Who better to piss on the parade the next morning after a resounding win? Who better to bring up the end of last season? Who else but Wally would try to compare Johan's win to Tom Glavine's win in the opener last year?
I know, I know, the collapse is going to be the story, at least in the early going. But why today? Why after seeing a truly dominant performance in all areas of the game does Wally feel the need to rehash all that happened at the end of last season? (Oh, and Wally, do us a favor and look at the Mets record. While they blew the lead at the end, they played 500 ball basically from June on forward, so the collapse was a long one).
"Don't Celebrate Yet, Mets Fans" was the headline. The funny thing is this, the second paragraph in the story
The Mets beat the Marlins, 7-2, yesterday behind a gem of an Opening Day outing by Santana, and you could almost see the headline writers trotting out the cliches in 130-point type, about PAYBACK and VENGEANCE, about "Wiping the Slate Clean" and "Evening the Score."
Meanwhile, I'm sure there were a number of Mets fans wondering what cliches Wally would spill out. He didn't disappoint, that's for sure.
And of course, Wally followed Vic Zeigel of the Daily News in pointing out a pointless miscue by Luis Castillo:
Yesterday, Santana came as advertised, but there were other signs that this club is not completely over the bugaboos that brought it down last year, notably a first-inning brain freeze by Luis Castillo, who somehow stopped running on a wind-blown, two-out pop fly by Carlos Beltran that dropped in. Castillo should have easily scored the first run of the game but was forced to hold at third.
Both conveniently forgot two things. One, that Castillo is still recovering from off-season knee surgery (which every media person in New York had written about ad-nauseum this spring). Two, that Castillo also bunted for a single and then stole second base. Did he make a mistake? Sure. But it is possible that he forgot how many outs there were, and it is also possible that Sandy Alomar had given him the stop sign. But why let other possibilities get in the way of stirring the pot? Why let that stop Wally from once again writing a Mets bashing article?
He then proceeded to talk about how winning the first game means nothing, and brought up a couple of teams that lost the first game and wound up winning the division. And of course, one team mentioned was the 1998 Yankees, because what would a column in Wally's World be without a mention of his favorite team? Of course, Wally forgot to mention another Mets team that won their opener, the 1986 World Champions.
Then again, why would I expect Wally to bring up something that would blow away his theory?
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