And where there were no sand, we ate Blogrolling. (You ate what?) We ate Blogrolling.

Why Citi Field is just so twee, so pwecious, so Mets. And yet another reason why new ballparks suck, and should be actively worked against by a more mature, post-recession, America. (This is a whole 'nother post, one that longtime FTT readers probably already know, but so be it.)

Is there anything more frightening than the phrase "ESPN Innovation Lab"? I'm seeing a "Clockwork Orange" kind of situation in which I'm forced to watch a continual loop of Home Run Derby, Who's Next and Pardon The Braying Jackassery. Quite Frankly, I think this is just a Lemur move to get the hell out of the armpit that is Bristol, Connecticut... but don't tell Red Sox Nation. They'll get bent if they lose NESN2, aka ESPN, and we know what happens when those very special people face adversity.

Your $1 magazine that features nothing but random mug shots from random arrests, which made my brain give me nothing but "Raising Arizona" references for a half hour. Turn to the right!

Nick Underhill gives the heads-up on Tigers' pitcher Rick Porcello, who might be historically good. Useful to know.

Tom Scocca points out that the NBA marketing machine is also Kobe vs. Not Kobe; I'll even forgive him the snotty Bird/Erving aside. That's what happens when you're (a) really good, and (b) really reprehensible. But remember, Philly Fan was bad, bad, bad for booing him as the All-Star Game MVP. (Once again, score one for my town's ability to spot a problem before it's obvious.)

Clue. Less.

"They're off to a very good attendance start. One team is averaging 44,000 -- the Yankees are at 44 -- and the Metsies are averaging 37,000. So it would be hard if I went to Pittsburgh or somewhere today and tell them, gee, you know, those two New York clubs are really struggling."

Bud, let me explain this slowly, using small words.

New stadiums in MLB+ markets should not, under any circumstance, have issues in filling any part of the stadium in the first *year* of operations.

The fact that both of the NY franchises are not getting those seats sold right now, when they are flush with curiosity for the new yards, is not good. Especially with both teams showing sizable flaws that could take them out of a pennant race (which would be, for a NY hater like myself, just fantastic). By the way, those flaws would be the starting pitching rotation for both teams.

And who said the recession was no fun?

Blogrolling Is Extreme In Every Way

Probably the most EXTREME! par 3 on the planet. It requires the use of a helicopter, and I don't like their chances of keeping that green clear of divots.



This is how bad it's gotten for the Pittsburgh Pirates: they lost a game to a community college. And not a very big one.But give the Buccos credit -- they won the first ten times they played!

Are you ready to interact with the Web on a near constant level, for just $350 in computer components from Radio Shack? I know I am, particularly when I can display word clouds on random people, hopefully to tie in with their medical records, so that I can know their STDs. Seriously, do not miss this: it's the freaky / cool / scary future, in all of its glory and ignominy.



Joe Carter is angry that his 1993 World Series-ending home run doesn't get more love from the historians. Joe, it's not that the national media doesn't care about a Toronto win; it's that they don't want to deal with Angry Philly Fan setting fire to their cars. (Though I still contend that what I felt that evening was relief, in that it meant that I never had to watch Mitch Williams pitch again.) Major League Jerk with a list and some good homework on this one.

Because, let's face it, kids love to sleep inside carcasses.

Oh, and just because it doesn't deserve a post of its own, because New York Fan will drown the Web with words... the Mets didn't help themselves with Gary Sheffield, and the Giants did help themselves to get past Plax Burress. The older I get, the more I think character matters. Oh, and in the case of Shef, having a defensive position. That helps too.

What No One Knows About Fantasy Baseball

Jose Reyes. David Wright. Carlos Beltran.

They all get to deal with high outfield walls, all the way around, at their new place. Don't expect much help for home runs there.

C.C. Sabathia. Mariano Rivera. Joba Chamberlain.

These guys all have 20 feet of less foul ground behind home plate to work with in half of their games this year. You're crazy if you don't think that will add up to extra pitches and stress.

Johan Santana. Francisco Rodriguez. John Maine.

The blue pitchers will be dealing with all kinds of nooks and crannies that could lead to extra base opportunities in the outfield. It's also going to have significantly different wind patterns, given how it's, well, not in the same place as to old hole. Could play a lot of havoc with breaking pitches.

Mark Teixeria. Alex Rodriguez (assuming he ever comes back). Derek Jeter.

While the new place does have less foul ground near home plate, it does have a little more in the outfield. The place also has a very different outfield configruation and batters eye, since Monument Park has moved.

