won’t get fooled again

Shortly before noon, the phone rang. It was TBF, and he starts babbling to me about Will I sit in section 18 row H and I have no idea what he is talking about.
“World Series game 5.”
I am still confused. Is this someone he found on Craigslist? He has been a human RSS reader, keeping up with all the action on that site.
“No, no, I won the lottery.”
“BUY THEM.”
What he didn’t tell me until later that night is that he didn’t get an email from the Mets telling him he’d won. He just kept logging into his Mets ticket account on a consistent basis: “Maybe there would be a screw-up. Maybe I would miss an email. You never know.” And today, just before he was leaving to execute our Game 3 for Game 4 trade, he tries the web site one more time and was greeted with information about his World Series ticket opportunity and got us into Game 5.

This, of course, so greatly assisted in keeping my mind on track.

We got to Shea a tiny bit early because I was supposed to meet up with the blogosphere: Matt from Metsblog, homegirl Zoe, Anthony from Hot Foot, Metstradamus, and Toasted Joe and Brooklyn Met Fan all showed up for some nervous pre-game chatter. By 7:30 everyone was antsy and wanted to head for their seats. I had to make it from far right field level all the way over to mezz section 14. As I headed for the ramps, I could hear the beginning of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” begin the pre-game entertainment. It’s a long song; I knew I could probably make it to my seat by the time the song ended, and this suddenly becomes irrationally imperative: I needed to make it to my seat by the time of that last Daltrey power scream. The Who and I are on the outs at the moment ($256 ticket prices is part of it), and I haven’t felt that emotional oomph I should be feeling when their songs are used at Shea, but tonight is different. Tonight, it works: just enough nervous tension and excitement. I reach section 14 in time to play air guitar with TBF as the song ends. Time to hang up my sign, set up the camera, and pray.

It was hard to not jump into the first car of the rollercoaster the minute Reyes hit that home run. I want to be cool, composed, not invest too much hope into anything - it’s just one run - but tonight I HAVE to go for the happy ending from the get-go. I have to be thinking happy thoughts, shaking fairy dust, screaming and praying and yelling and acting like my team was going to win. I put my camera down every time the Cardinals were up and picked it up when the Mets were at bat, as though there would of course always be something worth photographing. (I am disappointed in what did come out - the small distance between section 12 and section 14 was just enough to remove enough detail to make them interesting.)  I am always too excited by what is happening in the game to get the big action shots: do I want to be focusing on home plate to catch Reyes sliding across it or do I want to watch all the action on the field?? The problem is usually I opt for the latter.

Maine was fantastic. And Shawn Green finally came through, which I attribute to the laser of Jewish guilt I was aiming at him all night. “LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE JEWS!” I yelled when Mr. Green got his hit. (Note to Shea: we need to stop overusing the whole ‘Green Day’ thing, okay?) We left more guys on base than I ever would have wanted to see, and Wagner makes me nervous, but everyone else did what they needed to do.

The guy next to us tonight was keeping the box score on his Palm Pilot. TBF at first acted interested, and then reverted to curmudgeon mode - but kept revising his opinion between every at-bat. While this interests me as a holiday gift possibility, I do not ever see him giving up the manual scorecard, especially since he has his own personally designed scorecard that he keeps updating and changing every year for the last 7.

Other notes:

• Most over-exposed celebrity: Stop showing Trump on the smooch cam. It was funny the first time. Now it’s not.
• Best anti-Cardinals chant: “Shave your chin!”
• New sponsor promo movie: “The Carlos y Carlos Express” was awesome. Even better was that they didn’t use old white guy music as the background. It was something you could see them dancing to in the dugout.
• Sign overusage: Note to fans—No one next season is allowed to bring a sign when John Maine pitches reading “THE MAINE EVENT” or any derivative thereof.
• Tonight’s intentional commentary via music: “Head Games” when our old friend Braden Looper was on the mound. Welcome back, buddy!
• Sign that we should frown on, but enjoyed: “HOW’S THE VIEW, A-ROD”
• Ceremonial first pitch: Matt Dillon, did a great job, and I’m glad he’s a Mets fan, but to me, he will always be Cliff Poncier.

Flickr feed is here.

And tomorrow, as they say, is another day. Front row, upper boxes, thanks to TBF’s mom, who entered and won the ticket lottery for us.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

NOT IN OUR HOUSE

When he was done, he asked me: “Are you really prepared for tonight?”
“Yes.”
“No, are you REALLY prepared? To see your team lose?”
“Win or lose, I’m there until the end.”

Either way, it’ll make me feel glad to be alive.

