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.  

I found this link via the great Uni Watch site, it’s a video of the construction of Shea Stadium but also there is an interview with the “Ol’ Perfesser” Casey Stengel where he talks about the 1964 Mets and the new ballpark

Dear Skill Sets,

What impeccable timing you fellows have as I received your e mail to let me know that I can bid on every piece of Shea Stadium from bricks that will be in the ruble of the excavation of the stadium to the outfield walls, and the letters that spell out S-H-E-A.  I have to say it is an impressive list of memorabilia you’re hawking and I’m sure the monies collected for the items will be going to good cause but that’s not why I’m writing to you. No, after reading this list of items and the prices you want for them all I’d like to know is when will you stop fucking with your fan base? Do you ever get tired of embarrassing Mets fans and treating us like shit? Or do you get some perverse enjoyment knowing that your fan base or “customers” as you like to call us, are so loyal to the laundry you put out on the field that we will put up with more annoying bullshit this side of 34 Street and 8th Avenue?

Who came up with the price of $869 bucks for the pair of seats? Wouldn’t it have been more appealing to your working class fans to make the seats $200 or $250 for the pair. Even at that big price I would take a chance of calling a family meeting to request the family discretionary funds for a couple of Shea seats. We could forgo heating oil for a month as we could all wear our quilted Mets jackets, with the Mets hoodie and our Mets wool caps as we drink hot coco from our Mr. Met coffee mug. Same with the signage and posters wouldn’t $75 to $150 dollars be a decent price to pay for section signs and even an exit sign?

I guess I just don’t get it. The disconnect that you, the people you employ especially the game day staff that treat your “customers” like inmates at Gitmo. I’d like to chalk it up to the what I call the “9-11 syndrome” where anyone with a sliver of authority thinks they are part of the Fighting 69th as your rent a cop security force acted like total assholes on the last day of Shea trying to get fans out of the ballpark as soon as the closing ceremony was over. What was the rush?  Why couldn’t the few of us that hung around stay and chat about the ball park that we have spent the better part of our springs and summers in?  Oh and by the way I hope at $iti Field you have better attire for this force as 300lb men in tight orange golf shirts are not just an eyesore but they look as sloppy as your team in a September pennant race.

I know Freddy and Jeffey I have taken a nasty tone with you guys here and in other letters I’ve sent you but you have to understand you guys a fucking with something that is near and dear to my heart, my baseball team.  How can I defend my team against the forces of evil from the Bronx and Quakertown when they say everything you guys touch turns to shit? I try to defend you but you do things like this auction or not allowing the fans to walk on the Shea field for the last game or letting a woman gather dirt from the pitchers mound as a remembrance of her dead father. I try very hard to defend this franchise but you keep doing stupid shit that makes me throw up my hands. Now I know how John McCain’s campaign manger feels.

So I hope you find some deep pocket suit to buy your scrap and hopefully the money you raise goes to the Rebuild The Bullpen Fund as that would be a worthwhile cause if it’s for Jeffey’s Beach House in Amagansett then there will be another nasty missive in your future

Sincerely,

Steve Keane

The Eddie Kranepool Society

Leave it to the Skill Sets to piss me off after a great weekend. With J-Man back as Warlord and his willingness to toss some of his weight around with Omar,  J-Man agrees with Mets fans that the team needs to leave it’s pussyifed ways behind them, along with thoughts of Manny, Pierzyniski, Peavey and Sugar from Survivor running through my head (not only does Sugar ooooozzzzzeee sexiness she’s from Brooklyn too)  a couple of articles this weekend have my blood boiling which doesn’t take much when it comes to the Mets and the Sill Sets.

