You say your favorite team is playing like a ragtag bunch of little leaguers and can't even catch a pop-up?

And your star players are dropping from the active list faster than an intercontinental ballistic missile?

And your pitchers can't pitch and your hitters can't hit and your closer can't even close on the odd occasions you call on him to?

Is THAT what's bothering you, bunkie?

No, I'm not going to strike up a brass band (although clicking that link will do just that), and I'm not going to exhort you to never give up that ship! (although I know you won't, any more than I ever will), but I will suggest that a brief repast from those troubles may be just what you need.

Earlier today, Metsgrrl took me on one- one she took herself the day before. I can't say nearly enough good things about the place that her site always is; the writing, the repartee, and the amazin' photography, home and away- all make it a good place to be even when it's reporting on the Bad and the Ugly and not the Good.

Yesterday, though, Caryn went to the Bronx. You should, too. Not to It, but to her recreation of It.  She tells you, and shows you, everything you need to hear and see about a no-stake day at a ballpark, where the opposition came from Canada and where the final score was so irrelevant that she neither reported it nor even stayed around to witness it.  Instead, she told us about the goofy Jays fans with truly special caps who made her day and confused the hell out of the natives; about her nephew, at his first baseball game at the same age I was when I attended my own, only he will always have awesome photographic memories of it; and about how to keep the faith with a sport when your own particular religion is testing it mightily.

I did get some memories of my own out of the coincidence of this day's opponent being Toronto (more necessity than coincidence for her, since, as she reported, her Yankee ticket source couldn't get Subway, Sox or even Tiger or Royals games for her).  For the past 28 summers, well over half my baseball life, the Blue Jays have been the closest team to me geographically. Over that stretch, they've had very good seasons and not that many bad ones, their post-season prospects cursed more by their league and geography than by any lack of talent. I could very easily have shifted allegiances from orange to white while keeping the blue, just as my affections for the Jets died on virtually my first fall weekend in Western New York.  Yet it never happened, or even came close to happening.

Big Corporate Baseball did its part to keep it from being so. Byzantine broadcast rules deem us parts of the "home" markets of the Mets, Yankees, Indians and Pirates, all 200-400 mile trips from here (70 miles closer and further, respectively, when Rochester was home but the same rules applied). Those same rules prevented Toronto, closer by a mile 1.6 kilometres than any of those four, from having blackout rights here. Worse, they affirmatively prevented Western New York television stations and cable companies from carrying Blue Jay game packages unless an over-air CBC  or CTV station was showing them. So I never got the media connection to back up what might have been a beautiful friendship.

The Jays also had hideous luck with facilities. The Jays' initial home, on the grounds of the CNE, was an old, cold, ill-purposed multi-purpose facility that I never had an inkling of desire to attend in person. The promised solution, unlike the Diamondvision-like Panasonic billboards on the Gardiner, was just slightly behind its time. When Skydome opened in 1989, it was everything the previous generation of multipurposes hadn't been. State of the art graphics, name brand vendors, and of course the functional retractable roof made the Jays the Next Big Thing. Until somebody heard about a much smaller effort to fit an expandable retro stadium into a downtown about 90 miles to the south. The Bisons never made it to the majors- Selig's big dreams for Colorado and South Florida saw to that in 1994- but our HOK-designed home became an inspiration for the Orioles, and then the Rockies, and soon for everyone but the last-ones-into-the-cookie-cutter pool Blue Jays.

In the late summer of 1991, my wife was working in sales, and The Guys at her office won a contest giving them a weekend in a relatively close city of their choice, with tickets to a sporting event thrown in. Spouses were allowed to come. The first choice was Montreal, and the weekend would have been one when the Mets were playing there. But a few weeks before the trip, a 56-ton beam crashed onto a walkway of Olympic Stadium, and the Expos played out the balance of their season on the road. So The Guys voted for Toronto instead. Tickets to the Jays were still a tough transaction, and their testosterone-laced plan was essentially to (1) go to the venue and take their chances with scalpers and (2) check out the Canadian Ballet if it didn't work out.  My then-visibly pregnant spouse was less than thrilled with this plan, so we went and saw Nunsense while The Guys acted their ages hormones for the rest of the night.

I promised to give the Jays one more try the following year. I got on the phone the instant tickets went on sale, and by the time my international call got through, the best I could do was nosebleed seats to a mid-June game against the Tigers. By then, the visible evidence of the pregnancy was on the outside, and we somehow shlepped ourselves, our 5-month-old daughter and a stroller out of the subway (Skydome has no direct stop; Union Station is about as close to it as the Moynihan Post Office is to MSG, and about as hard to navigate to) and up to the highest reaches of the stadium with an air conditioning vent blowing out on us from about three feet behind.

By all recollections, at least Emily had a great time; we remember her cooing and smiling at passengers on the Yonge Street northbound line well past midnight on the way to our stopping-over point. But the game wasn't the same. The fans were reserved, a little too well-behaved. The sight lines were fine, even from that far up, but what you saw was an astroturf field and a symmetrical fence and a bunch of players I knew little about and cared less about. Cinching it was in the middle of the seventh, when I stood up for our moment of communal basebal-lity, and the crowd went into a rousing rendition of....  "OK! Blue Jays! Let's Play Ball!"

