G-Fafif

The final game at Tiger Stadium took place on a Monday afternoon, starting time 4:05 PM (with five road games remaining, as noted). The opponent was the Royals, who had been around for "only" 31 seasons at the time. And somehow it was a sellout and highly memorable and moving, according to reports. There's never a bad time to say this, but fuck the Yankees (and Verducci...and Klapisch). And, sadly, their final regular-season home game in '08 probably won't be their final home game of '08. But even if it is, so the fuck what? The whole fucking world doesn't fucking rise and fucking set on their sorry fucking asses.

Frayed Knot wrote: Well, they were once called the 'Spiders'. The Cleveland Spiders were a National League team wrecked by the careless inbreeding of syndicate baseball. Cleveland Indians were and are a whole other franchise, founded two years after the 1899 Spiders of 20-134 infamy went out of business. The Indians actually grew out of the Cleveland Blues of the Western League...though one imagines Spiders fans had loads of Cleveland blues by 1900.

Iubitul wrote: Hmmmmmm.... not that different than NY.... Only in that by all measures we're great and they suck. Though they would probably say otherwise. But they'd be wrong. Because they suck (and we're great). Man, I hate sportswriters who tell fans how to think and who to root for. They aren't fans. That is not their beat. They have no idea how fans think, and when they attempt to write about it, they come off as the martini-sipping yuppie scum. Even if they grew up fans, they shook it off long ago in the name of professionalism. If a White Sox fan wants to stick pins his Ted Lilly doll, by all means, he should do so. He understands why he's doing it. He knows he has one hammer in Chicago, that his team won a World Series in recent memory and the team of his overbearing, obnoxious co-workers or cousins or whoever hasn't for a century. He doesn't want to lose that. It's a perfectly valid response to the situation at hand. We're not all pawns in somebody's civic army. Jay Mariotti has no clue.

Not overbearing at all. After a decade-plus of Fox and ESPN, that's the highest compliment I can pay.

Damn it feels good to root for a team that can beat the Phillies. I was going to say damn it feels good to root for a team that's not the Mets, but that can be taken so many wrong ways.

Discussing the prospects for Randolph with a friend at the disheartening loss to the Cardinals last week (as opposed to all the other disheartening losses), he opined that Willie would never try Kevin Mitchell at short or bat Benny Agbayani leadoff. On the train home that night, I passed an Old Navy just past the Jamaica station. It had two lights out, which allowed it to read: O D AVY

I read Bridgeview in the comments section yesterday. I'm wary of believing "I know this guy who knows this guy who says this guy..." but, well, it's not like I've got Mets games to watch.

I noticed the club in question, the Bridgeview Yacht Club in Island Park, is the same one where Lo Duca was allegedly hooking up last year. BYC is nowhere near where one assumes Mets settle for the summer. It's on the South Shore. So there must be some major hotness goin' on there to make it worth the trip. Allegedly.

Beltran and Martinez leading the Mets in a pennant race in September is exactly what Minaya had in mind three years ago. Sigh. Carlos might feel a little like Richie Ashburn did after being voted the MVP on the worst team of all-time in 1962.

Yancy, those cards are wonderful. Kudos on the graphics and keeping this thing going 162 times. You're my Schaefer POTY. And I can't think of any greater commentary on 2007 that its pitcher of the year is Tom Glavine.

I could root for a team with some of the youthful and resilient elements of the MFYs. But I could never root for the MFYs. National League pride (something the Mets don't have anyway) aside, I hope this is the Tribe's year. I've known some really good Cleveland fans over the years and would like them to get their moment at last.

I've conveniently forgotten how much pause reading about how pious the Rockies were in '06 gave me. Don't know if it still holds: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/nl/rockies/2006-05-30-rockies-cover_x.htm http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060619/zirin But I can't worry about every little thing, so Go Rox. Besides, the ascension of the Phillies has already proven there's no point in believing in anything.

Though I'm wary of going to the well once too often, the Angels loom as anti-MFY insurance. Besides, I keep calling them my favorite A.L. team yet I cast them aside in 2004 (Red Sox) and 2005 (White Sox) for better postseason stories. I also agree that MFY-Red Sox will be far too overbearing to handle. Nothing against the Sawx, but I'm a fan of Guerrero and Anderson. An enthusiastic yes vote for LAA.

