What a Difference Success Makes

If there was one thing that stood out to me during my many travels with my family over the past month -- other than the increased security at the busier airports, of course -- it would have to be the effect of wearing my regular Phillies apparel in multiple airports along the east coast. Ten years ago, #1 I'm not sure I would have been caught dead wearing any Phillies apparel other than your standard baseball cap in public, and #2, if I did, I could have walked through the nation's airports basically unnoticed. I mean, how often do you really pay attention if someone walks by you wearing, say, a Colorado Rockies t-shirt, or a Padres cap, etc.? Especially given the total lack of historical success out of the Phillies prior to the team's current incarnation, believe me when I tell you, I spent 20-some years of my life as a long-suffering and apparel-wearing Philly fan across the board, and nobody ever said boo to me about anything I ever had on my back, my head, or anywhere else attached to my person, be it at an airport or otherwise.

Fast forward to last month, and as the Hammer Family muddles through a very long security line at JFK International Airport, Hammer Wife and I are trying to get everything back together after our bags, computers, shoes, belts, younameits all come out of the scanner while simultaneously keeping tabs on and quieting down three young kids including a very young one who can't be trusted not to do something crazy at any time depending on what is attracting him at any particular moment. At one point my 2-year-old grabs one of his sisters' shoes and starts running with it, stopping just before running under the line barrier and back into the security line all over again. Trust me when I tell you, having to go and retrieve him, and I'm sure being forced to wait with him all the way through that whole security line again, was about as daunting a thought as I could imagine at that particular moment, and then I saw the big burly TSA guard standing right near where my boy was dangerously close to really screwing things up. I ask the guy if he could please just stand in front of my boy for one second while I come and collect him -- he was only maybe 10 feet away from me at this point -- and the TSA guy takes one look at my Phillies shirt, sneers up the corners of his mouth just a little bit, and says "Not for a Phillies fan, I won't." And he was serious. Luckily I managed to grab the kid before he got away from the security-cleared end of the line, but it wasn't with any help at all from the TSA guy, who told me he was a Mets fan. After a quick condescending laugh at him, I told him I feel bad enough for him already and I could get my own kid. But the simple fact is, ten years ago, there's no way anyone in New York would ever have even mentioned me being a Phillies fan. That fact would have been of no consequence whatsoever to a Mets fan 10 years ago, even when the Mets were bad themselves. The Phillies were a lifelong embarrassment, and pretty much the last franchise in all of professional sports that would have caused any agita, jealousy and negativity whatsoever in the mind of any other city's or sport's team fan.

A week or so later, we're flying back out of the airport in south Florida, and once again I am sporting some Phillies apparel, this time my old red hat that I've had for going on a decade or more now, and this time in Marlins country. The hat is ratty and gross, but it's mine and I love it, and I pretty much always bring it on vacation in case I need the extra protection or convenience that it affords the wearer. The Hammer Family rolls in to the airport with exactly nine bags, only two of which are being carried by anyone other than me, and I am taking a beating in the 100 degree heat. Mercifully I see one of the airprot's luggage hand trucks unattended, and I am just starting to put my luggage down on it when a skycap walks up from across the room and says those are only for skycap use. I look at him, sweat pouring down my face, back aching, and with true desperation in my eyes and ask can I please just borrow this to lug my bags to the security line about a mile away in the airport, and that I will personally bring it right back to him in 15 minutes or so when I get the bags there, and I take a minute to point out to him how utterly deserted the airport is at that hour and how many other hand trucks there are available for him and his team to use. The guy takes one look at me -- the sweat, the pain, the desperation -- and says, "Sorry, no Phillies fans are using any of my carts today." And that was it. I carried seven bags about a half a mile across a couple of terminals because I was unfortunate enough to once again be wearing a Phillies hat in the land of another, this time different, NL East team. What on earth a Marlins fan really has against the Phillies specifically I'm not sure I understand -- I mean, the Marlins are after all in last place in the division, they lost 17 games in a row this year, and the Phils have never really taken on the Marlins head-on in any of these past few years of Philadelphia sports success -- but I guess that's just it: the Phillies' success is what does it. What will soon be five consecutive years of NL East domination -- the only other team in division history to win five straight other than the Braves dynasty of the 1990s -- must just be too much for the fans of every other team in the division to take.

A couple of weeks later, we are at our first night at the beaches of Delaware (Washington, DC beach country, mostly), and I went out to pick up dinner at the Hammer Family's favorite local restaurant, and I'm once again wearing my Phillies shirt that in fact was a recent gift from my brother in law who was there getting dinner with me. When I get there I realize they have not included the dressing that my sister in law had specifically requested with her salad as part of the order, so I ask them to include it, and the guy behind the counter mouths off to me that he normally doesn't give dressing to Phillies fans. Now, unlike the first two instances above, this Nationals fan did eventually give me what I had asked for, but not before getting in his own barb against my beloved Phillies team. After he took the time to ask me where was that right-handed bat in our lineup since the Jayson Werth trade, I could not resist pointing out that the Nationals management has been asking themselves that same question all season long, and we parted ways both with smiles on our faces.

Three examples of NL East rival fans mouthing off at me in the span of under a month, just for the team that I liked? To a Phillies fan? If you needed anything beyond Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee both accepting less money to play at Citizens Bank Park to show how far the Phillies franchise has come over the past half a decade or so, that is pretty much it.

Back and Stuff

Man, what a difference a quarter makes.

Just three months ago, I was in between several trips back and forth across the country, to some of the grossest places the USA has to offer in fact, and mired in without a doubt two of the very worst transactions my career as a lawyer has ever taken me. I was barely seeing my family, I was struggling to keep up with the backlog at work to boot, and I was as close to miserable as I ever get, and it seemed like it would never end.

Mercifully, with June came the closing of the two deals, and since then I've barely had to travel at all for work. In fact, here just three months later, I've been able to take Hammer Wife and and the kids away to three different beaches along the east coast, for what the Hammer Kids have been calling "Beach Camp" and having a blast. Seeing my older girls get out there with me and bodysurf in the ocean now that they now how to swim is just priceless, watching them get completely wiped out by that wave that nobody even saw coming, disappear briefly below the shallow surface of the water, but then pop right back up, dust themselves off, and hurl themselves back at mother nature for another go-around. It really makes a daddy proud. And to think back even as late as early Spring, I could literally never have even seen such fun times coming in the future. It's just crazy how life can be sometimes.

Anyways, so Beach Camp has definitely had a negative effect on my blog frequency, but the positive effect on life is immeasurable. And now I'm back. I had written a monster post about the baseball season, reviewing all of my preseason over-under picks and analyzing all the teams, and then hungry blogger ate it right up. Gluttonous pig. Rather than re-write that whole thing, I'm just going to post up my random thoughts from the past week or so below and get that all out of the way in short order.

I thought that the Mets might finally starting to understand the notion of buying low and selling high. Right now is clearly the time to offload Carlos Beltran, who is having a strong first half of the season just in time for his go-year to get himself a fatty new contract. Remember the last time Carlos Beltran busted out of nowhere to come onto the scene and get himself a huge mega contract? Remember that postseason blowout with the Astros that led him to the Mets in the first place? The Mets are doing a good job dumping Beltran now when his value is clearly at its highest. They didn't get a ton in exchange for him, but the Giants are only renting him for a couple of months here, and in my view they almost certainly won't resign Beltran at season's end when he becomes a free agent. So the Mets did ok with the Beltran situation, and so did the Giants IMO. It's the team who signs Beltran to the next big deal who's gonna get screwed here, cuz this guy has shown it over and over again: when the motivation (money) is gone, so is the performance.

But then the Mets turn around and make the same mistake all over again, this time with Jose Reyes. Here is Reyes, another guy in his go year to get a new contract, and suddenly he's busting out with far and away his best season of all time, and really his first-ever awesome MLB season. He's not missing 67 games due to a stubbed toe, he's running out all his hits and making a great all-around effort, and he would be at the top of the list for the National League MVP if his team wasn't as bad as it is. But if anybody, ever, was at their highest value right now, it's Jose Reyes. If the Mets knew what they were doing, they would dump this guy in exchange for a big young starting pitcher, and a prospect of some kind, right now. Signing Jose Reyes to a long-term deal will be a total disaster, as the Mets will be forced to pay Reyes his overinflated value right now, only to watch him miss another 70 games in 2012 and hobble through his 30's as the team buys him when he is high instead of selling when they have the chance. As a Phillies fan, I like seeing the vestiges of the old Mets remaining with the organization -- the Wilpons might be the literal worst owners in all of baseball these days -- but it's amazing how obvious the truth can be to some people while others just consistently misread the situation.

Speaking of my Phillies, not many fans want to come right out with this, and I know I've seen some better overall records at this point in the season before, but I'm going to do what most Philadelphia fans are afraid to do right now and just say it: this might be the best Philadelphia Phillies team of all time. There, I said It-That-Must-Not-Be-Said. We already saw in 2010 how the Phillies failed to step up in the NL Championship Series when expectations were at their highest in a generation...now how will the current squad deal with even higher expectations here in 2011?

Oh, and Charlie Manuel: How the fuck do you reintroduce that shitbag Brad Lidge to the mix with this team the other night, after finally being free of him all season long so far? For a guy who is perhaps one more World Series victory away from Cooperstown, the Phillies manager certainly has a consistent way of over-trusting his veterans to the detriment of his team.

