Archives for the month of: September, 2009
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No, Really: You CANNOT Be Serious

By omniality
September 4, 2009 //
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Too much to say.  Not enough time to say it.

Of course, I’d be better off if I wasn’t compulsively watching episodes of the failed series Commander In Chief online.  That show’s like watching an off-brand toy train wreck.  It’s fun to see Rod Lurie’s fake West Wing–complete with aping of Martin Sheen’s back-to-the-camera pose, Photoshopped a gauzy monochrome–completely derail and threaten to spoil the entire Eastern seaboard with light sweet crude.  But I’d much rather be playing with my Legos, and I don’t know why I can’t pull away.

But I don’t.  I watch in one window and read the news in another.  And sometimes, things I read get to me.

Sometimes, they REALLY get to me.

Forget the Mets history.  Jerry Koosman is sixty-six years old.  He served in the military.  But he cost the United States $80,000, according to the judge.  So the hell what?

Know what the United States’ gross domestic product was in 2008?  $14.3 TRILLION. 

When you try to determine what percentage $80K is of $14.3 trillion, your calculator breaks.

He’d paid back the taxes.  He’d apologized.  He’d shown remorse. 

And something tells me Koos isn’t exactly living high on the hog, wasting his nonexistent billions on Cristal to pour over buxom women in swimsuits, and inground pools in the shape of a hand giving the finger.

What gets to me, though–what REALLY gets to me–is this part of the report:

“The judge scolded Koosman for taking advantage of all the opportunities
the United States offered him, including the chance to play major
league baseball and win a World Series, then walking away without
paying.”

Excuse me while I spit. 

The U.S. ain’t gave Jerry Koosman nothin’, as My Sister would say.  Jerry Koosman and Joan Whitney Payson are responsible for the opportunities Koos took.  And given the care with which the system has, I’m sure, investigated the matter, let the record show that he was delinquent for three years beginning in 2002.  He pitched his last game on August 21st, 1985.

So unless their investigation was crap-poor, it seems to me he paid his taxes for another sixteen years before getting snookered by the morons who preach this “you don’t have to pay taxes” nonsense.

I fully comprehend that laws are applied so that others will be less inclined to break the law.  But when a man named Jerry Koosman–whom I know and a lot of Mets fans know but few others may know if you stopped them on the street and asked–has made restitution and apologized, you figure out a way to keep him OUT of prison.

You don’t fake leniency by only sentencing him to half of what the guidelines recommend, you don’t falsely frame his service to his fans and country, and you sure as hell don’t try to make an example of a man who’s by no means the face of a stupefyingly ridiculous movement.

He’s Jerry Goddamn Koosman.  Not Wesley Snipes.

And Wesley Snipes is still free on bail, pending his appeal.

U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb?  Way to pick some low-hanging fruit.  You reek.

God.

I have more to say about other things, but I want this to stand for awhile.  I’m outraged.

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Collision Course

By omniality
September 3, 2009 //
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I watched only Chowdah’s home run last night in the game vs. the Rockies (L; 5-2). 

One of the unfortunate facts of life in New York City is the crush of people one encounters day in and day out.  By the math alone, you’re bound to see something you don’t like, eventually.  And at the risk of turning my stomach again, and your stomachs, I saw something rather temporary, but rather unfortunate, on my ride home last night.  It ruined my dinner.  Frankly, at the time of this writing (5a), I’m still not with it. 

So I sucked down water and avoided anything else that would turn my stomach.  Flipped on the game just to catch the score, wished them luck after the home run, and landed on my bed with such ferocity that I think I cracked another one of the support slats.  (Never you mind how the first was cracked.)

Funny thing is, had I gone with my initial instinct for plans last night, and headed out to Coney Island to see Beltran in his Brooklyn rehab start, I’d’ve missed the incident entirely, and gotten sick by way of too many hot dogs and too much beer, and the sideshows that take on an unappreciated ghoulishness once the sun goes down.

Carlos Beltran went one-for-three with a walk and an RBI, yet still managed to get picked off first, which means he’s most definitely a Met for 2009.  Peter Botte of the Daily News seems to believe Beltran will stick with the Cyclones through Friday, so the possibility of making myself sick on Friday is still alive.

In my life, I’ve not had a six-month run of illness like I’ve had this year.  A throat thing; an eye thing; a couple of stomach things; my back; my recent cold.  Usually I’m healthy as an ox and can pace bulls.  Got to thinking about this last night and wasn’t sure if I could be blamed for the Mets woes or if I could blame the Mets for my woes, or simply chalk it up to coincidence.

If I had a training staff, though, I’d probably fire them.  Good thing I don’t have a training staff.  I hate firing people.