Even in the summer of the Worst Team Money Could Buy back on the American side, this offence to my religion was enough to sour me for good.  When I returned to the Lid on the two occasions that I could during interleague play, it was as a Met fan. Even though they've since added "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to the repetoire, it's still neither my team nor my time.  I'll still love them for every time they beat the Yankees, and the two times they beat the Braves; and maybe the next time I need to cleanse my baseball palate, I'll run up to Rogers Centre (as it's now knoown) to see them. But I'll never contract the disease of fandom; I've built up a lifetime immunity.

First reaction to the events of the day: WTF was with those freakin' red caps on the Met unis? If anybody was destined to wear the colors of the Red Hat Society, it was the opposition, seeing how they were rolling out an 80-mph, one-alarm-fireballer who's a hair more than three years younger than I am.

I didn't watch, yea, couldn't watch, except for a few odd moments confirming the reports on my online scoreboard. It's a national holiday, yaknow, and I had chores and back television episodes to catch up on; on the few occasions I flipped to cable six, McCarver's droning anal-ysis was enough to send me back to my other plans.

But why is it that our cranky old righty got drilled in last night's contest, while their even crankier older lefty seemed impervious to our lineup?

If there's one blessing in it all, it's in even lower places than ours- in the Pittsburgh lineup, which kept the Fish in check last night and almost came back to beat them today; and in the National Capital of the Same Name as our Independence Declarer, which kept us tied with our former nemeses for one more day.

I guess I'm not coming to the Dodger series next week. Doubts abound about whether I'll make it to Inaugural/Season at all, if this keeps up.

There were moments, earlier in the week, when I thought of taking the Three Hour Tour and joining the Mets, Pirates, and, likely, very few of their closest friends for the make-up game this afternoon. The weather started getting rough, both here and there; my tiny car would have been tossed. As my cookies would have been, if I'd been there for most of the early going.  So I stayed, and watched, on and off, through delaying and praying and Frankie's ultimate redemption.

Still, if not for the courage of one Ryan Church, the Mets just would have lost.

For a place which has given us nothing but grief for going on nine years now, it's positively delightful to win a series there. Even a one-game series will do if it ends with a W, no matter how much grief we go through to get there.

I felt some learnin' was going on there. I don't know if Beltran was traveling with the team, but his call-out following the first part of this five-week, four-game series was echoing in my ears, and maybe in the rest of the Mets' nervous systems. I saw clutch hitting from even Daniel Murphy. I saw impressive pitching from Pedro Feliciano. I saw the game end on a good play by Alex Cora. None of these are the stars of our future, much less our present, but it was good having them learn from a little adversity (and face it, what better place is there to learn from baseball adversity than Pittsburgh, which hasn't had a winning season since the year my now-at-college daughter was born).

There are downsides, of course- on the field and in the front office. Former Rochesterian Tim Redding is turning out to be less of a diamond in the rough than he is a rough patch on the diamond. Meanwhile, we saw the hardest three quarters of a cycle fly off the bat of another former Rochesterian named Garrett Jones. I could've told Omar a thing or two about Garrett Jones, who toiled behind Morneau on the Minnesota depth chart for years, only putting up great numbers for the Red Wings until going on the free agent market over the winter. He wound up in the Pirate organization, and helped tremendously in almost beating us today. Dude plays first base and the outfield, places where we aren't exactly deep in anything but doo-doo these days. (Was his stellar play today an audition for the Mets? We have 29 days to find out.)

So now it's a three-game series in Philly on the first weekend of July. I had a bad feeling about this during the same weekend last year, where the Mets were also in Philly, that time for a four-game series. In both last year's set and the 1980 edition chronicled in that post from 2008, we went into our Philly series one game under .500, which is actually a game below where we are right now thanks to our valiant comeback just now.

Despite having plans, and tickets, and deep longing to see Shea for the last time and friends for the second and infinity-one-hundredth time, I felt the Mets needed some motivation then, as well, and thus I threatened to call off my trip if they pulled an oh-four at the Bank that previous weekend.

They promptly went out and won the first of those four. Yea, they won all four of those four.

I had no idea I had such power.

So I will turn it around this time. I have no plans whatsoever to be in New York next week. But. If the Mets continue their winning ways, and complete a four-game broom upon the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I will find a way to be there for the Dodger series. It'll likely be the Thursday night game, which would entail either airplanes or a very long drive back That Night, since I'm lecturing to a room full of people on the following Friday morning. But hey. If the Professor can make a radio out of a coconut, I can find a way to pull an all-nighter for my Skipper and his fearless crew.

....we needed that.

Despite our only remaining position-player All-Star coming oh-so-close to a golden sombrero,....

Despite the rest of our of-fense doing nothing but of-fend,....

A singular combination of Start to Green to K pulled us out of a hole, and got us a half-game up on the Cubs (for now) in the all-important moral standings with just under three months to play.

