So my wife talked me into go to Lancaster PA for New Years Eve so as soon as we pull into the resort I know I’m in for a long weekend.

First probelm, half of Staten Island is here. I’ve been stopped in the lobby about 5 times since geting here by people saying “Don’t I know you from so place” ? I didn’t gome 160 miles to hang out with my felow Staten Islanders, that’s what the SI Ferry is for.

The problem is most of them are Highlander fans and they folks here who are not Highlander fans are Phuck Phace fans. Of course I’m decked out in my Mets best threads, Sweatshirt, jacket, and my classic blue New Era cap.

After tossing out insults to me both sets of fans say to me “”I don’t know if you heard, but the Mets signed Jason Bay” No really? Then I go into  Moe Green mode “Do you know you I am”? at that point my family runs away from me.

I want to wish all of tou who comes to sight each day a happy and healthy New Year and just to let you know how appreciative I am that you folks come here each day not just read my posts but leave such great comments. Agian thany you guys so much.

Hopfully   I survive this weekend and I’ll be back here Saturday

Posted under Uncategorized

Some fellas look at the eyes
Some fellas look at the nose
Some fellas look at the size
Some fellas look at the clothes
I don’t care if her eyes are red
I don’t care if her nose is long
I don’t care if she’s underfed
I don’t care if her clothes are worn
First I look at the purse!

J.Geils Band

I should be a happy Mets fan this morning, with the news that Jason Bay will sign up to man left field for my favorite baseball team. What’s not to like about Bay ? Big time power hitter from the right side of the plate, he stepped in to a situation in Boston, as crazy a baseball town as NYC and he took the place of one of the greatest right handed hitters to ever pick up a bat in Manny Ramirez and excelled. I was  at Fenway Park for Bay’s first game as a Red Sox and his hitting and attitude won over the hearts of Royal Rooters that weekend.  So why am I not on the phone pleading with the Mets ticket office to please, PLEASE, sell me a season ticket, I don’t care if a handrail or giant piece of Plexiglas impairs my vision of the field, I JUST WANT TO BE AT $ITI FIELD IN 2010!!!!!!!!!!   Well, because Jason Bay can’t pitch.

It’s not just that Bay is not a pitcher and the Mets need about three starting pitchers to even think of contending for an NL Pennant , I still look at the Mets as Bay’s last resort.  You have to feel, the Red Sox were his first choice to re-enlist with and his agent made a 4yr/$60mil offer to which Theo Epstein said “Do I know you”? That’s Cold Hearted Theo, “Come back when you settle for as 2yr plus and option and maybe I’ll dance with you”. The Highlanders would seem to be choice two, put it seems that the heirs to the Highlander fortune, Hal and Hank A/K/A The Fortunate Son’s, feel as though we won the World Series so now it’s time for us to set up our bank accounts because there will be a mucho disposable dinero flowing in the Bronx this summer and the Fortunate Sons want to bring back Bags O Cash to their Tampa lair. Then there is the Seattle Mariners ,which for Bay would have worked out the best for the Boy from BC.  Mrs. Bay is from the Pacific Northwest so the thought of playing house close to where he grew up with many millions in his pocket had to be very pleasing to the Bay’s. Problem is new Mariners GM Jack Z felt, sure we’d love to have you here but not for some ridiculous sum of $16 mil a year. Instead Jack Z went for bat shit crazy Milton Bradley who came to the Emerald City with his pockets full of cash, letting the M’s save money for something important like pitching. Did you know that Jack Z was once part of the Mets front office?

So the way I look at it, Jason Bay had no other choice but to play for the Mets. But I still feel the Mets were that last fat kid picked when you would choose up sides in the school yard. I just hope that at the Bay presser he doesn’t start waxing poetic about being back in the Mets organization ,in fact I’d have a better appreciation for Bay if he didn’t have a presser but I’m sure Jeffey and Jay Horowitz are at King Kullen right now ordering the cold cuts.

Look you have to give Omar his props as he obtained a power hitting corner outfielder at his terms. For all the venom tossed at Omar’s way this winter once in a while you can give him a pat on the back. Beisdes, Jeffey Skill Sets and Dave The Shyster would just the money on a house in the Hamptons.

Now is not the time for the Mets front office to take any bows, there work is far from done. Now try to make a deal with the Reds and Royals for Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo or Gil Meche . Get two of those three and I’ll bring a marble rye to the presser.  

