…baseball is a masterpiece of tension, with the storyline unrevealed until the final seconds. Some nights you spend guessing who'll be the hero. Which batter will end it in extra innings with a blast into the darkness or a clean single up the middle? Which pitcher will coax a final pitch past a final batter? Which manager will emerge from the chess match with bragging rights?
Other nights, you find something the hell else to do with whatever you can salvage of your evening. Because in January when you're moaning that you'd watch any baseball game, you don't mean games like this.
My grandfather always said it's better to be creamed than to lose a close one.
This is the kind of game that tests that theory.
Cream of Mets isn't very tasty, however.
And to think this afternoon I was all excited because there was a Monday-night game. D'oh.
…and some nights you pay $12 for cheap seats at the slaughterhouse. Hard to find something else to do with your evening when you're surrounded by drunken Philly fans who keep pointing at your t-shirt, shouting things like “that's right! What are you gonna do, Mets?!” Also, I've somehow managed to go almost two years without making it to one of Pedro's starts. He's been so smooth recently, it was such a beautiful night in Philadelphia, it was my first shot to watch the master at work; as I climbed my way up into the rafters I permitted myself one illegal thought: this could be it. The first Met no-hitter. That unravelled instantly, then I had to watch in disgust as Pedro signed over Daddyship rights to the Phillies for the evening.
Some nights you're doomed before the game even starts.
What's up with Pedro's calf?
Hopefully, it's only a veal cutlet & not a full Guernsey…
Your answer could have been a very calm “Check the standings lately?”
I used about eleven variations on that response tonight. But somehow references to your team's continued dominance seem less impressive when they are made as a parade of Phillies marches heedlessly around the basepaths.
Anyway, I figured, let 'em have their fun. When you suck as bad as the Phils do and most of your pitchers are criminals, it's nights like this that keep you going.
Good point, and when the Good Guys win the next 3, there's the comeuppance (sp?).
A Tale of Two Cities
Road trip this weekend with the wife and daughter. Went to the game Saturday night in DC. For starters, Shea is Camden Yards compared to RFK. What a dingy, dismal, horrible place to watch a game. We were in the highest row in the upper deck, along the 1B line where the roofline curves up to accommodate even moe cheap seats. We lasted 1/2 inning, then grabbed food and squatted in the second row of the upper deck in CF. Slightly better sightlines, less vertigo, and we couldn't see Johnson's and Soriano's homers land. There's a Red Hot and Blue barbecue stand which made the substandard facilities worth visiting.
Aftr two days of DC sightseeing we drove up to Philly for last night's debacle. The stadium is spectacular: larger seats actually facing the action, a surfeit of bathrooms, an insane amount of foodstands. I recommend the “Schmitter”, a cheesesteak with onions, smoked salami, an extra layer of cheese, and lettuce, tomato and sauce. TVs throughout the concourses and audio in the can mean you don't have to miss a play, even if you might want to some nights.
The stadiums were as polar opposite as were the fans. Despite being virtually outnumbered in their own park, the DC fans were pleasant and good-humored. We talked baseball, talked about cities, they were helpful advising us how to get around. The Philly fans were as coarse, rude and stupid as I remember them from my heyday of regular visits to their crappy, sordid little mini-city in the 80s. You can only imagine their delight in the early lead. As it swelled, they got more obnoxious. “New York Sucks!” chants went on throughout, as did regular recaps of the score. They seemed blissfully ignorant of the standings, despite our helpful reminders. As the game quickly became non-competitive, things near us degenerated into a shouting contest between a bunch of Met fans in the last luxury box on the 3B side, and a bunch of drunk college kids. The Met fans (including Cow-Bell-Man who for whatever reason didn't bother with the cowbell) were the clear winners in the wit department, taunting Philly fans for everything from their hopeless playoff chances to Bobby Abreu to Terrell Owens to their sartorial choices (fellas, buy a belt already – no one wants to see your underpants). In the seventh I took a walk around and was amazed at how self-unaware Philly fans are, yapping at guys whose team they trail by an insurmountable lead. Special mention must be made of the neanderthals who hang over the railing by the bullpen yelling witticisms such as “Wagner sucks!” and “Hey number 25! You suck!” I tried in vain to get an injury update from Otro Pedro, but he was tuning everyone out.
I suppose Washington fans are still in their honeymoon stage; they're just happy to have a ballclub, have no expectations, and don't teribly mind being overrun by the opposition's supporters (hey, the more the merrier!). Philly fans have soured, because the weight of decades of never winning anything must be crushing. Think about it – they were actually favored by many to win the division and instead their GM is dispensing players to contending teams for peanuts in July. It must be terribly, terribly frustrating. Ha ha!