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Come Back Home, Bobby V, All Is Forgiven

Subway Series. Hurrah. Fun time.

I have a feeling fans of both teams are greeting this annual Media Splooge-Fest with the same amount of (non)enthusiasm that Willy Wonka displayed when Augustus Gloop fell in the river of chocolate. ("Help. Police. Murder.") Blame it on whatever you like--injury, malaise, bad weather, allergies, the bossa nova--but neither the Mets nor the Yankees are bringing their A-game on a daily basis. Hell, at this point I'd settle for somewhere between M and Q.

I'll say this for the Yankees, though: they actually look like they might care about the game of baseball. They're just not very good at it right now. And though they just lost 3 out of 4, they did so on the road to the amazingly hot Tampa Bay Rays.

Contrast that with the Mets, who just lost 3 out of 4 at home to a Washington Nationals team that, against every other team in the majors, looks like the Keystone Kops via the Special Olympics. And while dropping these games, the Mets looked as if they'd rather be doing anything else than be paid millions of dollars to play a kids' game.

Witness the series finale, in which they made Jason Bergmann--fresh off the disabled list, owner of an ugly double-digit ERA--look like Walter effin' Johnson. Mike Pelfrey had a surprisingly strong start, giving up just one run in 7+ innings of work--and lost. The Mets put the tying run into scoring position in the eighth and ninth innings, only to see it erased both times on boneheaded running plays that had to be seen to be believed. And even if you'd witnessed these Crimes Against Baseball as they happened, you wouldn't be able to fathom how an adult who plays baseball for a living could do something so profoundly moronic.

And just to make sure that the team would go into their most scrutinized series of the year with the maximum amount of turmoil, Billy Wagner blew up over the ninja-like qualities of some of his teammates. Country Time can always be counted on to rush to the scene of a raging fire just in time to pour gasoline on it.

Bobby Valentine has left the building

To try and distract myself from this state of affairs last night, I watched a documentary I'd DVR'ed: The Zen of Bobby V, wherein three NYU film students followed ex-Mets skipper Bobby Valentine over the 2007 season, his fourth managing the Chiba Lotte Marines in the Japanese major leagues (the NPB). This didn't really help my mood, because the movie made me nostalgic for the late 1990s/early 2000s Mets, teams that were not as talented as the current crop but certainly played with more passion.

If nothing else, the film will give you a glimpse of the fascinating world that is Japanese baseball. The game is totally unlike the one experienced here. Not played here, because the sport itself is more or less the same. They swing the same kind of bats and throw the same kind of balls (though they have an unfortunate addiction to FieldTurf). But the fan experience is much, much different, more like European football than anything else.

The Japanese Baseball Experience means intense, massive audience participation. Fans chant and sing in unison, twirl umbrellas, unleash balloons at the seventh inning stretch, unfurl banners that run the length of an entire seating section, throw confetti to celebrate a big win. The fans are often coordinated by a ringmaster-slash-cheerleader. And because it's Japan, many of these fans are dressed in ridiculous costumes, the kind you usually see on Ninja Warrior contestants who fall in the water on the first obstacle.

In Japan, a winning pitcher will be interviewed on the field over the stadium's PA system immediately after the game so the fans can hear him talk about his victory. There are pep rallies before a game starts, where the players will poke fun at each other and lead the crowd in a singalong of the team's fight song. When a team plays an away game, their fans descend en masse on the opposing team's stadium, take over an entire section, and cheer just as crazily as they would at home (kinda like a less douchey Red Sox Nation).

The most mindblowing clip: with no score in the deciding game 3 of a playoff series, it looks like the Marines will fall behind to the Softbank Hawks when a batter bunts with the bases loaded, and the Marines' catcher throw to first hits the runner in the back. But the umpire decides that the batter ran outside the basepath, blocking the catcher's throw, so he is ruled out and no runs score.

The viewer knows this because the umpire addresses the entire crowd with a microphone hooked up to the PA system. Can you imagine American umpires doing this? No, you can't, because they're all so convinced of their utter infallibility that they would never address the Great Unwashed in the Stands.

