The guys at Amazin’ Avenue have gone to town with my Shellfish Beltran image from the weekend. Check it out.
Shellfish Beltran now a thing
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Hell yes it was awesome. Sad thing is I was in the press box, where fist-pumping is frowned upon.
What’s less awesome is it’s a moment that will certainly be overlooked by the trade-David-Wrong set next time he strikes out in the same spot. It’s like I said in my season preview: We expect Wright to come through all the time, so the spots where he does are hardly notable. Too many people remember the whiffs and forget the go-ahead doubles.
This is totally unscientific, but I expect Wright to return to his 2006-08 form in 2011. I can’t say why; maybe it’s the regime change, the new hitting coach, a stronger lineup around him, whatever. Could be just blind Mets-fan optimism.
Technically yes. I ate a sandwich that was of Cuban ancestry: The Fritas Cubana from Morro Castle in Little Havana. It’s a burger with sausage meat mixed into the patty, covered in crispy shoestring fried potatoes. Pretty excellent.
I did not eat a traditional pork/pickle/mustard pressed Cuban sandwich, though. That’s unfortunate because I really like those, but I figured I have had plenty of ’em before and I’d never had a Fritas Cubana. Plus the place I was hoping to have one — Las Olas Cafe in Miami Beach — is now closed. I did enjoy a Cuban sandwich of sorts the last time I was in Florida, in West Palm Beach.
I’m reasonably certain it’s just Starship’s “We Built This City” on infinite repeat.
Paul Assenmacher, and it’s not even close.
Well my first instinct is to just say astronaut ice cream on a roll, but did they have astronaut ice cream in 1969? When did astronauts get ice cream?
I’m thinking you need the sandwich to be patriotic, so Russian dressing is right out. Same goes for French and Italian, I suppose, and the Thousand Islands are a little too Canadian for this endeavor. Sad thing is there’s no “American dressing.” Does mayo count as American dressing? Mustard is too European. Ketchup seems to be of American origin, but I’m not sure I want to put ketchup on such a monumental sandwich. No disrespect.
This is hard; I’m trying to think like a 1969 deli owner. How’s this: I take turkey breast, cut it into strips and batter and deep fry it. Those, with Cheez Whiz — doesn’t get more American than Cheez Whiz — and some Open Pit barbecue sauce, the tangy red type (a nod to Tang, of course). And on a hero, obviously. Only problem is the red barbecue sauce and yellow cheese might look vaguely Soviet. Commies.
That’s a pretty gross sandwich in concept but I bet in reality it’d be pretty awesome. Especially in 1969, which is probably before a lot of good sandwiches had even come out. Why does no one make turkey fingers, anyway?
I’d probably call it The Apollo. Pretty mighty name for a sandwich.
As far as I’m concerned, yes. I’m something of a descriptivist when it comes to sandwiches. It has to be on a case by case basis, but generally as long as something is wrapped in starch and portable, it’s a sandwich. Thus, Jamaican beef patties are sandwiches. Wraps are sandwiches. Burritos are sandwiches. Empanadas? Sandwiches.
Kentucky hot brown: Not a sandwich. Delicious, undoubtedly, but the whole OG point of sandwiches is that you can eat them with your hands without getting your hands messy. Try that with a hot brown someday. Also, sounds like some sort of perverse thing you’d joke about in ninth grade.
Also, my friend Jake is fond of pointing out that Jamaican beef patties might be the world’s most consistent food. I’m not sure that this is certainly the case in Jamaica, but in Brooklyn pretty much every beef patty you can find — whether you’re getting them at the beef-patty place, the pizzeria, the bodega, wherever — tastes the same: Amazing.
Are the Mets the best team ever?
The Mets took a 9-2 laugher today, notching seven runs before the Marlins scored their first, knocking Javier Vazquez out of the game in the third, fluttering to victory on the back of R.A. Dickey’s windy-day knuckleball. Willie Harris and Ike Davis homered, Jose Reyes had two hits, Daniel Murphy smacked a double, Angel Pagan walked three times. And the Marlins sucked incredibly hard in the field, as has long been their wont.
Terry Collins said something surprising to the media in his post-game conference. “That’s my fault,” he said when asked about a play in the game — Harris stealing second — that took the bat out of David Wright’s hands. Collins got the sign in late to Chip Hale, prompting miscommunication, leading Harris to successfully steal second, causing the Marlins to intentionally walk Wright. The Mets still scored a pair of runs in the inning, but the manager felt the need to express accountability regardless.
Imagine that.
