Interleague play rocks!

Well it does this weekend as the Oakland Athletics, like our mopes and gripes, have been swept from Shea not a moment too soon and, for those of you who grip a good grudge, 34 years too late.

No sense dumping on some team we are not likely to see again in these parts for several years (anything is possible come October, but there are too many hurdles to consider before worrying about posting inflammatory quotes on karma's bulletin board). We've got Cardinal ghosts to strangle and Phillies whose pulse it would be most delightful to kick the living spit out of. If only saying it made it so.

But before our guests from the west depart our consciousness, a few thoughts on Oakland, the American League and the circuit-crossing we are compelled to indulge in every June.

The Athletics: Is there another team in big-time sports whose name is the plural of an adjective? Say Connie, ya got some real athletic types on your roster there. What ya thinkin' of callin' 'em? Maybe Mack forgot to give them a real moniker. I vote retroactively for the Hey Mack!s. FYI: The actual answer as to why they're the Athletics is they were formed from an Athletic Club in Philadelphia. Kind of disappointing, eh?

The A's: I liked it better when the single letter was on their uniforms. The A's have been one of the most interesting franchises in baseball for the last 40 years, easily identifiable for stretches at a time without becoming long-term stereotypes of themselves. The Swingin' A's. The dynastic A's. The Finley-filleted to within an inch of their competitive lives A's. The nearly moved to Denver A's. The Stanley Burrell A's (when nobody would touch them). The Shooty Babbit, Billyball, complete games 'til their arms fell off A's. The Bash Brother, La Russa, Eckersley, isn't our elephant cute, best team in the game A's. The disappointing postseason A's. The Moneyball A's. Except for a week in 1973 and a couple of days in 2005 (and from Friday night 'til this afternoon), I've rather liked the A's. On the other hand, there were the goddamn Jeremy Giambi wouldn't slide in 2001 A's. The Eric Chavez should have kept his mouth shut before firing up the Yankees in 2000 A's. The pawned Art Howe off on us A's. The found a use for Marco Scutaro A's. The holding Mike Piazza hostage (a compensated, willing hostage, I grant you) so our retirement of his number will have to be interminably delayed A's. Suddenly I don't find the A's amusing anymore.

Interleague Residue: Now that their green and gold jet has presumably lifted off from La Guardia, I don't care about the A's anymore. Or the Twins. Or the Tigers. Or the whole bunch of 'em. Well, beat the Yankees, bunch, and otherwise do what you have to do to each other. I have a favorite American League team, the Angels. And I don't care what happens to them either all that much.

Interleague Scheduling: How did the Dodgers and Blue Jays wind up playing a home-and-home? Radical yet rational revision to the whole mess: Take the Phillies and Pirates (intrastate rivals), Tigers and Blue Jays (neighbors) and Diamondbacks and Rockies (same obscure time zone, give or take daylight savings) out of the Interleague equation. Give each pair the six games you give the Mets and Yankees, Dodgers and Angels and the other "natural" rivals or at least the ones that make a modicum of sense. Philly and Pittsburgh should play each other more. Ditto Toronto and Detroit. Pittsburgh plays Houston more than Philadelphia (nice 1994 realignment ya got there, Bud). I'm sure Colorado and Arizona play each other enough, but they, too, could be stoked into a representative regional rivalry if both teams ever got good. And then drop everything else. 156 league games, 6 rivalry games for all 30 teams. There, there's your schedule after 2008. Why after 2008? The White Sox and Rangers have yet to make their maiden voyage to Flushing for National League baseball and I want them here for completism's sake (we've visited every A.L. park already). Then finish the cycle, stop the madness, X out all A's, O's, M's and Sox from our dance card. May Citi Field never host an out-of-town American League franchise prior to October...and one from anywhere else every October.

The American League: Kill the DH. Not literally (I have nothing lethal against Jack Cust after today). But enough with the "ninth spot" in the batting order. Watching a bit of the Yankees and Giants earlier, there was all this flagellating Mussina over his not pitching around whoever was batting eighth with a runner on second (he gave up a run-scoring hit in the process) and how, you know, in the National League they actually let the pitcher bat. Yes, they do. You know why? Because it's baseball. I could go round and round with arguments you've all heard and probably made for decades. Let's let "because it's baseball" suffice.

The Mets: So maybe they're not as bad as they looked when they were dreadful. Are they as good as they looked when they were kicking A? Oakland's an above-average A.L. outfit, beset by key injuries at the moment (who isn't?) and got one great start and two mediocre outings from its moundsmen. But I think it's reasonable to assess that Reyes is burning up the charts, Gomez is growing into his big league pants, Beltran's awake, Wright's alive, Valentin and Easley suddenly aren't creaky and Green is blessedly versatile. Lo Duca's mental but he's also solid. We need Delgado, but when haven't we? Glavine, Hernandez and Maine gave up three runs among them this weekend and when they were called on, the late-inning men were spot on. First place was ours when we sucked, it's even more ours now that we've stopped sucking. Conclusion for the moment: no panic, no picnic...and no more American League.

No worries, blog partner. I couldn't hear you and you couldn't hear me, but we both knew that the other guy was yelling happy things.

OK, tonight's game wasn't quite epic enough to deserve this post's title. But it was a satisfying game for any baseball fan whose tastes run to pitchers' duels, but likes a bit of everything else on the side. If you're taking someone to their first baseball game, you hope for one like this.

