I don’t follow baseball (or any other sport, for that matter) any more, so I was only vaguely aware of the current status of the MLB series race. However, as someone who DID follow baseball back in 1969 and watched as the Cubs blew what was assumed to be a lock on the NL championship to the Mets, I had to read a thread with this title. Despite the fact that I had no familiarity with anything the OP was talking about I must applaud the eloquence of his rant.
The delight that I felt, after nearly forty years, in finding out that the Mets have performed such a magnificent feat…well, words fail me.
Although the image of Pavarotti fellating a live badger on stage is one that will have me chuckling all weekend.
Actually, the Mets have a team age average about 1.4 years older than the Giants. The Mets and the Red Sox are tied for the oldest teams in the league, with an average age of 30.8 years.
But, in a similar vein, as a Baltimore Orioles fan, i don’t want to hear anyone else bitching about bullpen performance.
Way, way earlier in the season, when the Mets had just gone on their initial tear to pull far ahead of the rest of the division, and the Yankees were totally in the shitter, a guy I work with mentioned that it looked like it was the Mets’ year and the Yanks could pack it in already. As a long-time Mets fan, that gave me an immediate reaction of: “Oh, shit, how are the Metsies going to fuck it up by season’s end.”
Gotta salute the Mets for keeping the suspense alive today. It lasted all the way through the national anthem (Marlins score 7 runs in the top of the first).
Yeah, Philly is up 5-1 in the 6th. It’s looking like that’s it for the Mets.
If those scores hold up, the Phillies win the East and the only question will be the Wild Card. The Padres can clinch it with a win, but if they lose and the Rockies win, San Diego and Colorado will have to play each other for the final playoff spot.
Milwaukee just tied SD, and the Rockies and Arizona are 0-0 in the 3rd.
The Phillies went 13-4 to end the season, kudos to them. Even with the Mets stinking it up, they still had to play an astounding 76.5% winning percentage over the last half of September to pull it off – even an 11-6 finish, which is still an awesome run at any point in the season, would have let the Mets win the division (and probably lose in the first round).
The Mets really didn’t deserve to win, it was more a matter of nobody really deserving to win the division until the Phillies put it all together at the end. The Mets never had a winning streak longer than 4 games until a 5-game winning streak right before bottoming out. They had a mediocre record at home even before losing 9 of their last 10 home games. They had many bases loaded situations but hit not one single grand slam all year.
They were a fundamentally so-so team that pulled off looking like the best of a bad bunch for a long time, that’s all. Unfortunately the real way to become a truly good team requires young pitching talent to come up – a la the Yankees’ Chien-Ming Wang or Joba Chamberlain – and so far, Pelfrey and Humber do not look like they will fit that bill.
It’s interesting that ALL the NL playoff teams from last year may miss out this year. If the Rockies beat the Padres it’ll be: Cubs, Rockies, Phillies and D-Backs. While in the AL it’s the same old cast, even if last year’s AL titlists are out.
