In the latest missive from the WWL, Peter Gammons is trying to sell the fact that the Skill Sets are not swimming in cash as it appears:

{The Mets don’t have the kind of money everyone thinks, especially having to pay Billy Wagner $10M next season. They will spend to get a starter, a reliever and a bat to supplement Ryan Church in right and the Daniel Murphy/Fernando Tatis platoon in left.

No one knows what impact the economy will have on baseball, especially in New York, but someone is going to pay a price for the national debt increasing by $450B in October. The Mets are not going to jump over the luxury tax threshold, so they will continue to build around David Wright, Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran, figure Mike Pelfrey will continue his quantum leap forward, and do their best to fill in around them.}

So a team that owns a television station, has a brand new ball park in the most populous city in the country and has sold all his suites and will draw a minimum of 3.5 mil fans has no money to improve the team? And tell me what the National debt has to do with the Mets finances? Sorry Gammo I’m not buying it. I’m not ready to go out and buy a pennant because I don’t think building through free agency is the answer but don’t you dare insult the Mets fan base and cry poverty. By the way to read the whole article you have to pay to read it.

In a way I understand the obsession the Philadelphia Phillies have with the Mets. As much as the can celebrate being the best team in baseball, they know in the back of their mind that the Mets have the resources to make their championship rein very brief. They know this Mets fan base is not only vocal but is not intimated of it’s management to call it out and force it’s hand.  I mean what other pro sports team can be readying the opening of a brand new ball park and have it’s fan not give a shit about food courts and roomy seating if the team is not going to go out and fight for 162 games? And it’s not even about winning championships as we’re not idiots (as management thinks we are) no we know that a season that concludes with a World Series trophy is special what Mets fans ask for from their team is passion and 100 % balls to the wall hustle and if we don’t get it you are going to here from us.

And for this some in the main stream media chastise us for booing and giving our team a tough time. Well I’m not a boo bird as a guy my age looks silly booing anyway and beside why boo when I have a keyboard to get my opinion out. That’s why I feel our division rivals hate for the team is more a fear of us Mets fans.

When our rivals say the Mets celebrate to much, Mets fans say “Good, more curtain calls please” When they complain about Joese Reyes dancing and handshakes Mets chant “Jose-Jose-Jose” louder and longer. The biggest fear Mets opponents have is that the team takes on the persona of it’s fans because they know if that happens it’s over for them.

So Philadelphia enjoy your parade and I’ll continue my tough love of the Mets and I’ll slap them around until they show me they will slap and when they do your ass is ours.

Little Jeffey Skill Set can not wait until all of Shea Stadium is carted off to the landfill o he can open for business his new cash register a/k/a $iti Field. Jeffey could not give a shit how you and I feel about Shea and about the attachment some of the fan base has with the old ball park, no all he cares about is his suites will be full with no nothing assholes as himself and guys like you and me will regulated to the upper deck where we can be seen but not heard just the way the Skill Sets like it. You can just envision little Jeffey jumping for joy as Shea comes down piece by piece:

{The track on which stands once slid to make Shea a football stadium has been unearthed. The twin light towers will be taken down any day to further clear the area beyond the outfield so the Mets can build the plaza wrapping around Citi Field.

“They’re so high, and so close to Mr. Wilpon’s new baby,” said Toby Romano, a vice president of Breeze National, the demolition subcontractor, said of the towers’ proximity to the nearly finished Citi.

“Nice and easy, we’ll pull them down,” said Danny Collins, a Breeze foreman.

“If it were me,” said Jeff Wilpon, the team’s chief operating officer, who wants Shea to be gone as soon as possible. “I’d just go in and bring them down.” Wilpon added: “I’d love to drive a Bobcat, blasting through this place.”}

And you want to know why I get so fucking mad about the management and direction of this franchise?

Yes, Jeffey that’s the same irrational thinking that will doom this franchise as long as you keep sticking your beak in the baseball business where it doesn’t belong. Hey Jeffey-Poo maybe you can sell the Shea scarp and use the dough to pay off Gimp Castillo’s contract?

Then we have this quote from J W Colluci who is not a Mets fan as we see in this quote but he is a guy who doesn’t get laid much: 

{Inside the tight cab sat J. W. Colucci, an operating engineer.

How does it feel, he was asked, to be wrecking Shea?

“Sometimes,” Colucci said, a smile on his dusty face, “it feels better than sex.”}

Hey Mr. Colluci go fuck yourself.

