The Serval Zippers Sign

I’ll admit it. I drank the Kool-Aid.

It tasted so good last September. I sat there, Labor Day at the Jersey Shore. The beach house we’ve rented for the past 6 years…a nice, hot, sunny Monday…my friend Jason from Faith and Fear and his family watched it with us. Pedro was back! Pedro was dominant — ok, so it was against the woeful Reds, but so what? Pedro was back. No stoppin’ us now, baby!

Well, there was stoppin’ us after all, as we all know. That was no fault of Pedro’s, though. Down the stretch, The Man went 3-1.

This spring — a bare couple of weeks ago — the word was all good. Pedro was throwing easy, everybody said. Oooo, if Pedro’s all the way back, the Mets are unstoppable, everybody said. Pedro, himself, said “I feel as good as I ever did. I feel as good as 1999, 2000. Ready to pitch.” For a fleeting moment, I thought this sounded distressingly familiar.

Because I remember the summer of 1980.

In the summer of 1980, Muhammed Ali was coming out of a year-and-a-half’s retirement to take on World Heavyweight Champion Larry Holmes. He trained. Hard. OH, how he trained! He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated looking less like a bloated Muhammed Ali and more like a lithe and lean Cassius Clay. He was ready to reclaim his rightful title for the 4th time. He told us all. Repeatedly. And a whole big mess of us believed him. I know I did.

In early October, Muhammed Ali was absolutely destroyed by Larry Holmes.

I should have listened to myself.

If you haven’t heard, Pedro had to leave last night’s game in the 4th — having thrown 57 mainly ineffective pitches — when he felt pain and heard a “pop” from his hamstring. I believe he’s being MRI’d as we speak.

Now, there’s half of me that wants to keep the sunny side up..up…and say hey, it’s only game 2, Pedro will probably be back in May, look what they did last year without him, blahblahblah. But I can’t help but think that — Santana or no Santana — this franchise still hasn’t completely shaken off the black cloud that’s been hovering since last June.

Oh, how I want to be wrong.

Disappointing thoughts triggered by rumblings from PSL. It appears increasingly that Duaner Sanchez will indeed be left in Florida to build up his stamina.

That’s not the disturbing part.

Who’s in line to fill Sanchez’s slot on the roster, then, you ask? Why, the immortal Brian Stokes, of course.

Oy…

I don’t know what it is. It might be the Tampa Bay pedigree, it might be a marked inability to generate outs on a consistent basis, maybe I just don’t like his face. But everytime I see his name in a box score, all I can think of is Guillermo Mota.

You heard me.

Good Monday, good reader!

After the monsoons on Saturday, it’s bright, sunny and as cold as a witch’s thorax. Welcome to March in the Northeast…

Anyway, a good crop of the wounded have recovered as Ryan Church, Brian Schneider, Damian Easley and Endy Magic all made their returns on Saturday afternoon. Of course, with the Mets having won 6 springtime tilts (try saying that four times fast without getting your face slapped) in a row with largely AA players, this game with more regulars would be a breeze, right? Especially against a Marlins team with a payroll as small as…well, it’s pretty damn small.

Well, Jose Reyes must have started dancing in the dugout again, because the Fish kicked the snot out of Mike Pelfrey & Co. And on TV, yet…

Anyway, John Maine restored my faith yesterday, holding the Houstons to no hits in 4 innings’ work. The Mets completed the rarest of rarities, a spring training shutout, 3-0. Also on TV.

Anyway, I missed most of those 2 games, as SarahH and I were out househunting for much of the weekend. It’s cool to check out real estate, but it left my head hurting when the day was done. Do we pay more and get a lower tax rate in Basking Ridge or do we pay dirt for a mansion in Bound Brook and pay $15k a year in taxes? We’re gonna keep checking stuff out and see where we land…

Speaking of monsoons, Sarah & I had a rare treat on Friday night. Our friend Linda is a wizard with cakes.
Here, I’ll show you:

So, she’s attending the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. In her day job — not involving food — she won an award for being employee of the year 2007. One of her prizes was a cash voucher for a meal at a place of her choosing. So naturally, she chose the restaurant at the FCI, L’Ecole.

Thus, the adventure begins…

In the pouring rain, I met Sarah in Summit after work and we took the NJ Transit train to Hoboken, where we picked up the PATH — or the old Hudson Tube if you’re older than 60. Just so you know, we’ve been into the City about a thousand times since we’ve been together (9 years) and we’ve taken the train 3 times. So we take the PATH to Christropher Street and it’s pouring and windy and nasty and cold. We start walking toward Hudson Street to try & catch a cab to L’Ecole on Broadway. We took about 3 steps and this JACKASS of a driver plows through the gutter and we end up soaked. But anyway…

We get there, and everybody else arrives and we had a ball! Lemme tell you…a gourmet 5-course meal for $40 a person? OUTstanding! Of curse the bar bill added to that total substantially, but I digress…

So we leave and Sarah & I immediately get into a fight about the proper way to hail a cab — during which time, I get drenched with gutterwater again!

