Category Archives: Baseball

Baseball

Mets Deny Johan Santana’s Impending Death

PORT ST. LUCIE, FL–Officials from the Mets front office denied reports that pitcher Johan Santana was near death. Rumors surfaced over the weekend that the ace lefty, currently recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, had either already expired or was on death’s door.

“Every rehab is different, and discretion is preferable when trying to come back from an injury as difficult as Johan’s,” GM Sandy Alderson told reporters on Monday. “We’re not going to rush anything, but I want to stress that he has had no setbacks so far, and that he is also very much alive.”

On Saturday, unnamed sources close to the Mets’ organization told several beat writers that the team feared Santana would be lost for the season due to his impending death. “If Santana passed away, you probably wouldn’t see him this year,” the source said, “since that would delay his rehab and keep him from seeing major league action until at least September.”

Santana, appearing at the Mets’ spring training facility in corporeal form, repeated Alderson’s denials. “My shoulder’s a little sore, but they tell me that’s typical for this kind of rehab, and I should be long tossing again very soon.” To prove that he was not a ghost, Santana demonstrated his inability to walk through doors.

The team’s main concern is that the surgery Santana underwent last year is similar to that performed on Chien-Ming Wang and Mark Prior, neither of whom have pitched effectively ever since. And while Santana has yet to shuffle off this mortal coil, it would be a big hit to the team’s long-term chances were he to do so. Officials from other teams, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suspected the Mets are not being entirely truthful, since in the grand scheme of things, each of us has one foot in the grave.

New manager Terry Collins responded to the reports by screaming something unintelligible through a bullhorn.

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: “Lazy Mary”

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

Here’s an example of ballpark music that’s inappropriate even in the context in which it is used. “Lazy Mary,” a song made famous by professional stereotype Lou Monte (also responsible for “Dominic the Donkey”) is played right after “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at CitiField. It is as old timey Italian as a mustachioed pizza chef, and most of the verses are actually sung in “the Eye-talian language” (Lou’s pronunciation, not mine). My guess as to why it became a staple at Shea is because of the large Italian population in Queens when the team was first established, particularly in nearby Corona, and therefore among the Mets’ fanbase.

“Lazy Mary” is a bouncy, goofy tarantella, the kind of song that inspires clapping along, so it makes sense musically as a stadium song. But the lyrics are kind of filthy. Here’s the section of the song that’s sung in English:

Lazy Mary you better get up
She answered back I am not able
Lazy Mary you better get up
We need the sheets for the table
Lazy Mary you smoke in bed
There’s only one man you should marry
My advice to you would be
Is to pay attention to me
You’d better marry a fireman
He’ll come and go, go and come…

Followed by some suggestions in Italian about what else this fireman will do (think hose metaphors). Shame on you, Lou Monte! There are kids at this ballpark!

Here’s the song in action during the 7th inning stretch at the last game ever played at Shea. If you look hard, you can see me in the mezzanine in this video.*

And while we’re on the subject of inappropriate, here’s a screen cap of the first video suggestion on the same page as that video. What the holy super-fuck, YouTube?!

* No you can’t.

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: “Joy of Cola”

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

In the last two years, I’ve done two comprehensive retrospectives on Mets seasons: The 1999 Project and In the Year 2000. Both have required me to watch and listen to as many old games as I can get my hands on. While it can be uplifting to relive old vicarious glories, there is an odd danger in doing this: Getting old commercial jingles stuck in your head. The primary example is the old Pepsi tune “Joy of Cola.”

This is demonstrative of how quickly an ad campaign can explode, and how quickly it can recede. I would guess that this song has not been heard by anyone other than myself in a good eight years. But if you were alive in the late 1990s/early 2000s, this jingle was completely inescapable. I believe it was engineered in a secret CIA black ops lab where audiologists concoct deadly ear-worms. The song’s refrain–bup bup bup-bup baaaaah–has the perfect blend of unfuriatingly annoying and unshakable.

In TV spots, the jingle was accompanied by the adorable moppet Hallie Kate Eisenberg. She would often lip sync the jingle and dialogue recorded by famous folks like Aretha Franklin. Why was this so popular? That’s a very good question!

Like any corporation would, once Pepsi found out a formula for success–catchy song + cute little girl–they ran it into the ground. There was a version with the girl as a DJ, mouthing a monologue from Isaac Hayes. (Not creepy at all!) Another ad showed her in an Italian restaurant talking like Marlon Brando as The Godfather while dozens of unsavory stereotypes were celebrated.

For pure hateability, however, none was worse than the ad featuring KISS. I certainly hope someone was prosecuted for child abuse for putting this poor kid in dumb makeup and, even worse, making her stand near Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. I’d say this is the worst thing KISS ever did, but their list of crimes is long and varied.