Maybe This Is What The Mayans Meant

If the Mayan calendar holds true, and we're due for a fundamental change in 2012, maybe this was the first sign. Maybe the hints that Bud Selig is planning to retire after the 2012 season is the first hint that maybe the change that the Mayans meant was going to happen in major league baseball.

Sure, the Mayans had never heard of major league baseball, the World Series, or performance enhancing drugs. But perhaps the guy who filled out the calendar looked eerily like Armando Benitez, and maybe he just got up for a mental break and forgot to finish (sounds like Game 1 in 2000, doesn't it?) So perhaps you, the Met fan, have some real fundamental change to look forward to in 2012 and beyond.

Maybe the world is due for a change ... so much so that there will no longer be World Series games in November (don't hold your breath), or WBC games in March, or Chip Caray broadcasting games on TBS. Heck, that last thing has already happened, so maybe that fundamental change we all could use is seriously going to happen. Maybe the Mayans were truly ahead of their time.

Or maybe the guy filling out the calendar way back when looked eerily like Armando Benitez and he just forgot to finish after getting up for a piece of cake. Sounds like Game 1 in 2000, doesn't it?

Most likely, if this is a harbinger of serious Mayan change, then a series of cataclysmic events will precede it. You could say that the entire 2009 season was that series all rolled into one season, but that would be too easy. More likely, 2009 only counts as one event, just as 2007 and 2008 were singular events. And the events keep coming. Think about it: Wilson Valdez and Brian Schneider are now both members of the Philadelphia Phillies. They ranged from barely irrelevant to seriously overrated here ... but as Phillies? Schneider is destined to hit 12 HR's in a part time role in the Shoebox, while Valdez is bound by fate to be the one to officially knock the Mets out of the postseason conversation. Just as Pedro started the trend last season, Valdez will continue that tradition.

Or will it be Billy Wagner? Country time heading to the Braves certainly counts as a cataclysmic event. I mean, who saw this coming? Especially with the Braves having offered arbitration to Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano ... they could have a three headed bullpen monster!

Not that it worked out so well in Flushing, mind you.

But Country Time as Cataclysmic Event lies in the fact that the Mets could have gotten those high draft picks by just holding on to Wagner and offering him arbitration, just as the Braves did. Instead, they traded him for 27-year-old Chris Carter (all he does is score touchdowns ... uh-oh) and let the Red Sox get those draft picks. But they saved $3 million which, after two of those million go to Alex Cora, will be spent on new uniforms that look like they need Tide, and a picture of Todd Pratt in the excelsior level. So I guess it all evens out.

And speaking of that bullpen monster, one of the heads that has been cut off might resurface in Philadelphia in the form of J.J. Putz. Ironically, cutting off Putz's head was the next course of action if the cortisone shot didn't work. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and Putz was instead placed on the disabled list. But rest assured that a cortisone shot will not be on the menu for Putz in Philly. A cheesesteak? Maybe. The closer's job? If Brad Lidge cooperates, sure. And why not a game in September where Schneider hits a grand slam, Valdez gets a game winning hit, and Putz strikes out the side in the ninth to eliminate the Mets?

All foretold by the Mayans.

But maybe when it's all said and done, we'll live in a world where the Mets will acquire marginally iconic Philadelphia Phillies and steal their slogans as the Phillies brazenly did with Tug McGraw. Hey, we've got 33-year-old rookie turned 37-year-old Mendoza line hitter Chris Coste. Best case scenario, his inspirational story continues here, he gets a couple of big hits down the stretch, and John Kruk gets to write the forward to his second book.

Mets case scenario, he's cut in spring training because the club signs Bengie Molina, who will set fire to his hamstring in a freak pre-game ritual will be out for the season. And we'll indeed have to wait until 2012 for significant change in baseball, in Flushing, in life. But don't hold your breath.

Freakin' Mayans.

You Are What I Eat

So I had a barbecue chicken sandwich from Boston Market today. It was delicious. But near the end of the first half of the sandwich, I got one of those pieces of chicken cartilage that must have gotten in there mistakenly ... and I gagged some of it up. Trudged on after a delay to get hungry again, I ate the second half of the sandwich. While being happy that I didn't gag on anything else, I was looking at the loose pieces of chicken that had fallen off the sandwich at some point, and among the rubble, I found a bone. So my chicken sandwich experience had a gag job, ended good, but could have been the demise of this blogger.

Sunday's Mets game was, on paper, that chicken sandwich.

Oliver Perez was the first part of the sandwich. Then there was the two hour and fifty minute rain delay. Billy Wagner (Mr. All-Star) provided the gag job (I wonder if Oliver thought that Country Time should have battled a little bit more). And then, Fernando Tatis and Joe Smith came through with the delicious ending which had all the potential to end in an extreme choke job (the bone) that might have ended me once and for all.

(Editor's note: The above isn't a made-up, alcohol induced analogy. All references to the chicken sandwich are not purely coincidental. And names have not been changed to protect Boston Market. The story you just read is real.)

