You’re welcome, Mets fans

Why did the Mets wait until 2015 to start off smoking hot, with a 10 game winning streak (without David Wright, Travis d’Arnaud, Jenrry Mejia, or Jerry Blevins)? How has Wilmer Flores (mostly) stopped sucking? How did Bartolo Colón at one point have more RBIs than Curtis Granderson? It’s because I moved to another continent. Duh!

You’re welcome, fellow Mets fans.

Who is breeding with these people?

For the last time, people (and by people, I mean men), put down the babies before you lunge for foul balls. Thanks.

Brooklyn, Baseball, and Bumper Cars

I decided not to stay home and brood on the day that my job was closed due to budget cuts. Instead, I took my nephews (Elder Satan, 14; and Satanski, 5) to Brooklyn. I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve been to Brooklyn, but that’s more due to a lack of any specific reason to go, than to an opposition to the borough. The primary reason for our trip was to see the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Mets’ Short-Season Class A affiliate. I really enjoyed the minor league games I went to when I was going to school in Virginia (Single A Lynchburg Hillcats and Triple A Norfolk Tides), and thought that it would be a fun trip to see with the boys. I didn’t want the first baseball game I took them to to be a MLB game, especially since those tickets cost a lot, and I wasn’t sure if the kids were willing to stay for an entire game.

We arrived in Coney Island about two hours before we needed to get to the stadium, so we grabbed something to eat and then went to an arcade and played air hockey, skee ball, and that basketball game where you see how many baskets you can get in 30 seconds. Elder Satan and I had hoped to compete against each other, but the balls took forever to come back, and we agreed that it would be a waste of time to count the few baskets we were able to get before the time ran out. We did better competing at skee ball and air hockey, and I’m not mentioning them just because I won.

We played bumper cars, too, and it cracked the boys up to see me driving anything. I am awesome at bumper cars, though, and with Satanski by my side, managed to crash into Elder Satan a lot, while avoiding most of the weird strangers who kept trying to ram us. It was harder to find things for Satanski to do, since we learned the hard way that he didn’t have the height for the basketball game or the coordination for skee ball (his balls had the disturbing tendency to end up one or two lanes over from where they’d started). He had a great time on the motorcycle video game, although his brother had to help him steer, and on Dance Dance Revolution, where a helpful little kid stepped on whatever food pad caught his fancy, sometimes even making the correct combination. Although we were excited about seeing the Cyclones, we were all a little sad to leave the arcade when it was time to head over to the stadium.

We shouldn’t have been, because we had a great time at the game. One thing that I love about minor league stadiums (I know, I know: technically, stadia is more correct, but hardly anybody uses that word anymore) is that they try to get and keep your attention in a way that major league ballparks do not. As we walked to the game of MCU Park, people in Carvel shirts gave Carvel Flying Saucers to anybody who cared for one (Satanski declared that he was frightened of these, and did not take one), and after we had our tickets scanned, stadium employees handed out CUNY duffel bags to the first 2,500 fans, so we got some of those, too. It was Thomas the Tank Night last night, so kids who wore Thomas clothing got to take the field (I didn’t dress Satanski in anything related to Thomas, but he did enjoy the Thomas songs and trivia throughout the night). Did you know that Thomas & Co. are 65 years old? I didn’t either.

Satanski made friends with a similarly-aged boy in the row behind us, and they laughed for five innings straight at the beverage vendor in our section, whose call was, “Beer and a bottle of water!” He did have a thick accent (like New Yorkers often sound on tv and not as much in real life), and for some reason the boys just died every time he said that. I didn’t get it, and the joke did grow old with repetition. I didn’t mind it so much when that kid and his family left after the fifth.

Satanski was more into the game than I’d dared to hope he would be, and he got really excited when the Cyclones scored on a two-run double. “Touchdown,” he yelled. It was pretty cute. Even after I explained that there were no touchdowns in baseball (“or cheerleaders, either,” he added), he yelled the same thing the next time the Cyclones scored. Another thing that he enjoyed was when three people dressed as Ketchup, Mustard, and Relish had a race along the left field line. Satanski and I do not like mustard and relish, so we rooted for Ketchup, but he was vanquished the gooey, oddly-textured Relish. I listened to him talking on the phone with his dad, trying to explain how we booed Mustard and Relish, and took the line to explain to my very confused brother that his son and I had not randomly jeered condiments.

