No blogging yesterday as it was a full day of practice for my Babe Ruth league team. The league had told me during the winter that our season would not start until mid-May, as many of the kids play High School baseball but last week they switched it up and said we are starting right away. Our first game is Monday so it’s been a scramble of sorts to get my pitching in order and all the administrative stuff like uniforms and contacting parents with schedules and location sot pick up uniforms.

Then with that I have two podcasts to do this week. The first will be on Tuesday night at 11PM ET as me and Adam Bernacchio of The Ghost of Moonlight Graham will host the Baseball Bloggers Alliance show BBA Baseball Talk.

Then on Wednesday night at 10PM ET I will be hosting my THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN show on Blogtalk Radio and one of my guest will be the founder of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance and Cardinal blogger at C70 At The Bat, Daniel Shoptaw, we will discuss the weekend series between the Mets and Cardinals in St. Louis.

Now today as much as I would love to write some Mets stuff, I’m heading to a birthday party for my 1year old Great niece in 10 minutes, if I’m not totally exhausted by this evening I mat have a Mets write up tonight, if not tomorrow for sure.

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Check out the festivities that went on at U.S. Cellular Field on opening day. Wonder if the Mets season goes south if this could happen at $iti?  Mr. Met condoms anyone?

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Malcom McLaren one of the leaders of the punk movement and the founder/manager of the Sex Pistols died in Switzerland yesterday at age 64 

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If Freddi Gonzalez ever feels his job as head Fishmonger is in jeopardy, he’d better hope the Mets are on the upcoming schedule. The Marlins have now beaten the Mets 13 times in the last 24 games.

Yes, yes, yes I know the season is in its infancy stage but didn’t the last three games look as though 2009 hasn’t ended? If not for the big effort by Johan Santana on Monday the Mets might be 0 for 2010 today.

Nice work by Jon Neise last night working all his pitches and hitting the strike zone on the down low.  The way he worked his fastball and cutter was encouraging as well. Too bad the Mets couldn’t put a few crooked numbers up for him. Sure 3 runs allowed in 6 innings is an average performance but Niese did pitch to contact and after watching John Maine on Wednesday at least he threw strikes.

I keep looking and looking but I can’t find where the Mets have DFA’Mike Jacobs? By the way Ike Davis had 3 hits in 4AB’s in a losing Buffalo Bison effort last night. Just sayin’

Should SNY start Mets telecast like an episode of 24 as a count down to when Jerry Manuel gets fired, “The following occurred between 7:10PM and 10:35PM”

This weekend series against the Nationals is a “must-win” for the Mets. What? Too early?

Luis Castillo will sit out tonight’s game with calf (wink, wink) discomfort. So tonight we get Alex “Leader of Men” Cora at 2^nd base and Ruben Tejada at short, and hopefully by tomorrow Jose Reyes will be activated from the DL unless of course he eats a dozen oysters on the half shell on the plane ride from St. Lonesome. Oh and Michael Highlander, I’m wearing my doo-rag today!!!!

I’m proud to say I have not watched one second of Jersey Shore being that if I want to look at wanna be tough guys and cows who have an over inflate view of their importance I can stroll the Staten Island Mall, but the commercial for Vitamin Water D-Wright shot with this cugine (pronounced COO-Jean) The Situation was pretty amusing. D-Wright by the way had a piece of the Vitamin Water and when they were bought by Coca-Cola Wright made a nice piece of change.

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I was able to go to last night’s game on one of those spur (or as Archie Bunker used to say “sperm” ) of the moment deals. My son was with his friends when one the boys’ dads called and said he had gotten tickets to the game from his job. My son called me and asked if we could go and I said “Giddy up! Let’s go”

First it was the latest I’ve ever left for a game, 90 minutes before first pitch. I’m usually in the ball park at least two hours before game time, but when the folks we were going with had to get home from work so, you do what you can do.

Now from my shack on Staten Island to $iti Field it’s approximately 23 miles. In a place like say, Bismarck North Dakota, a 23 mile trip may take 15 minutes but in the Greatest City on Earth at rush hour it takes close to 90 minutes. We got our seats just before first pitch.

Needless to say, I did not get to inspect my brick in the Fan Walk, but I did get a glimpse of the old Home Run Apple which looks like it has found the perfect home. We passed by the new McFaddens which looked awfully dark. The bouncers at the door, one really big dude who had a chin like a Jai-Alai Cestna, scared the shit out of me so I didn’t look sideways at the place or ask a question but I’ll pose it here to any of y’all who have been inside the place. I believe it’s open all year round and on non game days? If so, who in that neighborhood is going to frequent the place? Do they serve food or is it a joint just to get a load on?

