And the Big Pussy's Pick of the Month Goes To...

None other than Mr. Face-of-the-Franchise, Mr. Future-Mets-Star, Mr. American Idol, Day-vid Wright! (to be said like the Mets PA announcer at CitiField)

This fan exiting CitiField after Wednesday, April 29th's horrific game against the Marlins says it all - no one wants to admit they're a Mets fan, and no one wants to admit they have a David Wright jersey. No one wants to know him. Mets fans want to forget his name*.

It seems a bit unfair to be picking on "The Face" when he's done so much for the Mets in the past. In 2006, he was Yankee and Brave killer #1. In 2007, he was an All-Star starter and a Gold Glove. In 2008, he rebounded from an incredibly painfully slow start to put up great numbers.

Admittedly, Mets fans expect too much from him at times. We want him to rip the cover off the ball anytime there are men on base, we want him to make sparkling gems of plays at third base 24/7, to have an ear-to-ear grin on his face when they win and to lose sleep and cry with every loss. Not for nothing, I like say it's the FANS who are the Mets, not the mercenaries in uniforms. But D-Dubs. He's one of us.

However, ever since the late-season collapse once again in 2008 and the incredibly visible striking out with Daniel Murphy on third with no outs lead-off-triple in the bottom of the 9th against the Cubs (who had nothing to play for at that point), what does David Wright do?

Strikes out, leading to a dick move from Lou Pineilla to intentionally walk Dos Carloses, to get Brian Schneider to ground out into a fielder's choice and subsequently ends the mini-rally started by D-Murphy.

David got a lot of flak for that. And gave him the moniker "D-Wrod" which is a nod to another famous pussy-esque NY-based third baseman who seems more into padding his own stats and kissing his own image than helping his inflated team win a championship.

But David Wright is no A-Rod. A-Rod has, for all intents and purposes, proven his worth by hitting over-.300 each year, driving in lots of runs and winning MVPs every other year it seems. David Wright has a LONG way to go before being fairly compared to Alex Rodriguez.

It is NOT too early to see him cave under pressure and call him out on that, so let's do it!

David, you have to understand that while you wear your emotions on your sleeve, you play in New York. Mets fans want to see you succeed and your free goodwill pass has all but expired. The reason is not NOT coming through in the clutch, NOT letting key ground balls bounce off your chest at key moments in the game, NOT driving in many runs this early in the season.

The reason your free pass has expired is because you are soft, you are thin-skinned and we know it gets to you.

What else can I say that hasn't been said already about David Wright? Sure he's gotten off to a slow start and I know he is WAY too talented to fester all season. I have to believe as a die-hard Mets fan he will come around.

But I will leave you, dear readers, with this little anecdote. When The Coop was growing up, sure, she was always a Mets fan. But I used to follow baseball teams with my dad, Mr. E who played baseball pools. My favorite player was Cal Ripken, Jr. And when he retired, Mr. E and I went to Baltimore for his final game and number retirement ceremony.

David Wright, being from the Delmarva region, also has said "Rip" was his favorite player and will always try to play to his level.

But friends, I think we all agree he has a LONG way to go before becoming "Iron Man."

I leave you with this final thought. David Wright - I know Cal Ripken. And sir, YOU are no Cal Ripken.

And sir, you ARE a big fuckin' pussy. Grow a pair already and lead this team out of the doldroms and play some exciting baseball for fuck's sake.

The Tears Of A Clown.....

...with 40,000 people around....

Yikes! I guess there's no such thing as Good Ollie/Bad Ollie; rather, there's just Bad Ollie, and Worse Ollie, apparently. If his performance thus far this season is any indicator.

Which we have no reason to believe it isn't, considering the up and down history of Ollie Perez thus far in his major league career.

This guy is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in another enigma, surrounded by mystery. And the mystery is, how to get the enigma known as Oliver Perez to solve the riddle of pitching consistency, which is wrapped in the enigma of Ollie's mind... At this point, one has to wonder whether his spot in the rotation will be his spot in the rotation for much longer.