The point? I was in Northern California when Pac Bell opened. On its first day, balls flew out of the park in a 6-5 Dodgers win, with noted power hitter Kevin Elser (88 home runs in 13 years) going yard three times. The locals were convinced they had a bandbox. Of course, they didn't, and don't; Pac Bell is one of the top five pitchers' parks in the majors. In the first game at Petco, Marques Grissom, of the career .415 slugging percentage, was the only man to go deep in a 4-3 home win.

Every new stadium architect tells you that their place will play "fair", neither helping not hurting the hitter or pitcher, respectively. And they all lie, especially in the modern era, where you can make an ungodly amount of cabbage charging rich people a lot of money to sit close enough so that a line drive in the game they aren't watching could kill them.

If and when you take these guys, all you can hope is that their new yards play like their old ones, because that's the only basis for comparison you have to go to. And considering that, depending on how infested your league is with Mets and Yankee Fan, all of the guys that I just named will go in the first ten rounds. Or much, much less.

Happy drafting!

Blogrolling Is Fighting The Good Fight

Our crush on Barney Frank continues. Between sports gambling and marijuana legalization, we'll take care of this recession in no time!

Perhaps the gift of the year (century?) for that guy in your fantasy league who always wastes your time with nonstop trade requests. Let him know that you're ready to support him in his good fight. This ranks right up there with an Owens or Favre jersey for Cowboys or Jets Fan...



Jose Reyes is the most exciting Spanish speaker in baseball. Now, if he had only followed up with, "Tell me how my ass tastes," he'd have won me over...

Only $2,026 so far for your very own Zamboni. That's Big Fun!

Major League Jerk with your WBC update, because we can't be bothered to watch the silly thing. But on the plus side, the USA punked Canada, and I can't stand those freaking Canucks evcer since the start-up with Canadian management, two start-ups ago. Screw you, hosers!

Ownership

Time to open up the crack pipe of connecting things that aren't sports to sports, folks. Buckle up.

Today in politics, President Obama proposed a salary cap on the financial industry. Their executives will have to make due on a half million dollars a year, so long as they are on the dole. (I'm not going to get into the merits or demerits of the move, so please save the frothing hatred of Wall Street Fat Cats and the Obama's A Commie comments... though I am highly amused by the idea that by capping their salaries, these firms might lose the oh so valuable talent that led us into this abyss, or that the Toxic Talent will be able to just walk to some other Safe Company, like those still exist, and make their old bank. Anyway, moving on.)

What interests me is the fact that sports teams -- and more than a few of them -- also take government dollars, usually at the local level for their stadium welfare construction projects, but also sometimes through luxury boxes and other goodies.

So, well, a precedent is set.

I've joked about this before, but if the Mets are taking Citi Dollars, and those Citi Dollars are coming from taxpayers, then the taxpayers deserve a say in how the Mets are run. I'm thinking they won't go to the $25 million a year price for Manny Ramirez.

Now that you've gotten your head in the realm of athlete salaries being capped by an outside force, and public sponsorship of what are supposed to be private, for profit enterprises... let's talk about organ donations and harvesting. (Yes, I know, we're a long way from dick jokes and titty here. There's a reason why this blog isn't popular, kids.)

Every year in this country and others, people who could have decades more to their lives die while waiting for a kidney, heart, or other relatively small piece to the human puzzle. Those lives wouldn't be lost in a society where donation is presumed, rather than chosen. Also, many of these people are highly educated, drawing high salaries, and providing a lot of value (read: tax income) to the shared burden that are nation states.

Which, of course, leads you to the rather unfortunate specter of individual people -- which is to say, um, you and me -- being viewed as a resource late in life, rather than the 100% focus of continuing care. (Or not so late in life when we go to The Nazi Place, which is where all long-winded blog posts eventually go.) Which, absent any complete body religious needs, is the great fear of being selfless at the close; the idea that, dammit, I should be able to own *something* in this world. My skin.

(For the record, I'm an organ donor. Moving on.)

Let's pull this back around to sports. What is an athlete who plays hurt when they don't want to, really, but a man or woman who is not in full ownership of their body? And, since you and I have a small stake in who wears the laundry, given that our tickets and gear purchases make up a portion of their salary... is there something, well, less than emancipated about all of that?

I realize this is all disjointed and not nearly Sport Enough, but here's the takeaway: we all like to think that we all have Some Control, and for the most part, we do. But in the greater scope of things, assuming you draw a paycheck for something other than fun (or have dependents, or pay taxes, or have friends rather than minions), that control is far from absolute.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to be on a train and a subway, no matter how cold it is, or how little sleep I get from staying up late on this little foray into the void. The amount that I make from that is more or less capped by the market and this economy, regardless of performance; even if I have an absolute genius day/week/month/year, my salary is going to look a lot like what it does now. And the same goes, of course, for athletes, with the only difference is that there's a lot more air in that balloon, and a very big grain of salt as to whether the enterprise fails if you bring in someone else at replacement level.

