tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54789734497780118622024-03-12T21:56:59.163-04:00Mets Fan FictionNot your momma's fantasy baseball.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-89098712593126634022015-10-16T02:54:00.000-04:002015-10-16T02:57:27.337-04:00What Daniel Murphy Could Not Hear<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Terry Collins sat in the back of the clubhouse, his noise pointed diagonally upward in alert worry. Before him, Mets dressed for the game. They laced up. They punched gloves. Colon was suggesting songs he could solo over to the bullpen barber shop quartet. His 4th inning "The Man Who Sold the World" in game 3 had gone surprisingly well. In Terry Collins' palm was an old singing bowl. The tips of his fingers held a smooth wooden rod. As Curtis Granderson chose from an exquisitely curated selection of chewing gums, Collins circled the edge of the bowl with the rod, holding the rod with a grasp of medium strength. Vibrations hummed out into the clubhouse.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
"Coach," whined Cuddyer, "why this sound before every game?"</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Collins did not respond. He only observed.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
"Wright," whispered Wright. "I wasn't sure if I heard it before, but yes, there is a sound."</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
"It usually goes away for me after the first inning," Degrom said, facing his closed locker, as he had been for the last several minutes.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Granderson and Duda heard it faintly, but were unsure. Clippard and Reed had to take a break from singing a capella, but Familia didn't understand why.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Terry Collins lifted the singing bowl up to his mouth. As he spoke, his words split in two, gliding along each side of the bowl and rejoining into themselves on the other side. Sonic effluvia peppered Flores' ear drums.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
"If you can hear me loud and clear, your baseball is low," said Collins. "Sound waves from this object are repelled by baseball. Some of you can hear me only faintly, and you may have just enough baseball to make it through the night. Those of you who are low on baseball can now see who each other are. You must not tell the others. Keep their spirits large. For baseball is a fleeting yak herd. So large and then it's gone."</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Mets eyed each other with concern. Could they withstand the fiery lashes of Justin Turner?</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Daniel Murphy laced up, stood up, hatted up.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
"It's like a quiet place in here!" he declared. "Someone put on some music! This is baseball!"</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="224" src="http://m.mlb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=523443383&topic_id=11493214&width=400&height=224&property=mlb" width="400">Your browser does not support iframes.</iframe>Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-37562843095321692552014-04-20T13:51:00.000-04:002014-04-21T11:55:54.460-04:00The End of IkeIke Davis took a long drag of his Cuban cigar.<br />
<br />
"How about the Superman ending?" he pondered, as he looked out over the tree-dappled roofscape of Brooklyn Heights, bridges and dinosaurs in the distance. "How does he go again?"<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Ike_Davis_cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Ike_Davis_cropped.jpg" height="287" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
"It would have to be something with kryptonite," said Sandy Alderson, working on a cigar himself, which emitted a narrow swerve of smoke from between Alderson's index and middle, leering over an excellently fancy boardroom chair. They were in his office on the 100th floor of the Mets building.<br />
<br />
"On <a href="http://metsfanfiction.blogspot.com/2010/04/enter-ike.html" target="_blank">my first day here</a>, I stayed on the 42nd floor. Everyone did. It was Jackie Robinson day, so we were all wearing the best number. Davis considered his 29th floor apartment. Who would occupy it after him? Would he be remembered by the apartment? By the number itself?<br />
<br />
"Your kryptonite," Alderson continued, "if I may be direct in a way that I might imagine will benefit you in the future, is that some part of you believes always that there is an interesting object hanging over your right shoulder and a lit back and up. You know not to look, but still, you think it could be there."<br />
<br />
"I think Spiderman dies a bunch of times," said Ike. "Makes sense, he's all instinct and quick reflexes. Soft on the inside. Spiders aren't like cats though. Only one life. Unless all their babies are clones of each other like with wasps, so then they kind of have hundreds of lives, but they all happen simultaneously. Are spider babies all clones of each other?"<br />
<br />
"You were once our savior, Ike," said Alderson. "Before my time. You were the symbol that it was going to be alright."<br />
<br />
"And now?"<br />
<br />
"Now you're an important chapter in our history. This team is better for you, Ike. By the way, I think I know who to pick for your superhero ending."<br />
<br />
The two of them chatted in their enormous chairs, which from behind looked like dark and angular silhouettes, nearly blocking out their entire bodies. They stayed until they had stubbed out their Cubans, taken from the 71st percentile in quality from Sandy's collection.<br />
<br />
That night, the Mets gathered at Zombie Hut on Smith st. They cavorted over brewskis into the night. When it came time for Ike Davis to enjoy his ritualized superhero ending, Terry Collins handed him a cardboard replica of a television. Ike put it over his head, so that it appeared that he was on television.<br />
<br />
Then he gave a long and surprisingly well-researched lecture on the military industrial complex, and how, more and more, it is becoming the everything industrial complex. The business of business is sucking us dry, Ike declared, and it's our business as Mets to put an end to it.<br />
<br />
When at last he was finished, Ike, focused as a demon, went through an epic high-five line. He reached the door just as Pops, the doorman of the Mets building was stepping in. He looked Ike up and down.<br />
<br />
"Be thee Met, or be thee not?" Pops asked.<br />
<br />
"I am Met," said Ike Davis, as he pulled on his coat, a nondescript but pleasing shade of brown.<br />
<br />
Then, as he crossed the threshold to the door:<br />
<br />
"I am not."Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-80642335023067520092014-04-14T01:55:00.000-04:002014-04-14T01:55:22.787-04:00Lagares Goes On A Residency<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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“There is a time in every young whackstick player’s life
that they must experience the power of strength,” said Terry Collins to a
curious Juan Lagares, during a break in Mets throwing practice at Cobble Hill
Park. “The time for you is now, Juan, I am giving you a residency in being a
good hitter.”<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Cool,” said Lagares, as he watched Daniel Murphy receive a
throw from behind a cement dolphin. “I definitely don’t understand.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Juan_Lagares_on_April_28,_2013.jpg/370px-Juan_Lagares_on_April_28,_2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Juan_Lagares_on_April_28,_2013.jpg/370px-Juan_Lagares_on_April_28,_2013.jpg" height="320" width="197" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Think of it as a retreat, like when people go into the
woods to paint stuff for like two weeks,” Collins explained.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’m good on that concept,” said Lagares. “Never tried it
myself, except for a certain incident in which the spirit of yage commanded me
to make the mark of my soul on a tree above a wasps nest several hundred feet above the
ground, but I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Well,” said Collins, leaning forward, “I’m glad you had
that experience. There is no doubt in my mind it will help you with this. I’ve been
talking with Sanderson and the others, and we all agree that you are the best
fielder in the world. Actually, it’s between you and this Tibetan lady, but she
doesn’t play baseball. Anyway, we are going to have you be a superior hitter
for a few weeks to see if it takes.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lagares lowered his glove and snagged a baseball that had
darted his way. He signed it with the name of his favorite sandwich, then threw
it over the park fence to Lucas Duda, who was standing next to <a href="http://tedandhoney.com/home/">Ted and Honey</a>. Duda abided, and went
into Ted and Honey to get Lagares his lunch of choice. He also picked up some artisanal
honey and expensive yet irresistible crackers. The cashier mentioned to Duda
that those crackers inspired him to come up with his own spread, which is a
combination of several nut butters and habanero paste.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’ll take three jars,” said Duda.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Back at the park, Terry Collins was looking at birds and
saying stuff.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Collins, “because you
just told me while Lucas ordered your sandwich. If you could suddenly become a
better hitter, you would do it. But—and not that many people know this—that’s
not how baseball works. You can always try being someone else for a little
while. We call it the Agbayani Project. You don’t have to do anything. In fact, most teams don’t even tell their
players about their residencies, but we’re trying to be ethical about it. Which
reminds me, we’re also going to give you a silver fingernail to scuff up the
ball whenever you catch a fly. It makes the pitches bend more, and no one
suspects the centerfielder.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lagares nodded, for this last he knew to be true. No one <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever</i> suspects the centerfielder.</div>
Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-75907400707571856692014-04-03T13:13:00.000-04:002014-04-03T13:13:04.188-04:00Opening Day, 2014<div class="MsoNormal">
It was opening day, and the Mets were jazzed. Imaginary
little musical notes emanated from their struts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Wright year!” declared the star third baseman, pulling on
his cleats in the clubhouse.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It’ll be grand,” agreed Curtis, their well paid acquisition,
as he chose from his 42 baseball gloves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’m kind of the best human at baseball,” Lagares noted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Standing in the middle of the room, nervously cupping his
hands, stood Terry Collins. He had to give one of those beginning of the year
speeches. Everything that went wrong for the next six months would make him
think of whatever he was about to say next, and wonder if they were connected.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We all have dreams,” he began, and then he snuck in a quick
fist pump, because that seemed like a really good intro.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Terry_Collins_2011.jpg/346px-Terry_Collins_2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Terry_Collins_2011.jpg/346px-Terry_Collins_2011.jpg" height="320" width="184" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’m really glad you brought this up,” said Ike Davis,
jumping in. “I had a dream about this team last night. I was riding a horse
through a pretty badass field, and I just felt really free and optimistic. It
made me think this is going to be a big year for all of us.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“How does riding a horse relate to the Mets?” asked Travis
d’Arnaud, who was a rookie, and still had so much to learn.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Oh yeah, I left that part out,” said Ike. “See, last year
right before the season started, I had this dream where—you know that scene in
The Iliad where Achilles’ horse turns to him, and the horse is like, ‘You’re
gonna die in this war, and there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s just how
it works in this Greco-Roman mindfuck?—I had a dream that I was Achilles, but I
was kind of also the horse, and Achilles was sort of the Mets. Then LBJ was
there for some reason, and he said something about how ‘don’t worry, no one’s
perfect,’ and I said, ‘yeah, but this still sucks,’ and the horse told me that
I should have seen this coming.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Last night’s dream also had a horse, but it wasn’t foreboding
like the one I had in 2013, and 2013 turned out to be truly sub-optimal.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Mets nodded sagely. Ike’s dream was good news indeed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yeah, um, good,” said Collins, trying to salvage his
speech. “So listen, this is going to be a long year.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Because nothing lengthens time like success!” interrupted
Eric Young.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The outfield high-fived each other in response. Collins
nodded anxiously. He was already planning to say “nothing succeeds like
success” at some point, but he felt like
he couldn’t now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“But baseball is,” Collins paused for effect. He wanted his
next words to sound well thought out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Mets all jumped and cheered on being reminded that the
sport they play for a living exists. With no one saying that they should do so,
they trotted out of the clubhouse on to the field, filled with exuberance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Only Bobby Parnell hung back. As the closer he wouldn’t be
needed for a while, but that wasn’t why. He had somehow forgotten to put on
pants. Fortunately no one seemed to have noticed.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Collins did notice, however. Because he’s a good manager, he
pretended not to. He couldn’t help but think that for Parnell, the start of the
year was like a bad dream. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a></div>
Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-35853810992276568472013-06-27T22:52:00.002-04:002013-06-27T22:54:01.920-04:00In Which John Buck & Marlon Byrd Appear To Have Been Traded To The Orioles<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/John_Buck_on_April_1,_2013.jpg/240px-John_Buck_on_April_1,_2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/John_Buck_on_April_1,_2013.jpg/240px-John_Buck_on_April_1,_2013.jpg" height="320" width="197" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Marlon_Byrd_on_April_1,_2013.jpg/240px-Marlon_Byrd_on_April_1,_2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Marlon_Byrd_on_April_1,_2013.jpg/240px-Marlon_Byrd_on_April_1,_2013.jpg" height="320" width="197" /></a>John Buck tried to maintain his cool when he stepped onto
the elevator on the 44<sup>th</sup> floor of the 100 story </div>
Met building. He
could not maintain his cool. He wore the mortified expression of a man who has
invited everyone to his home for a barbecue, given specific instructions on
what everyone should bring, and only half an hour into the gathering does he
realize that he owns no grill on which to operate. He tried to say hello to
Marlon Byrd as he stepped onto the elevator, but it came out as,<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Help!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He tried to cover for it by singing the Beatles’ song by
that name, which he did for the remaining 56 floors on their not especially
fast elevator journey to Sandy Alderson’s office.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Marlon Byrd was also an ecosystem of emotions, but not related
to the fact that he assumed that his GM was almost certainly about to tell him
he had just been traded. Byrd’s emotions, for reasons that would take a lot of
explaining, had mostly to do with the GDP of Luxembourg. He wore Google Glass
within his shades, and used it exclusively to monitor the minute fluctuations
of the tiny European country’s gross domestic product. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The elevator opened. The two men advanced forward, dancing
to different beats. Byrd entered with a strut, related mostly to an unusually
large order of pizza, muffins and vintage scotch for a poorly planned but well
funded party in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettelbruck">Ettelbruck</a>.
