Change Of Frequency

Loyal readers of this blog will know that I've been know, on certain days, to keep a portable radio in my office and listen to those occasional weekday afternoon games on the Radio. They may also know that I have, over time, become an avid streamer of WFAN programming in general. It's not necessarily because I have some great and deep affinity for Joe Benigno, Evan Roberts or Mike Francesa, it's more because I find the background noise somewhat soothing while I work. It was easy to get away with; for one, I had my own office space at my job, and in general, certain things, like the ubiquitous 1-877-KARS-4-KIDS commercials, would tend to ward off the riff-raff.

Still, it is, as I said, background noise. Even when I would have to pull out the portable radio for game broadcasts. Work is work, and it's got to be done, and more often than not, I'd end up tuning out those lazy afternoon games altogether, only paying attention when the intonations in the voices of Howie Rose or Josh Lewin distracted me (Ed Coleman was also good at knowing when to draw focus. Other fill-in announcers like Jim Duquette were useless non-entities). If things didn't go well, it stood to reason that an entire Mets game could happen and I'd have no idea what went on until I heard Howie Rose talk about being back with a recap in some desultory tone of voice.

I knew that there would be wholesale changes coming in 2014. For one, the Mets weren't going to be on WFAN anymore, after a breakdown in negotiations. I wasn't thrilled about this; although it meant very little as far as the Mets presence on the radio, since they'd just move to another station, I preferred keeping my radio on one station, so I could listen to the dulcet tones of the insane New York sports fans and hear the Mets without touching the dial. The Mets didn't move far, only from 660 to 710 on the AM dial, but a change is still a change. I also didn't particularly like that the Mets were replaced by this other team and their games were now pre-empting the afternoon voices with their voices, which I find highly unpleasant to listen to.

But it's all now a moot point. For one, the portable radio that I had in my office died an untimely death, as most cheaply-made electronic devices are wont to do. I could have anted up for a streaming audio subscription, but I couldn't really justify paying for something that I could listen to for free, and in reality, I only listen to so many games on the radio a season. To date, though the Mets have had multiple weekday afternoon games this season, I've gone without listening. But an even greater change happened when I got a new job, and moved to a new office, where, rather than an office space, I now have a cubicle (the tradeoff is worth it for a multitude of reasons not worth discussing). Unfortunately, this means no more radio games, though when you think about it, without a radio in my old office, I was kind of in the same situation anyway. Considering I have yet to hear a Mets broadcast on WOR (a station whose "Radio 7-10, W-OHH-RRRR!" jingle was one of those sounds of my youth), maybe it's not that much of an adjustment.

Stumbling Home

I took it upon myself to listen to a majority of Friday night's game on the radio, just to get the last vestiges of the WFAN Mets Radio Network out of my system. I also turned the radio on at the outset of Saturday's game, if only because the WFAN has replaced their normal opening of Exciting 2013 Mets clips (of which there have been few) with some classic clips from happier times and that pleases me. Unfortunately, the highlight of both games were the audio flashbacks, because the subsequent games were snoozefests of the highest order.

Friday night, the Mets fell behind early thanks to Carlos Torres' usual case of 1st inning-itis and couldn't catch up. Their best opportunity was cut short when Daniel Murphy had one of those spastic fits he's often prone to and attempted what was essentially a delayed steal of home on a passed ball that really didn't get far enough away to be a passed ball. Murphy was out by a good 20 feet. The Mets mounted no further threats and they lost, 4-2.

Saturday brought an odd 4pm start time amid the day's earlier news that, barring some unforeseen circumstances, Terry Collins would be resigned for 2 more seasons. This news really wasn't news to me (and it bothered me that that it was that two-faced ass Ken Rosenthal breaking the story). I'd more or less assumed Collins would be back since a) How much can you blame him for not making the team better when he hasn't had a real team to work with, and b) the players seem to like him. More can be said about it, I'm sure, but I'll expound on it when I wrap up the season next week.

There was still a game to watch, and like Friday, there wasn't much to enjoy. The Mets fell behind, tied the game, and in the 7th inning were primed to go ahead, with the bases loaded and none out, but in succession Eric Young, my main man Lucas Duda and David Wright all failed to get a run home. Predictably, the Brewers went ahead in the 8th, but the Mets once again had a golden opportunity to win the game in the 9th, following a pair of walks and an RBI double from Young. This brought up Duda in a situation where, were a more fearsome bat at the plate, an Intentional walk would have been in order. But since it was Duda, the Brews went after him, but to the poor fortune of Mr. Hand, he hit Duda. However, Wright followed by hitting into a DP. And, of course, the Brews made the Mets rue their missed opportunities by scoring 2 in the 10th to win their 3rd straight 4-2 game.

