Archie Bunker's Army

Sad news revealed to avid ABA readers this morning when Jaap Stijl, founder and head (only) writer for Archie Bunker's Army announced he will miss the majority of the postseason and the better part of the winter with a combination of writer's block, repetitive motion strain and no telephone line through which to run the internet. "Naturally we are disappointed not to have been able to finish out the season," Stijl's publicist, Vladimir Kopf mentioned to reporters at a smoked-filled press conference this afternoon. "Mister Stijl was looking forward to the rampant speculation of which player would be targeted for a billion dollar free agent payoff, which trades would be pondered and executed, who the Mets will get to fill in next season's closer role and who will be their first baseman, among other issues." Stijl, who currently lives in an auld Roman market town in Warwickshire, could not be reached for immediate comment on the news but has authored ...

Muchas Gracias, Miguel. Where will we ever find another two-hot catcher? Awww, go'wan and give us the horns just once more, for auld time's sake... Meanwhile, back in the loony land of Tio Pedro , our star hurler prepares for the end of baseball and full concentration on the football season with his orange inflatable football helmet. And here, greeting Mets future closer, Aaron Heilman:

By my calculations, if the regular season lasted until December 18th, the Mets would finally be in first place at this rate. Last night another game, another meaningless victory over the Colorado Rockies, this time by a 3-2 margin which moved them into sole possession of third place. Fish, eateth our dusteth. The victory was due, in large part, to Marlon Anderson putting a curse on the Rockies in the middle of the game: Marlon's black magic stifles Rockies catcher Danny Ardoin. The game also saw rookie Mike Jacobs raise the bar higher still on Met fan expectations for next season with his 10th homer of his reasonably young season. A Tale of Two Pitchers Kris Benson, 7 1/3 innings giving up only six hits and two runs sparked vague memories of Tom Glavine shutting out the Rockies the night before. Ok, one's a righty and one's a lefty, but they have the same set jaw, the same short hair and oh, well two different wives. Tom's wife, Chris, cutting up pieces of Tom's au...

Is Willie Hearing Footsteps? The Devil Rays officially announced that Lou Piniella will not be their manager next season, opening the door to all sorts of rampant speculation. No doubt the monkey trust at Wilpon & Co. are quite happy with their fling with .500 under Willie Randolph but oh, how many must be itching to see him back in New York.

Tom Glavine sent his 2005 season off with a brilliant 2-hit performance, guaranteeing both his own first .500 record in three seasons with the Mets AND the Mets own .500 record for the first time since 2000 as the Mets defeated the Colorado Rockies in the opening game of the final series of the season, 11-0. Glavine struck out 11 batters last night in his last start of the season to finish the year with a 13-13 record and a 3.53 earned run average. It was his 275th career win and his 24th career shutout. Leading the offensive barrage was David Wright, whose two homer and three RBIS pushed him to 100 RBIs on the season Mike Piazza added a homer following Wright's in the 5th, his 19th of the season, a massive 450 shot to left field which earned him a standing ovation and eventually, as the heady madness of watching the Mets career of a future Hall of Famer wind down, the barking mad calls for "one more year". Jose Reyes' strikeout in the 6th was his 683rd at-bat of the...

Last night's 16-6 loss to the Phillies was probably a simple matter of the world righting itself again. After five consecutive victories had them at 80 victories needing only one more to clinch a .500 season, the Mets finally predictably lost again, and lost big. Steve Trachsel, having already endured back surgery and a comeback sometimes good and sometimes spectacular pitching performances down the stretch, fell back to earth last night, much harder the Seo the night before, by surrendering 10 hits and 7 runs in a mere 4 1/3 innings - several games worth of Phillies Phrustration coming home to roost. Chase Utley was yet again a massive thorn in the Mets side by driving in 5 runs including a 3-run homer. Cliff Floyd his his 33rd homer of the year and has now driven in 97 runs on the season which means with a four game finale at home against the Rockies coming up the Mets stand a good chance of having two 100-RBI men on their roster this season.

It is perhaps fitting that the Mets won on the night they were finally mathemetically eliminated from the playoffs. After a very untimely losing slump at the beginning of the month which saw their own postseason aspirations bagged, bound and gutted, the Mets were finally "officially" and "mathematically" eliminated from the 2005 playoffs last night when the Houston Astros defeated the St Louis Cardinals. Nonetheless, they were perhaps not "philosophically" eliminated because the Mets, following their 3-2 victory in Philadelphia last night have virtually eliminated the Phillies from the wildcard chase and virtually vaulted the Houston Astros into the playoffs instead, appear to have been on some sort of secret crusade to make sure that none of their NL East brethren rode into the 2005 postseason on the NL Wildcard either. Of course, by defeating the Phillies, the irony doesn't get any thicker than this: The Mets Handed The Braves The NL East . That...

