The barrage of Rob Manfred-encouraged ya gotta gamble on baseball! entreaties overwhelming SNY’s airwaves in some incarnation seemingly every half-inning (never mind that Major League Baseball in the minuscule personage of Bowie Kuhn once cast out Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle — in retirement — for accepting jobs that required them to golf with a casino’s clients), whether they feature…
• Steve Gelbs ducking in and updating live odds, presumably because the sponsor wasn’t happy with Gary Cohen’s contempt-dripping minimalist read of its copy;
• Drew Brees pretending to hang out in a sports bar with a trio of randos we’re supposed to believe are his bosom buddies (I’ve seen more of Drew Brees than I have Drew Smith in the second half);
• a fake sports anchor interviewing a fake sports fan about how real happy he is to have hypothetically cashed in on his hypothetical bet;
• or the guy who comes on to shout at those of us whose most pleasant hours of any day are largely informed by watching baseball that, contrary to what everybody is saying, baseball isn’t dying
…are totally lost on me. I don’t wish to gamble on baseball. The more I am advised by the baseball gambling consortia that it’s what smiling, energetic people do, the less I am inclined to entertain their proposals. I’m satisfied with remaining dour and lethargic by comparison to the actors in the commercials. I’m satisfied with caring about the outcome of a baseball game and its myriad components on the merits already inherent in baseball. I’ve stayed with baseball for love of the game, not the winning of money.
Also, I’d be terrible at it. I don’t mean the winning of money. Just the process of choosing how to lose the money. Saturday night’s Mets-Nationals game was a prime example of what I would face.
Bet on the Mets? How could I not bet on the Mets? Max Scherzer [1] is going for the Mets. Max Scherzer is going for his 200th win. Max Scherzer pitched well enough to win his 200th last time out, he just wasn’t supported in his effort. This time Scherzer is facing his old team, his old team that has been full-out dreadful all season without him (and without everybody else who won a championship barely three years ago). Narrative City, baby! And the one Washington National who would be recognizable to anybody from the 2019 World Series, Patrick Corbin, is starting for the Nats, and he’s become synonymous with veteran starter who’s completely lost his way: 5-17, 6.56 ERA and a piñata to Mets batters. The first-place Mets are rolling, they’re at home, the Nationals are the worst team in the sport — the only question is which MLB-sanctioned tout service do I utilize to place my surefire wager?
Except, save for the betting part, I didn’t think all of the above solely. I also thought this:
Bet on the Mets? Against the Nationals? You mean like betting on the Mets in September of 1985 against the Pirates, who were that year’s version of the Nationals? The Mets were in a heated pennant race with the Cardinals and had everything to play for and they were at Shea, where a New York attendance record was being established, and the Pirates barely existed, with their manager on the way out and nobodies dotting their lineup…and the Pirates took two out of three that weekend, behind, among others, rookie starter Bob Kipper (career ERA 14.04 before facing a single Met and commencing to lower his earned run average by six runs); rookie shortstop Sammy Khalifa (who hadn’t driven in a run since September 14, yet totaled four RBIs the weekend that spanned September 20-22); rookie third baseman Danny Gonzalez (two base hits and a run scored in Friday night’s Pittsburgh win; eleven base hits and nine runs scored over the course of the remainder of his entire career); and Jose DeLeon (season’s record 2-18 before the series, yet he proceeded to notch his very first save of ’85 versus us).
I’m gonna bet against the legendary Max Scherzer and my mighty Metropolitans? Hell no!
I’m gonna bet against the slight possibility that a team in the present day might replicate the performance of a crew of washed-ups and no-names from 37 years ago that rattles around in my brain just in case the Mets should find themselves at the top of their division and taking on a supposed hapless opponent? Honestly, no.
I’d bet anything can happen in a baseball game, not that anything will happen. This is why my wallet stays in my pocket every time one of those ads runs. This is why I’m poorer only from an experiential standpoint that Max Scherzer and the Mets lost to Patrick Corbin and the Nationals, 7-1 [2], on Saturday night. All I bet was my time, and that’s baked into a perpetual “let it ride” quinella with gambling my emotions. I was simultaneously surprised that the Mets would show themselves to be utterly unsuccessful and unfortunate in taking care of business as logically anticipated while not terribly taken aback that the Nationals would rise up and appear hapful for a night. It happens, even for the hapless.
Corbin was back to his presumed-dead previous self for seven innings of three-hit mastery. Scherzer left after five with “fatigue” in his left side, which the righty later reassured us we shouldn’t worry about, and why would any of us worry about a Met co-ace who missed time from oblique issues taking himself out of a 1-1 pitchers’ duel in September? The Met bullpen was solid until it turned squishy and then, accompanied by an ill-timed outbreak of loosey-goosey defense, went splat! — Adonis Medina [3], thank you for your intermittent service, but you can pick up your one-way ticket to Syracuse at the departure gate; Bryce Montes de Oca [4], we’ll talk later — while no Met hitter besides Eduardo Escobar [5] (second consecutive game homering) did anything against anybody clad in gray and red.
The 1985 New York Mets lost two out of three to the 1985 Pittsburgh Pirates in September. It was a bad sign for a team destined to finish three games out in the days when you either won the division or went home. The 2022 New York Mets lost one to the 2022 Washington Nationals on a September night at the outset of the playoff multiverse era (when the 2022 Atlanta Braves defeated the 2022 Miami Marlins on a bases-loaded ninth-inning walk, as if something like that had never happened before) after winning one from the 2022 Washington Nationals the September night before after a season of stomping on the Washington Nationals and their cellar-dwelling ilk, many of whom we’ll be meeting in the weeks ahead. I’d bet it’s not a sign, just a game. I’d bet that the schedule, imbued with a depth of softness that Downy only wishes it could legally promise your fabric, will prove beneficial in the short and long run.
That is if I bet on baseball. I wouldn’t.