So, in summation... our next stop in the economic spiral is a salary rollback for top paid players from teams (and maybe even leagues) failing. Hard to see people not cutting back on ticket purchases in a bad economy, folks. (Note: Super Bowl tickets went down from $800 to $500 this time around, though some of that probably was just that only one team had fans that would travel.)

And a hard cap on how much any one player can make. Just like in the real world beyond sports.

Your accusations of socialism are welcome in the comments...

New York Minutes

So the Mets and Yankees have gone on their usual obscene spending spree at the MLB talent markets, taking on salary at a time when most teams are shedding it. And there is (relatively) no hue and outcry, mostly because:

1) The players they are getting are pitchers, and therefore more than a little suspect when it comes to delivering value for the money (A.J. Burnett is, just like Carl Pavano, an ex-Marlin...)

2) Both teams were irrelevant to the MLB postseason last year, and even with the talent infusion, are not a lead-pipe cinch to get there now

3) All of the players who have been bought come with caveats, some of them significant.

CC Sabathia is fat and hasn't done it in the playoffs; he also clearly didn't want to go to New York. Seven year contracts are also a strange new world of risk; one big injury and they are on the hook for years of hurt.

AJ Burnett has a career 3.81 ERA and an 87-76 won-loss record, and had his only good year in the AL was last year -- to wit, in his walk year. That's also the only year where he stayed healthy and threw over 200 innings. If everything goes well for the Yanks, he's the number four starter (behind Sabathia, Wang and Chamberlain), and works fine as that. But at $16 million a year for another five years (which means they are expecting him to still be viable at age 36), he's going to be untradable if he doesn't work out.

K-Rod has the single save season record, but he's also had reduced velocity in the second half of last season, and a checkered post-season career. JJ Putz, as my bitter fantasy team can attest, was far from effective last year, and relievers are like that.

Finally, there is this -- Sabathia's already left his original team, last year, when Milwaukee rented him. Burnett is joining his third team. Putz took a while to become dominant. Only Rodriguez is coming from a situation where he is deeply recognizable as attached to one franchise, and that franchise didn't choose to keep him. So this doesn't have the effect of, say, Jason Giambi getting ripped from his first franchise by the big money boys, or Manny Ramirez being auctioned off from his first team.

It may all seem unfair and an obvious system error to have such inequitable payrolls, especially in a time of austerity. But with luck, both NY teams will fail for other reasons (the Yankees have a surprisingly ordinary or worse offense, and the Mets are filled with, well, the Mets, who have a two-year run now of choking in September), and we'll all be able to pretend that payrolls don't dictate much of the merits of the teams. Much as we have, well, for the past 150 years...

Mets Take The Rod

A classic example today of how fans overvalue the winter meetings. The Mets have apparently signed record-setting reliever Francisco Rodriguez to a three-year, $37 million deal that has the snap reaction of making the team ten games better. It couldn't be simpler, right? A team with a dramatic late-inning weakness hires the best available pitcher. Everything's solved, right?

Well, no.

First off, setting a saves record just means that you were healthy, on a team that won a big mess of games by three runs or less. K-Rod had a ridiculous number of bunny saves last year. He also did it against a pretty terrible division, with an utter lack of meaningful games until the post-season; in that post-season, he was less than what the team needed. He also throws a slider that can't be good for the long-term health of his elbow, isn't a size that usually lasts well into his thirties, and lost a lot of velocity last year. He might still deliver value, but it's not like he's Mariano Rivera in his prime here. It's more like Billy Wagner II.

But give them credit; by adding 2008 K-Rod to the 2008 Mets, they're definitly going to win the division... in 2008. Sadly for them, the 2009 season isn't guaranteed to be the same.

Now, if the Mets want to add two or three more shutdown closers and really overwhelm the weakness... and Carlos Delgado decides that the second-half is his true performance level, rather than a Last Hurrah rush... and Carlos Beltran doesn't slide in his post-30 mode, and David Wright doesn't get hurt, and Jose Reyes goes back to improving his OBP, rather than trying to hit 30 home runs... well, they'll be good.

But let's not give them the division just yet, folks. After all, we have two years of utter failure down the stretch here, along with a reliever that hasn't exactly crowned himself in late-season glory. He makes them better, and will be a top five guy in fantasy, but fantasy isn't reality.