The Mets are 2-1 now, on pace to win 108 games like the 1986 team. The club, inspired by Collins’ humble leadership, is destined for greatness.
I kid, of course. Collins’ sense of responsibility for his actions is a welcome relief after the Mets’ last manager, but we have no evidence yet that it’ll help the team on the field. We have no evidence yet of anything, really. After three games, I know I’m sick of three things: 1) Jokes involving Chin-Lung Hu’s last name; 2) Constant attention to Francisco Rodriguez’s games-finished total; 3) My own silliness in tongue-in-cheekily extrapolating small samples to project the whole season. No more of that.
The other new certainty is that the Mets will not, in fact, finish this year 0-162, despite what acrid twerps all over the Internet would have you believe. The foul finishes of the last few years, the complications in ownership and the whole general not-being-the-Yankees thing color our perception of the team but have little to do with the action on the field. Collins downplayed an “us-against-the-world” mentality, suggesting his team doesn’t need it because the players — like most professional athletes — really believe in their abilities.
The us-against-the-world thing, that’s, ahh, that’s us against the world. Faithful Mets fans with a sense that the team made real improvements this offseason against all the knee-jerk nitwits who have never learned better than to write off a well-run baseball team.
But guess what? Forget about them. If you believe the Mets are a better club and can win games this year then you can just ignore the nonsense, confident you will be absolved. Enjoy the games. Watch a team with some promising young players. Celebrate R.A. Dickey.
The negativity is pointless and often unsubstantiated, but the haters doling it out have made up their minds and will only shout “Mets-fan” — like it’s something to be ashamed of — when you try to reason with them. I say f#@$ ’em. It’s baseball. It’s supposed to be fun. The Mets are 2-1, heading to Philadelphia to face noted Twi-hard Cole Hamels. Cole Hamels, who looks like this. Laugh at this man. Savor it; we’re only months away from another long offseason.
Shellfish Beltran
Mets with beards
Terry Collins called R.A. Dickey “one of the game’s great family men” this morning and told a funny story. Collins said the Mets had a facial-hair policy in the Minors last year. Dickey, when sent to Minor League camp, realized his kids had never seen him without a beard, so he let his kids shave him. I would ask Dickey about how that went down and how badly cut up his face was, but it’s bad form to talk to the starting pitcher before the game.
It’s hard to remember now, but when Dickey made his first start for the Mets last May 18, his face was pathetically beardless. Check out the photo.
Anyway, in honor of Dickey’s start today, I compiled an exhaustive list of Mets that currently have facial hair. Nine of the team’s 25 players, 36-percent, can boast beards, defined here as facial hair extending from ear-to-ear, i.e. not a goatee. Two guys have goatees.
Here are the bearded guys, listed in descending order of beard awesomeness:
Mets with beards
R.A. Dickey
Blaine Boyer
Angel Pagan
Ike Davis
Taylor Buchholz
Jose Reyes
Pedro Beato
Bobby Parnell
Mike Pelfrey
Parnell and Pelfrey fall to the bottom because neither seems fully committed to beardedness.
Mets with goatees
Jon Niese
Willie Harris
This site does not endorse goatees without other facial adornment. Go hard or go home, that’s what I say.
Mets coaches with fine mustaches
Mookie Wilson
Mets coaches with ridiculously awesome baseball-guy mustaches
Ken Oberkfell
No current Met has a beardless mustache. I wholeheartedly support the work done by the folks at “The Wright Stache” website, lobbying David Wright to grow a mustache since 2009.
I talk a good game, but why don’t I have a beard? Because I can’t grow a mustache, or at least not a good one. Every other part of my face and neck grows thick black hair but directly above my lip I get nothing but wispy, thin hairs, like an eighth grader who needs to start shaving but hasn’t yet. This is the great irony of my biography. No disrespect to Abe Lincoln, but I have no interest in growing a mustacheless beard. I do have a pretty sweet collection of fake mustaches, though.
Clouds clear, puppies smile, Mets win
The Mets won a thriller tonight, 6-4. It was an exciting one too. Jon Niese allowed two runs on a series of bloops and bleeders in the first — even Hanley Ramirez’s double wasn’t struck particularly hard. He settled in from there and pitched excellently, keeping the Marlins off base and off balance and using only 87 pitches to get through seven innings. David Wright homered in the fourth, then Carlos Beltran scored from first on Ike Davis’ double in the sixth to tie it up.
The Mets took the lead in the ninth when Josh Thole singled in Chin-Lung Hu, who pinch ran for Ike Davis earlier in the inning. Francisco Rodriguez blew the save in the bottom of the frame, but the Mets put up a three spot in a tenth thanks to a Wright single and a Willie Harris double. Blaine Boyer yielded a run in the bottom of the inning, but the Mets held on to win, 6-4. Good game.
