Breathe, everyone. Time to breathe.In this group of games, which is equivalent to an extended spring training in Port St. Lucie, it's good to see at least a little something meaningful out of John Maine tonight, along with more solid work by the bullpen...you know, the group of guys everyone is ignoring to further their case that a .500 team is going to destroy the Mets in the first round because they don't have a rotation...those guys?
If you will allow me to rant to you, I realize that national baseball media talk just to talk sometimes...and their job is to create drama, necessary or unnecessary (see: Owens, Terrell). But I have to admit to you that it gets tiresome when the national media takes any sign of trouble from Camp Metropolitan and turns it into impending disaster. John Kruk was on Baseball Tonight last night and listed his top teams in the National League, and the Mets were fifth. Can you imagine that? Fifth.
Four teams make the playoffs in the N.L., the Mets clinched the division a week and a half ago, yet the Mets are worse than at least one of the teams that aren't even going to the playoffs. And with the Astros...oh, excuse me: "America's Astros" and the Everyone's Favorite Salary Dumpers...the Philadelphia Phillies inching ever closer to being dumped, that's two teams that are supposedly much, MUCH better than the Mets that aren't going to make the playoffs.
Does anybody remember back in 2003 when Roger Clemens was all over FOX's promos for the All Star Game, and Barry Zito was chosen to go to the game, but then he was booted out so that Roger can grace FOX Sports with his presence to get him back on the promos? I bring that up because I get the feeling that if the media could pick and choose teams for the playoffs, like they obviously picked and chose Roger Clemens for the All-Star game (even though that's the job of the American League manager), then the Astros and Phillies would already be setting up their rotations.
Sure, the Mets would be there as well...the media would play that Subway Series angle as long as they possibly could. But one could gather that they would be there to provide the fodder for the "Rudy" type upset for the little engine that could, like America's team, those pesky Astros, led by Braveheart himself, Roger Clemens. All the while setting up Clemens to make the World Series against his former Yankees teammates. Who would the network set up to win that battle? Their heads would explode.
The above rant should teach all of you prospective bloggers out there that you shouldn't try to blog about your favorite team while watching "Quiz Show", a movie about a rigged game show, at the same time. It gets the "conspiracy theory" juices flowing. But let's just say that after listening to all of the supposed "pundits" out there, I'm glad that baseball (at least outside of the All Star game) is still predicated on actual competition, and not ratings....and certainly not on the wishes of the people who are paying to put competition on television.
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You know it's time to scoreboard watch when the Cardinals organist starts playing the Tomahawk Chop!
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A programming note for you faithful fans of the Musings: There will be one more post from me tomorrow night. It will be slightly out of the ordinary, but I hope that you will enjoy it as I've been working on it for a while. And then, it's off for a very brief getaway to recharge some batteries. I will return Tuesday night for what will either be a Game 1 recap, or a playoff preview...with the Dodgers come from behind victory tonight (helped by a blown save by Mike Stanton...HA!), it looks like it will be a playoff preview for a Dodgers/Mets series which starts on Wednesday.
That is, of course, unless FOX finds a way to give the Phillies and Astros a bye into the playoffs and expand it to six teams in the National League to maximize storylines and ratings.
3 comments:
Kruk has been wrong about everything under the sun. And put me in the "ESPN Sucks" camp. All they do is focus on individual stats. How many times was Barry Bonds the lead story - even when he didn't hit a home run? What a joke.
As I've said here before, I tend not to get bothered (at all) by what the Sports Idiotocracy says about anything.
But . . . for anyone to rank the 95-65 Mets 5th in a 16 team league is flat-out foolish. I have to think that Kruk's saying something deliberately provocative so he can look good in the event it comes to pass.
Like Paul McGuire's "The Jets will not win another game" prediction back in week 11 of the 1986 season. It was a ludicrous thing to say, but he won the lottery when it actually happened, and saddled us with his miserable presence on Sunday nights for two more decades.
I hope the Mets win it all for obvious reasons. But it'll be sweet to see Kruk have to eat more than his standard 4 pounds of potato chips and bacon, or whatever he rams down his throat to give him that fine physique.
Fifth??? Are you kidding??? Kruk should worry about missing brain matter rather than testicles.
I dread the ignorance of ESPN-Disney broadcasts; I dread the ignorance and nationalist jingoism of Faux-Ailes-Murdoch sports coverage. I hate the radio/TV being out of synch--it would be nice to watch the game and listen to people broadcast who know the Mets--and I have a feeling the Mets radio team know more about the other NL teams than anyone announcing for ESPN-Disney or Faux-Ailes-Murdoch.
ESPN-Disney should cover the Mighty Ducks and call it quits; Faux should just worship their god, Mister Steinbrenner and his corporate IBM-9.
Anyone ever sit in Row M of the Mezz at Shea? It's near the 'back rows'--how much of Diamond Vision, the outfield, and the scoreboard are impeded?--my last view from the Mezz was row F, which was OK. Thanks!
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