Attempting to Exorcise the Voodoo

The Big Bad Baseball Gypsy is still searchin'. The more he tries to root for a specific team, the more he realizes he...just can't. He has slightly found a solution, which is to just follow baseball with his gameday audio At Bat.

The thing is, especially with where he has found his location on the 7 line, the Mets would be a natural choice. The 2008 Phillies, however, got him then and are still endearing to him now. Hence the impasse. With Citi Field so close, though, he couldn't see himself not making a few games this year.

That's if I would let him. Last year, the tale of the Gypsy and his Voodoo was well documented on these digital pages. If you're as superstitious as I am, things got pretty damn spooky. I coined him "voodoo" when we walked into that Mets Nats game last year and Dillon Gee immediately gave up a home run. It's been kind of a half-joke since, a narrative I have certainly pushed, though the natural story unfolding in front of us I believe has less to do with me perpetuating the issue and more to do with....spooky ghost stuff...? I don't know, but when you pick up the Gypsy's check when he is out of town and he responds (via text) with "The hex on the Mets has been lifted!" "(For the weekend.)" And you then travel to Citi Field and witness the Mets first no-hitter, they shut out the Cardinals ALL WEEKEND but then lose 5-4 that Monday, no matter how much you might be at fault for continuing the narrative, you still feel there are other forces at work.

I AM trying, however, to get to the point where none of that matters, or at least is just a funny little joke. I laughed at all the times the outside forces seemed to be swaying the Metsian fates, but I was definitely serious about what did start as a funny little quip. If there is baseball only 4 miles away from the Gypsy's location and he wants to see it, I can't stop him because of a stupid superstition.

Of course, though, the Mets had runners on 1st and 2nd and no out when we walked into the ballgame, and by the time we had settled into our seats, an out was made and a double play was grounded into.

My friends who we met at the game agreed there might be something to this whole voodoo thing.

But is it really the Gypsy's fault that the only person who can stop Jordany Valdespin...is Jordany Valdespin?

Anyway, the exorcism didn't quite work last night, and took a big hit when in the 7th, the Voodoo Gypsy jokingly started playing the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's Go Daddy-o, just before everything fell apart.

The Voodoo Gypsy, however, was still legitimately rooting for the Mets at points throughout the night. When the offense finally (kinda) got it together, he was standing up with the rest of us chanting "Let's. Go. Mets." They battled, but unfortunately could not get over the hump, but he certainly appreciated seeing some fight.

(And Dan Haefeli had the entire section and then some cheering for him when he handed a pop-up foul ball to the kid running towards it.)

So, I'll attempt to exorcise it again in the near future. He's too close to not randomly decide one night or afternoon that we'd like to take in a ballgame, and so at some point, just as it did for the Red Sox, the witch doctor hovering over and shaking his staff with some voodoo spell will have no affect on the Metropolitan baseball team.

I just hope we don't have to wait another 86 years...


Jonathon Niese takes on the Marlins and Ricky Nolasco today at 1:10PM at Citi Field.

LET'S. GO. METS.

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...Did I just watch the crystal skull again?

As the night transitioned to late, I found myself unable to rest these eyes. So, at the behest of the Big Bad Baseball Gypsy (who, after he saw the NY premiere of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, left a message telling me to be very disappointed with it) I put the DVD into my computer ready to give it another shot. I hadn't seen it since it opened (I can't believe it's been 5 years), and the ridiculousness of it had come around to the Voodoo Guy, allowing him to have a blast with it recently. So I figured, "What the feck?" (Clearly, though, I should stop watching baseball games with the guy; something I failed to mention about Friday night.)

...I'm not exactly sure where to begin with this one. I guess we should all start with the control for bad movies: The Star Wars Prequels. So, where does The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull rank in terms of Star Wars Prequality? Not....really close to there, but by no means ranking near the Originals, or a good movies in general. But when you throw all concern of not having a good time out the window, you don't feel like you've wasted your time, and you could even come close to enjoying yourself (rather than sleeping.)

Let us then start with the good, and preface it by saying that I watched it through the credits (if only to give John Williams his due.) 

Automatically, Steven Spielberg at this stage of his career is far and superior to George Lucas in terms of execution. This immediately is evident and is thankfully there throughout. The acting holds up (to an extent, with the script given [though it's not TERRIBLE]). My man Ray Winstone is always awesome, and of course there's Harrison Ford, who has an absolute blast being back in the Indy role. And Shia Labeuf is actually a pretty good actor, and unlike other young actors in other shitty movies, because Spielberg has honed his craft over the years (unlike Lucas) he actually knows how to take care of business in that regard. AND he is mostly (relatively) using real sets or locations, and you can feel the actors interacting with things that are actually there. The Indy portion of it is good as well (to an extent.) Ya know, all the archeology stuff and what not. Though it wasn't necessarily at it's best, you mostly got a feel you were in the Indy universe, and it wasn't totally disgusting (though South Park may think otherwise, and I generally agree with them, especially 'cause it's hysterical. I'd link it...but it MIGHT be a little to early in the morning for what I would link...) 