Zen has a bit of a Lost in Translation vibe to it--specifically, the surreality of being an ex-pat isolated within a very different culture. But whereas Sophia Coppolla's movie portrayed Bill Murray as having a lonely, isolated life, Zen shows Valentine as constantly swarmed by fans and well-wishers. He can't go anywhere in Japan without being accosted (in a friendly way) by people who love him. Even when climbing up Mount Fuji. Seriously.

In Japan, Valentine is on TV so often, and endorses so many products, that not even he can escape himself. He has his own beer (Bobeer) and his own fast food hamburger. When he enters his apartment building, an advertisement with his gleaming grin greets him as he gets in the elevator. The same ad hangs on the wall just outside the elevator bank on his floor. One of his coaches lives on a street named Valentine Way.

He's beloved in Japan for two reasons. First, he led the Marines to a national championship after they had been a laughingstock for over thirty years. Second, he is a tireless and sincere champion of Japanese baseball. The NPB has lost a huge amount of fans because of its best talent flocking to the U.S. By the end of the film, two of the Marines' best pitchers bolt for the States. Revenue has dwindled. Teams have contracted. Even Valentine concedes that Japanese baseball could go the way of the Negro Leagues.

Yet for some insane reason Bobby Valentine has chosen this time in history to be Japanese baseball's most enthusiastic cheerleader. Three years ago, when the Marines won their title, he publicly challenged the White Sox (who'd just won the World Series) to match up against his team for a true "world championship." In Zen, he pitches an idea to the NPB for more minor league teams, for the purpose of providing more jobs to young athletes. The NPB--which is not known for being the most well-run sports league in the world--rejects the proposal. He proceeds to lambaste their shortsightedness to anyone who will listen.

But at least Japan has given Valentine the respect that he deserves. The man has had some hard luck when it comes to job opportunities. As a hot minor league prospect for the Dodgers in the early 1970s, he was seemingly destined for stardom until a leg injury derailed his career. He managed the Rangers for eight undistinguished years, mostly because the team's front office didn't know the first thing about putting together a baseball club. After being fired from the Texas job, he spent one year in Japan managing the Marines to a respectable record, until clashes with his general manager put him out of a job (despite protests and petitions from fans begging the team to keep him).

Then came the Mets years. In pure W/L terms, Valentine is easily the Mets' most successful manager other than Davey Johnson (Gil Hodges, sadly, didn't live long enough to manage for as long as either of them). And yet, he constantly seemed to be on the verge of getting fired, mostly because he constantly clashed with Professional Hair Helmet/GM Steve Phillips.

Theirs was a A Tale of Two Egos. In Valentine's case, it was because he knew a lot about baseball and was more than happy to tell you so. In Phillips' case, it was because he liked being the focus of attention in the New York Market, and anyone who distracted from that would not be tolerated.

In 1999, a slow start to the year put the Mets 2 games under .500 just before the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium, and Phillips felt the need to put Valentine on notice (sound familiar?). Two losses in the Bronx and suddenly his entire coaching staff was gone--with the obvious subtext being you're next, buddy.

Under Valentine's watch, the Mets managed to make the playoffs two years in a row, with a team that had one bona fide offensive superstar (Mike Piazza), one ace pitcher (Al Leiter), a good defensive infield, and an outfield and bench full of nobodies. When they made the World Series in 2000, their outfield was Timo Perez, Benny Agbayani, and Jay Payton. Sometimes they even fielded Joe McEwing, for chrissakes. Tell me that's a pennant caliber team, and I'll let you know about a bridge in Brooklyn I've got for sale.

And yet, when Phillips went off the deep end in 2002 and signed bust free agents like Jeromy Burnitz and traded for the over-the-hill likes of Mo Vaughn and Roberto Alomar, somehow it became Valentine's fault that he could do nothing with these wastes of space (a lot of space, in Vaughn's case). Plus, in the Great Tabloid Press Tug-of-War, nearly all the NY sportswriters despised Valentine. Sportswriters generally hate managers who believe they know more about baseball than the scribes do--even more so if said managers actually do.

So the newspapers fanned the flames for Bobby V's demise, and the wrong man lost his job. At least at first. Phillips' combination of unearned smugness and idiocy would earn him a pink slip the next year. I can think of no more qualified man to conduct fake press conferences and interview himself on ESPN.

