A little Friday levity: A post over on the LoHud Mets Blog sent me to the wonder that is You Tube, from which I provide you with this gem, the highest of high comedy. Yes, I realize you have all seen this before. I have not (or at least have no active memory of having seen it), and even if you have, it’s so goddamn funny that it certainly bears watching again.
Glavine deserves some kind of award for this performance.
HOW ABOUT LETTING PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THINGS LIKE THIS IN ADVANCE??????? It’s not like 10 of the Mets just spontaneously decided to roll on down to the Ed Sullivan Theater yesterday afternoon.
Youtube, anyone? Anyone?? Ray writes in with this link to TOP TEN THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT YOUR NEW YORK METS on the Late Show site itself. Filmed at BP yesterday, and not the hysterical, on-site one-at-a-time walk-on I had originally envisioned, which makes it slightly less painful.
(Warning, the video is Real Video and it managed to hang my Mac this morning.)
I got a fever, and the only prescription is - Heilman continuing to be the man.
Mr. Aaron Heilman, Spring Training ‘06.
August, 2008: Hello, Bruce Springsteen fans. Sorry you ended up here while looking for your mp3 of a not-very-good song. You might like to read some of my Springsteen writing at jukeboxgraduate.com, however.
What I thought was going to be the best part of the game tonight happened during the 4th inning, just before John Maine came to the plate. The Pirates’ catcher runs out to the mound, followed by someone from the dugout.
“Noooooooo!” my father yelled. “Keep him in! We like him!”
“It’s the *pitcher*,” I added, enjoying a joint heckle with my dad, for the first time in my life. (It was a very satisfying feeling. I definitely get most of my sarcasm from him.)
Of course, a few moments later, this would become my absolute favorite moment in the game:
[More, after the jump.]
Click to continue reading BALBOA VS. THE EARTH-SLAYER. [7-24-07]Although I can’t see how he’ll top that 50 Cent one.
I finished the first reading of the Last Potter at about 4:15am Sunday morning. (That wasn’t straight through - I wimped out Friday night around 2:30am, and was busy all day Saturday.) That was fine timing, as it put me on the couch late Sunday afternoon to catch up on the Mets between naps.
I’m glad for the way the team played in LA. I’m glad they’re back here for a little while. But I’m also glad for the night off tonight. (And not just because it’ll give me time to make more progress on the second reading.)
Have I mentioned that my father is coming with us tomorrow night???
So I could write about TBF nudging me during the encore break at the special Crowded House showcase last night, a night where I was not even going to think about baseball because I WAS BUSY and the Mets have been, well, the Mets, and despite all that, me picking up the phone and getting a 2-0 score courtesy of Google, and then a 4-0 score, and me and TBF and Coop in disbelief, but not truly understanding disbelief until the next query yielded NEW YORK 6 LOS ANGELES 0 1ST INNING, at which point certain people started looking at their watches and peering at the setlist (not me - okay maybe a little. I had been waiting an awfully long time for this, though) and me in my head surveying what venue suitable for watching this new Mets team were in our immediate vicinity (best ones I came up with were the Irish pub next door, the Outback across the street, and David Wright’s apartment a couple of blocks away).
When the show ended, we ran out of the building as fast as we could, not to get ahead of the crowd or to catch a train, but to get to a television. The Irish pub next door might have worked, except they were blaring death metal, and it was not exactly functioning as a palate cleanser.
So Coop went back to Jersey and we sprinted home to Brooklyn in time to move the car before alternate side kicked in, with the obligatory stop to peer in the window of the Turkey’s Nest at the televisions that would have the game on them:
“Is that number 9?”
“9-5? That can’t be 9-5”
“No, that says 9 and Mets.”
“It’s 9,” said a Mets-hat-wearing smoker on the sidewalk, “But man, they had to pull Glavine out.”
Hmmmm.
So it is late by the time we get home and even start watching the damn thing, and we can’t check email or talk to anyone about what is going on and why Glavine got pulled out because of spoilers, and so we watch the first inning and then we fast forward until we see why, exactly, Tommy G. got pulled out, me screaming at the television GARY WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT TOMMY’S 300TH WIN, HE IS KILLING US RIGHT NOW, and then remembering the neighbors, and the cat is not happy because we are alternately yelling invective at the television and high-fiving each other, and before we know it the clock says 1:42 and suddenly we have to try to go to sleep or we will be completely worthless at work in the morning.
I could write about all of that, and I guess I just did. So while I am writing about all of that:
I’D LIKE TO EXTEND A HEARTY “WELCOME BACK” TO MR. MARLON ANDERSON. Who I always quite liked.
I know we all feel like we have been writing the same blog post over and over and over. But I feel a little bit different after last night, combined with the trouncing we gave Mr. Peavy earlier this week. I don’t know if it’s HoJo or the extra BP or what, but I think the tide is turning.
Tonight, however, I have other priorities
Have I mentioned my father is coming with us to the game on Tuesday? Stay tuned.
And we are looking to sell our tickets for the 7/28 evening game. Mezz Reserved 29, row E. $52 for the pair ($10 discount for MG readers), includes free express mail shipping. Email MG at metsgrrl dot com (new address!)
The Mets’ recent performance is making me feel relatively uninspired. I decided to go with Lastings because his very presence on the team pisses so many people off for very stupid reasons. Spring Training 2006.
This is a horrible, horrible title for a wonderful, wonderful book. Yes, the book does discuss the various ways players “cheat,” but what it really does is explain a nuanced, complex layer of strategy and gamesmanship that also teaches you about baseball and its history.
It is not a book for beginners, or the casual fan. It is a book for people who love trivia and hearing great baseball stories. The person who wrote the book is clearly highly intelligent, with copious baseball knowledge, but at no time during the book did I feel condescended to. After reading this book, I finally understand the hidden ball trick. TBF’s been trying to explain it to me for about a year now. That’s not an easy thing to understand, but it’s also not an easy thing to explain, either.
Click to continue reading BOOK REVIEW: The Cheater’s Guide To Baseball
