Ed Kranepool will join Lolita Lopez this Saturday and Sunday on WPIX 11 here in NYC for the pre game show at 12:30PM before the Mets and Highlanders meet in the South Bronx

I don’t know what the pundits wanted Joe Giraridi to do other than pitch AJ Burnett on three days rest. Do these experts know the other choice to pitch is Chad Gaudin? The same Chad Gaudin who was cut by the Padres this season and a guy who has not thrown a baseball that counts in a month? You think Girardi enjoys being short in the starting pitching department? And why is he the bad guy here? Joey G has done a lot of things this post season to draw the ire of Highlander fans but their anger at JG on pitching Burnett on short rest is not his fault. The wrath of the fans should be on Pee Wee Cashman for not having the foresight to get a veteran starter (Gil Meche, Aaron Harrang to name two who would have been available) at the trade deadline. And by the way, when you sign a deal like Burnett did to pitch for the Highlanders who have to know what you do from April to September doesn’t mean jack shit, it’s what you do in the  post season where you earn your dough. Last night Burnett came up a few bucks short.

Anyone want to bet that Phil Hughes will be in the starting rotation in 2010? But it won’t be in the Bronx that’s for sure. Probably Pittsburgh or Kansas City I’d say.

On the FOX Pre-Game show last night, a show by the way, that makes Public Access TV look like Masterpiece Theater, host Chris Rose, who is so far over his head here he needs to go back to showing clips of golfers getting hit in the balls with their clubs, ask his panel of “Mad Men” extra Mark Grace, “Sufferin’ Succotash” Eric Karros and Charo’s  younger brother Ozzie Guillen, “if Derek Jeter is the greatest Highlander player ever”? At first the Gang of Three were as stunned with the ridiculous question in fact I was waiting for Guillen to throw out an F-Bomb and a scream out “PENDEJO”!!!! but no Oz said that not only was “Jeter God” he was the greatest Highlander ever. Well, I think that’s what he said because when Ozzie started talking I press the Closed Caption button on and my TV and on the screen it said “Are you fucking kidding”? Karros and Grace then agreed with Oz and I just sat there trying to pick up my jaw that his the ground. Jeter better than The Babe? Joe D? The Mick? The Iron Horse? Chicken Stanley? All right he’s a better hitter than Stanley but seriously has everyone lost their mind? His name is Derek Jeter not Derek Jesus.

Taking off my Mets cap and putting my Mets fandom aside for a moment, as a baseball fan I have to hope the Phuck Phaces win tomorrow night to not only set up a Game 7 but for the sheer joy of watching the flop swear flow from Highlander fans. Loosen them collars folks!

So with no Mets pre gamer I turned to YUCK and Suzyn Waldman’s baby sister Kim Jones comes on to give us details of Frankie and Bruney ready to rock and roll but all we got was a brief video of the Mets holding back Frankie and no site of any High Priced Highlanders 

Waldman lite told us that Rodriguez went over to Bruney and asked him if “he had something to say to him” and Bruney said “no” Bruney then went to the clubhouse to change his soiled pinstriped underwear.

Two things, what a piss poor job out of SNY with no pre game show and how lucky is Joe Giradi that the Bronx Robber Baron is incapicated?  Boss George would have given  Giradi an ultimatum to win today or be fired.

 

I am so happy I didn’t waste a minute of my time watching the pre game show, it’s bad enough I turn the game on at 6PM to get more Bob Costas than my daily requirement of self-important blow hards. Someday a head of a TV network will realize what a waste of money these pre game shows are in this day and age of instant information just like FOX figured out the money they save on Aqua Net for Jeanie Zelasko could be put to better use like getting Doofus Joe Buck a personality.

 

By the time the fourth quarter rolled around and the game looking like a Steelers lock, and the continued parade of commercial after commercial just killing the flow of the game I was ready to call Michael Phelps to come over with his Aqua Lung Bong. How about poor old Flipper getting outed while going one toke over the line? My God what’s’ next? Sully doing an “8-ball”?

 

Hey Rodney Harrison, I just spoke to David Tyree; he sends his regards and wants to know how his ass tastes.

 

WOHA! When did Brenda Warner get the Hollywood makeover? Da-am-n!!!!

 

Besides the Steelers and the Rooney family last night’s biggest winners were Al Michaels and John Madden, especially Madden who was totally on his game last night and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band who made me for the first time ever watching Super Bowls wanting halftime to last longer.

 

Rumors are running rampant through the ‘net that Scott Boras is in NYC to meet with the Omar about OP and Manny. There is no substance to these rumors but it looks like OP names on a contract is a foregone conclusion and with Manny still out there, there is still a scintilla of hope that maybe a package deal of OP/Manny could come to fruition. But don’t hold your breath.

 

Outstanding find by UGOT2B-LIEVE is this video of Bobby Valentine telling a wonderful story on his mustache in the dugout appearance. This is classic.

 

More video wonderment this one from Michael Leggett of the great Random Fandom Red Sox NYC site as he took video this past weekend of the rubble that is Shea Stadium. With all the pics and video of the rubble left of Shea I find myself in a quandary. I loved Shea and even at “Fitty” years old whenever I’d go to Shea no matter the opponent I had the same enthusiasm as I had as a six year old, in 1964, the first time I walked into Shea. I have tons of memories in there not just of games and events I’ve seen there but with the people I went those games and events with. Some are gone some are older and the first time I went to Shea with my son and daughter was very emotional for me and now that they are full fledged Mets fan I’m just glad they were able to experience Shea Stadium. But then there are the days I went to Shea where the sewers were backing up and the corridors were so jammed you couldn’t walk and the lines for the bathrooms made you miss the action on the field and the pipes leaking from the mezzanine to the lodge section with a liquid substance that wasn’t water and the cramp seats and I say yeah it’s time for a new place. The one big problem I have with $iti Field is its’ name and the corporate greed that goes with it and my biggest fear that the true Mets fan will be kept out of the place in favor of the stuffed shirts who are there for “the event” and have not put their heart and soul into the team like you and me. If all my Upper Deck brethren get into to $iti then it will be a success if the it becomes just a place for the know nothing corporate hacks then it will be the end of the Mets as we know them. I fear this because the Skill Sets have no feel for their fan base, because if they did I’d be wearing a RAMIREZ 24 jersey today.

 

This has nothing to do with the Mets or baseball but I got a kick out it. Kulas Korner is a great hockey site and they have a video up of yesterdays Bruins-Canadians game where Alex Henry of the Habs and Shawn Thornton of the Bruins went toe to toe in a slobberknocker . B’s play by play man Jack Edwards goes off on Henry who is what we used to call back in the 70’s a Goon, very funny stuff but not as funny as the awful looking throwbacks the Habs wore yesterday that reminded me of a barber pole.

 

Happy Birthday Leo “Bananas” Foster