 |
|
|
February 5, 2009 Met-Os! The
Met Maker [Cue cheesy Euro-style music.] Open with one set of packed stands in an otherwise empty spring training stadium. Fans dressed in generic sporting outfits. One fan, with a beard and glazed eyes, spills beer as he screams at a ballplayer while generally making everyone around him angry, especially the person next to him, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young man whose country of origin is Denmark. The ballplayer being yelled at by the drunken heckler is Luis Castillo. Castillo is sweating under a hot Florida sun in a blue vinyl “fat suit.” He’s trying to field ground balls and is distracted by the screaming of the drunken fan as two in a row go to his left untouched. He tries his patented chopping down on fastballs right down the middle and keeps fouling them off or missing them. The heckler continues. Castillo is jogging to third on a pop up with two men out is interrupted and he trips over the bag instead of scoring when the outfielder drops the ball. While on the ground he takes a pack of Met-Os candy from his pocket and pops one in his mouth and smiles. He has an idea. Castillo goes back to the clubhouse where everyone is sitting at their lockers reading magazines or talking on cell phones. Castillo puts on a pair of sunglasses and a generic baseball hat with no insignia. He walks underneath the stands and ties the shoelaces together of the drunken heckler, who is dozing in the midday sun. Castillo then wheels around to the front of the row of the one filled section in an empty stadium. He starts signing autographs. When the drunken fan wakes up, he holds out his program for signing. He trips and konks his head on the aluminum bleachers. Everyone laughs at the unconscious man with the giant lump on his head. As he’s walking away from the group of people still holding out programs and pieces of paper to sign, Castillo takes his pack of Met-Os out and salutes the blonde Danish young man who’s watching baseball for the first time. The young man too takes out his pack of Met-Os. The drunken fan tries to lift his head and it drops back on the hot aluminum. Everyone laughs. Fade to black. |
|
February 20, 2009 Jerry and
Joe:
The Odd Couple
I do not want to downplay the devastating impact of steroids on the game. Baseball gets a little closer to professional wrestling every time Alex Rodriguez opens his mouth these days. (A-Rod is a diva but a lousy actor.) As bad as things went for Jerry Manuel last year, he’s got to love the veritable cricket chirps coming from Mets camp as opposed to the bluster and rubbish emitting from Tampa. I actually think Joe Girardi isn’t a bad guy (I typed good guy, but that was wrong). Girardi’s a little bit Buck Showalter without the ability to control fibers in his team’s uniform or put together a championship caliber club while irking the front office enough to get fired just before the team takes off. (It didn’t happen for Buck in Texas, but we’ve learned in the last few weeks there may have been reasons for that beyond even his control.) Girardi got fired unfairly in Florida by that team’s crazy owner and if he doesn’t win this year, he may get fired by the even nuttier crew running the Yankees. Maybe A-Rod’s mea culpa—about as convincing as explaining to Mom and Dad that the keg, tap, stamp, and cadre of plastic cups they found in the garage was you first time trying beer—will buy Girardi another year if things don’t work out in 2009. But what happens to Girardi and the Yankees is really of little concern here except for making me feel better about my own frustratingly sad baseball situation. What of Jerry Manuel? He provides the few rays of hope I see going into 2009. He is a commander who seems able to get his dancing bears to act on cue, even if they get sloppy at the end of a performance. Jerry’s the Felix to Girardi’s fiery Oscar. The cultured and learned Jerry/Felix sometimes goes around the barn to provide the simplest answer (like when Felix went on Password with Allen Ludden and Betty White and answered the clue “bird” with the Greek poet “Aristophanes”—and then Oscar used “Aristophanes” to get Felix to say the correct answer: “ridiculous”). But you can count on Jerry to do the right thing, even if the climax may result in comedic or tragic circumstances (such as when Felix got the gambling bug and lost everything on a horse’s nose or when he got Oscar to do the right things with Golden Earrings—an episode where I learned for the first time that people actually raced dogs for fun and profit: Felix was right about it being cruel). Both Joe and Jerry ended last year with an Odd Couple ending. The Yankees getting eliminated and then playing nearly flawless ball the final week, while the Mets, desperately needing any win they could muster, came up snake eyes during their final week at Shea. Oh, but for a laugh track from the studio audience. After the 10-inning loss to the Cubs the final week on metsilverman.com night, the Odd Couple I found on Channel 11—where else?