We Still Own The Mets

A few choice quotes from Mets' chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon about the fact that you, me, and the rest of our fellow taxpayers will be paying the Mets $20 million a year for the right to name their new stadium after Citibank.

(If you came in late, the Saudi scumbags who can't make money running a credit card company -- no, really -- are going to pull in $45 billion of our money to not fail and cause a greater financial crisis. But they can't, ahem, get out of the Mets' stadium deal. Nice.)

“The company is still an ongoing company and a vital company that is doing business around the globe. The taxpayers are backstopping what’s going on in the global economy. It’s not really Citi’s fault that they’re in this problem... We have a deal with Citi that is good for them, good for us...I understand where they’re coming from. I understand that there’s some upset-ness in the marketplace. But we don’t agree with it.”

I see Wilpon's point.

And if someone wants to kill Wilpon with their bare hands for his jaw-dropping arrogance and standard rich guy obliviousness to public outrage over indirectly subsidizing his profitable business during an economic meltdown... well, I understand where they're coming from.

But I don't agree with it.

I mean, he's probably got a pretty damned thick neck. Using a gun would be easier.

Epic Drop: Top 10 new sports words of 2008

Because nothing makes the kids happier than a little college poon mixed in with some linguistic humor. That's why I'm one of the least popular sports bloggers in Blogfrica!

We Now Own The Mets

Congratulations, Fellow Taxpayer! Thanks to the continuing bailout efforts of people who really, truly believe in capitalism until it fails to make them money, we're going to give Citibank some free money, under the theory that they are too big to fail.

Let's see... some Saudis who act as the de facto mob in a legal vig racket have actually *failed* at this, basically because they couldn't leave well enough alone and just limit themselves to the wildly profitable business of predatory credit cards, and had to move into predatory mortgages as well. (Full disclosure: Citi has had their claws on my mortgage checks in the past few years, and the entire collapse of the credit markets can be traced entirely to their acceptance of my radioactive dollars. Citi, Countrywide, American, Washington Mutual... I have brought you all low with my timely payments. You're next, Bank of America and Chase.)

Now, here's the fun part. Back when times were good (oh, two years ago), Citi bought the naming rights to the new Shea Stadium for 20 years and $400 million. At least, this is the number I remember, and just like Henry Paulson at the Treasury asking for $700 billion, I'm sticking with the number because it sounds good. We're all making it up as it goes along, folks!

(A quick side note: Five Tool Tool is undergoing a severe financial crisis of its own, which is in no way due to the exorbitant salary that we pay its lead writer. As I'm sure you will agree, this blog, like Citi, is too big to fail, and merits a full multi-million dollar bailout of our toxic debt from Uncle Sucker. I'll be testifying in Congress in a week, with my somber suit, eyedrops for Real Tears, and utter lack of personal shame. Wish me luck!)

The Mets, of course, aren't going to give back that money; that would be Crazy Talk, especially now that in this economy, paying for the naming rights to a stadium, which was never a defensible idea on the merits (witness the parade of failed company names that have been attached to stadia in the last decade), has become Wildly Irresponsible. And Wildly Irresponsible is just a wee bit grating when you've moved into the Free Money From You Rubes section of the program.

Now, personally, I don't want the Mets to give the money back. What the hell, it'll just go to people whose idea of a good investment is to mail me balance transfer checks and new credit card offers on a twice a day basis until I die.

I just want a commensurate say in the day to day operations of the Mets.

After all, we have the technology to make this happen. If the Citipay is, let's say 10% of the club's income for 2009 (a reasonable bet, given their high gate revenue and television ad dollars), we should be able to control 10% of the roster via Web voting. And after the Mets got rick-rolled last year, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to open themselves up to this again.

Or not. Screw 'em. They're getting paid.

10% of the roster is 2.5 active players. I'll settle for their late inning relief situation. Let's face it, they're probably going to do something big and dumb there by chasing after a K-Rod or Huston Street. However, given that the majority of the voting bloc will come from outside the NY metropolitan area, and that we don't want Our Investment to be too expensive, I'm sure that the majority of us will agree that they need someone with more big-game experience, but at a reasonable price.

So, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the latest Met to take the ball in the ninth, brought to you by the American taxpayer... Joe Mesa! (Buck up, Mets Fan. He can't be any worse than what you had last year, right?)

Since we also have access to another player under the terms, we should also get ourselves a lefty. Here, I'm going to be merciful, and pay to bring back fan favorite John Franco. All of your old uniform purchases are good again, Mets Fan! You're welcome! And don't bitch, or we're going for Jesse Orosco.