At several points in Zen, you hear Bobby Valentine trying to fire up his team with an inspirational speech (how effective it might be through an interpreter, I can only guess). You hear him talk long and breathlessly about leadership. And you hear him speak about his vision for the future of Japanese baseball, about how the game "can't afford" to lose such a large, prosperous nation that clearly wants to love the sport so much.

In one scene, while biking through a park, Valentine stops to play Wiffle ball with some teenagers, for seemingly no reason, other than just to goof around. But once he's done, he asks the kids what they're doing later that night. For a second, it looks like this is gonna take a really weird direction ("I'm having a little party in my suite tonight..."), but what he really wants is to invite the kids to the Marines game, and wants to leave them tickets at the gate. He is evangelizing for his team, for his sport, on a person-to-person level.

While watching this, I thought to myself, I can't imagine Willie Randolph getting this fired up about anything. I don't think a manager needs to upset buffet tables and get kicked out of games in order to be effective. But it would be nice to have a manager who does more than just sits back and thinks he's gonna win because he's always been a "winner," whatever the hell that means.

Considering how much Bobby V did with the Mets' little aggregate talent, I would take him back as their manager in a heartbeat. Especially since the Willie Randolph Regime seems dedicated to the exact opposite: getting less out of more. But the Wilpons burned that bridge once they decided to side with Phillips six years ago, and somehow convinced themselves that Art Howe "lit up a room".

So what did that decision bring? Phillips plays fake GM on Baseball Tonight, and Valentine manages in a league that appreciates him. We didn't know what we had together until we lost it, Bobby.

Posted 05.16.08 08:23pm * Permalink

Some Sound-Related Observations from Another Saturday at Shea

* I have now attended both of Johan Santana's starts at Shea this year. Each time, he has taken the mound to "Smooth" by Santana. I have to assume this was either done at his request or with his consent. In either case, I'm very disappointed with the lefty.

"Smooth" is a song I never have to hear again in my entire life, because it was on the radio constantly for about three years after its release. Even now, you are guaranteed to hear it every morning should you happen to tune into a Lite FM station. Or if you just buy breakfast before you go to work, because every single deli in the country has Lite FM on during the early rush hour. "Smooth" is a song I associate with waiting for a bagel at 8:25 am, fighting to keep my eyes open long enough to make sure the guys behind the counter don't fuck up my order.

I didn't realize how long that song had been out until I went back and watched some Mets playoffs games from 1999 and heard "Smooth" playing in between innings. That song's been plaguing us for nine years. It also depresses the shit out of me to realize that 1999 is nine years ago.

My question is, why "Smooth"? Is it because Johan is supposed to be "so smooth"? Or is it because they think no one in the stands can remember anything that happened before that tune was released? It's not as if that's the only famous Santana song. I think "Oye Como Va" would work pretty well. In Spanish, the first line means "Hear how my rhythm goes," which could be vaguely interpreted to refer to a pitcher's mesmerizing style, I guess. But at least the song comes from a classic Tito Puente mambo and does not involve anyone from Matchbox 20.

"Black Magic Woman" isn't really appropriate, subject-wise, but the opening organ/guitar interplay sounds really creepy, which could work the way "Hells Bells" does for Trevor Hoffman. Plus, your average teen will be familiar with this song because it's featured in Guitar Hero III. See, I'm hip.

How about, anything that doesn't involve Rob Thomas? Could we go with that for a while?

* I applaud the return of the Sarcastic Mound Conference Song. When I was a kid, if the opposing team sent a pitching coach to talk with a struggling hurler, the PA would inevitably greet him with the audio equivalent of a middle finger. Usually, it was "Help!" by the Beatles, or "Slip Slidin' Away" by Paul Simon.

At some point, the Mets abandoned this scheme due to either an increase in good sportsmanship or a lack of imagination. But a few times this season, they've gone back to their sarcastic ways. Earlier in the year, they played Harry Nillsson's "Everybody's Talking at Me" during a mound conference. On Saturday, they played "Now's the Time to Stop Your Sobbing" by the Pretenders.

