Inside the Mets Clubhouse - Where Steve Phillips Has Fully Assumed Control

David Wright: Guys, as a leader on this team, I can't tell you how proud I am of the progress we've made in the last 10 days or so. People have doubted us all year, saying we couldn't pitch, couldn't hit in a big spot, that we didn't have heart. Now we're back over .500 and I think we're ready for competitive baseball all season. I really attribute all this success to--

A crash is heard outside the clubhouse.

Wright: Huh? What was that? ...Whatever. Anyway as I was saying--

Ceiling falls in.

Steve Phillips: I think it has everything to do with my new leadership! Way to go, team!

Wright: Goddammit, Mr. Phillips. I don't want to be disrespectful but we're having a team meeting here.

Phillips: Well that's good because I'm a big part of this team! Ever since I started giving Mrs. Reyes the old Phillips Screwdriver this team has been on fire!

Jerry Manuel: Uh, Mr. Phillips that is uhhhhhhhh.... highly... inappropriate clubhouse decorum.

Phillips: Who gave you permission to talk?! YOU'RE THE LAUNDRY BOY NOW! ISN'T THAT RIGHT, LAUNDRY BOY?!

Manuel: Yes, sir.

Jose Reyes: Hey, Phillips, eat shit. I'm just kind of shocked that she's down with this whole thing.

Phillips: Well she's a real team player, unlike your selfish ass! Let's get back to business here. I really like the way you've been playing lately, Pelf. You're a goddam matador out there. You toy with those batters! Your playing third base tonight!

Wright: What! This is bullshit. He's never even been a position player!

Phillips walks over to Wright and tasers him. Wright falls and convulses on the floor.

Mike Pelfrey: Jesus Christ!

Phillips: Now how do you feel about playing third tonight, Mike?

Pelfrey: Yes, sir! Whatever you say, sir!

Phillips: That's what I thought! Whoever plays the best tonight gets to tagteam Jose's wife with me! OH BABY!

Jose: God damn.

A Quick Update of Tremendous Proportions

I am awfully swamped at the moment with finals week for school, hoping to have a few updates this weekend. If you're feeling generous, donate some money to the Teach Dwight Howard to Shoot Free Throws Foundation. It's a good cause.

Discussions That Never Happen at School Board Meetings

Bud Selig is... your school's superintendent. Image: Source

Superintendent: Hello everyone, and welcome to a location that is not our high school library!

Audience: Here here! Har har!

Superintendent: Settle down, now, and just raise your right hand to ask a question or your left hand to receive a complimentary hot dog. I'd like to get a report from the president of the board of education.

Board President: Mr. Superintendent, I come to you with nothing but wonderful news. None of our kids have are doing drugs or having unprotected sex, and parental satisfaction, according to a poll on our extremely efficient and in no way outdated website, is at an all-time high of 102 percent!

Superintendent: Wow! You get a raise. In fact, every school employee gets a raise. And the state has decided to pay into your amazing health or retirements plans 100 percent and on a permanent basis!

Board President: I would just like to know that I still find this job exciting and am in no way bitter toward any of the taxpayers in this room.

Parent: I have a question that is relevant, well-informed, and I will not shout or cry for the duration of my statement.

Superintendent: Wonderful, that makes 245 of those kind of questions consecutively.

Parent: Is there any way we could add some more teachers to improve our teacher to student ratio? I feel that one teacher to 10 children is obscene and that our children can't learn in that environment.

Superintendent: Well, based on our excellent negotiations during the last collective bargaining agreement and our smart investments in the stock market during a difficult economic time, we have millions of dollars in surplus money. To answer your question: absolutely! We'll add ten new qualified teachers who finished at the top of their class.

Parent: Thank you, your answering my question allows me to continue working under the delusion that I am making a difference in my community!

Superintendent: Well I think this has been a very efficient meeting, does anyone have a problem if we adjourn after only 27 minutes?

Board President: Let's all go get some beers!

::Everyone claps and laughs. Hooray!::

Maybe No More Swishin', Dishin' or Percolating for Lee in New York

Holds the NBA record for most games played shirtless with one. Image: source.

Wednesday may be David Lee's last game as a Knick. It's a strange circumstance when a one-time all-star, who's only been in the league for five years, and who never came very close to making the playoffs makes an emotional impact on a fan base, but Lee did.