IT’S LUCKY HAT TIME

Not long after we first started dating, TBF lost his lucky hat. Or rather, THE hat, one that had actually seen playoff action. He left it at a restaurant and despite the fact that it was, um, well, kind of icky (from a random person walking in off the street perspective), he never found it again, despite me encouraging him to call the establishment several times.

Even though I was not yet MG, he did not need to say more than: it was my Hat. And I understood completely.

Inspired by my lovely fashionista, non-baseball friend V., who is spending more time following professional sports these days than she has in her entire life (due to yours truly), I invite you to send in a photo of your lucky hat and I will display it here on metsgrrl.com!

Be sure to provide your name or an alias, and why it is a lucky hat for you. Email the photos to metsgrrl at gmail dot com (and substitute a @ sign and a . for the ‘at’ and ‘dot’ in that equation).

LUCKY HATS ONLY! If you want to talk about lucky shirts, Cerrone has a thread over at MetsBlog.

down to the wire

A SCENE FROM TONIGHT’S GAME:

MG: *hiding with hood over her head*
TBF: “Can we calm down? It’s only the fourth inning.”
MG: “I don’t like this.” *draws hood down further*
TBF:  “Their bullpen—”
MG: “Right, their bullpen is shit, that’s great. What about OUR BATS?”
TBF: “Can we come down off the ledge?”
MG: “Pot, meet kettle. Where did I learn this?”
TBF: “I don’t get loud.”
MG: “No, you get catatonic.”
TBF: *grump*
MG: *pout*
Rally Cat: “MEOW”

That was most of the night from about the time the Cardinals evened up the score. I got a headache, TBF was grumpy, I was cranky, and we sat on opposite ends of the couch glaring at each other, as though it was personally the other individual’s fault that D.Wright is only averaging .067 in the post-season and that Reyes is swinging at rubber ducks.

The cat would come over for attention or consolation, and one of us (okay, me) would yell at the TV, and he would go hide again. A few minutes later, he would emerge, and the process would reverse itself. Don’t worry, animal lovers: I gave him canned food earlier tonight (although that was from guilt that we will be gone the next two nights) and cat treats around the 6th inning. He’s doing just fine, but I imagine he is eagerly awaiting the offseason.

I do not wish to revel in someone else’s injuries, but I was ready to cheer that David Eckstein got hit on the hand by Mota. I am a terrible person.

I was going to write something profound, but the head hurts too much and it’s like typing through swamp fog.

You gotta believe? I’ll be there tomorrow night with bells on…and clenched teeth.  We need a real miracle now.

Monday, October 16, 2006

“your request is not available at this time”

“We should talk about Detroit.”
“MMMph.”
“No, we should talk about Detroit.”
“Fine.”
“Are we going?”
“It’s too much money. Flight, hotel, car, it’s $1000 before we’re done.”
“We have a place to stay.” I produce the text message from our Detroit friends with whom we have been trash-talking Tigers/Mets for the past few weeks, telling us that we are staying with them if we are coming.
“I have a plane ticket,” TBF now relents, “But it’s not that far.”
“It’s only 10 hours.”
“If we drive, it’s not that expensive. It’s just tickets and food and gas.”
We look at each other. Decision made.
“I’ll call you at 10am tomorrow morning.”

Alas, the Ticketmaster gods were not kind to us. I pulled GA tickets, and TBF made the executive decision that he didn’t want to drive 20 hours round trip and spend $90 each on standing room, and I was tired enough to agree - but then later started to regret it.

I went back to the browser window - I had clicked through all the way to the point just before confirmation - only to see “Your request is not available at this time. Please try again later.” Which is what I would have seen if we had decided we WERE going.

I’m still not sure I’m 100% on not going - but we were for certain only going if we could have bought them on the open market. The secondary market for the WS makes Rolling Stones scalpers look like rank amateurs.

happy sad

I didn’t get to start listening to the game until about 8:30. For those not paying attention, I was at CBGB’s for the closing night tonight.  As many of you may have seen on your local news broadcasts, it was a media circus outside that little club on the Bowery tonight, and getting into said club and finding a sweet spot in front of the stage took some time. I took off my sweatshirt and tied it around my waist, revealing my #30 Mets number shirt. (Hey - it was black, so it fit right in.)

Feeling a little silly, I took TBF’s little AM radio out of my bag and put an earphone into my ear. Surprisingly, I had good signal, and equally surprisingly, I could hear it over the pre-show music coming out of the PA. Despite a ticket time of 8pm, word was the the show wasn’t going to start until 9:30, so I had plenty of time.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my friend George, fellow music and Mets fan, ensconced close to the wall. I wave frantically and signal 2-1 and point at my shirt. He leans forward and gestures at his headphones. I guess I was not the only one crazy enough to engage in both activities tonight.  Once the show was about to start, I send TBF a text message that I am turning off the radio and it is time for the text messages… except that I didn’t have to bother.

