Staff Blog
“now would be a good time to go on like a 15-run, slump busting tear…”
 |
After games like last night’s complete undressing of the Mets bullpen, I like to look at fan boards and chat sites. It’s almost more gratifying to relive a game like that through the sheer excitement/agony of the fans.
For instance, over on philliesphans.com, chat was pretty morose until a regular chatter named “The Savior” posted this to start the top of the 9th inning:
now would be a good time to go on like a 15-run, slump busting tear…
The ensuing 9 pages of comments (there had been a total of 9 pages on the first 8 innings) is mixture of disbelief, euphoria, superstition and, well, some mild Japanese stereotyping revolving around So Taguchi’s involvement in the 9th inning outburst.
Meanwhile, over at Baseball Think Factory’s Game Chatter thread, which is mostly dominated by Mets, there’s this, the 173rd post of the chat:
Srul Itza Posted: July 22, 2008 at 09:49 PM (#2868719)
Sort of a microcosm of last year, all in one game.
Followed by lots of hand-wringing about how the Mets should have left Santana in to start the ninth with Billy Wagner unavailable.
And I’ll leave the 43 pages(!) of griping over at the Mets forum on Scouts.com — much of which seems to think it’s the umps’ fault — as a treasure trove of NY fan misery for you to explore.
For those Mets fans bemoaning that Billy Wagner was unavailable last night, I will ask how short your memories actually are. This is not a guy who’s been slamming the door shut, especially against the Phillies, very authoritatively of late.
Man, I love this game.
I’m with ya. After the game and the post game glee I swung down the dial to 660, the Fan last night to listen to the late night guy do suicide hot-line for the gloomed and sure they were doomed Mets fans.
It was great, very cheering.
The ump stuff was about Jimmy’s ball down the left field line – they provided a closeup on 9, the ball was right on the line, and fair.
god bless east coast sports writers for making this a rivalry
@Radio Head: Yeah, I don’t know what it is about disgruntled Mets fans that’s so appealing.
For one, I have a couple good friends who are Mets fans (sorry Howard and Maura) and I don’t like to think of them as bummed out.
For another, it’s not like the Mets are the Yankees and, like, buy championships left and right, so there’s not even that evil empire thing so much.
I do remember as a kid in 1986 and the Mets were one game away from clinching and they came to Philadelphia for a three-game series in mid-September and, even though it was like a forgone conclusion that they were gonna win the division, the Phils swept them in an not-in-our-house gesture. At the time they did seem like an evil empire.