So if you had to guess what grand, world changing event that would bring me out of my self-induced absence from the world of blogging, you’d have a veritable topic du jour laid upon your table to choose from. Let’s see would it be the slow burning scandal that is Hillary Clinton’s email habits while serving as Secretary of State? Maybe it’s the allure surrounding Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump and what consequences his candidacy could have for this country if not the world?

For some reason those topics, while I find them fascinating, haven’t done enough for me to shed my Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque writing exile. I guess we all find our muse’s in our own special ways and for me, it wasn’t something I was expecting in the least.

One of my escapes from the weightiness of the world has always been baseball, especially New York Mets baseball. When I heard that Matt Harvey, the Mets staff ace, said that he would stop pitching once he hit 180 innings pitched, I have to admit I thought it was a joke. Granted Harvey missed all of 2014, rehabbing from Tommy John surgery which replaced his partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow.

However hearing Harvey, at the apparent behest and counsel of his agent, the infamous Scott Boras, suddenly come out and tell the press of all people, that he’s essentially done, took the wind out of every Met fan’s sails in a matter of seconds as I’m sure it didn’t earn him any favor from his teammates. Harvey has already clocked 166 innings this year and has been a huge reason the team is finally making a run at the postseason for the first time since 2006.

This is coming from the same guy who a few weeks ago was bemoaning the fact that the team was instituting a 6 man rotation, designed to lessen HIS workload. Not to mention the team planned skipping a few of his starts, causing Harvey to yet again throw a media conniption, with every start after his extended rest where he would complain that he was quote, “rusty” due to the rest. What I don’t understand is, if this was the plan all along, that his total would be 180 innings, then why not just start his season in late May? Silly me.

The Dark Knight, as he’s been dubbed by fans and media, has a credibility issue, created by his own hand with a nudge by his agent Scott Boras. Boras is the uber-agent to the sports world. He’s reviled by many, especially those who write really, really big checks to pro athletes. Then you have those who love his tough as nails and bloodthirsty desire to get the maximum dollar amount for his clients

He’s the lawyer we all hear about and hate and wish never existed but would want to have on our side if we needed him. He’s the Johnny Cochrane of sports agents. I think he’s a cancer but just like cancer cells that reside in us all, there’s a part in each of us that would want Boras negotiating our next raise.

I can’t help but feel like Michael Corleone when he discovered that his brother Fredo had sold the family out to Johnny Ola and Hyman Roth. I can understand if Harvey is concerned about his future and his health. Let’s face it, the Mets don’t exactly have a stellar medical history with their players. But the only thing Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins haven’t done is personally carry Harvey out to the mound like Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, fanning and feeding him grapes.

Everything Harvey said flies in the face of what he’s obviously “portraying” on the field. That’s the definition of a fraud and it kills me to say it All of a sudden the bloody nosed Dark Knight who “looks” menacing on the mound, is coming across more as a show off, bitching that he could’ve pitched last September knowing fully well that that would’ve never happened. A man full of not just himself but full of bravado. Not a good mix in the locker room.

Speaking of the locker room, as I was watching the Mets today take on the Florida Marlins the cameras paid close attention to Harvey in the dugout. And for what seemed like the majority of the game, no one was giving Matt the time of day with the exception of David Wright. The camera cut to both the captain and Harvey having quite a discussion, with Wright doing most of the talking and Harvey just nodding.

As Gary Cohen intimated, the conversation was probably not about the club scene in Miami, but probably the events that were unfolding. It speaks volumes that Harvey was an island onto himself in that dugout. I can’t blame them. If a nobody fan like me feels slighted imagine those guys?

Well needless to say just like a politician in need of corralling and controlling the message, Matt Harvey took to Derek Jeter’s The Players Tribune website to pen a brief but pointed statement essentially telling fans to forget everything that came out of his mouth over the past 24 hours, that he’ll pitch in the postseason.

That may be true but at this point the damage is done. The seeds have been sowed. I have no expectations that Matt Harvey will pitch this postseason if the Mets are lucky enough to get there, nor do I expect him to suit up and some point next next as well.

The world will not come to an end Mets fans if Matt Harvey ends up in another dugout next year. Just go ask Albert Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinal fans who felt like they lost an organ when Albert bolted for the left coast. How’s that working out for the redbirds by the way? Like I told a friend on Facebook, I’d rather have a team of Wilmer Flores’ than one faux Dark Knight anyday.