Why does everything Isiah Thomas try to do become so complicated?

A Tim Marchaman sighting , tip of the Mets Cap to the Baseball Think Factory.

Mets Fever has the lowdown on the AFL all star game and Eddie Kunz blowing the save in the game. I really don’t know how much stock to put into Kunz’ time in the AFL he has had some very good appearances but lately he is not pitching well at all and how much does this play into his role for the ‘09 Mets and what it means for the moves Omar needs to revamp the piss poor pen?

Willie Randolph turned down a job with the Curly W’s to be a bench coach for Manny Acta. No surprise there as Acta and Willie hate each others guts.

Check out Mike Silva’s NY Baseball Digest  interview with former Mets reliever Skip Lockwood.

Tip of the Mets Cap to great site Uni Watch for the link to Roger Angell story on George Hendrick, now a Famous Rays coach on his being the player who started the awful baseball fashion statement of pants to spats which I hate to no end.   

Nice win by the Blueshirts last night but a tough one for Coach Renny as he took a the stick of Blue Jacets d-man Rotislav Klasla in the noggin and was knocked cold.  

Leave it to Mets fan Jon Stewart to give Mr. Met a job for the winter. Clip courtesy of Philly Sports Cast. By the way PSC I hope the Famous Rays make you their “bitches”

Taking time out from counting the receipts from the luxury suites at the new Skill Set Pleasure Palace Jeffey Skill Sets came on WFAN with the Francesa the Bloviator to what was about 10 minutes of nothing.

Jeffey was happy that the Mets have re-upped with the WFAN and Francesa then morphed into a persona that resembled his ex-partner and gave Jeffey a thorough tounge bath saying how WFAN and the Mets have been long time partners and how the station is glad to have the team on it’s air waves and on and on. Jeffy said the organization is happy as well as Mets fan always know what station their on all the time but he would not state the real reason that the Mets stayed with the FAN and that’s all the dead presidents the station is paying them for the radio rights. So when the Bloviator asked about changes to the team Jeffey claims that Omar has total control over personnel and that their is no set budget. Jeffey did seem a perturbed that the Famous Rays with a payroll of about the price of two luxury suites are in the World Series and his team with one of the highest payrolls in the game are home watching on TV.

The bulk of the interview was all about &iti Field and the dismantling of Shea which should be an empty lot by January.

Let us raise a Chug-A-Mug of Rehinglod today to the Tampa Famous Rays for winning the AL Pennant last night and giving Jackie Autry a reason to go to the beauty parlor and don some swanky polyester as she dutifully halndled her job as honorary AL President flawlwssly. How great is it to be the widow of the Singing Cowboy, especially this time a year. You get to a trip to the ALCS and hand out a trophy and soon everytime Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is played another royalty check goes in the mail. Sweet,  but of course I digress. Today we salute one of our own,  Stuart Sternberg,  he of the Carnarsie Sternberg’s and holder of Mets season tickets and unabashed Mets fan who used a little of his fortune to purchase the Tampa baseball franchise from  crazy old Vince Namoli and thorugh shrewed drafting and good trades now has not only a championship trophy but a snazy new t-shrt and  cap.

Now all the Famous Rays have to do is beat those in-bred slouths from Philly so at least one of “us” will call this season fulfiling.

All I did when David Price came on in the 8th inning last night was think about why didn’t the Mets just give the closers job to Eddie Kunz when Billy Wags went down? Looking back I agree this is an all time second guess but Kunz was a set up man and closer on two NCAA Champions and was closing at Bingo and with the jackpot of Dan Murphy and to a lesser degree Nick Evans and Jon Niese the talent from that team was quite rewarding but really instead of Dollar Store relevers like Luis Ayala and Brain Stokes you wonder what would have been if Kunz and Bobby Parnell were given the roles of set up and closer with the full backing of J-Man and Omar?    I know one thing, it couldn’t have been worse.

There were a couple of comments from previous posts that I was going to answer in the comment section but I felt it would be better  to answer them in a full posting especially the second  one from an alleged Mets fan.

The first comment comes from Phanatic who is I guess a fan of the Phuckin’ Phills:

{I guess the fact that the Phillies scored 8 runs yesterday without a homerun will be ignored on your website. Well, isn’t that convenient.}

Well, since I am commenting on it you would be wrong Cheese Wiz breath. Yes the Phinks did mange to beat the Hollywood Bums without the aid of thier best weapon the home run but that game yesterday is what I envision baseball in hell to be play like with the duo of Mc Fullofshit and Doofus Joe announcing it that was the equivalent of 4 hours of root canal without Novocaine.

