The Nuclear Option

I've vacillated on this point and turned it over in my head, considered the possibility and agonized over how it would make me feel. I've thought at length about what it would mean for the Mets, in '08 and going forward.

The idea's been referenced - brought up in the blogs, on the message boards, in the daily way-too-early off-season conversations and thoughts of many a Mets fan. I'm hardly the first person to think of it; really it's not an altogether ridiculous or unrealistic proposition, and while it's not completely obvious the idea certainly doesn't come out of left field - switching up our metaphors, maybe we could say it comes out of the left side of the Mets infield, which would be dramatically altered if...

You'd think, given A Rod's millions, that, you know...Cynthia Rodriquez?!?

We signed Alex Rodriguez to play short, then traded Jose Reyes to the Minnesota Twins for Johan Santana.


The scary part, as I mentioned, is that the Mets could probably make it happen if they wanted to. SNY, Citi Field and all, they're certainly one of the few teams right now who could afford A Rod, regardless of whether they were to then turn around and use Reyes to acquire Santana. (If they just signed A Rod, a move by itself that would be considerably less likely in my opinion, David Wright would probably move to 2nd or 1st) As far as trading Reyes for Santana, we all know the scenario with Johan. He's the best pitcher on the planet, he hits free agency next year, the Twins won't be able to afford him, many people think he's getting dealt this offseason one way or another. You're telling me the Twins don't take a 24 year-old shortstop who, absent a terrible September, is still the most electrifying player in the game, blah blah his contract for the next four years is far below market value?

This move (the two would have to be a package deal for me to consider either of them) would obviously blow up the look of the Mets. One of the two best homegrown Mets players since Doc and Darryl would be gone. David Wright would hit his prime in A Rod's shadow; that could be a good thing or a bad thing but he's a team player and I think he blossoms into the Mets' unquestionable leader over the next 10-15 years regardless of who's playing around him. We would obviously only make the move with Minnesota if we were granted a window to negotiate with Santana, and knew we could sign him (though I can't substantiate this, I've heard Johan Santana has expressed a desire to pitch in New York, for the Mets, and would presumably be eager to sign with us long term for the right price). Johan Santana would obviously demand an A Rod-like contract of his own, and at the end of the day, without going into Yankee territory payroll-wise we'd basically become the Red Sox, i.e. big-market club who hovers around $100 million for a long time before biting the bullet and going up to around $140 million because the money's there and it's just a question of being willing to spend it. Make no mistake - with Carlos Delgado ($16 million), Pedro ($11 million), Orlando Hernandez (6.5 million), even Guillermo Mota ($3.2 million, aye) coming off the books after next year, along with the aforementioned new ballpark and on-the-up-and-up cable network (one needn't look further than the YES network for an accurate model of yearly revenue growth for a sports team-oriented cable TV station in a big market), the Mets have the ability to afford Johan Santana and Alex Rodriguez.

There's a laundry list of reasons why signing A Rod and trading Reyes for Santana might be a bad idea, certainly why it's unnecessary. Build around your homegrown and existing talent - just look at three out of the four teams in the two League Championship Series this year; that's also what made the Mets successful last year. But homegrown talent is just as valuable if it's dealt in the right moves for the right players on other teams. Perhaps a package to the Twins lands Joe Nathan too and helps solve our bullpen issues.


Look, you can make arguments either way on this. We might be selling our soul, we might be making the right move for the sake of the franchise. I love Jose Reyes; I think he's coming back strong next year. And I think that no matter what happens this off-season we've got the talent regardless to go back to the playoffs in '08.

Interesting to see, though, if we pursue the nuclear option.

(Photos courtesy atomicarchive.com, msnbcmedia.com, cnn.net, emlbhome.com)

Fighting With Your Family

I lied, I'm not going to write about Joe Torre. The one-week window for writing about current events has come and gone, and I've been far too lazy on my off-season, pre-hot stove blogging schedule to put something up about a story I really don't care about all that much.

I will say this: imagine you have this job, right, where even though you've been given all the tools to be good at it, you've still had nothing but success. Even while you've had such unchecked success, your boss won't stop looking over your shoulder, criticizing you at nearly everything that resembles a wrong turn. Even though your boss is a jerk, you still continue to be successful. When it comes time to renew your contract, though, you're offered less money.

If the Yankees wanted to fire Joe Torre, they should have just come out and done it. On the classiness meter, what the Yankees did do was kind of like the old "it's not you, it's me" excuse for breaking up with someone. You're too afraid to be straightforward, so you employ some backhanded method that still achieves your ultimate goal. Brilliant!


