The choke’s on them: Mets give mutt-like performance in season’s dog days

Sure, the New York Mutts are in baseball's doghouse after messing on their postseason carpet in late September. But "Rants & Raves" says not to forget to raise a glass to the Philadelphia Phillies for doing whatever it took to overcome that seven-game deficit with 17 to play and clinch the National League East:

• It's much too easy to roll up the newspaper -- say, the New York Post with its eye-popping headline Monday, "CHOKED TO DEATH" -- and swat the Mutts across their collective nose with it. Bad team! Bad, bad team!

Granted, their late-season collapse was the greatest since the fall of the Roman Empire, which our Baseball Encyclopedia confirms was the first year Mutts left-hander Tom Glavine pitched in the major leagues.

But how about some praise, a little love, for the Phillies, who played phanatically great ball down the stretch, winning 13 of 17 games -- including six straight to begin their surge -- while outscoring their opponents 102-68?

No question, the Mutts didn't have a playoff pedigree. But the Phils do, and it wouldn't surprise us to see them playing in the World Series. ...

• Truth is, we do feel for Glavine, the veteran Mutts starter who lasted one-third of an inning and was shelled for seven runs in an 8-1 home loss to the Nationals on Sunday, completing New York's vertigo-inducing free fall.

If the Monday-morning speculation is true and Glavine, 41, decides to call it a career, there will be those baseball "historians" who will remember him more for his final-game meltdown than for the 303 victories he posted over 21 mostly stellar seasons.

That would be just sooooo wrong. ...

• Wax on, wax off: We were curious how the bible of sports -- Sports Illustrated -- came through on its preseason picks for making the major league postseason.

Answer: Spot on for the American League, predicting the Angels, Indians, Red Sox and Yankees all would make the field. Not so in the National League, where the magazine was as hitless as the Mutts' Jose Reyes -- picking the Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers and, um, Mutts.

That's like going 4-for-4 one day and then 0-for-4 the next. But, hey, that's still batting .500. ...

• Only because you demand it, "R&R" has asked its close friend, Hawkadamus, to look into his crystal ball -- or is that the bottom of a tequila bottle? -- and divine how the best-of-5 American and National league division series will go.

He tells us -- hiccup! -- Angels over Red Sox in four and Yankees over Indians in five (that Yankee Stadium mystique proves too much for Cleveland) in the AL, and Cubs over Diamondbacks in four and Phillies over the Rockies in five in the NL. ...

• At least the Mutts weren't alone in their humiliation Sunday. In the NFL, you had the San Diego Charge!-less, who fell to 1-3 with a 30-16 embarrassment to the Kansas City Chiefs at Qualcomm Stadium.

An embarrassment in which the Charge!-less were outscored 24-zippo in the second half, an embarrassment in which team owner A.G. Spanos and general manager A.J. Smith were left looking like major A-(fill in the, eh, hole) for letting Marty Schottenheimer go in favor of Norv Turner, he of the head-turning head-coaching record of 59-85-1.

Thanks to recent mis-ownership/mismanagement, the Charge!-less are more contenders for the Stupor Bowl than the Super Bowl. Then again, the AFC West is mediocre -- at best. ...

• By the way, that was not a typo in your Monday Sports section. The Detroit Lions really are 3-1 despite being outscored 121-114. ...

• Just wondering: Where are all of those so-called NFL experts who were saying as recently as last season -- and back as far as three seasons ago -- that Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre should be spending his falls duck hunting in his native Mississippi, not throwing ducks on the scramble out of the Packers backfield?

His career touchdown passing record Sunday aside, Favre has the Packers 4-0 through the first quarter of the season, with eight TDs and just two interceptions while averaging 300 yards passing per game.

Thanks to better pass protection this season, Favre has time to stand and, yes, deliver -- even at a grizzled 37 years old.

Age, you see, is just another meaningless individual stat to a player who cares only about team and winning.

Those are the hallmarks of greatness. A record for career passing TDs? That's just a byproduct.

Joe Hawk is the Review-Journal's sports editor. His column is published Tuesday. He can be reached at 387-2912 or jhawk@reviewjournal.com.