And to finish out my baseball rants, how the fuck they allow that umpire to continue calling games after the debacle in the 19th inning in Atlanta the other day is beyond me. I mean, it's just like that assysniff ump with the perfect game from Armando Galarraga in Detroit last season -- there are fucking major league baseball umpires for crying out loud. In that spot -- especially in that fucking spot -- you have absolutely no fucking right to make that call unless you clearly see that a tag was missed, the runner clearly got a step in there ahead of time, etc. Which obviously did not happen, since both calls weren't even fucking close, and in the case of the Braves the other day, that runner still hasn't even touched home plate at all, let alone ahead of the tag. It's simple, really: that idiot Jerry Neals already decided long before the play at the plate in the 19th inning that he was sick and tired of working -- he had already put in more than two full games' worth of work and it was nigh on 2am -- and that the next schmuck who even came close to home plate, he was going to rule safe and call it a day. And an umpire who ever makes that kind of a predetermined decision -- under any circumstances whatsoever -- without a doubt, should be banned from calling baseball games for the rest of his life. They should ban his ass from major league baseball stadiums, period.

Oh, and about my preseason over-under picks. Suffice it to say that right now my biggest misses on the season are the Pirates on the downside, and the Reds and the Rockies on the upside in the NL, and the Indians and the Tigers on the downside in the AL. Overall I am looking at 14 up and 14 down among my preseason picks, with two of the picks a virtual tie at this point with about 104-105 games in the books for most teams on the 2011 regular season. So, as usual, it looks like it's going to come down to the last week of the season to find out if I can continue my streak of over-.500 preseason over-under picks in baseball and football.

And to at least begin the 2011 NFL ranting season, can I just be the first to say that the owners officially accomplished nothing by their silly fake "lockout" which was really nothing more after all than a standard negotiating tactic that the owners were not ultimately willing to allow extend into their 2011 regular season. When the Cardinals are paying unproven Kevin Kolb a five-year contract extension worth $63.5 million with $21 million guaranteed -- this for a guy with just a handful of mediocre NFL starts under his belt, and 11 lifetime tds vs 14 interceptions? $21 million guaranteed? And you locked out this year to get this? I mean, just look at the Carolina Panthers, coming off a 2-14 season last year and with a new head coach in town. First, it was defensive end Charles Johnson, whom the Panthers signed for $72 million over 6 years with $32 million of that money guaranteed. Then it was runningback DeAngelo Williams, who scored a 5-year, $43 million deal, with $21 million guaranteed. Sidney Rice signed with the Seahawks for a 5-year deal in the $40 million that includes almost $19 million in guaranteed money. Santana Moss. Santorio Holmes. Steve Breaston. The list just goes on and on and on. The NFL owners have the exact same problem today that they had before their fake lockout that they refused to follow through with in the end -- their player contracts are not guaranteed, so the players simply insist on extracting as much signing bonuses, up-front and guaranteed payouts in the contracts as is humanly possible. The players clearly have the upper hand in the real world in the NFL -- regardless of what the owners say about the outcome of collective bargaining negotiations -- and to think that this is the situation just literally days after agreeing to end their lockout of the players, this is about as weak as the NFL owners have ever looked against what has traditionally been the weakest of the four major sports' players unions in this country.

Real Quickie

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, but work has come in the way of my personal life more over the past week or so than has ever happened in my time as a lawyer up to this point. So for today I will just say the following:

Johann Santana muhahahahahahahah!

New York Sports Fans

This is another of those really fun times to be a NY sports hater in New York City. The NBA season is coming to a close and the Knicks are a raging embarrassment, currently sitting at 28-52 and 22 games out of first place in the Atlantic under second-year head coach Mike D'Antoni. The NHL regular season ended this past weekend, with the Islanders finishing 2010 in 13th place out of 15 teams in the East, and with the Flyers eliminating the Rangers as well from playoff contention on Sunday in both teams' final regular season game and in most agonizing fashion as they won a shootout at home in a game where the winner would go to the playoffs and the loser would go home for the offseason. How both New York teams can fail to make the postseason in hockey of all sports -- where almost any five guys who can skate can qualify for the playoffs given the bloated post-season structure of the sport -- is just mind boggling, especially given the blank check at least the Rangers are given year in and year out to go out and acquire top talent.

And then there is baseball, the only other major team sport we have going on right now, and of course the Yankees are the Yankees, off to another hot start after signing all the best players in the game over the past few years and beginning their sleepwalk back to the 2010 World Series.

And then, my friends, there are the Mets.

Sunday night was just awesome as a Philly sports fan stuck in New York. Seriously, I took the extra long route home from the gym at night just to add to my minutes listening to the local sports radio stations so I could hear whining, crying pussyfans lamenting how the Rangers could suck so bad, how could they beat the Flyers on Friday and then still lose when it counted on Sunday? How could the NHL allow an entire season, and whether or not a team goes to the playoffs or goes home, to come down to stupid penalty shots? A shootout? The horrors.

And then the Mets fans began calling in, and this is what had me making that left onto Main Street instead of the right, and taking the long long way home. While your two-time defending NL Champion Philadelphia Phillies went 5-1 on the road in their first week of play -- albeit against subpar competition in the Nationals and the Astros -- the Mets have started off a much less promising 2-4 through their first six games. And unlike some of the teams out there, the Mets have also benefited from a largely weakass schedule so far in 2010, playing all six games at home so far, and against the Florida Marlins -- who are predicted to finish just under .500 this season -- and then the lowly Washington Nationals, who won all of 57 games last season. So against the projected two worst teams in the NL East this season, playing three-game series against both at home, the Mets just went and lost not one but both series at home to start their year.

And from what I heard on Sunday and again this morning on the way into work, the Met fans are smart enough to have given up on the year already. They can see it -- a team that plays with this much no-heart on a nightly basis isn't worthy of anyone's optimism or hope or even their attention. But even though I can see it myself and in fact anyone who's read here for a while knows that I've known this would happen for two full seasons already, it is still so effing fun to listen to these no-heart fans calling in to decry their no-heart team, here sitting just 6 games into a 162-game season.

Ironically, the Mets' badness is actually going to be a negative for the Phillies this season I would say, as the Mets' bungling GM Omar Minaya will surely be fired by season's end for his inability to build anything that resembles a winner despite spending $150 million a season for the game's second-highest payroll year after year, and the team's manager Jerry Manuel -- without a doubt one of the least intelligent, least aware, and just generally head-in-the-sand head guys in the game today -- will also clearly be shown the door, I imagine sometime long before season's end in fact. And just given the dedication and love these two clowns have shown for no-heart loser players over the past several seasons, changing from these two management guys to virtually any other two randoms off the street would have to be an improvement for the Mets, and will therefore make the longer-term success of the Mets' divisional opponents that much harder to attain.

So here's to enjoying our last season of total and utter ineptitude and embarrassment out of the New York Mets. When are those guys gonna break down and just go rehire Bobby Valentine already?

Fun With Phillies / Dodgers

By now everyone has heard about that incredible ending in Game 4 of the NLCS on Monday night that saw Jimmy Rollins bash in two runs with two outs in the bottom of the 9th of a game that seemed essentially hopeless for the Phillies to win and very close to impossible for the Dodgers to lose. In all honesty, without rehashing the whole thing at this point, suffice it to say that I thought that was truly one of the most dramatic moments in nearly 130 years of Phillies history. And right here you can listen to three calls of that historic play -- only the fourth walk-off postseason hit in Phillies history and just the third time in baseball history that a team won with a walk-off when losing and down to their last out in the 9th inning -- first the television call, which I thought was very good all things considered, then the local Philly radio call which is great mostly because of the clowns screaming and cheering like crazy in the background, followed by the Dodgers radio call which is downright boring and sounds like it's being delivered by an 85-year-old man taking a dump. But it's good stuff, and I definitely recommend taking a listen to this link if you haven't already to enjoy a little bit of what that moment felt like for the fans of the teams involved.

The one thing about Rollins' incredible smash and the Phils' comeback win in Game 4 is that the game had really been ratcheting up the tension for the better part of an hour at that point and that contributed greatly to the tremendous release of that tension when the game was finally won. After giving up the lead in the 6th inning because Charlie Manuel again left his starting pitcher in about two innings too long, the Phils' bullpen clamped down and did not allow another run, leaving the team just one run down at 4-3 after we got one run back in the bottom of the 6th inning. While closing the floodgates on the Dodgers' lineup for the rest of the night, the Phillies went to work in their three remaining innings on chipping away at the Dodgers' slimmest of leads. In the 7th inning, the Phillies got two men on with one out before failing to advance either runner to third base, but it was exciting for anyone awake interested enough to stay up to see if the Phils could reach down into the magic hat one more time. Then again in the 8th inning, the meat of the Phillies' lineup managed to get two guys on base with just one out, but once again they could not satsify the Philly fans' increasing tension by knocking one of those guys in.

So the Phillies had scored one run in the 6th inning to cut the Dodgers' lead to just one run -- and thanks to Manny Ramirez's ridiculously accidental shoestring catch they did not tie it up right then and there -- and then they made a real run at tying it up in both the 7th and again in the 8th inning. So by the time the 9th rolled around and Brad Lidge actually somehow did not ruin yet another game in the top of the 9th, there was no way I was turning it off even though the bottom of the Phillies' order would have to be the hero if the Phils were to come back and win. Which is exactly what happened, including Dodgers' fireballing closer Jonathon Broxton -- throwing 100 and 101 mph fastballs all throughout his short appearance on the night -- walking Matt Stairs on four pitches after Broxton clearly just could not get this blast out of his head from, ironically, Game 4 of the 2008 NLCS. Then Broxton, clearly still shaken just from the thought of having to face Stairs again in the same spot one year later, hit the Phillies' remarkably clutch catcher Carlos Ruiz with his first pitch after the Stairs walk, setting the stage for J-Roll to work his magic. It's one of those games that encapsulates true sports drama at its best, and having sat through the previous four innings of this game, I can tell you that the tension in the 9th was as high as it ever gets outside of a Game 7 extra innings battle to decide the World Series.