Buck tried to look upbeat by doing his special shamble gallop, which is his
fastest means of self-propelled locomotion, and can occasionally be seen on close
plays.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Gents,” said Sandy Alderson, wearing a fedora, “have a
seat.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Byrd and Buck sat in large, almost throne-like chairs across
a formidable desk from Alderson.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Sandy_Alderson_crop.jpg/250px-Sandy_Alderson_crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Sandy_Alderson_crop.jpg/250px-Sandy_Alderson_crop.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Scotch?” offered the GM. Both players nodded, thinking that
this was their final scotch as Mets. As residents of the Met building. As
humans who could answer in the affirmative when the Met doorman asked “Be you
Met or be you not, for only Met shall pass.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Help yourself to food too,” said Alderson, gesturing to a
table with partly eaten pizza pies and tumbled muffins. “We were just hosting a
few other GMs. People with strange amounts of power and money prefer to have
strange tastes so that they can claim some sort of logic to how it all shook
out.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alderson turned to face the window, pulling a lit cigar from
somewhere in the rim of his fedora. He puffed. Buck started to take his shoes
off, and then realized there was no reason to and he was just doing random
stuff because he was nervous.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Before long, you will see reports that both of you have
been traded to the Orioles for Gausman and Bundy,” said Alderson.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Buck made a noise of mourning. It sounded like the average
noise that people imagine walruses making.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I did notice,” said Byrd, eyeing his GM through
impenetrable shades, “that you said we will see reports. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"That’s a funny way to
say we’ve been traded. So maybe we haven’t been traded. Maybe there’s another
explanation.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You have a mind for this business, Marlon,” said Alderson. “Neither
of you have been traded, but try not to explicitly deny it when reporters ask
you. Come look at something.” Alderson waved them over to his computer. There
was a dark and grainy video of the inside of a truck bumping along the highway.
There was something large in there. Long muscular legs, cloven hooves, a
submarine of a body, and its head was crowned with mighty antlers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“An antelope?” tried Buck.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“A buck,” answered Alderson.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An orange flash whizzed by the camera.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“A<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>bird?” asked Byrd.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“An oriole,” said Alderson. “And also an Oriole.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this point he let fly with a truly mighty laugh. Buck and
Byrd laughed along, because they were confused and intimidated.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Amidst all the language of passing physicals and insurance
policies, no one notices when you swap out ‘John Buck’ for ‘John the Buck’ or ‘Marlon
Byrd’ for ‘Marlon the Byrd.’ Players with animal names are the new market inefficiency!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“So…” said Buck, slowly processing, the Orioles think we’re
getting us, but they’re getting an actual buck and a bird?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Correct,” said Alderson, returning to his scotch and cigar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“One question,” said Byrd. “In any trade the players have to
pass a physical before the deal is complete. How’s that going to work with
these animals?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You really think that buck is going to fail a physical?
That thing is a natural miracle! And as for the oriole, the thing can fly!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“One more question,” said Byrd. “We’re…not good enough to
get either Gausman or Bundy. How did you get both?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alderson grinned. “The Orioles are also getting an invisible
rabbit named Matt.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Byrd and Buck smiled as the elevator doors closed. Buck sunk
his teeth into a blueberry muffin. Byrd was pleased with a series of credit
card transfers made solely to get flight miles, but which also served to raise the
GDP of Luxembourg. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And they were both Mets.</div>
Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-28258269623670941412012-08-05T14:46:00.000-04:002012-08-05T14:46:33.237-04:00Baxter the Flying Sleepwalker "So, <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23625981&topic_id=&c_id=mlb&tcid=vpp_copy_23625981&v=3" target="_blank">Mike Baxter walks</a> into a bar," said J Bay. The Mets guffawed like panthers. They were, as they always were on mornings in San Diego, at Maple Mary's Home for Young Coconuts. They were swigging from young coconuts.<br />
<br />
"Every time Mike Baxter comes to a street corner, both signs change to walk," said Andres Torres. The Mets snickered like whales.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xdeqCcjvols/UB6-DGQxXyI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/eo3LxsuJWOw/s1600/Baxter+Walking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xdeqCcjvols/UB6-DGQxXyI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/eo3LxsuJWOw/s1600/Baxter+Walking.jpg" /></a>Scott Hairston had one: "Mike Baxter was running errands, and I was like, there's no need for that." The Mets chuffed like mailboxes.<br />
<br />
Ruben Tejada waggled with anticipation: "Mike Baxter drinks only Johnny Walker." Baxter nodded. The Mets chortled like rivulets.<br />
<br />
Ike Davis was finally ready: "Mike Baxter was at the opera, and he was like, 'what's going on?' and someone tried to explain the plot to him, but he still didn't get it, because he hadn't noticed the subtitles above the stage." Everyone, even Maple Mary, was silent. "And then he walked into the lobby." The Mets hollered like faraway sirens.<br />
<br />
"But on a less fluffy note," Valdespin began, and the Mets quickly became less fluffy to be prepared for the remainder of Jordany's sentence, "how <i>did</i> you draw all those walks?"<br />
<br />
Baxter thought back to his days in the Met Hospital. Sometimes he played cards with Gee and Santana. He watched the Mets on TVs in every room. He chatted up Paul Wilson, who still came by just to say hi.<br />
<br />
But mostly, he slept. Out of fatigue and boredom, sure, but also because sleep brought him closer to something. As he slept, he had vivid dreams of Citi Field. He walked over the metal bleachers. He tiptoed across the bullpen wall. He fluttered on down to the field. An inky figure flitted through the air. Then another one. They were tall, nearly two-dimensional. Blotty secretions of a fountain pen, hovering and zipping through the air.<br />
<br />
"Slards. All of them slards." It was Razor Shines, sitting besunglassed on the bullpen wall. Fans flooded the stadium like someone had left the faucet on. Mets arrived, as did Gnats. The slards remained. The Mets clobbered the baseball and baseball itself with pure success, but at every last moment, a slard nudged the ball just a little bit that way, causing pop-ups, strikeouts and other-team victory. Failure itself mingled in the air.<br />
<br />
"Damn slards!" shouted Baxter.<br />
<br />
"Sleep," said Shines.<br />
<br />
"But I'm already-"<br />
<br />
"Sleep anyway."<br />
<br />
So within his dream, Mike Baxter went to sleep. As he drifted off he heard a scurrying noise, and he knew that somehow, the slards were repulsed by his sleep.<br />
<br />
A week later he was back on the team, wondering how he would ever beat the slards. And then it happened. He fell asleep within his inner sleep, and his outer stayed awake the whole time. It was indelibly crispy, and I'm not just saying that.<br />
<br />
"Ready for some baseball?" asked manager Collins in a rhetorical, "let's get excited," sort of way.<br />
<br />
"My spirit animal is the aye-aye," said Baxter.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OdO6V_k9QR0/UB6-0UDQG7I/AAAAAAAAAYY/O9-o5XHgUUM/s1600/ayeaye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OdO6V_k9QR0/UB6-0UDQG7I/AAAAAAAAAYY/O9-o5XHgUUM/s1600/ayeaye.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />For the entire game, the slards could do little to help the Padres, and got the hell out of there whenever Baxter came to bat. Dude walked five times. It was boggle-minding.<br />
<br />
Back at Maple Mary's, Baxter sipped a coconut, as he pondered what to say to Valdespin.<br />
<br />
"Mike Baxter got a job as a dogwalker," said Mike Baxter, "because all he needed was the dog." The Mets laughed like lampshades. With each zuoprring (the standard unit of laughter), they woke a little more within waking. They slept a little more within sleep.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-681331073516034072012-07-17T00:41:00.002-04:002012-07-17T00:41:26.765-04:00The Reason the Mets Lose<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Terry Collins looked out over Brooklyn. Behind him, his apartment
percolated in stillness. A tube of red lipstick, and the charming burn of
roasting coffee beans wafted about his smaller table. He could explain neither.
But that was not the conundrum on which he gribbled, as hot clouds made
everything, if not a considerable nuisance, than at least something which could
be considered a nuisance. Everything was a little bit crowded. A mood stung the
entire outside like a coat of gesso. The Mets--the <i>Mets</i>--had just been
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ekJLWmrlEU/UATroYgxWgI/AAAAAAAAAX4/LmXy2akP7hE/s1600/terry+collins+sad.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ekJLWmrlEU/UATroYgxWgI/AAAAAAAAAX4/LmXy2akP7hE/s320/terry+collins+sad.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">A text sprang from his phone. From Turner: "Put me in coach!"
Maybe, Collins sighed.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Terry Collins was, by most metrics, a simple man. He thought that
sunglasses looked cool, though he didn't dare wear them. He liked being around
people and being alone in a 3 to 1 ratio, though being alone was his favorite
part. His favorite lunch order was "the usual," wherever the staff
knew what that meant. And, simplest of all, Collins did not like to lose. He
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">His phone rang. Alderson. "My office." Click.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">In two cognitive steps, Collins was on the elevator. The ascent from the tenth floor was gradual
enough to allow Collins ample time to think on the climb to floor one hundred,
but not so slow that he could think only of the slowness itself.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">"They wouldn't fire me, would they?" he said to the nothing.
"We'll rise again. I still have this group ready to tap dance at a wave of
my hand! I should show that to Sandy! He'd be impressed!"</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">The door opened to darkness. Anonymous fear gurgled in Collins as he
stepped forward.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">"Advance ten steps in darkness," came the voice of the GM.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6suiRc_HPvo/UATriceqslI/AAAAAAAAAXw/le86E-H3BPY/s1600/Alderson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6suiRc_HPvo/UATriceqslI/AAAAAAAAAXw/le86E-H3BPY/s320/Alderson.jpg" width="277" /></a><span lang="EN">Collins walked. One, two, three, three, five, six, six, eight, nine, ten. A
light clicked on. Alderson and Depodesta sat in gothic shadows behind a
gargoyle of a desk. Alderson gestured to an open seat next to him, behind the
desk. Behind the desk, thought Collins. Whoa. He walked over and sat down. The
three of them facing outward.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">"For years, I have studied why baseball teams win and lose." </span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Collins gave several urgent nods. "OBP, wOBA, park factor," he stammered.
He had been studying.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">"Yes," intoned Depo, "those are charming distractions,
aren't they?"</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">"Distractions?"</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">"Look at these," said Alderson. A series of photographs lay on
the desk. Murphy swinging over a curveball, Torres hitting a weak chopper to second,
Duda losing a chess match with the right field wall. And then others: the team
joshing about in the clubhouse, the bullpen warming up with a little croquet,
Bay ordering a sandwich.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">"Do you see?" asked Depo. Collins was silent. "Look for an
inky presence, a pen line hanging in space."</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">"It's clearest in this one," said Alderson, pointing to the
bullpen shot.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Collins stared, but still did not see. Perhaps it was like one of those
magic eye things. His vision fuzzed for a moment, and he lifted his hands to
rub his eyes. Then stopped. A mostly vertical swoosh, so close to
two-dimensional that it seemed to bend the space around it, lurked behind
Beato. Alderson noticed Collins' recognition.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">"And this one," he said, indicating Murphy's feeble swing.
"See?"</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Again, there was nothing, save what was obvious, until Collins fuzzed his
eyes, and then...yeah. It was like a misplaced shadow. Tall, shaped, perhaps,
like a ghostly, swooshing letter P.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">"And here," said Sandy, pointing to Duda's wall fail. Terry found
it quickly this time. An inky presence hovering around him. Near the top,
spooky and unmistakable, Collins saw an eye.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">"What?!" he gasped, "what in the grib snibblin...what in the
crish crash...what in the itchy edgy alzarootog..." He leaned against the
desk to catch his breath. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">"What is that?" he asked.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Alderson looked at Depo, then at Collins, then at life itself.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">"It's a slard," he said. "We don't know what they are, not
exactly anyway, but we know this: they make us lose. If we ever are to win,
really win, truly truly conquer, we must first deal with the slards.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The elevator ended its slow, hundred-story descent and deposited a frazzled
Collins in the lobby. Turner approached him, a wide-eyed puppy dog.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-orEBSlapXlk/UATrqw_pLuI/AAAAAAAAAYA/5ejNOve_cIg/s1600/Turner+smile.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-orEBSlapXlk/UATrqw_pLuI/AAAAAAAAAYA/5ejNOve_cIg/s200/Turner+smile.JPG" width="169" /></a><span lang="EN">"Hey Skip! Just the guy I was looking for! Say, I'm feeling different.
