NEW YORK, NY – Pigs are flying. Snowballs are now the official ball of choice in Hell. Dom Smith is a national treasure. The St. Louis Pefectos are in the headlines for the first in forever… or at least 121 years. Great Caesar’s Ghost, isn’t it Amazin’ how some great or astonishing feat in sports can Make America Great Again? With that, let’s consider the topics du jour: Surreal Subway Series, St Louis Perfectos, Cleveland Spiders, Dom Smith for President.
Surreal Subway Series
I admit it. I tuned in and the Mets were down 4-0 in Game 1 after Michael Wacha took a Walk on the Wild Side of serviceable 7-inning game starts. Quick question: What constitutes a Quality Start in a 7-inning game? My guess is that it ain’t 3 IPs & 4 earned. Wacha is indeed a conundrum, though, as he had 7Ks in 3 innings. He’s got stuff. But he’s also the proud papa of a 7.41 ERA… Yet I digress. In an it-doesn’t-get-crazier-than-this night of baseball, the New York Mets swept the New York Yankees… at Yankee Stadium! That is not a misprint. It is not some cruel joke of a #FakeSportsNews clickbait thread. It happened. Granted, the fans in the stadium didn’t seem to care, not once changing their expressions or rising from their seats. It was like watching a professional rugby game in Japan in that regard. But Jesus H. Crisps, it was stunning nonetheless. Left for dead in in the first game and down 3-1 in the nightcap, nobody in their right mind could foresee what transpired – particularly when the comeback chances were diminished by 7-inning games. But you know what? None of us are in our right minds. None of us could fully grasp the notion that the Mets were the home team in the 2nd game in The House That Greed Built – wearing their road grays! And when Rosario The Great put one in an area that Joe DiMaggio wouldn’t recognize (because he didn’t play there), allowing the Mets to storm the field for a 2nd straight game on this storied, crazy night, this sh*t-show of a year suddenly didn’t seem so bad.
But speaking of Rosario…
St Louis Perfectos/Cleveland Spiders
Cam James is a St Louis Cardinals fan, so aside from spreading #COVID-19, he’ll appreciate this gold nugget of MLB history. See, the Perfectos (great name – until you lose) were the St Louie team back in the late 1800s. By 1899 they’d been in baseball for 18 seasons, the NL for 8. The Robinson brothers bought them that year, gave them the new name and changed their colors to red. The red was such a hit that fans and pundits referred to the team by the shade of red, Cardinal – not after the bird. The following season the team’s official name became the Cardinals. But it was the Perfectos that were the last visiting team to hit a walk-off homer, until Amed Rosario blasted the Bombers last night. But wait, there’s more! As per Anthony DiComo, the Perfectos did this against the Cleveland Spiders (another great name), who were also owned by the Robinson brothers. The Spiders saw the Robinsons poach their best players and transfer them to the Perfectos/Cardinals. They didn’t win, however, as the Brooklyn Superbras Superbas (yet another great name) did the exact same thing, as their ownership group also owned the Baltimore Orioles. Still hungry for baseball history trivia? The Orioles were then disbanded. 2 years later they became an American League original team – the Milwaukee Brewers. They had a pint there and then became the St. Louis Browns for 52 years before finally nesting in Maryland as… the Baltimore Orioles. Don’t you just love all the goodies you get when the Mets sweep the f***ing Yankees?!
Dom Smith for President
Has this writer, along with the late, great Big Al Sternberg, absolutely destroyed Sandy Alderson for picking Dom Smith with a #1 pick? Yes. Guilty as charged. Heck, I even doubled down on calling Smith another Mike Vail/Kevin Maas back in Spring Training 1.o. “Smith is a bum,” I said. “A bust. No good…” But boy, oh boy… I do like this feeling of being wrong for the first time! And who gives a rat’s ass if Smith gets another hit. He’s gone Wilmer Flores on us in that he’s impossible not to root for and like. He’s become an emotional leader by example for the Mets – and the rest of us, really, and it certainly is a bonus that he has made himself into a bona fide MLB hitter. So, after you watch below, get your mail-in ballot and write Dom Smith’s name in for President. He will not disappoint. But ya gotta believe… and watch. Oh, and props to my buddy Eddie Lee Bracken, who has been telling me Smith was the goods for a while.
That’s all for today, feel free to bash the Yanks or Mets or Spiders or Perfectos below and come back tomorrow for the man that dumped the Robinson fortune heiress, Cheesy Bruin.
