STFU Dolan

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About seven (and change) years ago, my dad sent my uncle and me an email.  The Mets were doing well (as can be expected, with Art Howe at the helm), and he wanted to get excited about something.  Meanwhile my beloved Uncle Gene made the cardinal sin of writing in blue and orange caps in a very large font “LET’S GO METS!”

A few days later, “Black Friday” occurred and the Mets went on a losing streak, and that season was never to be.  Of course, my dad spent a majority of the time blaming Uncle Gene about his email.  To which Gene-oh replied, “Well, if you had written, I’d have blamed you too.”

Something else about the superstitious nature of fans.  When the reality is, it doesn’t matter if we wear a certain shirt, or hat, or as my friend Rob during the Rangers 1994 Stanley Cup run, forbid his bartender to clean out the ashtray where he was putting out his butts.  But I guess if we’re rooting for a certain outcome, and we’re a part of something larger than ourselves, I guess we need to shoulder some of the blame, or at least feel like it anyway.

The Rangers lost last night to the Pittsburgh Penguins.  It wouldn’t so entirely bad if it wasn’t two games after losing to the Canadiens.  By the same score.  4-1.  And almost the same situation occurred: Rangers fall 1-0 early in the game, come back to tie, then the opposition scores three in the last period.  If they hadn’t won the game before, maybe it would be a downer.  But it’s funny because everyone is talking about the “slump” that the Rangers are supposedly in.  Yes, they’ve lost three out of the last five games.  But they’ve still had a successful month, somewhat.

Yet, I go back to my dad’s “Black Friday” email, Rob’s cigarette refuse and our quirks that make us fans.  Some of us are dopes, that’s no doubt.  But the biggest dope of them all, our fearless owner James Dolan basically made sure that the Rangers wouldn’t get to the Stanley Cup Finals by referring to a pact that Glen Sather made with him a while back.  In this pact, there was an item exchange, and Dolan replied that Sather wouldn’t be able to return this item until the next time the Rangers won the Cup.

Bold statement, being at the time, the Rangers hadn’t made the playoffs in seven years.  But then he sweetens this piece of information by saying, “I think we’re pretty close to getting that thing back.”

I’d like to say that’s the first time an owner of one of my team’s has said something stupid.  After all, Fred Wilpon has had many of those moments, that keep getting repeated to this day.  Such as “skill sets” or “meaningful games in September.”  But, meh, whatever, Dolan made a bold statement, and possibly the media got out of hand by taking what he said out of context.  He didn’t say, “We’re a lock for the cup this year.”  He just said he expected to get that item back very soon.  “Very soon” could indeed be in the course of a few more seasons.  We don’t know.  This was a pact made years ago, and perhaps soon is just relative, right?

Oh, who am I kidding?  This is the type of drivel that Rangers fans are a) dying to pounce on and b) beat the crap out of Dolan for even THINKING it, not to mention saying it out loud.  Look, I’ve said that I love watching this team, because I feel like they can’t lose.  I go into every game as a fan thinking they have a shot to win.  This is a game, and we take the wins, we take the losses.  And it seems like Glen Sather finally took an opposite drink of whatever he was doing in previous years and actually built a good hard-working team that wants to win and wants to earn something.  I think that’s great.

Just don’t fuckin’ SAY it, Dolan.  Okay?  I mean, if they were on their way on the playoffs, I’d say it was fair game, even then ill-advised.  Since this is a guy who never opens his mouth except to put a bottle of alcohol in it.  Bold, yes.  Ill-advised, hell yes.  Just don’t say it.  They’ve lost two games by the same amount and everyone is freaking out.

We all do and say stupid shit as fans, that’s nothing new.  But when your owner says it, it’s easy to point and say, “It’s HIS fault this is happening!”  I would be lying to tell you I wasn’t thinking of the Cup this year, with the way this team has been playing.  Then there are games like the last few that make them seem like a real inconsistency.  Then again, you don’t win every game.  But next time, Jim, just shut your mouth.  No one wants to hear what you’re saying, especially a neurotic fan base.  Kthxbye.

A Time WARner

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I have to admit, when in December I saw people standing around Time Warner Center (at Columbus Circle here in NYC) with signs protesting a future “break” of Time Warner with MSG, I didn’t think much of it.  Although I am a Time Warner customer, I thought for sure they wouldn’t or couldn’t be that stupid…that a midnight deal would be at hand certainly.

Of course, I was wrong.  On January 1, 2012, MSG went dark on Time Warner.  Not to fret, the channel wasn’t totally dead, but they introduced an NBA channel.  I guess that was a double-whammy for me: I don’t like basketball all that much, and they screwed me with my hockey.

I wasn’t totally hopeless.  For the most part, Time Warner did what it was supposed to do, and I figured they wouldn’t be gone long.  We’re more than half-way into the month, and still nada. I haven’t been able to find much headway into how the negotiations are, but at the end of the day, I haven’t felt more screwed as a customer.  I pay you, goddammit.  You should bring me what I need.  If you think about it, look at what these asses are arguing about: MONEY.  Like sports/entertainment/media channels or owners are hurting for that.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…and taking away her hockey games to boot.  I took matters into my own hands, and in a few hours, I will be a new RCN customer.  This has SNY, MSG and MLB and everything a gal for all seasons could possibly want.  With their three-year locked in prices, I wonder what took me so damn long to switch over.

Well, Time Warner, it was nice knowing ya.  You really didn’t give me though what I need or anything over the top that no one else can provide.  So take your little WAR with MSG and stick it.  You lost a customer, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.  Now if only our owner would stop making claims about Stanley Cups.  After all, it’s something of a tease when a majority of your fanbase cannot watch the games on TV because you and other cable owners are too much of an asshole to get stuff done.

Something In The Air That Night

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Coop and Metstradamus at Dodgertown, 2008

Mets buddy Metstradamus may have beaten me to the punch about this already, but I don’t remember him singing Fernando by ABBA when I saw him first time at Spring Training in 2008.  Okay, fine, it might have been me singing it…but that’s besides the point.

