Lots of entertainment tonight [1].
Highlights:
* It’s a family game. Take Jose Valentin getting tagged out at home plate by little brother Javier after a rather eventful trip around the bases, including a no-doubt-double-take-inducing wave of the arm from Manny Acta. Jose had 360 feet to go; unfortunately, his tank apparently held enough fuel for 350. And no one could have guessed that Ken Griffey Jr. would find the best cutoff man a centerfielder could imagine in the pitcher’s mound. Bam! Jose looked like he’d have been happy to take a few minutes there at home plate. Can’t say I blame him.
* How perfect was it that Xavier Nady then promptly hit a conventional home run, with no need to tire oneself out or pick up third-base coaches or tangle with catchers? It’s an unfair game, Jose.
* Trachsel going deep was high comedy in itself, particularly when he was then trying to rechannel his mantra and recalibrate his visualizations or whatever it was he does while the rest of the dugout wanted to bullyrag him for a home run.
* With the game safely in the W column, watching the Yankees and Phillies trade broadsides was entertaining too. There was no bad outcome at that point: Phillies win, they pick up no ground and I can wallow in a big mucky field of Schadenfreude; Phillies lose, we get back to 9 1/2 games and the Servants of the Beast still spend tomorrow muttering about how Moose didn’t look right and they gave up seven runs. Life is good.
* Braves lost. They’re 11 under .500 and John Smoltz is being asked if he’d accept a trade to help the club. Hypothetically of course.
* Keith dropping a muuuultitasking from that Red Roof Inn commercial that sticks in your mind like a bit of popcorn under a tooth.
* With Delgado reaching 20 home runs and Beltran at 19, Todd Hundley’s single-season home-run mark seems like it could definitely be in jeopardy. Good. Nothing against Hot Rod, but I always thought that mark would be Piazza’s and should be Piazza’s. Never happened, but it’s time for a new name atop the column.
* Four Mets — Wright, Reyes, Lo Duca and Beltran — are atop the All-Star balloting at their positions, and Glavine has to have earned a trip. For some strange reason my image of the All-Star Game has undergone a recent change from “ludicrous exhibition” to “cherished stitch in the fabric of the game.” (My innate hypocrisy is always at the ready should I need it.)
* The Cyclones are back!
Lowlights? Hell, 33 years of being a Met fan ensures I can root around until I find a few. Let’s see:
* Gary Cohen is too smart to either not have read Moneyball or to be misrepresenting it on the air. On what page in what possible universe does Moneyball suggest a hitter not be aggressive on a 2-1 pitch in favor of trying to work a walk? C’mon, Gary. You’re better than that.
* Speaking of SNY, a pox on in-game interviews. Let Trachsel go take a leak and get an ice bag instead of discussing the ups and downs of his splitter. I’ve got half the night and all day tomorrow to dissect such things, as well as any points Sandy Alomar or Willie Randolph might have to make. Right now I’ve got a game to watch and so do they. Could we please do that?
* The Cyclones are back, but they got beat. They got beat by the Staten Island Yankees. They got beat 18-0 by the Staten Island Yankees. The grasping at straws in the postgame press release is pretty entertaining: “Wantagh native and Stony Brook alumni Nick Abel pitched the only back-to-back scoreless innings of the night. In addition, the Cyclones had runners on base in nearly every inning”. Nearly every inning, huh? Still, the folks in the Cyclones press office did admit that this was one with “the final outcome never truly in doubt”. Two touchdowns and two safeties and it was never truly in doubt? Gee, ya think?