Maybe this eulogy is premature, and it's definitely overly-sentimental. The guy who plays matador defense and who's never going to be the primary scorer on a winning team? This is the guy you want people to connect with? After all, Lee could be back in the blue and orange, and occasionally baby-poop green when the team needs to sell extra jerseys to Irish people, when the team starts playing again in the fall. But even if he's back, the situation will be very different. He won't be the number one guy anymore, unless Isaiah comes back and does terrible Isaiah things. Maybe the Knicks won't get Lebron or Wade, and maybe not even Bosh, but at the very least we're looking at Joe Johnson, Amar'e Stoudemire, Rudy Gay or something else entirely. Even if Donnie Walsh does a bad job in the free agent market, few doubt that the Knicks should be competing for at least a low playoff seed next year.

That should be a positive thing. The Knicks will be a playoff team for the first time since the early part of the last decade (no, Marbury's first year does not count when they lost to the Nets as the eighth seed). The fans will look to move forward and forget about Isaiah, Eddy Curry, Jerome James, Steve Francis, Penny Hardaway, Ronaldo Balkman and many others. Seeing Lee there won't feel right. He'll be rejuvenated like Paul Pierce once Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett jumped on board, probably just thrilled to be there. And really, I hope all that happens. I want the guy to be a winner, and I want him to be a winner as a Knick. I think he could adjust to being the third scoring option and big time offensive rebounder on a contender.

But still, it's the end of an era. If he's a winner, he doesn't stand for what David Lee used to stand for. He becomes a different guy to a fan base without changing himself in any way. After you made jokes about how you were stuck going to see Knicks-Clippers that night, talking about how awful Isaiah was and how fat Curry is, you talked seriously about how great it was that Lee seemed to be getting better by the game and how you appreciated that he hit the offensive glass and worked his ass off every night.

I don't want to say something dopey like suggesting he saved the fans from abandoning the team, because New Yorkers weren't ready to give up, they were just sick of losing. But he made going to the games a lot less embarrassing and gave fans something to cheer about.

He's the rare case where the token, occasionally goofy-looking white guy who you don't take seriously gets progressively better to the point where you see him filling up a stat sheet and ask, "Well when the hell did that happen?" Before last season, it was a serious conversation to talk about whether the Knicks should try to resign Nate Robinson or Lee. Then Robinson imploded and made Lee look like a lock by comparison, but Lee still improved to the point that for the first time he's the team's number one scorer, for better or for worse.

He's no hall of famer, and he's probably not even an all star, and I'm definitely not going to feed you the typical shit that we hear about a star energizing a city like Boston fans did Nomar and how the media talks about the Saints doing to New Orleans. Or, god forbid, how often he smiles and seems to enjoy himself. Just awful. It's not about any of that. David Lee is a good basketball player, and he made watching a terrible, terrible team a little easier to watch. So, whatever happens this summer, happens, but thanks for the slightly less shitty memories.

After This I'm Afraid to Look Up How Herpes Is Spread

An actual public service poster in a Long Island high school's bathroom. Some kid taking a piss probably thinks he's going to have full blown AIDS next time he polishes off a six pack. This sign is like saying that shaking hands with Magic Johnson could lead to HIV. IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES!

"Clash of the Titans" Ruins Happiness

Spoilers, if for some reason you haven't seen this movie but really want to. You are wrong for wanting to see it. I know I was.

-A close recreation of dialogue between Perseus and everyone:

Everyone: Perseus, use your demigod abilities, it's our only chance.

Perseus: Never!

Everyone: Persesus, use your demigod abilities, it's our only chance.

Perseus: Never!

Everyone: We're all dead now, by the way.

Perseus. Now I shall embrace my demigod powers and use them for good!

-There are two female leads. Andromeda, princess of Argos, and Io, a demigod whose rape by Zeus is casually glossed over. Andromeda has no personality and Io is annoying. The actresses look similar and each wears a white toga for the entire movie. They could have tightened the movie a bit by making those characters only one part.

-Throughout the movie, the gods and supporting characters remark how terrible the consequences will be if the Krakken is unleashed. Before the opening credits, the narrator can't even describe the creature, calling it "unspeakable." So you would imagine that showing the monster is going to be some kind of big reveal at the end of the movie and that it's going to be a great moment. Except... the Krakken coming out of the ocean was in almost every trailer, so it was not at all a big deal when they finally showed it.