I for one applaud the return of this needlessly cruel tactic.

* Ryan Church has emerged as this Mets' most consistent offensive threat. I'm not sure if that's a testament to his talents or an indictment of the rest of the team. Regardless, now that he's becoming more and more of a fan favorite, he needs a song to accompany his accomplishments.

What should that song be? I can't think of too many songs with "church" in the title, and very few of those would play well in a ballpark setting. There's the band The Church, but they didn't write too many upbeat toe-tappers, unless you're the kind of person that thinks the Sisters of Mercy are too cheery.

Yesterday, I got my answer. When Ryan knocked in a run, the PA played the portion of David Bowie's "Modern Love" where the background singers chant "church on time!" Esoteric and clever. Well done, audio people.

* A group of Scottish tourists sat behind us. They were not at all familiar with the American stadium-going experience, or with the basic rules of baseball. The lack of a game clock puzzled them. "So it just keeps going?" they asked incredulously. They did not easily grasp the concept of innings, even though baseball is similar cricket in this regard. At least I think it is. Trying to understand cricket is a lot like trying to read Finnegan's Wake: an admirable but purely intellectual, and ultimately fruitless, pursuit.

They also wanted to know where the "Reds supporters" sat. My wife answered, "In their living rooms in Cincinnati."

See, in European football, even if a huge team like Chelsea or Man U hosts East Puddingshire-on-Swampcockle, the opposition's fans will attend in large numbers, in one section of the arena, chanting in unison and wearing identical scarves. We had to explain to the Scots that fans of the away team only attend road games in isolated numbers, and usually at their own peril. Unless they're Yankees fans in Baltimore, or Mets fans in Miami, or Red Sox fans anywhere.

But I found something else far more galling than the average Scotsman's lack of general baseball knowledge. We asked the visitors how long they were in town for, and they told us, "Oh, just for the weekend." Just for weekend? Really? From Scotland? Yes, apparently. With the dollar being dirt cheap against the pound, a Friday-Sunday trip across the pond is more than financially viable for the average Caledonian (while I didn't inquire, I got the impression that these people weren't wealthy jet-setters). In fact, the folks behind us told us that this was the second such trip they'd taken this year already.

You know how there used to be countries whose only purpose was to serve as a vacation spot for Europeans? Places like Lebanon, Thailand, Senegal, Jamaica? Places where their shiny money could buy everything from folksy trinkets to the local police? Places where they could fly off for a weekend of skiing and whoring, make a big mess, and fly home unscathed?

Guess what? With the dollar in the toilet and a total lack of non-service-industry jobs, that place is now the U.S. of A.! Thanks, Dubya!

Posted 05.11.08 09:51pm * Permalink

Die Die Die: Dairy Queen Trains Future Lolitas

I know this will totally come across as a Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?! post. But if there is one point on which I agree with the Helen Lovejoy Crowd, it's anger over the premature sexualization of little girls. It's always bothered me, and now that I have a daughter of my own, it bothers me even more. The biggest perpetrator of this crime is, of course, Madison Avenue--although Roger Clemens has certainly done his part.

To be fair, this trend is part due to the fact girls now hit puberty at ridiculously young ages. Thanks to all the hormones we pump into the animals we eat, if you poured some milk and slapped a raw steak on a bowling bowl, it'd start growing breasts. But I also wanna say it started with Britney Spears, 'cause hey, why not?

Way back in the late 1990s, Britney Spears made music that was squarely aimed at the Radio Disney crowd, while cultivating a persona of Slut In Training. She had all the confused sexual politics and virgin/whore complexes of a Rock Hudson/Doris Day movie, but with better production values and half the self awareness.

The creepiest part about it was, when you heard her talk at this time (and God help you if you did), she seemed blissfully unaware of the Lolita Vibes she gave off. When the subject of sex was actually broached, she sounded like Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock trying to fake-hit on Tracy Jordan's wife. She was clearly being manipulated by a publicity machine capitalizing on the Look But Don't Touch Appeal of an underage hottie. Not to be alarmist, but look how well that turned out for her.

