A Tale Of Two Alomars

During the Mets' 4-3 victory over the Dodgers yesterday, catcher Sandy Alomar, Jr., threw out two Dodger baserunners, while also making a nice catch in foul territory on a pop-up near the screen behind home plate. Alomar, who is now 41 years old and in the twilight of his major league career, of course was once an all-star catcher with the Cleveland Indians. This year, he's spent most of his time in triple-A New Orleans, but has teamed up with Mike DiFelice in the past two weeks to form the Mets' replacement catching tandem for the injured Paul Lo Duca and Ramon Castro.

Of course, the last time the surname "Alomar" appeared on the back of a Mets jersey, by the time all was said and done there was not much love for Sandy's younger brother Roberto. Though he managed not to spit on anyone in his year-and-a-half tenure with the Mets, Roberto's gross underachievement could be considered an old puddle of spilled milk next to the refrigerator in the greater mess that was the 2002-2003 New York Mets.

Robbie's tenure in Queens wasn't exactly memorable

Since Roberto's departure in early July '03, the Met relationship with the Alomar family had at least been partially repaired. Sandy Jr.'s father, Sandy Sr., was brought in during the off-season to replace the departed Manny Acta as third base coach, and has hugged and waved his way into Willie Randolph's inner circle.

Now, though, an Alomar actually playing baseball for the Mets has found his way into the hearts of the Shea faithful. Between an excellent block of the plate on Wednesday night and his play behind the plate yesterday afternoon, Sandy Jr. is walking on a solid platform of good graces, where Roberto, through his underwhelming on-field performance, found nothing but empty spaces in the ground, disguised as hard earth only by the ageless leaves-on-top-of-the-hole trick.

Sandy Jr., on the other hand, has brought the Alomar name great honor

Lo Duca and Castro will soon be back, while Alomar and DiFelice will probably return to their day jobs as battery mates to Mets up-and-comers in the big easy. In the meantime, though, see Sandy catch as he continues to atone for the sins of his brother and return the good name of the Alomar clan to a well-received spot in the hearts and minds of Mets fans everywhere.

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A few other notes from the game yesterday:

-Despite Billy Wagner's recent struggles, how scared were you to see Aaron Heilman come in to close out a one-run game. I guess in Willie's mind he's the next-best option, but he's still pouty Aaron Heilman and he's still given up eight homers this season. A nice double play by Ruben Gotay and Jose Reyes helped close it out for Aaron, but hopefully Billy'll be just fine and I'll never have to hold my breath that long again.

-David Wright is hot like fire. And I don't mean that in the same sense that has probably sent David home with one to many a Staten Island girl in his brief Major League career; he's legitimately scorching at the dish right now. Driving in runs, being at the center of rallies, add in two fine defensive plays on Friday night and that rough April's quickly becoming ancient history. I'm even coming around to the leg kick.

-How about Jeff Conine? We got the guy because he's proven himself to be gritty, clutch, and battle-tested in his long MLB career, and in his first start he hits a clutch double to deep left in the seventh to drive in Wright (who had singled) and give the Mets a 4-2 lead and an insurance run that they would end up needing. I would advocate for Conine's use at first base in a more extended role over Carlos Delgado except for the fact that...

-Delgado, after hitting a typically weak groundball and pathetic pop-up in his first two at-bats on Saturday (both with men on base) and hearing the boo-birds from 50,000 angry Mets fans, responded to a standing ovation of solidarity and came through with a clutch two-run single with two outs in the 5th yesterday, which put the Amazins up 3-0 and sent them rolling toward victory. Carlos is probably relieved he came through; there's a good chance he would have been verbally castrated if his standing O had led to nothing else but the usual weak grounder. It remains to be seen whether fans who had counted on the opportunity to verbally castrate will get their fix; Delgado's still got a few more hits to collect on the road to .250.

It's John Maine vs. the LA zoo's newest polar bear tonight as Maine and the recently-acquired David Wells duke it out on Sunday night baseball. Sadly I'll miss Jon Miller, Joe Morgan, and the rest of the upstanding ESPN Sunday night crew as I'll be singing along to Sweet Home Alabama, Free Bird, and a slew of other masterpieces with Lynyrd Skynyrd and a few others at the Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center.


Despite the reddening of my neck tonight, I'll be thinking thoughts of orange and blue. Hopefully Johnny Maine can catch whatever Oliver Perez had the other night and turn in a strong start to right his post-all star break ship.

(Photos courtesy queenstribune.com, wikimedia.com, lynyrdskynyrddixie.com)