Dark For Today

By omniality
September 11, 2009 //
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I’m not thinking about baseball today, which given the recent sweep of the Mets by the Marlins, is probably for the best.

Posts to come tomorrow; I have great friends coming in from Boston, but they’re now quite into each other.  Given lack of appropriate bed space, they’ll be in the master bedroom, and I’ll be on the couch. 

Because I’m cool like that. 

Also, that couch is damned comfortable.

Still means I’ll be up earlier than usual, with little to do but pontificate about a Mets Museum and, with any sort of luck, a victory over the Phillies.

But for today, call your parents or your children, or both if that’s the way you go, and just talk with them.  You won’t be sorry you did–believe me.

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Jim Plummer

By omniality
September 9, 2009 //
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On Monday, I wrote the following:

“Greg Prince of Faith And Fear In Flushing wrote about the lack of Mets coverage in The New York Times.  His piece mentions Sunday’s paper, in a way that’s almost Fred Exley-esque. But Mr. Prince, if you’re reading this: they’ve been quite late in
posting material to the website, and this has been the case since at
least last week.  Usually game recaps post within two hours of a
victory.  All last week, they were coming in late morning/early
afternoon-ish. …”

Two things, as follow-up:

–Despite the return of the Mets’ star center-fielder, the Times idea of coverage of last night’s game is posting the AP wire story, filed at 10:32p.  It’s now a little under fifteen hours later.

–The Mets dedicated part of Citi Field to Jim Plummer.  The Times noted this with coverage by Jack Curry.  Here’s the post, on their Bats blog, in its entirety (as of September 8th, 9:21p):

The Mets dedicated the Plum Room in honor of Jim Plummer, a longtime
employee of the club, on Tuesday at Citi Field. Plum, who died last
year at age 57, worked for the Mets for 31 years. Instead of having a
Green Room for visitors to use, the Mets decided to have a Plum Room
that would honor Plummer.

This reads like a second-grader’s book report. 

It’s embarrassing. 

It took me all of ninety seconds to learn who Jim Plummer was and what he did for the Mets, and the story is inspiring. 

Given the negative spin on the Mets’ ownership’s/management’s dedication to the team’s history–in the blogosphere and the traditional press–and the ways (ham-fisted or not) that they’ve been working to turn that tide, I’d think it would be news that they continue to honor a man who was a member of their organization for DECADES.

It’s not like the Times has mentioned Mr. Plummer’s passing, or this room, before, and this post is just an addendum to prior coverage.  The day after Plummer’s death, the Mets were caught up in a drubbing by the Mariners and the exposed jerkitude of Brian Runge.  But no mention of Plummer.

Most recent mention of Jim Plummer I can find in the Times archives, before this waste of a post, is this article, from April 1987, that coincidentally speaks of potential boycotts of–and demonstrations against–the Yankees and Mets for not hiring enough minorities to fill front-office positions.

So in a total of three minutes, I’ve learned who Jim Plummer was, how important he was to the Mets, and found him in context of a larger debate on issues regarding affirmative action.  I haven’t even done a Google search yet.

You know, while at Bennington College, I had occasion to work with Rebecca Stickney, who passed away in August of 2008.  She’d graduated from the college and worked with them from 1948 until her death.  She was a remarkably warm and vibrant woman, who cared deeply about the work she pursued and was stronger than many I encountered there–especially me.  There’s ALWAYS time to honor that kind of service, and ALWAYS a way to do it intelligently, without looking like a parrot of the organization’s press.

So I don’t care if Jeter’s chasing of Gehrig has you busy; I don’t care if, somehow, you’re too tied up in the U.S. Open to write a full article.  If you’re going to write about a man with such a legacy, do it with some respect for the time he spent in service to an organization he must’ve loved; otherwise do me and my temper a favor, and don’t bother.

For Chrissakes, you’re a journalist, man.  It should’ve taken you all of ten to fifteen minutes to write.  No need to call for a quote–though I’m certain Jay Horwitz or someone in the Mets’ organization would’ve been more than happy to give you one.

Unbelieveable.

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Last Night Was Not, In Fact, A Good Good Night

By omniality
September 9, 2009 //
0

“Their season is over.”

“It’s not over.”

“What are you talking about?  They’re out of it.”

“They’re not out of it.”