Posted under Uncategorized

The white smoke has been emitted from the WFAN studios on Hudson St and Pontiff Mike has let word out that the NY Mets, pending a physical, will announce the signing of Jason Bay some time next week.

From reading the Tweets on this news, the Blue and Orange crowd there will not be a big rush on 44 BAY shirts.

Posted under Uncategorized

So the whole world of Metsdom is in an uproar due to the proclamation from the Drive Time Bloviator on WFAN that he has some major update about our favorite baseball team. So what could this major update be?

Well, I speculated on Twitter last night, that the team is in talks with Bombo Rivera to make a comeback and man left field. Rivera has Expo blood in him so that’s enticing to Omar.

Or it might be that Frank McCourt, the owner of the Los Angles Dodgers of Brooklyn, who is in a nasty divorce with Madame Jamie, needing cash will sell the name DODGERS to the Skill Sets who will finally get their wish to own the Dodgers.

Then again it could be that the Skill Sets have decided to have the team take a year off and cancel all plans to field a team in 2010. $iti Field will then be turned into a combination Chuck-E-Cheese/Catering hall to be rented out for birthdays, weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Who knows? Only the Pontiff Mike knows.

Posted under Uncategorized

In most sports, the person in charge of the team is called Coach. Coaches are a combination of motivator, evaluator and tactician. Football coaches run “Programs”, Basketball and Hockey coaches have “Systems” but what do Baseball Managers have? Well, they “manage”.

Baseball managers do more managing of personalities and keeping players happy than doing much tactical maneuvers. Sure they have to know when to go to the bullpen and when to go to the bench but it’s not like they are re-inventing the game or spending nights pouring over film to get an edge on their opponent. In baseball, your edge is your next days starting pitcher.

In his book “Evaluating Baseball’s Managers” (MacFarland) Chris Jaffe writes the ultimate book on the effect of baseball managers on their team’s success and failure. Jaffe uses a combination of statistics and in depth analysis to examine the role of mangers through out the history of baseball.

Jaffe takes each team in MLB and focuses on the role of managers who have worked in full seasons for their team. Jaffe was kind enough to send me an excerpt of the Mets managers in the book.

Jaffe makes the case for Casey Stengel never having players of talent until he was hired by the Yankees. Before his success in the Bronx, Stengel struggled in the NL with Brooklyn and Boston, to the point where he went to the Pacific League to run the Oakland Oaks to redeem himself.  Gil Hodges falls in a similar category as Stengel where he didn’t have much talent with the Washington Senators but was perfect for an up and coming young Mets team. Davey Johnson is portrayed as an underrated skipper and Bobby Valentine being the most active manager as it pertains to in game moves and the use of his 25 man roster. Jaffe makes the case that Art Howe and the Mets were not and should not have been a match as Howe was more suited to running a club of younger players and also suffered the stigma of being portrayed as a puppet of Billy Beane as seen through the pages of Moneyball.

Jaffe has taken on a subject that has not been fully represented. This book will appeal to both the stat head and the fan of the written word.

After reading the excerpt on the Mets managers, I look forward to picking up a copy of Evaluating Baseball Mangers just for the sections on Joe McCarthy, Connie Mack and the immortal John McGraw.

Posted under Uncategorized

As I get ready to watch the New York Football Giants play the Carolina Panthers, in what could be the last game at GIANTS Stadium, I got to thinking how I have no emotional attachment to that Stadium like I had with Shea Stadium, when the last summer of Shea was a six month wake.

Now maybe it’s that fact that I’ve spent many more days at Shea than I have at Giants Stadium, even though I’ve been to many games there in the past 34 years but there is just not that attachment to the Meadowlands like I had with Shea and from the looks of things, I don’t think many Giants fans do either.

A lot of that non-emotion has to do with the fact that there are a lot of Giants fans who have never been to the Stadium. Think about that as Mets fans. For years, there was a huge waiting list for Giants season tickets, in fact season tickets were left in wills and estates to carry over from family to family. I’ve been lucky between my brothers and friends, I usually get to 2 games a year at Giants Stadium but there is a huge population of Giants fans who have never seen Big Blue play live and in person.

