Did any of you see the cover story of the USA Today sports page yesterday? If you didn’t, here is a link, but let me warn you—it’s going to make you both angry and jealous. It’s about Phillies’ rookie GM Ruben Amaro, Jr., and how the guy has earned the respect of his players by not only going out and grabbing what turned out to be a tremendous free agent in Raul Ibanez over the winter, but by trading for reigning AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee at the trade deadline.
Sure, we’re bitter as Mets fans, because yes, Omar Minaya went out and got Frankie Rodriguez to close games and traded for JJ Putz to set up K-Rod, but he also did nothing else except re-sign train wreck Oliver Perez for $12 million per season. And here’s the kicker. Amaro said in the article that he traded for Lee because he didn’t want his team to “collapse” like the Mets. Here is his direct quote:
“Getting someone like Cliff motivates everyone. Our fans can feel it. They want that swagger. We just need to get going. They sure don’t want to see us do a Mets collapse.”
Are you kidding me? We don’t like the Phillies, their fans, or anyone associated with the team, and we’re jealous that Amaro can make smart moves to help bolster his team’s chances. But for him to go and say that is infuriating and embarrassing at the same time. It’s like the words “Mets” and “collapse” are now considered to be synonymous.
Of course, if you want a silver lining, it’s that the Mets are so bad this year that they won’t have to collapse—they’ve already done that slowly over the last two months. In fact, with the surging Nationals having just won 8 games in a row, the Mets are now just 12 games from falling into the cellar. Yes, it’s really gotten that bad.
But that article proved two things to me—that the Phillies have the right guy for the job, and we have the wrong guy for the job. It’s been said on this site a lot lately, but I think we as fans deserve some changes, and fast.
