OK count me in on the Bring John Lackey To The Mets club. If 5yr/$80-85 mil gets him here to be it.

$20 bucks a month for NEWSDAY online? Who the hell is running the show over there, Jimmy Dolan? What a MA-ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON

Matt Pignataro of Seven Train to Shea says Josh Johnson could be on the block in So Florida. If the Mets could pry Johnson from Miami and sign Lackey to go with Johan, well I’d let Jeffey Skill Set ride on the Mets Bloggers float at the parade.

Another chapter of my childhood is closed with the word today of the death of Soupy Sales. For you youngins’ Sales had a kids afternoon show on Ch 5 here in NY that feature comedy, puppets and cartoons that was goofy enough to keep kids entertained and over the top enough for adults to laugh at as well. Now I got to go, I need to find my 45 of Do The Mouse!.

 

With all that we get word via Big Daddy Freddy, that Omar is his man and Omar says Jerry is his man and all that makes me embarrassed to be a man.

 

Make no mistake, bringing back Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel is not a baseball decision but a money matter. I bet it will come out sooner than later that the Madoff scandal has hurt the Skill Set fortune much more than was reported.

 

See this year’s $140 mil payroll? Take a good look because it won’t be here nxest year, in fact there is a good chance the payroll will go south of $100 mil. Now that doesn’t bother me that much to tell you the truth, what has me upset is, when you take a dip in payroll and need to revamp at least 75 % of your team, you need someone in charge who is bright, innovative, creative and has a grasp of what the current baseball landscape is, going young and being able to find that diamond in the rough, the undervalued player who will give you the same production as a player for twice or three times the price. When I think of the baseball executive that can compete this way the name Omar Minaya is not even an after thought in my mind. But John Ricco’ does.

 

My guess is Omar will be VP of Baseball Ops but John Ricco will get bumped up as the front man/spokesman maybe even with the title GM and a nice little raise. Omar could be given the assignment to fix the farm system, lead the amateur scouting department, and work in concert with Ricco and the sabermetric folks to form an alliance that could get the Mets back to be relevant a bit faster.

 

As for Manuel, he has one year left and an option so even if the Mets start off like shit in 2010 it would be easier to relieve him of his duties as manger and reassign him in the organization. Maybe then the Skill Sets will have a little more scratch to make organizational improvements.

 

You would think the Skill Sets are not so clueless as to raise ticket prices for 2010. If they were really savvy they would not only announce that ticket prices won’t be raised but the tier pricing that is so ridicules will be scraped. Then they should go about having their marketing department work on making 2010 the most fan friendly season they can.

 

Start by embracing the history of the team. As we saw this weekend, it’s not just the stars that Mets fans cherish but the hard working understudy’s as well. Cleon Jones, Jerry Grote, Ed Kranepool, Gary Gentry and Eddie Yost go some of the biggest reactions from the crowd of Saturday night. Next year have some fun. Bring back so old Mets like Mike Jorgensen, Pete Falcone, Ron Hunt, Craig Swan, Steve Henderson or Jeff Readon, players from the 70’s and 80‘s teams on different weekends and have them sit at a table in the concourse and sign autographs and take pictures with the fans. It would make the players feel as good as the fans to interact with these players from our childhood.

 

At the concession stands on the Promenade level make up some Kids Meals deals. Sell a meal of a hot dog, burger, or chicken fingers, soda, and a bag of chips for like 3 bucks. Throw in a little Mr. Met beanie baby thingy as well. Let Nathan’s sponsor it to off set the cost.

 

Become more New York-centric. Do some TV ad’s with Mets players taking the 7 train to work just like real New Yorkers. If the Mets were interested I have an idea for a commercial that I think would be funny as hell and resonate with working people of the city. How about having David Wright sitting in traffic on the LIE and DOT workers filling a pot hole and Wright leaning on the horn, yelling “Hey, let’s go I gotta get to work” and the DOT worker yelling at Wright, “Do I come to your job and yell at you”? And Wright says “You sure do, 81 times a year” Get some of your players to come around the town in the winter. When your 2010 schedule comes out have players and management out on 6^th Ave by SNY studios and in all 5 boros, NJ and Connecticut giving out schedules and pressing the flesh with the fans. Treat the off season like a political election as you try to win the fans support. You are a big time underdog in this town roll up your sleeves and get to work Skill Sets

