A Day Nine Years In The Making.

       Well, 8 years, 11 months, 21 days to be exact, but who's counting, right?  After 3278 days in the desert, the Mets get to play in a playoff game tonight.  Your starters are Jacob deGrom...

...who I had never even heard of two years ago.  Now he is slated to start the first and fifth game of the Division series.  Since this is his first postseason start, I will cherry pick the smallest of samples from the All Star game this year and guess he is going to throw a 90 pitch 27 strikeout perfect game. Yeah, that's the ticket.

The opposing side is putting three time Cy Young award winner Clayton Kershaw on the bump.

Kershaw started the season 1-5 but finished up 15-2 to end up 16-7 with 301 strikeouts and a 2.13 ERA, which wasn't even the best ERA on his team.  I kinda like that first stat, though; his record in 11 postseason games?  1-5 with a 5.12 ERA.  I hope this trend continues. 

It's nice to have the Mets back in the playoffs but I don't want this team to be satisfied with just making the postseason, I want them to use all this great young pitching they have and make some noise and shock the world.   My prediction for the series?  Mets win 3-1.

Division Champs.

       I hope this is the first a few celebratory posts I get to do in the next 6 weeks or so, but I am happily shouting from the rooftops today that...


The 2015 New York Mets are National League East Division Champions!



Yeah, I know, it's not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but for the Mets, it is a huge deal because of what they've gone through the last nine years - especially 8 and 7 years ago.  That team should have been three time champions, instead, well, it was horror show after horror show.



But let's not dwell on the past but embrace what will hopefully be a grand future.  These are all the 2015 cards I could put together in any sort of cohesive presentation.  Plus...



Let's start by celebrating the man who is, IMHO, responsible for bringing this whole team together...



...and lastly give a huge batch of respect for the man who has brilliantly finished off all the games, including the clincher Saturday night. 



There is no time to rest on this little laurel, though.  There is still the matter of wresting home field advantage in the NLDS away from the Dodgers and keeping everyone sharp for the playoffs.  Wow.  That's fun to say.  The Mets are in the playoffs.

Football '14 Week 16: Playoffs?

       The playoffs for this team started last week and they took advantage of a Bears team that looked much more interested in tee times and travel plans than actually playing football.  This week is the game.  The one that will decide if this is a good team that has had a terrible streak of luck or if this is a bad team that deserves its fate if they lose.  There are few words I could add to measure the magnitude of win and your in.  That is the joy of the playoffs, if you win out, no one cares if you are 13-3 or 8-8.  I am going to turn the mike over to Uncle Al for a few extra inspirational words:



I don't know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we're finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.



Now I can't do it for you.
I'm too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh....
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror.



You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That's, that's part of life.
But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don't quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don't quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.



On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that's going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.



I'll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.



Now I can't make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.



That's a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That's football guys.
That's all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?

Playoff Brothers.

       Hey, we're back. That last few weeks of silence was Marcel Marceau's newest hit single, "Walkin' In The Wind." And now, here are the playoffs.  I am sure you are all sitting on the edge of your seat wondering who I am going to support this October.  The last couple of years, my choices have been the kiss of death, but I would feel remiss if I didn't share my usual insane thought processes.  This year, three of the teams that made the AL playoffs also happen to be the three teams who won the three World Series directly before the Mets did in 1986 and, much like the Amazin's, haven't won it since.  This wonderful bit of convolution is the key to my choices.

The Kansas City Royals won the Series in 1985 and sadly, stupefyingly, and horrifyingly haven't even been to the playoffs since.

That team starred a veteran George Brett at third and first base.  After winning the AL west like a million times between 1976 and 1984, the Royals the shocked the Cardinals in 1985 - with a little help from Don Denkinger, of course.  It is a long shot, but I would love to see KC take the title after a 29 year drought.

Everyone remembers the 1984 Detroit Tigers.

