Farmer Ted

MLB Gamecast is five plays behind!!! Damn you Selig!

The Weismann reference always reminds me of simpler times.

Happy Opening Day! FROM SHEA TO THE AIRSTRIP: A NIGHT IN HELL Submitted by: Big Al on September 29,1999 12:47:29 PM I knew it was a bad sign when my ex called me at work to tell me my boy wouldn't be coming down to the city to go to the game with me. She says he had a math test in the morning and she didn't want him getting home at midnight. I razzed her about that it was only one test, the Mets had their backs against the wall, it would be a good night for him and me, and on and freakin' on and then she just comes out and, blammo, hits me with the whole thing. She doesn't want the boy hanging around with me anymore after what he saw last time in the city, which was this girl who lives downstairs from me flopping on the couch. Also she said I was a drunk and I said doesn't going into N.A. and A.A. count for shit with you? But when I went into the rehab again that just set off all kind of alarm bells with her. She had forgotten that I had a problem I guess and it worried her that the boy would be hanging around with a man always on the verge of heading over a cliff. I said Come on! I haven't touched even a freakin beer in three months. But forget it. My son would not be going to the ballgame with me. You know I am not like these season ticket holders. I am in a "share" and go to a few ballgames a summer. I thought I was being cagey as hell, back in the winter, when I selected this Sept. 26 Atlanta game as one of my nights as Shea. For the last month or so I'd been staring at the ticket and thinking I was some kind of freakin genius. You and I, we were made for each other! That was my attitude. Even two weeks ago, I thought I was going to be present for the climax of the pennant race. But it turned out a whole hell of a lot different. And not only was creaky old Hershiser on the mound for a game that was just a backs against the wall game instead of a true pennant fight game, but my kid couldn't go with me... and my new boss at this new freakin place where I have been on my "best freakin behavior" for two months was holding me back, keeping me at work until almost 8 freakin o'clock. Christ, I hit the N and took it to Queensborough Plaza, switched to the 7 train there. Read that free paper, New York Press, on the way. That rag always depresses me. I was also listening to the game on the FAN. Down 5 nothing. Didn't bother me. I thought, "I will be there when we make our comeback." I had almost that same thought one Sunday night earlier this summer when I was helping the junkie girl through a bad time, and the Mets were down 5 zip to the Phils in the 8th and I nearly turned the radio off but something told me NO and we rocked Schilling for 5 runs in the ninth. What a ballgame that was. But that's a long freakin time ago now. Anyways, there was Shea. First thing I tell myself is, "I will not get a beer tonight. I will not get a beer." Because that could start the whole slide all over again. A losing streak of my own. I go in gate B with my two tickets and right away hit the Italian sausage cart. The line was long and I swear the guy was makin us wait for no good reason. You always see a lot of funny guys at Shea, guys who really make you laugh, and the guy in front of the sausage line was watching the guy turn over the onions and green peppers with his spatula and searing the meat until it had black stripes on both sides, and the guy was saying, he said, "I'm gettin' delirious here! I'm having a hallucination, I'm so hungry. Finish cooking it already!" But the cook kept taking his damn time. I guess that was the one power the cook had over other people, making them wait for their freakin sausage, and he was going to take every advantage of it that he could. I do the same kind of bastardish things at my job, too, I guess. Because who wants to be a freakin worker, an employee, a cog? Nobody. We were all kids once. Nobody aspired to be middle management or to stand at a hot sausage cart. Christ. So I said to myself, "Christ. This world is fucked up, get me a beer." And I paid the freakin $5.50 for a 16 ounce can of Bud poured agonizingly slowly into a cup. Got to my seat. I saw Weissman seated a few rows ahead of me and to the left. I wished my life were simple like Weissman's. Belief in God. Belief in a team. No alimony payments. No woes beyond what Valentine did or did not do. The girl sitting right in front of me was just a peach. Man, she looked like a young Stockard Channing. I always liked Stockard Channing. I have a thing for her. My wife used to say, my ex wife, I mean, used to say, "What do you see in her? She looks like a puppy dog! With you it's her and Swoozie what's her name. Why can't you be normal and like Christy Brinkley and those kinds of girls," and I would say, "Stockard and Swoozie just kind of do it for me, what can I say?" She secretly liked it, that I wasn't into the supermodel types. I quaffed down the beer. God it tasted good. It felt good too. I immediately kept my ear open for the beer man but now they got those bonehead waiters by the field and the beer man never comes. This Stockard Channing girl was damn smart and she knew it. Her boyfriend was a bonehead. He says to the other guy they were with, "She was a classics major. Do you even know what a classics major is?" And the guy goes, "Sure, Roman and Greek." As the girl starts talking about studying at Oxford and tra la la la di da, I did something I don't usually do. I