Showoff

Alay Soler got the Mets a much needed victory...and convincing victory at that...tonight at Dodger Stadium. Soler went seven innings, striking out seven and giving up six hits and only one run in a 4-1 Mets victory over Los Angeles. It was only their second victory by a starting pitcher not named Glavine or Martinez since April 25th.

But not everyone is pleased. The Dodgers felt that many of Soler's actions which included raising his eyebrows after he walked off the mound, getting a base hit, and giving Paul Lo Duca a high five in the dugout, constituted showboating.

"I don't know what he thought he was doing out there," said Dodgers center fielder Kenny Lofton, "he thinks with all of his strikeouts were just helping his team, but making me look silly on a curve ball? That's not right. For a player that young to do something like that, he's gotta know that there will be consequences later on."

Soler, who received political asylum in the Dominican Republic, will probably face much scrutiny for his actions.

"You know you think that a guy who went through what he went through defecting from Cuba would respect the game a little more," said Dodger starter and loser Brett Tomko. "I mean, a rookie pitcher getting a base hit? He's gotta know better than that. He's a young kid though, I'm sure he knows what he's done."

But Tomko wasn't done there. He went on to accuse Jose Reyes of showboating, saying "It's an unwritten rule that leadoff hitters don't hit home runs to lead off the game. I'm not going to say much, but let's just say there's going to be some retribution coming his way at some point. He's got to understand that this is the major leagues."

From the Mets side, there was resignation that what Soler did is going to carry some repercussions down the line.

"Well, having experience in these matters I would just tell Alay that it's fine if he wants to high five his catcher in the dugout, but there are going to be consequences down the line" said Mets right fielder Lastings Milledge. "I mean, look what happened with me...I was a hot topic on all of the local and national baseball shows. Chris Cotter even did a one on one interview with me before the game...Chris Cotter! I mean, that's how you know you've done wrong. I'll have a talk with Alay and make sure that doesn't happen again."

Keith Hernandez, reached at home by the Metstradamus staff during his week off, said that he thinks that a little showboating is okay...unless you're a woman, because women had no place in the game. Hernandez had no further comment.

Made To Be Broken

There are certain rules in major league baseball...and I'm not talking about the balk rule or the save rule or the stupid rule that awards home field in the World Series to the league that wins the All Star Game...I'm talking about those "unwritten rules". You know the ones: don't dig in too deep at the plate, don't admire your home runs, don't steal a base when you're up by 25 runs (except in Coors Field), and don't refuse to wear the clown uniform for hazing day. All these rules are in a book that Bob Gibson wrote...all right, maybe he didn't write it, but he certainly enforced it. Break an unwritten rule, get dusted. And it used to be that players got dusted for a lot less than what they get dusted for now. The modernization and the raised fraternization of professional athletes has toned down the brushbacks a wee bit.

But the fact that Lastings Milledge's high fives down the right field line has become not just an issue, not just a misdemeanor offense for which he received a small slap on the wrist by Willie Randolph and Cliff Floyd, but has reached the national television level by being discussed on Baseball Tonight, has this blogger shaking his head.

Everybody that comes into the majors needs a veteran like Floyd to teach them how to be a big leaguer...and not necessarily to teach them how to play baseball. Seeing that Milledge has had some problems in the past (problems that are a tad overblown if you ask me), and keeping in mind that Timo Perez once played for this team and pissed off countless veterans and opponents, I understand that the Mets organization wants to take extra care in the education of Lastings Milledge. After all, you can do a lot worse than having Cliff Floyd as your baseball mentor.

But when I see something like Milledge high fiving a few fans down the right field line without being a showboat about it by pounding his chest and proclaiming "look at me...I'm bad", I have to ask what exactly the big problem is. Giants reliever Steve Kline mentioned that some of the Giants weren't happy with Milledge's actions. Well, some of those Giants should have never given up a game tying home run when their catcher calls for a low and outside waste pitch...how 'bout that! As for Kline, when he played for the St. Louis Cardinals he was publicly insubordinate towards his manager by flipping Tony LaRussa the bird in full view of 50,000 paying customers, and many more television viewers. So let's see...high fiving fans vs. flipping the bird towards your manager. Hmmmmmm, you tell me what's worse.

