Whaddya want, this is a chick blog, remember?) Perhaps it will help you. Or, you will think that I have gone completely off the deep end. You are probably not that far from the truth.

I know, I should not watch the games, but I cannot resist watching a Santana start. What is everyone else doing for distraction?

Just go look at the adorable baby otters again. You could Google “baby otters” and get some delightful You Tube videos, but I am not sinking that low here on the blog… just yet anyway.

Let’s remember that we go to PHILLY this weekend. The thought makes me want to start drinking now and I’m not even going.

As long as no one is going to tell me to stop being cranky, or that I need to be less angry, and as long as you’re not a Yankees fan, the floor is all yours. Have at it.

Right now, I am still speechless.

Oliver’s delivery seemed more controlled. His movement was smoother, he flails about less in his landing. Of course it’s easy to be in control when you’re throwing a minor league game, time will tell if he can transfer anything he’s learned in this rehab outing to the big time. Tony Bernazard was hanging around to check things out.

These are some of my favorite shots, you can also go through the full set of Ollie goodness.

Go right ahead, Yankees fans. Beat your chests and preen and shout, you beat a team consisting of Daniel Murphy, Argenis Reyes, Alex Cora, Brian Schneider, Jeremy Reed, led by that Cy Young contender Tim Redding, with David Wright striking out big and before you say “Gary Sheffield,” remember that he’s the player that the Tigers were happy to pay US to take off their hands.

So, yeah, you go right ahead and brag about that.

Tomorrow night? Maybe? Chien-Ming Wang? Could we actually get some hits early on so I don’t have to spend half the game Tweeting to jinx the no-hitter?

Oh, I’m sorry - am I being cranky?

I was [] this close to wearing my MAINE-TALLICA shirt and going down to Aberdeen to see his rehab start, but sanity prevailed and I’m only going as far as Coney Island on Sunday to see OP.

Fernando Nieve has been a prince, but I have run out of appendages to cross during his starts. I’m not even all that confident about Oliver being consistent once he’s back in the rotation. We need John Maine back and healthy.

I don’t know why they need a vote - however, at least this selection of songs shows someone was TRYING to put some thought behind the thing, instead of just going through the Top 25 Most Played playlist on Jeff Wilpon’s iPod.

But let’s run them down, song by song, shall we?

1. “Curly Shuffle” should be reserved for special occasions. Like when we’re in contention and in a big game, or during playoffs. Not every game.
2. “Hooked On A Feeling” - I don’t even understand where this comes from. Did someone cover this on “American Idol”?
3. “I Like It Like That” - Another left field choice. Again, was this covered recently or something? Even my dad would say “Huh?” to this choice.
4. “Mama Said Knock You Out” - I am with MG reader dlbags that this has a coolness factor, because it is LL Cool J, a hometown boy, and given how much I have been screaming for local relevance in song choice I need to give a nod to this. But you can’t sing along to it.
5. “Meet The Mets” - well, at least it’s on the list, but I don’t understand why this just isn’t the song. I don’t understand why it’s not just in the second inning like it has been for a long time. I’d ask “Why do the Mets hate this song so much” but that would be a rhetorical question.
6. “This Land Is Your Land” - I just about fell out of my chair when I saw this on the list. I love this song, everyone knows this song - but it doesn’t fit at the ballpark. On the other hand, the imp of the perverse in me loves the fact that this was written by Woody Guthrie in direct protest to “God Bless America,” and given how much I love forced patriotism at the ballpark (heck, anywhere) it is insane that this song is on here. I would love to hope that this was deliberately seditious but more likely, someone thinks this is lovely and family-friendly.
7. “Twist And Shout” - would have been a fantastic choice at the OTHER ballpark. No longer relevant to this place. Go sing it out in the parking lot, somewhere around the old Shea second base marker.

I am feeling withdrawal symptoms because we don’t have a Mets game to go to until the Dodgers come to town; we traded tonight’s tickets to get us into the House of Evil, and didn’t want to outlay any more cash for this series. It seemed like a good idea at the time; ask me tomorrow morning if it was still a good idea.

