why we boo

I was at home during the Brian Lerher Show on Wednesday morning. it was, as the show pretty much always is, a generally interesting two hours, but the last segment was of particular interest to me-- Brian hosted a call-in on when and why people boo at ballgames. he was prompted to do this segment by the treatment of David Wright by the fans at Shea the previous Sunday, when the Mets lost to the Braves. David has struggled to get going this spring, after struggling to stay going at the end of last season. I hadn't seen the game (I was teaching at the time), and was surprised to be hearing from Brian Lerher three days after the fact that it had happened, particularly since I'd read coverage of the game and it hadn't been mentioned.

The last Met I remember booing was Doug Sisk (though my family should correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly). I've actually had conversations with a couple of people about how I don't get folks who boo their own team-- their quickness to boo their players is one of my big issues with Yankee fans. I also rarely boo the opposing players-- sure, I booed Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies both times I saw him in the opening series at Shea for his comments about his team being the one to beat in the NL East (bet he's sorry he said that now, huh?), and I routinely join in the jeering of Lawrence "Chipper" Jones-- but I make fun of the fans who boo the opposing lineup just for being announced, or the opposing team for holding Jose Reyes on base. my reaction to those kinds of boos is simple-- it's dumb to boo people for behaving like major league ballplayers, no matter who they play for.

It was an interesting group of people that were on the air to discuss why they boo at ballgames. the first caller was from Philadelphia, who talked about booing in Philly as a fan tradition, a form of tough love. He talked about Phillies fans having high expectations for their team, and when they don't live up the fans feel the only proper reaction is to express their displeasure through boos. Just as I was thinking "yeah, that's what's wrong with Philly...," Brian noted that the negative reinforcement obviously wasn't working. unsurprisingly, the Phillies fan had no real response to that-- because even the dimmest of baseball fans must know somewhere in the deep recesses of their psyche that public negative reinforcement is rarely motivational, least of all for professional athletes. this caller did reinforce my negative opinion of Phillies fans, though, started this season by the Phillies fan who continually left his passed out girlfriend in the stands at Shea earlier in the season.

a couple of callers later, a Cubs fan was on the air expressing exactly the dismay I felt at the Phillies fan's attitude toward his hometown club. she pointed out that the Cubbies have gone longer than almost anyone has been alive without a world championship, and yet Cubs fans never boo their players, and are among the most loyal of fans in MLB. at this point, Brian offered an explanation for the difference (using the Yankees and their fans as a primary example); he pointed out that in NYC, fans tend to see themselves as consumers, and as such feel a right to boo players who don't live up to their expectations-- because unsatisfied consumers have a right to complain. in the midwest, he went on, folks tend to see their hometown teams as an extension of themselves, and that as such they don't boo their own team because to do so would feel like booing themselves.

I'm not sure if I identify so much more with the midwestern approach because of my midwestern roots or because I actually think that the majority of Mets fans feel as most Cubs fans do about their team-- and that in New York, anyway, it's only those fans who have never really gotten used to losing (Yankee fans, I'm looking at you) that feel a general need to express their displeasure with losing at the ballpark.

in the end, the show made me look forward to a game with my dad, and his unique style of responding to the inane cheers of slightly misguided fans. when folks start yelling really stupid stuff, my dad starts yelling the biggest non-sequitors he can think of, usually with some kind of food reference. I'm looking forward to a Sunday afternoon, hot dog in hand, hearing my dad's booming voice saying "Oysters! Rockefeller!" or "Chicken! Marbella!"

where have all the hitters gone?

Game 24: Marlins 9, Mets 6
15-9 for the season

I know that seems an odd title for a game in which the Mets scored 6 runs, but they're just not hitting as they were just a week ago. Also, El Duque is on the DL. So is Jose Valentin.

This was not my favorite day in April.

More to come.

multi-tasking

I'm trying to edit something for LHJ and catch up on recent game day posts while "watching" the game on ESPN Gameday and proctoring an LSAT. one thing's for sure-- it's hard to form extensive thoughts when one is obsessively clicking on a window to see if the Mets can come back from a bad first start by Chan Ho Park.

A friend has been posting her scorecards just by taking pictures of them, which is yet another way in which she's much smarter than I am-- I haven't been posting my scorecards, because I haven't been able to get to a scanner. I tried taking pictures of the one that's in my car, and it worked quite well-- I'll upload those pictures and others of scorecards when I get home. in the meantime, check out her scorecards-- or just check out her blog for proof that I have friendly feelings for at least some Yanks fans.

Update: the pictures of my scorecard from Opening Day at Shea are up! Thanks for the tip, F21Y!