But like I said, I don't really care about Torre. As long as he stays away from the Mets, and as long as Mets fans stop suggesting that the Mets bring him to Queens along with Jorge Posada to catch, Andy Pettite for the starting rotation, and Mariano Rivera to turn 37, 38, 39, and 40 while blowing more and more saves over the length of the 4 yrs. and 40 million it would take to get him.

From Marty Noble's weekly mailbag on mets.com:

Just so happens that a general manager candidate has become available. He's a winner and is well respected; he knows the Mets manager, works well under pressure and he probably would be able to add a left-handed starting pitcher, a switch-hitting catcher and a closer. Is Joe Torre's future with the Mets? Would adding him and at least three players with 12 rings help the Mets?
-- Frank S., Queens Villge, N.Y.

I used to feel like Marty Noble was disrespectful to the people who submitted questions to his mailbag. To be honest, he's always come off as a smug jackass who, while admittedly a very good and engaging writer, can't stop shoving his knowledge of the Mets down your throat. It's in this case, though, that I wish he would be more like the smug jackass and less like whatever kind of writer gives stupid questions anything more than stupid answers.


Margaret from Jackson, NJ, sent in this query:

What's your opinion -- Torre for the Mets' general manager? Maybe with him there Willie Randolph will be allowed to manage the team.

Whaho, that's clever Margaret! Throw in a jab about how Omar is overbearing because he feels like he should have a say in choosing coaches, while also proposing the brilliant idea of bringing in over-the-hill Yankees and their old ex-managers to solve our problems and reinforce our already deep New York inferiority complex.

I say "Fighting With Your Family" because it's so disappointing to read this crap coming out of the mouths (off the fingers?) of fellow Mets fans. Maybe the internet is ultimately a bad thing, at least for sports fans, because by reading stuff like this we're torn apart by each other's unpleasantly surprising stupidity, where in the good old days we'd just go to the ballpark, cheer, and be blissfully ignorant of how dumb significant chunks of each of our team's fanbases can be. Last week Juan G sent this in...

Don't you think that Omar Minaya is the person primarily responsible for the Mets collapse? He was told last year that he needed to improve the pitching. Instead of going after some big-name pitchers, he said that he was not going to do that. Then, he still did nothing when the July trade deadline came and went. What was the result of his not doing anything about the pitching? One of the most disastrous collapses in Major League history. Don't you believe that he is primarily responsible?

...which isn't stupid, so much as just completely ignorant. Big-name pitchers like Barry Zito, right? Who Minaya went after, hard, but didn't offer $127 million over 7 years to because he's really not that good. Maybe Barry's 11-13, 4.53 line this year could have stopped the collapse. Or maybe we should have gotten Gagne at the deadline? Because Eric Gagne, the Canadian version of Guillermo Mota, wouldn't have sucked as much as everyone else in the bullpen - curious that for the most part he's been conspicuously absent from Boston's postseason bullpen mix - and wouldn't have cost us two or more of our four prospects/young players who are worth anything right now (Milledge, Pelfrey, Humber, Gomez).

Criticize Omar for trading Heath Bell, or Matt Lindstrom, or whatever. Not without their appropriate reasoning at the time, but still moves that didn't pan out. But dammit I'm sick of this "didn't get a big name" crap. The pitching market last Winter said Jeff Suppan was a big name, but Omar stayed away because he's not an idiot. And questionable bullpen moves last offseason aside, the team that Omar Minaya put on the field this year should have won 92-95 games and gone back to the playoffs as two-time NL East champs. The majority of the screwing up was done in the dugout, on the field, but certainly not in the front office.

I'm not the first Mets blogger to write about the mailbag. And there's probably someone out there who thinks I'm dumb, along with "the Sip." (Big shouts to Yankees2000, my favorite Mets blog out there) But it's just so infuriating when members of your family say stupid things.

Are the winter meetings here yet?

(Photos courtesy newsday.com, sny.tv)

Blue and Orange Envy

Not gonna lie, a part of me has always been jealous of the Red Sox, even before they started winning. The history, ballpark, united devotion to one team of not just a city, but an entire geographical region...it's always been somewhat of a cause for envy.

Then I watched them win a World Series while still waiting on the Mets. Then I watched them come back from 3-1 to win another AL pennant just three short weeks after the Amazins' completed the most amazin' 17-game collapse in baseball history.


I root for the Red Sox when the Mets are out of it. I was born in Massachusetts, I loved the Red Sox in the '04 postseason as if they were my own. I'm happy for the Sox right now and I'll be going for them in the World Series, even against Kaz Matsui's hard-not-to-like Rockies, and several friends of mine who call Colorado home and have never known a winning baseball team until now. But at the same time I know that they are not my own. I'd of course be ten times happier if it were the Mets who were headed to the World Series. Any joy I feel for the Boston Red Sox in the god-fatherly sense; perhaps more accurately it's like the feeling you get when your best friend starts dating a beautiful girl.