But you know all that already. Here’s what you might not know: The Mets are now 1-1, meaning they’re on pace to go 81-81. That’s math baby. And suddenly — funny how this works — the clouds over the team’s fanbase seem to be dissipating. Expect clear skies until the Mets’ next loss.
The post-game Pitbull concert is in full swing, making it difficult to concentrate on the point I was going to make about Terry Collins bunting in the top of the 10th with Jose Reyes on first and Angel Pagan batting. Pagan showed bunt but laid off the first two pitches, working the count to 2-0.
Over the past two seasons, Angel Pagan has a .544 on-base percentage after a 2-0 count. It’s not a huge sample, but it’s hardly rocket science to expect hitters to be a lot more successful once they’re so far ahead in the count. Collins left the bunt on and it happened to pay off: Pagan tapped one up the third-base line, Greg Dobbs couldn’t make any play and the Mets found two runners on base with no outs.
The process — successful though the result was — is all too familiar to Mets fans of the Jerry Manuel era, and plenty frustrating. Though the Mets only needed one run to take the lead at that point, they would wind up needing two runs to win. Collins, willing to sacrifice Pagan to move a runner to second, was playing for one. Also probably worth mentioning that basestealers are 10-for-10 against Ryan Webb in the Marlins pitcher’s career and the baserunner in this case was Jose Reyes. I’ll amount that perhaps Collins considered that Pagan had a good chance at reaching safely with Dobbs at third.
Whatever. This is not the time for quibbling about strategy. It’s time to enjoy Pitbull and bask in the Mets’ victory.
Niese said he felt sharp all night. Josh Thole said the key for Niese is getting his breaking pitches over, and the lefty broke off a handful of nasty curveballs in the game. Wright went 3-for-5, including the homer. Beltran’s knee held up on the jaunt around the bases and a couple long runs for foul balls in right. Davis hit a pair of doubles. Like I said, this was a good game.
This is a less-good concert.
Brian Cashman just keeps saying whatever the hell comes to his mind
[Pedro Feliciano] was abused. It’s a thin market when you’re looking for lefties, and he’s one of the better ones out there. But you don’t typically go after a guy who’s been used like that. The use pattern was abusive.
Mets fans seem ticked off about Cashman’s comment, though I can hardly see why. I suppose it’s unprofessional to call out another organization for your mistake, but I’ve never been much one for professionalism. And to me it’s hard to see how the goat here is anyone but Cashman.
The Mets did overwork Feliciano. He led the National League in appearances three years running, and who can count how many times Jerry Manuel got Feliciano warmed up only to not use him — “dry-humping,” in the parlance of our times.
But — as Dan Warthen joked to reporters today — the Yankees probably should have known about that when they signed Until Recently Perpetual Pedro. Hard to really kill the Mets for using him so often, either: He never got hurt on their watch, so they got everything they could out of him and moved on at (apparently) the right time. That doesn’t seem very fair to Feliciano, but then he’s the one who got rewarded with a two-year $8 million deal this offseason, and the guy who reportedly asked for the ball every day.
About that: I get that Feliciano wanted to pitch every day. I’ve even read the reports that he claimed to pitch better when worked heavily. But just because a professional athlete says he can play doesn’t mean the team should always do so. The Mets probably got lucky to enjoy three full healthy seasons of Feliciano throwing in more than half their games. Next time they try that, it’ll probably catch up with them — not the Yankees.
Of course we have no evidence yet that Terry Collins will manage that way.
The most interesting part about this to me is that Cashman seems to have carried his bizarre new habit of saying all sorts of things he probably shouldn’t into the regular season.
Everybody panic
The Mets lost tonight. They are in last place and on pace to go 0-162.
Josh Johnson is really awesome at pitching. In the clubhouse after the game, just about every Met said so. They also said they “battled” and that “you have to tip your hat to the guy.”
Presumably you saw the game. If you didn’t, you didn’t miss much: Mike Pelfrey struggled to find the strike zone and Johnson was typically excellent. Willie Harris had a pair of hits and Beltran drove a double down the line.
Tomorrow is Saturday, but since I’m still in Miami it won’t be like a normal Saturday on TedQuarters. I need to find a sandwich so there might not be much in the morning, but I’ll be here at Sun Life Stadium in the afternoon writing posts that I hope are more substantive than this one.
