Mark Reichman

Oliver Perez is the owner of the most enigmatic and frustrating arm in the Mets rotation; lately you expect the worst but never know when you might see his dominant side.   Sunday in the “Dirt Match” against the Yankees, Perez was completely in control of the game for seven surprising innings.  (”Dirt Match” is a phrase I’m trying to establish for the final game of a four game series when one team is fighting for the split, “dirt” being less solid footing than “rubber”).  It’s odd how Perez can go from averaging close to a walk an inning with a 5.29 ERA and then suddenly turn it on and scatter three hits and no walks in a big game.  Does it have to be all or nothing, can’t he bottle some of that excellence and just be a capable pitcher most of the time?

I suppose the answer is that Perez has great stuff but can only control it once in a while.  Sunday his location was spot on, it was great watching him frustrate A-Rod in the seventh with a well placed fastball, tempting enough to swing at but a near miss resulting in a mile high popup. Or getting Melky Cabrera to strike out on a breaking pitch that bounced a foot in front of home plate in the fifth.

Jose Reyes continues to confound Mets fans with his childish on-field antics, even as he regains his role as the catalyst at the top of the order.  In the bottom of the sixth and top of the seventh Sunday a “Reyes run” was traded for a Reyes tantrum.  After a manufactured run on a single, wild pitch and sac fly, Reyes had dirt on every part of his uniform from all his sliding and avoiding pickoffs while rounding the bases.  Moments later this commendable hustle is offset by a reaction to a throwing error.  Reyes seemed to feel Carlos Delgado could have done a lot better catching the ball, and a pouting glove-throwing fit ensued.

I actually had the YES version of the game on at that point and it was classic to hear the Yankee broadcasters rip into Reyes.  Michael Kay, never one to let professionalism get in the way of a snappy one liner, shared some rhetorical Q and A with: “is this a hissy fit?” [shows the video of the glove throw] “I think that’s a hissy fit.”  I looked in several dictionaries and they all define a “hissy fit” simply as a tantrum, so I really am impressed that Kay knows enough about the subject to distinguish hissy fits from regular fits even if Noah Webster can’t.  David Cone and Ken Singleton were also more than happy to pile on the “strictly selfish” Reyes, who “still has some maturing to do,” despite “how many years in the big leagues? Five??”  Not that I disagree mind you but the “sour grapes” announcing style is funny.

Of course Reyes also might have cost the Mets the game Saturday when he got picked off straying too far from second to cancel out a threat in a 3-2 nailbiter.  Nevertheless I was displeased with Johan Santana’s calling out of teammates.  A pitcher always has to try to allow at least one fewer run than the opponents, whether that opponent has scored one run or seven.  So for Santana to say he “did his job” by allowing only three runs is false.  On this day his job was to allow only one run because his team would only score two.  An ace of the staff such as Santana should be able to give his team confidence even if the run support is not there.  Santana saying he “did his job” works contrary to the principles of Run Support Karma, which state that complaining about run support makes matters worse.  I think if Santana had only discussed his own responsibility in allowing three runs it’s a lot more inspiring to the offense to want to produce for him than the complaining is.

The two most optimistic things you could say about the Mets are that they are hanging around in the NL East and they do show occasional flashes of brilliance.  Philly continues a cold hitting slide and the Mets, despite a 40-41 mark are now only three games behind their rivals.  Indeed a recent dumbing down of the entire National League has resulted in only four teams in the league possessing a winning record as of tonight.  The door is still ajar for the Mets and they have the skills to open it if they don’t slam it in their own face first. 

Mark Reichman

I live to hate the Yankees and consequently I love the midseason Mets-Yankees “subway” series, but I wonder how does the rest of the world outside of New York feel about these games?  Is it an overhyped matchup of two teams you dislike, or do you find the rivalry makes for compelling drama even if you’re not a fan of either team?  Love to hear what you think sports fans.

I can tell you for me personally, the Yankees have always been the arch enemy.  Like a lot of people I developed my baseball loyalties through my father, but oddly enough, I grew up in a household where the most revered team never existed in my lifetime. My Dad was, and in many ways still is, a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. 

Amazingly, between 1947 and 1956 Brooklyn lost a “subway” World Series to the Yankees five times! And of course tucked in there was the magical year of 1955 where “Dem Bums” from Brooklyn actually defeated the hated Yankees, on an epic complete game from Johnny Podres in a Game 7 at Yankee Stadium.  (Podres recently passed away, may he rest in peace as a champion for eternity).  That’s six matchups between the same two teams in one decade of the World Series.  And the Yanks won two more titles against other teams during the span!

Hard to imagine that level of domination by one team in today’s game, with the one-and-done Marlins and others winning the title left and right. And the fact that Brooklyn was just as dominating to the National League, only to lose in the Series over and over, made the rivalry that much deeper, and 1955 that much sweeter.

Only two years removed from the Miracle of 1955, Brooklyn baseball was uprooted forever as owner Walter O’Malley moved the team to Los Angeles in 1957, an unprecedented, sad and utterly shocking development to Dodgers fans who lost their team along with some of their identity as Brooklynites.  Interestingly, historians now point to an impasse between O’Malley and New York City Construction Coordinator Robert Moses, who wanted to build a stadium in Flushing where Shea Stadium now stands, as the major reason the team departed.  “We’re not from Queens we’re from Brooklyn, and if that’s the best you can do I’m moving to LA!”  Or something to that effect.

