My baseball heros go way back and are mostly pitchers – Seaver, Ryan, Darling, and two first basemen John Olerud and Keith Hernandez. I wish Pedro Martinez had stayed on, but family first and he went home to be with his ailing Dad and never returned.

Bernie Williams gets a mention from me too as he patroled centerfield at Yankee Stadium for years, and did it so well, that hardly anyone noticed until he left. Now, we have an assortment of candidates for the position and they can’t hold a candle to Bernie.

These guys played the game and played it well.

And the sad fact is, professional baseball was always about money. Hell, amateur baseball has been about oney and ego for a while now.

From Lannin and Frazee to Comiskey to O’Malley to Charlie O to Turner to Steinbrenner to now, the teams are a business. The main differences now are there is so much more money coming in, there are more people getting a cut and its more out in the open.

The trick to enjoying the game as its being played is to shut out most of the world and just enjoy the game. And don’t get attached to anyone.

Back in the day all we would be talking about is the Mets fighting for a Wild Card and staying in the race. My God it’s still July, the Mets are 6.5 games back and I’ve seen enough of them over this season that I don’t particularly think any of the other teams in the NL outside the Phillies are that great at all. None of these teams don’t stand out and I don’t think any of them are anything to be afraid of. And it’s July still.

But don’t bring any of that up when you try to talk about baseball here because you get scoffed at and mocked up by other people here who get off more on talking about how much money the team saves (Like we cared about that in the past – it’s was their business not the fans) and they also get off on whoop-de-doing about alleged prospects that may or may not be able to help this team 3 or 4 years down the road.

We have a GM tearing a team apart in order to save a few bucks. Never used to be like that i don’t care what kind of situation he inherited. But hey, like a team that takes on the personality of it’s manager (and the Mets are the perfect example of that) we have a newer legion of fans and some lost older ones who blindly follow a guy who seems more interested in turning this New York team into the Oakland A’s and he’s said as such too.

Well so far this team is winning IN SPITE of the GM and not because of him. And why? So he can save a couple dollars in hopes of getting a few kids who MAY or MAY NOT be able to become something in a few years? And then what happens? When and if they become stars they leave for big money like anyone else would do. And then what happens? Another White Flag will be waved just like now.

Good thing the players dictate the pace right now and not the GM. Like I said at the beginning of the season we have a front office who thinks they’re smarter than the game and the game is coming right back and biting them on the butt so far.

This is a Wild Card race and that’s what we should be talking about. As a matter of fact there’s still time to ADD to this team not subtract cuz God knows White Flag Sandy has tried to subtract enough.