From Now On, I'm sticking to the story that Fred Wilpon bought me pizza

Reyes Tosses

I didn’t interview any players.  I was just awestruck and honored just being there up close, watching them prepare for a game.  Walked up to the edge of the grass, watching the Mets take infield practice, batting practice, play catch, and chat and joke with each other.  I could see the players, hear the players clearly, and make out individual blades of grass.  I saw Angel Pagan take throws from Ike Davis at second base.  I saw Albert Pujols swing at BP pitches.  I saw Tony LaRussa play first base. (yes I did!) I was within inches of Jose Reyes and other such players as they walked by me into the dugout.  It was a surreal and wonderful experience.

Cardinals first base depth chart is real weak

I met (or re-met) a lot of fellow bloggers, and that was also a very cool experience.  I had a beer with Rustyjr of The Real Dirty Mets Blog, and Kerel Cooper of On the Black at McFadden’s before we went in and I ate “dinner” with Kerel, Shannon of Mets Police and Joe Janish of Mets Today in the Caesar’s Club.  I had conversations with a half dozen other fellow bloggers and I don’t even remember them all!

Ed Coleman Interviews Jerry Manuel while bloggers mingle in the background

Watching the game next to and in front of half my Twitter feed was a lot of fun, even if I felt in the 20^th century for not having a data plan to tweet live as many of them were doing. Sometimes they were even tweeting back and forth to each other from five feet away.  Why yes, we’re all basically baseball nerds.  I just enjoyed the level of understanding and knowledge of the game going on around me, the discussions about bullpens and usage and over managing.  It’s nice to watch a game with people that truly understand what’s going on more than the average shouting half-drunk fan.  Although we did have plenty of that, as one rather vocal fan to the left of us wouldn’t shut up the entire game.  Anthony De Rosa of Hot Foot dubbed him Will Ferrell.

The game itself was a roller coaster.  It was fun to see the Mets fight back, and if they hadn’t been struggling and weren’t falling too far behind the Braves, it’s a game you’d shrug off as a tough loss but one with a lot of plusses.  We’re past “moral victories” at this point in the season however, I’ll take a “should’ve lost” game like the one in San Francisco over this any day at this point.

Full Album

The important stuff:

Johan pitched great.  He wasn’t exactly lights out, but he was excellent and held the Marlins to 1 run in 6 innings.  The bullpen pitched excellently.  It was just Nieve and K-Rod this time, but still good way to start.  David Wright got his first home run in his first at-bat, and it was just amazing.  Wright’s poised to have an amazing MVP caliber player, and getting that first home run out of the way so that no one can start doubting him was a great jolt to the Mets fans.  It said, “This season is going to be good.  We’re not going to fall on old clichés and you’re not going to be able to use the phrase ‘here we go again.’” Bay and Barajas both had big hits, to help break the ice so to speak.  More importantly, the Mets were aggressive.  They played an aggressive game, made the Marlins have to make plays (they didn’t), and played hard.  There was even a suicide squeeze attempt which was great to see.  So even though I think he’s still the worst manager the Mets have ever had, I do offer kudos to Jerry Manuel for calling that play.  Suicide squeezes and terror on the basepaths is a much better way to try to steal runs than sacrifice bunting.

Now some pictures of things I noticed at Citi Field today.  There are a lot of changes, and plenty of them are fairly mundane, but still changes.   I took 400 pictures and a couple of videos, and there was so much good stuff that I’ll never be able to get to it all.  The full gallery is here.  More pictures at The Real Dirty Mets Blog.

The moved Home Run Apple. Great change. Great location. Looks amazing there. Could become a meeting point, although it’s just a wee bit crowded there.

more below to save on page load times.

Cats, especially black ones, have a special meaning to Mets fans.  So you can imagine I was pysched to randomly encounter one on my way from the car to the park.

The Museum was excellent.  I’ll let other bloggers that are better with the history stuff break that one down, but good stuff.

You can now see into the Champions Club, which is on the field level behind home plate.  That area always seemed so dark and dreary, and this definitely opens it up a bit.

The newly dedicated Shea Bridge.  Great name for it, great symbolism.  Great bridge.

I don’t know if this was there last year, because it’s in what I deem the ’secret’ gift shop.  Right past the Carvel that serves ice cream floats.  (Where the dunk tank used to be) If you have kids, you probably _did_ know about this one. (btw, isn’t the kid sitting on the shelf a little creepy?)

I could just be just not remembering, but I don’t remember globe lights to distinguish an up elevator from a down one last year.

This isn’t exactly ‘new’, but newly accessible.  The Acela Club can be reached with a ticket that claims any club access.  My tickets ended up being Promenade Club, so I was able to walk into the Acela Club to check it out, which does indeed look like a cool place.  Not really my style for a ballgame necessarily though.