—was the only thing that helped me get the 10 minutes of sleep I managed all night. And one of my favorite games last year was watching Ollie Perez beat the Yankees of Joe/Oscar, seeing A-Rod retired in two key spots, and then Channel 11 putting the cherry on top by immediately going into an Odd Couple to finish it off. Anyone who grew up in the ’70s in the New York area with TV access in the days before cable could set their watch by the two, three, four, or five times per day that The Odd Couple came on (although it was the Yankees station back then). It’s nice to know the show is still the fodder for 11 Alive rain delay theatre as well. So what of Joe and Jerry, the Yankees and the Mets? Both are moving to a big fancy new buildings. Will their comic adventures continue? Well, both men are blessed with a talented class of overacting thespians (Jose Reyes might work as Speed). Of course there’s no going back to Shea for Feel (Jer) and Joe probably no longer has a set of keys to the old Yankee Stadium (though it’s not the same as the old old Yankee Stadium that Osc went to many a time for the Giants and some other ballclub when his paper forced him). Maybe this is the year that it all ends happily, with Felix winding up at the altar with Gloria. Of course, that meant the end of the show, but I don’t think baseball will be cancelled any time soon in these parts—no matter what the Mets, Yankees, A-Rod, or his 100-plus friends/fiends might have done to try to ruin it for their own fun and profit. If it ever comes to permanent cancellation, it will live on in re-runs. What else does 11 Alive have to show? |
|
February 25, 2009 Here I am a year after starting this blog thing. Not sure what I’ve achieved or what the purpose of it all is. I guess the bottom line is that I’ve had fun doing it. So here we are in year two to mark another page in the Mets calendar. Or at least my Mets calendar. I turned 44 this week. While I don’t think anyone’s gives a rat’s fart about that, it is where we started last year with 43. Terry Leach was the inaugural pick because he was the best player I could identify with out of a sorry lot who wore that number for the Mets. Have your doubts about the choice this year? Go here and look at the alternatives. You could do a lot worse than a rookie Ronnie Darling. And My Isringhausen Year sounds a little shrill and injury prone. And when you reach my age… This annual assignment will get progressively harder—though 45 and 47 may be fun, God willing. It started three years ago when I called 41 My Seaver Year and 42—I’m not sure what I called that—“My Huskey Year”? or “My Virginia Gentleman, Ron Hodges Year”?—I was probably the only one aware of either distinction. Now we’re here for posterity, damnit. Let’s see what this year holds. At office jobs, I remember being told to create a list of goals for the year, projecting how everything will work out perfectly, and such. I labored over this busywork foolishness, fighting the urge to write as the first goal: “Do this quickly so I can actually do work that’s needed and be home for dinner.” Some people I worked with took that sort of stuff seriously, so I humored them. Humor me. In My Darling Year metsilverman.com will: 1. Not Talk About What Just Happened on the Field For one thing, I can’t type that fast and I won’t be yet another in a line of Mets complainers about how—even though they won the game—they brought in the wrong reliever at the wrong time, and they should’ve bunted in the second inning. Or at least I won’t be typing those kind of comments on the world wide web. 2. Not Predict the Future The Mets will finish third. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? If it comes true, will I feel better because I was right? I don’t think so. If I had the ability to prognosticate accurately, I might work for the Fed, be a consultant for Omar, or live at the race track. All three seem rather shaky occupations at this time. 3. Make No Pronouncements about Players the Mets Should or Shouldn’t Get I want Manny! I want Orlando Hudson! I want my ba-ba! It’s all the same whine. I also thought Carlos Baerga would turn the franchise around, Robbie Alomar would lead the Mets to a pennant, and it was criminal to keep Fernando Tatis in the organization while casting away the great Ruben Gotay. And that’s just my foolish past thoughts at second base. So what will this site do? I don’t know. I already said I couldn’t prognosticate. But three things I will try this year: A. Review Books about the Mets and Baseball That’s my goal for 2009. I’ve bought a bunch of books and ordered a few more. This won’t turn into Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Book Shelf. Ron does it far better and more thoroughly, but in my ever-evolving search to find useful ways to use my English degree, I thought this might be fun. I will avoid the urge to go on and on about non sports titles, but I will add a sentence about such titles with each review. I’ll try to keep on topic and include those that have been published within the last two years. I won’t review my own books but there will be a link. You’ve been warned. B. Promote the Crap Out of My Stuff Hey, I said I wouldn’t review my own books—because that would be crass—but offering info on my titles, promoting every appearance, and taking the opportunity to shill? That’s why we’re here, baby! C. Write about Mets History with a Fan’s Bent It’s all I know. I ran through some of my best material with the countdown of Greatest Shea Moments last year, but I’ll be trying some new stuff this time around. I’ll try to keep it shorter, too. There seem to be more and more Mets fans all the time, but following this team truly seems to get harder and harder all the same. And before I go, I do want to start year two by saying belated thanks for a couple of somewhat recent happenings: I. To Faith and Fear in Flushing for acknowledging my take on my AZ Cardinals’ Super try; II. To Loge13 for showing off my new—yet familiar—basement furniture (February 9); III. And to my cousin, who unlike A-Rod’s cousin has nothing to hide for helping my career. He’s done the dirty work of keeping this site up and going and putting up with my many requests. And I’m not afraid to name him: Blair Rafuse. Thanks. That’s all. Now we’re ready for year two. I’ve fought off the urge to complain. This time. Now go out and enjoy yourselves, Darlings! |
