Again it’s one of those days where the minutia in my head is overflowing so the floodgates are now open:

As any Mets fan I am concerned for the health of Jose Reyes but I’m trying to get a handled on the hysteria over the revelation of Reyes having an overactive thyroid . I guess it’s due to the fact that my wife has had problems with her thyroid for years and takes Synthroid for an under active thyroid and it hasn’t been a huge hindrance to her so that leads  me to think Reyes will be fine. You want something to worry about, worry about the bullpen.

I’m getting worried that the manger and the front office are going to screw up on Jenry Mejia big time. Yesterday Mejia gave the team a dominant performance in relief and with the bunch of  JAG’s (just another guys) roaming the pen, how much temptation is there for Jerry Manuel, with April now a job/career saving month,  to put pressure on the front office to bring the 20 year neophyte north at the end of spring training ?

Am I in the minority about this air traffic controller at Kennedy Airport letting his kid talk to the pilots? I know he just told the kid what to say and if this was little air field in the Midwest, I wouldn’t give a shit but to do this at one of the busiest airport in world, to me is the height of irresponsibility. I don’t want to see the controller lose his job but a suspension and fine seems to be in order here and maybe a rule like NO KIDS IN THE FUCKING TOWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometime Marty Noble can come off as big fat windbag but in his Noble Thoughts column today he has some good nuggets like Frenchy breaking Ike Davis’ balls over an error he made at 1^st base and then turning the tables on himself by proclaiming he will take three base on balls today and maybe win the leadoff spot in the bullpen. Also Frank Catalanotto and Jason Pridie are making heads turn early in camp.

Victor Rojas has been named as the TV play by play man for the Angels thus his leaving MLB Network. On his blog, Rojas details his taking the Angels job, it’s a great read and I wish Victor all the best with the Angels. Oh and a Happy Brithday to Victor’s dad Cookie

It’s hard to imagine how corrupt and out of control the sate government of New York is right now. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or Democrat an Upstater or Downstater as tax payers and residents of the state, the way we are treated by these bunch of bungling assholes in Albany is fucking disgrace. Should Governor Patterson resign? No, he should thrown in jail! along with every fucking member of the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

I am a fan of Bill Simmons and have been from as far back as his days at AOL as the Boston Sports Guy but his take on Tiger Woods coming back to golf and comparing it to Muhammad Ali’s comeback after being banned from boxing for not joining the military is so ridiculous that there is no way in hell you could defend that opinion. But of course Keith Olberman not only has to make the point that Simmons’ opinion is so off base but he has to attack him personally. That’s what Olberman does. I know first hand. When I started doing Kranepool Society, I had e mailed Olberman a few of my posts (I got his e-ail address for the SABR members list as I’m a member as well) just to see what he thought of my work. All I got back was a nasty e-mail from him stating how dare I send him these post and then commanded to never send him anything again. To say the least I was a bit upset. As time went on and I saw that Olberman has a problem in work and social settings so I didn’t feel so bad. So now that he ripped Simmons a new asshole, I feel like a little camaraderie with The Sports Guy. Olberman is not the Worst Person in the World just the biggest douche bag.

Ooops I’m late for my anger management class!

It looks like the Mets front office feels the bullpen situation is bit dicey, with Kelvin Escobar hurting and the lack of a second lefty to take the pressure of Perpetual Pedro, they have signed RHP Kiko Calero and are courting LHP Joe Biemel.

Calero has a history of arm/shoulder injury but his biggest asset is he works cheap, a minor league deal that turns into a major league deal for $850K When Calero is on he is quite effective with his slider and he also a fly ball pitcher who could thrive at $iti Field National Park . Biemel is doing a song and dance about how much he wants, I guess he hasn’t figured out that the Mets have started throwing nickels around like they are manhole covers, but the Mets have the calendar on their side as they saw with Calero who wasn’t happy to be out of work so long but took what he could get.  

We all love Ike Davis and we all hope he becomes the 30+ HR 100+ RBI guy we have been dreaming of and his Granny yesterday in St. Lonesome was baseball Viagra no doubt about it but let’s not get premature about pushing him North as the every day first baseman for opening day. Let’s have Ike get about 100 or so AB’s as a Bison and if he’s producing, by all means bring him up. Between Davis, Jenry Mejias, Fernando Martinez and Josh Thole its clear the Mets fan wants a homegrown star to root for maybe this one time the bad fortune of the organization turns and these four kids turn out to be the real deal.

