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.

***

For your reference...

How to make a comeback:

How not to make a comeback:

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

Hardcore Insanity

What some people refer to as "hardcore", others refer to as "insane".

When I broached the idea of seeing four major league baseball games in a span of 48 hours, with about 14 hours of driving inter-dispersed among the 48 hours, I sat on the fence...teetering back and forth about whether this was the act of a couple of hardcore baseball fans, or whether it was the final step towards the looney bin.

So was all the effort worth it? Was it hardcore? Was it insane? (Warning: what you are about to read is an epic...split up into digestible parts, but epic nonetheless. Not epic as in good...just long. Be prepared.)

Game One: Quadruple "A"

My brother warned me that the Great American Ballpark was a really nice minor league ballpark, kind of like those players that dominate AAA ball, but can't quite climb the Mendoza line in the majors. I can't go quite that far in assessing the Reds' home, but there is definitely a minor league feel to the park. It's intimate, it has fireworks, and it's very...very...red. It's easy for a camera to spot a Mets fan in the crowd, as black and orange seem to clash with all the red seats, the red shirts, and the blood spilled by Reds fans as...

All right, maybe not quite that red. But as you can tell from the picture above, there were plenty of Mets fans at GAB on Tuesday night. And the boys at Faith and Fear in Flushing would be happy to know that one of those Met fans was sporting the now classic number shirt seen in many cities around the world, and now in Ohio...though I wasn't fast enough to grab a picture of the guy, you guys will just have to trust me that he was there.

We spent the first three innings in the Riverfront Club, which is basically fancy food, real plates, and free beer. What's better than that? (If you go, try the cream of shallot). How about the kid waiter who watched Paul Lo Duca's first home run with us, not batting an eye when we clapped politely?

"I don't care who you root for, as long as I get paid. I'm actually a Mets fan anyways."

This was quickly followed by the poor kid getting admonished by his boss for not keeping the tables clean.

Then there was the bitter Reds fan sitting at the bar who noticed my Pedro jersey and starts in with the bartender...her rant went something like "blah blah blah blah blah all these Mets fans blah blah blah blah blah blah they're just like Cub fans blah blah blah blah blah blah".

OK then.

Then it was off to our big time seats about 22 rows up from the Reds dugout, and sitting next to a Cincinnati celebrity...namely: Rocco Castellano, a fitness instructor and attitude adjustor who has been on local radio, and is not only good people, but he's actually a Mets fan from New Jersey. Wearing a Pedro Martinez jersey in enemy territory, it was good to have a fitness instructor on my side (because I'm too anemic to defend myself, as you know). As for the attitude adjusting, I wonder if Guillermo Mota has been a recent beneficiary of Rocco's expert teachings. If not, he probably should be.

Definitely make a pilgrimage to the place for no other reason than the fact that you can run to the bathroom and get back to your seat without missing a pitch. You couldn't do that at Shea unless you used an empty cup at your seat. And also, try the deep fried twinkies. Just stay away from that chili/spaghetti mess unless you have had tetanus shots.

We were lucky to be present at the game on the all-important 26th anniversary of Woody Woodward almost being hit by a ten pound sack of flour at Dodger Stadium. And it was another not so great day in Reds history 36 years later...as not only did Lo Duca hit his second dinger of the night, but my brother spent the entire night heckling Adam Dunn. Good times had by all (especially the guy in his fifties who was literally dancing in the street after the game because Orlando Hernandez threw him a baseball and he caught it), as the Mets had their first five game winning streak of the season (you know, I heard that no team ever made the playoffs without a five game winning streak), and my road record ran to 5-0. But as you know, all good things...

Game Two: What's Up Old People?

We knew it was going to be one of those special kinda days when we rode the elevator with Thom Brenneman at Wednesday afternoon's Mets/Reds tilt. Say what you want about Brenneman (and I have), but the guy not only called Boise State's Fiesta Bowl masterpiece, he has now also called Appalachian State's massive upset over Michigan. That's cache, my friends.

