perpetual memory loss

by Shep Sheperton

Port St. Loosey-Goosey, Fl.–Today was the last day of Spring Training for the World Champion Gotham Rats.  Tomorrow they will begin the move north and start preparing for their Opening Day series against the Good Griefs.  The atmosphere here this spring was drastically different from last year when they were considered the league under-dogs by many of the best baseball minds.  That won’t happen twice, however, as most analysts have jumped on the bandwagon and are predicting that the Rats will be strong contenders for the title this year.

Starting third basemen Evan Longoria noticed the change also, “You know, last year we just wanted to be competitive and show people that we can play ball, but this year we have a bit of a chip on our shoulders.  We know we can play and we plan on defending out title.”  His sentiments were mirrored by the trio of sluggers Howard, Teixeira, and Fielder.

“Ryan Howard likes the way this team looks.  Ryan Howard thinks that there are some real good players on this team, we will have good chemistry,” boasted Ryan Howard. When asked about his propensity to strikeout he replied, “Shit son, when Ryan Howard hits 45 homers and drives in 130 RBI’s every year, it doesn’t matter how many strikeouts Ryan Howard has.  Ryan Howard is a force to be reckoned with, like a tornado or something.”

“I’m just here to contribute to the team in anyway that I can,” droned Teixeira in one of his cliched statements.

Newcomer Prince Fielder was in good spirits today and remarked, “I think I’ll do much better this year.  New York has plenty of vegetarian restaurants so it won’t be so hard for me to find a tofu burger.  It was damn near impossible for me to find that shit in Milwaukee.  Every time I asked for one some joker would give me a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger.  Man that shit was whack!”  Prince then meandered off to the outfield apparently looking for some food.

Meanwhile the Manager, Pablo Rodriguez, summed up his team stating, “Well all I can say is that this is a top notch organization from the top to the bottom.  Our ownership puts us in a position to compete every year, and we picked up some good youngsters in the draft.  Once we bring up David Price, and add him to the already formidable Shields, Lester, and Liriano, well our pitching is going to be tits.  Offensively we are even better than last year with the additions of Dunn, Prince, and Tulo.  Honestly, we have a strong team that is well-balanced offensively and defensively.  We have some good vets and some promising youngsters, and I expect great things from all of them.”

One of the most upbeat players in camp was Ubaldo Jimenez who stated “Main, bodee bop fastball boodoop doop err good main, badop pop, yah you know, pa toop whoop.”  No one ever knows what Ulbaldo is saying but you can’t argue with his upside so most players have just learned to encourage him with lots of nodding and high-fives.

The Rats are chomping at the bit to get this season started and Opening Day seems more like a year away rather than just one week.  Regardless, this team does look formidable and unlike last year they have confidence in themselves.  That should help them get over the hump and back into the playoffs.  Rats fans are in for a treat this year as this team should hit the ground running firing on all cylinders from the get go.  When asked about expectations for the year Carl Crawford bluntly boasted, “To win it all again!”

Team Moves

The Rats sent P David Price down to Triple-A McKracken where he will sit around and play Xbox 360 for a month while the Rats try to squeeze another year of eligibility out of him.

Also Marco Scutaro will potentially be sent back to the Dominican Republic for a box of Puerto Rican rum, but negotiations are stuck because the Dominicans don’t think he is worth 5 bottles of Don Q.

Shep Sheperton is the beat reporter for the Gotham Rats, and when not begging for a quote can be found crying in the women’s bathroom because the whole entire organization hates him.

Riiiight.

Yesterday after I got back from school I decided to take a break from studying for the night and play some video games.  I downloaded the new MLB 2K9 demo and hoped that it would be a vast improvement over the previous incarnations.  My hopes were shattered as the 2K series continued its tradition of suckery.  For some reason the powers that be decided that competition amongst sports games was a bad idea and so they embarked upon all these exclusivity contracts.  Unfortunately for baseball fans 2K received the exclusivity on Xbox and the MVP series ceased to exist, and because of that I haven’t played a good baseball video game since MVP ’05.

