Baseball, Heh, You Buncha Nerds

FOR GONDOR

I took the night off from baseball last night, and while the rest of you stat geeks were trying to determine the sabermetric value of Carlos Ruiz and whether or not you could fill in Jason Bay's scorecard with a GIDP and two strikeouts BEFORE the game (surprise, he didn't play!) I took in some REAL culture.  

To be more precise, I attended a nearly four-hour screening of The Lord of the Rings that was delayed 90 minutes at the start and featured an audience of several hundred neckbeards and a real-life Gandalf, authentic down to his Teva sandals, economy size tub of popcorn and something that was either a Halloween costume from 10 years ago, or a frayed bathrobe that was the closest thing he could find to attire near his makeshift nest in his mother's laundry room.  

Not having the advantage of a smartphone, I had to wait until after the movie to see what the Mets did, and I was quite happy that despite their best efforts, the Braves were unable to slow down Jose Reyes, Jon Niese kept the recent starting pitching surge going, and for the second time in a week, the Mets were able to touch up one of the league's strongest pitchers, (Jurrgens last night, and Yovani Gallardo last Thursday.)  

While I feel like several dozen "HEY GUYS THAT'S NOT WHAT MONEYBALL MEANS" articles are written every season, this one was welcome to me, because for the first time, people are applying their own misunderstanding of the philosophies of the system to my team, most notably New York's greatest troll, Mike Francesa, who last month said "Reyes is playing for a big Crawford deal…He’s playing his heart out. That said, the Mets won’t sign him. Alderson is a different breed. Forget Jose Reyes, Mets fans. He’s gone. You have a new GM who believes in having a team full of $4-5 million dollar players…that’s it. The days of the Mets signing and having 2 or 3 big money guys on the roster is over. It’s done.”

Mike Francesa has been wrong before, Lord knows, and while it's been wonderful to hear him backpedal from that hilarious rant and admit, however begrudgingly, that you need to give the Mets credit for being a resilient team and fun to watch, nothing would be sweeter than the revisionist history he would have to create if the Mets retain Reyes after the season, and the way he's playing now, I don't see how they couldn't without losing a significant portion of the fanbase.  

Finally, I'm thrilled to announce that I have ended my self-imposed boycott of Citi Field until Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez were no longer on the team, and will be attending this Saturday evening's game against the Angels.  Naturally, the Mets are pulling out all the stops to welcome me back.