Tonight's game was one of those games that fades quickly without leaving much of a trace — it's been over about three hours, and I can remember exactly three things from it:
1. Gerald Williams is apparently determined to prove in every single game that he cannot play center field. You know he had to be thinking, “Oh Lord” when a carbon copy of the Antonio Perez ball came hurtling out of the darkness toward him, just in case any Met fans were over thinking about him getting a crappy jump and missing the ball at the wall. Reminded me a bit of Luis Fucking Sojo's 94-hopper in the World Series that Kurt Abbott couldn't quite field, slamming our coffin shut and forcing us to seek cold comfort in muttering that Ordonez would've gotten it. So next year, in one of those tragedy-becomes-farce baseball moments, Sojo hits one in the Little Subway Series off Leiter, and it takes like 94 hops and just eludes Ordonez. You could hear an entire ballpark — well, OK, 60% of one — muttering to its neighbor.
But regarding Gerald Williams. I mean, what does it take? Remember the scene in “The Man With Two Brains” in which Steve Martin asks his wdow's spirit for guidance about whether he should marry Kathleen Turner? The house practically collapses in a hurricane of shattering objects and spectral screams, during which Steve stands there oblivious, saying, “A sign…anything…” C'mon, Omar — does the scoreboard have to start gushing blood like some crazed recreation of “The Shining” before you take this man off the roster?
2. David Wright doing a beautiful job turning an 0-2 hole into a walk — he reminds me of Alfonzo the way he can work out of bad counts — followed by Clifford hitting a no-doubter.
3. Todd Zeile showing up in the middle innings dressed like a “Partridge Family” character. If he was in costume or something, sorry, I missed it. Funny thing about baseball: In uniform Zeile looked old and small towards the end, but put him in civilian clothes (even ones from the Nixon administration) and he looks young and huge.
So bottle those three moments for posterity, because the rest is all slipping out of mind already. And after a trip that featured a horrifying collision, a Zambrano/Heilman choke job and a blown no-hitter, a fairly anonymous game was just fine with me.
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