7/24/08 Shea Stadium

I awoke from a very good night's sleep at 7:08 AM to hear about the scattered thunderstorms New York will be providing to it's loyal residents and tourist's today. I was unhappy for a few reasons:

1) I never go to a game with the initial mindset that I will snag at least one baseball but for today's game, I had a mindset to retrieve a minimum of four baseballs during BP.

2) For the first time, I was going to be the FIRST person at Gate C.

3) Shea Stadium was going to be the center of a photo shoot conducted by yours truly.

4) The Phillies were in town. Enough said.

5) I had plans to visit the Diamond Club when the players arrived at the Stadium and I was only that early once in my life.

...But all of those reasons WILL NOT happen due to scattered thunderstorms keeping me home today.

It seems as of this year almost every game I am looking to attend gets either postponed or rescheduled. So far, half the amount of games I've attended, rain has somehow chimed in to the day.

I never like not going to a game that I have tickets for but today it was raining when I planned to leave, and I didn't feel like taking that chance and what happens? One of the BEST games the Mets had this season was played. The game was a quick 2 hours, 18 minutes and had 18 strikeouts between both teams, 12 from Oliver Perez alone. The game was 1 - 0 Mets, until the Phillies' Jason Werth blasted a home run onto the camera deck in center field to tie it 1 - 1. In the bottom of the 8th, the Mets had runners on first and second when the red hot Carlos Delgado came to the plate with two outs, and hit a fly ball to left field to score Robinson Cancel and David Wright before being thrown out at third. Billy Wagner came in to close and four batters later, the New York Mets took first place in the National League East.

I haven't attended a game since July 13, 2008 and it doesn't feel right at all. Going one week and four days so far, and then going to Ocean City, Maryland for a week means I'll be out of the baseball game for three weeks and two days before attending my next game on August 5, 2008 at Shea Stadium when the San Diego Padres roll into town. I'm hoping to see Jake Peavy get the start but with SD's rotation, I'm not sure how that will play out as of yet.

The Mets have been playing .500 baseball in the series with the Cinncinatti Reds and now, with the Philadelphia Phillies after coming off of an impressive 10 game winning streak. So far this season, only two teams have reached double digits for a winning streak and are both tied with 10, that being the Minnesota Twins and the New York Mets. If the Mets start winning again and not going 4 - 3 in their last seven games, the race for October will look a little bit better than it does now. But, with the Cardinals coming to town for a three game series then having to play in Florida before heading to Houston to end their six game road trip, the Mets won't have it too easy in the upcoming week.

Hopefully the Amazin's can pull something off and show the rest of the MLB what last year was REALLY supposed to look like instead of the garbage that was reality. There's a possible chance you'll hear from me when I'm in Maryland. Maybe a couple of photos...