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Mets Game Watches 2012

I’m trying something new this season by picking one Sunday a month for a game watch. This way, people can have it on the calendar now and if you can make it, great. If not, no big deal either. I think trying to plan ahead of time might get more turn out than a last minute get together. (Of course, I’ll still probably send emails for those as well.)

I started by picking a game for April, May and June that fit into my schedule. There is a weekend series in May vs. the Marlins which would make for a great meetup, but I already have something else scheduled that weekend. I’m planning these meetups for Finley Dunne’s, since I know they’ll put the game on for us, Sunday is typically a slower day for them and it’s conveniently located by an El stop – the Paulina Brown Line. (The above picture is from Finley Dunne’s. They hung a Mets pennant for me, so you know they are good people.)

The games:

Sun. April 15 – Mets vs Phillies, 12:35 CT

Sun. May 20 – Mets vs Blue Jays, 12:07 CT

Sun. June 10 – Mets vs Yankees, 12:05 CT

Hopefully none of the games get flexed to ESPN Sunday Night baseball. And the only thing that would prevent me from making any of these dates is if the Blackhawks have a home playoff game. Let’s see how these go before picking the next batch of games to plan for.

Hope to see you. Let’s go Mets!

Spring is in the Air

I haven’t posted anything Mets in a long time, but that’s my way my around here. I’m not a daily blogger, there are many good ones out there already tackling the day to day news.

Hands down though, I always post around this time when players start reporting to spring training. There’s something in the air that really gets me excited. Maybe it’s the lull of other sports going on. I was hoping to make a trip to Port St. Lucie this year, but some other plans came up and so a trip there will have to wait again. As it stands now, I’ll first see the Mets when they come to Chicago at the end of June. I can only hope it’ll actually be warm by then and I won’t need to wear layers like last season. Not too many other plans to see the Mets on the road. Perhaps a game in Milwaukee, but we’ll see. Being a new home owner, I have to save a little money and so I’ll probably be watching more games at home on my TV. Thankfully the MLB.tv subscription offers both home and away feeds, so I’ll almost always get my Gary, Keith and Ron.

In any case, let’s go Mets! I’ve never given up before and I’m not about to start now.

The Sports Room

Nik and I recently moved into a new condo and wasted no time making on of the bedrooms a sports room. The room was already painted red when we moved in and since most of our frames and shelves were a dark color, we decided to leave the paint color alone. (Note: click on any of the pictures to view as a larger size.)

We immediately got to work on decorating the room. My seats from Shea Stadium served as the centerpiece and we worked around them for the rest of the room. The Mets rug is the most recent addition to the room and it fits perfectly. What follows is a guided picture tour of the room.

The shelf. I’m known to collect and save things from time to time.

One item that I have a lot of are bobbleheads. I’m working on putting more of them on display in this room, but for now I have a few of my favorites on the top shelf, along with a picture of me with Mike Piazza. At the very top is a bat we had made in honor of our wedding day. (Other bobbleheads are on a shelf in the living room.)

The second shelf has a picture of a Diamondvision message that says ‘The Mets Welcome the Rubinstein Family’; two hockey pucks that I got signed by Bobby Hull and Jonathan Toews; a batting practice ball that David Wright threw to the fans in Milwaukee that Nik caught; Mini bobbleheads and a giant Penguins button. (Also randomly on the shelf is a candle from my senior prom in the back corner.)

The third shelf has a stack of travel books; a Don Larsen signed baseball; a Mike Piazza signed baseball; Stanley Cup Final 2010 patch; Season ticket holder gift: picture of the four Blackhawks ambassadors- Denis Savard, Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito and Bobby Hull; Couple Mets Bud bottles and mini helmets.

The fourth shelf has a football signed by former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel; the basketball is signed by former Ohio State great Jim Jackson; and a few mini football helmets, one of which is signed by Jim Tressel. Not sports related, but equally as cool, is a set of drumsticks from Levon Helm that he gave me when I met him in 2005.

The wall above the Shea seats has a custom framed picture with our souvenir tickets to the Stanley Cup Finals and to the home opener/banner raising game. I bought the team picture that is at the top, but the bottom picture is one I took at the home opener when the team raised the banner. To the right is a Mets neon clock and below is a picture of me with Jonathan Toews that I was able to have him sign. In the mounted bat case is the broken bat of Mets minor league player Allan Dykstra that I got when I saw the Binghamton Mets play in Portland, Maine.

The small side of the room has a Pearl Jam concert poster that I bought several years ago on eBay. It fits perfectly in this room. The other wall has a few team logo banners of the teams Nik grew up rooting for. Penn State, Pittsburgh Steelers and the Pittsburgh Penguins. The highlight of that wall is the puck case.

