Monday Miscellany....

Whew, that was a nice break. Not intentional, really, mind you; The Botch and I had our hands full with company all weekend, cooking and serving homemade spaghetti sauce, major fruit and regular salads, an eye round dinner complete with homemade mashed potatoes and fixins', all capped off by a marathon pierogi-making session yesterday afternoon. And if any of you has ever made pierogi, from scratch, well... you know what I'm talking about here. We did cheat on the dough (don't tell anybody, though), and if you're a pierogi maker, I will pass along this helpful hint -- buy won ton skins. I kid you not, you place the filling in the middle, fold them over to form a small rectangle, seal them up, fork 'em, and boil 'em. Then you dump 'em into a mixture of slightly sauteed butter and onions, and voila... heaven on earth.

And speaking of heaven on earth, how 'bout them Mets, huh? Look, I had my share of shit to say about Willie; I certainly thought he was far from the best manager the likes of the Mets had ever seen, but with Willie, my complaints were more centered on the ennui and total lack of spiritedness exhibited by Los Mets, and his failure to address The Collapse, and motivate the players. But it did seem as after that fateful Memorial Day meeting, the Mets were playing better and turning it around. So I don't want to see Manuel getting all the credit here, because the team was in fact seemingly turning it around under the last days of the Willie tenure.

Manuel is turning out to be quite a card. He alternates between being Peterson-like with his words, as in his description of Mets fans and the atmosphere at Shea Stadium as "fertilizer," which I think is zenny/funny/hysterical, and gangsta-ing up on likes of Reyes and Wright, then reverts to referring to Jose Reyes as "she" in a recent interview. I really don't know what to make of this guy; it certainly doesn't seem as if he cares about what he says, and this could either be a very good thing or a very bad one. Stay tuned.

One thing I do like that he's done since he's been manager is assign roles to the guys in the bullpen. This seems to have had a much-needed calming affect on the pen, and the results are already beginning to show. The pen seems more settled, more focused, and more relaxed, their roles having now been defined. I used to think that a pen was a pen was a pen; a reliever was a reliever was a reliever; that these guys should be ready to go whenever wanted or needed, whenever the manager calls on them, and I still think in the most basic sense that's true; that being said, the defining of roles has, imo, a very stabilizing and positive affect.

And how about the rumors floating around the Mike & The Mad Dog Show on WFAN, that the boys are not overly thrilled with each other right now, and that the show may not make it past the summer.... Read all about it here.

Oh, and one more thing -- Kyle Farnsworth is truly and totally a piece of shit. He actually was pissed at Yankee Stadium fans for cheering during the playing of the tape of Griffey Jr's 600th home run? And he wonders why the Yankee Stadium fans cheer his injury? Jealous much, Kyle?

I always thought Farnsworth a bit of a jerk, but congratulations, Kyle, you've now regressed to being thought of as a total piece of shit. And apparently, hated by your own team's fans. And they talk about METS fans....!!