Looking Past the Wreckage

Game 112 - Mets

Padres 8, Mets 3
Record: 57-55

You know when you have a stock that's clearly headed for the toilet, one step away from spiraling into oblivion, and you just know you should sell . . . but then it's up 1¾ points one day, and against all logic you begin to think it might turn around and make back your money? You even feel good about its chances and start to rationalize that this company has the potential to go places? Yep. Then it totally craps out a week or two later and you wonder what in the hell you could possibly have been thinking, hanging onto it for so long.

Anyway, New York has a whole lot of stocks and one baseball team just like that, and I should be smart enough to stay away from all of them.

After so many of us pricked up our ears and widened our eyes with casting aside of the Cubs over the weekend, the Mets quickly had us reaching for blindfolds and earplugs with the self-pantsing that went on last night in the Harbor of the Sun. The lads missed a hanging curveball of a chance to really light up the Township; Pedro Martinez versus Chan Ho Park is supposed to be a lopsided match-up, but everything right was wrong again, and the Metropolitans looked bad all around.

Except of course, in David Wright's amazing, stupendous, fan-riffic one-handed snare in short left. If you haven't seen it, go watch it at MLB.com. If you have seen it, and you're a Mets fan, go buy it for 99 cents. I decided to help the economy this morning by purchasing it and six other plays from the library of Windows Media files:

• The other David Wright catch - the one into the stands
• The Mike Cameron falling-down catch
• The Chris Woodward GW-HR
• A Mike Piazza homer to nail down a win vs. Philly

and my two favorite plays of the year:

• The Marlon Anderson inside-the-park homer
• The Cliff Floyd game-winner the same night

Hey, the Mets have won 57 games. Even though they're going to fall short of what we wanted, there's plenty to recall fondly in all of that. It's Silver Lining Day at Misery Loves Company (at least on the Met side of the office), and all I can remember from last night's toe-stub on the ottoman that the Padres are is David Wright's brilliant catch. And another pinch-hit from Marlon Anderson. And the standing ovation the Padres fans gave Wright after his catch. When a certain fictional newscaster said, "Stay classy, San Diego," they were listening, even as they were wincing at watching the worst movie of the last five years.