Here's but one example of what Spears hath wrought: In the post-Britney universe, the sluttacular Bratz dolls are perfectly acceptable toys for little girls. They look like someone took the creepy big-headed chicks from Steve Madden ads, made them nine years old, and dressed them up like Hunts Point prostitutes. Feminists got all mad about Barbie's impossible-to-live-up-to dimensions, but the Bratz are a million times worse, with their monstrous egg-shaped domes and frighteningly thin bodies that a real girl could only achieve if she was strung out on methadone or harboring an intestinal parasite.

But at least the Bratz deliver a positive message to girls, that's it's totally okay to, like, shop. I was sick of all those dolls that told girls it was cool to go to school and use their minds and be independent and stuff. Spend daddy's money and rely on boys to do the heavy lifting--that's the true path to liberation!

This brings us to the latest object of my ire: a commercial from Dairy Queen that has so many double standards and gender issues in this ad that I'm sure Andrea Dworkin is spinning in her grave. Just take a peek.

Where to start? First off, neither of these kids can be any older than 10. And yet the girl makes goo goo eyes at the boy, and the boy smiles back like they've spotted each other across the proverbial crowded room. Ten year olds should not even be close to dating. What's supposed to happen after he sends her the sundae? He gets her number and invites her out for a drink at Chuck E. Cheese?

So basically, this girl cons the boy into buying her a sundae, which seems a sort of pre-teen version of fourth- or fifth-wave feminism. In other words, it's okay to engage in the kind of capricious, manipulative behavior that sexist men ascribe to women, because this shows that you've somehow liberated yourself from traditional feminist notions of how women should assert themselves. Or something.

In the old, Gloria Steinem days, women showed their independence by getting jobs in male dominated fields, challenging unfair wages, and lobbying for reproductive rights. Nowadays, they do it by treating themselves to a shopping spree! Whee! Luckily for Big Bidness, this notion of "freedom" just happens to involve lots of conspicuous consumption.

Like how Sex and the City is presented as being feminist because Carrie loves fancy shoes. The mere act of buying a bunch of Pricey Shit is now considered bold and daring, as long as you do it unashamedly and with a sense of entitlement. It's the intellectual equivalent of a diet that promises you'll lose weight while eating nothing but White Castle and Haagen Dazs: it's popular because it tells people something they'd like to believe.

Even worse, the jaded, world weary way in which she manipulates the boy to buy her a sundae is the creeptastic topper. Like she's been twirling males around her finger for so long that it's no longer even a challenge. She dismisses the boy with a sniff of goddess-like superiority. "Like shooting fish in a barrel," she says (which is totally something a ten-year-old would say).

So at the tender age of ten, she's already figured out the secret to stringing along dumb guys, and this realization has brought not satisfaction, but resentment. She feels the hollow sting of getting what she wants, and realizing it means nothing to her if it comes so easy.

If Brett Easton Ellis wrote a novel about fourth graders, this would be the film version.

The first time I went clothes shopping for my baby, I was struck by an intense Gender Achievement Gap in toddler apparel. Shirts for baby boys say things like FUTURE ALL-STAR or FUTURE PRESIDENT. But shirts for baby girls said things like PRINCESS or SPOILED ROTTEN or HIGH MAINTENANCE. The boy clothing was indicated, This child will strive to be successful. The girl clothing indicated, This child will be taught to expect other people to do things for her.  

This commercial is just another signpost along that same road, like a sparkly pink onesie that says FUTURE GOLD DIGGER.

A simple request: If you're gonna film a commercial that portrays women as joyless, manipulative harpies, can you at least make the girls of legal age? Even Neil LaBute keeps his misogyny restricted to adults.

Posted 05.09.08 10:07pm * Permalink

Booing Rick Astley and Everything Else: The First Homestand

Note: This post is already vaguely outdated, but events conspired to prevent me from posting it on Friday like I wanted. I thank you for your anachronistic patience.

Booing is stupid. I suppose it serves a purpose as shorthand when venting one's frustration--it's much more succinct than screaming out "I disapprove of what you are doing, good sir!" Other than that, I don't really believe in it. When I'm at a game and somebody does something stupid, I prefer to yell out something more sophisticated. Like, OH, WHAT THE FUCK NOW?!

