A Different Thought

 

And so it was the Cubs that won the 2016 World Series. Just as everyone told you they would. The team that was foisted on society ended up winning the ultimate prize, beating the Cleveland Indians in a classic and harrowing 7th Game to take home the crown for the first time in 108 years.

And, quite honestly, it made me sick.

People seem to have this impression of the Cubs as these loveable losers, but there wasn't much I found loveable about them or their fans. Sure, the same could be said about the fans of most teams, but rooting for the 2016 Cubs seemed to be about as chic as rooting for that other New York team between 1996-2001. You didn't know why you were supposed to other than it seemed like the "cool thing to do."

So I was hoping that some team would be able to step up and stop the Cubs freight train, but nobody did. The Indians pushed them to the limit, going ahead 3 games to 1 and on Sunday night it certainly looked like they were primed to seal the deal, and I was certainly enjoying that, but their luck ran out. The Cubs got it together, rose up and outwilled the Indians in one of those games where neither team wanted to fade quietly into the night.

But for most of the night, this game was headed the way of most of the rest of the series, which wasn't great on a game-to-game basis. Friday's Game 3 was close and so was Sunday's Game 5. Otherwise, none of the games were particularly dramatic. Neither was Game 7, at least not early. Corey Kluber, who'd been heroic in two starts prior, ran out of gas and got hit hard. At 5-1, it seemed like the Cubs were going to coast home. But Aroldis Chapman, himself overworked, also looked spent and out of nowhere, the Indians managed to fight back, tie the game at 6-6 on a Rajai Davis Home Run, and send the game into Twilight Zone Territory. Rain fell, a tarp was pulled on as the game moved to Extra Innings, and then the whole thing turned into a Buzzfeed article. The 2016 World Series is going to be remembered by everyone as this great, classic series, with the underdog Cubs storming back to win it all. You know, basically ignoring the fact that the Cubs were such enormous favorites going back to Opening Day, and the fact that everyone essentially basically spent the entire season patting them on the back and congratulating them over a World Series Championship that they hadn't won. They'd kind of done this last year too, until the Mets punched them in the mouth and put them in their place.

But, this year, they sealed the deal. And if you want to call me bitter, go right ahead, because, you know what, I am. I believed that the Mets, if they'd been given another shot at the Cubs, would absolutely have taken them out. They stoned them last year, and when they played each other during the regular season, a partially-neutered version of the Mets still took them out. Another Armageddon could have gone one way or another, but as I said about a month ago, I wanted to see the Mets have that chance. But it didn't happen. Instead, we had to sit on our hands and watch as the Cubs managed to finish their deal behind one of the major players that prevented the Mets from reaching the goal last year, and if you weren't sick of Ben Zobrist already, well...

And, you know, seeing the Cubs celebrating, and seeing their fans peeing themselves, and seeing hipster idiots running around New York City today wearing Cubs hats kind of got me thinking. Maybe we've been going about this all wrong. Mets fans have by and large been conditioned to approach the season with the old Crash Davis term of Fear and Arrogance. More Fear than Arrogance, to be sure, but a little arrogance. This hasn't worked, since the Mets are now 30 years removed from their last World Series Championship. But the Cubs, who hadn't won a thing since Teddy Roosevelt was President, spent the entire year with their chests puffed out, celebrating the title they believed they'd already won, and though it was enough to make you laugh at them then, you can't do that anymore because they went and did it.

So, yeah, I think we need to start having a different attitude here. If the Fans believe it, let's make the team believe it to. Perhaps all Mets fans need to start acting like we've already won something. Let's be the arrogant pricks walking around, thumbing our noses at every other team. Let's take over opposing team's ballparks and shit-talk their fans. This isn't so crazy. As it's composed now, the Mets are going to have 5 Starting Pitchers that can pistolwhip an opponent at any given time. Noah Syndergaard's just getting warmed up, Matt Harvey's got his head back on straight, Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz are healthy again, Zack Wheeler's gonna be back and that's not even getting to guys like Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo and, of course, Bartolo Colon. Who's going to stop these Mets? The Mets have already proven what they can do when everything clicks, so I think we should just proclaim it now. It's gonna click in 2017. Sing it loud and proud. #MetsIn2017.

