It's been a long time since I had no idea what the New York Mets were up to. Sure, there's been a game here and a game there that saw me nod off in the middle innings or when it was the 12th with no end in sight, games that left me to wake up […]

I'd say Vienna's lovely, but it isn't really. Its great architecture is cheek by jowl with a lot of Soviet-style apartment blockery (this is pretty much Eastern Europe) and when you look closely you realize a lot of the city is chipped and flaked and graffiti'ed and grotty.

But it does have a lot of […]

Statgeek dream site Baseball Prospectus recalculates the playoff odds after every game. Using some kind of amazing stats, they simulate the rest of the baseball season a million times, and tell you what percentage of the time each team winds up winning, taking the wild card, or finishing out of the money.

According to BP, […]

Greetings from London!

London turns out to be very nice. It's got marvelous, monumental governmental architecture everywhere, which I assume reflects a greater acceptance of state power than would have flown when our own country was building edifices, but that's another blog. (And a pretty dull one, too.) Though speaking of government, for better or for […]

At one point during last night's game, I turned to Emily and said something along the lines of “If this were Game 163, with a playoff spot on the line, Met fans all over the city would be dropping dead of heart attacks.”

As it was, it wasn't anything like that. (And no heart attacks. We're […]

For the Mets, it was the final off-day of the regular season. For me, it was a preview of some enforced downtime.

On Saturday afternoon I'm doing something utterly ridiculous from the perspective of faithful and fearful alike. I'm getting on a plane and going to London. From there, Vienna. And Milan. And Lausanne. And Geneva. […]

Billy Wagner was lost.

His momentum carried him across the first-base line, ball in hand. He got himself stopped, and turned, but didn't find the bag he was expecting — somehow it was an extra foot to his right, accessorized by a mildly dumbfounded Shawn Green. Oops! Billy kept turning, and Plan B arrived in the […]

Yunel Escobar was the first batter last night. and Oliver Perez looked horrible against him, throwing two balls very wide before getting a gift of a called strike. Fortunately, Yunel Escobar is young. After the strike call, he seemed to get antsy. Oliver struck him out, and that seemed to restore his focus on his […]