-Uses the exact same protagonist, Perseus, as a kid's movie that came out in February, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief." Both movies also use the Medusa head as the ultimate weapon to stop huge monsters. I know this is a remake, but the concept felt tired after having watched the same tool in both movies, especially when "The Lightning Thief" did it better eight weeks ago. Plus "The Lightning Thief" had Pierce Brosnan. YOWZA, what a centaur stud.

-There's the Star Wars prequels problem of not having a reason to root for the main characters other than the movie telling you that you should root for them. Perseus has no personality and his human companions, who you know are going to get unceremoniously slaughtered at some point, are much easier to root for.

-Nit picky, but: The Kraken is not in Greek mythology. I wouldn't care about that if the monster were interesting, but it's introduced and then killed two minutes later. And yeah, I know the Kraken was in the 1981 version of the movie; it's still stupid.

-Liam Neeson. It's like the director had to dangle Neeson's paycheck next to the camera while filming. He's the only really good actor in the movie and just doesn't have the ass-kicking presence he usually does, despite being the most powerful Greek god. Also, his glowing suit of armor looks ridiculous. Ralph Fiennes does a pretty good job as Voldemo-- err, Hades.

-A close recreation of the dialogue between Zeus and Hades that starts the conflict:

Hades: Hey brother Zeus, I totally have no bitterness over you screwing me over hundreds of years ago. Listen to my plan that will create major bloodshed over a minor problem.

Zeus: Hey Hades, everyone thinks you suck so you should just get out of there.

Hades: No, seriously, just do it.

Zeus. Eh, ok.

-Hades arbitrarily sets up a 10 day time period before he will summon the Kraken, and the soldiers with Perseus travel to see the witches for prophecies of the future. Despite the 10 day wait period, they skip days at a time of their travels and apparently nothing happens. Why not just make it three days where you show exactly what happens?

Grade: Very suck.

The At-bat Music the Mets Should Have

Many years ago, someone thought it would be a good idea to place 10 seconds of a song as each hitter on the home team came to bat. The conversation went something like this:

Guy 1: You know how we have tons of bad music blaring out of giant speakers at all time during our games?
Guy 2: Uh, YEAH, it's awesome.
Guy 1: I know, I totally agree. But what if we have even more music and let each player pick his own music!
Guy 2: Genius! Now let's smash each other's heads with hammers!

But if we have to have the music, let's at least be honest about it...

Silly Jerry, you're supposed to manage, not hit! (Photo from nytimes.com)

Angel Pagan
Song he should have: "Thundercat Freestyle" by Inspectah Deck
Inspectah Deck is an awesome lyricist but maybe the most under-appreciated member of the Wu-Tang Clan. He's effective without being featured very often, just like Pagan had a WAR of 2.8 last year in only 88 games without getting much love. Also, though I am basing this on absolutely nothing, they were both friends with the Ol' Dirty Bastard, which counts for something.

Alex Cora
Song he should have: "Rockstar" by Nickelback
With most popular rock bands, I can at least enjoy them as background music while I'm doing something else, like when I'm saving elderly people from burning buildings. But Nickelback, like Cora's negative .1 WAR last year, actually takes away from my general life experience and makes me hate everything a little more. Just having listened to the song for five seconds so I could copy the link has got my ears all funky.

David Wright
Song he should have: "Cyanide" by Metallica
After a great start to his career, like Metallica's "Ride the Lightning," "Master of Puppets," and "Kill 'Em All," Wright had his worst full season last year, posting career lows in SLG, UZR, WAR, despite an extremely high BABIP of .394. Metallica had an awful stretch including "Load," ReLoad," and "St. Anger." Jesus, those were terrible. But they came back, seemingly out of nowhere, with the awesome "Death Magnetic," just like Wright started off his season with a home run after a big power drought last year. So this one's more hopeful than actual truth but I need to stay away from the ledge as a Mets fan so bare with me.

Jason Bay
Song he should have: "Light My Fire" by The Doors
A really good song by a really good band, but no one's going "Oh my god, Light my Fire!" when it comes on the radio. Also, a bit vanilla and boring, very safe for old people.

Mike Jacobs
Song he should have: "Hammer Smashed Face" by Cannibal Corpse
This song will grow hair on your chest after it makes you poop your pants, but is really only good for massive, raw power. A real battering ram to the face. Just don't expect it to try to get a lame walk to first, buddy.

