Nets Collapse vs. Hornets in Wallace Debut

Could this be the core of a Nets playoff run THIS YEAR? The Nets answered that question tonight with a resounding NO.

The Nets blew a 12 point fourth quarter lead at home to a team with 10 wins tonight in what could be the KHH bloggers’ last Nets event together this year. Things were looking great in the third quarter as the Nets took a big lead into the fourth, but the defense was just too terrible and the shots stopped falling offensively, and the Nets did not show a strong enough will to win. First I will talk about the plot of the game, then some individual player notes, and then the notes and jokes from this game.

Gerald Wallace in his Nets debut

This was a very boring game until the end of the third quarter. It seemed like the Nets always had a lead of between 2 and 5 points and that it was never going to change. We always had a feeling that the Nets would win, because they are the more talented team (it is rare that I can say that) and they are playing at home, but in the fourth quarter, a huge collapse occurred. I will start off towards the end of the third quarter. At the end of this quarter, the Nets jumped out to a 10 point lead with about 2 minutes remaining. However, their defense then just stopped trying and they let the Hornets cut the lead to 5 and it looked like it was going to be yet another Nets end of quarter collapse. But then, something unusual happened. The Nets finished the quarter strong, highlighted by a Morrow steal, pass ahead to D-Will, and a Crash 3 at the buzzer, his first 3 as a Net. After this, everyone in the Rock was happy, it was t-shirt toss time, and the Nets were up by 12, a safe lead when you are playing an awful team at home. But in the fourth quarter, the Hornets started to chip away at the lead. We still felt safe, because it is still the Hornets. With about 90 seconds left however, Jarrett Jack hit a 3 to give the Hornets a 1 point lead. We were shocked, but honestly I was not concerned. Deron will lead the Nets down the floor and figure out how to get them a basket and the Nets will win this game. But Deron did not make shots and layups that he usually can make in crunch time. After a Deron miss, the Hornets had the ball back up by 1. Wallace knocked the ball out of bounds with 1.7 seconds left on the shot clock, so we thought this would probably be a terrible shot by New Orleans and the Nets would have another chance to take the lead. The ball is inbounded to Chris Kaman near the 3-point line. Good. Except that he shoots because he didn’t have any other options, and absolutely swishes a 3. Yes, Chris Kaman swished a 3. After reviewing it, it was ruled a 2-pointer, which is a big difference, but it was still a humungous shot. After another Deron miss, the Hornets got the ball back again and had Marco “Belly” Belinelli hoisted up a long, long 3 as the shot clock was expiring. Swish. 6 point lead, game over. Nets lose in Gerald Wallace’s “much anticipated” debut.

Chris Kaman making an impossible dagger-shot against the Nets

Now before I go any further, I must point out that Kaman’s, Belly’s, and even Jarrett Jack’s shots were all very lucky and should not have went in. Also, Deron would usually make his shots in crunch time because the Hornets defense is not good and Deron should have dominated them. Kaman has never made a 3 in his NBA career (0-16) and it would have been his first, and Belly’s shot was really ridiculous. But this loss really, really hurts the Nets chances of doing anything this year. Coming into this game, the Nets were 5.5 games behind the Knicks and Bucks, and with a Knicks win and Nets loss tonight, they are now 6.5 back with 20 games remaining. That is terrible, and with the Knicks and Bucks improving by the day, I really give them no chance at making the playoffs. I have said this all along. Even if they got Dwight I wouldn’t have expected them to make the playoffs. But at this point, anybody who thinks they will make it is a wishful-thinking idiot. Even though Gerald Wallace is a large improvement over Deshawn Stevenson, he will not make a big enough impact on this team. And when you think about it, this was almost the whole Nets team with the exception of Jordan Farmar, and they were still unable to beat a terrible team at home. You can also say they were without Brook Lopez, but we have no idea if or when he will come back to the team this year. And we definitely can’t wait any longer for him behind 6.5 games with 20 remaining. So, please, do not say Nets and playoffs in the same sentence ever again until next season.

Gerald Green definitely knew that it was Nets "Green Night".