Once can’t-miss-prospect, Fernando “F-Mart” Martinez has been waived by the Mets…to make room for Scott Hairston.  I had to chuckle a bit at the irony.  For one, Hairston is a “buddy” of mine (and if you don’t believe me, check the picture on his Wikipedia page).  Second, I have a soft spot in my heart for F-Mart.  The last is that I’ve seen this story play out before, when Omar Minaya left Jesus Flores unprotected in the Rule 5 Draft for the likes of Julio Franco, the 1,000 year old man, for “veteran protection.”  Yet, I can’t disagree with this move because F-Mart has been a huge disappointment.  I place that blame squarely on his development with the organization.

Yet, I have a soft spot in the my heart for F-Mart.  He’s another cautionary tale of a can’t-miss-prospect yet at the same time the failings and flailings of the Mets minor league organizational cultivation.  If you look at Mets history, Roosevelt Avenue is littered with the bodies and ghosts of these once promising players only to see them flounder due to mishandling.  Billy Beane, Gregg Jefferies, Lastings Milledge, Aaron Heilman.  Most of them make us cringe with the thought of “MAKE IT STOP!!!!!”

F-Mart was different to me.  I never saw him as that golden boy status, because I guess in my heart I knew he wouldn’t amount to much.  I always saw him as that prototypical trade bait or someone who would move around to suit the likes of Carlos Beltran (the guy who ironically put the stop to Milledge and Martinez’s development with the big team).

Since CitiField opened in 2009, we’ve been waiting for that moment to stand up and cheer.  To that end, we’ve had three very disappointing seasons, and 2012 looks to be no different.  At the same time, we’ve all missed Shea, but I think that Shea provided those warm, fuzzy, mushy memories that we can all identify by being in the same house at the same time.  But in 2009, there were some glimmers of “maybe this place won’t be that bad.”  And one of those memories was Fernando Martinez making his big league debut.

Now, his debut didn’t amount to much.  I remember maybe his second or third start, he was caught not running out a foul ball, or what he thought was a foul ball, and it was an indication that maybe the minor league development teams weren’t doing their job in fundamentals.  By the time 2009 ended though, I called this game one of the Met-Nificent Moments of the year.  Why was that?  Well, my list, my rules.  But the game for me is what being a Mets fan is all about: making memories of your own.

We found out that day that F-Mart was being called up to make the start.  This was really the beginning of the end for that season: the AAA team being called up because of all the injuries.  That said, I had tickets to the game, and my friend Anthony who went by the moniker “Dykstraw” agreed to go with me.  We found out in the meantime that our friends El Duderino and Fort Greene Met Fan from the Brooklyn Met Fan motley crew were also going that night…the first time since Opening Day when I ran into them.  This was a coincidence: seeing F-Mart and seeing each other? Score.

By the time we arrived, it was close to first pitch.  El Dude and FGMF had texted me already, letting me know they were on the bridge, since they wanted food from Catch of the Day, the new seafood-themed food stand at CitiField, and it was right by the bridge.  Also bear in mind at this point, it wasn’t called the “Shea Bridge,” but it desperately needed a name.  This was the first game for me that I felt like CitiField could, indeed, be home.  When Anthony and I saw that Gene and Mia were going to be at the bridge at the beginning of the game, we figured we’d be near the food stands, and it was better than going to Guam for our real seats (up in Promenade).

Also, F-mart was starting right field that night.  We figured, if there was a play in the first inning, we’d see it better from the bridge anyway.  Oh, but wait, there’s more.  He would be batting in the first inning.  Well, we may as well stay put, since by the time we get to our seats, we’ll miss his first at-bat.

By the end of the game, we had spent the entire time on the bridge.  It’s moments like this that make me a Mets fan.  Mia and Gene bought calamari at the Catch of the Day stand, and we passed it around.  We passed around Box Frites.  Someone bought beers and passed them down.  I felt like we were at an Italian family gathering, and the baseball game was simply a backdrop.  Someone else from Brooklyn Met Fan noticed me and yelled, “Hey Co-Op!”  I was like, “Uh…it’s COOP!”  Another point, I struck up a conversation with another fan, who in turn bought us all beers, but asked me if I knew Joe from Mets Today.  Well, not only was I friendly with Joe…I was leaving him tickets for the next day!  Talk about a coincidence.

I’m pretty sure the Mets won that night, but it was really the fan camaraderie that made me really believe that, the team may be bad, F-Mart may not amount to much or anything really, but this was what kept me returning for more.  The beers, the food, the conversation, the jokes, the self-deprecating humor.

The Shea Bridge didn’t have a name that night.  Yet, secretly I still call it the “F-Mart Bridge,” because of that night.   Since I told all of you, it’s not so much a secret anymore.  Some people point to the fact that because the Mets don’t have a lot of quintessential Mets-ian players that their history might be flawed.  But it’s nights like this that give us a counterpoint in one another, the very idea that makes a Met fan a Met fan.  Good luck to F-Mart wherever he may go.  I won’t forget that first night you played.  You may have underwhelmed, but just know there were several people on the bridge rooting for you and wanting to see you do well.

The Unsung Hero

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In baseball, some positions often are called “premium” or positions that can easily be “platooned.”  As an example, the 1986 Mets had a “platoon” at second base between Tim Teufel and Wally Backman (now, ironically, coaches within the Mets system).  It’s easy to get away with platoons at positions up the middle of the infield, and yet at catcher, a so-called “premium position,” there’s less guesswork.  Gary Carter was possibly one of the best defensive (not to mention offensive) catchers of his generation, and the Mets were lucky enough to have him.  At a premium position, it’s tougher to platoon since you technically need that strong play at every moment you can.  When Carter was hurt for a spell in ’86, Ed Hearn jumped in.  Hearn, though, was purely a “backup” catcher.  And there was technically enough offense to cover where he lacked in it.  Same goes for Barry Lyons the next season.  Or Todd Pratt and Jason Phillips when they, at one point or another, backed-up starter and All-Star Mike Piazza.

Hockey is different.  The elite goaltenders are few and far between, and more of the game hinges on their spectacular play.  They need to be smart, they need to be agile, and furthermore they need to combine all that to stand on their heads at times to make saves.  We’ve been fortunate that in the past, Mike Richter was one of those guys for the New York Rangers.  His back-up in the 1993-94 Stanley Cup run was Glenn Healy — a guy who could have by most standards been a starter someplace else.  As lucky as we Ranger fans are to have Henrik Lundqvist as our starter, it was a foregone conclusion that he needed a break every now and then, since a majority of the success of the team in 2010-11 was based on his performance.