I spent a majority of Saturday's game getting my books in order. As I've mentioned in passing, I score every game I attend and keep my scorecards in a binder, which has now expanded to two binders and is really in need of a 3rd binder. At the end of each season, I gather up all the programs from the games I went to, tear out the scorecards, make any necessary corrections and put them in the binder with the ticket stub stapled to it. Though the season hasn't yet concluded and I have one more game to attend, I decided to do this bit of housekeeping today just so I'd clear up some clutter and not have to worry about it later.

This afternoon will be my 18th game of the season, which was composed of 13 of my 15 plan games and 5 other games of random attendance. My 18 games will represent the highest number of games I attended since 2007, when I attended 19. My record for the season currently stands at 8-9, a win would make 2013 the second consecutive year that I managed a .500 record (I was 8-8 for 2012). My 5-year record at Citi Field is currently 38-38 (after a 5-11 record in 2009, it's been an uphill battle to .500 ever since) so tomorrow's game will determine whether I go into 2014 over or under .500. The first 17 games of the season included 3 Matt Harvey starts (none after May 7th), 3 Zack Wheeler starts (his first and last home starts of the season included), 3 Dillon Gee starts (none of them good, unfortunately), 3 Shaun Marcum starts (one of which they won, if you can believe it), 2 from Niese and 1 each from Jenrry Mejia, Jeremy Hefner and Aaron Harang. 2 games went to extra innings, both of which the Mets won. Several more only felt like extra-inning games due to poor pace or poor results or, in many cases, both. An overwhelming majority of them were attended in a stadium that was mostly empty, a testament to the general distaste fans have had for the team after 5 lost seasons. Today, however, the stadium should be full as the honoring of Mike Piazza has drawn everyone out. However, I'm not totally convinced that a large majority of people aren't going to show up, stay for the Piazza ceremony and then leave. But, we'll see.

Dead Air

This afternoon's game was kind of bittersweet for me, although what went on during the game itself had very little to do with it. It's no secret that the Mets won't be on WFAN any more after this season. Although my initial reaction was of disdain and disgust for the Wilpons for allowing this to happen, I later found out that apparently WFAN lowballed the Mets during negotiations. But regardless of that, it's really the end of an era, since I basically grew up with the Mets on WFAN (and, yes, WHN before that), and WFAN and the weird, wild voices of New York have sort of become the background noise for my life. Sure, you get all sorts of perspectives and personalities, and I tend to agree with very few of them, but it's almost always entertaining. And, of course, this station that seems to be the quintessential New York station was the home of my team. And now, it's not going to be. And that's really weird.

So, at any rate, this was the Mets last Weekday Afternoon game of the year, and as such it was going to be the last time I'd be listening to the Mets on WFAN in my office. As I've mentioned, I usually stream WFAN, but thanks to Slick Bud, the Mets games are blacked out from streaming audio unless I open up my wallet. It's for this reason that I keep a portable radio on hand. Unhappily, after making it through the entire season without an issue, only today did the batteries in the radio die. That wasn't so bad, except that the radio is one of the 6 devices remaining on earth that uses "C" batteries. I know this because if you go anyplace to buy "C" batteries, they're usually buried at the bottom of a rack, covered in dust with an expiration date about 4 years shorter than any other type of battery. Compounding the problem even further was the fact that the battery cover on the radio was stuck. I couldn't open it with my hands, and found no success with a variety of other tools and objects. So, no matter how hard I tried, there would be no final WFAN with Howie and Josh this Wednesday afternoon.

Relegated to MLB Gamecast, the game really existed on a rumor level. I know it's hard for me to follow the game in my office on the radio. On Gamecast, forget it. It may as well have not gone on at all. I clicked it on, started working on something else and by time I looked at it again, it was the bottom of the 8th inning. What I missed, apparently, was Daisuke Matsuzaka dialing the clock back to 2008 or perhaps back to Japan, because he basically stepped on the Reds throats completely over his 7.2 innings of work. The Mets got a run on a little scratch of a single through a drawn-in infield by Eric Young, Jr and that was it for the scoring. The rest was all Daisuke, who, amazingly, started out looking like one of the worst embarrassments in Mets history and has improved, start by start, to the point where hey, maybe he is part of the discussion. How the hell that ever became possible, I don't know, but his last 4 starts, all of them Met wins, have certainly done wonders for his public opinion among Mets fans. And his swan song today (assuming this is his last start this season), against a Playoff-bound Reds team, was easily his best start yet.