We sat in Section 106 down the right field line, close to the field but we had these annoying Asian tourists in the five rows in front of us who felt the urge to take photographs during game action. In the first inning the crowd in the section just called out “Yo sitdown” but by the third inning it was the whole section screaming “SIT THE FUCK DOWN” which I guess were the magic words as all cameras were finally put away.

By the third inning I had seen enough of John Maine and decided it was time for the Shake Shack and Box Frites. Seeing that I was comped tickets and a ride to the game, the least I could do was offer a Shack Burger, Fries and a beer to my host. Even though the crowd was as large as any I’ve ever seen for a second game of the season, 90 degrees in April will do that (remember when the Mets used to do Second Opening Day ? Rodney Dangerfield was a guest one year when they did this promotion as the second game of the season gets “no respect, no respect at all”) and I’ll be honest if it were 35 degrees and windy, my ass would have been on the couch at home watching this game, but I digress. It only took an inning and a half to get my Shake Shack order and beer but to cart the provisions back, I looked like a contestant on “Minute To Win It”. It’s not easy balancing four burgers, four fries and two beers from the center field food court to section 106. But here is the best part of the night, as get to the steps of the section and feeling a great sense of accomplishment that I have not dropped nor spilled any of this fine fare, the usher…..opps excuse me…the Hospitality Attendant, seeing me struggle to get to my row has the balls to ask to see my ticket. I give this dolt a look and say to him “Are you fuckin’ kidding”? Now get this? This asshole is offended by my language. I tell him call a supervisor or a cop and as soon as I put this food down I’m coming back up to show you my ticket.  He then says “no that’s all right”.

After I eat my burger I go back up to tap a kidney, on the way back I find Mr. Hospitality Agent ( I wish I wrote down this guys name as I’d put it in this post, in fact because of this guy, for now on, whoever pisses me off at $iti Field will have their named printed on this site) and I ask him, “let’s look at the logic here, I have two arms full of food and drink, you know my ticket is in my pocket. Since my hands are occupied, how did you think I was going to get the ticket out of my pocket, to show you”? “And your not cute enough for me to let you put your hand in my pocket” All this guy could do was turn a nice shade of crimson. Now I could have stopped there but I couldn’t, I had to add, “Don’t you feel foolish”? What can he say or do? He can’t call a supervisor because he’ll look like a dope and he can’t argue with me because now I’ve got a posse backing me up all he could do was apologize. Asshole!

Oh yeah the game! Not only was John Maine ineffective, he looked very uncomfortable on the mound. Jerry Manuel can run this start through the spin cycle all he wants there’s no way he or the front office are not concerned with Maine’s start last night. His location on the majority of his pitches weren’t even close to hitting their target and it seemed every Marlin hitter started their at bat with a 2-1 or 3-1 count. I don’t think Maine ever topped 90mph on his fastball all night and the speed of his fastball and change was much different.

There’s not much I can add about the bonehead play by Fernando Tatis in the 7^th that ran the Mets out of a potential big inning. You have to know your home court. The backstop at $iti is not very deep but also, with your best hitter at the plate and two out, Tatis shouldn’t even think of running unless the ball went off the backstop and up the first base line. Bad baseball right there. Give Tatis some props for manning up after the game and talking to the press and admitting he fucked up.

That Tatis throw out at the plate, by the way, emptied $iti Field. There was a mass exodus complete with heads shaking and faces etched in disgust.

Hey Jenry Mejia, We’re not in St Lonesome anymore uh?

I know, I know it’s only two games but I’ve seen enough of Mike Jacobs.

Tough to kill D-Wright on the steal of second in the 9^th that set up the IW of Jason Bay. GMJ is about the only guy in the lineup besides Wright, Bay or Frenchie that gives you any confidence as a Mets fan to get anything done. How sad is that?

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Before we talk Mets I have to give a shout of congratulations to the UCONN Women’s Basketball Team for last night win over Stanford in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Finals. The Lady Huskies  scored an all time low 12 points in the first half of this game but came out of the locker room on fire to the tune of a 32-9 run. For UCONN Lady Huskies it was their 7^th NCAA title, 78^th straightwin and finished the first back to back undefeated season since John Wooden’s UCLA teams. If new soon to be Brooklyn Nets owner, Mikhail Prokhorov wants to make a big coaching hire he should look at Geno Auriemma.

Mike Silva of NYBD writes about David Wright and his burden as spokesman for the Mets. Silva talks of how Wright has to deal with the responsibility of dealing with media queries night after night. As I wrote in the comments section of his site, I would rather deal with the NY media than Little League parents any day. Wright is a big boy who has been in this town long enough to know that winning brings relief of serious media interrogation.  The only way you get the media and fan base off your back is to win. Do you think Derek Jeter could ever get away with his stick up his ass attitude if he didn’t have five World Series Rings?  No way!