(Graphic by Joe Maracic @GrafixJoker)

The post The Gotham Dark Slight appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

It’s like clockwork you know, hell I could even set my watch to it. Every year and almost exactly around this time, nostalgia rushes over me in a wave of mixed emotions. I feel the cold rattle my aching bones yet I know somewhere warm and far away, my team is getting ready for a new beginning. Unless you’re a fan of this team, it’s hard to describe the passion we share for it, at least not without sounding as if we’re completely insane.

As much as it is a time of rebirth it’s a time where my memories pull me in equally powerful yet opposite directions. It’s hard to let go of those I’ve lost, my father and grandfather especially. I long for the days when we would travel to Kissimmee to see the Mets play the Astros during Spring Training. It was the closest we could get to opening day at Shea, listening to Ralph Kiner – now also a part of our collective memories – and soaking it all in. Full of hope; high on expectations and yet cognizant of reality, that’s the life of a Mets fan.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the combative and sometimes negative banter, especially when you’re a part of such a diverse and passionate fan base. Most of the time it’s exhilarating, as defending your opinion should be. On rare occasions it brings out the worst in us, but like I said, that’s rare. But there should be no doubt that hope, really does spring eternal every year around this time.

It’s going to be exciting to see how the future is going to play out with regards to the Mets pitching. It’s difficult to not compare the arms of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard to the icons of the past whether they be, Seaver, Koosman and Ryan or Gooden, Darling and Cone. We’ve been teased before with Generation K, so we’re battle tested and always prepared to be disappointed. But perhaps that pendulum has finally begun to swing our way.

Questions remain, as they always do. Who’s playing first? What about shortstop? Does Alderson have money to spend? If he does, do you believe him? Do you believe the Wilpons? Does that matter? We always seem to be skeptical no matter who’s running the show, and that’s not entirely a bad thing. We have to admit that progress has been made. Granted in a perfect world, it would have happened sooner then again in a perfect world Carlos Beltran would have swung at that curveball and Bernie Madoff would have never existed.

“Baseball breaks your heart. It’s designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it the most, it stops.”  ~  A. Bartlett Giamatti

Even though a part of me would give anything to relive the past, I’m beginning to realize the true gift of what the past has given me. What good is it to wish for days long gone with those we cared for sharing our love of this game and this team if it simply ends there? Every thread of this game becomes a tapestry when passed down to those we love. The whole point is to continue our tradition.

Just recently the mother of a good friend and co-worker of mine passed away. As true a fan of this team as I’ve ever known. Adrienne would call to speak to her daughter and I knew when they were done speaking – it was time for us to talk shop. She was 80 years old and sharp as a tack and she knew everything that was going on with this team from who was playing to who was hurt, down to her “boyfriend” Keith Hernandez’ personal life. She made it a point to mention that he was “available” now and that he lived not too far from her. I think Mex would’ve met his match though.

This is what matters most about our love for this team. I may not write with the aplomb of a Greg Prince or with the uncanny wit of Metstradamus or with the statistical dexterity of Eric Simon. But like Forrest Gump, I too know what love is and my greatest hope for anyone who reads this is to find that someone in your life and pass this love down. I know, you might think it’s a curse but deep down, beyond the issues, beyond the controversies, we’re all one big family and I’ve been lucky to know and learn from a few of them.

The post MMO Flashback: What It Means To Be A Mets Fan appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Just take the Detroit Tigers this year. They have a pitching staff already fortified with two Cy Young winners in Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Most teams would be happy with that and call it a day but what did the Tigers do? They traded for another Cy Young winner in David Price by working out a three team trade involving the Rays and the Mariners, with the Tigers giving up centerfielder Austin Jackson and pitcher Drew Smyly.

Now granted, getting a Cy Young winner for outfielder Austin Jackson and pitcher Drew Smyly, is easily the coup of the year if you ask me but it does beg the question, does losing your best defensive outfielder and leadoff hitter really matter if you’re making your rotation the finest in the league? Apparently losing offense matters little to Dave Dombrowski, and dare I say rightfully so.

But Dombrowski’s not the only GM in baseball willing to sacrifice some offense for top notch pitching. Billy Beane, GM of the Oakland Athletics, traded outfielder Yoenis Cespedes to the Boston Red Sox for stud ace Jon Lester and backup outfielder Jonny Gomes. Am I the only one who see’s the pattern here?

All of this is leading me back home, to the New York Mets fan base, eager and rightfully wanting their team to be relevant again, who began demanding that Sandy Alderson trade their top prospect, pitcher Noah Syndergaard and just about every other significant farmhand for Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.