And there's plenty of over-the-top stereotypes that...let's face it...we American moviegoers have eaten up over the years (or have been spoon fed...)

There were other good things...liiiiike.....illustrator Rudolfo Dimaggio...

But it was mostly over lit. In that modern oversaturation of white light that can be found in CBS dramas quite a lot. And yeah, the Russians were the natural place to go in the story of Indiana Jones, and since they've established long ago it was a supernatural universe, aliens were actually a "natural" place to go too since the 50's were big-time into space and sci-fi and all that shit. And hey, I like aliens. I even believe pretty firmly there is no way there ISN'T life out there. But the way it was delivered, especially the climax, didn't really punch me across the face the way a good climax punches you across the face and you're all like, "Whoa! Thanks, wow. I wasn't expecting that but I'm very glad you punched me. Wow. That was GREAT," and was more like, "Wow. You punched me. What the hell?- Asshole." 

...And they kept clearly dying (in real life.) You know what I mean? I know I've already established that I've excepted the Indy universe as being supernatural. But there were TOO MANY close calls after all these years of us being ok with every hero escaping all those bad guys' bad shots and falling off waterfalls THREE times and shit like that. When it happened in this installment, everything just felt TOO unbelievable, and I just....it just didn't work.

At least NBC gave them the rights to Howdy Doody...

Anyway, I've made it this far. I might as well watch Japan and the Netherland Kingdom at 6...

Enjoy waking up everyone.

Here's some Random Thieves in the Night.

SLEEP. WILL. COME. SOON.
LET'S. GO. METS.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. And for Rising Apple twitter updates, click here.

A Metsian/WBC Weekend in Review

As all of us recover our internal clocks from losing that hour we used to have, let's recap the baseball weekend for not just all of you, but for myself as well, who missed most of the Metsian news and games that occurred (and apparently a thriller of a Cuba v The Netherland Kingdom game this morning.)

On Saturday, The New York Mets beat our old friends the Houston Astros 9-6 in a game where The Duda finally broke out of it a bit with a 3-3 day. A real highlight for me, on the fan side, was watching the WBC, following the Mets on twitter, and then all of a sudden everybody giving Adam Rubin crap for tweeting too early that Bobby Parnell had a 1-2-3 inning...just as Parnell dropped the last out and kinda lost it for a second. Rubin deleted the tweet immediately, but not before several twuman beings replied, retweeted and gave crap to Adam Rubin (I'd link you some, but they have come and gone in my twitter ether...And I'm sure you can imagine them well enough.) Luckily (but only for the overall Parnell Pscyche, because come on, this is just Spring) Bobby got it together and the Mets held down the win. Here's the Rising Apple Recap for you all.

Sunday brought another Spring Dubbya to the Orange and Blue, with Shaun Marcum as strong as he's been yet in the Mets 3-0 win over the Cardinals. It was scoreless till the 8th, when Jordany Valdespin singled in Travis d'Arnaud for the 1st run of the game. A couple 9th inning insurance runs later, and the Mets locked the game down. For the Rising Apple Recap, click here.

The Mets made their first set of Major League cuts on Sunday, including Zack Wheeler, Darin Gorski and Collin McHugh, all of whom we should expect to see in the Big Leagues at some point this year. Gorski was being considered for a lefty out of the bullpen role, but with Pedro Feliciano, Robert Carson and Josh Edgin the most likely to make the team, it made sense Gorski would be sent out to Vegas to be the Depth Down Below. McHugh will be the 6th or 7th starter waiting in the wings, and Zack Wheeler....well....he'll be up soon enough.

Moving on to the WBC - after the air was taken out of all of our sails because of the flat Knuckleball R.A. had friday, the USA ballclub took on Italia Saturday night in a do or die game. Italia was up early 2-0, but the Stars and Stripes came back to tie it........And then The Captain happened.  (and it was so nice, I had to watch it twice...and watch a close-up slow motion shot over and over again.) 

David Wright had his place in all the success of the USA squad this weekend, for on Sunday, down 3-2 to Canada in a Winner-goes-on-loser-goes-home game, David took a walk and scored the go-ahead run on Adam Jones' double. USA then pulled away and won the game 9-4.