And speaking of the weekend, the Mets are the only team I know that can win a series and still make you want to put your fist through the television, radio, or face of any nearby Met or Met-themed object. They are singularly the most brain-dead, boring, lifeless, flat, listless and underperforming team east of...well, anywhere.

And Carlos Beltran must have forgotten how to slide, and his manager does not seem to have a real problem with that.

Metaphoric, allegoric.... I need the paragoric with this fucking team, already!

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.

The Big Ditto....

Why even bother writing a post today about last night's game? It's The Big Ditto -- poor pitching, worse offense, another loss.

Ditto, fucking ditto.

The Big Fucking Ditto.

Gawd, they suck, don't they?

U - G - L - Y.....

....they ain't got no alibi; they ugly, hunh, hunh, they ugly!

And even the image in the picture, as ugly as it may be, doesn't even come CLOSE to how ugly New York Mets baseball has gotten. From Good Ollie/Bad Ollie, to lack of fundamental execution, to outfielder(s) falling down on the job, literally, to seasoned, established veterans failing to slide into home plate, to the manager basically falling asleep, much like the team.... ay yi, yi... it ain't pretty, to say the least.

In fact, it's downright ugly.

So before you wonder about the SIZE of the image I've posted.... remember, Mets fans, that's how BIG the ugly is in Metsland these days.

Poor performances to the side, there is simply NO EXCUSE for the failure to execute fundamentals in the field, at the plate, and on the bases. These guys, for the most part, for almost the ENTIRE part, are seasoned veteran players. How can they not know or care about these things? Has the state of New York Mets baseball gotten that pathetic that it is almost akin to watching AAA ball, or worse?

I have several questions, but the most pressing one, at this point, is why the so-called "brain trust" of the Mets is allowed to remain at the helm. Because folks, while they may not be causing it, the net effect of what they've brought in and allow to happen on the field speaks for itself.

Dog Day Afternoon...

...at Citifield yesterday, the Mets losing a very lacklusterly (is that even a word??) game to the equally lackluster Brewers in pretty much of a sleeper (that is, one you could just about sleep through and not miss anything).

Which, unfortunately, describes most Met games these days, and even going back into last year. Lackluster. Dead. Boring. Unimaginative. Nothing happening. Ho hum. Unexciting. Channel surfing. Whatever. Who cares. The only reason I'm still watching this team is because they bear the Met name. Otherwise, I feel no ties to the team, and I'm sure, they feel no ties to us. Their fans. Their non-adoring public.

And even their adoring ones.

I wonder sometimes; why am I wasting my valuable time following a team that I don't even like? Because I don't, and haven't, for a while now.

And the only answer I have is that they are the Mets, and I'm a Met fan.

Okay, enough of my angst. Here's a hodge podge of some stuff I've noticed and thought about thus far in the early season.

For one thing, the new Yankee Stadium seems to be a launching pad of sorts. Even Yankee shill extraordinnaire (Mike Francesa) is sort of panicking about the fact that 20 home runs have been hit in the new stadium in four games. Perhaps he's more worried about the fact that OTHER TEAMS are hitting them, and has conveniently forgotten that his team, the mighty Yankees, has even more opportunity to do so, seeing as how they'll play half their fucking games there every year.

Or perhaps, this is indicative of a greater worry -- that the Yankees are just not that good, period.

I'd be much more concerned about Chien Ming Wong, if I were Mikey, and the likes of A-Rod, Texeira and Posada, not to mention an aging Jeter, who is being treated by his manager with the kiddest of kid gloves thus far this season, having received a very early hook in every blowout both in favor of and not in favor of the Yankees thus far this year.

For another thing, it seems as if Ryan Church is the Most Hated Guy on the team in the eyes of Met brass. All the guy does is play a great right field in a park where that's going to be crucial, hit the cover off the ball, and what's his reward? Riding the pine. Unfuckingbelievable. And the Prodigal Son Boy Wonder Daniel Murphy seems to be living the life of Riley with the same Met brass. Unfuckingbelievable. Do we need any more signs that the Mets have no fucking clue about how to run a team?

And all Nelson Figueroa gets for his strong effort yesterday is gone.

Although I do think the Mets might have something in this Santos guy. So far, he looks strong behind the plate, seems to have a clue at the plate, and can even run the bases.

