I made the mistake of listening to Mike and the Mad Dog today. I was curious. They had been exposed by the events of the weekend. Rarely has there been a more dramatic example of how completely Mike and the Mad Dog distort the nature of the game. Nobody can ever say what they said over and over last week: that a team that has made it to the playoffs will probably not win a single game. When it comes to something as unpredictable as baseball, nobody should ever have the fatuous certainty of victory that Mike Francesa had. So how were they going to spin this?
Well, they began by joking. Mike only wants to talk about football. Hahaha. Then he acknowledges that he was disappointed. Not that he was wrong to be so certain. He is only disappointed. And so with the same pretense to wisdom and knowledge that he always has, he starts talking about what the Yankees should do. As if that’s the goddamn issue. As if it matters. As if we don’t already know what they’re going to do. They’re going to get rid of some people who don’t deserve to be gotten rid of. And they’re going to hire some people who won’t deserve the contracts they will be given. What else do they ever do?
They sell their friend Joe Torre down the river, by acknowledging that there could be a reason to fire him. And then they say all the things that Mets fans have been saying for months, about how unenthusiastic and uninvolved the Yankees seem. They don’t have the spirit or the cohesion to win. But had this ever occurred to Mike when his unbeatable Yankees began their series against the Tigers? Was there any real sense in his mind that this was a powerful yet unhappy and flaccid team just waiting to be beaten? I don’t remember him admitting this possibility. Do you?
I really loved what they did after bashing the Yankees for an hour, without even mentioning the triumph of the Mets. They take Gary Cohen and Howie Rose to task for, get this, showing too much enthusiasm in some of the calls in the game in which the Mets beat the Dodgers to win their first NDLS series in six years. They “went over the top.” I guess this wasn’t really a legitimate cause for celebration. It bothered them that Gary Cohen was so happy when the Mets regained the lead after blowing an original 4-0 lead. Can you believe this? Mets Fans of long standing, do you remember what we all felt when Mike Scioscia hit his home run in the 1988 playoffs? Do you remember what it was like to deserve to win a pennant, to be ahead, to be so close, and not to be able to come back? The Mets came back this time. There was reason to be joyful. Gary and Howie expressed our joy. Mike and the Mad Dog, who have built their cartoonish personas to be over the top at all times, think that Gary and Howie went over the top. I love it.
I marvel at them. Especially since the theme of the previous hour had been how little spirit the Yankees had shown. Didn’t it ever occur to Mike and Chris that the enthusiasm of Gary and Howie, an enthusiasm that unites this team, and its fans, and even its announcers, is exactly the reason why the Mets are in the postseason and the Yankees aren’t? How could they be so dumb as to condemn this? Being happy when your team pulls ahead in what all the rest of us think is a big game is what baseball is about. Baseball, Mike, is not about pretending to know something you don’t know. It is about being so happy when something you have been hoping for happens.
