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The Day After

"What did I do this weekend? On Sunday I had my heart taken out of my chest and eaten in front of me."
-- Mets fan Jon Stewart in his opening monologue on "The Daily Show"

After watching Monday's one-game playoff between the Rockies and Padres, I am reminded of another quote.

I once covered a wrestling match featuring a team that had lost something like 80 straight against a five-person prep school squad, whose best athlete was a 112-pound girl, who spent the better portion of the event caressing her boyfriend.

The 80-straight losses team won, so it was kind of neat to be there for what was locally a "historic" moment. I figured for sure that I'd be able to get the kind of great quote that I could frame an entire story around. I was half right. As the victorious team headed back to the locker room, I heard one team member say to another.

"How about that? There's someone out there who sucks worse than us!"

And that's why for some reason, albeit a rather cruel one, I feel a little better this morning. We are not the only ones suffering. If you are a Padres fan, you feel kind of like Jon Stewart today. And you got it twice- once on Saturday when the son of the greatest player in your team's history gotcha with two outs in the 9th to tie (lost in extra innings) and then yesterday when the alleged best statistical closer in the history of the game couldn't even get Kaz Matsui out with a two-run lead in extra innings. You had 3 games with a win-and-in scenario for the postseason. You won none.

I went to Ducksnorts, the Padres equivalent of MetsBlog to read some of the message board chatter and found some of the same commentary about Hoffman that I read about Glavine (minus the Lefty Williams reference and the part about his being a Braves spy).

Willie Randolph talked about some "life lessons" that could come from Sunday's Mets defeat and I think Padres skipper Bud Black may have realized the same thing after Monday's game.

If your best option for the most important moment of the season is a geriatric whose best pitch is a changeup and whose fastball is lucky to top out at 84 MPH, you're basically fuc*ed.

True Metsochists know...Those with a Mets connection who have gotten a walk-off RBI against Trevor Hoffman (besides those who did so for the Mets): Todd Zeile, Jose Offerman, Jeff Conine, Ricky Otero, spring-training invite Andres Galarraga and Craig Paquette.


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