And enough with the Jerry Manuel lovefest, already. He's just not a great manager, and still not the right manager for this team. But, as I said last year when the team fired Willie, it ain't the manager, folks. It's the team, but more than that, it's the Mets, period. With all the money they have to spend, they continue to produce an also-ran, year after year, and manage to bore the shit out of most (well, at least some) of the fans while doing it.

In short, another year of Met baseball. Ho hum. Tweedle Dee. Or should I say, Tweedle Dum... and Dumber!

Don't Hand Me No Lines....

...and keep your hands to yourself! Or so the old Georgia Satellites classic goes...and too bad more fans all over baseball don't take heed of that refrain, and keep their hands to themselves!

I'm speaking specifically, of course, about the fan's touching of the Daniel Murphy double in last night's game that kept Jose Reyes from scoring, the touching causing the ground rules to take effect on a ball Reyes could ordinarily have easily scored on from first base.

I'll never understand how people who claim to be fans of a team would do anything in the stands to hurt the chances of their supposed favorite team winning. This includes idiots who heckle the home players every chance they get; idiots who throw things on the field; idiots who snap photos in the eyes of players at crucial moments; and yes, Virginia, idiots who for whatever reason have to reach out and touch someone...or something. Like balls such as the one Daniel Murphy hit last night. I don't know, maybe it's a reflex thing, or maybe it's a selfish desire to catch a keepsake or become a part of the game... but if I'm in the stands and I'm paying attention to the game, I'm not doing or touching anything that would put my team behind the eight ball.

So if you're a fan, at the game, and you wanna reach out and touch someone...or someTHING... please save your irresistible urges for foul balls, bats which accidentally fly into the stands, paper flying past your face, or the hot guy's as...... er, I mean, uh, never mind.....!!!!!

Whew, ok, now. That being said, this offense is really grating. It's almost as annoyingly bothersome as is the whole Ollie Perez Jekyll/Hyde thingy. While home runs are nice, they're not the only way to score runs, hint hint, Mets! And frankly, with the Big Bopper mentality, I think sometimes the players don't think as much about Small Ball as they should. And they tend to get on base and wait around for someone to smack the big one.

Right now, the Mets are just not putting it all together. They're off kilter a bit, and need to settle down and get down to business.

So, as Kool and The Gang once said... GET DOWN ON IT!

Sometimes, I just crack myself up!

And Ollie Wakes the F*** Up!

...after The Big Sleep of Monday night, Oliver Perez wakes the fuck up, as does the offense, and the Mets get a much-needed win over the Padres last night at Citifield.

A couple of things.

First, I'm getting tired, already, of wondering whether Oliver The Good or Oliver The Bad will show up for work. It's like, flip a coin, already -- you never know what you're going to get with Ollie. But when he's good, he's real good, and when he's bad, he's...well...real bad. This is enough to drive any Met fan crazy, and I'm thinking of starting a self-help group for Met fans driven nuts by Oliver Perez. You know the drill - it goes something like this: "Hello, my name is Deb. I am a Mets fan that's slowly being driven out of my mind by Oliver Perez. I've had this problem for some time now, and I've finally realized that I need help; I can't go it alone...."

Anybody else wanna join? We could call it, uh, Ollieholics Anonymous, or something like that.

Or just plain Self-Help for Dummies, because I sometimes think I have to be an idiot to let that nut case known as Oliver Perez continue to drive me off the deep end.

As I previously said, the offense woke the fuck up last night, as well, and actually looked as if it showed up for work. Apparently, our boys DO know how to move runners, run the bases, steal bases, and situationally hit. Perhaps they are afflicted with a touch of off-again-on-again Ollie-itis?

Nah!

Rubber game tonight at Citifield. Stay awake, boys!

The Big Sleep....

...is exactly the terminology I'd use to describe the Met season thus far, at least from a fan's watching standpoint.

The Big Sleep.

The Big Yawn.

The Big Nothing.

Welcome to another season of tantalizingly sub-par Mets baseball, courtesy of the poorly constructed Met lineup and the blazing ennui of most of its participants.