This post comes from someone named Ceetar and I’ll break his comments down in five sections:

{Honestly, who are you to say how much they should spend and how much they should charge for things?}

I’m guessing here you mean the Skill Sets and you’re right I have some pair of balls to be outraged that all of their energy is going into filling up the suites with wine sippers who couldn’t give a flyin’ fuck if the Mets won or lost. I mean really I do have some nerve fighting to make sure that the working class Mets fan that has supported this organization for years through more lean times than winning times is able to attend a Mets game that won’t cripple his bank account.    

{Sure, it sucks that the world, and baseball, is more expensive. It’s still cheaper than other sports. It’s still affordable to go to games. So you can’t buy a run down pair of seats that would probably collect clutter anyway, big deal. It’s a business, and that’s a necessity that we have to deal with.}

Maybe you have to deal with it but see me I have tough time dealing with shit that pisses me off. I guess what’s affordable to some is a big luxury to others. I’m very fortunate that I was able to spend over $1500 dollars just for tickets to Mets game this year add in parking and food and shirts, hats and other Mets crap I’ve bought this year it’s well over $2500 dollars right now there are not many people who can afford that and what you need to remember is baseball is not a rich man’s sport it has always been the middle class that has supported baseball and especially the Mets and the Skill Sets need to remember that as I am especially surprised by Freddie Skill Set as he is so Brooklyn Dodger-centric and that WAS their fan base.

{security at Shea has always sucked, I agree with that. Don’t know what there is to really do about it, but ignore them as much as possible, which is what I’ve taken to doing. I couldn’t care less how they’re dressed.}

Do you go through life just ignoring assholes? I mean at some point you take a stand and I don’t know about you up when some fat slob making 7 bucks an hour says that I can’t walk through the field level section because my Upper Deck ticket makes me unworthy of such a privilege it pisses me off. The same way when I’m told that I have to leave a stadium on the last day of it’s use because said rent a cop says so as for how they dress I guess you’re a fan of orange pollyester, with belly’s hanging over the pants and dirty rags in the back pocket look sorry but I’m not.,  

{I guess it would’ve been nice if they’d let us walk on the field after the game. However, it probably would’ve been a security nightmare. Maybe not, maybe so. It’s just not a big deal to me, it’s not like they owed us that. It’s not like we’d ever (except for some of us, via little league and the ron keith gary people..which you could’ve done if it was important to you) be on the field normally. Fans’ place is in the stands, and the players on the field.}

I guess you weren’t at the last game as there were more cops at Shea, it was like a Dunkin Dounuts grand opening. You must be in the Bush cabinet with that “security nightmare” scenario. It would have been fine to let everyone walk out to through the outfield fence but then that would be something nice to do for the fans and that’s against the Skill Set Doctrine. As for me going on the field I have been on the field at Shea as have been my kids so I’ve been fortunate enough to have done that but maybe, just maybe someone in attendance that day never had that chance wouldn’t have been the descent thing to do to afford that chance for someone? Guess not.    

{Collapsing sucked. I know. It pisses me off too, and Omar has already made the bad move of resigning Manuel, however I think he’ll make some good moves in the off season (and not necessarily the ones the ‘fans’ demand he makes because they think they know better) and this will be a good team again in ‘09. And I can’t wait to see a game at The Citi, because so far it looks great and promises to be a fun time.}

Who would you have hired instead of J-Man? I’m pro-Omar as well but the Mets are beyond being “good” it’s time to be a championship team and the first step is to find some grinders and pitchers for the bullpen. Don’t get me wrong I’m looking forward to the new park as well Ijust hope I’m welcome there that’s all. 

When did winning a playoff series turn into an all night celebration? All these champagne and beer baths after the Division Series is a bit much. Look, I can see the Tampa Bay Rays going nuts after beating the White Sox as losings ones virginity is a cause to celebrate but the Dodgers, Red Sox, and the Phucking Phillies? Com’on you guys know you’re better than that? Yeah, yeah I know you think it’s sour grapes on a Mets fan part as we are still kept behind the velvet rope of post season baseball but it’s not we gotten over it (I think we have?) but with the wild celebrations after a first round win what do you guys do if you win the World Series? Make a snuff film?

