reblog, reuse, recycle

It's time to revisit a few old blog posts and check for updates. I think Oprah does this all the time. Once in a while I write a brief update in the comments section of an entry, like I did about Gentlemen's Top Cuts yesterday. Three of my past topics turned up in the news today, which was all the incentive I needed to write tonight's post about them.

It seemed incongruous to me that several cable "reality" shows are in high-definition but that "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" were not. Now we hear that the seventeenth season of "Survivor" will be the first shot in HD.

When I watched a Redskins game on the NFL Network, I was underwhelmed by Bryant Gumbel's play-by-play announcing. I wasn't alone in being relieved that he will step aside.

Shea Stadium's final opening day had me thinking about the place. All the times I was there, I never thought about breaking a seat and stealing the pieces as souvenirs. The attempt to Rickroll Shea may have failed but people elsewhere are still showing the love to Mr. Astley.

beginning of the end

If WNBC-TV is really "for New York" like the song says, they should post their excellent half-hour special about the doomed Shea Stadium. At least a two-minute clip of "The Amazin' Shea" is available online. Maybe they could post fourteen more of them.

A producer's blog gives some background on the interviews they conducted with members of the 1969 World Championship team. A review in the Daily News and an entry in a Shea fan's blog describe the show too.

Of course Shea Stadium isn't only about the Mets. The TV special also covers the Jets, the Beatles and Pope John Paul II, who all made history there too.

Sadly, Rick Astley will only be a footnote in the Shea Stadium lore. An online vote to choose an eighth inning song was Rickrolled, in a way. The fans booed. Want to see a great example of Rickrolling? Read my friend Bean's April 1st blog entry.

exhibitionists

Two of my former hometowns are hosting exhibition baseball games today. One game is in a brand new stadium, the other in a throwback venue. The Nationals play their first game in Nationals Park while the Dodgers return to the L.A. Coliseum, where they played when they first moved to Los Angeles 50 years ago. Meanwhile my Mets are playing today in the Civil Rights Game in rainy Memphis. I'll watch the beginning of each game on TV. The Mets game came on ESPN at 5:00, the Nationals game started on MASN at 6:00 and the Dodgers game is on NESN at 10:00. The Nationals game is also available for free on MLB.TV. I clicked on to it just in case MASN was blacked out on my TV. The video is the same but the computer stream is using audio from the visitors' radio broadcast.

While the architects and environmentalists are gushing over the new stadium's design and eco-friendliness, I am most excited about the food choices inside Nationals Park. They will regularly have menu items like Milwaukee brats and Philadelphia cheese steaks that honor National League opponents. Some food items will only be available when the corresponding team is visiting, like knishes when the Mets are in town and California rolls when the Dodgers visit.

As a former Washingtonian, I think it is fantastic that local restaurants will have outlets inside the stadium. Who needs a brat when some Red Hot & Blue BBQ or a Five Guys burger is available? My wife will be able to reminisce over some Gifford's Ice Cream. She and her family used to get Gifford's on the way home from the airport.

My next scheduled trips to the D.C. area will be too short to take in a ballgame. When I finally do get to the new stadium, even I should be able to resist the temptation to bring in my own food.

thanks for the meme-ories

Byron Chesney tagged me with a meme the other day. I've needed time to think about my response because it digs a little deeper than my comfort level allows. I had better respond now that Jack Lail has tagged me with a different meme. I'll get to Jack's tomorrow. Byron's meme asks me to name three things I can't give up, one physical, one mental and one emotional.

Physical - I have a real hard time disposing of anything. In fact, I get a little anxiety each time I delete something from my TiVo. It's even worse when the TiVo gets full and starts deleting stuff on its own. Rather than dwell on the stuff I know I should get rid of, I'll focus on two things I'm glad I kept since childhood. I still have a locker full of baseball cards that I got the hard way, buying them in wax paper wrapped packages with bubble gum and by trading away my duplicates to classmates in exchange for cards I wanted. I also still have my Corgi Batmobile.

Mental - My mind has retained a lot of trivia about "Batman" and the Amazin' Mets. I haven't tested myself in years but I used to know who played each of the guest villains and which Met wore which jersey number.