There are two thing Mets fans and Phillies fans can agree on, one is their hatred for one and other and the other is their love for Tug McGraw. Just the mention of the name of the great Mets/Phillies reliever could make two hated rivals smile and give each other a warm embrace; such was the charisma of McGraw.

Tug died way too early in life of a brain tumor but the “Ya Gotta Believe” sprit of McGraw’s lives on through the Tug McGraw Foundation which helps those with brain cancer and other brain related injuries. One of the ways the Foundation raises money is from having folks sponsor runners in different road races around the country. In a must read  post today on Faith and Fear in Flushing, Greg Prince interviews Sharon Chapman a true blue Mets fan who is looking forward to running in her first NYC Marathon this November and is using the occasion to raise money for the McGraw Foundation.

Please check out Sharon’s fundraising page and help out any way you can.

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.

You’re a Mets fan, and even with the underwhelming personnel moves this off season the  front office has made and the anger you have about this bunch of underachievers, you looked at the calendar today as see February 1 and you know that in17 days, pitchers and catchers will report to Port St. Lonesome.

You try to look beyond the fact the team has holes on the defensive end and the pitching staff can with either be solid or shit but you’re a Mets fan, you know that miracles can happen. But then, you read a story like this where J.J. Putz, the former Mets reliever now bullpen fodder for the Chicago White Sox, tells about his season with the Mets. A disclaimer Mets fans the following excerpts are graphic and may not be suitable for all readers. If you suffer from high blood pressure, night sweats and have heard voices in your head, proceed with caution.

Putz claims he was damaged goods when he arrived in NY via Seattle but (this is where it gets upsetting) he was never given a physical exam by the Mets. Here is what went down as per Putz:

  When the trade went down last year, I never really had a physical with the Mets,” said Putz. “I had the bone spur (in the right elbow). It was discovered the previous year in Seattle, and it never got checked out by any other doctors until I got to spring training, and the spring training physical is kind of a formality. It was bugging me all through April, and in May I got an injection. It just got to the point where I couldn’t pitch. I couldn’t throw strikes, my velocity was way down.”

So the Mariners sent a player not fit to pitch to the Mets probably realizing that the inept Mets front office would never notice. Do you get the impression that the rest of MLB thinks, the whole Mets front office fell off a turnip truck?

Now, as bad as that declaration by Putz was, it gets even worse as we see here in a statement that will be dissected and maybe, just maybe be what’s needed to be a   cleansing of the Mets front office of incompetence and give this organization the high colonic it needs. This is Exhibit A that the New York Mets organization is run by a bunch of fucking liars:

 Being hurt is never fun, especially when you go to a team like New York, where the expectation level is so high, and you’re not able to do what you know you can do. (The Mets) gave up a lot to get me, so it was disappointing and frustrating.”

Especially when the Mets told Putz not to talk about being hurt with the media.

“I knew that I wasn’t right. I wasn’t healthy. The toughest part was having to face the media and tell them that you feel fine, even though you know there’s something wrong and they don’t want you telling them that you’re banged up.”

There you have it. You can’t believe anything you hear out of Mets managment. What little shred of credibility the Mets front office had is gone now. Now you know why Carlos Beltran went outside the organization to get his knee fixed and you know why no free agents want to come to Flushing. $iti Field might as well be in Chernobyl, it’s that toxic.

What’s the over/under when Jason Bay’s knee blows out? 40 games?

   20 days until pitchers and catchers

Unfortunately  I missed Mets Hot Stove last night on SNY but from reading Mathew Cerrone’s MetsBlog this morning it looks like Omar did his best Alexander Haig impression to let us Mets fans know the “He is in charge” No wonder I had a restless nights sleep.

From reading the Cerrone’s post, Omar seemed fixated on the lack of any good solid free agents this off season and Minaya is right about that, it was a weak crop. The Mets did corral one of the better freebird players in Jason Bay and the Mets abstaining from any of the free agent pitchers may turn out to be the right move. Time will tell. But Omar is acting like the free agent way is the only way to fortify the team.

I don’t know if the Mets ever called the Reds or Royals to engage in talks for one of my favorite trio of pitchers I’d like to see, the pitching firm of Harang, Arroyo and Meche, but I just find it very odd that Omar feels the only way to add talent to this team is through free agents and diving in the ballplayers with disabilities dumpster.