So, Joe and John, go and make us proud. Or, at the very least, happy for our investment.

Chokedown 2008: The Sequel

If you loved the 2007 baseball season -- and frankly, Phillies Fan adored it, at least the regular season part -- you're also loving 2008. The Phillies pulled off yet another gut-check win tonight in Atlanta, recovering from a 7-4 seventh inning deficit and then surviving a shaky from Brad Lidge for an 8-7 win.

Meanwhile in Washington, the Mets were discovering, yet again, how hard it is to play baseball with both hands around your neck. Nine scoreless innings later against one of the worst teams in MLB, the Mets relinquished first place in the division, and only the free-falling Brewers are keeping them in the wild-card.

With a dozen games left to go, the schedule seems to break well for the Mets, who get the Nationals and Braves, while the Phils have the Braves, then the Marlins, their personal torture device. The Brewers are on the road in Chicago and then Cincinnati. But right now, they aren't playing the schedule; they are playing themselves... and losing, Meanwhile, the Phillies play to packed houses every night, have a couple of surging aces in Myers and Hamels, and an offense that frequently gets off the mat from big deficits.

I'm not a Phillies or a Mets Fan, per se; I'm a blogger that likes lay-up stories like this to help fill the word hole. And for that, I'd like to thank all three teams for making things easy on me, especially in a year where my A's sold the season for Matt Murton, and Red Sox Fan is looking like they are in line for way too much happiness (again). Moving on...

New York Baseball Fan Is Ready For Football

So last night I'm in a midtown Manhattan bar, making nice with all of the other cool blogger kids (and yes, dear God, they are all kids -- I've got a decade at least on most of 'em) as the finest teams that money could buy proceeded to soil the bedclothes in the Bronx and Philadelphia, respectively.

We'll start with the Yankees, who got two Johnny Damon right field foul pole home runs and did next to nothing with the rest of a mess of baserunners against the Red Sox in a have to not have it 7-3 loss. The line will look like Andy Pettite was less than clutch, but in watching the game, it was all bloop hits and infield trouble, rather than anything particularly well hit.

Meanwhile, the Yanks at the plate were doing what an old team does -- wait for a long ball that never came, despite the presence of ancient Tim Wakefield and his ever more ancient knuckleball. In a game of this importance, you'd expect the home team to be handing out batons at first base to push matters and avoid the crippling double play balls. You'd also be watching a team that isn't the 2008 Yankees.

In Philadelphia, the Mets were penning their own, far more tragic, same old story: a big early lead, the starter being left in too long because the bullpen isn't trustworthy, the offense gripping the bats into sawdust during the opposing team's This Can't Be Happening AGAIN comeback, and some relief goat du jour taking the fall late. The names to fill in for the Mad Libs game of How Can Met Fan Tear Out His Hair (surprising, given last year's El Foldo, that there would be any left to yank) were Pedro Martinez and Benny Ayala.

It astonishes the mind that a team with this kind of payroll and farm system couldn't make a move to get bullpen help. Hell, the Diamondbacks added Jon Rauch and the Rays added Chad Bradford and the Twins got Eddie Guardado; fungible relief help is what gets moved at the deadline. Billy Beane would have probably packed Huston Street's bags for him in Oakland, or you could have gotten what you really needed (Brad Ziegler) for some collection of Matt Murton-esque talent on the cheap. No team should ever gag away a pennant from the unbelievably unpredictable event of Billy Wagner being injury prone, or Pedro not being able to hold an early lead.

Oh, and a special shout out -- HEY! -- to noted soothsayer Jimmy Rollins, who called Philly Fan a front-runner and a punk last week in what can only be imagined as a Get Out Of Town Already move, only to back up his talk with a huge 5 for 7 night, including a 2-run homer to start the comeback from a touchdown down. He also had three of the Phillies six steals. (Yankee Fan, take note -- this is what an offense, at home in a must win game, does. It also helps to not have all of your offensive players, with the possible exception of Robinson Cano, on the downside of their careers.)

Rollins continues to be a living nightmare for Mets Fan, which you think would be all that would be required to earn him the ever-loving love of Philly Fan, but one suspects that the fan base is happier to root for Jamie Moyer (adorable, even while highly ineffective last night), Chase Utley (OK, in that he's just a better player than J-Roll) and Shane Victorino (hmm, I'm starting to detect a, shall we say, Boston-esque pattern here). The night's events pushed the Mets out of first, though they've got this Johan Santana guy pitching for them tonight, so it might not be a long stay out of the penthouse. (For now.)

