Shea and I: 1998-2008.

Yesterday, a fellow poster on a Mets forum was kind enough to send me a DVD recording of the Shea Stadium goodbye ceremony on September 28th, 2008 titled Shea Goodbye. September 28th was not only the last day a baseball game was played at Shea, but it also marked the completion of another disappointing Mets season. I was watching the game at a friend’s apartment, and as soon a Ryan Church’s fly ball landed in Cameron Maybin’s glove to eliminate a fatally flawed Mets team from contention, I turned the TV off. I was unable to watch the closing ceremonies then. Not after that. I was sure they would find a way to win the game, and they didn’t. My optimism failed me again, and Shea Stadium would join the dustbin of history a little earlier than I hoped.

The last game I attended at Shea in 2008 was a rain-soaked 7-6 victory against the Cubs on September 25th that kept the Mets in the playoff race, a comeback win that helped fuel my temporary and misguided optimism. In the weeks since I’ve seen video and pictures of the place slowly getting taken apart as CitiField nears completion. Sometime in the next month or so I’ll probably stop by the area again to see what’s left of it.

It’s just a ballpark, of course, but one I spent several dozen afternoons and evenings at over the past decade (I lost count of how many exactly a few years ago). I know that in 2005 I went there 16 times, thanks in part to a promotion that allowed free bleacher entry with a Pepsi can or bottle on Wednesdays. That promotion stopped once it was clear the Mets were relevant again and didn’t need gimmicks to fill their seats. All of this got me thinking once more of my Shea memories. I’m sure every Mets fan has their own retrospective to offer, and a lot of them might be longer and more interesting than mine are, but that doesn’t diminish them to me personally.

The biggest game I attended at Shea Stadium was undoubtedly Game 6 of the 2006 NLCS. I got the tickets thanks to the generosity of another poster on that same forum. The Mets hung on and won 4-2 to force a Game 7 against St. Louis. Just like I was sure we were going win the last game against the Marlins in 2008, I was sure we were going to win Game 7 and go to the World Series while I was leaving that game. I was even more sure when Endy Chavez made the catch and I started screaming like a lunatic in my dorm, all the way until, well, you know what happened. They lost, and after Carlos Beltran struck out to end it I immediately shut the TV off in disgust much like I would on September 28th, 2008. I was then, as I am now, an idiot.

Perhaps the most appropriate Shea moment I should look back on, however, was my first game, which was only 10 years ago this past July. It was July 15th, 1998 and the Mets were facing the Atlanta Braves. I had been following the Mets for a few years at that point my dad finally took me to a game. I grew into baseball myself – my parents, being Greek immigrants, didn’t know anything about the game and generally found it boring when I put it on TV. I, however, had grown fond of it, and now I’d finally get to see my favorite team in action. How exciting! I’d get to see my new favorite Met, Mike Piazza, and my old favorite Met, Todd Hundley, and it was going to be awesome!

Oh damn it.

Look at that box score! Masato Yoshii and Denny Neagle were the starting pitchers. Butch Husky was Mike Piazza’s protection in the lineup. Butch Husky. Bernard Gilkey leading off! Jesus Christ. The loss dropped a second-place Mets a mere 13.5 games behind Atlanta in the East. Of course, the Braves dominated the Mets in those years and would eliminate them in 1998 on the final day of the season, then again in the 1999 NLCS. God do I hate the Braves.

I was too young and too excited by the excitement of my first baseball game to be that disappointed in the outcome, but this may have been some kind of message from whatever God there is that I shouldn’t follow the Mets, that it’d just be a decade and counting of either soul-crushing disappointment or outright ineptitude. I can’t take a hint, apparently.