YANKEES’ JOBA CHAMBERLAIN AND METS’ DANIEL MURPHY JOIN DELTA TO SEND FANS TO THE SUBWAY SERIES FOR “FIRST CLASS” EXPERIENCE

New York Yankee Joba Chamberlain, New York Met Daniel Murphy and Delta Air Lines are sending fans with the most team flair to this weekend’s Subway Series at Citi Field to watch the game in truly “first class” seats at the ballpark.

The players will join Delta, the official airline and proud sponsor of the New York Yankees AND the New York Mets, to host “Fan Flair at Pershing Square” on Friday, June 26, 12pm at Pershing Square in Manhattan. Yankees and Mets fans are invited to dress in their best team-themed attire for a chance to attend Sunday’s game, the grand finale of the Subway Series.

Joba Chamberlain will be on hand to pick the Yankee fan with the flashiest flair and award one pair of tickets to Sunday’s game at Citi Field, while Daniel Murphy will award one pair to the Mets fan with the most festive attire. The lucky fans will sit in the Field Level premium area with access to the Delta Sky360 Club, a 22,500-square-foot, club-level space behind home plate that offers upscale dining and superior views of the game from behind home plate.

The first 50 Mets fans and first 50 Yankees fans to show up in their best team attire to Pershing Square will be eligible.

--
Is it me or are they really pimping the Delta Sky360 Club lately? Gary choked through an infomercial on the broadcast the other night, Ron went down there for part of the game, and now this. Do they not realize that people aren’t buying tickets there not because they don’t know about it, but because the tickets cost NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS?

1) You can bring drinks into Citi Field. No bottles and no cans, but plastic bottles are fine. It would be best if they were unopened - the policy has been enforced inconsistently, I wouldn’t take chances this weekend on getting something open in.
2) You can bring food into Citi Field. Knock yourself out. Doesn’t even need to be in a clear plastic bag.
3) You can bring bags into Citi Field, but don’t be silly and try to bring a wheeled carry-on or a large backpack or anything ridiculous like that. THERE IS NO BAG CHECK. There no bowling alley that will let you check your bag. Which brings me to..

4) There is still nothing around the Mets ballpark. No bars, no restaurants, no bodegas, no guy selling peanuts on the corner. You’d have to switch to the local and get off at the stop before Willets Point to find provisions. You can also go all the way into Flushing and then walk back across the bridge.
5) The Jackie Robinson Rotunda opens 2 1/2 hours before the time listed on your ticket. There may or may not be BP. You can get down on the field level but you cannot get behind the dugouts or close to it unless you are ticketed for that section.
6) Our food is better than yours, but our lines are just as long. If you want premium food, get on line as soon as you walk into the ballpark. Here’s my Citi Field food map (just for the premium food).
7) There is no smoking, there is a place you can go outside and smoke, but I don’t know anything about that. Ask an usher.
8) The MTA runs the “Mets Super-Express” after the games end, which has limited stops (Woodside, Queensboro Plaza, Court House Square, Hunters Point, Vernon-Jackson) before getting to Manhattan. They only run after the official end of the game, so if you leave early, you’re on the milk train. The Super Express also runs on the weekends, after games.
9) Watch your language and be nice, this is our house. Thank you.

Please be civilized in the comments. 

Tonight, the Mets Welcomed… the members of the Downtown Little League Association. I am fond of the Downtown Little Leaguers because these are city kids, they are tough and street-wise, but put them on that field and they are happy as clams. Especially darling was watching a particularly young group of them leaving the field, all of whom decided they needed to jump over the foul line, but they weren’t leaping like Oliver (RIP) or El Duque, they were hopping with both feet. Some of them were so excited by the idea that they were going to do this that they were hopping down the warning track before they even got to the foul line. Only the crankiest of curmudgeons wouldn’t get a little softened up by that sight.

Of course, I am finding this charming and adorable and worth mentioning now because the Mets won. The Mets won a game! They played well and won a game! Dear god in heaven, we needed this win. Every single last one of us.

