Changing The Minds Of Pretenders

"Ba de ya - say do you remember
Ba de ya - dancing in september
Ba de ya - never was a cloudy day"
-Maurice White, Charles Stepney & Verdine White

The Mets are 8-1 in September. And even that one loss was marked by a temperature of 105 and great seats.

Nope, hasn't been a cloudy day yet.

There were no clouds on Monday, a night where there were supposed to be thunderstorms. Instead, there was only thunder from the bat of David Wright, whose batting average against Tim Hudson was a whopping .226 going into tonight's game. But the emergence of Sugar Pants from the cocoon of "young player" and into the beautiful plumage of "team leader" is littered with small steps, like home runs off of not only Altanta pitchers, but good Atlanta pitchers like Hudson (tonight) and John Smoltz (last week). Wright has always been good. But the lessons learned from guys like Joe McEwing, Cliff Floyd and Carlos Delgado have been taken to heart...and good is slowly becoming great. Sure, Delgado is going to be out longer than expected, but he has passed the torch of leadership to a guy that people have been hoping would take it all along. I don't think anyone's getting that torch back.

Oliver Perez also was ringing in the key that our souls were singing with seven strong innings, blemished only by Brian McCann's two run HR in the seventh. Aaron Heilman (trust Metstradamus...trust) and Billy Wagner slammed the door with help from a sliding catch by Carlos Beltran for out 27, putting the Braves 9 & 1/2 back of first place.

It's a chop free September. Only blue talk and love.

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For your reference...

How to make a comeback:

How not to make a comeback:

Remember, NyQuil and the VMA's do not mix.