My main gripe with the 2K series is that there are way too many layers.  Back in the day video game baseball used to be fun when all I had to do was worry about pressing a couple buttons in conjunction with the D-pad.  Now things have just gotten ridiculous; let me count the ways.  Swing stick = lame.  You know I don’t want to sit there and decide if I want a 40 degree downswing, or 55 degree swing, or a 30 degree upswing.  I just want to swing the fucking bat.  I don’t need to ‘mimic’ a real swing.  I just want to hit the ball.  Pitch stick is likewise lame.  I don’t want to ‘mimic’ a slider, curve, circle change, or whatever.  If I wanted to mimic the real motion of a slider I would go outside and throw sliders on my sidewalk, and if I was any good at it I wouldn’t have to play the goddamn video game to begin with.  So what else is annoying?  Running the bases with any degree of skill is pretty much impossible and usually I end up getting two players tagged out at one base–a la J.D. Drew and Jeff Kent in the ’06 NLDS–because I didn’t have the manual dexterity to hit the required 12 button combination to advance the lead runner but not the other runners.  How did they fuck this up when I never had any problems with this on my old Nintendo?  It’s because 2K is terrible and they make everything as complicated as possible.  Speaking of the Nintendo at least they had a good excuse for crappy looking four pixel characters, but in this day and age how does 2K keep churning out shitty models.  Why does Prince Fielder look like he weighs 180 lbs.?  Why does Ryan Howard look like Jimmy Rollins?  Seriously are you guys even trying anymore?

I’m assuming that next year they will go beyond baseball simulation, and do something a bit like this:

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As I’m sure some of you may have heard this weekend is, yet another, corporate holiday shoved down our throats in an attempt to hijack some of our hard-earned dollars.  I am, of course, talking about Valentine’s Day.  So while there will be tons of people buying candy hearts, chocolates, flowers, cards, and all the other Valentine’s Day accouterments another important event will be relegated to the back burner.  That event is the official beginning of baseball season.  Pitchers and catchers are to report to Spring Training on Saturday, February 14.  So instead of buying your gal pal some chocolates, or any of those other contrived gifts, go buy her a baseball mitt.  Then you can go outside and play some catch, because as we all know, after the crack! of the bat, there is no better sound than the whizz and pop of playing catch on a nice spring day.

The beginning of the real baseball season also means that fantasy baseball is about to begin.  I have been struggling to find something to waste my time on these last few months to no avail.  The biggest time vampire in the entire world is fantasy baseball and I, for one, will be glad to have it back in my life sucking precious minutes out of my day that would probably be better spent on school work or something constructive like that.  So to all of you in my league “Look Out!” because I haven’t been resting on my laurels all winter and my team will be ready to defend our title this year.  Forget Valentine’s Day I’m all about the “Beginning of Baseball Season Day.”  Now there’s a holiday I can get behind.

Oh, my heart was my Pavlovian response any time the words Mets and bullpen came together.  It was usually followed by moanings and groanings, that was followed with yelling and cussing (and the occasional thrown beer), which was then followed by “I fucking knew that would happen.”  To make matters worse afterwards my phone would start doing the merengue with text messages as shit talkers wanted to rub salt in my wounds.  Suffice to say it has been a brutal couple of years for the Mets bullpen, and last year was particularly terrible–29 blown saves.

How bad was it consider these facts from ESPN’s Jayson Stark:

The Mets were 13th in the league in ERA from the seventh inning on and 13th in bullpen ERA overall.

They blew 29 saves — second most in the National League, behind St. Louis.

They gave up 61 home runs from the seventh inning on, tied with the Giants for the most in the league.

And the real kicker is how the season could have played out if they would have had some help at all:

If all games had ended after six innings this season, the Mets would have finished the year 11 games ahead of the Phillies (aka, the team that won the World Series).

If all games had ended after seven innings, the Mets would have finished six games ahead of the Phillies.

And if all games had even been just eight innings long instead of nine, the Mets would have finished five games ahead of the Phillies.

Wow that is just dreadful, now imagine how my heart felt by the end of the season.  I was on the verge of a heart attack.  This week, however, the hot stove finally got hot and the Mets have (hope, hope, fingers crossed) cured themselves of the late inning troubles.  Yesterday, the Mets finished the majority of their bullpen reorganization.  After picking up K-Rod earlier in the week–even though I didn’t want him for 5 years $75 million I’ll take him at the discounted 3 years $37 million–and yesterday the Mets pulled off a 12 player 3 team deal to bring J.J. Putz to the Mets as K-Rod’s set-up man.  So for one year at least the Mets will have an outstanding 1-2 punch in the 8th & 9th innings, and what’s even better is Aaron Heilman and Billy Wagner (btw Billy I still hate you) are gone for good.  Wooooo! Hooray and Good Riddance to both of you.  The work is not done yet and here is what I would like to see done before Spring Training.

1. Take Luis Castillo and chain a very large and very heavy rock to him.  Then throw him off of the Brooklyn Bridge.  Next sign Orlando Hudson giving the Mets an awesome 1-2 at the top of the order and one of the best middle infields in baseball.

