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Keeping them disabled (and this post at the top of the blog) is almost as much of a PITA then dealing with all the crappy comment spam I get from enabling them.

For now, at least, everything is cross-posted to the Mets Bloggers group on Facebook. It's open and comments there are welcome.

As they would be here, if they didn't constantly produce slime in six different languages.

Cries of happiness, and of hope, and of Harvey, at least.

This afternoon, in the duly designated daytime, Matt Harvey made his debut on the field eponymously named for him in the early scenes of A League of Their Own. Its sugary-sweet magnate, Walter Harvey, was plainly based on the gummy Chicago bear of Phil Wrigley, and today's venue got renamed "Harvey Field" for those opening tryouts by Geena and Rosie and Madonna (oh Ma!).

And, like the peachiest of the Rockford Peaches, the Harvey Bar rose above all the other measurements of the day, both on the mound (past a shaky first) and at the bat.

Until yesterday's pitching performance made Nice-Niese, it had been a rough mid-May, but now the Mets are on a moderate (for them) roll, with Harvey's next two starts scheduled for home grounds, if the five-day rotation holds.

Next, that would mean, would be against the Reds next Wednesday.  And, following that, would be the opening night of this year's abbreviated Subway Series against the You Know Whos.

For which my ticket arrived, in today's post.  Bullpen entrance, section 140-something.  By the time I arrive, in all probability, I'll gotta pay:

You'd think that, after avoiding this blog for the entirety of the regular season so far, I'd have something really profound to say.

Can't say I do, thanks, largely, to the staff and management of Metropolitan Baseball Club, Incorporated or whatever they're calling themselves these days.

For the second year in a row, the Mets brought back Banner Day. Also, for the second year in a row, the Mets deprived their beyond-the-ballpark fandom of the chance to be in the moment with their new home and their fellow fans.

There was hope they'd get it right. When ESPN grabbed the rights to whatever the original date was, the team actually listened and let the fans pick the date for the replacement game, letting them choose among three. (Not on the ballot, of course, was the correct answer- BETWEEN GAMES OF A SCHEDULED SINGLE-ADMISSION DOUBLEHEADER- but such a choice would probably cause the Shea Bridge to collapse and the rest of the venue to crumble into the garbage dump below.)  So I was hopeful, indeed, when I tuned to SNY (after seeing various check-ins at the ballpark), that I would read the sheets, see the sheets, step right up and greet the sheets from the comfort of my faraway living room.

Instead I got a Bowflex informercial. Just like last year.

The tone-deafness of this organization is deafening. If you're going to go retro to the moments of our glory days as a Mets Family, for crysakes invite all of us to be a part of it- even the crazy Uncle Ray who can't show up for any damn game on a whim.  Do the makers of E400 Energy Boost Supplement really line the Wilpockets enough to demand exclusive rights to their Saturday noon timeslot? Do Gary, Keith and Ron really charge that much more to go live an hour or so early?

No, it's the usual bullsheet we've come to expect.  Less expected was the sudden decline of Jonathan Niese, he of the modern reincarnation of the old Boston Braves rotation of "Harvey and Niese and Pray for Peace."  I couldn't even watch the damn game, since it, before the Banner Day rescheduling, was one of the pittance of games palmed off on PIX for the  few remaining tri-state hoi poloi with rabbit ears. Time Warner used to carry the Channel 11 feed here locally for those games, but that was when the Mets were the Bisons parent club and they were within recent memory of being a professional baseball team. Instead, that cable channel is showing high school lacrosse.

Let's go Long Island Tomahawks!

----

I watched some Opening Day. I saw the OhNoHeIsnt! Facebook posts about Harvey last week and tuned THAT in just in time to see the Chisox put that first 1 up on the board.  Other than that, I've relied mainly on online scoreboards and the daily, patient-as-saint postings of Mets bloggers to see just how bad it is and how likely it is to get worse.

Ever the optimist, I offer the following:

- We're still ahead of the Marlins. (Local power ranking comment on their 30th-out-of-30 showing: If this was European soccer, they’d be a lock to be relegated.)