Like maybe I could really whack some spheres! Whaddya say, Skip, how bout some
starts at second?"</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Collins looked at him through a haze of thought and emotion. His eyes
blurred from the moment. Turner was merely an excited fuzzy presence. And
behind him. Behind him, an inky presence. Strange. Lonely. Determined.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN">"Whaddya say, Skip?"</span></div>Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-59664904420332514432012-07-06T04:12:00.000-04:002012-07-06T12:12:18.343-04:00Wright Wrights Himself, Conquers PhilliesIn the somber of October, David Wright wandered the streets of Manhattan. His team, the Metropolitans of More Recent York, had won only 77 games in the recently ended season, which might sound like a lot, but, dear reader, you will be shocked and perplexed to learn that a baseball season consists of 162 games. I know. So, while the Improbable Red Birds continued their unlikely flight toward glory, Wright wandered through Battery Park, observing improbable red birds. One of the birds said, "eetootapyeyeploosswaneekwallsssero."<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pp5bHSxAnZw/T_adMMkJHgI/AAAAAAAAAXc/gB9P0G5pius/s1600/Wright+with+smeared+players.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pp5bHSxAnZw/T_adMMkJHgI/AAAAAAAAAXc/gB9P0G5pius/s320/Wright+with+smeared+players.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
"Yeah, I know <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_identity" target="_blank">Euler's identity</a>," huffed Wright, perhaps harsher than he meant. See, it wasn't just another losing season that bothered David. It was his <a href="http://metsfanfiction.blogspot.com/2010/04/wright-time.html" target="_blank">Wright Time</a>. It hadn't been truly Wright for a while. Many overlong afternoons, he had lambled in his apartment on floor 5 of the Met building.<br />
<br />
"Whose Wright?" he asked, in a boxer's pose. "I'M WRIGHT!" throwing a punch.<br />
"What stuff?" ducking imaginary attacks. "The WRIGHT STUFF!" tackling invisible adversaries.<br />
<br />
And somehow it just didn't have the same magic. <br />
<br />
David purchased a bagel.<br />
<br />
"You know," said the bagel merchant, "it's only a matter of time before the ostrich within us swallows the ostrich without us."<br />
<br />
"Yeah," sighed Wright, "I know."<br />
<br />
He stepped out into the street with a hearty bite. He heard a commotion.<br />
<br />
"Mic check!" "MIC CHECK!" "General Assembly..." "GENERAL ASSEMBLY..." "is called to order." "IS CALLED TO ORDER."<br />
<br />
Humans, so many of them, gathered together. Yeah. Wright approached.<br />
<br />
Over the course of three hours, many things were said, and all of them were repeated by the masses. Through this strange practice, decisions were made, resolutions enacted, societies built, bagels consumed.<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QK73-nrB6vQ/T_adrqVAIwI/AAAAAAAAAXk/G6RWbUKpfgw/s1600/Occupy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QK73-nrB6vQ/T_adrqVAIwI/AAAAAAAAAXk/G6RWbUKpfgw/s320/Occupy.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
"You there," said <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-bean/what-went-on-inside-the-o_b_1617250.html" target="_blank">Max</a>, pointing to Wright, "you look like you have a thing to say, and a missile to whistle, if I may." Hand gestures from the crowd indicated that most people agreed that he may.<br />
<br />
"Well I suppose..." said Wright, nervously fwapping his batting gloves. He walked in front of everyone. So many eyes.<br />
<br />
"Whose Wright?" he started. "WHOSE WRIGHT?" The eyes gleamed at him. It was the gleaming that did it. He felt catharsis lingering in his nose, as he said.<br />
<br />
"I'M WRIGHT!"<br />
<br />
Hundreds of voices: "I'M WRIGHT!"<br />
<br />
A flock of red birds flew past. They heard a larger flock of people below, saying these words:<br />
"What angle? WRIGHT ANGLE!"<br />
"What's on? WRIGHT ON!" <br />
"What this minute? WRIGHT THIS MINUTE!"<br />
<br />
David Wright felt majestic. Like he was ready to crush dreams with his fist. The resident of Zuccotti Park felt pretty nifty too. They hadn't been planning on keeping this whole occupation going, but all of a sudden they felt the resolve to survive weather, dicey internal politics and even dicier external politics.<br />
<br />
July 5th, 2012<br />
In the third, Hamels pitching with two on: "WRIGHT WHACK!" for a single.<br />
<br />
In the fifth, with a man on. Hamels winds up, and Tejada, leading off first, asks, "What kablango?" To which Wright: "WRIGHT KABLANGO!" for a home run. "Doesn't that bug you?" Ruiz asked Hamels as he gave him a fresh sphere. "In spite of myself, I'm pretty into it," said Hamels.<br />
<br />
And then in the ninth, it might not have mattered. All that fine whack-stick from Wright, and yet the Philistines led. More than that, they were ready. Wright would unleash his Wright power and whack a line drive. They knew it was coming.<br />
Tejada led off first. "What game-winning single?" he asked.<br />
Wright grinned a grin. He saw how they angled to cut off his Wright angles. Well he had a sneak attack.<br />
"BLOOP GAME-WINNING SINGLE!"<br />
<br />
Which of course, is <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=22876279&c_id=mlb" target="_blank">exactly what happened</a>.<br />
<br />
"Turner!" barked the skipper. "Get the pie!"<br />
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<br />Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-32872862258653325952012-06-30T02:51:00.000-04:002012-06-30T02:52:30.696-04:00Dickey's Secret of Imperfection<b>June 29, 2012, 2nd inning</b><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JGUFR_5zlks/T-6ePSwPKNI/AAAAAAAAAWo/0mOB6KA80VM/s1600/Dickey+throws.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JGUFR_5zlks/T-6ePSwPKNI/AAAAAAAAAWo/0mOB6KA80VM/s400/Dickey+throws.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
R.A. Dickey stands on the rubber. He knows Thole is there, 60 feet and a bit away, crouching for some reason. Behind him, an old guy wearing a mask. Funny old man, thinks R.A. I bet he wears mismatching socks on Tuesdays. All these peculiar fellows, Dickey knows they are there, but he doesn't see them. He sees that aggressive lad with the wooden bludgeoning object least of all. Sure, there are blurry forms whiffling and waffling in the air. Humanoid clouds, you could say. No, what R.A. sees are lines. They squiggle from the ball that rotates breezily in his hand and take a variety of lost-in-the-woods paths toward the white pentagon. Thole's dinner plate he calls it.<br />
<br />
He selects one of the lines, yes, that will do splendidly, winds up and tosses. The ball follows the invisible line like it was on a train track arranged by a think tank of chaotic lunatics. R.A. feels a subtle breeze from that guy to Thole's left waving the stick. He had tried to study the various stick wavers, learn their particular dances, but there were so many dances with so few stories. Rarely a narrative solid enough to hang a hat on. Instead...<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>January 13, 2012</b><br />
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</div>
<br />
R.A. Dickey stands on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Winds that could break the sound barrier if they really felt like it lash him from all sides, but he does not mind. He's made it to the top. It's more charming than he ever could have imagined.<br />
<br />
"The mountain," he says, dashing a little whiskey in his tea, "it's got a real charisma."<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3UCdnpV3OAQ/T-6eoxBUe4I/AAAAAAAAAWw/KLEO3xkjR2Y/s1600/Dickey+and+the+mountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3UCdnpV3OAQ/T-6eoxBUe4I/AAAAAAAAAWw/KLEO3xkjR2Y/s1600/Dickey+and+the+mountain.jpg" /></a><br />
"Sure," says Kevin Slowey, "nice view."<br />
<br />
"It really gets to know you. Each step, is like a step the mountain takes into your soul. We've taken twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and fourteen steps on this mountain. It was the least I could do."<br />
<br />
Their guide pointed out various landmarks, such as the Sphinx and Norway, but Dickey couldn't hear. He was having a different sort of conversation.<br />
<br />
"Sup?" said the mountain. Only R.A. could hear.<br />
<br />
"I didn't expect you to be so..." said Dickey. Everyone could hear him.<br />
<br />
"I get that a lot. So what brings you here?" the mountain asked. Like a bartender, it had some stock questions to get people going.<br />
<br />
"Well, I was sitting in the dugout one day, trying to figure out some stuff about will power and quantum probability, and I got stuck, so I said, 'Shucks! I'm climbing the highest mountain in Africa!' Turned out that was you." <br />
<br />
"Oh," said Kilimanjaro. "Easy 'nuff."<br />
<br />
A mighty gust blew straight at R.A. He absorbed it completely, though it did sting. Mountain wisdom is not to be turned away from.<br />
<br />
He opened his eyes. The people around him were fuzzy orbs, but all the paths down the mountain appeared to him as squiggled lines scratched into space. They hung there, definite and clever.<br />
<br />
"Oh, Dickey?" said the mountain, "one thing."<br />
<br />
"Yeah dude?"<br />
<br />
"The magic will wear off if you ever use it to perfection. In every adventure, there must be one stumble, one error. Do not deal in perfect forms. I mean, I did once and look at me. Now I'm a mountain!"<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IMvMYeUzTIg/T-6epn89RKI/AAAAAAAAAXA/IdacSaW8b9k/s1600/Dickey+points+to+the+mountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IMvMYeUzTIg/T-6epn89RKI/AAAAAAAAAXA/IdacSaW8b9k/s1600/Dickey+points+to+the+mountain.jpg" /></a><br />
Dickey and the mountain chuckled (which for a mountain means a small earthquiake).<br />
<br />
"Nice one!" said Dickey.<br />
<br />
"Sorry, a little cheesy mountain humor," it said.<br />
<br />
"No, that was good. I'm going to tell that one to friends back home."<br />
<br />
"Nah, it only makes sense if you're a mountain. And remember, at least one baserunner every game or you have to climb back up here to re-up."<br />
<br />
"Cool," said Dickey. "Later."<br />
<br />
Kevin Slowey stopped taking pictures for a moment. "Hey R.A., great view huh. By the way, who were you talking to?"<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>June 29, 2012, 3rd inning </b><br />
<br />
Aaron Harang hits a catchable bing bong to centerfield. As Dickey watched it from the mound, he felt perfection welling up within him. The discoball of pure excellence rotated invisibly, threatening to reflect its beam directly into Dickey's forehead.<br />
<br />
Just then, Andres Torres thought about his recent trip to a <a href="http://www.dump.com/mushroomsorting/" target="_blank">mushroom sorting plant</a>. Well this is interesting, he recalled himself thinking. And then he realized that he had had that EXACT SAME THOUGHT about a falling palm frond that he had observed from a Los Angelos taxi cab. Ain't that somethin'. The ball dropped in front of him for a lazy single. Perfection averted.<br />
<br />
R.A. Dickey took the ball again, ready to throw it perfectly straight and bend the world a few inches this way and that while the ball was mid-flight. Somehow Thole always caught them.<br />
<br />
Mt. Kilimanjaro watches the game on its laptop.<br />
<br />
"Hey Nile," it says, "I taught this guy everything he knows."<br />
<br />
"What are you talking about?" gurgled the River Nile.<br />
<br />
"This pitcher. His name's R.A. Dickey. I'm the reason he's so good."<br />
<br />
"That doesn't make any sense," was the bubbling reply.<br />
<br />
"Whatever. Hey, could you throw me a beer."<br />
<br />
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And then, Mt, Kilimanjaro drank a beer.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-75823764665524766562012-06-02T17:35:00.000-04:002012-06-02T17:37:05.929-04:00Fact: Johan Santana Pitched a No HitterJohan Santana awoke. He was in a room: that much was clear. Little else was. There were pictures of...himself...and others...others...fimm...flami...flamy...faaaamm...family members. Him and family members. He looked out the window. Cars. Streets. Honk honk. Humans traversing, conversing, commercing. Fair enough. Foul enough too. Fair is foul and foul is fair. I really need to cut my hair, he thought, catching his reflection in a mysterious snow globe of a made up land called New Yorkci.<br />
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<br />
A phone. Well now isn't this interesting. How satisfying the plastic felt in the intelligence of his hands. So brassy. Clean jazz. An uncountable number of buttons gleamed at him with enough upward jut to catch the rays from the gigantic sphere of fire, so far away. Zero seemed a fine number. He pressed it. He examined the other numbers, wondering which to pick next, when the ear piece purred, and then said, "Morning Johan."<br />
<br />
"Yes, that is who I am," he recalled. "Can you tell me where I am?"<br />
<br />
"You are on the 57th floor of the Met Tower," said the voice. "And you shouldn't be for long. You are pitching tonight."<br />
<br />
"Pitching? Pitching..."<br />
<br />
"Johan, why don't you come down to the lobby. It sounds like you need some explaining done."<br />
<br />
The doorman of the Mets Tower was mysterious, in that it was <a href="http://metsfanfiction.blogspot.com/2010/06/enter-thole.html">ambiguous just how mysterious he was</a>. He was a scruffy old man they called "Pops." He read the paper. When a stranger entered, he said, "Be you Met or be you not? For only Met shall pass." But questions hovered. What was his real name? Where did he live? What plane did he arrive from?<br />
<br />
The elevator door opened in the lobby. Santana stayed in it, examining the buttons, dissatisfied.<br />
<br />