2. Sign/trade two more pitchers and let Jon Neise get some more seasoning in Triple-A.  However neither of these new pitchers should be named Oliver Perez or Ben Sheets (who is a perpetual broke-dick).

3.  If possible find a good right-handed bat to play in left-field.

4. Someone anyone hook me up with tickets to Citi-Field Shea Stadium because prices will be kind of outrageous.

It’s amazing baseball season has only been over for a couple months and already I can’t wait for the new season.  Damn you hot stove.

I swear this isn't me.

Today I made my way over to neverbesocial’s blog and read his entry about the lackluster end to the Cub’s season–I know it’s and old one but I was sans computer for awhile so I’m still catching up–and I was wondering how come I am still interested in the playoffs this season.  This despite the fact that the Mets lost to the Marlins again on the last day of the season, once again killing their playoff hopes.  It was so much more than that though, they once again had a lead in September, and once again with 17 games left they floundered…badly.  But yet here I am interested in the season after a mere day or two of grumbling.  I still care about the playoffs, and still check on the team news daily–when I have a computer that is.

This has led me to the conclusion that after the disappointment of 2006–swing the fucking bat Carlos–and the crushing collapse of 2007, the Mets have officially broken my spirit, and although I remain a staunch fan, I have the short term memory and the delusions of a battered wife (hence the BWS or battered wife syndrome).  Sure it’s not like the Mets have ever been really good for an extended period of time, but these last 3 years–especially 2006 though–were supposed to be years where they dominated.  I mean the Braves are a shell of their former selves and yet the Mets still get smacked around by them.

This brings me to yet another conclusion and that is that it hurts way more when your team sucks when they are supposed to be good.  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the Mets aren’t very good, and probably won’t be again for a few more years.  (At least I kicked ass in my fantasy league.  My team showed the heart and fight that the Mets are clearly missing, and I get to look forward to defending my title–again–next year.)

The Cubs, however, will probably be good again next year, and they might just make it over the hump and win it all.  If they do it will all be gravy, but if the same thing happens to them again next year then it will make three years in a row that the Cubs have underperformed.  If that happens then I think I will be able to embrace neverbesocial as a fellow member of the BWS club.  The Cubs are known as the lovable losers and that’s fine when they suck, but when they are supposed to win, well, that’s when the losses really, really hurt.  That’s basically what the last three years have felt like for me, and now begins the slow laborious process of rehab with my power animal–slide!

Just how I like them, sad & weepy.

Last post was getting a little long in the tooth.

Update 4:07

Wuertz gets out of the inning so it’s all tied up in Milwaukee 1-1, and in Queens 2-2.

Update 4:11

Nothing for the Mets in that inning.  Church after one good game looks like he is lost in the sauce…again.  It’d be nice to see Murphy take over for him in right, but then you lose Church’s defense which might be more valuable now that the game is getting late.

Update 4:14

WithWagner gone the majority of my ire falls on Showeneweis  and once again he proves me right by giving up a homer.  Why didn’t Manuel swap him out when Garcia pinch hit with a righty.  Fuck I hate you Showeneweis.  The fans rightfully boo him.  I can’t wait until that joker leaves the team.

Update 4:20

Well this shit doesn’t look good.  Ayala just gave up a bomb to Uggla.  4-2 fish.  Fuuuuuuck.  Brewers are up 3-1 so the Mets need to comeback.

Update 4:31

Things are looking grim, but Reyes just hit a ground rule double to right center.  Beltran is up with two outs in the bottom of the 8th.

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Well this is it the last game perhaps ever at Shea Stadium.  This season has been a roller coaster of emotions and I have risen to tremendous heights and desolute lows with this team this year.  However, it all comes down to the last game of the season, and the Mets have to do it, again, against the Marlins.  Last year Glavine didn’t even make it out of the first inning, and hopefully this year they can pull it off, and with a little help from the Cubs, make it into the playoffs without having to play a one game playoff tomorrow.  I’ve been watching the pre-game show for an hour and a half and it’s good to see all the old Mets at the stadium talking about Shea, and some of the old memories. 