Now on to the individual player performances. Deron had a pretty good game until the end of the fourth quarter, finishing with 20 points and 12 assists. However, he only shot 9-24 (I called he would have a bad shooting game). He had his share of nice dishes though, mostly to Morrow and Gerald Green. I predicted a big game from Marshon, who only had 10 points, but he played a whole lot better than he did last night. This is the kind of performance I would have expected from him before the start of the season when my expectations got raised. The Hump only had 8 points on 3-10 shooting and no Hump Dunks, but he did have 16 rebounds (I predicted at least 15) and a big Hump Block. A very typical game from Kris. In his Nets debut, Gerald Wallace was honestly disappointing to me. I know that he is a huge upgrade over Deshawn, but 11 points on 3-9 shooting just isn’t that good for a starting small forward. He is known for his good defense, but Trevor Ariza, who he was guarding for most of the game, still had 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists on the night. Wallace only had 3 boards and 3 assists. Moving on to the bench players. Morrow did exactly what Net fans expect he would do tonight. Knock down open shots. He was playing against a bad defense and was getting open looks all night. He was 8-13 from the field, 4-4 from 3, and did not do much else. This is exactly what the Nets expect from Morrow every night, but he does not always do this. He did it tonight and we can’t ask him for anything more. It was “Green Night” at the Rock, and Gerald definitely took notice, especially in the first half. He had 16 points for the game, and 12 in the first half. He also had one humungous block in the fourth quarter that was probably goaltending, but I think the referees were so impressed with how high he got that they just didn’t want to call it. Johan and J-Will played way too many minutes tonight. Even though they only played 15 minutes combined, it was 15 too many. Between them they had 0 points and 3 fouls. So typical. After his terrible 2-13 shooting performance last night, Sundiata was benched by Avery in favor of Jerry Smith, who made his home debut. I was not impressed by Jerry, but Sundiata is starting to piss me off a little bit with his bad decision making, low shooting percentage, and turnovers. His fourth quarter garbage time efficiency cannot save him from Avery. The bottom line is that the Nets need Farmar to come back now. Another surprising benching was Deshawn, who had been a starter for pretty much the entire season, including last night. He did not play a minute tonight and was most definitely angry about it. I guess Avery doesn’t like half court alley oops that go in the basket. But seriously, I’m glad I didn’t have to witness any disgusting Deshawn 3-pointers tonight.

Now for some jokes and notes:

• It was truly an adventure getting to The Rock tonight. First of all, it was St. Patrick’s Day, which meant that Penn Station would be even more crowded than usual. Secondly, Raphi somehow thought I wanted him to meet me at Penn Station instead of 72nd street as usual, and this caused us to miss our 6:39 train and instead had to take a disgusting 7:03 train after the 6:53 train got delayed and never arrived (LOL). When we finally got to Penn, there was a humungous (I like that word tonight for some reason) crowd of people formed around the gate to the track (very few of them going to the Nets game) and it would have taken us at least 5 or 10 minutes to get through all of them onto the train. So instead, we attempted to take a Penn Station elevator downstairs. Disgusting, I know, but what can you do. There was a crowd around the elevator too, but we got on the second elevator to the track level, but just barely. A woman already in the elevator didn’t want me to get on it because she thought it was too crowded. She was obviously very drunk and I was not going to listen to her. As soon as the doors closed, she said “I’m going to throw up”. Thank God she did not. After the doors closed, the elevator did not move for 5 seconds and then jerked downwards very quickly. I was sure it was broken, but somehow we ended up on the track level. It probably broke when the next round of people got on it. On the way back after the game, we got to the Newark Station at 10:30 (because it was an 8 PM game for some reason) and there was not another train to New York for 40 minutes. There was no way we were going to be waiting in Newark for that amount of time, so we were forced to take the Path. It actually went surprisingly well for Path standards, and we got home at a somewhat reasonable hour.

This is how Penn Station looked tonight.