"Over here," said Pops, absentmindedly scruffling his newspaper in his hands. The consonants started to slide off, leaving a bunch of shapeless vowels, but Pops brushed the consonants back on, and most of them found their original spot.<br />
<br />
Santana wandered into the lobby. "See this?" said Pops, holding up a baseball. "You throw these?"<br />
<br />
"Do I?"<br />
<br />
"You used to be the best at throwing these," said Pops.<br />
<br />
"Was I?"<br />
<br />
"Observe," said Pops. He stood up into an awkward pose, his legs too far apart, his arms an unmixing combination of ragdoll and robot. "See the wall?" he asked, getting a little trancy, "pick the spot you don't like."<br />
<br />
Johan had no trouble with this task. There was a spot eleven inches off the ground that was grimy without grime, shadowy without shadows, cynical without sentience. Johan pointed to it.<br />
<br />
"Me too," said Pops. His arms seemed to rotate in slow motion. Torque itself was visible. His legs jimmy-jambled with incredible precision. He released the ball. Somewhere in the world, at that moment, a match had begun to spark. It was in that impossible moment between spark and flame. The ball flew across the lobby and hit the worst spot on the wall. Only as dust erupted around the ball did the flame splash into existence.<br />
<br />
"Now you," said Pops.<br />
<br />
Johan Santana, his memory empty except for sprinkles of this and that, and the memory of the pitch Pops had just thrown, took the ball, walked back, jimmy-jambled his legs, flamble-rambled his arms, released the ball just so. It thunked the spot with a pleasing boom. He threw another that glammered upward before thunking into the spot. Another swooped to the side and then sashayed into the spot.<br />
<br />
"Thanks Pops," said Johan.<br />
<br />
"Call me Sidd," said Pops.<br />
<br />
This way and that, the ball snarpled and dove against the Saint Louis Birds of Fire. They were under and over it like amateur bettors with too much money. Beltran was cool to fate's peculiar draw. Yadier of Doom waved his doomstick, but Mike Baxter became Achilles for a moment, knowing that he would succeed and then die, and was okay with that. If ends up on the DL, Odysseus will visit him and ask if it was worth it, and won't it be interesting to hear his heart beat as he ping pongs those cliches. To us, however, <a href="http://tmnt.wikia.com/wiki/Baxter_Stockman">Mike Baxter is another fly</a> in this non-ending Ninja Turtle drama. On the day that Johan awoke without a history, he changed all of ours. A fire forever unlit in all the backwards of time before Johan's 134th pitch now burns in our memories until infinity walks out or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731141/">the buggers finally win one</a>.<br />
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<br />Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-79607373586797809262011-08-04T11:28:00.000-04:002011-08-04T11:28:24.212-04:00Getting to Know Zack WheelerMets Fan Fiction noticed that there had been very little coverage of the newest Mets prospect Zack Wheeler, so we devoted our entire 400 person staff to tracking him with light waves (eyes), sound waves (ears), echolocation (ears, skin (bats, dolphins)), television waves (eyes), hidden device (ears) and psychic impression (aura). Here is a log of our findings.<br />
<br />
Sunday, July 31st, 2011<br />
7:03am: Wheeler throws 173 fastballs all at 93mph. He throws them against rocks. The rocks are connected to guitar strings which twang each time he hits a rock. Over three hours, he plays Stairway to Heaven. Musically it was tacky, but damn he can pitch.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6glibEHyxaA/Tjq6g2uC0lI/AAAAAAAAASE/ZX4yMbRlCKc/s1600/Wheeler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6glibEHyxaA/Tjq6g2uC0lI/AAAAAAAAASE/ZX4yMbRlCKc/s320/Wheeler.jpg" width="222" /></a></div><br />
11:17am: Wheeler orders a fresh coconut juice from a nearby establishment. "Gotta start getting in the habit, y'know?" he tells the cashier. The cashier says "Yeah, I hear ya," and carries out the transaction, all the while completely unnerved by the utter stillness of Wheeler's head and torso.<br />
<br />
3:33pm: Wheeler rides a bus. He is one of many anonymous busriders, unnoticed by the others. That changes when, seemingly unprovoked, Wheeler shouts: "Woodwind! Brass! Percussion! Strings! THOSE ARE THE FOUR CATEGORIES OF INSTRUMENTS MOTHERFUCKER!!"<br />
<br />
9:42pm: Wheeler adorns spectacles and lightly grasps a fountain pen. He writes a letter to the local paper about the need for more fire hydrants. Then he burns the letter and chuckles at the irony.<br />
<br />
Monday, August 1st, 2011<br />
7:03am: Wheeler throws 173 fastballs all at 93mph. He throws them against rocks. The rocks are connected to guitar strings which twang each time he hits a rock. Over three hours, he plays Stairway to Heaven. Musically it was tacky, but damn he can pitch.<br />
<br />
3:22pm: Wheeler chews the first bite of his lunch for eight minutes before realizing it is a piece of bark from a birch tree. "Wait, where <i>am</i> I?" he says. "<a href="http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=t507&t=g_box&gid=2011_08_01_sluafa_dunafa_1">Dunedin</a>," says R.A. Dickey, who wasn't there before. "Where's Dunedin?" asked Wheeler, but Dickey was gone, and Wheeler had already given up three runs.<br />
<br />
6:18pm: Wheeler rides a bus with his new teammates on the St. Lucie Mets. He converses with them, keeping things light, friendly and respectful, until, seemingly unprovoked, he shouts "Aeschylus! Sophocles! Euripides! THOSE WERE THE THREE BEST ANCIENT GREEK DRAMATISTS MOTHERFUCKER! <br />
<br />
9:00pm: Wheeler attends the ballet. "I'm not following the plot at all," he whispers to the person next to him.<br />
<br />
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011<br />
Wheeler is undetectable by all means other than psychic impression for the entirety of the day. He is "fuzzy, ethereal," and then for a period of twenty minutes, "Crisp and clear like a large ball bearing in an empty desert." After that, nothing.<br />
<br />
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011<br />
7:03am: Wheeler throws 173 fastballs all at 93mph. He throws them against rocks. The rocks are connected to guitar strings which twang each time he hits a rock. Over three hours, he plays Stairway to Heaven. Musically it was tacky, but damn he can pitch.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-35769982313571456232011-06-05T01:44:00.000-04:002011-06-05T01:44:49.310-04:00Gee and Turner Tell Dickey Their SecretDillon Gee kicked back a cold one, feet on the ottoman, gazing out the window of the 35th floor of the Mets building. He had just shut out the Braves. He felt like 400,000 bucks. Yeah.<br />
<br />
R.A. Dickey descended the stairs from the 43rd floor. His mind was a quagmire of quibble sticks. Every restaurant he went to was booked. Strangers coughs would arbitrarily point toward him. He received parking tickets, though he did not own a car. Something was amiss.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bd35TP-oEr0/TesWcoxZZ6I/AAAAAAAAAR4/AkNryrpiFlo/s1600/justin-turner2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bd35TP-oEr0/TesWcoxZZ6I/AAAAAAAAAR4/AkNryrpiFlo/s320/justin-turner2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>As he stepped out onto the 35th landing, a thunderous trample was heard by both ears. It was Justin Turner, crashing about like a friendly rhino. He was knock knock knocking on Dillon Gee's door before Dickey could get there. R.A. faced a choice. He had hoped to pick Gee's brain, but the exuberance of Turner would likely prevent this. Justin had made a name for himself by "turning into a monkey" at random throughout the day. He would drop a conversation on the team bus to climb precariously onto the back's of the seats. Hooting and demanding bananas. One time, while standing on second base in a spring training game, Turner dropped let his arms swing down by his knees, and while everyone was waiting for the pitch he scampered over to the opposing dugout, jumped on its roof a number of times, then ran into the crowd, spilling people's drinks whenever he could. "I just have to be me," he explained.<br />
<br />
R.A. thought about turning back, but he had come this far, and his only plan for the evening was to read Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which he had already done several times before. When the door opened for Turner, he followed him in without a word.<br />
<br />
"R.A.? No way!" said Turner. "We've been talking about you! You're like a stegosaurus!"<br />
<br />
"But I have lost my thunderous stego-stomp," said R.A. wistfully.<br />
<br />
"We've been talking about it," said Gee. "You know what you have to do?"<br />
<br />
"What?" said Dickey.<br />
<br />
"It's easy," said Turner.<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q5KYlG8s3Vo/TesW_4YD8lI/AAAAAAAAAR8/Du9x9YJ8fRc/s1600/D+Gee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q5KYlG8s3Vo/TesW_4YD8lI/AAAAAAAAAR8/Du9x9YJ8fRc/s1600/D+Gee.jpg" /></a><br />
"What is it?" Dickey asked.<br />
<br />
"Real easy," said Gee.<br />
<br />
"Stupid easy?" said Turner.<br />
<br />
"Easy as the third bite of pie," said Gee.<br />
<br />
"And that's the easiest one," said Turner.<br />
<br />
"Because you're not too full," said Gee.<br />
<br />
"And you've already established that it's your pie," added Turner.<br />
<br />
"You just gotta..." Gee started.<br />
<br />
"You gotta you gotta you gotta," said Turner with a mini-headbang.<br />
<br />
"You gotta just look at the batter's face," said Gee.<br />
<br />
"You have to notice the pitcher's nose," said Turner.<br />
<br />
"You gotta really see his face," said Gee.<br />
<br />
"Like it's more than just knowing that there is a <i>face </i>there," said Turner.<br />
<br />
"You gotta really see that <i>face </i>with your <i>eyes</i>," said Gee.<br />
<br />
I'm not going to write out the whole thing, but this went on for literally 44 minutes, which is a really long time for that sort of thing.<br />
<br />
Dickey thanked them for their high energy, if incomprehensible advice. He got in the building's not especially fast elevator and went down to the ground floor to take a walk.<br />
<br />
"Greetings Richard Alan," said Pops the doorman. "A late night stroll?"<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qM08SWGG7qw/TesXEPpgIoI/AAAAAAAAASA/FbRdjJHaA74/s1600/R.A.+contest+montage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qM08SWGG7qw/TesXEPpgIoI/AAAAAAAAASA/FbRdjJHaA74/s1600/R.A.+contest+montage.jpg" /></a></div>Dickey looked his way. He saw eyes. He saw a nose. He saw a mustache that covered most of Pops' mouth. He saw his <i>face</i>. He <i>saw</i> his <i>face</i>. Then, instinctively, he walked out the door like a gila monster.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-22972369251519375892011-06-02T16:05:00.000-04:002011-06-02T16:05:21.999-04:00What Jeffrey Toobin Did Not Report... Until Now!Mets Fan Fiction is best friends with Jeffrey Toobin. Before either was famous, they would take long canoe trips in which Toobin would probosculate on the legality of the hidden ball trick and MFF would sing loud arias to the pine cones. Because the bonds of friendship are stronger than those of money and career (most people think that the Brooklyn Bridge is held up by really intense cables, but it's actually friendship), Toobin has allowed Mets Fan Fiction to break into his home and procure his notes from the fateful interview with Fred Wilpon.<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m2ciM0tnB8I/Tefsq0MABQI/AAAAAAAAAR0/rnIwnBRbmMk/s1600/wilpon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m2ciM0tnB8I/Tefsq0MABQI/AAAAAAAAAR0/rnIwnBRbmMk/s1600/wilpon2.jpg" /></a><br />
"What I never told my son," Wilpon said between bites of ravioli, unprovoked, abandoning a previous diatribe about mittens, "is that there are seven suns in the world, and each shine in various intensities and bandwiths. I have named them "Money" "Hair" "Nasturtian" "Sunglasses" "Honor" "Winning" and "Agbayani." I really thought he was the one. I probably should have told Jeff that. It's a big part of my deal."<br />
<br />
Then he reclined, and sat in silence. Tracking a recalcitrant fly with his eyes. Jeffrey Toobin agitated in his chair, trying to attract the waiter for water and coffee refills. 90% of Toobin's diet is water and coffee. The rest is sand.<br />
<br />
"I'M THE KING DAMNIT!" Wilpon shouted. Toobin was taken aback, but then he recalled something. He pulled out his blackberry and called up an email he had tagged. It was from Einhorn.<br />
<br />
"Toobs- Be advised that Fred Wilpon has occasional Tourettic outbursts from time to time expressing monomaniacal desires. Do not worry or be offended, and above do not mention it to Fred. He doesn't know that he does this. He does not notice, in much the way that we do not tend to notice our digestive processes or the circulation of the air. Regards- Einhorn"<br />
<br />
Einhorn. Was he Bruce Wayne or Batman? And when will we see the other one?<br />
<br />
Wilpon, two-thirds of the way through his ravioli, ordered a full lobster.<br />
<br />
"You see," he explained. The trick is to wait until what you have taken for granted [indicating the ravioli] has a little more left in the tank, and then you spend big for a marquee item! That's the secret to my success!"<br />
<br />
The waiter, simultaneously filling up Toobin's water and coffee, coughed a cough that sounded very much like the words "Mo Vaughn."<br />
<br />
"This guy Einhorn, though. I don't like his face. It's a face that says 'glarb glarb glarb. I have a cat. I have a dog. blarg blarg blarg.' You have to watch out for people like that. And here's another thing. He gets advance reports on everyone. And I mean everyone. He told me you eat sand."<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RKesY3ZTv2o/TefspFIstKI/AAAAAAAAARw/oJg-t1nlw00/s1600/einhorn-mets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RKesY3ZTv2o/TefspFIstKI/AAAAAAAAARw/oJg-t1nlw00/s1600/einhorn-mets.jpg" /></a>The waiter placed the water container and the coffee bullet on the table: an unusual action, and one that attracted the attention of the two sitters. "Wha-" Fred started. "I'M BIGGER THAN THE MOON!" he shouted, but the waiter did not flinch. Instead he reached for his face... and pulled off a mask.<br />