I must also bear some responsibility for the events of the preceding 30 days.

When I came back from my sister's on a trip in May, I was bestowed with the Official 2009 New York Mets Wall Calendar, from her pack-rat friend (Not Nurse) Jackie. All was well until I turned it over at the start of June and found, not our departed Cast-cher and certainly not our inspirational Omir, but rather one B. Schneider, who spent most of June on the schneid along with most of his teammates.

I couldn't wait to turn the page to July, but guess who's there?



Apparently, the curse Endy's once you trade or release the subject.

One down, 30 to go. Thank you, Phillies, for making this all infinitely easier.

Ollie Perez has been tapped to start Friday night's Bisons game, the last home date on or before July 4 and therefore the traditional scheduling for

THE LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW OF THE SEASON.

Considering that the majority of our AAA roster will be in Philly that night, on the whole, I think I'll stay close to our own outbound fireworks.

They always make it interesting.

I'd never heard Kevin call a game before today (is Gary okay?), but if this is what he brings out? Dude. Stick to hangin' with J-Lo and Mark in the box seats, yo.

I spent most of the game comforting a dog who is scared to death of thunderstorms, which we were getting until about 3. Came out in time to see a man on and nobody out bottom eight, and the DLitD going through fourteen pitchers (and about sixteen changes of underwear) before it turned into three men left and everybody out.

That left it to Frankie. Beautiful powerful fullofadjectivesful Frankie to do with his arm what his compadres couldn't do with their bats.

Seemingly six pitches, and boom! goes the dynamite. Bad choice of metaphor, cause it's Pujols up.

Mean strike zone, that guy behind the plate.  Albert walks on ball three (if that) and Ludwick von Bat-thoven comes up.  Similar hiliarity ensues involving the laws of physics and umpirical observations thereof, and now the potential go-ahead run is on.

Leaving the ultimate confrontation (the penultimate one having been about five minutes before) with Him. It. The one known and despised in Met-Cardinal lore more than anyone from 1985. "In the clubhouse," one of the SNY wags noted, "Santana is ripping out another fingernail."

But wait! Maybe the ultimate confrontation still is between K-Rod and Poopholes, because there he is. Out by a mile on the meanest pickoff throw I've seen in ages. Unlike the second base umpire, who apparently didn't see anything.

Then, the only fair crack of the bat of the entire inning. A loud one. A menacing one. But to left field, where we seem to have left plenty of room.

We rose to the level of our competition. Now to sink a little for the next three games.

----

"Things I forgot to ask earlier for 200," Alex: how was Castillo received after we came home last week? I assume the Spaced Invaders will give him all kinds of phony applause starting tomorrow, but I'd like to think he's already achieved genuine general forgiveness by now.

I started this entry (my first ever from an iPhone) even before learning that today was the anniversary of the birth of George Orwell. That makes it all the more remarkable that I've chosen today to consider ending one of the longest of Hates in my entire existence- one predating Nixon, Idi Amin, bad spellers, and even the Yankees:

I am prepared to forgive the Houston Astros.

They were the first team my Mets ever faced with me present for the (de)facing- a 7-0 loss that was burned into my brain for years as an 8-0 loss. They were better than the Mets then, and continued to be that for most of the next 40 years. They were the team that wound up getting Nolan Ryan, and a no-hitter out of him on my future wedding anniversary in 1981. Until this year, they had the newer and cooler ballpark. And when Orwell inspired the evilness of a sequel titled Nineteen Eighty-Six, the Astros were the ones who gave us the biggest scare, and the longest challenge, on the way to the last championship we've ever acquired.

These days, though, I'm inclining to being more forgiving. First, they gave up on Tim Redding, or as he's known in these parts, "Churchville's Tim Redding," the only active major leaguer from Western New York since, well, since I can't remember WHO. We get our share into the NHL (duh) and even the NFL and NBA, but the draft hasn't been very drafty for baseball players from around here. Tim may not be the answer to our prayers, but who'd be YOUR fifth starter otherwise- Mark Sanford? (Given recent events, I'd hate to see his version of the hidden ball trick.)

Of greater significance, though, was the De-stro-ification of one Fernando Nieve. Little did they know- hell, less did WE know- what they were giving up on after giving him fewer than two seasons to come around in the wilds of Enronland. All during his Taj Ma-Hal debut two weekends ago, broadcasters on both sides were wondering if it was a fluke, and if once tape and tales started circulating about him, whether opposing hitters would figure him out.

The answer so far, from the Rays and Cardinals appears to be, "Um, no."

In this year of bad swings and extended player misses, that waiver claim might have been the best thing to happen to this ballclub all year.

So c'mon down, Houston. Be our friend when you visit on the last weekend of the season. Roll over for us and get us into, or keep us in, the post-season, and I promise- all will be forgiven.

Not long ago, in '07 and 8,
There was a baseball team, and they really played great
Till the seasons ended, and their hopes took a dive
And this new year dawned- and now they're barely alive
Could we make them bionic? Do ya think?