When the Last Days of Shea were upon us, the blogs and news media outlets were full of stories by Mets fans of the joy of growing up going to games at Shea Stadium. For all the complaining we Mets fans did about Shea from leaky pipes, to floods in the bathrooms, to no concourse space and on and on, when the last day at the ball park came, we cried like babies. Something tells me there will no tears shed for Giants Stadium today. I guess that’s one more reason why baseball is better than football, much more emotional.

Another Giants related story that had me thinking Mets was the story in the News about Wellington Mara and the day Giants Stadium opened and how happy he was that the Giants finally had their own home. Mr. Mara ran the Giants for years and when his nephew Tim Mara joined him in ownership, the team took a downward turn. I remember my brothers debating the Wellington/Tim Mara spilt as Wellington wanted to build through the draft and Tim was more of a showman and wanted to go after big name players and thus there was a huge spilt. It wasn’t until Pete Rozelle stepped in and told both Mara’s for the good of the NFL they needed to find someone to run the football operations of the team, and get the Giants back as NFL title contenders. Isn’t that where the Mets are today?

Freddy Skill Sets is not involved in the day to day moves of the Mets, he has turned the team over to his son Jeffey, who in turn has David Howard, the noted house shyster as his consigliore, neither one of them know anything about running a baseball team. They have a lame duck GM in Omar Minaya and a lamer duck manager in Jerry Manuel and now have a team with assets of close to $1 billion dollars but a team that no one wants to play for and is disrespected through out baseball.  What they need is a George Young, a guy to come in a run the baseball ops the right way, with a plan to build a solid foundation. This is not some small market; pocket the revenue sharing, type of franchise. This is a franchise with outstanding financial and fan support resources, what it lacks is leadership and until young Jeffey and Shyster Dave are removed from the day to day doings of the baseball end, the Mets will continue down the path of failure.

The fan base is not just angry but hugely disappointed in the direction this franchise is headed. The easy thing to do is abandon ship but we never will, this team is too much a part of us to that. Guys like me have to much invested here, but that doesn’t mean as fans we just sit back a take it.

I’d love to sit here and wave blue and orange poms-poms and praise the signing of Kelvin Escobar and R.A Dickey and Ryota Igrashi but there is so much more that needs to be done and I don’t have any faith in the front office to get it done.

I feel sorry for Omar Minaya. His biggest mistake as GM to me was hiring his friends into top jobs. It doesn’t work. From Tony Bernazzard to Ramon Pena to Bingo mgr Mako Oliveras to Julio Franco to Luis Aguayo they all failed at their jobs and they all failed Minaya. Now some of you are saying “see too many Latinos” but if you can look past your bias, you’ll see it’s more of guys that Minaya grew up through the ranks from player to scout to front office person throughout baseball that he surrounded himself with and it could just cost him his job. Add in the fact that Minaya is real old school when it comes to evaluating talent and maybe his way of thinking is outdated in today’s baseball.

Ownership and the front office can try to con us with “the team will be better as all those who were injured will be back healthy “ propaganda but their non-action speaks louder than words and the really need to do something to stem the tide of pessimism that they have cast over the franchise.

Posted under Uncategorized

I got an iTouch for Christmas and I’ve spending a lot of time adding songs from my iTunes on to it, which is a great thing to do as we wait for the Mets to sign yet another reliever to go with all the third string catchers they horded away earlier this off season. But nothing sums up the state of the Mets this off season and as what the organization looks like to the outside baseball world than this quote from the Great Gammo via MLBTradeRumors on Jason Bay signing with the Mets:

Gammons quips that Bay would “rather play in Beirut than Queens” and adds that he should have taken Boston’s offer of $60MM over four years back in July.

I think I might use that line on the Mets ticket rep when they come a-callin’ for me to buy a season ticket.

Gotta go I have some Dictators, Chesterfield Kings and Mission of Burma tracks to download!

Posted under Uncategorized

Before I get on with this quick post on the Christmas Eve let me first wish one and all a happy and healthy Christmas. This will be it around here for today and tomorrow but before we break for Christmas a few quickies:

Please Theo Epstein do us Mets fans a favor and sign Jason Bay. Theo, you are a bright young GM and you played this perfectly as the only suitor for Bay is this broken down NL team with no direction home. Bravo Theo, bravo.  

