Looks Only A Mother Could Love

The details of Randy Johnson’s child support payments to the mother of a 16-year-old he fathered and the controversy surrounding the issue are not terribly interesting. What you will not be able to shake, however, is this visual:

[Laurel] Roszell claims that Johnson — who later married and had four children with his wife, Lisa — has ignored Heather’s written pleas to meet him.

“He hurts her feelings,” she said.

The hot-tempered future Hall of Famer, who is a born-again Christian, has seen Heather only once — right after her out-of-wedlock birth in 1989, and he demanded a paternity test when Roszell first sought child support in 1998.

The 6-foot-1 high-school student “looks like him, walking and talking, a young girl with attitude,” said Roszell, who is married and has a son. [Emph. added to make sure that his Yankee teammates can tease him about this in the locker room this season]

This Will All Seem A Lot Less Interesting When They’re Underperforming At The All-Star Break

The New Yorker’s Ben McGrath summarizes the Met PR department’s frequently-asked Met questions:

The average Met is just as likely to read Maxim as the Bible, but, to be honest, reading isn’t his strength; his main hobbies are basketball and fishing. Under “Would like to meet,” four Mets name the Pope; one lists Rachel McAdams. Generally speaking, today’s Met seems a little less wild than his predecessors of the late eighties, favoring Chicago, for instance, over Miami by a small margin. He is concerned about young people, whether in this country or internationally, and he does his part to eradicate cancer. His favorite actress, depending on the day, is Sandra Bullock, Angelina Jolie, or Reese Witherspoon.

Some of the lesser-known pitchers are deserving of special mention. Heath Bell, a young reliever, has a hamster named Blossom and a cousin, Drake Bell, who is a TV star (on Nickelodeon), and for quick cash in high school he baked and sold gingerbread houses. Yusaku Iriki, a thirty-three-year-old making his American début this spring, did not start playing baseball until he turned fifteen. (His favorite sport is kickboxing, and he is partial to Bob Marley.) Duaner Sanchez plays the trumpet.

And who knew Steve Trachsel (career: 119-135, 4.23 ERA) enjoyed Scrabble, Wine Spectator and pecan-crusted pork chops? You do now.

“The Groom Is A Big Part Of The Wedding”: Everything In Perspective

The Post, stating the obvious, pits self-centered brides-to-be against the Yankees as the big season-ending series versus the Red Sox begins:

They might be tying the knot this weekend, but thanks to the Yankee series, they’re fit to be tied.

Couples planning to say “I do” are anxiously waiting to see if their guests — and even their potential spouses — will play ball this weekend and focus on the nuptials rather than baseball.

“You know what, people? It’s my wedding,” said Kerry Kramer, 29, a graphic designer from Darien, Conn., who has already been asked by a few guests if televisions will be at her reception hall tomorrow.

“Your focus is in the wrong department. It’s all about me,” said Kramer, who will wed Artie Koellmer, of Greenwich.

Meanwhile, some brides are holding out hope — hope against hope! — that their grooms will be fully engaged during the big day:

Grace Lombardi’s husband, Keeth Fiocco, refused to have a late October wedding, she said.

“Not when it’s the playoffs,” Lombardi remembered him saying.

“Now we get married Oct. 1 — not knowing that this weekend would be the most important,” said Lombardi, a customer-service rep from Massapequa, L.I.

Lombardi, 26, will walk down the aisle tomorrow afternoon in a strapless, beaded, off-white gown purchased from Kleinfeld Bridal, and she’s confident Fiocco will be at the end of the aisle on time.

“The groom is a big part of the wedding,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be into the wedding — but he’ll want his updates.”

Snakehead Fishing

The New Yorker goes fishing with anglers looking to catch some of the hated snakehead fish apparently invading the trash-filled waters of Flushing Meadow-Corona Park’s Meadow Lake:

But now the snakehead — the northern snakehead, Channa argus, which is native to Asia — has come to New York City, by what conveyance no one knows. Scientists with the state Department of Environmental Conservation recently netted five of them in Meadow Lake, in Flushing, Queens, during a routine survey. The picture in the paper, of two torpedo-shaped carcasses laid out next to measuring tape, called to mind mug shots of criminals you’ve come to root for. It didn’t take long for a fisherman or two to start trying to think like a snakehead.

“I’m gonna bring some earthworms,” Edwin Valentin, a master flytier at Urban Angler, on Fifth Avenue, said last week, after being persuaded to serve as Quint in a Queens-bound party of three. (Gary Ford, of Fort Greene, furniture-maker and saltwater fisherman, was guy No. 3.) Valentin lives in Bushwick and has been plying these metropolitan waters for more than thirty years. His only experience catching snakeheads is on PlayStation.

Alas, in the end no snakeheads were caught. But they did snag a healthy collection of inorganic detritus:

A halfhearted chumming effort (a doughnut, a fish stick) brought forth no surface activity. Valentin and Ford rigged up. “I’ll try a white grub,” Valentin said, tying on a wormy lure. “Here we go.” He cast into the lake, reeled, then cast again. A bend in the rod indicated a strike: garbage bag, the first of many. The line snapped. In this way, perhaps, the snakeheads, without lifting a pectoral fin, could wipe out the entire population of Valentin’s tackle box.

Loser Chic

The Daily News’ Michael Malone notes that the still-winless Mets have no bar to call their own:

Whether it’s dinner and drinks at Mickey Mantle’s or a cold Bud up at the Yankee Tavern, there’s no shortage of Yankee-friendly bars in the city. But you’ll have an easier time finding a cap to fit Mr. Met than finding a Mets bar in this town.

Meanwhile, the New York Press’ C.J. Sullivan argues (persuasively) that the hapless Mets embody the spirit of New York City more than the Yankees:

The Mets are more like New York because Shea Stadium—the house the Mets built badly—is a mess in constant need of repair, much like most city apartments. Even the bathroom plumbing is decrepit. The workers are rude. The Mets also have bad season after bad season, losing more than they win, just like most of us. When was the last time you won anything?

The Yankees, on the other hand, are like a small leafy town in the far reaches of Connecticut. They have all this faux history and myth and ghosts that haunt the stadium. If M. Night Shyamalan made a film about the Yankees and their Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig/Mickey Mantle/Thurman Munson legends, the lead character would be some spoiled kid from Westchester, sitting in his box seat telling his father, “I see dead Yankees . . .”