Playing the Yankees is one of my least favorite parts of the season. The same goes for West Coast trips.
Yet over a stretch of 30 hours or so, both turned out pretty nicely.
I mostly missed the Mets’ marvelous, off-the-deck mauling of Mariano Rivera, as I was away with friends in Vermont in a place where no, Verizon, I couldn’t hear you now. I noted Dickey’s no-hitter gone by the boards, the Yankees’ tying it, the Yankees going ahead, and then that the Mets had won. But every byte was hard-fought and frankly I had lakes to swim in and interesting conversations to have, so I let go, contenting myself with noting that the Mets had tied it in the ninth, and oh, that would be some video to check out. As indeed it was.
Tonight I was back on station, a little bleary-eyed but happy to have the Mets front and center. Thing is, the Mets looked a little bleary-eyed themselves: The rather fantastically named Rubby De La Rosa seemed to have them off-balance, and Chris Capuano was pitching capably but not flawlessly on the other end. And of course this was Dodger Stadium, site of horrific errors and missed bases and injuries that were unavoidable and injuries that were most definitely avoidable, and it was getting on towards the middle of the night, and I had my usual reaction, which was to wonder if this trip to California had really been necessary and to think about how annoyed I was going to be about staying up too late watching the Mets lose and possibly have something awful happen to them.
But that didn’t happen. Rubby (let’s trot out Annie Savoy to note that you need a nickname, honey) lost his chance at immortality when Ruben Tejada wrecked the no-hitter in the sixth, the beginning of a very satisfying three-run inning that saw patient at-bats bear fruit and the Mets uncharacteristically make a young pitcher more and more frustrated. James Loney couldn’t quite corral balls down the line, and then Jason Bay made a very nice catch in the bottom of the sixth, chasing down an Aaron Miles liner and bouncing his face off the scoreboard. It was too close to where Bay’s 2010 had gone from star-crossed to full-on disastrous, and you could almost hear Insomniac Mets Nation give a little whimper of horror and disbelief. But Bay was apparently OK (let’s please shine a flashlight in his eyes tomorrow anyway) and there was Jose Reyes laughing in the dugout, and R.A. Dickey proclaiming himself not feeling too poorly, and no word that David Wright or Ike Davis had been moved to an iron lung or had a limb removed.
So perhaps things weren’t all bad, even out there on the other side of the continent in the middle of the night.
It’s pretty astounding, really, to consider the amount of roster turnover there has been since the ’09 House of Horrors series. How many Mets players on the active roster then are on it now? I count Beltran, Reyes (if he counts, since he was injured but not yet DL-ed in both cases), Pelfrey, Krod, Murphy, Pagan, and Parnell. So that means 7 guys who were there, and 18 who weren’t. Hoooo-weee!
And Ruby (the actual pronunciation of De La Rosa’s first name) is actually a pretty good nickname. Someone should tell him to lose a “b,” though, so his name doesn’t look like a (cough, splutter) marital aid.
I was exhausted from catching up with all our put-off chores during the holiday break so even though the game started an hour earlier, by 10 PM I was so zonked that I caught one or two more innings on the radio and went to sleep with us trailing 2-0 and thinking =I might wake up to the news that we had again been victims of a no-hitter. Instead, I heard the CBS Radio sports announcer mention that the Mets were being no hit till the sixth when they suddenly had an explosion of doubles so even before hearing the final result I was quite confidence we had won the game. Not bad considering the long west coast journey after a rain delayed extra inning game the day before and no Jose. Playing a club with a worse financial situation and place in the standings didn’t hurt, either.
Very much enjoyed the earlier start time as I was able to watch AJ implode and then right as the Yankee game ended, turned on the Mets. Watched the whole thing, Parnell looked ridiculous.
I got home after the loudest fireworks I’ve ever heard (louder not equals better, fyi) to find the Mets down 2-0. With my wife sitting beside me, the Mets tied and went ahead. With that, she said, okay, I’m going to bed. Shut it off now if you want them to win. I retorted, “what are you talking about? They just went ahead while I was watching!” She replied, “They went ahead when I was watching. I’m going to bed”. I bitterly watched a Foo Fighters documentary and only watched the rest of the game when the Mets were batting, turning away only when we had runners on base. Finally turned back for the recap of a 5-2 victory.
Whatever it takes guys. Whatever it takes.
It was well worth missing 1776 (smelling salts to Mr. Prince’s room, STAT!) for a fabulous 4th with my wife, in-laws, fireworks and a Mets’ win.
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