CityCynic.com

Jerry Seinfeld was in the SNY broadcast booth for the Mets game against the Detroit Tigers today, calling the game and reminiscing about Seinfeld and Lady Gaga’s recent antics with Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez.

Not only was Jerry Seinfeld absolutely hilarious, but he also was really good at calling the game AND providing color comedy commentary!

Seinfeld also discussed Keith Hernandez’ memorable guest appearance on Seinfeld, as SNY came back from break with a couple of clips.

Here are some choice exchanges between the trio from the event:

SEINFELD: “This is the greatest booth in baseball… 1-2 on Johnny Damon…. Gary Cohen is the greatest broadcaster… the best booth”

“I don’t want to do play-by-play. I’m here for the color Mets comedy.”

ME: “Wow, Jerry Seinfeld actually does some great play-by-play. Ron Darling better watch out! His seat is in danger! LOL”

SEINFELD: “Speaking of innovative at first base… Who was more innovative at first base than Keith Hernandez?”

“I dont think there’s anything more fun than being a Mets fan.They have 2 World Championships but they are two of the most exciting a team can have.”

“When are we going to talk about Lady Gaga, that’s why I’m here.”

“Well we don’t understand the kids today & the music business. Maybe, I’m sure we’ll all be bigger fans now that she cursed us out.”

“She should make a nice apology to the Mets fans… then I’m willing to forget the whole thing.”

“Is that Johnny Damon in center?!? What is he doing out there? He can’t cover THAT much ground!”

“Why are the Tigers EVEN HERE?!?”

And when Mets on-field reporter Kevin Burkhardt made a reference to wearing a shirt to the game from the J. Peterman catalog in Seinfeld’s honor (a Seinfeld reference), Jerry replied right back:

“Don’t do my stuff, Kevin.”

I think Gary, Keith, and Ron should have Jerry Seinfeld on once (or twice) EVERY season and make it a yearly Seinfeld Night! So hilarious!

Today marks my one year anniversary with my girlfriend, Melissa.

This past year has been both amazing and exhilarating. We’ve traveled and we’ve spent time together at home. We’ve both seen new places and met new people that have made our lives better. We’ve learned just how great helping each other feels. We’ve enjoyed being in sync and seen more than enough signs of “446″ together.

We’ve tweeted, blogged, and dailyboothed. We’ve used thousands and thousands of cellphone minutes.

She’s inspired me to express myself again in word and photographs. We created a baseball blog together about our favorite MLB teams, the Dodgers and the Mets.

We’ve shared new foods together and enjoyed new experiences. We both loved going to the movies and listening to music together. We’ve decided on and then watched our television shows together.

We’ve shared our love of dinosaurs and history together. We’ve traded baseball stats and players our teams have shared.

We’ve heard our song, You & Me by Dave Matthews Band, many many times, just about everywhere:

And we’ve laughed, cried, joked, debated, discussed, lived, and loved together more than either of us every have before.

And all of that is exactly why our relationship works so well and why she means so much to me.

I’m looking forward to what the next years will bring! Love you, sweetie! <#

Its World Cup time again, which to most Americans means absolutely nothing.

Yet today, there was some palpable excitement about the match between USA and England. Twitter was a abuzz with “fans” asking why the clock counts up instead of down, what the rules are, and how its called soccer and not football.

So with an increased level of attention from sports fans in the United States, you would think the two teams would try and put on a very exciting show to continue capturing our attention.

And wow, what a great game it was when the U.S. tied it up 1-1 before the first half. Even I began to think that maybe this game was exciting to watch.

Then the second half went by without either team scoring. And then the game ended in a 1-1 tie.

Way to make a lame sport seem even lamer, guys.

WAIT, WHAT?!?!?

A once-every-four-years WORLD tournament doesn’t even have overtime?

NO OT?!?

Even NHL games suspend the idiotic overtime shoot-out rule to allow overtime periods in the playoffs. But not World Cup soccer!