We traveled up to the upper deck to find my niece, at the game with her schoolmates...and along the way found a Reds usher clapping wildly for Aaron Harang as he was announced as the Reds' Roberto Clemente award candidate (and seeing how empty the upper deck was that day, we have strong suspicions that the usher was, in reality, Aaron Harang's mom.)

So my brother finds his daughter in the upper deck among her schoolmates (great school system in Cincinnati...as soon as the class saw us two mooks in our Mets jerseys, the teachers spurred their kids to chant "Let's Go Reds" at us. That's some mighty hospitality there...must be that "midwest polite") and gives her a Mets hat to wear. She then asks her daddy with a big smile on her face: "Are you going to watch the game with me?" My brother...still stinging over the fact that his daughter had him in the bathroom at GAB while Pedro Martinez was striking out his 3,000th career batter on Monday...said "nope, I just came to give you your hat".

That's good parenting.

What he probably wanted to say was that we had much better seats than the class. For reference, here's approximately what row Q gets you at Shea Stadium:

Meanwhile, here's row Q in Cincinnati:

Not bad, eh?

But before we got back to our row Q, I took this picture in the concourse of a painting featuring the Big Red Machine:


You'll notice the former Met in the lower right corner...that's correct, George Foster. I took this picture thinking "oh, here's an opportunity to rip on Foster in my next blog entry for never, ever diving for a fly ball in a Mets uniform".

Wouldn't you know that a few feet to the left of the picture that I was going to segue into a George Foster joke, was George Foster himself? Yes...George Foster was signing autographs for the throngs of people waiting in line to buy his signature on an 8X10 for $25.

Well, actually, it was more like the throng of person waiting for his autograph...so you know I couldn't let this opportunity go by without getting a picture with the man, and getting a personalized 8X10. George Foster...who once hit a triple in a Mets uniform, but was now wearing a Reds jersey during this session, was taking a picture with little ol' me. That's when this exchange occurred:

GF: Try not to beat up on us too bad today, OK?

MD: You know when the Mets signed you, it was the first step in the Mets
becoming relevant again.

GF: I thought I was the only one who figured that out.

Still confident after all these years.

(Foster would later do an interview on the Diamondvision, and when asked to give a message to the senior citizens on Senior Citizens Day, the 59 year-old Foster's inspirational message was: "What's up old people!")

The game featured temperatures that reached 105, the Mets being shut down by some guy named Tom Shearn, and Joey Votto getting his first major league hit, a bomb off of John Maine (along with the appearance of maybe the greatest name ever for a baseball player: Buck Coats.) And I gotta say: I've never had so much fun at a 7-0 beating in my life. Consider that for the final three innings, we sat here:

This picture was taken right before my conversation with Jose, which was basically me asking Jose if he was enjoying his day off, and Reyes nodding his head and flexing his muscles...telling me he needed to get stronger (probably more mentally than physically, I'd say).

Mets fans had taken over the rows behind the dugout, having a good time talking to their team...but wondering why Moises Alou wouldn't smile at them. Rest assured that Moises isn't a dour guy. He's just afraid that if he smiles, he'll pull a face muscle and be out for three weeks, so he's just thinking of the team in this instance.

A funny thing happened during the ninth inning down 0-7. Mets fans were getting up a "Let's Go Mets" chant. Certainly a far cry from some of the seemingly constant complainin' about the team back here in New York to hear a group of fans blissfully backing the team with the stench of the Phillies series seeming more and more like a distant memory. It was a glorious thing. But it had to be interrupted by a higher calling, which was my brother heckling Mike Stanton:

"Hey Stanton, Prince Fielder called, he wants his pants back!"

No matter that he was closing out a day game doldrum for the Mets, we had to extract our pound of flesh from a Hall of Hate charter member (my only regret was that I couldn't tie a Krispy Kreme to a fishing pole and dangle it in front of Stanton in hopes that he's chase it. Next year.)

