Min Hyo Rin is the most beautiful girl in the world!

I know, I know...I say that a lot. But to be honest, it appears to be about a four billion way tie for first.

From the pages of The King Abdullah Gazette:

Anais Pouliot is the most beautiful girl in the world!

From the pages of The King Abdullah Gazette:

Stevie Lynn Jones is the most beautiful girl in the world!

From the pages of The King Abdullah Gazette:

Dr. William Wesley McDonald, Requiescat in pace.

From Lee Cheek [via The Imaginative Conservative] comes this remembrance of a great American you've never heard of...

Remembering W. Wesley McDonald: Marylander, Friend, and Kirk Disciple

 

On September 9th, with the passing of Dr. William Wesley McDonald, the American academy lost a talented teacher and defender of humane learning. The American conservative movement, or what remains of authentic conservatism, has also lost a strong advocate for restraint in social and political life. From a very early age, Wes came to the realization that politics, properly understood, was the pursuit of the good the true and beautiful; and, at this early juncture, Wes also appreciated the imperfectability of humankind, and the necessary limits of politics. As a great lover and sophisticated student of the limits of politics, Wes feared the inappropriate and increasingly commonplace aggrandizement of liberty by the modern state. He spent his life fighting the usurpation of fundamental liberties.

Wes loved his native Maryland, and within our federal arrangement, he considered Maryland to be a southern state in many regards, often referring to the “old Maryland” as a model of political moderation and civility. Of course, as a realist, Wes derided the political class in power in Maryland during most of his lifetime, composed of career politicos and apparatchiks, whose guiding principles were antithetical to the inherited tradition Wes cherished. With some regularity, Wes would recollect the role of Maryland in the Founding and in the evolution of the regime, and pray that all was not lost if a recovery of principle could take place. 

Graduating from Baltimore’s Towson State University in 1968 with a degree in political science, Wes pursued graduate study in political science, earning a Masters of Arts in political science from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, in 1969. He considered several options for graduate school before selecting The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. At Catholic, Wes studied with and wrote a dissertation under tutelage of the eminent conservative scholar, Dr. Claes G. Ryn. He successfully defended his dissertation, entitled “The Conservative Mind of Russell Kirk: ‘The Permanent Things’ in an Age of Ideology,” in 1982. The dissertation would eventually be revised into a book, and the tome would serve as his most important contribution to scholarship.

No tribute to Wes would be appropriate without some stress upon his importance as a friend and mentor. I first encountered a mention of Wes on the last page of Kirk’s The Portable Conservative Reader (Viking Penguin, 1982), in a section entitled “A Note of Acknowledgment.” At the end of what is still the best single-volume collection of conservative thought available today, Kirk made the following comment: “Mr. Wesley McDonald spent months in close collaboration with me, choosing selections and finding accurate texts, and editing them.” This rather obscure reference introduced me to Wes, his work with Kirk, and Kirk’s willingness to take on research assistants who could benefit from studying with the Duke of Mecosta. Having spent the final years of my undergraduate years engrossed in Kirk’s writings, and reading the corpus of the Intercollegiate Review, I came to view Kirk as a beacon of light amidst my academic darkness. In 1983, I began my graduate studies at The Divinity School of Duke University. I was totally unprepared for what was to follow, and instead of reading the assigned texts, I turned to Kirk and Voegelin. During the semester, I also attended an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference, and in the middle of a banquet event, I recognized Wes at an adjacent table from his picture in an I.S.I. speakers bureau booklet. I approached Wes, and he immediately encouraged me to write to Kirk, telling him of my plight, and Wes also urged me to ask Kirk if he could use a wayward research assistant. Thanks to the encouragement I received from Wes, my life was never the same. In fact, I am now one of the more aged individuals who were blessed with the opportunity to work and study with Kirk in Mecosta.

The next year my old friend from my undergraduate years, Dr. Al Gilman, a mathematician qua political theorist, and an acquaintance of Kirk’s, created an academic entity at Western Carolina University entitled the Center for the Study of Cultural Decadence, following the insights of Joad and Kirk. Three decades later the center’s title and organizational focus appears a little quaint, as we now take such a high level of societal decadence for granted, and in some quarters we even celebrate decadence as the “new enlightenment.” Nevertheless, the center was a noble, yet short-lived pursuit, but not before Gilman held a national conference on the topic of decadence. Both Wes and I presented papers at the conference, and Wes’s contribution on Kirk was eventually published in the Hillsdale Review. Before the conference ended, Wes advised me to dedicate my year in Mecosta to spending as much time with Kirk and to read constantly! This was some of the best advice one could receive!

