Fate and All That

“This was fate. All everybody talked about in the off-season was our bullpen, and today we’ve got Greeny, J. J. and K-Rod finishing it off. We had to win this way today. We just did.”

- Brian Schneider in today's Times

Brian Schneider wasn't a Met in 2005, when they rolled into Cincinnati with a gazillion dollar makeover in two key areas and mild expectations. Things looked good for awhile that day, but then, uh, something happened.

He was though today, four years later, when the Mets came back to Cincinnati with a gazillion dollar makeover in one key area and enormous expectations. The whole game, it felt like, uh, something might happen. Runners ominously left on base one after the other as the Mets just couldn't break the game open, followed finally by an intense Reds rally that took the ace out of the game. The stage was set for a total fucking calamity and we hadn't even gotten 6 whole innings into Game 1 of 162.

I was listening to the game at my friend Dave's apartment when Sean Green made his Met debut. "Some Met fan out there is going to kill himself today if Sean Green gives up a run here," I told him as he fiddled with his guitar. He looked at me. "Not me though, don't worry." Not because I had unyielding faith that Green was going to get out of the inning and clip the rally before it got out of hand, but because there's plenty of time to commit a more measured and dramatic bullpen assisted suicide when you wait a couple days to plan it out.

Then I heard the crack of the bat and an excited Howie Rose yelp that Edwin Encarnacion sent a line drive into the left-center gap and Daniel Murphy was closing in. I had visions of a diving Murphy missing and sliding across the wet grass all the way to the right field foul line as Carlos Beltran chased the ball to the warning track. 2-2, a man on second, maybe even third and a poor schmuck in Queens kicking the chair out from under his feet.

As it turned out, eating peyote before the game turned out to be wonderful for florid hallucinations but terrible for predicting the future, because the next thing I knew Murphy had made the catch easily and disaster had been averted. The bullpen makeover worked wonderfully and the Mets pulled out a close one to start this big year on the right path. Fate? It could be I guess. Hell, if good things keep happening to this team followed by Brian Schneider proclaiming it to be the work of some unknowable machinations only he can divine, you can damn well bet I'll be signing up for the Al-Schneider Martyr Brigades. I understand it involves something like fighting against high car prices.



That and destroying his evil, comedic twin.



Women be lying about their weight.