Category Archives: baseball

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Hey, MLB, get your S*&% together!

Mets

Being a Met fan is hard

I am a Met fan, New Yorker, and a Democrat — in that order. I would never vote for Chris Christie but I like him more than Christine Quinn. I agree with Quinn on just about every political issue but she was a Met fan and she switched her allegiance to the Yankees because her partner likes the Yankees. I just can’t trust that. I can appreciate Christie because he is also a fan of the Mets and that takes a lot. It’s hard to be a fan of the red-headed stepchild of a baseball team in New York.

Last week, the Mets signed pitcher Max Scherzer and I was elated. Finally, an owner who cares about the team. Of course, the universe was paying attention and it was all Don’t get too excited, Met fans. Sure you signed a great player but what if there is no season? When I heard about the lockout, I felt like Neo in the Matrix must have felt when Agent Smith asked “What good is a phone call if you can’t speak?”

So, what good is a great pitcher if you can’t play? The problem is being a Met fan is so much a part of my DNA that I am not sure how to not be a fan. This is how the season usually goes for me. They start off strong and I get all excited. Then, sometime around the All Star break (before, of course), they collapse. Some years, they make a comeback and I think they just. Might. Make. It. Then they collapse again and break my heart.

This is why they call us “crazy cat lady”

A woman got herself in trouble for trying to breastfeed a hairless cat on a Delta flight from Syracuse, NY to Atlanta, GA. Ainsley Elizabeth, a flight attendant on the flight said, “This woman had one of those, like, hairless cats swaddled up in a blanket so it looked like a baby. Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch and she wouldn’t put the cat back in the carrier. And the cat was screaming for its life.”

Even the cat knew this was not something that is supposed to happen. What the hell, lady? I have two cats and I love them but I have never, ever even considered trying to breastfeed any of them. People like this are why cat people are often thought of as being “crazy.” Thanks a lot. The woman on the plane was apprehended by authorities at the airport when they landed. I can only hope the cat went to a better home.

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If you build it, he will come

Trump

This is the most personal thing I have ever written.

I just rewatched Field of Dreams. I am not sure how many times I have seen it before but enough to know large parts of it by heart. It has always choked me up because it is a beautiful film and I love baseball. My reaction was different tonight was different. For the first time, watching Ray Kinsella reconnect with his father, John, hit me on a very personal level.

My relationship with my father, John Gill, was the most important of my early childhood. I lived and died by what he thought of me. I was a Met fan because he was. I loved the Niners because he did. It is possible that I volunteered on Democratic campaigns (starting at age 8) because maybe it was what I thought would make him appreciate me. I am not going to lie. I am feeling a bit rudderless right now. Who exactly am I?

There is something that happens to you when the one person from whom you get your sense of self and self-worth rejects you completely.

It took years of mental and physical abuse for me to turn on him. I mean years. Even after he tried to kill me, several times, I wanted to go home to his house.

I took the hurt of that early rejection and I mummified it in a coating of anger. Anger is a secondary emotion, hiding something else. That hurt was so deeply buried that I thought my anger was a primary emotion. I had (and have) plenty of real reasons to hate my father. He beat me, tried to kill me, sent private investigators to follow me. He made me feel unsafe in my own head and when I had nightmares about him, I soothed myself with you never have to get married.

This facade fell briefly when I came back to his (and my grandmother’s) house. I found dozens, if not hundreds, of letters from writers he had helped. My first reaction was that old rejection he helped all these people and he never helped me. I went back to hating him almost immediately. How can you feel sad about his death? He was an awful person. He was but that isn’t the point.

When Ray reconnects with his father, I cried because that reconnection was something I have always craved. Something I have always longed for. Even if I didn’t know it. Watching that scene made all that anger and hate fade away.

You don’t forgive people because they deserve it, you forgive them because you do. This anger has been eating me up for most of my life and I just cannot hold onto it anymore.

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I Am Convinced Being a Met Fan Has Taken Years Off of My Life

metfan

I am a Met fan. Not sure why I always say “Met fan” vs. “Mets fan” but the real point is why does anyone support a team that sucks and cares so little about either winning or treating their fan base well? No one can tell. Must be some sort of masochism.

Yes, it’s true, I am a Met fan.  Not really sure why though.  When I do comedy, I like to say that I am not a Met fan because I am from New York.  I am a Met fan because I hate myself and it’s a pretty reliable way to be miserable for at least half of the year.

In this respect, the Mets do not disappoint.  I had written off this season (and probably all until Fred Wilpon either dies or sells the team) and I was not surprised by their fuckupery de la semaine that happened this week.  You see the Mets traded outfielder Marlon Byrd to the Pittsburgh Pirates this week.  Normally, this would not be a big deal.  Late season trades like this happen all the time.  The timing of this trade, however, was problematic as it happened the day the Mets had set aside to be “Byrd T-Shirt Night” at Citifield.  Fans who showed up all got Byrd t-shirts but he was no longer a Met by then.

