Luis Castillo plays Jackie Smith.
My mother-in-law is in town for the weekend which is fun because I have one of the great all-time mother’s-in-law. She arrived last night. Em and I watched the game as we waited for her to get here. My mood got progressively darker as the game unfolded and Emily held her breath, hoping against hope, praying that another loss wouldn’t send her husband over the deep end and into a weekend long funk. But the game wouldn’t cooperate. Blown leads, Mariano getting touched, and finally, Alex Rodriguez popping up a good pitch to hit from Frankie K to end the game.
And then, jumping, arms waving, yelling, “He dropped the ball, he dropped the ball, he dropped the ball!” I scared my wife and somehow managed to scratch my arm–on what I don’t remember.
Talk about horses**t. That’s yer textbook definition right there. Still, we’ll take it, and for what it is worth, my wife is grateful, and will continue to be until late this afternoon when she holds her breath again.
I did much the same thing, including scaring my roommate who has taken on the role of resident Yankee-hater partly to get on my nerves (damn, you think she couldn't get even more annoying than she already is?) It was good to see her cry a little at any rate. I don't feel bad; if this is a butt-kick wake-up call for the whole organization, it's a well-deserved one. But believe you-me, that was more about the Mets being the Mets than another Yankee comeback.
[1] It was an utter failure by some of the Yanks' brightest lights: Chamberlain, Mariano, A Rod. And they won. Just pathetic.
I read somewhere that this was the first time that the Yanks had won on a walkoff error since some time in 2003. Six years. How many teams have won how many games by walkoff error since then? Harrumph. Maybe they were due.
[3] And it wasn't even a respectable error, like on a grounder or a throw.
It was about the most inexcusable error one might commit on a baseball diamond.
I started screaming, too, as did I'm sure thousands of others: "HE DROPPED THE BALL, HE DROPPED THE BALL!"
"Utter failure" "Pathetic"
I rest my case. Somewhere there has to be a split between die-hard fan and linguistic pit-bulls.
I have argued for a long time that whatever the money advantage NY has, the media/fanbase DISadvantage is colossal. The Mussina/Glavine dual biogrpahy has a truly revealing chapter when Glavine in the mets clubhouse is startled by how many reporters are there as he heads for 300, and the author observes (since he's going back and forth) that this insanity is every-day normal in the Bronx.
So if A Rod fails to get a hit off a perfect-record closer it is pathetic? An utter failure? Joba has a bad start (not a dreadful one, not imploding, just too many pitches) and Mo gives up a hit to a guy hitting .600 or so lately ... pathetic?
I wasn't happy watching ANY of it, but really ... what exactly ARE our expectations here?
I thought the game was one of those sloppy/entertaining ballgames, more common in Fenway or Wrigley, and I saw a lot of positives in our coming back earlier. (Again.) But my main point is that the NY media and the fans create a truly unpleasant environment for everyone involved, from GM through coaching staff through players. It wasn't always so, but it seems to be the case more and more, year by year.
This site would ne WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better if a few chosen Banteres would poney up $75 and spend an hour on the phone with Hoss.
Well said my friend. Maybe you have to spend a few years watching Horace, Gene and Charlie Smith to appreciate what we have, and to understand that losing is just a normal part of the baseball experience.
We have lost plenty of games on our own errors, and have had games stolen by great plays by the other team. Yesterday was just the law of averages coming around.
And across the country, I wonder how many people, literally in the same second, screamed: HE DROPPED THE BALL! HE DROPPED THE BALL! HE DROPPED THE BALL! I know I said it 3 times. Twice doesn't release enough of the emotion of a (literally) last second reprieve.
HE DROPPED THE BALL! HE DROPPED THE BALL! HE DROPPED THE BALL!
Ten thousand? One hundred thousand?
(If only we could have all been microphoned and speakered together!)
HE DROPPED THE BALL! Un... fuckin'... real!
I was too busy laughing after a "ZOMG, WTF was that?"
Obviously, some people need to "read up" on how the fans and the media treated Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Ford, Berra, Rizzuto, Jackson, among others from time to time, and expecially Roger Maris, who in 1961, faced arguably the single worst season along those lines, including many death threats, among any players within Yankees history!
I'm just sayin'...
Substitute "especially" for "expecially" above of course...
Dude you're taking the words wayyyy too seriously. Did Chamberlain fail, spectacularly? Yes. Did Mariano fail to do his job? Yes. Did A Rod pop up a hittable pitch and fail in a big spot? Yes. All failures, and utter ones at that - in other words there was nothing about them to mitigate their uselessness. It was a pathetic game.
But that doesn't mean the world has come to an end. I'm tired of being told that we have to be cool and reasonable in how we express ourselves. Of course it's all relative - that's just the point. Sure if someone piped up in the UN general assembly saying the last game against the Sox was soul-rushing, the ambassador from Rwanda might object, but this is a baseball forum. Scale everything for the context. Remember that "fan" is short for "fanatic" and please allow people their passion and hyperbole; .
[9] is for [5] if that's not clear.