One moment they have been talking about a lot in Piazza’s homerun after 9/11.  That moment was voted the #2 moment in the history of Shea Stadium (#1 was game 6 of the 1986 WS where the Mets won on the Buckner error).  For me, however, that is my favorite memory.  Only in retrospect do I realize how much my life was changed by 9/11 even though I was 3000 miles away.  I was stuck on base when Camp Pendelton was put on high alert, and we were all ready to ship out at a moments notice.  All of us were still reeling from what had happened.  It seemed like, even in California, that the nation had come to a grinding halt, and everything that we thought we knew seemed foreign.  Baseball helped to normalize everything again, and when the Mets were set to continue the season against the hated Braves, I was able to put the tragedy in the background for a bit, and ressurect my absolute hatred for the Braves.  When the Mets came back with that dramatic Mike Piazza homer, it was pure elation, and just for a moment everything was forgotten.  Anyways that’s probably my fondest Mets memory, because I was a bit too young to remember 1986, and because still 9/11 is one of the moments that has so dramatically effected the course of my life.

Update 1:21

Currently still in a rain delay, game time is now set to 2:00 PM EST.

Update 1:58

Here we go, games about to start.  I really nervous about this game, and I’m even more worried about how Perez is going to pitch on 3 days rest–especially with CC pitching in Milwaukee.  Hope for the best that’s all I can do.

Update 2:03

1-2-3 inning for Ollie, and with only 7 pitches to boot.  Like Gary Cohen said “no 7-run inning this time.”  Thank God.

Update 2:13

Nothing doing for the Metties that inning, but they did make Olsen work–25 pitches that inning.

Update 2:20

A brief scare when Ollie tried to grab Uggla’s ground ball.  He stayed in but his control was terrible afterwards, but he managed to get through the inning.  23 pitches through 2, and no score in Milwaukee yet.

Update 2:31

1-2-3 inning for Olsen.  The Cubs scored before the inning was over, however, and the Shea faithful gave a rousing cheer.

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Via Ball Hype.  Check out this dude that passed out during the second game of the Mets, Braves double header.  Reminds me of that Dave Chappelle skit where he talks about how you don’t ever want to pass out around white people because they will do all kinds of fucked up shit to you while you’re passed out.  Check it.

So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehen, good night.

Today marked the end of the 29th Olympiad, and I have to say I’m sad to see it go.  I really enjoyed this year’s Olympics probably more so than in the past.  There were so many good stories, records broken, and all around great competition this year that it was rare for me to be watching TV and to not be watching the Olympics.  I watched a lot of Olympics this year, and because there is a 12 hour difference I ended up staying up very late most nights (3 or 4 in the morning usually).  So I figured I would go through my favorite and not so favorite moments of the Olympics Sergio Leone style.

The Good

Can’t talk about this years Olympics without talking about Michael Phelps.  Wow what a performance he put on, one for the ages.  I saw 7 of the 8 gold medal swims live, the one I missed of course was the closest one, the 200M Butterfly, and damn was that some compelling TV.  The come from behind relay win against the French is about as good as it gets.  Seeing Phelps win the 8th Gold Medal with about 500 other drunks at the Astoria Beer Garden–with chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” and “America fuck yeh!”–was one of the highlights of the Olympics for me.  Besides, Phelps the entire US swim team was ridiculously good on both the Men’s and Women’s side.  Some of the coolest stories to come out of the swimming cube were Phelps, Natalie Coughlin, Cullen Jones, and Dara Torres.

Even though I am not that knowledgeable about fencing I do like to watch the swashbuckling.  The US women swept the medals in individual sabres–which I don’t think has ever happened.  Probably the best match I saw, however, was the Women’s Team Sabre Gold medal match between China and Ukraine.  I tuned in late and China was about 6 points from winning the Gold and about 8 points ahead of Ukraine, but the Ukraine pulled off a stunning comeback to tie it up at 44 all, with the winner of the next point getting the Gold.  Ukraine completed the comeback by scoring the final point and winning the Gold.  It was a crazy good match.

Another great moment that I stumbled upon was the Men’s +105kg weightlifting final.  This event was won by Mattias Steiner, who had lost his wife in a tragic car accident the year before, making him the sentimental favorite.  Steiner failed his first two attempts before he lifted, a personal best, 568.8 pounds to clinch the Gold.  From there Steiner went nuts jumping all over the stage, hugging his coaches, and crying as he realized both his and his wife’s Olympic dream.  A touching moment that really encapsulates why the Olympics are special.

Rohullah Nikpai won the first medal ever for Afghanistan.  He won the Bronze medal in 58kg Taekwondo.  Good for him and good for Afghanistan.  Hopefully there are more moments and achievements like this in the future for Afghani Olympians.

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I’m about to leave to go pick up neverbesocial from the airport.  What follows will be a drunken weekend of baseball, beer gardens, and, well, more beer.  Since crazy shit always happens to me I’m sure I will have some good stories of random drunken encounters to relay to you all next week.  My liver is going to look like a dried up cat turd by the end of the weekend, but it will all be worth it.