After Mecosta, I returned to graduate school, and Wes quickly invited me to present a paper at the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Political Science Association. In 1987, under the kind auspices of Wes, I presented my first professional paper, and this effort would become my first published article. For the remainder of his life, Wes and I remained friends and regular correspondents.

Of much greater importance than my personal narrative, Wes’s “mission” as a popular faculty member and student mentor at Elizabethtown College defined his professional life. The devotion to teaching and mentoring students was Wes’s greatest gift–and his enduring legacy–and it is this academic witness that separated Wes from most of his colleagues. In some respects, members of the professoriate are the last nomads to be found in American today. Professors often make career moves to enhance their status or salary with reckless abandonment (and this writer is among the ranks of those who have followed such paths), and with the shrinking number of full-time academic positions, not to the mention the influence of the proprietary, on-line programs, the growth of institutional academic bureaucracies, and other threats to academic life, a professor with a lifelong commitment to an institution is hard to find. Wes was a most honorable exception. Wes taught at Elizabethtown College for nearly three and a half decades. He was beloved by students and his resiliency of purpose is a model for us all. He mentored countless students who would pursue graduate studies, legal studies, and become political practitioners of one variety or another. When Wes was a candidate for full professor a decade ago, he asked me to write a letter of recommendation on his behalf. He thought my status as an academic vice president, and my strong letter of support, would make his promotion a certainly. In my letter I simply asked the President and the Trustees of they could name a more loyal and devoted professor at their college? Wes was quickly promoted.

Finally, any celebration of Wes’s life should praise the importance of his great study, Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology, published by the University of Missouri Press in 2004. In essence, the book is a valuable survey of a leading (nay, seminal) thinker of the 20th century, although Kirk’s contribution has for the most part been neglected for ideological reasons and assessed by less perceptive scholars than Wes (There are exceptions, however; see Russello’s The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk [Missouri, 2004], and Brad Birzer’s forthcoming study from the University of Kentucky Press.).

Wes argued that Kirk was a political thinker, historian, historian of political ideas, journalist, and one who served in many other capacities. Kirk’s significance was not limited to the conservative movement. Wes was correct, and he teaches us a lesson that we should not easily forget.

In the first chapter of his work, entitled “Kirk and the Rebirth of American Conservatism,” Wes provided an excellent survey of Kirk’s plea for the return to traditional concepts of political order and power. The description of Kirk’s education experiences was alluring, and at my insistence, he included Kirk’s private reading as an undergraduate at Michigan State, where he was engrossed in Donald Davidson’s Attack on Leviathan; and the influence of his two mentors at Duke, Jay Hubbell (English) and Charles Sydnor (History). Additionally, Wes’s inclusion of Kirk’s own commentary as contained in his Sword of Imagination made this an exemplary introduction to Kirk’s early intellectual life.

The next two chapters are central to his book. Wes thoughtfully conveys Kirk’s defense of the moral basis of social and political life, and the appropriate role of rights and natural law. Wes depended heavily on Irving Babbitt to explain Kirk, and the effort to distinguish Kirk explicitly from the Christian tradition of natural law thinking evoked some criticism. While Wes may have overemphasized Babbitt’s influence and the insights of the New Humanists (and their contemporary disciples), he was still prescient in his understanding of Kirk’s worldview. He was also correct to suggest the important role of literature and humane letters upon Kirk. For example, Wes’s analysis of Kirk’s Enemies volume is wonderful and this contribution alone will encourage a new generation of readers to encounter this tome.

Wes’s chapters (four and five) on Kirk’s contributions to political theory scholarship are the best assessment of Kirk’s political thought every written. Chapter six delineates the centrality of community to Kirk’s thought, and is presented with great accuracy and clarity. Wes’s stress on the role assumed by self-restraint makes the chapter an important contribution to Kirk scholarship. Kirk believed that humankind’s primary obligation lies in his or her community. Self-discipline and love of neighbor begin with the individual, and spread to the community, and then to society as a whole. In other words, Kirk’s concept of community serves to define the limitations of society and politics on hand, while on the other it presupposes and defends the necessity of a properly constituted community for securing the moral and ethical results concomitant to society’s perpetuation.

