No apple pie today, but I did manage a baseball game — the Mets came from behind to swat the Nats in the ninth — and fireworks down at the Reflecting Pool.

On tap for the rest of the week: Mets-Nationals games on Tuesday and Wednesday and (finally, we hope!) our first softball game of the season on Saturday.

Thanks to my folks for driving down to watch baseball and fireworks with us!

A nice Fourth, but I’m tired and headed to bed early. I will contemplate a longer post tomorrow.

It’s been a nice weekend so far — made all the nicer by the fact that I have tomorrow off, too.

Yesterday we went to Pat and Heidi’s house for a barbecue/Tour de France/Live 8 party. It was nice to spend time with friends.

Today, we went to the farmers’ market. We came home with blueberry scones, milk, blueberries, carrots, tomatoes, apricots, haricots verts, cherry jam, and flowers. Most of the blueberries are already gone — I think they’re the crack of the fruit world.

The rest of the day we spent cleaning up the apartment. That spring cleaning Rudi and I have been mulling for months finally got done (at least mostly).

Tonight, my folks arrived. They’ve come down to see the Mets game with us tomorrow at RFK and the fireworks on the Mall tomorrow night. We’re going to try to catch the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, too, tomorrow morning, but that may not happen.

It’s been a nice weekend so far. I’m hoping tomorrow is just as good.

The last few days have been tough on my fantasy baseball season. As I’ve mentioned before, I chose my players predominantly based on whether they’d ever played for the Mets.

What this meant was that while I sometimes picked players who’d been let go for bad reasons (Fonzie), more often than not, my players are older and past-peak.

But the thing about old ball players is that you love them just the same.

Mike Stanton has played his last game for the Yankees. He knew it after he gave up a game-winning home run earlier this week and went gently into the night.

John Franco, on the other hand, never wanted to leave the Mets, but he did want to keep playing (even if on a more limited basis). But the Mets weren’t interested in keeping a work horse around, even though he’d grown up a Mets fan, had played most of his career with the team, and was team captain.

So he went to the Astros, where they used him as a lefty specialist and allowed his season ERA to reach an appalling 7.20. Anyone who ever watched Franco play knows that he always needed a batter or two to get into the groove, and when you’re only being brought into the game for one or two batters, you just don’t have that luxury.

But what this season’s numbers don’t show is how marvelous a pitcher he really has been:

• 1,119 games
• 424 saves
• 1,245.2 innings pitched
• 81 home runs given up
• 975 strikeouts
• 2.89 ERA

Comparatively, Roger Clemens has pitched in only 656 games, has given up 341 homeruns, and has an ERA of 3.14.

Drafted in 1981 by the Dodgers, Franco spent his first six pro years with the Reds before coming to the Mets in a trade for Randy Myers, where he remained through the end of last season.

He is second on the all-time saves list, and his career ERA is one of the best in history for a reliever. He holds Mets franchise records for most games pitched and for most games saved.

A four-time all-star, Franco is the second-oldest player in the majors (two years younger than Julio Franco of the Braves and two years older than Roger Clemens).

Franco’s style was never a flashy one, but it was exciting. When he came into the game, you sat on the edge of your seat waiting to see if he’d pull it off or if he’d blow it. He did both, but he did both with great style. He used to drive Mum nuts with that, but I preferred him to our other closers. After all, he simply epitomized the Mets club I loved.

Unfortunately, his numbers since his Tommy John surgery have not been good, even before this season. Because of that, I would be surprised if another team picks Franco up. I suspect this is the end of the line for him (either via a trip to the minors or through walking away).

I’d love to see him bring his knowledge and love of the game back to New York as a pitching coach for the Mets.

Good luck, John. We were lucky to have watched you play, and we hope to see you coach in the future. I eagerly await your induction into the Hall of Fame.

Help! Rudi is torturing me and the cats with a cd version of the MP3s that Dan uploaded to his site from an old tape from the band they had in high school. If you’d like to have sympathy pains with me, please head over to Rudi’s or Dan’s sites and check out what I’m being put through.

If we had a dog, he’d be howling along by now and fitting in nicely.

Of course, someone might have similar reactions to reading the poetry I wrote in high school…

Once upon a time, there was a city. The half million people who lived there asked not to have guns roaming their city. They felt that guns increased the likelihood of crime, already a problem in their hometown. In a rare instance of civic agreement, the clamor was nearly unanimous. A bill was passed. There was much rejoicing.

Thirty years passed. During that time, the crime rate went up (as it did in many cities), but, gradually, it went down again. The citizens remained in favor of the ban. The mayor supported it. The city council supported it. Local Republicans supported it. Even the chief of police supported it.

So, this story ends happily, right?

Well, no.

Because, you see, a Congressman from Indiana (500 miles from the city) and a Senator from Texas (1,400 miles from the city) decided that the citizens should have guns. And these two officials decided this even though they would fight tooth and nail to not inflict random laws that were unpopular and dangerous on their own constituents.

And why was this a big deal? Elected officials from far away have no power outside their own jurisdiction, so what a senator from Alaska feels would be best for Baton Rouge, for instance, is of little consequence. Right?

Generally. But not in this city.

You see, this city is Washington, D.C., and, in addition to having no voting rights in Congress (you remember that from high school civics, right?), Washington also does not have final say over its own laws.

So when Rep. Mark Edward Souder and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson get together and decide they feel like altering our laws, they have that right and we, the residents and duly elected officials of the city, do not. And yesterday the House passed the measure — for the third time.

In previous years, the measure has not passed the Senate, but Hutchinson (who seems to feel she would sleep better at night if someone could shoot her) and Souder tied it to a spending bill that must be passed, making it more likely that the Senate could approve it.

This is where you come into the story. If you live outside of Washington, D.C., and in one of the other 50 states, you have voting representation in Congress. It’s too late to do anything about the House. But it’s not too late to influence the Senate. So please call or email your senators on behalf of me and the other 550,000 residents of Washington, D.C. Ask them to vote down Senate Bill 1082 IS, otherwise known as the “District of Columbia Personal Protection Act,” or any version of the bill that is presented as an amendment to the federal spending bill. Remind them you want them to be focusing their energies on making your state better and not on forcing an unwelcome and dangerous law on people who are perfectly capable of making their own laws. Remind them this is a double-standard they should not uphold.

Section 4 of the Act entitled “An Act to prohibit the killing of wild birds and wild animals in the District of Columbia,” approved June 30, 1906 (34 Stat. 809; section 1-303.43, D.C. Official Code) is amended by adding at the end the following: “Nothing in this section or any other provision of law shall authorize, or shall be construed to permit, the Council, the Mayor, or any governmental or regulatory authority of the District of Columbia to prohibit, constructively prohibit, or unduly burden the ability of persons not prohibited from possessing firearms under Federal law from acquiring, possessing in their homes or businesses, or using for sporting, self-protection or other lawful purposes, any firearm neither prohibited by Federal law nor subject to the National Firearms Act. The District of Columbia shall not have authority to enact laws or regulations that discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms.” [Emphasis mine]

Remind them that if Congress tried to restrict your state from enacting laws, as this bill does for D.C., that you’d be furious. And be furious today for me.

And give this story a happy ending.

Update:
The House bill that the amendment is attached to is HR3058, which the Senate will probably consider sometime after the July 4 holiday break. The amendment is not as far-reaching as the original Souder/Hutchinson bill, but does forbid the use of federal funds (all D.C. budget monies are considered federal funds) to enforce section 702 of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975.