Jeff Francoeur
Song he should have: "Walk" by Pantera
As in, it's never going to happen. But he seems like a guy who can take a joke (based on all my time in the clubhouse, you see), so maybe this will shame him into taking some more pitches, as he did walk in three straight games to start the year. And just like Pantera was awesome, Francoeur did post a WAR of 3.7 in 2007, so maybe we can assume the assness of his negative 1.2 WAR in 2008 is not going to happen again.

Rod Barajas
Song he should have: "Temporary Secretary" by Paul McCartney
Both are very far down on the list of things you would pick in their respective categories, and like the song says, neither is going to be here for long. Just smile and nod and pretend you get it and wait until it's over, or at least until Josh Thole's ready.

Ruben Tejada

Song he should have: "Everyday Struggle" by The Notorious B.I.G.

For two reasons: watching him struggle to play hurts me, and when Reyes gets back he'll be struggling to get playing time. And Reyes will be totally healthy this time. Maybe. Probably not. How about day-to-day for the next five months? Very comforting.

Johan Santana

Song he should have: "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen

Lots and lots of nonstop excellence, unless you have an elbow injury, or contract HIV.

Jerry Manuel

Song he should have: "confused puppy" by some guy on YouTube.

Yeah that about sums up Jerry. "You see, uh... the canine... appears to... uh... be uncertain of its surroundings."

Curtis Granderson: True Yankee?!

HE'S AWREADY BETTA DAN A-ROD, YO: Curtis Granderson hit a game-winning home run against the Red Sox tonight, so you know what that means: the papers and radio talking about whether or not this gives Granderson "True Yankee" status. Yeah, I don't know what it means either. I think the whole concept started at Duke.

This and Tiger Woods returns tomorrow. Oh, glory be.

Rick Reilly, FJM Style: Because Someone Has to Do It.

Picture from espn.com


I think we're going to make this a weekly feature, mocking at least one internet writer. Because I'm such a successful, wealthy, and established writer that I can do things like this, clearly. Anyway, we start with Rick Reilly. Rick's words in bold, mine in regular type.

Here is the question now about this new, softer, calmer, suddenly huggable Tiger Woods:

You mean huggable in the sense that he hooked up with so many women who literally hugged him? Because there is no other way this guy is huggable. He must smell like bad sex all the time. Most of the adjectives in that sentence don't actually mean anything. New? Ehhh. What the hell is softer?

What if the same insatiable hunger that fueled his sex drive is the same insatiable hunger that fueled his golf drive?

What if becoming a better person makes him a lesser golfer?

Being forced to stop banging chicks who are not your wife to avoid losing more sponsors and money in a divorce do not make you a better person.

I remember when Woods was 21 and leading the 1997 Masters by 12 shots with only four holes to play. It was basically a coronation parade in spiked shoes. On 15, he hit a meaningless shot from the rough that, for some reason, just fried his brain. He reached back and slammed down his club, just missing the skull of a small boy who'd snuck close just to touch him.

And I thought: Oh, my God. Nothing's ever going to be enough for this kid.

You really thought that based on one shot, when that's something most golfers do after a bad shot? That's kind of creepy.

As a golf fan, you have to wonder: Now that he says he's changed, will his hit-man instincts change, too?

He is not a hit-man. He does not kill people. He is very good at playing golf. It seems that he has hit-man instincts because he is so good at golf.

After 45 days of addiction therapy and four months of shame and three years of "lying to myself," you wouldn't have recognized the man who sat before the world Monday in his first press conference since he knocked over a fire hydrant and ignited his life.

I recognized him. He looks exactly the same and talked exactly the same, except this time it was about sexing porn stars. If it were on mute I would have thought he were talking about some boring golf tournament.

Woods said things like:

"Did you see the rack on the girl working in the gift shop? Jesus, I have to get her number lat-- Shit. Uh... I played well today."

"I just took it all in today [on his practice round]."

Oh. Well that's boring.

(This from a guy who I once saw blow by Nike chairman Phil Knight and his own mother, Tida, outside the Augusta National clubhouse like they were patio chairs.)

"My anecdotal evidence based on a contextless situation proves that Tiger is a horrible man!"

And ... "I want to be able to help people. ... If I win championships along the way, so be it."

And ... "It's not about championships. It's about how you live your life."

(OK, I'm really going to have to see some ID.)