There remain among us many who knew and loved Russell Kirk, but very few of us who have devoted our lives to the exegesis of his boundless wisdom for the rising generation. With the departing of Wes for the Heavenly Banquet, we defenders of the “permanent things” should remember one of the finest comrades and gentlemen to have come our way.

Perfidious Persia Update.

Remember the Iranian kiddies who dared to sin against the mohammedan "god" [AKA fascist state power] by dancing and recording it? The sentence is in and it makes Adrian Peterson look like Father Of The Year.

Iran's 'Happy' dancers sentenced to 91 lashes, jail - FLASHBACK VIDEO: Iranians arrested for dancing

- Fox News   

Iran's latest crackdown on freedom includes lashes and prison for seven young adults who posted a video of themselves dancing to the American pop hit "Happy" and a death sentence for a blogger accused of insulting Prophet Muhammad.

• Iran: Sentences for ";Happy"; video may not have to be se... - Payvand Iran News
• Iranians sentenced to 91 lashes for Pharrell 'Happy' video - Daily Telegraph
• 'Happy' Iranians Sentenced to Prison and Lashings for Viral Video - Spin
• all 5 news articles…

DAY 2918: PLUTO HELD HOSTAGE

Pluto's precise location unknown!

   - BigPond News

 You bastards! Where have you taken him? 

If you have seen Pluto...


...no, not that Pluto...

If you have seen this planet, please call your friendly neighborhood astronomer.

Everyone's favorite "moderate leftist" [which means he's still working out his personal justification for mass murder] urges us to wait before calling Benito Insane Okhrana a dictator.

Jonny boy, you do know the softer lefties were the first ones thrown into the GULAG's maw, don't you? 

I'm just sayin'...

The Executive Over-Reach Debate Turns To Immigration

July 28, 2014 by jonathanturley

I have received a fair number of emails over the debate last week featuring my views on executive power on the Senate floor. The debate concerned the growing fight over immigration and I have been asked by journalists if I believe that the President is also violating the Separation of Powers with the suggestion of unilateral measures in the area. I am indeed troubled by the suggestion of a new round of unilateral actions by the President. However, the details are still unclear.

The display used in the Senate debate featured a quote from my recent testimony before the House Rules Committee on July 16, 2014:

“The President’s pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming, and what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the framers sought to avoid . . .
What we’re witnessing today is one of the greatest crises that members of this body will face . . . it has reached a constitutional tipping point that threatens a fundamental change in how our country is governed.”

(I am inclined now to give all my future congressional testimony on huge blue boards like this one for emphasis).

I testified (here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. I ran another column listing such incidents of executive over-reach. My prior testimony has discussed unilateral actions in the immigration field that do raise separation issues.

I have also noted that some of these actions probably do fall within the strike zone for the president in using executive power. In areas like environmental law, the president has been given broader authority under statutes like the Clean Air Act.
 The problem is that the President has not offered details on the new round of unilateral actions. Some reports indicate that millions might be given new status. Of course, even concluding that the President can act does not mean that he should act without congressional action. Major changes in these areas should not be the result of unilateral action in my view. The Madisonian system is designed to allow different constituencies to come to bear in the bicameral system to take factional disputes and convert them into majoritarian compromises. The result has greater legitimacy as the result of the legislative product and often constitutes a better product after being put through the difficult drafting and amendment process. During times of division, less may get done. Both sides must either compromise or seek to change the balance of power in the next election. If the country and Congress is too divided to reach a compromise, unilateral action will only deepen the questions of legitimacy and over-reach.

Oooooooh! A swing and a miss on that sports analogy.

We will have to wait to see the specific unilateral actions to judge their constitutionality. However, for those of us who are uncomfortable with the rise of the über presidency in the United States, the suggestion of a president dictating a massive change in the status of millions of people raises many of these same concerns.

"Comrade Turley, your black mariah is here for you."

Do people still read books?

Just wondering...

Yes, Italian girls are crazy, but its a good crazy.

See? No hitting...and making up makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Speaking of Italians...

Everybody just wear pink, that'll shut 'em up.

Because my ancestors were Italian, I really can't relate to this pansies-beating-on-ladies shit. When my women misbehave, I simply withhold sex and within minutes they come crawling back to me, contrite and chastened. 

