If there was ever a time that the NY Mets organization needed someone like Howard Megdal, it’s now. A Megdal Administration would be the antithesis of the current stumble bums now running our favorite baseball team into the ground. Howard is running on a platform of LOGIC, TRANSPARENCY, PASSION and oh how the Mets need an infusion of all three.

Please vote now for Howard Megdal for GM and join Howard and myself on THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN on BLOG TALK RADIO tomorrow night at 10PM ET, as we discuss the present day Mets and Howard’s blueprint of fixing the total Mets organization

Not much detail from me today as I have to get some work done so I can leave early and head to the field for a 5:30 game. The good thing about the 5:30 games is there is a two hour time limit and the ride from the there to my house is about 10 minutes so I might just miss an inning of Mets-Phillies. How things have changed from one season or even one week to the next, I can’t wait for Mets-Phillies tonight, tomorrow and Sunday. It’s a good feeling to be excited about your favorite baseball team. Check out this post by Greg Prince of Faith and Fear in Flushing who feels the same way.

I’m contributing some posts to NYB Blogs and yesterday I submitted my first one on Jeff Francoeur’ influence in the Mets clubhouse.

Buffalo Bison pitcher R.A. Dickey went 0-2 on Fernando Perez of the Durham Bulls. The next pitch Perez hit a single. The next 27 batters all were set down by the knuckleballer Dickey. Talk about the imperfect game. It was the second complete game for Dickey this season and he hasn’t gone less than 8 innings in his other starts. What’s a Dickey got to do to get some love in the Mets organization?  

That’s it for me LET’S GO METS, LET’S GO BIG PELF, PHUCK YOU PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!

The sun is a risin/most definitely  

Maybe all those who jumped off the Mets bandwagon will end up like a European tourist stuck at JFK, while those of us who stick by our team, through good times and bad, in pulled hamstrings and very rare good health till death or utter disgust do us part, can feel a little better about our favorite baseball team. It was more than the debut of Ike Davis that has put a spring in my Mets fan step this morning, maybe it was the opponent, the Cubbies, Sweet Lou Pinella, whose every day personality was similar to an Icelandic volcano has turned docile. This is Pinella’ last season on his managerial contract and he’s acting like a guy who is ready to go back to Florida and hit the Golden Corral for the 4PM early bird special. It’s kind of sad to see the man who once as a player for the Highlanders challenged Earl Weaver and the whole Baltimore Oriole dugout to a fist fight turn into a guy hoping Walgreen’s is open late so he can pick up his Flomax prescription.

Sure the marquee story today is Ike Davis and how nice is it to see a Met on the back page of the newspaper this morning and word to the Highlander fan, your team did not invent the shaving cream pie to the face, that ritual is as old as Yogi Berra’s tired stupid sayings, and besides A.J. Burnett started his pro baseball career with the Mets so he could have learned that skill way back then. I know most of you Highlander fans didn’t know Burnett was once a Mets farmhand. Most self-centered blowhards never look beyond what’s in front of them. (as I type this I’m listening to Beningno and Roberts first call they take is a Highlander fan who went to the Mets game last night and claimed he wore his Highlander cap to the game and was impressed by Ike. It just proves my theory that Highlander fans will drop their allegiance to their team in a Manhattan minute when things go sour and jump on the Mets bandwagon.  You Highlander fans who troll this site know I’m right. The Highlanders biggest fear is not the Red Sox, it’s the Mets. That’s why that fan base loves to ridicule us and act the fools that they are because of fear, they fear that someday the light switch in Flushing will go on and the Mets will become a contending team and take over the town. It will happen. There are far more Highlander fans that go to Mets game than vice versa and you don’t need to interrogate  them a la Jack Bauer for them to tell you our ball park is where the cool kids hang out unlike their shrine to pomposity)

Jon Niese showed what the “spit tobacco juice in a cup” baseball guys like to say, a lot of bulldog. When a pitcher has all his pitches working and is in command for most of the games, fans go overboard with praise but for me when a youngster like Niese pitches a game where he gets into jams, doesn’t panic and gets out of those situation more on the plus side and not, that is the true test of a big league pitcher. Niese threw a lot of pitches in a limited amount of innings but he threw strikes, got more ground balls than fly balls and only three line drives.

