The Best Trips Are Those Not Taken

I was going to be there this week.

Yup, Pittsburgh. It was on my calendar.

Thankfully, scheduling conflicts, booked up hotel rooms and most of all, general laziness kept me home for the Mets four game trip in Pittsburgh. So as down as I am about this team, the good news is that I could have been there to see it in person. Score one for laziness.

Because what would I have seen in Pittsburgh? J.J. Putz get hammered? Johan Santana getting no run support? Mike Pelfrey get hammered? J.J. Putz get hammered again? I could see all of that with a 20 minute train ride.

And a rainout to boot, which means that this baseball series, that the God you pray to has clearly forsaken, isn't going to end until July 2nd. A month long hell ride? Great. At least I wasn't there.

• Airplane tickets on Jet Blue: $80.
• Tickets to four games: $80.
• Four games worth of Primanti Brothers burgers: $30
• Scalped ticket to a Stanley Cup Final: $300
• Not spending any of that money and missing out on all the fun and misery of the Mets getting their carcasses beat like rented mules? Priceless.

(Y'all probably would have loved it if I was on that trip. If I had witnessed that mess personally, it might have produced the angriest, best, and probably last blog post ever on this site. I wouldn't have just died, I would have disintegrated right on the spot. Puff of white smoke so pronounced you'd have thought we had a new Pope. Carlos Beltran's post game rant? That would have looked like a Mother Goose rhyme compared to what you would have seen here.)

You know what else I would have seen? Jason Jaramillo drive home every single person on the LaRoche family tree. I believe Jaramillo's bat is on its way to Cooperstown after setting a record for driving in more family members in one game than anyone in history. It was fun listening to Gary Cohen: "Base hit for Jaramillo. Adam LaRoche scores ... Andy LaRoche scores ... Dave LaRoche scores ... Jennifer LaRoche scores ... they're waving around the crazy uncle who stuffs his bell peppers with chocolate mousse, and he'll score! And the Pirates take a 48-5 lead."

At least all this nonsense about adrenaline and roles and hand placement will stop as it looks more and more like it's a physical problem with Putz, as he's going back to New York to have his elbow checked out. That's not to say that it's a relief that he's injured, but at least he isn't going to be thrown out there anymore with a bone spur. As much as I had hoped that it was mechanical, it became increasingly clear to me that it wasn't. How it's clear to me and yet the team kept throwing him out there is, once again, amazing to me. Maybe the people that make the medical decisions were doing so on the basis of what they've seen on ER. Think about it: the show's run ends, and the Mets can't keep anyone healthy. Can we send them old episodes of Chicago Hope on DVD?

High Anxiety

So when did you get nervous?

Was it when Filthy Sanchez walked in from the bullpen?

Was it when Jack Wilson hit his first home run of the season off Filthy, and first off of a Met since he hit a grand slam off of Danny Graves?

Was it when Aaron Heilman showed his face on the PNC mound?

Or perhaps ... was it when Carlos Delgado got himself "set" to field that Andy LaRoche grounder and instead did his best impression of a bullfighter?

Or did you get nervous the moment I did, when the team plane hit the tarmac in Pittsburgh?

Luckily, Argenis Reyes knows that when it's Delgado backing up on a grounder, he should take nothing for granted. And luckily, all of Aaron Heilman's pitching problems didn't cause him to forget how to cover first on that play ... which helped to save the Mets in their 2-1 win (yes, I believe Heilman should split that third save with Argenis. You can have 2.5 sacks, why not 2.5 saves?)

But Heilman still had to get Jack "Slugger" Wilson to end the game as the winning run. Were you nervous then? C'mon, it was Jack Wilson! He had only hit two dingers in a game once before. And once again ... this was Jack Wilson we were talking about.

Oh just admit it ... you were nervous. Admission is the first step.

Postcard From Florida: Behind Enemy Lines

Hope you're enjoying the snow back home in New York City.

Here, it reached a high of 78 in Sunny Florida ... a stark contrast from the 19 degrees we dealt with on Thursday night back at White Plains airport. That walk from the gate to the plane outdoors almost froze us before we got on the plane. I'll take 78, thanks.

I was excited when there was a good handful of Mets fans at the airport, thinking they were all coming to Orlando with me. I had thoughts of leading a chorus of "Meet the Mets" on the plane. But all the Met fans got on the plane to West Palm while we took the last flight out to Orlando for leg one of "Metstrapalooza: The Spring Training Tour".

Game one was spent behind enemy lines: Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex (at the newly christened Champions Field) for the Dodgers and the Braves. You probably missed the Braves taking advantage of the Dodgers' porous middle relief for a 10-3 victory. You also missed Dodger third baseman Andy LaRoche being the nicest guy in the world. He gave autographs to anyone and everyone. If LaRoche wasn't a third baseman I would demand that we trade for this guy right now! There were two Dodgers that were nice enough to sign baseballs for the crowd. Would you believe the other one was Rafael Furcal?

You also missed me chanting "Laaaaaaaa-rryyyyyyyyyy" at every opportunity (including the two ground balls he bobbled). I was texting people back home telling them to put on the ESPN game to try to hear me yell at him. Did any of you hear me by chance? (I think Larry himself might have heard me, right before his base hit in the fifth which signaled to me that I should probably knock it off before he gets madder).

And you just missed a conversation in the hotel room regarding Hank Steinbrenner's bitching and moaning about this being a Yankee World, to which I replied: "If this is a Yankee World, where's my spaceship to Mars?" (And now at this point, the Yankee fan in the room is talking about guest blogging for me. I'm not stupid enough to do that a second time.)

Well, it's a long drive to Lakeland tomorrow for leg two: Indians/Tigers at Lakeland, so I should probably get some sleep. It's all leading up to a reunion between me and the Mets at Vero Beach on Sunday. Hopefully, whichever star pitcher is on the hill will refrain from giving up a three run dinger to an 84-year-old man. I hate Juan Gonzalez.

In the meantime, enjoy more photos from Day One, and stop shoveling so much snow: