I think if I joined an online dating service, I'd probably fill out the questionaire something like: "ABOUT ME: I am a 30 year old single white man who hates Endy Chavez. LIKES: Hating Endy Chavez. DISLIKES: Endy Chavez. LOOKING FOR: A woman who hates Endy Chavez. IDEAL FIRST DATE: A Phillies-Mets game where Endy Chavez makes seven errors, and then explodes."

Okay, I've got it out of my system now. I'll try not to mention this again.

I hate Endy Chavez

I hate Endy Chavez.

One of my running jokes this season has been how much I hate ex-Phillie, current-Met Endy Chavez. This is the kind of thing only I find funny. I can go on and on for hours about how much I hate Endy Chavez and how I want terrible things to happen to him, getting increasingly ridiculous with every ranting statement.

You know what would be great? If Endy Chavez hit into a triple play every time he came up to bat. Or if Endy Chavez was arrested for being an arsonist. Or if he was playing the outfield, and when he caught a ball, he just suddenly exploded. I don't know, is any of this funny? I don't care, laugh if you want, or don't, I just hate Endy Chavez.

In all seriousness, I don't want Endy Chavez to die. I'm not a monster. I just want a written apology for how horrible he was as a Phillie. And I'm serious, it must be a written apology - a phone call or a personal visit won't cut it. It must be on Mets letterhead, and be personally signed by him, not a secretary or anything. And then I will laugh, and burn his apology, and then demand another, and when I get that one, maybe - maybe - I will think about forgiving him. But I doubt it; it seems more likely that I will continue hating him. Because I hate Endy Chavez.

In conclusion, Endy Chavez is the soulless, hateful embodiment of all that is wrong with humanity, and I hate Endy Chavez.

by Jeremy (age 6 1/2)

Welcome visitors

By now, perhaps you've heard that my Sleater-Bobby essay from last week has been plugged by City Paper. Does this count as getting published? Anyway, it's fun to get some recognition and, possibly for the first time, the reality of blogs is sinking in: an essay I wrote for fun over a few hours last week is now being read by literally dozens of people I don't know. I hope they liked it and I thank them for their time.

Looking over it now, the essay seems needlessly maudlin - I mean, they're just some chicks in a band, and a guy who plays a children's game for a living - but it was honest and I'm glad I wrote it. I mean, that's who I am - I get kind of hyper and sentimental about stuff. You need that, to be a baseball fan. Or a music fan. Or a thinking, feeling human being, probably.

Anyway, I'd like to thank City Paper for the link, though I'm slightly miffed I was only referred to as "a guy". I mean, I have a name, man. I grant that you might not know what it is, I mean it's not like it's IN THE TITLE OF THE BLOG or anything. Or that you can't click on the email link on the right and write me and ask me my name, or leave a comment to let me know you were here, or anything. Oh, don't mind me, just splitting hairs.

So now maybe I'll get famous, and be expected to write numerous essays comparing late 90s rock bands to ex-Phillies. Stay tuned for next week's installment, when I compare Brighten the Corners and Chad Ogea.

Off topic: a quick shout out to Eric Desjardins, who retired today after 11 years with the Flyers. Thanks for everything, Eric.

Some things you lose, some things you give away

Two thoughts went through my head in sweat-soaked Starlight Ballroom as I “danced” around in that nervy, Devo-ish, 1978-esque way that I always attempt to dance at rock shows:

1. This might be the last time I ever see Sleater-Kinney live.
2. I can’t believe they traded Bobby Abreu.

The way you get around #1 is to hang on every note they play, every smile and arched eyebrow from the ultra-hot Corin, every rock star guitar move from Carrie, every robotic fill from Janet (though I could never quite see her much).

There’s nothing you can do about #2.

I don’t know how large the S-K/Abreu fan crossover is, but I nominate myself as the president.

The memories came back during the show, too, and it only occurs to me right now that I was introduced to S-K and Abreu in the same year, 1998. It was a year removed from Dig Me Out, and living in NYC, I had heard S-K’s name (that incredibly cool name) bandied about for a while, most notably in the Village Voice’s 1997 music critics’ poll (you know, the year-end poll with the name so oppressively pretentious that I refuse to even write it here) – I was drawn to the full-page picture of these three awkward yet weirdly cute girls, but it was my senior year and didn’t have a dime to my name, so I never bought the CD. (That’s probably not true. I bought a lot of CDs back then. I have no excuse, really.) I dragged my friend Alissa to see a free S-K show at Tower Records, but they didn’t even play on a stage or anything, so all you could see were their guitars occasionally bobbing up over the heads of the audience as they bounced around playing songs I had never heard before but which sounded fun and strange and powerful.

