The PM List

Pedro Martinez is on the DL again. Perhaps we should abbreviate it to the PM. Ice that calf, get well and…ah, you know what to do, Pedro. You always do.

Heath Bell will be killing time with the Mets until he is allowed to go home to Norfolk. Taking Pedro's place in the rotation will be somebody wasn't all that great to begin with or somebody who used to be but hasn't been lately. But it won't be Lima.

Think we need pitching depth after the last two episodes of corporal punishment? The Cubs used all 25 players in an 18-inning win over the Astros last night/this morning. How is that even possible? How can you leave yourself without a bench and without a bullpen? One line drive pings off the wrong wrist and you're gonna lose 9-0. I only watched the final six innings, so I didn't see all the buttons Dusty pushed to get to the 13th, yet, it's practically unbelievable. Bobby Valentine and Davey Johnson managed historic, marathon wins in the postseason and held a body or two in reserve. Bobby Valentine also outmanaged Dusty Baker in the postseason.

Cubs beat the Astros 1-0 in a day game today. They used a pitcher called up from Iowa to start. And coffee by the potful.

As you may have heard, the Rockies and Diamondbacks also went 18 innings. Watched it sleepily to get my money's worth out of the aptly named MLB Extra Innings. First time four teams have played two games that went 36 innings in the same day ever…on the same day a National Leaguer hit three home runs in the same year he hit for the cycle and his team lost both games. And just now, with the Dodgers succumbing to the Marlins after winning 17 of 18 (best NL stretch since our own in early '86), Vin Scully said, “the wheels have come off the golden coach.”

Do other sports have stuff like this? Are there such angled oddities in football or the indoor activities associated with winter? Or legendary platinum voices who slice glittering phrases paper-thin like an expert deli counterman? If there are, I've missed them.

Meanwhile, right around the time the Minute Maid Park grounds crew was simultaneously punching out and punching in, shovels were hoisted and cameras were mugged for in advance of the erection of a facility somewhere in northern New York City. Comedian Billy Crystal was on hand, so you know it was a somber affair. Hours later, an official with the team that will use said structure told its sycophantic announcer (who masquerades as a sports talk host on an obscure staticky frequency), that if his employer didn't get to begin construction right this very minute, it would have very possibly forced his team to very seriously consider moving to the state of New Jersey.

How's that?

That Yankee COO Lonn Trost would address Michael Kay's softball with anything but WE HEART NY makes me wonder if something can still go wrong with the burgeoning blight in the Bronx. Trost used very peculiar language like “if we couldn't start in the next 24 hours…” before making his weird retro threat (just in case the state supreme court changes its mind?). Maybe we should all hop the 4 and form a human chain to stop this project in earnest. Call their bluff, pay their toll and get them out of our Metropolitan Area once and for all. Or as Trost's intrepid interrogator would put it, See Ya!

I have mixed emotions about watching the current Yankee Stadium close up shop…half of me wants to see it imploded in one grand swallow; half of me wants to see it knocked down arrogant piece by arrogant piece with a dynamite-packed wrecking ball. All of me says atta way to Piscataway, fellas.