Angel Pagan has done the only thing that could stop J-Man from using GMJ, he has produced at a high level. Hopefully it continues as Carlos Beltran is off to Colorado to get his knee checked and even if he comes back with a positive report I doubt we’ll see him back until after the All-Star break.

Welcome back Jason Bay

Sure I’m overly giddy today after last night’s game, I don’t apologize for it and your right it most likely is a premature ejaculation of optimism but I just hope our baseball season started last night. Mets fans just want to have fun!!!!!

Yesterday I hopped over to Mid-Town Manhattan (where miraculously  there was no snow on the ground when I left about four inches of the white stuff on my walkway in Staten Island) to attend a meeting of the Casey Stengel Chapter of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR). It was there that I met up with Dana Brand who was one of the guest speakers at the event.

As I greeted Dana I asked him “So are you ready for pitchers and catchers” ? He gave me that look you give the dentist when he says “would you like Novocain or gas”?  Dana was not the only Mets fan in attendance that had that same queasy feeling bout the 2010 Mets season.

I never thought it could happen but the Wilpon’s have now displaced the Dolan’s of MSG as the worst owners of a NYC franchise.  I thought I despised Jeffey Skill Sets more than most but after talking to the Mets fans yesterday, I see I have competition.

By this time in the winter, as a baseball fan ,Super Bowl Sunday signals the home stretch of winter and knowing that spring training is around the corner. Usually for Mets fans we start to think of April and opening day, and opening day is usually cold. But we never cared about the cold. We wore Mets sweatshirts under our Mets jackets and figured our Mets gloves and the knit Mets hat we got last season on Fan Apprecitaion Day would shied us from the elements. We were just happy to have a ticket and a seat to root for our favorite baseball team. But from what I’ve read and heard from Mets fans this winter,  I have a feeling opening day at $iti Field will not be a hot ticket, in fact I figure the longer you hold out the better your chance to get a prime seat for below cost.

Where and when did this all go wrong? I’m starting to think the demolition of Shea Stadium will become our Curse of the Bambino, or Billy Goat.

When a team opens a new ballpark, the fan base is usually fired up about the new home and the great amenities so you’d think as Mets fans we’d be happy about all there is at $iti Field. But the more I talk to Mets fans and the more I think about it, maybe we should have stayed at Shea. Shea was a pitchers park and no one screamed to pull in it’s fences. But after one season at $tit, the cry is, “the outfield fence is too high” “the ball doesn’t carry” “the fences need to come in” what we’re really saying is “this place sucks, we want our Shea Stadium back”. Face it Mets fans we hate change and we hate $iti Field.

Now I ‘d say it’s mostly us old timey Mets fans that hate change and I know I’m of that crowd, it surprises me that I’m like that with the Mets as I embrace progress with everything else in my world. I guess I need one small part of the old world to stay with me. I still want pinstripe unis with no name on the back and blue caps with and orange NY. I want organ music instead of ear splitting pop shit, and this from a guy who still listens to Black Sabbath albums with the volume on 10 but at a baseball game I want to here the Mexican Hat dance played on a Thomas organ. I don’t want to be told to “Clap my hands” I’m not a idiot I know when to clap and when to cheer and when to say “AH SHIT!!”. I want my teams National League heritage to be displayed and educate fans of where we came from how our lineage evolved from the days of John McGraw and Mel Ott and Carl Hubble to Bobby Thomson and Willie Mays along with Zack Wheat and Joe Medwick and Dolph Camli and Jackie Ribinson and Duke Synder. NYC was always an NL town until now that the Wilpon’s let that distinction slip away and for that they should be ashamed of themselves.

