Met-Lovin' Big Shots

[Guest Edgy DC]

These guys could be comig out of the woodwork this weekend. But here's one guy: actor Michael Vartan of Alias. I wouldn't know the guy if he ran me over with a car, but the kids supposedly are crazy about him.

Vartan interviewed in Sports Illustrated:

SI: For a huge hockey fan like you, how big a thrill was it to hang around the Cup?

Vartan: I've worked with some of the hottest women in Hollywood, and it's by far the most nervous I've been on camera. the moment I saw the Cup I got the chills. The first 10 takes I flubbed every line.

SI: You only moved to the US at age 18. How does a guy from Fleury, France, become a Mets fan?

Vartan: I had Mets pajamas as a kid.

SI: You're filming "Monster-in-Law" with Jennifer Lopez, a Yankees fan, and Jane Fonda, who was married to the owner of the Braves. Have you outlawed baseball talk on the set?

Vartan: The first thing I told Jane was, "I was a huge fan of yours until I saw you sitting in the stands of Turner Field doing the tomahawk chop."

Who knew they wore Piazza pajamas in France?

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

]Vartan: I had Mets pajamas as a kid.

Classikc!

[Willets Point]

Fess up! Which one of you is Michael Vartan?

[metirish]

I posted before how Viggo Mortensen is a huge Met fan, a search on google found this, Vartan gets a mention..

]Viggo Mortensen Q&A By Richard Deitsch 5 August 2004 Source: Sports Illustrated magazine The 45-year-old Lord of the Rings hero and impassioned Mets fan stars in Hidalgo, just out on DVD. Best sporting event you've attended? The 1972 Olympics in Munich. I didn't have tickets, but there was a huge glass wall at the swimming hall, and me and some other kids illicitly climbed up to the glass to watch. I saw Mark Spitz and Gary Hall Sr. Since I swam it was amazing. At the 1980 Games in Lake Placid, you worked as a translator for the Scandinavian teams. How did you pull that off? I was at St Lawrence University in New York, and there was a call for volunteers with language skills. I spoke the Scandinavian languages because I'd lived in Denmark. The best thing was, I got free passes to events, and every night I'd watch hockey. The only game I didn't see was the U.S. final against Finland, because I had to go back to school. You were at the Miracle on the Ice against the Soviets? It was unbelievable. You were kind of hoping they'd win, but you knew there was no way it would happen. And right before your eyes, a miracle. It was such an underdog story. That's what fascinated me. Maybe that's why I love the Mets. For your Vanity Fair cover story, you brought the author a cardboard box of stuff that included a book of poetry that comes with an owl-shaped pewter trinket. What did you bring SI for this interview? Well, since we're on the phone, I don't have anything for you. I can probably get you some San Lorenzo [Argentina soccer team] gear. Let's just say I brought you a 1969 Tom Seaver jersey. Then you can say: 'I can't believe you're giving me this.' And I'll say: 'That's all right, it's just a thing.' You're a fan of the Argentine soccer team San Lorenzo, and in April you were given a plaque and a lifetime membership card. How did you and San Lorenzo hook up? Along with having similar colors, San Lorenzo is a little like the Mets in the sense they don't have the biggest treasure chest. But every once in a while they beat the big guys anyway. A few years back I was speaking to a Hispanic journalist, and the subject of soccer came up. I asked if the interview would be seen in Argentina. I said say 'hi,' to the Argentine people where I lived as a kid and in particular to Los Cuervos, the San Lorenzo fans. Somehow somebody in their P.R. department got wind of that and said if you ever come down, come see a game. Eventually through Lord of the Rings and Hidalgo I had the opportunity. You, Michael Vartan and Jerry Seinfeld have publicly proclaimed your love for the Mets. Explain how you got started. I was about 11 when I came to the U.S. in '69. I got a crash course in baseball that October when the Mets won the World Series. Even though we moved to northern New York -- it was a Yankees town if anything -- the Mets were my team from then on. I've stuck with them through thick and thin. If I'm in town when they come to L.A., I'll see them play. It's not any easier being a Mets fan than it is being a fan of San Lorenzo. You have to have a lot of perseverance -- that's what being a fan is about. You can't be a bandwagon guy. When we began shooting Lord of the Rings in New Zealand in '00 there was a guy who taped the Subway Series games when we were working, and I would watch them late at night. God, that was hard to watch. It was crushing. Horrible. It made me want to kill some more in the next scene. Or at least kill a certain pitcher. You kept the sword you used throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and you actually bought the horse from Hidalgo. Any other sports memorabilia floating around the Mortensen house? I have enough shirts to field a whole San Lorenzo team, and I have a couple of different autographed baseballs and a Phillies uniform. It's nice to have the jerseys and horse, but those are things and objects. It's what you carry inside you. If you're a Mets fan, it's the ups and downs and the memories of the games you've seen that matters. The best thing I carry with me from the Lord of the Rings -- and most of the actors and crew would agree -- was the experience of doing it.

http://www.viggo-works.com/index.php?page=142

[Guest Edgy DC]

Met fans include the guy who played Hidalgo and the guy who played Vaughn.

