Tonight, as promised, I watched two episodes of "The Wire" on TiVo.
People in St. Louis watched it rain. We checked in various places to verify that that's what it was doing.
Tom Glavine had his usual fourth day of rest. So did Jeff Weaver. The Cardinals' bullpen took it easy too.
Willie Randolph offered crumbs of platitudes to a hungry press corps, then said something else entirely to his troops. Tony La Russa pondered the intricacies of, say, lefty-righty matchups when up or down 13 runs. If he wasn't playing some six-dimensional game of eeny-meeny with his baseball cards of Weaver and Chris Carpenter.
Postal workers moved packages of FAITH AND FEAR t-shirts through our nation's mail system. A couple have even arrived at their new homes.
Cliff Floyd's Achilles got slightly better. So did Albert Pujols' hamstring and Scott Rolen's shoulder.
El Duque thought about Willis Reed.
Tigers scouts groused and grumbled and went up in the Gateway Arch or something.
Baseball fans in two cities (and lots of kindred souls outside them) waited and analyzed and argued and fussed and fretted and sighed.
Well, it was the night for it. Now, finish whatever you're doing, get into bed, and get some sleep. Because the weather report for Missouri tomorrow night is favorable, with a 100% chance of tension. We've got at least two days of baseball played full throttle, maybe three.
And this weekend? Either winter will have come down like a hammer, or we'll be off on one final mission: to storm the gates of Baseball Heaven.
Rest up.
The blog for Mets fans
who like to read Search
Recent Entries
Recent Photos
This Month
Month Archive
Contact Us
Write to Greg and Jason at faithandfear@gmail.com
Faith and Fear Shirts
The Faith and Fear in Flushing "numbers" shirt has been seen from Verona, N.J., to Venice. You can get yours right here -- price about as cheap as we can make it. Blog Park @ FAFIF Yards
Dream Seats (Sit Back and Enjoy)
Metphistopheles MetsBlog Mets Guy in Michigan Metstradamus Mets Walkoffs Mike's Mets Field Level (Close to the Action) Always Amazin' Amazin' Avenue Eddie Kranepool Society Hot Foot MetsGeek Miracle Mets Shea Nation Loge (Unique Perspective) The Ballclub Blastings Thrilledge Blue Orange & Green Cafe Brooklyn Met Fan Chicks Dig the Pitchers' Duel Dana Brand Mets Fan Blog Loge 13 The Metropolitans Metscentric Mets Grrl Optimistic Mets Fan Take the 7 Train Toasty Joe's Yankees 2000 Curse Auxiliary Press Box Daily News: Surfing the Mets Journal News: John Delcos Newsday: On the Mets Beat Post: Mets Chat The Record: Amazin' Stories Star-Ledger: On the Mets Times: Bats (Mets Posts) WFAN: Ed Coleman Mezzanine (Great Distance) Archie Bunker's Army Cockeyed Optimist Lone Star Mets Metsie! Metsie! Mets Trades Transplanted Mets Fan Upper Deck (What a Crowd!) The Amazin' Scene Betty's No Good CitiBlog Flushing Fussing Gets By Buckner Go Mets Die Braves Home Run Apple It's Mets for Me The Mets Are Better Than Sex Mets Fever Mets Heads Mets Merized Online Mets Prospect Hub Mets Prospects Metsquire Mets Three Times Mets Today Misery Loves Company Mostly Mets My Summer Family Oliver & I Out in the Wilderness The 'Ropolitans Shea Faithful Steve Bieser's Walk Home Tom Seaver Fan Club Year of Happy Recaps You Can't Script Baseball Zisk Online Mets Extra
You Could Look It Up
Baseball Almanac: Mets The Baseball Cube Baseball Library Baseball Prospectus Baseball Reference: Mets Cot's Baseball Contracts ESPN: Players ESPN: Scores Hall of Fame Mets by the Numbers Retrosheet Ultimate Mets Database The Youth of America New Orleans Zephyrs Binghamton Mets St. Lucie Mets Savannah Sand Gnats Brooklyn Cyclones Kingsport Mets The Braintrust Daily News The Journal News Newsday New York Post New York Sun The Record (N.J.) The Star-Ledger New York Times Road Apples Atlanta Journal-Constitution Miami Herald Philly.com Washington Post Press Notes ESPN Clubhouse: Mets MLB Press Pass