Although certainly at this point this series is far from over, and if the Phils don't manage to coax a win out of new father Cole Hamels in Game 5 on Wednesday night then it's back to LA for the final two games of the series, the Game 4 win has given birth to a number of funny things that us Phillies fans have had a blast with over the past couple of days. For starters there was this screenshot:



which was accidentally put up by mlb.com on their homepage just minutes before J-Roll's historic double gave the Phils the win. With two down in the bottom of the 9th and the bottom of the order up at the plate, I guess mlb.com just wanted to get the jump on putting the freshest baseball headlines up on their site. Sometimes, though, I guess a little patience is called for, especially when predicting things as unknowable as sporting events. It reminds me of back in 1986 at Shea Stadium, Game 6 of the World Series, just minutes before Bill Buckner would make -- or extend, as the case may be -- baseball history letting the ball go between his legs, when the Mets accidentally flashed a message saying "Congratulations to the 1986 World Champion Boston Red Sox" on the big screen at the stadium before quickly taking it down (you can read some accounts of that occurrence here). Of course, the greatest example of this is the classic "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline run by the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948 which incorrectly reported the result of the previous night's presidential election, but as far as sports go, I really enjoyed seeing the false report of the Dodgers' victory over the Phillies in Game 4 the other night.

Another great snapshot I saw yesterday from one of my Phillies fans was this one, which those of you who enjoy the Fail Blog as much as I do will probably enjoy quite a bit:



The best part of this snapshot has got to be not only the triumphant pre-slide pose captured of Carlos Ruiz just milliseconds before officially ending the Phillies' incredible comeback, but the fact that Dodgers pitcher Jonathan Broxton happened to be right in the background of the picture, already walking off the field and into the dugout before Ruiz had even yet touched home. The Dodger "faithful" can cram it, the tofu-eating vegetarian non-fans that they are. Fail!

Lastly, a few of my Philly fan friends also hooked me on to some incredible message board threads resulting from the Game 4 debacle at the Bank (my new name for Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia). First, there is the Dodgersblues board forums, where I assure you any baseball fan can find hours of fun and enjoyment, mostly of the unintentinoal comedy variety. But the best board of all has got to be this one, which is of all things a Mets message board where all these loser fans have to focus on is who they will root for if the unthinkable evil of a Yankees - Phillies World Series comes to fruition. Honestly I must have spent two hours (on a very busy work day no less) just reading through all these posts over the past 24 hours or so, and it still isnt' getting old for me. At all. There is so much great stuff for a Phillies fan buried deep in that Mets forum thread that I can't even begin to describe it all or narrow it down to some of the best posts or ideas. One thing I can say for certain is that one post caught my eye more than any others, essentially (I think) implying that the Mets are every bit as good as the Phillies this year and the last, but that it's just the different stadiums the two teams play in that is the only thing separating the Mets from back to back World Series appearances and at least one world title. Uh huh. That post I will reproduce in its entirety here for your viewing pleasure:


We added Shawn Green, at age 33. With a career OPS of .850.
Flash in the pan? 10 straight seasons over 110 OPS+ is a flash in the pan? Watch something besides Mets games, or be older than 16.

The Phillies added Raul Ibanez, career OPS of .826. He posted a .899 in their cheese box this season.

Livan, Alou, Redding and Castillo? That's Fing retarded.
Livan and Redding were brought in to COMPETE for the #5 spot in the rotation.

Like Chan Ho Park and Brett Myers for Philly this season, or Adam Eaton (5.80 ERA) in 2008, Kyle Lohse (4.72) or Jon Leiber (4.73) Chad Durbin (5.15) in 2007.

Castillo and Alou are starters. Alou was awesome but hurt.
Castillo sucked last year and was good this year.

Luis Castillo is better than Pedro Feliz. The Phillies added Pedro Feliz at age 33. Career OPS+ of 83. Last two seasons, 80 and 81.
Last three seasons, Castillo has a .712 OPS and Feliz is rocking a .704. In tiny a** Philly's park.

And both are better than Abraham Nunez, who had a .600 OPS for the Phillies in 2007.

"Oh, the Phillies have good players and not Jeremy Reed, Corey Sullivan, Ramon Martinez, Argenis Reyes, and Anderson Hernandez"

Meet Matt Stairs, Geoff Jenkins, So Taguchi, Tadihito Iguchi, Wes Helms, Andy Tracy, Greg Dobbs, Paul Bako, Miguel Cairo, Eric Brunlett, Michael Bourn, Chris Roberson, Pete LaForest, Russell Branyan, etc.

Take a look at their bench this season. They have one guy with an OPS over .800 this year. Ben Francisco. And we have Angel Pagan with a number remarkably close.

They've had an endless stream of ****ty guys, too. JUST LIKE EVERY TEAM. IT'S CALLED A MOTHERFING BENCH.


Hmmm, how can we emulate the Phillies.

Well, we could get a power-hitting first baseman (Carlos Delgado)
We could get a power-hitting infielder who's one of the best at his position (David Wright)
We could get an All-Star SS with speed and defense (Jose Reyes)
We could get a ****ty fourth infielder (Castillo vs Feliz)
We could get a gold glove CF (Carlos Beltran)
We could get a 38 year old LF to OPS .900 (Moises Alou .916 in 2007)
We could get a great athlete who was a top prospect but his team has given up on because of his .750 OPS at age 25, and hope he's a late bloomer (Werth: .753 OPS guy when the Dodgers cut him. Church was .810. Francouer kinda fits the bill too.
And we'll get a ****ty offensive guy to catch.

For the bench, we'll bring out a pile of crap, because that's what bench players are and hope they match up. See above.

Now we need a pitching staff.
We need one home grown guy top prospect with a sub-4.00 ERA (Mike Pelfrey 3.72 in 2008)
We need an older than dirt veteran oozing puss (Pedro, Glavine, Orlando take your pick)
A young guy who suddenly blossoms at age 26 (John Maine 3.91 ERA at age 26 in 2007)
A guy with stuff who's erratic as hell, but has good stuff (Myers, Oliver Perez)
Now let's go the extra mile and get a lefty ACE who won a Cy Young (Johan Santana)

Closer, what about a guy who Fed up as a closer in Houston? (Wagner)
Ok, how about a guy who was lights out in 2008? (K-Rod)
Can we get a situational lefty? (Feliciano)
No, no, no... we need someone who got busted for steroids! (Shoeneweis vs JC Romero!)
30 year old average guy? (Chad Durbin vs Sean Green)
Old ****ty starter who does a good job as a RP for us? (Darren Oliver, Elmer Dessens vs Park)

Ok, well there's one spot they got us beat...
How about a great lookin setup man with nasty stuff (Parnell vs Madsen!)

See, we shouldn't take a guy like that and F him up by asking him to start! (Madsen 17 GS in 2007, 5.69 ERA)

Our team's are built pretty much the same... only they play in a cheese box; they've been healthy this year; That's basically it except for one difference:

Our team defied logic and rational thought with an epic collapse one year; their team defied logic and rational thought by having a bullpen that was ridiculously unstoppable one year.

Any Fing questions?

Just one question: What color is the sky in your world?

Good luck to Cole Hamels tonight in Game 5 at the Bank. I know nobody on the team wants to have to travel back across the country and win one of two on the road to end this series, so the pressure will actually be palpable tonight to get this one wrapped up and send the Dodgers home in five games in the NLCS for the second straight year. And to Charlie Manuel, if you're reading this: If Hamels looks like shit, pull his ass out of there early and just put Happ in there to finish out the game! Why have a starter like that who is conditioned mentally and physically to go the distance sitting in your bullpen but then never use him for that purpose?

Why I have to keep reminding the Phillies' manager of this I will never understand.

My Secret Obsession

I think I am obsessed with the New York Mets.

I'm serious. I just can't help it. It's like the proverbial car wreck when you drive past it on the highway -- I just can't help but pay attention to the biggest bunch of bums I've seen in New York sports in some time. And the Knicks play in this city, so you know I am really saying something there.

For those who didn't see the action this weekend, the Mets really came up strong to try to outdo their losing 2 of 3 to the Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies last week, which included the Phils smacking four home runs in the deep confines of Citi field off of Mets ace Johan Santana in a one-run loss in game 1, the Phils' first win of the series where Carlos Beltran lost it for the Mets when he dropped an easily-catchable fly ball near the center field wall that was basically right inside his glove, and then another loss in the rubber match when Phillies' free-agent signing Raul Ibanez slugged a 3-run blast in the top of the 10th to take that one down in extras. Well, the next team in the path of the Mets was the Yankees, as Subway Series 2009 began with three games in the new Yankee Stadium.

And that's when this happened:



I mean, what do you say at this point with this effing team? It's not like it hasn't been highly obvious that the team is poorly coached, makes no effort and is just generally an embarrassment to the sport in almost every facet of the game. The Mets have lost what, four or five different games this year just on errors in the field? And another three on baserunning mistakes? They've lost a game recently after missing third base in the top half of extra innings and then making two errors in the bottom half of that inning. They've lost a game this year when Carlos Beltran wouldn't slide into home plate and got called out trying to score what would have been the go-ahead run as a result. And now that beautiful play above, to which the Mets responded by crushing Andy Pettitte and the Yankees in game 2 of the subway series, only to return on Sunday for the rubber game and getting smushed 15-0 as their ace Santana once again took a beating, recording the worst outing of his career as the Yankees smacked 8 runs and 9 hits off Santana in just three innings of work.