My older nephew, who is not as evil as his brother but is nevertheless known as Elder Satan, was not as chatty as his brother during the game. We did share a laugh over a 20-something hipster couple where the guy had an insane handlebar moustache and the woman had fuschia Lee Press On nails.  We spent two innings trying to get a picture of the guy, and I finally was able to get it not too long before we left at the top of the eighth.

It was a long trip back home (an hour on the subway and then a wait at Port Authority, and then traffic at 11 pm on 495), but we had a really great time yesterday.

Human element, my foot

I’m really sick of hearing the words “human element” used to excuse really crappy calls in baseball, and I’m sure that now Armando Galarraga is, too. Poor guy.

Take it out on the opposition

It sounds like Mets closer K-Rod nearly got into a fight with bullpen coach Randy Niemann on Sunday night. That would be the same Sunday where K-Rod came in and struggled, and then struck out A-Rod on a 3 – 2 count to end the game. On deck was Robinson Cano, who has turned into an alarmingly (if you’re not a Yankees fan, anyway) awesome baseball player lately, although he’s not putting up the numbers he did in April and the Mets were able to shut him down this weekend. He’d slumped so much during the series that if he had come up, I’m sure he would have wanted to redeem himself by putting his team ahead. Anyways, I suggest that K-Rod spend less time getting into heated arguments with old guys and more time actually doing his damn job. Sure, K-Rod and Niemann made up later, but K-Rod has to learn control. A lot of control.

You’re out!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist making a bad pun about the totally awesome news that MLB finally fired some not-so-great umpires. Of course, I’m sure that more went into this decision than their penchant for blowing calls, or else C. B. Bucknor and Angel Hernandez (who somehow wasn’t even mentioned in this article) would have been gone a long time ago. Still, I hope this makes umpires think twice and consult with one another before they start guessing at calls. It’s hard enough to defend baseball to those who think it’s a boring game that goes on for too long, without having to add a disclaimer that umpire errors are expected in baseball. At least, the commissioner thinks so.

Jeez

I go away for a few days and WordPress goes and changes everything…including my avatar, which was formerly a photo of my adorable nephew. Weird. I’m still angry with the Mets right now, and do not prefer to have their logo represent me on WordPress.

I haven’t been doing too much lately. Except for knitting. I’ve been doing a lot of knitting. And frogging. I’m never so OCD as when I’m knitting, and then I get this perfectionist streak that is completely at odds with the fact that I still don’t pay as much attention as I should to what I’m making. That’s because I need to watch something when I’m knitting.

Recently, I’ve seen 27 Dresses, Enchanted, Step Up (I’m a bit ashamed about that one), and I started Made of Honor, but I find the pratfalls a bit much and haven’t yet resumed from Dempsey’s second face plant in a single scene. I finished up the third and final season of Veronica Mars, and I’ve now moved on to Cupid, which I just learned is on youtube. How awesome. I remember loving that show, but the details are blurry at this point. I’m pleased that it’s as smart and funny as I remember, and that the wardrobe and hair isn’t so dated as to be a total distraction. I’ve also been really into Chuck lately, and it’s gotten so good that I even watch it before Gossip Girl! Heroes is still stupid, but not as single-mindedly moronic as it was earlier in the season, so I’ve resumed watching it on Monday, instead of allowing several episodes to pile up and then watching them all at once.

I’m about to be single single again (as opposed to mostly single), so that should leave me even more time to 1) make socks and 2) not make any of the Christmas presents I intended to knit.

I cannot believe how quickly summer/autumn happened, and that it will be winter in just a couple of weeks.

Whatever dudes

So the Mets choked. Again. Some more. I am disappointed, but definitely not surprised. It came to me this morning that my team has become the baseball equivalent of the early-mid 1990s Knicks, which is pretty sad. They look promising, beat the teams that need to be beaten, and then make stupid mistakes that eventually prove to be their undoing. To say that the Mets have become the premiere choke artists of the MLB would be an understatement; I think they had that one sewn up in 2007. This has gone on for three years now, and it’s sad that expensive mediocrity has become the norm for the Mets. Well, now I can root for either the Red Sox or the Rays; the Sox have always been my preferred AL team, but the Rays have such a good story this year (despite the stupid name change).