A few things still stand out to me about that game:

• It was kids’ day for everyone 13 and under, but I didn’t get anything when I went in. I was 12, but I was a tall 12 year old. I had to convince a man two years later that I was “14 and under” so I could get a Tom Seaver bobble-head doll at the door. That’s what I get for being tall.
• Andres Galarraga hit two home runs and drove in five for the Braves. I distinctly remember both homers, and they were both crushed. Masato Yoshii got completely lit up, giving up four home runs. Galarraga’s second came against Bill Pulsipher, the Braves’ fifth and final homer of the game.
• The one bright spot came when Mike Piazza came up and hit an RBI double in the third inning to pull the Mets within 3-1. Yes! Mike Piazza! We were in it! Then, of course, the Braves scored 6 in the 4th to put an end to that.
• Todd Hundley got one at bat, and coming off elbow surgery he was a shell of his former self in 1998. He struck out despite the crowd chanting his name. He was a fan favorite in the pre-Piazza days and there was actually some controversy about the acquisition of Piazza for that reason, as ridiculous as it sounds. He played left field for a time in 1998 with disastarous results before getting traded the following winter. Unfortunately, Todd Hundley’s name was in the Mitchell Report and, given his somewhat unlikely ascendancy as a power hitter in the 1990’s, I wasn’t really that surprised, but he was my favorite Met from 1996 to the time they got Mike Piazza.
• This game was a fine introduction to the cynicism of the average Mets fan. A Mets fan in the Upper Deck, probably in his early 20’s, was practically begging Galarraga to homer later in the game to “make his ticket stub worth something.” Of course!
• The infamous and terrible Mel Rojas came in after the game was out of hand and somehow pitched two scoreless innings. After he completed his second inning and was walking off the mound, the same fan that had been rooting for Galarraga to homer again leaned over the railing and screamed at the top of his lungs: “I LOVE YOU MEL ROJAS!” Wherever you are, dude screaming from the Upper Deck, I remember you.
• Not about the game, but on Rojas: In case you don’t believe me or don’t remember how much he sucked, read the “memories” Mets fans have of him. Without doing an in-depth statistical analysis I can objectively say, based on memory alone, he was the worst pitcher in the history of baseball.
• The box score says it was sunny – that was not really the case. It was a warm, hazy July day, but it started drizzling towards the end when John Franco was pitching. Why do I remember this? Because Franco got lit up for 3 runs in an inning to make it 12-1 and I sat there to the end watching it. In the drizzle.

In short, it’s obvious that this game was the most appropriate possible introduction to Shea Stadium and to my next ten years as a Mets fan. I mean, Butch Huskey! Carlos Baerga! How the hell did I decide that remaining a Mets fan was a good idea after witnessing that disaster? It was the baseball equivalent of the first date from hell, but somehow, it didn’t faze me. I have no rational explanation. The Mets have been the bad girlfriend hitting me in the face with the frying pan ever since.

Someday, I’ll take my son to CitiField or Bank of Dubai Field or People’s Bank Field or whatever it’s called by then. When I do, I’ll get to tell him all about the time I got to see the legendary Brian McRae play center field for the Mets the first time I went to a game and how they lost by 11 runs. If this story doesn’t make him want to stop following baseball immediately, then I’ll know that he really likes baseball. It’ll be an excellent litmus test.

For now, though, I’ll get to watching my copy of Shea Goodbye and worrying about trying to get tickets to my first game at CitiField. Much more expensive? Yes, but at least Mel Rojas won’t be around this time.

(The man who gave me the ticket to Game 6 of the ‘06 NLCS was Sunshine Megatron. For more on him go here.)

AJ Burnett Is Going To Be Really Really Rich No Matter What I Say.

Today I was watching Daily News Live on SNY, which is one of those sports roundtable shows where various personalities crowd around a table and argue about sports like it’s the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, except now with a NEW YORK FLAVOR!!!

I don’t know how many people actually watch Daily News Live but I usually find it pretty entertaining. It’s hosted by Chris Cotter, who I’ve generally liked since his work with the Mets TV crew in 2006. Especially entertaining, however, is the possibility that on any given day WFAN personality Joe Beningo is liable to go on a long unstable rant about the “Richard Todd game” or the “Charles Smith game” or some other catastrophic sports event in his life that might give him a stroke on the air. I always feel like there a 5-to-10 percent chance I may become Joe Beningo 30 years from now, screaming at anyone within earshot about how Yadier Molina can burn in hell and how the 2008 New York Giants were totally going to repeat until Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg (see my reverse jinx? SEE IT?), and that possibility disturbs me. Plus, just today I heard a Mel Rojas reference on the program, and if there’s anything I like, it’s reliving horrible and traumatic childhood memories as much as possible.