Pretty. Freakin'. Kewl.

[seawolf17]

="Willets Point"]Fess up! Which one of you is Michael Vartan?

Nuts. One of you finally figured out my secret identity. Here I am with one of my best friends in the whole world, Jen Garner.



It's good to be me.

[Willets Point]

I hope you got a chance to roger her before she married Ben.

[seawolf17]

Willets Point wrote: I hope you got a chance to roger her before she married Ben.

Hells yeah I did!

[Guest Edgy DC]

SI: What did you think of Joe (Torre)'s performance in Analyze That?

(Billy) Crystal: Joe can handle any situation. He can talk off the top of his head. He can be very eloquent. He was actually slightly nervous to meet Bob DeNiro because Joe's a big fan of his. And when Bob saw him and told Joe what a big Mets fan he was, I think that showed where Bob was.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Makes sense. DeNiro and the Mets have starred a few bombs recently. Analyze That? C'mon, Bob. That's an Art Howe-era quality.

[Guest Edgy DC]

An excerpt from a longer interview with David Liss, author of The Coffee Trader and A Conspiracy of Paper (for which he won the Edgar Prize for Best First Novel).

Robert Birnbaum: Were you a contestant in the Godfather saga sweepstakes?

David Liss: Was I a contestant?

RB: I thought Random and Jonathan Karp solicited submissions from an array of writers to continue the Godfather.

DL: I am horribly insulted that he never talked to me about it. Actually, it�s not an offer I would have wanted to have been made. It seems like the equivalent of somebody driving up a big truckload of money to your house and saying, "Do you want this?" I'm glad I wasn't asked. He [Karp] was cooking up a scheme to get a pretty major former Met to write a memoir. And I'm a big Met fan and he asked if I would be interested in maybe getting involved in a project like that. That is something I would have done.

RB: Ghostwriter?

DL: Yeah, or collaborator. That's something that it would have been pretty much impossible to say no to. So I am also kind of glad it never happened.

RB: So can you still be a Mets fan in San Antonio.

DL: It probably makes it a little bit easier to be further away.

RB: No interest in the Astros or the Rangers? Arizona Diamondbacks?

DL: I know people who have moved and they have become fans of the locals. I just can't do that. Your fandom is not something you can change. It's like your religion.

It's simply more fun to write a book in which everybody is either crooked or likely to be crooked.

RB: That makes sense for a by-gone era. Having grown up in Chicago I will always be interested in the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Bears, but I don't know why. None of these sports have the good-faith relationship with fans that engenders loyalty.

DL: I agree, especially this past season with the Mets with their aging hired guns, none of whom really wanted to be there. It really makes you wonder, what is a team? What constitutes a Met or a Cub or whatever? I have gone on rants that you should have to grow up in the area where the team plays in order to play for the team. Something that would create a kind of coherence to the teams. That would make them much more interesting.

RB: I've watched baseball in Cuba, in Nicaragua, in Puerto Rico, Little League�it feels better and more enjoyable.

DL: I can totally understand. I think a system where it's much harder to switch between teams and that you had to come up through the farm system in order to play on the team and maybe every team was allowed a certain amount of exceptions to this rule would make for much more compelling sport.

RB: But then what did Curt Flood and Andy Messersmith fight for?

DL: I don't think the unions would go for it this scheme.

[metirish]

Edgy great quote from David Liss..

RB: No interest in the Astros or the Rangers? Arizona Diamondbacks?

]I know people who have moved and they have become fans of the locals. I just can't do that. Your fandom is not something you can change. It's like your religion.

have to love that.

I love this quote from Viggo.