First off let me be clear, Tulo is a stud and the best offensive shortstop in the game today and arguably ever. Unfortunately, he’s also made of Balsa wood and the Mets already have had a lot of experience with expensive, fragile yet immensely talented shortstops. Even Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the movie Unbreakable cringes when Tulo slides into second on a double as does Rockies owner Dick Monfort.

Now here we are post trade deadline and the Mets are still under .500 and lo and behold guess what we find out, Troy Tulowitzki will have season ending surgery on a torn labrum in his hip. Somehow all the voices wanting Tulo soo bad have been quieted as if their Alderaan was just destroyed by the dreaded Death Star known as the Disabled List. Now if you didn’t know any better you’d think that Tulo actually had the (mis?)fortune of becoming a Met since this injury would be the typical initiation into the orange and blue, but no.

You see Tulo has a history of leg issues dating back to 2008 when he tore his left quadriceps tendon. That along with the fact that he’s on the wrong side of 30, has a mammoth contract which pays him guaranteed money (157 million) until 2020, and you could say that those factors pretty much made Alderson’s decision for him. Oh yeah and Alderson would have had to mortgage the farm for him too.

So here’s the quandary (for SOME Mets fans). Do we trade a potential future Cy Young winner, because you know they grow on trees, or do you bite the bullet and build around the promise of an amazing pitching staff, supplanting your offense by developing players from within (Wilmer Flores, Brandon Nimmo, Michael Conforto, and Dominic Smith) and perhaps a free agent on a short term basis? Sure, Sandy could package Syndergaard and Montero and a few others and make a run at a bat but then again, so did Fred Claire.

You see Fred traded Pedro Martinez when he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers, an organization well known for their pitching excellence, for – wait for it – Delino DeShields. Yeah, the Dodgers needed a second baseman and a leadoff hitter and they got three incredibly unproductive years from DeShields whereas Pedro went on to be, well, Pedro. You think Claire wishes he had a do-over with that one?

Not all deals involving trading pitchers turn out that dramatically lopsided but can you seriously imagine Noah Syndergaard ending up in Colorado or Miami or wherever and becoming the next “Pedro”? That would be quite the legacy for Sandy to leave wouldn’t it? I guess Mets fans shouldn’t worry it’s not like this team has ever done anything like that before. I mean it’s not like they traded Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi. Ok, that was a low blow.

Sometimes you just have to go with the hand you have and right now, the Mets are holding potential aces. You don’t find arms like the Mets have that easily. Great offensive players, especially outfielders, are scarce in MLB right now (PED testing anyone?) so it’s not just the Mets who are looking for offense. But to have the potential pitching studs and to just trade them for a “name” is just dumb. Especially if the player everyone wants – while great when healthy – makes peanut brittle look like Kevlar.

Sorry, no deal.

The post Deal or No Deal? appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Usually I’m not the type to tell someone “I told you so”. It’s annoying at best and at its worst it can make you want to slug the person who says it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times when facts are so evident that they hit you in the face leaving you feeling like Delino DeShields Jr. after a close encounter with a 90 mph fastball. When it comes to the future of Jenrry Mejia, unfortunately all I can say is – I told you so.

You see it was about 4 years ago right here on Metsmerized when I wrote an article about what – get this – Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel should do about Jenrry Mejia. Should he be groomed as the heir apparent to Frankie Rodriguez or “stretched” out and turned into a starting pitcher? Of course as it is with many young players who make their way through this organization, their climb up the rungs is far from dull and uneventful. For Mejia it was a birth by fire.

Get ready, I’m about to quote myself because that’s how I roll.

“Earlier this year Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel fawned over minor league phenom pitcher, Jenrry Mejia. Somehow through that love affair, the kid surprisingly made the major league team right out of Spring. It was a desperate move then and looking back, it remains the same.

Especially considering one, the kid had barely over 200 innings of work in the minors and two, unbeknownst to him, he was anointed by Jerry Manuel and few other prominent figures around the team, a future Mariano Rivera armed with a Godly cutter and all.

No pressure there Jenrry. Here’s the ball, have fun. Nobody ever accused the Mets of being masters of public relations but this situation took the cake for me. Instead of dealing with the reality of not having a bonafide set-up man, Minaya and Manuel decided to thrust Jenrry Mejia into the spotlight.”

So instead of sending Mejia to AAA to pitch and either succeed or fail all on his own, they set the kid up. In the minors we would’ve learned probably what we know now, that Mejia is lights out for about 3 innings – roughly one time through a lineup as the .160 average against him is right now. But of course in the minds of Minaya and Manuel it was all about winning and winning NOW.

