Saturday, September 29, 2007

SIGNS OF LIFE.

From Ben Shpigel’s blog in the Times:

At the top of the stairs in the Mets’ dugout leading from the clubhouse to the tunnel, someone had framed a photograph of several players celebrating and wrote, “We Worked To (o) Hard, Let’s Finish This.” It was the Mets’ version of the “Play Like a Champion” sign in Notre Dame’s football locker room, complete with the suggestion, “Tap Me For Luck.”

Well, it’s nice to see that someone actually cares.

GONNA BE A LONG WALK HOME.

In the end, it was the right thing to do, not being there tonight. The front row of a Bruce Springsteen concert (and yes, we had our elbows on the stage) is the one place we are guaranteed to not think about anything except the Bruce Springsteen concert. It was good to see the band, it was good to hear the new and the old songs, it was good to see the people we only see in the parking lot of an arena before a Bruce show, it was good for TBF and I to be together at a Bruce show. All of that.

And, it was the right thing to not put both of us through the heartbreak, although we were getting text messages from Shea, and you know we were watching the MLB scoreboard on ESPN up until the second before the lights went down at 9pm, and as soon as the band took their last bows around 11:10, the first thing I did with the phone was check the scoreboard again for the final - and THEN text the friends we were meeting up with.

Post-concert, we had dinner with friends at a tapas place on 9th Avenue, where, despite the television tuned to SNY in the corner, we were able to avoid baseball talk entirely as we dissected the weeks’ setlist within an inch of their lives. And then, around 1, we headed home.
As we drove down 34th Street towards the Midtown Tunnel, TBF said, “Well, at least I have the Bruce tour to keep my mind off of things. Otherwise, I’d be fuckin’ unbearable.”
“It’s really over?”
“We’re toast.”
This, from TBF. Not from me. From TBF. Who not long after that was asking me, “So do you have any interest in going to that game…?” when we were talking about whether there would be a need for the one-game playoff in Philadelphia. He is going to take this harder than me. I’m not even going to pretend to have any claim on that. It would be stupid and foolish to try.

And he’s right. it will be good that we can cover more of the Springsteen tour than we thought. And it will be good that we will have our 2008 seats partially paid for. But that’s not how it was supposed to end, and I’ll never forget that.

But I’m not ready to let go of the Mets, or let go of baseball for this year. I’m just not. But I realize that I have no choice in the matter.

Need some sleep. Need some rest. Need to not think about this for a while. I thought about it all day. And we’ll be thinking about it all weekend.

Friday, September 28, 2007

IRONY’S A BITCH.

Guess what showed up this morning:

There was a moment of silence with me and the other Mets fans in the office.

THE TOP 10 EXCUSES I HAVE MADE FOR THE 2007 METS.

From the home office in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, we bring you tonight’s TOP TEN LIST:

10. “They just need to make Julio Franco a coach instead of a player, and that void in the lineup won’t be a problem any more.”
9. “Omar’s not done making trades yet. He’ll pull some rabbit out of his pocket again.”
8. “None of the beat reporters speak Spanish fluently. How is it possible to be a baseball writer in 2007 and not speak Spanish?”
7. “It’s a cultural thing. We’re making assumptions about their reactions or attitude based on the white cultural hegemony.” (Yes, I really did say “hegemony.”)
6. “It’s been a really abnormally cold spring and it’s been tough on the pitchers. I blame global warming.”
5. “Willie needs to keep a calm front with the press, I’m sure he’s much more inspirational behind closed doors.”
4. “There’s just too much media these days. If there were less people asking what time Carlos Delgado took the garbage out last night, he’d hit better.”
3. “Cliff Floyd was a great clubhouse presence and he’s gone.”
2. “D.Wright isn’t a rookie anymore, and it’s tough to adjust.”

AND THE NUMBER ONE EXCUSE I HAVE MADE FOR THE 2007 METS:

1. “They’re not the 2006 Mets.”

Thursday, September 27, 2007

RUNNING ON EMPTY.

This is the part where I don’t know what to say.

There is part of me that just wants to rant, and then I’m going to hear how I don’t KNOW what it’s like, really, and you know what, I know that I don’t know what it’s like. But that’s like telling someone who’s 22 that they’ll never see a truly *meaningful* Bruce Springsteen show, because after 1975, he just wasn’t the same. I’m here now. Now is what I know. If I was 8 years old you might tell me that I don’t know what it’s like but you wouldn’t tell the 8 year old that, you might do it in a kind way while you bent down to straighten their favorite Mets hat and wipe away that tear perched on their cheek. I was going to say “Here, I get to be 8” but it doesn’t matter if it’s here or there. It’s not like I don’t know the history or I don’t understand heartbreak in 31 different flavors. I know this is the 32nd flavor of heartbreak but I get it. Trust me, I get it.

I also accept the whole concept of having to earn my stripes, but if I’m saying EXACTLY WHAT THE VETERAN MET FANS ARE SAYING why is it any less valid or why am I any less entitled to say it?

That’s just warm-up whining, I think.