Yes, hockey folks, a backup is just as a important for the goaltender spot on teams as their starter.  And luckily, the unsung hero of this 2011-12 team is none other than Marty Biron.  It’s comforting when your #1 goalie isn’t in the game that the backup can do a hell of a job not only filling in, but winning.

In baseball, the pitcher gets the stress of the whole win-loss thing, but some will argue that the W/L stat is one of the most overrated, while WHIP or ERA can provide a better picture.  In hockey though, much rides on the success and bulletproofness of a goalie.  Our King Henrik may be the guy we want starting every night, but John Tortorella has the right idea to give Biron the starts since theoretically, we’d rather save those crucial starts for the star goalie when it’s truly critical (like later in the season and in the playoffs).

The number of games Biron has started may skew the sample set a bit, but right now he’s sporting a 2.06 Goals-Against-Average (GAA), very respectable in its own right.  Our own Henke is according to the leaderboards fourth with 1.92 (the gold standard seems to be right around 1.90).  True Biron’s only played in 11 games, but it’s better to not give up many goals in those small amount of games, am I right?  As for others in this same position, the Boston Bruins have Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask in almost a straight platoon, and very similar numbers.

I’m the only one who has thought that Marty Biron’s performance has gone above and beyond the call of duty.  Blueshirt Banter believes the Rangers are doing right with Henke and Biron. Tortorella gave his vote of confidence by starting Biron three out of seven games as late as last month, not only spelling the rumors of giving Henke regular rest, but to give Biron some credit that he’s doing a good job.  Lastly, the Rangers have a lot of depth — at many positions.  NHL.com has eight reasons why the Rangers are in first — depth is one of them, Marian Gaborik’s performance is another, but Biron’s performance has given them a comfort level that they can still lean on Lundqvist, but it’s not as evident as it has been.

It seems the recipe for a good hockey team is to have a strong net minder.  This much is true.  I make no bones that I watch this team with a lot of excitement and enthusiasm, and they portray that on the ice each night, even on crappy nights.   To me, though, Marty Biron is one of the reasons why they are performing the way they are.  Perhaps the stepping up of Ryan Callahan as the “true” captain of the team, the pressure of free agent signing Bradley Richards is nonexistent, and likewise the pressure off Henrik Lundqvist having to be on this A-game every single night is out the window.  Marty Biron deserves a lot of credit for why the Rangers are where they are right now, and hopefully it’s the base for the future of this team for the year as well.

Meet The *New* Jets (Same As The *Old* METS)

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Perhaps The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is one of the most plagiarized songs in sports.  If you think about it, the whole “Meet the old boss/same as the new boss” line gets rehashed over and over…and over and over…and over some more, and once again, in the sports lexicon.  No matter what sport, team or pro/amateur, whatever, we can always use that line to describe how a team we follow has performed.

I promised myself never to do that, since I believe it to be cliche.  Yet, I haven’t weighed in on the whole Jets performance at the end of the season for that very reason: it’s a cliche.  You have a semi-new “boss” who has talked a big game and practically predicted a championship  each year since his hiring.  You have a young stud hotshot whose hopes for the future have been pinned upon.  You have a bunch of mercenaries playing on a team that really just care about personal performance, but aren’t “team” guys.

Factor in a New York (“big market”) team facing a Miami (“small market”) team on the last game of the season with playoff implications for the big team and what do you have?  A recipe for disaster.

You may think I’m talking about the Jets, but I’m not entirely.  You see, I’ve read this story before.  It’s happened to the Mets as well.

I’ve often argued that 2006 for the Mets was the aberration: the year that should have never happened.  Yet, at the time, I was drinking the Kool-Aid like everyone else, or rather, I was just enjoying the time and place in front of me.  But who believed they wouldn’t at least *MAKE* the playoffs that year?  I can say until I’m blue in the face that the last series of 2007 for the baseball Mets was not the killer — we could point to any series lost against the Phillies after All-Star Break that year, not to mention the series before against the Washington Nationals where if they only won just ONE goddamn game, we wouldn’t be even blinking an eye about their floundering now — but rather it was indicative of the whole season.  The giant falls, and we’re not talking baseball or football giant, we’re talking a big market team, no matter what the pro sport.

But look at the Jets.  A team that simply got too big for its britches.  A team that believed everything its big talking coach told them, a team that believed its young stud quarterback wasn’t actually overrated.  Hey, you know what, I don’t apologize for liking Mark Sanchez.  He’s young, and may even be successful without the fish bowl of New York media.  But I’ve gotten attacked on Twitter for saying Eli Manning was overrated (so the fuck what about a Super Bowl title), but I was also saying that the Jets aren’t much better in that department.

Then look at how the Mets floundered in 2007.  I’ve often said the denouement of that quasi-dynasty was Carlos Delgado.  And he was barely a Met.  Yet, he came to the team, and they rode his confidence.  Yet, the second he started to slump, so did the team right behind him.  Perhaps Billy Wagner put it best when he looked to his locker after a game in 2008 and said, “f**kin shocker” in response to being interviewed in a game where he didn’t even play.

Substitute Santonio Holmes on the Jets for Carlos Delgado on the Mets, and you have yourself a good comparison. I have to admit that I like Holmes, and even past tense, especially when he was on the Steelers (for some reason, I have a lot of friends who are Steelers fans).  He’s been criticized by Joe Namath, but also by his own teammate LaDainian Tomlinson.  Injured reserve rookie QB Greg McElroy didn’t name names, but didn’t really have to when he said that the Jets locker room was infiltrated by selfish personalities.

If you look back to the reasons why the Mets faltered late in the season in both 2007 and 2008, there were rumors that a faction led by Carlos Delgado kind of undermined their “boss” Willie Randolph.  To be honest, I was not a fan of Willie Randolph, but it seemed like a bit of a longshot that Delgado or anyone on the team woud have tanked on purpose just to get him fired.  On the flip side, there was almost a direct correlation to the team doing better (especially specific players) after Randolph’s midnight firing.

So does this mean that the rumors were true — that Holmes, among others, were just tanking to get Brian Schottenheimer fired?  If that’s the case, then fuck ’em, these are professionals who should be playing to win.  Not lose to spite a coach they are not fond of IF IN FACT that is the case.  Yet, it’s doubly wrong and implies that Holmes, a team captain, wasn’t even trying for whatever reason, mostly selfish.