The oddities of Citi Field continue. You cannot possibly expect to see first pitch and get one of the premium food items - I dearly wanted the tacos tonight - unless you get to the ballpark when the gates open. Between the mallwalking first-timers and the inefficiencies of the food court, it is simply impossible to get food there even 40 minutes before first pitch. I mention this not because I want to bitch about it - even though I do, this is something that will either work itself out, or not - but because I think it contributes to the fact that the park will appear incredibly empty even when it’s time to sing the National Anthem. I was looking around at this empty stadium and thinking, “Did everyone buy their ticket plans as an investment and not manage to sell these tickets? Did the weather report keep everyone away? It’s Friday, it’s interleague, wtf is going on?”

And then, by the time Sandy Alomar Sr. was down there walking the umpires through the ground rules - this was a crew that had not been to Citi yet (and before you get impressed, it’s TBF that keeps track of these things, or somehow just knows them) - I looked around and suddenly everyone was in their seats. At Shea, there was nowhere to go hang out before the game, so you went straight to your seat, more or less. Now, there is no shortage of places to hang out, so people do.

(Speaking of places to hang out, have you been to the patio on the upper deck behind home plate? On a beautiful summer evening, it is definitely the place to be. We have picnic tables and stand-up tables and a Mama’s outpost and all the other ballpark food, and a view of the Unisphere and the Manhattan skyline, and it is a perfectly lovely place to hang out. It is never as crowded as the outfield food court.)

I didn’t really know what to expect about this game. Please forgive me if we showed up tonight more than a little shell-shocked. The guys next to us were trying to get the crowd pumped up at appropriate moments, starting “Let’s Go Mets” chants, and no one was responding. They were muttering something about things being dead and this being a morgue, and if I had had more energy, I would have leaned over and asked them what they wanted, exactly, from this long-suffering crowd after this past week of disasters. I mean, they didn’t even have the energy to boo Luis Castillo with any vigor at his first at-bat. There was more volume at the second at-bat, but no one really got going until they put Pat Burrell in to pinch-hit (how convenient he got activated off the DL in time for this series) and the place erupted with what I felt was the appropriate level of disdain. Even the 13 year old kids behind me were getting into it, encouraging our pitcher to throw high and inside.

Of course, the real story was hits and runs. Brian Schneider! Daniel Murphy! And Fernando Nieve pitching a gem out of nowhere, seemingly, you think, Okay, he did well last week but lightning cannot possibly strike twice, right?
But apparently, it can.

There were some actual Tampa Bay fans walking around, a couple scattered LONGORIA jerseys. I particularly appreciated the one fan who politely waited until the break between at-bats to grab a photo at the top of the aisle, and then promptly crouched down when the next batter was up.  However, of course, it was not the Tampa fans who were the problem. The problem was Mr. “I am wearing an A-Rod Shirt” one section over, who felt the need to do the get-up-and-point-at-my-back thing, until security showed up and had a chat with him. Or the grey-haired old lady a few rows up wearing her 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies shirt, still with official hologram stickers attached. TBF muttered something insulting about the stickers and I pointed out her age, to which he said, “I don’t care if she’s my 97-year old grandmother, you don’t wear a Phillies shirt to the Mets-Tampa Bay game.” (For the record, neither of his grandmothers would have done such a thing.) But Douche Of The Game honors had to go to a gentleman on the other side of TBF, wearing a Hawaiian shirt over a Mets Suck t-shirt, crowned with a Yankees hat. It must be hard to not be able to afford tickets to your own ballpark and have to go out to Flushing to actually see baseball, but that’s another story.

Things we need to stop doing: instantly throwing out Shoeneweis or Heilman comparisons when an otherwise competent reliever gives up a run. Or two.

Things we need to keep doing: winning. Getting an insurance run or two. Stealing bases (it was a KFC Three Base Game or whatever they call it, where a random section gets a coupon for chicken at KFC because the Mets stole three bases. Do you know that in St. Louis, if the Cardinals score six runs - win or lose - there are 25 cent drinks at Hit and Run the next day? For everyone. You don’t even have to give up your ticket stub. Everyone gets 25 cent drinks. When we were in St. Louis the guy behind us would not stop talking about it. But here, a lousy section gets coupons for chicken they will likely not eat, even if they could find a store in NYC that will redeem them.)

I am getting random now.