Knock 'em out with one shot

Game 23: Mets 1, Nationals 0
15-8 for the season

...for the rest of the night. Carlos Beltran can claim the line tonight, his solo homer having been one of only three hits for the Mets this afternoon in Washington, and the only that scored a run. the Nationals had six hits, but they weren't able to score against the Mets pitching staff today.

it was another pitchers battle for John Maine, who continues to pitch incredibly well. he went up to 4-0 tonight, and brought his ERA down to 1.35 with this start. he gave up only three hits and struck out eight in seven innings, and then Aaron Heilman, Scott Schoeneweis and Billy Wagner came in and gave up three hits between them to end the game with a shutout.

one could argue that the bullpen owed one to the fielders, and perhaps that's true, but for the last five games or so the Mets are not having good at-bats, much less hitting (unless the Met in question is Carlos Beltran). that's an issue that needs to be addressed, but in the end, this was a sweet win.

notably, Willie Randolph did not walk the starting lineup card out to the meeting at home base today, presumably because the very poor-sighted Tony Randazzo was calling the balls and strikes today.

extra innings are our friends

Game 22: Mets 6, Nationals 2 (12 innings)
14-8 for the season

this one started out being all about the first base umpire, which is never a good thing.

sometimes I wonder, in a game like this-- if you're Willie Randolph, are you just happy with the team for pulling it out in the face of the clearly bullshit calls (all you had to do was watch Willie's lips to see that-- again, no real facility with lipreading necessary), or are you annoyed with them for having crap at-bats and letting it go to the 9th and then the 12th without hitting?

More to come.

Half Full vs. Half Empty

Game 21: Mets 3, Nationals 4
13-8 for the season

if you're a glass half-full kind of person, you might focus on Oliver Perez's second really solid start in a row. he had 9 strikeouts and not a single walk in seven innings, ultimately throwing 120 pitches, much further than starting pitchers are asked to go in the majors these days. I'm mulling a post about how pitching has changed, but it's not fully formed yet, so in the interim I will just say that it was a fun throwback to see a pitcher allowed to go so far into his pitch count to gain every possible chance of a win. from a glass half-full perspective, you might also note that Alou went 3-for-4, LoDuca had a great sac fly in there, and Wright and Beltran both hit (if not at the most opportune times).

however, if that glass is looking half-empty to you, it might be impossible to get past the part where the Mets stranded 9 baserunners over the course of the game, never scored more than one run on any hit, missed chances to score guys from third base at least twice, and ultimately lost by a single run not because the pitching was bad but because the offense didn't produce.

my dad asked me a couple of weeks ago what worries me most about the team, and this is it-- the stranding of batters on base. championship teams don't do that very often. here's hoping this is merely an early-season blip.

ouch.

Game 20: Rockies 11, Mets 5
13-7 for the season

I had tickets to this afternoon game at Shea, but I wasn't able to go. happily, I was able to sell them, so I didn't lose the $10 I'd spent. in the end, I'm not so sad I wasn't there for two reasons: 1, it was school group day, and I'm not sure I would have been able to hack the upper deck with nothing but 10-year-olds around me. 2, the Mets played like they were the Mets of five to seven years ago-- mostly pathetic in offense, defense, and pitching.

I have four more things to say about this game:
1) Mike Pelfrey needs to go back to the minors. He's just not up to speed.
2) Shawn Green scored the first three Mets runs in the 6th on a triple, and Endy Chavez scored two more runs with a single in the 9th. I love both of them for different reasons, and though it sucked to watch the team play so poorly, it was lovely to see both of them shine for a little while, and to have them be the guys who kept the Mets from going scoreless against the freaking Rockies.
3) The uniforms the team wore today are hands down my favorite. I hate the black cap/blue brim look.
4) I wanted to go to all of the mid-week afternoon games, and I missed the second one. I'm kind of disappointed, but what can you do? I've seen or heard live on the radio all or part of all but three games so far. I'm not doing so badly with keeping up.

ok, and one more thing-- though I really try not to delve too deeply into belief in these kinds of "streaks," I wasn't there to see them lose, and I'm not entirely sorry about that.

just... wow.

Game 19: Rockies 1, Mets 2
13-6 for the season

I'll post about this incredible game when I'm able to say more about it than "OMIGOD!!"

how about that kid?

Game 18: Rockies 1, Mets 6
12-6 for the season

John Maine has pitched beautifully this year, and this outing, while not as dramatic as the last was just as impressive.

More to come.

my dubious streak continues

Game 17: Braves 9, Mets 6
12-5 for the season

the best I can say about this game is that the Mets continue to lose when I don't watch the game. I was teaching through tonight's game, and so was only upset in retrospect by the blowing of the 3-run lead that the bullpen pulled off in this game.

one always needs to look on the bright side: aside from the extraordinary hitting that ARod is doing for the Yanks right now, they were just swept by the Red Sox and continue to struggle so mightily from pitching trouble that even ARod finally hitting like he's always been able to hit isn't saving them.

Happy Anniversary

to Julio Franco, who made his major league debut with the Phillies 25 years ago today. David Wright wasn't even born yet when Julio started playing major league baseball.


