Author Archives: Ted Berg

Someone other than Oliver Perez going to be cut to make room for Pat Misch

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Lefty Pat Misch, who has had a stellar season for the Mets’ Triple-A team, likely will start Saturday’s game against Roy Halladay and the Phillies.

If Misch is called up, the Mets would have to make a roster move, with reliever Manny Acosta the leading candidate to be sent down.

– New York Daily News.

First of all, I know Acosta blew a game he shouldn’t have been in on Wednesday, but really? Him? Acosta has actually been decent for the Mets outside of that one awful outing and appears a better bet to be good moving forward than Elmer Dessens, who has completely disappeared.

After pitching in basically every other game from the All-Star Break until the end of July, Dessens hasn’t pitched since a 2 2/3 inning outing in the Mets 14-1 loss to the D-backs on Aug. 1. That was actually the last time Ollie Perez pitched, too.

The Mets are carrying two guys in their bullpen who don’t pitch at all. But hey, that’s cool, it’s not about winning games anymore. It’s about… wait, what is it about?

Is this the end of Larry Jones?

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Chipper Jones may have played his last game in the major leagues after tearing up his left knee while fielding a ground ball.

The Atlanta Braves said Thursday that the 38-year-old third baseman tore his anterior cruciate ligament and will need surgery. The estimated recovery time is six months, short enough to be ready for the next opening day – if Jones decides to return in 2011.

– Paul Newberry, Associated Press.

Well — and I say this without irony — that’s a shame. There were many different embarrassing and hilarious ways I fantasized about Chipper’s career ending, so this one seems anti-climactic. If he’s really done, I hate that he won’t be around for one last trip through Flushing and one last “Lar-ry,” chant.

Chipper Jones was an all-time great player and, to Mets fans, an all-time great villain. He deserves better and we deserve better than for it to end like this. So now I’m left actually rooting for Chipper Jones to recover from his injury so he can return in 2011 only to be humiliated in some grand fashion.

Also — and this is the most f@#$-up part — the injury makes the Braves’ road to October baseball a bit bumpier, and that’s actually a bad thing. The Phillies are somehow more loathsome, and the Mets appear so far out of it that a blow to the Braves might only open the door for the stupid Phillies to take the division. Oh lord, what has it come to?

Johan Santana never really had much time for the one-inning closer thing anyway

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The Mets didn’t have or need a closer today.

Apparently Johan Santana spoke to Jerry Manuel before the game and said, “Don’t come out there today. Leave me alone.”

And so — against all odds, really — he did.

Santana whiffed 10 and walked two in a 115-pitch shutout. He also singled and scored a run, because Johan Santana likes to thoroughly dominate his opponents.

A billion reporters and columnists were on hand because K-Rod beat up his father-in-law last night. It’s going to be fascinating to see how many writers try to spin this single win into something more, even though every player stressed that it wasn’t, and that they try to win every day, and that they don’t know too much about the situation but they support their teammate 100 percent.

Carlos Beltran went 3-for-3 with a double and a sacrifice fly. The two singles weren’t exactly scalded and the double came from the right side of the plate, but a three-hit night is a three-hit night and Beltran said it would give him confidence, even if he still felt a bit uncomfortable. Plus he made a nice running catch in center field. It was almost like old times again.

What a nice little afternoon baseball game.

Melvin Mora: Not on Team Melvin

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I don’t want to scoop the video interview I just did with Melvin Mora since it’ll come out sometime early next week and you can watch it then, but know that Melvin Mora is totally awesome and cool.

I’m probably biased because Mora was always one of my favorite Mets in his brief tenure with the team. I thought it was awesome when he randomly became one of the best hitters in the American League for a couple of years, and even kind of awesome when he hit that grand slam last night.

Anyway, Mora told me he cried when he found out the Mets traded him to the Orioles. And he talked about Edgardo Alfonzo’s role in getting him on the Mets’ roster, which was cool. Real good interview, I think — one of my favorites this year.

Also, while this was happening, Ubaldo Jimenez was signing autographs for some fans. Some reporters were in the dugout to interview him so he gave the “one sec” sign to the crowd.

While he was answering the reporters’ questions, he grabbed a bunch of brand-new, official Major League baseballs out of a bag and signed them. I figured he was autographing them for the interviewer or something (even though that’s a big-time media no-no around here), but after he finished the interview he went back to where he was standing and tossed all the balls out to the crowd.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player do something like that before, and it’s particularly awesome that it should be a player who’s, well, particularly awesome. So that’s cool.

And furthermore, the Rockies were pumping Madonna in the clubhouse before the game, and I mean that in the most innocent sense of the term. First “La Isla Bonita,” then “Like a Prayer.” Pretty weird.

Bowie to Bowie

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I’m off to Citi Field, where there’ll be a whole lot of nonsense we didn’t expect when we set up the Jason Giambi and Melvin Mora interviews. I’ll be back on from the press box, but in the meantime enjoy this Flight of the Conchords video. Before I saw this I had honestly never considered how silly it is that both parts of Space Oddity are Bowie.

Hard Knocks that don’t involve K-Rod

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I caught the first episode of Hard Knocks on HBO last night. I had never seen the show before so I didn’t know what to expect.

It was pretty cool. Mostly it made me miss playing and coaching football, thanks to all the dramatized slow-motion footage of the Jets’ drills and everything. Football camp was actually damn near torturous, but the show glorified it thoroughly enough to color my memories.

I am skeptical about whether the players, coaches and executives really behave on camera the same way they would off camera. In fact, I am almost certain they don’t. I have no doubt that Rex Ryan is both literally and figuratively larger than life when the cameras aren’t rolling, but no one acts the same when they know it’s being documented and broadcast. Reality TV is anything but. This is Rex Ryan’s best Rex Ryan performance, and he does a pretty good job of it.

Mike Tannenbaum, on the other hand, is brutal to watch. First off, I had no idea the dude was so emo. The whole conversation he had with Woody Johnson about how Darrelle Revis’ agent was also a human being who went home to his wife? Ugh. Plus the scene had the dramatic timing of continental drift. Show me football, please.

When Hard Knocks did that, it was sweet. The NFL Films-style footage looked great in HD and the sound was incredible — it’s awesome to hear the uncensored antics of players in games and on sidelines.

Predictably, the show dramatized the Revis thing and a couple of rookies getting cut — a part rendered even sadder because you knew these poor kids had to suffer an awful life moment on camera.

Most of the real, relevant football insight that could be gleaned from the show focused on rookie fullback John Conner. Turns out Tannenbaum gives Ryan one draft pick that’s all his, and Conner was Ryan’s choice this year. Ryan said he was watching film of linebackers when he spotted Conner leveling dudes for Kentucky and fell for him. Apparently Conner looks impressive early in camp and even knocked Calvin Pace around a bit.

Also, and most importantly, his name is John Conner and he is nicknamed “The Terminator” (even though, of course, John Connor was not the Terminator. Calling a fullback “Edward Furlong” would probably be a whole lot less intimidating).

Anyway, probably worth checking out the show. Made me really psyched for football season, especially since it immediately followed that brutal, brutal Mets game.