A very big tip of the Mets cap to Will Carroll via Baseball Toaster who put up this clip of Jon Stewart and the Daily Show showing the dick heads at FOX News talking out of their big fat ass’

Am I the only person not impressed by Nanook Nancy’ speech last night?  Oh and thanks John McCain for forcing the NFL to start tonights  Giants-Redskin game at 7 PM so you can give the country an hour speech it which you will tells us absolutely nothing

Memo to Mike Francesa, Shut the fuck up about how hot it is siting in the bubble at Giants Stadium to do your train wreck of a radio show, it’s not like your digging a ditch okay your sitting on your fat ass guzzling Diet Coke by truck load trying to be entertaining and it’s not working. That’s not sweat from the heat Mike, it’s flop sweat.

Ahhhhhhhhh NOMAH, YOU ARE ONE MAGNIFICANT BASTARD!!!!!!

With all our problems with the bullpen here we are on August 14^th in a tie for first place in the NL East. What a great night to be a Mets fan after a few night of agita. Gary and Mex were cracking wise on TV. Howie Rose and Wayne Hagin were serenading their listeners with TV Theme songs:

There’s a hold up in the Bronx,

Brooklyn’s broken out in fights.

There’s a traffic jam in Harlem

That’s backed up to Jackson Heights.

There’s a scout troop short a child,

Kruschev’s due at Idlewild

Car 54, Where Are You?

Ah life is grand in Metsville, at least for a day

I went to bed in the 6^th inning of the Phillies-Dodgers last night because it’s good to get at least 5 hours sleep before doing a 12 hour shift at work so I missed Jeff Kent (I never thought I’d ever root for Jeff Kent as he was one miserable son of a bitch when he was a Met) and of course Nomah‘s wining HR. Green tea all around compliments of St Joseph of Torre!

Gangster  (as opposed to Gangsta’) City Councilman Hiram Monserrate, tried to strong arm a hearing in Manhattan last night on the proposed take over by NYC of Willets Point’s Iron Triangle. Monserrate is one of the biggest phonies in a chamber that is full of half assed lawmakers but from reading the Daily News account Monserrate is just play acting as an outraged hack. In the piece former Queens Boro Pres. Claire Shulman says that Monserrate told her not to worry the plan will go forward but he has to make noise to show his constituents that he’s fighting for them when we all know he’s fighting for a bigger kick back most likely in a cushy job to support his fat ass when term limits drive him out of office. Not once does Monserrate talk about the illegal dumping by the poor defenseless junk yard and chop shop operators in the Iron Triangle nor does he talk about the thousands of jobs that will be open to the people of Corona, Flushing and Jackson Heights when the Skill Sets plan for a hotel, shops and restaurants goes through. In fact I’ll get off Monserrates back when he gets the business owners of the Iron Triangle to pay all the fines they owe the city which is why a court will eventually allow the city to take over the properties via eminent domain.

Good news that Mike Piazza will be a guest during the last weekend of Shea. The Mets have done a piss poor job this year with honoring players and characters from the past 45 years of Shea’s excsistenace. How in the world can you not bring back old favorites like Banner Day, Senior Citizens Day and even working a deal with any local dairy to bring back milk cupons for tickets sweepstakes? We all know the rich and famous of Mets history but how about bringing back guys like JC Martin, Duffy Dyer, Willie Montanez, Al Weis, Pete Falcone, Ken Boswell, Teddy Martinez and the family of the Late Danny Frisella. That’s what the Mets and being a Mets fan is all about those players who were never stars but they were ours. Name me another team with a George “The Stork” Theodore? If there was anyone in the Mets organization with an once of creativity and smarts they would have put a day like this together. How about a day of not sucky music over the awful PA system but just the melodies of Lady Jane Jarvis? I’m sure Miss Jane could lend out a few of her Greatest Hits for that. And how about some mention of our Grand Dame Joan Whitney Payson who without here there wouldn’t have be a New York Metropolitan Baseball Club, sure Bill Shea did all the leg work and God bless his soul for that but Madam Joan put up the dough. The Red Sox just had what they call a Futures Day at Fenway Park this weekend a good old fashion pay one price get two games doubleheader featuring two of their minor league teams in action, I don’t know about you but I would go to Shea to see the Bingo Mets and the NOLA Zephyrs play and as I said in previous post make it a Day at Shea with church bazaar/block party/festival atmosphere. Sorry for the run on paragraph kids but it kills me that there is so much potential to keep the fan base happy and involved but the origination of the team I love is run by a bunch of dumb asses and it frustrates the living shit out of me.