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Letters to the NL East, Part 5/5

Letters to the NL East, Part 5 of 5 (part 0, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 )

 

 

Dear New York Mets,

 

New Stadium, Fresh look. Let’s forget these so-called collapses, and focus on 2009. Games from 2008 don’t count, and teams don’t get handicaps for being defending champs. This division is ripe for the picking.

 

Braves look stronger, Phillies look weaker, but you still look like the best team on paper. It’s time to make that stand up. The bullpen changes should be enough to give you enough confidence to finish off these teams, win these games, and have an excellent season. As usual, health plays an issue. You need to make sure guys like Delgado, Church, Castillo and Maine all stay healthy. One benefit this year is that you seem to have a ton of outfield depth in Sullivan, Reed, Kielty and Evans. More so if you do acquire Gary Sheffield today, although I think he’s a washed up cheater if anything.

 

We’re all excited for this season, and hopefully you’ll give us something more to enjoy than a new ballpark. We’re all curious how Citi Field will feel in those rowdy, anxious playoff moments. Lets get us there to find out. Many have reservations about the park and how it stands up to Shea Stadium, but this season has the potential to get to put Shea behind us. Give us a new crop of highlights in the new park, and we’ll all love it.

 

Your lifelong fan,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

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Letters to the NL East 4/5

Letters to the NL East, Part 4 of 5 (part 0, part 1, part 2, part 3, )

 

Dear Philadelphia Phillies,

 

Every dog has it’s day. You’ve gotten your ring for the century, and I suspect you’ll drift back into mediocrity pretty soon. When do the Eagles kick off again? Many of your players last year, particularly in that bullpen, over performed last season. This means that when they fall back to earth, even a little bit, you’re in for a rocky summer.

 

Will any of your fans show up at Citi Field this year, or will most of you stay away unless you have the upper hand in some way? You can count on a bunch of us coming down there as often as possible, turning your stadium into Citi Field south, as usual.

 

Maybe I’m wrong and you’ll compete again this year. The Mets are the better team on paper, but that hasn’t stopped them from giving it up two years in a row. Will you hold up your end of the rivalry and start developing this into something that could surpass Yankees/Red Sox? If the Yankees continue to falter that rivalry could take a step down in intensity behind the closer Mets/Phillies. On the other hand, Phillies fans have never shown up to Shea with the commitment of Red Sox fans at Yankee Stadium, and the Phillies aren’t even half the club the Red Sox are. You’ll probably finish third.

 

Your hated rival,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

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Letters to the NL East 3/5

Letters to the NL East, Part 3 of 5 (part 0, part 1, part 2)

 

Dear Atlanta Braves,

 

Could it be that you’re relevant again? Barring injuries, you just might have a shot at sticking around this year. Last year it seemed like you had some good stretches, but injuries got the better of your team. We’ll see how you stand this year. Acquiring Derek Lowe certainly helps the pitching rotation, and there are some young arms there that look pretty good too.

 

Somehow my hatred for you has ebbed, and you’ve risen to my 28th favorite baseball team. The challenge is on, can you get back down to 29th or 30th? Do you have the manpower in the lineup to compete for this division, or are you going to wallow away and fight with the Phillies for second place? Currently I expect you to beat them, and for at least that first night of baseball before the Mets have a chance to play, I’ll be rooting for you.

 

Your longtime enemy,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

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Letters to the NL East 2/5

Letters to the NL East, Part 2 of 5 (part 0, part 1)

 

Dear Washington Nationals,

 

Ooo, A shiny new ballpark! I challenged you to use the revenue from the new ballpark to make yourself relevant again. You haven’t done that yet, but you’ve started to show signs of it. Adam Dunn is one step, and the supposed contract offer to Teixeira is another. You appear to have shades of potential and talent on the team this year. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if you moved up one place and finish fourth ahead of the Marlins.

 

Still, it appears the biggest story concerning the Nationals is the prospect of drafting Steven Strasburg, who throws 102 consistently and also has a nasty curve. From what everyone says, this kid appears to be the real deal. Drafting him would be a no-brainer if it wasn’t for his agent. Scott Boras is set to test how serious you guys are, throwing out numbers like 50 million as a signing bonus. It looks like the biggest game you’ll play this season will be a numbers battle with Boras.

 

 

-Optimistic Mets Fan

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Letters to the NL East 1/5

Part 1 of the 5 part series, “Letters to the NL East” (Part 0)

 

Letters to the NL East, Part 1 of 5

 

Dear Florida Marlins,

 

I don’t have much to say to you, except shame on you! I can’t take you seriously or give you any respect, even for your two World Championships, while you still are so obviously profiting off your team. Between licensing money and luxury tax money, you could probably pay all your ushers the same as the players and still make money. When Babe Ruth hit more home runs than some teams, it was a great thing for baseball. When Alex Rodriguez makes more money than your entire roster, it’s not a good thing. I know this is the same paragraph from last year, but that’s how useless you’ve been.

