Mets Wars: Episode IV

a long time ago, in a galaxy called Flushing…

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a
hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the
Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armored space station
with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home
aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her
people and restore freedom to the galaxy…

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The All-Stached Nine

MLB.com, as is its wont,* is allowing fans to vote on their All-Time Nine for each team.

Rules are you pick one season from each guy at each position, and then imagine they were all on the same Mets team at the same time having that season.

And then you imagine you had season tickets that year and got to watch ‘99 Rickey Henderson lead off followed by 2006 Reyes, and then 2007 Wright would hit a double to score two, and then 2000 Piazza would step up to the plate, and they had to pitch to him because ‘98 Olerud and ‘86 Keith Hernandez were due up, and 2000 Piazza would wink at you and you would know deep down that he loved y….. Read more »

Cause to Complain

It hurts.

Injuries are a part of the game.

But at some point, they become more than part of the game. A key injury at a key time can seem to make a big difference to a ballclub. Then again, over such a short sample, statisticians say that the difference in performance is negligible, and that since all teams eventually experience lost time to injuries, it all evens out.

But Mets fans know there is nothing “even” about this season. There is nothing fair.

So let’s prove it.

Let’s figure out the point at which statistics takes a hike, the point at which we can look at a sports team, any sports team, and say “this is just completely unfair — we have no idea how good that team might have been.”

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Meet the Hat!

So how has your Wright-less Mets baseball been?

…

That bad, huh?

Well, fortunately, you no longer have to wait to get your David Wright back! Thanks to modern technology, for a limited time only, you can have your very own All Star 3rd baseman back in the lineup of your choice. I’m talking the 21st century! I’m talking super space age technology! I’m talking about the Rawlings S100!

It’s a big honkin’ baseball helmet. And apparently, it’s going to save David’s season.

Teammates may laugh. But opponents won’t be laughing once they witness the might of Dark Helmet.

Of course, being an All Star and all, David gets his custom-made, with all sorts of extra winning features. Like a mustache. Herein, exclusive to our Wright Stache wreaders, is a sneak peak at the helmet David Wright will sport for the rest of the season.

Just one easy click-through away!

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That’s Gonna Leave a Mark

Fortunately, with David, the tongue sticking out is a good sign (Image courtesy of NY Daily News)

Able, you probably already know this, but your brother is a douchebag.

What happened? During last night’s 5-4 extra-inning fall to the Giants (not those Giants), San Fran starter Matt Cain beaned David Wright in the head with a 94-mph fastball. The helmet went flying off. David was on his back for over a minute. I said some choice words about Matt Cain. But nobody really thought he threw at David on purpose.

Is he all-Wright? Yes. David spent the night in the hospital with a concussion. Plus, there’s this good news from Francoeur (from AP reporter Howie Rumberg):

(after jump)

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The Leaders and the Stached

HAIL! To this idea of brilliance.
HAIL! To these whiskered heroes.
HAIL! HAIL! To Mustaches for Michigan.
I think I wet my pants.

The Wright Stache, as is publicly known, is generally and publically in favor of any increase in public mustachionism. So we understandably couldn’t help but say “GO YOU!” when one of America’s top public institutions got it into their winged heads to do thus:

As Michigan Alumni, we are here to say that we support you, Rich. We support Michigan. And we’re showing it with our mustaches. We’ll be growing beards during the month of August, and on September 5th, we’ll be sporting serious staches for that first game. Go Blue.

We here at the WrightStache have been trying all summer to get ONE guy to grow a mustache; these fellas are out to convince 106,201 (we’re guessing the invitation does not include the cheerleaders). But when you’re the winningest program in college football history, I guess dreaming big comes with the arborial territory.

To see how they play the game, enter the Big House of Stache, Gate 4.

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If a Third Baseman Grows a Stache in Detroit…

Look closely and you can see the beginnings of an AL Pennant

We have news: an All-Star 3rd baseman has begun growing a mustache.

No, it is not David Wright. But it’s the next best thing…

Brandon Inge. Roar of the Tigers:

CONFIRMED: Brandon Inge is, in fact, growing a mustache. It is, in fact, terrible. Before today’s game he claimed that it was a Rally Mustache, an attempt to change the luck of the Tigers. Will it help his bat? Will it help the bats of other Cats? Brandon Inge does not know. He hopes it will help him, but if it helps someone else– if they manage to hit better “due to [his] ugliness,” as he said in the pregame interview– the Rally ’stache will have served its purpose.