That's our first rimshot moment.

Look, worldwide humiliation and the fear of losing your family will change a man. I hope Woods really does believe it's about the way you live your life and not about championships. But what if the very traits that left him in the TMZ gutter -- self-obsession, a limitless appetite for domination, me-first-ism to the extreme -- are the same traits that delivered those championships?

Tiger Woods will not suddenly be bad at golf because he can't cheat on his wife anymore. You can't just connect things that happen in his life and assume he'll now suck at golf.

I hope not, but you wonder. We don't usually build statues of nice, helpful, well-balanced men.

There are literally hundreds of statues that would like to have a word with you right now, such as Jesus, Martin Luther King, and of course Endy Chavez.

Exhibit A: Ben Hogan. A tournament winning machine and, by all accounts, one of the most miserable curs to ever stripe a 2-iron.

A cur, you say! Why I challenge you to a duel, you rapscallion!

Exhibit B: Michael Jordan. Did you hear his Hall of Fame speech? Seven years after he'd won everything, he was still trying to step on his enemies' Adam's apples.

Michael Jordan is an asshole. This is not a secret. He is an asshole who is the best basketball player ever. Why should it matter?

Exhibit C: Barry Bonds. Seven MVPs and almost as many friends.

Jesus I would be truly shocked to learn that Barry Bonds has seven friends.

Brad Faxon is a nice guy. Fred Funk, too. But Tiger Woods? He used to be the guy who ran the sword through your spleen, then danced on your corpse. Is that guy gone?

Hyperbole! "We'll miss the Tiger the serial killer/golfer, and especially the Tiger who blotted out the sun as a way to force residents of his community to pay him for power."

I once took a back-country snowcat ski trip with a bunch of buddies in Colorado.

Ooh another anectdote!

Turned out Woods and his buddies had rented the snowcat the week before. I asked the guide how Woods skis.

"I've never seen a guy get so mad at himself," the guide said. "He's just learning, but every time he'd fall, he'd throw his poles and swear. He wanted to beat his buddies down the hill so bad."

He's programmed to be the best. The only professional job he's ever had is to literally be the best person ever to play his sport.

In addiction therapy, you hear these words a hundred times: acceptance, serenity, vulnerability. But not in a million years would you have heard those words applied to pre-hydrant Woods. The words arrogant, unquenchable, bulletproof, maybe.

This is not relevant to playing golf.

If Tiger Woods is going to save his marriage and save his life, he'll have to be unselfish in the ultimate selfish game. Can't you just see it? He's studying a putt when he suddenly looks up and goes, "No, go ahead, take the call, ma'am. I'm in no hurry."

Playing golf to win does not make you a selfish person. He's not beating people with clubs on his way to the hole. He just has to get a lower score than other people who are playing the same game as him.

He vows no more "entitlement." But Tiger Woods always played as though the trophy had his name engraved on it when he showed up Tuesday.

I don't understand this part. How can you play a full four days of golf as if you'd already won? I think that would just make him an even better golfer if he could win a tournament despite dicking around for four days.

He vows to "tone down my negative outbursts and ... my positive outbursts." But can he win without the fist pump? Can he win without passion?

I think he's referring to having his caddy take people's cameras away, not pumping his fist. Unless he's pumping that fist into someone's face, which would make for great television.

He vows to follow Buddhism, but Buddhism teaches "the greatest effort is not concerned with results." Has the Buddha heard of Jack Nicklaus?

"I'm going to make a blanket statement about a religion based on one contextless quote that says you should note compete."

Who knows? Maybe this whole Tiger Woods 2.0 will be even better on the course. He talked Monday about finally having "fun" again playing golf. He talked about wanting to find "balance."

So... you're saying that there was really no need for this column

Who had his life in better balance than Nicklaus himself, who loved tennis as much as golf and his wife more than the two combined?

Equation of Jack Nicklaus' life, where g = golf, t = tennis, and w = wife: 2w = .5t + .5g

I'm thrilled for Woods that he seems to have found the first few rungs of a very long ladder out of his troubles. Even his face seemed lighter and brighter than it did last year.

Ugh.

Maybe all those creepy secrets sag right through your mind to your eyelids. He seems to finally understand that even though his own father painted him as a god walking the earth, the same mortal rules apply to him: You can't cheat on your wife with your own personal harem and figure you can get away with it. But you wonder if golf's truest rule will also apply: 99 percent of the field loses.

