213 Miles From Shea

My roommate and I were having a discussion last night about the now famous Derek Jeter play, and really, we were focusing on why the media was making such a big deal about it. In case you haven't watched sports news anywhere in the United States (seriously every time I turned on ESPN yesterday, this was the story), Jeter was hit by a pitch in a game on Wednesday night. Except he wasn't. The ball hit the knob of the bat, Jeter was a good actor and he got his base then a lot of argueing happeneded. Blah Blah Blah.

The question was then, is Jeter a cheat?

In a normal world, when one person decieves another person, in order to recieve some sort of beneficial reward or treatment, that action of deciption qualifies as cheating.

Except in the world of sports.

There is a gray line in Sports of what is cheating and what is not. Using Performance enhancing drugs? Cheating. Scuffing the Baseball? Cheating. Acting like you got hit by a pitch? Actually not cheating.

To some degree in sports, it is permissible to do things in order to get an advantage. In football for example, one could call holding on almost every single play. In basketball and soccer, players act more injured than they actually are in order to get a penalty of sorts on the other team. In baseball, this tradition of not exactly fair play falls on the hitter acting like they got hit by the pitch. What Jeter did is exactly what any ball player should do in that situation because you are trying to create an advantage on the team. The responsibility here falls on the umpires, who are bestowed with the job to make sure players do not create these unfair advantages.

If this happens all the time, why isn't it covered like it was yesterday? Simple. When Jeter does something that pushes moral boundaries, the world overreacts.

The Mets beat the Pirates by the score of 6-2 tonight and beat the Pirates for the 4th time in a row. That was the first four game home sweep for the Mets since 2003. Tonight the Mets battled back from being down 2-0 at one point, tied the game and then continued to add runs as the game went on.

One of the stars of tonight's game was Mike Pelfrey who pitched a fine game tonight as he allowed only 2 ER over 7 innings while walking 4 and striking out 4. It was the 15th win of the season for Mike who has now pitched two nice games in a row in his enigma of a season. The other main star of the night was Duda who has been struggling since coming up the Majors. Tonight he smacked in two hits, both doubles while scoring a run and notching two RBI's. Pagan also had a big hit on the night as his two run double in the 8th inning put the game away for the Mets.

Next up for the Amazin's is a visit from the Braves who are now three games back in the division. While I would rather see the Braves in the playoffs instead of the Phillies (maybe the lesser of two evils, but I'm not sure), I really don't want to see both teams make the playoffs so if the Mets can ice the Braves playoff hopes, that would be realllllllly awesome.

The Mets go for the four game sweep tonight. Seriously. The Mets in the last two weeks, in terms of ON-the field play have gone completely under the radar and now, surprisingly, they have been able to string 3 well play games together. In fact, they have won 4 of their last 5. Who are these guys? Anyway the Mets will send out Pelfrey tonight to play against Morton.

Pelfrey will go for his 15th win of the season tonight and try to continue a trend he rekindled last week in pitching well. In his last outing he earned the win in 7.1 innings of work while allowing only 2 ER. He had a great start against the Pirates earlier this season pitching 8 innings allowing only 1 ER. The Pirates have these numbers on Big Pelf:

The Mets bats look to continue to heat up (17 runs in the last two games) against Morton tonight who is 1-11 this season with a 9.05 ERA. His last game was one of his better ones where he pitched 6.1 innings and allowed 3 ER, which technically is a quality start. You can imagine though with a record like 1-11 and an ERA with a 9.05, the vast majority of his starts look just awful. Another way to phrase it is that he has had 56.2 innings logged in 13 starts. The last time he faced the Mets was in 2008 where he pitched two scoreless innings in relief as a Brave. Pelfrey, Wright  and Reyes are both 0-1 against him, a couple of guys have walks and thats it as far as past numbers.

Lets Go Mets!

