The prickly advisor to my high school newspaper had a go-to reaction anytime anything got under his skin:

Damn, damn, damn.

I'll avail myself of Albert Lindauer's pet phrase in the wake of something far more annoying than one of the kids leaving the cap off the rubber cement or forgetting to turn off an IBM Selectric. […]

Hey, maybe I'm not so crazy after all. My hunch, stated Monday, that Captain Carlos was taking care of Mike so Mike could take care of opposing pitchers finds some resonance via Marty Noble who sensed something not altogether “subtle” at work Sunday.

Beltran told MLB.com's Noble that he believes in Piazza: “I wasn't thinking about […]

Once in a while, particularly if it's early and you've been reasonably successful lately (and you didn't spend all day there), you have to chalk up a game like Sunday's as a mama-said.

Mama said there'd be days like this. There'd be days when a promising first-inning rally would be short-circuited by a crafty veteran pitcher […]

I disagree about Piazza and his performance Saturday. When we look back at this season, this game will be remembered more for an unhappier reason:

It was the day I had a ticket to the game that would've allowed me to start a year 4-0 for the first time, and I didn't go. Whenever my next […]

I hope our 7 inexplicably stalling at Bliss Street in Queens is some kind of sign that we'll have more nights like this one. Well, maybe not so much with (switch to Prof. Frink voice) the cold and the blowing and the mist and the brrrr, but with the beating the Nationals and the Floyd […]

Nets won. They're in the playoffs. Change one letter in your priorities and you can enjoy a pleasant evening.

Instead of looking at the Marlins' backs, something I hope we're not doing in the standings much longer, I'm going to look at our backs. The backs of the fans, that is, and the names we choose […]

…And if we call up Heath Bell, the Mets will hit more home runs than they've ever hit in a single game and Randy Johnson will get beat by the Devil Rays and the world will see a new pope by the time Heredia's officially disabled.

I was going to mention all that yesterday, but the, […]

Not that the first five games of the season didn't suck, especially the ninth inning of the first one (and the two in Atlanta — ah, they all sucked especially hard), but one could make a case for eerie fascination with history. When are we gonna win? Are we really gonna challenge the Orioles' record […]