IGT 06/24, Athletics at Metropolitans

[Guest Kid Carsey]

Stewart lf
Kotsay cf
Swisher 1b
Chavez 3b
Ellis 2b
Cust rf
Crosby ss
Kendall c
Kennedy p

Reyes ss
Lo Duca c
Beltran cf
Wright 3b
Easley rf
Green 1b
Valentin 2b
Gomez lf
Maine p

[Frayed Knot]

Ooooh, hit it to right field !!

[Frayed Knot]

Told ya so, told ya so !

(not that that was entirely Cust's fault)

[Guest iramets]

Bet Jack's cussing up a storm right now.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

Easley hits a double over a strangely reacting Kotsay's head to make
it 4-sniffle through three.

Ralph in the booth, which is always a pleasure.

[Frayed Knot]

Cust giveth, and then taketh awayeth.

[Elster88]

Cust didn't really do anything wrong back on that play in the first. Reyes giveth on that one.

Pretty much everyone stung the ball in the top of the fifth for the A's. I'm not sure how we got out of that with only one run lost.

[Gwreck]

Some misc. notes from the SNY broadcast:

Delgado asked for the day off; Franco is unavailable with a sore knee, hence Green at 1st and Easley in right.

With the LoDuca ejection last night and the need to pinch-run for Castro, the question of the emergency catcher came up. Willie was asked and said that it would probably be Valentin. Clueless or lying? You decide.

In all seriousness, I would think it would be Gotay. He (and Newhan, when Newhan was here) would often warm up the pitcher between innings.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

Maine looking good through seven.

[Elster88]

Gomez 8 stolen bases in 9 tries.

I'm getting very riled up thinking about Reyes, Gomez hitting 1-2 in the order with Gotay hitting eighth next year.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Mets trying to tack on to their lead with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. Valentin needs the two out hit.


Valentin goes ...KABOOM!!!

[TransMonk]

Schoeneweis in to pitch the 9th with an 8 run lead...I'd like this to be his permanent role in the bullpen.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

The Mets tack on 2 more runs in the bottom of the eighth. Going to the top of the ninth the Mets now lead 10-2.

Willie opts to send in Schoeneweis for the ninth. Good choice, I doubt even he could screw this one up.

[Guest iramets]

And Schoenweis leaves the pooch unscrewed!

[Gwreck]

Put it in the books! Sweep.

[Guest iramets]

Gwreck wrote: With the LoDuca ejection last night and the need to pinch-run for Castro, the question of the emergency catcher came up. Willie was asked and said that it would probably be Valentin. Clueless or lying? You decide. In all seriousness, I would think it would be Gotay. He (and Newhan, when Newhan was here) would often warm up the pitcher between innings.

I hope you realize that if you're serious, you're taking the concept of "pathological liar" further than I normally do. You seem to be suggesting that, when asked a straightforward question about his 3rd catcher, he gave a response, seemingly with no motive (that I can think of), that was knowingly wrong.

Gary and Ron did mention that Valentin hadn't donned the tools of ignorance since high school. Plus of course he's wearing that knee brace that makes squatting ungainly to say the least. (He said he'd squat Tony Pena style if he got into a game, which probably took Pena years to get down right. Jose's going to master that arcane skill in a few warmup pitches?) It really does look like Willie's got something pathological going on.

Unless Willie himself is simply a tool of ignorance, of course.

[Gwreck]

I was being mostly facetious, as I'm sure you understood.

I can't fathom where you got the whole "pathological" bit from.

If anything, I'd go with the "clueless" thing -- I'm willing to consider that he just threw a name out there because he'd never really thought about it.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

People in positions of authority that have to constantly answer to critics sometimes
have to take the high road.

It's easier, and frankly smarter, to say, "duh, I dunno, I guess Valentin"
than to say to say, "yeah, Paulie's red-ass mentality kinda fucked us and I
dunno know what the hell I woulda done had push come to shove. It's bad
enough having to answer you guys day after day but I got this guy on the
internet that thinks I'm a pathological liar and claims I kill puppies for fun and
it's wearing on my thin-fibbin'-fake-doctorate-gettin' skin so I have to stop making
shit up and be straight up with ya'll!"

[Guest iramets]

Gwreck wrote: I was being mostly facetious, as I'm sure you understood. I can't fathom where you got the whole "pathological" bit from. If anything, I'd go with the "clueless" thing -- I'm willing to consider that he just threw a name out there because he'd never really thought about it.

That's pretty damned clueless, if you ask me. It's certainly happened before that two catchers have gotten badly hurt in the same game (McCarver and Ryan once broke fingers in the same game), so in all his idle hours on cross-country airplane flights and driving to Shea, WWSB really never considered who his 3rd catcher will be? What, he's just going to eeny-meeny-miny-mo it?

As to your difficulties fathoming the depths of my mind, a pathological liar will tell lies because that feels comfortable to him. If you ask a pathological liar what he ate for breakfast, when he just finished a bowl of Cheerios, he will say "Sausage and soft-boiled eggs"--not because he gains any advantage from lying but because he enjoys having that sort of relationship with the nasty world that's always intruding into his private business. Ask Willie who his third-string catcher is, and if it's Gotay, he'll tell you it's Valentin. (If it's Valentin, of course, he'll tell you it's Gotay.) If you ask him if he'll be using Mariano in the 8th inning, he'll tell you "No," and then promptly do it. No, wait, that's Torre. Sorry.

Anyhow, I just can't tell which he is, most of the time, other than he is not a well-adjusted and secure person.