Julio is LHJ's favorite Met, whom he affectionately refers to as "Julius." And you have to respect the guy for having no idea that today was his MLB anniversary until someone from SNY asked him about it!

perspectives

I'd bought $9 seats upstairs for Saturday's game.



this is Carlos Beltran, digitally magnified as far as my camera will go, from the area SJ and I sat in two weeks ago, and where our tickets were for Saturday.

turns out LHJ had run into the ex-cheif at the firehouse, and he'd offered his season tickets on field level, a few rows back of the Mets dugout. this is David Wright batting as we saw him from those seats, with just 3x optical zoom.

the awesome seats and awesome sun and awesome game made us very happy.

a perfect day at Shea

Game 16: Braves 2, Mets 7
11-5 for the season

a glorious day was had by all at Shea on Saturday-- unless you play or root for the Atlanta Braves. but even those folks should have been able to appreciate the first beautiful day of the year at the ballpark; it was sunny, warm, and in all ways a perfect day for a ballgame.

I bought tickets in the cheap seats for the game, but LHJ went to the firehouse before I got up in the morning and returned with a friend's season ticket seats for the game. The seats are 11 rows back of the Mets dugout on Field Level, and watching the game from that perspective is always a thrill-- even upstairs in the ballpark, it's easy to forget that those are real live people playing the game, and they all look so very human from just a few feet away.





Jose Reyes leads off first at the top of the 2nd inning. He stole second base shortly after I snapped this shot.

Moises Alou has a weird stance-- his knees both lean in, bowl-leg-like. I won't criticize, though-- he's hit quite well from that stance so far this season.

Mr. Met came to do a between-inning spot for 1-800-Flowers just two rows back of us.

I'm not sure why Mr. Met was playing peek-a-boo with that guy, though.

Oliver Perez winds up.

this girl, sitting just two rows in front of us, held up her glove at every pitch. hope springs eternal, especially with those still young enough to wear a pink glove.

Willie Randolph keeps a close watch on the game.

I think I'm the only white girl in New York who thinks Jose Reyes is more attractive than David Wright. But how can you resist that kind of tallent combined with that smile?? Wright never smiles on the field.

the Big Apple out of the hat after Ramon Castro's homer in the 5th. Castro won our immediate love and respect by having the Imperial March (Darth Veder's theme) from Star Wars as his batting music.

Perez jumps over the baseline when he's leaving the field after every inning. This is his jump, taken to thundering applause when he left the game in the 7th. I was happy for the way Ollie recovered from his (terrible) last start, and that the fans were willing to forgive him that game as long as he came back and pitched like we know he's capable of pitching. He did, and got a fantastic reaction from the crowd to his performance.

It's such a treat to see Howard Johnson back in a Mets uniform, coaching 1st base. He tries to pretend that people aren't cheering for him as he walks back to the dugout, but with the number and volume of the "HoJo! HoJo!" chants, I can't imagine that he misses the love he's getting.

I love discovering new things in the ballpark, like this lame-duck sign.

simple logic

Game 15: Braves 7, Mets 3
10-5 for the season

It actually seems rather straightforward, like every if X, then Y statement: so far, if I don't watch the game, then the Mets lose. or, in FL notation:
Didn't Watch the Game --> Mets Lost
and, it's contrapositive, Mets Won --> Watched the game

Happily, this seems to hold true whether I watch the game live, on DVR, on TV or in the park. Note that my watching the game does not guarantee that the Mets will win. I've seen two of the losses, so the converse statement (Mets Lost--> Didn't Watch the Game) does not hold true. Interesting It'll be just my logic geek kind of fun to see how long this streak lasts.

A few other true statements for the season so far, from someone who's obviously spent too much time with the LSAT in recent years:

Ask JAF for the final score of the Mets game --> Mets lost
Attend game at Shea --> Mets win
Warm Weather --> Mets play better

I didn't watch this game, and the Mets lost. Nothing more to say about it than that.

(edited because upon re-reading, I realized my logic was wrong! very embarrassed...)

a couple of met(s)a thoughts

1. Why has the online voting on the All Star game begun 19 days into the season? I realize that the All-Star game actually has something important riding on it now that the absolutely ridiculous rule that the winning league in the All Star game gets home-field advantage in the World Series is in effect, but it still seems patently silly to open up voting for the best in the leagues when no team has yet played even a quarter of the games they'll play before the All Star break. It's simply too early to be talking about All Stars-- Carlos Delgado hasn't started hitting yet.

2. I'm enjoying this focus on games against our own division in the early part of the season, particularly for the opportunity we've had to show Mr. Rollins and the rest of his teammates in Philadelphia quite a bit about the real team to beat in the NL East. So far, we've played 14 games, all but the first three against the NL East (and let's not forget that those first three were a sweep we took from the '06 World Champions). After the series with Atlanta, the Mets have 3 against Colorado at home, but then only NL East teams again until May 3, which will be the team's 27th game of the season. So only 6 of the first 26 (3 against St. Louis, 3 against the Rockies) aren't in the NL East.

3. Given that the Mets are going back to NY to face Atlanta in first place with the best record in baseball, I'm enjoying just thinking about the various psychological impacts my team's opening performance may or may not have had on their opponents in their division, and have high hopes for their performance this weekend against our perennial nemesis in the division. But I'm also anxious to see the Mets play against the teams doing well in the rest of the league-- Los Angeles and Arizona in the NL West, and of course the Yankees back at home. We'll get to see that match up in May; fingers crossed we'll leave no opportunities for walk-off homers from A-Rod.

a little embarassing... for them.

