If the Mets were the hero of an old-time serial, they'd arrive in the nick of time to shoot the dastardly villain and gallantly reassure the screaming girl tied to the tracks. And then they'd struggle with the knots and get a spur caught in the rail as the locomotive came around the bend.
Splurk! Ooogh, that was gross [1].
Tonight's game had been fairly entertaining, with various Diamondbacks and Mets aiming for the fences in a Citi Field that's seemed to shrink a bit in the humidity. But then Pedro Feliciano gave up a hit and in came Sean Green, inheritor of the hangdog role played to perfection in recent years by Aaron Heilman. Green hit a guy. Then he walked a guy. Bases loaded, nobody out, and Citi Field was a bowl full of mutter.
Except! Wait! Hard grounder to Murphy! He's got the ball! He's not pulling a Jeremy Reed! That guy's out! And THAT guy's out! Murphy is pumping his fist! HE IS FIRED UP! OMIR SANTOS IS FIRED UP! I AM FIRED UP! YOU ARE FIRED UP! WE ARE ALL FIRED UP! WE ARE NOT GOING TO LOSE THIS GAME! WE ARE GOING TO —
…oh hell, Green threw a wild pitch.
I believe it was approximately a million years ago that we won five in a row.
Greg and I are going tomorrow. If you're there too, look for us around the sixth inning, pulling the limbs off our Build-a-Bears in frustration. I think I'll name mine Sean Green.
Sean Green is not mentioned in Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon [2], Barnes & Noble [3] or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook [4]. Though there is mention of Shawn Green, who also pretty much sucked. Buy it anyway, OK — it's an awesome book.