The Big Sleep.

I've said for a couple of years now that I dislike the make-up of this team; Gary, Keith and Ron so much as agreed with that, and stated so publicly, during the post-game broadcast of the last 2008 Met game. Anybody else but me remember? Because, boy, it sure seems as if Gary, Keith and Ron don't! I specifically recall all THREE of them opining that the core of the team needed changing...and what do we have this year, Mets fans? The same rotten apple core we had last year, and the year before that. Now, I grant you, taken individually, most of these guys seem, at least on paper, to be genuinely solid and borderline spectacular players, but taken together, there is just something missing.

And Omar & Co. just don't seem to get it. Or if they do, they seem to operate under the assumption that working on one part of the team at a time is enough. Or perhaps, more accurately, is all they're capable of doing.

But let's deal with what we have at the moment, shall we? More specifically...the lineup. We'll start at the bottom -- Brian Schneider, Luis Castillo, and the pitcher du jour. Schneider, in my opinion, should be batting eighth, period. Batting Castillo eighth, regardless of his somewhat checkered past years, is a huge waste, not to mention it doing nothing for his ego, which is equally troublesome, again, in my opinion. I still believe he belongs second in the lineup, behind Reyes, if for no other reason than those two really seem to work well together and feed off each other.

I still don't like The Two Carloses back to back, and I don't like David Wright in the three hole, period. At least, not thus far this year, and maybe not ever.

And while we're at it, I still don't believe Jerry Manuel is the right manager for this team.

And in case you don't believe this team still isn't a team, witness Johan Santana's remarks about Daniel Murphy after yesterday's game. Although he doesn't really throw Murphy to the dogs, he basically blames the loss on Danny, and conveniently forgets about the fact that the rest of his fucking team managed to score only one run and basically look totally lame and lacking while doing it.

The Big Sleep. Yawn. I'm already bored to tears, and it's only the first week of the season.

Ollie Jekyll and Ollie Hyde....

....strikes again. Or should I say, "strike" again, since syntax-wise, I suppose the latter is the correct verbiage, or so the "and" in the title of this post would indicate.

Anyway, enough with the English lesson. The REAL point of this post is, of course, the Two Natures of Oliver Perez. Both of which we actually saw yesterday; one of which ended up winning out, causing Ollie Hyde to give up enough runs in few enough innings that the Mets, realistically, had little or no chance to win the game, even though the offense pretty much gave it a valiant effort.

Look, we knew when we re-signed Ollie in the off-season that we were actually giving the money and the contract to TWO DIFFERENT GUYS. So if you didn't know better, you'd think; okay, we're getting two for one. But, Mets fans, here's the rub -- we're getting Ollie Jekyll and Ollie Hyde, and we never know which one we're going to get from month to month, week to week, game to game, and even inning to inning, as we saw yesterday.

Now one can argue that a big deal can't be made about yesterday because it is, after all, Ollie's first start of the season, made in pretty lousy weather, after an abominably and ridiculously long spring training, and pitching in general is pretty up and down in these cold, early season months. And we did know what we were signing on for, after all.

But man, I don't know about you, but doesn't this just grate on your last nerve, already, at this point? As Yogi Berra once said, "Ninety percent of the game is half mental," and I'm beginning to believe that Oliver Perez is, indeed, half mental.

Ninety percent of the time.

Another One for the "Stuff of the Monumentally Stupid...."

And thy name is Mike Francesa. Yes, you miserable rat bastard....

I don't know why I let this over.... uh, bearing, yeah, that's right, overbearing, overstuffed, blowhard of a windbag take up space on this here blog, but today, I thought he truly deserved another mention.

I'm on my way up to north Jersey last night, to Ft. Lee, to be exact. Never mind for what..... anyway, I'm listening to Francesa on the FAN, talking about the Yankee/Oriole game then in progress. The score goes from 6-1 in favor of the Orioles to 6-5 in favor of the Orioles rather quickly, and Francesa is sitting on his oversized throne, glibly extolling the non-virtues of the Oriole bullpen (i.e., they have none), loudly proclaiming in peacock tones and tenor that the Orioles will have their hearts broken by the [insert favorite Francesa adjective for the Yankees here] Yankees.... and no sooner the shit was out of the shinola than Yankee middle relief coughs up four runs and the "non-existent" Oriole bullpen shuts the door on the [insert favorite Francesa adjective for the Yankees here] Yankees.