• Now I will talk about our seats for this game. We waited until the last minute as usual to get tickets to this game on stubhub, and were hoping that something would open up in lower center. Nothing did, and we were forced to buy $2 tickets for lower baseline. What a ripoff. Raphi brought his Raptors tickets for section 7 (lower center) and we were planning on moving over there. We took seats in section 6 after avoiding a security guard, and were going to move over to section 7 at the first opportunity. We saw her look at us, but we didn’t think she would actually care. After sitting in section 6 for 5 or 10 minutes and preparing to move over one section, she came over and asked for our tickets. I was absolutely shocked. How did she know? She kicked us out and we went to our real seats, but for very briefly. At the first timeout, it was the first of two t-shirt tosses (throw aways), which are excellent times to move down because of all the chaos over getting a terrible, advertisement-ridden throw away t-shirt. We moved down with ease and sat in the floor risers for the entire game. However, on our way down, I took a quick break. To catch a throw away shirt, my first of the year after catching many last year at both Nets and Mets games. It was a great moment. It is even a pretty good shirt, after some terrible shirts sponsored by the New Jersey hospital last year. It has the Nets “35 years” logo on it, which is a pretty cool think to have for a die-hard Nets fan, I guess. The only problem is that under that it has a disgusting, rainbow advertisement for Party City. Raphi recommended that I bleach it out. It is a possibility. Whatever. For a moment, I would like to go back to talking about when we got kicked out of our fake seats, which were not much better than our actual tickets. The Nets sold 11,000 tickets to this game, which means that there were 7,000 empty seats. There were actually much more than that because I’m sure some people bought tickets to this game thinking that it will be Dwight’s debut and decided not to show up because he wasn’t playing. A few years ago at the Izod Center, during the 12-70 season, ushers did not care at all if you moved down. But now, even more than last year, they are cracking down on move-downers, and it is very annoying. I think they are trying to become more professional in preparation for the move to Brooklyn, but it is just making them lose fans. Seriously Nets, stop with the ushers. Nobody cares about this team and it doesn’t matter if some people move down a few rows to take what would have been an empty seat. It is actually the reason why I am a Nets fan and not a Knicks fan; you can get cheap seats to Nets games and move down, while at Knicks games you pay a ton of money to have a bad seat and can’t move down. I hope and pray that the Nets will not sell out games next year in Brooklyn and that we will be able to continue buying cheap tickets and moving down.

Empty seats at The Rock. Even though this picture is of the upper level, the lower level has plenty of empty seats too.

• It was extremely hot, literally, in the Rock tonight. I don’t mean that the building was a happening place where people were going crazy. I mean that it was literally at least 75 degrees, a very uncomfortable temperature. I’m not sure why this happened, and I think the players were probably pretty uncomfortable. Once on “Rock Vision” they showed a woman fanning herself with her hand. Such a joke.

If only it could have been another Night of Chinese Culture, we would have been able to use these.

• The Hornets wore their disgusting yellowy mustardy jerseys tonight and they were very hard to watch. Those uniforms really are trash and I don’t know why any Hornets fan would ever buy one. The combo of Chris Kaman and that jersey made them even more disgusting. How did they beat the Nets while wearing that?

Chris Kaman wearing his disgusting Hornets uniform.

• I think that Chris Kaman saw us making fun of him on this blog and was out for vengeance tonight. He scored 20 points, including that huge almost-3. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but he is a quality NBA player and he earned it tonight. I will shut up about for a few days.

This was the last event that two KHH bloggers will attend together until May. It was also Raphi’s last ever Nets game at The Rock, but he is sure to return for other joke events (Liberty, anyone?). However, I still have plenty of amazing Nets action ahead of me at The Rock, featuring tons of joke teams including the Cavaliers on Monday, George’s Wizards on Wednesday, and Charlotte and Bob’s Cats on Saturday! Hurray! I would have expected the Nets to win at least 2 if not all 3 of those games, but after tonight, I really don’t know. For Raphi, the Nets had a great run at The Rock, and the Nets will definitely miss him attending their games. The Nets went a classic 0-5 when both KHH bloggers attend their games this season. Luckily, I will be going by myself for the next 3 games. When I go without Raphi, the Nets are a perfect 1-0!

Nets Get Blown Out by Dwight, Magic

Dwight was able to spend plenty of time on the bench today because the Magic simply did not need him.