 

I think the Nationals may even finish ahead of you guys this year. That’s sad. Your claim to fame the last two years has been being on the field when the Mets were eliminated. This year you won’t even have that.

 

Hope may be on the horizon. I’ve heard that you’re getting, finally, a new ballpark. This is good news, and hopefully it’ll provoke you to spend some money and have a real team on the field when it opens. Maybe you can even convince Hanley Ramirez he wants to stay, because I’m sure he’s drooling over the stories in NY about the Yankees moving Jeter in a couple of years from shortstop. We all know up here about Hanley’s New York fetish.

 

Sincerely yours from the other side of the division,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

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Letters to the NL East

(If you weren’t paying attention last year, so begins the second annual ‘letters to the NL East’ week. We start with the other team we want the Mets to do better than, before diving into the division)

 

Part 0 of the 5 part series, “Letters to the NL East”

 

Letter to Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees.

 

Dear Yankees,

 

You spent a ton of money after your first season out of the playoffs in years. It certainly makes you wonder if you made a mistake firing Joe Torre. There are still a ton of question marks with your team, even putting aside the A-Rod situations.

 

Will A.J. Burnett be Carl Pavano part two? Will Posada be able to reliably play catcher this year? What’s up with the log jam at DH, or your too many outfielders? How much does Pettitte have left for a full season? Can Joba really help the team, even if he’s superb, considering the Joba rules and Innings Pitched limits?

 

Those are just the obvious ones before the season has even started. Who knows what other issues will pop up. I’d stray away from assuming just because you again spent way too much money that you’re the team to beat in that division. I still think you’re favored not to make the playoffs. I don’t care what the so called experts say. Don’t be surprised if by August, your ‘fans’ are looking for a ticket into Citi Field. That’s where the good baseball’s gonna happen this year.

 

But don’t worry, the media will still be all over you. The over/under for new A-Rod controversies is at 13.

 

Hatefully Yours,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

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A(nother) First Look at Citi Field

A(nother) First Look at Citi Field from the St. Johns Game.

First it’s come a long way, and it was beautiful.

From Citifield

I was getting butterflies driving towards it as I saw the first signs mentioning it, and as I looked for a spot. The parking lot (the main, Shea, General/Prepaid) that I parked in is still only partially done, so hopefully it’ll provide more exiting opportunities. I left at 2:30, but had I left a regular Mets game at the end with everyone else it might have been a mess.

From Citifield

I got there at 11:35, and figured rather than go to LF and go right in, I’d wait at the Rotunda to enter there at 11:40. I’m glad I did. The Rotunda, and the area around it, are terrific. Even the dwindling pile of Shea is beautiful in it’s own way, and people were indeed taking pictures with it. I crossed into the building, and the Rotunda is amazing. Still plenty to be done, but still amazing. I was confronting with the urge to be 18 places at once and running all over. Seeing as that was impossible, we started with probably the most mundane, the team store.

From Citifield

Team store’s a big step up from the one at Shea. And there are more of them too. There is also Alyssa Milano’s first female boutique shop in right field. I bought a Citi Field inaugural season shirt, and a shot glass, and moved on.

From Citifield

The views are great from everywhere. Sure there are more cut off corners, and a handful of overhangs in the way in a couple of places, but they definitely tried to minimize those (except for the overhang, which even if you miss the plays at the wall in RF, is still pretty cool). I didn’t find a seat that I flat out said, “I wouldn’t want to sit here”. Top rows of the Outfield Promenade Reserve aren’t great, but they’re better than UR section 36 Row N, which is what they were going for.

From Citifield

Another subject that’s important to me, Beer and food. While they retained some of the ‘generic’ staples like Nathans, preliminary reports suggest that at least the food will be served properly, hot and fresh. The concessions are quicker and more orderly, and hopefully they’re properly set up to be well stocked. The real story is the rest of the stuff. Prices are better than at Shea from what I could tell, and they have a billion more options. Much has been made about Blue Smoke and Shake Shack and Box Frites and tacos and catch of the day and on and on. I can’t wait to try them all, but Shake Shack was as good in the Citi as it is in the City.

From Citifield

Beer. I can be a bit of a beer snob, and I rarely drank at Shea because it was a struggle to find anything worthwhile. (Although they did have Killians and Blue Moon last year) I wasn’t paying $8 for a crappy Bud. This year there are dozens of options, all over the place, and local ones. All the outfield concessions have specialty beers, that appear to have been designed exclusively for the venue. That the beer was actually designed with the food you’re eating with it in mind is thrilling to me. Shack Shack has their exclusive Shackmeister Ale, and Blue Smoke has it’s Blue Smoke Blend, all from Brooklyn Brewery. There was some Queens Ale at the Box Frites place which I can’t remember the name of, but I can find no indication of a beer with Queens in the title from Brooklyn Brewery, which lends to the idea that it’s exclusive to that location. It’s going to be hard for me to not try all four of these beers on Saturday against the Red Sox, I only have to remind myself that they aren’t going anywhere.