A closeup of the puck case. Some are autographed by several Blackhawks players including Duncan Keith, Patrick Sharp, Brent Seabrook and Adam Burish. The other pucks have been collected over the years.

Last, but not least, the Mets rug.

There is more to come for this room, including some panoramic pictures that we need to get framed, so stay tuned for more updates!

You can view a full set of pictures on my Flickr page.

A Look at Mets Interleague Opponents

Today the 2012 MLB schedules for all of the teams were released and with it always comes a lot excitement and criticism. Excitement to plan road trips (more on that in another post) and criticism for the interleague match-ups. Interleague play began with the 1997 season for reasons that can be read on Wikipedia.

In 2012, aside from two Yankees series, the Mets will play at Toronto, at Tampa Bay and at home vs. Baltimore in interleague play. Baltimore, really?? Didn’t we just play them like last year? All of this got me thinking about a list of Mets interleague games since interleague play began. I wanted to see if there was any rhyme or reason to the opponents and to see how many times they have played each AL team.

For the Mets, the first five years of interleague play was always NL East vs. AL East:

1997: vs. Boston, @ NYY, @ Detroit, @ Baltimore vs. Toronto (All AL East. Detroit was in the East before baseball expansion/realignment.)

1998: @ Boston, vs. Tampa Bay, @ Baltimore, vs. NYY, @ Toronto (All AL East)

1999: @NYY, vs. Toronto, vs. Boston, vs. NYY, @ Tampa Bay, @ Baltimore (All AL East)

2000: vs. Tampa Bay, vs. Baltimore, at NYY, vs. NYY, @ Boston, @ Toronto (All AL East)

2001: @ Tampa Bay, @ Baltimore, vs. NYY, @ NYY, vs. Boston, vs. Toronto (All AL East)

Aside from the Yankees series being a mainstay, from 2002 – 2006, things got a little more mixed. For the most part play alternated between the AL Central and AL West, probably since there were just 5 straight seasons of playing the AL East.

2002: @ Cleveland, @ White Sox, vs. NYY, vs. Minnesota, vs. Kansas City, @ NYY (4 AL Central, 2 Yankees)

2003: vs. Seattle, @ Texas, @ Angels, vs. NYY, @ NYY (3 AL West, 2 Yankees)

2004: @ Minnesota, @ Kansas City, @ Cleveland, @ Detroit, @ NYY, vs. NYY (3 AL Central, 2 Yankees)

2005: vs. NYY, vs. Angels, @ Oakland, @ Seattle, @ NYY (3 AL West, 2 Yankees)

2006 brought interleague play back to full-on AL East:

2006: vs. NYY, vs. Baltimore, @ Toronto, @ Boston, @ NYY (5 AL East)

And now we’re back to no rhyme or reason in 2007:

2007: vs. NYY, @ Detroit, @ NYY, vs. Minnesota, vs. Oakland (2 AL Central, 1 AL West, 2 Yankees)

2008*: @ NYY, vs. Texas, @ Angels, vs. Seattle, vs. NYY (3 AL West, 2 Yankees)
*Civil Rights Game vs. White Sox in Memphis. I initially forgot about this game, but I don’t count the game same since it was only one game, in a neutral site.

Oh look, AL East. Again:

2009: @ Boston, @ NYY, @ Baltimore, vs. Tampa Bay, vs. NYY (5 AL East)

What’s interesting in 2010 are the games against a few Central teams and Baltimore. Really? Mix it up!

2010: vs. NYY, @ Baltimore, @ Cleveland, @ NYY, vs. Detroit, vs. Minnesota (3 AL Central, 3 AL East, incl. 2 Yankees)

A little AL West and 1 AL Central opponent for this season:

2011: @ NYY, vs. Angels, vs. Oakland, @ Texas, @ Detroit, vs. NYY (3 AL West, 1 AL Central, 2 Yankees)

So here we are at next year’s interleague opponents:

2012: @ Toronto, @ NYY, @ Tampa Bay, vs. Baltimore, vs. NYY (5 AL East, incl. 2 Yankees)

I accept Toronto since they haven’t met since 2006. But Tampa Bay in 2009 and again in 2012? And the Mets will now be playing Baltimore in 3 of the last 4 seasons. c’mon! I get it, the cities are close and fans will travel.

As it appears, interleague series do get varied, but on the surface it seems the Mets always play the same few AL teams more often than other AL teams. I’m sure there’s a lot that goes into the scheduling of these games. But, instead of back to back Detroit series, how about a White Sox series? Instead of the constant Baltimore games, how about one more against Cleveland?