Did I not tell you the Tigers and a Mets share a metaphysical link? I mean, the Tigers win in ‘68, the Mets win in ‘69. The Tigers win in ‘84, the Mets win in ‘86. And Howard Johnson was on both of those teams!

And now the Tigers head to Boston with a STACHE ON THEIR 3rd BASEMAN!

This is how it begins, folks. I will be at Fenway tonight. I will capture this Ingeian stache. I will show you non-believers how winning and mustaches on All-Star third basemen are connected. I WILL SHOW YOU ALL!!!

…Misopogon, running off into the abyss…and giggling.

Update: Back from Boston — it looks like he kept it. But the Tigers dropped two to the Red Sox. On the other hand, they’ve been battling, and gave themselves a chance to win two games they had no business winning. So I’d say the stache is working.

The seed has been planted, and there’s a chance the Tigers may stache up afterall. A whole team of mustaches? We will definitely be keeping an eye on this.

Shooting Down Our Stachey Shoots

Cut down before his prime

The injury train rolls on. The latest victim: Jonathon Niese.  Hamstring. Here’s the Mets’ 2009 season in a nutshell:

Promising young pitcher, promising young stache, HAMSTRING INJURY OUT FOR SEASON SURGERY ARRRGH!

Sorry for the caps.

It makes you wonder, if the Mets could have gone back and done it all over again, if a mustache would have helped? Maybe extra padding, I don’t know. I’m starting to think, though, that Big Pelf falling off the mound in the Citi Field opener wasn’t a good sign.

Brian Costa says this one hurts more. What exactly does “more” mean? Hasn’t the whole season been painful enough?

At least last night’s 9-0 drubbing of the Cardinals and their fake staches was cathartic.

The Wright Stache will be down at Coney Island on Saturday to root on the next crop (and to see if there’s anybody down there we can add to the thresher that is the Mets dugout this year). Other than that, I welcome you all to become Tigers fans for the rest of the season. You’ll like the Tigers — Detroit could surely use the help, they’re orange and blue, they play solid defense and have great young pitchers. And they’re footing the bill for Shef…..BREAKING NEWS SHEFFIELD  HAMSTRING INJURY OUT FOR WEEKS ARRRRRRGGGH!

Oh well. At least there’s one more reason (but you gotta jump).

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Wrightstache Exclusive Interview: Mario

Longtime Mets fans like Mario Mario of Brooklyn think the Mets just need a spark to get back in the hunt

With the Amazins in the tank and the Wrightstachians on the road, the Wright Stache has been quiet. Too quiet.

Well not that quiet. We’ve been at Citi Field, spreading the message, meeting fans of the stache, and getting their perspective on what’s wrong with the Mets this year (aside from, you know, the obvious listlessness, winlessness, healthlessness, and stachelessness).

Our thoughts on the subject have been shared ad infinitem, which is a fancy Latin way of saying “a whole bunch.” So we thought it was high time we got some input from the other fans out there — the hardworking Mets partisans who expect to come home from a long day of plumbing, or stomping on monster heads, and relax to a well-played game of baseball, preferably one in which the Mets whup the ever-livin’ koopa droppings out of the Phillies.

Herein follows a candid interview with one longtime Mets fan, Mario Mario, a plumber from Bensonhurst, and proud Mustached American. (Press ‘B’ to jump)

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Better When Unfettered

It's the 4th of July, yet still no stache, "why?"

It’s been a rough Independence for our as-yet-stacheless Wright, who went 0-11 against the Phillies over the weekend, as the NL East rivals’ pitchers “hampered,” and “hamstrung,” “put the clamps down on,” and essentially “tied up” our hero. He wasn’t flustered, it seems, so much as fettered.

tr.v. fet·tered, fet·ter·ing, fet·ters

2. To restrict the freedom of.

A bit ago I posted a link on this blog about NYC and the Yankees, who were in a bit of trouble over supposedly harassing fans who chose not to stand and sing “God Smite the Red Sox Bless America” in the 7th Inning.

That case has been settled, though only the city, and not the Yankees organization, was found liable. The problem was that nobody could prove the Yankees had a policy of intimidating and harassing non-conformists (and B&T’s — how they hate B&T’s) who skipped their redundant moment of patriotism. In fact, the biggest thing the Yankees were possibly guilty of, it seems, was “fettering:”

[F]ans may not always have felt completely unfettered. Ushers used handheld chains to block off some exits while it was played at the Yankees’ old stadium, although chief operating officer Lonn Trost has said they were instructed to let through spectators with emergencies.

