Right now I'm watching Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. Once again my Mets were leading the NL East in September but couldn't even hold on to a wild card. So who should I root for without the Mets in the post season?
In the NL I really don't care too much but I guess I have a slight preference for the Dodgers. I don't blame the Phillies for the Mets failures but I still don't like their pompous attitudes. As for the Dodgers, I'm still bitter about 1988, but it would be great to see Joe Torre return to the World Series the year after he left the Yankees, whom he took to the post season for 12 consecutive years and they couldn't make it this year without him. But an even better story line would be Manny Ramirez facing off against the Red Sox if they make it.
In the AL I'll be rooting for the Tampa Bay Rays. You can't really call them underdogs but the franchise has certainly paid their dues with year after year in the cellar. I have nothing against the Red Sox, but they've now won two of the past four Championships so it's time for somebody else. If the Rays make it to the World Series I'll probably root for them. If not, I'll default back to my normal allegiance to the National League.
On September 6th, 1981 I attended my first Mets game at Shea Stadium. As you can see, I saved my tickets for 27 years. I don't actually remember the game but the Braves beat the Mets five to two that day. I went to Shea Stadium several times a year from 1981-1990, including Game 3 of the 1986 National League Championship Series in which Lenny Dykstra hit a game winning 2-run homer to beat the Astros with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th (rated the #17 best moment in Shea history and the #1 most dramatic homerun).
Today I went to my final game ever at Shea Stadium, and Maegan and Darah went to their first game ever at Shea Stadium. We planned this pilgramage last year, choosing a Thursday daytime game to avoid the crowds since CitiField eliminated most of the available parking. For me the trip was obviously a final goodbye. For Maegan this was her only opportunity to experience the stadium I've been telling her about her whole life. And for Darah, only 15 months old, this was her once in a lifetime opportunity to have photos taken in front of her namesake. Yes, you read that right. Her middle name is Shea! We went to the game with my mom, my sister, and my aunt.
What an amazing game to be both a final and first game at Shea! Johan Santana pitched well. There were two ejections. The Mets were winning most of the game but the Padres tied it up in the top of the 9th. Then with the score tied with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th inning, David Wright smacked a game-winning walk-off homerun to left field for the Mets win!!!
P.S. After the game we headed to The Lemon Ice King of Corona (the one seen in the opening to The King of Queens television show). Best italian ices on earth!
* Tuesday was the MLB All-Star Game. I stayed up late and watched all 15 innings. Unfortunately the junior circuit won again (the NL's last win was in 1996) but that was an amazing game with four extra-inning outs at the plate and the game winner was a split-second play too.
* Maegan just completed her second and final week at horse camp. Unlike last month, I was able to attend her presentation at the end of the week. Here are a few photos, and a link to a short video.
Here's Maegan the horse-whisperer gracefully persuading her animal to the mounting area.
Maegan gives her horse a hug while waiting her turn.
Show time.
* On my way to see Maegan at horse camp, my tire completely blew out at 65 MPH. I had to change my tire on the shoulder of I-485, but thanks to my NASCAR-like pit stop, I wasn't even late for Maegan's show.
* We have yet another baby bird on our lawn. He's been down for 48 hours now. The momma bird has been nearby but we've not seen her actually go up to the baby. I keep flagging off the area of the front lawn he's in so nobody steps on him.
* And here are two more photos from the past week: Patty playing bubbles with Darah, then finger painting.
During spring training I tried to sign up for Major League Baseball's Gameday Audio so I can listen to Mets games on WFAN through the internet. I ran in to a brick wall when I refused to give them my telephone number. (MLB has a reputation for taking liberties with your privacy. They claim it's a desired benefit to me to have their advertising partners bother me with 'special' 3rd party offers. Besides, I'm paying for the service which doesn't need a telephone so what do they need my for?)
Anyhoo, back to the story... Last week I tried to sign up for Gameday Audio again and somehow was able to sign up without giving them my phone number. Sweet. So I've finally been able to listen to Mets games on WFAN over the internet, 1000 miles away in North Carolina. It's been great to listen to the games at night, but the best part is that the Mets haven't lost a single game since I started listening. They just won their 7th consecuve game and are right back in the playoff hunt again. Of course I'm not responsible for the Mets' winning streak, but then again, I am still convinced that I personally helped will that ball through Buckner's legs in 1986.