Well, anyway, today the show had Daily News baseball writer Adam Rubin on as part of their coverage of the MLB Winter Meetings that concluded with the Rule V draft this morning. The discussion turned to the pursuit of starting pitcher AJ Burnett and the Yankees efforts to get him, most notably rumors of their latest insane offer to the former Blue Jay. In rationalizing it from the Yankees’ perspective, Rubin said something to this effect, something that left me in a bit of a tizzy:

“The Yankees look at Burnett as a number one pitcher in the American League.”

I guess – I guess the Yankees have to spin it that way – but what the hell are they talking about?

AJ Burnett does not crack the top 20 in Baseball Reference’s active ERA leaders, even excluding pitchers like Cole Hamels and Scott Kazmir that don’t have enough innings to qualify. Comically, he is just ahead of Barry Zito on the list, who’s obscene contract is the disaster by which other pitching contract disasters will be measured for years to come. He has a career ERA+ of 111, or 11 percent above league average (funny comparison: Juan Guzman’s career ERA+ was 112). In 2008, the first season in which he won more than 12 games, his ERA+ was 105, or just slightly above league average. 10 of his 18 wins came in a first half that saw him put up an impressive 4.96 (!!!) ERA.

Unfortunately, AJ Burnett’s ERA might be the strongest evidence for his case to be a “number one pitcher”. He will be 32 next season and will have pitched over 200 innings in a season just three times, started 30 games twice, and have a career record going into 2009 of 87-76 in in parts of ten seasons. Sure, he might be a “number one pitcher” by the logic that if he is one the 30 best starting pitchers in the league (which he might be), he would be a number one on some team, somewhere, but that’s the kind of stupid logic that leads to people giving pitchers like Gil Meche $55 million.

By almost any measure, sabermetric or (flawed) traditional, AJ Burnett is not a number one pitcher. I’ll say it again, and in bold this time: AJ Burnett is not a number one pitcher in the American League or the National League. He is an above average pitcher who has had some rather significant injury issues and happened to have a nice “looking” season (lots of wins) in a year when the Yankees decided they had entirely too much money sitting around and needed to throw it at something.

Of course, they aren’t the only ones involved in the lunacy – the Atlanta fucking Braves (of all teams) are trying to compete with the Yankees in the assinine Burnett bidding war. Honestly, the one downside of Burnett signing with the Yanks is that Atlanta, a team far less able to buy away their mistakes, would not be handicapped with his salary. Having the Braves dedicate a significant portion of their payroll to an “ace” that doesn’t belong on the same planet as Johan Santana would only benefit the Mets in the long term.

But hey, if the same team that threw $40 million down the drain for Carl Pavano and $46 million on this guy thinks AJ Burnett is worth $17 million dollars a season, and are convinced they can’t get a 110 ERA+ out of “untouchables” like Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy in the very near future, then let them go right ahead. They just shouldn’t mention it when they go ask the city for another $370 million in bonds for their new stadium.

It’s Always Sunny In Medford #8

(Aternatively titled, “A Happy Birthday, Stony Brook Style”)

My birthday might still be a week away, but I’ve already have received my first piece of goodwill for the anniversary of my birth courtesy of a card from…Stony Brook University? Whaaa? Yes!

It reads as follows:

Happy

Birthday

To ever-young you.

And to us

on our fiftieth

First off, I’m not a fan of buzzwords like “ever-young”. I’m not “ever-young”. I’m going to be 23, which is seven years short of 30, which is halfway to 60, which is a two-thirds of the way to 90. Unless I was fortuitously blasted with some high-quality longevity-causing chemicals while I was living on campus for four years, which I submit is not impossible, then I will not be “ever-young”. More likely than that is the possibility that eating on campus lowered my life expectancy by at least a decade.