Game Three: Free Parking

Here was the challenge of the day...get from Cincinnati to Chicago in four hours, find parking, and get in our seats by 8:05 for our first ever trip to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs and the Dodgers. Who could blame us for thinking we had a chance...as not only did we hear on the radio that batting practice was delayed by a thunderstorm, but that the Braves had come back to defeat the Phillies 9-8 after being down 0-5 when we left GAB, keeping the Mets lead at five games. This prompted my brother to call a Phillies fan to rub it in, with me doing the tomahawk chop in the background.

Yes, things were coming together.

The festive atmosphere we anticipated at Wrigley caused me to start singing the Amy Winehouse song "They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'" for the better part of three hours (my brother probably needed rehab after acquiring that earworm from me). Unfortunately, we missed most of the festive, rehab-free atmosphere of Wrigley as we didn't get to the park until the bottom of the fourth (while missing some guy from Reno 911 throwing out the first pitch).

Then it took two innings to park the car.

Luckily, we ran into a couple leaving the game who my brother subconsciously willed into giving us their parking sticker so that we wouldn't have to find the missing parking attendant and give up upwards of forty dollars to park and watch three innings of baseball...as we didn't sit down in Wrigley until the bottom of the sixth. (So let this be a lesson to those of you thinking of trying this kind of trip: Cincinnati to Chicago is impossible if you want to see every pitch. Can't be done. Believe me, we tried. Any faster, and we would have had Jackie Gleason and Boss Hog tailing us.)

But three innings in Wrigley was more than enough for one night (and in my mind, it still counts as two games in one day...pretty cool.) Night games in Wrigley, even if consumed in a small dose, are an event. What more could you want from a baseball game than an electric crowd, a beer, and national television?

How about not having a pillar in front of your seat?

No wonder I was able to get these tickets so easily online. No matter, because I scored my Derrek Lee bobblehead doll (which upon entering my apartment, immediately leaped from the box and hit a home run off of my Heath Bell bobblehead doll) thanks to our Chicago mole who was actually there early enough to be one of the first 10,000 fans to enter the park (don't worry, for his efforts I paid for his ticket...I'm a compassionate one).

The Cubs won in a laugher, which meant we were lucky (?) enough to hear the Go Cubs Go song that the team has adopted as a theme song. Here are the lyrics:

They're singing ...Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today.
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
They tried to make me go to rehab, I said: Go Cubs Go

Oh, sorry...I got my earworms mixed up.

After the game featured the only Wrigley reference to my Mets hat (the infamous travel hat, by the way) which came from a vendor who was selling a t-shirt on Waveland which referred to the sexual preference of the St. Louis Cardinals. He spots my Met hat and says:

"You must hate the Cardinals as much as we do."

Which was met by three simple words that came out of my mouth: "Yadier...f***ing...Molina".

In one respect, brothers in arms.

Game Four: One With...

Now Wrigley Field was great. But I did have a couple of complaints. The one Cub souvenir that I really wanted was a Cliff Floyd shirt. I figured that going into a Cubs shop across the street from the Field and seeing t-shirts immortalizing the likes of Matt Murton, Carlos Marmol, and Ronny Cedeno would up my chances of finding a Cubs shirt featuring a Chicago native. But alas, my efforts to find a "Floyd 15" shirt was futile. And as much as I love Cliff, I wasn't dropping a buck-sixty on an official "Floyd 15" jersey.

My other complaint were the bathrooms. Call me crazy, but relieving myself in a community sink isn't my idea of fun. (If you've been there, you know what I mean.)

But no Cliff Floyd tee, hijinks in the bathroom, and the lack of opportunity to boo the resting Jeff Kent for a second straight day were made up for by the hot dogs. Guys and gals, do yourselves a favor. Go to the hot dog stand and order a "one with". Just trust us.

And then, after Andre Ethier broke the Cubs hearts with a three run home run off of Ryan Dempster in the ninth (apparently, the Mets aren't the only team that has Dempster's number), it was time to end our trip, and take the long trip home. So was it worth it? Was driving and riding all these miles to see four ball games in 48 hours worth the effort?