When I look back it disgusts me how this organization handled Mejia. This was supposed to be their crown jewel and they treated him like a cheap Lucas Duda knock-off watch right off of Canal Street. But before we sharpen our knives on Omar and Jerry let’s not forget that while Mejia has had to deal with injuries and multiple surgeries, he’s still a pretty damn good pitcher but the writing is on the wall. Collins and Alderson need to put Mejia in the bullpen despite his desire to start. The more they wait, the more Mejia is going to believe he should be a starter.

I want to bat third in the Mets lineup but it’s not going to happen either, get over it Jenrry. Alderson and his acolytes in Sabermetrics tend to believe that relievers are simply failed starters. Don’t get me wrong, many are but every once in a while you get a diamond that can only go an inning or two.

Alderson found one in Dennis Eckersley and the other just retired last season as the greatest reliever ever. This team needs to right the wrongs that they’ve placed on Jenrry Mejia and prepare him for his proper role as closer for the New York Mets. Hey it’s not like I didn’t say I told you so.

The post Righting The Wrongs appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

It’s like clockwork you know, hell I could even set my watch to it. Every year and almost exactly around this time, nostalgia rushes over me in a wave of mixed emotions. I feel the cold rattle my aching bones yet I know somewhere warm and far away, my team is getting ready for a new beginning. Unless you’re a fan of this team, it’s hard to describe the passion we share for it, at least not without sounding as if we’re completely insane.

As much as it is a time of rebirth it’s a time where my memories pull me in equally powerful yet opposite directions. It’s hard to let go of those I’ve lost, my father and grandfather especially. I long for the days when we would travel to Kissimmee to see the Mets play the Astros during Spring Training. It was the closest we could get to opening day at Shea, listening to Ralph Kiner – now also a part of our collective memories – and soaking it all in. Full of hope; high on expectations and yet cognizant of reality, that’s the life of a Mets fan.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the combative and sometimes negative banter, especially when you’re a part of such a diverse and passionate fan base. Most of the time it’s exhilarating, as defending your opinion should be. On rare occasions it brings out the worst in us, but like I said, that’s rare. But there should be no doubt that hope, really does spring eternal every year around this time.

It’s going to be exciting to see how the future is going to play out with regards to the Mets pitching. It’s difficult to not compare the arms of Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard to the icons of the past whether they be, Seaver, Koosman and Ryan or Gooden, Darling and Cone. We’ve been teased before with Generation K, so we’re battle tested and always prepared to be disappointed. But perhaps that pendulum has finally begun to swing our way.

Questions remain, as they always do. Who’s playing first? What about shortstop? Does Alderson have money to spend? If he does, do you believe him? Do you believe the Wilpons? Does that matter? We always seem to be skeptical no matter who’s running the show, and that’s not entirely a bad thing. We have to admit that progress has been made. Granted in a perfect world, it would have happened sooner then again in a perfect world Carlos Beltran would have swung at that curveball and Bernie Madoff would have never existed.

“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It’s designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it the most, it stops.”

~ A. Bartlett Giamatti, Take Time For Paradise: Americans And Their Games

Even though a part of me would give anything to relive the past, I’m beginning to realize the true gift of what the past has given me. What good is it to wish for days long gone with those we cared for sharing our love of this game and this team if it simply ends there? Every thread of this game becomes a tapestry when passed down to those we love. The whole point is to continue our tradition.

Just recently the mother of a good friend and co-worker of mine passed away. As true a fan of this team I have ever known. Adrienne would call to speak to her daughter and I knew when they were done speaking – it was time for us to talk shop. She was 80 years old and sharp as a tack and she knew everything that was going on with this team from who was playing to who was hurt, down to her “boyfriend” Keith Hernandez’ personal life. She made it a point to mention that he was “available” now and that he lived not too far from her. I think the Mex would’ve met his match though.

This is what matters most about our love for this team. I may not write with the aplomb of a Greg Prince or with the uncanny wit of Metstradamus or with the statistical dexterity of Eric Simon. But like Forrest Gump, I too know what love is and my greatest hope for anyone who reads this is to find that someone in your life and pass this love down. I know, you might think it’s a curse but deep down, beyond the issues, beyond the controversies, we’re all one big family and I’ve been lucky to know and learn from a few of them.

