Sunday, January 14, 2007

that old familiar feeling

The DV-R is a source of some consternation in the MG household. Despite the fact that we fully embrace technology to the fullest (I had my car wired for my iPod in 2003, the apartment has wifi, etc., etc) we are total newbies at the concept; aside from setting it to record Gilmore Girls last fall when we were Otherwise Engaged on Tuesday nights, there’s been no attempt to exploit it to its fullest possibilities - until this winter.

So now, we have a DV-R full of Law & Order and The West Wing (TBF, but shared) and a bunch of movies from either Sundance or IFC (mine), and as a result, there’s recently been some contention for space on the box.

The problem is, at the bottom of the list of recorded shows you will find a series of baseball games.

With October dates.

For a long time, it was generally understood that we wouldn’t talk about the fact those games were there, and then every once in a while, TBF’s OCD would get the better of him and he’d start asking me about them and I would say I couldn’t talk about it yet and we’d vaguely snipe about it for three minutes and move on. Because, truth be told, he couldn’t talk about it either.

But about two weeks ago, TBF started making noises about missing baseball, and while flipping through the list of shows, paused on one of the games. And I thought I heard him watching one of them when I was in the other room.

A few nights later, he suggested that we take a look at them, and see what we wanted to keep and what we wanted to get rid of. Time Warner had a free premium channel promotion over the holidays and we had recorded a bunch of movies that we hadn’t watched yet, but didn’t want to delete. Having about 4 3-hour baseball games taking up space on the DV-R was making it a little difficult.

We started with Game 6 of the NLCS, and I realized that I’d never seen it, because I was at a concert that night. And once TBF realized that, he kept going: “Oh, you HAVE to see this.” “No, wait, just one more--.” We kept fast-forwarding through the game, and started to get into it again, and it was like a spring thaw. I could watch baseball again and it didn’t hurt. In the oddest way, it felt good to just see their faces again. You don’t really know them, but you saw them two times a week (or more) and they are just so familiar. Hey, it’s Lo Duca! Look, Carlos Delgado. There’s that high-beam smile from Reyes. You don’t know them but your brain tells you that you do, so it’s a similar reaction to seeing a friend you don’t see all that often approaching you as you walk down the street.

So we lock the games on the DV-R and resolve to sit and watch them start to finish, soon, but not now. However, we want to watch something now. So TBF picks up the remote, saying, “How do you say ‘baseball’ in Spanish again? Gotta be something on here.”

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When we were watching our selected highlights, I announced that both John Maine and Endy Chavez would be my Mets boyfriends this year. I can’t tell you why - okay, that’s not true, I can. I like Maine’s work ethic and attitude and he handled the press great last year, he wasn’t arrogant but he wasn’t overly cowed or humble or apologetic. And - using a quote from dear Zoe that didn’t make it onto Mets Weekly: “Johnny Maine pitches a no-hitter - and then walks back home to the Ramada Inn across the street.”

Check out this GREAT photo of Mr. Maine Adam Rubin took at Mets Mini-Camp:

And Endy?  Maybe it’s the spirit of #30 that I see in him. No one’s ever going to watch Endy and think, Gee, he could have tried just a little bit harder.... And, this is why, while cruising through Baseball-Reference.com, when I noticed that Endy was the ONLY Met who didn’t have his page sponsored, Mets Grrl ponied up the cash.