Self-Aggrandizing Pricks

Citi Field on Wednesday night was hot, sweaty and full of Cardinals fans. It was a perfect storm of awful and it seems that the Mets were all too happy to oblige in the misery. After mostly muddling their way through the early part of the game, the Mets exploded to life in the 7th, finally running Adam Wainwright out of gas and taking the lead on Yoenis Cespedes' absolute missile of a Home Run. But the roof ultimately caved in on the Mets in the 9th as Jeurys Familia blew his first save of the season, allowing the Cardinals to tie and ultimately take the lead. Instead of getting to revel in a steely victory, I was subjected to a bunch of Right-wing, underwear-sniffing Cardinals fans squealing and humping each other in the aisles. My Citi Field record for the season once again slipped under .500 in this 5-4 debacle of a game.

It was headed down a bad road from the start. Wainwright was eminently hittable all night, but for all the hitting the Mets did against him, nothing resulted in any runs. This is, of course, the ongoing problem. Neil Walker drove in a run in the 2nd inning and until the 7th, that was it. The Cardinals grabbed a lead in the 3rd because they, unlike the Mets, actually hit the ball with men on base and the result was a 3-run inning against Logan Verrett. So you think that Verrett somehow battled through the night. Wrong. Verrett, outside of that one inning, was just fine. The rest of the team just couldn't get out of their own way. Twice, Michael Conforto came up with a runner in scoring position and 2 outs, and even a measly single would have made some kind of a difference, but each time, he did nothing. It was so bad that Mets fans couldn't even muster the energy to react.

It took until the 7th for the Mets to finally get their asses in gear. Travis d'Arnaud singled, and Alejandro De Aza singled, and the Mets had their opportunity with men on the corners and no outs. But this hasn't been a sure thing by any stretch, and sure enough, Curtis Granderson struck out, and then Asdrubal Cabrera struck out, and George and I were just sitting there in muted agony, while the Cardinals fans were hooting and hollering. One fellow, in particular, was sitting in front of us, by himself, wearing headphones and after each strikeout, he jumped up and did some weird Frank Drebin strikeout impression. That left it up to Yoenis Cespedes, probably the only savior left in this godforsaken mess of a lineup. And Cespedes was game to a tiring Wainwright, and worked the count a bit instead of squeezing the bat into sawdust. Finally, on 2-2, Wainwright bounced his trademark curveball and it skipped past Yadier Molina, and d'Arnaud scored. Amazing. After all that, that was what it took to get a run home. I wasn't complaining, but this was beginning to border on the criminal. Two pitches later, Wainwright again tried to slip a curve in there. We've seen that before. But this time, Cespedes was in full hack mode and he just smoked it. And I mean he Smoked it. Off the 2nd deck, Home Run, and somehow the Mets had taken the lead. You know, after all that mess. As soon as the ball landed, the jerkoff with the headphones stood up, gave me a nasty look, and left. I assure you, for all the epithets I wanted to scream at this turd, I bit my tongue, because I'm far too diplomatic and I try my best to be a good host, even if the houseguest keeps doing things like leaving the toilet seat up and eating all the Frusen Gladje. So I said the nicest thing I could: "One pitch too many!"

In the 8th, Addison Reed did his job and retired the Cardinals without a peep. Now, the Cardinals fans were sitting on their hands, if they hadn't departed altogether. The Mets again had an opportunity to pad their lead in the 8th, but didn't, but that didn't bother me much. They had Familia in the 9th.

And, of course, we know what happened from there. It figures that Familia blows a Save for the first time in a year the night I'm there. It figures that Molina was the one that did it to him. It figures that instead of holding the Cardinals there and keeping the game tied, he gave up a double to Judy-hitting Kolten Wong to give the Cardinals the lead. It figures that the remaining Cardinals fans started standing and grab-assing again. It figures that the Mets went down meekly against Seung Hwan Oh once again. It figures that all the way down the stairs, and outside the building, and on the Subway, Cardinals fans were holding a virtual mosh pit.

The bitch of it all is that it didn't have to go this way. Pick any inning between the 1st and the 6th, and if the Mets could have managed one more hit, it would have meant another run and maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. But noooo. That seems to be too tall of an order for this group. I mean, this is the 4th year in a row I've been to a Mets/Cardinals game, and every year I have to deal with the Cardinals and their obnoxious fans who basically expect us to bow down to them. They really have no clue as to how they appear. Cubs fans are annoying like a 10 year old with bad manners. Fans of the other team in town are annoying like your generic frat bro. Cardinals fans are a different level of annoying and after last night I'm feeling more convinced that they might be the worst of the bunch. And if I say your fan base is worse than that other NY team, well, that's saying something. But at any rate, each of the last 3 seasons, I went to a Mets/Cardinals game and the Cardinals won 9-0, and if they didn't, it felt like 9-0. Sometimes, after games like this, I almost wonder if we're better off if the Mets just didn't score and lost 3-1. But that's besides the point. Then I'd just be writing about how the Mets were simply noncompetitive and the Cardinals Fans were jackasses. What's the use?