A few songs into the show, I feel a tap on my arm. I look over and it’s George’s girlfriend, who is in my line of sight. She holds up five fingers, and then two. “Us?” I ask, incredulous. Emphatic nodding. When it came time to tell me it was 11 to whatever it was, it required additional hands, and they were prepared to relay the score to me more than once - but I had already gotten the update from TBF so it wasn’t a shock. Otherwise, I would have surely been: “What??? No. What’s the score??”

At intermission, I am suddenly everyone’s beacon for score updates. Everyone, however, turns out to be Yankees fans, but they seem to be genuinely glad and I accept their congratulations. They have have bad taste in sports teams but they have excellent taste in music.

Now I am home watching the post-game show, and this is a good thing, because when I walked out of the club more than a few tears were shed.  It’s good to not think about the end of an era in one part of my life, and good to think about the beginning of a new one in another part.

As to the game: earlier today, TBF and I were discussing the Star-Ledger article referenced in the entry below this one, and how he liked their assertion that what was required right now was a miracle. Well, I’d say 12-5 in St. Louis after the massacre of the last two games rates miracle status for me.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

enough is enough

I realize we have larger problems on our hands right now, but a recent Hot Foot post reminded me how pissed off this made me, and I took this photo off Diamondvision at the last home game for precisely this purpose. Feel free to use it as you like.

Apropos the aformentioned Hot Foot, this post is required reading.

Let’s Go Mets!

——-

st. louis blues

I was going to write about this game. No, really. We went off to McFadden’s tonight to partake in the Metsblog-sponored revelry, and I brought my notepad (and TBF his scorecard) and we got there early, parked ourselves at the bar, and prepared for a rousing evening.

The evening ended with TBF smacking the scorecard against a planter outside the bar, and him almost ripping the head off of a guy wearing a Yankees hat who stopped us on the way to the train and simply inquired as to the score and actually offered polite condolences when we confirmed it.

I don’t like the Cardinals. I don’t like Pujols trash-talking Glavine, I don’t like Tony La Russa defending the trash talking, I don’t like Scott Spezio and his freaking plumage, I despise Ronnie Belliard and his “I.M.BAD” picture with his hat sideways. And if they really played “Taking Care of Business” tonight in St. Louis, I will tell them and their crimson tide of a fan base to take a long walk off a short pier right into the middle of the Mississippi.

*ahem*

Sorry. Anyway, aside from that, tonight was just swell. I finally got to meet homegirl Zoe in person, pink hat and all, along with Matt Cerrone from the aforementioned Metsblog and Anthony from Hot Foot, and MG reader Chauncey. I also got interviewed by SNY, and did a “This is Mets Grrl and you’re watching SNY, get your New York sports here” plug. I was chosen at random, simply because they needed something else besides a white boy in a Mets jersey, but I convinced them to let me plug the blog when I was done. I don’t remember what I said, but TBF was listening and he said I did fine.

It’s okay. We’ll get them tomorrow night. It’s a long series. We are going to do this. The Cardinals are not going to beat us. As I told SNY, we have the heart and the spirit.

As for tomorrow night, in an announcement that will gladden the aforementioned Anthony of Hot Foot (who affectionately berated me in a post on his site the other day), I will not be attending, nor watching, tomorrow night’s game. Tomorrow night is the closing night for CBGB, Patti Smith will be onstage, and short of a World Series game that I have tickets to, there is nothing that would take precedence over that - not even the Mets.

But don’t worry: I am taking TBF’s little transistor radio with me, and have entreated him to keep me informed via text message. :)

Saturday, October 14, 2006

say it ain’t so

Perhaps we were just a little too cocky tonight, after our recent run of victories. When we walked off the 7 train, TBF spied a guy wearing a Jeff Kent jersey, and proceeded to heckle him.
“Jeff Kent sucks! He doesn’t even bother to try!”
The wearer of the jersey proceeded to meekly agree with him. That, however, was not what TBF was in the mood for.
“Why would you wear a jersey for someone like that…!”
I gently prod him forward. “Honey. Less heckle, more walking into the stadium.”
I turn to the couple. “Welcome to Flushing.”

Tonight we were back on the mezzanine. My plan got us post-season seats in Section 14, Row A. TBF engineered some trade, game 1 for game 2, that landed us in Section 12, Row A. It felt kind of wistful being back in ‘our’ section, but any sentimentality I had was replaced by practicality: one of the great things about section 12 is that there is a very well-maintained ladies’ room right outside the entrance.

