Monday, August 03, 2009

Is This Thing On???

This is my first entry since 2008, the 2nd consecutive season that this team collapsed and caused great heartache to those young and old. The 2009 season has been no better. Relocation to Citifield (i'm still calling it Shea) has been nice and all but clean bathrooms and pulled pork sandys can only bring so much joy. You see there is no joy in mudsville as this injury ravaged, exceptionally mediocre, mid-market caliber team plods along as yet another season (3rd times a charm)falls by the wayside.

Those that spent countless days and nights following every pitch, at bat, uncomfortable Omar speech, Tony Bernazard expletive, all star injuries, joe shmo injuries, and oliver perez walk have felt like the dog days of summer have been with us since May. Sure, some were fantasizing about an improbable late season run to capture the WC after winning 5 of 6. But as we head into tonights game against the D-Backs on the verge of losing 3 of 4 reality has stepped to the plate and smacked you square in the back of the head with a 36 oz slugger. The only optimistic part about that scenario is that the bat likely shattered on impact and the blow to the head wasn't all that severe.

As I mentioned earlier to my colleague there are several signs that let you know your team is not a contender (for anything) - tim redding and pat misch are counted on to keep you in ballgames, you rely on parnell, sean green and brian stokes to get the ball to your closer, you don't have a starting lf, you don't have a starting ss, your #3 hitter has 7 hr's in august, livan hernandez is your #4 starter. Yes,you read that right. LIVAN HERNANDEZ IS YOUR #4 STARTER! Livan has not been a #4 starter since El Duque was 30 years old, about 20 years ago.

At the end of the day I will still watch most every game and have that glimmer of hope for a miraculous run but realistically, this has been yet another failed season which shows just how miserably the front office has failed this team, their fans, and this city.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Remembering Shea....

Well...here we are

Its been quite a ride so far, hasn't it?

67 games to play beginning tonight it Cincinnati with the Great Johan toeing the slab and a chance to move into first.

Coming off the All-Star game, which we all know was the last important game at Yankees Stadium, I got to thinking about Shea and how many games I have been to there and how many memories I have of the big blue horseshoe.

How when you sit downstairs past the bags, like I did for the great Bobby Jones 1-hitter against the Giants in the 2000 NLCS, your seat actually faces the opposite outfielder. How when you sit in the back row of the loge, like I did for the best pitching dual playoff game I have ever been to, Glavine-Leiter, 1999 NLCS Game 3 (Braves won 1-0 on a stupid Leiter error in the 1st inning), you can't see pop-ups or the scoreboard or basically anything aside from the field. How after it rains the upper deck used to get leaks from the "roof" that would drain down onto seats, like it did on mine for the NLCS clincher against the Cardinals in 2000. (I complained to the usher about the fact that it was raining on me and they moved me & my buddy Steve into the press seats right behind the plate in the mezzanine, then watched Mike Hampton throw a complete game 3-hitter). How the entire upper deck literally shakes when the place is packed and the fans are rocking like it did when I sat there for Todd Pratt's walk-off homer to beat the D-backs in 1999 and Robin Ventura's grand slam single (my favorite game ever) a week or 2 later. And of course, the most recent dramas...the memories of how the entire stadium can go from the insanity of the Endy catch to dead silence from the Yadier Molina homer to the shock of the Adam Wainwright curve and that fact that it was over and we actually weren't going to the World Series we so deserved to go to....

All of these memories will be with me for life but the one that is still with me every time I watch our beloved Mets play is the last one. Fink and I went to that game knowing we would see history. Little did we know then that that night would be the beginning of 1 and 1/2 years of trying to recapture that magic. Now with 67 games to play, for the first time since Molina & Wainwright quieted Shea, this team looks hungry. They look confident. They look ready to beat the crap out of the fuckin Phillies.

People keep saying how the Brewers added CC and the Cubs added Harden so those guys are the teams to beat in the NL. Well ya know who we added? We added Johan. We have watched Pelfrey grow up in front of our eyes. And we basically added Pedro (yes, I still believe he will be good. Don’t give up on him guys...see Delgado, Carlos and Heilman, Aaron).

I bashed Omar for many of the moves he has made and I stand by those comments. But the best move he made may be the one that was most scrutinized...firing Willie. Jerry, while possibly a serial killer by day, has changed the atmosphere of the club & the team is having fun playing baseball again.

Which brings us back to Shea. As I have been saying since the GIANTS WON THE SUPERBOWL...2008 is 1986 all over again. Since I initially said that, the Celtics also have won the Championship, making 2 of my 3 child hood teams Champs in the same year, just like 1986. There is only one team remaining from that trio of clubs...and we all know who that is.

So why not dream big?

Let's send off Shea is the greatest way possible. Yankee Stadium had the all-star game in it's final year. Let's root our boys in and get Shea and our Mets to the biggest stage of them all...A World Series & a Championship!