OOOPS and OUCH!  The Mets had to shell out for t-shirts with actual Met players and gave everyone free tickets to another game.  Wow.

The Met front office stupidity is epic.  I feel like most of my life has been spent watching the Mets trade decent or great players away and the deal always goes down the same way.  I see someone from their front office make a perfectly reasonable case for why they traded player x to team y (they wanted too much money, they didn’t like New York, etc) only to have the very next person come on be that player explaining how they loved being a Met.  Three examples come to mind.  When they traded John Olerud, they said it was because his wife missed Seattle.  He then told the world how much he and his wife loved living in New York.  After explaining the Dave Cone wanted too much money, Cone said he would have played for free just to play in NY (particularly painful because he went on to play for the Yankees — double OUCH).  And then there’s the more recent trade of José Reyes, I don’t know what the official reason the Mets gave was but Reyes said that he didn’t feel wanted by management because they never approached him.   This cuts to the heart of my problem and the question I would ask Wilpon, do you even talk to your players before you trade them?  No?  Clearly.  And clearly you should start.

Now, I have other problems with Wilpon.  He lost a ton of money to Bernie Madoff but was also held responsible for the Ponzi Scheme and forced to pay $162 million to the victims’ fund.  Is it a coincidence that he paid $162 million and there are 162 games in a baseball season.  I don’t think so.  And Citifield was built as a monument to Jackie Robinson (and Ebbets’ Field).  I get that Robinson was a transformative figure for sports and society and love what he did for both but this is a MET stadium.  Honor him, sure.  Wilpon was a huge Dodgers fan, I get it.  It doesn’t have to go over the top with it.  As awesome as Robinson was and great his achievements were, his monument should be elsewhere.  Maybe not the home of the most incompetent team in baseball.    And the stadium was built to accommodate Reyes’ style of play and he was traded the same season it opened.  Wow.

The Wall Street Journal compared the relationship Mets have with their fans and Yankees have with theirs.  For the Yankees and their fans, it is a long, stable marriage.  For the Mets & Met fans, it’s a tumultuous affair.  We love our team, we hate them.  I agree but today I am feeling like it is also an abusive relationship.  They beat me up this week but during the off season they will apologize and come Opening Day, I’ll be back for more.

 

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Oh, Fred Wilpon! You’re breaking my heart! You’re shaking my confidence daily!

Sung to the tune of “Cecilia”

Oh, Fred Wilpon, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily.
Oh, Fred Wilpon, I’m down on my knees, I’m begging don’t trade RA Dickey
Watching a game in the afternoon with Fred Wilpon At Citifield
I get up to get a beer
When get back to Fred Someone’s taken my seat
Oh, Fred Wilpon, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily. Oh, Fred Wilpon, I’m down on my knees, I’m begging don’t trade David Wright.

R.A. Dickey - New York NL - 2011 Home

R.A. Dickey – New York NL – 2011 Home (Photo credit: BaseballBacks)

If you know me or read me regularly, you know what crazy Met fan I am (yes, I am aware of how redundant that looks).  Like most, long-suffering Met fans, I hate Fred Wilpon.   I don’t care what the fine people on Morning Joe think about how wonderful a person he is.  I think he sucks and I doubt I will have a happy summer until he dies or sells the team and I am not sure which I hope happens.

Recently, pitcher RA Dickey was nominated for a Cy Young Award (if you do not know what that is, Google it).  It seemed unlikely that the Mets would want to trade such a valuable player but after losing so much money to Bernie Madoff and then losing more to the victims’ fund ($162 million to be exact and is it a coincidence that there are 162 games in a season?  I SO doubt it) but that’s exactly what they started talking about doing.  And today, I read they are also looking into trading third baseman David Wright?  WTF?  http://risingapple.com/2012/11/13/thoughts-on-latest-david-wright-r-a-dickey-rumors/

My experience with the Mets goes something like this.  Someone from the Met front office will

David Wright

David Wright (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

appear on television to explain why some super popular player has been traded.  For some reason my brain is fixated on John Olerud and Dave Cone but the list is too long too put here.  Well, they give some really rational reason why this player had to be let go — Olerud and his wife “want to go home.”  Cone “wants too much money.”  Fair enough.  I get it.  I don’t like it but it makes sense.

Next up on TV.  That player who disputes the Met front office person’s story.  Olerud said he and his wife “really enjoy living in NYC.”  Cone said, “I’d play for free to play in New York.”  What? Did you even talk to the player? 

Last year’s heartbreak for me was Jose Reyes (I know he was underwhelming in Miami) — I have had ONE baseball jersey in my life and it’s his.  He said he left because “the Mets didn’t seem to want me.”  Maybe the front office didn’t want you but the fans did.

Not that Fred Wilpon gives a rat’s ass about us.