Beaten By a Boy Named Kelly: Anatomy of A(nother) Lost Weekend
If a series took place this weekend at Shea, and I'm not saying it did, here are a few reflections.
In fact, repressing memories of this April debacle might be the best option at this point, especially when we can still calm ourselves with the 2007 Mets unquestionable potential despite their record versus the Atlanta Klansmen. Given my new-found reservoirs of optiMetism, it was still disheartening to watch the Red Sox, for my money are most likely to meet the Mets in the 1986 redux World Series this Fall, calmly come from behind to finish dismantling their biggest rivals, the Yankers, who it must be said, are a better team than the Br*ves.
I think the baseball gods would smile upon our Mets if they were to make it to the Series and face the Yankmes. I know I'm looking ahead, but I still worry about the Red Sox, even having read and scoffed at an article in the Sunday NY Times by Dan Rosenheck (hack?) which confidently claimed once and for all to provide evidence of the AL's superiority by advancing the general claim that a NL team, placed in the AL, would only win so many games. Rosenhack writes, "an average AL squad would probably improve its record by about 10 games if it could face NL competition, meaning that last year's Yankees probably would have been a 107 win juggernaut if they had played the Met's schedule." This is a patently ridiculous use of statistics to project pointlessly, one that not only ignores context and environment and the possibility that you play to your competition (compare runners' times against top competition for example), while being ignorant of a couple of minor points about the real competition faced in the AL East. For example, there is just no way the competition provided to the Yankmes and Sox by the bottom feeders in the AL East (Drays and Orioles) can be compared to the "bottom feeders" in the NL East (Expos and Marlins) who have been competitive on a World Series level in recent years. Oh and the NL won the World Series last year. So phoey on that!
If the Mets faced a powerful well salaried AL East team in the World Series, wouldn't it be great if a manager could challenge the steroid use of someone like, say David Ortiz, just like you can challenge a corked bat, or too much pine tar? Ump whips out a pee cup, takes a time out and wahlah!
****
What's the difference between the poetry in motion displayed in the picture I ran of Kermit last week and the actual Shawn Green loosing another pivitol ball in the sun/wall yesterday? If you answered that Kermit is more graceful, then you are correct!
Hi-Ho, Shawn Green here...
Pitching and defense win games. They also, as the Mets found out yesterday, loose games in devastating fashion. The GOAT LIST is long, and includes Stash, Poopeyface Heilman, Sugarpants himself, and the Jewish Cypher with the Three Year Contract. But as usual, Shawn Green makes the list. What is hard to wrap one's giant baseball shaped head around is this: what exactly is Shawn "Ain't Easy Being"Green bringing to the table here? Green seems determined to give away every heroic contribution of his bat, in this case, a wonderous HR that fatally punctured the unholy aura of John (Satan) Smoltz and opened the offensive floodgates for the Mets, in a game in which they had to rely on former Br*ve and current Br*ve Batting Practice pitcher, Tom Glavine, he of noted inability to beat the Smirking Sister-lovers of Georgia. I'm not saying that Lastings (Thrill a) Milledge would have had the focus to make the catches that Green routinely bobbles near any given outfield wall, but Milledge would have had the focus to make the catches that Green routinely bobbles near any given outfield wall. Until Green's bat cools off, or the Mets switch to a league with a designated hitter rule, we must endure. Note to Shawn Green: you really need to get over your obvious fear of the right field wall, or you might not have further chances to stand in front of it in the near future.
***
(Ch)umps: Back to the Pre-Quest Tec Future
(Ch)ump Paul Emmel's alma mater. Send hate mail to address on sign.
We'll get to them in due time, but when one of the Bozo's employed by TBS made great hay of homeplate umpire Paul Emmel's ability to call balls and strikes, before the game, you had to look at your karma meter and know something was up. And indeed, something was up. The worst ball and strike officiating I can remember. How bad? So bad, that the TBS broadcasters would need to regroup after a commercial break in order to re-justify a strike call when their own over- head camera's clearly showed Smoltz getting the old pre-quest tec outside pitch that built the Br*ves' regime every bit as much as John Schuerholtz and Lee Mazzilli.
It's enough to make you wonder whether someone wasn't interfering with Emmel's vision.
The pitch that Smoltz "stuck out" Carlos Buntran with in the 5th was so far off the plate, you would have to take off your Br*ves klan hood to shake your head. With two men on and two out, this call would have been the turning point of the game had the run explosions of the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings not happened.
With an amazing display of ungratefullness to an ump who had just potentially handed them the game, Satan and Cox made a big show inthe 6th of not getting the high strike call that they had gotten earlier on David Wright. Cox got tossed, turning the game's management over to traitor Rodger McDowell.
If there is karmic payback, the Br*ves have yet to receive it, since they won the game. Where are you, baseball gods?
Skip and Dip
As the unrepentently homerish TBS dipwads kept reminding those of us who were unfortunate enough to have to rely on the TBS feed yesterday, TBS has the rights to post-season. I repeat, TBS has the broadcast rights to the post-season. Let it sink in. Think I'm jumping the gun in worrying about the playoff broadcast evil awaiting us? Before you decide on that question, think of how much more bitter last season's elimination at the hands of the (House of) Cards felt, when delivered cheerfully by Fox's homer-team of Cardinal WS ring-wearing Buck and ex-Card McCarver. Yeah, I thought so. The Hooded Homer's were in rare form yesterday, pretending (along with the scorers it turns out) that Rent-a-player's error was a hit, and giggling evily after the Mets blew the game at various disappointed Mets fans who the camera men took great glee in framing. Turning the volume off only provided relative relief.
Bring on the cRockies! I hope Kazmat's back is healthy. Love that guy.