<br />
"Dinner is served," said a face that said blarg blarg blarg and so much more.<br />
<br />
"Damnit Einhorn!" Wilpon cried.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-73667920383428368042011-05-14T03:24:00.000-04:002011-05-14T03:24:36.796-04:00Mets Win Over Astros is Mysterious and Invisible.I heard darkly that the Mets had played the Astros. It was one of those nights that seems to escape from nighthood, a rogue evening, a lonely whisperer. Silent people rapped mad flows as you walked down the street and doesn't that sandwich look right, but it's just one kind of right, and on nights like this, right drifts out of its normal situation.<br />
<br />
The Mets were confused. The sphere had obvious patterns. It came toward them leisurely, asking questions along the way, not so much because it didn't know or did care, but just to interact with the community. Jose Reyes had initial success (he is the initializer after all), but after that the ball was like a ball of glue: sticky and undesirable. Thole flailed. Wright wronged. Beltran went off the rails. Bay wasn't where we thought he was. Murphy got cancelled. Turner went the wrong way. Pridie felt ashamed. Gee H'd.<br />
<br />
Longly they groggled. Quietly they looked at the moon. Grayly they traced shapes with the ends of their bats in the on-deck circle. Winsomely they beckoned at curveballs. Forlornly they returned to the Mets scrabble-letter-holder-shaped station (MSLHSS).<br />
<br />
It was Beltran with arrows for eyes and a pocketful of . As Dr. Norris delivered his diagnosis, Beltran tossed the silence from his pocket like a cloud of powder. This is against the rules of baseball, but he wasn't caught, because silence is mysterious and invisible. Needless to say he hit a double. It could have been a real groovy inning, but Bay was still looking for parking, so that didn't work out. However, the lightning bolt of possibilities provided by Beltran's fine whack painted the whole scene in watercolors and all of a sudden the Mets were chatting to each other, saying boy was that interesting! Pridie, how's things going with that girl. Huh. Reyes tell us about that time you accidentally hypnotized someone. Someone call up Pedro in the bullpen and get him to beatbox over the phone. Are you going to drop some rhymes? I just might. Ike you're really confident these days.<br />
<br />
And surely now they will score runs they thought, but it was not they who responded. Astros streaked around the bases like cool demons. The Houstonians were pretty into it but frankly it wasn't my satchel. The Mets, meanwhile, glorped along for two innings. After the second one, in the field, they chatted about what they would get if they got a master's.<br />
<br />
As they jogged back to the MSLHSS, Richard Alan Dickey had that fire in his eyes he gets sometimes. Thole felt a rush of excitement and anxiety until he remembered that R.A. wasn't pitching that day.<br />
<br />
"Beltran's coming up this inning!" he declared. The Mets didn't know that, and they buzzed with conversation about the latest development. He struck out, as Wright did before him. Just then, Bay arrived at the stadium (up until then, the opposing pitcher had just been pitching to a generic strike zone with no one standing in the batter's box, and the Mets had been playing without a left fielder. He was handed a bat, and he looked over at the Mets in their MSLHSS. He saw the glimmer of the hope they once held, and that worked for him. Unburdened by the history of the game, Bay hit a home run. The ball did not go to the moon, of course, but an odd number of people said it did.<br />
<br />
"Hey guys," said Thole. "This is totally corny, but I'm just going to say it. The past doesn't matter. We can all hit home runs off anyone. Even the pitchers!"<br />
<br />
The Mets high-fived like they weren't getting paid. As Dickey connected with Thole, he said "You just turned all these 0s and 1s into 4s."<br />
<br />
The next inning, Fernando Martinez appeared like a ghost materializing and hit a home run. Fantastic. When Wright came up, he turned to Angel Hernandez, the homeplate umpire and head of the MLB Botanists Conference. "Hey" said Wright. "When he starts his windup, ask me who's right." Angel complied, because there are rules, and then there is going with the flow, and he understood that. The pitch approached...<br />
<br />
"Who's right?" he asked.<br />
<br />
"I'M WRIGHT!" he roared into the ambiance of the crowd, and the ball sailed over the wall.<br />
<br />
I heard that the Mets stayed up late walking across Houston that night. They went down alleys, they checked out hidden pubs. They chatted up the populace. Later, Thole wrote an email to his grandmother, Bay and Ike hit up the taco truck. The bullpen played mafia (the party game). Wright and Reyes ended up reenacting most of an episode of Firefly to some middle aged ladies who had never seen the show. It was one of those kinds of nights. It was one of those kinds of nights.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-40645314592221813132011-04-14T23:04:00.000-04:002011-04-14T23:04:07.156-04:00One Wrongball Kills Whole DoubleheaderEverything was going according to plan. Bases loaded, bottom of the 9th, down by one, David Wright at the plate. Sure, this could have been easier, but Terry Collins saw the long season, and he knew an ordinary victory wouldn't do.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DuRfnvQO_Mo/Tae1Nv5CHFI/AAAAAAAAARs/lvQChGxKneU/s1600/Laughing+Collins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DuRfnvQO_Mo/Tae1Nv5CHFI/AAAAAAAAARs/lvQChGxKneU/s320/Laughing+Collins.jpg" width="320" /></a>"If the lead doesn't change after the 6th inning it's like watching television on a Wednesday," he told pigeons as he fed them. "You go to bed like a human, but you don't get to say 'Yeah!'" To Collins, the season came down to how often and how loud you could go "Dananananananana!!" He went "Dananana," for Reyes' homer and "Danananananana!" for Hairston's but he still wasn't satisfied, he needed the full blast. When something truly awesome happened he did a wiggling dance and emphasized the "na" that happened when he completed his rotation. Several Mets had whispered to each other about this habit the first few times they saw it ("He reminds me of yesterday," said Bay; "He reminds me of tomorrow," said Ike; "He reminds me of a ladybug, crawling up a window, standing on transparent eternity, crawling into nothingness, vanishing into ever-smaller specks, feeling 7s and 9s at the ends of its feet, pondering Spain in the fall," said Ryota Igarashi) but after a few weeks most of them barely noticed it.<br />
<br />
Collins had designed this moment to elicit his dance. If he could do the full "Danananananananananana!!!" with the complete wiggle, surely the Mets would be inspired to many wins. He did the dance at his interview to get the job. He did the dance to remind himself who he truly was. Wright would strike the seamed sphere with the mallet of truth and glory would be the emotion of choice in Queens. Sadly, Jim Tracy, chief communicator between rocks and Rockies, had a counterplan. As the 9th inning trickled forward and more and more Mets occupied the bases, he was Wright on the horizon and knew he was doomed... unless.<br />
<br />
He called the bullpen.<br />
<br />
"Who of you throws a wrongball?" he asked. One by one the rocky pitchers shook their heads in negation. The line of head shakes reached Matt Lindstrom who shrugged. "I tried it once in college," he said. "Then damnit, get in the game," said Tracy.<br />
<br />
Lindstrom, as you may have seen could do little against most Mets. He even struggled for five pitches against Wright, and then we were where we started, where we wanted to be all along. Bases loaded, bottom of the nth degree, two outs, the fate of humanity pretending to enter into the equation.<br />
<br />
"Who is Wright?" asked Ike from the on deck circle.<br />
<br />
"I'M WR-" bellowed Wright, but then Lindstrom released the wrongball, and like the scout killing the captain in Stratego, the wrongball could only do one thing, but it did it well. The wrongball beat Wright. The "Danananana!!" that had begun to uncoil with Captain Collins was stifled and he coughed up a hairball.<br />
<br />
"All is lost," he sighed.<br />
<br />
"But TC-thousand," said Umptar the Umpire, "there's still a whole 'nother game!"<br />
<br />
"I said, all is lost!" cried Collins, and Umptar didn't push the matter, because he could see that Collins was feeling surly. A stifled "Danananananana!!!" will do that every time. For the second game of the doubleheader, Collins stayed in the clubhouse. He drank whiskey, smoked cigars and played backgammon. Capuano simply pitched until he didn't feel like it anymore, and then he placed the ball on the mound and announced that whoever grabbed the ball first had dibs. It was only a baseball game because it counted in the standings. It only happened because so many people saw it.<br />
<br />
Wright sipped the precious juice of a young coconut. "Dang, what <i>was </i>that pitch?"Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-60541596780126536502011-03-20T17:54:00.000-04:002011-03-20T17:54:26.360-04:00Jason Bay, 2011 Scouting ReportAdvice followed Jason Bay like a swarm of butterflies that first seems benevolent, well-meaning, an auger of good things, but soon revealed themselves to be a constant presence, a perpetual nuisance, a thing that remained there with him, even when he watched TV, which he did (the Adam West Batman series). He was a man advised.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QilMPccdtVA/TYZ3HL90bMI/AAAAAAAAARo/VgyC9f0ynJQ/s1600/jason_bay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QilMPccdtVA/TYZ3HL90bMI/AAAAAAAAARo/VgyC9f0ynJQ/s320/jason_bay.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"Elbows forward, hands back!" said Howard Johnson.<br />
"Eyes to the skies, rhubarb pies!" offered Ike Davis.<br />
"Usually," said Angel Pagan, "I think of the ball as a snack, and I ask myself, do I want this snack? Yes? Not now? Perhaps something more savory?"<br />
"GNARRR!" cried David Wright. It was actually really good advice, but he was so in the zone, he couldn't put it into words. (He had <i>just </i>come out of <a href="http://metsfanfiction.blogspot.com/2010/04/wright-time.html">Wright Time</a>.) <br />
<br />
He went to the doctor and the doctor said, son, you gotta stop getting all that advice, and Jay Bay said what do you think I should do, and the doctor stood there cold and remote, on an other planet within himself, because all possible responses he could think of were themselves advice, and he believed he had found the uncurable malady. He was thrilled in a sort of cognescenti glee way, but Bay was all the more morose. He got really into making soup, and said stuff like, "Hmmm... there are three clouds and... oh! a fourth one. Do you guys think that big mass counts as a cloud, or only if you can see a distinct one against the mass?"<br />
<br />
But the question remained: what happened last year? Sure there were injuries, but they were 99% half mental anyway, and that's not to diminish the physical trauma and recovery, but there's this whole mental component that goes with it where sometimes you feel like a bird, and sometimes you feel like the sidewalk, but you can't locate yourself as the one who walks down the street. It's like when you have a certain amount of certain coffee and all of a sudden it's like: boom. which way is this elevator going?<br />
<br />
There was a simple reason for it all. It has to do with Bay's approach as a hitter and how that changed in New York. I'm not a professional scout, but I'm pretty sure I have this one figured. Before Bay came to New York, he had a very specific hitting ritual. He would tap his ankle, then toe on his left foot with the bat, then the same on the right, then walk up to the batter's box, take a good look at the pitcher while holding his bat out at an angle, then<br />
all of a sudden he wouldn't even see the game anymore, he would be getting a tour from an old butler of a huge manor, and it felt like those dreams where you have found a secret special place and it's going to mean so much about life going forward and you feel the tingle and the warmth, and each and every time he came to the plate he learned something new about the manor. A candlestick gifted by a very important Scandanavian, a model train track that bent in golden ratio-derived segments, a door that no one has opened in one hundred and forty years down the hall...<br />