I had a brief seizure because of the above sentences because, well, just read them.

Toward the end of Monday's press conference, somebody asked Woods if he almost "wanted" to get caught.

"Oh, yeah, it was all part of my grand plan. I'm so excited that everyone hates me and I lost a lot of money and maybe my wife, it all worked out so well for me."

He shook his head and said, "All I know is, I acted just terribly, poorly, made just incredibly bad decisions, and decisions that hurt so many people close to me. That's enough."

Translation: Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamit.

So there it is. The kid finally got enough.

Nah he just finally got caught, otherwise he'd be in a hot tub with Penny Flame right now.

Inside the Mets Clubhouse, Again

Jerry Manuel: Men that was uhhhhhhhh a great uhhhhhh win... out there today. We uhhhhh really played.... well I guess you could uh... say.... WELL. We played well. I'm uhhhhhh proud of the uhhhh job you guys did out there uhhhhh on this particular afternoon. Do any of you uhhhh have any.... words uhhhhh to say?

David Wright: Guys, I'm really proud of what we did out there today. A lot of people doubted us coming into the season, but I think today was a great step in the right direction. We just need to loud crash outside the clubhouse what was that?

Steve Phillips: THAT WAS SOME GREAT BASEBALL OUT THERE TODAY, BOYS!

Manuel: Uh... Mr. Phillips uhhhhhhh... you were released from your uhhhhh duties... several years ago.

Phillips: Are you talking about that Minaya guy? Looks like his green card expired, 'cause I sent him back to the Dominican! OH BABY!

Sean Green: Dude he's a legal U.S. citizen, you can't do that.

Phillips: I can do whatever I want, I drafted David Wright! Remember David? Do you remember our courtship? My phone calls?

Wright: Uh, not really.

Phillips: We forget you anyway, David! Point is, now, I've made some mistakes in my life. Cheating on my wife with coworkers and spewing horribly misinformed baseball analysis, I mean... I just feel awful about all of that. So I'm finally coming back from my leave of absence from the Mets to be the general manager AND manager! I'm back, boys!

Jose Reyes: No no no no no no no no no, this is not good.

Rod Barajas: What's the big deal, man? He seems like a fun guy.

Reyes: You have no idea what it used to be like. This is very bad.

Phillips: Jose you will shut your mouth or I will rip out your thyroid and hyper-activate it for you! First order of business: bring me your wife!

Reyes: Goddam it, not this again.

Phillips: Things are going to change around here, boys, so get ready for a winning culture!

Where Fans Curse Me Out for Wearing a Jets Jersey to a Mets Game - Opening Day

"Hey, is this Pat Holohan? Jets suck, fuck you."

So because I am lazy and haven't washed any of my Mets clothes, I only had a Curtis Martin Jets jersey ready to go as New York paraphernalia for the game. This led to a few J-E-T-S chants and fist bumps (the two marks of true sports intellectuals like myself), but mostly Giants fans (I would imagine, Bills fans seem too sedate and suicidal for that sort of thing) telling me off.

"Curtis Martin sucks! Curtis Martin is gay!"
"Heyyyyyy Jets fuckin' suck faggot! Fuck you!"
"Curtis Martin is gay! Fuck you asshole!
"J-E-T-S Jets fuckin' suck!"

And so on. Very bizarre to be a villain wearing your team's jersey in your own city, but I thought about what Coach Rex would have done:

"I will facefuck you, boys! RIDE 'EM COWBOY!"

And felt awesome.

So a few nice additions to the ballpark:

A video screen in left field. They needed this last year because many fans sitting in left field couldn't see many of the plays happening in the left field corner. which was a problem considering the disaster that was Danny Murphy. Unfortunately, they only showed about half the plays in the left field corner, making me wonder what's the point of having it if they're only going to show Rod Barajas' face.

They shrunk the center field wall a bit (this is not the blog for specifics), making home runs, obviously, easier, and making the back wall in general look like more of a ballpark and less like something that is not a ballpark.

The Mets museum in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda (having the rotunda allows us to see the same eight clips of Jackie Robinson for the next fifty years. He never played for the Mets, by the way. I MUST BE RACIST FOR SAYING THAT.) is a nice touch.

There's still a lot of dopey stuff like the constant pop music, weird choices in organ music, and contests between innings.