Pitching? Why yes. El Duque was vintage El Duque (vintage in this case possibly referring to the 1940s, but that's OK), rising to repeated occasions and getting pushed across the 119-pitch finish line by a revved-up crowd. Baseball is a marvelous game on TV, but TV can't capture how dramatic the difference in speeds between a fastball and a change or a curve is. El Duque's mix of fastballs, curves, sliders and whatever else he might make up on the spot was great fun to watch, with his punchout of Eric Chavez on a not-over-the-speed-limit curveball the highlight. Even Chavez smiled and shook his head. Joe Blanton, on the other hand, didn't look like much at the beginning -- he's on my fantasy team but I'd never seen him live, so I was startled to look out at a pudgy guy with a ridiculous chin beard and a little hitch in his delivery. But Blanton put on a clinic of his own.

Controversy? Indeed, though it was of the slapstick variety. I would not want to be on the same baseball field as Paul Lo Duca when he loses his temper, but from a safe distance in the stands it's immensely entertaining -- he literally looks like a cartoon character, with his eyes bulging and his eyebrows reduced to perfect downward slashes that wouldn't look out of place on an emoticon. Tossing his gear wasn't enough, of course -- the shin guards had to follow, along with the chest protector, which I'm surprised he didn't rip apart with his teeth or light on fire after it got hung up on the dugout railing. What actually happened with Marvin Hudson? I dunno, but it is not a contradiction to say that I love Lo Duca and also bet it was his fault.

Storylines? Oh yes. The only question was which one would emerge as dominant, leaving the others reduced to subplots. Would it be the Redemption of Carlos Delgado? The Start of the Delgado Watch? The Object Lesson in Anger Management for Lo Duca? No, it was The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Travis Buck. With Lo Duca/Ramon Castro struck out, Beltran hit a sharp single to left, Buck came up firing, and Ricky Ledee was just out at the plate, prompting this exchange.

Greg: What good is Ricky Ledee if he isn't fast?

Jace: Ricky Ledee needs a lot more than just being fast to be good.

So to open the 9th Ramon Castro somehow doubles off Santiago Casilla after being made to look silly on two sliders, which would be great, except it's Ramon Castro, who might get lapped by continental drift rounding the bases. So a pinch-runn -- oh yeah, we can't pinch-run, because we're out of catchers. So they walk Beltran and Wright hits a little flare to right, where our old friend Travis Buck has now moved. If Buck plays the ball on a hop, the movement of crust and magma will migrate Castro only as far as third. It'll be bases loaded and none out for Delgado -- which may seem like just delaying the inevitable, but the way Delgado's night has gone, he'll either hit into a triple play or get a hanging curve and drop his own bat. But Buck makes a foolhardy dive for the ball, it gets behind him, and even the supercontinent of Ramongaea can drift home.

The other nice part of tonight was the company. As Greg noted (keep reading after this post), he and I got to go in person, stopping off first to see if Donovan's Pub really has the best burger in New York City. (My verdict: Very satisfying burger, but doesn't top Shake Shack.) And we enjoyed taking in the game with Ray from the sublime Metphistopheles, making his first trip to Shea in 16 years. And, on the way out, Ray and I ran into Mark from Mets Walkoffs and Other Minutiae (after a walkoff, no less), making for an impromptu blogger summit beneath the 7 platform.

Good companions, good pitching, perfect weather, some melodrama and the joy of winning two in a row for the first time in forever. What more could a Met fan want?

To the total stranger who sat to my left Saturday night and, by extension, the ultra, ultra, ultra nice person who gave me the tickets that made my presence in your row possible: No, the large man in the New York Cubans cap did not leave a 0-0 nailbiter in the middle of the eighth inning. Thus, if you say or hear on the occasion of your next Saturday game, "The guy was here for more than seven innings and then just vanished, must not be much of a fan even though he answered every stray trivia question correctly," that (like your belief that Ed Kranepool was the Mets' first All-Star) would be inaccurate.

To my tremendously esteemed blolleague from the Lake Erie region of Metsopotamia, it was a real treat to meet you in person, first in your surprisingly crowded corner of the rightfield mezzanine and then for the several innings we were able to carve out an extra seat for you closer to the action. I'm sorry that two cell phone messages and this note have to suffice for a sendoff. I hope there's one more hit left in each of our respective bats in terms of 2008 before Shea succumbs to the swing of a wrecking ball.

To the other half of this particular blogging endeavor, I hope you heard me clearly when I called you after Ramon Castro chugged home from second, assuming he has finally completed his chuggage. Just to clarify, I had been graciously invited by a fourth or fifth party (when did I become popular?) to stop by and say hello to him in the field boxes in right around the seventh-inning stretch. But we were happily wrapped up in the nothing-nothingness of it all where we were and, as you know, breaking through the thin orange line of field level security is surprisingly tricky. Also the distance from Mezz 10 to Field Box 121 is like driving from here to Buffalo. Nevertheless, I did decide I could be in two places simultaneously, more or less. Once I was down there paying my respects, it looked like a long hike back to our third base side of the tracks. And once Castro got on second ("Willie! Pinch-run Gomez and there'll be no tenth inning and you won't have to worry about who to catch!"), hey, maybe there was something to this switching of seats in the late going. It's worked before. It worked again. But anyway, I didn't mean to ditch you guys. Once the winning run scored, I doubt any explanation was necessary because once a winning run scores, who gives a a fig where I went?

To Paul Lo Duca, thank you for caring the way only you could.