started just winking at her blatantly and smiling and making goofy faces. Her boyfriend couldn't see me. He was directly in front of me. She was to the side. She smiled at me and gleamed up her eye for me and met my eye a couple time. God she was great. On the field the Mets were in hell. Cook couldn't get it over the plate. I felt funny from the beer and guilty. When Cook came out of the game and started giving it to the umpire, a weird thing happened to me. I started feeling all jittery. I was WITH Cook. You know what I mean? I know what it's like to be squeezed by an ump and it's freakin frustrating. I thought of all the calls I didn't get, maybe, and I stood and clapped like hell with everybody else. When Cook started covering the outer half of the plate with dirt, I tried to shout something, but my voice caught and I realized I was crying. Not like blubbering, but really tearing up and they were running down my face. I told myself this was not good. But I was really so touched by Cook and his frustration and the whole damn losing streak and my son not being there and paying that freakin much for the tickets and getting to the game late and the beer and the pretty girl it just sprung out of my eyes or something and I thought it was very beautiful, what Cook was doing on the field, and sad, too. And even as I was crying a little I wanted to kill the ump, too, and I mean really kill him. Chase him with torches through Queens. The Stockard Channing girl turned around to me. "Are you all right?" "Yeah, yeah," I go. "It's just... boy they were squeezing Cookie out there." She goes, like, "Whatever." Probably didn't know what "squeezing" or "Cookie" meant. I wiped my face. She still had the gleam. The boyfriend, a handsome soft guy, turns around and gives me the fish eye. "What are you looking at?" I go. He does the classic, "You two know each other?" I go, "Not yet." That was all. He didn't want a piece of Big Al. The bottom of the eighth inning was one of those beautiful baseball moments. The fans really got up and cheered, even before Henderson's single. It was loud, World Series loud, and everyone was following the counts and it was great. But then Piazza hit the ground out and Alfonzo had that soft, soft fly ball his second terrible swing of the night. I've never seen his swing the bat with such lack of authority. He is messed up right now. Either hitting sixth does not suit him anymore or he is in a radical slump and needs a night on the bench. All the "good" people filed out after that, including the Stockard Channing girl, who would not look at me now, after my little altercation with her beauty boy, and it was only the rabble left. I went behind home plate because I thought I saw an old friend of mine there, but it was someone else. A guy was wearing a Yankee jacket and a funny guy started giving him the business from a few rows away. "Yankees suck dick!" the guy shouted. The usher told him to can the profanity. And the guy said, "I said a bad thing. I'm sorry." Then he said things that were almost profane but not quite after that. Another guy started yelling at Rickey in the on deck circle. "You're old, Rickey! You can't do it anymore. Hall of Famers don't run, right, Rickey? Hall of Famers don't run!" Rickey shook his head and smiled. It got uglier thought when another heckler called him "boy." I wanted to kill that guy. That guy would have been cheering RIckey like crazy if things were going better, so why the "boy" crap? Why bring this racial shit into it? Man. Even in the field seats, the Mets fans can get freakin ugly. I mean, I will boo and yell, but not like that. After the ragged ninth inning, everybody left, but I noticed these two hot girls sitting with some guy. I mean, these women were incredible, one in tight leather pants with humongous cha chas under a tight sweater. "What's going on here?" I said to myself and waited for them to leave their seats. I followed them into the parking lot, and I was right. These were not usual fans. They were strippers from this place called the Airstrip and outside they and some other girls started passing out fliers to people. I took one. Christ. I got in a cab with some drunk fellows, Wall Street guys, who were going to check the place out. We got there and it was... you know. It's in the zone where you can legally have a strip club in New York. A "waitress" asked me what I wanted. I said Scotch, God help me. You know when Chris Rock does that routine, something about the girls don't do it in the Champagne room? Well, they do it, friends, they do it. I left there at about 5 A.M., much poorer both financially and spiritually. I was drunk, too, and couldn't find a cab. I walked out to the water. There was trash in it. What a losing streak. What a night. I had for some reason a pack of cigarettes in my pocket. I smoked one there. A guy was waking up by the dock. The planes started coming in from Europe overhead. The dirty seagulls and pigeons were battling it out as usual. I started walking until eventually I found the Jackson Heights subway stop and rode the 7 back to Manhattan. I stopped by my place for a shave and shower, slugged down a hell of a lot of coffee, went to work. And here I am at my desk, still looped a little bit, and the boss has been giving me kind of a cold look. I must look the way I feel. Hungover. This far from being a bum. But if that guy could have seen me when I was 17, 18, when my arm was at full strength, and you had the scouts and everything... ahh, Christ, what's the use. What's the use?