I also tend to think it’s a bit tacky to mention the fact it’s also the school’s “birthday” that blatantly. Really? I wasn’t aware Stony Brook has been around 50 years! There were only about 16,000 different reminders to that effect this year! How could I miss that? I don’t know what they were going for by once again reminding somebody that very recently attended the University that it is 50 years old (for a whole twenty-something days until 2009, when it will be 51 years old). This is almost like writing a card to somebody that says “Happy Birthday, BY THE WAY I’M FUCKING AWESOME!”, and doing it in a completely un-ironic way.

Besides that, though, it can’t be the school’s birthday any day of the fucking year. The year 2008 may commemorate the 50th year of Stony Brook University’s existence, but the entire year is not a birthday. And schools can’t be born. You know what? Fuck it. Let’s just move on.

The card continues:

Have a

rewarding

birthday.

From your

friends

at Stony

Brook

University.

Aw, thanks, but as rewarding as my birthday may be you still aren’t getting any of the big bucks this alumni is making (spoiler alert: they don’t exist). Sounds cynical? Sure, but they didn’t waste any time sending me alumni mail this past summer once I was done with classes. Funniest part? I still have to finish a Master’s thesis. So me, Mister Post-College Limbo, is getting the same alumni letters asking for support that some doctors and lawyers probably are. I find this very funny.

Oh, and who would put their name on such a card?

Shirley

Strum Kenney

President

Okay, I’m pretty sure your name and title did not require three lines. A lot has been said about Shirley Strum Kenney, who happens to be leaving the University soon, so I’ll mostly leave her alone here. However, I do have one anecdote about almost meeting her (how exciting!):

One time, when I was working in the Administration Building, I was taking an elevator upstairs to deliver a letter to another office. In this elevator were myself and a deliveryman with a cart big enough to take up most of the remaining space in that elevator car. As the doors began to close, we noticed an older woman walk towards the doors and immediately recognized who it was. For whatever reason, neither of us thought to try to hold the door, and just as she reached the elevator the doors closed on her and she let out a disappointed “Oh…” as it headed upstairs. The guy, smiling, looked over at me:

“I think that was the President of the University.“

I replied, “Yeah it was.”

“I hope we don’t get fired.“

As far as how I would hope my one almost-encounter with Shirley Strum Kenney would go, this seemed to be pretty appropriate.

No matter, however – I’m not going to pretend I’m too popular to show off a birthday card from Stony Brook University. On top of my dresser you go!

How pretty. Always remember, students of Stony Brook University: Your perennially-rising tuition rates don’t just help finance your education and God-knows-what-else, they also help finance birthday cheer!

And you certainly can’t put a price on that.

Web 2.0, or How The Internet Helped Ruin My Life.

I am coming to the realization that I am becoming one of those people that needs to have a voice on every sounding board the internet provides us. Sure, everyone has a Facebook and already probably spends too much time on that site for their own good, and that’s fine. Some adventurous people even have blogs, where they write about what they want for nobody in particular to read. Occasionally, these things get very popular and their creators reach some kind of cult celebrity status. They’re a voice to the people that read them, for whatever reason, and in some small way everyone that writes on the internet probably hopes somebody will connect with what they have to say on some level, too.

Now, however, there’s more than that. I broke down and got a Twitter account a few months back. It is becoming more and more addictive (I had to set it to private because of the stream-of-consciousness nature of the thing), and just today I spent an hour or two setting up and playing with a new Tumblr account. Tumblr, like Twitter, is a way of doing something called microblogging. I fucking hate buzzwords like this with all my might, but there’s no better way to explain it. I can put up a picture of something funny or interesting I found, add a sentence or two, and post it for all the world to see. It seems redundant, and it might be, but I’m on both now. The best part is, I don’t have to worry about any of it making sense, like I would if I wrote here (some would argue I don’t often make sense here, either – that is neither here nor there).

This got me thinking. Why? We all have friends that do this stuff, but do any of these things provide anything we don’t get from normal human interaction? I’d say they probably don’t. So what are we doing? Screaming into the vacuum of the internet, hoping somebody hears us? Even my own motivations are foggy to me. Maybe I’m hoping that somebody might come along to my little corner of the world and say “Hey! This is cool!”. Would I get satisfaction out of that? Probably, but I don’t have any illusions about my coolness.