“Paul, they’re out of it.”

“They haven’t been mathematically eliminated.”

“…Yes, that’s true…

deserted stands.jpg…they haven’t been mathematically eliminated.”

Whether due to the weather or the emptiness of the ball park or the fact that I rode home alone the whole way–7 train to N train to R train–I felt pretty damned surly all last night and into the wee hours today.  My usual Mets batterymate was also not in attendance.  So the balance was shifted towards Yankee fans, with his seat taken by the girlfriend of the third member of our usual party.

It’s either too early or I’m too disinterested in rehashing the thought to make that clear.  Suffice it to say I sat next to two people who could give a damn about the game, and so I felt like a third wheel most of the time.  I didn’t know one could spend $300 on six months’ worth of a fan experience and still feel like a third wheel.

Maybe I just needed a second set of ribs.

deserted shake shack.jpgI walked up to the Blue Smoke counter and ordered, and so was in and out of the center field concourse within two minutes.  This is dangerous; if Mets games are to be this poorly-attended from here on out, I’ll need to do my damnedest to fill up before the game and stick to the beer, which is considerably less expensive.  Speaking of:

t-shirts 01.jpgThat’s the one that just makes me look like a goob’.  THIS one:

t-shirts 02.jpgShould please The Wife no end.

“Please to note”: I don’t know any of their names.  I’m not even kidding.  I have no clue.  We’re all dressed alike; we all enjoy beer.  That’s all I need to know, really.

They have a Facebook page.  I don’t have a Facebook anything, so I can’t check this.

Last night’s game against the Marlins (L; 4-2) leaves five or six nails left for the coffin, depending on your perspective; either you nail the coffin in five and bury, or you seal the coffin with the sixth and burial is incidental.

What’s been running through my head, though, besides wild ideas of how the Mets can save themselves from a losing season (think their competition turning into reverse vampires that can’t play night games and thus have to forfeit), is some light calculus on just what kind of record makes, generally, a playoff-bound team.

Example of what I mean:

  • in one hundred sixty-two (162) games,
  • a team can alternate wins and losses for seventy-six (76) games,
  • earning them a record of 38-38,
  • then run off a ten-game winning streak,
  • earning them a record of 48-38,
  • then return to alternating wins and losses for seventy-six games,
  • coming out of the season with a record of 86-76.

The 2008 Mets had a ten-game winning streak and ended with a record of 89-73.  Look where that got them.

“Dominance,” at least of a division as currently woeful as the NL East, would be a record of 96-66.  Which would be like:

  • staring down the barrel of 162 games,
  • alternating wins and losses for 44 games (22-22),
  • breaking off a ten-game winning streak (32-22),
  • alternating again for 44 games (54-44),
  • managing another ten game winning streak (64-44),
  • alternating AGAIN for 44 games (86-66),
  • then wrapping up with a final ten-gamer (96-66).

My point with all this nonsense?  Baseball is MUCH harder than it looks. 

Take a ball most people can fit decently within the palm of their hand. 

Try and hit it with a wooden bat as it’s hurled at you really fast. 

Then, if you hit it, try and make it three hundred sixty feet back to where you started, without anyone taking that ball and tagging you with it, which is entirely possible unless you manage to whack that thing safely out of bounds, which, if you ask Angel Pagan after last night, must take something like nine offerings to Ba’al and a carton of smokes to whomever decides where the fences should be.

Now get nine guys together who can do this over the course of three hours, almost every day, for six months.

Make sure they don’t get hurt, or if they do, that you have someone good enough to replace them.

And do it well enough to win as much as you lose, except for those instances wherein you play a team so bad or so not on their game that you can manage to steal a few.  Have as many of those instances as you possibly can.

Do all this well enough to do it over again when it starts to get really cold, except with more scrutiny, increased pressure to perform, and absurdly late start times (because it’s SO important to cater to people who would gladly watch at 7p or are upset that you’re preempting their programming anyway).

And do this with the expectation that, win or lose, if you got this far you’d better come back better, faster, and stronger, else some numbskull–raising my hand here–will label you forever a bum, who has no business doing any of the above.

I’m not saying it’s not worth it; I’m not saying these guys don’t get paid to do just this job.  I’m just saying, like one stops to really notice a bed of tulips on the first warm afternoon or really appreciates sleeping in their bed after a long day of work or really gets how good a perfectly charred burger tastes, it’s REALLY hard.