R.I.P. Adrienne Djaha
1933 – 2014

The post What Being A Mets Fan Really Means appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

With the revelations of the Biogenesis investigation by MLB coming to the forefront this week, just about every sportswriter has put in his or her two cents regarding this story and how performance enhancing drugs plays into professional sports in general.  Even broadcasters are getting into the mix now.  The other night during the Mets/Rockies game, Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez touched on the issue in a way that really hasn’t been by most sportswriters.  It doesn’t come as a shock to me since SNY’s Emmy winning team of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling are arguably one of the finer broadcasting teams in professional sports today.

Gary, playing devil’s advocate, described how both sides see the issue of PED’s.  One side taking the majority stance that there’s no place for PED’s in Major League Baseball. The prevalent idea is that if players are found to have used them, heavy consequences should follow, with the ultimate penalty being banishment.  The other side, which I found interesting in how Gary described it, was how some take a more “Libertarian” approach regarding PED’s, stating that if a player is willing to risk his health then it’s on the player.  There was a brief pause when Keith Hernandez, in a rare moment seemed totally engaged in the conversation, chimed in and said as I paraphrase, “You can’t say it’s a matter of being Libertarian if what you’re doing affects others negatively”.

After listening to Hernandez huff and haw all season long when the team would head into extra innings or deal with an unfortunate rain delay, it was nice to see Keith the curmudgeon not chomping on the bit to tell everyone to get off his lawn.  It was a brief moment but one that made me smile and I’m a Libertarian.  The funny thing about Libertarians is that we usually get attacked from all ends of the political spectrum for being what others claim to think we all are.

I’m not saying Gary Cohen was attacking Libertarians so much as he was simply trying to state a point, albeit a bit awkwardly. Not all Libertarians are cut from the same cloth.  Most teeter on the political spectrum depending on the issue – but in the end we all share the same edicts of individual liberty and freedom but, with respect to the law. Libertarians are not Anarchists.  Therein lays the difference between those who say PED’s should be allowed in professional sports and those who disagree, and no it’s not because of arbitrary drug laws.  It’s about fairness.  It’s about the law.  Sometimes laws are in place that we all don’t agree with but, that’s life in a democracy.

The idea of simply taking a drug that could, with the emphasis on could, make you better at what you do for a living is a tempting idea in spite of being morally suspect not to mention with the potential of being physically damaging.  In professional sports, especially Major League Baseball, it’s a misnomer to think that sticking a needle in one’s ass will turn a Felix Millan into a Ted Williams. With stringent drug testing now in place, including testing for Human Growth Hormone (HGH), Major League Baseball is now one of the better examples of a professional sport trying to keep itself as clean and legitimate as possible.  How can the quest for legitimacy be a bad thing is beyond me?

When it comes to the use of PED’s in professional sports, many Libertarians, some of which I have a great deal of respect for, have said that PED’s, like other illegal drugs, shouldn’t be banned from professional sports no more than cocaine should be illegal for you or I. Nick Gillespie, the editor-in-chief of Reason magazine and Reason.com, seems to think most sports writers are hyper moralistic on the issue of PED’s as he stated in a recent article regarding Ryan Braun.  I have a feeling that he’s not much of a sports fan especially based on how he views the majority of sports writers. Not well if you read his article.

But with all due respect to Nick Gillespie or even the great Greg Gutfeld, whom I’m told was very disappointed to find out that purple unicorn’s weren’t allowed at Churchill Downs; PED’s affect not just the players that take them.  They also take away jobs from those trying to do it clean.  Take this which was tweeted by former major league pitcher Dan Meyer:

Hey Antonio Bastardo, remember when we competed for a job in 2011. Thx alot. #ahole

So, does this mean Dan Meyer should just shut the hell up, have a Coke and a smile? Should he just tip his cap to Bastardo (yes, that’s really his last name) shake hands and let bygones be bygones?  I’d be just as pissed as Meyer if I were in his shoes. I understand, but not totally agree with the logic that if PED’s and drugs in general weren’t illegal, the stigma which draws people to them in the first place would decline.

Sure in an academic hypothetical arena that may be possible but do I really want my daughter to be able to one day to walk into a 7-11 to buy a Slurpee and have an HGH power bar sitting next to the Twizzlers?  While we’re at it, put the cocaine pixy sticks next to the Sweet Tarts.  Sorry but the old curmudgeon in me says no to such a grand experiment.  I guess I’m not a real Libertarian huh?