The Teds flew up to Montreal for a long weekend and took in this game. Fonzie struck out three times. Lost to a Yoshii, Chen, Graeme Lloyd combo. Holy hell. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MON/MON200204210.shtml Yeah, the stadium was a real shithole. Dark, cold, and nothing but poured concrete. The roof was, well, weird. We sat ten rows behind home plate and the seats didn't have arm rests for crissakes. The Big O was a decent subway ride from downtown but nothing to moan about. Montreal was nice even in a chilly April.

Mets play a ST game at Houston (Kissimmee) on March 26. Ike goes on the bus, doesn't come back. Mets get two minor leaguers in return.

Yankified. Yup.

Bartolo is so fat...when he sits around the house, he sits AROUND the house.

The meeting was so secret the media was camped outside the restaurant before the WilThongs arrived. Keepin' it classy, Jay Z.

Lexy Beers has a career connection to this company. Daddy? http://www.rtbeers.com/

John Huelskamp. He's no David Wright. Perhaps has the manscaping down, but he's no David.

Molly, Mira Costa HS, class of 2002 Lexy, Mira Costa HS, class of 2001 Hot sisters!

Hold everything...who's this guy? John Huelskamp WWW.FACEBOOK.COM John Huelskamp is on Facebook. Join Facebook to connect with John Huelskamp and others you may know. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected.

A bunch of Wifey's on Lexy's Friends list. Mr. Bucket's Gold Mine. Lexy Beers WWW.FACEBOOK.COM Lexy Beers is on Facebook. Join Facebook to connect with Lexy Beers and others you may know. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected.

Mrs. Edgin. Out there on facebook. Facebook WWW.FACEBOOK.COM

Dilson may have been the Pirates 19th-rated prospect, but with the various machinations of scouting that Sandy and crew have, there was definitely something they liked on this guy as opposed to others that were considered higher on the charts. And what exactly would the Mets have gotten in return if Byrd was traded a month ago? There were no Wheelers to be had like the Beltran trade. Yeah, he's having a good year, but it's Marlon Byrd for crissakes. They weren't getting Gerrit Cole.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Pirates also got cash in the deal. If by "cash" they mean Andrew McCutchen, I'm good with that.

Byrd and Buck have never been to the post-season. Glad they're in the hunt for the playoffs with PGH. They played hard and were liked. Good for them.

Can't say that I missed Shinjo after watching Marlon play.

The Mets got sloppy seconds on both Marlons. The Nats had a share, too.

"Dallas Green started this one folks," said the dipshit of the day.

From the crime and courts section of a local paper today: Mickey C. Mantle, 39, 1165 Pine Creek Ave., six months county prison, $1,500, 75 hours community service for DUI. Apparently he's somehow still at it.

If you want to witness twitter overload, follow Eric Young. That mutha is non-stop.