Well, this weekend was it. I am officially starting the Jerry Manuel watch here. After what went down this weekend, I just don't see how Omar Minaya continues to retain any relevance at all if he does not dump the Mets coach on his scrawny, unintelligible ass. I heard on sports radio this morning that, even after Castillo's embarrassing drop on the pop-up from A-Rod to lose the game on Friday, all the Mets were out in the field on Saturday, all still catching flies with one hand. Good coaching, Manuel. You are an absolute dog.

This was a large weekend in sports in general, come to think of it. The Penguins won their first Stanley Cup since the Mario Lemieux years in 1992, beating the Red Wings on the road in a Game 7 of the Finals. And the Lake-show completed their run to and through the NBA Finals as well over the weekend, dispatching the Orlando Magic in five games as Kobe Bryant finally earned his place among the elite NBA players of all time in winning his fourth NBA title, and more importantly, his first as the leader of the team after his first three championships all as Shaquille O'Neal's sidekick. Kobe now with four titles, that really puts him up there indisputably in my view, dickhead though he may be. Just like Phil Jackson, who won his all-time record tenth NBA championship with the Lakers' victory on Sunday. Ten NBA titles. It's one thing when Red Auerbach won nine titles with the Celtics a couple of generations ago. But it's an entirely other thing to have done that totally within the time of free agency, when keeping teams and star players together -- and happy -- for more than one or two good years has become an immense challenge in and of itself. Red did his thing with Bill Russell there the entire time, either as a player or a player-coach near the end there. Now Phil has done it with Michael Jordan, with Shaq, and now in 2009 with Kobe.

And for those of you who discount with the Zen Master has done on the basis that he always had star players on his team, I ask you two questions: First, what NBA championship team did not have at least one star player on it over the past 25 years or so? Name one. The most recent Detroit Pistons championship teams is as close as you're gonna get, and even that team had the player formerly known as Ben Wallace, to go along with Chauncy Billups in the backcourt. So these winning teams always have talent, that's not debatable. And my second question to those Phil Jackson haters is what do you say about this year's team? This is, in my view, far and away the worst team of all of Phil's title-winners. It basically comes down to Kobe, and who else? Pau Gasol? Lamar Odom? Shawn Bynum? Let's face it -- this team was Kobe's and Kobe's alone, and the way I see it, this is probably Phil Jackson's greatest individual season accomplishment, maybe behind the 72-10 season in Chicago, but maybe not. I'm still trying to figure out how this particular Lakers team was able to get past the Dallases, the San Antones, the Nuggets, the Blazers, the Rockets and all the other teams like Utah, Phoenix, etc. that have normally been hanging around lately at the end of the playoffs on the Western side of the bracket. To Kobe and to Phil, this one is huge in my view, and frankly I would be very surprised to see Phil Jackson spend any more of his years coaching in the NBA. I could be wrong about that, but personally I believe the whole recent comeback to the Lakers for Phil was all about one thing: getting his tenth championship, and getting his name alone in the recordbooks for all time with ten titles won. More than Auerbach's nine, more than Scotty Bowman's nine in the NHL, and far more championships than anyone else has ever coached in baseball or football. I think Phil has accomplished what he set out to do -- probably much sooner than he expected, looking at his roster at the beginning of the season this year -- and I don't expect to see him sweating it out one the sidelines and screaming at millionaires for much longer.

Just a week and a half until I roll into Vegas with my peeps and a walletful of cash, destined for the donation pile in World Series of Poker Event #51 on June 27. Who else is gonna be man enough to plunk down for that?

Coming Up For Air

Wow.

So let's recap:

1. Yes, I am still alive.

2. No, I did not throw myself off a bridge after bubbling the BBT4 Tournament of Champions last Sunday night.

3. Work has been all-encompassing this week, just about the worst it's ever been for me as far as having my life taken over by my job. Due to various conditions and circumstances, I ended up taking on a boatload of work over the past couple of weeks, the end result of which as they all came together and were suddenly due at the same time, has been me getting into my office before 7:30 in the morning, staying around 12 hours, driving home and taking just enough time to scarf down a quick dinner before jumping right back on the pc and continuing right where I left off at home. Stay up until all hours of the morning trying desperately to finish everything that needs finishing before the next day in the office, and then rinse and repeat the next day. Every day this week, I've spent more than 16 hours struggling to get through everything that needed to get done, and it's only sometime today that I've had any chance at all to come up for air.

I thought while I'm free for what is sure only to be a momentary break, I would jump on here and let everyone know what's what.

Some other thoughts to share before I dive back down into the depths:

First off, my bust from the ToC last weekend. What can I say about it. I don't like the play I made calling off the rest of my stack with AT on the QT4x board down to 5-handed in the tournament. I've gotten a bunch of emails and girly chats about the play, so for the record I am here saying that, with a little hindsight, I don't like the play I made and I think the better play would have been to fold and wait for a better spot, especially given what was at stake.

But that's not to say that I can't explain making that call. I know exactly why I made the play that I made. It really comes down to two things: Hand Ranges, and frustration.

Let's take them in reverse order. As I tried to capture in my live blog of the event, I ran like Zeus and Jupiter rolled into one during the first 90 minutes of the ToC. I was dealt AA and KK once each, getting paid nicely with both as I recall, but the real story had to do with my draws. I must have hit three flushes and two straights, most of them on the turn, during the first hour and a half of the ToC. With the massive 5000 starting stacks that Al was able to secure for us for the ToC, the implied odds of chasing almost any reasonable draw are huge, and on top of that, you bloggers were not making properly-sized bets to price me out of chasing even from a pot odds perspective. I remember calling a couple of 2/3-pot bets on the flop with naked flush draws early in the tournament, knowing that I have more than enough pot odds to see two more cards if my opponent did not bet again on the turn, and knowing the tremendous implied odds if I could get paid off (and I did often). At least once, I chased an oesd on the flop by calling a bet of just half the pot. I mean, if there's a draw on the board and you're out there leading out for just half the pot, you damn well better have a set, or you are making a downright bad play. Even with a set it's probably a bad play since you can lose if that draw fills on the turn or river, but it's defensible with a set. But if two of a suit flop, or two high cards flop, and you're betting half the pot, you are just asking to get called by a draw and then end up paying if you actually had a hand when the flop came down.

So for 90 minutes in the ToC, I called every bet on the flop with every draw just about, and I swear I must have filled every single draw I saw, and I got paid time after time after time. It was without a doubt the only time I ran good in the entire BBT4, and I was lucky enough to have that happening in the Tournament of Champions, with $24k in free prizes at stake for the winners. I floated lucko on a steal attempt with my K2s and managed to flop trip 2s. I raised from early position with sooted connectors, and I flopped the flush. It was sick. I ran like god, and we all know how easy poker can be when you are running godlike. So that was me for an hour and a half at the ToC, and I quickly amassed a solid chip lead while probably eliminating a full ten bloggers along the way.

And then, poof! It was over.

For the last 2 hours and 40 minutes in the Tournament of Champions, I got no hands. Zero. I mean, I didn't see a premium pair, I didn't see a single pocket pair at all in fact, and I did not receive AK, AQ or AJ even one time during that span. Once we got down to about 20 players left or so in the ToC, my cards were finished. I still managed to win a couple of nice pots, but even those required me to make very marginal calls with very marginal hands and in both instances I got lucky to get in ahead. Once was the hand against F-Train somewhere down to the final two tables, when I called his allin reraise preflop for about 10k when I had raised originally from the cutoff for around 2k, and I flipped up the very dominatable A9o. Lucky for me, F-Train was sitting on A8o, and my kicker played and I got another elimination. On another occasion also down to the last two tables, I called another short stack (mostly everyone was a short stack compared to me almost all the way through this thing) with just top pair and a Jack kicker, and ended up being up against top pair with a lower kicker for another nice jump and another knockout from the ToC. But that was all I had going for me with the cards I was getting, and that only got worse and worse as we got down to fewer and fewer players left.

So, by the time I made that fatefull allin call with second pair top kicker at the final table, you have to put yourself into my shoes to understand how I could make an ill-advised call like that. I hadn't seen any hands for about 150 minutes. I was stealing like a banshee, but I had no cards. None. Nada. And it sucked. And those of you who play a lot of poker know how it is -- when you've been looking at a steady stream of 84o and J3o and Q6s for the past two and a half hours, forced to fold to raise after raise after raise from the big stacks at the table, and watched your own stack dwindle to less than half what it was at one point an hour or so earlier, and suddenly you pick up ATs, it looks like the stone nuts. I raised preflop with it, the first time I had had a hand when I raised before the flop in hours, and the table big stack called. The flop came QT4, so I caught second pair with top kicker, and I bet out again. actyper called. When the turn brought a rag (I think -- too lazy to look back at the screenshots at this point), actyper suddenly led out allin for about 3 times what I had left behind.

And this is where my second explanation comes into play -- hand ranges. I'm playing hand ranges here. That's what I always do. I did it when I called F-Train's allin with my A9, reasoning that he might push any Ace, any two face cards and any pocket pair there, and I got lucky. When I called the allin on the flop with my QJ on the Queen-high flop and ended up being up against Q9 or whatever it was, same thing. All I can do is put a player on a range of hands, given the way he or she has played a given hand from the moment the player first decided to voluntarily put money into the pot, and then I make my decisions based on that hand range.