First, there is a story of the woman who had sprinkled her late father’s ashes on the pitching mound at Shea Stadium a few years back. Now that the ball park is being dismantled, Lisa Hanson and her son Ben went to Shea with the wish of scooping up some dirt from the mound as a remembrance of her dad. But of course the management of the Mets, which we know is totally clueless when it comes to customer relations, told Ms. Hanson that she could not go on the field because of the work being in done on the take down of Shea. Okay, she did show up unannounced and maybe a bad time but you would think some dolt in management would have come out and made an arrangement with Ms. Hanson to get her remembrance but that would take intelligence and compassion which is in very short supply under the Skill Set regime as we see here with this quote from Skill Set Court Jester Jay Bird Horowitz:

  Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said the organization could not let Hasson on the field for “safety reasons,” as workers were tearing out the bleachers and using large machinery.

“”I’m not trying to be hard about it,” Horwitz said.”But the stadium is closed.”

I think Horowitz was juggling and wearing a five pointed jester hat when he made this stupid remark (I can’t substantiate this rumor but I heard when he looked out of the new $iti Field press box, he said “Oh look I see Russia”.) I guess it would be too much to have some GOOD publicity out of Flushing as the Skill Sets could not figure out how to give this woman a date to come back and go on the field to scoop the dirt,  maybe if she bought a couple of  $869.00 seats they’d  do her the solid.

Thankfully a couple of Mets fans/construction workers came to Ms. Hanson’s rescue. I want to see Jeffey say something to the hard hats for doing this good deed so they can attach the hook from one of the cranes to his arse and lift him off the ground until he cries.  

We all know that Shea was inundated with felines and their job was to keep the rat droppings off the sausage grills (I know you’re all going EEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, but you know what I doing you folks a favor stop eating that shit it’s no good for you.) but the cats have been a Shea staple and now a team of animal rescuers want the cats to be moved over to $iti Field. I don’t know what these folks are even bringing it up, the cats are smart enough to know to go next door as the rats from Flushing Bay and the Iron Triangle will be on the $iti Field doorstep. Along a new closer and a slugging outfielder, a good tabby is escentail to success at $iti Field. Just remember that when you hit the Shake Shack concession.

More anger from bloggers about the rip off by the Skill Sets when $iti Field opens. This one comes from Andrew Beaton of Hot Foot with his post Outrage At $iti Field. I wish there were a way t ofind out who is buying up these luxuary boxes and paying all the dough for the seats behind the $iti Field backstop and if any of this bailout cash is going to Mets tickets?  

I can’t figure out who I want to advance to the World Series but I know the Phucking Phillies are not on that list. I look at the Brooklyn Dodgers of Los Angles and I see Manny and the case he keeps making for Omar and Tony B to turn on that Latin charm and Skill Sets coin to bring him to Flushing. I look at the Rays and I see Scott Kazmir and Joe Maddon (I got to get me a pair of Joe Maddon frames) and the fact that Stu Sternberg is not only a Mets season ticket holder but he’s from Brooklyn (maybe me and Stu can go over to Sugar’s house)  then I look at the two pair of Sox and I’m rooting for Tito , Papi and Pap to do his jig but then I love Ozzie “Fuck the Cubs” Gullien as he is the most honest and up front manager in baseball. The Halos play the game they way Little League coaches should teach kids to play from the age of 5. So what to do? The Kazmir, Joe Maddon specs and the Brooklyn/Mets fan component is too strong for me to fight so it’s GO RAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tim March man is alive and well and writing for the Wall Street Journal. A tip of the Mets cap to Craig Calcaterra of Shysterball for the link.

I done here; time to watch Sugar prancing on exile island.on TiVO

What a mess. I mean it is so difficult to sit down and watch games that should be closed out and put in the win column just to be pissed  away by incompetent relief pitching. I thought yesterday we finally saw the frustration of Warlord Jerry when he used both Aaron Heilman who should just be sent home at this point and told wait for notification of a trade to a new team and for using Mush Schoeneweis against right handed hitting Omar Infante.  It’s hard for me to kill J-Man here as the Mets were not facing Murder’s Row here but a team playing out the string in the Braves, but right now J-Man has to go strictly with a platoon of relievers the rest of the week in order for the Mets to have a chance of post season play. Right now I would like you to click here and read Howard Megdal piece in today’s New York Observer on the state of the bullpen and how J-Man has to mix and match. Read that now I’ll wait,  then meet me in the next paragraph.