People are often surprised when I tell them that I grew up just 22 miles from New York City (an easy train ride) yet I've never been to Yankee Stadium. That area of the Bronx isn't exactly kid-friendly, but it was down-right dangerous when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's. Not that I actually wanted to go, but my mother wouldn't let me go to Yankee Stadium anyway, and I never lived in the area again after college. More surprising it that my mother, an avid baseball fan who was born in New York City and has lived no farther than 22 miles from the city her whole life, had never been to Yankee Stadium either.... until last night.
Last night my mother went to see the New York Mets take on the New York Yankees, in enemy territory in the House that Ruth Built. She went early to visit Monument Park and said the stadium was very nice. More importantly, the Mets clobbered the Yankees 11-2 (but it should have been 13-2). What a great game to make your first trip to Yankee Stadium. Perhaps my mom should go to all Mets games at Yankee Stadium?
News is just now breaking that the Mets have acquired two-time Cy Young Award winning pitcher Johan Santana from the Twins (dependent on some conditions, including the ability of the Mets to sign Santana to a long term deal). Hooray!
Forbes Magazine just named America's Top 10 Sports Mascots, and #3 on their list was Mr. Met. #1 and #2 on the list, the Phillie Phanatic and the San Diego Chicken, are no-brainers. But Mr. Met coming in 3rd right behind those two? Seriously? It's a guy with a baseball for a head, named "Mr." plus the team's name? It couldn't be any less imaginative. And his entertainment skills are next to nothing so that doesn't explain the high showing either.
1. Phillie Phanatic 2. San Diego Chicken (San Diego Padres) 3. Mr. Met (New York Mets) 4. Racing Sausages (Milwaukee Brewers) 5. Benny the Bull (Chicago Bulls) 6. Rally Monkey (Los Angeles Angels) 7. Sourdough Sam (San Francisco 49ers) 8. Rowdy (Dallas Cowboys) 9. Rally (Atlanta Braves) 10. Miles (Denver Broncos)
Other than Mr. Met winning 3rd place, two major things are drastically out of whack with this list. First is that there are no college mascots, and there are some really great college mascots out there (and one truly horrible mascot). The other big problem is #9 on this list is "Rally", the mascot for the Atlanta Braves. How can a mascot who does not appear during ballgames and whom almost nobody even knew existed make the top 10?
One last thought on mascots: Remember the great mascot for the Montreal Expos, Youppi? (Well I do since I spent so many years within an hour of Montreal.) He's one of only three mascots inducted in the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown. Is he gone now that the Expos moved to DC? Nope, he stayed in Montreal but switched sports. He's now the mascot for the NHL's Montreal Canadiens.
I haven't been to Shea Stadium since the mid-90's, Maegan has never been to Shea Stadium and Darah's middle name is Shea, so we plan to take a family vacation in New York during baseball season next year, which will include a final pilgrimage to Shea Stadium before it is torn down. Of course Darah won't remember visiting Shea when she's older but we'll take plenty of photos of her at the stadium.
The World Series gets under way tonight when the Colorado Rockies meet the Boston Red Sox. Although it's been hard to watch the post season this year (painful memories of the Mets collapse), I'm trying to figure out whom I should be rooting for:
Colorado Rockies
I've always been a National League fan.
The Rockies have never been to the World Series before.
The amazing Rockies streak is a great underdog story.
Boston Red Sox
A Red Sox championship would really piss off Yankee fans for a whole year.
I guess I'll root for the Rockies (which will now jinx them) but I don't know how good it looks for them. Sure the Rockies have won an amazing 20 of their last 21 games, but they've won zero in the last week while waiting at home. Meanwhile the Red Sox are now hot, coming back to win their last three in a row to beat the Indians. History is always on the side of the hotter team and the hotter team right now are the Sox.
Here's a cool map of Major League Baseball fans. These aren't official markets but it shows the location of each team's typical fan base. Click the image to enlarge it.
This is the source of the image but their menu blocks half of the map.
My mom came to visit yesterday and got to see her new granddaughter for the first time. She loved meeting Darah and didn't forget to give Maegan plenty of attention too.
My Aunt Barbara is a lifelong Mets fan, Shea Stadium season ticket holder, and often picks up various Mets items for me. One of the many gifts my mom brought with her on her visit was from my Aunt Barbara. It is a personally autographed photograph of former Met, Rusty Staub. Staub will never be in the hall of fame but he had a memorable career and is a favorite of Mets fans. He may not be quite as loved as Mookie Wilson but he had a much more impressive career.