Emotional - I would prefer to keep the happy emotions but it's the bad feelings that come back to haunt me. When I get really sad it's often because I have remembered the painful feelings from the times that one or the other of our kids was sick enough to need hospitalization. Because of those times, I can get great joy from the fact that they got through it and are now both happy and healthy.

callbacks

At this time last week, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Patrick Sullivan's would go smoke free rather than limit their clientèle to older smokers. Things went smoothly tonight except for one small thing. After our performance, several smokers went outside to puff. They stood too close to the front door, creating a foul cloud that the rest of us had to walk through.

The historic collapse of the Mets left me with very little to say. A headline on the New York Times site summed it up perfectly: Ya Gotta Bereave. The Best Week Ever blog brought a smile to my face with their analysis of why the Mets fell apart. I especially like their idea of a Julio Franco curse.

I learned about 90 minute sleep cycles when I first started working an early morning shift. Phillies fan Perry Simon remembered hearing me preach about it and mentioned it on his blog this week. Since we're on the topic of sleep, I think I'll go get me some.

who's in first?

C'mon! 135 days and it comes to this? You've gotta be kidding me.

amazin' race

You Gotta Believe! That was the rallying cry of the 1973 New York Mets. I gotta believe that the Mets can hold on to first place in the NL East just a little bit longer. They helped themselves by beating the lowly Marlins tonight.

The Phillies are doing their best to spoil my fun. They swept three series against the Mets this season and have shrunk the Mets' lead to a game and a half. Longtime Mets fans know about late season collapses. The Mets' 1969 pennant win had as much to do with the Cubs' collapse as anything else.

The news reached my friend Bean during his European Vacation. He used his iPhone to make sure I saw the headline in the International Herald Tribune.

reach the unreachable star

This isn't going to turn into MetsBlog, I promise. In fact, my plan was to not write about baseball again until the end of the regular season. Perhaps I was still in the afterglow of my trip to see the Mets win two in Milwaukee when I eagerly clicked over to the Daily News website to read about Tom Glavine's 300th win. Another Mets story caught my eye first.

Shea Stadium's days are numbered as the new Citi Field nears its 2009 opening. Some dedicated Mets fans want the team to keep the same big red apple that pops up after a Mets home run. They started an online petition at SaveTheApple.com. Personally, I hope the Mets ditch the apple. A commenter on one of the blogs I read today described it perfectly with the word "janky." The sketches of the new ballpark do show a new big apple in the outfield. That's not good enough for the Save The Apple guys. They insist that the same beat up old apple be relocated to Citi Field. I think the move is a good time to begin some new home run traditions. Or at least refresh the old ones. I'm sure the fact that my earliest Mets memories are from before the apple was installed has a lot to do with why I wouldn't miss it. What are some other home run traditions that you've seen?

41-year-old Tom Glavine's milestone victory last night reminded me of a story about an incredible achievement by another 40-year-old athlete. On Saturday, Dara Torres set a new American record in the 50-meter freestyle at the USA Swimming National Championships in Indianapolis. Oh yeah, she took first place in the 100-meter freestyle too. Dara is now on track to compete in her fifth Olympics. The Indianapolis Star also had an interview with the owner of the world's easiest job: lifeguard at the national swim meet.

let's go to the Mets

The Mets are having another good season (despite today's nationally televised loss). I'm no fair weather fan. I've stuck with the Mets during the bad seasons too. They were my hometown team when I was growing up in New York. After moving to Virginia, I went on a few baseball road trips to see the Mets in Philadelphia, Chicago and at Shea Stadium. I remember going to a baseball game at Candlestick Park with my friend Bean but I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't recall if the Giants were playing the Mets that day. I'm also embarrassed to admit that since moving to Knoxville I haven't gone to see the Mets play in nearby Atlanta. At least I went to see the Mets last year while I was in DC and of course I went to several Mets vs. Dodgers games when I lived in Burbank.

I didn't bring a camera on my trip to Milwaukee the other day. Mine is broken and I had already returned the camera I borrowed from my daughter for our family road trip the week before. Fortunately the other Mets fan on the trip, brought his camera and was willing to share the photos from his MySpace page. Here's T the R.O.P and me in front of the Hank Aaron statue:



The picture of Bernie's Dugout gave me an idea. It would be interesting if the Brewers had two identical Bernie Brewer mascots at each game. One would only be visible in Bernie's Dugout when the Brewers are at bat. The other would only be visible in the stands or near the field when the visitors are at bat. If they timed it right, it would look like Bernie could travel really fast from the field back to his perch, similar to the way Mickey Mouse gets around in "Fantasmic." Any of the other teams' mascots can feel free to use my idea too.