Back after the 2006 season, the Mets came out of nowhere to come within a game of making the World Series.  Each year after that, their performance has gotten worse and worse, and more embarrassing by the season.  Now, they are almost in a rebuild mode (a hybrid of cutting ties with “dead weight” and ties to previous losing seasons, and letting the young guys play, whether they win or lose).  Taking a cue from the public service announcement that “It Gets Better.”  For the Mets, though, it’s gotten progressively worse, and should continue to get worse before it ever gets better.

In 2007 and 2008, the Mets had respective season-ending series against the Florida (Now “Miami”) Marlins that could have swayed their playoff position.  I’ve argued that there were games each season that they SHOULD HAVE won and COULD HAVE won but DID NOT.  So when those series were lost, yes, it sucked, but I just took it.  The same goes for this big market football team, losing to a subpar team located in Miami, in a game where a win could have changed everything.  By the same token, a win anywhere else in the preceding three weeks could have changed everything too.

I root for three major New York teams — the Mets, the Jets and the Rangers.  Each one incompetent in their own special way.  But the Mets and Jets have more similarities than I care to admit.  And yet, I have to wonder if after a taste of almost success in making it to the conference championship could have been just enough of a taste for a team that didn’t make it quite as far as they should have.

The Jets are in a bind.  They believed their own hype and became too big for their britches and then what happens? Players start to quit.  And it becomes a bigger story than the team itself.  They lose games they should be winning by considerable margins.  But that’s just it: THE ENTIRE FUCKING SEASON WAS LIKE THAT.  I could go back to when they started 2-3 after losing three straight on the road.  Winning just ONE of those road games would have made a difference.  The shitshow back in November after Thanksgiving.  All in all, the Jets have no one to blame but themselves, since it’s a team loss.  But if you are having individual players making individual decisions about how the team should operate…then expect more of the same, as long as Mark Sanchez, whipping boy du jour, is around.

Kamikaze Jets

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My husband is a "12th Man" for Seattle

My husband is a Seattle Seahawks fan.  True story.  He started watching them in December of 1983, and became a die hard ever since.  No one ever told my husband he was “basic,” and that’s the truth.  Although he’s a local Mets fan (but he grew up in the Bronx of course), his basketball team is located in Utah (Jazz), and football team is in a city he’s never visited (Seattle, natch).

Imagine his surprise when last year during the football playoffs, AM New York had a feature on team-focused bars, and they featured Carlow East, a Seattle Seahawks-fan bar that broadcasts every game (and since the Seahawks aren’t exactly a “national” team like, say, the Dallas Cowboys are, it’s rare he gets to see them on National TV).  They don’t have a kitchen, but they have cheap drinks, and are chill about allowing you to bring food into the establishment.  But on football game days, they do bring in a buffet.  Just your standard pastas, salads, wings, and wares like sausage and peppers.  Drawbacks are that they don’t make mimosas (no sparkling wine), don’t have coffee (so no nutty Irishmen or other adult coffee drinks), and they’re on the East Side of the island which is like Guam to me.  BUT they made up a lot of ground by offering us take out menus (an extensive list) and by suggesting I get my own coffee from across the street, and then charging me for a “shot” to “nutty it up,” as the bartender said.

For a brief moment, I wished I was a Seahawks fan, or just a team that doesn’t exactly have “local” roots.  During the game, they had Seahawks based chants like “SEA-Fense!” or “Sea! HAWKS! Sea! HAWKS!”  Whenever the Seahawks scored a touchdown, they gave everyone a round of Seahawk-blue inspired Kamikaze shots.  (Similar to what the Chapmans do on Mets opening day each year, they substitute Blue Curacao to give the margaritas a blue tinge, as opposed to using just plain ol’ Triple Sec, a colorless orange liqueur).

    

Yes, we went from euphoria (well, as euphoric as I can get watching a game with no rooting interest…but I did appreciate being there with a fan base I know so little), to watching the Jets game.  The life of a Jets fan, of course.

Anyone have a hit of Viagra I can use?  That game was as flaccid as…well…never mind.  Simply, the Jets were just awful.  It was so bad that I actually enjoyed, THOROUGHLY enjoyed cleaning my house.  I even cleaned the cat’s litter boxes.  My house is now clean, but the Jets still got annihilated.  At least I can hang my hat on THAT, watching it in a clean house.

So what went wrong?  Well, whatever it was went very RIGHT for the Eagles, a team I cannot stand.  Look, nothing business, just personal.  I hate the goddamn city.  I hate that they have a NYC complex (they should already know we’re the superior city).  I hate Michael Vick (Sorry but I actually DO think most animals should be treated better than people).  I hate the Phillies.  I hate all their stinking drunk idiot fans.  And they ALL spill over into the Linc when the Phillies aren’t playing.  I have an exception for Flyers fans though.  They seem to know their shit.  I can respect that.  All I know is for all the goodwill that the Phils are bringing to their city, sportswise, no one fucking appreciates it.  They’d give it all up for ONE Super Bowl ring, and they all know it.

Now that I got THAT out of my system.  The things that went RIGHT for the Iggles?  Well they proved that not only practice makes perfect (they have a chance to bounce into the playoffs after a lackluster start to the season, how about that for some shit), but that studying does indeed go the extra mile or in this case, extra few hundred yards or so.  The Eagles found the weakness of the Death Star of Jets defense, as they were running plays easily being called.  Fab.

I suppose if there were a game they had to lose, it would be today.  In the category of how ’bout that for some shit, still, the Jets didn’t technically lose any ground.  Huh.  It’s not going to be easy of course, considering they had their life in their hands, and blew it.  Well, all I can say is they better fuckin’ win next week, in the Toilet Bowl as EJ from Happy Recap called it on Twitter yesterday.  Because Sexy Rexy is running his fuckin’ mouth AGAIN.  Look, say what you want about Rex Ryan, but he always flaps his trap (he won’t stop so we may as well enjoy it).  Yet, he can admit where he’s wrong afterwards and ALWAYS takes the heat off his players when it comes down to it.  Seriously though, after this shit show the NY fans had to be subjected to this week?  Although with the shoe on other foot, when the Giants countered with a trash-talk won’t help the Jets, but hey, this game has just as much bearing on the G-men too.