Lastly, here is a straight up list of how many times the Mets have played each AL team. I’m discounting the first 5 years of interleague play since it was a constant AL East matchup. Also not included are the games against the Yankees or the White Sox Civil Rights Game.

AL East:
Baltimore – 5 times
Boston – 2 times
Tampa Bay – 2 times
Toronto – 2 times
Again, not counting the first 5 years of interleague or any Yankees series

AL Central:
Cleveland – 3 times
Chicago – 1 time
Detroit – 4 times
Kansas City – 2 times
Minnesota – 4 times

AL West:
LA Angela – 4 times
Oakland – 3 times
Seattle – 3 times
Texas – 3 times

What do you think? Does it make sense? What would you like to see stay the same or change?

Road Trip: Binghamton Mets at Portland Sea Dogs

While planning a New England vacation with Nik, I saw that the Binghamton Mets were playing in Portland against the Sea Dogs, the Red Sox AA affiliate. I pretty much made the game be a part of our trip. Our seats were something like 8 rows from the field, on the third base side, next to the B-Mets dugout.

Minor league games are a good time for many reasons, one of which is the chance to roam around various seats and get up, close and personal with the players. Before the game, it was pointed out to me that J.P. Ricciardi was sitting in a seat just behind home plate. Nik and I wandered over and we made some small talk and I got a picture with him. He asked where we were from and said to hang in, that good things are coming.

Knowing the easy access to players and coaches, I brought along the 1986 Mets Media Guide Nik had gotten me this past holiday season, in hopes I could get Wally Backman, the current B-Mets manager, to sign it. Sure enough, I was successful, and he was as nice as can be when I asked him for the autograph.

I also got Raul Reyes‘ autograph on our scorecard. We successfully worked around it while keeping score.

The game cruised along. Despite not knowing a lot about the players of either team, Nik and I enjoyed the casual vibe and kept score, as we’ve been doing this whole summer.

By the bottom of the 9th inning, the B-Mets had a nice 7-2 lead and many of their fans began to leave before the game ended. Nik and I decided to move to the first row, just to the side of the B-Mets dugout.

Once the game was over, I was taking pictures, rather than asking for autographs. Catcher Salomon Manriquez kept looking at myself and others who gathered at the railing. He brought over a game ball and gave it to one of the kids. I joked that he was giving it to a Red Sox fan and we both smiled. Nik, who was behind me, noticed a broken bat laying out in front of the dugout. As Manriquez started to walk away, I asked for the bat. He hesitated, went and picked it up and brought it over to me. I was in awe, as if I were a seven-year-old kid. It turned out to be Allan Dykstra’s broken bat that was full of pine tar, broken shards hanging off and even had a little grass stain. It was by far the coolest thing I have ever gotten at a game.

That about ended our night at the game. Hadlock Field was pretty nice and has a replica Green Monster wall in left field. One of the ushers started talking with me and couldn’t have been nicer. He also used a faux microphone to sing along with Sweet Caroline late in the game. It was rather amusing.

The full set of pictures is here.

Road Trip: Pittsburgh

The MLB schedule people were on my side this year when they scheduled the Mets to be in Pittsburgh over a weekend. They were there in 2010 on a weekend as well, but due to other trips and events, Nik and I couldn’t get there for a game. This year we made it happen. And although we flew in Saturday morning and home Sunday morning, we made the most of it.

(Above: Mario Lemieux display at Heinz History Center)

This was my first ever visit to Pittsburgh and after checking into our hotel, which was by Fort Pitt, we walked to the Heinz History Center where we met our friends and toured the sports exhibit. It was just a small part of what the museum offered, but it was really interesting to learn about Pittsburgh sports history. From a marble championship to the variety of sports memorabilia, it was worth the visit. (More pictures on my Flickr)

(Above: Church Beer Works)

Following the museum we went for an afternoon snack at the Church Brew Works which was pretty cool. The altar was where all the brew kettles were setup. If you’re a beer drinker, or into seeing something different, Church Brew Works is for you. (More pictures on my Flickr)

Finally, the game. The weather was hot. We wore jeans because I thought there was a chance for rain and I just didn’t expect it to feel so humid. So it was nice to be in the shade when we briefly met up with a few other friends for a tailgate.

From my first steps into PNC Park, I knew it was going to be one of my favorites. The view, the concourses, everything. I just loved it. I highly recommend the pulled pork/pierogi sandwich which was located under a sign that said Smorgasburgh, which I thought was cute.

Speaking of pierogi’s, the Pirates have a Pierogi Race!

