Scott "F%#@&$n" Schoenweis

WARNING TO READER: THIS IS EXTREMELY LONG, ONLY THE FITTEST OF THE FIT WILL SURVIVE

Definitions you need to know for this article:
Illtastic (Ill-tas-tik): The art of being Ill to the 300th degree.
Whacktastic (Wak-tas-tik): The art of being whack to the 300th degree.

First of all let me start off by saying sometimes, as a fan, you need to give praise to an opposing pitcher where praise is due. Unfortunately for Todd Wellemeyer, his outing Tuesday night deserves absolutely no praise at all. If I were to give him praise for helping the Cards beat the Mets last night, I would have to start giving praise to Ben Affleck for writing Good Will Hunting which I'm just not ready to do. Tuesday started off with high hopes for me and my friend Matty B aka Bucc (head of Bleeding Blue and Orange) as we got ready to take Metro North into Grand Central. Oliver Perez was on the mound for the Mets, we were riding high off an extra innings walk off win from the night before, and the Hanson Brothers got the front page of this weeks Sports Illustrated. The only way things could have gotten better would have been if I was playing the Home Run Derby on MLB2k7 like those kids always do at Shea inbetween innings and get the chance to win a prize. I'll take all of them on, you know where to find me.

the 7 train is a multicultural slave ship... and i love it

Alright, for those of you who don't take Metro North into the city, let me drop some knowledge real quick. In the winter when you take the train down, it is extremely cold. In the summer if you take the train down, it is extremely cold. Not refreshing cold, but too cold. This was the only thing I could complain about though. Other than that there were no delays, no blackouts, no stick up's and most importantly no damsels in distress on the train tracks. It was safe to say we got to Grand Central relatively unscathed. We got to the subway terminal, and hopped on the 7 train after only waiting five minutes. Now don't get me wrong, I love being on the 7 train coming home from a win. 75 people crammed into a train car and 70 of them being Mets fans, it's safe to say some pretty funny insults get thrown around. The only problem is on the way there you're in the subway train longer than Paris Hilton serving her prison sentence. I think she got out while I was still on the 7.

So what is else there to do to pass the time except talk about the upcoming game and also the upcoming summer movies. Everywhere you go in the city now, you see a Harry Potter poster, or a I Know Pronounce You Chuck And Larry one. I would pay to see those movies if Harry Potter and his little goodtime buddy Ron Weasley switched places with Adam Sandler and Kevin James in their movie because then the secret homoerotic love tale that is the Harry Potter series will finally have some clarity, and seeing Kevin James do magic would make me laugh... a lot. We decided that both of those movies will be seen eventually, when they come to tv on TBS in six years. Then we saw the poster for probably the most illtastic movie that's gonna come out in a while. Transformers. Are you kidding me? I've been waiting for them to make this movie since I got on the 7 train at Grand Central Tuesday night. Cars turning into robots is probably the most amazing, genious, incredible idea anyone has ever had. Other than the decision to put a light in the fridge, but back to baseball...

this movie looks so good, id trade scott schoeneweis for a bootleg copy of it

We got 100 feet outside of the Willets Point - Shea Stadium stop when our Subway came to a halt. I looked at my watch; 6:50. We're fine, right? Wrong. We got off that Subway at 7:07. What a great message the Mets franchise has been sending the fans this past half year. "Don't Drive! Take the train to the game!" They make us believe that because of the contruction going on with Citi Field there's not enough parking for people to drive to the game, and so instead, we'll trap you on a Subway car for 17 minutes with conditions that resemble a slave ship and stick you inbetween a Monique look-a-like and her son, Pig Pen from Peanuts. Screw you, Shea Stadium. I saw at least 100 open spaces in only one section of the lot. Next time, I'm driving.

My animosity towards the Subways were gone soon after though, because entering Shea Stadium is always a thrill. The crowd is always energetic and enthusiastic, and you know it's gonna be a good atmosphere no matter what. For some reason however, each game I've gone to this year, there has been no energy, other than when they play that stupid soundclip "Everybody Clap Your Hands!" All of a sudden everyone wakes up. Cool. Ten seconds ago Sylvio Dante is more alert in his coma than the fully functioning crowd (at least i think they were fully functionally) was at this game. I don't understand it. We, along with a few others from my section tried to get the crowd going with a "Paul-Lo-Doo-Ca!" chant when he came to bat. Nothing. We did get a rise out of them when we scored a run in the first off a Beltran double, but the cheers quickly turned to boo's because the 2007 version of Mo Vaughn came up after David Wright and flew out to deep right with a runner on second. No surprise.

Oliver Perez was pitching well for the most part all night long, but he didnt bring his swagger to the mound like he normally does. Sorta how Lindsey Lohan has 3-degrees of personality: 1) drunk and all over the place, 2) hopped up on god knows what, and 3) completely hungover, the case is very similar with Perez. Lohan's no. 1 would be Ollie with control problems, Lohan's no. 2 would be Ollie as the spark plug, and Lohan's no. 3 would be Ollie pitching Tuesday night. Nobody wants to watch a tired, boring, reserved Oliver Perez, because that isn't who he is. And because of this, I think the Mets really lacked the fire that was needed to win the ballgame Tuesday night. But we didn't know that they were going to lose at the time, so this was more of an afterthought. The game had to go on.

we didn't see enough passion from perez, so instead we turned to the YOU SUCK chant

And just like the game continuing, so did the heckling of the Cardinals team and their fans all through the night. If someone can give me a better heckling chant than the, "YOU! SUCK!" chant, I will be shocked, saddened, and excited all at the same time. But that won't happen, because the chant cant be beaten. You can really tell it's working if you get underneath an opposing fans skin, for example. Two Cards fans walking up the steps in our section, completely decked out in red, were just asking for the You Suck chant. So like always, I pulled an MJ and came through in the clutch. We got through about the 5th cycle, when the blonde, who the Scott Rolen wannabe was with, stood up and gave me the finger. Normally, I would take this as an insult. In this case, it made me realize I was the captain of the mezzanine section, and I embraced it. By booing her.