This game had all the elements. A two and a half hour rain delay during which time Glorified-Third-Base-Coach Willie Randolph played a game of scissors/rock/paper with Pedro Martinez about whether or not he could take an early holiday under that mango tree, the typical Pat Burrell homer against the Mets, a homer by rookie phenom Mike Jacobs, cameo appearances by nearly all our favourite Met punching bags - Danny Graves, Kaz Ishii and Shingo Takatso, an Ugueth Urbina meltdown, a two-run error by Chase Utley and, most of all, an improbable Met victory. Shingo faced only two batters in the game and got only one of them out after surrendering Pat Burrell's seemingly predictable blast (and Today's Question is which was more inevitable, Burrell's homer against the Mets or Shingo being the one to surrender it) and yet Shingo STILL managed to gain a very undeserved victory for himself, his first and likely last as a Met. Any suspense about Jimmy Rollins' fabled 30 game hitting...

So, the Mets have crawled back to respectability, out of the NL East basement. They leave Washington with a 6-5 victory and three game sweep of the Nationals. And what, we're supposed to forget their diabolical choke job this month? We're supposed to forget the road trip from hell, the gutless fashion in which they laid down for the Marlins, Braves and Cardinals? We're supposed to magically unrecall that Willie is a glorified third base coach in a manager's uniform? Spin in circles, clap our hands, chant and cheer because oh jeez, the Mets really are good after all? Mike Piazza hits a pair of homeruns, makes a leaping catch and tagged out Brad Wilkerson at the plate in the seventh and we're supposed to get how he dragged his feet to help his team two seasons in a row by learning how to play first base? Are we supposed to develop amnesia about his thousands of two-hop throws to second and the weakest catcher's arm in baseball? I'm not buying it. The Was...

A season of hoping to be in the playoffs is reduced to a season clawing back to .500 and hoping to climb out of the NL East basement but what the hell, it's something, after all and some of the Mets are beginning to show some life. Might Makes Wright Last night David Wright hit his second career grand slam to give the Mets all the runs they would need in the top of the first inning and Tom Glavine went eight innings, allowing four hits and striking out six to earn the easy victory but more importantly, Willie Randolph was finally ejected from a game! On the other side of the coin, Nats manager Frank Robinson, captain of the swiftly sinking vessel called mediocrity in the nation's capital, opted to play, for the most part, rookies and backups, deciding to shut down most of the veterans for the final week of the season, quitting on the team owned by the owners. "Im not going to challenge any of Earl Weaver's or Billy Martin's records [for ejections]," Randolph ...

Ahhh, Carlos me boy, too little too late. Isn't it ironic in a twisted, melancholy sort of way that in Game 153 of the season in which the Mets need slide rules and astrophysics to figure how to avoid being eliminated from the post season, that the Houston Astros, the team Carlos Beltran bid adieu to in the off season, are nestled quite comfortably in the NL Wildcard lead whilst the Mets, "winners" in the Carlos Beltran Sweepstakes are nestled comfortably in last place in the NL East? Granted, the Astros are hardly comfortable, they're only a game ahead of the still-hard-charging Phillies. And granted, the Mets are one and a half games from fourth place in the NL East, (a sweep of the Nats would propel them out of the basement but they'll probably choke on that one too...) And granted, it hasn't been all Carlos Beltran's fault the Mets are in last place, (you could blame an absolute crap bullpen, the Achilles Heel of the Mets this season, if you were f...

Pedro Martinez is finally doing the smart thing, he's quitting on the season whilst he's still ahead. Removed after tossing just 75 pitches over five innings, it is Pedro's will that this be his last outing of this memorably miserable 2005 experience. He can pack up his toys and head home. Adios, Pedro, have a Happy Offseason Pedro's inning total has reached 217, the same total he had last season with the Red Sox, the 27 post-season innings notwithstanding. Pedro of course, will be pitching ZERO post-season innings for the Mets this season. "It's their decision," the Magic Pedro blamed. "I haven't talked to them about it. They can do whatever they want to do. At this point, everything's said and done." Let's face it. The Mets management isn't smart enough to see that far ahead in the game to shut Pedro down and let him rest for next season a few games early. Hell, they aren't officially eliminated from the post-season ye...

The Mets winning run came from an unusual source last night - Miguel Cairo. Cairo, brought to the Mets as a backup to the Kaz Man, who was brought to the Mets to be their answer to the poor man's Hideki Matsui or the poor man's Ichiro, has been forced through injury and the incompetence of others, to play the majority of the season himself at second base. Not having been brought in to start every night it's rather difficult to hold him accountable for his dodgy starting play all season and let's face it, after the signing of Carlos Beltran, he wasn't brought in to make game-winning hits or lead the Mets to the pennant. Last night though, he had the game-winning hit just after Jose Reyes ended up on second base by virtue of some daring, Jackie Robinson-style running and whose speed caused Juan Pierre to bobble the ball on a single to center and got Reyes to second base in the first place. (A Man of Many Talents, Jose Reyes Can Clap And Slide Home At The Same Time) ...