In fact, repressing memories of this April debacle might be the best option at this point, especially when we can still calm ourselves with the 2007 Mets unquestionable potential despite their record versus the Atlanta Klansmen. Given my new-found reservoirs of optiMetism, it was still disheartening to watch the Red Sox, for my money are most likely to meet the Mets in the 1986 redux World Series this Fall, calmly come from behind to finish dismantling their biggest rivals, the Yankers, who it must be said, are a better team than the Br*ves.
I think the baseball gods would smile upon our Mets if they were to make it to the Series and face the Yankmes. I know I'm looking ahead, but I still worry about the Red Sox, even having read and scoffed at an article in the Sunday NY Times by Dan Rosenheck (hack?) which confidently claimed once and for all to provide evidence of the AL's superiority by advancing the general claim that a NL team, placed in the AL, would only win so many games. Rosenhack writes, "an average AL squad would probably improve its record by about 10 games if it could face NL competition, meaning that last year's Yankees probably would have been a 107 win juggernaut if they had played the Met's schedule." This is a patently ridiculous use of statistics to project pointlessly, one that not only ignores context and environment and the possibility that you play to your competition (compare runners' times against top competition for example), while being ignorant of a couple of minor points about the real competition faced in the AL East. For example, there is just no way the competition provided to the Yankmes and Sox by the bottom feeders in the AL East (Drays and Orioles) can be compared to the "bottom feeders" in the NL East (Expos and Marlins) who have been competitive on a World Series level in recent years. Oh and the NL won the World Series last year. So phoey on that!
If the Mets faced a powerful well salaried AL East team in the World Series, wouldn't it be great if a manager could challenge the steroid use of someone like, say David Ortiz, just like you can challenge a corked bat, or too much pine tar? Ump whips out a pee cup, takes a time out and wahlah!
****
What's the difference between the poetry in motion displayed in the picture I ran of Kermit last week and the actual Shawn Green loosing another pivitol ball in the sun/wall yesterday? If you answered that Kermit is more graceful, then you are correct!
Hi-Ho, Shawn Green here...
Pitching and defense win games. They also, as the Mets found out yesterday, loose games in devastating fashion. The GOAT LIST is long, and includes Stash, Poopeyface Heilman, Sugarpants himself, and the Jewish Cypher with the Three Year Contract. But as usual, Shawn Green makes the list. What is hard to wrap one's giant baseball shaped head around is this: what exactly is Shawn "Ain't Easy Being"Green bringing to the table here? Green seems determined to give away every heroic contribution of his bat, in this case, a wonderous HR that fatally punctured the unholy aura of John (Satan) Smoltz and opened the offensive floodgates for the Mets, in a game in which they had to rely on former Br*ve and current Br*ve Batting Practice pitcher, Tom Glavine, he of noted inability to beat the Smirking Sister-lovers of Georgia. I'm not saying that Lastings (Thrill a) Milledge would have had the focus to make the catches that Green routinely bobbles near any given outfield wall, but Milledge would have had the focus to make the catches that Green routinely bobbles near any given outfield wall. Until Green's bat cools off, or the Mets switch to a league with a designated hitter rule, we must endure. Note to Shawn Green: you really need to get over your obvious fear of the right field wall, or you might not have further chances to stand in front of it in the near future.
***
(Ch)umps: Back to the Pre-Quest Tec Future
(Ch)ump Paul Emmel's alma mater. Send hate mail to address on sign.
We'll get to them in due time, but when one of the Bozo's employed by TBS made great hay of homeplate umpire Paul Emmel's ability to call balls and strikes, before the game, you had to look at your karma meter and know something was up. And indeed, something was up. The worst ball and strike officiating I can remember. How bad? So bad, that the TBS broadcasters would need to regroup after a commercial break in order to re-justify a strike call when their own over- head camera's clearly showed Smoltz getting the old pre-quest tec outside pitch that built the Br*ves' regime every bit as much as John Schuerholtz and Lee Mazzilli.
It's enough to make you wonder whether someone wasn't interfering with Emmel's vision.
The pitch that Smoltz "stuck out" Carlos Buntran with in the 5th was so far off the plate, you would have to take off your Br*ves klan hood to shake your head. With two men on and two out, this call would have been the turning point of the game had the run explosions of the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings not happened.
With an amazing display of ungratefullness to an ump who had just potentially handed them the game, Satan and Cox made a big show inthe 6th of not getting the high strike call that they had gotten earlier on David Wright. Cox got tossed, turning the game's management over to traitor Rodger McDowell.
If there is karmic payback, the Br*ves have yet to receive it, since they won the game. Where are you, baseball gods?
Skip and Dip
As the unrepentently homerish TBS dipwads kept reminding those of us who were unfortunate enough to have to rely on the TBS feed yesterday, TBS has the rights to post-season. I repeat, TBS has the broadcast rights to the post-season. Let it sink in. Think I'm jumping the gun in worrying about the playoff broadcast evil awaiting us? Before you decide on that question, think of how much more bitter last season's elimination at the hands of the (House of) Cards felt, when delivered cheerfully by Fox's homer-team of Cardinal WS ring-wearing Buck and ex-Card McCarver. Yeah, I thought so. The Hooded Homer's were in rare form yesterday, pretending (along with the scorers it turns out) that Rent-a-player's error was a hit, and giggling evily after the Mets blew the game at various disappointed Mets fans who the camera men took great glee in framing. Turning the volume off only provided relative relief.
Bring on the cRockies! I hope Kazmat's back is healthy. Love that guy.
Labels: It ain't easy being Green, Long Season
posted by I.M. Forme @ 10:07 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:23 AM,
Rickey said…
Glad I stumbled upon your blog. Great stuff here buddy. Rickey approves. Keep it up!
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