On the drive from Knoxville to the Nashville airport, T and I listened to a sports radio host talking about how the Florida Marlins and their stadium are so pathetic. T had heard about a great solution. The Marlins should be moved to Portland (home of the Triple-A Beavers) and transferred to the American League West. It would create a natural rivalry with the Seattle Mariners and even out the number of teams at 15 per league. Moving the Pittsburgh Pirates from the NL Central to the NL East would then leave all the divisions neatly arranged with 5 teams each. For the idea to work, there would always be one team per league with the day off except during interleague play.

schlemeel, schlemazel

Baseball purists often say that low-scoring pitchers' duels are the best games to watch. Maybe I would agree if a New York Mets pitcher had ever thrown a no-hitter in the 45 year history of the team. I like to see the Mets score lots of runs to win. Tonight the Mets beat the Brewers in a very enjoyable 13 run game. The convertible roof at Miller Park was open on a perfect night for baseball. We saw home runs, fielding errors, bunts and more. I'm in Milwaukee on a baseball field trip with a fellow Mets fan who works at another station in the cluster. The company that owns both of our radio stations is headquartered here. We were able to get two tickets in the company's block of seats on the club level for tonight's game and for the rubber game of the series tomorrow afternoon. That section of the stadium features a waitstaff and a menu of food options. The fans sitting right behind us had a five dollar bet on the outcome of the Klement's Sausage Race. One of the Brewer fans was convinced that "the hot dog was due" but sadly for him that's not how it turned out. The Mets gave up three runs in the first inning on a massive Prince Fielder home run but came back to score four right away in the next inning. The Brewers took the lead again but the Mets responded and stayed on top. My traveling companion plans to be a sports broadcaster someday. He recorded some video of himself at the game tonight and will eventually post it on his MySpace page. I hope he got some good footage of the irate fans yelling at him for wearing his Mets gear.

port out, starboard home

Technically the Devil Dog was free, a gift from Rich, an employee on the Bridgeport to Port Jefferson ferry. However, the boat ride to get the free Devil Dog cost $61 for our car and passengers to ride across Long Island Sound tonight. It would have been cheaper to drive from Bridgeport to Port Jefferson but it was worth it to be able to skip 47 miles of road and to avoid driving through New York City. Since we were in the area, it was no surprise that one of the other cars on the ferry belonged to an avid Mets fan.



Rich spotted me taking pictures of the Linden's Cookies and Drake's Cakes available for sale at his snack bar. Both brands reminded me of childhood. I've mentioned my weakness for Devil Dogs before. When I was in seventh and eight grades, lunch at the school cafeteria always came with a package of three Linden's Chocolate Chip cookies. Rich asked why I was photographing his snacks. I'm not sure he believed me when I said the photos were for the Internet.



A poster aboard the ferry promised complimentary WiFi access from some outfit called Optimum Online. Naturally, I got the laptop out of the car and fired it up. My browser opened to the Optimum page and wanted a password. I asked Jen the purser for the complimentary WiFi password. She was very kind but regretted to inform me that the "free" WiFi is only available to paying customers of this Optimum company, a local ISP. Tourists like me need not apply. Jen then returned to reading chapter 32 of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Earlier in the week I had much better luck with the WiFi offered by the New York State Thruway. The service is available in the rest areas but I guess it's not really free either since the Thruway is a toll road. Another ferry employee was watching all this transpire. Not wanting to have him feel left out, I snapped one last photo of the man with the name tag that read "Able Seaman."

this old Wodehouse

Shawn Green hit a foul ball into the Dreamseats just before his walk-off home run Monday night. I had flipped over to ESPN in time to see the end of the game between the Mets and the Cardinals. Unfortunately, tonight's game didn't end as well.

The Dreamseats are luxurious leather recliners near the foul poles. A brief video on their website shows the seats in use and concludes with an address in Hauppauge. They may sell them from New York, but every Dreamseat is manufactured in Tennessee.