Mexico followed their win over the USA Friday Night with a dud to Canada Saturday, finishing 1-2 and getting eliminated from the tournament (and getting into quite the bench-clearing brawl before it was all said and done.) Venezuela could not get through either the DR or Puerto Rico, as they got eliminated from play this weekend as well (interesting note from the V/PR game: Edgardo Alfonzo threw out the 1st pitch, representing Venezuela.) 

España FINALLY scored some runs...but in a game that didn't matter, and in a game where they lost 14-6 anyway. Clearly, they have a long way to go, but I hope their failure in their rookie WBC campaign does not lead to even less funding for the baseball program over there. 

SO. 

On this side of the world, Round 2 will include the DR, Puerto Rico, USA and Italia.

This morning in Japan, THIS happened.



Though it's too bad 3 of their starters were injured, I'm very happy to see The Dutch move on to the Final 4, especially after their mercy-ruling at the hands of Japan.

The Netherlands will take on those Japanese once more for a End-of-Round-2 tune up tomorrow morning at 6AM EST.

Until then, we have the day off from World Baseball. Preseason ball will fill the MLB Network day, but our Mets will not be televised (and neither will the Revolution...[Random Gil Scott-Heron reference.])

Have a great start to your week, everyone.

Here's the Random Song of the Day
brought to you by the Big Bad Baseball Gypsy.

WHERE'S. THAT. HOUR?!
LET'S. GO. METS.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. And for Rising Apple twitter updates, click here.

Dr. Random

Brought to you by the Big Bad Baseball Gypsy's abode.

LET'S. GO. METS.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. And for Rising Apple twitter updates, click here.

Oh...Halloween?

It seems as if we all understood Halloween would probably be a little muted this year. But I didn't think we would all FORGET about it. I am certainly in the group of the latter. Even before I knew about the storm sometime last week, I found myself shaving off an itchy few week beard, a sign I had completely forgotten about All Hallows Eve. I thought I had started an annual Facial Hair Halloween for myself the past 2 years, having gone as a dude with a mustache for my inaugural campaign*, and then as a Gentleman last year, as seen on your right. I kept the first one for some time into November of 2010, but I kept the Mutton Chop all of November 2011.

The second I started shaving, I suddenly realized this year's facial hair campaign would be halted before it began. Alas, I must have had some kind of intuition about this year, my subconscious figuring Halloween would be somewhat subdued. Normally, the NoHo area off the Halloween parade route of 6th Ave, south of Washingston Square Park, is like walking through a Gotham Imaginationland. Is there even gonna be a parade? 

I'm sure, throughout the city, an Imaginationland will take shape, even with everything going on. 

This is, indeed, New York.

Maybe I'll go get the Luigi hat and 'Stache I saw together at a Halloween Shop when I took my lil sis to get a costume. I don't know...I think Big Bad Baseball Gypsy is gonna fetch it for me on his way over. I told him to go to the Halloween Shop and find the costume that I want. I didn't tell him what costume, but told him he would know EXACTLY what costume I was talking about when he arrived. 

"Middle Aisle. You'll know."

Regardless, it won't be the same as the real thing. Can't even count it as the 2nd and a Half Annual Facial Hair Halloween. I had been thinkin' about goin' with the Tim Byrdak, not necessarily GOING as the Byrd, but using the Horseshoe as a base.

We'll see what I'm feelin' October 31, 2013.

(After an Orange and Blue Autumn settles over New York.)

Here's the Goulish Song of the Day.

LET'S. GO. METS.

*October 31, 2010: It's like I was WB Mason trapped in some crazy time portal. Some people asked me if I was Wally Backman 'cause I was wearing a Brooklyn Cyclones Shirt. Ironically, I wore that shirt today, sans 'stache.

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Back to my At Bat Ways and the Random Song of the Day

Tonight begins the final weekend of The Zeal of the Zealot. I still haven't quit, even for the good of the Mets. Big Bad Baseball Voodoo is tryin' real hard to get me to take a dirt shower, or eat fried chicken every night, but I just won't fall for it. The Voodoo must be exercised, without ridiculous "no 13th Floor" type of stuff (but...it's still the 13th floor.....we're just NOT SAYING it is...)

When superstition is so ingrained in your being, throwing it out the window is easier said than done.

Regardless, as always, I will At Bat it up while still listening for my cues, because the fan in me won't let me go an hour and a half without some sort of play by play experience.

Enjoy the game everyone. Regardless of the possible Voodoo.

Here's the Random Song of the Day.

LET'S. GO. METS.

 

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. And for Rising Apple twitter updates, click here.