Al Trautwig Sounds Broken By Life

And I don't blame him. That was an awful, awful loss for the Knicks in Game 1.

Mike D'Antoni sounds pissed. I don't blame him either. Again, truly awful loss.

It's the same story we saw all season long in Knicks-Celtics games. The Knicks play the Celtics tough but can't close them out. Or maybe that construction doesn't give the Celtics enough credit -- they're a great team and they find ways to close out wins. That's what great teams do.

Anyway, in a series where the Knicks have to win one on the road, they really missed a golden opportunity to win one here tonight. Up 12 points at the half. Up 3 with 35 seconds left. The alley-oop to Kevin Garnett. The offensive foul by 'Melo on their second to last possession. Not going to Amar'e when he'd been so unstoppable in the second half.

Earl Monroe is talking about how this is the kind of game that gives a team confidence, even when it ends in defeat. I can see where that would be true. But I think when you couple it with the other four losses the Knicks have suffered against the Celtics, all hard-fought games, the real takeaway is that the Celtics just find a way to win games against the Knicks.

Now Amar'e is on. When asked what his emotions were before the game, Amar'e responded, "Domination." Not typically an emotion; big part of why I love Amar'e.

Side note: my DVR just messed up a bit, sending me back about 20 minutes in the Knicks postgame show. This reminded me of Walt "Clyde" Frazier, who looks and sounds almost comatose. Zombie Clyde needs to call it a night, as do I.

Ah well, it's a missed opportunity. They'll try again Tuesday, I guess.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Abandon All Hope

Another day, another Mets loss. Granted, the Rockies are a good team and the Mets are not.

What's disorienting though is that if it's possible I think I might have forgotten what it's like to root for a team with absolutely no hope for success.

That doesn't mean there's nothing to root for. Root for big seasons from Ike or Jon Niese, the Mets' two relatively promising (not in a Jason Heyward or Mike Stanton kind of way, but you know) youngsters. Root for another strong year from R.A. Dickey, their man of letters. Root for productive seasons out of Beltran and Reyes so that we can actually get something decent for them at the deadline.

And root for ownership to finally realize that this team is farther away than they've ever wanted to acknowledge, and that to address that you have to make broad, sweeping changes.

I don't know. It's easy to be negative when you're 4-7 and have lost six of your last seven games. They're not as bad as they've looked during this stretch. They're right when they say they've been a pitch away or a hit away from winning each of the games they've lost, with the exception of a game or two here or there.

The point is, what seems clear is that this year they'll lose more games than they win because they deserve to. Because they're not that good. It is what it is.

- A.F.O.M.G.

New Sunday Night Baseball Crew Kind of Terrible?

I wonder if Mets fans realize how spoiled we are to listen to Gary, Keith and Ron (LOVE the new 'do!) on a nightly basis. Many (most?) of the announcing crews out there just aren't any good. Think of any Braves game you've ever watched, or hell, any game on YES.

For years, one of the most maligned broadcasting teams was ESPN's Jon Miller-Joe Morgan tandem. As far as I could tell, the "problem" mostly revolved around Morgan and his dogged insistence that sabermetrical analysis was basically a waste of time, but Miller, silken-voiced as he is, was never a superlative play-by-play announcer.

With Miller and Morgan's contracts up this offseason, ESPN broke up the long-running duo over the winter, and replaced them with Dan Shulman on play-by-play and the color tandem of Bobby Valentine and Orel Hershiser.

You'd think that if you were the Worldwide Leader in Sports with your pick of basically every broadcaster on the planet, you'd go for the best money could buy. Or at least people who kind of knew what they were doing.

Instead, Shulman sounded dull, Hershiser was kind of a non-factor, and as much as it pains me to say it, Bobby V sounded a bit like an amateur last night.

Obviously the baseball insight was never bad; in a nod to the post-Morgan era of free sabermetric love, Valentine even began a discussion of WAR last night. But the delivery was lousy; Valentine didn't get his point in because he said he would wait until after the next pitch, leading to a brief period of dead air before the batter popped out to end the inning.

I realize that may make the deficiencies of last night's broadcast seem a bit trite. But broadcasting is the kind of thing where you know when it's good and you know when it's not so good, and last night's debut of the new Sunday Night Baseball lineup definitely fell into the latter category.

But hey, it's early in the season yet. Maybe they, like so many Mike Pelfreys and Javy Vazquez's, are just working out the kinks.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Baseball Like it Oughta Be

So fair enough, I'm pretty down on the Mets this year. I don't think they have much of a chance to compete against markedly better teams in Philadelphia and Atlanta (and you could probably throw Florida on that list too).

But I still love them, and I still love the shot of adrenaline they can provide.

I got my first little taste of that adrenaline last night, watching the game at Nevada Smith's (bros!).