From NBCSports.com:

NFL VP Adolpho Birch struggles to justify Ray Rice's suspension

 NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has not yet spoken publicly on the controversial two-game suspension given to Ravens running back Ray Rice for assaulting his wife. But one of Goodell’s top deputies, NFL V.P. of labor policy and government affairs Adolpho Birch, went on the radio this morning in an attempt to explain. It did not go well.

Birch’s appearance on this morning’s Mike & Mike was so bad — so totally incapable of justifying the relatively light punishment handed to Rice — that host Mike Greenberg felt the need after the interview to address the listeners who had contacted the show to express their frustration with Birch’s evasions. Greenberg said he was frustrated by Birch’s evasions, too.“I’m a little taken aback by the conversation, to be honest with you. The reaction is overwhelming and no one seems to think that he did a particularly good job of answering the questions,” Greenberg said minutes after the interview with Birch ended. “I do not feel that most people listening to that discussion feel they got an adequate explanation of how they arrived at two games.”

So how did the NFL arrive at two games for Rice? Well, Birch didn’t really have much of an answer. At one point he said the NFL was “bound in large part by precedent in prior cases.” But Birch said that just moments after insisting that prior cases — particularly the suspension of Ben Roethlisberger after he was accused of (but not criminally charged with) sexual assault — couldn’t be compared to the Rice case.

Birch also refused to answer whether the NFL is aware of information that isn’t available to the general public, such as surveillance camera footage beyond what has been widely distributed showing Rice dragging his unconscious then-fiancee out of an elevator. But Birch insisted that a two-game suspension without pay isn’t a minor punishment.

“It is multiple games and hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think it’s fair to say that doesn’t reflect that you condone the behavior,” Birch said.

But the question isn’t whether the NFL condones a player beating up his wife.
The question is whether the NFL is willing to take severe disciplinary actions against a player who beats up his wife. And the answer to that question is a resounding, “No.” The NFL hands out longer suspensions for everything from getting caught smoking pot repeatedly, to taking Adderall without filling out the necessary paperwork to — in the case of Roethlisberger — being accused of crimes without any arrests or charges. For the NFL to come down harder on pot smokers, Adderall users and players who weren’t evan arrested than it came down on Rice is baffling and requires an explanation.

Birch may have been trying to explain, but he failed. Greenberg said that in the minutes after the interview, the show got thousands of reactions via Twitter and email and that, “I can’t find a single one of them that said, ‘Well, that explained it for me.’ Literally not a single one.”

After Birch’s unsuccessful attempt to to explain the suspension, it’s time for Goodell to step up. NFL fans want to know why Ray Rice got off easy, and they want to hear it from Goodell.

Of course, Screamin' A. Race of ESPN thinks women should shut up and sit down lest they provoke manly men like Ray to punch them in the head...

From NJ.com:



ESPN's Stephen A. Smith found himself in hot water on Friday after what he said on "First Take" offended viewers -- including his own colleague, Michelle Beadle.

In the video above, you'll see Smith's rant after Ravens running back Ray Rice was suspended for two games. Here's what got Beadle and others angry after he said "we know you have no business putting your hands on a woman:" (Here's the full transcript)

"What I've tried to employ the female members of my family, some of who you all met and talked to and what have you, is that again, and this what...I've done this all my life, let’s make sure we don’t do anything to provoke wrong actions. [Emphasis mine. F.G.] Because if I come, or somebody else come, whether it’s law enforcement officials, your brother or the fellas that you know, if we come after somebody has put their hands on you, it doesn't negate the fact that they already put their hands on you. So let’s try to make sure that we can do our part in making sure that that doesn't happen.”

Jughead the jug-eared jackass brays impotently about how unfair the world outside the Betway is.

Well, I never! Can you believe the nerve of those mass-murderers? They're actually interfering with the "investigation" of their latest crime!
   
Thank goodness Benito Husayn Okhrana wasn't in charge when Auschwitz was overrun. Hitler's grandkids would be ruling Europe.

From Yahoo News:

Obama: Pro-Russian separatists are stealing evidence

President Obama on Monday bluntly accused pro-Moscow separatist fighters in Ukraine of stealing evidence and improperly removing bodies from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and pressed Russia to compel the rebels to stop blocking an international investigation.