I wanted to talk about my love for Francisco Rodriguez. I didn’t know much about him before he came out East, besides the obvious (that he was the closer for the Angels on whom had been divested the unfortunate nickname of ‘K-Rod’, one we do not use in our house. My shirt says RODRIGUEZ 75.). I knew he was awesome and I knew he was Good For Us, but how many Angels games have I watched in my lifetime? Frankie is freaking awesome. I love the energy, I love the ritual, I love that he does the exact same thing every single time in the exact same way. The music starts (anyone know who it is?). The bullpen gate opens. He takes a few steps out, pauses, and then starts to run. He runs as hard as he can until he is a few steps from the infield dirt. He stops. That’s about the time Alex says “Number 75, Francisco Rodriguez,” and Frankie stops and claps his hands together. He then walks across the infield dirt to the side of the pitchers mound, picks up the resin bag and tosses it. Another hand clap. Then he steps on the mound, turns around, and smooths out the dirt on the front with his left foot, marking the place that he’s going to land. He steps to the rubber, takes a breath, pauses, stares down the catcher, and then throws his warmup tosses. He and Santos have a thing going now where Santos will wait for him on the mound, so they can have some quality time when he arrives.

I love his delivery. I love his windup. I love the crookedness of his landing. I never truly saw it until we were in Baltimore and sitting behind home plate. I love the point heavenward at the end, and do not get why people find it arrogant. People who are in the habit of thanking the guy upstairs do it all the time. (There is a reason “El Esta Aqui” is Carlos Beltran’s at-bat music, ya know?)

And of course, I love that he gets batters out.

We won a game. At home. Finally. We won a game. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or Sunday, or next week, but today, at least, there was a win, which washed a way a little of the bad taste that had been accumulating for too long.

--
Tonight’s photo set from the game

“If we don’t win this game,” said the guy sitting behind me, “we don’t deserve to play baseball. Not even just in the American League. Baseball.”

It was the 9th inning. After being shut out for a few innings, and then tying it up, and then giving up a home run to Robert Andino - why are our villians the unlikely ones, always, why are the Mets the ones giving up the big moments, the special home runs, who did not know that Matt Wieters was not going to get his first home run this series? - they had eked themselves out a game. They got on the board. They got ahead. They took the lead.

That’s right, there was a lead at one point in this evening. There was a point in the game where the Mets were playing reasonably good baseball. Luis Castillo contributed. Alex Cora contributed. Daniel Murphy contributed. Good things happened.

But it was that 9th inning, you know. I was sitting there, 15 rows up from home plate (a big reason we love road games), sitting because I could, because they were standing and I wasn’t standing for their team even though it meant standing for my guy, the player whose name was on my back tonight. I wasn’t standing because around the 7th inning I realized that the reason I was so goddamn warm was because I had a temperature, so I was conserving energy. I am feverish.

I am watching Frankie, and he is not, shall we say, having his best outing ever.  I turn to my friend Karen, up from North Carolina on business and Mets fan by birth, and tell her that this is the time that TBF will tell us that This Is What Frankie Does.

TBF is theorizing: “We can’t walk a run in. We have to get a fly ball and let a run come in and then a double play ball and go to extras.” I am not sure if he is theorizing or prophesizing, actually.

Matt Wieters gets a double. Felix Pie, who cannot hit, but who can clearly run, comes out to pinch run.  There is another walk. And then, there is a hit and a run comes in and the game is tied.

The guy behind me assumes a sing-song tone of voice: “Oh, noooooooo, K-Rod, whatsssss wrong????” I assume the extra emphasis is because of my shirt. I would turn around and tell him to go to hell but I remind myself that I am feverish and not rational and these are Orioles fans, they will melt at one glance of death from a girl from Brooklyn.

To make matters worse, now, Nick Markakis comes to the plate. There are more Markakis jerseys in in the ballpark than anything else, even Ripken or Wieters (and there are a helluva lot of Wieters, especially considering he just got here all of three minutes ago.)

The Orioles fans, previously a pleasant and docile lot, suddenly smell blood in the water, and act accordingly. They are on their feet. They are cheering loudly. Small children near me, which I previously thought charming, are standing on seats and jumping up and down in excitement. I briefly find myself wishing that they would fall down and hurt themselves, and then I remind myself that I do not root for the Yankees and such evil thoughts are not normal or permitted.