But I am angry and sad and infuriated and incensed and numb and tired and agonized, and tonight’s game just blows my mind. Completely. But before I talk about that:

So I don’t have my playoff tickets yet. Yeah, they were sent out when everyone else’s were sent out, and I know where they are, but I don’t have that magic DHL envelope. I don’t have it because I had to have the delivery rerouted to Manhattan from Brooklyn, because you know you’re never home when they deliver this stuff. And then it’s been a comedy of errors and well-meaning excuses that I’ve decided remind me of the 2007 Mets. For example, effort by one person (say, the CS rep who answers the phone and asks me if Brooklyn is near Manhattan) but a complete lack of effort by another person (the guy who gave me the wrong phone number to fax the authorizaton to), and then continued ineptitude (the guy who answered the phone and realized that I had been given the wrong number and took the information himself, only to allegedly omit the floor number), and then the piece de resistance when the delivery guy claimed he didn’t have the company name, or it wasn’t on his slip, or he didn’t have the floor number - any one of those things - and instead of just trying to do SOMETHING, like just going to the 17th floor to see if there are more than one company there, he just gives up and phones it in, or the clerk in the office who swore to the CS rep on the phone that my package was now at the station and I was welcome to come pick it up any time before 8pm. I waited for an hour before I finally had a tearful meltdown that I exaggerated to my total benefit so I had a reasonable certainty that the tickets will be delivered tomorrow before 12 noon, and then walked out to 42nd Street in real tears.

And then I came home and watched the Mets lose. With Pedro pitching. And I’m not disgusted or disappointed so much as just plain old WORN OUT.

We’re out of time. We’re out of excuses. And as of tonight, we’ve run out of road.

TBF and I have this ongoing debate, that I mentioned in the comments in the last post. I keep saying it would break my heart more for the Mets to make it to the post-season and then choke than for not to get there at all. He maintains that the opposite is true. I thought about it some more and the thing is, it’s not just that they’d make it to the post-season, it’s that they’d make it to the post-season by tripping over it or backing into it AND THEN choke, which should surprise no one. I am all for the romantic scenario of the gritty underdogs battling and getting beaten and getting up again and winning when everyone said they wouldn’t win. Everyone said the Mets would win. Maybe that was the problem; maybe it was too much of a given and they never really thought they had to fight for it all that hard.

In the end, though, it’s all my fault. Because before I left work tonight I sent an elaborate email to my managers explaining what half-days I need to take in the next week and a half and why, and oh, it might change, and oh, Major League Baseball are morons, and, oh, thanks to the Red Sox for taking the evening slot (since one of them is from Boston). The humiliation when I don’t need to take those days will be hard to face, given the amount of Yankees fans around me.

WHAT TIME IS IT?

“Why, Stevie, I believe it’s time to ACT LIKE YOU WANT TO GO TO THE POST SEASON.”

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

DEAD MOON NIGHT. [09-25-07]

As it turned out, tonight might likely be my last regular-season game at Shea; it is certainly the only one I have tickets left for. This morning the MG household made a snap decision to attend a concert by Mr. Bruce Springsteen at the Continental Airlines Arena on Friday, and since they were only selling about 2500 tickets for this rehearsal show, felt that it could easily trump the Mets right now. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, if you find people who paid their playoff invoices with more alacrity than we did, I’d like to meet them, and we’re not booking anything on potential playoff nights no matter what. As someone near and dear to our hearts might say, we have faith, but it’s a little bruised and battered right now and frankly could use a night off.

Even if Friday night turned out to be clinch night, I came to the realization a while ago that it wouldn’t be the same as last year—I know that nothing could, that last year was an enchanted year, the kind of year that a baseball fan maybe experiences once in every 20. I didn’t expect lightning to strike twice but I still use TBF as my touchstone, who informed me recently that he had no intention of purchasing any NL East Championship gear this time around, that I of course was free to do as I wished but that he was going to wait to the NLCS before any merchandise was acquired. I hadn’t quite quantified it the same way he had, but there was a similar equation going on in my head.

So in this semi-cranky, semi-resigned mood, I headed out to Shea to meet Will, who was my date for the evening, and see what Your 2007 Mets had in store for me tonight. TBF, calling on his way down to Asbury Park (yes, AGAIN), assured me that all would be well: “Tommy G.‘s gonna throw a no-hitter until the 6th inning, you’ll see, it’ll be golden.”

Ah, famous last words.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN, IT’S THE *NATIONALS*

FEH.

I’ll be there tomorrow night, with Coop and Zoe and darling Will, who is my date, since TBF will be off in Asbury Park seeing a certain band whose name starts with the fifth letter of the alphabet (a place I cannot be due to the new job, a fact that is not helping my crankiness right now).

HOLY FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER, WHAT IS GOING ON IN THAT DUGOUT????

Monday, September 24, 2007

PAPERBACK WRITER.

“Stop walking so fast,” I ask TBF, as we start walking down 14th Street.
He slows down, but not enough, and I realize that the two of us tethered together by earphones is not going to be conducive to speed. So I abandon the headphones to him.
“Just tell me what’s happening.”
We were late for a party, but we assumed that all the other invited guests would also be late, for the very same reasons. We decide to drive to the subway stop to save time, because we cannot tear ourselves away from the screen. And then we bring the radio down onto the platform of the Bedford L stop, where you can get AM reception. (TBF discovered this earlier this summer, also en route to an activity while a game was going on.)

There is silence, and then more silence, and I finally nudge him and say, “So run the ads down for me.”
“Azek Trimboards - ask your contractor.” *pause* “Foxwoods has the best poker room on the East Coast.”
I could tell he felt dumb but it was better than that OVERWHELMING SILENCE while we waiting for a pitching change or some other crucial business during this game, a game that shouldn’t have meant as much as it did.

We struggled down Avenue A and arrived at our destination, Mo Pitkins’ House of Satisfaction, a stone’s throw from the former MG apartment affectionately known as “The Hovel” (if you know the Lower East Side, it was at the corner of Stanton & Lowell, above The Hat). This afternoon we were invited to be guest of Dana Brand for the launch of his new book, “Mets Fan”. For some people, it’s a mitzvah to dance at someone’s wedding; as a writer, it’s also a pleasure and a privilege to attend an author’s book launch party.

Friday, September 21, 2007

PLEASE COME TO THE WHITE COURTESY PHONE.

“Mr. Reaper, paging Mr. Reaper.”