As if there is not enough snow here on Staten Island, my family has decided it would be good idea to go upstate NY for New Years Eve and the weekend to snow board and ski, two activity’s I will not be involved in. So I don’t know how much access I’ll have to a wi-fi hot spot so I’d like to wish everyone you comes to this site a very Happy New Year and more importantly an healthy and safe New Year.

I’m so glad that when I turned on the news this morning, that Times Square is clear of snow and that the million or so people can now enjoy standing in a area blocked off by NYPD barricades for the next 12-14 hours to watch a ball drop from a building.  As a life long New Yorker it stuns the shit out of me that people come from all over the world to do this. Once your in those pens, you can’t leave even to go to the bathroom. If you have a real bathroom emergency you have to hope there is a sympathetic cop guarding your holding pen to let you out to find a bathroom.

If you can’t make it to Times Square, you can always stop off downtown at the NYPD’s central booking station by the courts and have the same experience as those revelers in Times Square.

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As expected, Wally Backman will remain in the Mets organization as manager of the Binghamton Mets. Although there was an outcry in the some parts Metsville on Backman getting the big league job as skipper, a jump from managing short season team to a Double A team is very impressive.

Nothing sparks debate better than a list of all time players and Mike Silva has stoked the fire of Mets fans hearts with his Top 50 All Time Mets list. I will be quite curious to read the comments on Mike site over this list as I found out with Kerrel Copper writing about retiring Ed Kranepool’s #7, there is a bit of a generation gap between the guys of my generation and the 20-30 something Mets fans. 2011 will be the 25^th Anniversary of the 1986 World Champs, that means the twenty something’s have never witnessed a Mets parade down the Canyon of Heroes (my old ass has seen both Mets parades) and the thirty something’s  have a vague memory of the festive day on Broadway. I don’t blame the younger Mets fans for getting tired of old farts like myself waxing poetic about the Mets of yesteryear but then again don’t discount the players of the era either.  

By the way, I e-mailed Mike with my displeasure of John Franco being ranked higher that Ed Kranepool on his list.  Same with Johan Santana at #20, a bit high. Tug McGraw and Rusty Staub should definitely be ranked higher than Santana.  Jerry Grote at #30?  Com’on way tooooooooo low and by the way all you kids better get off my lawn. What about George Theodore, Joel Youngblood, Ron Swoboda, Ron Hunt and Dennis Ribant, okay Ribant is a reach.          

The best part about the end of the holidays is that the Mets front office should be open for business next week and maybe we can start seeing some signings or trades for pitchers. Yeah I’m beyond antsy.

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This photo is paid for by the Twisted Citizens Committee To Bring Back The Old Forty-Duce,

Steve Keane, President.

Hey Bed-Stuy, Park Slope, St Albans and Eastchester, Mayor Moneybags is sorry your streets have not been plowed but there are more important areas of the city that need to be cleared of snow before you folks get relief.  The first tourist in NYC that wishes me a Happy New Year will get a punch in the face.

Exhausted from shoveling snow? Sick of the holidays?  Depressed that this is the beginning of a long cold winter? Here’s a name that will make you smile and warm your heart, Benny Agbayani.

Add another name to the Mets search for a low risk/high reward pitcher, Chris Capuano .

Adam Rubin’ snitches in Mexico report on Oliver Perez getting lit up again in the Mexican Winter League. Before you say “cut his sorry ass” a caveat, Ollie is holding left handed batters to a .163 BA. He could be one very expensive LOOGY.

So Brett Farve gets a $50K fine for sending pics of his tallywhacker to Jenn Sterger. Sterger’s attorney is outraged, OUTRAGED that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell handed down such a light sentence.  After looking at the evidence, Goodell suggested to Sterger to take Farve to small claims court.

See what happens when you become Mike Francesa’s butt boy, as Jon Heyman has become, you make stupid statements that shreds your credibility.

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Kerel Cooper of On The Black feels it’s time to retire Ed Kranepool’s #7 and of course, yours truly is on board on this crusade.

Kerel was kind enough to ask me about my feelings on retiring #7 in honor of Steady Eddie and he added my sentiments in his post.

It would be a great gesture by the organization to honor Kranepool by retiring his number with the 50th Anniversary of the franchise a year away

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We are so starved for Mets news that a deal for a backup shortstop for a 27 year old minor leaguer is being critiqued like the David Cone for Ed Hearn deal.

That’s not to say it’s not a deal to discuss. By acquiring shortstop Chin-lung Hu from the Dodgers for LHP Mike Antonini it solidifies Sandy Alderson’ statement that Ruben Tejada will be the everyday short stop in Buffalo in 2011 and that’s a good thing.  It also says there will be some competition for bench positions come spring in training camp.

Hu has shown a good bat in Triple A but his minor league offense has not translated well in the big leagues. If anything he’s known for his glove at short and the Mets have not had a true backup at shortstop so this is a positive as well.   

Hu has played some second base but if he makes the team it will be as Jose Reyes understudy.