and<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-I9ToQ0dKOjE/TYZ3EoscfNI/AAAAAAAAARk/8GRUfhJ-9Bw/s1600/boy+in+field.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-I9ToQ0dKOjE/TYZ3EoscfNI/AAAAAAAAARk/8GRUfhJ-9Bw/s200/boy+in+field.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>invariably, the dream would be interrupted by either the crack of his own bat, or the crowd expressing disappointment, except not quite the crowd, that is, the crowd, at least some of them with proper rooting interests, attention, or the willingness to fake these things, would express disappointment, but that is not what Bay would hear precisely. He would hear a smaller group, one that wouldn't fill half the stadium, not even one level, or even one section. The crowd he imagined contained few people, and they weren't exactly in a stadium, it was an outdoor environment, but without the colossal man-made structure, and even standing there where one doesn't expect such large crowds, it was a meager one by these undefined standards, and in fact crowd is not at all the right word, for when Jason Bay struck out, he invariably imagined a chubby boy standing in a field with no one around him, wearing a striped shirt and staring straight ahead with reeds of wheat and fall leaves falling, leaving their home, their mother tree for the reabsorption and the boy is seeing that but he is also knowing, even when he is not actively knowing that the world he lives in makes his moments here in the field, one arm extended outward at 3'oclock in every dimension, purposeful, but for a purpose unknown, and for a moment the breeze stops and the boy, nowhere near any kind of game, says "Aw dang! He struck out!"<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-VadWZkRYTWg/TYZ3CjzMd6I/AAAAAAAAARg/EKp9rskpPXk/s1600/scepter+of+brussels+sprouts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-VadWZkRYTWg/TYZ3CjzMd6I/AAAAAAAAARg/EKp9rskpPXk/s320/scepter+of+brussels+sprouts.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>Except last year, that wasn't really happening. Not the way it's supposed to anyway. The manor was just a beach house with seven rooms, and it was nice of course but there really was no comparison to the manor, and the kid wasn't in the field anymore. He was waiting on line to buy a scepter of brussels sprouts, and the various characters on the line changed, but the kid was always third. Instead of the sudden realization, tinged with innocence, he spoke, "aw, he struck out," quietly wide-eyed to no one in particular, innocuous enough to not really be noticed by most of the people around him, except for the baggers who snicker snacked.<br />
<br />
Advice plagues Jason Bay like a color he was trying to avoid seeing, but as he stepped up to the plate one brassy sun day at Spring Training, the game faded from his experience of that moment, and he was hiking on a trail. They (they?) reached a clearing.<br />
<br />
"Give me the binoculars."<br />
"Okay," said Jason, passing them while looking straight out into the pleasant abyss.<br />
"I see it!"<br />
"Where Sidd? Show me!"<br />
Sidd showed him. At first a finch flew in front of the binoculars, making Jason momentarily believe a bird the size of an elephant was descending on them, but then he saw it. The manor, high up on a ledge. Distant, but visible. Jason Bay smiled.<br />
<br />
"How's Bay looking?" a lizard-like reporter asked a scout made of shadows and stone.<br />
<br />
"He's almost back," said the scout. "Crack of the bat sounds real good."Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-26238536682033550872011-02-14T17:57:00.004-05:002011-02-15T15:49:27.108-05:00Sandy Alderson: A character profile of the Mets new GM<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E105Z2mbR34/TVmzx73BJ0I/AAAAAAAAARc/75CwoXQUckc/s1600/sandy_alderson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E105Z2mbR34/TVmzx73BJ0I/AAAAAAAAARc/75CwoXQUckc/s320/sandy_alderson.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"<b>Is it short for Sandace or Sandrew</b>?" The Wilpons were never much for casual conversation, but with a new G.M. out-cooling them at every turn, it was time to put on some charm. The Wilpons were men of business. They told you what they thought. They took people at their word, even when other people's words seemed to suggest otherwise. Small talk was like a pile of dust when they were in their element, but now Wilpon's Wind Tower had been replaced by Alderson's Aqueous Solution, and as Fred and Jeff Wilpon and Sandy Alderson stood on a balcony on floor 100 of the Mets Apartment Building, only Sandy felt the breeze.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Oliver Perez</b> exited the elevator with confidence. First impressions were a specialty of his. He had long run out of impressions with the Wilpons or wombulous Omar, but with Sandy, all was fresh and new. They were new people in a new moment, each aware of a different set of air particles and wave types, but they shared the brotherhood of the present, the this, the thisthat.<br />
<br />
"<b>Wolf nature</b>, that's what I've been thinking about for you. Have you considered walking west until you meet a wolf, knowing its nature in which knobby knees mean nature could one day open its jaws and then snappity-whap?"<br />
Oliver Perez had been planning on explaining how he can start. The Mets need starters, and he's the guy for the job. In fact, one time he started game 7 of a League Championship Series. He spent the whole day eating Newman's Championchip cookies to prepare.<br />
"Mr. Alderson, have you realized that I have the arm of champions?" It wasn't what he meant to say at all, but what's done was done.<br />
"Yeah, but not enough wolf power. You're all mink, need more wolf. Wolf and reptile. Bask in the sun. Slither through your windup like a scaly thing zipping along the rocks. That way you won't give up so many walks. And sorry to keep harping on wolf power, but you need hitters to fear you."<br />
<br />
<br />
"<b>Next</b>?" Jim Thompson had been making sandwiches all day. Boy was he tired. The customer rush had slowed to stream, then a trickle, then they arrived only slightly more frequently than comets with names that people know. In came a man who looked the guy who played the neighbor's father in that movie, but this guy embraced the silver fox thing more than that guy. He approached the counter in a small number of large steps.<br />
"Avocado," said the man. "sliced in delicate cuts where rivulets of dressing may form, unless the avo is rendered formless by the weight of sunchokes, sliced truthfully, bamboo shoots, shot from a gun, raw garlic, so raw as to be on fire, but even if all this and more distorts the shape of the avocado, make those little cuts in there anyway so that I'll know something about it that only you and I know, and though we two, we few drawn onward to new era, may be the only ones ever to interact with the sandwich, the secret will live in my belly, yes it will live, and grow into a secret tree, and there will be invisible branches sprouting from me, holding invisible leaves that rain in the fall. People will crunch them silently. On wheat. Everything on it.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-74161726448297951762010-11-07T22:22:00.001-05:002011-02-15T15:45:11.327-05:00Isn't it Cool That the Mets Won the World Series?David Wright walked up to the pitcher's mound.<br />
<br />
"I'm Wright! What Wright? David Wright! Wright to meet you!"<br />
<br />
Mariano Rivera watched him with the cold death of an assassin who has killed so well and so often for so long that he now does it with the fluidity of eating pasta. Linguini. Pleasantly oily. Goodnight.<br />
<br />
"Lettuce be victorious," murmured Chip Hale, gnawing a forgotten sandwich, speaking to Jose Reyes who danced like a well programmed robot off third base. On second base, Angel Pagan was of two mindsets. One marveled at the moment. Game 7, world series, 9th inning. What a life. What a world. The other planned dinner. Tarragon. Rice. Seaweed. Dino Kale. Trust me, he said to himself. On first, Jason Bay was singing the "da na na na na nuh- HEY!" song. He was audible to everyone.<br />
<br />
As David Wright jogged back to the batter's box, he reflected on all that happened to lead to this moment. Seven games back, with seventeen left to play, Jason Bay awoke one morning to find he was perfectly healthy and could resume baseball activities. Furthermore, upon whacking the seamed sphere with the stick, the sphere frequently flew over the barrier 400 feet away, allowing for free passage about the lily pads.<br />
<br />
That same morning, Johan Santana awoke with both vim and vigor, and that was before finding out that all charges against him had been dropped. This made K-Rod hopeful, but, sorry dude, no.<br />
<br />
Oliver Perez awoke in the middle of a really intense trip. He looked into his mirror, and said "Am I there?" He wasn't sure, but he did see Razor Shines where his bedside table usually sits.<br />
<br />
"I dosed you pretty hard. Hope that's cool," said Razor.<br />
<br />
"Give me the ball," said Perez.<br />
<br />
For the next 17 games, the Mets won baseball games as if their opponents were children, and they were giant marsupials, some of whom could traverse entire basepaths in a single galumph. One game was won, because right at the moment that Chase Utley was to whack a Jon Niese slider most decisively, he was attacked by sparrows. He swung his bat wildly at the birds, missing them, and also the baseball, and so the game ended, and the Phillie Phanatic was so despondent that he wrote a letter to an ex, trying to impress her with the depth of his existential phleh.<br />
<br />
Another game was won because, at a crucial moment in the 7th inning, Jeff Wilpon bought the Marlins, fired all of their employees, including the baseball players, so they had to forfeit the game. Wilpon then sold the Marlins, because he felt they were a shaky investment.<br />
<br />
Most peculiar of all was that time when disciplined at-bats, well-executed pitches, enough hits for some of them to be timely, and some prudent managerial decisions resulted in a win against a somewhat less talented team. The game created enough of a stir to be covered as a non-local interest piece in Russian newspapers and Quantum EntangleMet.<br />
<br />
The result of these things and more, was that the Metropolitans finished first in their division, with the Philistines as Wild Card.<br />
<br />
In the first round, things were looking desparate against Los Gigantes. Razor Shines took Tim Lincecum out for dinner. The next day, Tim's changeup didn't change, but Oliver Perez was able to make the ball invisible. No one was sure how literally that was happening.<br />
<br />
The second round meant the Phillies and boy were they mad. Mr. Met had somehow smuggled a young antelope into the Phillies locker room. The antelope itself wasn't dangerous, but the Phillies knew if they even got close to it, its mom would find them and destroy them. That whole episode really threw them off their game. Johan Santana was able to win the first game throwing nothing but change-ups. The Phillies swung early every time, including once when Jayson Werth struck out before the pitch had even been thrown.<br />
<br />
"Is that even possible?" Werth asked Umptar the Umpire.<br />
<br />
"Stop making excuses," said Umptar, basically peeing on the field (this is a metaphor).<br />
<br />
In another game, every batter got a hit every time. It wasn't clear how innings were changing with no outs, but somehow they were. The umpires, managers, official scorer and Krang held a meeting, and decided that to reduce the silliness of the game, the teams would alternate at bats, and whichever team got a hit followed by getting the other team out would be victorious. Ike got the hit, then through an extrapolation of the hidden ball trick, became the pitcher, and struck out Ryan Howard on his patented pie ball. "I throw the ball exactly if I were throwing a pie," he said into any number of microphones after the game. "It usually works."<br />
<br />
In the World Series, the Mets opponent would have been the Texas Rangers, however they were disqualified from the tournament due to a series of unfortunate events. Texas seceded from the nation, was promptly invaded by Mexico, reneged on their secession, which the U.S. accepted, but considered the entire state to have immigrated back into the country illegally, and detained Texas indefinitely. As an upshot of all that, the Texas baseball franchise, despite arguing that it is an institution separate from the state, was forced to withdraw from the World Series. They were replaced by a rather unpleasant beast, the New York Yankees.<br />
<br />
As David Wright tapped his bat against his shoe, he remembered how the Yankees had bribed many of the Met players into sensory deprivation tanks, then taken advantage of their depleted roster, winning 3 of the first four games, losing only to Oliver Perez, whose pitches still may have been actually invisible, and who also hit a home run off C.C.C.C.<br />
<br />
Awakened from their stupor, and brimming with inner peace, the Mets were most victorious in games 5 and 6. To Jason Bay, the ball appeared to be moving extremely slowly, as if the entire scene were underwater. "It's beautiful down here," he said to Jorge Posada, as he launched an Andy Pettite slurve into several other boroughs.<br />
<br />
Then came game 7, and all of a sudden it was like everything was really serious, and things you said, and probably didn't even remember saying, they all came back to me like it was a big deal, and that time when I thought you were going to make coffee for both of us, and you were like I didn't know you wanted any, and I was like, well I'm here, right? so... and you were like yeah, but you knew I was making some and didn't say anything, and then in the park there was a man who talked to me for like twenty minutes about these different flying objects he had brought with him, and how he could throw them across the entire park on a good day, and at night as we walked by bars that were lit by candles due to the blackout and everyone seemed so happy to not have electricity, and<br />
<br />
After eight innings, Santana had to come out. He had thrown so many pitches. He felt shipwrecked. Extremely shipwrecked. He had given up 2 runs on a clutch groundout from Jeter, followed by a boring, at-least-they're-paying-me homerun by Teixeira. Later, A-Rod stole home, but was booed for a really awkward high-5 with the batboy.<br />
<br />
The Mets had not scored. Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain had used his starter's mentality to pitch eight shutout innings, with the help of sneaky offspeed stuff, and four homerun saving catches by Curtis Granderson. David Wright had watched him do it. Each time he used his gloved hand to leverage himself off the top of the wall and caught the ball bare-handed.<br />
<br />
