"They're going at it just as hard as they caaaan!"

Long time readers know the Vega loves to riff on Mike and the Mad Dog, WFAN's afternoon sports talk/call-in show. Well, ESPN's Bill Simmons watches five hours...five hours...of "Mike and the Mad Dog" so you don't have to. It's huh-uge and tremendously funny.

4:28 -- When Sam on the Cell Phone tries to defend Philly baseball fans by blaming ownership (a recurring theme today), Dog fires back with, "How does that explain these last three days? You've won nine in a row, you got New York coming in there, and you've sold 20,000 seats for Pedro Martinez on a Tuesday night? And you're supposedly a big sports town? ... I mean, Sean, you can't have that [in a big series], you can't have the Mets fans overtaking your a-wena!" Dog needs to get riled up about something once a day -- it's in his contract.

4:37 -- Back to the Ruth biography -- Mike decides someone needs to write a Mantle book next. (Yeah, we need a Mantle book; it's been nine months since I heard Bob Costas and Billy Crystal give their thoughts about him. Let's get on that.) Then Mike throws out the idea of someone writing "the definitive Jordan biography." (Now THAT would be interesting.) Then they start talking about different books they've read, leading to a Katharine Hepburn discussion and Dog calling Howard Hughes "a big loser, as far as I'm concerned," then revealing there's a "HUGE biography out right now about Ava Gardner," followed by Mike saying, "That will be a juicy book. ... That will be a juicy book."

(No CAPS on the second "juicy" so he can't be that excited about it. By the way, name me another drive-time sports radio show that could segue to an Ava Gardner biography.)

4:50 -- On the phone right now ... Frank from New Jersey! We're 5/6th of the way to completing the Vinny-Nick-Joey-Sal-Mario-Frank WFAN quinfecta! Come on, Mario! Where are you? Let him through! Let him through!

I actually caught much of the show yesterday and he gets it exactly right. Today, Mike is thinking out loud about possible outfielders for the Yankees to go out and get ("I'm a big Bobby Abreu guy") in light of the potentially season-ending injury to Matsui and news that Sheffield's injury may be worse than thought, while Dog is ranting how "that's not fair; they've got a $200 million payroll and have a couple of injuries and they can go out and get a guy making $15 million for the next two years; that's just not fair." Mike: "Hey, if you're driving a Mazerati and you get a flat tire, you don't take it to Midas." I get the point, but it's a weird comparison.

And Dog asks a great question: why don't the Phillies have padded fences?

One play was pivotal in the Mets' defeat. The bases were loaded in the first inning when Xavier Nady sent a long fly ball to center field. Aaron Rowand made a spectacular one-handed catch at the warning track and then plowed into the metal bar on the top of the chain-link fence, breaking his nose and ending his evening. The catch probably saved three runs and allowed the Phillies' starter, Gavin Floyd, to settle down.

"Metal bar on the top of the chain-link fence?" Do you need any more proof to know that the Phillies are a terrible baseball organization. Let's get Abreu before Phillies management trade him to Boston for this week's laundry.