Fernando Martinez can you be a has been even though you’ve never been? I wish MLB Network would do a show like E Entertainment does on Hollywood stars who fall to shit about ball players or future phenoms who never make it as F- Mart’s story would be epic. Who knows, now that Martinez has fallen off the major league wagon he can go back to being a minor leaguer learning to play baseball.

Couples split all the time but I was so sorry to hear about Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins breaking up. Now Sarandon is a great actress and I can’t pass by a display of lemons at the supermarket without think of her in the film Atlantic City but it’s Robbins, who is more than just a great actor, he is a great sports fan that made pause to feel upset of this breakup. I have met Tim Robbins twice in my life both at sporting events. Once at Shea as he is a big Mets fan and another time at Madison Square Garden as he is also a huge Rangers fan and a hockey player. I never knew how tall Robbins was until I met him in person, I’m 6ft and he is about a head taller than me. When I saw him at MSG, he was hanging out near the ice watching warm-ups like us other Rangers fans and when I recognized him I said that I had met him at Shea and in fact it was after the 2007 season or as we call it the Great Collapse of ’07, and we commiserated while watching the Blueshirts skate in warm ups He could not have been more gracious and being that we are the same age we not shared love of Mets and Rangers but rock music as well. I hope to run into again sometime this winter at MSG or at $iti Field in the spring.

Speaking of MSG, I can not believe it’s been 30 years since the Boston Bruins-Mike Milburry, Peter McNab, Terry O’Reily-stormed the stands at the Garden, right in front of me. My friends and I had season tickets in Blue Seats and when there were two minutes left in every home game we used to “make the move” downstairs to watch the end of the game, hear the 3 stars of the game and then head into the Manhattan night. There was tension in the building most of the night as there were with most Ranger-Bruin games. But when Milburry hopped over the glass followed by his teammates all hell broke lose. The funniest part of that night was when I got home and my mom and dad sitting in the living room by the phone. They were watching the 11 O’clock news and saw the riot, they both swore my friends and I were involved. Ah, good times.

Posted under Uncategorized

I’m running out the door to spread some Christmas cheer but before I do, a moment please:

What does your Dickey do? Mine throws a knuckleball

Hello? Where have you been hearing that the Mets should get David DeJesus and Gil Meche? Hello? Is this thing on?

Fork please! Carlos Delgado is as done as a Christmas goose.

When it comes to Assclowns nobody beats Highlander fans. Some of these geniuses have been calling WFAN or Twittering that they hate the deal that brought Javier Vasquez to the Highlanders for Melkey Cabrea and a couple of bush leaguers. Sometimes Highlander fans your stupidity is breath taking.

Thank you Mike Vaccaro, thank you for a wonderful column this morning.

Why do I get the sad feeling that we will see more Red Sox stories in the fish wraps this summer than Mets news?

Posted under Uncategorized

So Jason Marquis signed with the Washington Nats for 2yrs/$15 mil. It seems the Mets were adamant about Marquis signing for minimum of 5 yrs/$40 mil.

Of course if the Mets signed Marquis for the same deal it would have been very nice but let’s not make him out to be Don Drysdale, okay, he’s a plow horse who takes the ball every 5^th day and most days keeps his team in games.

The big problem for the Mets if John Harpers’ info is correct, the team has placed a priority on adding offense first then seeing how much is left in the bank account to go for pitching. If that’s the case, this Mets team is destined for doom.

Does it really pay to get mad anymore? I have no idea what the Mets plan is this off-season and I’m at the point that I couldn’t give a shit if Jason Bay signs here or not. In fact, my mindset for this coming season is of a late 70’s type mode. I see myself going to as many games as I can at $iti Field because for all the screaming, cursing and acting like baby bullshit I do here, I’m still a die hard Mets fan. I’ll be there (hopefully) on Opening Day and for a lot of other days/nights at $iti Field. So the Mets don’t have to do anything to appease me because even if they were still playing in our beloved Shea with it’s leaky toilets and broken seats, I’d still be there bitching and moaning but with cash and credit card in hand, wearing a Mets jersey, Mets cap, Mets socks (yeah that’s right I have about 5 pair of Mets socks) and standing and applauding when Alex Anthony says “And here they are your 2010 New York Mets”.  You say I’m a jerk and ass whatever but the bottom line is I love the Mets it’s the owner whose guts I hate.  Even Jimmy (Welcome to my Garden Party) Dolan laughs at Jeffey Skill Sets.

Posted under Uncategorized