The reference to Hauppauge made me think of an old song from a musical that mentions several places we would pass on the way to Grandma's house. I thought that Hauppauge might have been one of the villages in the lyrics. But as it turns out, the song goes: "let's build a little bungalow in Quogue, in Yaphank or in Hicksville or Patchogue."

first day of the rest of your life

After a long day yesterday, I took today off. Completely off. It was great. I didn't have to leave home at all. Instead, I went for a swim and then read most of the new issue of Entertainment Weekly. It features the list of 100 stars they love right now. I also gave the TiVo a rest and watched a couple of DVDs that have been on my stack for a while. They both looked great on the plasma screen even though they contained footage from a time before anyone had dreamed of that technology. First I watched highlights of the New York Mets World Series victories in 1969 and 1986. Then I popped in a disc of lost episodes of "You Bet Your Life," a show that went off the air a week after I was born. I remember watching reruns of Groucho's show when I was in seventh and eighth grades. Finally, I turned on the computer to look for Mass times and to search for any Roadside America attractions along the route of a trip we are planning for later this summer. Oh and best of all, I had a slice of leftover cake with lunch.

two of a kind

The Mets lost two out of three games to the Braves in Atlanta this week. They're still on top of the division though. Atlanta is only three hours from here. One of these days, when the schedule permits, I would like to go see the Mets at Turner Field. Last year I saw them at RFK Stadium.

One of the other deejays in our building, T the R.O.P., is also a Mets fan. He went to the game on Tuesday night and drove back Wednesday morning in time for his 10:00 a.m. shift. While he was there, he got Endy Chavez to autograph a photo of the amazin' catch he made in the NLCS last October. As soon as he got to work Wednesday, T showed me a video of the encounter, which he posted online today. As you can see, he looks nothing like football star Jared Lorenzen, despite what I wrote in January. Well, maybe there's a slight resemblance. Who am I kidding? They could be brothers.

PS: Happy birthday to the man who raised me to be a Mets fan.

to the TiVo!

The saddest website I saw today is probably this one, with instructions on how to get a refund for the tickets you bought to see the World Series at Shea Stadium.



At one point last night I thought that today's blog entry would be all about a Mets win and about the incredible catch made by Endy Chavez in the sixth inning. It turned what would have been a two run home run into a double play. If you didn't see it live, you should watch the video on the Internet. I also thought that I might scan and upload my ticket stub from the World Series game I attended as a child. Maybe next year.

I'm not the only one who thought that the Mets would win. On Wednesday, a Tigers fan (I assume) in Portage, Michigan somehow found my blog by searching for the phrase "where can I buy cigarettes near Shea Stadium?" That smoker is tenacious. My site turns up on page 20 of the results because I wrote about the Mets on August 10 and about smoking on August 11.

During the NLCS, my TiVo got completely filled up with various prime time shows. I had the same problem last month when I wrote a guest blog for Terry Morrow. Now that I don't need to watch the World Series, I can catch up on some of the shows I have "TiNo'ed." That's a new term coined by San Francisco TV critic Tim Goodman for those shows you've recorded but not watched. One of my favorite sites, TV Squad had the link.

As of tonight, my TiNo list includes multiple episodes of "Heroes," "Friday Night Lights," "Veronica Mars," "The Nine," "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Shark." What's on yours?

to the TV!

The Mets will play their first "must win" game of the season tonight. They cruised through the regular season and swept the Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs. The Cardinals and their backdoor curveballs have posed more of a challenge. The Mets have to win tonight and again tomorrow night to advance to the World Series.

Why is it so hard to find the playoff games on the radio? I don't know for sure but maybe smaller stations find it too expensive to air live sports, which usually require a human board op on duty. Last night while driving home from the Old City, I scanned the dial for a station carrying the game. The local sports station didn't have it but I was able to pick up the Mets' New York flagship station, WFAN. I had to struggle to make out all the words because a Spanish language broadcast was drifting in and out on the same frequency. My son was fascinated by the way AM stations bounce off the ionosphere and can be heard in distant cities at night.

When I got in the car this morning, the radio was still tuned to 660. Around 5:20 a.m., I heard a caller encouraging Mets fans to make a lot of noise at tonight's game. He said that if, God forbid, they should lose, the crowd should give the team a standing ovation as thanks for a terrific season. He correctly pointed out that it has been a great year to be a Mets fan. Let's hope it's not over yet.

sports night

The Mets are struggling in the ninth inning as I write this. It looks like the Cardinals will even up the NLCS after a great Mets win on Thursday night. Tonight the Mets could have used some of those terrific defensive plays from last night. Hey, did you notice the signs at Shea Stadium for losmets.com?

I guess I'm a bigger sports fan than I realized. Since 7:30 p.m. I have been flipping between an exciting high school football game and the Mets playoff game. I left the downstairs TiVo tuned to CSS and the upstairs TiVo tuned to Fox. A couple of times I was able to rewind to see a home run or a touchdown that I would have otherwise missed. At 11:00, I flipped between the three network affiliates to see their coverage of the football game I had just watched between the top two local high school teams. Both Catholic and Fulton were undefeated going into tonight's game. KCHS won the game, 27 - 14.