And with a game that had Americans excited, no matter how briefly, we can’t even call out our England FC club fans by taunting them about losing to the U.S. team.

How do you like that tie, England? Wow, how lame.

Yeah, thanks for proving that soccer sucks.

I guess part of challenging other people to take the NaBloPoMo challenge is that they decide to tag you with things to post about. Or at least that’s what RedLotusMama tells me.

So without further ado, and in no particular order, I present ten things that make me happy:

1) Baseball – Namely my New York Mets, who have me on the Mets Rollercoaster this season.

2) Having time to myself, including a little bit of silence. Doesn’t happen that often these days…

3) Turtles – Including my several pet turtles, just awesome creatures all around.

4) Discovering new music and listening to my old favorites. Paramore and Dave Matthews Band, thank you.

5) Taking photographs – I always enjoy capturing what I see and sharing it.

6) Twitter (@citycynic) – Meeting new people and tweeting along with my fellow Mets fans!

7) [CENSORED]

8) Dinosaurs. (Nothing more to say)

9) Late Night Comedy – Yes Team Conan, nooo Jay Leno!

10) Her – She’s my everything.

What are some of the things that make you happy?

The Mets have agreed to sign All-Star outfielder Jason Bay to a four-year, $66 million contract, pending a physical, improving their chances of making the playoffs in 2010.

Now while I could go into the next moves the team needs to make to get back to World Series shape, I’d much rather share something I found in the comments section of MLB.com… a poem from a Mets fan (different, right?):

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE METS’ NEXT SEASON

Twas the night before new years / and all through the town / a slight smile was forming / from an uncomfortable frown /

The Mets and J Bay have come come up with a deal / hopefully jumpstarting the teams offseason wheel /

But there is still “quite” an opening / on the teams starting rotation / With an emphasis on quite / which i have in quotation /

There is plenty of room / for the arm of Piniero / But his agent and him / want too much dinero /

We don’t need an ace / we need an arm with no cuts /  a starter with heart / some brains and some guts /

How about Brett Myers from Philly / his teams lookin full / maybe Bedard, Smoltz or Pedro / one or two would be cool /

So on David, on Carlos, on Jose, and John Maine / On Luis, and on Frenchy / I’m not tryin to complain /

You guys need some help / and some Vitamin C / To contend in the East / with the team from Philly /

So rest up this winter / and get ready for Spring /

And keep your fingers crossed / for a World Series Ring

[Originally written and posted on MLB.com by user hudge36. I added the title and formatting for better readability.]

While I definitely don’t agree that John Smoltz or Pedro Martinez are viable options for the Mets future, I do like the effort put into that Mets poetry.

Hopefully the Mets will make the necessary moves and the 2010 season will flow just as smoothly as the above prose, getting our Metsies to the playoffs.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about my New York Mets Christmas tree, I proudly present my list of the Top 10 Mets Christmas Ornaments I don’t (yet) have on my tree:

#1 – Mets Nutcrackers

#1 – Mets Nutcrackers [link]: While watching the Nutcracker Suite, I never imagined the Nutcracker prince watching Mets games, but he had to be doing something while hiding around in that giant present.

#3 - Homemade Mets Sweater

#3 – Homemade Mets Sweater: Jennifer from Major Knitter knitted up this homemade beauty.

#4 - Mets Christmas Tree with Santa

#4 – Mets Christmas Tree with Santa [link]: The best part of this ornament is the Santa putting the Mets star on top of the Christmas tree. Told you Santa was a Mets fan!

#5 - Mets Santa Bear with Mets Santa Hat

#5 – Mets Santa Bear with Mets Santa Hat: No Christmas tree is complete without a Santa bear and no Santa Bear is complete without a Mets Santa hat!

#6 - Mets Snowman with Scarf

#6 – Mets Snowman with Scarf: There are many Mets snowman ornaments out there, but this one has the large Mets logo and matching orange and blue scarf and hat.

