If You Believe In Magic

What’s up Mets fans, Willie here. I’m a little disappointed our winning streak came to an end tonight. I was honestly expecting it to end last night after Wednesday’s night craziness. Wednesday was, of course, Julio Franco’s birthday and the team did quite a lot of celebrating that night (on top of celebrating our 10th straight home win). Still, we somehow managed to get a W the day after.
As for tonight, I only have one explanation for our loss: the thing some call the magic number. For the average baseball fan who doesn’t understand the magic number, let me explain. The magic number, or numbero magico for our Latin speaking friends out there, has been around ever since the Egyptians discovered numbers (circa 1912) and thus allowed baseball players to start wearing numbers on their uniforms.
Anyway, so basically, the magic number is some number the baseball gods will pick every night. If the number is your uniform number you get to do something special that night. Most players choose to go 3 for 4, or perhaps throw six shutout innings. At this point you’re thinking that Bannister’s number didn’t come up tonight and that’s why he lost the game. Well, the number 40 was chosen, actually, but in what some might call a typical rookie mistake he wasted it. Instead of picking something useful, he instead chose to have the ability to throw a pitch exactly down the middle. Usually I’ll have Paul LoDuca call the down the middle pitch a few times an inning, but my pitchers usually miss the spot and the uncertainty messes up the hitters. But tonight was a different story – I only found out that Brian had this special ability a few innings into the game, and that’s when I stopped calling the down the middle pitch.
Anyway, that’s all for tonight. I’m not sure what is on the radar for tonight. I might go out for a good Friday night on the town, or I may just take it easy and take in a movie. By the way, for all you out there who think I’m getting old because I just said I might watch a movie on Friday night, you should know that watching a movie is code for “plan Angel Hernandez’s demise.” Yup, that’s right, my old enemy is town for this series and I see the need to prepare for retribution just in case he does something. But don’t worry, Mets fans, I’m steering this ship and no iceberg named Angel can sink it. At least I hope not.