And that Carlos Beltran worked hard to get back to this life, in the face of not-yet-mathematically-impossible odds…

beltran in the lineup.jpg…that earns some REAL appreciation from me.

Even if he did go 1-for-4 with a strikeout.

betran prepping.jpgbeltran timing.jpg

beltran citi at the plate.jpg
Pictures of David Wright’s hitlessness are unavailable, due to the author’s desire not to screw up this stiff-upper-lip thing he’s got going on.  Hell, I’ve even got a sarcastic shot of Brian Stokes’s winning “Pitcher Of The Month,” but I’m not even in the mood.

I’m in the mood to watch Josh Thole stalk away from the plate in slow-motion after tagging out Dan Uggla.  I could watch that plenty.

Speaking of Uggla: in front of us last night sat a couple who seemed fairly even-tempered, until it was learned that the duo’s better half was combining her rabid hatred of Dan Uggla (which I enjoyed and stoked) with surreptitiously scrap-booking a Mets Program Guide and furiously doodling on a green-and-black Marlins cap (which I guess was promotional).

Now, Dan Uggla’s crimes against the National League are the stuff of legend: three errors, three strikeouts and a ground-into-double-play during an All-Star Game that the NL could’ve won if he’d’ve gotten his head together.  But it was as if she’d left an evil spirit after her departure.  The air felt colder in that seat.

Or, to quote and summarize from my friends, who were closer to her: “Yo, that girl was bats*** CRAZY.”  Fair enough.

I’ve little else to say, so I’ll leave with this:

a new board.jpg…which is the Mets Out-Of-Town Scoreboard.  Usually there’s some ad on the far left.  Last time I was there, it was an ad for MLB Network.  However:

a new board enhanced.jpgI believe this is the last of the game-action screens to go up.  Either that, or they’re planning for the next time a team scores twenty runs and the general board is not up to the task.  Either way, if it’s to someone’s benefit, I’m for it.

Next game for me is September 18th; I may try and stick a visit to the Bronx somewhere between that and October 2nd, versus the Astros, but I’ve been trying like hell to get out to Chicago all year, and if it’s between the Miracle Mile and River Avenue, I’m picking the Miracle Mile.

Adios, adieu, and away.

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Sure, It’s A Sign, But Of What?

By omniality
September 8, 2009 //
0

It was not my intention to post during the day; I had a full morning and my commute was taken up by working on a new screenplay (now you know: I work on screenplays), and I have a lot on my plate here at work.

But I’ve been working over the past week to get my organization in compliance with something called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and to that end I’ve been investigating “whistle blower” services.  So if anyone here wants to narc on the organization or someone within the organization, they can do so without fear of reprisal.  Sure, it sounds like an unnecessary artifice at first, but if you want to complain about human resources and the vice president of the organization, and the vice president happens to run human resources, well… goddamn.

There are a number of better examples, but as you may have inferred, I’m writing this on the fly. 

Also, for those writers out there: having a straight job is remarkable for purposes of gathering material.  Don’t do it too long or your eyes’ll start to bleed and your face will stay that way.  But for awhile, it’s good.  Also helps to have skills to fall back on.

</rationalization of four-plus years in administrative service.>

Anyway, I place a call to get a quote on services, and I get an email with several attachments, including a brochure highlighting the organization’s shift into the compliance/whistleblowing business. 

The picture on the cover of that brochure?

compliance.jpgYes, that would be Shea’s mezzanine, looking out onto the field and loge levels.

I don’t know what this means, but I think I like it. 

I got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night.  Yes, tonight’s gonna be a good, good night.

