Category Archives: Baseball

Baseball

Mota-ta

Oh blimey.

I was hoping the first Mets-related news of November would be an awesome trade or free agent signing. MINAYA NABS DONTRELLE WILLIS IN EXCHANGE FOR VICTOR ZAMBRANO AND BAG OF BALLS. Or some other bit of good news like PEDRO MARTINEZ’S SHOULDER REHAB MONTHS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE; NEW ROBOTIC ARM CAN THROW 150 MPH, HEAL LEPERS.

Sadly, this is not the case. No, the first Amazin’ headline of the 11th month is late-season acquisition Guillermo Mota, who tested positive for something bad and will be suspended for the first 50 games of the 2007 season.

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Baseball

Time’s a Bastard, Don’t You Know

It seems appropriate that my sports-writing gig should end now, with the baseball season concluded. This is the sports-time of year when I find it hard to get too excited about much
of anything. Sure, I like wasting a Sunday afternoon via football as much as any other red-blooded American. (Although I’m still waiting lab results to prove that my blood is, in fact, red.) I now look forward to making picks and watching them get completely  destroyed. I enjoy watching grown men tights try to kill one another for several hours. I even root for the Jets, an act of masochism usually not undertaken by the casual fan.

But I simply don’t live for football the way I do for baseball. I’m under no illusions that one game is superior to the other. It’s simply an end result of growing up in a Baseball-Centric Metropolitan Area, in a Baseball-Centric Family. In my house, football was enjoyed, but baseball was worshipped. If I’d grown up in, say, Alabama, I have a feeling I might feel differently. But I didn’t, and I don’t.

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Baseball

Peanuts, Cracker Jack, Etc.

scoreboard.jpgYesterday I attended the Mets’ first ever Workout Day. Turnout was surprisingly enomrous, or perhaps not, considering the high hopes most fans have for the upcoming season. This is how bad I’ve been fiending for baseball: I took about 12 thousand pictures of absolutely nothing. Whether it was stuff I’ve seen a million times before, or guys just standing, or stretching lightly, or tossing balls slowly, or coaches I couldn’t even recognize slouching in front of the dugout–forget it, I went Japanese tourist at this event.

The links above are but a small sampling–I have a bajillion more blurry, indistinct photos on my hands. If I put them together, I could probably make a flipbook of the whole afternoon. Got a pic of Delgado taking first base for the first time, though I didn’t get any shots of the monster homers he hit off the scoreboard in BP. Got some cool pics of Mr. Wright taking BP from behind home plate, here, here, here, and here, And of course, The Wife got to fulfill a dream.

I heard nearly every fan in attendance say the same thing: “I thought it was just gonna me and like five other guys here!” It resulted in a lot of beer and hot dog consumption (for the assembled host, not for me) and some questionable fashion choices. Forgive the man, it’s been a long winter.