I love the patented Mets fan pessimism (fatalism) that sets in as soon as the Mets fall behind.

I love the hand claps and the cheers of "let's go!" all around when Ike Davis sends that ball into the gap.

I love the excited texts when Thole comes through with that clutch single in the top of the 9th, the deflated texts when K-Rod blows it in the bottom of the 9th.

And then when they finally pull it out I love the relief that sets in, among me and my friends but also the other patrons at the bar going through the exact same routines, and the euphoric five minutes where you just feel good and make stupid jokes about how Terry Collins shakes players hands like a man after a win.


Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever grow out of it. I'm getting older. There's no way to play the numbers game to say that 28 is anything other than late 20s. 30's on the way.

To tell the truth, I hope I never grow out of it. Nights like last night, with good friends around you and baseball on the tube, are about as good as it gets for me.

No matter what happens with the Mets this season, I'll still have a chance for those kind of days/nights at least another 160 times this year. That's pretty good.

- A.F.O.M.G.

The Greatest Night of My Life?

To answer the question posed in the last night wasn't quite the greatest night of my life, but it really had a lot going for it.

Ordinarily last night would have been all about the Mets. Opening Day comes but once a year, after all, and under ordinary circumstances that's where all my attention and energy would have been focused.

Ahh, but this is no ordinary year. On March 22, my favorite band, The Strokes, released their long-awaited fourth album, Angles. How long-awaited was it? A good five years. The band's touring in support of the album, and last night that meant an epic set at Madison Square Garden.

Last night's show was the third time I've seen The Strokes in concert. I saw them twice on their First Impressions of Earth tour in 2006-07, and last year I saw lead singer Julian Casablancas on the tour supporting his solo album, Phrazes for the Young (which is terrific by the way, and sold for only $4.99 on iTunes; highlight tracks are "Left and Right in the Dark," "Out of the Blue," River of Brakelights," and "Glass").

Me and my friend Mangy got to the concert late. Under normal circumstances this would have been a great idea, but last night they had a surprise opening act, Elvis Costello. I don't know much of Elvis Costello's music, but I appreciate that he's a music legend in his own right and it would have been cool to see him play.

Anyway, we got there just in time to use the restroom, buy brewskis and find our seats. We started off way in the upper deck, which gave us a good perspective on just how large a crowd had turned out. I had previously seen The Strokes at Hammerstein Ballroom and someplace in Boston (maybe the Fleet Center?); I saw Julian at Terminal 5. I'd never seen them with a crowd this big and this energized.

And they delivered. They played a mix of old and new, getting a huge cheer when they started off, as they did lo these many years ago now, with the slight, alluring guitar open of "Is This It". From there they burst into "Reptilia" and then into "Under Cover of Darkness," the crowd eating it up and singing along furiously to each "So long / my friend" in the chorus of the latter.

One thing that's different about The Strokes now versus even the last time I saw them is that they have so many songs to choose from. The full set list is below (yes, I kept track on my blackberry specifically for this purpose).

They hit most of the songs I'd wanted to hear. I really could have done for some "12:51," "Red Light," and "Two Kinds of Happiness," but I really shouldn't complain (for her part, Mangy was bummed they didn't play "Razorblade").

Is This It?
Reptilia
Under Cover of Darkness
Hard to Explain
Last Nite
Life is Simple in the Moonlight
Juicebox
Someday
You're So Right
Under Control
You Only Live Once
New York City Cops
Games
What Ever Happened?
Taken for a Fool (with Elvis Costello)
Ask Me Anything
The Modern Age
Gratisfaction
I Can't Win
Take It or Leave It

All in all, great to have the boys back.

* * * * *

Speaking of having the boys back, what's that you say, the Mets season started last night? Oh yes, of course...

Well, they got drubbed 6-2. Mike Pelfrey (not an ace, nowhere close... but a heck of a chef evidently), gotten beaten by an ace.

 As I've written before, I don't mind when the opposing team wins its home opener. Good for those fans.

More to the point, I'm going to officially enter my prediction of a 76-win season. If there were any chance of this team completing the season as currently constituted, that number would probably be in the 80-83 range, but that seems incredibly unlikely.

Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Look at the other teams in the division. They're all really good and/or getting better (not the Phillies, actually; they probably have a 2-year window to win again before they start declining).

I love Jose Reyes. The idea of trading him pains me. But if that's what has to be done to make this team competitive again, that's what has to be done. At the company I work for they say that the graveyard of the place is filled with "indispensable" people.

It's the same with ballclubs. Look at the '04 Red Sox with Nomar. You CAN'T trade Nomar, for chrissakes! Well, sure enough you can, sure enough they did, and sure enough things worked out really well for them.

Anyway, Jon Niese takes the mound for the boys tonight. I'll be watching, preferably in a lower east side dive somewhere. New Mets!

- A.F.O.M.G.