“What exactly are they trying to hide?” Obama asked in a hastily arranged statement on the south lawn of the White House. “The burden now is on Russia to insist that the separatists stop tampering with the evidence.”

The president noted that it has been four days since the passenger jet went down, killing all 298 people aboard. The United States blames a surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by the rebels, who have extensive support from Moscow, including advanced weapons and training.

International investigators — including an American team — have traveled to Ukraine to carry out a full investigation.

 

“Unfortunately, the Russian-backed separatists who control the area continue to block the investigation. They’ve repeatedly prevented international investigators from gaining full access to the wreckage,” including by firing their weapons into the air when the teams approached the site, Obama charged.

Golly! If only the servile left-fascist press had shot down the plane! They'd obey their master's will.

“These separatists are removing evidence from the crash site,” the president said. “Moreover, these Russian-backed separatists are removing bodies from the crash site, oftentimes without the care that we would normally expect.”

 

“Russia has extraordinary influence over these separatists — no one denies that,” Obama underlined. “Russia has urged them on. Russia has trained them. We know that Russia has armed them with military equipment and weapons including anti-aircraft weapons.”

“Given its direct influence over the separatists, Russia — and President Putin in particular — has a direct responsibility to compel them to cooperate with the investigation,” Obama said.

“That is the least that they can do.”

No, the least they can do is laugh at your manly pretensions, you limp-dicked moron...Hey, wait a minute...that's exactly what everybody's doing.

Josh Harrison is what baseball should be all about.

 I only know two things about Mr. Harrison - he grew a beard because his wife and kids like the look and he plays ball like a man who knows he is one of the few blessed by God to be able to play a boy's game and earn a good living.

Check this out:




What? You think that was a fluke? Watch him do it again, this time against the Rockies:



From Bleacherreport.com:

What Should the Pirates Do with Josh Harrison?

The Pittsburgh Pirates are in the peculiar position of having a hot bat in utility man Josh Harrison but nowhere to put him in the lineup.

Anyone who regularly watches the Pirates is familiar with the grit, athleticism and heart that Harrison brings to the field for every game. He’s finally found himself regular playing time this year after riding the bench since 2011, mostly as a defensive replacement.

Harrison is hitting .306 this year, good for second on the team only behind star Andrew McCutchen. He’s already had 206 at-bats this season, only 43 fewer than his career high set in 2012.

His play can’t be measured in just stat lines, however, as evidenced by his baserunning and superb play in the field.

Even general manager Neal Huntington said in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this weekend that Harrison has surprised everyone this year and has earned the right to play every day.

The only problem is the team has nowhere to put him.

First, it was right field before the organization called up top prospect Gregory Polanco. Then it was left field to help ailing Starling Marte get healthy and second base before Neil Walker came back from an appendectomy.

Now the entire lineup is back and healthy, leaving Harrison as the odd man out despite his productivity.

As mentioned previously in a Bleacher Report article, some fans have been clamoring for weeks for Harrison to take over at third base for Pedro Alvarez.
However, a June 30 column by Ron Cook in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette debunked that idea as Alvarez himself said the issue has never even been breached. That’s not to mention that Alvarez is finally showing signs of heating up after a productive weekend series against the New York Mets.

However, Huntington did admit that the team isn’t getting what it needs from first base. Cook said:

Huntington acknowledged the Pirates aren't getting the power production they would like out of platoon first basemen Ike Davis and Gaby Sanchez. Going into the games Sunday, the Pirates first basemen ranked 13th in the National League in batting average, tied for 12th in home runs, tied for 13th in RBIs and 13th in OPS.

Regardless of where the team decides to stick him, it’s very apparent that Harrison has earned the right to be in manager Clint Hurdle’s lineup every night.

The team is 7-3 in their last 10 games and has one of the best records in baseball since the beginning of May—right around the time Harrison entered the lineup.
According to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Bob Smizik, Harrison has transformed himself from a fringe roster player to one of the best in the lineup.

"There’s no getting around the fact Harrison, previously slotted as a bottom-of-the-roster guy, has been one of the Pirates‘‍ best players since being given the chance at regular play in early May," Smizik said.

Despite the productivity, Huntington confirmed that the team has no plans currently on giving Harrison a starting job at third base or anywhere else for that matter.