Game 14: Mets 11, Marlins 3
10-4 for the season

one almost feels bad for the Marlins after this short series-- they were outscored 20-5 in just two games. I'm glad for the Mets that being in the warm weather worked out so well for them, and almost feel badly that they have to come back to 60-70 degree weather in NY over the next three days.

El Duque had 10 strikeouts in 7 innings pitched, and allowed only 2 hits in that time, both in the first innings. I've said it before, and will say it again as many times as events allow-- watching good pitching is one of the true pleasures in life. Thank goodness for DVR!

I listened to a lot of tonight's game on the radio (don't ask), and remembered how much I enjoy that-- you get so much better color from the radio than you ever do from TV, because the radio can't do re-plays and can't let the pictures speak for them. If you watch a game on DVR after having listened to a lot of it on the radio (not that you'd have any reason to do that... only crazy people do that, of course), you might really notice how much more the radio announcers discuss random stuff than the TV commentators do. For instance, the guys on FAN tonight discussed Jose Valentin's winter league team in Puerto Rico-- the one he owns and plays for a good lot of the time. You get some color on TV, and good color at that-- after all, it's Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez and I love them in a way that is adolescent in it's fervor. But you just hear more about everything on the radio than you do on TV.

I'm really looking forward to the series with Atlanta over the weekend, particularly the 70 degree and sunny weather we're going to have at the ballpark on Saturday!

I love SNY, part 3

as part of the broadcast in the third and fourth time through the lineup, SNY shows each batter's box score in hand-scoring notation as part of their lower-third* when they come up to bat. I love it-- they obviously score a little differently than the Greenberg way, but it's charming none the less. maybe it will inspire more people to score games.

speaking of graphics, the head shots they were using on DiamondVision in Miami for the Mets had a background of Times Square-- with a very clear head and upper body of Borat in the right side of the image, about half the size of the player (who was displayed on the left side of the image). Keith and Gary were vocally annoyed by this, mentioning it as inappropriate a couple of times through the broadcast. tonight, Borat was gone from the display image. go, announcer power.

in the bottom of the 7th in tonight's game against the Marlins, El Duque threw a pitch that everyone except the umpire thought was a strike. though he came right back with a gorgeous called strike three, upon reviewing the video twice, Gary Cohen said, almost under his breath but in the most certain of tones, "that's a strike."

*thanks to Hertzy for the reference.

Warm weather, hot bats

Game 13: Mets 9, Marlins 2
9-4 for the season

It was 80 degrees in Miami last night, and it was obvious that the Mets were pleased to be playing in more comfortable weather from the get go-- they scored 4 runs in the first inning off of a pitcher who had previously had their number game after game, and just kept on going from there. The only guy who didn't have a great night was LoDuca, and I was honestly surprised to see him in the lineup all night-- what with the hand injury in Philly, why not give him the night off, at least after the fourth or fifth inning when the Mets were well up on the Marlins?

While the offense was obviously having a good night, the defense was really the story-- John Maine, keeping the Marlins to no hits through 7 innings, Jose Valentin turning perfect double plays (the team now has 23 double plays on the season!), and Heilman's 4-pitch bottom of the 9th.

The nice thing about playing in Miami is that you get a lot of New Yorkers-- I could clearly hear the "Lets Go Mets!" chants at many times through the game.

I'm teaching tonight, but will hopefully catch the last innings of the game on my drive home.

Weather, part 2

the Mets are in Miami tonight and tomorrow, which bodes well-- it's 80 degrees and slightly humid down there, optimal playing conditions for a primarily Latin and Southern team.

even better from my perspective is the forecast for the Atlanta series in Flushing, Friday through Sunday. it's going to be at least partly sunny and in the mid-to-high 60's through the whole stretch, and the nicest day of the three looks to be Saturday, the day that LHJ and I are going to the game.

the best weather news for the team is that when they leave NY for a road trip starting in D.C., it'll feel like 70 there. I can't wait to see the team play when they're not having to work through the abundant difficulties that come along with playing in cold, dry weather. we'll all just try to ignore the part where it's going to be in the 50's and rainy again in Flushing when they come back to play Florida at Shea.

$*&%^ DVR!!