Also, they put the Shea Stadium home run apple outside of the stadium, and it looks excellent.

And It Didn't Take Michael Kay Long to Get Into Midseason Form

(Image from fullcountpitch.com)

Some highlights from tonight's Yankees-Red Sox game:

The Yes Network finally added OBP to the infographic that they show at the bottom of the screen when players come up. It had previously been BA, HR, and RBI, and I was hoping that they'd get rid of RBI, but I guess that's here to stay for now. It would be nice to add SLG but I don't think we're quite there yet.

Yes also added a constant pitch count in the score box at the top of the screen, making them, as far as I know (having checked nowhere but my memory, but still) the first network to have this up there. This led to Michael Kay simultaneously praising Yes for having it there but trashing baseball for being so concerned with pitch counts, which makes sense to everyone, if by everyone you mean Michael Kay.

Yes had a commercial for Slomin's home security that had me almost on the floor with laughter. Bad dialogue, worse acting. I look forward to a full season of local commercials from Yes and SNY. A quick top three local commercials in New York history:
1. Computer Mechanics on Calll
To start, the Long Island accents really get me in the right frame of mind for this one. The chubby guy with the stacks of paper... why does he have so much paper? If they're having a network problem, doesn't that imply that all the reports are online to begin with? Isn't this guy just adding to the problem by crumpling dozens of important documents in his hands? Also, the boss who says they need to call the geek, he just abandons all responsibility. "Network problem? Shit, I have no IDEA what to do! Underlings, figure this out!"
2. Giuseppe Franco This one gets better with time because I've seen him interviewed on SNY and he is the exact same guy from the commercials. He does a bro-hug with Gary Busey, as if that's going to make any sane person want to buy his hair product... one of the guys who speaks on behalf of the product phones his statement in, and it sounds like the guy is in a tunnel. They use that instead of literally any production assistant just reading two sentences on a piece of paper... risk free trial!
3. Two Brothers Scrap Metal - Apparently video doesn't exist on the internet for this one. It's a 30 second Jersey Shore audition that encourages you to make the most of what must be many opportunities to dispose of scrap metal laying around your house.

For some reason, Daryl Strawberry is throwing out the first pitch at Shea tomorrow. Go Mets. Yowza.

Why We Reject Advanced Statistical Analysis

You have to understand, son, there's something poetic about the game of baseball. Here's a game where you have to take a cylindrical bat and a round ball and stand 60 feet, six inches away from a man who's going to hurl it in front of you. And you have to hit that squarely, see? Hit it where they ain't and cause havoc on the basepaths.

Now, we don't want you up there looking to get a walk. You ever heard the saying about what singles hitters drive? Same type of situation. Get up there and be a slugger, a real five tooler.

We can measure these things with our eyes, boy. Some people may tell you you're not selling jeans, but there's a certain look that the good ones have. Something behind the eyes. A cold determination, you see. It's about men who can buckle down and shut out the outside world.

Now, don't get me wrong, son. We need some kind of tangible evidence to determine exactly what our boys are doing up there. We got those numbers, though. You ever heard of a triple crown? Homeruns, RBIs, and batting average. That tells you about everything you need to know, don't' it? Power, hitting, helping the team score. There's a beautiful simplicity to it.

Now some people are going to tell you you need fancy stats, all sorts of words that don't mean nothing. VORP? Gimme a break. We had our old stats since the 1800's! And they're gonna tell me they're the geniuses that are gonna do it all different and make it better? Bunch of eggheads. Probably never smelled the grass of a baseball team.

Why, I met one fella last week who told me that Ben Zobrist was one of the best players in baseball. Now, Zobrist ain't a bad player, but one of the best? He's no Derek Jeter. You see the way the captain stands in at the box. That's what a real hitter looks like.

Firsthand Thoughts on Spring Training

Old people, housewives, or burnouts work at Tradition Field (which apparently became Digital Domain Ballpark, or something like that, a couple of days before I arrived.) The old people are confused. They're thrilled to be there. Out of the house. Contributing. Helping people eat fried dough and find their parking spaces.

The women are maybe the jolliest of all. They joke with you, try to get a bite of your food, want to take a minute to talk. Working for the Mets is a thrill, and everything is a joke. Eighty percent new people everyday, whether they be tourists or Cardinals fans taking a short trip.