And then Omar said,
We have the technology
To surpass the Phillies
With electric anatomy
We can rebuild them, but it won't be free-
We'll do it for 6 billion dollars!

Apologies to Alanis Morrisette for stealing her music, and to a long-lost love of an a capella group named Extempo who did the original riff on the lyrics, but it may be the only salvation for our plainly mortal souls at the moment. 

As much angst as I can muster for the likes of Molina and Pineiro and the drunken lawyer in the dugout, if there's one thing that really pisses me off, it's seeing this in the middle of an in-game recap on Yahoo:

Batting: R. Ankiel .238 1-3 HR (6)

Everytime I see that, or him running down a fly ball, I roll my eyes and say, "You're kidding, right?"

Ankiel was a joke. A Chuck Knoblauch of a belly laugh. He got to the majors as a pitcher and suddenly couldn't get the ball within five feet of home plate. Ha ha ha.

And yet they rebuilt him. They had the technology. He went back to the minors and rematerialized in 2007, with his bat, rather than his arm, doing the talking now.

And the drunken lawyer in the dugout twirls his mustache and sneers, "Who's laughing now? And who've you got left in YOUR outfield?"

Touche.

----

But if the Cardinals could restore the career of a man barely alive, what's to stop us. Cmon. They're in St. Louis, which, other than the world's largest McDonalds (and lacking an arch at that), what have they got on us? We have the finest medical and scientific professionals at our beck and call. Plus, we have a seemingly infinite number of spare parts laying around.  Just think what they could do,.... could do,.... could do,.... ::cue the dry ice and organ::

Leading off, the shortstop and a mean centerfielder, number 157, Carlos Reyes. Returning the enthusiasm we need on defense and the patience and power no longer at the top of our lineup.

Batting cleanup, the first baseman, number 2128, Daniel Delgado. MVP numbers behind him and a long future ahead.

Setting up in the bullpen, number 2213, J.J. Wagner. Enter Sandman, exit that goofy last name nobody could pronounce. Boy will Frankie really be praising God after each save now, mainly because he's gonna be getting a whole lot more of them.

And Mr. Met's getting replaced by a German shepherd with a bionic jaw. That'll cut down on the heckling when those drunken Yankee fans show up...

show up....

...show up? Crap, was I dreaming again?

Just keep Anna Benson away from the Bionic Woman casting. I'd hate to think of what bionic parts the producers would give HER.

I was at my first game at the new ballpark. But the old ballpark hadn't been demolished. Nor was it even in the semi-comatose state I wrote about in February.  No, it was in more like the shape that the other nearby retiree was in as of a week ago, when I chanced to pass It en route to another disastrous Sunday outing:



Its walls, and scoreboard, and even its ads still on display for the non-admiring public to not see.

In my mind I'm going back to Flushing,
Can't I see the infield,
Can't I feel the highlight-reeled....

Greg, Dennis and I were in our cheap outfield seats for a nondescript night game, but I saw the remaining sights, and felt the remaining pull, of going back home, and so I did. Past security guards and construction workers who hadn't quite gotten round to destroying 45 summers of holiness just yet, who'd left at least part of a grandstand, and a still-visible scoreboard, and most importantly a still-bagged infield for me to see,....

and trespass upon.

Hell, I'd made it from the outskirts of the Citi into the innards of the deceased without detection. I was determined to do what I'd never done- not on a Banner Day, or a World Series championship day/night, or a sponsorship opportunity. I was gonna get on that field, and run those bases, and Slide, Charlie Brown, SLIDE! into the Only Home Plate That Matters before the NYPD, or the Wilpon Rent-a-Cops, or whoever was guarding the demolition site, caught up with me and shlepped me off to Rikers.

I was, and I did, and I made it out with barely any notice from the authorities.  I then wandered around the outskirts of the Stadium Formerly Known as Shea, trying to make my way, back to my friends and the reality of the present, yet somehow wound up on the wrong side of the East River, probably closer to the Polo Grounds than to LGA, CitiField somehow looking monstrously distant and yet close enough for a Home Run Ball To Land, Practically In My Hand!, connecting past to present and still tying me to the future when such events might eventually happen, and...

....then reality intervened, my wife left for work, and I realized I'd dreamed the whole thing. I'd been back to New York City, and my ballpark was gone.


I preferred writing about this dream, rather than about the rubber match this afternoon, because unlike my dreams, the Mets' nightmares tend to last for more than an hour, and the real games get interrupted by rain rather than by Freud. I wonder if Freud could pitch better than Parnell. Sometimes a slider is just a slider.

How does that make YOU feel?

It was bad enough having to listen to McCarver and the other Fox-suckers going on about our troubles at first base ever since our gift-with-purchase Carlos went down for the count. But having another Carlos break the tie, after his compadres broke the no-hitter and then the shutout, was just too unbearable to continue with.

Instead, in lieu of Rainout Theater (nevermind that WhatTheFox had already switched to another game), we Netflixed the streaming series premiere of Nurse Jackie. She was one of the talismen of my trip to the Bronx last week, complete with traditional subway graffiti art all over her-



At least today, Santana did much better than he did that day; his teammates, only slightly more so.