TBF went off to have a beer behind home plate with his fellow curmudgeons from the Crane Pool Forum; I was supposed to meet up with Zoe tonight, but the timing was wrong. Instead, I parked myself in my seat and got my camera out, start experimenting with angles. A few minutes later, I spy a lone uniform in the Mets dugout: #7, Mr. Reyes. He is sitting there, quietly, not moving, not fidgeting. I click away, and wonder why he is out there so early. I ponder if, perhaps, he was banned from the clubhouse for driving people crazy. I wonder if maybe he came out to try to settle down and get some breathing room. I am quite sure everyone else is going to stay inside and warm as long as possible.

Darth Maul from last night passes by. I am incorrect: he is really “Met Man” and his mask is a hand-painted, modified Batman mask. He also has a jersey that reads “METS MOBILE METMAN”. It was even scarier than it was last night.

Jon Stewart throws out the first pitch. As soon as the ball leaves his hands, he knows he sucked, and good-naturedly admits it. A nice hug between him and Sandy Alomar.

Our section seems fine, except we have people behind us yelling at us to stand up, and people right behind us yelling at us to sit down. My feeling is, it’s a playoff game, if people want to stand up, let them, get over it. But, if people want to sit down, please halt your true fan meter and get over yourself.

Reyes comes up to bat, and the nice girl next to us predicts that if Jose gets a hit, we’ll take this game. And I have to say, you know, that a few minutes later I was ready to regard her as the Oracle from fucking Delphi. It certainly felt that way, didn’t it? Especially when Mr. Delgado approached the plate.

In a way, this was the first game that felt TRULY electric, and not just default ‘it’s a playoff game’ - it was genuinely generated energy and excitement from what was actually happening on the field, not just the mere fact that we were in the post-season. We were playing like we were the best team in New York. We were showing everyone, especially the detractors, especially the people who want to insist that we win because of something our opponents did, why we got this far.  The cold didn’t matter, the rescheduled game didn’t matter, the morons at MLB taking their sweet time to decide what time this game was going to be didn’t matter.

That feeling, of course, evaporated shortly thereafter. In fact, I was apparently so bad that TBF finally turned to me and said, “Can we climb down off the ledge?” and gave me a lecture involving the phrase “you gotta believe”. I felt ashamed and skulked further back inside my hooded sweatshirt.

The Lo Duca thing is funny. Half the crowd is chanting “PAUL LO-DU-CA,” the other half are “duuuuucccc”-ing him. Think a Bruce Springsteen concert and the BROOOOCING: you would think #16 was being booed if you didn’t know any better. It’s funny. I like it. I like how we have embraced him *so much*.

Spezio is particularly hated in our section. It’s the facial hair, has to be the facial hair. Everyone is offering loud verbal opinions regarding the facial hair each time he comes to bat, many of which are not suitable for a family audience. They were, however, very amusing.

We hear a chant of “ASS-HOLE” and look over to see a group of Cardinals fans who have decided to parade their colors around the mezzanine. The taunting began, and it had gotten as far as one of them removing a shirt, when Mr. Delgado hit ANOTHER home run, which caused the Cardinals fans to vanish into a sea of orange and blue standing up and cheering their lungs out.

This is where my notes stop. Of course, you know why. I am not a strategist, I cannot tell you whether we should have left Maine in longer or not brought in Feliciano or explained various errors, or offer any suggestions on Willie’s in-game strategy. I just know that WE FUCKED UP BIG FUCKING TIME AND IT SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED THAT WAY TONIGHT.

Jesus god. So Taguchi hit a home run. SO TAGUCHI. Everyone in our section, it seemed, reached their boiling point about that particular issue at different times, because for at least 15 minutes after it happened, someone would eject a statement to that effect, loudly.

The exodus from Shea starting at the 6th inning was shameful. IT’S A PLAYOFF GAME. As was the booing of Billy Wagner, as was the moron behind me who bellowed his suggestion for a hobby Mr. Wagner should take up regarding the operation of aircraft (I turned around and berated him with a surprising heat and volume. That was just wrong).

At least our egress from the mezz did not take three hours, and was aided by the earlier steady flow of people out of Shea and onto the 7 platform. There were no happy calls to friends elsewhere, there were no text messages, there was no joyful totalling of TBF’s scorecard. We couldn’t even get seats together so we sat apart for most of the ride, which is probably okay, because it’s not like we could have talked about it.

But once we reached Court Square and were waiting for the bus, me standing there with a blanket wrapped around me like an old woman, we gently started talking about strategy for trading one set of our World Series tickets.

You gotta believe.

The Flickr feed for tonight is here. It is definitely worth your while to click through to the full-size ones.