So we grumble our way back onto the train(s) and got the disagreement resolved and we were crazy about each other again by the time we got home…at 2:30 AM!

I’m not 20 anymore…

David Lennon in Newsday reports that the blind have begun to see and the lame begin to walk.

Good news #1: Brian Schneider caught Pedro’s SiM game today — 53 real pitches, 5 SiM hits, 1 SiM walk, 1 SiM K, btw.

Good news #2: Ryan Church took BP.

Good news #3: Endy & Easley hit against Pedro, and Gotay is out of the boot and in sneakers. Not sure if he’s still crutchbound.

Rumor has it that Delgado is supposed to be taking some BP later today.

I’m takin’ it wherever I can get it…

Meanwhile, Metsgeek brings us some unexpected news from the business side of things and a telling quote fronm Scott Schoeneweis.

Omar Minaya talked with reporters at length yesterday, including my new mancrush Matthew Cerrone. (scroll down)

Adam Rubin gives us a nice rundown on the talk and a recap of who’s hurt and who’s coming back when. For some reason, whenever I read Rubin, I come away reassured. Of course, I didn’t read him the morning of September 30 — but I digress…

I tend to be the lead guy on the “it’s early” bandwagon, and I so want to be that right now, but I can’t shake the feeling that this injury plague might be full of foreshadowing and portents. I know I’ll probably feel better when 5 of the hobbled 6 get back on the turf — Beltran, especially — but for now? It’s gnawing…

See, when I read Rubin or Steve Popper in the Bergen Record, I get the feeling that these guys grew up as Met fans — in fact, I know that Popper did. I find that they’re an oasis in the desert of ALLYANKEESALLTHETIME coverage from the News, the Post (in which no repectable fish would ever find itself wrapped), Mike & The Maddog and ESPN radio. I get a feeling that somebody is on our side.

I grew up in Bergen County, NJ, in Cliffside Park and the Record was my hometown paper. Hell, I used to deliver it when I was 14. Unfortunately, it has traditionally been a “Yankee” organ. I used to get outraged — as only teenagers can — when there would be detailed reports from 2 or 3 writers from Fort Lauderdale and the Mets coverage consisted of half an AP paragraph. And now I come to find out that Marty Noble — who used to cover the Mets for the Record and now does the same for MLB.com and is the most identifiable Mets beat writer this side of Jack Lang & Joe Durso (R.I.P. & R.I.P.) — grew up a Yankee fan!

Believe me, I have the utmost respect for the Yankees and all they’ve accomplished the last hundred bajillion years, but good GOD I hate ‘em! Call me jealous, call me a “typicalwhineyMetfan” but I’m tired of having the Yankees rammed down my throat by everybody. Here’s an example: winter 2000, my wife and I pop into an Applebee’s for a quick bite while we were on our way to somewhere. There was rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia on the wall, stuff from the local high school, some Nets artifacts, more than a few Knick-nacks and a wall-and-a-half of Yankee junk. Christ, they even had Red Sox crap up there! Any Mets stuff? Not a speck. And this was right after the Subway Series. All I could think was “Doesn’t anybody know that there are, in fact 2 teams in town?” I haven’t been back to that one since.

Aaaah well…

Rainouts get me to ranting. Wonder how Pedro’s sim game is going…

Good God, what else???????????

Not only is every 2B on the roster laid up, now we find out the twinge in Ol’ Moises’s groin is nothing short of a hernia. Out 4-to-6, which of course means 6-to-8 because it’s Alou/the Mets.

So we’ve yet to see Carlos Beltran or Luis Castillo.

Reuben Gotay is on crutches.

Marlon Anderson bruised his sternum on the same play that rang the Ryan Church bell.

Carlos Delgado disproves the myth that he’s a hippie.

Ramon Castro seems to be starting every game — didn’t Brian Schneider come over from Washington, too?

That’s 6 of the 8 and that ain’t good.

All I can keep saying is thank God it’s happening now and not July. I’m old enough to remember 1972, when they had a lead into late June. Then Staub, Cleon, Harrelson, Grote, Koosman and Agee went down to injuries and they (we? Believe it or not I’m undecided on the “they/we” thing…) finished an abject 3rd.

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