Ah, Phoenix.

That was a game to savor, one whose reversals just felt like plot points in a larger drama, even with Endy having struck out (for the first time!) in the ninth against Jose Valverde. The fences are just too close at the BOB or the Chase or whatever it's called today for a one-run […]

Oh, how this evening seemed idyllic when it was abstract. Mets at home, last day of April, Emily and me with a chance to take in a game without putting an ice-cream-crazed child in a headlock or checking in with a babysitter. What could go wrong?

How about Jose Valentin turning out to have something partially […]

My co-blogger is a wise man. And as a wise man, one bit of baseball wisdom he's finally gotten through my fool head is this: Style points don't matter.

From a statistical standpoint, that was a pretty unsatisfying two out of three. Ice-cold bats, poor situational hitting, runners not moved up, and the heretofore anonymous pitchers […]

You know because a loss like last night's induces something in between annoyance and seething.

Earlier in April each game still feels a bit like a pleasant surprise, a way to resume the proper rhythms of life after a long winter. Earlier in April, if Shawn Green failed to advance Moises Alou from second as the […]

Bedrock baseball wisdom is that you don't look ahead. Not to the next series, not to the next game, not to the next inning, not even to the next batter. You keep the focus on this play, this pitch, and the good lord willing, things will work out. (Thanks, Crash.)
That said, have you seen our […]

That’s what it took to beat the Rockies tonight — 485 feet of offense, in two equally unexpected doses. First came Damion Easley’s 400-foot drive into the bleachers with two outs and two strikes, a wonderfully ridiculous bit of theater (Down! To! Their! Last! Strike!) from the last Opening Day Met to crack the 2007 […]

I was unfair to my old hometown of St. Petersburg earlier this week — turns out there's a lot more going on downtown than when I lived there, complete with core-city lofts and their attendant cafes, boutiques and what-not. Not bad for a city chiefly known not so long ago for the advanced age of […]

Surprise!
Greetings from Florida, where I am living proof that the Mets' no-no-hit streak can resist absolutely anything, even the self-pity and self-absorption of bloggers.
My hotel is about a half-mile down the waterfront from a house I lived in as a teenager, and haven't particularly missed — if you've never been to St. Petersburg, it looks […]

In a lot of ways, this was the perfect baseball game: Tight and tense early, with some intriguing twists and turns, and then a leisurely gallop away from the field. During Glavine's third-inning duel with Ryan Howard (bases loaded, two out, forces of good clinging to a 2-0 lead) I turned to Emily and declared, […]

Recently Emily decided to change the pictures around in Joshua's room, a project that began with replacing the scattering of old framed snapshots competing for space on the bookshelves with relatively current pictures of people important in his life, and continued with removing wedding pictures and oddball landscapes from the walls in favor of art […]