LETS GO METS!!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Thoughts on Willie and the Mets

OK, I have given myself some time to think about this and wanted to share my assessment with you guys and see if we can get some good chatter going on.

To begin, I just want to state that I 100% believe Willie should've been fired. I thought he should've been fired after the collapse last year and have continued to believe he should be replaced. I also agree with Peterson being fired.

Now, I have heard and even used the word "classless" thrown around by a lot of fans and media today and I want to address this. I think the way that he was fired was ill-timed and stupid and it makes the organization looks foolish. I don't think it was really "classless" to fire a manager whose team has underperformed (at least according to the payroll) so greatly. Would after Saturday's double dip have been better? On Father's Day before they boarded a bus to the airport? Was it weird to go to sleep last night watching a win and wake up with the news of Willie being canned? Yes. Does that make it classless? No. It was yet another poorly timed and poorly executed decision by an ownership group that is famous for things such as this.

I know many of you fans remember the reign of one Jeff Torborg, almost exactly 15 years ago. "The Worst Team Money Could Buy" aka the 1992 Mets were about 4 or 5 games out in August when the bottom fell out. I think they won about 5 or 6 games in September (OK, maybe it wasn't that bad, but close) and finished 18 games under .500 on the year (72-90). They brought Torborg back in 1993 only to see the team still suck and fired him on near the end of May that year after a Mets win. He was replaced by the incomparable Dallas Green and the rest is history. Now while Randolph's fall was harder and faster (from one pitch from the WS to the great collapse) I do see and feel a lot of parallels to that club and to the way it was done. Increasing the payroll to record levels and then not living up to expectations always leads to the manager getting fired. The only thing missing is firecrackers in the players parking lot. Maybe Reyes can play the role of Vince?

OK, so let's talk about this ownership group...

Across down the always brilliant Hank Steinbrenner said this yesterday:

"My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century,” Steinbrenner said in Tampa, Fla. “They need to grow up and join the 21st century.
“Am I (mad) about it? Yes,” Steinbrenner added. “I’ve got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He’s going to be out. I don’t like that, and it’s about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s.”

Now you are Fred & Jeff Wilpon, almost NOTHING you can do can make you look dumber and more clueless to the NY sports fan than a comment like this. YET SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, FREDDY, YOU DID IT!!

You claim it was all Omar's doing!! You dodge all the questions!! You make the fans call the organizaton classless. Let's all pretend for a second that it was all Omar's doing (clearly not the case, but let's pretend), when Omar calls you with his plan, do you not say "Hey Omar, we support you but let's talk with Jay Horwitz and see when he thinks the best time is for us to do this"??

I look forward to hear from Omar tonight because this just make no sense and actually makes the organization look bad in a move that was certainly needed in my opinion.

I can only hope Omar has a plan. I can only hope he can explain to me why Jerry Manuel, the guy everyone told us was teaching Willie how to manage in the NL in 2005, is a better choice for manager now than a fresh face from outside the organization or AAA. I hope he can explain to me why Howard Johnson, a former Mets 3B best know for his hackish swing and quick bat (something you can't teach) is still the hitting coach on a team with a .257 BA. I hope he can explain to me what Sandy Alomar brings to the table that he needed to remain as well.

As a Mets fan my entire life, I am not at all shocked by today's events. I have seen this before and will see it again. What is sad is not that Willie & The Jacket have been fired, it's the fact that the future today looks even worse than yesterday.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Evyn Laela Cooper has arrived!!

Evyn Laela Cooper was born at 2:30 p.m. yesterday, June 4, weighing in a 8 lbs 3 oz and measuring 19.5 inches long.

Both Jayme & Evyn are feeling great.

Thank you to everyone who has called/emailed/texted.

Jeff

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Thoughts on Willie and The Mess..er Mets

Jayme and I were thinking we would possibly have a kid today but this baby, much like Nathan, seems to want to wait it out for a while longer. So as I sit here waiting for labor to come sooner or later, I figured I would weigh in our beloved Mets and their now newly job-secure (I guess?) skipper, Willie Randolph.

First off, this is not about Willie. While I ultimately do not feel Willie is a good manager or the right manager for this club, I don't think this is his doing.

Let me explain...

As the expression in sports often goes.."you can't fire the players". And therefore the manager is usually the first one to go. My question is, why isn't the first guy to go the one who brought in the players? I loved the guy when he came but let's be honest here, Omar is responsible for the $138 million payroll. Not Willie.

Omar is responsible for taking on a back-loaded Carlos Delgado contract from the Marlins. Let's recap that deal...Marlins signed him to a 4-year $52 million contract with an option year or buyout. He played one season for the Marlins and got paid $4 million. He was traded to the Mets for Mike Jacobs and Yusmeiro Petit plus some other minor leaguer and the Mets also got paid $7 million from the Marlins in the deal. In the past 3 seasons, he has made $44 million. $37 from the Mets and has a $3 million buyout of his option. So the Mets are on the hook for $40 million of a $52 million contract. Anyone want to take a guess at which year of the four years was his most productive? Anyone out there wanna trade Delgado for the 27-year old Jacobs right now?