 

One thing to remember Mets fans, there are a lot of us. More than the media reports. There are millions and millions of us and tomorrow night the hardcore segment of Mets fandom ( what I like to call the Mets Weather Underground)  will meet again at Two Boots Tavern  Check out the details:

 

No Cure for a Depressin’ Season Like An

AMAZIN’ TUESDAY

 

Mets Fans Unite Again at Their Home

Away From Home for Road Games

 

NEW YORK — When Mets fans look back on 2009, they’ll remember the injuries, they’ll remember the losses, they’ll remember the game-ending unassisted triple plays…but most of all, they’ll remember AMAZIN’ TUESDAYS, the monthly gathering of Mets fans communing for literary readings, game watching, consciousness raising, pizza eating, Rheingold drinking, cocktail shaking, Yankee baiting, memorabilia gawking, and seven steps support as needed.

 

Two Boots’ second AMAZIN’ TUESDAY is comin’ up August 25, 7:00 PM, when the Mets are in Miami, attempting to do to the Marlins’ playoff chances what the Marlins did to theirs the past two years. It’s not much of a rallying cry, but when you’ve got great pizza and great speakers, do you really need one?

 

The co-bloggers who bring you Faith and Fear in Flushing, Greg Prince and Jason Fry, co-host the evening and will share some of their trials and tribulations as Mets fans (many of which are captured in the book of the same name). They welcome two distinguished writers who also bleed blue and orange: Dana Brand, author of the brand new book, The Last Days of Shea; and Caryn Rose, founder of the popular blog Metsgrrl.

 

No setting could be more ideal for such a spiritual gathering than Two Boots Tavern, as proven by the previous editions of this series of reading, rooting and Ray Sadecki contemplation. Two Boots owner Phil Hartman specializes in drinks and pies that pay homage to the great Mets of the past, and if his walls could talk, they’d surely shout “Let’s Go Mets!” Per Phil’s passion, not only is admission free, but so is the first beer, provided you donate a Mets baseball card.

 

The Two Boots restaurants and pizzerias have been a bastion for Mets fans for 22 years. Each of the ten locations features not only unique Cajun-Italian pizza and a convivial atmosphere but the Two Boots talisman — a framed photo of Mookie Wilson, Keith Hernandez and The Count (from Sesame Street). At the new Two Boots Tavern, highlights include a Hubie Brooks subway poster from the early 1980s, and a shrine to Bill Buckner. For AMAZIN’ TUESDAYS, the first beer is free, in exchange for any Mets baseball card (even Bobby Pfeil’s).

 

Phil’s hi-def TVs will, as always, will be tuned to the Mets game. Real Mets fans know the season, no matter how over, is never over until it’s over.

 

AMAZIN TUESDAYS

Date: Tuesday, August 25

Location: Two Boots Tavern, 384 Grand Street (@ Suffolk St.), 212-228-8685

Time: 7:00 PM

Admission: Free; also first drink free in exchange for any Mets baseball card.

Hosts: Greg Prince and Jason Fry, Faith and Fear in Flushing

Featuring: Dana Brand, author, The Last Days of Shea; Caryn Rose, Metsgrrl

Pizza of the Night: The Stork (creole chicken, wild mushrooms, cheddar & mozzarella) for 1973 reserve outfielder George Theodore

Drink of the Night: The Teufel Shuffle (martini shuffled, not stirred) for 1986 platoon second baseman Tim Teufel

 

Another day in Metsville where the suckitude off the field over shadows the suckitude on the field. As I type this, Tony Bernazard is still employed by the Mets and that is troubling. More troubling is that Omar Minaya is acting like these aligactons against Bernazard are fresh and he is ‘investigating” them. If that’s true Minaya should be fired on the spot as well.

I’ve defended Minaya here at this site while ducking the lings and arrows of the FIRE MINAYA brigade but as this Bernazard scandal unfolds it looks like Omar is either clueless of what is going on under his stewardship as the Mets top baseball man or he is a lying sack of shit. Either way due to the facts coming out that Omar has let this loose cannon Tony B run roughshod through the organization Minaya and Bernazard should both be fired like yesterday.