One of the new menu items, Disco Frittes.   Pretty good, although not overly amazing either. (Btw, Box Frittes no longer seems to be serving “Blanche De Queens” as their beer, which I found disappointing.  Didn’t like the Brooklyn Summer as much.

I know some criticized the ads around the ‘Diamondvision’.  It does look a lot cleaner this year.

Picture of the Blue and Orange stairwells.  This isn’t the greatest picture, but you get the idea.

Unfortunately we can’t all take Johan.

League ID#: 17569
League Name: Mets Bloggers

Wow. That sucked. So much for my optimism. I’m not going to be one of those fans that throws blame and anger all over the place, calling for heads and trades and all of that. I will break down the team and next year and what I want to see happen sometime in the near future. I expect I’ll update a bit through the playoffs (I’m rooting for the Cubs) talk about awards and all of that. After October I’ll still post, maybe once a week, or when other things happen. I’m proud of myself for getting through the entire season with this blog, and look forward to making new bloggie friends in the off-season and next year. Here is my postseason prediction, and my in-season stats for the year.

I think the Rockies win tomorrow.

AL Divisional Round
RED SOX defeat
ANGELS (3-1)
INDIANS defeat YANKEES (3-0)

AL
Championship
RED SOX defeat INDIANS (4-1)

NL Divisional
Round
ROCKIES defeat PHILLIES (3-1)
CUBS defeat
DIAMONDBACKS (3-1)

NL Championship
CUBS defeat ROCKIES (4-2)

World Series
RED SOX defeat CUBS
(4-2)

Personally I went to 33 baseball games this year.

My record at Shea Stadium was 15-12.

My record at Mets games was 17-12.

My record for the hometeam was 18-15.

My record for the Nationals was 3-2. (This included three stadiums, RFK, Shea, and Dolphin Stadium)

This year I attended games in 4 stadiums(Shea, RFK, Yankee, and Dolphin)

I’ve now been to 13 Stadiums(Shea, Yankee, Fenway, Wrigley, Citizens Bank, Dolphin, RFK, Petco, ½ old Busch, ½ new Busch, Dodger, Angel, San Fran, McAfee)

Next year the goal is to check out Camden Yards, Nationals park, and Tropicana field.

The Optimistic Mets Blog player of the year is: David Wright.

Is there any doubt? David Wright is looking so good. He was the most solid, consistant player on this team. He struggled in April when the team didn’t, and since then there have been very few games he hasn’t gotten a hit in. He’s now in the top two or three in career Mets avg, slugging, obp and ops. He’s got a .311 career Mets batting average. He expanded his game, learned from his peers, and took on more of a leadership role. He’s a great fielder who needs to figure out his throws a bit, but I’m so glad he’s on our team.

It was a great game, Orlando Hernandez was pitching well, and so was Joe Blanton. El Duque let up some base runners, but they always got out of it, and he battled through the 7th with nearly 120 pitches. One could think that scoring only one run is just the Mets slumping again, but that’s not the case. All the credit there goes to Joe Blanton, who pitched through eight innings. The Mets did have Ricky Ledee thrown out at the plate on a nice 2-out, runners in scoring position, double by Carlos Beltran. I think Evan Roberts really needs to rip Joe Benigno about that on their show on WFAN Monday, because he’s playing very well. He was running full-speed on Wright’s walk-off double, even though his run was meaningless. He was excited, and he came charging around third, almost catching Castro. It was a botched play in right field, as if he had played it on a hop, Castro wouldn’t have scored. It didn’t matter though, as I had faith in Delgado getting a fly-out there to score him. After struggling against Joe Blanton, as soon as he was lifted for a guy with a 0.00 ERA in 12.1 innings, they jumped all over him. Castro leads off with a double, they walk Belran to the boos, and David Wright hit’s another double the opposite way to right, game over.

The Mets win a series again, every other team in the East loses, and just like that the Mets are again three full games up on the competition. Four and five games in the loss column over Philadelphia and Atlanta. The Mets now have added another team in the A’s that they don’t have a losing record against, having tied the Cubs all-time earlier this season, also on a walk-off ninth inning hit. A pitcher’s duel, a temper tantrum with an ejection and throwing stuff on the field, and a game winning double by David Wright. What more could you ask for in a game?

I did notice a little less campaigning for Paul Lo Duca at the game today, and I wonder why. I think the Mets may have started that push a little early. Now if Paulie overtakes Martin in the voting Monday, Dodger fans will be motivated to vote hard. We should have waited until after that tally came out to push for him, and get him past the unsuspecting Dodger fans. So remember, Lo Duca still needs our votes next week, and you can vote 25 times per email address you type into that box.