Five Things More Awkward Than Watching Pete Alonso Leg Out A Triple
Free Friday Newsletter (Saturday edition)
Hi friends-
My favorite baseball game of the year happened last night. No, it wasn’t the brilliant pitchers’ duel between Jacob deGrom and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Arlington. That contest was tidy and efficient, with spectacular play all around.
We here at the Long Game love mess.
Which is why we have historically adored the Mets. Last night they did not disappoint, winning a thriller against the Cardinals on the first walk-off homer of Francisco Lindor’s Met career.
But the play of the game—and my favorite play of the season by any team so far— happened in the first inning when Peter Morgan Alonso ripped an 0-1 hanging slider from Miles Mikolas off the center field wall. Alonso does not run well. He does not run fast. He runs like….the hero of our time? A frat boy on mushrooms and Red Bull. A polar bear forced to haul ass on two legs. Me, from sound advice about living a life with balance.
Please watch because this run is now part of our lore:
They are roasting my beautiful boy on the Internet today, which is not fair and not right. He had seven career triples in seven years heading into last night. He was not blessed with graceful limbs. His brain tries to talk to his legs but they do not listen. He may even be spiking himself in the butt, with a shin guard that appears to be duct taped to his calf. I do not care.
None of us can relate to the Mookie Betts and Bobby Witts of the world, who make every athletic feat seem effortless. Pete speaks for us. Pete runs for us. Pete is us: belly flop, goofy twisting arm celebration and all.
When Lindor hit the homer to win the game in Queens last night he barely flinched. Pete was so proud of himself for making it to third before anyone could throw him out, because it’s WAY harder than hitting the ball over the fence! He did not score after his efforts. I do not care. It’s the play of the year so far.
To avenge Pete and fellow clumsy movers-through-life everywhere, here is a list of five current baseball things more awkward than him scurrying from home to third base under duress:
The fact that there are two Max Muncys in baseball right now, they share a birthday, and were both drafted by the A’s. Michael Jordan the actor at least had the courtesy to use his middle initial, “B,” to help us avoid any confusion with the basketball player. It feels like a personal attack that Max Muncy 2.0 isn’t going by Maxwell or Maximus or Max B. Muncy. Hate it! Clean it up!
Rob Manfred telling Bill Shaikin of the LA Times that if Dodger fans are upset about how much tickets cost they should just go be Angel fans. Manfred usually insults fans when he speaks, but this was the rare slap to every non-rich person in Los Angeles as well as every Angel fan in Orange County in one sentence. Impressive, by even Manfred’s normal foot-in-mouth standards!
Tommy Pham standing outside PNC Park in Pirates gear 90 minutes before the first pitch waiting for his DoorDash order. And nobody said anything because they might get slapped.
Speaking of getting slapped. watching Joc Pederson in the batter’s box right now is as painful, as, well, being on the business end of a Tommy Pham smack to the face. Joc has three hits in 60 plate appearances this year as a Texas Ranger, and is 0 for his last 39. But that still somehow doesn’t explain just how dreadful he’s been. Woof.
Mike Elias thinking the the Orioles had enough pitching to be a serious team this year, and finding out this week what we already knew: they do not! “On the pitching staff side, I feel like we’ve already tapped into, basically, the depth. To say that on April 15 was not the plan,” Elias told reporters after starter Grayson Rodriguez went down with an arm injury.
We have been wondering for years when the Orioles will enter win-now mode. Signing Charlie Morton (8.78 ERA) and Zach Eflin (three starts before a lat strain) to pitch games 1 and 2 in a playoff series does not count.
Elias may think that having eight pitchers on the injured list, including three on the 60-day IL is some kind of rotten luck but it actually just means you run a good major league baseball team in 2025. The reigning champion Dodgers have 12 pitchers on the injured list, including seven on the 60-day IL. Nobody feels sorry for them, however, because they responded to their boo boo epidemic by signing Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Kirby Yates, and Tanner Scott. The Orioles watched Corbin Burnes leave and replaced him with chewing gum and chicken wire.
I’d rather watch Alonso sprint around the bases until he collapses than watch whoever the Orioles are starting on the bump tomorrow—and so would you. Fix your team, Mike!
That’s all from me today! Happy Easter, and Chag Pesach Sameach to all who celebrate!
The great (?) thing about Manfred is we more-or-less know exactly where he stands. He says the quiet parts out loud … All. The. Time. And since the days of a commissioner at least pretending to speak and act “in the best interests of baseball” are long in the rear view mirror, Rob allows us a peek into how his bosses, for whom he is their mouthpiece, feel about the fans in their billionaire hearts. “Enrich me or go away,” while not new, is an ethos made for the twenty first century.
The great thing about this game we love is watching these guys, from the Big Six to Big Papi … from the Grey Eagle to The Bird … from the Panda to the Polar Bear … doing wonderful, marvelous, spectacular things.
Or, to quote Bill Terry, “Baseball must be a great game to survive the fools who run it.”
There are many reasons to love you, Molly. This post is one.