In the ninth, ageless Mo struck out Luis Castillo, despite some fabulous fake bunting. He got Josh Thole to hit a shockingly fast line drive that deflected off of Cano's glove, right to Jeter, who for no obvious reason, had positioned himself in shallow right-centerfield.<br />
<br />
Jose Reyes came up to bat and strike one was already there waiting for him. He got ready to hit, but strike two had already let itself in. Then Rivera, toe absentmindedly on the mound, dropped the ball, and it rolled lazily away. Reyes swung at nothing, striking himself out, and then scampered to first really fast (but not faster than a speeding bullet, because that's completely unrealistic). Rivera hit Pagan with the next pitch, and Jason Bay laid down a Perfect Bunt for a single.<br />
<br />
David Wright, his mental season recap completed, stepped into the batter's box and watched a cutter go by for strike one. Tension rose like steam off of the crowd, clouding glasses, including those of Umptar the Umpire, who called a second strike on a pitch that was like this far off the plate.<br />
<br />
Jerry Manuel trotted out of the dugout, a freshly opened young coconut in his hand. He handed it to Wright, who gulped it hungrily.<br />
<br />
"Who's Wright?" he whispered to David. Wright looked back vacantly. "Who's Wright?" Manuel repeated, but it was like David couldn't hear. The words seemed unfamiliar.<br />
<br />
"Ok, meeting time over, let's get back to the... y'know... umm... sporting contest," said Umptar, who secretly didn't know the word for baseball.<br />
<br />
Manuel retreated, shaking his head. Things looked hopeless. Wright gave a couple of practice swings then stepped back into the box.<br />
<br />
"What did you say to him?" asked Razor Shines.<br />
<br />
"I asked him who's Wright," said Manuel. David heard. Mariono Rivera went into his windup.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"I'm Wright!!!"</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">Whack.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The crowd, as if they had only just discovered the use of their own voices after untold years of harrowed silence, let loose a cry that cowed wild dogs in distant lands. The ball traveled deep into the centerfield and Granderson was lining it up. Yes, he thought, I will have this one too. He placed his mitt on the wall above the 400 sign, and lifted himself upward, beginning to extend his bare hand...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">when the ball dropped just short of the warning track. Reyes scored to make it 2-1, Pagan scored to tie the game, Bay, swift as a weasel, rounded third. Brett Gardner's throw came in ahead of Bay. It bounced and rolled, but it was still going to get there first. Posada prepared himself for a Big Moment, a Big Big Moment, a Big Big B- the ball rolled through his legs! Bay scored standing up! The Mets win the World Series! The Mets win the World Series!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Is that really how it happened Grandpa David Wright?" asked the innocent little ones.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Oh," he sighed, "that's about Wright."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">THANK YOU FOR READING BEAUTIFUL HUMANS! THAT'S ALL FOR THIS SEASON, BUT STAY TUNED FOR OFFSEASON MADNESS AND A TIME THAT WILL SURELY BE FULL OF MAGIC... 2011!</div>Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-9782946578835293922010-10-01T13:23:00.000-04:002010-10-01T13:23:38.828-04:00Exclusive Interview with Jose ReyesRecently, Jose Reyes was interviewed by Baseball Moonthly's longest tenured reporter, Walter Elbow. Here is the unedited transcript, made available to Mets Fan Fiction. The interview, edited down to tight nuggets of wisdom, will appear in the BM's next issue.<br />
<br />
Jose Reyes: The seagulls, they are so important, but you sit there, examining your recording device, not noticing them.<br />
<br />
Walter Elbow: Okay, I think we're rolling. Check, check.<br />
<br />
JR: They are made of the same stuff as we, yet they fly. I am trapped within the basepaths, but these birds that prey on life, who knock on the door of eternity, and while they wait for the answer, swallow fish raw.<br />
<br />
WE: Wait, sorry, now I'm not sure. I don't see any reading on the thing, but it could still... hang on.<br />
<br />
JR: The waves as well, they are solitary, unendingly lapping. Lapping each other in a race. They are the lap dogs of the moon. They lap at us, because to them, we are fuppy.<br />
<br />
WE: Hank? Can you come over here? I am having uncertainties about my recording device.<br />
<br />
JR: Against the overwhelming sky hang imperturable clouds. Docile. Silent. Until! Until! Rain! Thunder! Lightning! They offer no guarantees. They could turn into a bunny, or just fade into nothing. I knew someone like that once.<br />
<br />
WE: See, all the correct buttons are pressed, but the desired result has not necessarily occured.<br />
<br />
Hank: Have you considered these buttons?<br />
<br />
WE: Yeah. Not sure what to think about those.<br />
<br />
JR: And then there's us. Three homo sapien sapiens. Triple homo illuminatis. Walking, peaceful, beachside, absorbing it all, like the universal sponge, ignoring it all like the blind rhinoceros. rhino ceros. I think about that word sometimes. It wants to be broken down, but I don't know why.<br />
<br />
WE: Sorry Jose, we might have to do this another time.<br />
<br />
JR: We already are. It's already the future. We are already talking about my offseason regimen in a cafe full of self-stuffing meaning, full of forms swallowing each other because they are each other's favorite alligator. The answers to the questions you will ask me are: blue, we are already in negotiations, buck 65, I already have and I'll show it to you once it's edited, Serge King, Pablo Picasso, Bill McKibben and of course, Razor Shines, mangoes, she's doing fine, thank you.<br />
<br />
WE: Sacks on College and Derby okay?<br />
<br />
JR: I'm already on my way.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TKYY-_rzZSI/AAAAAAAAARQ/mfS3rniekBA/s1600/Eternity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TKYY-_rzZSI/AAAAAAAAARQ/mfS3rniekBA/s320/Eternity.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-30154686783680218392010-09-14T21:12:00.000-04:002010-09-14T21:12:34.024-04:00Lion, Phoenix, Tree"Robots!" Jeff Wilpon's wife, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasturtium">Nasturtium </a>Wilpon, thought he was speaking in his sleep, as he often does (just the other night, he sat up suddenly and announced "Here's my statue. I thought it was real fuckin original until I realized it looks exactly like those things on Easter Island. What is UP with those. Fuckhorse.")<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TJAYm_TSucI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/Iv2Q8udBk7s/s1600/calligraphylion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TJAYm_TSucI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/Iv2Q8udBk7s/s320/calligraphylion.jpg" /></a></div>This time, Jeff was fast awake. It was his latest scheme to improve the offense. Nasturtium asked how that would work in practice to which Wilpon yelled "Crag norbit!" and looked despondently out the window for the balance of the afternoon. Nasturtium resumed her calligraphy, wondering which of her lovers she would send it to. She spoke about these lovers openly (just this morning, she joined her husband on the balcony, saying "the quality of the light, it reminds me so delicately of another morning when I woke up in the arms of <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-25-2007/president-evo-morales">Evo Morales</a>."), yet Jeff Wilpon was entirely unaware of them. In fact, the specific actions of his wife had fallen off his radar years ago.<br />
<br />
<br />
Howard Johnson picked a nasturtium and cheerfully gobbled it up, as he walked alongside Ruben Tejada and Ike Davis.<br />
<br />
"Hitting's like this," he said, picking another one and examining it.<br />
<br />
"Like what coach?" asked Ruben, pulling a spin move on a pigeon.<br />
<br />
"Orange, peppery, surprising, edible," mused Johnson.<br />
<br />
"Guys," asked Ike, "do you think I could overthrow the military industr- I mean, do you think that's a normal pigeon?"<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">As omniscient narrator, I'll field that question. No it wasn't. It looked like this.<img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TJAaKXrTeJI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/3ufCSNKfUP0/s320/phoenix.gif" /></div>"What are you?" gasped Tejada.<br />
<br />
"I'm like hitting!" it screeched. "ORANGE! SURPRISING! PEPPERY! EDIBLE! You made me Howard Johnson! You made me!"<br />
<br />
"You really did it this time HoJo," said Lenny the local hotdog vendor. "You guys hungry or what?"<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TJAc32duEkI/AAAAAAAAARE/Yhrbq12ptKI/s1600/banyan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TJAc32duEkI/AAAAAAAAARE/Yhrbq12ptKI/s320/banyan.jpg" /></a>"You bet!" said Ike. "Got any coconuts?"<br />
<br />
"What do I look like, a banyan tree? Of course I got coconuts!" The four of them consumed the cocos, both water and meat, while sitting on the street in silence. It was a nice day to do that. It was a nice day to. It was a nice. It was. .<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
"I didn't used to be in <a href="http://www.google.com/url?url=http://ilike.myspacecdn.com/play%23Steve%2BReich:Piano%2BPhase:496926:s295779.25225.5165104.0.2.116%252Cstd_df57537551f843b89c327fb2ad42064e&rct=j&sa=X&ei=cxyQTIrqL5DksQPayP2xDg&ved=0CCgQ0wQoADAA&q=steve+reich&usg=AFQjCNHAlyXj73dV_Z12tZPWAFT23O7Ihg&cad=rja">this type of music</a>, but it is rapidly becoming my favorite variety," said Hisnori Takahashi.<br />
<br />
"Toldja," said Toby Stoner.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-41094007528414843702010-09-04T17:11:00.002-04:002010-09-06T00:37:12.608-04:00The End of FrancouerThe wind rushed through Pagan's hair. It tousled Beltran's. Even Bay, confused, concussed, felt its gentle comb. Not Francouer though. As he prepared with the other outfielders to hang glide to Hamlet Field (that's what it's called, right?), he felt no wind at all. No gushes, gusts, gales, streams, rivulets... he was even surprised he had air to breathe.<br />
<br />
"Something's amiss," he said.<br />
<br />
"You'll try again," said Pagan, but Beltran wasn't so sure. He had felt something was off with Frenchy by a sensation in his nose, that could loosely, but 48% incorrectly be called smell.<br />
<br />
"Do you think it's<a href="http://metsfanfiction.blogspot.com/2010/04/frenchy-and-demon.html"> the demon</a>?" asked Bay.<br />
<br />
"Could be. It's not his style though. He mocks me on the phone, but he's never removed the wind from my sterling hair."<br />
<br />
The others took off, but Francouer, due to intense perplexion and a mild fear of death, did not. He went down to his room. He picked up his phone, though it had not rang.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TAtHK2eNAkI/AAAAAAAAAKk/JJesMYxcwtA/s1600/Frenchy+smile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TAtHK2eNAkI/AAAAAAAAAKk/JJesMYxcwtA/s320/Frenchy+smile.jpg" /></a></div>"Demon?" he asked.<br />
<br />
"I'm gone. So are you. Pack your bags Frenchy."<br />
<br />
"Enough of your taunts!"<br />
<br />
"Not taunts!" protested the demon. "I'm a mythic troublemaker of disproportionate proportions and don't you forget it! But at the moment I'm just trying to be straight with you. Real as applesauce. I'm headed southwest. You might want to see if you can beat me there. Get some good hacks in before I clobber your competency."<br />
<br />
Francouer hung there like a three piece suit hung out to dry on a balmy Sunday that had suddenly lost its clothesline, its clothespins, its clothesconcept. In that moment, though he had never had in his many years, and before long it would be long forgotten, he knew the name of the demon that had taunted him from the moment he had graced the cover of Sports Illustrated.<br />
<br />
"Thanks Satchel," he said.<br />
<br />
"No prob French. By the way, my tormenting of you for your entire career, it's just a bet I made with Nancy. He said I couldn't get you out."<br />
<br />
"Gosh."<br />
<br />
Francouer went to the top floor of the building, where management oversaw.<br />
<br />
"Jeff!" said Omar. "Shouldn't you be on your way to um... the field, you know..."<br />
<br />
"Village field?" Francouer offered.<br />
<br />
"Yes, that sounds right."<br />
<br />
"No, I shouldn't. I've been traded."<br />
<br />
"I thought I made the trades around here." Francouer shrugged. The phone rang. It was Texas. Texas spoke. Omar said, "Really? Sure! Hey he's right here, do you want to say hi?"<br />
<br />
But Francouer was on longer there. He had disappeared, demonlike, possessions in his satchel, on the roof, finding the wind suddenly, absurdly, of-coursely, but not coarsely, blowing his hair, shaking his mop, moving his skin cells and bones, whispering jokes from faraway lands...<br />
<br />
... and blowing toward Texas.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-59375655586338599072010-08-28T17:38:00.000-04:002010-08-28T17:38:36.230-04:00Pelfrey and the SlothMike Pelfrey strutted through the Houston Mammilarium, head held high, giving his "danger point" to lemurs, sloths and red pandas. To do the danger point, Pelfrey would lean back on one knee, then launch forward, pointing at his target with both arms. Omar had tried to limit it to certain specified occasions in his contract, due to the injury risk, but Pelfrey replied as such:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THmBpPCTtjI/AAAAAAAAAQk/kfvUcsxo2w8/s1600/Pelf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THmBpPCTtjI/AAAAAAAAAQk/kfvUcsxo2w8/s320/Pelf.jpg" /></a></div><br />
"The danger point and I are one. You restrict it, you restrict me. You cage it, you squash my me-ness as assuredly as if my own corpus had been placed in an unleavable box. Are you all in? Or are you not in at all?"<br />
