Side Bar owes me $100

Don't know if any of you caught the Mets' thrilling 5-run-9th-inning comeback yesterday, but even more important than the victory was the resolution of a little-known bet made circa 1986.

Side Bar and I were in his basement when we were both 8 years old or something, and since this was long before the nightmare of Javier Santana imposed itself on me freshman year of High School, I still thought I was a damn good baseball player. Good enough, in fact, to bet Side Bar the then-unthinkably large sum of $100 that I would eventually play for the New York Mets. (I think it was supposed to be by the age of 21 or something, but that would ruin my post.)

I'm happy to say that yes, finally, I did play for the Mets yesterday.

Here was the dominating roster of future Hall-of-Famers that comprised the first-place Mets' starting lineup:

1. Endy Chavez, CF
2. Ruben Gotay, SS
3. Shawn Green, RF
4. Carlos Delgado, 1B
5. Julio Franco, 3B
6. David Newhan, 2B
7. Ramon Castro, C
8. Carlos Gomez, LF
9. Jason Vargas, P

Doesn't that lineup send shivers down your spine?

I know, I didn't make the starting lineup, but Willie had me pinch-run for that fattie Castro in the 8th. Check the box score, I'm in there! (It reads "a-OpBar pr" right under Castro. Fits right in with all those other randoms.)

And since the Mets decided to just scribble some letters randomly onto a piece of paper and somehow call it a "lineup," I thought I'd suggest a lineup for Willie tonight taken directly from the 2007 Final Standings from Name of the Year, an amazing site which has been compiling the best genuine names from around the world for a long time. I only used 2007, so feel free to put together your own from any of the other years they have listed. (Once again, these are all real people's names that have been verified. Amazing. Parents really named their children the following:)

1. Vanilla Dong
2. Kyle Sackrider
3. Intelligent Infinite Botts (personal favorite)
4. Phyre Quickly Burns
5. Conceptualization Gibbs
6. Gertrude Nipple
7. Ayo Yayo
8. Mario Hilario
9. Michelangelo X Ball Van Zee

Hey Side Bar -- double or nothing if you can come up with a better lineup than that.