I love my Metsies and I can't wait for '08. And as happy as I am for my #2 right now, I'm still jealous.

Congratulations Red Sox. More to come on Joe Torre and fighting with your family.

(Photo courtesy espn.com)

Warning Track Power

Perhaps you noticed the name change. After deciding that "Bleeding Blue and Orange" had to go, (it's not original...touche, "Steph") I spent about a month trying to decide on a new name. If you've read my blog, you may have noticed that despite no change in the URL, the name for the last week or so has been "Foul Territory." Well I don't like that either. So from now on it's going to be "Warning Track Power." Thought of it just now. Seriously, I did. Good right?

That's it, Warning Track Power. Throwin' that out there. If somebody else has this name already I don't give a damn. My blog is better.

My blog, which in case you were unclear, is henceforth going to be called Warning Track Power. Consider yourself warned.

Monday Night

Lots of good TV tonight. Just finished watching "Heroes"...that show is nuts. It's really the only show on TV that I make any sort of commitment to so I get pretty into it.

There was Heroes, there's Red Sox/Indians on FOX, my Giants are currently taking on the Michael Vickless Falcons in Atlanta. And oh yeah, there's another League Championship Series, too. Up 3-0 in the NLCS, the Colorado Rockies will play for a World Series berth in just a little bit.

Speaking of the Rox, how scared are you of Colorado right now if you're the Red Sox or Indians? In what was once again supposed to be an AL year, the team that's one game away from representing the National League in the World Series has won 20 out of their last 21 games. Everything's going right for those dudes from Denver, with Kaz Matsui leading the charge.


Sorry I haven't written in a while. I'm kind of taking it easy while there's no real Mets news to speak of. The Phillies still suck. And how about those Yankees?!? You know about that already though. Stay tuned the next couple days while all the boss' men decide Joe Torre's fate. I'm so glad I'm not a Yankee fan; I like my soul.

Bear with me while I get back on it. Don't know how much Mets I'll be talking until the Hot Stove starts, but before too much longer I'll launch into some additional analysis of where the Mets stand right now and what we'll need if we're to even think about preparing for glory in '08.

So much better than "your season has come"

Giants up 21-10 at the half. Eli's gone for 208 yards and 2 TDs so far. Good for that soul of mine, and the old fantasy team.

(Pics courtesy about.com, cbc.ca)

Hate Mail

I'm not laughing. Really, I'm not. The fact the Phillies lost in the first round of the playoffs and couldn't win a single game isn't remotely funny. Not funny at all. Hehe. He. AHHHHHHH who am I kidding it's hilarious!

Hey knock knock? (who's there) THE PHILLIES GOT SWEPT OUT OF THE FIRST ROUND ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! (credit to Martin Ruane "burnsiefresh" Burns for the joke) No, really though, what's funny about October 7, 2007?

The Phillies lost ahhhhhahahahahahah!

I've been over this before. It's funny when the Phillies lose because it happens so often, yet their fans, their entire team attitude, is so incredibly cocky. So much for class, so much for humility. I got this email on Monday afternoon from an address I didn't recognize:

Matt,

Your blog has been a great source of entertainment over the past few weeks. I came accross your site by accident but it did not dissapoint. At least the better team won in the end. So which was better , the quick and painlfull death in the 2006 NLCS or the slow prolonged agonizing variety of 2007 ?

Attached to the email were four pictures of the Phillies celebrating their division title. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've gotten a response via my email address being posted at the bottom of Bleeding Blue and Orange's main page, but it shed some interesting light nonetheless on what a division title apparently meant to the Phillies.

How much do these fans actually care about their team? Obviously, it hurts for them when they lose and the fans of Philadelphia (who aren't busy preparing for the next Eagles game) rejoice when they win. But are Phillies fans happy when their team wins a division only because it means the Mets didn't? I got this email on Tuesday:

Hi Matt,

I couldn't help but chuckle while reading your June 30th blog titled "Twin Killing".

Once again a "maddening pathetic losing stretch" by your "laughably pathetic" Metropolitans has reasserted Jimmy Rollins' pre-season claim that the Fightin' Phillies are the team to beat in the NL East. Have a wonderful off season you cocky little s***face.

Ever so smugly,
Your younger Philadelphia Brother,
"The Muffinman"

Nice to hear from ya, Muffinman. Glad you're so happy about the Mets losing.