They were the team that just steamrolled everyone through the whole year, kind of like a baseball version of the '85 Bears.  They led wire to wire in the regular season and then lost only one game in the playoffs while taking the title.  Everyone remembers Jack Morris and Kirk Gibson from that team but no one ever remembers Lou Whitaker.  1984 was just another in a long line of gold glove silver slugger all star seasons from their second baseman.  Everyone has spent the last decade arguing about whether Jack Morris should be in Cooperstown when the real travesty is the fact that Whitaker got less than 5% of the vote early and dropped off the ballot when he (and Alan Trammell) should be in the Hall - probably more so than Morris.  Detroit has since seen a few horrible teams and a few playoff teams, even going to the Series in 2006, but they haven't won it all since that magical 1984 season.

Then in 1983, you had the Baltimore Orioles.

The Orioles in '83 were led by a young MVP shortstop named Cal Ripken.  You may have heard of him.  The 31 years since that title have seen more dark times than not for Baltimore.  The mid 90's team was a juggernaut that never quite got to the Series and since then, it has been all dark.  But this year they finally won the AL East title for the first time in 17 years.   I jumped on the O's bandwagon two years ago - mostly to stick it to the Yankees - and they immediately tanked.  So this time around I am putting them third on my love list, hoping that a little reverse psychology will help them out.  Of course, now that I have mentioned that out loud, it is a certain jinx.  I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.

Football '13 Week 19: Divisional Playoffs.

       I'm sorry folks, I just can't.  I couldn't write anything yesterday and I am not really up to it again today.  I don't have a football rant in me, I don't have a hall of fame rant in me, hell, I don't even have it in me to mock A-Rod one more time.  The Saints loss on Saturday afternoon just took it all out of me.  I guess you wanna see some cards.  Here, this oddball page is all I got:

These make for lousy football cards but surprisingly good bookmarks.  I will regroup and try again tomorrow.  I hope you all understand.

Football '13 Week 18: Wild Card.

       A couple of times this year, I posted very early on Sunday morning going on and on about how the Saints were going to destroy that week's opponent.  That was a poor choice of blurbs as both times the Saints ingloriously lost on the road to lesser foes.  So I learned my lesson for the playoffs and decided to hold off any pregame braggadocio and let the games take their course.  This course of action worked well as the Saints beat the (hated) Eagles in Philadelphia for the first road playoff victory in team history.  Sticking it to the awful Philly fans was just a bonus. 

In celebration of the Wild Card victory, let's look at a couple of player pages with a different player stuck in as a, um, wild card.

Here is a page of Superstar Jimmy Graham with a Chrome Kenny Stills rookie card in the lower right.  Stills showed great promise as a fifth round pick this year. 

This is a page of unsung receiver Marques Colston.

There are some great inserts on this page and in the lower right, a rookie card of Nick Toon.  Sadly, Nick got hurt before last season and has not returned.  I am rooting for him not just because he is the son of Jets great Al Toon but because he has one of the great simple wonderful names in recent memory.

OK, that whole idea is a little silly, so let's just look at some cards instead.  I grabbed the first two fancy cards on top of my Saints pile and scanned them for your enjoyment.

The first one is a manu-patch of Drew Brees from the Super Bowl season.  Those last two things way overcome that first one.  The second is a great autographed patch rookie card of Kenny Stills.  I believe that swatch is from the '8' from the TV numbers on the shoulder.  That or Kenny is a much smaller guy than we are lead to believe.

Oh, and look, a team set.  I always liked this design and Topps used it across the sports that year.  I think it actually works better for football than it did for baseball.

In case you were wondering, these are from 2010 Topps...

...and we all know what happened that year...

Next stop Seattle.  Revenge is a dish best served piping hot.

Football '13 Week 17: Disappointment.

       These arrived via Fed-Ex on Saturday and I opened them Sunday afternoon just about the time the Atlanta Falcons were blowing the end of the game against the Seahawks thus rendering them very bright shiny bookmarks and sending the Saints on the road for three games.  Sherman so had the right idea of how to deal with that city.

And yes, I realize that the Saints lost to both the the Rams and the Jets and that their wild card-bound plight is their own doing.  I am just frustrated.  Of course, the result of the Philly/Dallas game has made the Saints first playoff game about 100 miles from my house.  To the Stubhub!

They Arrrrrr Goin' For It, Matey.