Cue the 7th inning. Chris Duncan on third base, Brendan Ryan on first. Scott "I Shaved Some Man Hair, Dyed it Red and Glued it to my chin" Spiezio hits a line drive off of Heilman, it bounces towards Valentin at second base who picks it up, has it, still has it... drops it. Easily one of the most dissapointing moments for me as a Mets fan this year. We had them stopped and we were out of the inning, only Jose Valentin still had Mustache Wax on his fingers and so he dropped the ball. Dammit, that sucked. 1,2,3 in the bottom of the 7th. Inbetween innings i started thinking, Whatever happened to that blonde Cardinals fan? I started looking around and when I spotted her, the You SUCK! chant started up again. This time however she just laughed. Not cool, now I'm amusing her when I should be pissing her off. That's the end of the You Suck! chant for tonight. 8th inning, Cards score again off of Heilman... again and here come the boo birds. The Depressed-O-Meter just sunk from post-Brad Pitt Jennifer Aniston to, (Insert, name of any Emo band known to man, here). Then the people of Shea reminded me why I love them so much. They played Sweet Caroline.

A couple quick gripes about Sweet Caroline being played at Shea though: 1) Instead of the "BAHBAHBAH... Good times never seemed etc." they do "OH OH OH! Good times never seemed etc." Are you kidding me? Every Jets fan that was sitting around me was almost pissed off enough to not sing the song. But not quite. 2) They started the song at the chorus. I want the whole thing next time.

Sweet Caroline was great, and here comes the bottom of the 8th. Now I'm pumped thanks to the ever so appropriate lyrics and musical mastery of Neil Diamond, so even before Lo Duca hits the home run I'm out of my seat. As soon as he hits it, the entire stadium starts chanting his name. I got goosebumps from that, kinda cool. Fast forward to the 9th inning. Gotta give kudos to Shawn Green for drawing out a hell of an at bat to get that walk, and then big time kudos to Captain Willie for putting the Hebrew Hammer in motion with Jose Valentin up. After Valentin roped that triple, the stadium was electric. Everyone was out of their seat, the feeling of a win was there for the taking when we had runners on 2nd and 3rd with the ever so dangerous Julio Franco up to bat. Then we remembered Franco was up, and patiently waited for him to hit a weak ground ball to 2nd. And there it was.

lo duca brought christams to NY early with an 8th inning home run, only julio franco played mr scrooge

On to the top of the 11th, Willie Randolph makes everyone in the stadium question his IQ when he brings in Scott Schoeneweis over Joe Smith. I know Willie likes to go with the gut feeling when he makes his calls, but how could you have a left handed pitcher who can't get any big outs in a clutch situation come in to pitch to a right handed batter when you have a right handed reliever who's been stellar all season. Honestly, Schoeneweis makes Benedict Arnold look reliable. Well the inevitable happened as we all knew it would. Schoenweis serves up a homer to a career minor leaguer who in 4 years of service down at the farm, hit 6 career home runs. I hope that little fact is enough to make Scott Schoeneweis remove himself from anything that has to do with Queens.

The rest of the trip, pretty predictable. Mets lose 5-3, we miss our train because of extra innings, we get lost in the Village trying to meet up with my cousin and when we wake up in the morning we miss another train at Grand Central. Here's what is pissing me off though. How Julio Franco and Scott Schoeneweis are still on this team is completely beyond me. Julio Franco wont be able to get around on a fastball ever again in his entire life. Offer him a coaching job and be done with it. End of story. As for Schoeneweis, swallow your pride Randolph and Minaya because this guy hurts us more than he helps us. Schoenweis' record (0-2) and ERA (5.86) are bad enough, but the really telling stat, his WHIP is 1.81. That mean's every time Scott comes into the game you can bet that there's going to be at least 1 base runner, and more than likely even two. What a joke.

And I could vent for hours and write thousands of words about why these two blew the game, but I won't. Because when it boils down to it, Randolph blew this game. His stubborness to use veterans in big sports has hurt us in the past and Tuesday night it hurt us again. Who should he have used instead of Franco in the 9th? How about Damion Easley. You know, the Damion Easley who has hit two 9th inning home runs that helped tie the game for the Mets, and both games they went on to win. That one. Instead of Schoeneweis? Like I said, a right handed batter up, you bring in Joe Smith. It was really pathetic to see him coach like that, because I know he is much better than that. Don't get me wrong, I love Willie Randolph, but sometimes you just have to wonder what the hell is going through his head. Bottom line, cut Schoeneweis and pick up a new reliever. This bootleg version of Mike Stanton is 100% Whacktastic, and theres plenty of worthy replacements.

I hear Optimus Prime has a good WHIP.