Some people, some teams, some franchises, are sprinkled with pixie dust from above.
The New York Mets? They're pelted with shards of broken glass from above.
And that is the only excuse I will accept from Luis Castillo as to why he dropped Alex Rodriguez's pop up which should have ended the game in our favor, and not in our misery.
I seriously don't know what to say anymore. Bad enough I root for a team that needs a GPS to run the bases, now this? What can you say about a game that made Ryan Church missing third feel like a World Series parade?
Tell me what I can do.
Go through every bad loss we've had in the last three years? Old hat.
Wish for this whole team to be traded? Omar would probably mess that up.
Threaten to jump off a bridge? Nobody pays attention when I do that anymore. Half of my friends probably wish I'd just do it already.
Take it in stride and just move on to tomorrow's Met game? With Fernando Nieve on the hill? (Nieve, by the way, means "clenched fist", as in the one I wish to punch myself in the face with repeatedly, as opposed to "nueve" which is Spanish for what Nieve's ERA will be after tomorrow's game.)
No, I will turn this into a positive, and provide you with alternative viewing options to tomorrow's, inevitably disastrous Mets game:
- NBC has motorcycle racing ... the Alli AMA Motocross Series from Mount Morris, PA.
- Nickolodeon has "The Penguins of Madagascar", not to be confused with the Penguins of Pittsburgh, who might win ten more Stanley Cups before the Mets sniff the playoffs again.
- Gladiator can be seen on WPIX. Everyone dies in the movie. After Friday night, that qualifies as a "pick me up".
- NRL rugby can be seen on MSG+. No word on whether Castillo will be looking towards that league for future employment.
- Steel Magnolias is on Oxygen. It's about six women who's spirits are made of steel ... just like Castillo's glove.
- Oooh, exciting stuff on MTV: It's a marathon of "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Outta Here".
Not again.
15 comments:
Tell me what I can do.
Go through every bad loss we've had in the last three years? Old hat.
Every bad loss in the last three years? How about every bad loss in the last three games?
This is unacceptable. And it's this culture of passivity, a feeling that the other shoe is always going to drop, that has pervaded this team for quite awhile. The lack of fundamentals, the desire to play for "your country" rather than fucking work as a team in spring training, the shitty baserunning, the shitty fielding, the smooth talking empty uniform that manages the team as if gut feelings and hunches are all that exist in the world. The GM who is good in some areas, but good roster construction is not one of them. The medical team that says players are day to day endlessly (god forbid you just put a guy on the 15 day DL and be done with it), shorthanding the team even more than it has to be.
Sure it's just one drop, one error, could happen to anyone, couldn't it? But it's not just Castillo's drop in and of itself. It's what it represents: another link in a chain of little failures that, individually, can be overcome, but added up cost the team game after game after game.
This is not a playoff team. This is a team with some good parts that can't get out of their own goddamn way. A team with no leader, no rudder, and barely a clue of what to do with themselves. That, in this state, they are .500 is frustrating as all hell because you just know with a little more focus, better fundamentals, and maybe a couple clutch hits, they could be better than this. Injuries are a problem but they aren't an excuse for this kind of general play.
I feel bad for Castillo in that he's going to take the brunt of the abuse that this team as a whole deserves. At least he didn't run from reporters, he faced the music and took full responsibilty. How about the rest of them?
I was watched the Sheffield homerun at the hang out spot for the cargo ramp workers @ Kaohsiung Int. Airport in Kaoshuing, Taiwan and then hopped on an airplane fully exptecting to read a happy recap on your blog when i got to my destination.
Thank god we do not have direct TV or Satcom internet on our airplane...
I probably would have jumped out from 41,000 feet over the South China Sea had i been watching..
I'm having trouble breathing!!!!
I'm done. Seen enough bad baseball for half a season. Talk to you after the all-star break.
One last thing - I'd predict that the Mets are about to go on an 8 game losing streak, but they do have Santana, who's the only one who has seemed to avoid the ice shard pelting you describe.
I just can not wrap my head around this anymore.
You are eliminated 2 years in a row where 1 more win would have gotten you to the playoffs.
YET THIS TEAM NEVER USES 2 HANDS TO CATCH A BALL!!!!!!
If I was Krod I pull Castillo aside and tell him like Billy Taylor telling Roger Dorn.....You ever pull that snot again (made for tv version)................
Same goes for Beltran the other night.
And what do we have? Snoop (or Willie really whats the difference at this point) allowing this to continue.
I am tired of the one handed catch nonsense.
NONE OF YOU COULD HOLD RICKEYS JOCK SO STOP TRYING TO BE LIKE HIM!
I am just about done with this team I can not do it anymore....So glad I gave up my season tix this year.
We are really sending Nieve out there today.....REALLY????
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This incarnation of the Mets is a .500 team with lots of streaks in them. just like last year's team.
Don't even know what to say about it. It feels like I'm being punished and I'm trying to figure out what I did wrong. Maybe we need to start a list like on My Name Is Earl, and correct all the bad karma we may have caused. There must have been a billy goat incident we missed somewhere along the line that has led to this. Duaner Sanchez's decision to go out for late night food in July 2006 must have pissed off the baseball gods for some strange reason. Watching the Yankees celebrate like they just won the damn world series on another A-Rod choking pop-up in the clutch ...