Bullet of Cool for RA. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130711&content_id=53348942&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb On the day of the memorial service for the love of her life, Meredith Benton wore her black Mets jersey stitched with orange and blue, just as Jim would have wanted it. She stood in the receiving line at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ on that October day, clutching her 10-month-old daughter, Adalyn, and accepting the condolences, receiving the hugs and sharing the tears of those who had been touched by her husband's all-too-short life. Throughout Meredith's hometown of Nashville, Tenn., the story had spread of the 33-year-old teacher who had suddenly collapsed and passed away during a class excursion. It spread to California, where Jim grew up and where he and Meredith first met. It spread to Nottingham, England, where Jim, an ambitious world traveler, had completed his studies in education and human development. It spread to the hundreds of kids whose lives had been positively impacted by Jim's teachings, his enthusiasm, his humor and his genuine care and compassion. And it spread to the soon-to-be Cy Young Award winner who happened to live around the corner from the church and felt compelled to pay his respects. Meredith had just finished hugging a friend when she turned and was startled to see the man who bore an eerie resemblance to her late husband. "Oh my God," she said, as tears welled in her eyes, "you're R.A. Dickey." * * * * * The Mets will play host to the All-Star Game on Tuesday, and Citi Field will be the focal point of the sporting world. Maybe, under better circumstances, Jim Benton would have been there. It was, after all, one of his life's goals to make it to the newish home of his beloved ballclub, especially once he had fulfilled another, bolder travel goal of setting foot on all seven continents. At worst, Jim would have tuned in to the television coverage and bragged that his Mets, for one night at least, were in the limelight. "Jim was already intolerable during baseball season," Meredith said. "This would have made it even worse." He was the eternal optimist. And to be a diehard Mets fan, that's a prerequisite. But Jim took his fandom to the extreme, and his allegiance was never in question. "His classroom had Mets stuff everywhere," recalled Amanda Gee, a student in Jim's algebra class when he taught at Medea Creek Middle School in Oak Park, Calif. "There was a hat on the TV, a jersey hanging up. I remember there was one guy in class who was a big Yankees fan and would always wear his Yankees hat. Every time that guy would walk into class, Mr. Benton would say, 'Take that hat off right now!'" Strange that a person who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California would leave his heart in Queens. Jim, though, reached his baseball cognizance in 1986, the year of Keith and Kid, Doc and Darryl, Nails and Knight. The year of Bill Buckner and a World Series title still awaiting an organizational encore. So for the rest of his life, Jim enjoyed the heroics and endured the heartbreak of Mets fandom, and those around him enjoyed and endured it with him. "Every year before baseball season, he'd be like, 'The Mets are looking great, this is going to be their year!'" Meredith said. "Halfway through the season, he'd be a little more crestfallen and maybe realize it's not going to be the year. But that was always the way Jim was. He was always fighting for the underdog." * * * * * Jim was something of an underdog himself. He didn't come from money, and as a teacher, he certainly didn't make a ton of it, either. But he pooled what he had into his travel fund. In Meredith, Jim found a kindred spirit in his quest to explore the world. Though they attended Pepperdine University at the same time, they didn't meet until several years later, at the wedding of a mutual friend in 2007. Jim talked to one of Meredith's friends that night and said he was thinking about spending New Year's Eve in Machu Picchu, knowing full well Meredith and her friends had been planning to visit the historic archaeological site but had not yet picked out dates. Soon enough, plans were put in place for the whole group to go together. "He told me later," Meredith recalled, "that his whole intention was to get me to Peru to fall in love with him." They hiked the trails for six days, and by the end, Jim's plan had played out to perfection. Peru, they would joke, was their first date. Their fourth date lasted 17 days. In Egypt. They saw the ancient pyramids, explored Petra, took a boat trip on the Nile. It was the penultimate step in Jim's goal to see all seven continents before the age of 30. Oh, and it also included a layover in New York City. With a quick visit to a ballgame at Shea, of course. "That's a fond memory," Meredith said. "There's this orange Mets hat that he bought for himself that day, but he gave it to me. I wore it on all of our trips." Jim crossed his seventh continent off the list in December 2008, when he and Meredith eloped in Antarctica. Yet for all their global travels, arguably the most meaningful journey Jim and Meredith took together was a simple drive from Tennessee to Ohio. That was in December 2011, when they hurriedly tried to make it to the hospital in time for the birth of their adopted daughter. In the weeks leading up to the birth, they had deliberated over names for the child. For the first name, they chose Adalyn, a pseudo-reference to Meredith's father, Allen. The middle name was trickier, but Meredith had a revelation while looking in the bathroom mirror one day and taking note of the Mets memorabilia hanging in the room. She proposed the idea to an astonished Jim. "Are you kidding?" he said, mouth agape. "You would do that?" She would. And that's how Adalyn Shea Benton got her middle name. * * * * * Jim died on a Monday. And Meredith is quick to note that he died doing what he loved. It was Oct. 22 of last year, and Jim was chaperoning a school group from Grassland Middle School on a bus trip to the Jamestown Settlement in Williamsburg, Va., to explore the seeds of American colonialism. Jim