#7 - David Wright and Pedro Martinez team up with Santa

#7 – David Wright and Pedro Martinez team up with Santa: Okay, fine. Pedro isn’t exactly a Met anymore, and we’d rather see a Wright and Santana team up with Santa ornament, but the spirit behind this ornament is in the right place, so it made the list. Not sure which position Santa plays though…

#8 - David Wright

#8 – David Wright: Okay, so if you couldn’t stomach the Pedro part of the last ornament after his turn to the dark side (ahem, Philadelphia), then this David Wright ornament is for you. Too bad none of the player ornaments actually look anything like the players they are supposed to represent.

#9 - Mike Piazza Shiny Christmas

#9 – Mike Piazza Shiny Christmas: This ornament kicks it old school in a I-didn’t-just-jump-on-the-Mets-bandwagon sort of way. Plus, Piazza is one of my favorite Mets ever… too bad this ornament can only be found in baseball card packs from the 90′s.

#10 - Mets mini stocking

#10 – Mets mini stocking: Jennifer from Major Knitter is at it again. Am I happy she uses her knitting skills for good and not Yankees stuff evil.

What other Mets Christmas ornaments have you found that you think should be on this list? If you take a look, there are actually many more around than you would ever think of around the web or on your neighbor’s Christmas tree.

At least they can keep our minds off of the injury debacle of 2009 and allow us to focus on the presents waiting for us in the 2010 season!

I had some free time today so I decided to set up my New York Mets Christmas tree!

The idea for the tree came about on a recent trip to Marshall’s, where I found a Mets logo tree skirt and a dozen Mets ornaments that came in plastic candy cane-shaped packaging.

And from there, a few trips to CVS, Target, and Walmart allowed me to add orange and blue lights, several baseball-themed ornaments, and even Mets candy canes to the tree.

So tonight I set it all up, complete with a real Mets baseball tree topper. What do you think?

Mets Christmas tree!

The tree in it's blue and orange glow.

Several Mr. Met's adorn the tree.

The obligatory Mets gnome.

Baseball snowman ornament.

Mets candy cane and Citi Field ornament.

I added some Mets stuffed animals to complete the scene.

One of three Mr. Met ornaments in a natural blue and orange colored glow.

Homemade Mets ticket ornaments from some stubs I had hanging around.

As a diehard Mets fan, I’m super excited with how it turned out. I really was able to get creative putting it all together and it’s the perfect off-season tribute to my beloved Metsies!

I don’t know how I can top this next year… unless I decorate a full-size Mets tree! Uh oh… now I really want to!

Sometimes when I walk by my dad sitting on the couch watching TV, I wish he had the game on.

Or maybe more accurately, I wish he called in to me from the other room and asked me if I was going to watch the World Series with him.

Dad and me at the last game at Shea Stadium.

Its a strange position to be in. I mean, my dad is who originally got me into baseball when I was 5.

It was a sunny afternoon in 1985, the Mets were taking on the Cubs, and I was sitting in the upper deck “red seats” at Shea Stadium as airplanes roared overhead.

He could have taken me to a movie. He could have taken me to the local park and pushed me on the swings. But he decided to take me to a baseball game at the age of 5 and that decision has shaped many aspects of my life ever since.

Not only did that $9 ticket and hot dog experience give me an amazing baseball team to root for over all these years in the Mets, but it gave me something I thought would be a common connection between me and my dad.

But that connection isn’t here in 2009 and I don’t know why.

That’s not to say my dad and I don’t discuss baseball. I’ve given him World Series updates throughout the Fall Classic and Mets injury updates throughout the 2009 season. But that’s not the same as experiencing the ups and downs of a game and bonding over trade rumors and the latest stats.

Upper deck seats, 2009.