Johan's gotta be feeling like some prick doctor grabbed his tit. Again.

No Moon Pies or Dr. Pepper in the house, but hopefully a brownie, a glass of milk, and the suddenly happy prospects of Pelf tomorrow will make it all better.

  
Oven stuffer roasters.

I really didn't plan on this riff when checking the final score from Sickland last night on one of my bihourly rousts from delirium. Yet I saw the line score, duly noted the comeback, and then cringed when I saw that it had been Not Enough Too Soon rather than our far more hits-errical pattern of Too Little Too Late.

I could've Analyzed That, with or without Crystal and DeNiro. I still have a decent For The Birds rant in me about the 10 years I passed in Rochester with Bawlmer as my local team's major league affiliate, where Peter Angelos singlehandedly ruined both the Oriole Way and the longest running major-minor partnership in all of baseball.

Instead I'm writing about chickens. 

I only discovered early this century, when I was running an AOL trivia game with a nationwide (and even slightly international) audience, that Perdue is not a national brand. People in the southwest, for one, made cricket noises when I made a joke about Frank Perdue chasing a chicken down a road with an axe. Yet my memories of the brand are even more local, for it's burned into my brain primarily in the form of two in-jokes which we use to this day. One's from an actual commercial, back when poultryfamilias Frank used to do them.  He compared one of his fine racks of chicken breasts to those of a store-brand, pointing out the defects of Brand X which included extra fat, tips of unplucked feathers, and,.... and,....

"hars."

I must admit, to that day, and indeed to this one, I have never met a hairy chicken. I suppose it can happen during henopause, but thanks to Frank, every time we find follicle evidence of a dog or cat having been someplace they didn't belong, one of us will furrow our brow as Frank did and go, "hmmmm, hars."

----

The other's even older than that, and if you can imagine it, even lamer:

Hi, I'm Frank Perdue.
My chickens are good fer yew.
Eat my chickens as you grow up.
And I guarantee you won't throw up.
I'm really proud of my son Danny;
He stamps "Frank Perdue" on each chicken's fanny.

I can hear the groans in response to that coming all the way from Florida. Somebody else remembers this. Please, Dennis, tell me you do.

We were among the founding (if not foundling) members of a very special troupe of teenage performers from East Meadow High School known as "Have Cast Will Travel." It was the brainchild of a crochety old English teacher named Dr. Gemson, who fancied himself a stand-up comic and director. Several afternoons every semester in our junior and senior years, Doc and a dozen or so of the cast piled into cars (his and those of seniors with blue cards), drove to various nursing homes and senior citizen centers (mostly), and Hey! Put on a Show!  Most of it was lip-synched show tunes; one of the Borrelli sisters (as in the finest Long Island pizza ever, then or even now) did stuff from the Midler/Minelli collection. A nice Jewish boy who played trumpet did an imitation of Louis Armstrong playing "Hello Dolly." (I think we were tasteful enough to avoid blackface.) A bunch of guys from Theater Guild, at least two of whom set off my gaydar before I even knew what that was,  came slumming with us and did other wartime-era songs. A couple of guys played Marx Brothers, while Dennis and I re-enacted comedy skits we'd learned verbatim from Carlin and Robert Klein and the early days of NBC Saturday Night.  We typically ended with a rousing version of Spike Jones's "Cocktails for Two," complete with 17-year-old student Gary Bogdan hiccupping along to the strains of the song's ulp-ulp bridge while pretending (at least I think he was pretending) to be shitfaced out of his mind. (The original of that is here, with the bridge coming up at about 1:30).

Yes, they were risque, but fuck it. The audience couldn't hear a word we were saying anyway.

We killed 'em at the Holly Patterson Home in Uniondale. (Charges may still be pending.) We did the Nassau County version of the borscht belt by hitting senior centers from Westbury to Wantagh, and at least once down on the beach; Long or Lido, I couldn't say. Once a year, they usually let us play to our own parents at either the high school or the East Meadow library. And much as we made fun then of how lame and tacky the bits all were, for many of those senior citizens, it was the only time all year someone paid attention to them who wasn't trying to steal their life savings.

Lest you think I am making this all up: 

I am not.

Thirteen years after I graduated, and ten after Doc retired from the English department, the Times reported that the phenomenon still went on. If anything, it got considerably more professional:

His shows are not slapdash, anything-goes productions. Anything does not go: new volunteers are put through auditions, and Mr. Gemson has the rare extra talent of knowing when, and how, to say no.

The auditions and most of the rehearsals are held in the living room of the sprawling, early-baby-boom house that Bob and Miriam Gemson have shared since television was Milton Berle. Mrs. Gemson, a former teacher who retired last June, stays out of the act.

''When that gang comes in here, my stage is the kitchen,'' she said. ''Iced tea, hot coffee, cookies.'' Hungry. Like real actors.

I never would have passed the audition, but it's comforting to know that I got to be a part of it all back before they had them.

