This should bother me. It doesn’t.
This should be terrible. It isn’t.
This should feel…not like it does.
I’m at peace tonight. There is nothing more I can do, nothing more I can say, nothing more I can even think.
It’s over. I knew it would be over eventually. I didn’t know how it would end but if I had to guess, this is how I would’ve figured.
The Mets would go to Atlanta desperately needing to win one game. And they would lead. At the same time, the top team they were chasing would have to lose. And they would trail.
Then both games would reverse themselves. Billy Wagner, with nobody on and two out in the ninth, would allow two infield singles and a three-run homer to Craig Biggio. Done. And Braden Looper would find a way to let the Braves win a game they had trailed for 8-1/2 innings.
I have to admit Loop surprised me by only allowing Atlanta to tie the game. His teammates also heartened me with their insistence on taking a tenth-inning lead.
But I wasn’t fooled, not really. There were just too many Braves and too many Mets on that field for this to Turn out any different than it did.
Blame Looper? Takatsu? Randolph? Wright for getting doubled off? Beltran for getting thrown out stealing? Cameron for playing right like it was center? Piazza for aging? Ishii for taking unnecessary starts from Seo? Bill Shea for not convincing the Reds to move to New York in 1958?
Whoever. Whatever. This was going to happen at some point, this not winning the Wild Card, not making the playoffs. If it was going to happen anywhere, it might as well happen where it did. It was a dependable outcome if nothing else.
The Braves swept the Mets at Turner Field when the Mets could not afford to lose there.
My watch is set to within a nanosecond of dead-on balls accuracy.
Twenty-three games to go. I’ll watch. I’ll write. I’ll care. But I’ll no longer believe. Not this year.
Peace, man.
The patch is indeed a work of art. Perhaps we need some sort of exorcism to cleanse ourselves of this devilish past. First, I say Piazza must name his first born Ted or Turner to counter act Larry's Shea nightmare. Then I say we tear Looper limb from limb (and Benitez if we can grab him) and throw their body parts into a large bonfire made from those blue and orange panels that used to hang at Shea. I'd get more elaborate but the last nights nail in the coffin performance has also made me too numb to get too upset anymore. Maybe we can just get back to booing them all the time…
It would seem kind of cruel to name an innocent child Hellpit Piazza, but whatever it takes.
I've often wondered where those blue and orange panels went.
Possibilities:
1. They lost them. (Don't laugh, they lost the freaking leaf from the apple.)
2. They're utilized even now in the bowels of Shea to jam escalators.
3. Feral cats ate them.
4. They'll return as a jaunty touch for the stadium once the new park gets canned because the Yankees' new park cost too much.