I don’t really take all of this personally — my dad really doesn’t follow any sports these days. And maybe he never really did. Instead, maybe that day in the mid-80′s wasn’t a vote for baseball, but rather a vote for father-son bonding. I don’t really know, but the effect it had on me is evident in the license plate frame on my car and the multi-pack of Mets tickets I buy and use each season and the drive to visit Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame, which I finally accomplished with Melissa at the beginning of October.

It made me a diehard Mets fan — I bleed orange and blue — and I just don’t understand why my dad doesn’t also.

Its not like we don’t have things that we bond over. We can talk Obama and politics like nobodies business. Or bring up a sociological principle evident in today’s society and we’re off running, often talking for hours. Bring up the economy and the pros and cons of the death tax, the rise and the fall of the stock market, and the strength of the dollar are sure to follow. And there are other things we both seem to “get” enough to discuss.

Its just that none of these things are baseball. None of them involve rooting on a team through a 162 game season. None of them involve believing in something so much that not making the playoffs makes you cry.

Goodbye Shea... Thank you!

I know other people’s fathers watch every baseball game they can, the big game every Sunday, and any other assortment of sports events that come along. They curse at the television, throw back a couple beers, and quote baseball history like the gospel.

So yeah, sometimes I wish my dad had the game on.

But maybe, just maybe, our shared baseball experience almost 25 years ago was supposed to be only an example of how much my dad loves me.

And baseball is supposed to be a gift I share and enjoy with others in my life to show them how much I love them. Hey, I like the sound of that.

It sure could have been worse though… he could have taken me to a *gasp* Yankees game all those years ago.

So this is it baseball fans: We’re down to the “final four” of the MLB League Championship round. Three sweeps and a frigid four-game series in Colorado later, and after going 2-2 in my previously blogged Division Series picks, I’m ready to try again for this round. Just no more sweeps, okay guys?

NATIONAL LEAGUE

This series is sure to come down to which team makes the least mistakes, as both teams have proved they have what it takes to overcome obstacles in their way. Look for this to be a hard-fought series with the Dodgers putting down last year’s World Champs under the skilled management decisions of Joe Torre, just as long as LA’s bullpen can manage to stay intact.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

As a New Yorker, you might be inclined to think I would stick with the Yankees at this point in the game. But that’s just not how this Mets fan operates. I think the Yankees had the last century to dominate and their time has passed. Although, I’d like to see a matchup of “Joe Torre’s Revenge,” if they were to meet the Dodgers in the World Series, the baseball fan in me would much rather take in the first-ever Freeway World Series. (Even if its on the left coast.)

So in that sense, rooting for the Yankees to fall, even though I don’t think they will, is essentially rooting for the Angels, a team I admit I know and care little about except for their absurdly long name.

On the other hand, I am definitely standing behind the Dodgers to win it all. They’ve shown a special resilience this season that is hard to be matched in many playoff teams of the past decade and as long as they play smart baseball, they have a great chance to take it all this year. Joe Torre definitely deserves it and the players that stepped up to form a strong team in Los Angeles (like Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier) also deserve to win it all.

And while maybe all those trips through the Jackie Robinson Rotunda at Citi Field on my way to watch the Mets, including one with my favorite Dodgers fan in the world, have colored my baseball vision slightly more blue this year than ever before, I think this is the Dodgers year. They have something to prove and this is their chance.

Oh, and phuck the Phillies! :)

ALSO INTERESTING

–Although baseball fans will have to suffer through the awful coverage of the ALCS and World Series by FOX Sports and their flawed leader Joe Buck, at least we can take some refuge in the slightly better TBS coverage. (Hey, at least its not ESPN, right?) I know that I’ve mentioned previously just how much Ron Darling brings to the game coverage and I’d just like to give props to TBS for hiring him as a color commentator.

–The NLCS and ALCS feature all four teams with $100 million+ payrolls this year. It will be interesting to see which teams get the greatest return on their outlandish investments.