The blasé attitude some have regarding allowing PED’s into professional sports stems from the idea that they believe that fans don’t really care how the players do the sometimes incredible feats that they do.  I disagree.  In a perfect world, I don’t even want to have this discussion with my daughter but when and if I do, I want to tell her that her favorite player(s) did it clean.  Let there be a level playing field and then let individual talent take over.  I look at it this way, would you be fine with allowing kids to take their iPads with them while taking their SAT exams?  Fair or unfair; you decide.

People often forget during this whole controversy with these players being caught taking PED’s, that PED’s are illegal unless prescribed by a physician for an actual medical condition, you know like dwarfism.  The last time I checked Eddie Gaedel hasn’t suited up in a few years and if he did I have a feeling Brian Cashman would’ve tendered him a contract by now.

Now get off my lawn!

The post The Curious Case Of PED’s appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

It’s a shame because there really isn’t anything positive to write about this team these days. Even during our most downtrodden times we’ve been able to find that silver lining that offers us a bit of hope. That silver lining has faded into the ether for most of us. It definitely has for me.

I give the bloggers here and on other sites so much credit for trying to find that fresh, inventive angle when writing about the Mets. I still don’t know how we haven’t stuck our collective heads in our electric ovens is beyond me. Yet, we carry on.

I do feel bad for Ike, who wouldn’t? I’m sure he’s had everyone give him their two-cents about fixing him going on two years now. At some point, unless there’s a physical problem, you can only walk away with two possible reasons for Ike’s downfall. Either he’s not focusing enough and taking direction well or and I hate to say it, maybe he’s just not that good.

Sure the guy can hit a ball 500 feet but, so could Rob Deer. So could Steve Balboni. So could Butch Huskey. Remember his illustrious Met career? I think we’ve allowed our own hopes and aspirations of Ike to cloud the reality of his situation. We’ve replaced the actual, unfortunate and ugly truth with our hopes and dreams of the player Ike should be.

Some have said that if Ike could just hit .220 with 30 to 40 homeruns and 100 RBI with 100 walks then so what if he strikes out 200 times. He’d be a clone of Adam Dunn and at this point, I’d take it now and twice on Sunday. But unfortunately he’s not even a bad Adam Dunn; he’s a bad version of the bad Adam Dunn. But at least Ike can field. Yeah I wanted to inject something positive about him but I couldn’t do it with an honest key stroke.

So here we are, two years into this and it now falls on Wally Backman’s shoulders to fix Ike and to return him (or with him?) to his proper self, hopefully later this year in Flushing. It’s sort of fitting that it all comes down to Backman.

While Alderson has publicly said that Terry Collins and his staff are safe, he didn’t go so far as to offer any of them contract extensions – not that any of them have been all that deserving. You can bet Wally is keenly aware of it all.

Backman has gone on record saying he knows what Ike’s doing wrong and that it’s just a few but apparently simple fixes. I’m not sure what he sees’s that Collins and his staff haven’t but at this point, do I care? Do you? I just want Ike back on track.

Hopefully all he needs is to get his mechanics and his mind right but unfortunately for Ike, history and plain and simple odds are against him. Here’s hoping the anachronistic Ike Davis can do what so many have tried and failed in Las Vegas and beat the house.

The post What Nobody Wants To Know About Ike Davis appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Now that she’s getting older and more aware of the world around her, I’m able to share more of what I enjoy with her and see how she reacts to understanding it. This is her second season watching, rooting and generally hanging out with me as I go through the emotional roller coaster that is being a Met fan. Of course this is something I always imagined doing ever since I could remember watching the Mets with my father as a child. It’s more than just a rite of passage or bonding.  To me, I’m imprinting memories of our time together that I hope she’ll keep with her for all the days of her life. I guess the older I become, the more cognizant I am that this gift that is life isn’t guaranteed by age. My father wasn’t even 50 when he passed. There’s just so much that I want to show her, teach her, and experience with my daughter that sometimes I have to be mindful not to overcompensate, she is just a 2 ½ year old and I do plan on sticking around for a while, God willing.

One of the characteristics she seems to share with me is a love of reading. Granted she goes from Elmo to Mickey to Dora the Explorer in a matter of minutes – her attention span is fickle — then again so is mine and I’m old so who am I to complain. I’m trying to get into the habit of reading to her. In fact I’ve already lined up the books that I want to read to her as she gets older. Of course there will have to be the classics but I wouldn’t be a proper parent to a young and becoming Met fan if I didn’t find a way to sneak in Faith and Fear in Flushing or Total Mets in there, maybe even The Bad Guys Won just to keep it fresh and edgy.  Don’t worry I’d censor anything that came out of Dykstra’s mouth — including the chaw. But there’s one genre of literature that I’m going to introduce to her not because it was one of my favorites. In fact it was my least favorite form of writing because I found it so difficult to interpret – the world of poetry was never kind to me. But there were always exceptions.

