Let Go, Mets

Spring seems to be much more a state of mind here in Boston, where the literal signs -- leaf buds, temperatures above 60 degrees -- haven't decided to appear yet, even on April 14. So I've taken things into my owns hands: wearing a comical number of layers instead of actually putting on a jacket (hopefully my mom isn't reading this) and watching lots of baseball.

It's hard living in a city where your favorite team isn't the hometown one. But there's something so refreshing about the start of the season: Roger Angell's always wistful, always edifying "Opening Day" column; pitchers squinting to get the sign from their catchers; pale brown infield dirt and deep green grass; and the routine, nuance and long haul of the 162-game season. It promises that summer is almost here, and overall, much is much better.

It's funny what baseball does to geeky, scrawny guys like myself who can (or could) play the game. Statistics professors devote their research to it, mapping managers' tendencies onto cartoon faces (go Swarthmore and Steve Wang!); David "On Fire" Brooks breaks his hitting streak with a dense column lacking a punchline. Those are only two recent examples on a countless list. (Even Cokie Roberts got into the action, writing about how her kids love the Washington Nationals! Washington jumps on the bandwagon of everything.) I often hear people attribute this to the fact that baseball -- at least until the steroids era, and maybe it still even applies -- is the game that almost anyone can play. You don't need to be abnormally tall or wide, just able to throw, swing, run and follow a ball into a mitt. Really, baseball just lends itself much better to the romantic, i.e. Baseball is truly American, or beautiful summer days playing in the fields. and to the cerebral, i.e. The mind is never truly separated from the body, than those sports. And what do writers and academics love more than the romantic and the cerebral? Nothing.

As for my favorite "Metropolitans," as my favorite sports-talk host says, I think the team looks a lot better in theory than in practice. (Another reason for academics to love it!) After the truly excellent core of Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran, the line-up is mediocre and aging fast. The starting rotation is far above average, especially if Pedro can pitch injury-free and dashingly for the second half of the season (will there be a better pitcher in my lifetime?), but the bullpen again appears to suck. The team won 6-0 Tuesday night, bringing their record to 6-6, but my dad said talk was this weekend about firing coach Willie Randolph after the middling start. (And, yup, here's a "Fire Willie" Web site, though it hasn't been updated since last November.) Let's just hope they best the Phillies and win the NL East as revenge for last year's historic, gut-wrenching collapse. (I got so many "Are you doing OK? I'm sorry" phone calls after that, it was amusing. Even someone sitting in front of me at Fenway that week, when he heard me mention I'm a Mets fan, offered condolences.)

Anyway, to remembering the good times, here's the greatest catch I've ever seen -- Endy Chavez scaling the left-field wall in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS to rob the Cardinals' Scott Rolen of a two-run home run:



Also, it should be noted here the departure of Shawn Green, the rightfielder the Mets released before the start of the season. He was clearly at the end of his career, but had some very good seasons earlier in it, especially from 1998-2002. Two women I know had been asking me to blog about him months ago, so I'll just tip my cap to a great ballplayer and a great Jew.

Thanks to Mr. Angell for the post's title. It comes from a wonderful 2002 essay of his about the Mets' follies, then and always, and is reprinted in his collection "Game Time." The phrase captures so much, though I'm not sure exactly what. Sometimes I find myself saying it to myself on my long car drives for some apparent reason.