From Citifield

I wandered all around and didn’t see everything. Much of every trip to the place for a while will be a new experience, which is great. New seats, new views. Every game is an adventure. I’ve got tickets to three regular season games already, and I’m sure I’ll be to at least two dozen more.

From Citifield

The ping of the aluminum bat felt so wrong.

From Citifield

Seeing the Mets on the out of town scoreboard was a unique experience, and pretty cool.

From Citifield

There some glitches and errors. Many will be fixed I’m sure. Some escalators weren’t working right, some water still pooled in some areas. Some TVs weren’t hooked up. The smoke from the BBQ place can/did drift past the scoreboard (depending on the wind) so you can see it in the outfield. No big deal really.

From Citifield

All you really need to know is that you need to get there at your first opportunity. You won’t be disappointed.

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Mets Opening Day Pack

It appears that if you haven’t acquired tickets to Opening Day in some manor, the Mets are offering a 5-game pack that includes the game. However, it looks like these are games are slow-selling seats from the other packs. It’s only available for baseline box, and field box seats. This means you’re going to have to spend at least $400 a ticket, for five games, to buy this package. Chances are if you can afford this, you’ve already spent the money on a package for the season.

 

I’d love to do this, but at $75 a ticket++, I just can’t afford it. You can add any other four games from April and May, which could be two Phillies games if you so choose. You’d probably spend almost this much money buying similar seats on stubhub for just Opening Day.

 

However, it does mean that there are unsold tickets to Opening Day. If this package doesn’t finish them off, they’ll have to put these tickets out there somewhere. There is probably an outside chance that we can get lucky and get these tickets through some sort of second-chance lottery, or just dumb luck.

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Exhibition Starters

Because I have nothing better to do.  Let’s guess at who’s going to start the two games against the Red Sox!

 

I suppose one has to be the 5th Starter, which is likely Livan Hernandez.  This way puts him closer to a normal day in the rotation anyway.  So who would the other guy be?  

 

My best guess would be Jon Niese.  Despite being sent to minor league camp today, he still seems to be the ‘6th starter’.  So what better time to get him some no-pressure major league experience against an excellent offense?

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World Baseball Classic Rematch

Taking in USA vs. Puerto Ricoimg_3903

In a game that basically didn’t matter, USA vs. Venezuela to determine Pool C seeding, I was rooting for Venezuela for selfish reasons. Their win meant that USA would be taking on Puerto Rico in game two of the second round of the World Baseball Classic, a game I would be at.

My interest starting rising as the game got closer. I really enjoyed Spring Training, but this seemed like a new experience that would be fun. Even so, I was unprepared for energy I encountered. After parking, in the deep parking lot of Dolphin Stadium, we walked towards the stadium. It was about 90 minutes prior to first pitch and the parking lot was loud and buzzing with excitement. People were banging drums, cheering, playing games and waving flags. There was definitely more Puerto Rican fans than USA fans, but there were plenty of both making noise.

Inside it was crowded and loud despite only 30k people in attendance. A couple of players got more cheers and noise than others, but Mets fans will be hard pressed to make as much noise for Delgado and Beltran as there was that night in Miami. They announced all the rosters and then played the anthems of both USA and Puerto Rico. Then in a nice gesture, the two teams crossed the field, shook hands and hugged, and exchanged caps. After that, it was on.

Jake Peavy didn’t really have much, and this led to a quick Puerto Rico lead. The fans were really into the game, applauding and cheering and yelling just as you would any other big game. Just like the cap exchange, the entire game had a competitive feel to it, but with respect. I saw no fights, nor even any angry arguments. Part of this was probably because of the lopsided nature of the game, but sometimes that just creates hard feelings and more fighting. Even after the game was over, the celebration was one of happiness and pride rather than one of ego and degenerates. Even though they never stopped serving beer because the game ended before the 7th inning did.

This is probably the only time I’ll be at a game in which there is a 11-1 7th inning walk-off victory. As embarrassing as it was for USA, it was still cool to see. Puerto Rico lost to Venezuela last night behind K-Rod and King Felix, so tonight we’ll see the rematch of that game. Puerto Rico and the USA face off one more time, this time in an elimination game. It’s exciting in it’s own right, and I hope the fans come out to see it, because it’s going to be thrilling to be there. Either way someone’s going home, and some of the Mets regulars will make it back to Port St. Lucie either way.