Panic in Detroi.... Uh, I Mean, New York??????

...yeah, yeah, yeah... we ALL know about the panic in Detroit these days (I wonder if Bowie knew all this was going to happen when he wrote the song???), but is there panic in New York? And if there isn't, should there be?

Well, according to some sources, like Adam Rubin, some of the coaches' jobs might be on the line if things don't turn around in Metsland very quickly. Which to me, is another huge metaphor for the blame-everyone-and-everything-else mentality that is so prevalent across society these days. It doesn't seem as if anybody wants to stand up and say, hey, it's on me, I'm not getting it done...If you listen to some of the quotes from some of the Met players so far this year, it sure seems as if nobody is willing to step up, take this bull by the horns, and lead the team out of mediocrity and downright lousy baseball playing into the land of baseball plenty. In fact, it seems as if the blame is being thrown to the coaches, the rookie (Murphy), the fifth starter (Livan), the acquisition of Gary Sheffield (for throwing the team into chaos, as if it wasn't already *eye roll*), and various and sundry other assorted red herrings.

All designed, of course, as red herrings are, to take our ears and eyes off the REAL problems in this organization, which are, in no particular order: Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon, The Shadow of Bernie Madoff, Omar Minaya, Jerry Manuel, The Fucking Nutcase Formerly Known as Ollie Perez, Every Starting Pitcher Not Named Johan Santana, and The Four Horsemen in the middle of the order, who look as if they've been thrown from the horse.

For fuck's sake, the coaches are so far down on that list as to not even be on it.

So my only real question here is, who is kidding who? Or is that WHOM? Regardless, I surely hope that Met fans aren't so stupid as to believe there isn't something, maybe even more than one something, fundamentally wrong with this team. This is the same type of uninspired, unagressive, flat, boring, un-fundamentally sound type of play we've seen for much of the past several seasons.

As I said last year, as much as I wasn't a fan of Willie, changing the manager wasn't the answer. I think that's been shown to be true to this point.

It's the players, dummy; it's the team make-up. The core is flawed. Some major changes need to occur. Something better be breaking up that old gang of mine. Because it doesn't look for all the world as if any one of the core (Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Delgado) is going to step up and lead this team.

Which is one of the things it surely needs.

And one more thing -- you know what really galls me about the sweep by the Cardinals this past week? Not the sweep, not losing the games.... not nearly as much as having to look at the competence, preparedness, inspired play, grit and talent of what I consider to be the premier organization in major league baseball - the St. Louis Cardinals. You know, the organization that can turn pitching shit into pitching shinola (Braden Looper, Chris Carpenter, Kyle Lohse, just to name a few recent shit to shinola transitions), they can turn pitching shit into outfield shinola (Rick Ankiehl), and can keep the top player in the game (need I mention his name???) motivated and alert and attentive. Not to mention that having to praise LaRussa as probably one of the best managers in the game today is going down a bit rough.

And tonight, we begin a three-game series with a team so pathetic it can't even spell its own team name properly on its game shirts.

At least we can still do that.