Not to rehash my post from yesterday but Bernazard was very smart to buddy up to Jeffey Skill Set but at some point Freddy Skill Set has to tear himself away from his personal pity party of getting fleeced by Bernie Madoff and along with Uncle Saul Katz take over control of the Mets organization before it burns to the ground. All Freddie has to do is look across his estate at his neighbor Charlie Dolan who gave his incompetent son the keys to the World’s Most Famous Arena and turned into the World’s Largest Shit Hole.

If Freddy doesn’t take the reins and grab control of the team and re-assigns Jeffey to the corporate wing of the organization, we Mets fans will be looking at the baseball version of the New York Knickerbockers. Freddy and Uncle Saul have to have an intervention with the little jock sniffer Jeffey and remove him from anything to do with the baseball operation. Then the must go in and rip apart the infrastructure of the team’s front office and start over.

Freddy needs to go after men like Larry Beinfest, Logan White of the Dodgers, Grady Fuson  and Paul DePodesta of the Padres, Abe Flores, the Angels Director of Player Development, or Jed Hoyer VP and Asst GM of the Red Sox. There are really good, smart baseball people out there and as this organization looks right now, if Freddy must make the ultimate decision to remove his son from any and all baseball decisions and make it known throughout baseball that this is such, what better situation for an aspiring GM would it be to run the NY Mets, to be the man who took the franchise out of the gutter and back to prominence.

Please Freddy and Uncle Saul, I come to you with Mets cap in hand SAVE OUR TEAM SAVE OUR FRANCHISE, REMOVE JEFFEY FROM ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE BASEBALL OPERATION IIIIIIIIIII”MMMMMMMMMM BBBBBBBEEEEEEEEGGGGGGGGGGGIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, first you try and bribe the fan base by offering a ticket to game 1 of the $iti Field era for the purchase of 5 more games. This is head spinning because the Mets wanted to be rid of us Seven-Pack ticket buyers as we were a nussience as it wasn’t worth the time and trouble to keep us on because the ticket demand at $iti would be off the charts. Well for the cheaper seats they were but the high rollers who wouldn’t know a curve ball from a High Ball are now hurtin’ for certain in this weak economy.

So becasue of that the Mets are now auctioning off opening day tickets in the exclusive Stuff Shirt section of the ball park so if you have an extra $525 laying around the couch cushions log on and put your bid in or better yet keep that cushion cash, order a pizza and watch the game on TV.

The question is does this mean they are saving up to bring Petey back or is Will Ohman on his way to St Lonesome?

The Skill Sets worship at the altar of Selig and do what ever he commands them to do. It’s the baseball version of Jonestown. The Mets are not going over budget because Selig doesn’t want them going over the salary cap. What salary cap? The best salary cap in all of sports that’s what. The NFL, NBA, and NHL all have hard caps but the difference between those three and baseball‘ is they have a minimum payroll you have to adhere to, in baseball that is not an issue you can havea $20 mil payroll like the Marlins and never get a new stadium but they still make money playing on a football field in front of a lot of folded up chairs because once the get their cut from MLB (all inclusive with  national TV/radio, MLB.com etc. they’ve made payroll before they even sell a ticket) or a $190 mil payroll like the Highlanders and throw some coin in the pot for the oppressed small market kids that it seems the Skill Sets aspire to become if not for the fact that so many damn people keep showing up at the ballpark and watch and listen on TV and radio even they would feel shamed in acting in that manner.

As bizarre as this may sound I actually like Freddy Skill Sets (his kid is another story) because we are both from around the same neighborhood in Brooklyn and he is a very charitable guy and really my only beef with him and the rest of the Skill Sets in command of the organization is the way they allow themselves to walk lock step with Emperor Selig.

It’s like a game of Simon Says with the Mets when it comes to commissioner’s office more like a Selig Says. “Selig says, do not go over the luxury tax”.  “Selig says, make sure you use the slotting system in the free agent draft”. “Selig says, build a new ball park but figure out a way to get some tax payer dough to do it” 

If the Skill Sets would just come out say they have had enough of the oppression put on them by Selig and Co. and acted like they should, the flagship team of the National League, playing in the biggest and greatest city in the world before some of the most passionate fans in sports, I would never utter the name Skill Set in vain again in fact I would reach out to some of my “Brooklyn friends” to see what could be done about this Madoff guy. Anything for you Freddy, I’d even sit down and have a Dr. Browns with Jeffey to burrythe hatchet if that’s what it would take to get you to regain focus.