Willie didn't sign Luis Castillo to a four-year contract in the offseason, Omar did. Anyone with half a baseball brain could see that for a few years, Luis Castillo was on the decline. While Omar made a nice deal last season to acquire him, one had to question why the Twins would trade a former all-star 2B for 2 crappy minor leaguers, right? And did Luis do something great last season down the stretch to make him deserve such a contract? Did any other team make him an offer four years? Did Omar and Cashman get drunk together one night and did Cash break out his "listen, this is how you keep your own, past-their-prime-players routine."? Seriously, someone needs to explain this to me. This guy bunts 1/3 of his at-bats, limps 90% of the time and arguably has never spoken on the field of play.

Willie didn't committ to another year of 43-year old Moises Alou without getting better bench guys that Marlon Anderson, Endy Chavez and Damian Easley. Seriously, we all know Alou is one of the best pure hitters any of us has ever seen. My Dad has been watching baseball for 7+ decades and he says it all the time. But we all also know he is maybe good for 80 games. How do you not get someone else out there? And this was also made with the assumption that Church would work out as the everyday RF. Imagine if that didn't work out and Church sucked like, well, Brian Schneider sucks.

Speaking of which...Willie didn't committ to Yorvit Torreabla, then back out. Then committ to Johnny Estrada, then ditch him, then finally committ to Brian Schneider all while never speaking to his former catcher Paul LoDuca. Obviously this trade looks good right now just from the standpoint of how much better Church is than Milledge but let's also be honest about what we have heard about Church and his defensive prowness. It was complete BS. He flat out can not catch Johan Santana's pitches. My buddy Mark and I have been talking about it all year. He drops at least 5 pitches a game. And have you really seen him take command of Ollie or Pelfrey or even Maine once all season? Does he settle the team down? As much as LoDuca's overall skills were deteriorating, the man had a precense in the clubhouse and a precense on the field. He was badass and wasn't afraid to get in people's faces. Omar didn't like that and didn't even consider him as a backup. How is that working out? The catcher is the most important everyday position on the field. Pretty ironic that the greatest player to ever play for our beloved team retired just last week...we could certainly use that leadership behind the plate right now.

Willie didn't re-sign a 42-year old El Duque to a two year $12 million deal! He didn't committ four years to an already broken down Pedro and then hope the "unbroken" Pedro would save the season. He didn't draft Mike Pelfrey or Aaron Heilman. And he damn well didn't make Jose Reyes play with his head up his ass half the time, even if I sometimes want to think that benching him last year had something to do with his play. But let's be honest, if a player can't deal with a warranted benching from time to time, what is that player worth in the long run anyway?

People, and I was one of these people, seem to love Omar because of what he did for the franchise long term. As the last 162 games indicate, 79-83 is apparently the long term we are supposed to be loving him for. But it goes back before that.

Fink and I were together for Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright. It's etched in our brains forever. The team changed forever that day and unfortunately, it was for the bad. Endy made the catch and it seems like destiny was on our side. But it wasn't meant to be and this team instead of learning how to win and getting hungrier, learned how to lose and curl up under pressure. Instead of making wholesale changes, Omar has been chasing that feeling of Endy making the catch for 2 seasons now. He is to blame for the 2008 Mets.

I have said to many Yankees fans I know for the past few years "do you really expect this team to suddenly learn how to win together after season upon season of losing in similar fashion?"

What I have come to realize is my team is in the same position. Can anyone really expect this team to win together now after two seasons of ridiculously traumatic losing?

This is not Willie's fault. He has to go because he is part of the whole and the whole is broken.

The whole is Omar's fault.

Fix the whole.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Going On Contact

Willie Randolph, after the game:

“With the third baseman playing off third base, we thought we’d go ‘contact’ there. The worst thing that could happen happened.”



Wow. Really Willie? REALLY?!?!

Beltran, after the game:

“I’m going on contact; that’s the sign we got. As soon as he hit that ball, I just broke in. That’s what happens when you go on contact. You’re going to have a chance to get doubled up.”

Um, yes Carlos, that is what would happen and happened.

Seriously, what the hell is going on here? How did the media not fire back at Willie when he responded in this manner with a "Wait, are you being freakin serious?" Or a "Hey Willie, did you miss the day in Little League where they teach the base running rules?"

ONE OUT, DOWN A RUN, 9TH INNING, MAN ON 3RD BASE. YOU DON'T LEAVE THE FREAKIN BAG UNTIL THE BALL HITS THE GROUND!!

If freakin Willie wanted to send him "on contact" because the 3rd baseman was "playing off 3rd base" into the shift. BUNT THE BALL AND SUICIDE SQUEEZE HIM!!

I know this is the easy way out and doesn't change what the players do, but it's time to say it...WILLIE MUST GO