Now in terms of the attention this is getting...let me ask this: If Lastings Milledge didn't have that little problem in the minor leagues...if Lastings Milledge didn't introduce himself to the major leagues by wearing a big wooden cross...if Lastings Milledge didn't wear cornrows and didn't have an ever so slight swagger about him, would his high fives be an issue? Sure it might be an issue within the clubhouse...Cliff Floyd and Willie Randolph would probably still pull him aside and tell him that might not be the best idea in the future. But would it be the the subject of the first few paragraphs of the AP recap of a game that included two David Wright home runs, two home runs in the tenth inning, and Barry Bonds? Would it be talked about on Baseball Tonight? (By the way, it should be noted that of all the panelists, only John Kruk had a problem with the high fives...and John Kruk, it should also be noted, is a man who once sold his uniform number for a case of beer.) Would Lastings be ripped apart by Francesa and Russo on Monday? (You know that those two buffoons are going to take Milledge to task during Monday's show. Count on it.)

I kind of liken this to the institution of the NBA dress code. To me, the NBA dress code was never a racial issue as others think...it was about one player: Allen Iverson. Iverson, with his posse that always seems to get into trouble, with all his tattoos, and his rants about practice, was always the poster boy for the bad behavior of NBA players, and to me that was a tad unfair. So in my opinion, the dress code had Allen Iverson in mind...nobody else.

In the same light, the high fives are only an issue because it's Milledge, an up and coming star with a slightly tainted background, that did it. Yeah, part of it is because he's a rookie, but it's also the reputation that Lastings has been unfairly saddled with in the minors, it's the swagger that he plays his game with, and it's the way he looks and the way he wears his hair and his wooden jewelry. If I remember correctly, a young rookie named Melvin Mora high fived fans down the right field line after making a lights out throw to save a run in the thirteenth inning of the grand slam single game. Nobody made peep number one about that, and the Mets tied at that point as well. And if I remember correctly again, nobody dusted Melvin Mora for it in his remaining time with the Mets. But Lastings Milledge high fives fans and it's a problem? I don't get it.

If this wasn't his first major league home run and if it wasn't a game tying blast in extra innings off of the biggest crybaby closer in the world who has beaten the Mets every time he faced them after leaving, then I can see the problem. But forgive me for thinking that a player interacting with fans in a positive light is a good thing. I find it funny that this is brought up, yet nobody is giving the kid credit for not taking a curtain call after the home run even when fans were asking for it. Again: a curtain call which would have taken place immediately after a home run in front of the opposing team vs. high fives done while the offended team is in the dugout and television coverage is in commercial. What's worse? (And don't get me wrong, I loved the curtain calls in 1986...and love them now. But I would have felt more awkward about Milledge taking a curtain call than I felt with what he actually did.)

There are certain unwritten rules of baseball that are there for a reason, they are there to insure respect for the game. But there are certain others that have been around for years which are just archaic. These rules pre-date player strikes and owner lockouts and $10 cups of watered down beer and the abolition of the scheduled single admission doubleheader and the five hour rain delays that fans are made to sit through and the $175 autograph shows and FOX and tiered pricing systems and...you starting to get the point? In an era where professional sports fans get screwed over left and right, Lastings Milledge's actions today probably won the sport of baseball a handful of fans for life. I applaud a player that makes the fans feel like a part of the game and acknowledges their presence rather than put on earplugs to drown them out. I find no problem with that, and players that do have a problem with it should lighten up a hair. And dare I say because I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet money that a lot of the same players that would condemn Lastings' act are the same ones that are rushing to the defense of one Barry Bonds...the same Barry Bonds that probably wouldn't bother to spit on a fan if he was on fire. High fiving fans vs. refusing autographs. Which is worse?

So should Lastings Milledge do this all the time? Probably not. Should he be talked to? Yes he should, and he was. But was what he did really wrong? Well, he did break an unwritten rule. But it's one of those rules that was probably made to be broken.