I was never really attracted to poetry growing up. It wasn’t until I was in college and was lucky enough to have a professor, Mr. Chauncey G. Parker, who taught English Literature. Mr. Parker was quite the interesting cat. For one, he worked in the Lyndon Johnson administration and if I recall, he did some work for the United Nations as well. We would get into some really interesting arguments regarding policy and politics in general. We really didn’t agree on a lot but he was an amazing professor; never trying to indoctrinate as so many do in academia these days.  He was a bona fide Renaissance Man. He wrote a novel, The Visitor, a crazy psychological horror about a man who becomes obsessed with a rodent that has overrun his upscale New York brownstone. His novel was later turned into a film starring Peter Weller, Robocop himself. Hey don’t laugh; I’m pretty sure there aren’t many of us that can boast that on our resumes. But Mr. Parker in his best Northeastern, Hyannis Port, Bostonian voice, explained to me the amazing talent that was Robert Frost.

Robert Frost is one of America’s most popular and storied poets of the 20th century. His works have been studied over by students and scholars alike. Some of his classic works include The Pasture (1913), Mountain Interval (1916) and the beginnings of New Hampshire: A poem with Notes and Grace Notes (1923), which contained “Fire and Ice”, and my favorite, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, his masterwork. It was that poem which reminded me of why I’m a Met fan. I know what you’re thinking, how in God’s name does a Frost poem translate into something relatable to a Met fan? Well first off here’s the poem:

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

 Frost wrote this poem supposedly in an evening sitting and during a time of great personal frustration—something Met fans can easily sympathize with. Practically our entire history has been wrought with frustration on some level. Like all poetry, it’s subject to one’s own interpretation; Frost’s Snowy Evening is no exception. The woods, to some, describe the edge of civilization. To me the Met fan it describes the team. They are equally irrational and yet garner consistent support. It’s those qualities that attract us as fans and what attracts readers to the woods. They are restful, seductive, lovely and dark…like oblivion. Also like our team, at times. The woods can represent madness, the looming irrational and of course also beauty.

The owner of the woods (us and not Wilpon) –lives in this village – and travels there on the darkest day of the year. Perhaps this an alliteration of how we’ve stuck by this team even during their most dire and desperate times? It’s the basic conflict in the poem, which is resolved in the last stanza. What attracts us to the woods and what force (responsibility, frustration, and exacerbation?) pushes us away from the woods occasionally? This is the division between the village (the fans) and the woods (the Mets). It’s not as if the woods are particularly frightening or wicked, yet they still posses the seeds of the irrational, just waiting to prey on our emotions.

The woods, as much as it draws us in, consistently finds ways to repel us, drawing us away. “Society” in baseball terms could be translated into “the experts” –always pointing out the negative and condemning us from staying here in the dark, in the snow—why would we care for such a flawed team? With the last two lines, “And miles to go before I sleep” being repeated. Is it a forewarning? Are we masochists for this team of ours; do we have some sort of death wish? Or do we take it as Frost did that he had many good years of poetry still left in him and that we still have many more years of torture…I mean love for our team? Damn, poetry can be annoying.

Unlike the majority who see the darkness in this poem, I take the positive from it. I don’t try to dwell on the flaws this team of ours have. We know it as well as a geneticist knows what composes DNA. The Mets are in our DNA, it’s who we are, for better or worse and as long as there’s a hope for the future –and there almost always is even in our team’s darkest days—we stand true. We argue we root, we hem and haw. We sometimes take it too far and retract, remembering our roots. But we come. Every Spring, we come.

Somewhere, I hope Chauncey G. Parker III Is smiling. Smiling that I’m willingly passing down to a new generation – a new set of tortures—and enjoying every bit of it.

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So of course we find out that Bourn was signed by the Cleveland Indians to a 4 year deal at $48 million with a vesting 5th year if he gets 550 at-bats, totaling the deal to 5 years and $60 million. Somewhere Jason Bay was gritting his teeth and giving himself a self-induced concussion upon hearing the news. I was never on the lets sign Bourn boat to start with and the least of which had to do with losing the draft pick. First off, why sign a player whose game is all about speed, to a long term contract and roll the dice that he stays healthy. No I’m not talking about Jose Reyes because Reyes was and is about 100 times more talented a player than Bourn.