Booing is taken as a birthright by most fans, particularly New Yorkers. Regardless of team affiliation, New York sports fans seem to feel that it's their duty to boo the shit out of everyone and everything. A very good player who just happens to play for another team? Boo! Your all-star third baseman makes an error? Boo! Guy in the loge section drops a foul ball? Boo! Hey, I just realized I paid $15 for a watered-down Bud Light and a rock-hard pretzel! I'm a moron! Boo, me!

Why? So we can convince ourselves that New York really is a "tough town to play in." I find this a curiously small-town attitude to have, something that should be the province of a city that struggles to extract itself from New York's long, oppressive shadow. A place like Philadelphia, which certainly didn't invent booing, but has elevated it to an extremely violent art form.

[Case in point: for this year's NHL playoffs, the Flyers have adopted the slogan VENGEANCE NOW! I can't imagine any NY team having that as their rallying cry, but it suits a Philly team perfectly. And is also utterly terrifying.]

But during the Mets' first homestand of the year, it was the local boosters doing their best impressions of Eagles fans. At the home opener, I kept scanning around Shea to see if someone was whipping D-cells at Santa Claus.

As far as the home opener goes, I don't blame the boo birds. Most of them had probably paid exorbitant StubHub prices to go The Very Last Home Opener At Shea, even though the event had all the cultural cachet of The Very Last Whaler Sandwich at Burger King. I managed to snag some not-horribly-expensive tickets, but my seats were way high in the upper deck and still marked up more than 50% above an already ludicrous "Platinum Level" face value.

Fans expected to see a team all fired up to exact revenge on the Phillies, who committed the heinous crime of playing really well when the Mets tanked. And they had every reason to think the Mets would be able to smack around nonagenarian lefty Jamie Moyer, the only pitcher in the majors whose fastballs are clocked by sundial.

What they got was a listless, error-filled, yawning effort. There are some days when it's great just to be at the ballpark, no matter who wins--especially early in the season, when you're just getting back into the Baseball Groove. This was not one of those days.

The day began auspiciously enough. On my way to Shea, my local 7 train was passed by an express comprised of various old subway cars. Luckily, it was waiting in the station when I arrived at the Shea stop, so I got take a few pics. I've got a thing for old timey subway-iana (probably not a word).

I’d heard in the off-season that the subway exit rotunda had been torn down. Knowing the Mets, I figured it would have been replaced with one rope ladder, or an air mattress for jumpers to land on. Amazingly, they actually built a staircase. And not only did it prove to be a faster exit than the old one, but it was completely finished! No wet paint or exposed bolts or anything! I guess the Mets front office folks are gearing up for their new stadium, and have finally realized that a facility's amenities are supposed to enhance the fan experience, not undermine or destroy it.

Once I was down at the bottom of those stairs, I got a great view of the almost-completed CitiField. If you look at the pic here, you may notice the hastily applied sticker for Governer Patterson (adulterer, former coke fiend, and Mets fan! huzzah!), covering up New York's former chief executive-slash-Elmer Gantry writ large.

Of course, the afternoon was all downhill from there.

The booing began early, as every single member of the Phillies was jeered upon their introduction. This extended to the anonymous members of the Phillies' coaching and conditioning staffs, their bullpen catcher, and even a presumably confused video coordinator. "Hey, I just cue up the scoreboard graphics! What gives?"

Chase Utley and Ryan Howard were booed rather lustfully for...I'm not sure why, exactly. Because they're really good players who play for another team? Not a good enough reason in my book. I save my booing for truly evil players. In fact, now that Roger Clemens is gone (*fingers crossed*), the only player I can imagine myself booing is Chipper Jones. But even with him, I'm sure that's exactly what he wants from a Shea crowd, the prick.

Jimmy Rollins got the biggest Bronx cheers in Queens that day, of course, but I can't bring myself to boo him, either. Sure, I think he's a tad overrated, that he's helped out much more by his home park than any Colorado Rockie, and that he only won the MVP over Matt Holliday because of his "team to beat" declaration. (That kind of thing gets sportswriters' hearts a-fluttering much more than those pesky stats do.) But I have to tip my cap to anyone who's as short as me yet plays professional sports.