Sports Illustrated: Mets Yahoo Mets Grant's Tombs Polo Grounds Shea Stadium CitiField (2009) Out of Town Scoreboard Ballparks of Baseball Ballpark Tour Baseball Pilgrimages Clem's Ballpark Diagrams Frank's Ballparks Jay Buckley Baseball Tours Stadium Page Frequency Bob Murphy CW 11 Mets Bars MLB Extra Innings Radio Roadtrip SNY WFAN XM Radio The Picnic Area 19th Century Mets 100 Greatest NY Days Armchair GM Bad Mets Carl's Mets Page CBS Sportsline: Mets Crosstown Rivals Eephus Pitch Flushing University Forgotten New York Gotham Baseball Hot Dog Vending at Shea Inside Pitch Jackie Robinson Foundation Knuckleball From Hell Long Island Ducks Meet the Matts Met Camp Met Fan Book Mets Fan Club Mets House Mets Images Mets Short Mets Tube New York Mets Hall of Records NY Baseball Online NY Sports Day New York Sports Page Pro Sports Daily: Mets Rumors A Quest for Keith Record Online SABR NYC Shea Baseball True Fans Bleed Blue & Orange Very Unofficial Mets Site Extreme Baseball At Home Plate Baseball Analysts Baseball Card Blog Baseball Crank Baseball Fever Baseball for Thought Baseball Think Factory Baseball Toaster Baseball Truth Bobby V's Way Cardboard Gods The Dead Ball Era The Dugout Excruciating Baseball Lists Getting Paid to Watch Hardball Times Japan Baseball Daily Jewish Major Leaguers Negro Leagues Baseball Museum Price Above Bip Roberts Prospect Pit The Saberoticians SABR The Southpaw Streetplay Strike Two Super '70s Baseball Cards United States of Baseball USA Today Write On Sports Yard Work Zack Hample Multipurpose Stadium American Legends Blooming Ideas Can't Stop the Bleeding Dan Shanoff Deadspin The Feed Gelf Magazine Get Untracked Gil Meche Experience Hot Stove New York Ladies... Mike's Neighborhood Riding With Rickey Subway Heroes Uni Watch Uni Watch Blog The Rotunda Amazinz Crane Pool Forum Grand Slam Single Happy Recap Board Mets Refugees Mets Zone The Mofo The Scoreboards Everybody's Comin' Down Mets: Official Site The 7 Train LIRR NY Water Taxi FAFIF Says...
Very Hot Stove
Met Hell First Circle Second Circle Second Second Circle Fourth Circle Fifth Circle Aw Heck Sixth Circle Seventh Circle Eighth Circle Ninth Circle Redemption Look Who's No. 100-1 Criteria 100-91 90-81 80-71 70-61 60-51 50-41 40-31 30-21 20-11 10-1 * Years to Remember 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Moments of Silence Hunter S. Thompson Bernie The Cat Nate Fisher Donn Clendenon John Spencer Lou Rawls Tom Belcher Five Years Later Cory Lidle Highlight Films Greatest Hits of 1986 Winter League 2005-2006 The 2005 Faith and Fear Yearbook |
Monday, October 16
by
Jason
on Mon 16 Oct 2006 10:35 PM EDT
by
Greg
on Mon 16 Oct 2006 05:52 PM EDT
Rain, rain wouldn't go away. Game postponed. They play tomorrow night. Glavine, better rested versus a better rested Weaver or, for all we know, a three-day Carpenter. Maybe La Russa, that genius, will pitch Spiezio.
Got a presser on SNY right now. St. Louis writers say "we" a lot and refer to Cardinal players by first name. One just asked about "Yadier," as if the questioner were Jose or Bengie. About these press conferences, here are the questions, generally: "Were you thinking something I might be thinking when you accomplished that thing on the field?" "Do you believe what just happened will completely alter the series let alone the course of the Western world?" "Can you keep from rolling your eyes while I ask something immensely irrelevant?" Snigh still supposed to have Post Season Live on later. Tim Teufel looks like me in every science class I ever took. Please don't call on me. Please don't call on me. In the meantime, Josh...I mean Danny looks to save the world...I mean a TV show at 10 o'clock tonight on The West Wing...I mean Studio 60.
by
Greg
on Mon 16 Oct 2006 03:15 AM EDT
The Carloses are a beautiful thing, aren't they? ¡Nosotros Carlamos! We are them and they are us and we are all together...goo goo g'joob.