<br />
And so the danger point was allowed to be free, and at the moment it was frightening monkeys, worrying capibaras, and having zero effect on the peculiar smile of the sloth.<br />
<br />
"You feel it too, dontcha slothy. You feel the arteries and veins pulsing with pale life fire, the orange and blue heat of madness that infects us all. I sense your sensing of it in the lazy grip of your claws on the top of the cage, the way your fur bristles in the breeze."<br />
<br />
The sloth seemed to nod. It moved so slowly it was difficult to determine.<br />
<br />
"Can I help you?" a Mammilarium monitor asked Pelfrey. This is the modern use of "can I help you," meaning, "you're going to need to do less of what you're doing right now."<br />
<br />
"It's not I who need help," Pelfrey replied. "Not slothy either. See, we get it. We are the albatross of existence, the wing of the universe-sparrow, the br of the breeze that lets the rest of you just take it easy."<br />
<br />
"I don't follow," said the Mm.<br />
<br />
"I guess I'm just jazzed is all," said Pelf. "Jazzed and feeling it. It pops my rocks. Pretty classic really. Makes me feel like a country."<br />
<br />
The sloth, in its long life, had moved on its own strength, a total of 12 feet. At that moment, it doubled this total by leaning back on one knee, then launching itself to the front of its cage, extending both arms toward Pelfrey.<br />
<br />
"By gum, it knows the danger point! How much for the sloth?"<br />
<br />
<i>Pelfrey's game that led to aforementioned jazzedness: 8IP, 6 hits, 0 runs, 4Ks, 2 walks</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THmBl1Q_orI/AAAAAAAAAQc/81DYbG30J5U/s1600/Sloth+cool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THmBl1Q_orI/AAAAAAAAAQc/81DYbG30J5U/s320/Sloth+cool.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i><br />
</i><br />
<i><br />
</i>Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-50053418349103782392010-08-21T18:43:00.000-04:002010-08-21T18:43:08.413-04:00Salmo vs. Finches- Wandering Thole LinkoramaJosh Thole looked out his window, reading Emerson out loud. He would read a sentence than say it to the outdoors. A collection of pigeons had assembled by his window to listen. A fire blazed in the fireplace and the discarded shells of coconuts were strewn across his floor.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THBVf7ozGAI/AAAAAAAAAQM/3HP1y9m5HGI/s1600/JOSH-THOLE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THBVf7ozGAI/AAAAAAAAAQM/3HP1y9m5HGI/s320/JOSH-THOLE.jpg" /></a></div><br />
"Pigeons, sometimes I feel you're the only ones listening," he said.<br />
<br />
He took a walk down Clinton St, stopping in at <a href="http://www.tedandhoney.com/">Ted and Honey's</a>.<br />
<br />
"All of the sandwiches," he ordered.<br />
<br />
"You must be a Met," said the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human">human </a>behind the counter.<br />
<br />
"Is it in my <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVpaanzd9Cs">eyes</a>?" asked Thole.<br />
<br />
"Getting there," said the human. In truth, the Met in Thole's eyes still needed some work, but the human liked to be encouraging.<br />
<br />
He meandered over to Cobble Hill Park, tossing bits of bread to the pigeons.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THBVcbMgZHI/AAAAAAAAAQE/jP9UN3mHFsA/s1600/cobblehillpark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THBVcbMgZHI/AAAAAAAAAQE/jP9UN3mHFsA/s320/cobblehillpark.jpg" /></a></div>"In Los Angelos alone, falling palm fronds kill five people every year!" a man was standing on soap box, saying <a href="http://1000awesomethings.com/">things</a>. The soap box was not the traditional kind, but rather the small cardboard ones that individual bars of soap often come in these days. It elevated the man's height, almost not at all.<br />
<br />
"Cooking brings bears into your home. Bears can wreck a marriage!" <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THBWO-tiN8I/AAAAAAAAAQU/1nez2fsRsgA/s1600/Malayan+sun+bear+001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/THBWO-tiN8I/AAAAAAAAAQU/1nez2fsRsgA/s200/Malayan+sun+bear+001.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><br />
Thole consumed a sandwich while watching the man, but he was only worth a sandwich of his <a href="http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5/java">time</a>. He proceeded up to Montague and turned left to go to the Promenade. He sat on a bench and looked at the skyline. A large group of people walked by, saying nothing. Thole followed them, conspicuous due to his young age, his many sandwiches and that he was wearing his full Met jersey. The people he walked with paid him little <a href="http://www.kirasalak.com/Ayahuasca.html">mind</a>.<br />
<br />
They arrived at a building and entered single file. A doorman tapped his foot each time one of them crossed the threshold. Thole was last in line, and as he approached, not one but three doormen converged to block his path.<br />
<br />
"Be thee salmon or be thee not?"<br />
<br />
"Salmon? That's not a baseball team."<br />
<br />
The doormen laughed deep, frightening laughs."<br />
<br />
"No," said one, "but some baseball teams are salmon."<br />
<br />
"Are the Mets salmon?"<br />
<br />
"Mets?! We can have no Mets in here!" They charged toward him and Thole scampered away. He ran ran ran to the Turkish bath house where he knew Jerry Manuel could often be found.<br />
<br />
"Skip, what's a salmon?"<br />
<br />
"Kid, there's salmon and there's finches. We aspire to be finches. Salmon don't drink coconuts. They get high, but they don't fly, so when they get there they die. We can't lay eggs at that rate, so we take a more measured approach."<br />
<br />
Thole took in these words. They were so confusing.<br />
<br />
"Are we talking about baseball?"<br />
<br />
"And more."<br />
<br />
"Is baseball talking about us?"<br />
<br />
"Always."<br />
<br />
Manuel sipped a coconut. "Stick with the team," he said. "I'll probably be gone soon, and they'll erase my memory, but you, kid, you've got <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promise">promise</a>."<br />
<br />
"Erase your memory? Why?"<br />
<br />
"When I leave the team. Before it was just a non-disclosure agreement, but the Twins have telepaths on their staff, so it just wouldn't do."<br />
<br />
"This baseball stuff is so much more complicated than I ever imagined," said Thole.<br />
<br />
"You're telling me," said Jerry.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-12574112022176479732010-08-15T12:51:00.000-04:002010-08-15T12:51:48.936-04:00K-Rod's Press Conference<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TGga_SxfuYI/AAAAAAAAAP8/yFv7ul_a_Pw/s1600/K-Rod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TGga_SxfuYI/AAAAAAAAAP8/yFv7ul_a_Pw/s320/K-Rod.jpg" /></a></div><a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/news/story?id=5463947">Francisco Rodriguez glumly faced the reporters</a>, those desperate hounds of text and story. They looked at him hungrily, knowing that it was time for him to give up the goods. Just say your piece, and don't give them more than you need to, he told himself. Just keep it simple. He turned to face the slobbering beasts, and delivered this statement.<br />
<br />
"First of all, I'm extremely sorry. I want to apologize to Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon and Mr. Katz for the incident that happened Wednesday night. I want to apologize also to the Mets fans, to my teammates. I want to apologize, of course, to the front office for the embarrassing moment that I caused. I'm looking forward to being a better person.<br />
<br />
"Right now the plan is I'm going to be going to anger management program. And I cannot speak no farther about the legal stuff that we're going through right now. I want to apologize. Sorry.<br />
<br />
"There are things I have seen that I cannot describe with your human words. There are things I have felt that make me unique on this planet. No one will know about my quest for the perfect virus, and the depth of misunderstanding visited upon me by my girlfriend's father.<br />
<br />
"See, what we need is to get infected. Not bad-style. Not like you have to stay home and watch Blues Clues and Dr. Philandery. No, we need something undetectable and awesome. Something that will make everyone look up and see the cascading butterflies defying the lumbering caterpillars. Something to make raindrops violate their standard spectrum. Something to make people advanced in age as we believe in Santa Claus."<br />
<br />
K-Rod was standing now, making wild gestures, occasionally breaking into a voice more suited to opera than a press conference.<br />
<br />
"It will challenge toads! The toads within us all! It will fillet philistines! It will make strangers break into song in unison! It will be the conqueror of cream pies!"<br />
<br />
He seemed to awake from his trance. He looked at the reporters, disoriented, confused.<br />
<br />
"So..." said <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Joe%20Budd">Joe Budd</a>. "How does this relate to, y'know, that thing you got in a lot of trouble for?"<br />
<br />
"I have answered all questions! I will not answer any more!" And with that, K-Rod mounted his travel camel and rode to the bullpen.Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478973449778011862.post-46175522731657553922010-08-10T12:38:00.004-04:002010-08-10T12:44:21.290-04:00Mets on a Plane! (wright Wright)<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5COwen%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5COwen%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5COwen%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TGF_qn66VGI/AAAAAAAAAPk/Mjg3bXby0W0/s1600/mets+plane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PEWXbzQLmsU/TGF_qn66VGI/AAAAAAAAAPk/Mjg3bXby0W0/s320/mets+plane.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Iron Man 2 was playing on the Mets plane back to New York. Barajas laid back with an eye pillow shading his pupils. Castillo hummed an obscure tune. Francouer stood in the aisle of the plane, despite the wishes of the plane staff.</div><div class="MsoNormal">“We are <i>soaring through the air </i>people!” He imitated the plane’s motion with its arms.</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I used to be upset by turbulence,” Reyes chimed in. “But then I said to myself, be reasonable, we are in a metal machine flying through the air high above the Earth. It’s okay if it’s not completely smooth.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Mickey Rourke isn’t so much swarthy as sunburned,” Wright observed. “I was worried when I saw this big swarthy guy approaching with ominous music, about the potential arise of moral ambiguities over the only prominent Hispanic being a bad guy, but then I realized it was just Mickey Rourke. That was a relief. Wright on.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Guys,” said Perez, standing up awkwardly in his window seat, clamboring over Feliciano, his neighbor in the aisle. “I already know what I’m going to do this offseason. I’m going to start somewhere in Kansas, and just start walking, and see where I end up.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I just awoke from the strangest dream,” said Jon Niese. I was aware of the entire ocean. It was like we grew up together.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Some say it’s all a dream,” shined Razor. “This is the one we hang out in cause it’s mellow.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Oh, dang, he <i>is</i> a minority, but he’s really thoughtful too. I just don’t know what to think about this. I was already barely holding the plot together and now we got this whole mess. Stay back. Wait for the wright Wright. Wright?”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I’m like that other guy in the movie, the one with the hair” said Beltran. “Like me, he is a sphinx.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“What do you mean by that?” asked Fitzgeraldo, the captain of the bat boys who sometimes travelled with the team. Beltran shrugged.</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Hey guys, what would you think about a team painting?” Manuel asked the lot of them.*</div><div class="MsoNormal">“NICE!” said the entire team in unison.</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Wow! That’s a much larger reaction than I anticipated!” What Manuel did not realize was that Iron Man had just had a crucial revelation, and the team, all of them wearing headphones on ear, had been reacting to that. They quickly forgot Manuel had asked the question.</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Geez, he’s a Russian. Call me old fashioned, but I feel that Russian bad guys in movies that have nothing to do about the Cold War, is just the country’s attempt to cover for its odd sense of embarrassment over that rather long happenstance. Whoa, but wait, now the Russian who tricked the American weapons contractor into building droids for him is using those droids for a terrorist attack! My word! My word is Wright! That’s Wright. Sometimes I think a thing, and then I think another thing, and it’s like I dropped a ball of yarn, but the yarn is my thoughts, and it takes a while to put it all back together, but then I think ‘Wright on!’ and after that, usually ‘Wright stuff!’ and then maybe ‘Wright time!’ and then I’m just rocking the awesome. Wright? Wright! Wright Wright!!</div><div class="MsoNormal">New Jersey went from sight to memory, and then the Mets began their initial descent. They were always happy to come home, but it also made them a little sad to leave the air.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><i>*If someone actually wants to make a Mets team painting, drawing, or medium of your choice, send it to metsfanfiction@gmail.com and I’ll post it.<o:p></o:p></i></div>Owen Poindexterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533822812947398506noreply@blogger.com0