If all was right in the world, this game would mean nothing but bragging rights to the winning fan base (and honestly, I don’t dislike the Giants. I just prefer the Jets).  But lately there’s been a lot of “my overrated quarterback is better than YOUR overrated quarterback” so I’d nothing better than to bash the Giants’ skulls in at any chance.  Yet this game is all of a sudden a must-win scenario for either team.

JUST WHAT I NEED ON CHRISTMAS EVE WHEN I’M AT MY MOM’S, PEOPLE.

I started the day drinking Kamikaze shots in honor of my husband’s team, while the Jets shitbombed their own kamikaze attack on themselves to make a game that should have meant nothing mean everything.

Sounds about right to me.  Merry Fucking Christmas, Jets fans.

Baseball Bacons

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Baseball Broads Sitting in Shea Seats Together

It’s the holiday season.

We’re smack dab in the heart of football season, with playoffs upon us and must-win games with the Jets and the Giants next weekend (oh, did I mention that they’re facing EACH OTHER?? Yes, I’ll need to stay off Twitter for fear of feeding the trolls).

Yet this week, I have a “59 Days Still Pitchers and Catchers” Party to attend.  Over the weekend, it was also a celebration of my birthday and Dee’s birthday, officially, at Strawberry’s Grill in Douglaston, NY.  Of course, this is Darryl Strawberry’s namesake restaurant, run by him and his family, with Mets and Yankees themes throughout the restaurant (he did play for the Evil Empire after all).

Baseball is the Kevin Bacon of life: we are all just six degrees of separation from it all.

I detailed in my post from last week, The Decemberists, about Dee and I going to a football game for our birthdays.  For years, we always hated that we had to be relegated to staying indoors for our birthdays because it’s so cold.  That we always wanted to celebrate our birthdays at a baseball game but while we could say “It’s our birthday” any other day, it’s not truly the same.

When life gives you lemons, we make lemonade.  Look on the bright side.  There’s Christmas in July.  Life is full of these hokey little cliches that infiltrate our lives.  We may celebrate birthdays or Christmas or whatever denominational holiday you observe, but why does baseball get shafted?  No, seriously.  If we need a little Christmas right this very minute, why can’t baseball be alive and well in the winter time?

I’m not talking about winter ball.  For those of us who don’t celebrate holidays or maybe just observe whatever for the sake of observing, most of us can subscribe to celebrating baseball 24/7/265.

Poet Laureate of Flushing, Greg Prince, attended the Second Annual Coop Dee Ville Birthday Spectacular and was also in attendance for the inaugural party in 2010.  He once said that “Every poseur wants to be at Opening Day. Closing Day is a rite for the secret society of baseball fanatics.”  While “Closing Day” allows us to reflect on the season at hand and think about the what-might-have-beens, Closing Day has an aura of sadness around it.  Opening Day has all the hope of a New Year, a new rotation around the sun.  Yet, conversely, it provides hope, Closing Day that is.  It provides us with the idea that our team can get better, and we can become better fans as well, subsequently better people.  Is that true? Is that hokey?  Who knows?  All I know is that I don’t believe in Santa Claus…but I do believe in baseball.

My birthday happens to coincide with the winter solstice.  The days start getting shorter right before, then start getting longer and longer.  Pessimists dwell on the lack of daylight.  I like to dwell on the fact that the days will only get brighter from here on in.

And isn’t that what our problems have been with our birthdays before we met, Dee??  We focused on the fact that our birthdays get overshadowed by the larger and all-encompassing holiday season.  Not on what we do have: lasting and fulfilling relationships, mostly from being sports fans.  I met my husband by being a Mets fan.  And most of the attendees at the soiree on Saturday night were less than Six Degrees of Separation from my being a Mets fan.

There’s my dad, who was there.  As legend had it, I was in the womb rocking out to Rosalita while my mom attended a Bruce Springsteen concert.  When I was out of the womb, my dad sat crying in front of the television on June 15, 1977.  I used to mock him for it, but now I understand.  I haven’t had that moment as a Mets fan, but I have been betrayed by my ownership team like Dad once was.  But he made me a Mets fan, for better or for worse.

As a Mets fan, I liked to write about baseball.  I started following blogs in 2004, and started my own in 2007.  As a result, I became part of the Mets-erati, the “Lost Generation” or “Jazz Age” versions of baseball writers.  Greg Prince of Faith and Fear in Flushing introduced me to the Chapmans, who have enriched my life to the extent that they are my family, not just my “summer” family.  The Chapmans introduced me to friend Phil, another Mets fan who introduces me to several adult beverages and road races.  I guess they’re like my Yin and Yang.  Bad influences too, but bad-in-a-good way.

 

My associations with the Chapmans and Greg also gained me a friend in DyHrdMet from Remembering Shea, a collective of Mets memories, honoring the past and making sense of the present.  We may be told to get over the past, but DyHrdMet appreciates the balance of what history and romanticism means to a Mets fan.

From blogging made me part of a die-hard crew of Mets fans who act like we survived a war or something.  There’s always some kind of tie that binds us, and DyHrdMet does that, but it also gained me a friend from the Twitterverse in Richie S from Random Mets Thoughts.  We are Mets fans, we are music fans…but most of all, he is a dad who made his daughter a Mets fan.  I’m sure she sometimes feels the same way about that fact like the way I do with my dad and the Mets: we equally love and hate them both at times (the team and our dads for introducing us to this life of sometimes-Jobian-existence).  Richie fits right in with the rest of us, obsessing about the Mets in a mid-winter board meeting as he called our soiree.

 

From Twitter and blogging, I met Nik Kolidas, who is a damn fine musician, but also a knowledgeable Mets fan and blogger.  From these ties, I started writing at KinersKorner.com, and we started our own podcast The Kult of Mets Personalities.  It’s a roundtable of fun and funny people who understand the bigger picture of Mets fandom and baseball fanaticism.

Social media added another layer of Mets fandom to the next level.  While blogging may have exposed our thoughts, Facebook and Twitter among others have provided our hearts as well.  Alvin and Anne Marie are both Mets and New York Rangers fans.  Jason is another friend who is a hockey fan (Devils – boo! but Mets fan too).  So I have not only gained new Mets fans in the mix, I have people I can watch and go to hockey games with.  Sweet.