And them, folks, is all she wrote.

It's really hard to believe anybody takes this [insert your favorite adjective for Francesa here] idiot seriously.

The "Sheff" Of The Future????

No, kiddies, I ain't talking about Ralph and Norton, they of the wonderfully hysterical and timeless Honeymooners' sketch....

I just wanted to let y'all know, in case you're living under a rock with no cell phone or radio or TV or snail mail or friends or enemies, even...that the formerly great Gary Sheffield is now a New York Met. That's right; you heard me. He's a New York Met.

And I say this with some surprise, because frankly, he's not the kind of guy I thought the Mets would ever go for. Considering his personality, his ego, his baggage, and all. His "me me me" attitude is definitely a "no no no" with the Mets.

But there is one reason, and one reason only, that the Wilpons went for this deal, and I'll give ya three guesses why, and the first two guesses don't count.

Okay, now that you've guessed MONEY - DING DING DING DING DING!!!!! That's right, The Sheff has been had on the cheap, having been unceremoniously dumped by The Tigers, despite the $14M they still owe him, at the 499 home run mark.

Now THAT, my friends, is some really nasty shit. I wonder what ol' Sheff did to piss them off that much.

Speculation aside, there is no way anybody can convince me in the slightest that this is not the steal of the decade for the Mets, and an answer to a long-existing problem in the lineup - the lack of a truly significant credible power threat from the right side of the plate. You simply slide Sheff in there, and whammo presto - the complexion of the entire lineup changes, physically and mentally.

On both sides of the ball.

This is a GREAT move. And the timing is FABULOUS.

The GBU's Keys To 2009 - Rest and Flexibility!

And no, I'm not talking about sleep and gymnastics...I'm talking about what this team, this 2009 New York Mets team, needs in order to make it into postseason play this year. Because they certainly have, on paper, enough talent to get there...so what, my friends, will be the difference makers, the things that will bring the team from its all-too-familiar-of-late-late-season collapse to the postseason? That's right - rest, and flexbility!

It just occurred to me the other day that I've missed the obvious when it comes to the first one - rest. Now, I've said before on this here blog that it wasn't necessarily a good thing for the Mets to acquire "old guys," because of the fact that Willie, when he managed the Mets, had a tendency to unthoughtfully and unimaginitively throw the same lineup out there day after day...after day...after day. With nary a day of rest for anyone. In other words, he wore the fuck out of the lineup. Now, with young guys, this is risky enough, but with old lads, well...it's a certain recipe for collapse. As we saw. And it never really occurred to this pea brain of mine that there was a very simple reason why the team collapsed in the last two weeks of the season -- THEY WERE SIMPLY TIRED, WORN OUT, SPENT. I danced around it, sure, but now I'm coming right out and saying it -- off days for all! While it's nice that Carlos Beltran can play 162 games, or that David Wright HATES to sit even for one day, the fact of the matter is, folks, the baseball season is as much a marathon as it is an athletic endeavor, and we need to remember that when thoughtfully and intelligently considering our daily lineup.

Which Jerry Manuel is definitely capable of doing; which Willie for whatever reason just couldn't, wouldn't, and didn't.

Okay, so that's one.

Now for the flexibility thing. Let's say, for example, that Dan Murphy can't hit his way out of the proverbial paper bag in the two spot, while Luis Castillo smokes the shit out of the ball batting in the eight spot. And let's say, further, that this occurs for a few straight weeks. Now, if you were Willie, what would you do? That's right, you'd STUBBORNLY stick to Dan in the two and Luis in the eight just because that's what you had chosen, what you thought, hoped, and WANTED to work, and dammit, you weren't giving up on it.

And if you were Jerry, you'd be switching those two faster than a dress between two transsexuals.

See, now THAT'S what I mean by flexibility. Flexibility in thought, and flexibility in putting that thought into action.

What a concept.