My responses to both emails were similar; they involved references to the Phillies' own end-of-year collapses the past 4 years and, by extension, how I now know how it must feel to root for the Phillies. It's good, it's nice and very instructive to be able to put yourself in your enemies' shoes. I pointed out the Phillies 1 world championship in 125 years, while the Mets, futility-riddled history of their own, have at least won 2 in 45. I told both anonymous and "Muffinman" that possibly the '07 Phillies could bring the city of Philadelphia it's first world championship since Rocky Balboa's heavyweight title against Clubber Lang.

But I guess it's too late for you, Philly. Postseason ended before it even began. Was this even worth it for you guys? Good to see you guys were able to take advantage of your invitation into the playoffs as a result of the worst collapse in baseball history.

When the Mets broke the Braves' string of 14 consecutive division titles last year, we didn't rub it in anyone's face. We were happy for ourselves, and we celebrated. But we didn't feel the need to shove it down anyone else's throat. Apparently they do things a little differently down in Philadelphia.

Regardless, it looks like the 2007 season for the 89-win division champion Philadelphia Phillies has come to an end. Nicely done, Jimmy Rollins and co. Congratulations, team to beat. You earned this.


See ya next year.

(Photos courtesy cache.boston.com, media.philly.com, hotstovenewyork.com)

Why Am I A Mets Fan?

Had some downtime at work today and cruised over to metsblog, because that's what I do when I have downtime anywhere and happen to be sitting in front of a computer. I came across this article, which was written by Mike Novara, of ESPN radio, and posted at the top of metsblog's main page.


In case you don't click on that link, the article is called "A History of Heartbreak," and pretty much details every depressing reason why the idea of being a Mets fan must suck to any reasonable person. In my lifetime, we've sucked it up for the majority of the 1990s, were good for like three years in the heart of the Mike Piazza era and then sucked again for a few. We brought in Omar and Willie in 2005, D Wright and Reyes came into their own and we added some other guys, but only for Mets fans everywhere to have their hearts broken once again in successive years when we really thought we would win it all.

Going back to the 80s, we won a World Series and another division title, but underachieved on the whole and didn't accomplish the dynastic success we were capable of. In the 70s, we had one good year. The 60s gave Mets fans of that generation the Miracle Mets but also the worst team in the history of baseball. And don't get me started on the trades. Ohhh the trades!

Nolan Ryan...Tom Seaver...Scott Kazmir...the list goes on. Novara goes into all of it in depth - I'd really recommend reading his article. It accomplishes the difficult task of putting into words the difficulty, the devastation, the scorn from across town...and certainly does it much better than I believe I could. Have a look if you haven't already.

Anyway, so I read it. I relived all the misery that's occurred since 1991, or approximately the time at which I officially became a fan. Since 1993, when I saw the last game the worst team money could buy played that year in my first ever trip to Shea Stadium. Since '94, when Jeff Kent ignored my autograph request and I watched John Franco blow a 9th inning lead from the front rows of the Mezzanine section at Shea. I relived it all, and soaked up some additional information about the Mets teams that I'll never have a firsthand clue about.

And it got me thinking. Why am I a Mets fan? Why do I deal with this? I'm probably taking years off of my life just by writing this. Why do I put up with the frustration, the agony? With as much time and money as being a sports fan in the modern world requires you to invest in your team, why do I continue to make my team the Mets? Since I realize this, why am I so stupid?

Why couldn't I just switch to the Yankees as an 8-year old in '96, when they won the first of those four late 20th-century World Series titles? That's early enough, right? That wouldn't have been immoral, would it? Why did I endure the ongoing drone of Yankees won the World Series taunts from my 3-4 class, when I could have just become one of them and gotten around it all?

I always thought Butch Huskey looked like that security guard from Little Big League. Maybe?

Why didn't the last straw come when Butch Huskey was our first baseman in '96? Why didn't it come in '98, when, as Novara points out in his article, the Mets had to win one game at Turner Field in the last weekend of September to clinch the Wild Card, and lost all three? Why wasn't the fact that I waited until I was 10 years old for the Mets to even come realistically close to qualifying for the playoffs a louder alarm bell?

Why wasn't Robbie Alomar the last straw? Or Mo Vaughn. Or Jeremy Burnitz, take two. Or Shawn Estes insuring that my team failed to get revenge on Roger Clemens when it had the chance, two years after Roger hit Piazza and threw a splintered bat at him.

And why am I as excited as ever for next season, when my Mets are the laughing stock right now of baseball, tshirthell.com, and pretty much every other credible staple of society. Why isn't this the last straw? Shouldn't the fact that I'm talking right now about how painful it is to root for the Mets be a louder alarm bell?

