- Faith and Fear in Flushing - https://www.faithandfearinflushing.com -

The Second-to-Last Worthless Weekend

Man, today would have been such a good day for a spring-training game.

Gray, frozen, a yawning afternoon to fill up finding something to do

besides the things I should have been doing but knew I wouldn't do. A

great afternoon, in other words, for exulting over the sight of, say,

Victor Diaz catching a pop-up or the sound of Omar Minaya being

noncommittal about moves to be made before Opening Day. Shucks. Soon

enough in the grand scheme of things, but not soon enough today, not by

a long shot.

More David Wright hagiographies today. I really hope nothing bad

happens to Wright — it still kills me to see Edgardo Alfonzo in

another uniform, even though with cold-eyed hindsight that's one of

Steve Phillips' moves that's hard to criticize. Even Jon Heyman seems

to have fallen in love with Wright — apparently there is

at least one person on this Earth whom Heyman doesn't suspect is

secretly a phony or a criminal. Though Heyman should work on his drug

slang — “blow, weed or a bong” indeed. No. 3 in that list is kinda

pointless without No. 2, Jon.

This Mike Cameron trade “guarantee” bugs me. I'd normally be suspicious

of anything in the Post (though Mike Vaccaro has been quite good this

spring), but this sure feels like the usual Mets “no bad PR” move.

Cameron strikes out way too much, but he does have real power, and

that's not the kind of glove you send elsewhere unless it's for a good

reason. Joe McEwing made a great comment last year about how in '03

there'd be runners on first and third and one out early and the next

guy would hit a ball up the gap, and in '03 it would go to the wall but

in '04 Cameron would catch it (OK, most of the time), and what a

difference there was

between being down 2-0 early with still just one out and having there

be no

score and two out. Obvious, maybe, but it did remind me how many games

in '03 became dismal before the hour mark. I actively loathed that '03

Mets team — for all of last year's disappointments, at least I was

glad to see them.

Anyway, who'd be coming back? If Cameron goes to Seattle, there's Raul

Ibanez, who got moved to first base last season and Randy Winn, who's a

crummy outfielder. I certainly don't get the sense Cameron (or Cliff

Floyd, for that matter) is a problem inside the clubhouse. So for God's sake, why?

Ah, Bill Pulsipher. If I remember correctly that first day of our

watching games together, Pulse's first pitch went to the backstop (we

exchanged a Bull Durhamesque glance) and when he got to the dugout for

the first time as an honest-to-goodness big leaguer it was 3-0. “That's

an ugly crooked number,” you said, and I nodded, and it got uglier.

I still miss Pulse. I'd put him in middle relief in a heartbeat. Which is just reason #45,382 that I'm a fan instead of a GM.

I did see “Bad Lieutenant,” but admit I kind of zoned through the

baseball parts while waiting impatiently for more perversion. I'm a bad

person.