Lastly, I invited a friend I’ve known for years, Martin, to my shindig.  He had hurt his ankle early in the week and didn’t know if he’d be able to make it.  He said after a few days of rest, he had cabin fever and wanted to come.  As he came, everyone wanted to know his baseball affiliation.  He said, “I’m a Mets fan too.  But that’s because Coop tells me to be one.”  Another one bites the dust, kids.

I met Ed through outlets like Metsmerized Online and Facebook subsequently.  We got married.  Good for us.  But as a result, I met other people through the Metsmerized community.  I met my soul sister Dee through those channels, but I also gained two other people as a result of knowing her:  mother Arlene, whom I refer to affectionately as “Aunt Arl” but also her best friend from childhood, Angie.  They often say that life is full of happy accidents.  Seriously, how much of it can be truly planned if it’s so unpredictable?  But I never knew that being a baseball fan would get me a husband, a best friend and de facto sister, someone I look on as a mother, and a new friend to boot.  Happy accidents, indeed.

   

Then bring that back ’round to my dad, Mr. E or Mr. Coop or Eddy or Alan Eddy Cooper Jug Band leader.  My dad knows everyone.  I can’t tell you how many times as a kid we’d walk into a store, and he’d spend 20 minutes chatting someone up about something.  He’s not one of those “weirdos” you want to look the other way on the train.  But if he can find that connecting quality with someone, you’ll have a friend for life.  Dad was amazed looking around at the cast of characters at Strawberry’s on Saturday night.  If you think about it, Darryl Strawberry played for the Mets, and we all loved Straw.  As a result, he opens a sports bar in Queens, home of the Mets.  A bunch of Mets fans meet in a roundabout yet seemingly so simple we wonder why it took so long to begin with.  As a result, we act like army buddies.  Dad said, “This is different than in the ’70s and ’80s.  We didn’t have cell phones or Facebook.  But we did have bars.”

During the night, another guest who should have been there but was 3000 miles away, brother from another mother and concerned Mets fan Senor Solly, kept jumping into conversations.  He’s never met my dad, but he helped me serenade my dad for his birthday this year.  Senor Solly has not met the majority of us, physically (my dad was amazed my husband and I were the only people, actually), but he’s touched our lives in numerous ways.  Simply by being a Mets fan.  And by Sharon telling him to go fuck himself.

Baseball is an amazing sport.  It brings people together, whether or not you’re affiliated with the same team.  I got overwhelmed at one point thinking about how my life has changed so dramatically in the past decade or so simply by the baseball team I root for.  They drive us nuts sometimes, but I often say that the best times to be a Mets fan is during the down years because that gives you character and introduces you to characters.  No one can ever say we’re not devoted.  At the same time, it’s the middle of winter, there are football playoff implications, there is hockey to be watched (and even watched Bradley Richards score a dramatic .01 of a second left in the game winning goal against Phoenix on Saturday), we had birthdays to celebrate and holidays to worry about.  We talked baseball.

Maybe world peace is a distant phenomenon that can’t ever be attained due to the natural aggression of human nature.  Eh, that’s a bit overdramatic.  Maybe if baseball were the universal language, it could get us to that point.

Kevin Bacon may own the whole six degrees thing in cinema.  But baseball owns the six degrees of life.  Therefore, baseball is the Kevin Bacon of life.

And we all love bacon. AmIRite?

Bears and Bacon on a Stick

Remain Calm! ALL IS WELL! The motto of Mets fans.

The Decemberists

New York Jets, NFL, , , , , , , One comment

Football games in December, especially in the northeast, midwest and any place typically north, are well-known to be cold.  We’ve been fortunate in New York this season though.  On days that you would expect to be just cold (not even factoring in “bitter” or “wind chill”), it’s been balmy and dare-I-say “unseasonable” weather.  My dream is to someday live in San Francisco, and we’ve been blessed with Bay Area-like weather.

Of course, not on the day I was scheduled to go a game.  But as you see, my friend and I dressed appropriately.  A few years ago, I read an article about dressing for games during the playoffs at Lambeau Field.  I remember the guy had like 10 different layers, but most importantly, thermals with the butt flap.  We don’t have it that bad, at least, not yet.  But for me, I had thermals on, a sweatshirt, my Jets jersey, jeans, a North Face, a scarf, and I had gloves.  I didn’t really need the gloves, and I had a hat for a break-in-case-of-emergency.  My friend wore her Jets cap though, for reasons other than weather (I’ll get to that in a minute).

Dee, who posts for Metscellaneous, and I met a few years ago.  Brought together by our love for the Mets (and baseball), we realized we had some eerie things in common.  We’re both only children, we like to write (which is technically how we met), we both don’t like raw tomatoes (but we like tomato-products…I have a hard time explaining this to other people, but luckily, she gets it), we love margaritas and chain restaurants (don’t judge), and we’re both born in December.  It’s irony, really, because we are not WINTER folks (though, that is her last name..again, irony), but we can identify with the season and having our birthdays overshadowed by everyone else getting into the holiday spirit.

I never got the whole “this is your Christmas AND birthday gift,” mainly because I’m an only child and my parents never were torn in other directions.  What we did get, though, was the whole nightmare of trying to plan birthday parties that were convenient for your friends, family and kids’ parents.  I have a better appreciation for it now as an adult.  But now since we’re adults, we’re taking matters into our own hands.  We not only decided to have a joint birthday party and “share” our friends and the wealth of having a December birthday (and some people can get territorial about their friends, go figure), we said, hey, we can’t go to a baseball game for our birthdays…but we CAN go to a football game.

So December 11th it was, against the Kansas City Chiefs.  I was so concerned about buying tickets for this game, yet we were told at the tailgate we went to that we could have easily waited till that week and gotten super-cheap tickets in the upper levels.  It ended up not mattering either way, and I’ll get to that later.

So first things first, we meet at Penn Station, me with coffees in hand and we chill for the train to Secaucus, and transfer to Meadowlands.  We’re there before 10:30 am.  That may seem early but when you’re tailgating, the time passes very quickly.

I went to the same tailgate I attended back in October, when I went to the game against the Dolphins.  My friend Kevin is part of a tailgate group, where they basically have a communistic set up of beverages, snacks, real food, and then other wares, like chairs and wood-burning stoves.  Kevin is married to another baseball chick I know, Sharon, and she came to celebrate our birthdays (since this was the birthday game).  Sharon ended up going to the game, which wasn’t part of the original plan, but it ended up benefiting us for several reasons.  One is that we love Sharon and she’s a lot of fun to hang out with…the other is that later on, we got to sit with Kevin and a few of his friends in the 200 level.