I hope the Mets PO-PO is right that the Mets will ditch the black next season. Hell, why wait until next year, which by the way will be the 50^th Anniversary of the team existence, DUMP THE BLACK NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Especially those nasty two toned black and blue hats, I skeeve that awful head wear.

According to MLB the New York Mets have the highest number of foreign born players with 18 of the 25 players on the opening day roster born somewhere other than the USA. I mention this because it has come up on my Google Reader in about 50 different articles. For someone born and raised in NYC it gives me a good laugh. On the block where I live you have myself; born to Irish immigrants and my wife whose maternal grand parents come from Italy and here paternal grandparents come for Poland. My next door neighbors are from Albania. My neighbor’s right across the street from me are from India, the family next to them are from China, and then there are Mexicans, Koreans and Russians at the end of the block so it tells me that the Mets are a real New York team.

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Got this from The Real Dirty Mets Blog :

The NY Post is reporting that according to an ESPN Insider article the Phillies have an interest in Figueroa.

Not surprising is it? Figueroa has a history with the Phillies as he started 16 games for them back in 2001

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Lot’s of posts on this site have been made taking Mets management to task but today I want to start this one with some praise and thanks.

My son and I were supposed to be at Citi Field yesterday enjoying Opening Day but due to the Easter weekend we could not lay my mother to rest until yesterday.  I offered my tickets to various friends but none wanted them under the circumstances and a more than one person told me to contact the Mets and tell them of my situation and see if they would exchange the tickets for another game.  So I called the Mets ticket office to see if they could help me out.

The seats were in the lower level and cost me $190 so I couldn’t just eat the cost, so it was worth a shot.

The ticket agent I spoke to offered me his condolences and then asked me  to hold so he could get a supervisor to help me. The supervisor came on and also offered a kind word and told me “no question, Mr. Keane we will refund your  ticket and credit your credit card for the full amount” and with that he said “On behalf of the New York Mets, we offer our condolences”

Thank you to the Mets ticket office and to the Mets organization for their help, understanding and kind words.

I didn’t get to see much of yesterday’s game but after seeing highlights and reading various sites, I figured I’d comment on a few items:

It looks as though the Mets have taken the fan base’ advice and Met-trifed Citi Field. Moving the Shea Stadium Home Run Apple was a tremendous move. Although I enjoyed sitting at the picnic tables in back of the bullpen with the Apple tucked away in the back, the Apple is now in a proper place out in the open.

I love that there is a Gil Hodges Entrance and a Tom Seaver Entrance as well. The Mets Hall of Fame looks like it’s a must see place and the player imagines on banners hanging from the lamp posts are a great touch as well. I can’t wait to see these things in person.

I got a letter from the Mets with the location of my brick on the Fan Walk. It’ s in the spot with the Game 6 of the 1986 World Series plaque and it reads METSFANS4EVER KEANE FAMILY STATEN ISLAND.  So please no spitting, or gum or cigarette butts on my brick. Thank You.

It’s safe to say no other fan base but the Mets fan would boo the training and strength and condition staff. In fact I don’t think any other fan would know the names of it’s training and strength and conditioning staff.

Hurray for the new guys as Jason Bay, Gary Mathews Jr and Rod Barajas had big days with the bat.

The Marlins looked very 2009 Mets-ish with their sloppy defense.

Not the best welcome back for Mike Jacobs with 2 K’s and being lifted for defensive purpose by Fernando Tatis.

One win down and nineteen more to go for Johan Santana. Santana pitched to the ballpark as we got ten outs via fly ball and five K’s with a nice mix of the fastball/changeup that kept the Fish batters off balance. The man knows how to pitch.

Those new cream colored pinstriped  uni’s should be the one and only home uniform.  How can anyone say the black uni tops and those disgusting black and blue hats look better ?

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48 hours until opening day and Mets fans are getting their finest Mets regalia ready for opening day.  The jersey’s are washed and hung, the Mets caps with a nice bend of the brim and you can almost taste the garlic-parmesan  fries . The weatherman claims it will be 70 degrees on Monday so a nice blue three quarter sleeve under your brand new egg shell pinstripe home uni may do. By the way , what will the Mets be wearing on Monday ?  I would home the new pinstripe uni’s and all blue caps. Pomp and Circumstance will be there as well (Pomp never travels without Circumstance but Circumstance has had a stellar solo career).  So the fans will there, the new uni’s will be there, the new Mets Hall of Fame will be there, the old Home Run Apple will be there, the new  and improved Mets décor of $iti Field will be there but there will be something missing on Monday ? Know what it is? OPTIMISIM. Sure there will be some in attendance who preach “My Mets Right or Wrong”? but those of us who have waited through a winter of frigid temperatures, snow storms, and record rain and flooding not seen in these parts since an ark ferried animals in pairs, know  the motto for the 2010 Mets: HOPE FOR THE BEST, EXPECT THE WORST.