Damn straight.

So I guess my vote is for hardcore.

But you know, we passed by Indianapolis on the way back home from Wrigley on Thursday night. We could have caught a quarter of the NFL opener on our way back to Cincinnati.

Hey, what do you think...we're insane?

Why Metstradamus Is An Idiot: Part 4,219

"Marlon Anderson in center field? You've gotta be kidding me! Lastings Milledge has fresh legs...he made two diving catches out there? You mean to tell me that he can't go on consecutive nights? Who does Willie Randolph think Lastings is, Cliff Floyd? Marlon Anderson? Center field? What can Marlon Anderson do that Lastings can't?" -Metstradamus, bottom of the first inning.

Umm, hit a three run homer, drive in four runs total and help beat the Brewers, perhaps?

Oh.

"Why doesn't Marlon Anderson play center field more often?" -Metstradamus, bottom of the fourth inning

(Idiot blogger.)

Aramis Ramirez: The Final Frontier

You may have missed this, but China has recently, and successfully, launched the Nigeria Communication Satellite into orbit from the Xichang satellite launch center in China.

Unfortunately, the satellite was knocked out of orbit by Aramis Ramirez's grand slam, launched by Scott Schoeneweis at Shea Stadium in New York.

Before it could knock any satellites off the air, it turned a manageable 3-1 game into a 7-1 disaster, and it was well on it's way to the 10-1 debacle that it turned out to be.

When Aramis Ramirez is in New York, he's the greatest enemy that the space program has...if you remember (and believe me I tried to forget) he hit the same set of green seats against Steve Trachsel last July with a home run that traveled 425 feet. Obviously, he didn't want to limit the souvenirs to the people in the mezzanine box seats, so this time he hit the less expensive reserve seats with the grannie. Sure he was helped out by a slight 18 mph breeze to left field, but if that's all he needed, maybe the launch center in China should rethink their more expensive methods of satellite launching.

"That would have been an out in most parks."

"Name one..."

"Yellowstone."

So now John Maine is 5-1 instead of 5-0. He wasn't fried to a crisp as he could have been, he kept the Mets in the game for the 96 pitches and five innings that he lasted, and that's a good thing. All we can ask of Maine at this point is that if he's going to have an off night (7 hits and three walks for a game WHIP of 2), battle and keep the team in it, which he did.

Of course, Maine's counterpart Carlos Zambrano picks a great night to stop sulking over not getting that contract extension signed before the Cubs announced an impending sale of the team. Zambrano (I'm going to resist the easy "has been pitching more like Victor Zambrano" joke because I feel I'm better than that...all right, maybe not) has been subpar all season long until breaking out of the slump tonight in Flushing, going eight innings and giving up a lonely home run to Shawn Green. The Mets had opportunitites off of "Z", with Paul Lo Duca getting the big two-out hit only to have Green chucked at home...and Endy Chavez leaving a few men on the basepaths tonight with a couple of two out at bats.

And of course, tonight featured the inevitable "stick it to your former teammates" game, this time by Cliff Floyd. Floyd (who's healthy while Moises Alou is not...gee, who knew?) had three hits, a run batted in, and scored ahead of Ramirez's blast, following in the footsteps of famous "stick it to ya" games such as Mike Piazza's two HR's, Tom Seaver's complete game, and whatever Victor Zambrano has in store for us for whatever team he's playing for (because you know that will be the worst of all).

All we could have really hoped for was that Cliffy got an ovation fitting of a man who played his heart out in his time with the Mets. He did so during a time when such players seemed to be few and far between...case in point: 2003, when he basically played on one leg until the Mets were eliminated from playoff contention. It's easy to be remembered for your accomplishments towards a winner. But Cliff Floyd showed what he was all about when the chips were down...when you really find out what someone is made of. We know what Cliff Floyd is made of, and the crowd showed him that tonight...although no matter how loud the crowd would have gotten for him, it would have never seemed like enough.