- Despite acquiring two of our recently best players over the winter, the Blue Jays are five games ahead of us in the Suck Standings. (They merely managed to play five more games, no doubt due to the roof on their ballpark and a lack of April games being scheduled in Colorado or Minnesota.)

- We're achieving this level of mediocrity without either of the stud ballplayers acquired for Beltran and Dickey, both of whom are surrounded by space aliens in Area 51 right now.

Sorry. All I got.

On the bright side, one other thing I got is a seat at the first Subway Series game in a little over two weeks. I have no idea where it is, but I got it through the 7 Line, so please holler if you are going to be in the building. Bring your banners from yesterday and I'll help you parade them around the old Shea infield. Maybe I'll even get arrested for violating the open container law out there- and then, maybe, a Banner Day parade could finally get back on television where it belongs.

Deadspin has the scoop on what we already suspected:

The New York Yankees are the Evil Empire.

Evil Enterprises Inc., owners of a website with the URL baseballsevilempire.com which currently will not load due to a malware warning—probably Yankee tampering—recently filed a trademark claim for the term "Baseballs Evil Empire," which was sniffed out and promptly disputed by the lawyers employed by Basbeball's Evil Empire. Even though the Yankees would never use the term to promote their team, they need to own it, because it exists.

But you can't just allege an intellectual property interest in such a mark. You need evidence. Here's what Team George submitted:

In its legal papers, the team referenced a number of articles from the past decade using the term in connection with the Yankees, and conceded that the team has "implicitly embraced" the "Evil Empire" theme by playing music from Star Wars during their home games.

The panel of judges sided with the Yankees, ruling that the Yankees are strongly associated with the phrase. Allowing anyone else to use the phrase exclusively would likely cause confusion, ruled the judges.

"In short, the record shows that there is only one Evil Empire in baseball and it is the New York Yankees," wrote the judges. "Accordingly, we find that [the Yankees] have a protectable trademark right in the term . . . as used in connection with baseball."

Deadspin is now moving on with its latest investigation, of how the Yankees are trying to get out of the remainder of ARod's contract by proving that he doesn't actually exist- at least after October 1st.

Yes, it's true. The day before the Mets return to the playing field for the first time since October 3rd, this blog rises from the dead for the first time since October 25th. (Trust me about leaving off the link; it was bad filk about an even worse post-season memory.) 

I haven't been dead, or even not writing. Hell, I wrote a whole novel in November; perhaps you've even seen it in a spam folder near you.  I just haven't had anything new to say about the Mets.

Still don't. They signed their best position player, finally; gave away their best pitcher for what will hopefully not turn out to be a bucket of balls; and generally did nothing else to redeem themselves or make themselves seem relevant in the coming year. Only the train wreck of Miami 2013 seems to be keeping the Mets safe from cellardom.

So, having nothing new to say, I'll retreat to something old- and even older- as I weigh in on the subject of retirement.

----

37. 14. 41. 42. No, we're not Lost, but I think we're behind in the count, and hot stovers have brought it up in recent days. Today, FAFIF's Jason Fry offers his cents and sense about some of the coulda-been-contendahs.  He proposes going with two new ones: 31 for Piazza and 17 for Keith. (I presume Jack Dilauro and Don Bosch won't be invited to the ceremony.)  A second tier of numbers, leading off with 8, is proposed for a Senior Counsel level of not quite retirement: to be "on the shelf next to 24, to be assigned infrequently, and only when circumstances warrant."

With one exception, I concur. That exception is for the 8 Men.

The piece of 8 in that article was all about Gary Carter, the last man of any note to wear the number between the foul lines. His main disqualification seems to be that he was only here for five years, at least one of them being "awful."

Oh my God, wasn't it?  But if those are DQ's for enshrinement out there, we may as well paint over the four numbers we've got with a Dairy Queen ad and forget the whole thing. Casey Stengel was a Met for only five seasons. Likewise, Gil, except for a waning two months of Polo in 1963. Even the Franchise spent close to half his career with other franchises. And all of them had whole seasons that waned in comparison to their typical waxiness.