Rusty Staub played for 23 seasons, beginning as the youngest Major Leaguer as a 19-year-old rookie for the Houston Colt .45's, and ending as the oldest Major Leaguer in 1985 at the age of 41. He and Ty Cobb are the only players in history to hit home runs before turning 20 and after turning 40. Aside from his longevity, he was a pretty good player, making the All-Star team six times. He's the only player to have at least 500 hits with four different teams. As for the Mets, he had two tours of duty in New York: 1972-1975 and 1981-1985. In 1975 he set the Mets franchise record for RBI's in a season, which stood for 12 years. When I started watching him during his second stint with the Mets he was well past his prime but one of my earliest games as a kid at Shea Stadium was won with a Rusty Staub game-winning/walk-off homerun.
Thanks for the photo, Aunt Barbara.
P.S. Rusty Staub earned the name "Le Grand Orange" from his brief three seasons playing for the Montreal Expos. The Expos were a brand new expansion team and Staub was a bona fide All-Star so Montreal loved him. But he was especially adored by the French-speaking Canadians because he took the time to learn their language. "Le Grande Orange" means "The Big Orange", because of his big bat and his red (orange) hair.
Before Sunday nights game between the Mets and Yankees at Shea, a groundskeeper was setting up the bullpen. He slammed down a rolled up mat, then kicked it to unroll it, when out popped a tiny kitten that had been hiding inside. Great video. (The kitten seems to be okay.)
Note: It was a black cat and the Mets lost that game.
While I was searching for that video clip online via Digg, I came across an interesting story about an ambidextrous college pitcher for Creighton University. Even more odd than the thought of a pitcher who can pitch with either arm, is the fact that Louisville Slugger actually manufactures an ambidextrous glove. Why?
Yesterday ESPN reported that Yankee Stadium will host the 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in its final year before being replaced by a new Yankee Stadium in 2009. Just like Yankee Stadium, 2008 will also be the final season Shea Stadium before the Mets begin playing at their new stadium, CitiField, in 2009. By no means am I suggesting that Shea deserves the same send-off honors as the historic House That Ruth Built, but it occurred to me that the last All-Star Game held in New York in 1977 was also at Yankee Stadium. Shea last hosted in 1964, so Yankee Stadium is the New York host twice in a row. What a jip. Plus, since I don't see MLB returning to the same city too soon, this will most likely delay the likelihood of the Mets hosting an All-Star Game in the near future. It took 30 years for the mid-summer classic to return to the big apple so I hope I won't need to wait another 30 years before I see the Mets finally play host in my lifetime.
On a side note, I saw a list of Major League Baseball ballparks listed by their age and noticed something odd. I never realized that the recent trend of new stadium construction has been overwhelmingly dominated by the National League lately. An astonishing 50% (8 of 16) of National League stadiums have been built since 2000. In comparison, Detroit's Comerica Park which was built in 2000 is the only American League stadium built during that same timespan.
"Jackie Robinson Field" sure would have sounded nice, but did anybody really believe that the new Mets stadium would escape the grasp of the modern corporate naming era? It was recently announced that the new Mets stadium will be named "CitiField" after corporate sponsor Citigroup, the nation's largest bank. I have many great memories of Shea Stadium but it is a horrible stadium in which to watch a ballgame. I want to take Maegan to at least one Mets game at Shea before it is torn down. After that, hooray for CitiField in 2009 (as long as they keep that apple that pops out of the top hat after a Mets homerun).
Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Metsville - Mighty Carlos has struck out.
But unlike Casey At The Bat, the air was not shattered by the force of Carlos Beltran's blow. The Mets season of dominance was ended on a called third strike! Insult to injury.
Now to be fair there's no way I'm going to blame the Mets loss in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series on Beltran's one at bat. It was Beltran's homer that provided all the offense for a Mets win in game one. There were way too many Mets caught looking, and many other blown scoring opportunities. Can anybody say 'bases loaded with one out'?
I almost always root for the National League - except when it's the Atlanta Braves. Even despite the NL losing the past three World Series and being winless in the past ten All-Star Games, I just can't do it this year. Nothing against the Cardinals, but I'm going to have to root for the Detroit Tigers this year.
I've been waiting for 18 years to hear those words!
Tonight the New York Mets clinched their first National League East divisional title since 1988. Plus as a bonus, the Atlanta Braves streak of 14 consecutive NL East titles has ended.