I don't know what used to happen to people who were strung out. I'm not in the drug scene. I'll drink a bit but that's about it. I know some friends who are on that. Not a particularly good or bad scene in either direction. It just exists. But these guys are kind of done, in the Harry Potter-ghost sort of way. They'll give me my funnel cake or ice cream but there's really something missing behind the eyes. It keeps me from enjoying any of the things I buy from them. I want to shake a fist but I end up just sitting down and pacifying myself with sugary foods. Edit: I was clearly not in a rational state of mind when I wrote this paragraph but uh... I'm gonna keep it.

These people set the mood at Tradition Field, because they set the structure. They create the mood because they control the food and the money. The score doesn't matter, and who's playing generally doesn't matter. With that, all things are equal. This gives the employees greater control than they'd previously had to unintentionally control a game. It just happens that way. A bases loaded jam in the sixth is less important than your snack in the fifth.

It's a different universe. In Flushing, you can always count on the focus always coming back to the home team. Not true in Port St. Lucie. My attention drifts. Why sit and watch these men? They're just practicing. But we can get close to them. You can hear my voice on tv if I yell loud enough you fucks.

Here's a place where we watch baseball happens but ERA, RBI, and OBA don't matter, and even VORP, WAR, FIP, and BABIP don't really matter. But we'll sit, we'll watch. It just seems like the right thing to do. I need my fix.

These Are Things That Happen at Spring Training

The bullpen pitchers are professionals at more than one thing. These are men who can throw balls at ridiculous speed and angles, better than anyone on the planet except for the five men in the rotation who start the games. They finish games. They come in when situations become difficult.

They are also professionals at ignoring the people in the stands. I do not fault them for this. It's a necessity of being a bullpen pitcher at spring training. You make millions of dollars, and the response is probably going to get negative. Putting the news stories together, I can estimate that Bobby Parnell had probably been told before the game, or a day earlier, that he was not going to make the big league roster for opening day. Or, maybe he knew all along.

Poing is, this guy knew. And he had to sit there, do exactly what they told him to do, and sign autographs for a bunch of people who didn't know anything about him more than that he threw a baseball at high speeds and that he had a uniform. He did not have a smile on his face while signing. This makes him a selfish man. He makes millions of dollars. He should happily sign autographs.

So they disconnect. They learn, after a while, that they have to totally ignore everything that the crowd does short of throwing projectiles at them. How do they do that? How do you train yourself to completely ignore dozens of people around you?

"Can you sign for me?" they ask. They don't know his first name. Why would they? He's a middling reliever on a bad team. Who gives a shit. It's an AUTOGRAPH, man. Little kids hang over the edge. Mothers encourage their children to get autographs of men they don't know. Their names are on the backs of their jerseys.

The fucking bullpen catchers sign autographs. It's probably against their contract. They shouldn't. It's dishonest. But why would they not sign? You don't pass up fame, and you don't pass up admiration if you're starved for it. You'll never get in a game. But they want you. They need to justify their trip. They need a man's signature.

So they create their own world. Bobby Parnell, Sean Green, Pedro Feliciano, Jenrry Mejia. K-rod isn't there, but it would be the same thing.

"Are you signing?"

They're going home to a wife, a girlfriend, a family, a beer, a group of buddies.

"Can you sign?"

We don't care who you are, we just want your name. We spent so much money on this trip. We deserve your name. Sign a part of yourself over to us. You know how much we pay for these tickets? This parking? This concession? You're a fucking ROLE model, man.

So you create a world. You make something up, because otherwise you have to look people in the eye. You have to tell these people, "I see you. I see you, and I don't care. Leave me alone. I'm doing my job. I'm scared. I might not get this guy out. Leave me be and let me work."

But there's a tension. I paid for this. You're right here. I can't throw this ball. ACKNOWLEDGE me.

Feliciano will massage his fellow bullpen mates. Parnell's going to sit in his chair and relax. Olly just wants to talk to the fellas. This ain't a fucking sideshow. We're trying to work. These are grown-ass men.

So now you're Palahniuk. You get it. It makes sense. You're going to analyze them. I am a writer, I must comment on the inner workings of these human beings. Fuck them anyway, it should be us. We'd put the money to good use. We'd appreciate it. Shit, you pay me that much, I'll sign autographs.

I'm at work, you fuck. I'm talking to my coworkers. Eat shit. Eat your funnelcake. Let me throw the ball, and let's just pretend each other isn't here. Have that much respect.