Game 12: Mets 8, Phillies 1
8-4 for the season

oh, I'm so annoyed-- the recording of the game cut out after 2.5 hours, in the bottom of the 6th. the Mets were up 4-1, and I can't even describe the 30 seconds of tension in my body as I called up mets.com to see if we kept the lead. my dad has been known to turn off a ballgame at a certain point, claiming that "if they blow it now, I don't want to see it." suffice it to say that I hadn't yet reached that point when my recording of the game ended.

as it turns out, the team doubled it with a run in the 7th and 3 in the 8th. so many days off at the beginning of the season is never good for the guys, but they performed really well tonight. Glavine got his 293rd win (and I was really glad that Willie and Ron let him hit in the 5th, even with 90 pitches already, so he could keep pitching and get the win), Wright continued his hitting streak, and Moises Alou hit his first homer of the year, drove in 3 runs over the course of the game.

the defense continues to impress-- 3 double plays tonight, one each in the first two innings. I'm continually impressed by the way Glavine wins. He's not a power pitcher, is never going to clock amazing heat over the plate, but he just never. gives. up. His second swing through the lineup showed clearly that he was pitching based on how it had gone his first way through-- the Phillies hitters didn't fall for the breaking ball the first time through, so Glavine just served up the fastballs they weren't expecting. the 5th inning was really impressive-- two strikeouts on the #3 and 4 guys in the Phil's lineup (both on the aforementioned fastballs they weren't expecting), getting himself in trouble and then getting out of it again not by overpowering the hitters but just by being smart and wearing them down. watching good pitching is truly one of the great pleasures in life.

I'm a little worried about Paul LoDuca-- he took a foul tip on his throwing hand in the bottom of the 4th and wasn't able to return to the game after he roughed out the rest of the inning. he looked in pain as he kept shaking the hand out in the dugout after the inning, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the cold made it worse than it actually was, and he'll be OK to catch tomorrow night in Florida (where it's-- thank goodness!-- warm and humid). in any case, the x-rays they took of his hand showed nothing scary, so let's hope Paulie's hand is good enough to start tomorrow's game.

is anyone sure of what happened before the game started, when Willie talked to the umpires and Garcia (the starting pitcher for the Phillies) was made to go into the dugout and replace his red glove with a black one? as Ron Darling explained the new pitcher's glove rule, it's allowed to be any color other than white as long as it's not "distracting" for the hitters.

I've now changed my DVR to record the show following the ballgames on SNY-- hopefully that'll cover enough time to get the whole game.

stopover in Philly

thanks to the unnamed storm that seems finally to have blown off the east coast, the Mets have just one game in Philly tonight before moving on to Florida.

I'm doing an experiment right now-- I'm watching the game on DVR with no idea of how it turned out. it would be as easy as directing my browser to mets.com or watching the 11 o'clock news to find out who won, but isn't it more fun this way?

I hope so.

thoughts and prayers

I didn't intend to talk about the massacre at Virginia Tech on this blog, but then I turned on my DVR to watch tonight's game and found that David Wright's little brother is a student at VT, and the Nationals all wore VT hats tonight, which gives me an opening.

I worked for campus security in college, and I'm absolutely certain that there is nothing the security staff of my little school would have been able to do to shut down the campus should something similar have occurred there, and so I have a hard time faulting the school for not preventing the second spree. However, I have no problem faulting a society that makes it so easy for a disturbed young man to obtain an automatic firearm. Could someone have done something to keep this tragedy from happening? I don't know, once the guy had a gun. But without a gun, one thing is sure-- he would not have been able to do such damage in such a short period of time.

David spoke eloquently about his fear in the minutes between when he heard about the shootings and when he was able to reach his mother and heard that she had already spoken to his brother, who was safe. I admit that my thoughts have turned many times today to my sister, going off to college in just a little more than a year, and how awful it would be to spend even five minutes not knowing whether your sibling had been hurt or worse in such a horrible way. The very thought of losing my baby sister so tragically is paralyzing. I can only imagine what the families of the victims are going through.

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has been touched by this madness, and at the same time I cannot forget that this kind of carnage happens every day in Iraq.

rain, rain, go away

come again another day
all the Mets want to play!

as expected, the game in Philly was rained out tonight, though it's no longer raining down in Pennsylvania. one assumes that the field was flooded or something, but this kind of extended break is never good for the ballclub.

fingers crossed that they'll play tomorrow...

what the heck was that?!

Game 11: Nationals 6, Mets 2
7-4 for the season

I have little to say about this performance, other than I have trouble seeing El Duque actually going after the opposing pitcher like that. He's a professional, the ball got away from him... because if he'd wanted to hit the guy, he could have done it in a much less obvious way.

as for the rest of the game, I'm glad I was sitting in a darkened theater laughing rather than in front of my TV (or worse, at the park) being frustrated by a crap performance on the field.

today's game has already been postponed, and even tomorrow's in Philly is questionable. here's hoping tonight's class will be canceled, too...

Missing another game

but again for a worthy cause-- tomorrow afternoon while the Mets are playing, I'll be seeing Spamalot with LHJ and SJG as a gift for my birthday from my parents, and then having dinner with all of them. The game will be caught by DVR in case anything I need to see happens, and I think I'm going to follow my cousin M's model of recording the most recently new Baseball Tonight whenever it occurs, because I enjoyed watching it with him and V and the Littlest Mets Fan this afternoon.