But does anyone remember Carlos Beltran’s swine flu business back in May?  Before the bone bruise, the guy couldn’t keep anything down and had to be put on fluids. 

The wrap-up of this woeful series against the Rockies is, at the time of this writing, ten hours away.  Hopefully I won’t have that nauseous feeling and Beltran’s knee won’t explode and we can both share the same airspace at Kesypan Park tomorrow, braced for whatever new horrors lurk around the corner.  Or under that dumb ride that carries people up slowly, then down slowly, in a doughnut-shaped carriage.

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Bad Ideas

By omniality
September 2, 2009 //
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As much as everyone likes pictures, it’s been my experience that more still enjoy lists. 

Not necessarily of things one is responsible for getting done (because who enjoys responsibility, especially when they’re doing what they’d rather not?) but of things that fall under some other–any other–topic. 

In fact, I can put together a list of five random list topics:

  • “Things I Wish I’d Said To My Third-Grade Teacher” 
  • “People I’d Shake Vigorously If Given The Chance”
  • “Best Ways To Avoid Drinking That Goop They Give You Before An Endoscopy”
  • “Bad Songs Heard Blaring From A Souped-Up El Camino”
  • “Words That End In &^!”

There will be plenty of Mets lists to go around at the end of the 2009 season.  I’d like to think that at least some of them will be useful to the front office.  I will make my own, I’m sure, though now is not the time: the team is still technically alive and deserves our continued attention, devotion, and respect.  If there is a corpse to pick over in October, this site will do so with the greatest of care. 

(Similarly, you don’t read here any squawking about how bad the Nationals were in ’09.  Season’s just not over yet.  Also, this is a Mets blog.)

I have, however, taken fifteen minutes out of my lunch hour to solidify my plans for Labor Day weekend, and in so doing believe I have a proper and appropriate list:

“Things Which Seemed Like A Good Idea On Wednesday, September 2”

Gratuitous link.

These are the kinds of plans made when one’s spouse is so far away that good sense can’t possibly prevail.

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Crazy Like A Fox

By omniality
September 2, 2009 //
1

Not Mike Pelfrey.  He’s angrier than a yak in heat, to borrow a phrase, which just makes me angry.  Effectively two days without baseball, and as of the first inning I’m already shouting profanities at my television, and–I thought–irritating my new upstairs neighbors.  Turns out they were out for the evening.

Kudos on not tromping about like madmen or hazing me with a baby who can’t seem to stop crying, even after eighteen months of life on Earth, New Upstairs Neighbors.  You’re princes and princesses compared to those nuts who left.  But, and I say this with respect: shut the front door already.  You’re letting in flies and ants and potential burglars. Were you raised in a barn?

But Pelfrey swore hard when he walked in that run, and I swore at him.  There’s no margin for error for getting to .500, and he’s now on the bill for one of those nine precious losses the Mets need to keep for a day when it not just rains–it’s been raining pretty hard–but it pours.  Pours like mad.  Last night was not supposed to be one of those days.

Do better, Mike.  That you’re aping Sean Green by walking in runners does not impress.  Rather, quite simply, it depresses.

(Mr. Green, please do me a favor and find an ingrown hair or a severe case of the bends to catch, and take yourself out for the year.  You are NOT helping.)

No, David Wright’s the guy who’s crazy like a fox, for wearing the new Rawlings S100 batting helmet.  It was the goofiest thing about last night, and as I enjoy the goofy and vaguely newsworthy, I’ll spend a few minutes on it.

First, in the event you haven’t seen it on someone’s head:


There you are, courtesy of David Zalubowski and the Associated Press through The New York Times.

Those watching the game would have seen Wright constantly reaffirming the helmet’s balance on the crown of his head during at bats, and in the third, seen him walked, then slide into second on what began as a stolen base attempt and ended up a retreat to first as Chowdah struck out.

Unremarkable that Chowdah struck out, even on that non-foul-tip interference business.  Remarkable that the aerial shot showed Wright sliding head first into second, and the new helmet catching in the dirt and bopping away from the bag at Ludicrous Speed. 

The suggestion in-house (mine, not SNY’s, the Mets’, or MLB’s) was that the hat’s bill is far too long for the overall shape of the melon-saver.  But I’m no aesthete when it comes to sports equipment.  I’m sure form followed function there. 

As far as it being funny, let’s consider the well-worn history of headgear in another sport–football–and in three minutes or less, with pictures.  Everyone likes pictures.