Hazards Of Working Too Much Overtime

I guess it had to happen sometime. It eventually had to happen where some team would outlast the Mets in extra frames, rather than the other way around. It's just too bad that it had to happen today. Today was the day where past met future. And finally, after heaven knows how many times after the Mets let go of The Sulking King did he come back and nail down saves against his former team, did the Mets finally get the better of Armando Benitez.

For those of us who have been too used to hearing that lonely man theme from "The Incredible Hulk" while Benitez sulks off the mound at Shea after another one of his arrogant "location...I don't need no stinkin' location" pitches, like the arrogant pitch he threw to Craig Counsell in '02...or the arrogant pitches he threw to Lance Berkman and Moises Alou in '01...well this time, all we heard was happy, hard driving techno-pop as Lastings Milledge rounded the bases with the tying run (that synthesized ecstasy driven club music never sounded so good). Two dingers off of the sulking king in the tenth and finally, he's nicked up by his former team.

And I'm not afraid to tell you it felt great...and hours later, it will still feel great.

It felt great because it's another ghost exorcised in what is quickly turning into "Met Revenge Tour 2006". And this was a pretty big ghost to nab. He was nabbed by old and new alike, with Jose Valentin hitting the first solo HR in the tenth to make it 6-5 Gigantes. But Lastings Milledge's HR was much more than just a tying home run in extra innings. This was a game that Armando Benitez had in his pocket. The count was 1-2, and Elizier Alfonzo not only set up outside and low, but gave a quick reminder with his glove to keep the ball down. After all, Milledge has been chasing everything outside in his brief major league career. Instead, the arrogant one throws one letter high, inside half.

"Who needs location? I'm Armando Benitez! And I always beat the Mets!"

Not anymore you don't, pallie!

And even though the Mets lost, even though they were done in by shoddy fielding by Reyes in the eighth, and Pedro Feliciano in the twelfth, the lasting (I really meant no pun there, really I didn't) impression that I will walk away with is the one with Lastings hitting an arrogant pitch over the outfield wall and pumping his fist...much in the same way Lee Mazzilli hit a game tying home run in 1986 against St. Louis during a "Game of the Week" (remember those?) with Bob Costas calling Maz's skip around first base "a war dance". Who remembers that they lost the game? An old friend became a new friend as he returned to blast one against the Cardinals...and it was part of the soundtrack that was 1986...loss or no loss.

Lastings Milledge is a new friend who took great care in high fiving the fans down the right field line before the eleventh inning. And his blast against old friend/eternal enemy insures that he is now forever a part of the bigger picture that will turn out to be 2006, no matter that the Mets lost this game.

***

(Disclaimer: I am a bitter old man...I get two wrapped up over things like what you are about to read. The following is a stream of consciousness, written before taking a breath, and after witnessing a tough loss. Enjoy!)

It's too much to expect that national sports anchors actually watch the sporting events they report. There are a lot of them that happen in a given day.

But is it too much to expect them to actually look at a scoresheet or a boxscore once in a while?

ESPNEWS' Dari Nowkhah had this take, among others, of today's Giants/Mets game during the score panel:

"Matt Morris and Steve Trachsel your starters...long forgotten in this one neither one of them very impressive..."

Gee guys, sorry Steve Trachsel isn't a huge star like Barry Bonds, Barry Bonds, or Barry Bonds...but one earned run in seven innings, which your very score panel read, is significantly better than the definition of a quality start. Henceforth, Trachsel had an impressive outing, I'd say. Maybe if ESPN produced "Trachsel on Trachsel", the report of his outing would have been a little more in depth and accurate. Maybe you would have told us that Trachsel deserved to have a no-hitter to his credit. But alas, Steve Trachsel does not equal ratings, so his outing was unimpressive.

Where's the journalism?

If Woodward Hadn't Gone To The Mets, This Would Never Had Happened

If a tie is, indeed, like kissing your sister, then what is a split of a doubleheader like?