Jeff Wilpon has not only surpassed Jim Dolan as the most spoil son of a rich man in NY sports but he is close to reaching M. Donald Grant status as a franchise killer. But we shouldn’t put the blame all on young Jeffey, I put  90% of the fiasco that is now the NY Mets on Fred Wilpon. Freddy has the power to tell sonny boy, “I’m sorry but you are in way over your head here my boy, it’s time for me to find a real baseball man to run this franchise and bring it back to respectability and to being a championship baseball team”. If Fred Wilpon does not step up and do what is right for the NY Mets franchise, he will become as hated here as much as Walter O’Malley. The only difference is Mets fans might be wishing he move himself and team someplace else.

For as bad as the NY Football Giants season has been, yesterday took some of the sting out of the painful failure, as team owner John Mara, stepped up big time by calling out his coaches and players for a lack of mental and physical toughness and lack of effort. WOW, how strong are those words? Sure the cynic in me says, “John Mara needs to sell his Private Seat Licenses, so this is all a business move” but the Mara family have owned this team since it’s inception in 1925 and Giants have been one of the top teams in the NFL this decade and watching and listening to him he looked legitimately pissed off. 

The way John Mara handled the day after the season is the way an owner of a team that not only disappoints but embarrasses themselves by quitting, and make no mistake the NY Football Giants quit, should. He stood up like a man and articulated that, yes his team suffered injuries but they were not an excuse for not showing up the last half of the season. He acted swiftly by axing way over his head offensive coordinator Bill Sheridan and put every player and coach on notice that if you don’t or  you can’t give him what he wants, then he will go out and find personnel that will. As a Giants fan, I appreciate Mara’s words and action very much.

Contrast John Mara’s words and actions to the stumbling, fumbling, mumble-oid of an owner like Jeffey Skill Sets who acted mealy mouthed and clueless in his season post-mortem of the season to forget. There is a reason why the Mets brand is laughed at through out baseball and it starts at the top.

Speaking of our favorite baseball team, I brought out my pinstripe uni top for toady’s Bay Day celebration. In fact my co-workers have wished me happy Bay Day when I reported for duty. I’ve become a charity case, as even the Highlander fans have stop teasing me and feel sorry for me. I hate being a charity case or a baby face, I’d rather be a heel.

There are rumors that the Mets could trade Rogers Castillo for Mike Lowell. What would the Bosox want with Rogers Castillo when they have Dustin Pedroia and Marco Scutaro? Lowell would be a nice fit for the Mets, as he’s a respected vet with 2 World Series rings ( as you know I’m a major proponent of bringing in winners to this team)  I just wonder if he can play some 1^st base and spell David Wright sat 3^rd base.

From reading some of the stories, if Carlos Delgado can stand up straight, the Mets would love to bring him back for a 1 year incentive laden deal. That’s why it seems the Mike Lowell talk is interesting as a platoon of Lowell/ Delgado could be what the Mets are looking at for 1^st base in 2010.

The details of the Jason Bay contract are as follows:

$8.5 mil bonus and $6.5 mil salary for 2010

$16mil for the next 3 years + 4^th yr option

Full No Trade Clause.

Not a killer contract, now the question is this. I have a MILLEDGE 44 pro uni top. Do I go and have the MILLEDGE taken off and add BAY? Your thoughts please?

Waiting on the Bay presser. I’ll be commenting on Twitter during the presser.

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.  

          

 

 

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.

In the Mets world of ugly, Frenchy Francouer is starting to look beautiful to some Mets fans but be warned, it’s the lighting that makes him handsome when you get him home you will regret it. Don’t be swayed by Frenchy, it’s just lust in your heart, he is not the answer.

Hummmm let’s see mow the lawn during the hottest part of the day or watch the Mets and Oliver Perez pitch ? I think I’ll mow the lawn and take my mother in law shopping !

