Hysteria

While much of the noise coming out of the hometown has been about this little blooper – goodness, I’m the only person in this city who actually feels terrible for Luis Castillo – I spent last night and this morning observing some of the post-Stanley Cup reflections from Pittsburgh and Detroit.

The hysteria behind what was an inexcusable, but hopefully un-Chuck Knoblauchian* error, is amazing compared to the responses in Michigan.

It’s amazing how bent out of shape a good portion of New York Mets fans have gotten in the same time span that every Red Wings fan grew sorrowful after losing a tough battle.

It’s amazing in the sense that a fielding error made by one of the more sure-handed second basemen in the game has made the Mets a complete and utter failure as a franchise, business and collection of human beings.

It’s amazing that as a few callers in talk radio suggested, the Mets need to work on the fundamentals of the game. A botched play in the new Yankee Stadium and a bad throw 3000 miles west in Los Angeles just under a month ago have suddenly made the Metropolitans the worst defensive team to ever take up a baseball field.

It’s amazing in that this was game 59 of 162.

Sure, the mistakes become more and more glaring as the season labors on. Yet, this is baseball, my friends. What’s an endless season in many other depots around North America is actually 162 seasons in a six-month stretch that comes up every calendar year for a place like the New York metropolitan area (or any cold-weather, northeastern bastion of happiness).

In Season 59 – the opening of another Subway Series that players themselves want to end as quickly as possible – Luis Castillo became the worst human being to ever don a Mets uniform because of an unfortunate flub against the team that the Flushing faithful will never admit it wishes to be.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, where the most cherished accolade of a sport – the championship of hockey’s premier professional league – was on the line in Game 7, Maxime Talbot and Marc-Andre Fleury broke the hearts of one of the most passionate fan bases anywhere. A couple of defensive lapses and missed scoring opportunities in the game’s final minutes doomed the repeat for the Wings.

Despite some posturing and whining from a few bitter fans, Nikolas Lindstrom has not been nominated for most vile man on the planet. Brad Stuart and Nikolas Kronwall have not been thrown under the jail that Kwame Kilpatrick once resided in. Chris Osgood, a familiar scapegoat when things have not gone well over the years for Detroit, was tremendous in a valiant losing effort.

All of the marbles were on the line at the Joe Louis Arena, but this morning, Detroiters didn’t have to wake up and see this…

Wow.

Thanks to the uploaders of the pics and video.

* - Knoblauch was an excellent second baseman for Minnesota and his first season with the Yankees until 1999, where he picked up a psychologically dehabilitating case of 'the yips'.