I present Red Grange, halfback for the Chicago Bears and all-around speedster, courtesy of Ultimate Bears Fan.

  http://ultimatebearsfan.com/media/playerpics/red_grange1.jpg

That helmet’s made of padded leather.
Now, Albert Haynesworth, who to me is still most famous for stomping on Andre Gurode of the Dallas Cowboys back in 2006:

http://www.espn980.com/upload/albert_haynesworth.jpg

Haynesworth is the one standing.  (Thanks to ESPN 980 for the photo.)
Physical players in a physical game.  But when a man like Albert Haynesworth could potentially SIT ON YOUR HEAD, a helmet like Red Grange’s isn’t exactly going to cut the mustard.

I’m sure Paul Brown’s initial concept for the modern-day football helmet had its detractors.  But over the course of football’s history, players have gotten bigger, stronger, and, not coincidentally, more aggressive.

All sports undergo a gradual transformation in that same respect.  Today’s fastball pitchers are running the game equivalent of driving Ferraris at one hundred fifty miles per hour down a mountain switchback.  Any small tic behind the wheel is widely reflected over the path’s course.  So a twitch in location can send a ball eight different kinds of elsewhere.

Keep on keepin’ on, David.  That helmet will feel comfortable eventually, and if there’s even a one percent chance of it saving your brain matter, it’s worth it.  If Chowdah decides he doesn’t care to wear it, that’s his choice. 

And if he gets beaned and screws his career up royal, I’m sure the Mets can find another outfielder who can go 0 for 3 with a sac fly and two strikeouts.

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September

By omniality
September 1, 2009 //
0

I imagine working on a post during the off-season will be much like trying to work on a post this morning.  It’s cold.  It’s dark.  The next room over, friends who freelance are in their fourth hour of drinking bourbon and working on their indie-rock-acoustic version of “Down By The River.”  And I don’t have much to say.

I’m excited for Josh Thole’s call-up like I was excited back when I still had magazine subscriptions and they showed at my door.  I’ll watch for his first hit and his first home run and when he strikes out in consecutive plate appearances for the first time, I’ll certainly head for the back pages and read as deep as I can into his stats.  But I’ll need something on the order of New York‘s Eliot Spitzer cover–post-scandal–to snap me back into focus.

Really, my deepest regret is that I probably won’t see Carlos Delgado play again in a Mets uniform.  It could happen, yes.  But I haven’t heard Word One since his oblique strain during his rehab. 

Makes me recall wistfully that I figured Carlos Delgado to reach five hundred home runs faster than Gary Sheffield.  Then I watched Gary Sheffield hit his five hundredth home run.

More and more, I think myself the Mets Angel of Death; I got excited, despite my constant harangue, about Carlos Beltran playing rehab out at Keyspan Park with the Cyclones, and began a quick think about how I might get to tonight’s game.  Then I recalled how I was in the stands when Angel Pagan hurt himself in his rehab assignment last year.

Proximity may not be a factor, and it needn’t even be a direct interest or direct suggestion of greatness or misery: I was watching the Houston-Minnesota preseason game with a roommate when we heard Chris Berman (you should refuse to call him “Boomer,” as I refuse) report Andy Pettitte’s perfect game in the sixth.  We switched to that game.  In the seventh, with one out…

Roommate: “Can you commit an error and still have a perfect game?”

Two outs.

Me: “No.  The game has to be perfect.  Twenty-seven up, twenty-seven down.” (In my head) “God, baseball’s an odd sport.  Nine innings, three outs per inning, twenty-seven the minimum number of hitters faced.  Ten innings and forty or fifty as a minimum: that satisfies a need for round numbers.”

The ball then ate up Jerry Hairston, Jr.  Man on.

Roommate: “But he can still get the no-hitter.”
Me: “As long as they score that ball an error.”

They do, and the next ball gets past Hairston for a hit.

Roommate: “Well, so much for that.”

I think in the off-season I’ll work on some back up plans: how to blather in the absence of blatherable material.  My mother likes the old saw about not saying anything when there’s nothing to say.  I once sat her down for ten minutes and told her why I thought that was an irresponsible thing for a creative person to do.

Besides, it’s September.  I love September.  Labor Day’s a mandatory barbecue day.  My birthday’s on the 15th.  I was hired to this no-longer-new job last year on the 22nd, and with it came money to pay bills and go to games.  And it’s cooler.  I love sweaters.  They make me look svelte.

David Wright comes back tonight, and so there’ll be something to talk about at the end of the day, surely.  That gives me enough reason to not bring my poison or voodoo or whatever it is to Coney Island and Carlos Beltran’s knees.  I’ll stretch the material like any good writer might do.

However, word is we’re closing early Friday.  If there’s any chance of seeing Beltran play on Labor Day weekend, I am there.

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