If you lose the first game and win the second, I would gather it would be like if your sister kicked you in the crotch, but then the captain of the cheerleading squad came along and nursed you back to health. And if you split a doubleheader while your main rival loses it's twinbill, then you get the added bonus of finding out your sister contracted an S.T.D. from a rough trick named Jim.

I have some major issues...I understand this.

But that's kind of what today felt like. In the first game, the curse of the fifth starter strikes again. Unfortunately, the Mets have too many fifth starters...and today it was Orlando Hernandez's turn to convince Mets brass that they need to get yet another starter. First off let me say that I hate losing to ex-Mets. Doesn't matter how popular or unpopular they were...losing to former Mets is bad karma. And when one of the best second baseman in Mets history goes deep on a former Yankee, it's...

Oh, that wasn't Edgardo Alfonzo? He's not on the Giants anymore?

There's another one? And he's not related?

He mind as well be. But it's a good thing...bad enough Armando Benitez and Jose Vizcaino played key roles in beating the Mets (again), the Mets don't need Edgardo beating them as well. Eliezer is bad enough. Hey, wasn't Eliezer in that "Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" movie?

Oh wait, that was Jim Caviezel. And no, "Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" wasn't about Bobby Jones' career high nine hits during the 1998 season.

(By the way, you would think that a team that as recently as last year actually had Edgardo Alfonzo on their team would be smart enough to know how to spell Alfonzo. Let's get the champ on the case!)

I wonder if Willie let Orlando in for the fateful sixth inning because he has that "pedigree". Well today, pedigree was just dog food, and pedigree got five years older in one inning. Or maybe it was Randolph's master plan to play from behind in game one to save pitchers like Filthy and Country Time for the second game. Crazy like a fox, that Willie Randolph.

Luckily, that second game saw the Mets stick to the script: winning with Pedro and Glavine, and losing without. Tom Glavine went seven strong, while Wagner was victorious in his rematch with Barry Bonds (their first meeting didn't go so well, and it was replayed as a "Ulti-Met Classic"...watching that game between the Bonds dinger and Brian Bannister tearing up his hamstring is slightly masochistic, don't you think?) and Filthy got his fourth win of the season...thanks to Chris Woodward's sac fly driving home Lastings Milledge in the eleventh.

I was kind of hoping that Lastings would go spikes high to spark a brawl, only because I'm curious what a brawl would look like on ESPN's game cast...would all the glowing yellow dots appear on the screen and bounce off each other? Would the really mad dots become red to denote players who take a swing at somebody? Sounds like this would be up ESPN's alley. Maybe they could parlay that into a new network! Alas, Milledge slid safely and securely. I guess he saves the spikes high slides for offspring of enemy GM's. That's good enough for me.

Metstradamus On *Bonds

Everybody has an opinion. You know that. And seemingly, everybody has an opinion on Barry Bonds. To set the record straight, I do not have an opinion on Bonds.

I have opinions on Bonds. Four of them, to be exact. And with the freak show that is Barry Bonds coming to Shea on Friday night, now is the perfect time for me to get some things off my chest regarding *Barry.

Opinion number one: There should not be an asterisk by Barry Bonds' records.

An unpopular opinion? Sure. Is Barry Bonds a flaming jerk? You bet. Is it unfair to put him in a different class than the McGwires and the Sosas and the Palmeiros, as Bud Selig has seemingly done with George Mitchell's investigation? From a baseball standpoint, sure it is. But you reap what you sow...and Barry Bonds has been so outright rude to so many baseball fans and media members that he is the one that's made an example of. And that is fair, because it's just like real life. If two people in your office were, say, bringing home office supplies for personal use...and one guy was nice to everybody and brought in doughnuts every so often and helped out and stayed late and always donated to everyone else's going away party...and the other guy was, well...Barry Bonds? Which guy is going to be referred to human resources?

But there shouldn't be an asterisk in the record books...because this isn't a Barry Bonds problem. This is baseball's problem. Baseball turned a blind eye to this for so many years to the point that it bordered on encouraging players to bulk up...Kevin Towers, who was the Padres GM when the late Ken Caminiti was "shooting" for his 1996 N.L. MVP season, so much as admitted it. Every asterisk that sits next to a certain player's achievement in the steroid era further exonerates baseball's role (or non-role) in creating Bonds and those like him. They asked for it...and they deserve it to live in black and white with no qualifiers.