I will confess that this is the place where my faith in my closer started to get just a little shaky. Just a little, mind you.

Carlos Beltran is suddenly playing shortstop, and I would think given my current state that I was hallucinating except that TBF says, “Hey, look at Carlos Beltran.”

Nick Markakis, thankfully, is sat down. My heart rate returns to normal.

But Aubrey Huff is next, Aubrey Huff, the gentleman who would be the savior of the 2009 Mets baseball season if only Omar would overlook his Hispanic biases and trade Ryan Church, Brian Schneider, Fernando Martinez, Jennifer Aniston’s phone number, the corpse of Walter O’Malley and several sacks of baseballs to acquire him (that is, if you have been listening to WFAN lately).

I decide that I will purposely set an opposite jinx. I pack all my things up. I put away the cameras and the cell phone and the notebook and zip the bag closed. There are no signals to TBF regarding what I want to do when the Mets win and I need to go photograph the on-field celebration. No, I am going to prepare myself for a quick getaway, the kind of getaway a fan of the opposing team would want to execute at a road game their team loses. We are, unfortunately, old hands at this getaway drill. (Pittsburgh in 2006. Various Philadelphia outings. August 1, 2008, in Houston. Yankee Stadium last Friday.)

There. I had now tipped the balance in our favor. I drank some water. I waited to watch Frankie get out of the mess he had gotten himself into. He is, after all, Francisco Rodriguez.

Of course, we all know how that went.

I am pleased to report that our getaway maneuvers were successful, aside from the rocket scientist who felt the need to screech “What happened to K-Rod, girlfriend??” as we left; I abandoned my role as a genteel, civilized visiting fan considerate of children and families and flipped him the bird with both hands, without turning around. I heard several fans of the orange and blue yelling variations on, “...and you’re STILL in last place” as we made our way out the gates, so clearly it was contagious.  But we were in the car and on the highway before Wayne had finished his recap on WFAN.

Baltimore was beautiful. The weather cooperated. The park was absolutely wonderful. (More on that next week when I finally get my ballpark writeups together from the previous road games.) We smashed crabs with tiny mallets for lunch. We got a great place for BP and got to watch a game with a good friend. And ultimately, these road games are our favorite kind of trip to take together, combining travel and local food and driving and photography and history and, of course, baseball.

It just would be nice if the Mets would cooperate from time to time.

See you tomorrow night back at home.

--
We got home at 1:30am, I will sort these out later:
Batting Practice photoset
Photoset from the game

We’re back in Flushing for Friday night, and then we have no games for about two and a half weeks. Our St. Louis game was an afternoon game that we sold, and we traded our Friday Subway Series to get us into the House of Evil. That will be odd. We may need to make an interim purchase, or something, to get us through.

Livan’s been a gem, let’s hope he can pull out another one, that the offense decides to show up, and the defense decides to remember its fundamentals. Let’s Go Mets!

TBF: “431, row 6.”
Me: “How much?”
“$85 a ticket, but will take best offer.”
“Offer him $150. Season ticket holder?”
“No, pickup in New Jersey.”
“First find out if we can go get the tickets tonight.”
“It’s 8pm.”
“Where does he live?”
“Lakewood.”
“Drop that price to $125.”
“What about these in 230? Same price.”
“Too far out.”
“Have you already called Ticketmaster?”
“Twice. There is nothing available in the Grandstand.”
“Are you really sure you want to spend that much money on a game at the House of Evil?”

In the end, I told him that if he wanted to go, he should go on his own; I decided I wasn’t up to dropping that kind of cash, even for a Johan start, and about an hour later, after hunting and pecking some more through the secondary market, TBF also decided he was calling it quits.

Clearly, the angels were watching over us.

He stopped watching the game when it was 7-1; at 11-1, I asked if I could turn it off and was resoundingly told “yes”. I couldn’t resist checking in via Twitter a little later, and apparently he was sneaking peeks via Gameday. The end result was the two crabbiest people you could ever meet. I don’t know what TBF ended up doing, because I stomped off and started cleaning, like scrubbing the bathroom from top to bottom (it is so clean now it looks like we just moved in).  If we had had to engage in conversation it would not have been pretty, and the few words we did exchange ensured that we both put a moratorium on the validity of anything said for the first two hours after the game ended: nothing said to each other counted.