I graduated college a few months later and spent much of the summer of 1998 unemployed, alternately watching the World Cup and the Phillies. The Phils had a new player named Bobby Abreu, who they had picked up from Tampa Bay the previous November in exchange for Kevin Stocker. Now, I was upset to lose the Stock, he being yet another vestige of the ’93 team to be discarded, but I loved watching the young and deeply flawed yet fun and exciting ’98 team, including the instantly awesome Abreu, battle their way gamely to a semi-respectable 75-87 record. The team flirted with the wildcard, though never seriously threatened, but watching them it was easy to close your eyes and imagine the veteran Curt Schilling guiding a young nucleus of Abreu, Scott Rolen, Desi Relaford, and Carlton Loewer to greatness. (A few years later, it became obvious that this belief was idiotic.)

Later that summer I finally acquired a copy of Dig Me Out and I listened to it almost constantly as I drove to my temp job in Burlington, NJ. During those long, dull drives, I was mesmerized by those short, energetic songs, all thudding drums and squeaking guitars, jagged like little knives. The lyrics stuck in my head, dark and romantic, filled with longing and hope and anger; and then there was Corin’s voice, that chilling, otherworldly caterwaul that people either love or hate, the secret weapon that elevated S-K forever beyond the typical bunch of cool chicks in a pop-punk band. It was easy to imagine that I’d be listening to these ladies for years to come.

And more and more memories have come back to me, over the past few days, as I grapple with the fact that Bobby won’t be in right for the Phils ever again, and the knowledge that S-K will stop touring in two weeks, and won’t spend the winter holed up in a studio honing their constantly evolving sound into something new: Bobby getting on base and driving in runs for the improving ’99 team. All Hands on the Bad One becoming my official album of the 2000 Flyers playoff run. Bobby hitting a game-winning, extra inning inside-the-park home run against the Giants in 2000, a game my sister and I went to so she could get a Mike Lieberthal lunchbox. Going into all the record stores on South Street to ask if I could have the All Hands poster, and having them all turn me down; I finally ended up ordering a copy of the album on vinyl just to get that poster. That salsa music they played when Bobby came up to bat. Being just a little disappointed with One Beat, but having it grow on me as the years went by. Bobby hitting a game winning home run against the Mets in 2004, on the very day when, according to Andrew, that scumbag Howard Eskin had complained about how Bobby never hits game winning home runs; on the walk down to the subway, we chanted “ESKIN SUCKS” and actually got lots of other fans to join us. Being completely hypnotized by The Woods within ten seconds of putting it on – it was so unbelievably different and amazing. And then there’s that constant feeling of superiority whenever I hear morons and fools criticize Bobby for being a bad fielder, not being “clutch”, taking too many walks, etc. etc. ad infinitum – knowing that I was smarter and knew more about baseball than them.

It’s fitting that the final song of the night was “One More Hour”. That’s the first song from Dig Me Out that I remember falling in love with – the song that stuck out for me before any other. It’s hard not to wonder about the apparently dark-eyed person that inspired such a haunting song. It’s hard not to marvel at the beautiful interplay of the music and vocals. It’s hard not to miss them already – as the song wound down, I thought, this is it, this is the end of Sleater-Kinney.

It’s bittersweet, of course. I’ll always have the albums, not to mention my unnervingly large collection of S-K t-shirts and posters. I can put on my favorite S-K song, “Get Up” (a song which, for all you Seinfeld fans, is my “Desperado”), and have it affect me deep inside as much as it did in 1999, or in 2002 when I saw them the night before my grandmom died, and I stood in the Troc and closed my eyes and listened to the song and thought about how sick she was. S-K will always mean that much to me. But there’s no happy ending with me and Bobby. The trade was bad, limitlessly, stunningly bad, and now Bobby is somewhere else, and it shouldn’t have ended this way.

S-K left me, and though I’m not happy about it, they earned the right to do that on their own terms, and I respect them for it. (And who knows, I would not be surprised by a reunion in 2016, if not sooner.) But Bobby was taken away from me, from us, for no good reason, and all I’ve got left are memories of teams that should’ve been better, that should’ve risen to his level.

So long, ladies. So long, Bobby. Here’s hoping I haven’t seen the last of any of you.