Fox News Channel says it's fair and balanced. I reported that. You decide. I'm all for leaving politics out of baseball even if the Mets invited Fox News into their recently established No-Win Zone to sponsor Rollabana Night (a Rollabana is one of those marvelously corporate names for a thing you had no idea was called something [1]), host the picnic area and blare DiamondVision messages wherein Bill O'Reilly (noticeably booed), Sean Hannity and the rest of their, uh, on-air talent sucked up to Mets fans during three consecutive between-innings ads.
Yet for all the rightward tilt of Fox News, it was the lefties who carried the night [2] at Shea. Lefty Tom Glavine pitched the modern equivalent of a complete game, starting the ninth inning before being pulled with a 296th win in his pocket. Lefty Shawn Green hit like it was April. Left fielder Carlos Gomez registered a critical assist at third base — the left side of the infield. And a squad of relative strangers from the Left Coast were liberally beaten by a Mets team that balanced pitching, hitting, and fielding very, very fairly.
I think it's fair we win a few of these.
All hail the southpaw Glavine who was on base almost as much as the A's. Fuck it, I'll win this myself was his philosophy, supported by 6 hits he mostly scattered and two more he absolutely drove. Tom going deep from the mound and not too shallow from the plate en route to capturing the 9-1 victory may (or may not) be the decisive turning point — or Factor — of the midseason. Shawn delivered what the scoreboard referred to as a Green Monster (though because that message was sponsored by AIG Insurance, it was presented in white letters on a blue background). Like his temporary namesake in Boston, his homer went to left (while his double crossed over to right). Carlos Beltran, who couldn't hit from either side of the plate until just now, visited Fox & Friends in the bleachers with a nonpartisan agenda of power.
For all the uncomfortable “what's wrong?” questions [3] we've been asking each other for weeks on end, it's nice to be left with one simple query: Wouldn't have the Fox News people been happier sitting in right?