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Remember when I had to clean out a closet for my daughter, so I had to relocate my baseball cards and memorabilia? Well I took pictures of some of the items:

The NY Daily News were selling these pins for a buck back in 1969. My father went over to the News Building to get me a couple of these pins. My dad worked downtown so he had to head to midtown on his lunch hour to get these for me. I miss that man everyday.

Check it out Jets fans, 2 tickets from the 1968 AFL Championship Game played at Shea Stadium Jets 27 Oakland Raiders 23

The first game EVER for the Colorado Rockies was played at Shea Stadium and I was there allllllllllll the way up in the Upper Deck Reserve. Check out that price less that cheeseburger at Shake Shack

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The street I live on leads right to Staten Island University Hospital. When I bought my house sixteen years ago, the previous owner told me one of the perks of this block is, the snow plows come every half hour as this street must be cleared for emergency vehicles, and every winter like clockwork this street has gotten plowed right down to the asphalt, until today. I have yet to see one plow or salt truck head down this block. As all the neighbors  came out this afternoon for snow removal duty,  none of us have ever seen our street this bad off. In fact I told a young couple who live across the street that this what the John Lindsey reign of error was like.

Watching the news it seems even the sanctified streets of Manhattan have not been plowed either. Mayor Moneybags has some ‘plaining to do.

Anyway, I tackled the driveway and when I was all done my family looked at me and said ‘Nice job but where are we going”? Hummmm good question. The street are unplowed so I guess just the fact I tackled this job is reward enough.

Needed my Mets Jacket as it gives me super strength and endurence

Okay, it’s an old Mets jacket so it could have lost it’s super powers. Maybe I shouldn’t have drank that NyQuil getting verrrrrrrrrrrrrry drowsy

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WOW! I swear I made an attempt to go to work this morning. I got up at 5AM and looked out the window and thought twice about heading out. Then I went downstairs to put on the TV to see what the situation was in the city it was there the little scrawl under the screen said the Staten Island Rapid Transit has suspend service.  As I type this, service is still down as the snow drifts have covered the third rail so they have sent the diesel powered work train out to clear the rail to get the train moving again.

It’s not the ammount of snow although on Staten Island there must be close to 20 inches, it’s the wind that causes drifts of 3 to 4 feet.

Here is what it looks like from my front door

I was lucky to get the storm door and front door open as the snow driffted to the right of the doors. There are steps and a walkway under that blanket of snow, also lights along the side that may not be seen until the opening day of baseball season

Where it gets tricky is from the side door to the driveway and the garage where my yard has a Siberian feel to it

Good thing I kept a shovel inside. Problem here is, I keep a refrigerator in the garage and of course I need to get to it for a gallon of milk and orange juice, so there is a negotiation on going as to whom wants that milk and juice badly enough to go fetch it.

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I hope you are all enjoying this St Stephen’s (my namesake) Day nice and warm as we here in NYC are looking at a foot-foot and half of snow with blizzards conditions tonight which should make the morning commute just a joy.

Of course there is no Mets news but I did read an interesting post today by my buddy Mike Silva, where he ranks his top ten Mets teams of all time. As I commented on Mike’s site, it’s hard not to just award the top two spots on this kind of list to the 1969 and 1986 Mets, as they are the only teams to bring home a championship trophy to Queens.

Silva mentions the 1997 team in his honorable emotions and when you look at that team, there are some much underrated players in Mets history on the roster. Todd Hundley doesn’t get the mentions he should as his spilt with the club was not amicable, as he lost his job for the fact that Mike Piazza was a catcher and when he was asked to move to the outfield he was offended and really didn’t help himself with his playing left like a kid given a plate of Brussels sprouts.   It wasn’t all Hundley’s fault as the front office didn’t handle the situation as they should, such as dealing Hundley.

That team could get on base led by John Olerud with a .400 OBA followed by Hundley at .394 (and a team leading OPS of .943 on the strength of 30 homers) Edgardo Alfonzo at  .391 and Lance Johnson at .385

The pitching was good too led by Bobby Jones and his 15 wins and Rick Reed who won 13 games was the ace of the staff. The bullpen led by John Franco closing out games and Greg McMichale taking care of the 8th inning moved this club to a +17 over the  ’96 team in the win column in Bobby Valentine’ first full season as Mets manager.

Besides the World Series winners, who do you think were the best teams in Mets history?

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Happy Christmas Eve y’all I got so much shit to do but I hate doing it so while everyone thinks I’m busy doing stuff to get ready for tonight and tomorrow I’m sitting here typing out this post, and why not no one gets yelled at on Christmas right?

Rob Castelano of Amazin’ Avenue was on a conference call with the new and improved Mets coaching staff and posted the entire transcript of the call. Looks like TC and Co. will hit the ground running at St Lonesome in Feburay. I’d advise the Mets players to leave the golf clubs at home.

I cannot believe that  Charles Wang has not reached out to Mikhail Prokhorov about adding the Islanders as  a tenant to the Barclay Center in Brooklyn. Forget about building an arena in Queens, Brooklyn is the place for the Isles.

As with Thanksgiving, it’s not the official holiday with hearing Alice’s Restaurant on Christmas no gifts can be open until I play the only Christmas song I like.

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Couldn’t miss this one this year!
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Couldn’t miss this one this year!

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