If I'm still awake at 12:30, college basketball gets added to the mix, as I told you yesterday. I will probably just go to bed and save my Mason Madness viewing for tomorrow.

play at the plate

Mets win! I took a short nap from 1:30 to 3:00 so I could watch the whole game from the beginning. And I'm glad I did. The second inning featured what is already being called the "Amazin' double play." If the Mets can take this series from the Dodgers, they will avenge their 1988 playoff loss. Hmm... maybe they could get some 1973 payback by beating the A's or some 2000 revenge by beating the Yankees in another Subway Series.

guaranteed to have the time of your life

Everyone born in the '60s or earlier can remember where they were and what they were doing when Spiro T. Agnew resigned the vice presidency. Right? I was with my dad at Shea Stadium watching a playoff game between the Mets and the Reds when the news was flashed on the big scoreboard in centerfield.

The postseason started today for fans of the Twins, Athletics, Cardinals, Padres, Tigers and Yankees. Fans of the Mets (like me) and Dodgers have to wait until tomorrow afternoon. This year marks the seventh playoff appearance for the Mets. Game 1 is inconveniently scheduled at 4pm, during my nap time. Game 2 starts Thursday at 8pm, as if I didn't already have enough stuff to watch in that timeslot. Obviously I will record all my regular shows and watch the baseball game live.

My dad did some public relations work for National Bohemian, a major sponsor of the Baltimore Orioles. As a result, he was able to go to the 1969 World Series with his clients from the beer company. In 1973 it looked like the Orioles and Mets would have a World Series rematch. When the O's lost to the A's in the playoffs, Dad offered to buy the World Series tickets that National Bohemian had already purchased for the three games at Shea Stadium. Trying to look like a good guy, he must have bought several hundreds of dollars worth of tickets. I got to go to a game and so did some of my grammar school teachers and principal.

In 1986, I was working in the promotion department at WAVA. The station had chartered a plane and arranged for 105 Redskins fans to fly to New York to see a Monday Night Football game against the Giants. After the Mookie Wilson miracle in Game 6 and a rain delay the next night, Game 7 of the World Series would take place on Monday, the same night as the football game. I was at Giants Stadium with our contest winners. There were times during the game that the Giants fans would cheer wildly even when the Redskins were doing well. It turned out that many people in the stands had brought portable televisions and that they were actually cheering for the Mets.

My good friend Bean just sent me a fantastic belated birthday / early Christmas gift. It's a DVD of Vintage World Series Films from 1969 and 1986. I'm and psyched and ready to sing the song. Who's with me?

one is the magic-est number

Let's go Mets! The Mets could clinch the division title tonight if they can beat the Pirates. People in New York are already starting to think about another Subway Series. I don't care who the Mets beat in the World Series but I can understand why it would be a little sweeter to pay the Yankees back for 2000. Of course a lot has to happen between now and then but I can dream, can't I?

The New York Daily News has a Mets blog. Finding it gave me the idea to look for more Mets blogs. There's one actually called MetsBlog and one called Mets Geek but I think I might prefer Amazin' Avenue, especially after seeing this post from Wednesday.

one giant leap

Today is not a national holiday but it should be. 37 years ago tonight men walked on the moon. The momentous event is hardly commemorated at all. Not even by the annual Mooning of Amtrak. The least they could do is to hold their moon-a-thon a week later and claim a tie-in. But they don't.

If you're of a certain age, the lunar landing is probably one of your happiest memories. It certainly is one of mine. Between the flight of Apollo 11 and the unlikely success of the Miracle Mets, the summer of 1969 was amazin'. In a way, I am still the little kid who learned the names of all the Apollo astronauts and all the New York Mets that summer.

My family was on vacation in Noyac when the Eagle landed. We stayed up late to watch the coverage on an old black & white TV in my grandparents' summer cottage. The only channel we could get was WTNH out of New Haven, Connecticut. While most people think of Walter Cronkite's moon coverage, my memory is of Frank Reynolds, Howard K. Smith and science editor Jules Bergman.

Later that summer, my parents took us downtown to see the ticker-tape parade welcoming the astronauts home. Neil Armstrong has kept a fairly low profile since making history but he was interviewed on "60 Minutes" last year.