How many asterisks are you going to have to put in the record book for Mark McGwire? For Sammy Sosa? For Rafael Palmeiro? And why stop there? How about Brady Anderson's 50 home run season of 1996? How about Lenny Dykstra's 1988 season where he went from skinny base-stealing center fielder to a barrel chested large-armed home run hitter? How about Rafael Santana in 1987...five home runs after one dinger in each of the past three seasons? You want to start putting asterisks all over the record book and make everybody dizzy?

Patrick Hruby from ESPN made a valiant effort to try to estimate how many home runs Barry Bonds would have hit if the alleged "cream" and the alleged "clear" weren't involved. But as Hruby says himself, there's no way to know. It might be that every home run after 1998 was tainted. It might be that none of them were tainted. More likely it's a number in between. Why try to outsmart ourselves figuring it out? Baseball have had other eras of these types. Do you want to put asterisks by the careers of Cy Young and Christy Mathewson, for example, because the spitball wasn't outlawed until 1920? That kind of cheating was no different from steroid cheating, except for one major difference...which brings me to my next opinion:

Opinion number two: The media, by and large, are taking the entirely wrong approach to Barry Bonds and steroids.

Nobody is going to come out and say that steroids and other performance enhancers are good for baseball (duh!) But a lot of the sports columnists I have read have leaned towards blasting steroids because of their role in skewering the record books. "We must protect the record book!" they scream. Well, nobody was worried about protecting the integrity of the record book when it came to Gaylord Perry, a hall of famer, who put vaseline on every ball that everybody threw...then rubbed it in everybody's face during all those old timers games by bringing vats of the lubricant out to the mound with him. How would everyone feel if Barry Bonds was allowed to participate in one of these old timers games, and brought a syringe with him to the plate while laughing at a 50-year-old Byung Hyun Kim? And what is the difference between the two?

Vaseline, when used in a matter consistent with the directions, has never been blamed for playing a role in killing anyone.

That's the difference. And that's why steroids are a big deal...not because of the "integrity of the record book". Let's put the focus on the potential of student-athletes dropping dead over a tainted record book.

Opinion number three: Barry Bonds cares.

And this opinion centers on the "Bonds on Bonds" show on ESPN. I've had arguments with this guy about this subject: Does Barry Bonds care about America's perception of Barry Bonds?

Even though he's stated many times that he doesn't, I say there's a small part of him that does.

Perhaps it's the part that shrinks as a result of steroid usage.

There's actually a large part of him that publicly cares this season, but a lot of that large part is driven by public relations...marketing. Barry wants people to buy Barry memorabilia (which at one point was not sponsored by major league baseball...Barry Bonds pulled the license his name and likeness to MLB, which is why you never saw his name on any MLB video games, but now apparently that's changed) and since "Game of Shadows" came out, one wonders how much the sale of Bonds licensed t-shirts and jerseys have dipped. And notice that the defiant Barry Bonds has all but disappeared since the newest, and strongest, allegations. I will not go so far as to call him contrite, but the categorical denials of 'roid use by Bonds are no longer part of his game.

But it doesn't explain the show.

Why would Barry Bonds, who has always hated dealing with writers and television types and up until this season went out of his way to avoid them while on the job, all of a sudden allowed cameras to follow him around to his private life? I've heard that he's just doing it for the money he's being paid by ESPN. But his contract with the San Francisco Giants is paying him twenty million dollars this season. Will you ever see twenty million dollars in your life if you were allowed inside a bank vault? And if you had a job where you made twenty million dollars, and you hated being on television, would you be on your own reality show simply for the money...whether it be the money you get paid from the network, or the money that would roll in from the sale of merchandise as a result of doing the show?

