Hey, no worries.
Truth be told, I wasn’t happy about the idea of a back-in anyway, and I was less happy about the price of a back-in being another W on the ledger of the Antichrist himself. (That didn’t happen, though the Phillies did somehow survive second and third with none out.) I know, I know, I’m being a picky little bitch and if my March self could see this he’d vault ahead through time and give his slightly older self a smack in the chops for being spoiled. But still: Mets in street clothes popping champagne in little groups at the hotel bar because Roger Clemens won a game? Ick. I’d rather wait a day.
Still, there’s such a thing as taking this too far, and I’m already on dangerous ground. If the Astros win tomorrow before we take the field, I’ll probably shake my head a bit, but I’ll immediately vault into the ranks of the 0.00001% happiest people on earth and stay there for hours or days. If the Phils stave off division-title execution and we celebrate on the field, add a few more zeros to my altitude in the happiness stratosphere. If the chase goes into Sunday? I’ll manage to whoop it up something fierce. Monday? I’ve got a ticket; I’ll find a way to have champagne on hand. (Or maybe just the champagne of beers.)
As for tonight, I don’t blame Pedro or Paul Maholm’s left arm or some plays not made or jetlag or anything else. You know what I blame? That weird ad for Pup-Peroni. It was hypnotizing; from the moment they put it up behind the batter, my eyes got dragged to it. Pup-a-What? Do people really buy that? Why? Dogs will eat stones and bark if you just toss them in the air, and that shit’s free. What do pizza dog treats do to dog breath? What’s the count? What inning is it again?
You get the idea. Once the invitation to buy strange dog treats arrived, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Which was just as well, as “anything else” chiefly consisted of Mets hitting into double plays.
Oh man. That ad was distracting me too. I kept thinking “is this stuff really still around? And why is it on the wall of a major league stadium?”
When Conine went all Brant Brown on that Jason Lane fly ball, my conflicting emotions swung to the side of “YES!” I didn't really want to clinch via some other game somewhere else, but who am I to root for the magic number to live one more second than it has to? Then I was mad when whatever Astro grounded into a double play to end it, but madder than it seemed I would have been happy had he snuck one through the infield to eliminate the Phillies.
In the light of day, we'll start again. Whatever will be will be. One Met win, one Phillie loss. One or the other will happen. It's a mortal lock.
It's truly the stuff of footnotes, but we started the countdown at 18 on August 28. September 15 was 18 days later. And that it was at 1 poised to click to 0 on the day the FBF was about the clinching of 20 years ago, a date that had been slotted months ago? It all looked so bleeping good.
Once again, baseball refuses to be scripted.
It's deja vu all over again. Like 20 years ago, we're in Pennsylvania for a weekend series in an inevitable championship season, and nobody else is cooperating with us in terms of melting away that last stubborn magic number. We know how that weekend turned out, but more important, we also know how that season turned out.
Perhaps Metphistopholes will let us all live vicariously through his jaunt down to PNC Park today. Good timing, buddy; I hope you get to stroll leisurely across the Roberto Clemente bridge on your way to the park. And I, like most of y'all, will be such a Phillies fan this afternoon. Go, Ryan Howard. Woo-hoo!
I look at the probable pitchers and it's rookies and rookie-lefties and Dontrelle Willis as far as the eye can see. What. The. Hell??? Talk about an unbalanced schedule. If these were our playoff opponents we'd be sunk.
As much as it sickens me to see Pedro's name anywhere an ERA of 4.03, I did find one saving grace in that awful game and that was Lastings Milledge's 12-pitch, pinch-hit at-bat (well, plate appearance now, I guess). Coming off the bench and working the count so doggedly, ultimately setting up Reyes to drive the run in–that's a very good sign for our burgeoning No. 44.