Good stuff from Howard right? Ok now here is how I would manage this fucking mess of a bullpen. My two late inning guys now are Luis Ayala and Bobby Parnell. Ayala is the best of the slop and Parnell right now is the only guy in that pen who can throw a fastball with any authority.  From there I’d team up my pitchers like hockey defensemen:

LHP Schoeneweis                             RHP Smith

LHP Rincon                                      RHP Stokes

LHP Feliciano                                   RHP Figueroa

Those are my mix and match specialists and then I’d use Bobby Parnell and Luis Ayala to close.

We really should be getting ready for a great week at Shea Stadium with all kinds of memories and great festivities and looking forward to the post season but after this latest road trip 3-4 road trip this team is really wearing me out.

I’ve about had it with people blaming the Mets offense for not taking on late innings runs. Yes it is quite frustrating to see men on base with less than 2 out and not score a run but the Mets offense is averaging 5 runs a game if that’s not enough to win then you don’t deserve the make the post season. I don’t know how guys like David Wright, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran keep their cool as I would have called out every rag armed fuck in that bullpen by now for not stepping up and doing their job.

I watched the eerie/strange ceremonies at the last game at Highlander Stadium some observations:

Having people dressed like the 1923 Highlanders was very very odd and creepy. Instead of actors maybe they should have gone with pinstriped coffins for the deceased players and lined them up on the warning track.

Most disturbing was the sons of Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin,  Roger Maris and Thurman Munson come out in full uniform

Wade Boggs is the perfect example of you are what you eat

No Joe Pepitone

No Roger Clemens

 No one from the Kekich/Peterson Families

No one from the Peterson/Kekich Families

No Howie Spira

And no one from Joe DiMaggio’s family

After seeing the happiness exhibited by Willie Randolph I offer an apology to the Skill Sets and Omar Minaya, not only am I now happy you fired him like you did, I wish you waited until he feel asleep then woke him up and fired him. Yes I am fucking bitter. Word to Joe Giradi-watch you r back

My first memory of this Highlander  Stadium was of going in 1976 (I consider this Highlander Stadium II because it has no resemblance to the original Highlander Stadium which I was visited in 1968 for the first time for Bat Day with about 10 of my friends) in a 1966 White Caddy Coup with red interior with Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath blaring out of the cars 8 track  while cruising into on of the off site parking lots and having the citizens of 158 St trying to figured what the fuck these crazy white boys were up to.

I also went to the 1977 All Star game but details are very sketchy of that due to heavy alcohol consumptions.

No mention of St. Joseph of Torre or of Donnie Baseball. CLASSLESS!

It looks like the Highlanders are grooming Bernie Williams for the Greatest Living Highlander title as he was introduced last. Should have been Yogi’s honor.

I kill Captain Craptastic a lot but he was great at the end of the game with his eloquent address to the crowd and leading his team around the stadium for one last lap. CLASSY!

If the Bravos showed as much guts against the rest of the NL as they did for the Mets they might still be I the thick of a pennant race Mike Gonzalez is an a number one ass clown.