At least we're done with the Cardinals here for this season, but more importantly, we're done with their fans. I think I've seen enough of Cardinals fans for the next decade.

Disorganized Confusion

Last night at Citi Field was my 12th game of the season (or, my 13th if you feel I should count the 7 innings of Saturday's suspended game that I sat through—I haven't decided yet). Of those 12 games, I have seen the Mets get shut out and No Hit, and yet the utter shit show of a game I sat through last night could very well have been the absolute worst Mets display I've witnessed in a few years.

This particular game, one of my plan games, happened to be the first time I'd attended a Mets/Cubs game since 2010, the longest current duration of time I'd gone without seeing a National League team (that onus now falls to the San Diego Padres, whom I have not seen since the first week of the 2013 season—although I do have tickets for when they come to town in late July). Neither of these teams were very good the last time I saw them, and they don't look great now, although they both seem to have some sort of aspirations. The Cubs, who have become the darlings of ESPN thanks to Anthony Rizzo and the Baseball Jesus Kris Bryant, along with a host of other prospects, happen to be one of those teams with a fan base that I really dislike. This started way back in 2008 with an incident involving a Cubs fan that happened to me on the 7 train, followed by my attendance at a Mets/Cubs game at Shea Stadium where Cubs fans were all over the place walking around with their chests puffed out like they'd won 3 championships in 5 seasons. That year, they got bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs and I really enjoyed watching them lose. Since then, my exposure to Cubs fans has been minimal, because I'd only attended two Mets/Cubs games in April of 2010 and while there were Cubs fans there, they didn't seem to make much of an impression on me. My guess is they were annoying and since the Mets won both games I wasn't bothered so much.

Now, it's 5 years later and the Cubs have all these prospects and all this promise, and the Mets have all these prospects and all this promise. But while the Mets fan seems to approach this with wariness, the Cubs fans seem to be a little ahead of themselves. I knew I'd see some Cubs fans at the game last night, but certainly I wouldn't get a repeat of 2008. Well GODDAMN IT, IT HAPPENED AGAIN, BEFORE I EVEN GOT TO THE DAMN STADIUM! Standing on the platform of the 7 train, minding my own business, when some Jackass of Asian descent wearing a Cubs hat and a Cubs shirt comes up to me and says "Sorry, but the Cubs are winning tonight."

Seriously?

You guys are that cocky?

Maybe win something this Century before you start talking shit, guys.

That put me in a mood. Even the Cardinals fans, who really think their shit doesn't stink and bring selfie sticks to games don't act like that. Philly fans might, but only when their team was winning. Now that they stink again, their fans have crawled back into their caves. This shit from a team that's not any better than the Mets and sits 11 games out of 1st place, and they're going to disrespect us in our own building? That put me in such a mood that I wanted the Mets to beat the Cubs so badly last night. I wanted Bartolo Colon to throw a shutout and hit a Home Run to boot. I wanted to see the Mets stick it to the Cubs so bad that their fans would flee the building by the 7th inning stretch.

But that didn't happen. Of course it didn't.

Because this is the Mets, and the Mets can't hit to save their own lives.

I mean, sure, I got part of what I wanted. Bartolo Colon was simply brilliant for his 7 innings of work, allowing the Cubs nothing of consequence other than 3 hits, he struck out Baseball Jesus twice and put the Cubs in their place. Unfortunately, the Mets played like a bunch of assholes and not only did they not hit, they also did an outstanding job of screwing up the meager opportunities they had to score runs and ultimately were done in when their fielding abilities abandoned them in extra innings.

The Mets managed to load the bases against Jon Lester in the 2nd inning, but they didn't score. Problem was Bartolo Colon had to hit and while he did put his bat on the ball, he only flew out, not deep enough to score a run, and Curtis Granderson followed by flying out as well. There were other instances where opportunities arose; Juan Lagares had a leadoff double one inning and at some point there were other leadoff hits, but nothing that would come close to getting a run.