If you really want to know what a Mets fan is really like, you must read Faith and Fear in Flushing. Greg Prince has a post out this morning that deals with the identity of our team. This part of the post says it all:

Little wonder the Mets’ identity is frayed. No wonder the Metsosphere is continuously and maybe justifiably staticky, jittery and expressing discontent. We are, by nature, a gaggle of nervous crosstalkers when we don’t have an actual season to dissect. Right now it’s all nervous crosstalk for Mets fans. We, collectively, remind me of the middle-aged ladies who’d set up card tables in front of somebody’s cabana at the beach club to which my parents belonged when I was little. (That’s the Sun Life I remember.) Those ladies indulged in nervous crosstalk, too, just like us. All we’re missing is four floppy hats, a carton of Tareytons and a few hands of canasta.

Just walking by them made me jittery, and I was only six.

After reading that passage, I can’t get the image of the Brighton Beach Baths out of my mind.

Fernando Tatis has resigned with the Mets and for less than the $1.7 mil he made last year. Nice hometown discount eh? Tatis will also change is uniform number from 17 (that he should never ever have been given) to 6 4 3.

As a Mets fan, I’m starting to feel like a weary traveler standing at the airport luggage carrousel waiting for my bags, and my bags have gotten lost.

Pitchers have gone around the free agent carrousel and the Mets just stand there waiting and waiting and waiting to the point where they are the lone team standing around with nothing to show.

Ben Sheets for $10 mil is a very steep price to pay but give the A’s and Billy Beane credit for taking a chance with Sheets. Beane is taking a shot that of the three things that can happen with Sheets, if  two of the scenarios work in the A’s favor, Beane and the A’s come out a winner.  He can stay healthy and become the Ace of a very young and potentially strong starting rotation and the A’s can be big time contenders in the NL West, or he can stay healthy and the rest of the team not play up to expectation and fall out the race where by Beane can flip Sheets for a couple of top prospects, or the worst case scenario, Sheets breaks down like a ’76 Pinto and the A’s are stuck with an expensive invalid.

But then again, Beane and the A’s management are competent and have watched Sheets throw and checked his medical reports and have given him a full medical by doctors who have cleared Sheets good to go, so with the odds in his favor Beane decides to spend Lew Wolf’s money and go for a post season berth.

Jeffey Skill Sets on the other hand, will take the money saved on buying much cheaper baseball labor to build an extension of his Hamptons mansion.

At some point one of our fine beat reporters in this town should really try to get through the Wall of Horowitz and get a sit down interview with Jeffey Skill Sets to get answers on how he feels that the baseball team he runs is the laughingstock of the industry.  The Mets have gone from an organization where every player agent made sure that the Mets were involved with their client during free agency to an organization that has become Plan Z (welcome Jason Bay) The Mets wanted John Lackey but John Lackey wanted no part of the Mets.  A pitcher coming from the American League refused to even talk to a team in the NL, that plays in a pitchers ball park, in the greatest city in the world, for a team with a big income. Stunning.

Jason Marquis begged the Mets to sign him but the Mets treated him like he had cooties. Bengi Molina? He’s a Met the MSM told us, it’s just a matter of finding a pen with ink in it. Molina is back with the Giants.  Randy Wolf? Never called Flushing.  “Mr. Minaya, Joel Piniero on line 1” WHO? Responds Omar. Jon Garland? No! Chone Figgins? No! Orlando Hudson? No! Aroldis Chapman? No! If he were 45 years old then YES! Russell Branyan? No! and on and on and on…………………………

This perception of the Mets is not a figment of Mets fans imaginations, it’s real, the baseball world shakes its head and says “How the fuck?” We can rant all day and night about Omar Minaya and Fire Omar, and Omar this and Omar that. Get over your Omar hate, this is beyond Omar. Omar Minaya is a bit player in the Mets moves these days.  If Omar were the baseball boss, Molina and Piniero would be Mets and Carlos Delgado would have a 5 year deal. But nothing gets done until Jeffey Poo says it’s done. That’s why we’re fucked.

I give Johan Santana a ton of credit not just for showing up at the mini camp but for coming on WFAN with Joe Bada Bing and Tinkerbell and being positive and optimistic about this team. The right man in charge could play this “the whole world thinks you guys suck” as a rallying cry but the guy that would play that angle perfectly has to prove himself on Coney Island this summer, while Cool Breeze Jerry works on his lounge act in Flushing.

I swear to Henry Chadwick that I hope I’m wrong that Wright and Reyes explode with career years and Daniel Murphy hits like I believe he can and that Bay and Frenchy  prove to be “corner-stones”, and Beltran comes back like a track star that hits 30 HR’s  and Big Pelf pounds that strikezone like a blacksmith and this team is not just competitive but contends for the NL East crown.