When Warlord Jerry addressed his shell shocked warriors yesterday I hope he let them know that every team in the division hopes they fail again. I hope he let them no that every team in the NL East just doesn’t find then unpleasing I hope he told how much they hate them. I  hope he told them that the Nationals, Marlins and Braves want the Phillies to represent the NL East in the post season. I hope he told them that the also rans sit in their clubhouses and say “yeah we’re out of it but at least we didn’t choke like the Mets” and then laugh their ass’ off.  Seriously, nothing the opposition does or says angers the Mets.. Sure David Wright has been slamming hats and bats the last couple of days but don’t they see how the Braves, Nats, Marlins and of course the Phillies all turn into  Shaq serenading Kobe with “tell me how my ass taste” every time they play against them? With every loss and every blown opportunity to put the Phillies in the rear view mirror the Mets grab the bats a little tighter and overthrow their fastballs a little more out of the strike zone and fail to come through in clutch situations. It easy to throw all the blame on the bullpen but you have to question the entire character of the organization if they fail to make the post season for the second straight season. If that happens the Skill Sets will have some major decision to make here and not just how many olives to put in the martinis at the $iti field luxury suites.

The Braves came into Shea for their last series there and after beating the Mets two of three they are led by Larry Jones with cameras in hand to take pictures of the Shea Stadium scoreboard and no one on the Mets seemed to mind. Same with the Nats. First Elijah Dukes heckles Nelson Figurora and all he can do is call the Nats a girls softball team. Then Dukes goes nuts over a Mike Pelfrey ball inside. To Big Pelf’s credit he walked right toward Dukes and if not for Manny Acta coming out of the dugout there might have been an altercation. Willie Harris has been beating the Mets ass for a couple of years now maybe someone on the pitching staff will make him eat dirt.

Not only do I feel bad for Fernando Tatis for his injury and the fact that he was writing one of the great stories of the season but with him and Damien Easley out the Mets lose two of their best clutch hitters, Tatis was hitting .392 with RISP and .286 with 2 out/RISP and Easley was hitting a robust .314 with 2 out/RISP. Two guys who are killing the Mets in that department are Ryan Church (.179 2 out/RISP) and Carlos Beltran (.183 2 out/RISP) As I said it’s very easy to kill the Aaron Heilman’s and Scott Schoenweies of the world but when you lack the killer instinct to step on your opponents necks and snuff them out this is what you get, doubt, second guessing and Mets fans holding a puke bucket while watching their team fade down the stretch for the second year in a row.

Today marks the 39th anniversary of the Black Cat incident at Shea Stadium. While Ron Santo waited on deck for the Chicago Cubs, (I hated Santo’s guts when I was a kid as he did that stupid clicking of his heels when the Cubs won) The black cat went past Santo and into the Cubs dugout and looked Leo Durocher in the eye and let him know the Cubbies were doomed. The Mets won the game and the next game to go into first place and the rest as they say is history. If the Mets were creative they would have someone with a Black Cat take down the Shea Goodbye Countdown number tonight.

Just back from Shea and Game 1 of todays day/nighter with a few observation and a rant.

Petey is now a major concern for the Mets as he had nothing today after coming off a start where he wasn’t feeling right and working out with his personal trainer and having an extra day off. The extra days rest helped with his velocity but his fastball is as flat as a tortilla and when he can’t get that breaking ball over consistently for a strike it sets up that meatball fastball and whole lot of trouble.

Tonight J-Man has to go with his eight best men, and throw the lefty/righty bullshit out the window. Here is the line up I’d go with for tonights waterboard broadcast on ESPN:

Dirty Jose ss

Dropkick LF

Sugarpants 3b

Carlito’s Way CF

Del-GOD-O 1b

Flushing House of Worship RF

Off the Schined C

Gimp 2b

$19mil dollar man P

The Mets played todays game like there was no sense of urgency I know players are much different from fans as we take every pitch like it’s life or death but my God this Mets team should have come out fired up after losing Friday night instead they played like shit. There was no batting practice and no infield practice so add that to no game yesterday (in fact the only player it seems who was at Shea yesterday was Billy Wags so they all had a full day off) Hard to believe but  this team better play tonight like their hair is on fire.