Maybe the Mets should start auditioning players before signing them. Especially to 1.6 million-a-year contracts.

I never set foot In There. It was 11-0 when I got to the scalpers. Fuck, by then the ushers were probably letting Met fans in for free.

----

Other than THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, my play was okay today. I trained to midtown on a Metro North southbound express that now stops at That Place. Everyone was in good spirits on the way there, and the mostly Met contingent I headed north with from 161st-Yankees wasn't all that despondent. On both trips, I saw evidence of mixed marriages- one each with a Mr. and a Mrs. Met- so I guess anything is possible.

----

I still think "Castigate" is the best catchphrase for the other night, but I can't fault the Post for its headline, either:

AMAZIN' DISGRACE

And lest Luis feel alone in his stupidity, consider this tidbit, from the Hudson Valley newspaper columnist who was still working on Friday night's disaster in my over-breakfast copy of this morning's edition:

You can tell Lou Piniella has mellowed, because a few years back, somebody would have had to drag him off of right fielder Milton Bradley for his Little League mistake the other night.

Bradley made a one-out catch and, thinking it represented the third out, threw the ball into the stands. The runner on third tagged up to score and the runner on first went all the way to third.

And the Mets immediately expressed interest in acquiring Bradley.

Barum bum.

----

Helpful hints to anyone attempting a journey like mine to Filthy Lucre Stadium from points north of Croton-Harmon:

(1) Metro North basically copied the LIRR Woodside model in designing the timetable for this new station. You will not get a train leaving anytime soon, and the one that is scheduled to leave will be late.

(2) Hit the potty before leaving the ballpark, since there are no facilities in the ticket-holder-only waiting area above the tracks. Knowing there are terlets on the trains is not much comfort when there's almost a two-hour wait FOR a train. I only momentarily considered the Typical Guy solution to this problem, but then I've read enough News of the Weird/Darwin Award articles on the electrical-arcing properties of "streams" that I didn't dare try it. After games like today, though, I'd strongly advise the MTA to put a porta-potty in, just for the sake of the suicidal Met fans who seem determined to show up there at least one weekend a year.

ETA. And given our latest reports, I have to go back and add my obligatory Youtube for the night:

( I got blisters on me fingers! )

I wish I could've told you "I told you so," but really, I had no idea. Of the two almost-anagramatic pitchers brought to the Bisons this year- Niese and Nieve- I was paying way more attontion to Jonathon- the Orosco omen and all- and so, when I heard that Fernando would be the one hearing the drums today, my best reaction was, "Oh yeah, HIM. He didn't suck."

Yeah. Boy didn't he.  For a guy from Buffalo whose name means "snow," he certainly buried the opposition under his own amazin' version of Lake Effect.

I've yet to see any of it. I was in transit from B-lo to CT for the whole game, which I heard in its entirety from the beginning on WCBS until the FAN, slowly and painfully, came into radio range (why is 660 the worst of the 50,000 watt signals upstate?). That gave me the Schadenfreudian pleasure of hearing Sterling and "Ohmygoodnessgracious" Waldman enduring the worst of punishments you can inflict on a Yankee-honk announcer:

beating them with a ballplayer with a cheap contract.

On THEIR broadcast, natch, until it broke open, there was still time. There were still chances. There was still so-o-o much of the honkery to endure, such as Suzyn telling us all about the birthday cake with Matsui's face in the icing ("How do they DO that?"), but in time, Howie and Whateverhisnameis (but I think I like him) took over almost in lockstep with the Mets doing so.

I got into my niece's town almost as the final pitch from K-Rod wound up, thankfully, in a glove this time. I know, it wasn't a save situation and he could've gotten hurt out there especially on that mudpile of a mound, but from the recaps I saw of Castigate (copyright 2009 Metsgrrl Inc. until she disclaims it), Frankie looked just as upset and guilty as Castillo did, and I think he needed the redemptive moment as much in his own mind as Luis needed in his- and in ours.

Now yeah. THAT I've seen. Note here, from all four broadcasters' versions, the one common thread:


Not a one of them said "and the ballgame should be over."   They know us too well.

----

So does another gentleman, who I last spent late-night time with on the night of our last Game Seven, when my home in Buffalo was buried under nieve abundante and I listened to our last playoff appearance end, with Beltran looking, through a transistor radio at my computer guru's all-night repair shop 70 miles away. That night, as last night, I drove myself home happily to the sounds of, not invierno, but verano.

Esteban Verano, to be precise.

With SNY now on in the house and me not driving much at night anymore, I really don't have much reason to tune in WFAN, even on the odd occasions when I can. So last night's midnight drive from Connecticut to the Hudson was my first extended listen to Steve since that fated night three Octobers back. 

In this era of screaming hosts and clever comedy bits and, yes, even pole-dancing friends of mine from kindergarten, there's infinite comfort, and tradition, and gentlemanliness in this man who's been a FAN fixture since the day it signed on. His references to the Metropolitans, and his banter with long-time/long-time callers, and his droll but spot-on observations make me long for a simpler time. Like 1987, the last season we were referred to as World Champions.