For now, the important thing is to read way too much into small samples and freak the hell out. WILL THE METS EVER WIN A GAME?
Mets season previews, all in one spot
Because there’s an hour and a half to go until the Mets season starts and maybe you’re as antsy as I am, I’ll prey on your restlessness for page views if you haven’t read some of these yet. Here are the positional season previews I rolled out this week.
Starting pitchers
Catchers
First basemen
Second basemen
Third basemen
Shortstops
Left fielders
Center fielders
Right fielders
Bullpen
And here’s the general season preview from earlier.
Blame Mighty Casey
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat.
– Ernest Thayler, “Casey at the Bat.”
Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat” is on the short list of my favorite things ever. If you’re not very familiar with the full text of the poem or haven’t read it in a while, go check it out now and come back here.
The situation: The Mudville nine are down 4-2 with two out in the ninth inning. Against all odds, a pair of terrible hitters — Flynn and Johnny Blake — reach base, bringing up the team’s best slugger, Casey. He strikes out on three pitches.
Casey appears the goat. His air-shattering whiff means there will be no light hearts or laughing men or shouting children in Mudville.
But think about it another way: Maybe Mighty Casey is not at fault for the Nine’s fate. He is, after all, marooned in a lineup full of “lulus” and “cakes” — to use Thayer’s awesome words. No doubt he has been carrying Flynn and Johnny Blake on his back all season. No doubt Flynn and Johnny Blake dribbled out in their first four at-bats that day in Mudville. And the skipper isn’t doing his team any favors batting a star hitter behind Blake the cake.
You might even say “Casey at the Bat” is the original Blame Beltran narrative. The club can only muster a couple runs in eight innings, but we put the onus on its best player for the loss.
The Mets, these past few years, have been dragged down by too many lulus. We remember the times Carlos Beltran and David Wright fail in big spots because we expect them to get hits. No one ever wrote poems about the dozens of times Flynn made the last out in Mudville because no one thought he’d come through in the first place.
The Mets failed to add a player of Casey’s stature or anything close this offseason, so many fans and media expect they won’t improve over their past couple of miserable seasons. But quietly, Sandy Alderson and his crew rid the Mets’ lineup of the Johnny Blakes.
Assuming Lucas Duda starts most of the games in left field until Jason Bay returns, the worst hitter in the Mets’ lineup is probably Brad Emaus. And Emaus, a patient hitter with good Minor League numbers, is (we hope) hardly an automatic out. As long as Beltran stays healthy and Wright and Jose Reyes play like they can, the Mets will have three legitimate offensive stars in their lineup. Bay, Duda, Ike Davis and Angel Pagan should all hit. And there likely won’t be many eighth hitters in the National League better than Josh Thole.
With no obvious gaping holes in their lineup, the Mets should score a lot of runs. Though none of their starting pitchers is Johan Santana, all five appear apt to keep the team in games. The bullpen, cobbled together though it may be, looks decent.
Will everything proceed smoothly then? Of course not. Players will get hurt, pitchers will bomb, Francisco Rodriguez will blow a couple of late leads. These things happen. But the Mets, with a deeper club and a manager hopefully less eager to destroy his pitching staff, should be better prepared to shoulder those blows.
That might be hard to believe if you read certain newspapers, magazines and websites or listen to a large subsection of the fanbase. The disappointing finishes of the last few years combined with the perpetual drumbeat of bad news about the team’s owners have sucked much of the dialogue regarding the team’s chances in 2011 into a maelstrom of negativity. “Only the Mets.” “Same old Mets.” “Blame Beltran.”
But these are not the same old Mets. There is a new manager and front office. Eighteen of the team’s 25 players were not on the Opening Day roster last year. Change does not guarantee success, but this is hardly the team that mustered a Francoeurian 90 OPS+ in 2010 and gave 40 cumulative starts to Livan Hernandez and Tim Redding in 2009.
Is improved depth and more organizational foresight enough for the Mets to take down the Braves and Phillies in the division? Probably not, though way crazier things have happened in baseball. The Mets should win more games than they lose, and do so with players that might actually be part of their future, guys we are excited to watch.
That certainly won’t be enough for some people, and doubtless we’ll still be exposed to plenty of that negativity from the stricken multitudes. But really, who cares? We have the choice to tune out the nonsense and celebrate good players playing baseball, knowing that the front office does seem to have the Mets moving in the right direction and that the team will still be around enjoying the trappings of their huge market whenever its ownership situation is settled. Starting at 7:10 p.m. tonight, all that really matters – as far as I’m concerned, at least — is what the team does on the field.
Here we go.
Tedquarters 