The Skill Sets own the Mets and they also own the Brooklyn Cyclones, so it’s a head scratcher to me how both places treat their customers so differently. Today at Shea as we entered Gate E, we had got on the bag check line because my wife is not happy until she smuggles in bottle water, cracker jacks and sandwhices. Me, I bring a binder with notes of stats a scorebook and pens, pencils and a radio. Really not much to check. The rent a cop doing the checking at the Gate today must work also at one of the area airports as she was pulling out every item out of people bags. She was wearing batting gloves to sift through fans belongings and opening up bottles of water and sniffing them. I swear I was waiting for her to have fans drop their pants and spread their butt cheeks. Some of the other guards were laughing their ass’s off at this as they waved my family and the family in back of us around before we were subjected to a body search.

How the fuck did all the Philly fans get into Shea this afternoon? I swear to God I’ve been going to Shea Stadium for all forty-four years of it existence and never have I’d seen this many Phillies fans here. I guess they all had tickets to yesterdays rain out but what did they do sleep at homeless shelter in Jamaica? The Upper Deck was sparse in the LF/RF corners and the Field Level and Lodge had spots of empty seats so I guess for a make up game it was ok but I was expecting a full house as this is a pennant race. Hopefully tonight the place is packed with METS FANS!!!!!!!!

So here we stand on the first of September with our Mets and Mets fans getting through a spring and summer that saw injuries, an upheaval in the managers office, an as advertised Ace pitcher, the emergence of a young Ace pitcher that gives fans a warming feeling of the late sixties, mid eighties when the Mets had a dominant 1-2 punch in the rotation, the unexpected performance of Danny Murphy, Nick Evans and Fernando Tatis, the crap shoot bullpen, and the thought that starting next season that we will be priced out of our new home as the Skill Sets seem to rather have a wine and caviar crowd than the Bud and Nathans crowd that have given it’s tears and cheers to the organization since the days of the Polo Grounds. And with all that the Mets are a first place team today as the home stretch begins in Milwaukee. Sweet.

I’m very anxious about watching Jon Niese go tomorrow night but I’m also concerned with the Mets starting three lefties in a row espically against the  Brewskis as they pound lefties like they were Pabst Blue Ribbon

The big addition to the team will be RHP Al Reyes who could be the missing link in the command challenged bullpen. Reyes if healthy and on his game his a big strikeout pitcher so with Brian Stokes pitching well (thank you Tampa for making up a bit for the Kazmir heist) and Luis Ayala doing better than the rest maybe, just maybe we can have less angst watching Mets games plus the Mets organization has done well with players named Reyes.

33 years ago today I was a 17 year old sitting in Shea Stadium watching The Franchise strike out Manny Sanguillen for his 200 K and the 8 the straight season he had reached that mark a record. That was the last meaningful game at Shea that season as the Mets fell out of the division race.

The first thought that popped into my head when I heard about the death of Killer Kowalski was the Sunnyside Gardens in Queens. It was second only to MSG as the Wrestling Mecca of the city. Roller Derby too.

Of course the first thing I said when I saw John McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin was Now that’s a middle aged hottie, the second thing I thought was why doesn’t McCain just call it a forfeit and let the Obama/Biden administration get ready to take over. Talk about pandering the only reason Ms. Palin is on the ticket is because she is a Ms. No way McCain picks a man with the limited qualifications than Ms Alaska has. The other question I have is this woman has five kids and one a baby with Down Syndrome, you would think she would have her hands full at home, what would happen if McCain kicks the bucket (was Palin on his Bucket List, Pick a Hot MILF for a running mate) and person with no experience at all has to run this country. Don’t give me she was the Mayor of town and the Governor of Alaska there are almost as many people on Staten Island than there are in Alaska and if SI Boro President James Molinaro had to run this country, I’d be moving to me Grand da’ house in Sligo.  

I’m still trying to figure out how to post pictures so you will be seeing some stuff I took while at Fenway Park and in Cape Cod.

Here is a pic of my son and I with Jerry Remy in Hyanis. The Rem Dog is not a fan of Shea Stadium seems the visting team TV both leaves a lot to be desired