Tuesday night’s Mets-Marlins extra-inning affair at beautiful Joe Robbie Stadium dripped on until about one in the morning (or as they call it in the Bronx, prime time). Then, about twenty minutes later, or so it felt, there was a Wednesday night Mets-Marlins affair at the same facility whose turf, it saddens me to report, does not appear to have been aided one little bit by the signature product from the fine folks at Pro’s Choice [1].
Maybe somebody needs to actually open the sacks of Soilmaster to get it to work.
The Mets and the Marlins. They just kept going. They never left. They found the ugliest place in America for baseball and they grimly resolved to continue pecking away at each other, two direction-impaired pigeons hopelessly attracted to the same murky birdbath.
Is it any wonder I cracked open a fortune cookie as the 1-0 regulation series finale moved briskly through its sixth or seventh hour, and it read, “HELP! I AM BEING HELD PRISONER INSIDE A METS-MARLINS GAME!”?
Well, I could have.
Nobody forces me to watch Mets-Marlins games, yet one is always in progress everywhere I look, so they are awfully difficult to avoid. We nod off with the Fishes. We wake up with the Fishes. We go outside with the Fishes and discover summer has disappeared and fall is in gear. I fully expect there will be more Mets-Marlins games today, tomorrow and into eternity.
Salvation? Mets.com claims there are no more games with the Marlins immediately ahead: not here, not there [2], not anywhere for the rest of 2011.
But I assume that’s a lie.
I assume the Marlins stowed away on the Mets’ plane back to New York.
I also assume, as in The Blues Brothers, the Marlins have already convinced the folks at Bob’s Citi Bunker that they are the Good Ole Boys, and by the time the actual Atlantans show up today for their makeup 4:10 twinbill, the Marlins will have engaged the Mets in another 18 or 27 or 36 innings of soggy, saggy Fishball.
I assume Wayne Hagin is broadcasting it right now.
Finally, I assume that when Fredi Gonzalez complains incessantly that his team is the authentic Mets opponent du jour, Jack McKeon will excuse himself to the parking lot so he can write out an American Express travelers check to cover the extensive bar tab. Except McKeon and his band will instead lie in wait to assault the Cubs when they arrive so they can take Chicago’s place for three or four or twenty more games against the Mets this weekend.
Are we done with the Marlins yet for 2011?
Are we really and truly done with them?
Was the 1-0 kissoff to Joe Robbie actually it?
Will Emilio Morrison Buck really not be leading off at 4:10?
Will Gaby Sanchez and his stinging bat really not be watching every breath I take, every move I make, every bond I break?
Can we really scrub the teal accents out of the Mets logo?
’Cause I don’t believe it.
We’ve been playing the Marlins every day and every night and every morning for the past five months. Sometimes — like when R.A. Dickey is starting and Bobby Parnell isn’t closing — the result is satisfactory [3]. Yet no matter the score, the process grinds clear down to the nub of the soul when it’s Marlins, Marlins and more Marlins. I’m honestly surprised the Mets are not still down in Miami, engaging in the same continuous (as opposed to continual) night-day-night doubleheader until the Dolphins troop in Sunday morning to tell them in no uncertain terms that they don’t have to go home but they can’t stay there.
The Mets play the Marlins. It’s the only thing I know anymore.