Within a few innings, craptacular play had transferred the boos onto The Home Nine. But the biggest boos of the day went to Rick Astley. Or rather, his chart-busting 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up," a song whose existence is apparently hysterical to kids not old enough to remember its initial release. Thanks to a write-in campaign by 4 million douches (3.95 million of which have probably never set foot in Shea), this was one of the Mets' choices for an eighth inning singalong. The crowd was already pissed off, and not in the mood to be the butt of a mass Rickrolling.

Personally, I don't know why there has to be any singalong at all. It's so forced and contrived, like a wedding DJ who demands that everyone get up and do the Electric Slide. Things that fans do at games should be organic, like the Yankee Stadium bleacher roll calls, or the "Jose/Ole" chants; that started as something the Shea crowd did, and was then adopted by the team.

While we're on the subject of singalongs, "Sweet Caroline" should never be played at Shea ever again. My reasons are thrice: (a) Red Sox fans are convinced we "stole" it from them (even though they didn't start it, nor are they the only team to do it as a singalong), and I'd just as soon not give them any excuse to whine about something; (b) when I think "Sweet Caroline" singalong, I don't think ballgame, I think drunk chicks with tramp stamps screeching together about 20 minutes before last call; and (c) it's a terrible, terrible song, just aggressive in its suckitude. Please, make it stop.

As the Rick Astley revved up over the enormous Shea speakers, I got the mental image of 4 million 15-year-olds--the same kind who post FIRST on every comment board on the internet, the same kind who propagated Fill in the Blank Ate My Balls 10 years ago--cackling at this BRILLIANT hoax they'd perpetrated on Shea Stadium. As internet memes go, this wasn't as gross as 2 Girls 1 Cup, but no less sickening. I assume most of the other fans got a similar feeling, because they booed almost as vociferously as they did for Jimmy Rollins. Poor Rick didn't even get to the chorus before the PA system mercifully turned him off.

I actually had nightmare visions of the Mets staging a big comeback in the bottom of the 8th, which would have led superstitious players to believe they were propelled by the power of Rick Astley, and that this would in turn lead to "Never Gonna Give You Up" being played at every home game this year. I was faced with a moral dilemma: Do I hope for the comeback if it means a Summer of Rick Astley at Shea, or do I dare root against my team to keep from ever hearing this song again? Of course, the Mets' listless bats made this debate purely academic.

I was also on hand for another semi-historic event which didn't go so well: Johan Santana's first start at Shea in his new laundry. He wasn't booed off the mound after giving up three home runs, as some NY papers would have you believe. When they show replays of that game, it sounds as if every single person in the stadium was booing, but I can attest to the fact that it was a very small, vocal minority. If you have a crowd of 56,000, and 95% of them say nothing while the rest boo, it doesn't matter that only 5% of them are booing. That 5% will be the only ones you hear.

Still, the fact that the best pitcher in baseball was booed by anyone at all after one bad start should indicate the depth of Mets fans' frustrations, and Johan is certainly not the only target. Reyes' slow start bought him some boos, as did Delgado's. Beltran is booed every time he strikes out, particularly when looking. Scott Schoenweis is booed every time he doesn't show up dead in a gutter somewhere.

The thing is, these boos aren't really for Santana or Delgado or any one player, so much as they are the malaise surrounding the team, an ennui that is eerily similar to the kind on display for most of last year. Each inning they've played thus far seems to be a mini-encapsulation of the 2007 season: threaten early, fall apart late. Stranding a small army on the basepaths, letting excellent pitching go for naught, squandering multi-run leads--these are not things a team in desperate need of redemption should be doing.

Mets fans feel as if team isn't aware of how agonizing last year was, and how desperately they want redemption. And whether or not the players are truly clueless, for a good chunk of this season (which is, granted, an infinitesimal fraction of the entire season), they have played as if they are.

Fans are desperately searching for the fire and drive they saw in 2006. Judged on pure talent alone, the team fielded in 2008 is no worse than that one; with a top three of Santana, Maine, and Perez, and with Pedro due to return some time next month, this team is probably better. Not to sound too Joe Morgan-y, but there is some intangible, ineffable thing that the Mets seem to be lacking right now. (Ugh. I feel like I need a shower.)