Yesterday you saw one of the two rappers on the 86 squad that actually released a good rap song. Dr. K was the other rapper on the team who also released a pretty good song (it always surprises me when athletes have other talents, and I don't know why I always find it surprising). Check it out:

The Mets go for their third win a row tonight as they take on the Pirates for game 3. The first game was decided in extra innings by the score of 1-0 and last night the Mets routed the Pirates by the score of 9-1. If there was one thing to watch for tonight, it would be the Mets starting pitcher Jenry Mejia who has struggled in his first two starts as a Major League starter and really needs something positive to help him turn it around, and playing the Pirates could be that trick. Mejia hasn't faced the Pirates this season, so they don't have a batting track against him. Let's Hope for good things!

On the other side of the mound the Mets will have to contend with Maholm tonight. Paul is 7-14 this season with a 5.37 ERA. In his last three starts he has pitched 14.1 innings while allowing 18 ER. While Maholm has not pitched against the Mets this season, last year he logged 9.1 innings against the Amazin's and allowed 13 ER. The Mets have these numbers on Paul:

Lets Go Mets!

From that terrible 1986 Get Metsmerized rap came two rappers who actually recorded songs that weren't half bad. One of which is Strawberry who released this classic:

The Mets and the Pirates play game 2 tonight, a game more people will probably watch since the game isn't being played at the same time as the Jets. Anyway, in cased you missed it, and you very may well have, the Mets won a 1-0 in the tenth inning. The Mets hope to continue the fireworks tonight against Duke as Dickey goes for the Amazins.

Dickey picked up his 10th win of the season in his last start as he got back on the right track with a 6 inning outing where he allowed 2 ER runs. The last time that he played the Pirates was in 2009 where he pitched two scoreless innings. The Pirates have the following numbers against Robert Allen:

The Mets will get a crack at Zach Duke who is 7-13 this season with a 5.47 ERA. In his last three games he has pitched 11.1 innings with 12 ER (he allowed exactly 4 ER in each game). His last good start was against the Mets (of course). In that outing he allowed one earned run over 7 innings of work. The Mets have these numbers against Duke:

Lets Go Mets!

By now you have probably realized that most of these videos are from the 80's and that is true. This video, the third in a row from 1986, is a video tribute and song to Rusty Staub. It's a nice touch:

Krod went to court today. Just as a refresher, since we have had a what seems like a half dozen other off the field issues between Krod's initial problems and today, Krod got into a scuffle with his Girlfriend's (and also Mother of two children) Father in the family locker room at Citi Field. It ended with Krod beating this individual, then Krod being held overnight in the jail in Citi-Field before going to Court the next day. After a two days suspension he went out to pitch an inning, did great, then realized that he actually tore a ligament in his thumb from his fight and his season was over and now the Mets may or may not being trying non-gurarantee his contract.

Phew.

Anyway things got more complicated today, as the AP reports, that Krod has been charged with Criminal Contempt. He was ordered in his first hearing to not contact his girl friend. He has sent her 56 text messages ranging from the I Love You Let's work this out to your parents are confusing and of course to the everything your parents have is because of me.

Well, the only upside is I get to use that logo again.

Oregon has been the long time source for really odd football uniforms that not only tend to change every season, but tend to have like 6 different uniforms per season. Well, fun fact, its not just their football team that has all the fun, as in 2008 the University of Oregon baseball team had 6 uniforms to choose from:

(Oregon Live . com)

Ok, so its more like 4 uniforms that become 6 based upon what shirt they where under the vests. From a quick glance, there is one thing that really strikes me about these unforms. Each of the four jersey tops are very different (with the exception of the green Ducks one) however the hat is the same for all of them. You would think with so many different other pieces, there would be more than one hat, but thats not true.

Alluded to before, what is striking about the jerseys is how different they all are. The only ones that make “sense” are the white “Ducks” and the dark green “Ducks” because normall thats how alternate jerseys should look. These two also stand out for another reason though. The font on the front doesn't match the font on the hat and the color of the font is not really Oregon Green, there is a lot of blue in there.

The road jersey is the one that looks most like “Oregon” in the sense that the font matches the hat. It is probably the nicest of them all.

However, the jersey the really shows the uniform oddity that is the University of Oregon would be the giant O shirt. That can only be done at that University, where odd is normal.