I don’t see how such fettering can be considered acceptable. If fans are not feeling unfettered, then they are in fetters, and we were born into a country — a country we sing to at least once every baseball game — where being unfettered is a born-in right. It says right there in the Constitution, Article I Say So:

Don’t fetter.

(stay tuned, I’ll find a way to related this to D-Wright and his stache)¹

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Weekend Whiskers from the Blogosphere

With Misopogal departing for Israel from JFK, the Misopogon took this opportunity to leave the Great Lakes State and  come see how things were stachin’ in the city. Meanwhile, the blogosphere blow’d up. This week in blogging, with bullets:

What do fashion bloggers wear on weekends? Wrightstache t-shirts!

• Sunday T-shirt spotting: the trendy Brooklynite at right knows clothes; by day she works for a fashion magazine, by night she’s the proprietress of The Haute Fuzz. And on Sundays, she can be seen strutting the balconies of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, demonstrating this season’s classiest New York wear. The Fuzz also had a fashion tip for Wrightstache readers (lifted from Facebook):
  

  “too bad you don’t have giant stache stickers we can go stick on the back of everyone else’s shirts… that other ‘5′ looks so sad and naked”

  This is an idea not yet considered: if David were to wear a Wrightstache t-shirt, or even put a mustache over his number, would that have the same effect as real barbs over his lip? We’re guessing, no, but we’re willing to see it attempted.

Want more bloggy bullet goodness? You’ll have to give us a click-through first:

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Skipper Staches

Frank Selee's mustache was the first to suggest putting Tinkers, Evers, and Chance in the same infield

TheWrightStache.com has already established the link between mustaches and leadership. But while every manager instinctively understands how motivational posters a lip sweater can contribute to productivity, it’s hard to quantify that.

Well, fortunately for us, in baseball you can quantify everything, including mustached leadership.

Unlike a mustache on David Wright, There is no promise of championships for any manager who grows a mustache. As managerial great Sparky Anderson once said (to paraphrase) “Mangers don’t win or lose ballgames. Ballgames are decided in three places: on the field, at the plate, and above David Wright’s lip.”

Can greater facial growth on MLB’s current managers contribute to leadership skills, or will the burden of proper grooming prove too much for the mustached few? Find out, after the call to the bullpen…

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NHL Playoffs Teach Life Lessons

The Stanley Cup is annually bequeathed to the hockey team that can grow the most facial hair.

MLB does a lot of things better than the NHL, but one thing hockey has right is a longstanding, well-established connection between facial hair and winning. While players tend to rock whatever they like during the regular season, come the first day of Passover,* the razors get thrown out like so many leftover bagels.

The tradition is so well-established, it even has its own page on Wikipedia.

For the 2008-09 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Detroit Red Wings are using the connection as their chief promotional tag-line: “The Beard is Back.” They’re also now just two wins from hoisting Lord Stanley for the fifth time in a dozen seasons. There’s a reason these guys are pro sports’ model franchise.

After the jump: The Beard is Back; The Stache Never Left

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He Can, So When?

It'd be a lot cooler if David did...

Currently, our mission stands thus: we believe that David Wright should grow a mustache. We know for a fact that this alone could bring the Mets a World Championship. David knows this. He has said he would if he could. We have said that he can.

But that’s alright, we’ll worry about that later.

Since this is a free country (except, perhaps, when you’re at a Yankee game), we cannot force our hero to grow a hero bar. The Metstache may choose you, but you must also choose your Metstache. We respect that. You gotta do what Randall Pink Floyd wants to do, man.

Sometimes, however, we are given signs. It could be a Superbowl Party with Howard Johnson. It could be a Superbowl Party with Howard Johnson at a Howard Johnson’s (while staying at a Howard Johnson). Or maybe it’s Mathew McConaughey…

(Party at the Moon Tower, after ye leap)

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Profiles in Leadership

What makes a leader?

This was the question inexpertly tossed around* by that daffy broadcasting duo Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips, while the Amazins balked and bases-loaded GIDP-ed their way to a 2-0 losing conclusion to an otherwise successful 4-day vacation in San Fran.

The context was a re-hashing of the pre-winning-streak brouhaha over comments by Omar Minaya that suggested the Mets needed more of an edge.