In the 8th inning, the Mets finally had a decent opportunity to score against Pedro Strop. Ruben Tejada reached on an infield error and then Daniel Murphy doubled into the corner. Perhaps Tim Teufel was being overly cautious by holding Tejada at 3rd base, but it seemed to me that if he tried to score, he would have been out by a good 15 feet. Then again, the way the rest of the inning played out, maybe they should have just tried it. Darrell Ceciliani followed, and certainly he ought to have been able to lift a fly ball somewhere, but instead, Terry Collins had the brilliant idea of trying the ol' Suicide Squeeze. And then when that didn't work, Tejada and Murphy both found themselves standing on 3rd base with their jocks in their hands while Starlin Castro tagged everyone. Joe Maddon then thought he might sell the umpires on getting both runners called out, but he wasn't quite that slick, although it would have been fitting for this game if he did. Nonetheless, he didn't need to; Ceciliani struck out anyway, as Cubs fans waved their glo-sticks and Strop celebrated like he'd just closed out a Championship Series.

After that, I figured it was only a matter of time before the Mets screwed themselves out of this game. The Mets fans were getting irritable and defeated. The Cubs fans were squealing and bopping and putting me in an even fouler mood than I already was in. It probably should have happened in the 9th inning. Jeurys Familia came in and gave up a ringing double to Anthony Rizzo that nearly sailed out of the park, or at least the Cubs fans thought it was out. But Familia muscled up to strike out Baseball Jesus. He then walked Denorfia, which set the stage for a double steal attempt where Kevin Plawecki threw a perfect strike down to Daniel Murphy at 3rd, except that Murphy had one of his spastic fits and fell for Rizzo's trick slide. Had Murphy done what he was supposed to do, keep his glove down and slap the tag, Ratso would have been out. Instead, Murphy did some stupid "Olé" tag, and when Rizzo slid, stopped and then stuck his feet into the base, Murphy was somewhere in la la land. And, of course, in a moment that typified the evening for the Mets, Collins challenged the call just to be certain that he was wrong. At that point, I wouldn't have blamed Familia if he'd just grooved one to Castro out of frustration, but instead he sawed Castro off and his looper to Center wasn't deep enough to get the run home. Familia then got Mike Baxter and somehow had gotten himself out of the inning.

Still, the Mets had to do something they hadn't done since Sunday and score a run in order to win this game and shut up the Chicago Pizza Party. But they couldn't. A succession of relievers, Hector Rondon, then Jason Motte, did the same thing every other Cubs pitcher did to the Mets and retire the side with a minimum amount of effort.

In the 11th, the Cubs again rallied. Carlos Torres walked Dexter Fowler to start the inning, which is basically asking for trouble. But he got Ratso to bounce one to Tejada, which should have been a Double Play, except that Flores' throw was bad and Duda's scoop was also bad and the whole thing didn't work and Rizzo was safe. So then Baseball Jesus, who'd struck out 3 times already, singled, and then Chris Coghlan singled, but Rizzo was held at 3rd. And fortuitously, Baseball Jesus didn't realize this and steamed through 2nd base, and was promptly tagged out in the sort of break the Mets needed at that particular point of time. Instead of the bases loaded with 1 out, instead they had 2 outs, and Torres just had to get Castro...

But he didn't. Of course he didn't.

Maybe if Collins still had his challenge, he could have gotten that call at 1st overturned, I don't know from where I was sitting but it looked close enough to give it a shot if he had a shot.

The one run was enough, at that point everyone knew the Mets weren't going to score, but just to be certain Miguel Montero singled home another run to make it 2-0 and about 90% of the Mets fans abandoned ship, leaving me to sit and stew among a smattering of Cubs fans slapping each other with bratwurst. True to form, the Mets managed to make some stupid cosmetic rally in the last of the 11th, bringing Kevin Plawecki to the plate with a chance to win the game if he could somehow get a hold of a pitch from Mother Grimm, but you knew that wasn't going to happen. Grimm could barely get a pitch over to Flores, but he got it up for Plawecki and that put this debacle to a merciful close, and at 10:50 I couldn't have moved fast enough to get out of that ballpark.

I mean, I like a good pitcher's duel and I like a good, close game, but what does it mean when the Mets can't get out of their own way? The Cubs didn't do anything particularly good to win this game. The Mets handed it to them, except that they didn't do it by making a bunch of errors and pitching badly, they did it by either not hitting or screwing up every single opportunity they had to score a run. The Mets offense has reached a level of comic absurdity because every single game, their pitching has given them a chance to stay in the game and give them a chance to win and they just can't do anything about it. If this were another era, the pitchers would all band together and make the hitters clean the latrines after a game like this. In fact, I wouldn't put it past them to try something like this now. It probably wouldn't fix anything, but maybe it would give the hitters a wake-up call that maybe they ought to try and get their act together.