Movietime with the Mets

By Ken Dynamo
Posted Thursday, July 10, 2008

The season that looked moribund only a few weeks ago has since limped back to life with Frankenstein-ian gusto. The Mets have but a single loss more than the division leading Phillies - just one - and the similarly left for dead players like Carlos Delgado and Mike Pelfrey are leading the assault on the NL East.

The rest of the majors is also keeping sports media busy with the All Star selections coming out (snubs!) and several big name pitchers already getting traded (how will Omar respond?).

As the heat index peaks, so does the buzz around baseball, and there is just so much to talk about these days.

Yet as much as I'd love to dig into another sabermetric debate about how David Wright and Jose Reyes got jobbed out of all star spots (Aramis Ramirez? Miguel Tejada??? such WTF-ness!), I think I'll step back from the scientific analysis for now. As many of the commenters in the FU forums have pointed out, there IS more to baseball than stats. Now I may be too much of a geek to compare and contrast players without whipping out my VORP, I think it's time to put the spreadsheets away digress off topic a bit.

Baseball, in a lot of ways, are like the movies. The both have their busiest time during the summer, they both involve spectators that must buy tickets, and really they are not alike at all, because that's all I can think of. But I'm sticking to my analogy because I want to talk about movies this week, so I will continue with the tortured analogy undaunted.

So while I enjoy the summer blockbuster season as much as anyone (Dark Knight = nerdgasm), being a Met fan, I am more prone to root for the underdog, and thus my favorite movies are not going to be the movies with the highest box office gross nor be they necessarily a film critic's favorite. The Mets have too often played in the shadow of the Yankees in their own market and have likewise toiled ignominiously while the Braves have claimed most of intra-divisional limelight. Thus, my taste in movies is highly skewed away from what you'll find on the AFI top 100.

So how do I link my favorite baseball team with my favorite movies? Well, quite poorly, to be honest. But I love these old VHS cassette tapes like I love my old Keith Hernandez poster, so lets see what I come up with anyway. Below, my top 5 favorite movies and how they are like the Mets.

5) Pumping Iron - Pumping Iron is about more than Arnold Schwarzenegger's megalomaniacal quest for world body building domination. It is about great pectorals, powerful biceps and triceps, and the continual pursuit of 'the pump'. And that's what its about for the Mets. Countless days of training, practicing and working on fundamentals, and then taking lots of steroids so Todd Hundley can set the single season record for home runs by a catcher.

4) Mom and Dad Save the World - You know, thinking back about some of my favorite scenes; it really is a stupid, stupid film. I guess the only reason I like it is because used to be on HBO all the time. Plus it stars Jon Lovitz, Jeffrey Jones, who are true geniuses. That's actually a lot like how a became a Mets fan. They were on TV a lot during my formative years, and if I rooted for any other team, by Dad would beat me severely.

3) Vision Quest - The name says it all. Loudin Swain has committed himself to an epic battle, to take on his high school rival, the indomitable Shute, and become the greatest wrestler in the state of Washington. The Mets have their own vision quest, and they aren't about to let some hot babe drifter come into their home and distract them from glory before they emerge from the locker room as Red Rider's inspirational rock and roll classic 'Lunatic Fringe'. Of course, if all else fails they can turn to a career in journalism started at their high school newspaper when they wrote a story on about the vagina.

2) A Night at the Roxbury - So, do I really enjoy this third rate SNL bit turned into 90 minutes of corny jokes and Haddaway's 'What is Love'? No. Yeeees, man! Doug and Steve Butabi have one goal, to get into only hottest night club in L.A., the Roxbury. A World Series championship represents the Mets' Roxbury, the team's collective dream. And you can take away their phones and you can take away thier keys but you can NOT take away their dreams. Because they're like sleeping when they have them.

1) The Birdcage - In this - ho now, waitaminute, how did this get in here? No way, uh ah, this is not my favorite movie. I don't think so. Some Brave fan must have slipped this in here, totally not my choice, even though, (COUGH) NathanLane (COGH COUGH) comedicperformanceofalifetime (COUGH) underratedmasterpiece (COUGH). So just forget this was ever mentioned. Lets go to the real number one, which I swear is not, The Birdcage.

1) Robocop - Trying to debate whether or not Robocop is the best movie ever made or not is like trying to debate whether the Mets are the best baseball team in the world. If you don't think that is so, well shut up, because you're wrong. Look, it doesn't get any better than a robotic policeman charging through the seedy underworld of future Detroit, blowing away any criminals that get in his way as he simultaneously seeks to reclaim his lost humanity in a world gone to hell. And if you think there is some pro team than superior the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club, then I have just one thing to say to you, "Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

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When not following the Mets, Ken Dynamo actually watches these movies on a real VHS cassette tape player. You can find more nonsense like this but with more cursing at his tastefully named blog GO METS DIE BRAVES.