You know, we might look back at this and say it was a turning point in our season. The point where the Mets looked in the mirror and decided to do the little things to win games, not lose them.
Um, yeah. You're right, what am I thinking?
All I know is, I'm gonna try to find something else to do today at 4:00. I really can't take this any more.
It is appropriate that the Mets have a minor-league affiliate, the Brooklyn Cyclones, named for a rollercoaster. The Mets put their fans on a rollercoaster all the time. Sometimes these fans end up saying, "Wheeee! What a ride!" Sometimes they end up throwing up all that Blue Smoke and Shake Shack stuff they ingested.
We have now had Interleague play long enough to know what a typical Yankees-Mets game is like. Last night's game, the first between the two teams NOT at the original Yankee Stadium or at Shea Stadium, was typical.
1-0 Yankees. 2-1 Mets. 3-2 Yankees -- and I knew then that this game was not going to end benignly. Something was going to happen to make people talk about it for the next 50 years. 6-3 Mets. Matsui homers. 7-6 Yankees. Still, I knew it wasn't over. Sure enough, 8-7 Mets. And...
This was less a "classic Yankee win" than a "classic Met loss." This was in the bag. K-Rod pitching against the Yankees (which he sure knew how to do for the Angels)? Needing only to get A-Rod for the last out? This was as close to a sure thing as exists in baseball. Met fans were ready to party like it's 1969. Then Castillo turned it into 1962. And Yankee Fans partied like it's 1999. Or, more accurately, October 2000.
I see a number of Met fans writing on their blogs roughly what I wrote on mine after that sweep in Boston: "This team has no heart, it can't be trusted, clean house, if you can't win then at least don't lose with the same guys."
I'm reminded of the movie "Fever Pitch" -- the original English soccer version, not the Red Sox version that I consider a horror movie because of the way it ends.
Colin Firth is ruminating on how much the team he loves has cost him, and not just in money but in relationships and heartache. "Sooner or later," he says, "it all gets mixed up in your head. You can't remember whether life is (crap) because (your team) is (crap), or if it's the other way around. Perhaps it's something you can't understand unless you belong."
That sums it up, really. Maybe Yankee Fans and Met fans feel it more than most, because (one of the few things we agree on) New York is THE baseball city. But isn't there a Seattle Mariners fan, or a Houston Astros fan, out there who mopes about why his team can never win, but doesn't switch teams or drop baseball entirely?
Merkle. Owens. Buckner. Castillo.
I have tix for 25 more games this season at Wilpons Folly. Many will go to charity, albeit that may be a cruel gesture.
I'll return when Minaya, Manuel, and the Wilpon-Dodger Owners are gone. When the drunks are gone. When the Wave Crowd during a tight game are gone. When the delusional propagandists and apologists on SNY are gone.
Don't trade Castillo. He's a true Met. Give Beltran and Wright and KRod and Santana to deserving teams as a "loan," if permitted by MLB. They deserve a chance playing on an integral team.
im still having trouble breathing... its freakin 2:00 AM here, the saturday game starts in another 2 hours or so...
i don't know if i can take this anymore...
don't have the balls to watch today!!!
here is hoping against hope... im hoping, praying, begging... for a happy recap when i wake up...
I have now officially given up on the Mets' 2009 season.
I can't even remember the last time we've (no, not "we've"--"THEY'VE"--it'll be a long time before the can win back my affection) had a win that can be described as "miraculous". Miracles, it seems, are reserved only for those playing AGAINST the Mets, as evidenced by far too many painful memories over the last few years...
Fuck.
Amen. James Allen says it all. I'm done. I have better things to do with my leisure time. I have a 15 pack of Friday night games. I will attend because the tickets are paid for and my young children want to go. But I am finished with these idiots. The Wilpons, ever seeking new revenue sources, can commission yet another alternate uniform complete with big floppy shoes and frilly red hair. They are clowns. It starts from the top and trickles down to the bottom. Ill advised signings and trades, bad coaching, poor managing, lack of discipline, questionable training procedures, penny pinching, and a lack of the fundamentals of the game is what the Mets are about now. There is no swagger, just snickering. Open your ears New York Mets. That sound you hear is the rest of the league laughing at you. We should not lay all this at Luis Castillo's door. Beltran and Wright, Gold Glovers, were just as guilty in game 2 against the Phillies when we gave them 5 outs in the 7th to tie the game and they got a pass. You broke my heart. I've been a fan for 45 years. You're dead to me right now. Gotta go. The game is on and I'm watching "A Few Good Men" on Fox HD. "You can't handle the truth......"
Well, at least Nieve surprised - in a positive way!
Hey Guys,
Some day you will beat the Yankees in a world Series, It will happen.
The Red Sox beat us so will the Mets.
Not only that but some day my Jets will win a Super Bowl, Now excuse me while I go take my Medication.
I added the blog to my must read list
Good Job
Nutball, welcome to the party. And thanks!
And I'm a Jet season ticket holder so my condolences on that ;)
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