Of course, Cliff will surely test the limits of that love with another bushel of hits in the next two games. It's inevitable.

Walk It Off

OK, so here is a query for the all knower of walkoffs; and this isn't trivia, this is something out of curiosity...

Chris Woodward said after Tuesday night's victory that it was the first time ever he hit a walkoff HR in his baseball life. Lenny Dykstra's walkoff HR in game 3 of the NLCS was Dykstra's first walkoff HR since Strat-O-Matic. Now there's gotta be someone back in the annals that was around for a long time and then hit his first ever walk-off HR with the Mets. Mark Simon comes up with some great stuff for his Met Walk-off blog, so I fully expect him to tie tonight's HR in with something super cool from the Mets distant past. I know he can do it (if he hasn't already), so don't forget to check Mark Simon's blog often!

OK, on to business at hand, observations from tonight's dramatic 3-1 11 inning victory over the Padres...

Was that really Mike Piazza batting sixth tonight behind David Wright? I did one of those cartoon double takes where I shake my head so violently that my brain hit my skull. I'll give it to Willie, what ever you may think of his X's and O's, Willie Randolph will eventually turn wrong to right. It took a while, but he finally got it done. The only question is: was this Randolph's decision, or was it Piazza who went to Randolph to take the pressure off him and request the change? My guess would be that it was Piazza, but we'll find out. And while the move didn't result in a lot of runs tonight, in the long run, it will make a difference if the Mets go on a big run. And what better time to do it than now...after San Diego, you have three with the mediocre Dodgers, and three in Denver against the putrid Rockies.

It was the first time since May 12th, 1993, Piazza's rookie season, that he's batted that low in the order. And here's why tonight's lineup change was for the best: There have been 55 at bats this season where Piazza has ended an inning with a runner on base...that does not count the 5 outs that Piazza made to end the game, and the two outs Piazza made before walkoffs. In those 55 at bats, batters that led off the following inning has an on base percentage of .400 (22 for 55) with two HR's. Most of those hits came courtesy of Cliff Floyd, and most of the outs came courtesy of Doug Mientkiewicz and Marlon Anderson. David Wright was starting to have success in that category before tonight's move.

Meanwhile, going back to Willie Randolph correcting mistakes, tonight we learned that "Dae Sung Koo" is Korean for "Doug Sisk". With all of the lefty batters you are going to face with San Diego, Los Angeles, and Colorado, would you leave yourself with Dae Sung Sisk as your only lefty in the pen? Braden Looper had to face 5 lefties in 6 batters tonight, which could have been a disaster, but to Looper's credit, he was very low maintenance tonight en route to the win. Koo faced three lefties tonight, got none of them out.

There seems to have been very specific moments that Willie Randolph has lost patience with people. Felix Heredia had his early on. Hitaway DeJean had his moment against Seattle. Danny Graves might have had two, against Pittsburgh (the Jack Wilson grannie) and against Atlanta (giving up a run in three batters and 75 seconds). Tonight may have been Koo's moment.

And in an observation which may not be totally unrelated to Koo, I get the feeling that Kaz Ishii has pitched his last game as a Met. The evidence is mounting...first, Ishii's turn is skipped because of the off-day yesterday. Then, the Mets don't announce their starters for the Dodger game. Finally, Aaron Heilman warms up during the seventh inning tonight. But after Looper's stint, where it would have made sense to warm up Heilman again in case the game goes long, Juan Padilla warms up, and was ready to start the non-existant 12th inning. Why else would Aaron Heilman not be made to come into the game, except that he's starting on Friday, and the warm up tosses in the seventh was part of his off day throwing schedule in anticipation of returning to starting?

With players getting DFA'd left and right such as Alan Embree of the Red Sox, Heilman perhaps getting ready to start, and Steve Trachsel getting ready to return, do the Mets really have a choice but to release Ishii? He's not a long reliever...he's not a short reliever...and he's proven that he's not much of a starter right now. The tea leaves are coming together for Ishii, and the leaves are spelling out "D.F.A." And if I was Mr. Koo, I wouldn't look into New York real estate right now either.

