Some Thoughts

The problem with the Mets right now, is not so much the starting pitching, the bullpen, or the defense but that they aren’t getting the key hit with runners in scoring position. Several Mets have said as much themselves, but sports writers seem to love blaming Aaron Hielman.

While hanging out at the beer garden, and keeping half an eye on the Red Sox-Yankees game, my friend Andrew, a New Englander, became increasingly afraid that the Sox would come away with a win. He is not a sports person, but, having grown up in the company of Red Sox fans, his only desire from sports is that it bring those people misery. There is a basic similarity between this and my feelings about the Yankees- but the consensus is that Red Sox fans really do leave something to be desired. My boss, a Californian who attended Harvard, became a Yankee fan as a result of indignities that he suffered while attending a game at Fenway in an A’s hat.
Perhaps what Beantown really needs is a scrappy, yet historically incompetent, National League team, to distract them somewhat from their overbearing, history-rich AL franchise; to remind them that it is just a game, played at different levels of competence- and that charm, eccentricity, and heart can be nearly as rewarding as success. It’s a pity that the Expos didn’t end up in Boston.

I think it was nice of Major League Baseball to schedule rivalry series for both New York teams for the weekend Basketball playoffs started; it was as if they knew (and, lets face it everyone did) how miserably the Knicks would do, and that, come playoff time, New Yorkers could use some cheering up.


Apropos of the Knickerbockers, I would like to make it known that ‘Sam’s Mets Blog’ supports Coach Thomas. Basketball is definitely a second favorite sport, and I don’t have any particular team loyalties- especially since the Pistons lost Big Ben Wallace. But for a dilettante fan, the Knicks were a great team to be able to watch on cable during the crappy months where there is no baseball and seasonal affect disorder sinks its teeth in: they were amusing, scrappy, and it was easy to cultivate a low-intensity, love-hate relationship with them. I think Isiah Thomas did a nice job coaching the dubious players that he had- the irony, of course, being that he assembled these dubious players himself. Also, in Clyde Frazier they got by far the best of the “Just For Men” color commentators (sorry, Keith). I wish them luck, and hope they make the playoffs next year: but if the Mets are playing the Braves again when the games start, don’t count on me to be watching.

One last word about hoops: I predict that at least one of the three most heavily favored teams, the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, and San Antonio Spurs, won’t make it out of the first round.