Truth be told, I never had any use for “Friends.” It just didn't work for me — I found the characters dull or actually irritating, and so never cared what happened to them. But I did think the method for naming the shows — each show is formally known as “The One With…” or “The […]

When you get a ticket plan, the tickets from later in the schedule seem like the stuff of science fiction: Amid the chill of February, who can imagine June 25, 2009? For all we knew back then, we might spend the evening mourning Michael Jackson, waiting for the latest news out of Iran and making […]

It's long been my contention (though not my co-blogger's) that Mets fans have never been comfortable with hegemony. Our history is one of miracles and belief; our flirtations with dynasty have generally ended with the amassed firepower aimed at our own feet. Even the '86 team needed a miracle a whole lot bigger than 1969's […]

A couple of weeks ago Prospect Park's ballfields were too soaked for Little League play, and so Joshua's game was relocated to Washington Park, a place Emily and I had never heard of. It turned out to be at Fourth Avenue and 3rd Street, a couple of blocks from the Gowanus Canal, and we arrived […]

We were supposed to go to the game.

That was the plan: meet up with a gang of Met-minded folks for our inaugural viewing of the Mets from the Pepsi Porch. And it seemed like a sound enough one: Joshua's Little League team started the morning and ended their season with a win in Prospect Park, […]

It's been a while since we treated Brian Schneider like an All-Star. But can you blame us?

Schneider arrived from Washington as either the first or second incredulous “Who?” we offered after hearing the Mets had exiled Lastings Milledge (along with his mouth, rap career and casual schedule) to the Nats for the former Expo and […]

How to keep up with the Mets when I'm away from New York City has been a question all my life. Picking between colleges in Connecticut and Massachusetts, I chose Connecticut because in 1987 that was within radio range of the Mets. Living in Washington, D.C. in the early 1990s, at the very edge of […]

Something looked wrong with that play from the first tentative step Luis Castillo took back and to his left. Something was awry with his footwork, with the way he was staring into the night sky, with the set of his shoulders … I don't know, but something looked wrong from the start.

Granted, a properly paranoid […]

You know, I've tried to hate the Phillies. I really have. But I can't quite manage it.

There's the country thunder of Ryan Howard, the guts and intensity of Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins' habit of backing up his big talk. Can't hate any of them. There's the goofy surfer charm of Jayson Werth and Cole […]