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Go Dog Go

By omniality
September 7, 2009 //
0

Labor Day is nearing its end.  Time to get back to work.

coney island.jpg

There’s a large part of Coney Island that can be called a hole, and that’s being charitable.  When my mother would take My Sister and I out to Astroland Park on too-warm summer weekdays, my father out working, I would try my best to enjoy it, but even then there was a seediness I could not abide.  The water in the flume ride reeked of oil; the bumper cars squealed and shrieked.  I couldn’t escape the feeling that the adults around were having a lot more fun than I was.  Maybe not so for my mother, who toted us about.  But the wacky ones on the dilapidated boardwalk: sure.
the dock.jpg
These days, there’s a patina of theme park on all the elements that make Coney Island a disagreeable, damned place. Feel the grime in the air as you use a restroom!  Chuckle at the locals, surly to the point of assault!  Wander through the urban desert which lies just beyond Surf Avenue!  And live to tell the tale!
This crystallized for me on Friday.  And it felt good to feel right about what opinion I’d formulated while being splattered with gear grease from the Cyclone.  The place is a dump.  Let people keep their homes, and don’t wreck the view of the ocean.  Besides that, take it down.  Raze it.  Salt the earth so nothing so obscene grows again.
Don’t know why I’m so belligerent about it; I had fun doing what I’d set out to do: drink beer, eat hot dogs, watch sailboats, and cheer on Carlos Beltran.  I guess I’m still not over that Jerry Koosman thing.  Ugh.  
I want to put my fist through a door every time I think about it.
No, I’m not drunk.  Last I was drunk, I was at a bar on the Lower East Side, watching a fifth NYU co-ed try to stay on a mechanical bull.  Add that place to the list of what should be scrubbed from history.  (By the by: there, no one knew who the hell Jerry Koosman was, either.  Pay your taxes, kids.)
All right, enough.  Carlos.