       I do not like the sports teams of Pittsburgh.  The Steelers seem to think they are the best team ever, when before 1970 they were, quite literally, the worst team ever.  Six championships in 40-odd years is impressive, but forgetting the 40-odd years before that seems selective at best and delusional at worst.  The only thing I like about the Pittsburgh Penguins is their cute little logo.  Every other single thing can die in a fire.  And that brings us to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The Pirates replaced the Cardinals in the early 90's as my most hated team.  Sure, the Cardinals certainly had more hateable players, but the Pirates were far more infuriating - quality over quantity, I suppose.  It was a joy and a comfort to me that they have been invisible for the last 20 years.  Now, suddenly, they are back.  After a couple of near misses the last couple years, they are loaded up and ready to make a run to and through the playoffs.

Currently, they are led by NL MVP candidate Andrew McCutchen:

He is a fine enjoyable player to watch, except for the uniform.  I look forward to 2018 when they trade him because he wants too much money (of course, it will probably be to the Yankees...yuck).

The embodiment of my hatred for the Pirates can be stated quite simply:

Most people hate Barry Bonds now.  Like some kind of music loving hipster, I was a Bonds hater way before it was cool; my dislike for him started his rookie season (1986) and never waned. 

I have to admit, I didn't always hate every single Pirates player.  Willie Stargell was pretty awesome.

He won the MVP in 1979 as a fat 38 year old.  That is a feat I can get behind.

If you have read my required posts, you know that I am also a huge fan of Roberto Clemente:

I covered this a while back.

The most striking reason I hate the Pirates, other than the fact that they stole 2 or 3 division titles from the Mets, is they gave the world - and more specifically the Mets - Bobby Bonilla.

This is the only Bonilla card I have highlighted anywhere in my pages and that is only because I love the look of that insert set.  The worst part of the saga of Bobby Bo?  Because of the Mets stupidity - or Bonilla's incredible business acumen *eye roll* - he will be getting over a million dollars a year from the team until 2035.  Yes, I am probably just jealous I am not clearing all that cash for doing nothing myself, it's just that the Mets make me sad sometimes.

So why spew all this hate for the Pirates?  I mean, they are gonna make the playoff after two solid decades of utter futility after all.  Well, I am not wishing them well nor am I rooting for them, but...

Today, September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  And while I think I have certainly made my point that I hate baseball Pirates, I love plank walking, keelhauling, sword fighting, ship ramming pirates.  So raise the mizzenmast and a cup of grog and tell your mateys you be lovin' them today...and root for the Red Sox in the playoffs.

Football Week 19: Division.

       The divisional playoff weekend is usually your best in terms of quality and quantity of postseason football, or so goes the old cliche.  I usually don't buy into conventional wisdom, but damn, those games on Saturday were pretty spectacular.  I have been getting over the death flu that has been going around, plus I have been very busy actually working like a grown up, so I was riveted to my couch all Saturday.  No one saw the Ravens going into Denver and winning and the 49ers rode their rookie quarterback, literally, to victory.  After watching in person what Colin Kaepernick was capable of doing to a team, I was not too shocked to see what he did to the Packers.

Today we have a couple of games that will go a long way to determining a few legacies.

I lived in Boston for 12+ years and while I fell in love with the Red Sox, I never did get around to falling for the New England Patriots.  Oh sure, I paid attention to the team while I was there, but I never jumped on the bandwagon.  I had many friends who were Tom Brady lunatics and I rooted for them in all three of their Super Bowl wins.  I did not, however, root for them in their two loses to the Giants.  I think for Tom Brady to cement his legacy as one of the top 5 all time great quarterbacks, he has to win the big one one more time, and I think this year might be his last shot.

The other team with something to prove today is the Atlanta Falcons.  They have been a no show in the playoffs in their last 4 trips, and if they don't win today as the #1 seed, they might never.

Oh, one more thing, I scanned this page a while ago:

What the hell was I thinking?  No, really.  I cannot for the life of me figure out what the connection is that any of these players has with anyone else.  This is not a contest or anything, I would just really like to know.  If anyone can figure out what I was thinking, please tell me in the comments.