And since we had the beginnings of a scintillating discussion about the "clutchness" of Carlos Beltran two posts ago, it's worth noting that without Beltran's RBI single in the ninth to give the Mets a 2-0 lead (and pick up the un-clutch in the ninth inning David Wright in the process), Jayson Werth's home run would have been the death blow, and these New York Mets would have been toast. So all praise due to Beltran for a clutch hit which turned out to be more important than we thought. I maintain though that a cleanup hitter in his prime should be doing that slightly more often. How much better would the Mets look today of Beltran could have only delivered in, say, two other spots this season when presented the opportunity (Friday night, for example)? Just two? But Beltran deserves a world of credit, along with your praise, this afternoon.

(I would also like to re-iterate the warmth my heart received due to the throwback relief job that Smith did in winning the game while pitching the last 2 and 1/3 innings, mostly without a net. Tug McGraw would have been proud.)

Despite losing the pitching mismatch of Johan Santana vs. J.A. Happ, if Pedro Martinez can somehow pull out a victory over noted Met killer Adam Eaton (I'm resigned to the fact that it's going to have to be a 1-0 win folks), then even I can't complain about taking three out of four in Philadelphia, even if it was the hard way. Nothing comes easy anyway ... not even a chicken sandwich, apparently.

It's The Testicles, Stupid!

Scott Schoeneweis is absolutely right.

Schoeneweis had met with people from the Commissioner's Office in December to discuss an ESPN report alleging he had violated the collective bargaining agreement by using steroids. The office determined it had insufficient evidence of a violation to warrant discipline.

Schoeneweis said the Mets and other clubs he had played for were aware of his use, which was tied to his treatment of testicular cancer.

"I was just trying to get to normal, not above normal. It's all well-documented," Schoeneweis said.

But he lamented: "The retraction [explanation from the league] wasn't as glorified [as the original report] ... It's the era we live in."

It's true. For all the media coverage of steroids, cheating, and the like, where's the equal coverage when one of the damned is either exonerated, or presents a note from his doctor? And since I mentioned the report, the least I can do is mention the retraction. Now go strike out some lefties.


***

It recently came to my attention that the Seattle Mariners' new slogan which appears on their website header is "Mojo Risin'", which if you remember was the Mets rallying cry back in 1999 when Robin Ventura would play the Doors song after victories that season.

If you remember back in '06 (I think), the Blue Jays used "You Gotta Believe" as their rallying cry, which was Tug McGraw's 1973 cry that grew to legendary proportions. That was out and out robbery, and the Mariners' marketing scheme seems to be the same thing.

But not really. Here's my question: You Gotta Believe aside (because that's not really an example of over the top marketing), who would want to steal a marketing idea from the Mets? Remember Our Team Our Time? Or even better, does anyone remember "Who Let The Dogs Out" during the 2000 playoffs? Do you remember that the Mets stole that gem from the Giants after the Giants used that song all season, and then the Mets beat them in the playoffs and then stole the marketing theme to the point that they actually had the Baha Men play the song at Shea Stadium before a game?

Even Mojo Risin', if you think about it, and as cool as the song is and how it didn't come so much from a boardroom as it did from a lockerroom, came from a song called "L.A. Woman"? New York Mets theme song: Los Angeles Woman. There was always something a tad incongruous about that.

So if Seattle is robbing from an old dusty Mets slogan, they probably could find a better shack to steal from.

***

And a quick word on the dog and pony show that was the Roger Clemens vs. Brian McNamee hearings:

Can't we just put the two on some remote island so that Johnny Fairplay, Rupert, and Bobby Jon can judge the two of them in Tribal Council? I mean, wouldn't it have been great if instead of Henry Waxman, the proceedings were moderated by Jeff Probst? And after the questioning was over, all the politicians write "Roger" or "Brian" on a sheet of parchment and then faced the camera to explain their decision, and then Probst tallies the votes? At least this way, we can find a sure fire winner and loser in this, because we may never find out who's lying and who's lying less. My way, we have a winner, and the loser goes to jail for perjury!

And for the winner, well we can just leave him on the island too.

Run Baby Run

Oh look, there's the ball! Oh look, there's no fielder. Oh look, I can keep running!

Wasn't that trip around the bags kind of like the last scene in the Bad News Bears where the pitcher just holds on to the ball and the runner keeps going around the bases? It was like that, but faster. And cooler.

And from there, it was all downhill for the Athletics for the final nail in their sweep. Legend will have it that if you squinted really hard this weekend, you could see Tug McGraw slap his glove to his thigh instead of John Maine, Wayne Garrett hitting home runs instead of Jose Valentin, and Willie Mays pleading with the home plate umpire.

Uh, no, that was Paul Lo Duca threatening to kill the home plate umpire. Speaking of which...

Perspective: The Mets, with this sweep, have improved to 6-13 over the last 19 games. In that stretch, they've gained a game on the Atlanta Braves. Of course, they've lost five and a half to the Phillies, and the Mets' series with the Cardinals (where if you squint, you can see Adam Wainwright...oh never mind) is merely the appetizer to a huge four game series coming up in Philadelphia over the weekend. It's important to continue to fatten up on the banged up birds, because the Phillies will be facing the truly and horribly putrid Cincinnati Reds.

The good news: The Phillies are currently scouring their minor league system to find a starter for the Friday afternoon game. The bad news: That starter, likely to be brought up from AA, will most likely throw a two-hitter against the Mets.