I do not understand people who think this is okay.
I do not understand people who are not worried.
As I said after the game, “The thing I don’t want to hear: Johan Santana injured. The thing I want to hear: Johan Santana injured.” I know, it’s a blister, and some soreness, and some discomfort. It was just bad, ugly, horrible timing.

This series was brutal and if you don’t think it was then please go comment somewhere else, in the la-la land where everything is fine with the New York Mets and you should reserve some vacation days for October because you’ll need them. I do not live in that land, and nothing you can say is going to convince me to. I let a lot of things go on here on Saturday because I was at a conference all day, but this bs has gotta stop. Go audition on Mets Blog, or start your own space where you are free to further any agenda you wish. This is the crabby zone.

Yeah, I’m still crabby.

It is funny how much you can will yourself into believing.

It happened again and again tonight; hell, it happened just to to get me to the Bronx tonight. Taking the 4 train to the Bronx instead of the 2/3 to Times Square; standing amidst the pinstripes and the tourists and the just plain folks trying to get home after a long week and not appreciating their already-overcrowded subway line filled with clueless folks who don’t know basic subway etiquette. 161st St. is enemy territory, the shadowland, a foreign country. Two stadiums greet us at the bottom of the stairs, one standing mute, one barely broken in, so new it was gleaming in the sunlight. We file in; we look around; we take our seats and take a deep breath.

Coming off that inglorious two-game loss to the Phillies, it felt like we were walking on eggshells. We kept reminding ourselves that the Yankees were in a parallel position, having been solidly trounced by the Red Sox earlier in the week. We kept reminding ourselves of that, but also looked at the gaping holes in our lineup. No matter how great the New York Times tells us we should feel about Alex Cora, he is not Jose Reyes. No matter what miraculous hits Omir Santos gets for us, opposing pitchers do not think twice before throwing to him. And no matter how many chances we give Gary Sheffield, to look for consistency there would be a fool’s errand.

But, this is our team. This is the 2009 Mets. We put on our hats and our jerseys and we go forth to do battle in the Bronx. We are not like the cowering blue-and-orange free fans we met on the 4 train, who looked around twice before asking us if they were on the right train, explaining that they would never wear their stuff to that place. TBF is kind for some reason and does not tell them what he really thinks, that lacking the cajones or ovaries to firmly represent is one of his cardinal sins. You don’t bring signs; you don’t bring flags; you don’t provide a standing ovation when a guy gets a single, unless that single gives you a RBI. (There is a list of rules, you see.) This is our team, win or lose, suck or not. These hats are not new.

And, you know, Livan worked hard. He did well. Joba Chamberlain coughed up that 43-pitch inning. A Yankees friend trash-talked me from the other side of the stadium via text message, that this was a one-hit game. I replied that that was funny, given that we had two runs on the board. It was funny, at least for us. At that point, we could afford to laugh out loud just a little, and make remarks under our breath about “Joba rules”.

Then Matsui hit that three-run HR. If this had been any normal game, the Mets would have quietly rolled over and played dead. You could have put up your feet and read a newspaper, because they would have gone down with barely a sigh.

Not today. Not here. Not now. We came back, and then so did they.

We tied the game, and they bring out Mariano Rivera in the 8th inning.  That’s right, Mariano Rivera in the 8th inning in a tie game. This is the aftermath of the Yankees getting slammed by the Red Sox. They want to win this one. They need to win this one.

Fortunately, so did we.

There was a point, that moment when David Wright was at bat, and I watch the top of the bat and I watch his body language and I try to intuit something from his batting stance, from all the way up in the Yankee Stadium stratosphere. If I just think hard enough, he will get that hit that will win the game. If I just want it enough, he will hit that ball into the bleachers. If I hold my breath, the universe will bestow this grace upon us and David Wright will get another miracle game-winning hit off of Mariano Rivera. If I stop thinking these idiotic things that have absolutely zero influence on the game, I --

Johnny Damon wasn’t in center field this time, but it was that miracle hit that we needed, that we craved, that every person wearing blue and orange (either inside or outside) was praying for. It seems too good to be true. My stomach stops hurting. My lungs seem to have expanded instantly.