Sure both are leadoff hitters, but Michael Bourn is a leadoff hitter by default – only for his speed. He struck out 155 times last year. Reyes did just about that over a three season span. Both of their on-base-percentages are relatively similar – something that should wake Reyes up I would think, but Reyes is just a better all-around player than Bourn ever has been. So what was so incredibly desirable about Bourn to Mets fans?

Yes, I know we’re probably going to see more faces in the outfield than Lindsay Lohan has DUI’s so a little certainty would be nice but at what risk? Are we ready to bring in yet ANOTHER player closer to the back end of their career to plug a hole only to lament the decision in year 3 when we’re paying a guy 12 million “who tries hard” and that’s about it?

I get it. It would be nice to have a warm body out there with some pedigree that didn’t require a background check with the Department of Homeland Security. Guess what –been there, done that and I’m sick of the Mets being burned in the process. Michael Bourn wasn’t the key player to take us to the next level. He’s just a name and Mets fans need to stop this love affair with names. The “next” star, if that comes from any of the young talent the Mets currently have, will not be a household name or a name the rest of us baseball wonks know of easily. It will be another Edgardo Alfonso. It will be another Todd Hundley. It will be another Jon Niese. It won’t be a Michael Bourn.

Sorry Mets fans…no white smoke this time.

The post Where There’s Black Smoke…There’s Nothing appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

It’s a good thing I don’t do radio; I wouldn’t have been nearly as diplomatic as they were. As if there wasn’t enough preordained controversy with this year’s crop of candidates, we get this nonsense and I’m not even going to enrage you with her supposed rationale. I have too much respect for you to even try. It’s almost as bad as the one vote that someone gave Aaron Sele. Again, not going to enrage you with the facts, you can look up Sele’s pathetic career statistics here if you wish. Then you have my permission to curse uncontrollably – – and yes you can practice reading that line in your best Bane voice. Or Darrell Hammond’s Sean Connery as I believe they’re one in the same.

Call me naïve but I was always under the impression that those having been afforded the privilege of a Hall of Fame vote would show just a modicum of respect towards it. I’m not the only one who thinks this way as does the great Metstradamus. But this is unfortunately the year that common sense, fairness and respect for the game clearly went over the edge of the train tracks faster than a New York City subway commuter. Ouch.

Now I’ve been very sympathetic to the plight the writers have when it comes to wading through the waters that PED’s have polluted in Major League Baseball. But like Metstradamus, when voters use their privilege to make some grand statement (i.e. voting no one in), peppered with some who find it – I don’t know – comical, to vote for the likes of Sele and Green, it simply demonstrates to me that stupidity isn’t determined by who you write for or what and if you get paid for writing it.

When the likes of Marty Noble, someone I’ve always had tremendous respect for, thinks that because Mike Piazza had an abundance of—wait for it—back hair, during his time as a Dodger and decides to connect the follicles and assume that it meant Piazza used. It shows me just how far we’ve fallen as a people more than anything. We’ll believe the very worst of each other just to protect our own vanity because God forbid a player is later found to have juiced.

We can’t have writers dealing with pangs of remorse now can we? To top it off, Noble then ironically said that as a Met, Piazza had a hairless back, which is ALSO a symptom of steroid use. So if Piazza essentially played with Robin William’s back he’s using yet if he’s smoother than an Abercrombie model he’s also using? Absolutely pathetic, especially that never, not once, has Piazza been accused or named in any report or tested positive for any performance enhancing drugs.

I always believed that MLB needs to be far more proactive of a guide for the BBWAA when it comes to Hall of Fame voting and steroids. I wrote a piece for Metsmerized in early 2011 calling for Bud Selig to commission a panel exploring the effects that PED’s have on actual playing performance. Of course Selig and MLB want absolutely nothing further to do with this issue—at least not what happened in the past. One bright spot happened a few days ago when the MLB Players Association and MLB agreed to year round drug testing for Human Growth Hormone and Testosterone.

The BBWAA and their writers refused to vote for some players and based it on innuendo and unproven allegations; and that is shameful itself. In part I can understand their fear of enshrining someone who later is proven to have used PED’s as players elected cannot be removed from the Hall of Fame. My question is why is that? Hypothetically if a Hall of Famer does something illegal, whether during or after their playing career, why are they not immediately open to removal? That, in my opinion, would allow the writers to choose players based on their careers and not on speculation.

George Orwell was quoted as saying:

“Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.”

Now the real question remains, who was Orwell talking about; the players or the writers?

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