Alpha Sigma Phi National Fraternity is holding it's bi-annual national convention right here in Charlotte this weekend. Part of the convention featured a minor league baseball game at the Charlotte Knights. Since I'm an Alpha Sig alumnus (Delta Xi '91), I like baseball, and Knight's Castle is just a few miles away it was a no-brainer for me to go to the game last night. Patty wasn't interested in going but I brought Maegan along with me. I met up with some brothers attending the convention. That was pretty cool to chatting with them for a while.
Later Maegan and I sat on the grass berm down the right field line. A foul ball went over our heads and Maegan watched a bunch of kids run after the baseball. She asked me if she could get a foul ball and I told her she could try. I've been to easily over 100 baseball games and I've never gotten a foul ball. I told Maegan that if she wanted to try to get a fould ball she'd have to get right in there with the big kids who would be fighting for it. A couple of innings later there was a foul ball near by and several older boys went after it. When the ball bounced out of the pile of kids right towards Maegan she saw her opportunity and without hesitation, dove for the ball fully-outstretched. Her fingers just barely touched the ball and an older teenage boy got it. I was very impressed by the way Maegan wasn't afraid to get right in there with the big kids, and of her willingness to dive for the ball. I was also proud of the fact that she got up quickly, brushed herself off, and wasn't pouting about not getting the ball.
As Maegan walked back to me with a smile on her face for being so close, a relief pitcher for the Knights, Matt Skrmetta, called her to come over to the field. He told Maegan that he saw her dive for the ball and thought she tried really hard and deserved a baseball for her effort. He gave her a ball from the bull pen. Maegan was so happy! Matt Skrmetta played 14 games in the Major Leagues for the Expos and Pirates in 2000, but is otherwise a career minor leaguer who's played for 23 different professional teams in his 14 year career. Maegan didn't ask anybody for anything and she wasn't upset, so that was very nice of Mark to go out of his way to give a ball to Maegan just for trying so hard.
As for the game, it was a 0-0 tie for 7 full innings, but then the Rochester Red Wings broke it wide open with 3 in the 8th and another 5 in the 9th for an 8-0 Knights loss. But Maegan had a great time and is still excited about getting the baseball. Thank you, Mark.
Ever since I was a kid I've considered the Major League Baseball All Star Game to be a sacred national holiday. It's should your patriotic duty as an American to watch the game, and for a Mets fan such as myself, to root for the National League. Of course the past decade has been pretty sad for National League fans , with the senior circuit not winning the mid-summer classic since 1996.
What a heartbreaker this year! Just one out away from ending the American League's nine-year dominance of the game, the American League strung together a single, double, and triple off of the Padres' Trevor Hoffman to take a 3-2 9th-inning lead. Sure it was an exciting game but it's still a heartbreaker when you're on the losing end. Making matters worse than the pride of the National League is the fact that the New York Mets are the league's best team and hence this loss may come back to haunt my team if they make it to the World Series but without home field advantage.
P.S. Regarding the title of this post, both of the National League's two runs were manufactured by Mets.
We signed Maegan up for t-ball and she had her first ever practice this week. She is one of the youngest on her team and one of only two girls. Maegan had a lot to learn but she had a blast and can't wait until her first game.
Patty and I were on vacation in Florida last week visiting my mom. It was great. We went to a spring training baseball game between the Mets and Cardinal, went to the zoo, the beach, and went swimming several times.
After returning, I finished up and launched a new website. It's been a couple of months of work, and it's only 90% done, but it's ready for the public. Check it out at www.CharlotteMLB.com.
I got my tickets to the White Sox / Expos game on March 31st. I finally got through and got some upper deck tickets, but that's okay since there aren't any bad seats at Knights Castle.
The Charlotte Knights now know who the webmaster of Charlotte for Major League Baseball is. Although completely unexpected, first contact went well. The Knights like the website, which promotes their ultimate goals of an Uptown ballpark and eventually Major League Baseball in the Carolinas.
Today is our 4th Anniversary. Patty and I never had a honeymoon, so for our 5th Anniversary (one year from today) we plan on going on our belated honeymoon. Disneyworld, Las Vegas, and Mexico have been mentioned (in that order). Maegan doesn't know what Disneyworld is yet, but if we went there, someday soon she would be pissed off for going without her.
Speaking of trips, yesterday I finally bought airline and baseball tickets, thereby finalizing our planned trip to Florida. Once again, we'll be going to a Mets spring training game (3rd year). This year we'll save the long drive to Port St. Lucie and see them play in Jupiter.
Right now I'm watching Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. Once again my Mets were leading the NL East in September but couldn't even hold on to a wild card. So who should I root for without the Mets in the post season?
What an amazing game
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