Add it all up, and you have a late August in the city... and yes, you can mostly wear any hat you want (my blogging companion last night was wearing a Phillies cap), since the home town teams have more or less lost the audience already, and no one who is anyone is still in town and working in the week before Labor Day. New York, my friends, is ready for some football, rather than the continued sobfest that is the final season for both stadiums.

Here's a fun fact: the Mets' pen has blown ten (10!) leads in the ninth inning this year, and 22 saves overall. Good grief. Which means that in about 8% of their games, they've been less than three outs away from sealing the deal, and that's got to just have them walking like zombies by now. Last night's euthanasia finally came when Chad Coste singled home Victorino, making a winner of Rudy Seanez in the 13th. (Say this for the Phils: they don't quit. They may not be very good either, in that they never are, but in a short series with Cole Hamels, the resurrected Brett Myers, and the mostly strikes of Moyer and Cupcakes Blanton... oh, who am I kidding, they're also going nowhere fast. But at least their bullpen is, well, a bullpen.)

The Mets will be losing meaningful games longer than the Yanks will, but when your team can't close or hold touchdown leads in baseball, you'd be staring hard at Mssrs. Manning and Favre, too.

The Most Exciting Player In Baseball

Today in Shea, Jose Reyes continued his very special weekend (yesterday's getting picked off second base being also very special) by nonchalantly throwing wide to first base with two outs in the seventh. Carlos Delgado didn't make a play that he probably could have, and as Melky Cabrera rounded first and made it second on the error, Reyes threw his glove to the ground like, oh, a spoiled Little League player.

He executed it with a full turn, which let the sunglasses and glove both fall in different directions. Fairly artistic, especially in the slow-motion HD that you'll be seeing it in, oh, the 2,000+ replays that the Lemur will probably be favoring you with.

Oliver Perez then continued his inexplicable mastery of the Yankees by getting Jose Molina to fly out to center, ending the inning. The YES cameras then spent the rest of the game looking inside the Mets' clubhouse to see if Delgado was going to take Reyes' head off. In the ninth, Billy Wagner gave up a leadoff hit to Derek Jeter, then wild pitched him to second, but kept A-Rod in the park on a fly ball to right. After a Posada groundout, Wagner froze Wilson Betemit with a called third strike, and the Mets won 3-1 to get to .500, and salvaged a split in their 4-game Subway Series.

(Oh, and nice Pravda Moment from the SNY postgame, which failed to show the hissy fit. Way to cover your assets, gentlemen.)

The Reyes Incident, of course, led the telecast team to spend the rest of the game talking about Reyes' immaturity, and whether or not Willie Randolph misses having a job, and all of the usual points that you'd make, including a snide jab as to how no one was comparing the Mets' left side of the infield to the Yankees' left side now. But as always, I'd like to see some numbers.

First off, the number 25. That's how old Reyes is, on the off chance that you want to just chalk this up to Oh, That Impetuous Youth. Secondly, the number 675 -- which is the number of games that Reyes has played in the major leagues. I'm thinking that this is the Jose Reyes that's the real guy, folks. Immaturity be damned.

Next, 840 -- which is the Reyes OPS for the year, with a little more slugging than his career norms. The on-base is at .355 -- still not great for a leadoff hitter, but more or less what he's done in the past three years, and with his steals and extra-base power, he gets himself into position to score a lot of runs. Delgado's .725 OPS is the lowest of his life as a regular baseball player. So on the grand scale of things, perhaps you give your talented young player a little leeway, especially on a hot day.

But there's also this. Delgado had 9 RBIs in the first of Friday's doubleheader, and the go-ahead home run in today's game. He's also the closest thing this Mets team has to a veteran leader, especially with Moises Alou more or less done; no one is expecting this kind of thing from, say, Carlos Beltran. The first baseman can more or less kill a shortstop if he's really got a mind to, not that I'm really expecting Delgado to spend his time exacting a grudge; right now, he's doing everything he can to just stay in the majors.

And finally, um, he does know that he plays in New York, right? How badly did he want to be on the back page of the tabloids, looking like this?

Not Exactly An Ace

Yesterday in the thunder storm soup that was New York, Andy Petitte outdueled Johan Santana in a game that wasn't really a duel. Pettite's 8 baserunners in six innings added up to 2 earned runs, while Santana's same numbers added up to three earned runs. Combine this with an absolutely boneheaded Jose Reyes baserunning mistake, and after a rain delay and effective Yankee relief work -- yes, that was Kyle Farnsworth with a 1-2-3 eighth inning -- and the Mets missed another chance to get to .500.