So if that's not a real objection, a case can be made for the Kid on his own, but it doesn't have to be. For this discussion needs to include the almost-Original owner of that number- the one who wore it the longest, ain't-over-till-it's-overed in it, and remains the oldest living man to ever wear it or any other number on those fields.

Yes, I give you Lawrence Peter Berra.

----

It's not unprecedented to recognize a retirement in tandem. Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, and for our purposes, Staub and Dawson. Both of the latter wearers of numéro dix were honored by its retirement in Montreal before the inter-National incident of their shameful unretirement. Number 8 is already a shared memory across the Triboro, with Berra's time in it being shared with the second best ballplayer ever to be named Dickey.

Yogi's Mets tenure was itself mixed, and his Evil Empire connections may have kept him off the board to some extent. But just as he may not make the case alone, the combined mojo of the Old Man and the Kid should be enough. I daresay it must be.  We didn't do it when Gary Carter was still alive, but we damn should get an 8 on that wall while the Yahweh of Yoo-Hoo is still around to see it.

When I attended my first Citi Field game for the honoring of the 1969 Mets 40th season, it was Yogi's introduction, and inclusion among the heroes of my past, that brought me to tears. Likewise, when he stepped on Shea's plate for the final time following that horrid final game there the previous year.  Seeing him one more time, with the permanence of all those memories, would no doubt do it again.

Everybody sing! (To this tune, obviously- or maybe not so....)

♫His name was Timmy, he was a Phillie,
And a Cardinal for years before destroying all our ears
He caught Steve Carlton- go on, just ask him-
And when his booth career began- he quickly lost me as a fan
While Joe Buck does the call, he's quite the know-it-all
He sounds like nails on the baseball blackboard
Each and every fall!

Yes it's Timmy! (TIM!) Timmy McCarver!
You're not listening to Red Barber!
No, it's Timmy! (BOO!) Timmy McCarrrrrverrrrr
He's trying for laughs but they come out as gaffes
Yep with Timmy,.... that's what you get....

His name was Barry, last name of Zito
He was pitching pretty well, but Timmy dragged him straight to hell
For when the crowd cheered, it called out "Barry!"
McCarver heard a different chant and started yet another rant
Was he looped out on candy? Too many sips of brandy?
But just like that, he gave a shout-out to the guy who sang Mandy!

Yes it's Timmy! (TIM!) Timmy McCarver!
You're not listening to Red Barber!
No, it's Timmy! (BOO!) Timmy McCarrrrrverrrrr
He's trying for laughs but they come out as gaffes
Yep with Timmy,.... that's what you get....

His name is Timmy, he's still a sidekick
But it's been 30 years or more that he's been fucking up the store
He needs a gold watch, some Metamucil
And if Selig won't whack him, maybe FOX will
He sits there at his mike, no fact he doesn't like
It's time for MLB to tell this clown
To take a hike!

Yes it's Timmy! (TIM!) Timmy McCarver!
You're not listening to Red Barber!
No, it's Timmy! (BOO!) Timmy McCarrrrrverrrrr
He's trying for laughs but they come out as gaffes
Yep with Timmy,.... that's what you get....♫

Oh to be a fly on the wall this morning....

::brrrring!::

Caller: Hi, can I speak to Mr. Alderson, please?

Receptionist: I'll see if he's in. Who's calling?

Caller: Brian.

Receptionist: Brian who?

Caller: He'll know.

::buzz::

Alderson: I figured I'd be hearing from you.

Caller: Sandy! How's the family? Tee times going okay for your guys now?

Alderson: Shut up, Cashman. I know what this is about.

Caller: Oh, really? I was just checking on whether you'd consider renting out your ballpark on road trips a few times a year. We're, um, having trouble with our sluggers who can't hit left-handed pitching for shit.

Alderson: Let's cut to the chase, Brian. You're benching your all-world third baseman and want to see if we'll give you David even up, right?

Caller: That would be tampering and you know it. And That Would Be Wrong.  Besides, we'd want a lot more for such a surefire box office draw if, ....hypo-thetically, A-Rod was available.

