SERIES PREVIEW

Opponent: St. Louis Cardinals

Annoyance Level: High

Why: Because the St. Louis Cardinals used to be a divisional rival, a hot one. Now they're like visiting dignitaries with their one trip a year and all their good press.

Reputation: Oooh, it's the Cardinals. Oooh, they play in the best place ever. Oooh, they're so good.

Reality: They're very […]

Been thinking about Mets-Cubs games. Yesterday's was indeed typical of the type of game we tend to lose against them. But we do have our share that we tend to win, there and here.

This one really works better for an off-day.

or this one…

or this one…

or this one (if you like broken windows)…

or this one (a […]

A season is composed of the third you're gonna win, the third you're gonna lose and the other third. Wednesday's game had a real shot at being an avatar of where this season was going, stealing victory from defeat, sending the flight home via a higher strata of clouds. It was gonna be from the […]

Good game. Not the way we would have wanted it to turn out, of course, but good game. In many ways a tenser, less goofy version of the first game of the series, down to the crummy umpiring and the absurd weather.

That bottom of the second, though? Ugh. Hit by pitch. Absurd pop-fly single […]

From the Daily News:

Tom Glavine presided over kangaroo court before yesterday's game. The camaraderie-building tradition of fining players for generally humorous indiscretions had been absent in the Mets' clubhouse since Darryl Boston* served as judge in the early 1990s.

Tom Glavine? TOM GLAVINE?

I wasn't aware he was even familiar with those 24 guys who aren't […]

Apparently there was something filtering through the air vents of the East School library in the early 1970s that infiltrated the kids' grudge receptors. As demonstrated the other day, I can still hold one that's more than thirty years old. And so can somebody else.

Since this has been a night for opposing viewpoints, it is […]

Mets fans hate losing to Greg Maddux. All of us, right?

Wait a second…is that a smile I see in the crowd? Why, there's a traitor to the ranks. There she is! String 'er up!

Wait another second, it's Laurie. I'll vouch for her. She's one of us, just a little more skewed in her priorities. While […]

Well, that stank.

On Day Two of the Return of MSG/FSNY, I bailed out early, tired of watching Kris Benson's neck snap back and Greg Maddux go through the lineup like a combine. Not that things were much less painful on the radio. Fortunately, there's a day game tomorrow. Hopefully we can flush the memory of […]

I'm glad that the regularly televised baseball I ordered up for your birthday finally arrived (just in case my reminiscences about myself weren't enough for you). For you and all the FSNY/MSG-deprived out there, ya got your money's worth Monday night. Those of us in safe-til-'06 Cablevision territory got antsy and kept changing channels, missing […]

I swear I've seen tonight's game 100 times before: Early-season trip to Wrigley, horrid underwater conditions, a gale that you know will abruptly vanish at some undetermined point, pissed-off Cub fans out to crucify one of their own, umpires behaving strangely, testiness all around, cruddy field conditions that will play a role, at least one […]