]You can't be a bandwagon guy. When we began shooting Lord of the Rings in New Zealand in '00 there was a guy who taped the Subway Series games when we were working, and I would watch them late at night. God, that was hard to watch. It was crushing. Horrible. It made me want to kill some more in the next scene. Or at least kill a certain pitcher.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Sticking to the world of authors, this looks like an article about Paul Auster:

]Zu den pr�gendsten Erfahrungen seiner Jugend, die auch quasi leitmotivisch seine literarischen Arbeiten durchziehen, geh�rt immer wieder Baseball. Nicht nur, da� es einen h�bschen Grund f�r seine Schriftstellerlaufbahn liefert: als er nach einem Spiel der New York Mets, zu dem er mit seinem Gro�vater gegangen war, ein Autogramm von seinem Idol Willie Mays erbitten wollte, hatte er keinen Stift zur Hand: After that I never went anywhere without a pen. Paul Auster scheint selber ein guter Spieler (in der Little League, den Jugendmannschaften der gro�en Baseball-Clubs) gewesen zu sein und ein absoluter Fan der N.Y Mets. M.S. Fogg liest selbst halb verhungert im Central Park noch t�glich den Tabellenstand der Mets in der New York Times. Eine der sch�nsten Beschreibungen des Spiels findet sich m.E. in Moon Palace in der ersten Ann�herung von Fogg und Kitty Wu (S. 92).

For the non-German readers:

]To the most coining/shaping experiences to its youth, which pull also quasi leitmotivisch its literary work through, baseball belongs again and again. Not only that it supplies a pretty reason for its writer career: when he did not want to request after a play the New York Mets, to which he had gone with his grandfather, an autograph of its Idol Willie May, had he a pin to the hand: After that I more never went anywhere without A pen. Paul Auster seems to have been a good player (in the Little League, the youth crews of the large baseball clubs) and an absolute fan of the N.Y Mets. M.S. Fogg reads even half verhungert in the cent ral park still daily the table conditions of the Mets in the New York Times. One of the most beautiful descriptions of the play is m.E. in Moon Palace in the first approximation of Fogg and Kitty Wu (P. 92).

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm trying to find actual interview comments about the Mets, rather than profiles that say "Sen. Kickback is reportedly a big Mets fan."

So here's a PDF of an interview with Auster (who also wrote an introduction for Terry Leach's memoir). An excerpt below:

]Dora Shamsky, in Moon Palace, is not called that for a long time, she bears other names before she becomes Dora. In Luna, she is �Dora Sparks, n�e Witkowski�. Considering the Freudian overtones of her first name did you change her last to signify Freud was a �sham�? [Laughter] No, but I have to say that there was a baseball player on the Mets named Art Shamsky, and I always liked this name very much. There was some business in Moon Palace about the 1969 Mets and Art Shamsky happened to be on that team. So, his name inevitably found its way into the book. You have a whole list of players in one of your notebooks... Do I? Twenty five names or so, but only a few surface in the novel. Well, Memo Luna for example, was a real player, and I got carried away with some of the funny names. I was looking through the Baseball Encyclopedia, and jotting down the ones that I was most attracted to. Virgil Trucks was one. I just... [Laughter] Only in baseball do they have names like that... There�s a guy on the Mets now named Butch Husky! Come on! How is this possible? There was another player, I used to love his name: Charlie Spikes; he was never very good but his name� It�s fantastic, fantastic! There used to be, and still are, people who play games making up imaginary teams with funny names for the players. It�s like a little minor sport in America. My favorite one is the �Body Parts Team�. In it was a pitcher named Rollie Fingers, and another pitcher named Bill Hands and Barry Foote, the catcher, and, you know, on and on. On the "Money Team" there was Don Money and Bobby Bonds, and Dave Cash. It goes on and on...

[metirish]

Count Larry Brown as a Mets fan, Brown yesterday with Benigno and Rosenberg off-air while the tech gys tried to get them back on air.

]The line broke the tension. The techie and his serious colleague commenced their attempt to get the show back on the air. Sidiot started yapping about his beloved Brooklyn. He asked Brown about his Brooklyn days and where he grew up. "I would have gone to Midwood (High School) ..." Brown said. "My sister went to Midwood," Rosenberg said. Benigno: "Are we back on the air yet?" They were not. The technical guys continued scrambling. Brown had more interviews to do. No one could blame him, or his Garden PR chaperone, if he split. Instead, Brown had a question. "How did the Mets do yesterday?" he asked. The talkies told him they won. Brown: "What's that, seven of eight?" Benigno: "No, they lost the first two in Colorado. Big series against the Astros tonight - Pedro. You a Met fan Larry?" Brown: "Yes I am, I love baseball."

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/332553p-284144c.html

[Guest Spacemans Bong]

I know Larry was a Brooklyn Dodger fan back in the day.

I'm a big fan of Bob DeNiro being a Met fan.

[metirish]

Yeah DeNiro is a good one, Jerry O'Connell is a Mets fan, remember the chubby kid for "Stand By Me"..

