New York Baseball Fan Is Ready For Football

So last night I'm in a midtown Manhattan bar, making nice with all of the other cool blogger kids (and yes, dear God, they are all kids -- I've got a decade at least on most of 'em) as the finest teams that money could buy proceeded to soil the bedclothes in the Bronx and Philadelphia, respectively.

We'll start with the Yankees, who got two Johnny Damon right field foul pole home runs and did next to nothing with the rest of a mess of baserunners against the Red Sox in a have to not have it 7-3 loss. The line will look like Andy Pettite was less than clutch, but in watching the game, it was all bloop hits and infield trouble, rather than anything particularly well hit.

Meanwhile, the Yanks at the plate were doing what an old team does -- wait for a long ball that never came, despite the presence of ancient Tim Wakefield and his ever more ancient knuckleball. In a game of this importance, you'd expect the home team to be handing out batons at first base to push matters and avoid the crippling double play balls. You'd also be watching a team that isn't the 2008 Yankees.

In Philadelphia, the Mets were penning their own, far more tragic, same old story: a big early lead, the starter being left in too long because the bullpen isn't trustworthy, the offense gripping the bats into sawdust during the opposing team's This Can't Be Happening AGAIN comeback, and some relief goat du jour taking the fall late. The names to fill in for the Mad Libs game of How Can Met Fan Tear Out His Hair (surprising, given last year's El Foldo, that there would be any left to yank) were Pedro Martinez and Benny Ayala.

It astonishes the mind that a team with this kind of payroll and farm system couldn't make a move to get bullpen help. Hell, the Diamondbacks added Jon Rauch and the Rays added Chad Bradford and the Twins got Eddie Guardado; fungible relief help is what gets moved at the deadline. Billy Beane would have probably packed Huston Street's bags for him in Oakland, or you could have gotten what you really needed (Brad Ziegler) for some collection of Matt Murton-esque talent on the cheap. No team should ever gag away a pennant from the unbelievably unpredictable event of Billy Wagner being injury prone, or Pedro not being able to hold an early lead.

Oh, and a special shout out -- HEY! -- to noted soothsayer Jimmy Rollins, who called Philly Fan a front-runner and a punk last week in what can only be imagined as a Get Out Of Town Already move, only to back up his talk with a huge 5 for 7 night, including a 2-run homer to start the comeback from a touchdown down. He also had three of the Phillies six steals. (Yankee Fan, take note -- this is what an offense, at home in a must win game, does. It also helps to not have all of your offensive players, with the possible exception of Robinson Cano, on the downside of their careers.)

Rollins continues to be a living nightmare for Mets Fan, which you think would be all that would be required to earn him the ever-loving love of Philly Fan, but one suspects that the fan base is happier to root for Jamie Moyer (adorable, even while highly ineffective last night), Chase Utley (OK, in that he's just a better player than J-Roll) and Shane Victorino (hmm, I'm starting to detect a, shall we say, Boston-esque pattern here). The night's events pushed the Mets out of first, though they've got this Johan Santana guy pitching for them tonight, so it might not be a long stay out of the penthouse. (For now.)

Add it all up, and you have a late August in the city... and yes, you can mostly wear any hat you want (my blogging companion last night was wearing a Phillies cap), since the home town teams have more or less lost the audience already, and no one who is anyone is still in town and working in the week before Labor Day. New York, my friends, is ready for some football, rather than the continued sobfest that is the final season for both stadiums.

Here's a fun fact: the Mets' pen has blown ten (10!) leads in the ninth inning this year, and 22 saves overall. Good grief. Which means that in about 8% of their games, they've been less than three outs away from sealing the deal, and that's got to just have them walking like zombies by now. Last night's euthanasia finally came when Chad Coste singled home Victorino, making a winner of Rudy Seanez in the 13th. (Say this for the Phils: they don't quit. They may not be very good either, in that they never are, but in a short series with Cole Hamels, the resurrected Brett Myers, and the mostly strikes of Moyer and Cupcakes Blanton... oh, who am I kidding, they're also going nowhere fast. But at least their bullpen is, well, a bullpen.)

The Mets will be losing meaningful games longer than the Yanks will, but when your team can't close or hold touchdown leads in baseball, you'd be staring hard at Mssrs. Manning and Favre, too.