So when actyper pushed so strong there on the turn, the first thing that went through my head was that he must be weak. As it turns out, this was a testament to how well actyper played the hand, because he sent me the absolute wrong message about the real strength of his hand, and I bought it. Partly because he played it real well, and partly, I am sure, because of the frustration of not having seen a good hand for 150 minutes. But in my head when I made the call, I figured I was sure he would push allin there so quickly with just about any Ten, possibly a few draws, and of course anything better than those hands. But any Ten and a draw were in my view squarely in actyper's range of hands to be pushing like he did there, again especially in light of him not having let me lead out again on the turn before check-raising me allin. So, my analysis of the hand ranges involved led me to believe that I was ahead of a significant part of his range, and drawing to probably five outs to another big portion of the hand. And looking at the chips in the middle, the percentage of my stack already involved, and the pot odds of calling off the rest of my chips, my analysis of the hand ranges led me to make the call. Turns out he had flopped a set of 4s, and IGH in 5th place.

Of course, in retrospect I can easily take a different view of actyper's actions in the hand. Here he has a significant chip lead with 5 players left, two of us set to win 10k to play in the WSOP this summer, and actyper called my preflop raise, called my bet on the flop, and then led out allin when a rag fell on the turn. Now, are those really the actions of someone with a weak hand? I mean, is actyper really gonna risk that entire huge stack he has amassed, at a time when he can pretty much just sit and wait this out for a while before having to make a move? I'm not so sure as I look at it now, with a lot more time and perspective to really review everything. But I have detailed notes on actyper, and generally I show him as an aggressive player who would much rather be the one pushing than the one calling, and at the time, all I can say is that I felt his range included enough hands that I was ahead of or was drawing to beat that I felt it was the right decision to make the call. Of course, in retrospect, seeing what he had, of course I wish I had just folded. But I really didn't want to be in last place of 5 players remaining, and I certainly didn't want to give up a bunch of equity in the pot against a guy who I could easily see at the time pushing with a bluff because he would expect me to fold rather than go out on the bubble. My sense knowing how actyper plays a little bit is that most of the people I've spoken with don't get my point about hand ranges, but I think that call was a lot closer than most of you out there is my guess. Still, I think in retrospect it is a call I would not make again, and one I wish I had not made on Sunday night.

So congratulations to actyper and to jj for taking down the 10k seats. I firmly believe that jj owes it to us as a community to come out for the $1500 WSOP event on Saturday June 27, even if he's not planning on using the prize to play in the Main Event itself. And congratulations as well out to ck and karmarules, who I understand may be katiemother (who recently made her blog private, also adding to my suspicions), for each winning the 2k prizes. Here I was listing jj and ck (and karma, frankly) as three of the big longshots in the ToC, and they managed to nab three of the four big prizes in the event. What a thrill to be a part of such a battle as the BBT4 ToC, and the hugest thanks of all again out to Al for putting it all together and for continuing to figure out unique and fun ways to send bloggers to the World Series of Poker. I will continue to say until my grave that, ultimately, that's what it's all about -- sending bloggers to the WSOP.

What else? OK so the Yankees can't beat the Red Sox -- that is 7 for 7 this year so far for the Sox as of this writing -- but how effing great have the Yankees been playing since A-Rod joined the team? I think I saw recently that they are something like 22-8 since A-Rod's return from a steroid-induced hip injury, and lord knows that Yanks' first baseman Mark Teixeira is enjoying the protection. I know I wrote about this a few weeks back, but at this point Tex is leading the majors in home runs with 20, and he is roundly understood to be one of the best free agent signings of this past offseason, when just one month ago you could not have found someone -- anyone -- who would have described the Teixeira signing as anything but an abject failure. Like I wrote about last month, what a difference a little protection makes, huh?

Oh -- and if you didn't see Jayson Werth of Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies absolutely single-handedly save the game last night in the bottom of the 10th inning last night against the hapless Mets, you should definitely go and check it out. Basically, with a man on first in a tie game in the bottom half of the 10th inning at Citi Field, perennial step-downer David Wright smacked a ball into the alley in right-center field. With a fast runner on first, Jayson Werth knows that if the ball gets by him, the Mets will likely score the winning run on the hit and the game will be over. So Werth just throws caution to the wind and goes completely balls-out, makes a sensational diving catch that even had the homerass Mets announcers screaming in amazement.

Remember back a few weeks ago, when the Mets lost a game in the 9th inning after Carlos Beltran was thrown out at home plate after refusing to slide in a close play? Even after the game, Beltran himself and his coach both excused his play and neither seemed to think it was much of a big deal. Well, Jayson Werth showed on Wednesday night just how much hustle like that matters, and in doing so he illustrated perfectly exactly what makes the Phillies a better overall team than the Mets right now. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- the Mets are a loser team, and they've got no heart whatsoever, something they show time and time again, game in and game out.

So much more to say, but this is all the time I have for now. Hopefully back at ya tomorrow with more of the same.

Friday Quiggie

What can I say. Work is killin me right now.

This being the last day of regular bloggage before this Sunday night's BBT4 Tournament of Champions, I have a lot I wanted to get out before the big game begins Sunday night at I believe 8pm ET on full tilt. So, with Friday ticking away and me still with lots to get to today, I'm here merely to say a few things:

1. I will get to my post on the odds for the rest of the participants in this Sunday's ToC over the weekend, in advance of the actual tournament where two lucky bloggers will win 2k in cold hard cash and another two will nab seats to the 2009 WSOP Main Event. So check back in some time later today or over the weekend for that.

2. As of now I am planning to live blog my poker play on Sunday night, where I plan to play a whole lotta shit for several hours. I don't know just how frequently I will be updating, but for now the plan is to start updating as soon as I sit down for the night's poker play, and to keep track of how things are going not just in the ToC but all the other poker I play on the night. It's been since Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies when I last live-blogged, and it's something I've probably actually only done three or four times over four years and over 1000 posts of blogging. So you can come back on Sunday night, read up on my posts over the weekend and then settle in for regular updates on the pace of the BBT4 Tournament of Champions.

3. The Mets just got swept. By the Pirates. No, not a bunch of Somali pirates taking hostages and shooting people, it's much worse than that -- by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

For reals.

And the manager was on camera here in New York last night shortly after the loss. Laughing like a hyena in the locker room.

So help me god, this guy might not last the year. He might not make it to the summer if he isn't careful.

That's it for now. More to come over the weekend for sho.

The Bad News Mets, and a Little Protection in Baseball

Well, the Mets committed five errors, including two in the field in the bottom of the 11th inning to lose 3-2 to the Manny-less L.A. Dodgers on Monday night, or should I say Tuesday morning after 1:30am ET as any tired-looking diehard Mets fan will tell you this morning. The Mets started off the 11th inning by breaking the tie with two outs and scoring the go ahead run to make it 3-2, but then error-prone Ryan Church was amazingly called out for missing third base after the Dodgers appealed the call at the base, a call which Church has not disputed. Then in the bottom of the inning the Mets quickly let some guys on base and then a throwing error allowed the walkoff run to score for the Dodgers, who won 3-2. That's about as hard a way to lose a game as there is, don't you think? Five errors. Five. Two in one inning in extra innings, after a redonkulous baserunning error already cost your team the lead in the top half of that same inning? That's seriously ludicrous. I've been screaming this all season, but where is the accountability on this team?

Said Ryan Church on somehow missing third base for the crucial third run of the game: "I mean, touching the bag is a simple thing to do. But obviously, I didn't....As for me missing third base...it just wasn't meant to be." I heard the interview with him in the locker room on sports radio today and I was just floored. I nearly crashed my damn car. It wasn't meant to be? So some higher power decided tonight was not Ryan Church's night to touch all the bases on the field? How many times is a Met player (or coach) going to not take responsibility for their mistakes before someone does something about it? Do they honestly not see the connection between the total lack of accountability on this team, and the September choke-jobs that this team has by now become famous for? It's unreal to a third-party observer to see how what is obvious to some, others can be completely oblivious to.

But the real thing that got my attention today was the Yankees, and specifically what Alex Rodriguez has been able to do by protecting Mark Teixeira in the batting order. Before A-Rod's return to the Yankees lineup 10 games ago, huge first baseman free agent signing Mark Teixiera's struggles were public knowledge. The guy was hitting .191 as of the day A-Rod returned from hip surgery, and by all counts Tex's acquisition by the Bronx Bombers was heralded as an abject failure to that point. New Yorkers were starting to wonder if Tex fits squarely in to the hole that so many others have fallen into when signed from other cities, particularly smaller markets. It's not just the size of New York that creates problems for people not used to big city life -- it's really the size and the character of the media in town that gets most of these guys. Just having to listen to what gets said about you on any one of four or five sports radio stations now available to New Yorkers thanks to the proliferation of satellite radio, every time you strike out in a big spot turns into a 12-hour trashfest focused primarily on you. Mark Teixeira was heading right down that path, the same path of Randy Johnson, Javier Vazquez and so many other free agent signings during the past several years have gone -- just not fitting in in New York.

But then cue Alex Rodriguez. Although Alex struggled early in his return from surgery, hitting below .200 through his first 6 games of the 2009 season, A-Rod has now hit three home runs in three nights and things are definitely looking up for the American League's best steroid user home run hitter. But the effect on Mark Teixeira has been even more striking. I don't have all of the exact stats in front of me here, but in the 10 games since A-Rod returned to the starting lineup, where he bats one spot after Tex, Tex's batting average has soared to .340, close to double what he hit in the 25 games prior to that. With pitchers suddenly unable for the first time all season to pitch around Tex for fear that A-Rod will come up next and roid-rage one right over the already tinderbox walls of the new Yankee Stadium, Tex has also pounded five home runs over the last 10 games after he hit just five home runs in those previous 25 games sans A-Rod. And with just 15 RBIs in his first 28 games, since A-Rod's return Teixeira has knocked in an additional 13 runs in those 10 games. .191, 5 homers and 15 RBIs over 25 games without A-Rod, and now .340, 5 homers and 13 RBIs in 10 games since The Roided One's return.