Win when it doesn't matter. This reminds me of thinking of a great comeback, a real fuck-you-in-the-face zinger only after the jerk has walked away and it's a week later and it's been rolling around in your head, filling you with a backlog of bile the entire time. What was it Delgado's agent once said? That Carlos signed with the Marlins because they had a better chance of making the World Series? Not yet, muthahfuckah. Even though they managed only four hits in twelve innings of play they somehow came from behind for a strangely competent 12 inning 3-2 victory to win for the 32nd time this season, in extra innings for the seventh time in 13 tries, win in their final at-bat for the 14th time, and on a game's final pitch for the seventh time. What does this tell you about the Mets? Nothing. Let's be real. I like that they've won, don't get me wrong. But I would have liked better that they had won BEFORE they collapsed and dropped themselves like junkie...

There haven't been many moments of to be proud of for these Mets this last month. We don't have to run through the litany of cock-ups, meltdowns, insults to the fantasy of the post-season, and general incompetence. They are there to be seen like a trail of blood behind a bitch in heat. The Mets had us fooled for awhile but in the end, they couldn't fool their opponents. So perhaps that's what makes Tom Glavine's sublime six-hit performance against his former team, the gang that has terrorised the Mets for well over a decade and ever since his move to Shea, that much more bittersweet. Willie and Mr Tom Enjoy the Moment We've taken two of three at home from the NL East beast on its way to its 14th consecutive NL East title but they were in essence, a meaningless two of three after the flood's tides have just begun to recede and leave behind the evidence of destruction in its wake. Is it meant to be encouraging? A warning shot fired over the bow to our great...

The Collapse has now reached 16 losses in their last 20 games for the Mets and back to their familiar position of Braves-stooges after a Pedro day off from reality, the 7-4 loss yesterday was just another thick roll of fat in a season already obese with disappointment. They tried to battle back from a 5-0 deficit in a matchup of the first place team in the NL East against the Last Place team in the NL East. But it was clear throughout why the two teams are positioned where they are. One wins with predictability, one losses with predictability. Ooof! Mike Jacobs juggles David Wright's errant throw that opened the floodgates for a 3-unearned run Braves blowup in the 1st inning. "I tried to pick up David," Jacobs said of the errant throw, "but I couldn't." Typical. So Wright had his 21st error in a season of costly errors and regardless of his key performances at the plate this season, a reminder that although he is quickly blossoming into a star, he sti...

It wasn't so long ago that Pedro was lights-out every game he started and we were afraid we'd run out of superlatives before the end of the summer. The Maestro Takes A Bow Alot has changed since then but Pedro's brilliant 10 K, complete game shutout (his first as a Met) of the hated Atlanta Braves reminded us for nine innings of the excitement we felt last winter when his signing was first announced as the stepping stone towards Met competency. Just last Sunday he helped the Mets snap a six game losing streak and beat the NL-best St Louis Cardinals and last night, he outshined John Smoltz in yet another duel between two old starters who aren't yet ready to be put to pasture. Martinez evened his season record against Smoltz at 2-2. He beat Smoltz on April 10, the Mets first victory of the season. Smoltz won showdowns on April 26 and Sept. 6. ... Martinez now has nine seasons of 200 or more strikeouts. But in reality, this victory was like fucking a fat chick in some dru...

I'd like to say more but frankly, I can't see the keys so, I'll let this image stand on its own and only suggest.

Now listen, I like a humiliating sweep at home just as much as the next guy. But this, just another too much on the TooMuch-O-Meter. Swept by the fucking Washington Nationals, the former Montreal Expos, the team owned by the owners, the team everyone or nearly so, picked for the basement. Sweeping us. LAST lesson of the day, kids. Watching the Mets gives you diarrhea and diarrhea is very dangerous, don't try this at home... Swept by the fucking Nats. Good one.

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more." --Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Tears, Idle Tears ***** You know when players, in any sport, it doesn't just have to be about baseball, start playing to save their manager's, or their coach's job? You know the story: a team that sucks all season long whose manager or coach's head seems inevitably on the chopping block and then suddenly, the team rises above their talents, or reaches them, flies above their station and goes on a torrid winning streak and either makes the playoffs by hair's breadth or just misses them but either way, giving their fans and the ownership reason to believe that the coach/manager can still inspire his jugheads to victory? Wayne Fontes practically made a career of doing that for the Detroit Lions back in the 90s when they...