I would love to be optimistic, to sit here and tell you this Mets team will contend in the NL East and come September, will be in the thick of the pennant race. I would love to tell you I feel the Mets will be a n “Aw Shit!”  team:

“Who we playin’ in our next series”

“The Mets”

“Aw Shit, there on tough team right now”

But………..I can’t.

Now that’s not to say I won’t root, root-root for the home team and it’s a damn shame if they don’t win, but looking at the 25 players coming North and the management making the decisions , I can’t make a case for the NY Mets to make it to the 2010 post season.

The biggest mistake management made this off season was not deciding to either  fire Jerry Manuel  or extend his contract for another year.  Manuel’s job status is going to become daily fodder on blogs, newspapers and most importantly sports talk radio. You know early on Manuel will make a move or non-move that will have Mets fans heads explode and odds are he’ll makes such a misstep when the next day is an off day so the angry mobs can spew and spew.  You either have confidence in the skipper or you don’t , right now the only reason Manuel was not fired is because the Skill Sets couldn’t stomach paying him $1 mil to sit on his front porch back home in Cali.

Omar Minaya is a bit of a different case. He’s still around due to money but he won’t be fired not when he is owed three more years of salary if anything he will be given a position as a high paid scout. There are no more free lunches in Flushing.

Just looking at the personnel, the best you can hope is 81 wins, and that’s without any of the medical disasters of last year.  The front office talks about confidence in the starting pitching, especially Ollie Perez and John Maine but they jettison Jon Niese ,a player who at the start of spring training it was said would be used slowly due to his surgically repaired hammy.

The bullpen will be made up of an All Star closer (Frankie Rodz) a LOOGY turned set up man (Vitamin Pedro) two pitchers from the Japanese League (Ryota Igarashi and Hisanori Takahashi) who are not the first Japanese pitchers to fling for the Mets but hopefully they are the first two to do it with some success, a middle reliever who made the team because he makes $975K (Sean Green) over a guy who is a Man of the People (Nelly Figs) who would make just over league minimum, a guy who is a long reliver in starters clothing in Fernando Neve and a twenty year old, Jenry Mejia who really should be learning his craft in the bushes but is here to save the manager from an all expenses paid summer vacation.

The offense is in disarray as well with three starters out. Carlos Beltran is working out and could be ready by sometime in May (June?) he’s on the DL because he went to a doctor to get his aching knee looked at instead of subscribing to the Mets method of handling injury by rubbing dirt on the injured body part  and having the gall to let the doctor remove twenty five bone fragments without saying “May I?” to the Jeffey Skill Sets. The other  two  starters on the shelf,  were struck by illness (Jose Reyes) and a good old fashion baseball injury (Daniel Murphy sprain knee sliding into second base) Reyes should be back by the weekend and Murphy hopefully in a few weeks , but both these injuries wreck havoc on the line up as Alex Cora and Mike Jacobs are hardly the right understudies for the jobs. Neither  is Fernando Tatis, a nice man from what I’m told but he has this nasty habit of killing rally’s by hitting into double plays at the most inopportune times and quite frankly should not be on this team over  a guy like Chris Carter who is younger and has a work ethic and intenseness that is sorely lacking on this team.

The other problem and unlike Jay-Z the Mets seem to have more than 99 problems, the biggest being that  every team in the NL East has gotten better.  Last year the only team in the division the Mets won the season series from was against the Nationals (10-8).  Against the Braves they were a woeful  5-13. The Phillies beat the Mets 12 out of 18 times and they dropped 11 of 18 to the Marlins. It wasn’t just injuries that lead to this kind of suckitude.

So where do I think our beloved Metsies will finish ?  Believe me I ‘d love to say the Mets will be a positive surprise this season but I doubt they will even be a .500 team.  The Mets and Nats will fight it out for 4^th place

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And that’s not a good thing. How is it that a 20 year old pitcher of great promise who needs to work on his skills to become a front line pithcher (deep breath to get through the run on sentence of run on sentence) but a 23 yr old slugger, Ike Davis, who has shown to be primed and ready to play in the big leagues doesn’t get a chance?

I’m trying to be as optimistic as possible about the Mets chances in 2010 but I’m having a hrad time talking myself into it.

Hopefully more later, and again thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers

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