Weather

it's going to be cold in Flushing for the foreseeable future. the Monday and Tuesday games in Philadelphia (who ever heard of a two game series?!) stand a decent chance of being rained out. even when the team travels to Miami on Wednesday, they are facing a forecast of thunder storms. Thursday, on the other hand, looks like a perfect day for baseball in Florida, as long as it's not too humid. I hope the guys enjoy the good weather, because it's still going to be unseasonably cold when they come back to New York on Friday for the series against Atlanta. LHJ and I have tickets to the game on Saturday afternoon, and if my calculations are correct and Pelfrey starts in the same position in the rotation he started in today, it'll be Oliver Perez starting on the 21st. The high is predicted to be 51 degrees, which we'll probably experience, since it's an afternoon game.

the cold weather has had a clear negative effect on the play of pretty much everyone who's experienced it so far, but in particular for the Mets in Atlanta and since they've come home to Queens. It'll be interesting to see if the weather has a similar effect on the series between the Braves and the Mets at Shea as it did on their series at Turner Field. Mostly for the sake of the team's happiness, I hope the weather in D.C. is good when they get there after the home series with the Braves and Rockies next week (though the forecast doesn't go that far, the 10-day forecast for the area is promising). even if the forces at work that make our weather so freaking strange these days have not eased up by the time May rolls around, I'm confident the Mets will find warm weather in Arizona at the beginning of the month, and if they're lucky, in San Francisco too.

I sure hope spring comes soon-- baseball season and birthday celebrations are the only things keeping this extended part of winter from being terribly depressing.

Merch

I don't come from a fandom tradition that encourages the wearing of a lot of team merchandise. some of us wear more than others, but my dad has never worn more Mets merch than the shoelaces I gave him when I was 7 or so. I had a Mets hat that I wore for a while (and on my first two trips to Israel), but it seems to have been lost in my last move. since 2005, I've been wearing a Boston Red Sox World Series '04 Champions hat that M picked up for me when he went to Boston to take our cousin J to the Sox's opening day. I do love the consternation the hat brings to the Yankees fans in my life, but it's time to stick to my home team.

I mentioned earlier that I have been looking for a long sleeve shirt in Mets orange that wasn't specifically branded to the Mets, and wasn't having much luck finding such a shirt. I'm still out of luck on that score, but I've done one better. I'd decided before the season started that I wanted a Mets sweatshirt to wear to all of the early season games I planned to attend, and so I asked for one for Hanukkah. LHJ got me this sweatshirt, which I loved:



however, the smallest size this sweatshirt comes in-- a Men's medium-- was about three sizes too big for me. it had to go back.



yesterday, the 2007 Major League Baseball catalog arrived, and I noticed the above sweater-- which comes in women's sizes. I still think it wold be more fun if it were orange (like the Tigers version of this same item), but I'm excited to wear it to the next game I'm going to, on April 21st.

High Quality Stupid

SJ and I sat in the top row of my family's favorite place in the park (if you can't be on field level, of course, which most of us can't most of the time) on Thursday night; the Upper Deck Boxes, right behind home. in the last row of the Upper Reserved section behind us sat an extremely loud, enthusiastic, and as it turned out, drunk couple. the Boyfriend was a Phillies fan, the Girlfriend a Mets fan.

for the first four innings, in between each pitch, they called out their slogans; "Sit him down, Moyer" from him, "Let's go Tommy, sit him down!" from her. they weren't the only reliable screamers in this section-- there was also a guy behind us who, at least three times each inning that Jamie Moyer pitched, yelled "Suck it, Moy-ah!" in his deep Long Island accent. perhaps the most annoying/amusing (and really, it would be hard to distinguish between the two at most points in the evening, though we laughed about it a lot) was the constant repetition of the same harangues over and over, with almost no reduction in enthusiasm as the game wore on. As SJ commented when the woman in front of as mentioned that they might at least say something new, "these are not likely to be the most creative individuals we've ever encountered."

Of course, there was some evolution in their cries as the game progressed; full last names got shortened or nicknamed (Glavine went from Tommy to T to Glav in three innings out of the Girlfriend's mouth) at some point in the top of the 3rd, the Girlfriend started screaming "Tommy, where'se your youth at?" at Glavine. It took all the willpower in my body not to turn around and explain to the Girlfriend that his youth had gone at some point in the 41 years since his birth, and that was perfectly appropriate.

SJ was sure they'd be done with the active screaming by the 4th-- turned out she was half right.




this video is not in any way interesting for its visual content; it's all for the audio of the "Suck it" guy and the Girlfriend.



in the top of the 4th, the Girlfriend suddenly stopped cheering. when the Boyfriend went to the bathroom, SJ turned to see why she'd shut up and found that the Girlfriend had passed out.



this didn't stop the Boyfriend from continuing his constant cheering and jeering. at some point late in the game he started the begging-- "can we just score some runs?! is that too much to ask?!" and the "where's the pitch? where. is. that. pitch?!" you can hear him pleading in the video above, again not visually interesting but taken for the audio. so sad. so drunk.

the Boyfriend left the Girlfriend passed out a couple of times, but when he was in the stands he was engaging in an ever-escalating verbal pissing match with one of the guys in a group of five who happened to be sitting just across the stairs from SJ and me.




eventually, the Girlfriend woke up and got into it with the antagonist in our row. "You're not even a real fan," she screamed. "You're not even wearing a jersey!" The antagonist pulled off his jacket to reveal that he was indeed wearing a jersey, at which point the Girlfriend came down to the boxes and pulled off her sweatshirt, screaming "you don't even know who I'm rocking! I'm rocking the Reyes, I'm a real fan!"

