Sometimes it just ain't happening. It's not so much that you're playing badly, but you're certainly not playing well. You're just playing, the other guy's getting the breaks, and you're going to lose. This one was practically a sand-in-the-gears roll call:
* Jason Lane's nice catch off Marlon Anderson denies us two more runs in the first.
* Another stupid bunt in the second. Zambrano's a converted shortstop and a good enough hitter to swing away there. Giving up an out just to move Matsui to second wasn't worth it. Of course Reyes then promptly strikes out.
* Floyd gets a bad read on Biggio's long but catchable fly, which goes just over his glove to tie the game.
* Beltran, Floyd and Castro all strike out after Cameron's at second with nobody out.
* The Astros take the lead after Wright makes a nice play but can't quite get Ensberg at first — on a ball Ensberg hit one-handed after the ump refused to let him call time. (For Pete's sake….)
* Dan Wheeler, a bad pitcher for us last year, manages to walk Matsui but then looks like an awfully good pitcher against Woodward, getting him on an evil breaking ball. With Lidge waiting in the bullpen, that was the ballgame.
Nothing in that list is truly awful in a lie-awake-at-3-am-fuming sort of way — it's plays not quite made, plays and pitches made by them, that sort of thing. But it's a loss nonetheless, on a night when the Nationals, Phillies and Marlins all won.
Speaking of roll calls, the morons in the bleachers who called out the names of the Met starters the way the Yankee Bleacher Creatures do better be on a plane to Gitmo as I type. I have to (grudgingly) admit the Yankee roll call is fairly cool, but that doesn't mean I want to hear it in my park. Particularly not emanating from that sad construction we call bleachers. There's nothing wrong with hiring a Yankee coach or signing a Yankee second baseman — the coach grew up a Met fan and played for us, after all, and the second baseman was a smart addition and seems to have shed the stink of brimstone. But you can't bite the other team in town's rituals. You just can't. How is this not incredibly obvious to any right-thinking Met fan? What were those people thinking? Let us never speak of this again.
Is that what they were doing? I couldn't make out what they were chanting. I just figured they were trying to get some girl to take her top off. I had no idea it was even more foul than that.
I think I'm going to be sick.
It died when Jose Reyes failed to respond.
Jose Reyes is now the greatest Met ever.
I was hoping that it was Yankme fans doing that. Then I realized it was probably former Yankme fans who have already jumped ship and landed squarely in Pedrotown. Even as a thought that dissonantly warms my cockles and makes my skin crawl, that doesn't even come close to excusing it.
I decided a long time ago that if the Mets organization ever adopts the “Daaaaay-o……….Daaaay-o” mimic chant, I'm, as Gary would say, outta here. Blue will mean one thing- sky. And orange will mean one thing- sunset. 1986 will be the product of 6 and 331. A Valentine will be something romantic. And willieball will merely be a game I play in the privacy of my own home, with maybe one other active participant.
I will believe in nothing. They will be dead to me.
I guess this was the last remaining way in which Met fans had not begun resembling Yankee fans. The circle is now complete.
And yes, I've seen Yankee fans trying to dump their season tickets/plan tickets on Craigslist because they “enjoy watching the Mets more.” It's all about the rings, baby. You stop winning, we're… OUTTA HERE!!! (Yes, that was Gary too.)
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I was hoping that it was Yankme fans doing that. Then I realized it was probably former Yankme fans who have already jumped ship and landed squarely in Pedrotown.
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Bingo.
As a Red Sox fan, I've been happy to say goodbye to the “1918” chant, but I've been even more pleased to see the demise of the moronic “Babe, Bucky, Buckner, Boone” nonsense.
This always irked me to no end. Three out of the four calamities were at least wrought at the hands of the Yankees. But Buckner? How could Yankee fans take credit for that? It wasn't even their team.
Then it suddenly hit me one day: all these Yankee m*therf*cker fans were Met fans in 1986. They all adopted the Mets in the mid-eighties while the Yankees foundered, then jumped ship and went back to the Yankee Wehrmacht when it got rolling again in the Charlie Hayes era.
Scratch an IROC-drivin', zebra-pants-wearin', YES-watchin' Jeter ballwasher in his mid-thirties to mid-forties, and you'll find a guy who just dug the Gary Carter road jersey out of the back of his closet.
Sorry to say that as a New York team, you're going to have to deal with Yankee fans of loose virtue swooning for your boys whenever the Yanks falter. It's your cross to bear.
Feel glad that the money they spend at your ballpark will help fund your ascendancy.