Pedro cures all. So much for the can't win on Sundays, can't win outside the division inside our own time zone, can't win when half of Team FAFIF steals away from proximity.
Ah, Pedro. I'd still prefer our ace do at least a flyover of Detroit Tuesday night (according to our redoubtable radio guys, Carlos and Mike, like most lavishly compensated players, each has a private plane booked to whisk them to and from the festivities). He really is our star of stars. A couple of weeks ago, I gave him the highest honor at my disposal and added MARTINEZ 45 to my t-shirt rotation. I wasn't planning to. I wandered into the Mets Clubhouse Shop on 42nd to browse and Pedro's garment just kind of called to me. Maybe I'll wave it at the screen during the introductions.
About time we beat the Pirates. My middle-of-the-night ode to their park and their past notwithstanding, my favorite Bucs-Mets memory occurred at Shea in 1989. I took my best friend Chuck, then living in Washington, to his first game in a generation. He's not that much of a fan but he does know how to get caught up in the moment. When Dave Magadan hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the eleventh to win it, I was happy. But Chuck was delirious beyond all recognition. The sendoff he directed toward the visitors that night — FUCK YOU PIRATES! FUCK YOU! over and over again — remains a touchstone of our shared vocabulary.
That's Mets baseball to me. That's why it's so hard to not have it readily available during the All-Star break. We are winding down the first of 99 consecutive hours without a Mets game. I can feel the withdrawal pangs coming on. Chills…sweats…the need to see somebody caught off second or nailed at home. I think I'll go lie down and lose track of how many outs there are.
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