Yet they're not Ollie and Ollie, saviors in arms. Yeah, that's who it figured to hinge on. All the series previews in print and on air had it exactly as it's happened: Darren Oliver eating up innings in Game Three and Oliver Perez giving up solo homers in Game Four. Those were the keys to the pennant all along. Nobody saw it coming, but that — without discounting any of the dozen delightful Met runs still crossing the plate — now defines why glee is outpointing glum in Metsopotamia. Oliver surrendered no earned runs in a loss. Perez absorbed five in a win. And somehow it's all good. Welcome to your narrative-free National League Championship Series. Forget that claptrap about momentum and the next day's starting pitcher. The last night's starting pitcher threw as pedestrian a 5 and two-thirds as you're going to see and, in context, it was magnificent. The appeal of Perez was that he could go out and potentially blow hitters away. He didn't. He didn't have to. He pitched with the poise of a veteran who had been in the Majors for more than a dozen years. Check that. He pitched better than Steve Trachsel. I'll admit my faith in Oliver Perez was well veiled — "folly" is what I believe I said it would be to count on him — but getting proven wrong is often the best part about being a nervous-nelly baseball fan. This isn't about being right. This is about being happy. And we're happy this morning. Twenty-four hours ago, we were blogging virtual suicide notes. Today we're either seeding clouds over St. Louis (rest Glavine!) or spreading a tarp across Missouri (the bats...the bats...the bats are on fire!). Whatever. There's no legitimate pegging of this series. We have seen four contests, none of which has resembled the other three. Game One? A taut pitching duel determined on a single swing. Game Two? A seesaw slugfest. Game Three? A suffocating shutout. Game Four? A slambang beatdown by those that done been whitewashed the night before. Game Five? I'unno. So let 'em play tonight or let 'em wait. The Mets and the Cardinals have left few clues as to what comes next.
by
Jason
on Mon 16 Oct 2006 12:32 AM EDT
Whew!
The series is even, and no matter what happens, the Mets are coming back to New York alive. You saw it. We all saw it. Really, this rebound began last night, when Darren Oliver saved the bullpen from having to put in overtime. It continued tonight, with the other Oliver (young Mr. Perez) pitching bravely and effectively. Never mind his numbers, which got a little blemished late as he was trading potential runs for outs -- he did exactly what we needed him to do, exactly what Steve Trachsel was utterly incapable of doing, and now things are different. Did the worm turn tonight? Only the baseball gods can say. But diving into baseball phrenology, it should be noted that since the seventh inning of Game 2 the Cardinals have most certainly had The Look -- big hits from the guys you tend to look past (Encarnacion, Spiezio and Molina), homers from unlikely sources (Taguchi and Eckstein), pitchers hitting homers, young relievers coming up big, two-run triples everywhere, and lots of balls eluding Met gloves by inches (Green in Game 2, Green and Chavez in Game 3, Beltran and Wright early tonight). But tonight was different: Those young relievers weren't so good and the Cards' fielding fell apart. And, of course, the Met bats erupted. This was no "save some of that for tomorrow night" -- this was wanting hitting to get contagious, for everyone in the lineup to leave with a knock, for all concerned to freaking relax already. Mission accomplished -- the nicest sight for me wasn't Jose Valentin's casket-closing double, but the way he raised his fist and grinned afterwards. When the Mets took the field, the wolf was at the door. Three and a half hours later, he'd fled into the woods yelping that the monsters were out of the cage. Now, time to keep the furry little blighter there. My fondest hope for tomorrow night? It has nothing to do with baseball. It's that we spend tomorrow watching "Prison Break" or "Justice" or whatever it is Fox has as a backup plan. (I'd be catching up with "The Wire" on TiVo, but you get the idea.) The weather report for Monday night is apocalyptic, and that's just fine with me. If it rains, Glavine pitches Tuesday night on normal rest. Same for Jeff Weaver, but short rest is more dangerous for a touch-and-feel guy like Glavine than for a winger-flinger like Weaver. After that? Well -- and this is a case where you do need to look ahead -- if Glavine prevails in Game 5 (on normal rest or not), the Cardinals need Carpenter to beat Maine and Suppan to beat [Oliver or Oliver or Trachsel] at Shea. If Game 5 goes to St. Louis, we need our rotation's soft underbelly to put together two good games against the Cardinals' ace and a guy who shut us down Saturday. Or for the hopefully still-uncaged monsters to run wild, eating wolves and birds and anything else that gets within reach, of course. But solid pitching from unexpected sources would sure help, and that could well be too much to ask down 3-2, Shea or no Shea. Funny thing, hoping to spend Monday night doing whatever the hell I do when there isn't baseball. |