What a difference a little protection makes.

The Profile Is Up, and Woe is the Mets

Well, my magic touch this week continued in a big way on Tuesday. First, recall that on Monday I was just writing that Vinnay is among the best players not to have won the Mookie, and then just hours later he went out and won the Monday night riverchasers game to nab his seat in the BBT4 Tournament of Champions. Then, on Tuesday I mentioned 7 or 8 players who I expected to win ToC seats during the second half of the BBT4, one of whom was longtime blonkament player Columbo. Just hours later, columbo went out and won the Tuesday night Skillz game in Razz to capture his seat. Just call me King Midas, and hope I pick you to win the Mookie tonight.

So speaking of the Mookie, I will admit that I can't believe how quickly my reign as Mookie champion is coming to an end here. Feels like it was just a day or two ago that I became enshrined with the greatest names in the history of online poker by taking down the most elusive (for me) of all the private blogger tournaments. In that vein, my long-awaited Mookie profile is now up on Mookie's blog. I can't describe how long I have waited to see that profile posted and to take my rightful place among the all-time poker greats who have been profiled there before little old me. I tried to answer all the questions as well as I could and hopefully put an interesting new spin on a few of them.

In other news, the Mets continued their slide with another disturbing 6-4 loss on Tuesday in what is becoming increasingly obvious is the same type of team with all the same type of problems as in the past couple of seasons. For the life of me I am sure that eventually this is all going to fall at the feet of the manager, Jerry Manuel, who continues to oversee a team that feels no personal responsibility, no accountability, for their actions. To wit:

Stuck in a 4-4 tie with the Cardinals on Tuesday, the Mets' high-priced slugger Carlos Beltran led off the 8th inning with a walk, quickly advancing to second on a sac bunt. When next batter Ramon Castro flew out to right field, Beltran tagged up and went to third, but when the right fielder's throw bounced away from Cardinals' third baseman Joe Thurston, Beltran broke for home. Thurston picked up the ball and threw to catcher Yadier Molina, who was able to tag out Beltran, because Carlos Beltran did not slide. You can click here to view the play in the video embedded on espn.com. It's worth watching, because (1) it is truly inexplicable why Beltran failed to slide, and (2) it's pretty obvious that Beltran would have beaten the tag if he had just applied even a modicum of effort. Asked why his slugger didn't slide, manager Jerry Manuel said only "I don't know the reason why he didn't slide."

Said Beltran: "I was running and looking at the ball. I didn't realize how close I was from home plate. [Third base coach] Razor Shines pointed to the ball, and I didn't react right away. It took time for me to react. If I would have reacted right away, I would have made it. That's how it goes."

That's how it goes? You don't slide, your manager just says he doesn't know why you didn't slide, and your excuse is that the plate was too close when you looked at it? Huh? When are you not looking at home plate once you make the decision to break from third base, Carlos? That's how it goes? I think not.

Making matters worse, Beltran's failure to break the tie by sliding into home plate in the top of the 8th inning meant that Mets' first-year Met Daniel Murphy misplayed stayed in the game for the bottom half of the inning rather than being removed for a defensive replacement (Murphy already cost the Mets a win earlier this season at the Florida Marlins with a dropped fly in the outfield). Instead, the Cardinals' Brendan Ryan's lined a shot to Murphy in the bottom of the 8th, and after starting in about ten steps, Murphy was unable to readjust and get back in time to prevent the ball from sailing over his head for a triple on his second blatant misplay to cost his team a late lead in this short season. Ryan later scored the winning run to break the 4-4 tie in the 8th after Murphy's gaffe in left field. But once again, Murphy's post-game comments about the play show just how little accountability there really is on this team right now.

"Actually I feel like I did everything right on the ball," Murphy said. "I slipped, and I went down."

You did what? You did everything right on the ball? So running in ten steps before realizing that you've horribly misplayed a key hit in a crucial spot that is now heading far over your head is now "doing everything right on the ball"? Jeezus Christopher guys.

How about this: either the Mets players start playing like a team of individuals who are each expected to do their jobs well, or they need to get rid of the greatest vestige of the previous regime in town which as a rule tolerated a whole team full of guys who just don't seem to care and don't seem to get it. Jerry Manuel, you are officially on notice. Shape your team up in the little things, the fundamentals, or you're going to find yourself out of a job much quicker than you seem to understand.

Moving On, and More on NY Baseball

Well, my first day as a Mookie Champion was surprisingly just like every other day before it. I got to my office and waited at the door for about 5 full minutes for someone to come out, roll out a red carpet and hold open the door for me. But no one. And there was no brass band welcoming me, not even one of those pianist types with the tuxedo and the white gloves, nobody. I suppose it's possible that they just don't know about the Feat I accomplished on Wednesday night, but I mean, word travels, right? I mean, how could they not know?

Otherwise, life has just kinda moved on since The Feat. I still had to go to the bathroom when I woke up on Thursday, I still have to wipe my ass like the rest of you, and I'm still in the end just another working stiff that's part of the rat race here in the biggest city in the country. Much to my surprise, having won the Mookie really hasn't had any impact at all on my day-to-day. Well, I mean, other than the smugness. Previously thought to be impossible, you should see the increased level of derision I have been bringing to all of my dealings, both at home and at the office, these past couple of days. I mean, within minutes of me arriving at the office on Thursday, some clown had the temerity to schedule me for a 5pm meeting on Thursday afternoon. Now of course the old me woulda just accepted the invitation and moved on with my day, but now that I'm a Mookie winner? Puh-lease. I may not know all the details of what being a Mookie champion entails, but I'm quite sure members of such an exclusive group do not take 5pm meetings the day after their most respected of victories. I could not have taken more than, oh, 5 seconds before sending along the "decline" via Outlook, citing simply "previous engagements" as the culprit, a personal favorite excuse of mine. And, why, just this morning my 3-year-old asked me if I would read her her favorite book before I left for work today, and I was like "What? You cannot really expect me, a winner of the Mookie, to actually sit down and recite single-syllable words to a mere child? Why, Mookie winners have personal assistants and live-in nannies for that sort of thing! Now run along, child, and find someone like that nice lady over there asleep in bed who seem more worthy of such a request." As you can see I am focused on not letting this get to my head. It's hard sometimes though, just after fulfilling your lifelong dream and all.

Speaking of that, a number of you have asked based on things I have said in the past, but no the blog is not going away now that I have won the Mookie. There was a time not too long ago where I was very clear with anyone who would listen that I would immediately be shutting down the blog if I won the Mookie. I said it back then, and I meant it too. Some time ago I was really dissatisfied with the blog and the kinds of attention it had brought me over three years of near daily posting. I mean, it's one thing to have yourself be a prominent subject of three or four other people's blogs out there, that kind of thing can be almost flattering in its own way even when the things being said about you are less than complimentary. But when I've got people impersonating me over email and blog comments, representing that I have said and done things which I did not, and people registering eerily similar IM, facebook and twitter IDs to mine and then bogusly contacting people in ways I would never do, it really makes a guy think "Why the hell am I doing this again?" So several months ago, before I changed some things up about my focus in life as well as on the blog, I really was looking for an exit strategy, and winning the Mookie was going to be it. If I ever won the Mookie, I knew exactly what I would do, which would be make one final post, decrying anything and everything about what has changed in this group of poker bloggers over the past four years or so, and then hang em up. Just like that.

But over the past many months, things have really changed. The bottom fell out of the economy in 2008, and with it I went through an incredibly stressful and tumultuous time of my own. A whole lot changed in my life during 2008, most of it in a semi rushed, semi frantic fashion, and with some of those more tangible changes came also a different outlook on my life and on the things in it that tend to contribute positively or negatively to my degree of happiness at any given time. One of the many lesser effects of all this was my somewhat abrupt change here on the focus of this here blog. What had previously been largely a daily diary of my poker-related thoughts became much more broad, frankly, because that's what I wanted to write about at the time. That's what I needed to be writing about at the time. So I did. And you know what? It's turned out A-ok with me. As I said, writing about poker all the time for several years ended up bringing me a significantly outsized proportion of grief and negativity as compared to the positives, so I just stopped writing about poker all the time. Lately, as I am quite aware, there has been very little poker here on the blog, and I'm ok with that too. I expect to focus more on poker over the balance of this year, but the changes from an all-poker, all-the-time focus here are probably gone. The downside of that of course is that you poker strategy hounds will not be as satisfied as you maybe once were with the content of my daily musings. But the upside is not only a broader, and I think more interesting range of topics (certainly from my perspective), but more generally, it buys my happiness, and my satisfaction with the direction this blog is headed.

So no, I'm not taking the blog anywhere despite the fact that I have finally, mercifully won a Mookie tournament. Some of you will no doubt be very disappointed by this, but it turns out I won the Mookie about a year or two too late for it to be the cause of blogicide. If this was 18 months ago, I tell you you all would have had a whole lot fewer words to have read over that time, because I would have happily been gone. But instead, now I think you're still stuck with me here for a while. And incidentally, I have some interesting poker-related stuff in the works over the near term, as I actually find myself missing writing about poker as much as I used to, so I look forward to getting back to that over the near term, in addition to making some of the changes to the blog's appearance and structure that I had written about as part of my New Year's goals posts for 2009.