I also loved how he ran a game montage around 10:30, with Howie and DamnWhoIS!ThatGuy calling all the homers and great plays, but he switched to the WCBS feed for the final out, giving me my final moment of the night to twist the knife: Game over! Losing streak over! Yankees lose! The-e-e-e-e-e Yankees LOSE!

Steve only went to 11 this time, and the Tony Whoever guy behind him made me seek out an even crappier signal carrying the tail end of the Red Sox game (thank you Bosox:), but I must remember to check him out more often. Maybe even when there isn't abundant snows. Nieves abundantes. Whatever.

Here are the good things to remember going into this weekend, all presented in that popular new Twitter format:

* For three straight nights, the Mets were the equal, or better, of the world champion Phillies for nine whole innings.

* The starting pitching was, all in all, pretty awesome.

* The closer's a damn good Joe, too.

* Boy we sure can hit. Especially with no runners in scoring position.

* David Wright seems a lot Wrighter than he did on the last homestand.

* At least nobody else got hurt. Shit.

* Lance Broadway pitched a decent game yesterday for the Bisons, who scored more runs for him than they may have in the entire month of April.

* All the angst aside, we fell just a single game behinder, are still in second and within easy reach of the wild-card.

* We have a very short road trip this weekend.

And the best thing about how things are going these days, not that this is a numbered list or anything,....

* The Yankees' last three nights were way, way worse than ours were.

----

"We," actually, have a very long road trip this weekend: my nieces will both be in Connecticut and I will be joining them for Sattidy dinner. I refuse to set foot in Bandbox Bomber Park before making my first trip to the REAL home of New York baseball, but I will, likely, be in The City to see friends on Sunday. If there's a Met-friendly watering hole one would care to recommend, please comment or email and maybe we can connect.

Quick question for the more resident and attentive than I:

When Utley went yard on Santana last night, the fan who caught the homer made an instant decision to Throw It Back.

Was this a totally off-the-reservation moment by a single pissed-off fan, or are the outfield seats turning into Wrigley Bleachers where that is the expected behavior?  Or is it something reserved for the Phillies?

Not that I'm ever likely to be in the sitch myself, but it'd be nice to be paying attention for once.

This blog seems to be degenerating rather quickly into a multiweekly source of Youtubed earworms. Deal; I write about what comes into my head, a lot of it is musical, and a lot of it gets stuck there, and therefore here.

After today's pleasantries at the hands of an even more unfortunate pitching corps than ours, this second selection from John Hiatt's Austin City Limits visit came to mind (the first was replayed here):



We're hardly models of efficiency when it comes to pitching staffs, granted. We've yielded more balks in under two months than some Met decades had produced, and our much-improved bullpen has had more than its share of much-increased ERA's, even when staked to a five-run lead as it was the LAST time Livan pitched. Today, though, he held the Nats in check for most of the day, and the newly constituted firm of Feliciano, Parnell and Rodriguez LLP finished the job.

Now we head home, the still-in-sight holders of first place within reach, before taking the crosstown subway for a few. Wild time in the old town tonight:)

Mister Met placed on 60-day DL, Buster T. Bison called up



Buster T. Bison and his now-disabled Senior Circuit counterpart, in better times for both franchises at the start of this season.

WASHINGTON (RayP)--  After yet another loss of 40-man roster talent at the major league level, the Mets announced today that the 41st and oldest member of their team, Mister Met, would be joining the likes of Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes and J.J. Putz on an extended leave of absence.  General Manager Omar Minaya announced that the Mets had purchased the contract of Buster T. Bison, the longtime mascot of the Mets' newly-aligned AAA affiliate, for an extended major league engagement.

Met's injury apparently occurred when his right googly eye popped out of its socket during Friday night's 3-1 victory over the Washington Nationals. Opthamologists blamed the freak occurrence on his reaction to the repeated bad calls by both Met coaches and on-field umpires which cost the Mets, but ultimately gave them, a number of bizarre runs during the course of the game.

Buster will be replaced at the International League level by his longtime sidekick Chip




leading to an immediate sexual discrimination suit by Buster's newly introduced female sidekick (and apparent wife) Belle the Ballpark Diva



who considers this a clearly sexist determination by upper Met management. Reached for comment, Chip stated that he preferred merely to "drop the subject."

Completely independent of any effort on my part to find Santana songs to go with Santana pitching appearances, this one came on the radio yesterday as I was driving Eleanor's truck back home from its annual inspection.  It's been hopelessly stuck in my head ever since, partly because of its awesome earworminess, but also because I knew I had to tie it in some fashion to the events of Johan's latest appearance:

One day I was on the ground

When I needed a hand then it couldn't be found

After two outings where the Mets somehow managed to score runs for their ace (two outings where he also seemed non-Supernatural enough himself to give up similar amounts), the bats once again went silent. Deathly so. Next came a run- a run!- clawed and scraped from the ashes of Pirates Present, but you knew- you knew!- it wouldn't hold up.  Not at PNC Park of Doom, anyway. At least Johan himself ended the suspense quickly by serving up a gopher the very next half-inning; gophers are pretty much the same as groundhogs, after all, and both Groundhog Day and Groundhog Day take place in Western Pennsylvania.