Maybe it’s as simple as needing a shiny new internet toy to play with?

Or maybe it’s just boredom.

Either way, I’ll be doing all three, whoring myself to the internet to pass the time and screaming to nobody in particular. I hope you find something interesting out of all of it.

My Tumblr

My Twitter

And yes, I realize I’m completely ridiculous.

It’s Always Sunny In Medford #7

Allow me to begin by saying again how surprised and happy I was at the positive response the last post got. Unfortunately, I don’t have any new psychotic date stories to entertain everybody with, so if you’ve come back looking for more of that you might be in for a wait. I’ve also realized that this feature is something like a fictional one I saw on TV the other day:

Of course, the main difference is that I’m a tall obnoxious man as opposed to a fat obnoxious man.

The big news here recently is that I’ve begun substitute teaching, and so far it’s gone pretty well. My favorite experience thus far:

I was reading a book to a second grade class, and after I was finished I began discussing how the book used talking animals to tell a story. Then I asked the class if they had ever heard of “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs”, as told by the wolf. They all got really excited and we had a spirited 5 or 10 minute conversation about the merits of the tale and how it turned out the wolf got a bad rap (I always knew the pigs were whiners). The fact I got really excited to talk about a book I read when I was 7 years old might say something about me.

There was also this exchange with a middle school student about the Great Seal of the United States of America:

Student: “Why is the eagle holding a bunch of arrows?”

Me: “Well, it’s a symbol of military pow-”

Student: “What do you think would happen if we got in a war with China and we sent bald eagles over there to shoot arrows at them?”

Me: “I imagine they’d be very confused.”

Yeah, the kids are usually a lot of fun.

Beyond that, though, I do have the usual grievances to air. This week’s persona non grata: Jason Mraz.

Jason Mraz, for those who don’t know, is the smug jackass in your dorm that used to take his guitar with him outside during fire drills. He would, of course, start playing it outside because he just happened to be in the middle of practicing when the alarm rang. Even though he completely blew at playing the guitar and had no talent whatsoever, a number of girls would always crowd around him and listen adoringly to whatever two chords he knew how to strum. You always wanted to make a comment about how badly he sucked, but you feared you’d be put down by his angry female fans telling you that you were just jealous that you couldn’t do that (because we’re all very jealous that we can’t master the intricacies of some fucking OAR song on the guitar). Then, when the fire drill was over, everyone would go back inside and the girls would follow him back to his room because all guys that play guitars are so sensitive and in no way was this a totally contrived attempt to pull some tail.

Congratulations America! You’ve made that guy relevant again!

His new song, “I’m Yours”, is pretty bad all the way through, no doubt setting a new standard for all others in the genre of “white guys that play bland guitar songs by themselves” to aspire to. This is also one of those overly disgustingly sweet songs that might make you diabetic just from listening to it (ohhh snap!). However, it only really gets excessively obnoxious when he starts stuttering halfway through it:

D-d-do do you, but d-d-do
But do you want to come on
Scooch on over close dear
And I will nibble your ear

If my radio had a face, I would punch it repeatedly when I heard this part. I’m going to take this opportunity to say that I have always hated the way the word “scooch” sounds. And I’m sure the stuttering makes people go “OMG he is so sensitive and shy lol!” You know what? If anyone else stutters like that when they talk to a girl, they look like an idiot (I can tell you from personal experience). If Jason Mraz does it, it’s sweet and he gets to make money writing a song about it? Fuck that, no double standards. I’m onto you, Mraz.

On the bright side, if Jason Mraz’s current career path is any indication, we won’t hear from him again until 2013. So, there’s that to look forward to.

That’s all I have for this week. Until next time, when I’ll report on how successful I am at my attempt at playing “The Guns of Brixton” on bass outside the Medford Starbucks, take care.

It’s Always Sunny In Medford #6

Today, we venture into a place usually reserved for self-loathing Facebook status messages. Look out world, I’m talking about dating!