Alderson: Let me guess. You also want Dickey, Wheeler and some players to be named later.

Caller: Who needs later? Throw in Matt Harvey and a spare DH or two for Scranton and we can talk.

Alderson: But we DON'T talk. That's the point. The all-time roster of the New York Yets barely fields a team.

Caller: Well, THAT's something you should be familiar with.

Alderson: Oh, go suck on a crabcake. We never talk. Barely ever, anyway. Who have we traded between us since that awesome Stanton-Heredia deal eight years ago?

Caller: The heck with that. We only made nine trades with you in 30 years of Boss George. He hated you guys for daring to compete with him. Told me, Stick and Watson not to even take your calls.

Alderson: But you took that one about Benitez. How'd that work out for you?

Caller: Hey. Even a stopped clock catches fire if you pour gasoline on it twice a day.

Alderson: That list isn't complete, anyway. Didn't we trade Swoboda to you?

Caller: Not quite. You dumped him off on the Expos before the '71 season, and we grabbed him from there before the trade deadline. You know, back when the trade deadline was in June.

Alderson: At least you didn't unretire number 4 for him. We have our own issues with numbers, yaknow.

Caller: So, before I call Magic Johnson, what do you think? Dude grew up a Mets fan. You need fannies in those seats. Might be just the Wright thing to do....

When I became a baseball fan in late second grade, I went all-in. I devoured every rule, every stat, every story to get up to speed on this game that the cooler kids all knew better and even played far longer than I did. Baseball cards, cereal boxes, newspaper clippings- they all became my lifelines. Then I got my public library card in third grade, and even more worlds opened. To this day, the only Dewey Decimal number I know by heart is 796.357- home of the baseball non-fiction collection. When those ran thin (and face it, in 1968, books about the Mets were the essence of thin-ness), I sought out fiction.  Including one which I can still see in my mind's eye, and, thanks to the amazin'ment of the Internet, in my eye's eye too:





You can even find it in at least a handful of upstate (mostly school) libraries, or buy it on Amazon, and the tale told of it there is about what I remember it being:

Tom Faust is a sparkling young pitcher with a live arm and a superb fastball. So good that he can simply rear back and throw it by major league hitters. He also has superb control, which means that he can put the ball in the locations most difficult for the batters. His desire to win is so great that he agrees to pitch at a frequency that burns his arm out in a few years.

After consulting numerous physicians, he is finally told that his arm is simply worn out and no medical treatment, even rest, will lead to recovery. His only hope to return to the major leagues is to develop a set of off-speed pitches, known in the trade as junk. It is a struggle at first, requiring him to completely change his style. He also must learn to become a super fielder, the batters that before were whiffing in style are now hitting him hard, and he must be prepared to respond at all times.

Despite a few emotional outbursts, Tom is a willing and eager learner and eventually works his way back into the major leagues. In an act of coincidental revenge, he pitches his greatest game against the team that originally burned him out. Barely missing a no-hitter, he shows the world that he is truly a pitcher and not just a body with a whip for a right arm.

I'd forgotten the Marlowe-ian foreshadowing in the character's name (and can't let it go, seeing how this blog is named for a Marlowe-ian character) , but otherwise, that long-lost story came back to me this morning after reading the accounts of R.A. Dickey's final appearance, and of the speculation on how it would impact his Cy Young chances.  There seems to have been much suspicion from potential voters about his bona fides on account of his being a Junk Pitcher, such that his similar story of failure, frustration and fantastic readjustment is held against him rather than as cause to celebrate.

Further, I don't recall any emotional outbursts on R.A.'s part, but other than that, the parallels to this old tale are striking. The revenge against those who gave up on him, the barely missing a no-no, and then the stranger-than-fiction inclusion of Adam Greenberg in the story of last night's events.  I heard Greenberg on a sports show earlier today, who considered it a strange irony that he'd get his second shot against a guy with such a striking story of his own.  He flat-out declared Dickey as deserving of the Cy Young, no question about it; and he looks forward to getting a second at-bat against him in the future to redeem himself.