Which isn't to say they can't get That Thing, whatever it is. This time last year, the Phillies were already being written off as losers with zero chemistry. Then Charlie Manuel yelled at a reporter, or something, and suddenly they were GRITTY and GUTSY and PLAYED THE GAME RIGHT. ("Playing up to their talent" and "the law of averages evening out after a small sample size" are not in sportswriters' vocabulary.)

There were a few bright spots of the first homestand of the year, of course. After a home opener so ugly not even a mother could love it, they actually won a game against the Phillies (and they said it couldn't be done), thanks mostly to the holey glove of Greg Bruntlett. Then they won another one, despite the bullpen coughing up a lead late in the game, pulling out the slimmest margin of victory possible in the bottom of the 12th. (Jose Reyes = safe. I will not debate this.)

There's also the feel-good story of Brooklyn's Own Nelson Figueroa, who's pitched two excellent games. He's too good of a storyline not to regress at some point, but I won't piss on his parade while it's still lurching down 5th Avenue. And as far as products of Coney Island go, he's still more likely to be successful than Sebastian Telfair.

There was also a sweep of the Nationals, which I can't get too excited about, considering the victim of the sweep. Especially the last game of the series, where the Mets were struck out 11 times in 6 innings by a pitcher with 2 major league wins to his credit, and did the we're-totally-gonna-win-it-this-time cocktease in every inning from the 8th to the 13th only to come up short, and only won it in the 14th because Nats reliever Joel Hanrahan literally threw away the game. (He had the same look on his face as Tom Glavine did last September: like he was worried about catching a cab to the airport.)

[I see Tom Glavine is on the DL for the first time in his career. The cause: detached retinas from rolling his eyes at the umps too many times when he didn't get a strike call three feet off the plate.]

Still, a good team is supposed to beat a bad team--the Yankees won't get half a win each time they pound the Orioles this weekend--and that's exactly what they did. Over .500 for the first time since Opening Day, the Mets now go to Philadelphia, where fans use decades of frustration to hone their boos like prison shanks. After their up-and-down boo-filled homestand, they should feel right at home.

Posted 04.19.08 10:05am * Permalink

Except Big Stein Build the House, They Labor in Vain that Built It

	This time they've gone too far! Burying a Red Sox jersey on the site of MY NEW STADIUM! THIS WILL NOT STAND!  This guy who buried the jersey, I want him found and I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want all his friends and coworkers DEAD! I want his first grade teacher DEAD! The guy who he buys coffee from in the morning? Oh, you better believe he's DEAD! I want his house burned to the ground! Then, I want a hole dug where the house used to stand, and I want that hole filled with nuclear waste, so that everyone who comes within a 50-mile radius of it goes sterile and gets lymphoma!
	My son, I think this aggression is unwarranted.
	Who asked you, Churchy?
	Well, I am going to be at your stadium this week.
	Don't remind me. You know how much dough I'm losing just 'cause you won't sell beer at your stupid concert?
	Remember, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord."
	That sounds familiar. Who said that, Yogi?
	No, a man named Jesus.
	Ah, I can't keep track of all these Spanish players.
	Perhaps it would be more fulfilling to take this vindictive act and turn it into something positive.
	You mean, dunk the jersey in kerosene, use it to swab the guy with it, and set him on fire?
	No, I was thinking of something that wouldn't result in a horrible death. How about auctioning off the jersey for charity?
	I don't understand. How would that cripple the bastard who did this?
	It wouldn't. It would be making the best of an unfortunate situation.
	.... I'm sorry, you've totally lost me.
	Okay, then think of it this way: you'll get some dumb Boston fan to totally waste his money on a ratty, dirt-covered jersey.
	I like it! Bleed their economy one person at a time, slow and painful-like! You came up with something worthwhile after all. If there's anything I can do for you, buddy, just name it.
	Well, it's always been a dream of mine to walk on the grass at Yankee Stadium.
	*pfft* Are you shitting me? No dice, Fritz.

Posted 04.14.08 8:20pm * Permalink

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