And if I were Royce Ring, I wouldn't get too comfortable in Norfolk.

(Editor's note: Of course, after I go on and on about Ishii being gone and Heilman returning to the rotation, it looks like Ishii is going to pitch Thursday against Jake Peavy. Ishii has outdueled Dontrelle Willis this season, but I get the feeling that the Mets are almost conceding this game, and would be looking towards the Dodger series with Victor Zambrano, who originally was pitching against Peavy, going against Jeff Weaver on Friday, and Pedro pitching the Saturday game. I'm still going to say that Ishii will not make the 2005 finish line as a Met, but he has at least another start in him. And I still say Dae Sung Sisk is in trouble.)

***

Barry Larkin making a comeback?

A more likely scenario to replace the anemic Cristian Guzman includes Tampa Bay's Julio Lugo. Rafael Furcal would be intriguing, but the Nats and Braves would never trade now. Would the Nats get Furcal for 2006? That would seem entirely possible.

***

The A.J. Burnett deal to Baltimore seemingly hit a snag.

***

Billy Wagner is a better fit for the "win now" Red Sox than for the "win now but keep an eye on the future" Mets.

***

And finally, I agree with how you've voted in the poll so far, and I'm ready to officially agree with Andrew. If the Mets were to trade the farm, let it be for the 25-year-old Adam Dunn, and not the 31-year-old Mike Sweeney. Power hitters in Shea scare me, especially those who strike out a lot like Dunn...but if you can move either him or Floyd to first base without there being a federal investigation, then it would be worth it.

Science Lab Blows Up

Saturday night's 11-4 loss to Pittsburgh may have signaled the end of a couple of experiments for the Mets.

First to explode: the Kaz Ishii experiment. In a season of good start, bad start, good start for Ishii, tonight was due to be bad start, and it was. But unfortunately, the Mets absolutely needed Ishii to pick to club up after their worst loss of the season on Friday. Instead, he was the ultimate downer. Not only did he put the Mets in a 3-0 hole, including giving up a HR to the immortal Humberto Cota (fast becoming the Pirates version of Pat Burrell) on an 0-2 count, but he committed the cardinal sin of giving up a run immediately after the Mets tied the game in the 6th on Cliff Floyd's solo HR (an inning after Mike Cameron pounded a two run dinger to put the Mets on the board). And it was a run created solely after two men were out. So on a night where the Mets needed Kaz Ishii to step up and help his club, he showed the intestinal fortitude of soggy mashed potatoes.

Next to explode: the Danny Graves experiment. With the game still in reach at 6-3, Danny Graves came in for a struggling Heath Bell. Graves gave up an RBI double to Cota, and a grannie to Jack "95 lbs soaking wet" Wilson to basically end all hopes.

Graves and his tattoos were a cheap option, and it's not like he replaced someone useful. But the Mets had to find out about him, and unfortunately, they'll probably go to him again. Sometimes when you don't particularly care for someone working under you in a real job, you need an excuse to get rid of that person. Sometimes that excuse comes when you stop coddling that person and you let them run with a normal workload...and when said person fails, you have your excuse to get rid of them. With the Mets having a $5 million option on Graves for next season, they can't just use him exclusively in mop-up situations and expect to have a good excuse to decline the option for 2006. They needed to give him a normal workload, and that was tonight. He failed, so that's that. The Mets will probably use him a couple of more times for confirmation, just as they did with Hitaway DeJean in Seattle.

The one thing about the Mets this season is that a struggling player will get enough rope to hang himself. But Willie Randolph and Omar Minaya will have no problem playing executioner and pull the level on that's player's career, even if it is in the middle of the season. I see it happening with Graves at the end of this campaign, and I see it with Ishii much sooner than that. In any event, next time you see either of these experiments in the game, always be sure to wear your protective goggles.