Fast forward to December 1969; that’s when I entered the world on the heels of an amazin’ world championship by the “Ya Gotta Believe” Mets of Seaver and McGraw. I grew up in Long Island in a house where the Yankees were “the man”, “the establishment”, “the enemy”, the uptown dandies that thumbed their noses at the rest of the world.  There was a lukewarm appreciation for the Mets, but I didn’t truly understand why my Dad wasn’t passionate about any team.  However in 1984 when Doc Gooden and Daryl Strawberry came up as rookies I was 14 and totally enthralled, and became a die hard Mets fan for life. And in 1986 I had my miracle as well, as the Mets won the title in storied fashion over Bill Buckner and the Red Sox. 

But then in 2000, something happened to me that would up the ante on my Yankee hatred for the rest of my life, and forever align me side by side with my father as a sworn enemy of the Bronx Bombers.  You see, I experienced a subway series of my own, and what it was like to have hopes crushed by the Yankees while the rest of your own city seems to mock you in disgrace.  I was there for the final game, Game 5 at Shea, got to see the Yankees pile onto our mound in celebration on our field, got to see Derek Jeter’s name in lights on the jumbotron announced as the MVP.  And I had the horrible, sinking feeling of being on my team’s own home field while thousands upon thousands of the fans of our bitter rival celebrated in drunken glee, leaving me with nothing to do but quietly pick up my things and make my way through the revelry towards the subway packed with more raucous Yankee fans.

I actually started to laugh, thinking the situation was so bad, it’s almost comical.  By my count that would mean we now need to win two subway series from the Yankees to have the upper hand there, plus 23 more championships overall to have a better record than the Yankees.  Although I’m a very hopeful person I think my best chance of seeing that happen is to be cryogenically frozen alongside Ted Williams.

It’s a long, long uphill climb, who’s first small step is at 1:35 PM this afternoon when the two teams square off at Yankee stadium on the first half of a “subway doubleheader”.  I will always be passionate about this fight, as symbolic of good and evil to me as anything in my world.  I will also look to band together with my Dad, our anti-Yankee sentiment linking our two teams across time. 

And finally, I’m hoping that the first time my Dad and I walk into the new Citi Field next year, through the Jackie Robinson rotunda and through the façade designed to look like the old Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, that he will leave his pain over the Dodgers behind and we will walk into the new stadium as true Met fans together.

Mark Reichman

Jerry Manuel has seen a lot through those black rimmed glasses in his first eight games managing the Mets.  While the Mets have shown attitude, edge and toughness that was previously absent, they have also carried over plenty of old fashioned cold hitting and bad pitching.  The stoic and polite Randolph Mets have been replaced by the unpredictable and considerably more fiery Manuel Mets, and even if the results are the same, at least its more entertaining.

I like how the Met starters have been lingering on the mound to personally hand the ball of to the reliever, a new tradition that sprang up under Manuel; I think it encourages team pride.  I like that Manuel isn’t afraid to demote Oliver Perez after another atroicous outing.  I also liked the speed with which Manuel ran out to yell at home plate umpire Brian Runge in Tuesday night’s 11-0 thrashing by the merciless Mariners.  Runge clearly crossed the line by pulling his whole “time to dust the plate and get in your face” routine on an unusually angry and frustrated Carlos Beltran, who was arguing the strike zone.  Any manager would run out at a moment like that but credit Manuel for instantly appearing in Runge’s face like an angry leprechaun.  

Was Runge afraid that Manuel, an avowed knife-wielding “gangsta” was going to “cut him” as he threatened to do to Jose Reyes earlier in the week?  Perhaps, as Runge’s proactive chest bump on Manuel was epic, Runge defintely seemed threatened by the maniacal Manuel before initiating contact and then tossing the Met skipper.  Ordinarily I’m not a fan of letting emotions boil over in a game in which the team is getting buried, but the way this played out it ended up being a classic case of umpires overstepping their bounds and became a meaningful emotional expression for the Mets. 

As for Manuel’s colorful language in his dressing down of Reyes, I actually like the toughness and the use of humor.  I’ll leave the sociological implications of promoting “gangsta-ism” to someone else, I think Manuel’s bravado is funny and makes a point that Reyes is forced to acknowledge.  OK, but I draw the line at the whole gender reversal thing, referring to Reyes as a “she”…”she made a mistake…”  Please.  That was so silly and tired when Parcells did it, why bring it back.  And to compare Reyes’s maturity level to women in general? That’s insulting to women! 

Manuel ends up looking like a genius for resting David Wright Tuesday as Wright came back fresh and hit two home runs in tonight’s victory.  Wright had played every game so far this season and was perhaps mentally worn down when he made a big mistake Monday, his bobble on a routine ball that opened the door for the Freaky Felix Salami.  I refer of course to Mariners pitching phenom Felix Hernandez and the grand slam he hit off Johan Santana Monday with his “eyes closed” (according to Santana), the first salami by an AL pitcher in 37 years. 

Stepping out of my team loyalty, what an awesome moment, the “new Johan” from Venezuela going up against the original Johan, flailing his bat right into the high fastball and air mailing it the other way.  That moment was right out of “The Natural” and should remind everyone why NL baseball rules!!! Then Felix showboats around the bases and the baseball gods punish him with a sprained ankle (later on in the game when he gets bowled over by Beltran while ineptly trying to cover home on a wild pitch).  I chalk the loss up to strange forces and choose not to blame Santana at all.

In the big picture, the Mets are hanging around in the NL East, only 4 games behind the Phlailing Phillies.  The Phillies have cooled off big time, losing six straight and currently slogging through a trip to Oakland while averaging under two runs a game over the last seven.  Chase Utley in particular has gone from MVP buzz to virtually 0-for the week and shedding 30 points off his average.  While the Mets have failed to capitalize, the Marlins have managed to hang in a game behind the Phillies.  The NL East could either be considered the best division in baseball top to bottom or the most inept, depending on your perspective.  Its shaping up to be a war of attrition with no front runner, and one in which the winning punch isn’t landed until the last round.