Anybody who has known me for any period of time knows that I have been neither fortunate nor successful in my dealings with the opposite sex as far as relationships go. I didn’t go on a date until Freshman year of college when, after leading me on for a matter of months, the other party informed me that it had all been a big “mistake” and was sorry for the inconvenience. Whoops! The next few years at school were quiet on that front. I did my thing: joined a few clubs, played video games, drank with buddies, and so on, but somehow the whole college love thing always eluded me. Now I’m done with school and sit where I was when I began. Well, so much for all of that.

Even before I was finished with school I had decided to give different things a try, one of them being the exciting fast paced world of online dating (provided it didn’t cost money and did not include eHarmony – those fascists rejected me). “Lots of people do it!” I was told. There was no longer a stigma attached to it and, I imagine for most people, there still isn’t. Now, before you think this is going to be a bitter or self-pitying piece about the life of a single dude: it’s not. The tale I’m about to tell is one particularly absurd chapter of a voyage that, while so far unsuccessful, has not concluded yet (Man, that sounded fucking deep). It should be a caution, but it should also serve to amuse, because honestly it amuses me after the fact. And if you can’t laugh at yourself, what can you laugh at, right? Um, right?

Onto our tale: early this year I had set up a profile with a free dating site (which will remain nameless – everything is nameless here). After sending out a few messages without any responses I was discouraged and wasn’t as active, but after a couple of weeks I received a message from an interested party – “You’re really 6’10? That’s hot!” Whoa, a girl likes me (albeit for a reason I’m not crazy about)! That doesn’t happen too often! We began chatting it up and I soon got a certain feeling that something was “off”. I can’t describe this in any better detail – the conversations were bizarre. Topics ranged from intimate questions about my personal life to how hot I was, to ex-boyfriends and what assholes they were, all with this weird internet-stalker tone to it. I wish I could be more specific, but I purged those logs from my brain long ago. There was little common ground or interesting discourse. Actually, there was none. There were just a lot of weird instant messenger come-ons and weird question and answer sessions.

Okay, so that probably was not a good sign. If there’s one awful talent I have is that when I have a bad feeling about something, it tends to be proven right. It’s a curse. I had a bad feeling about the potential for dating this girl after a few conversations. My friends encouraged me to try it, however, and they were right – how bad could it be? Plus, God knows I don’t go on many dates, and the attention was at least a bit flattering. In retrospect, if this is the only attention I get…

I digress. We made a date for a day when I didn’t have class at a local Chinese restaurant. What did I have to lose other than a few hours, right?

Well, friends, imagine for a moment that you went on a date. Now imagine that everything that person could conceivably say or do would in some way offend you or run counter to your values. Imagine scripting such an encounter. That is what I am about to do, with the caveat that this is not scripted. This is what I actually experienced.

I pulled in with my vehicle at the time, a crappy old barely working minivan. Her car cost about 100 times what mine did – I only mention this because her car will come up again. We got out and said hello and went in for our table. She was not unattractive, but there was definitely too much perfume. Fine, whatever – I too had my Axe phase. By the way, I just wanted to say that putting Axe on does not make girls want to take bites out of your chocolate-coated ass. That is a lie.

I had dressed nicely for the occasion of course and was surprisingly relaxed – it might have been my low expectations. Little did I know what I was in for.

We sat down to eat and immediately the topic became our respective life goals. I said something about wanting to maybe work in government or somewhere I could help people, with my master’s degree. I told her of my interest in the environment and how I would not mind working to protect it in the future, which led to this interesting comment:

“You know, I don’t see what the big deal is. My car eats lots of gas, but I’ll be dead before it’s a problem, so why should I care? I want to drive it around as much as I want!”

An extremely well thought-out and not at all shortsighted stance! I imagine if humankind had always gone with the “I’ll be dead so it won’t be my problem” stance on the issues I’d be chipping this article into the side of a rock somewhere in Southern Europe.

She had just transferred to a local school and was living by herself (all paid by her parents) and was pursuing two degrees. For what purpose, I asked?

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t really want to do anything. I just want to get degrees so I can say I have them.”

Um, okay! She had recently transferred from a school in the city: “I hate the city, I hate the people there. They are so rude. I will never go back there, ever” she told me gleefully.