This was my third time seeing R.A. Dickey pitch this season and he was great, going the complete game. A fluke defensive play by Daniel Murphy at 3rd base and the stranding of far too many runners in scoring position pretty much sealed the Mets’ 3-2 loss. Of course the Mets put up a ton of runs on Friday and again on Sunday, neither of which we were at.

The full set of pictures from the game are here on Flickr.

Last note on the game: There was a post-game concert by Huey Lewis and the News in short center field and a fireworks show to go with it. Both were awesome:

The Power of Love – Huey Lewis and the News from Julie on Vimeo.

Our last stop before leaving Pittsburgh was the Duquesne Incline at Mount Washington. It was a hazy, humid morning, but the views were amazing.

More pictures from our trip up the Incline are on my Flickr.

To sum up the trip: awesome, despite the Mets loss. I can’t wait to go again.

Mets vs. Cubs + The Cold = A Loss

Game 3 of the Mets/Cubs series was by the far the coldest. I even had to break out long underwear. TMI? Once again, Nik and I were supposed to be in the 400′s but we sat in some empty seats on the 200 level and had a great view of everything, even R.A. Dickey tripping on his way to first. Turns out he might have hurt his heel, but please, can the injury bug just leave the Mets alone for a few weeks?!

The Mets had a 1-0 lead heading to the bottom of the third off of Jose Reyes running smartly on the bases. He hit a double, but due to 2 Cubs errors he was able to score. It was pretty exciting and I’d rather be calling it an inside the park home run.

A pitching combo of Pedro Beato and Pat Misch proceeded to quickly give up a bunch of runs to the Cubs and that’s pretty much how the game went, losing 9-3 in the bitter cold. Of course Tim Byrdak and Jason Isringhausen had to get in on the fun of giving up runs too.

*Blackhawks legend Denis Savard sand the 7th inning stretch

**The full set of pictures can be found on Flickr

***Overall, it was fun to see the Mets at Wrigley. It only happens once a year and when it does, I’m all in. It was nice seeing some other fans turn out at Merkle’s before the games. Hopefully next year the weather is better and the Mets can get a few more wins when they visit.

Mets Win Rain-Shortened Game

The second game of the Mets/Cubs series was only better than game one because the Mets won. The weather was colder, our seats were under cover (section 223ish), but then the rain came and the game was called in the bottom of the 7th giving the Mets a 7-4 win. Dillon Gee had a rough first inning giving up 4 runs, but the Mets got them back, and more, to get a lead and keep it. Cubs manager Mike Quade was not happy about it and argued for a good 3-5 minutes with the umps while the tarp was being pulled onto the field.

Following the game, we headed to Murphy’s Bleachers with some friends. There we met a few hometown friends of Josh Thole’s who came for the game. There were 4 of them all in Thole gear so I asked if they were his fan club. One replied that they played baseball with him in and high school. Shortly later, Josh, his dad, and other friends came to the bar. Everyone in their group was very nice and we chit-chatted a little bit and I was able to get an autograph. A good time was had by all.

*The full set of pictures is on Flickr

Mets Lose Wrigley Opener

My day started off really well with employee appreciate week at work and an air hockey table temporarily brought in. From work I went and met up with some other Mets fans at Merkle’s before the game. The sun was still out, but I knew it was going to get cold. I just didn’t expect it to feel worse than it did while the Mets were getting spanked 11-1 by the Cubs.

Nik and I sat in section 417 next to some nice people. One woman was a Cardinals fan and was telling me about her “All-Hottie Team” which included David Wright. The upper box sections at Wrigley Field are slowly becoming my favorite place to sit.

Between a lack of offense, bad errors and some pitching woes, the Mets could not get anything going. And to add insult to injury, Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano pinch hit in the 7th inning, with two outs,  and batted in two runs! It wasn’t until after his hit that the Mets got someone up in the bullpen.

*Northwestern head football coach Pat Fitzgerald sang the 7th Inning Stretch

It’s raining right now in Chicago and is supposed to last most of the day. Hopefully they can get the game in, or do a double header tomorrow. Regardless, if there are games, Nik and I will be there.

The full set of pictures is here on Flickr.

The Mets are Coming to Town!

As I’ve done previously, I want to organize pre-game meetups.

Where: Merkle’s on Clark Street. One of the owners is a Mets fan which I think is pretty cool. I emailed him asking about specials: $6 1/2 lb. burgers every game. Wednesday night: $10 pitchers; and shot specials for all people in Mets gear (pre-game only) for all the games.

When: I know I’ll be going to the Tuesday and Wednesday night games and I hope to see some of you before the games.  (I’m hoping to be at the bar around 5/5:30.)

Let’s go Mets!