Just a day after the Nets did not get Dwight Howard, Dwight and his Magic blew out the Nets in Orlando, 86-70, and it wasn’t that close. This game featured garbage time from literally start to finish, and was a very boring game with few, if any, highlights. Both teams knew that Orlando was going to win this game from the start, and both teams essentially stopped trying midway through the third quarter. The Nets were unable to hit any of their shots (33% from the field, 30% from 3) and their starters played horribly. The bench played significantly better than the starters tonight, but the starters got the Nets out of the game early and the bench was not able to lead a comeback. First I will talk about the individual players, and then the implications of this game.

Yet another alley-oop finish from Gerald Green.

Aside from Deshawn, of all people, the starters shot 5-34 tonight. That’s 14%, and that’s why the Nets scored 70 points and never stood a chance to win this game. This was one of The Hump’s worst games of the last two seasons, coming off of some of his best performances. He was 0-6 from the field, had 4 points, and 3 rebounds. He was not aggressive, and the rebounds were not finding him like they usually do. Marshon shot 1-11 for 2 points. He has these kinds of games more than occasionally, and definitely had one tonight. However, when he has a terrible game like this, usually his next game is pretty good, so we will see what he can do tomorrow. Sundiata shot 2-13 for 6 points and 1 assist. Yes, 1 assist for the starting point guard. What a disaster. Moving on to my favorite starter of the night, Deshawn Stevenson. The box score says he had 11 points, but he really had 8 in his last game as a starter before Gerald Wallace will take his role on the team. Because the Nets only had one true point guard tonight with Deron and Farmar not playing, Deshawn was sometimes the point guard of the offense. Of course this did not turn out well and he only had 1 assist. He actually shot 3-5 from 3 which is incredible for him. But he should have been 2-4. My favorite joke play of the Nets’ season to this point may have been Petro’s 3 against Miami with 40 seconds left in a blow out game. But this may have topped it. With about 10 seconds left in the third quarter and the Nets down by 15, they kind of had a fast break with Deshawn leading it and Jordan Williams trailing behind. Now, we all know that J-Will is extremely uncoordinated and will probably not be an NBA player much beyond this year. He also has probably never finished an alley oop in his short career. But Deshawn tried it anyway and the pass was terrible, sailing far over Jordan’s head. However, it was in the direction of the rim, and after he made the pass, I saw the net swish. I thought it was short of the basket and swished the net in the same way that an airball swishes the net. But the Magic player went to take the ball out of bounds to pass it back in and finally I had realized what happened. Deshawn just swished in an alley oop from half court. Amazing, unbelievable, incredible, any other adjective that you can think of. You can see the video below. Moving on to the bench, which was led by, as usual, Gerald Green. Green scored 14 points with all of them coming in the first half. He was pretty much the Nets offense in that half and they would have been nothing without him. However, he didn’t show up in the 2nd half, and so the Nets scored 70 points. In the first half, Gerald had his share of highlight reel alley-oops, athletic lay ups, and 3’s. Morrow shot 3-12, but somehow had 5 assists. He wasn’t impressive. Jordan Williams had 10 points and 6 rebounds, but they were all in extreme garbage time. Petro actually did not have a bad game and was watchable. I can’t believe I just said that. He had 8 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists, on 4-7 shooting. He always seems to have his best games in blowouts (see his Miami 3). I guess he is happy he wasn’t traded. Lastly, Jerry Smith scored 5 points in his first ever NBA game. Shortly after he checked in, he made a 3 on his first ever NBA shot. It was a good moment, but honestly nobody cares. Every Net played at least 17 minutes and no Net played more than 31, with Petro (eww) leading the way. That’s when you know it is a complete and utter garbage time game. For Orlando, Dwight had 18 points and 6 rebounds but he didn’t really seem to care too much about this game. He knew the Nets had no chance. The Magic had a balanced attack and even garbage players like Chris Duhon, Earl Clark, and DeAndre Liggins got minutes. This game had a celebration-like atmosphere for the Orlando fans and front office and the Nets helped Orlando celebrate by not showing up tonight.

