Comments on: Toss the Linen

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:38:29 +0000

On the plus side, I cannot imagine any of the teams in the East, as presently constituted, making it out of the NLDS alive. If the WC comes from the West, and there's a pretty good chance it does, that means the Dodgers in the first round. 'Nuff said.
But I also cannot imagine that at least one of these teams is going to look a lot different a month from now.
Ours, hopefully.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:52:20 +0000

Not to disagree with any of the sentiments discussed here – my towel landed right next to Luis Castillo in Yankee Mausoleum about a month ago – but I just want to point out that Maureen O'Hara is NOT late. Thankfully, she's 88 and still very much kicking!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:46:59 +0000

I watched with one eye closed as the Yankees swept us the weekend previous. I was thankful to be leaving on a six-day roller coaster road trip so my brain could be completely devoid of baseball. Hershey Park was great. Cedar Point was heaven. Dorney Park was unimpressive. Each night I'd have an “oh yeah” moment around 11pm and check the score. I was happy to be away.
Yesterday was my first full day home and I thought, “it'll be nice to catch a game, especially Johan.” After his second pitch of the game, I remembered why I was so happy to have left New York six days prior.
But hey, it's not over. We all know how it will turn out: we'll go on a run after everyone gets healthy and fall one game short in the end. Wagner will probably blow half his games along the line.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:28:05 +0000

I continue to fume about the Mets' worst move of the off-season, which was not solidifying the lineup by signing Adam Dunn (22 homers, .401 OBP on a terrible team, perfectly consistent with his career numbers and exactly what has been missing this season.
But even without Dunn, the Mets aren't done. They are in danger (Rollins is about to get hot, Lidge is looking better) but as long as Reyes and Beltran return at full speed after the break, this team can compete in this particular division. If two or three of Perez, Maine Wagner, Putz and Delgado come back by mid-August and the return of Beltran and Reyes have kept the Mets within four games of first, then we'd actually look pretty good.
And, look on the bright side… if we don't catch the Phillies then we can't collapse in September

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:15:34 +0000

No…it's damning with FAINT praise, as in “praising something so noncommittally (faintly) that the praise is actually construed more as an insult.” It's not about faking the praise (which would be feinting or feigning), but about how weakly something is being praised.
On the “weakly” tip, that's pretty much my best adjective to describe how my faith in this year's Mets crop is feeling. I still have faith – I always have faith in the Mets, to some degree, with 1973 and Game 6 1986 as my enablers – but this year's crew is disappointing in ways that extend far beyond the loss of the core or the lack of trade chips. It's that a) any squad that is cobbled together to represent a major league team should be endowed with at least basic baseball fundamentals, which this lineup is clearly not; b) this particular lineup is absolutely the product of continued systematic failure to properly exploit under- and over-valuations in the market, to soberly evaluate team strengths and weaknesses and respond to them, and to represent the vision for building the team anything like accurately. Wilpon, Minaya, etc. simply cannot claim that they are building winning teams when they continually fail to intelligently evaluate their options and instead play the “either throw gobs of money at it or pretend it doesn't exist” game.
As a result, as has been talked to death, we've got a barren farm system and a third-string starting lineup. Our strong core is a base strength, but it cannot include players like Carlos Delgado. anything he contributed this year should have been counted as gravy, not relied upon. You can't plan on Reyes, Wright, Delgado, and Beltran to play 155+ games per season, season in and season out.
So, yeah, my faith is set atop a foundation that is shaky, at best. I do believe in miracles, but not every day.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:37:36 +0000

I like yrrrr style, grrrrl…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:31:19 +0000

To get something of value, one needs to give up something of value. To replace several players of value due to injury, one needs to give up several players of value as well.
More than one player is needed to make up for three injured regulars, two starters and a set-up man. I would therefore not jeopardize the future to try and salvage the 2009 season. We learned our lesson in 2004 and did not repeat it in 2005.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:25:59 +0000

Neither could the late Maureen O'Hara

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:16:12 +0000

Feint. It's “damning with feint praise”.
we're going to be looking for someone with a full season plan to buy in with next year. The friday/random crappy weekday games plan was fine to get us into opening day, but the weekday plan is all over the place and has us going to two games in a row – for the same opponent – more than I care to… especially in this state.
we have four all-stars on our team and we can't win a fucking game. it's not like this is a rebuilding year and we have a team of young guys who are just figuring things out for the first time. the play on the field – or lack thereof – is inexcusible.
as i told someone on saturday, when i was at the house of evil, the reason i wasn't wearing mets gear was because the mets weren't playing, not because i was embarrassed (even though i am). they're still my team. but right now, they suck. maybe every single player on the DL will come back in two weeks and the team will magically become a contender, but if you bet on that, you're going to lose a lot of money.
in the meantime, i still have tickets to use and games to go to and I'm going. i'm just probably not going to glue myself to the tv or the radio every night. if that makes me not a fan, so be it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Kris can't be any worse than what we've got….