It is a P.R. stunt, to be sure...no different a P.R. stunt than George Foster calling various media members out of the blue "just to say hello" the first year he was eligible for the hall of fame, after he was surly to them during his career. It didn't work...it was just sad...but sadder still is a man who's stats alone make him a virtual lock for Cooperstown (or at least give him a better chance than George Foster) resorting to dressing up like Paula Abdul during spring training. You think that stunt was designed to create team unity? Well judging by the swarm of teammates that greeted him at home plate after home run number 715, I'd say the effects wore off.

So why? Why the show? Why the Paula Abdul stunt for the show? Why the forced smile at news conferences which cracks the muscles that suffer from apathy in his cheeks?

Because deep down, there's a small part of him that cares.

Final Opinion: Barry Bonds, at this stage of his career, is Mike Piazza...and that may work out in the Mets favor.

Stay with me on this one...it makes sense.

Remember when the Mets depended heavily on Mike Piazza for their offense...and when Piazza took his requisite day game off after night game on...that lineup couldn't scare mice let alone opposing pitchers. Thusly, the Mike Piazza Mets never came close to repeating their 2000 Series appearance. With so much of the Giants budget tied up into Bonds, the rest of the offense is pop gun...has been for years. It doesn't do Felipe Alou any good to have Bonds play only 120 games a year (at most) with much of those games spent watching intentional walks fly by...with the likes of Pedro Feliz protecting him. Thus, Barry Bonds is playing the role of Mike Piazza.

Bonds' contract and age are too high (not to mention public opinion too low) for the Giants to trade him. And I'm not sure there wouldn't be a mini-riot if the Giants sent him to wear another uniform this season while getting probably next to nothing back. But with Jason Schmidt headed towards free agency, maybe he's the chip that gets used to help remake their team going forward. Schmidt is making half of Bonds' money (still pretty good) in this, the final season of his contract. And if there's a way the Mets can provide two, maybe three bats that don't belong to anyone named Lastings to the Giants to help them ease into the post Barry era in exchange for picking up the entire Schmidt contract for the rest of the season, then both teams should think about it. I don't know if the Mets would be able to do this, but there's still plenty of season left for the Giants to collapse and become more desperate. And in that, whacked out convoluted way, Barry Bonds may wind up helping the New York Mets.

But it doesn't mean you shouldn't boo him this weekend.

Attack Of The Zeroes

It was an easy call to anticipate a pitching duel between Pedro Martinez and Brandon Webb tonight. But there was so much no-scoring at Shea Stadium you would have thought you were at a Star Wars convention for twelve and a half innings.

I kid, I kid.

No really, the scoresheet will put the W next to the name of Filthy Sanchez. And all three pitchers were lights out...from Pedro to Country Time to Filthy. But give a little credit to Darren Oliver tonight too. Yeah I know genius, he didn't play tonight. But Oliver's four innings in last night's loss was of the "take one for the team" variety, even though his four innings were effective. It enabled Wagner and Sanchez to go five combined innings tonight, and the Mets could have gone to Bradford if need be, even if Tom Glavine had to pinch hit to get him in. But don't forget Darren Oliver's contribution.

The hero of the night though was Jose Valentin. Not only did his double provide the eventual winning run driven in by Endy Chavez (I fearlessly predicted the first walk off hit of the season would belong to Endy...it was more like the eighth...close enough as far as I'm concerned) but he completely saved Lastings Milledge's wooden cross wearing behind with a great play off Brandon Webb's grounder with runners on first and second to end the second inning. The inning should have been 1-2-3, however...whoopsie! Lastings lost an easy fly ball in the lights to extend the inning. If there was a chance that Lastings would get away with wearing say, a Superman outfit or a lumberjack get up during rookie costume day, you can forget it after that drop. He's getting the Tinkerbell costume now.

But fear not Lastings fans, he helped himself by gunning out Craig Counsell at third on a base hit. It was as gun as gun can get. Just please don't call him a "five tool player". I hate that term. Forgive me if I am repeating my disdain for that moniker, but every time a Met is referred to as a "five tool player", he turns out to be a tool. So can we retire that term already? Because besides the gun for an arm tool, Lastings showed the swing at every pitch tool tonight. Patience...young Jedi impersonator.

(But the gun from the outfield was pretty freakin' sweet.)