Matsuzaka is certainly the story today, and if he's not back (and I'm still hard-pressed to think he will be), he's if nothing else proven he's still able to compete. Today, although he didn't get much help offensively, he made his 1 run stand up, partially due to his Catcher Juan Centeno, who became the first Catcher to successfully throw out the hotshot speedster Billy Hamilton after 13 straight successful steal attempts to start his career. The rest of the game, from what I could gather, was fairly uneventful. Pedro Feliciano and LaTroy Hawkins finished things out for Daisuke, and the Mets, long since left for dead, went into Cincinnati and kind of pissed on their parade a little bit, making them look bad last night and lifeless in Wednesday's 1-0 victory, beating them 2 games to 1 in the series, and giving the Pirates and Cardinals a decided leg up as they continue to fight for position. Then again, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh play this weekend, so maybe they'll just beat each other up before they meet in the Wildcard Play-In Game (more of a mouthful than it needs to be).

So, the Mets are done for this season on the road, where amazingly they ended up just barely over .500 at 41-40. Their problem, obviously, lies at home, where they come now for 4 final games to close out the season. The Milwaukee Brewers—Remember them?—are the final team to visit, and they arrive fresh off a near-riot in Atlanta caused by old friend Carlos Gomez. Unfortunately, Gomez was in the wrong in this particular incident, so it's hard to get on the Braves too much, but they seemed to be doing an awful lot of whining afterwards (and while we're on the subject of teams I don't like, Wednesday night officially confirmed what was brewing for weeks—New York will be Baseball-free come Sunday night, although don't be surprised if fans of the other team continue to insist that "Dey still gotta chance (garble snort drool)!"). But that's scarcely the concern of the Mets. Right now, the plan is to keep what could be a really nice, strong finish going through the weekend.

Boggs for the Mets

Every so often, I like to give a shoutout to my beleaguered Blue Jay Brethren to the North at Tao of Stieb. But there's another Blue Jays blog that has provided me with the impetus for today's column.

About a year ago, I was poking around other team's blogs, and I chanced upon a blog titled "Drunk Jays Fans," which is written by what appears to be a hearty bunch of gentlemen. It was on their sidebar that I saw a floating Wade Boggs head with the number 70 next to it. The explanation wished me "A Wade Boggs Weekend." The accompanying story blew me away.

Apparently, legend has it, Wade Boggs, already known for other off-field exploits, was known to down as many as 70 Miller Lites on a cross-country road trip. Many teammates have corroborated this, and Boggs has reluctantly admitted it himself. As a result, Miller Lite is now referred to as "Boggs" in certain circles.

Where am I going with this?

Well, after hearing caller after caller after caller and two overly indignant hosts fillet the Mets and Citi Field over the past week, I'm ready for a Wade Boggs Weekend. Yesterday it was the dynamic duo of Benigno and Roberts on WFAN screaming, and I mean quite literall SCREAMING about how beautiful the new Yankee Stadium is, and how Citi Field is a dump, and we should be ashamed, and how dare the Mets do this to us. One of them actually had the nerve to say, and I quote: "If you like Citi Field, you're not a real Mets fan."

Seriously?

How about coming up to Section 518 and I'll show you a Real Mets fan. How dare you say that! You're a pair of closeted Yankee Fans! That team has you by the balls so bad, and you're both clearly so insecure about them that you're afraid to say anything negative about them. But when it comes to the team you supposedly root for, well, they suck and everything they do sucks. But you've got season tickets and you'll be at Citi Field tonight. What a pair of loony Yankee-loving Hypocrites. I'd seriously like every one of my readers here to pick up a phone or log on to WFAN and tell Joe and Evan what a pair of duplicitous pricks they are. They are Yankee Castrati of the highest order. I'm not a real fan because I like Citi Field. Give me a fucking break.

That said, there are a pair of very fair and even-handed reviews of Citi Field floating around the internet, one of whom I would consider a FAR more reputable source for fair writing than those two clowns. It's been 3 games. Things can be fixed.

Then, there's the team.
So, Wednesday night, expecting the worst, Oliver Perez comes out and throws one of his good games, the Mets look fairly clueless most of the night offensively, but capitalize on some poor defense by San Diego and come away with a routine victory.

Thursday night, expecting the Best, John Maine does a very good impression of Oliver Perez, coughs up an early lead, the Mets fall behind and can't catch up, thereby losing the first series in the History of Citi Field to the San Diego Padres.

Why does this feel eerily like I'm watching last year's team play? Oh, wait, because for the most part, it IS last year's team. Thought so. I guess that means we can look forward to the Mets not being able to get out of their own way for the next couple of months or so. I mean, the upshot of all of this is Delgado is hitting like a house afire, so maybe it's not all the same, but if they have a game against Milwaukee where they manage to hit into 5 DPs this weekend, I'm going to be very concerned.

Basically, take everything I've written here into account, between the idiot radio hosts, and the overreacting fans, and the team itself...Well, as they say, Have a Wade Boggs Weekend. I certainly will.