I watched the Red Sox-Tigers game last night and yes I was very happy to see Youk charge the mound and even go extreme and throw his helmet at Jersey Rick Porcello ( I was waiting for the cage and ladder the come down on Fenway for an old time ECW throwdown) as it was not just the fact that Victor Martinez was hit by a pitch (in retaliation for Miguel Cabreara getting plunked on the hand) but this was the second game in a row Youk was HBP and add in the fact that the Sawx have been struggling lately it gave his team a lift. Yeah, that’s right bench clearers have a way of lifting the team same as a good beat down in hockey does. I know a lot you folks love to watch sports while knitting a sweater and like it when the fella’s play nice-nice but the truth is a big part of competition is intimidation. That’s why our favorite baseball team is so disrespected because they are intimidated and need to grow some balls not just physically but mentally as well. This team, since that Adam Wainwright curveball to Carlos Beltran in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS has been neutered. From the owner to the front office to the players this is one passive bunch that has a disconnected with it’s fan base and this city because we don’t tolerate passiveness and excuse makers which is what the New York Mets are now.

Word to Jerry Manuel: Neither you or Gary Sheffield are coming back to the Mets next year. In fact if Sheff is re-signed I won’t be coming back to $iti Field next year same goes if Carlos Delgado is re-signed as well.

Word is that Billy Wags will be activated to the big league roster this Sunday and now the speculation begins, is it better to trade Wags before the 31^st ? Or keep him and let him file for free agency and get a supplemental draft pick for him? I’d take the draft pick. Sorry Billy but it’s a business decision.

Keep a good thought for Scott Schoenwiese as he tries to deal with his life’s tragedy.

I’d say by the next two weeks most of the newspapers in this town will stop covering the Mets with more than one writer and in fact don’t be surprised by the next road trip all you get is the AP game story. With the financial crunch and the fact that the NFL pre-season is starting the big stories in this town will be The Highlanders, The Giants, The Jets and The Highlanders. Unless something Bernazard like happens the Mets will be a fart in the wind to the fish wraps..

 Most stories in sports don’t shock me anymore but I have to admit this story shocked the shit out me. I admired this guy but now he is just a no good scumbag

There should be a venue like Two Boots in $iti Field that is if the ownership of our favorite team even gave two shits about us. There were no corporate types at our gathering just fans with Mets shirts and in Lukas’ case a fan with blue Mets stirrups. This wasn’t a wine and cheese crowd that arrived by limousine, just a bunch of folks who work real jobs by day and took the subway to enjoy some great pizza and beer and discuss their favorite baseball team.  In fact this was a hardcore fan fest last night.  Imagine if the Skill Sets had the foresight to open up the Ebbits Club and name it “Le Shea” and serve beer, pizza, burgers and allow fans to bring in a piece of Mets memorabilia to decorate the place. By the way Phil Hartman gave me a great idea. He is trying to cover the walls of the restaurant with baseball cards. My wife wants me to re-wall paper our downstairs bathroom, so today I will go through about 10,000 baseball cards and find the cards worthy to be used as a wall covering.

You knew this wasn’t for the fly-by night Mets fan when Lukas began to hand out answer sheets for his Mets Uni Quiz (what is the stiching used on the Mets uniforms called? What player’s name couldn’t fit on his uni shirt when the Mets wore Mercury Mets uniforms? ) and boy did he mean business. I drifted in and out of the quiz along with Mike Stefanos as Mike and I were fixated on the big HD screen watching Ollie P try to gain control of his run away fastball and fall behind on just about every batter. We also marveled at the mind boggling approach the Nationals batters were taking like swinging on 2-0. Our commentary during the game was Keith Hernandez-esque:

Me: “look at Dan Werthen on that top step ready to bounce to the mound”

Mike: Yeah, he looks like he’s ready to kill Perez

Me: True, he’s thinking “should I shoot him, strangle him, or just beat his brains in with a blunt object”

The next scheduled AMAZIN’ TUESDAY is set for August 25^th, if you  doubt  your passion for the Mets ,if you’re fed up with inept ownership, you have to know you are not alone. There are a lot of people with the same feelings you do. So if you are losing your Mets religion you need to come to Amazin Tuesday just to save your Mets fan soul and to embrace the fact that you are a Mets fan.

 So come out this Tuesday Night July 21^st  at 7PM for the first installment of AMAZIN’ TUESDAY believe you need to get out and you’ll feel better for it.