Welcome to Pittsburgh, boys. Where it's the same thing every day.

----

I was living in style when the walls fell in

And when I played my hand, I looked like a joker

Did you know that PNC doesn't, officially, stand for anything?  The company was formed as a merger between Pittsburgh National Corporation and Provident National Corporation, so the (common) initials of the two companies were used to name the new company. 

It's got me swinging as to what "PNC" means to our team.  I've witnessed it in person, on the idiot box, and in the pages of bloggers here, and it defies explanation. Do these kids just "get up" for us at home in a way that defies them the other 158 games of the year? Are we somehow spooked by the ghosts of Wilver and "Bob" Clemente and the Jimmy Leyland "We Are Cigarette-Smoking Family" era?  Is the park built on some Allegheny Indian graveyard that was raided by Bernie Madoff and funded the Wilpons' profits?  These make about as much sense as any other explanation.

I was just glad that it was over after last night's rainout. Only it's not, come to find out. They're playing a day game there at 12:35. Plenty of time for the nightcap, right?

Wrong. The makeup game is on July 2, our only off-day in a three-plus-week stretch beginning the day after Subway I, continuing through Baltimore and a huuge homestand including Subway II, and finally taking us to Milwaukee, and now Hell for a one-day makeup before three straight in Philly.

Don't choke on your share of the 10,000 extra tickets you'll sell for that one, assholes.

----

Still, since the song's lyrics end optimistically, if eeriely close to our current woes, I'll end with those sentiments, as well:

Too bad it belonged to me

It was the wrong time and not meant to be

It took a long time and I'm new born now

I can see the day that I bleed for

If it's agreed that there's a need

To play the game and to win again

With all the recent Ent-reprising of the original Star Trek series, that quote, from Spock on the occasion of his arranged bride's treachery, was top of mind as our late-inning bullpen, infield and offense all showed their lack of collective soul in blowing a 5-3 lead to a glorified AAA franchise.

The Mets have, or at least had, a virtual tie for their division lead. They have, in varying stages of health, a Cy Young ace, a Gold Glove at every infield position, a potency of swat rarely seen in their history, and a sequence of setup-to-closers that was supposed to save us from nights like tonight.

What they don't have, or at least didn't on this Allegh-ony night, was the desire of the kids from Pittsburgh.

I saw bouncers, and choppers, and bloopers all conspiring bottom eight to eat Putz alive. Would Reyes have fielded any of those middle infield slaps, or turned the DP that otherwise proved Ded-Lee? Probably. But he wasn't out there. Neither was Santos, which really makes me wonder why they insist on playing Schneider so damn much when all Omir does is hit, hit and win.

Then I saw a team in the field a half-inning later who wanted it. They will likely never get "it" in the macro sense of the word, not in a division crowded by Cubs and Cards and other heavy-laden corporate wallets. But just as they swept us three Septembers ago (when all they accomplished was delaying our clinch by a week or so), they looked inspired tonight. That last out, with the left fielder gleefully tossing the final out to his neighbor as we once again came up short when we had no reason to- that told me everything I needed to know about tonight's visitors- who are truly in search of home, but also of heart.

That may be illogical, but it is often true.

Forget finding new sponsors after Citi goes under. What better choice but to go with one of those heavy-hitter personal-injury trial-lawyer firms?

It was bad enough before today that we had a DL with more names on it than our original 25-man roster, and that we couldn't seem to field a team with a single man who'd put on a jock for us before the start of last season (thanks to Greg for that fun fact). As if to rub the infield dirt even more densely into the wound, we wound up losing two more guys today, only the sole source of our offense for six innings and, then, the second coming of Santana on the mound.

Maine's departure, at least, sounds temporary, as another manifestation of the stomach virus. Pagan's, not so much. The G-word had come up from the clubhouse by the time Kevin got to his Jon Stewart interview, and I hate to think who's left to put in center if HE's out for a long stretch. (The only current 40-man roster outfielder on the Bisons is the immortal Cory Sullivan, who is only the sixth most prolific source of offense by that name in downtown Buffalo right now, the previous five being namesakes of a landlocked destroyer about two blocks from the ballpark).

Yet somehow we survived a mid-game rally with an amazing Wright-to-first double play. We overcame Sheffield's almost-homer with a 40-foot roller that started the much-needed 7th-inning insurance plan of our own. We saw bottom seven end with a swinging strikeout that wasn't called such, and we wound up okay from that. We got through Putz being his alternate-pronunciation self for the first time I've seen all year, and made it to the more reliable order of things for the ninth.  We're tied for first, for the moment anyway.  I've taken my daughter on at least four driving lessons and have lived through even THAT. And if things get worse, we can always send our GM and manager to law school, where they'll have a built-in client base at the rate things are going:

Minaya/Manuel, the injury attorneys, call 507-eight-four-nine-nine....