Jerry Smith in his first ever NBA game.

This was a game that the Nets had no business in, so I am not that mad that they got blown out. It was a fitting finish for Orlando’s victory in the Dwight Howard sweepstakes and the Nets’ loss in said sweepstakes. The Nets will host the Hornets tomorrow night at The Rock, and it will be a KHH reunion as we will be there. It will also be the start of a new Nets mini-era as they welcome Gerald Wallace and say so long to Deshawn in the starting lineup, thank god. Deron will also likely be playing, and combo that with the Hornets being the opponents, and we should expect to see the Nets victorious. We hope to see many of our fans at the game, too! There are currently more penny tickets that you can imagine, $3 lower level tickets, and $5 lower center tickets. It is sure to be a KHH classic.

The Nets will be welcoming this hideous-looking creature into The Rock tomorrow night.

Nets Home Opener Preview

The Nets will try to extend their one game winning streak as they face the Atlanta Hawks in Newark for their home opener tonight. My little sister and me will embark on a train to Newark. This will be my sister’s first ever trip to a professional basketball game. My selection of my sister was in fact a last resort. One KHH blogger flew to the Dominican and the other flew to Mexico. Other friends have no interest in the Nets.

I miss Quinton Ross.

The siblings will be seated in the Loud and Proud section at the game. I must say, this section is a complete joke. When I went to buy the tickets at the Prudential Center this morning, there were less than ten other fans who made the journey and bought Loud and Proud tickets. We were supposed to be allowed to purchase Loud and Proud tickets at 11:00 a.m., but I was locked out of the Prudential Center and standing on the sidewalk for a long time before and after 11:00. The whole excursion took about two and a half hours. To my surprise, I was requested to reveal some Nets merchandise before I could buy the tickets. I showed the ticket lady my Deron Williams free giveaway shirt. The Loud and Proud section will probably be the emptiest section. That being said, I would have had to pay $70 more per seat if I had purchased these seats on StubHub. There will be a crowd at this game.

The game itself will probably be a hilarious joke. In fact, I expect the whole evening to be funny. The Hawks are athletic, but certainly a KHH favorite. Al Horford, Joe Johnson, and Josh Smith will make noise. Petro will get the starting nod. DeShawn Stevenson will probably get some more playing time. The Hump will make an extended appearance. I will have to figure out who’s who on the Nets while 3 Williamses play together. I will get to see Mehmet Okur. Damion James might do something other than rebound.

Bernie Williams will have a halftime concert at tonight’s game. He’s won some awards playing the guitar. I liked Bernie Williams back when I was a Yankee fan in first and second grade. That was a long time ago.

Mets-Phillies Recap

Let's Go Mets!

This might have been my favorite Mets game of the year so far. One reason this is is because it felt like a real baseball game and not just Mets terribleness. First of all, the weather was good for the first time in a very long time. It was neither pouring rain, freezing cold, or snowing. Even Section 401 was somewhat full. Because of the weather, people actually showed up to this game. In fact, there were very few seats (unless you wanted to sit in the upper deck in left field, but more on that later). I would say that about 25% of the fans attending the game were Phillies fans. And why shouldn’t they come up to New York for a weekend series? It is a 2 hour trip by train and they get to see their team for cheaper than they would in Philadelphia. And their team has a better chance of winning because they are playing the Mets. The tickets for this game were very expensive on Stubhub because of all the fans, but luckily I chose this game as my free tickets for a rain out earlier in the year and these were our best seats at a baseball game in a while.

