shout out to The Ropolitans for this pic

Sorry for no posts this morning but it’s been a busy day. So busy that I forget all about the David Wright sit down with the Sports Bloviator. I caught the tail end of the sit down as I traveled back from Brooklyn and I guess you could say it was typical David Wright. All positives and nothing controversial.

It looks like it’s a foregone conclusion that Bengi Molina will be the Mets #1 catcher this coming season. Again this looks to be another move where Omar was told to sit in the corner as the way the Mets have made Molina sit and stew is very un-Mets like. Same with Carlos Delgado who I think the Mets brain trust only went to Puerto Rico to see just to get away from freezing cold weather in NYC. Think about it, if the Mets were strictly an Omar Minaya Production, Molina, Delgado and Joel Piniero would be celebrating their multi year deals by now. Looks like those days are over.

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Art Rust Jr. who was sportstalk radio in this town back in the 1980’s. Rust hosted a three hour call in show on WABC and unlike WFAN he actually talked ALL sports. In fact I had called in to his show because a young Mark Messier came on to talk hockey and agreed to take calls from fans. Rust was a great baseball historian and a huge Highlander fan but his real passion was for The Sweet Science and he had all the big time boxers on his show.  R.I.P. Arthur George.

One more Jets note. Brett Farve may be a future Hall of Famer but if I had to win one game and my choice of QB is either Farve or Ken Stabler, I’m taking The Snake in a heartbeat. The fact that Stabler is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is a fucking joke and any one who thinks differently either never saw The Snake play or just goes by numbers.

Now that Man-gina is out the next NY coach that needs to get the pink slip is Tom Renney. The collapse of the Rangers is not all Renney’s fault as the team is run in the front office by a cadaver named Slats but Renney rules the bench and he controls the playing time and the fact that Aaron Voros and Freddie Sjostrom play every game while Peter Pruchca sits in the stands night after night is a disgrace as are the countless bench penalties the team takes and that is on the coach. Mark Messier was at the Garden for the loss to Devils on Saturday; hopefully he put in a call to Clueless Jimmy Dolan and made his pitch to takeover the organization.

Omar Minaya would like Johan Santana to sit out the World Baseball Championships and hopefully Santana will abide by this request. Is there a bigger waste of time and work hours that the WBC? Who gives a shit? I understand that the Latin players have tremendous pride in playing for their countries and that is commendable but when the MLB team you play for is putting a roof over your head and food on your table your alliance is to the MLB team period.

I keep reading about Ken Takahashi the lefty out of Japan and how the Mets are looking at him as the replacement for Scott Schoenewiese and all I can do is ask why? What jumps out at the Mets that says this guy is worth bringing to the U.S. NPA Tracker has a nice write up on Takahashi and the array of pitchers in his arsenal but the guy is 40 years old and his BB/KK splits don’t thrill me so I’m sure there is someone (Brian Shouse?) who fits the LOOGY bill better than Takahashi.

Interesting post on NY Baseball Digest that suggested the Highlanders could deal X-Nady to the Red Legs for either Bronson Arroyo (Mike Francesa’s Man –Crush) or Aaron Harang.

Got to go listen to Joe (Bada-Bing) Benigino kill the Jets.