Huntington and Hurdle put more value in Harrison "bouncing around giving everybody rest" than they do in putting Harrison at third and moving Alvarez to first, Cook said.

It’s great to have a player like Harrison around to give the regular starters a breather or to have a solid backup plan if a serious injury arises.

But in that same vein, it’s tough to write a lineup card that doesn’t contain the name of one of the hottest hitters on the team, even if Harrison hasn’t shown sustained success over an entire season.

It doesn’t matter where Hurdle puts him. Josh Harrison has earned the right to start every game.


From Pittsburgh's other newspaper:

Josh Harrison's performance golden

 

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Josh Harrison avoided more than one Met on the basepaths during Friday night's extra-innings win.

By Jenn Menendez / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Josh Harrison is officially worth his weight in gold, all 200 pounds of him.

Harrison doubled to the warning track in right-center to drive in Clint Barmes with the winning run in the 11th inning Friday night to lead the Pirates to a 3-2 win against the New York Mets.
Harrison -- who originally had the night off -- managed to be all over the basepaths after entering the game in the seventh. He nearly single-handedly won it in the 10th, too.

"I asked him how he enjoyed his day off?" said manager Clint Hurdle. "He's soaking wet. Couple hits, rundown, a walk-off. He's been on some kind of roll.

"He's a backyard ballplayer and he just keeps showing up."

Harrison hammered a first-pitch fastball off Mets reliever Vic Black, a former Pirate farmhand, to score Barmes from first after he had drawn a one-out walk.

Harrison's night also featured an incredible play an inning earlier.

He led off the 10th with a sharp grounder to third that he hustled into a leadoff single. Then, he stole second, barely beating the with a head-first slide. The Mets challenged the call and lost.

But then came the highlight-reel play of the night.

Gregory Polanco hit a ball back to Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia, who seemingly trapped Harrison in a rundown.

But Harrison kept eluding the tag, falling and crawling when necessary to reach third.

After all that, Harrison was eventually stranded as Travis Snider struck out looking, Andrew McCutchen was intentionally walked, Neil Walker struck out swinging, and Russell Martin popped up to right to end the threat.

"Pitcher stabbed it, and I knew I was too far off," said Harrison. "I was just trying to let Polanco get to second. I realized he did, and it was just a move I kind of did.

"When I saw them getting close I just dropped. It worked the first time, so I did it a couple more times and eventually got out of it."

And he didn't think he was out of the basepath, either.

"To be honest, I didn't think so, I was just in the moment dodging tags," said Harrison. "I'm sure they'll look at the video, but I didn't feel like I went too far out of my way."

The victory gave the Pirates a 41-39 record, putting them two games over .500 for the first time since April 11.

It also ended the night on a sweet note for Brandon Cumpton, who turned in another solid start that did not go to waste.

Cumpton left with game tied, 2-2, after seven. He gave up two earned runs, six hits, struck out four and walked one.

"It's like it's been in the past, just getting ahead, forcing the issue, trying to get them to put the ball in play early and keep the game close so we can win it in the end," said Cumpton.

"Just trying to do my part, trying to do my part, and do as best I can to not mess up."

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

McCutchen's leaping eighth-inning catch.

The Mets did not go quietly in the late innings.

In the eighth, McCutchen had to go back to deep center, where he a barely snagged flyball at the top of the wall that Curtis Granderson hit off reliever Justin Wilson.

That defensive gem elicited chants of "M-V-P" throughout PNC Park.
The Mets wound up with runners on the corners in the ninth when Travis d'Arnaud singled with two outs on a ball that caromed off pitcher Mark Melancon, past second base and into the outfield.

Bobby Abreu, however, grounded out to end the inning.

Daniel Murphy singled with two outs in the 10th, but was caught stealing by Martin to end the inning.

The Mets had taken the first lead in the fourth when Lucas Duda delivered a two-run single to right.

The Pirates tied it at 2-2 in their half of the fourth on Jordy Mercer's two-out, bases-loaded single up the middle. That scored McCutchen, who led off the inning with a single, and Ike Davis who reached base on a fielder's choice.

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Davis slides home safe against the Mets.

Cumpton gave up two more singles in the fifth, but got out of the jam and allowed just one runner on base in both the sixth and seventh.

Jacob deGrom went 6 2/3 innings for the Mets, giving up five hits, two earned runs. He walked three and struck out four.