One man's agony is another man's "Go NY(a)!"

First off, I’d like to ask for a moment of silence in memory of Big K’s dignity. And on an unrelated note, if any of our friends from the Animal Liberation Front (aka ALF) happen to be killing time between drive-by trimmings here at the blog, Kyle was just making a funny when he said he kicked his dog after the Sox lost. Honest. And while I’ve got your attention, may I suggest changing your organization’s name so that its acronym doesn’t immediately call to mind a famous TV space alien that eats cats? Just, you know, a thought.

I’m not mentioning Alf merely because the lovable scamp was in some truly wonderful commercials with a ballplayer close to my heart, but also because there’s very little point in continuing my offseason roster wrap-up until the Guerrero farce plays itself out. This is not in any way an attempt to avoid writing about our pitching staff, as I’d be more than happy to thumb through yellowed and disintegrating newspaper archives in search of cheering tales from their primes. And while I’d love to comment on Pete Rose, about ten million clever devils beat me to the punch –- “hustle”, as in Charlie Hustle, can indeed be used pejoratively! He “hustled” us, he’s a “hustler” -- run with it guys! I’d really better get cracking before they figure out what Peter is slang for.

Instead, I’d like to accept Kyle’s implicit invitation to rise above the frustration and malaise so embarrassingly prevalent here, and write briefly about a recent baseball moment which filled me with happiness.

I’m speaking, of course, about Aaron Boone’s home run in game seven of the 2003 ALCS.

As a Mets fan, I’m supposed to hate the Yankees. I understand this, accept it, and try to live up to that responsibility as well as I can. As I’ve mentioned before, however, my father’s a huge Bombers fan, so many of the games I went to growing up were in the wrong Borough. And lately, the Yanks have even been doing some very Metsy things, like Ruben Rivera stealing gloves and bats from the clubhouse and Jeff Nelson and Karim Garcia double-teaming some schmuck in that bullpen brawl. Even so, I can only root for the Yanks with a clear conscience against two opponents: the Braves, of course, and the Red Sox. I love the rivalry, I relish the Mets’ place in Sox history, and best of all I love the attitudes of the Sox fans I meet. Despite their franchise’s utter lack of success, they’re always ready to talk crap about your team and kick you while you’re down, because they know that when an Aaron Boone moment comes along they’ll look and act so miserable we won’t be able to take our revenge for fear they will purposefully injure their pets.

So I’ll admit, I yelled and screamed and nearly trashed my friend Pete’s living room jumping around in spastic celebration as Boonie smacked that homer. It left him nearly speechless, which must run in the family because his brother Bret was a silent third wheel in an unfortunate stint in the broadcast booth that series. Too bad it only shut up the Sox fans for a single, blessed week.