What I really wanted to address, though, was Santana. The loss dropped him to 7-7, and while the other numbers aren't really bad (3.01 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 3.33 K/BB with 103 strikeouts in 113 innings), he's been the classic ace on a not quite .500 team -- good, but not good enough. The go-ahead run came after an intentional walk to Jorge Posada to face Robinson Cano, and despite the lefty-lefty matchup, Santana gave up the solid single to right.

Santana's had eight unearned runs this year, which is one of those small but telling points... that he hasn't really picked up the team when they've really needed him. His last start involved a grand slam given up to Felix Hernandez, all of which were unearned, but when you give up the big fly to the opposing pitching from the AL, I'm thinking that should count as an earned run. Heck, maybe as double earned runs.

The lack of production has, of course, been noted by Mets Fan in the time-honored tradition of booing the talented Hessian. No matter what the team or situation, the fact remains that if you pay for a star and he doesn't deliver, he'll be booed harder than any struggling farmhand. You'd have thought that this kind of thing would have gone out of style by now, seeing how as baseball has been treating the MLB+ teams to this kind of behavior for decades, but nope...

There is also this: Santana was as close to a lead-pipe cinch to dominate this year. He was moving to the weaker league, a better pitcher's park, presumably more run support from the Mets than the Twins, and got to pitch to pitchers, rather than designated hitters. He went for an unholy amount of money in my auction league, and had to be no worse than a top 3 pick among SPs in any league. (This is also why, in general, you're crazy to pay too much for pitching in a fantasy league.)

So when he ranks 17th among SPs in the Yahoo game (not a perfect ranking, but so be it), that really doesn't cut it... especially for a team that's been .500 for a really long time, with really overinflated expectations.

Johan has been a second half monster for a long time now. The Mets are just four games out of the NL East, thanks to the recent stumbles of the Phillies. No team in the NL looks extraordinarily dominant, with the possible exception of the Cubs. If you're playing in a fantasy league with a guy who's failing with Santana on the roster, I can think of no better second half target.

But there he is, just another guy, rather than the best pitcher on one of the best teams. Maybe he's just not that special after all.

The Shooter Eldest Scores In a Washout

Saturday night, I took my eldest to Shea Stadium for the attempted Mets-Rangers game, as part of my quest to see as many ballparks as possible (this makes, I think, 18). The forecast of scattered thunderstorms was just a bit off, as constant thunderstorms kicked in and forced a cancellation. Add in a comedy of errors for trains and me forgetting to bring an umbrella, and it was kind of an ordeal, but time with my kid is almost always a win.

Shea seems like a nice enough place to me, but I'm suspicious of new yards; they always seem like more money for less baseball, and usually served up with a side order of corporate welfare. The trip up on the 7 train makes you feel like you are heavily invested in a New York trip, in a way that a ride to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium does not, and there is much less of a corporate crowd feel, especially since you can see the game for twenty bucks (that's hopeless cheap for New York).

Mets Fans seem highly involved in jersey wearing, with a 50-50 split in current and past players; as an ex-Phillies fan, it was kind of striking to me to see just how many Dykstra gamers were around. I guess he's the guy that bridges both fan bases. So I ask the kid whether she thought it was silly for people to wear jerseys, or if they did, should they pick a current or past player. And then she said something pure and simple, and perhaps not really true for adults, but nice anyway.

"Well, baseball players have feelings, too, and it must make them feel good to see people wearing their number."

And in that moment, you get it. Wearing someone's jersey is so much tied into what it says about the fan who is doing it -- that they've got the money to spend, and that they are doing it in this way, or that they have this odd fantasy life where they think they are like that player. But maybe it's more and different than that. Maybe it's just selfless, to show a player that you believe in them... and maybe that's why it seems like something you shouldn't do when you are older.

Because you learn not to believe. But you can always learn something different.

Epic Drop: Top 12 Signs That Willie Randolph Is On Thin Ice

Your link is here, and independent of the merits or demerits of Willie getting the big pink slip, you have to love how New York runs a manager deathwatch. I'm betting on helicopters by the weekend, assuming the Mets don't go on a winning streak.

Warholian Solipsism, Or More Booing

A recent piece in the Times talks about how booing at Mets games has been on the upswing, and how sad and regrettable this is, and getting into the details of why this is. As an old hand at denigrating the efforts of the home team, let me weigh in.

It's really not about people expecting to become famous for booing, or even for holding up a sign. Booing is a communal act; it takes thousands of people to do it to be noteworthy.

> No lovable losers. When I was growing up, there were fan bases -- plural -- that prided themselves on rooting for the home team whether they were good or bad. Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox, San Francisco Giants, New York Mets... they were all bad much more often than they were good, and it didn't seem to matter. Now, when any of these teams struggle, it's a great hue and cry from the fan bases, because they've paid big money to stink. The only teams that can stink are the ones that don't have big or famous fan bases, which is to say, MLB-.