As negative as I’ve been all winter and I’m sure other Mets fans will say the same thing, none of us wants to go through another summer like last year.  As I look down the line on the big decision makers though in this organization though, it is very hard to get enthused.  Jeffey is clueless and Omar is ball-less, and the manager couldn’t care less.

All I have is my ace pitcher preaching to me like Bob Marley, I hope he’s right. It’s hard to find Three Little Birds when it’s so damn cold outside

All of NYC is wrapped up in the Jets run to the Super Bowl (47 % of all the television sets in the Metro NY area were tuned to the Jets-Chargers game Sunday, that’s about 10 mil TV’s WOW!!!) so Mets news is fighting for space in the NY sports media but there is a few items of interest:

If you listen to Pro Baseball Central last Thursday you heard the song Metropolitans that I played to start the show. It’s a punk/garage version of Meet The Mets and it should be the 8^th inning song played at $iti Field. But of course Mets management are tragically un-hip so it won’t happen, but it will be a staple of Pro Baseball Central. Check out the band who wrote and performs the song the 45 Adapters at their website and check out their new EP “Not One More Day”

The Mets are going to Louisiana to checkout the workout of Ben Sheets. There are about a dozen teams looking a Sheets but the Mets may have a bit of an inside track. Sheets’ named his son Seaver after Tom Terrific.

Art Shamsky’ new website is up and running and if you’re a long time Mets fan you’ll enjoy the features on the site.

I would love to have Eric Byrnes on the Mets. A guy off injury who plays balls to the wall type of game that the Mets sorely need and he’s a very good outfielder. But I doubt it will happen. Makes too much sense to sign him.

You may want to clip and save this article, if Jason Bay comes up with a bum knee this season.

Tonight at 9PM ET we will discuss the Carlos Beltran medical fiasco and other Mets news. Our guest tonight will be Joe Fiorello of Disgrunteld Mets fan.

You can join in the conversation as well by calling in (646) 595-4462

I guess congratulations are in order to Andre Dawson for his election into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hawk was a solid baseball player and from what you read, was a very nice guy and it seems as long as you’re a very nice guy to the media, you eventually get in the Hall. That would explain why Albert Belle is no longer on the ballot. Belle was an unbelievable offensive player putting up big numbers and one of the great run producers of his time, but the guy made Ron Artest look stable. It’s not just that Belle was a nasty sumnabitch, I honestly think the reporters covering the teams he played for and the out of town media we’re scared shit of him. The only way for payback is to not just keep in out of the HOF but knock him off the ballot altogether.

The only segment of baseball fans that doesn’t have bad feeling for Robbie Alomar not getting in the HOF, are Mets fans. During the reign of the Alomar disaster in Queens, I was dining in one of my favorite spots, the RF food pavilion at Shea Stadum, when I encounter a guy wearing an ALOMAR 12 uni top. When I mentioned that he was one brave Mets fan to wear that jersey, he told me his was a cousin of Alomar’s. We spoke for while and I ask Robbie’s cuz, “what’s the problem with your cousin” he told me the whole family was stumped. He said Alomar was so happy to be in NYC as there was a lot of family there to keep him happy but the cuz then said “he feels like he can’t do it anymore”  The problem that Mets fan had with Alomar was he was coming here off a strong year in Cleveland .336/.415/.541/.956 20HR 100 RBI 30SB so when the deal was made to come to the Mets, we were farting through silk WHAT AN ACQUISTION!!! But what followed was one of the classic crash and burns of a player in baseball history. All said in done, Alomar should have gone in as a first ballot HOF’er his Mets years aside, he is one of the greatest 2^nd basemen of all time.

Supposedly 5 voters sent back blank ballots, two of which are Jay Mariotti and Lisa Olson of AOL. Mind-boggling!.  I know it’s in vogue to call Mariotti a douche bag but a few years ago, Mariotti did a radio show on the defunct One On One Radio Network (620 AM here in NYC) along with Jim Lytke of the AP. It was one of the better sports radio shows I’ve listened to. Mariotti was not the dickhead he has evolved into today. As for Olson, she has always sent in a blank ballot since becoming eligible to vote. I don’t know what to say about that but why even be a member of the BBWA?   The Hall of Fame would be better off letting bloggers pick the Hall members; at least we’d take it seriously.