5. Did you have any sports idols growing up?

I've got to tell you, being in New York in 1986 (when the Mets won the World Series), just changed everything. It was a life-changing experience. Honestly, if you were a kid between the ages of 10 and 15, and you lived in New York in 1986, you really believed anything was possible.



http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=igoe/040818

[G-Fafif]

Carly Simon, one of my all-time favorite recording artists, was briefly romantically linked to Keith Hernandez. In 1986, she recorded a song called "Two Hot Girls," in which the concurrent object of affections was a boy named Dwight -- Gooden wasn't specified, but c'mon. I scanned an interview with her in a magazine called New York Woman in which she confessed her fantasy was to have an affair with Darryl Strawberry. So I assumed she was a Mets fan.

In November 1990, shortly after Frank Cashen gave away the things we loved and one of them was Straw, Carly was doing a record signing at the Sam Goody near Rockefeller Center. I went, stood in line and handed her my copy of Have You Seen Me Lately? to autograph. She smiled and said hello. Instead of helloing her back, I asked, "Can you believe the Mets let Darryl go?"

Her face shifted from smile to grimace. "I know," Carly Simon told me. "It's like they�re not even the same team anymore."

Carly Simon was right.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Carly also goes back with the Dodgers. If you believe her story, her family helped Jackie and Rachel Robinson get a house, and they lived with her family for a few years.

Her ex James Taylor is a Red Sox man, so 1986 must have been something else for her.

[G-Fafif]

Edgy DC wrote: Her ex James Taylor is a Red Sox man, so 1986 must have been something else for her.

I think we know who was singin' "Mockingbird" to whom when James came over to pick up the kids the first weekend of that November.

[metirish]

OK, for the life of me I couldn't remember this girls name until I read this thread ..

http://p079.ezboard.com/fthecranepoolforumfrm21.showMessage?topicID=328.topic

and there she was, Julia Stiles, huge Mets fan.

[Guest Beenso]

testing

[Guest Beenso]

can you imagine a mets jersey on say...jennifer aniston..


mmmmm..

[Guest Edgy DC]

Thanks to Willets for digging up this thread.

The Times gossip (or society) page was commenting on Katie Couric's spread for AARP's magazine, then led into this piece.

Club Kid, 90

Though LES PAUL, a pioneer of the electric guitar, is 90, he has never made AARP's cover. But then, Mr. Paul is hardly retired. He still plays regularly around town and keeps the hours of a club kid. We recently saw him checking out Velvet Revolver, a rock band led by SLASH, the former Guns N' Roses guitarist, at the new Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square.

Mr. Paul shared a table with ACE FREHLEY of the group Kiss (Can a Kiss cover for AARP be far behind?) and the Mets catcher MIKE PIAZZA. The band was very loud and Mr. Paul was adjusting his hearing aid. We asked whether he was turning the volume up or down.

"I was turning them off!" he said.

"I got the hearing aids at Sam Ash," he said, referring to the music store. "They're the JIMI HENDRIX Model. They even come with a wah-wah pedal."

The conversation turned to politics, and Mr. Paul recalled playing for F.D.R. in 1939, taking a presidential request for "Home on the Range."

He refuses to talk politics publicly.

"I played for CLINTON, EISENHOWER, NIXON, CARTER and ROOSEVELT," Mr. Paul said. "I would never get political with them. It does no good for your career to say what you think. It's better to just play."

We asked what he thinks about rap music.

"I don't," he replied.

With Joe Brescia and Paula Schwartz

[MFS62]

]The Times gossip (or society) page was commenting on Katie Couric's spread for AARP's magazine,

Edgy, please don't use the words "Katie Couric" and "spread" in such close proximity. The mental image that conjures up is dangerous to my health.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

Ray Toro, of My Chemical Romance, interviewed by Orlando City Beat:

OCB: Okay, just a couple of rapid fire questions to end the interview. Yankees or Mets?

RT: Mets. Mets all the way. If you grow up in New Jersey, you have to like the Mets. And I grew up during that's (sic) whole '86 World Series, so the Mets were my team.

[Valadius]

Edgy DC wrote: If you grow up in New Jersey, you have to like the Mets.

If only that were true...

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

You gotta be kidding Edgy. We're actually in Phillies territory here, with enough MFY and Mets fans to keep the mix interesting.

[Guest Edgy DC]

You're talking to the wrong guy. I'm not in My Chemical Romance at all.

[Guest sharpie]

The former bass player and sometimes singer for the Saw Doctors talked about the Mets at a Saw Doctors show I saw in Brooklyn a couple of years back. Said he was living here in '86 and has been a fan since then. Some dolt yelled "Yankees" and "Mets Suck" but the Saw Doctors guy told him to shut it.