(you may be able to tell from the picture above of the final confrontation that she's actually wearing a Doc Gooden t-shirt, conferring on her a longer-standing fandom than Reyes would, but also a questionable attitude toward substance abuse. this picture was taken right before she fell on her ass.)

the Boyfriend got involved, and then Security got involved, and the Boyfriend wasn't sober enough to know that protesting wasn't going to help, and the last time we saw him he was face first against the wall behind the stands, being handcuffed.

Quotable Darling

I remember interviewing him one time and I asked him, "Randy, what's your philosophy of pitching?" He said, "Throw strikes."

-Ron Darling on Randy St. Clair, pitching manager for the Nationals, 4.13.07

I said brrr, it's cold in here

Game 10: Nationals 2, Mets 3
7-3 for the season

...there must be some freaky weather in the atmosphere. it's cold in New York. so cold that even Willie Randolph, the most professional of all the professionals in the Mets dugout, complained yesterday about how hard it was to play well in such weather. last night, only Carlos Beltran wore the balaclava* that makes the players look just slightly like stick-up artists but keeps their ears and necks warm. tonight, only the white boys in the infield (Wright and LoDuca) went without. all the various kinds of silliness that attends games played in the dry cold weather that Shea saw tonight were present; broken bats, silly errors, perfectly good hits being blown foul by the wind.

we tuned into the game an hour into it, so we missed both of Washington's runs and the Mets were behind when we started watching. the really good thing about this game is that the production came from the exact people that have been struggling to hit, or to hit early, thus far this year. Delgado had an RBI and Wright had two hits. and then LHJ's favorite player, the one he affectionately calls Julius, was the hero of the game, scoring the winning run on a pinch hit in the bottom of the 7th.

he's some kind of talent, that Julio Franco, 48 years old, 30 years in the game, with his first hit of the year an RBI to score Wright and give the Mets the win. it was a fun game to watch, and gratifying to find that the team can win more than just blowouts.

*LHJ knew what this article of protective wear is called. I am duly impressed, as you should be too.

I love SNY, part 2

here are two of the three ads plastered all over the train car I rode in on the way home.

the third (I never got a clear sight line to it) says "Bases loaded. Delgado at bat. Now that's quality programming." I like that it works whether Delgado hits or strikes out in the proposed scenario-- either way, the tension makes it quality programming.

Who's the team to beat, again?

Game 9: Phillies 3, Mets 5
6-3 for the season

I was afraid that the crazy fans behind us (they get their own separate post) would make it impossible to enjoy the game, but despite the many distractions our neighbors for this game provided, the Mets wouldn't let their antics overshadow the performance on the field.

In some sense, it didn't matter how this game turned out-- it was my second game of the season, and of the week, and my first with my sister. I was going to have a good time no matter the outcome. I was concerned that we might get rained out-- it had rained intently all night and into the morning, though apparently it stopped in the Bronx a good three hours before it stopped on Long Island, leaving my sister more optimistic than I when we spoke at 1:30. I offered dinner in Flushing as an alternative to a cold and wet stadium, but SJ insisted that she wanted to go to the game, and I was glad because I felt the same way.




Before both of the games I've gone to this season, Carlos Beltran and David Wright have had a catch in front of the dugout before the game started. I'm sincerely charmed by this habit.




the National Anthem was played by this guy on his saxophone. SJ and I agreed that it was more interesting than your garden variety crooner singing the song.

we were definitely distracted by the outbursts of those around us (not to mention the nicknames-- "Paulie Dukes" for LoDuca, "Sheen" for Shawn Green), but the game was compelling and competed well with the antics around us in the upper deck for our attention. it was of course distressing when Glavine gave up two homers (including one in the first at-bat of the game) to Jimmy Rollins, a villain in New York for his pre-season comment that the Phillies are "the team to beat" in the NL East this season. turns out he was right-- they've been beat, pretty consistently-- as they were tonight, when Glavine found his groove in the 3rd inning and pulled out his 292nd career win.




bottom of the 6th, bases loaded, 2 outs, Carlos Beltran at bat.




he struck out, but it was exciting there for a few minutes. the Mets were already up by a run at that point, but it would have been easier to relax if Beltran had hit and given Joe Smith a 3 or more run lead at the top of the 7th.

it turned out that Smith didn't need the extra help. he pitched well, and though the first guy he faced got a single, he struck out Rowand looking and then got Ruiz to hit into a 4-6-3 double play, the second of 3 double plays the Mets turned in the game. Scott Schoeneweis had an 8th inning reminiscent of Smith's 7th, and though Billy Wagner gave up a double to Ryan Howard and LoDuca let a ball pass that allowed Howard to take 3rd, Wagner ended the game after facing just four batters in the top of the 9th.




Cow Bell Guy, a Shea Stadium institution. Will he be able to afford season tickets to Citi Field?