> Demographic change. It's harder to boo in front of your kids. But it's easier to boo when you've paid a huge amount of money to be there, or you're on some kind of work-related thing where someone else is paying for your multiple beers. So look at the crowd composition now, and you'll see where this is going, has been going, and in all likelihood, will contine to go...

> Road crowd. This isn't something you'd experience in MLB+ markets, but in any stadium that's close, you're going to get the road team's crowd making the audience a less than partsian experience. When I'd go to A's games in Oakland where they played the Yankees or Red Sox, at least a third of the crowd was there for the opposition. When the home team would get on a player, the road fans happily join in.

> Rising irritability. Games are over three hours routinely. Inning breaks take longer due to more commercials. Late innings take forever due to one-batter pitching changes. And the audience is supposed to be as happy as always. This does not compute.

> Acceptable hate and profanity. Blogs. Sports radio. Entertaining rants. Let's face it... it's easier to write angry than it is to write happy, and if you don't believe that, go and look at the lyrics to pop songs about love.

As for profanity, hearing chants of Bullsh*t has become more or less common, especially in connection with NBA games, since the mics are close and the fans really do impact the games. And no one, really, feels bad about the coarsening of the culture in this regard.

Meanwhile in your annual Yankee Scare...

The Mets put the screws in during a 2-game Subway Series sweep. Yesterday was kind of expected, with Johan Santana winning... but tonight's 11-2 crush left the worst team that money is currently buying 6 games back in the AL East, and yes, last place.

This should be the low-water mark, in that Alex Rodriguez is due back on Tuesday, which will allow the team to stop playing Morgan Ensberg, who might be the worst player in the American League right now. To give you an idea, Ensberg's combined on-base and slugging (.533) is less than just the slugging percentage of several other MLB players. That's, um, bad... and he doesn't even play a middle infield position. Right now -- still! -- the Yanks don't project to have a single player with 100 RBIs or 100 Runs.

(An aside... how many years will the Yankees manage to have sub-replacement level players in the wings? We're talking about a franchise with money and older players. There's absolutely no excuse for being so unprepared for an injury that you're reaching for the likes of Will Nieves last year, and Morgan Ensberg this year, for production. Honestly, the A's get more out of their AAA players.)

Pitching-wise, it's actually been better than you might have expected, given that Ian Kennedy and Philip Hughes have been utterly awful. They've gotten a couple of decent starts out of retread Darrell Rasner, Mike Mussina is actually 6-3 with a 3.99 ERA, and Mariano Rivera is quietly having one of his best starts. But you do get the sense that while the offense will pick up, the pitching isn't going to ever be that great this year, even when they do get Joba Chamberlain in the rotation. (Having Wang get torn apart by the previously struggling Mets tonight, of course, did not help.)

Besides, the usual Yankee path to getting over terrible starts -- i.e., pounding the stuffing out the sad sack Rays, Jays and O's -- might not be that easy. If the season ended today, Tampa would take the wildcard, and while it's hard to imagine that will continue, it's not hard to imagine they'll stay a .500 team.

So... is *this* the year when the Yankees finally miss the playoffs? No. And if this is a double jinx, then you are clearly too cynical, really. They'll be fine!

Booing the Hessian

Saturday, Johan Santana made his New York debut and lost to Ben Sheets and the Brewers... and in so doing, probably heard the first boos of his professional life. It's not like he pitched terrible, but when you stake The Ace to a 2-0 lead in the first and lose 5-2, that's Not Good.

The outing and the reaction also prove, once again, that when a team buys talent, instead of growing it, the fans are much less interested in being patient for results (see Way, Yankee.)It's also, of course, not just a New York reaction, as the career of way too many Phillies free agents have proven.

“We’re not perfect,” Santana said. “I wish we could do everything the way everybody wants, but we’re human beings and we’re going to make mistakes sometimes. It’s just how you react to it or how you bounce back and do your job. Right now, a lot of people are expecting a lot of things from me. I’m trying to do my job and hopefully exceed those expectations.”

The Mets are now 1-2 in Santana's starts, and while he's still the best bet in MLB to turn it around and steamroll to the finish, he did give up 33 homers last year... and he makes an ungodly amount of money. (He's also, historically, much better after April.)

(Of course, Mets fan also boo Jose Reyes for failing in the stretch last year, Pedro Martinez for being old and infirm, and God for making the Yankees more consistently better. Boo!!!)