The Promised Land
By sweeping us in a dramatic four-game series in Philadelphia, the Phillies served notice that the 2007 season would end with a real pennant race.
I guess they changed their minds.
It’s hard to believe that that was only Thursday. What is it today, Monday? It’s only four days later and we’ve got a 5-game lead with 25 to play.
We’ve won four in a row, after losing those four in a row. We look invincible after having looked, well, vincible.
The pattern continues. Players streak and then they slump. All is forgotten. Then they streak again. All is forgiven. How, exactly, does one develop the steadiness, patience, and calm necessary to enjoy this particular team?
And here’s something else. Like the ghost of old hopes and expectations, Pedro returns. He came to us, remember, in our darkest hour, at the end of the 2004 season. He was to have been our Moses. He was to lead us out of the darkness, through the desert, to the Promised Land. In 2005, he gave us a spectacular season and showed us that it was possible, once again, for the Mets to win and contend. He gave us the first marvelous half of the 2006, showing us that we could not only contend, we could actually win the division, after a decade and a half of the Braves’ dominance.
Then he drew back and faded, just as Moses was not destined to enter the Promised Land with his people.
I have to be honest. I never thought that he would come back. I was glad that Pedro had come to the Mets, because he did deliver us from bondage. But once he faded last September, I thought that he was never coming back.
He is back. And from what I think I saw today, he is actually back, with the masterful control that allowed him to still pitch like a Hall-of-Famer even after he had lost his velocity.
I guess the Moses analogy doesn’t work any more. That’s okay with me. I realize that I am really enjoying this season, now that I am beginning to have a clearer sense of how it could turn out. I’m ready to enter the Promised Land. With Pedro. He makes me calmer, makes me more confident. I realize that history illustrates that once you get to the Promised Land, everything from that point forward is a crap shoot.
But we’re on our way. And for all of the season’s ups and downs, it is going to feel very good to clinch this year. Remember how many losses and stumbles were washed away in the champagne last year? No you don’t, that’s the point of the champagne celebration.
Now if I can only figure out which game it’s going to be.
September 4th, 2007 at 4:29 am
I was heartened by Pedro’s performance. I think he would get a kick out of being compared to Moses! Today was a wonderful game, the Mets kicked butt in Cincinnati and gave Pedro the win which he deserved. Let’s hope they can win again tomorrow.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Dana:
Granted, the Mets aren’t the Phillies. But that said, I have read October 1964 and September Swoon once too often to feel comfortable saying the word “clinch” with a 5 game lead. As my grandmother (may she rest in peaace) always used to say [i]”Don’t give yourself a ‘kinahurra.’”[/i] (”Evil eye” for those not of the Hebraic persuasion.)
September 5th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Yep. Unbelievable that Philly swept us in a 4-game series last week and they are now only one game better than before the sweep, and with one fewer week to make up the remaining difference.
Lo Duca with 7 RBIs (yes, RBIs, Mr. McCarver)…who’ve thought that?
The Maine Man tonight…nail the sweep, go home to face Houston, Atlanta, and Philly.
24 games left. If we play just .500 the Phillies need to go 17-7, a .701 clip. And I think we’ll play better than .500.
I know it’s not over, not by a long shot, but the odds are looking good, very good indeed.
I’d like Atlanta to win tonight for 2 reasons: more distance between us and Philly, and to keep the Braves’s idiotic playoff hopes alive.
I too thought that Pedro would never return. What a presence he brings. Utterly no-nonsense about winning, but utterly and delightfully nonsensical otherwise. A grand combination.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
One ugly cesspool of a game today. Maine did a terrific impression of Roger Clemens….this past Sunday. And Phillies are at present clobbering the Braves 8-2.
As Pliny the Elder stated “In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.”
Go Mets.
September 5th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
WHOOPS! Spoke too soon. After leading the Atlanta Barfs 8-2 most of the game, the Phillies rallied to cough up the game 9-8. So I will change my quote to one from Alexander Dumas:
“Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,–’Wait and hope’.”