From the Better Late Than Never Department:
The best thing about Wednesday night’s tilt with the Nationals, from my admittedly parochial perspective? It was getting to talk baseball with my blog partner, something we hadn’t done since the Daniel Murphy [1] Game last October and hadn’t really done then, since at the time we were too busy being anxious and then inconsolable.
Games in May are better for that, even if they’re against your division rivals. Games that resolve themselves as pretty clearly not going your way might even be best. So what if you’re at the ballpark and getting blown out — you’re still at the ballpark, and while the baseball unfolding before you may not be what you requested, the conversation will take you off to better games and better times, as well as equally bad games and times now made less painful by being long ago.
We talked the oddities of baseball cards, the misfortunes of Steve Chilcott, the pros and cons of various baseball-seat physiologies, middle relievers and their maddening unpredictability, guys who wore 29 and why Rick Reed [2] was superstitious about that number, replay and its discontents, when Citi Field existed only as a theme-parkesque “experience” within Shea, the twists and turns of Met prehistory, club strategies for escaping the sight of unoccupied expensive seats on TV, and a whole lot more.
Wednesday night had other pleasures as well:
- the fairly amazing seats granted us by a kind host. They even came with shelter from the less-than-kind elements.
- the bolt struck by Yoenis Cespedes [3] that was obviously a home run before it passed over Danny Espinosa [4]‘s head.
- the long Daniel Murphy drive that looked exceedingly perilous off the bat but wound up in the glove of Juan Lagares [5], facing the outfield wall as if Murphy were his personal Vic Wertz [6].
- the Mets’ new Coca-Cola sign. I don’t mean because it trumpets the virtues of Coke products — that’s a matter of one’s personal tastes — but because it’s programmed to turn into an American flag, become an orange and blue lava lamp, display fireworks and do other hey-lookit-that stuff. Whether we like it or not, modern ballparks are crammed with high-tech stuff and marketing; it’s nice to see that pairing done well.
So what wasn’t so good about Wednesday night?
- watching Mets’ pitchers walk the ballpark, adding in a few hit batsmen for good measure. No, that wasn’t good at all. If you put Jayson Werth [7] and Bryce Harper [8] on nine times in 10 plate appearances, you’re lucky if the final score’s only 7-1 [9].
- The Mets scoring just one run and David Wright [10] looking worryingly ineffectual.
- Citi Field’s new car race, featuring a taxi cab, cop car, black car and ambulance. I may have gotten those slightly wrong, but who cares. This one’s too pathetic to even mock.
In other words, everything else. But that happens sometimes in baseball — which is why we have memories and conversations to sustain us until a better game.