But on to other things. While the Mets were in Flushing crushing the dreams of their fans, I was elsewhere in the borough, attending the Hispanic Heritage Parade in Jackson Heights. Satanski is quite obsessed with parades, so even though our connection to Hispanic Heritage is tenuous at best (his maternal great-grandmother was from Puerto Rico, and I’m the usual black American mutt), we went. It was pouring when we exited the subway and I was sure that the parade would be canceled, but we’d come all the way from New Jersey, so I thought we should check. How smart I am! A local traffic cop told me that the parade was still on and a few beat officers directed us to 37th Avenue. My nephew, who at 3 has a completely unfounded phobia about police officers, was quite impressed with their helpfulness and shouted, “Thank you, police!” as we walked to our destination. It was supposed to start at noon, but it was closer to 12:45 before it actually got under way. As you might imagine, the sounds and colors were amazing, and the parade really got going when the rain stopped falling. I went largely to see my belly dance teacher and fellow students perform (to salsa music, which was actually a neat combination), but the kid was getting cranky and all paraded-out, so we left after they passed us by. I brought my smaller camera and did not properly charge the batteries, so I actually don’t know what kind of shots I got. I turned off review to preserve battery function and didn’t look at them when I got home, so I will go over and post those pictures when I get home after work (which might be delayed, as I just found out that Helen Wang is having a store closing sale and things are going for 80% off).

Sorta Boom (no dynamite was involved in the making of this post)

Yesterday morning, my parents’ church was torn down to give way for a bigger, awesomer, more churchier church. They have well over 2,000 members now and that church was constructed to hold 400 (which, in 1948, seemed like a huge sum and was way more space than was necessary), so even with three services, they were struggling to seat people comfortably and safely. I went with the parents and Satanski to see the demolition, and it was a pretty interesting experience. I attended that church for my entire childhood, and spent countless hours with a lot of the people I saw at the demolition. I’m no longer a member there, but I have mostly positive memories of the congregation and the times I had there. I’ll admit, it was nice to be fawned over and to have people tell me how nice I looked and how great it was to see me. Weird, since I don’t often think about a lot of those people, but nice all the same. I do go to church every now and then, and it’s nice to know that there’s a place where people think of you, miss you, and wish you well. I wondered what kind of reaction I’d have to the demolition, but I have to say that I really don’t feel anything at all. Some people did cry, but to me, it’s just a building, and the congregation is staying together while it’s being built, so it’s not exactly the end of an era. It’s probably wrong to bring baseball into this discussion, but that’s also why I don’t care so much that Shea Stadium is getting thrown over for something younger and prettier. Actually, now that I think about it, I might mind that more, because it will soon cost me more than it already does to get into a Mets game, and I’ll probably still end up leaving with that same sense of disappointment that I’m feeling right now.

The first thing the demolition crew did was to remove the church’s cornerstone. Or, they tried to remove the cornerstone. What was supposed to start at 7:30 and take no more than an hour started at 8:30 and took at least three hours. Apparently the chuch wasn’t built by professionals, and it seems that they overcompensated and made sure that everything was in there real good. That rings true; when one of my  college classes visited the Habitat for Humanity headquarters in Georgia, the person who with whom we met told us that Hurricane Andrew showed that HfH homes were more likely to withstand hurricanes than homes built by professionals, because (motivated, but largely untrained) volunteers always used more nails than was strictly necessary and therefore built sturdier homes. A couple of guys were still working on that at the front of the church while the rest of the crew starting knocking in the roof and the back of the church. I had been told that there would be dynamite, or some other explosive agent used, but that turned out to be a dirty lie. They just used one of those excavator things to keep knocking stuff in. We didn’t stay for the whole thing, because I had to get to work in the afternoon and also watching a building get knocked in doesn’t stay exciting for long, but we were told that, by the time the crew called it a day, only one wall and the front steps remained.

What is this feeling?

I think it might be..yup, it is…ladies and gents, I have hope. Hope that my stupid Mets can stave off their inevitable collapse long enough to make it into the post season. They beat the Cubs tonight, which is great, since the Cubs are kicking butt this season. I’m looking forward to that colossal choke as well. Also, it’s official that the Yankees cannot possibly make it to the postseason, so I’m pretty freaking happy right now.