This is the "they're in the playoffs and WE'RE NOT?" series. I saw clips of them both celebrating last Friday night and remembered how we steamrolled through the desert in May (and for the three years prior) and how we send Sweet Lou off the deep end later that same month. Man, I wish the season had been two months long. On some level I'd like to see the Cubs get the monkey off the back already, partly out of empathy with their true fans and partly so we can stop hearing about it. But when push comes to shove, I hate the Cubs. I've hated them since 1969 (as their base has hated us) and honestly I will never be able to stop hating them...Cliff Floyd notwithstanding (if he's up in the ninth inning of the final game with two on and hits one out to win it...I don't know how I'd feel). The Diamondbacks haven't done anything to offend me. And their older brothers beat the MFYs.

Division Series: A. Rockies v. Phillies: Rockies in 5 B. Cubs v. Diamondbacks: Diamondbacks in 4 C. MFYs v. Indians: Indians in 4 D. Angels v. Red Sox: Angels in 5 Championship Series: E. Winner of A v. Winner of B: Diamondbacks in 6 F. Winner of C v. Winner of D: Indians in 5 World Series: G. Winner of E v. Winner of F: Indians in 6

Edgy DC wrote: Understood. If the Mets rallied and tied, does he get this one filed off like Leiter did? If that had happened, then Glavine goes to the postseason (though I would have left him off the roster at that point) and gets a chance for redemption. But going into 2000, I never much held the 5-run first against Leiter. Nor did I hold the el foldo Darling pulled against the Dodgers against him. I guess I felt personally betrayed, in that crazy fan way, by Glavine. I'd worked hard, in that crazy fan way, to like him, to give him credit, to embrace him as a Met. I had never wanted him here but had to admit after he turned a corner in 2005 that he was doing the job and had certainly helped matters in 2006. I liked when he acknowledged the weird relationship between him and the NY fans on the day he was honored for his 300th, that really won me over. Then he goes out and blows it all three times in September, one worse than the next. All that crazy fan work went up in smoke. Darling had years in the Met bank before the '88 NLCS. Leiter had incredible outings in '99: beating Maddux, winning the play-in game, then pitching great against Arizona (plus all that "I grew up a Mets fan" stuff) and Atlanta in Game Three (against Glavine). Glavine was the ultimate stranger who screwed us over (crazy fan way of looking at it) at the worst possible moment. Not to discount his fine outings against the Dodgers and Cardinals last October, but Glavine was never asked to throw a really big game in the regular season until this year for the Mets and after pitching well against Moyer three Friday nights ago, he folded up. I take back my standing ovation for 300.

Frayed Knot wrote: Helluva hitter but neither his fielding nor baserunning skills were on display tonight. And that's part of the problem with the earlier anti-MVP argument for Wright; you're more likely to see the warts on your own guys simply because you see so much more of them. Totally agree with that and totally agree that colors my impression of Wright. All I know from the other contenders are the heroics I hear about and then I get impatient waiting for the same performance from David. I still never felt it from Wright, though.

Electric ending. Horrible call. I heard myself rooting for Kaz. Who knew?

Thought while walking outside about an hour ago: "I fucking hate Tom Glavine."

Seth Smith is a tongue-twister special. Tonight's desperate rationalization: I wouldn't want to be part of any playoffs that would have Kaz Matsui as a member.

The Wright for MVP boomlet was symptomatic of what was wrong with the presumptuousness that surrounded this team all year. Wright is becoming a very good player. He is very valuable. To have lumped him in with Rollins or Holliday or Fielder for 2007 as most valuable was laughable when it was going on and it is sad today. I don't want to give Glavine any outs (outs as in excuses, not outs as in Glavine should have gotten more than one), but as part of his standard not-my-fault sappy recap after the game, he was in "a couple of grounders got through, a couple of bloops fell in" mode -- and he was right about the Jacobs hit that eluded David. David did not move on that ball until it was definitively going by him. He has subpar reflexes for a third baseman. In doling out blame, Wright would come in about 60th on this club, but it wasn't as if he put this team on his back and it was everybody else's fault either.

Beltran 1 Mota 1

Maine 6 Milledge 4

Beltran 2 Castillo 1 Heilman 1 Delgado 0.5 Sosa 0.5 Green 0.5

Box: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=270928121 Recap: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=270928121