Now on to the actual game. The Phillies won 5-2 with Cole Hamels picking up the win to improve to 7-2, Mike O’Connor very deservedly getting the loss, and Ryan Madson securing the save. This game was a Mets bullpen catastrophe on every level after the starter, Mike Pelfrey pitched a beautiful game for the Mets. The disaster begun fairly unassumingly. After a pretty unwatchable and boring game, the Phillies had 2 outs in the 8th inning and nobody on base. Pelfrey was still on the mound and the Mets held a 2-1 lead. Unfortunately for Mike, he gave up a single to Jimmy Rollins and was pulled from the game. He received a huge standing ovation as he exited and this will probably cause him to pitch terribly in his next game because he will be overconfident. Anyway, enter Mike O’Connor. After allowing Rollins to steal second, Chase Utley hit a single to left. Keep in mind that the only reason O’Connor was brought into the game was to get a lefty, Utley, out, and he gave him a game-tying hit. He will probably be sent back down to the minors after this performance. Enter Jason Isringhausen. Utley attempts to steal second and Ronny Paulino’s throw sails into center field. Utley is now at third and there are still two outs. Issy (or should I say Sissy) then walks Placido Polanco and leaves the game without recording an out. Enter Tim Byrdak. He comes in as the lefty specialist to get Ryan Howard out and keep the game tied at 2. However, Howard doubles down the right field line and 2 runs score. In the 9th inning, Dale Thayer (who made his Mets debut) gave up 1 more run and the Mets were officially out of the game. They did absolutely nothing in the bottom of the 9th against Ryan Madson. One of the reasons that this was my favorite game so far this season is that this is such a typical Mets-Phillies game. This is exactly what I expected. I thought the Mets would take a lead, but of course disappoint the fans in the end like usual. They did the exact same thing yesterday as well. I don’t know how die-hard Mets fans are able to survive this. Even though I try to root for them, I can’t get myself to do it. They are just too terrible.

Dale Thayer. He is now apparently a reliever for the Mets.

Now on to the jokes from the game:

• As we arrived at Shea, we realized that Pepsi Max was unfortunately back, and they were back with a vengeance. There was tons of Pepsi Max stuff outside the stadium including an annoying DJ yelling at everyone. There were also huge bottles of Pepsi Max looming over everyone and girls with free samples of Pepsi Max. It was disgusting and horrifying. I refused the temptation to participate in the devilish activities before the game, but after the game I took a free can of Pepsi Max as I was leaving the stadium. I had about 4 sips of it before throwing it out in a subway garbage can. It was as bad as I thought it would be if not worse. However, it probably gave me the caffeine to be writing this article right now. As we were walking up the staircase to the subway, the stairs were littered with unopened and one-sip-taken-out-of Pepsi Max cans. It was terrifying. I should have knocked one of them over by accident and then the Pepsi Max would drip down the stairs grossing everyone out. It would have been quite funny. Also, after wearing my Mets throw-away shirt tonight to the game, I realized that I am a walking advertisement for Pepsi Max because it has an advertisement on the back. Maybe I should just cross it out with a black marker. Any better suggestions? See Pepsi Max Pictures below:

Pepsi Max Stand

Pepsi Max Bottle

• As we entered Citi Field, the Mets gave us free “Tote Bags”. It is really just a bag with a belt around it and it looks pretty feminine. It also has an advertisement for Harrah’s Casino. We took our bags into the stadium with us and used them in various ways. I will talk more about these Tote Bags later on. See pictures below:

Mets Tote Bags

Mets Tote Bags With Peanuts

Mets Tote Bag

Mets Tote Bag With Peanuts

Mets Tote Bags with Peanuts

Mets Logo On Mets Tote Bag

Mets Tote Bag Belt

Peanuts Inside Mets Tote Bag

• As we arrived we noticed the annoying foam finger guy. People actually bought stuff for him today. They could have spent that money on a lower level Nets ticket! Idiots…

Annoying Foam Finger Guy (people actually buy these things)

• As part of rewarding their season ticket holders, the Mets chose some season ticket holders to go on the field before the game. It was mostly just old people. Each person went to a position and when the Mets went onto the field they shook hands with the Met who played their position. It was kind of a joke. See pictures below:

Random Season Ticket Holders on Field

Random Season Ticket Holder on Field

• After arriving to our very good seats, we noticed the upper deck in left field. In every game we have went to so far this season, nobody has sat in those seats. They are always empty. The Mets just never sell those tickets. This was for the most part the same tonight except for one section. I assume that there must have been a birthday party or something like that in this one section because there were almost no people in the other sections. It is pretty hilarious. Also, during the 7th inning stretch, there was one guy sitting under the out-of-town scoreboard in the left field upper deck and he was standing up and dancing and wanting to get a shirt. Good luck, because you will need a miracle. See pictures of the left field upper deck below:

