JH Underground – news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Thank you to everyone who offered support Saturday on the Square. I didn’t realize there were so many Mets fans in Wyoming.

Perhaps bolstered by the prayers, the Amazin’s went out and defeated the Blue Jays 6-5 on Sunday. (Or maybe it was the presence of David Wright in the lineup.) Lord knows the Mets need all the help we can give them.

Unlike the wack jobs from Kansas, the sign bears a message of hope and faith. As any Mets fan will attest, You gotta believe!

(Photo by Taylor Glenn)

Posted under Humor, Politics, Religion, Sports

Tags: baseball, new york mets

It’s curious how our society commemorates events especially in five-year cycles. Witness, for instance, the mass hoopla over the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which surely stung no less on the eighth or ninth anniversaries.

But I’ll play along. Twenty-five years ago tonight, I became an eternal optimist.

Down two runs in the bottom of the 10th inning, with two outs and two strikes. “Hoping against hope that something will start to happen,” as Bob Murphy said in the radio broadcast.

I write this not to rub salt in the wounds of Red Sox fans, wounds no doubt salved by the balm of ’04 and ’07 titles. I’ve always argued we share a common enemy in the Yankees.

I write this because the Mets’ comeback to win Game Six of the 1986 World Series was as close as I’ve ever come to witnessing a miracle. Especially for a teenage boy who grew up in New York rooting for the Mets, Jets and Rangers, enduring year after year of futility.

Read More…

Posted under Religion, Sports

Tags: baseball, new york mets

Images of the Tetons have become so ubiquitous in pop culture that I was hardly surprised when, during the seventh-inning stretch at last Sunday’s Mets game, as a Jewish rap group sang “God Bless America,” a snow-capped Mount Moran appeared on the scoreboard above centerfield.

I was in New York last week visiting family, which helps explain the silence here of late. A couple of relatives had been ailing, making the woes from the end of rafting season — cracked skin on hands and feet, sore back, a cold — seem trifling. Happy to report we are doing much better, on all accounts.

Summertime in the Big Apple is more relaxed, and especially when the humidity isn’t oppressive, a fun time to visit. I went to the beach and took in a Mets game, and they actually won, a rarity in recent weeks.

Read More…

Posted under Sports

Tags: baseball, new york, travel

On Jan. 20, 2009, we were elated about the dawn of a new era in America, as millions flocked to Washington for the Obama inauguration. Then, the realities of governing set in.

I was under no illusion that the president would make all our problems go away. I knew I would not agree with his every decision.

By now, I had hoped for better. But it’s still too early to judge — one year, like all those ridiculous 100-days assessments, is too short a period of time to expect a transformation. Given the severity of the mess Obama inherited from the Bush-Cheney administration, it could take two terms, let alone two years, to turn our country around.

After the events of last night, it’s hard not to be dismayed by the Democrats’ fecklessness. Call Curt Schilling a prick, call him a blowhard who should stick to sports and not politics, but don’t call him a Yankee fan. The millions of Americans walking around with figurative bloody socks because they are denied coverage or cannot afford care have Schilling to thank.

Read More…

Posted under Democratic Party, Politics

Tags: barack obama, baseball

I watched a clip Monday of Alex Rodriguez‘s interview in which he admitted steroid use and apologized to his fans.

My first thought: Fans?

Then this morning I read Doug Glanville‘s column in the N.Y. Times, in which Glanville, a retired major leaguer, humanized his former teammate, arguing that the test leak was a breach of trust that ought to outrage all of us. (Uh, huh.)

Any sympathy this might have engendered evaporated, however, when in a second clip the beefed-up ballplayer continually referred to the reporter who broke the story, Selena Roberts of Sports Illustrated, as “this lady” and accused her of stalking him, among other lies.

A-Roid will always be a money-sucking prima donna who can’t hit in the clutch, and now will have an asterisk next to his name for the rest of his career and into the record books.

But he did get one thing right in explaining away his steroid use: It sure was part of the “loosey-goosey” culture of the times.

Read More…

Posted under Economy, Sports

Tags: baseball, fat cats, phonies