 

Dee and I were greeted with a strawberry margarita (courtesy of Kevin’s battery-operated margarita maker), and there were comforts of home such as yummy food and wood-burning stoves.  We didn’t really need it though, since you can see I lost my scarf and had my coat al fresco after a bit (plus I was drinking a frozen alcoholic drink).  The guy on top of the truck was leading us in a J-E-T-S chant, and the dude in the middle of our photo is Frank, the ringleader of the L11 tailgate.  There was also a filming of a television show that these dudes were pitching to Food Network, for I guess best tailgate burger.  Frank was the winner of the golden spatula.

I wanted to get there earlier, after all there were huevos rancheros on the menu there, because two and a half hours does go by quickly.  After all, times flies when you’re having fun.  It came time to go into the stadium and root for the Jets.  It was Dee’s first live football game, after all.  And yes, I’m trying to set a record for the most “after alls,” in one paragraph.

Our seats weren’t terrible, but because they were underneath the lights, we got dripped on! (It rained here midweek, but I guess the sun shining brightly for days afterwards led it to melt any ice that may have formed).  I felt like I was back in the Mezzanine at Shea, when you were underneath the awning, even if it had rained like a week before, if there was a puddle, you got dripped on.

 

 

We had a pretty good view of the field, more so than my first game of the season where I was behind the goal post.  Don’t get me wrong: those seats were awesome on the 100 level, and my friend basically just gave the ticket to me so he wouldn’t eat it.  But the drawback here were the drips…Dee had to put on her hat so that it wouldn’t drip on her head! We had a good view of Fireman Ed here (as evidenced above), but the crowd really wasn’t going strong till later in the first quarter.

Sharon told us her husband had some empties by him, and we should head down there.  Good thing we did!  We stayed there the second half, and for the rest of the game.  Look how sweet these seats were!!

 

 

We had a better view of Fireman Ed, who basically has carte blanche to do anything at JetLife Stadium.

As for the game, yeah, it was a blowout, and as well it should have been.  There wasn’t much to say except Mark Brunell came in the game eventually to relieve Sanchez, since there was no point in keeping him in there.  The Jets are now in control of their own destiny too, as far as playoffs go.  That can be a good or bad thing.  Mostly good, since they don’t have to rely on other teams losing, but then they have to depend on winning and we all know how well that can go sometimes.  I have an impeccable record for Jets games though, and now so does Dee.

When we walked out, we had another post-game tailgate to hit with another December baby, the friend we affectionately refer to as Woooooo because of his greeting on social media networks.  He is the consummate host, offering us beers, different types of foods (rice and beans, london broil, bison burgers, dogs)…there was even a birthday cake, since his is coming up this week. Sure, the cake was half-eaten by the time we got there, but it was still yummy nonetheless, and a great capper of the evening.

 

NJ Transit is ass-backwards as far as game day travel is, but we had a finite time to return which was 5:48, the last train out of dodge.  Of course, they kept us waiting and waiting and waiting, and the train Dee wanted to take back was missed by literally two minutes.  Not to fret, we decided to go outside to get some hot cocoa at Dunkin’ Donuts.  She casually mentions, yeah I’d like to see the tree.  I say, hey, what else do we have to do tonight.  So after the game, we pranced all over the city and did touristy things and made the day even more complete.

 

(Some bears made a special appearance)

As we walked towards the L7 tailgate after the game, I asked Dee what she thought about the game.  It’s a different atmosphere than a baseball game, for sure, she said.  She did say she almost liked it a bit better than baseball.  I can understand.  Nothing will ever replace my love for a spring or summer day game or even a night game, socializing with friends, drinking booze, eating nachos.  But it can get diluted for me, which is sad, but it is what it is.  Like Dee, we go to way many more baseball games.  This has to do with proximity, availability and the number of games.  I get a little jaded at times simply because I go to many games.  I can take it for granted.

Football games are special though.  There aren’t many, but there’s a lot of commitment in going to a game.  Woooooo told us there was a friend of his in the tailgate who drove up every weekend from Washington, D.C.  D.C.!!!!  I bitch and moan about NJ Transit having a pain in the ass schedule on game days.  This is especially dedicated for tailgaters too, like Wooooo and Sports Yenta (whom I met yesterday, oy!) and Frank and Kevin and everyone else.  Thank you all for hosting us and making our birthday game special.

Dee and I were bonded by birthdays and baseball, and always hated that we couldn’t spend our birthdays going to baseball games.  What a crock!  We should have been grateful for what we did have, and that’s football…but then again, we are Jets fans, so that could have something to do with it.  But now we have our own tradition and are making it our own.  So as I’ve said before, I not only gained a baseball friend, I gained a baseball sister.

So happy, happy birthday to my dearest Dee.  May all your wishes come true, and I hope you look back on this game with as much fondness as I do you!

Points and Shoots

New York Rangers, NHL, , , Leave a comment

I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out.

I HATE motherfucking shootouts.  Especially in games where your team HAD the goddamn lead late in the 3rd, and still managed to lose in a shootout.  Losing in a shootout is one thing; losing in a shootout where a) you had the lead going late in the 3rd AND b) not even getting a goddamn shot in the net in the shootout is annoying.

I digress.  I went to the game on Thursday night.  I’m sure you’ve heard about the “Shot Heard ‘Round The World.”  No, I’m not talking about Bobby Thomson, I’m talking about Artem Anisimov reacting after scoring a shorthanded goal.  I love shorthanded goals: I was spoiled as a young child when the very first game I ever went to, Brian Leetch scored one.  My dad had to give me a crash course on what exactly happened.

But I wasn’t prepared for World War 3 to break out afterwards.  Granted, I was too busy standing up to celebrate to notice Anisimov’s Anisimoving.  I was confused and had to retreat to my Twitter feed to see what set this thing off.  Several misconducts, minors and penalties later (oh, my!), it looked as though this was almost too easy.