Shea Stadium Upper Deck Left Field

Shea Stadium Upper Deck Left Field

• After the 1st inning we decided to break out the peanuts. They were as disgusting as we remember them being (we haven’t been to Shea in a few weeks) but luckily there were less than there are at Yankee Stadium. There weren’t many perfume nuts, however I did get one that was pitch black after being burned in an oven for probably 5 days. It was super perfumy. After we opened the peanuts, I thought of a great idea. We will put all of our peanut shells in Raphi’s Tote Bag and then Raphi will have to decide what to do with all of them. We carefully positioned the bag under Petro/GadZoom’s dunking bucket (AKA cup holder) so that when we dunked or shot, the peanuts would go into the bag. I suggested dumping them all in one urinal in the Citi Field bathroom but Raphi was too scared. He still has yet to make a decision and still has possession of all of the peanuts. See peanut pictures below:

Peanut Shells in Tote Bag Close Up

Peanut Shells in Tote Bag Close Up With Peanut Bag

Peanut Shells in Tote Bag with Peanut Bag

Peanut Shell in Tote Bag

• In the 4th inning, Mike Pelfrey had a balk with runners on 1st and 2nd. Unfortunately neither runner scored which would have made this a lot funnier. Still, a balk is a balk, and it made this game a little more of a joke.
• In the 6th inning, a fan won 6 months of Tide laundry detergent courtesy of BJ’s. Congratulations. This was a terrible Mets giveaway and I am thankful that I did not win it. Have fun washing clothes for 6 months. Is that a reward or a punishment? Probably punishment.
• Raphi claims that he got bit by a Shea mosquito during the game. Mosquitos usually love my blood but I have not yet noticed any bites. I’m glad Citi Field mosquitos like Raphi more than me.
• After the 7th inning, I noted that the Mets defense had been surprisingly good tonight. That is, until the 7th inning. In the 8th inning it was disgustingly bad including Ronny Paulino’s awful throwing error.
• After 2 outs were recorded in the 8th inning, it took the Mets 4 pitchers to get out of the inning. The foursome are Mike Pelfrey, Mike O’Connor, Jason Isringhausen, and Tim Byrdak. All those terrible pitchers just to get one out.
• During the later innings of the game, Raphi and I moved up successfully 3 or 4 times. I was pretty impressed with it and was not expecting it. I guess the reason we were able to do this was because the Mets fans were so disgusted with their team after the top of the 8th inning. They just wanted to leave Shea immediately. That was good news for us, and I got some nice close-up shots at the end of the game. You will see the pictures from the game towards the end of this article.
• After the game was over and the Phillies won, we were one of the first ones to get to the Phillies dugout. We saw all the players leave and we did not get any balls. However, the pitching coach and the people from the bullpen had yet to leave. We waited for them and I believe the Phillies pitching coach threw a ball in our direction. I had no shot at it, but Raphi had a small chance. He reached out as far as he could and knocked the ball closer to him and made an impressive grab, stealing it away from some Phillies fans. I was impressed to say the least. I didn’t know he had it in him. After getting the ball, he then put it into his peanut bag to make it even more disgusting. It now smells like peanuts. Ew. See picture below:

Peanut Shells in Tote Bag with Baseball!

Here are some pictures from the actual game:

Jimmy Rollins

Placido Polanco Stretching

Placido Polanco

 

Justin Turner

 

Jose Reyes

Carlos Ruiz

Philly Fielders

 

Justin Turner

Raphi's Favorite Ben Francisco

 

Ryan Madson

Our next KHH event will be on Monday, Memorial Day, as the Mets host the Pirates at Shea. We received these tickets for free for sitting through Mets-Nationals a few weeks ago and we picked up our tickets for this game today. It is sure to be a great one, and we will probably go to at least one more Mets-Pirates game in the series. That is all for now, but look out for a video of the announcement of the Mets starting lineup coming soon. Also, Mets-Nets comparisons will finish up tomorrow!