–Let’s hope that the umpiring crews in this round of the playoffs are better than in the last. All four Division Series featured at least one blown call at first base, with some featuring multiple blown calls (as shown by instant replay) throughout the games. The playoffs are supposed to be decided by the heroics and pratfalls of the players on the teams, and not by the oft apparently narrowsighted men in blue. Here’s to 2 series without blown calls…

RELATED: What Torre Vs. Yankees Could Do For Baseball (Bleacher Report)

Well baseball fans, it’s that time of the year again… the playoffs!

And despite watching my Mets fall to injury after injury, I’m still a huge baseball fan and I’m excited about the 2009 postseason.

Watching the Dodgers clinch was amazing this year and seeing the Yankees win 103 times just boggles my mind. Who can stop the Phillies from repeating (with Pedro Martinez onboard this time around) and are the Cardinals really unstoppable with slugger Albert Pujols on fire? The Angels looked good all season long and the Red Sox never stopped fighting. Do the Twins or the Rockies even stand a chance? Its gonna be exciting!

Not to mention that this is my first baseball postseason following along on Twitter (and tweeting at @citycynic, check it out!).

And like every year since running this site, I’m back with my picks. So here we go…

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Rockies vs. Phillies - Rockies in 4.

The Phillies are a very strong team, but the Rockies have the added drive to win their first ever World Series. Look for them to come on ultra strong and find a way around the Phillies’ homerun sluggers and defense. The Rockies are a younger team that always seems to dig deep to win.

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Cardinals vs. Dodgers - Dodgers in 5.

The Cardinals have been as hot as Pujols’ bat all season, but even with a slowdown at the end, the Dodgers, led by Ethier and Kemp, have always found a way, even with some shaky bullpen pitching. While the Cards’ starting pitching may make this series a bit bumpy for LA, they’ve proved they can power through any obstacle this season.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Twins vs. Yankees – Yankees in 3.

While the Twins could certainly put something together with the great talents of Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, the Yankees have been chomping at the bit to put in a good playoff bid, after missing the playoffs last season, and will likely run right over Minnesota, who seemingly put it all out there in their AL Tiebreaker game against the Tigers.

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Red Sox vs. Angels – Red Sox in 4.

The Red Sox may have the most-feared starting pitching in the playoffs this year. The Angels’ running game is something they will have to contend with, as they haven’t thrown out so many runners on the basepaths this year. If the Red Sox can keep their bats swinging away and avoid making any costly mistakes, they will take this series from the Angels.

WHO I’M ROOTING FOR

With the absence of the Mets again this postseason (sorry, had to plug my team again), I am looking towards the most exciting team in the National League this season to win it all. That would be none other than the Los Angeles Dodgers with my buddy Joe Torre at the helm. Won’t that just burn the Yankees brass! They have looked great all season and have just been rolling along. Keep on rolling, Blue!

As for the American League, I would love to see the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim get past both Boston and the Yankees to bring a no-holds barred super Freeway Series (much like the 2000 Subway Series) to California this year. Heck, they can certainly use the tourism revenue, right Arnold? But this Angels team is certainly not the strongest team they’ve brought to the playoffs, so I’m going with the Red Sox to outlast the Yankees and bring a “We have Manny and you don’t” matchup in the Fall Classic.

And of course, the team with Manny is the team that wins. Silly, yes. But just as a matter of fact. :P

ALSO INTERESTING

Also interesting is to see that TBS’ postseason coverage includes the Mets’ SNY’s Ron Darling for color commentary. After suffering through ESPN’s and FOX’s terrible coverage this baseball season (Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Joe Morgan, I’m looking at you!), it will be nice to enjoy a division series reprieve until we get back to FOX’s dry and boring coverage of the league championship series and World Series. Not sure how much insight David Wells will add, but I always enjoy Cal Ripken Jr. onboard as well.

Now let’s play some baseball!