Unless, of course, two final fates converge, and the Mets both retain R.A. and sign Greenberg. You can never go wrong with a name like that in New York.

----

Other than those memorable moments, last night just put more runny icing on the cake left out in the rain. I don't think that I can take it, all the memories of the past few months after the promise of the first three.  The only certainty so far seems to be the retention of the field generals, which will no doubt result in Wally Backman going elsewhere, a year before Wright and R.A. likely do the same.  Only the prospect of a complete collapse, whether on the field or in the financials of the Wilpons, would give me hope of things becoming different any time soon.  After seeing how quickly an ownership transfusion changed the fortunes of the Dodgers, there always is that hope if it happens. I fear, though, that it won't, and probably can't, happen without that change.

On the other hand, the Wilpons could try selling their souls to the devil- again- and see if it works out better this time. Hey, it could work as well as it apparently did down in D.C. this year. If you need to get in touch with the ol' boy, just get in touch, Jeffy; I just might be able to figure out the Prince of Darkness's website address;)

This should have been a happy occasion.

Back in late June, we would have been looking at this final homestand of the season with nervous anticipation. The Marlins, who we all knew couldn't have been a contendah by then, were likely to be the easy pickins that they proved to be the past three games, and then the Pirates? The then-division-leading Pirates? Nah. Never would have lasted. We coulda cleaned up on them nicely- just like we should've done when I went down there on this same weekend in 2006 and, somehow, they swept us.

Tonight could've brought the historic clinch we were unable to get that year. On September 24th, the anniversary of our first-ever zeroing of a Magic Number. Instead, all the Mets have to play for the next four games is a limitation of their own Tragic Number to something not too negative- and, come Thursday, for RA to have his likely last shot at XX.

That game, I'll take as it comes. But for the next three nights, Ich Bin Ein Piratesfan.

They are a team that deserves better, in a ballpark that's been wasted for even longer than our boneyard of a new ballpark, in a city with proud histories in three professional sports.  They are still barely alive in the wild card race- 6½ back with ten to play- but a more reachable goal is to have their first winning season since 1992, our year of The Worst Team Money Could Buy. Going into tonight, they are two games under .500 with those same ten to play: these four, and then two much tougher sets of three against the Reds and Braves, both at home, and for whom, by then, either or both might have nothing to play.

I'd say the Mets can at least contribute the next three nights to rebuilding Pirate confidence. Then, even with Dickey winning on Thursday, they'll be at .500 going into those final six home games, where, unlike certain people we know, they are a commanding nine games over .500 thus far.

This will clearly take some practice. Do they still chant Beat 'em Bucs! to the cadence of LGM? Is "We Are Family" still part of the family? Who are these guys, anyway?

It's scoreless as I post this, so at least my rooting interest hasn't hurt yet.  We'll see how this-all holds up.

I've seen the season die in Flushing
Saw Casey Stengel hang his head
And life went on in all the pennant races,
They all kept playing after July 1st
And left us here for dead.

They cut their losses up in Buffalo
They said, "These so-called prospects blow!"
They'll try for better days,
With draft picks from Blue Jays,
While we keep sucking in the Show...

I've seen the season die in Flushing
The Wilpons ruined what once was proud,
You know we almost didn't notice it
With a Shake Shack and a Caesars Club,
Which are great but never loud.

They burned the bridges first with Beltran
And soon thereafter with José,
You think they'll try to fight
To make a deal with Wright
Or show some money to R.A.?...

I've seen the season die in Flushing
I watched a mighty stadium fall.
They built a pretty one in its parking lot,
It'd be a tougher ticket,
But we never came at all.

They sent a prophet named Francesca
Who said the Yankees were the best.
They said the Mets could stay,
To play one more game at Shea,
But they lost that game like all the rest...

You know that field was bright in Flushing
But that was so many years ago...
Except when that team comes up from Florida
Just to prove that, yes, you can stoop more low.
There are not many who remember
Their empty seats and strange Red Grooms
But still, today, I wish
We'll out-un-suck the Fish
And push them home with our stinky brooms!