Sean Green performs admirably, and gets the game to Frankie. Frankie is Frankie, and I am digging my nails into my palms so hard they start to hurt, because if I do not I will start biting my nails to bits. “This is what he does,” TBF says, for what has to be the umpteenth time this season. “He throws the ball all over the plate to get them to chase it, and then he surprises them.”
“You better not be telling me bedtime stories,” I reply, half-jokingly, digging my nails in harder. I felt good at that moment. We had had a good time - we always have a good time, even if the Mets lose, the two of us sitting together in a ballpark is never anything but wonderful while it is happening. I look (and listen - see my Twitter feed for the color from the game) to the dolts around me and say several prayers that I got lucky.  I watch these Mets fans on the other side of the aisle taunting their Yankees fan friends on our side: “What’s the score? What’s the score?” one of them says, mock-holding his phone up to his ear. “Go and get me some nachos, motherfucker,” he laughs at his buddies, who flip him off from the other side of the aisle, making the security guard nervous.

As my mother (and undoubtedly, your mother) used to say, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

Or until Francisco Rodriguez gets Alex Rodriguez out with that cupcake popup, and Luis Castillo manages to drop a ball that every little leaguer in the Tri-State area could have caught by the end of their first day of practice. I am literally frozen in half-joyous yell. My mouth opens. It closes. It opens again. YANKEES WIN is in the scoreboard. TBF gestures at my camera bag: “Outta here. Now.” Otherwise I would have stood there like a deer caught in the headlights, unwilling to believe that we just lost that game at that moment in that pathetic, undignified, unnecessary, amateurish, and yet completely Vintage 2009 Metsian fashion.

We rode the 4 train in silence back to Grand Central, in order to collect our workday possessions from TBF’s office nearby. We felt like refugees, skulking our way through the silent hall.  We were stopped more than once, by various elderly gentlemen, to ask us if that had really happened, to confirm the score, to ask us to tell them what we had seen because clearly, no one could believe that it happened, either. I wait in the lobby while TBF runs upstairs and have to explain it another two times, and console the building security guard who said he’d turned it off when it was 6-3 because he thought we had it.  The Yankees fans weren’t even crowing because, after all, A-rod had choked (there was booing every time his name was announced, and that wasn’t Mets fans), and the great Mariano Rivera wasn’t invincible and their bullpen sucks, and they had won on stupidity.

But, they had won. And we had lost.

Tomorrow is another day, and next week is another week, and there are, indeed, days and weeks and even months of baseball left to play. Perhaps there is a miracle waiting somewhere, perhaps some ineffable force will materialize and turn the 2009 Mets into a winning team. I will just enjoy watching my team play baseball, and not count on anything. Or at least I might try hard not to count on it.

It is funny how much you can will yourself into believing, but how impossible it is to do the opposite.

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Full writeup of my venture into the new House of Evil to come over the weekend. For now, some photographs.

SUMMARY OF THE EVENING:

• It was really, really foggy.
• Bunting is for losers.
• Tim Redding didn’t suck.
• “Sweet Caroline” was nowhere to be found.
• We went to extra innings… and lost again.
• I come home to find that John Maine is now on the DL.

I am not sure I have much else to say about this game. Tim Redding was pleasantly effective. We should have hit more against Jamie “the Crypt Keeper” Moyer.  It was misty, and foggy, and got cold towards the end, but thankfully the rain stayed away, even if Citi Field did start to look like the set of a Steven King short story. Phillies Phans were out and about, but mostly behaved from what I could see; I was pleased to see actual Citi Field security prominently posted around the ballpark, including the upper deck, to prevent the nonsense from getting out of hand. I don’t think Mets fans had any fight left in us, and most of the Phillies contingent left to beat the traffic after Takahashi gave up that three-run HR during the bonus baseball segment of our evening.

Bonus douchebag prize goes to the suit who stood up when the Yankees were up 3-1 over the Red Sox to hoot that fact to us all, as though we all were incapable of reading the out of town scoreboard.

We are off to the new House of Evil tomorrow evening. Why do I have “Charge of the Light Brigade” in my head?

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Photo set, such as it is.