Nice to have Benitez back at Shea...

What a fun night to be a Mets fan...

And I was even fortunate enough to be at the game.

After pre-gaming with Bad Steve (the birthday boy) and Tony G at El Chicano's on the corner of 114th St and Roosevelt Ave prior to the game, we were raring to tear into Bonds, Linecum and the rest of the Giants from our Mezzanine level left-field seats.

Well, by the time we made it around to our seats, Ollie Perez and the Mets were down 2-0 courtesy of a leadoff homerun by Randy Winn and a solo shot by another pure evil Molina boy, and some guy named Ortmeier was playing in Left field.

Perez settled in though, and my man Delgado continued to show signs of being a bear waking up from hibernation tying the game with the Mets first hit of the night in the 4th...

The other Carlos, contributed with a double to bring in Reyes in the 6th, but the lead didn't hold for long as that Bonds fill in guy hit a home run to tie the game off Perez in the 7th.

In the 9th, the Mets had a chance to win it, but Julio Franco (or, as the 4o something year old guy sitting behind us refered to him, "Dad") couldn't get the ball past fellow senior citizen Omar Vizquel.

I always hated Vizquel, but man, he is smooth in the field.

After that, the Giants decided to use the bullet they had on the bench in Bonds... Needless to say, he wasn't given a hero's welcome.

Fittingly, he walked and never came around to score. Interesting to note, Ben Johnson made his Mets debut tonight... The Giants however did scrap together a run off Joe Smith in the 12th, leaving the game in the hands of their closer and former Mets "closer" Armando Benitez, much to the delight of this guy, who waited the whole game to see him come out and blow it.

Not suprisingly, the fans didn't seem to care much for all the great work Benitez did for the Mets some years ago...

Reyes led off with a walk, moved to second on a balk by the never secure Benitez and moved to 3rd on a sacrifice by Endy. That brought up Beltran who needed nothing more than a simple sacrifice fly to tie the game up. And he grounded out to the drawn in second baseman.
That left it for my man Delgado... And before the 1st pitch, Reyes was coming home on another balk by Benitez.
Man can Armando fall apart. I almost feel for Giants fans (if they didn't support a steroid laden asshole, maybe I would)...
And Delgado put Armando and the Giants out of their misery with his game-winning, second home run of the game.

Some fun post game quotes about Benitez' latest meltdown:
Delgado: "It's not my problem," Delgado said. "His job is to pitch and my job is to hit."
Benitez: "I lost the game"

It's nice to have the cool players on my team finally.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead" (Source: Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.
Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.
Please remember in your hearts all that have given up their lives for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in present and past wars on foreign and domestic soil.