My back to the wall, a victim of laughing chance

This is for me the essence of true romance

Sharing the things we know and love with those of my kind

Libations, sensations that stagger the mind

—Steely Dan

I've crossed that fine line from theoretical home stretch to the beginning of the end of the line. This is no […]

Another summer at Perry’s. I can’t. I swear.
—Stacy Hamilton, Ridgemont High School, 1982

I will not tell you how dreadful Wednesday night’s loss to the Cubs was. You can infer that for yourself; you probably already have. I will not dwell on the eerie fact that at the exact same juncture in 2007 — the 158th […]

“I have tickets for the Mets tonight. Great seats for probably a terrible game. I'll be by at five.”

—Ken Cosgrove, Sterling Cooper, 1962

Yeah, it was pretty terrible at Shea Monday night. Lifetime game 409, regular and postseason combined, might have a hard time cracking my personal top 400 had August 2002 never occurred. Enduring Marquis' […]

If you'd like to emulate a ball hit by Carlos Delgado and land over the fence at Shea Stadium, Matt Silverman's got your final chance. The co-author of Mets By The Numbers and author of 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die has organized a get-together of Mets fans in the […]

As late afternoon became early evening Sunday, I was bucking myself up for the challenge ahead, both the Mets' and mine. Theirs is the one that matters, winning enough games without losing so that they return to the playoffs and try to win a world championship. Mine is simply to show up and try not […]

The occasional Quadruple-A desperation callup notwithstanding, no Met starter is more difficult to watch than Pedro Martinez. That's less a reflection of his mediocre output in 2008 than it is how much emotion he elicits from me every time I see him.

His first innings have been killers. If Pelfrey or Ollie were having them, you'd […]

You know when I had an inkling the Mets might be all right? When I saw a matter-of-fact reference in a wire-service story somewhere the other day to the “fading” New York Mets. It brought me back to the third week of the 1986 season when I saw the exact same descriptor used for a […]