“Some people see edge as leadership. Sometimes, you need a little meanness to your game. Some people perceive leadership as meanness.

“I couldn’t tell you that we have that type of guy. We have leaders. But everyone’s perception of leadership is different.”

Well, as everyone** knows, when a GM calls his team out for not having a leader, the first guy to respond gets the gig. Since then, David Wright has let his bat do most of the talking, and now everything is hunky dory. But he did at least offer the following to the New York Daily News:

“The definition of edge is going out there and getting a few wins, and then all of a sudden you don’t have to worry about anyone talking about edge anymore”

Well, they’ve got a few wins. But do the Mets have a true leader? What makes such a leader? And most importantly could Steve Phillips be any more of a horse’s patoot what is that that sixth tool*** that separates the leaders from the lineup fodder? To answer this, when we say “Jump” the Wright Stache will consult the acknowledged leader in defining leadership:

Motivational posters!

Jump.

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The All*Star Case for Lastings Milledge

He can run; he can hit for average; he can hit for power; he can throw; he can fi... he can run!

At first, we thought it was a joke. I mean, c’mon, get real, a campaign to get Lastings Milledge in the All Star Game?

I mean…Lastings?

Lastings Milledge?

Lastings MILLedge?!?

It didn’t make any sense.  They couldn’t possibly be talking about the same guy — the five-tool fella that Mets fans remember for his friendly fan interaction (and fly ball non-interaction)!

Could it be our erstwhile young Lastings is already grown up and worthy of an All Star ticket?

I thought no.

But then I saw his face… Read more »

We Say Thee Yea, Wood Bats of the GSL

Ed note below.

The city of Columbus, Georgia, isn’t well known around the country. Simply by nature of sharing a name with the home of the Yankees’ top farm club, the place d’origine of George Steinbrenner, the nursery of Christian Rock music and the birthplace the Bush political dynasty, they are entitled to all sorts of ridicule.

The wood makes us want to sport stache.

So it was nice to hear this morning that, for once, something good was coming out of Columbus.

If you hadn’t heard already (we hadn’t), there’s an amateur, wood-bat summer baseball league called the Great South League, which lets college ballplayers hone their skills and get used to swinging lumber rather than aluminum. This year, Columbus will join the league, introducing their new team, the Wood Bats. That’s great news, but this in particular caught our attention:

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Seksy Metstache = Sweep

=

That is all.

Ankiel Stache Yanked in 1st Inning

We here at the Wright Stache believe that while you should always accept the mustache when it calls upon you, a stache cannot be grown just for the sake of it.

Such was the sad case of Rick Ankiel’s newly erstwhile mustache. Like its bearer, Ankiel’s mustache looked hot from the start, but suddenly, inexplicably turned wild.

Services for the fallen barbs, which are now making their way through the St. Louis Metropolitan Wastewater System, were held last week at the American Mustache Institute.

The passing of Ankiel’s young cover did, however, provide one last parting gift, serving as the impetus for AMI bloggers to discover the word “labia sebucula.”

It’s Latin.

It means “lip sweater.”

And for bloggers staring down a 162-game season of writing about mustaches, every available synonym for “mustache” is pure gold.

Thus we bid adieu to the unfortunate Ankielstache. You couldn’t make it out of the 1st inning. But in your few furry days of existence, you certainly left us some wonderful memories.

Ed. Note: We at The Wright Stache were thrilled to hear that Rick Ankiel was not seriously injured after his collision with the wall last night.  Neck/back injuries are no laughing matter.  No word yet on whether a mustache would have provided some padding.

The Blue Jay Way

Greetings from the American League, which is like real baseball except instead of every position player taking his turn at the dish, the pitcher gets to send some geriatric out of the WWE to swing in his place.

There's a fog in Northern Queens, and my friend has lost his swing. They'll be winning soon they said; now they've lost themselves instead.

I know it’s been a rough time in Metland. Not only has our facial Sampson not grown a stache, but he even went negative-hair. Cue Wrightslump.

Over here in AL-la land, we have this kid named Zack Greinke. By now you’ve probably heard of him. He pitches for Kansas City. He wishes he was born a shortstop. He’s un-hittable. I’ve heard of hot streaks, but nobody could get so much as an earned run on him in four straight starts. Yet Wednesday night, someone in the American League finally managed to put up a score on this kid.  How’d we do it? Ask the Policeman on the Street…

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