New York City is my favorite place on Earth. Obviously, we were off to a good start! Why didn’t she transfer to Stony Brook?

“They rejected me once. I will NEVER go there.”

I’m sure Stony Brook University and its millions of dollars in tuition money are stung by this snub to this day. Clearly, admissions are a matter to be taken personally.

It was clear she had few friends – she had abandoned her old friends for “fucking her over”. Seemed a bit strange to me, but in light of what we were about to talk about, it makes more sense. Her only friends were, by her own account, pretty big losers who hung out at a pet store. Then we started talking about her exes, and this is when her eyes became the crazy eyes!

I estimate at least half the time we were together was spent regaling me with stories about her ex, in particular one – her stories made it clear that he was a balding “momma’s boy”. She spared no expense in slamming him for that seemed like forever. She also made it clear she trusted nobody and proudly told me how she spied on her boyfriends to catch them lying (and succeeded once, to her delight). Like, literally spying. I could now see why she had few friends.

Admittedly, I’m kind of an idiot with this whole dating thing, but I imagine one thing you don’t want to make clear right away is your bitterness towards your exes, or the fact that you used to spy on them because you don’t trust anybody. Holy shit! Anybody who spies on me is unlikely to find anything interesting – probably me sitting on my ass with a beer watching a hockey game – but still, I don’t want to envision being the target of some elaborate surveillance sting or amateur PI work by my girlfriend. God forbid I tuned in to watch women’s volleyball on ESPN 2 for a couple of minutes; I’d be in deep shit.

It became clear that she had little regard for a number of things I felt strongly about, didn’t have much of a plan or a goal and was a bit, well, crazy. Towards the end of the date the conversation sort of died, largely as a result of my attempt to digest everything I had just heard, but one thing we had in common came up – we were both Mets fans! Unfortunately, this also was the coup de grace on an astonishingly bad afternoon. She had one last opinion in store:

“I hate guys that wear David Wright jerseys. They’re so gay!”

I swear to God I could not have made this shit up if I tried. She went on that tangent for a while, at which point I began shooting blood out of my eyes. The date was then mercifully finished when the EMS came to take me away. No, actually, that’s only what I sort of wish had happened.

What actually happened is that I stared at her in horror, then attempted to explain that I had followed Wright through the minors and was at his first major league game, and that he had become my favorite player in a short time – one whose jersey I owned. For what it’s worth, she actually looked a bit embarrassed by this – I had let the other stuff slide without so much as an argument, but not this time.

Now, there was a lot of insanity during this date, but mockery of one’s admiration for the greatest third baseman in Mets history is really the hilariously over-the-top capper on all of it. If this date was a firebombing, then this last part would’ve been the equivalent of dropping an atomic bomb on the ashes for the hell of it. It was that bad.

We just sort of sat there quietly making small talk for awhile after that, well after we had finished eating (at least the food was good). We had been there two and a half hours and it seemed she had no interest in being the one to call it a day, when I had to think of possibly the shittiest escape line from any bad date ever:

“Well, I think I should start to get going. I need to go, uh, collaborate with a friend on a blog we’re working on.”

To be fair, this isn’t totally false – at the time a friend and I were collaborating on a short lived political blog – but holy crap, have you ever heard anything worse than that? In my defense, I was desperate at this point to leave. Really desperate. And it worked. She said something about wanting to go hang out with her friends; we paid the check, and went on our way.

Later that day, I helped a friend try to physically move her car (which was not starting) up her dirt driveway. It took two hours and was not nearly as painful or tedious as the two and a half hours in that restaurant. I then went home and stared at the ceiling for a while before falling asleep, pondering how I could have such fantastic good fortune once more.

Needless to say, I haven’t talked to this girl since the encounter. It serves as a caution to meeting someone without having some filter beforehand, although I’m sure everyone has their own horror stories they could share. Mine is no worse than many – it’s just something I can laugh at now. While things haven’t really worked out with any of this dating business yet, that’s not really a story anybody would care to read about, at least not until it has a proper ending.

And hey, at least I found a decent Chinese restaurant out of all of that.