In other news, the Yankees and Mets just continue to frustrate, with both teams managing to lose their respective home openers to ruin the debuts of each team's brand new stadium, and providing the best imaginable fodder for me to listen to on sports radio all day long. The Mets began the fun by losing 6-5 to the lowly Padres on Monday this week, in what was supposed to be a setup game to the Mets to steamroll the worst team in the National League in their home opener, and my favorite part about that was Padres leadoff man Jody Gerut smacking the first pitch of the day from the Mets' Mike Pelfrey over the left field wall, thereby getting himself and the Padres into the stadium record books with the first hit, run, home run and RBI in Citi Field history rather than some random Met player.

The Yankees fared slightly better in their own home opener on Thursday night, as they too gave up their new stadium's first run and RBI to an Indians player, but they did at least manage to record the new Yankee stadium's first ever hit from Johnny Damon in the first, and its first home run when the ageless Jorge Posada put one over the wall in the 5th inning. And then the Yankees promptly gave up 9 runs in the 7th, and got killed 10-2 to open their own stadium in style. So sweeeeeeeeet.

So the Yankees fell to 5-5, 2.5 games behind the upstart Blue Jays, through ten games so far in the 2009 season, which may not sound so bad given their starts in recent seasons, but which is certainly viewed as unacceptable by ownership who has once again provided manager Joe Girardi with far and away the greatest team money can buy, from a pure talent perspective. CC Sabathia's line from last night in the Yankees' loss? 122 pitches thrown in 5.2 innings pitched, giving up 5 hits, 5 walks, 4 strikeouts and just one earned run. So it wasn't a terrible start, but you have to wonder where the 5 walks in 5 innings comes from, or the 122 pitches that caused the Yanks' ace to be pulled from the game in the 6th and leaving its bullpen out there to eventually throw the game down the toilet. So far over three starts, Sabathia's stats are 19 hits, 10 walks, 10 strikeouts and 7 earned runs allowed in 17.2 innings pitched, providing an ERA of 3.57 and a WHIP of 1.68 that is not exactly encouraging for the guy the Yankees need to perform like the best pitcher in the American League. Add up Sabathia's and Chien-Ming Wang's stats so far this young season, and you're looking at a 1-3 record and 22.1 innings pitched featuring 34 hits, 16 walks, 11 strikeouts and 22 earned runs allowed. That's half of the Yankees' starting rotation right there. Thank God AJ Burnett has been the real deal so far for the Yankees, or they would be in serious trouble. But you've never heard the rabid Yankee fans calling for A-Rod to return to the team so quickly, I'll tell you that.

The Mets, meanwhile, currently sit at 4-5, a full 4 games behind the surging Marlins already, and the fans and announcers are just tearing their hair out all over the radio trying to figure out what is wrong with this team. I know exactly what it is, and it ain't exactly rocket science. So far in two starts, Mike Pelfrey, who like Sabathia and Wang for the Yanks was being relied on as steady consistent pitchers for the 2009 season to go as planned, has had a horrible beginning, pitching 10 innings and giving up 13 hits, 6 walks, 5 strikeouts and 9 earned runs, including 3 home runs already in just two starts. #2 man in the rotation John Maine has also pitched 10 innings, giving up 9 hits, 4 walks, 9 strikeouts and 8 earned runs. #4 starter Oliver Perez's line looks eerily similar, with 10.1 innings pitched over two starts, and giving up 8 hits, 7 walks, 11 strikeouts and 9 earned runs. When 75% of your starting rotation has a combined ERA of over 8, I don't think you have to look far to understand just what is wrong with the team.

OK before I go, I just wanted to remind everyone that this coming Sunday night at 9:30pm ET is the latest of Miami Don's Big Games, but this time with a twist. Instead of the usual $75 buyin for the Big Game, also part of the BBT4 which begins the second half of its run on Sunday, this Sunday will feature a $26 buyin, and will be a 1-rebuy, 1-addon tournament instead of its usual freezeout format. So the game is still no-limit holdem and all, but it's $26 to play, and you get one $26 rebuy anytime during the first two levels, followed by a $26 addon as well for a maximum contribution by any one entrant of $78, but giving the possibility of someone winning their way in with just one $26 investment. This may be the first time a blonkament has been played with a 1r+1a format like this, and I think it should make for a fun time and a nice break from the regular nlh freezeouts we seem to play most other days of the week. Me, I plan to be there and to play a game befitting of someone who just won the Mookie, who regularly crushes the Big Game, and who has some money to burn. So keep your eyes peeled for that on Sunday night, and of course for my Mookie profile when it gets up, probably sometime next week over on Mookie's blog, and for my own blog, which will be back here and better than ever on Monday and not gone dark like some of you had feared (or looked forward to).

R.I.P Harry Kalas

So what if I'm a full two days late with this? Work is once again crushing my ass, and I haven't even had the time to get this post up despite having mostly put it together sometime on Monday night. But, I figure, better late than never, right? It's not like Harry Kalas is urgently waiting for me to post this thing. What's he got to be rushing for at this point, right?

So, Long Live Harry Kalas, legendary Phillies announcer from 1971 to 2009:



And while we're on the subject of baseball, did anybody happen to catch Chien-Ming Wang's line from his second start of the season earlier this week? How's about 8 runs in 1.0 innings pitched for the two-time 19-game winner and someone who the team is counting on to contribute similar numbers again this season? With all the question marks surrounding CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett and Andy Pettitte, Wang has been viewed by the Yankees brass and Yankees fans in New York as somewhat of a foregone conclusion for the 2009 baseball season, and yet so far he has been anything but that. So far in two starts, Wang has pitched a total of 4.2 innings, which right there alone is enough to tell you his whole story, but throw in the 15 earned runs he has given up in those 4.2 innings, along with 15 hits, 6 walks and just one strikeout in those 4.2 innings. It's not good. At all. Wang's ERA currently sits at 28.93, and his WHIP is a lofty 4.50. 4.5 walks and hits given up per inning pitched is definitely not gonna cut it in New York, or really anywhere in the major leagues at this point. So far the Yankees are off to a 4-4 start, but the only real bright spot to the team has been newly-acquired starting pitcher AJ Burnett, who so far has busted out with two stellar starts -- both wins -- in pitching 13.1 innings while recording 15 strikeouts and just one walk. Now that's how to come to New York and make some friends in a hurry. But at 4-4 though, sports talk radio is once again my best friend these days, as you simply cannot imagine without living here how much fun it is to listen to the pussy New Yorkers calling in and complaining about their baseball teams, and not actually caring at all since my team are the current World Champions of baseball.

And speaking of whining, pussified fans in New York, the Yankee fans don't even come close to where the Mets fans have sunk so far this year. Despite the city spending mostly public funds to build an $800+ million stadium for the Mets -- bearing the name of Citi, no less -- the sports talk callers cannot stop bitching about how crappy the new stadium is. The complaints range from it being a drab, nondescript and "convention-like" edifice, to having green seats and grey walls but none of the Mets' traditional blue colors, and that the stadium itself is more of an homage to the Brooklyn Dodgers -- the favorite team of Mets owner Fred Wilpon as a boy growing up in the area -- with little mention of the Mets and their team history, including two world titles in 1969 and 1986. But far and away the most common complaint being voiced all over the airwaves and newspapers in New York these days about Citi Field is the apparently large number of seats from which you actually cannot see the ball in play. With one of the largest outfield areas in the league, and with seats that are said to be lower to the field than in most older parks, there are as many as a few thousand seats in the new Citi field from which a viewer cannot see the ball in play if it is hit to the corners of the outfield, on either side. Sheer brilliance. And with the Mets already starting off at a 3-4 clip, it's like sheer heaven getting to listen to the whiners dialing in all day long to air their grievances about their favorite local baseball team.

Here's hoping we're at the start of the second straight Major League Baseball season without any New York teams in the playoffs.

Can Someone Bail the Mets Out, Please?

Oy vey. Where to begin after a weekend like this. The stock market is tanking early on Monday once again after a weekend full of poiltical wrangling and negotiating on the largest intervention in U.S. financial markets since the great depression. It looks like the Reps and the Dems in charge have agreed on a package which is at least marginally better than the bailout plan originally presented to Congress last week that would have essentially anointed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson the King of America, with all the money and all the power in the country. The new plan, which will be voted on in the House of Representatives this week, has I think three distinct advantages over last week's flavor of this bill.

First, the new bailout plan diminshes the unchecked nature of Paulson's power with the bailout. As much as I am very much not in favor of increased government involvement and increased bureaucracy in this country, I have to admit a certain sense of relief that the Congress has instituted in this new bill several oversight committees and other checks and balances to ensure that Treasury is not spending our money frivolously, helping some people or companies more than others or some who do not deserve the help, and just generally making sure there is someone watching over what Paulson is doing with the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being printed and thrown at his doorstep. Compared to the plan as presented by Paulson, Bernanke and Bush last week, where Paulson would have had completely unfettered discretion to do whatever the hell he wanted with $700 billion of our money, this new plan is a significant improvement, and one that we all can be thankful for. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, we've all seen that time and time again over the past several years, and the last thing this country needs right now is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs being given $700 billion cash money to spend on whatever he wants, with no executive, legislative or even judicial review of his actions. So that's a very good thing.

