Light it up for the Mets, Big Apple

Talking baseball with my bowling teammate Randy in the middle of the New York Mets’ game five tussle against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night, my astute fellow sports fan mentioned that all the teams left this postseason claim blue as their primary color. And the Mets add red, said the native Syracuse guy.…

Mets are happy they signed hometown kid Matz

If ever a man was born to play on a certain sports team, it is Steven Jakob Matz. When the New York Mets take the field tonight in Queens, N.Y., hosting game four of the National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the 24-year-old rookie left-hander will be on the pitching mound. Let’s…

Make them play it again, 2-2, with the Dodgers out in the seventh

As a Mets fan, I was livid from the moment Chase Utley knocked over Ruben Tejada somewhere around second base Saturday night. As a baseball fan, I was appalled how the umpires called the Dodgers’ runner safe on an appeal that the Mets’ shortstop’s toe came up a smidge short of touching the bag before…

Any way you slice it, Yogi Berra was our treasure

It’s over. Yogi Berra left our world, the news show told me this morning. To generations of New Yorkers, the man born Lawrence Peter Berra on May 12, 1925 was forever endearing. For the way he looked, squatted square behind home plate with the gated mask over that likeable mug and lefty stance dangerously over…

Better luck next season, Chiefs

Yes, thank you Steven T, my dear wife Karen and I would love to join you for the last Syracuse Chiefs game of the season. And a lovely way it turned out to spend our Labor Day afternoon, indeed. Click on any gallery photo for a description. Click on the bottom right photo in any…

Reading between the lines with Yoenis Céspedes, kids

Sometimes sports isn’t just about what happens out there in the heat of competition. Sure, it’s the winning and losing that brings fans to a fever pitch and puts the games on TV and makes the money such an important element to it all. So much of American society is hooked on this screaming, passionate…

At the Blog of Funny Names, there’s a Festivus …

How often do the worlds of the New York Mets and Jerry Seinfeld collide? More than you’d think. The funny guy grew up on Long Island, a couple towns and a few years from me. He, too, has remained an avid Mets rooter. Remember first baseman Keith Hernandez showing up on Jerry’s sitcom on a…

I’m glad there’s crying in baseball

My Mets lost last night, but even during a pennant race, that wasn’t the big story. Wilmer Flores got tears in his eyes. On the field. During the game. He couldn’t hide it from the TV cameras. There is crying baseball, Tom Hanks’ crusty manager Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own. And that…

Pete Rose, the sight of you makes me sad, and a bit angry

As all of baseball returns to the diamonds across America today to commence the races for division titles and wild cards and the playoffs that will lead us to the World Series, I’d like to take one more deep All-Star Break breath and ponder Pete Rose with you all. Yeah, the American League team will…

A great, beautiful, sad baseball game

I’ll call the 1 p.m. start the Syracuse Chiefs Triple-A baseball organization offered this past weekday a Business Person’s Special. My buddies Dave, Steven T. and I snuck off on Monday to NBT Bank Stadium on the north side of Syracuse to catch some increasingly rare early afternoon American pastime. Yes, call it a Throwback…