loved these trips. When he taught in California, he was the leader every year on a trek to Washington, D.C., and his textbook knowledge of the District's many historical sites blew his students away. "Outside and inside the classroom, he was willing to be your friend and was so easy to come to," said Gee, who would refer to Jim as her "hero" in her high school graduation speech. "I went on the D.C. trip with him, and it was so amazing and inspiring how much passion he put into everything. He knew every single historical site and all the information about it, and he just wanted to pass that knowledge on to us." Jim hadn't taught at Grassland long. He and Meredith moved to the Nashville area last June, so that baby Adalyn could grow up close to Meredith's family. When Jim was applying for jobs, Meredith reviewed his r�sum� and discovered that, unbeknownst to her, he had been named the top teacher in his entire school district in 2007. He had never bothered to tell her. "That was the kind of man he was," Meredith said. "So humble." The students at Grassland were only just beginning to get to know that man. He had been on the job but nine weeks at the time of his death. They were boarding the bus that morning, ready to return home, when Jim suddenly collapsed and never regained consciousness. To this day, Jim's death remains a mystery. He was physically fit, and he monitored his diabetes carefully. "The medical examiner was crying on the phone when she was telling me everything," Meredith said. "She said, 'I'm looking at a perfectly healthy 33-year-old man.'" All the doctors could tell Meredith was that Jim had an enlarged heart. In a figurative sense, this was something she already knew. * * * * * When a mutual friend relayed word of Jim Benton's memorial service and suggested Dickey attend, the knuckleballer had some reservations. Dickey had just wrapped up an astonishing 2012 season with the Mets, and his public profile had grown by leaps and bounds, not just for his success on the field, but his inspirational story off it. He had released his autobiography, "Wherever I Wind Up," earlier in the year, and in it he relayed the details of the childhood sexual abuse, suicidal thoughts and infidelity that had led him down some dark roads. He had come out of those experiences a better man, a more open and honest man, and he was hailed far and wide for the way he had reshaped his life. At first, Dickey feared his presence at the service celebrating the life of a man he had never met might be a distraction, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset a family that had already been through so much. On the other hand, the friend had told Dickey a bit about Jim, and further research revealed what a palpable presence the Mets were in Jim's life. That presence carried on until the end. In Jim's obituary in the Nashville Tennessean, attendees of the memorial were instructed to wear orange and blue. As the unmistakable face of the Mets at the time, Dickey knew the right thing to do. "I know what it's like to be passionate about something," Dickey said. "I'm not necessarily passionate about the Tennessee Titans, but I know what's inherent in that attribute. To live a life without being passionate about something, be it a sports team or poetry or art, would be a really hollow life. So to see someone be passionate about something, I respond to that. It's a good thing, and I appreciate it. And there's no doubt he was passionate about baseball, in particular the New York Mets. So I felt a connection to him, even though I had never met him." Dickey arrived unannounced and took his place in the receiving line. Nobody recognized him at first. In fact, his resemblance to Jim was so strong that some wondered if he might be a relative of some sort. But when Meredith saw Dickey, she knew instantly, and tears of joy, trusting in the knowledge that Jim was looking down and smiling, streamed from her eyes. "It was just such a comfort," she said. "Jim would have been incredibly excited." Out of respect, Dickey didn't linger too long, but he did hand Meredith a two-page, handwritten note and a Mets hat he had worn on Independence Day. She treasures those items, just as she treasures the hundreds of letters Jim's former students gave her to pass on to Adalyn, so that one day the young girl will be able to learn what an incredible man her father was. Something interesting, though, about that hat from Dickey. On it, he wrote, "To Meredith and Adalyn -- May God give you the courage to live with strength and authenticity! Go Mets." Asked about that word -- "authenticity" -- Dickey expounded. "In my personal story, I was afraid of that word for a long time, because I was ashamed of what had gone on in my life," he said. "Once I came to the realization that God had called me to a different life and it was important for me to be honest and open and transparent, I started to see things move and relationships improve and people to be more valuable. I started to feel very liberated and free. So for me, that word became a life mantra: How can I live an authentic life?" It's some sort of cosmic coincidence that Dickey would use that word. Because in preparing for the memorial service, the preacher had asked Jim's friends for the one word they would use to describe him. That word, it turned out, was "authentic." And shortly after hearing it during the eulogy, Meredith returned home and read Dickey's note. "I got chills," she said. As the Mets prepare to provide the center stage for baseball's most star-studded event, they can do so knowing Jim Benton is there in spirit. His time on this earth was far too brief, yet he made the most of every moment, not just for himself but those around him. In life -- and in Mets fandom -- he was as authentic as they come.

I haven't fully recovered from the Mets sweeping the MFYs followed by the Miami debacle (which was part of losing 11 of the next 14). Yup, Donnie Downer here and I'm still bitter that Harvey's skipping a start on Saturday.

So, taking Little Ted to the game on Saturday for Happy Harvey Night, fireworks and all at PNC. Effin Wilpon, this is all his fault. Blister Schmister.