The second thing about the new bill that I am a huge fan of is that it in fact breaks down the $700 billion into three tranches, which may or may not end up needing to be spent. Given that this money is going to come directly from the taxpayers, I am a big fan of this change in addition to the first one mentioned above. As I understand it, under the new proposal this week, Treasury would be given a "mere" $300 billion in cash right away to spend buying up idiot banks' distressed mortgage portfolios, instead of straight-up $700 billion right up front. Now there will be an additional $100 billion to be authorized by the President himself at his discretion, which of course with the current President or with Barack Obama will be an absolutely foregone conclusion, but just breaking it up like this at all is at least a sign that some people with some fiscal responsibility were able to prevail in this weekend's negotiations. And lastly, Congress is permitted to authorize up to another $300 billion -- or, more accurately, the new bill has Congress already authorizing this amount, but Congress can act to un-authorize that amount before it is spent if they see fit. This also is probably a somewhat unlikely outcome, but the simple fact is, right now as between the monkey President and the monkey Congress, it seems clear that Congress's interests are more aligned with my own as far as this bailout goes. So to me giving the President control over $100 billion and Congress control over $300 billion of the total $700 billion bailout package is a huge win for us, as taxpayers who are to foot the bill for this emergency measure intended to save the U.S. financial system from collapse. Like I said, even if all $700 billion ends up being authorized and spent helping save the banks from their own greed and short-sightedness, just the fact that they're not just throwing $700 bil of cash at Treasury's feet is a big improvement in my eyes.

Lastly but not least, I am also overjoyed to find that the Democrats in Congress did not prevail on one of their big suggestions for this bill from last week -- namely, that bankruptcy judges should be given broad discretion to rewrite mortgages of homeowners who are unable to meet their mortgage payments. Now, do I feel this way because I am a cold, heartless bastard? No, not at all. But I'll tell you a quick story of exactly why I feel this is a highly inappropriate action to take.

For those of you who have experienced pregnancy yourselves or through your significant others in life, one of the key changes that happens to women early in their term is what the books refer to as the "nesting instinct". Basically, this is when the newly-pregnant female of our species becomes psychologically obsessed with creating a "nest" for her coming newborn. In Hammer Wife's case, this has translated to dragging me up to Westchester or the other suburbs of New York City to look into buying a home in the suburbs five years ago when she was pregnant with M, and again three years ago when she was pregnant with K. Most recently when this happened, three years ago, we were smack in the midst of the greed and excess and short-sightedness of this whole mortgage mess, and thus Hammer Wife went ahead and got us pre-approved for a mortgage in advance of what we then though would be us purchasing a home in the 'burbs. Now let me tell you, this bank had never heard of us before, and was not even asking for proof of any of our income, our assets, our liabilities, anything. Nothing at all. Apparently Hammer Wife just filled out some online forms, allowed a credit check to be run, and poof! Hundreds of thousands of dollars, preapproved to be loaned to us, no questions asked.

First off, right then and there I knew there was a problem with the system. Nowadays these are the "liar loans" you hear referenced in the news if you've been following the mortgage crisis at all, where borrowers basically had the ability to lie through their teeth on mortgage applications, and banks would just loan the money because interest rates were so low, real estate prices were jumping 25% a year, and defaults were simply not being considered for anyone at the time, regardless of the credit worthiness of the borrowers. Credit risk? What credit risk? So anyways, Hammer Wife was all gung ho about us buying a mansion in the NYC suburbs, but then I had to break the sad news to her: we could not possibly afford the mortgage we had been pre-approved for, no questions asked. "What do you mean?" she replied, "They already approved us!" To which I had to explain that, just because a bank was willing to lend us this obscene amount of money to buy a home, that did not absolve us from having to actually come up with the actual money to pay those monthly payments. Nesting as she was, Hammer Wife was unconvinced until I sat down with her, pulling up our family budget on Excel, and went over how much money comes in every month and how much money we were spending on things other than our home. By the time that conversation was finished, a dejected Hammer Wife was incredulous. "But how could the bank possibly be willing to lend us that kind of money?" To this I had no response, other than to point out that something was clearly wrong and that surely many of these banks were in for a rude awakening at some point. How little we realized at the time how right we were.

Anwyays, so there we went on renting a tiny apartment in Manhattan for the next several years, and in fact to this day even in the suburbs we are renting a house, because in a nutshell, especially given the uncertain nature of the economy right now, we still don't really see ourselves as wanting to take on the obligation to be forced to afford the monthly payments on a house we would actually want to buy. All this while, we had several friends who went ahead and took out ridiculous mortgages on houses they really could not afford. Balloon payments, pick-a-payment plans, two-year ARMs -- I mean, by hundreds of thousands of dollars, these people could not truly afford the mortgages they were taking on if things turned even the slightest bit south. And yet, the banks were willing to lend, so they went ahead and did it anyways, getting all the wonderful benefits of home ownership, most of all including getting to watch their investments increase by a good 25-50% over the past few years up until sometime in 2006-2007. All meanwhile my family has continued renting a small apartment in the city, not getting the benefit of seeing our investment gain so much value, all because we were the ones not willing to buy something we couldn't actually afford over time.

So then the Democrats in Congress were talking last week about having bankruptcy judges let these very people out of their mortgage troubles by simply adjusting the terms, to make their shit easier for them to pay for. No fucking way. If that were going to be available, I would have bought me a house five years ago. Shit, forget five years ago, I should have just bought a house straight out of law school. Give me some kind of ten-year interest-only plan or something with a ginormous payment due at the end, and I could have made do until now. But allowing these irresponsible people -- literally millions of them in this country -- to continue to own their homes while I rent, rewarding them for their irresponsibility and lack of foresight and poor judgment and poor financial understanding, that is simply unacceptable to me on the most basic of levels. So I am absolutely thrilled that this sort of action was not included in the plan. Even though I am well aware that not directly helping troubled homeowners will hurt many people that I know, personally. But what's right is right, and what's sick and wrong is sick and wrong. So once again I am shocked to hear myself saying it, but I am thankful for the Republicans in Congress. Write it down, you won't hear me saying that again ever I would think.

Meanwhile, not sure if you noticed, but last Friday, WaMu, the largest savings back in the country, failed and was seized by federal regulators, and a sale was orchestrated to J.P. Morgan Chase for under $2 billion. Talk about a bank that has picked up huge businesses at firesale prices this year, dayummmm. That is Bear Stearns and now WaMu, both folded into JPM this year, all for a grand total of just over $2 billion. These probably would have cost $150 billion together if purchased a year ago. That's the strength of being one of the few long-term surviving banks right now. And then not to be outdone, Monday morning saw Wachovia essentially fail as well, although the FDIC doesn't want to admit it was a failure. But both WaMu and Wachovia stocks dropped 90+% on the day of their takeovers, with Wachovia plummetting to under a dollar in pre-market action on Monday from a close around $10 a share on Friday afternoon, with this time Citigroup stepping in and picking up the pieces for what can only be described as firesale prices. And once again, there is the government backstopping Citi's losses beyond some $42 billion that it has agreed to take on.

God, remember the days $42 billion seemed like a big number? All this bailout mess this year kinda makes A-Rod's ludicrously overpriced contract seem a lot more in line, doesn't it? Actually, no. He's still overpaid for the uselessness that he brings to the Yankees, even for all his statistics.

Which brings me once again to the highlight of the weekend for me. The New York Mets completed a second straight season of futility, this year giving up a 3.5 game lead on September 7 over the Phillies, after last year losing a 7-game lead on September 7 to my same Phils. It is sick (and highlarious) what the Mets have done, and it is worth repeating here. In 2007, the team was up by 7 games on the Phillies with 17 games remaining, and they blew it on the last day of the season when Tom Glavine came out for them and gave up seven runs in the first inning to the Florida Marlins. This year, the team once again lost two of three to end the season against the hated Marlins, who openly and obviously rejoiced in the chance to ruin the Mets' playoff chances for the second consecutive year. I had been out to dinner with my family during the latter part of the Mets game, leaving when the Mets had just tied it up 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth, and when I got to the ice cream shop in town with the kids for dessert, on the tv was the post-game tribute to Shea Stadium as this was the final game to be played in the storied arena before giving way to the new Citi Field starting in 2009. And there they are, happily announcing all the old-time Mets players who contributed to the history of Shea Stadium, and the fans are cheering loudly for all these guys, and I just knew then and there that the Mets must have won. Little did I know until checking my phone a few minutes later that not only had the Mets bullpen blew yet another game for them in the 8th, but that the Brewers had come back to beat the Cubs and the Mets were officially eliminated from the playoffs.

See, that's the difference right there between Phillies and Mets fans. If that were Philly, if the Phillies had just completed blowing that 3.5 game lead int he division with 17 games to play, one year after blowing a 7-game lead with 17 games to play against the exact same team, there wouldn't have been anyone left in the stands. No one. And what few people were still there, I can assure you would not have been cheering. Throwing batteries, spitting and tossing garbage onto the field, maybe. But not fucking cheering. What a sickening performance by the Mets over the past two seasons. At least you figure someone will be answering for these back to back meltdowns, right?

Wrong. GM Omar Minaya, who brought and/or has fostered players like Beltran, Glavine, Reyes, Wright, Pedro, and the list goes on and on, reportedly has reached agreement to be extended for another four fucking years just last week, in the midst of this year's version of meltdown being completed. And then this morning I see this story as well on ESPN, dealing with the future of interim Mets manager Jerry Manuel. "'Jerry did a very good job coming into a very difficult situation,' general manager Omar Minaya said. 'I was very pleased.' Before the game, Mets owner Fred Wilpon praised Manuel and Minaya."

Oh. My. God. Mets fans, you get what you deserve, that's all I have to say. I can only hope you keep this same management in place for the foreseeable future. What a pleasure to play in the same division with this bunch of abject losers, led by the biggest losers of them all in Manuel/Randolph, Minaya, and of course Mets ownership. What a raging joke.

Can someone please bail out the New York Mets?