beltran in the field.jpgbeltran throwing.jpg

beltran to the dugout.jpg
Watching major league players in rehab stints is relatively new to me.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I watched Angel Pagan play last year, but then I considered him a bench player, and quite young.  He’s still grade-A bench player material, and still quite young.  Beltran took it easy.  I didn’t see him sprint, really.  He jogged carefully to the dugout; he jogged carefully to the outfield.  Best thing he did during the game was move a runner over in the first.
beltran hits.jpg
That’s him running out from the box, stage right.  Beltran went 0-for-3 and the Cyclones lost, 8-2, victims of a seven-run seventh and a pre-game collective reading of Dr. Seuss’s Go, Dog. Go! 
I don’t know; that kind of thing would unman me prior to playing an adrenaline-fueled game.
keyspan board.jpg
Those with the means to take in a Cyclones game during their playoff run should do so; it’s a fun park and the team is not half-bad.  I’m slammed with work and the boys out in Flushing, myself, but now that I know they’ve done away with the nutso sound effects following every visitor gaffe (SPROING!!! CLUNK!!!), I no longer have to worry about lapsing into a decibel-heavy Thompson-esque hallucination.  They DID keep the hot dog race.
are those beans.jpg
Brought a colleague from work to the game, who wasn’t paying attention until roughly this moment, and asked, honestly: “Are those supposed to be beans?”
I’d like to point out the Lowell Spinners third baseman, Michael Almanzar, whose expression you can’t see but who must’ve had money on the gig, as his attention is obviously directed at the hot dog runners.  Ketchup was sucking hind Relish until a beat before the end, when somehow it found a burst of speed and took the race.  Fix.
beltran swings.jpg
Word is Beltran will be back for the game on Tuesday against the Marlins.  Same word has John Maine in action on Sunday in Philadelphia.  Roger Rubin (any relation to Adam?) reports Gary Sheffield and Carlos Delgado are probably done for the year.
beltran about to swing.jpg
I’m most concerned about Beltran.  It was fun to have Sheffield while it lasted; it’s sad to think I’ll most likely never see Carlos Delgado in a Mets uniform again.  
Maine is out to sea.  I’ve no idea what to make of shoulder pain, except that I imagine it hurts worse when trying to throw a ball at ninety miles an hour.  It hurt
s when I sleep on mine for nine hours.
Perhaps it’s not about the machismo, this business of Beltran coming back for increasingly irrelevant games in September.  What the press has reported him saying–he’s a baseball player; he has to play because he knows nothing else–may come closer to it.
I wonder if it’s about needing to get that sense of anticipation back, that instinct that doubtless takes over when the pitch is thrown and a millisecond of fear gives way to more milliseconds of action.  That’s what I always considered to be at the core of getting one’s “timing” back.  To an extent, perhaps all that is the same as the reason given: he’s a baseball player.  He has to play if he can play.  The alternative–NOT playing–can be counted on to extend that millisecond of fear.  It must worry a man like hell to have such a livelihood taken away.
So very well, Mr. Beltran.  You want to play baseball? I’ll keep my mouth shut and hope for the best.  Produce, though, man: stand tall in the batter’s box and swing at pitches you can hit.  Do NOT challenge that bone bruise for supremacy; it knows no logic, it seems, and in Citi Field, there be some damned dragons.
**
lounging.jpg
A grab-bag of notes (that image is the view I had from The Frying Pan on Friday; the end of baseball season means new shoes that I don’t have to worry about getting shelled, and I’m excited for that because these are starting to hurt like a mother):
  • David Wright ditched the Rawlings S100. He said it was an uncomfortable fit.  While some may ream him for this, I’m willing to take that at face value.  I watched the guy take hacks with it and it looked like it was sliding every which way.  
The helmet is supposed to make things safer for him; his protective gear rattling around on his melon doesn’t achieve that goal.
No excuse for getting the kinks worked out during the off-season, though.  I expect to see it and laugh all over again during Spring Training.
I miss the ’80s.  If Keith Hernandez had determined the better part of valor was to wear that helmet, and he got razzed hard for it, he’d’ve probably flipped some guys off.  I don’t see David doing that, nice guy that he is.
  • Greg Prince of Faith And Fear In Flushing wrote about the lack of Mets coverage in The New York Times.  His piece mentions Sunday’s paper, in a way that’s almost Fred Exley-esque.  But Mr. Prince, if you’re reading this: they’ve been quite late in posting material to the website, and this has been the case since at least last week.  Usually game recaps post within two hours of a victory.  All last week, they were coming in late morning/early afternoon-ish.  I would leave a comment on your site, but my browsers are wonkifying your comments module.  I would send you an email, but I’m afraid of what else lurks in that inbox.  My BlackBerry’s been blinking at me for days.
  • Speaking of the Faith And Fear folks: there’s another Amazin’ Tuesday event being held on September 15th at the Two Boots on Grand Street in Manhattan.  Though it’s my birthday and I’m winless at Mets events outside Flushing and my own living room and favorite bars, I’ve decided the Fates owe me one, so I will be there.  Jon Springer of Mets By The Numbers (see right blogroll for a link to his site) spilled the beans about who’s going to be there, and confirmation by Mr. Prince has only whetted my appetite.  I think it’s going to be a really fun night run by some quite engaging, and level-headed writers.  Plan to be there, if at all possible.  You are not obliged to say hello to me, or join me for post-game birthday karaoke.
  • Daniel Murphy was a double short of the cycle yesterday against the Cubs (W; 4-2).  He’s got nine home runs this season (eight + one: Subway sign-aided).  He’s committed, focused, and not a horrible embarrassment on the field.  If the Mets are destined to wander in the wilderness for a couple more years, and he maintains a level of competence, there’s no earthly reason to ship the man off.  Keep him within the organization.  At present, he’s at least deserving of a nickname more imaginative than Murph, and what we shout at him from the upper deck would be wildly inappropriate for consistent use.
  • I finished watching the first season of Commander In Chief.  Glad they changed the opening theme, which was bordering on plagiarism.  Shocked at the overuse of firing as plot device.  If the Mackenzie Allen Administration were a ball club, there’d be no NOBs on their uniforms.
  • There are some old posts that need some tweaking.  Less than a handful.  If you’ve found this blog and have been working to catch up, and notice an error, my bad.  They’ll be fixed Thursday night.
  • There’s this continued business of a Mets Hall Of Fame been discussed in and around the intertubes.  I had an idea from way back that, if time permits this week, I will attempt to explain cogently.  I’d planned to write about it in the off-season, but I feel inspired.
  • Nathan’s is delicious.  Mmm… nitrates.
nathan's.jpg
I will be at the park tomorrow for Mets-Marlins.  This game will be a Tim Redding joint, featuring more likely than not the return of Carlos Beltran, and hopefully the purchase of my very own Section Five Twenty-Eight T-shirt, which will be much appreciated, as I never washed my jersey after that last monsoon, and it reeks of urban rain and desperation.
Hope your Labor Day was fun and safe.  Time to kick it into gear for the stretch run.  Yes… the stretch run.
Let’s go Mets!
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No, Really: You CANNOT Be Serious

By omniality
September 4, 2009 //
0

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 //
0

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 //
0

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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