I'm not the biggest fan of the song played when the Mets win at home-- "Taking Care of Business" feels trite, and isn't even that good a song. But I do love watching them line up and high five in the middle of the field like every Little League team in America when they win.

How to stay warm at Shea when it's 40 degrees and the wind is blowing

first, it's all about the layers.




yeah, that's what it looks like-- leggings, over-the-knee socks, and fuzzy warm socks over them. all of this was covered by my jeans.

bring a blanket, even if it's covered in American flags.

most importantly, have a sister to cuddle with.

also, wear a hat.

One to miss

Game 8: Phillies 5, Mets 2
5-3 for the season

I was teaching tonight, and managed to miss the whole game while doing so. I've got it on DVR, but knowing the outcome makes me less inclined to watch it.

Bah. If you need a game recap, you can always find one on mlb.com.

My sister and I have tickets to tomorrow night's game-- keep your fingers crossed that we don't get rained out.

p.s. The pictures of Opening Day are posted below!

more images of Opening Day

I took very few pictures of the game, but a lot of pictures of the set and setting of Opening Day at Shea.


This is the sign right at the exit from the subway to the bridge to the stadium. I have always loved that rather than being more specific, saying something like "Shea Stadium" or "The New York Mets" or even "Willets Point," the sign simply says what you're going to get if you follow it-- Baseball.

Citi Field is taking shape in the former parking lot. I am not particularly happy about this new stadium, from it's size to it's name, but it's pretty cool to see the progress since last fall.

Mets fans as ants, heading for the entrances to the park.




if you get really thirsty, there's a huge iced coffee over the visitor's bullpen.

you have to respect a guy who goes to the expense of having this jersey made. well, respect or pity, depending on your mood and his behavior.

AH's kick-ass Mets Nikes.

a brief hiatus

I know I owe the pictures and recap of yesterday's home opener, and will have them up by tomorrow evening.

Tonight, however, I'm busy celebrating.

crowd control issues

I noticed as I was leaving the stadium that the density of people on the bridge to the subway seemed thicker than normal. Since I was going to the LIRR, I crossed the street before heading up to the boardwalk that leads to the train tracks and tennis center. Once I got close to the stairs, I saw the problem-- the two staircases on the stadium side of the street were blocked off, forcing everyone who hadn't gone over the bridge to the subway and every LIRR patron to crowd through one staircase.

It was a mob scene reminiscent of the front of the audience at Roseland shows in high school.



I was worried someone would get hurt in the shuffle.

I've been going to Shea for more than two decades, and I've never seen a lineup like that for the bathroom, much less for the train.

beer stained scorecard

as I've recently learned, I do not need a scanner to show you my scorecard from opening day.

silly me.



the Phillie's side was rather straightforward.




the Mets, not so much. But we won, so who cares how messy the scorecard turns out?

if you click on the pictures, you can see even the smallest of my scribblings. you'll also notice that there's handwriting there that isn't my own-- many thanks to BJC for scoring the plays I missed while waiting for the bathroom or for beer.

Opening Day at Shea

Game 7: Phillies 5, Mets 11
5-2 for the season

I wish I were eloquent enough to describe the feeling of walking out the ramp to the seats and seeing the ballfield in front of my for the first time each year. Truthfully, I get a rush every time I go to a game and walk out into the stands-- going from the dark of the concession area to the brilliant light of the field, from the clamor of thousands of fans to the expanse of space ahead-- it's exhilarating every time, but never more so than the first time I do it each year.

We were sitting in the nosebleeds, an area that reeks of true (and sometimes insane) fandom. As much as sitting field level gives an awesome perspective of the players up close, I love sitting upstairs. Those of us up there are not rich, can't routinely buy better seats, but care just about being in the ballpark. The only drawback of our seats is that they were shaded throughout the game, but we were prepared; my layers did me well, and I never shivered.





Opening day was welcome indeed.

it being Opening Day, there was some pomp and circumstance to witness; this is how the field looked right before they announced the starting players.

during the break in the 6th inning, Mr. Met and some teenagers come out to launch t-shirts into the crowd. it's not like there's anything phallic about white stuff launching out of a dark tube. not like that at all.

This dude had Mr. Met glued to his cap.

BJC and I were cold, but having a great time. It's so nice to get to be friends with your friends loved ones. It's a good thing that BJC and I are baseball fans, because of course we'd have nothing at all to talk about if we didn't have that in common.

What is there to say about the game? The Mets clearly understood early on that they were going to have trouble with the Phil's starting pitching, so they tried but mostly waited until they had a crack at the bullpen, at which point they put the game away with a 6-run 8th inning. There's nothing like being a fan in the stadium to witness your team slaughter their opponents, particularly on opening day. My dad pointed out on the opening night of the season (when the Mets played in St. Louis), the best part is that by the 4th inning, you stop thinking about it being the first game of the year and just settle in to watching baseball again. I didn't feel the same way about the April 1 game that he did, but I definitely felt it at Shea yesterday-- after all the extra pomp and circumstance surrounding it being Opening Day, by the 4th inning, it was just great to be watching a ballgame.