But let me ask you Rangers fans something.  Doesn’t it seem like Henrik gets a little complacent late in games, like he gets a little too comfortable with leads…even if he shouldn’t be?  Not to mention, I’ve always equated Lundqvist to be kind of a “closer in a non-save situation” in some games.  It’s almost like big leads don’t challenge him.  Either way, Henrik gets a little complacent for my liking, no matter how good he is.

So this game could theoretically be one that got away.  I could say that about a lot, but what a killjoy, especially when there were fights breaking out EVERYWHERE.

Few other thoughts:

~ The Garden is coming along nicely with its construction.  I can see their inefficiencies from the old set up are still there from the old design.  Hence, longer lines but better food you are willing to wait for. I could do without having just ONE ladies room on the 400 level, along with the two whopping mens rooms. Seriously?

~ The sky bar is the exception to the rule. I had the NICEST and efficient people helping me up there with my beer and hot dog. Not that it takes a rocket scientist, but still. When I saw the lines on the 100 level, I was pleasantly surprised. And I still love the frickin view from there.

  ~ I got to chill with my girl, KB.  While I’d always like a Rangers win, it’s fun to watch a loss with someone who loves the team as much as you do.

~Bonus: It was Jackie’s birthday!  Con: the Rangers STILL lost.  Didn’t they get the memo?

~The bear in the pic is Gabby, the newest addition to our bear family.  She is the first non-Mets jersey and New York Ranger fan bear.

I’m still a hockey purist.  I guess I have to learn to roll with the punches and changes and all.  But I still hate shootouts.  I hate this particular game that the Rangers had in the bag and lost a point in the standings.  Sigh.

Unlike Artem Anisimov, the Rangers couldn’t finish the job and gain points and shoot in the shootout.  What else can you do but dust yourself off and move on to the next game.

Dirty Laundry

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A little bit of loyalty goes a long way...for fans AND players.

I was 13 years old when I first had my heart broken.  True story.  My dad called me after school one day and said, there’s a rumor the Rangers might trade Tony Granato.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTT?????  I had to calm myself down and take a walk around my suburban neighborhood.  I had become a Ranger fan for good earlier that year (1989), when my dad took me to see some dude named Mario Lemieux play for the Pittsburgh Penguins against the New York Rangers, where another dude named Brian Leetch scored a shorthanded goal.  Hard to believe I was sitting in an arena with future hockey hall of famers, yet when I was thumbing through the program I saw two pictures that made my heart soar as a teeny-bopper 13 year old: Tony Granato and John Vanbiesbrouck.  Granato was also another rookie who came up along with Brian Leetch — defenseman of the future — and Beezer was a fan fave.

But to trade *my* favorite player and the hottest guy on the team?  Heart wrenching.  I could only imagine what my mom might have gone through when the Beatles broke up, as a girl of 14.

Yet, it prepared me.  Granato was traded, and the Rangers ended up winning the Cup a few years later on the back of hard workers like Mark Messier, Mike Richter, Adam Graves and Brian Leetch.  Leetch, who should have been a Ranger-lifer, was traded in the last few years of his career, but still came back to hoist his number to the rafters.

Cutting ties with Beezer was easier to take when it happened (especially since I loved Mike Richter). When my crush Gregg Jefferies was traded for Bret Saberhagen, my dad called me to break the news.  Expecting a shriek, I said, “Well, it’s Saberhagen.  He’s good.”  My objectivity kept me grounded.  And I learned to not get attached to certain players.

And that my friends, is our lesson of the day: you root for the name on the front of the jersey, not on the back.

Gone are the days, as Frank at NY Fan in South Jersey, of the Cal Ripkens and Tony Gwynns of the world: baseball greats who are synonymous with the teams for which they played.  I don’t count the Yankees’ “core” of Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera because they overpay for the first two and Mo is a freak of nature.  Pretty much, we have the Houston Astros, whose Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell (to a lesser extent Lance Berkman) who are all over the leaderboards for the team but were also there for a generation, and Atlanta Braves’ Larry Jones.  Don’t give me the “Big Three” as an example: Tom Glavine left for the hated Mets (to them, not to me, of course) at one point and Greg Maddux, hypocrite who wanted to stay with the Cubs but opted for money, fame and championship caliber baseball in Atlanta.  Not like I can blame him.  I’m sure many of us would do the same thing.

The concept of the “hometown discount” is dead.  I would say you heard it here first, though many on Twitter said so today and even our very own Metstradamus said as much yesterday.  The Mets lost Jose Reyes, but this isn’t a team known for cultivating their own talent and keeping their homegrown players.  It should not surprise us nor should it be unexpected that this would happen.  Steve Keane at Kranepool Society said that he knew the Mets wouldn’t sign Reyes, and as he said a few months ago on our Kult of Mets Personalities podcast, that he actually thought Alderson HOPED someone would give Reyes a six-year contract.  Someone did, and we see the fallout from that.  We can only hope that it turns out to be a 20/20 hindsight good move.

Yet, I was surprised…nay, SHOCKED, really…that Albert Pujols left the Cardinals.  Yes, I know he and the Cards couldn’t come to an agreement before the season.  But I also know that people counted the Cards out when Wainwright was hurt.  And hey, did you hear who won the World Series this year?

But raise your hand if you thought if there was such a thing as “company loyalty” left in baseball, there was such a thing as a “hometown discount,” that Pujols would have typified that.   **RAISES BOTH HANDS AND FEET**  Yeah, I am that chick.  I hear all these great stories about the fans in St. Louis, how loyal they are, how every player LOVES playing there, no one ever wants to leave.  Even careers get rejuvenated in St. Lou.  Look at Berkman, who seemed like he left his best years behind in Houston.  Even though Pitchers Hit 8th told me that Pujols pretty much stated he wasn’t looking for a hometown discount, I didn’t believe it.

There is Larry Jones.  There is Derek Jeter.  But these guys are exceptions to the rule that the name on the back of the jersey does not trump the name on the front of the jersey (yet, if you talked to Jeter’s GM Brian Cashman last year, he made negotiations uncomfortable by telling Jeter to get another offer better than the one they were offering).

I was 13 years old when I learned my lesson.  That you’re only as good as the team you play on, and if you can get a better return in value, then that happens too.  I’m not saying we can’t get attached to our favorite players (I am accepting of losing Reyes, but I will still miss him and wonder “what could have been”), but if we realize that we root for a larger entity as fans — the “laundry” — we’ll save ourselves much pain and anguish in the long-run.