When I was in high school and I'd do something stupid, my Mom would yell at me primarily for giving myself unnecessary trouble. "Why do you do this," she'd ask, "why can't you just make it easier on yourself?" I wonder why she never told me not to root for the Mets. Why can't I just make things easier on myself?

Because being a Mets fan isn't about making things easier on yourself. Being a sports fan shouldn't be. In his fabulously penned, (keyed?) comprehensive "Manifesto" following the Mets' loss on Sunday, the outstanding Mets blogger Metstradamus offered this description of the fan experience:

You (blindly) invest your time, money, and faith in a group of men who don't know you from Adam, but you know way too much about them. And you support them. You support them with your money...with your time...and with your allegiance. You support them because you hope that one day they'll give you that feeling of exhilaration that makes you feel like you're actually one of them.

But why wouldn't I want to feel that more often? Shouldn't I just root for the Yankees so that I'll be successful in pursuit of that feeling? Why don't I just do what my friend does in football and follow a player (he follows TO) so that I don't have to deal with all this fan allegiance crap?

It wouldn't mean anything then. It wouldn't mean anything for the Mets even to have basically won their first division title in my lifetime last year. Front-running means rooting for a team for all the wrong reasons. When you root for a team just because they win, you're not in search of that feeling, you're just looking to cheer superficially.

As a Mets fan, you take the good with the bad. The name Mo Vaughn means as much as the name David Wright, 2002 means as much as 2006. The entire team getting busted for pot, at the end of a disappointing high-payroll, low-result season, the scene complete with the image on the cover of the New York Post of one of the club's young relief pitchers smoking a joint, is funny. The name Todd Hundley means something - not because his visage is in Monument Park, but because he was a gritty bastard of a catcher, hit home runs, looked cool, his teammates called him Hot Rod, and he was your boyhood hero anyway even if he never played in the postseason and drank too much.

The point is, you wait for that feeling, and it doesn't come and doesn't come and you feel the exact opposite feeling over and over again, but you maintain faith that one day it will. And when it comes, you hope that another day it comes again. You live and die with your team because as much as dying sucks, living is so nice.

One day this will all come to bear. One day it will seem worth it to a more objective observer. Maybe not. Maybe that day will never come. But being a fan is about the undying, blind, and at many times irrational belief that one day it will. One day I will actually sip a little champagne.

I love the Mets. I have no shame in saying it. My baseball team is one of my favorite things in the world. I get pumped for April like no other time of the year. And I rely on September to ease the transition back to business after the end of a long summer. The Mets are a permanent part of me, of my persona. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've been getting crap from Phillies fans the past few days, crap from Yankee fans, I've watched fellow fans defect, I even lost (again) a $10 dollar double or nothing bet from last year with my Uncle that the Mets would win the World Series. (PS, Adam Sommers - if you ever read this - it's okay, don't let the door hit you on the way out. You have the same feelings as every Mets fan right now and instead of taking them like a man you're running away like the wimp you are)


It's hard out here for a Mets fan. But give me pitchers and catchers, right now. Give me opening day. Give me next June 1, the beginning of this year's end. It can't come soon enough.

And regardless of what happens, I'll be here, just as loyal, and I'll be standing tall, because it's not only about loyalty - it's about duty, honor, and the sense of pride I get when I see a little kid with a Mets shirt. It's about the sense of camaraderie, of brotherhood, of common purpose in life that I get when I can say "nice hat" or "go Mets" to an older fan on the street. When I go to Shea and join 50,000 other people in the best rallying cry in baseball:

Lets go Mets, baby.

(Pictures courtesy looptvandfilm.com, dailynews.com, allthewrightstuff.mlblogs.com, bbc.co.uk, tshirthell.com)

In Defense Of Willie Randolph Or, Why It's Cool That The Mets Didn't Fire Their Manager

Either way the Mets went on the Willie Randolph question today, I was prepared to defend their decision. This was one thing about the end of the 2007 year that they couldn't really screw up.

As long as they didn't choose to replace Willie by bringing back Art Howe. Or Dallas Green. Or Jeff Torborg...you get the idea.


If Willie had gone, it would have been a perfectly reasonable reaction to the biggest collapse in baseball history. As I mentioned last night, when these things happen it can be and is sometimes absolutely necessary to make a change at the top, if only to say symbolically that things will be different next year in at least one regard. Head coaches and Managers often don't deserve to be the fall guys, but in these situations they become scapegoats for this reason.

And Willie didn't deserve to go. If the Mets had chosen to go in a different direction, though, I would have felt good about Omar Minaya's capacity to bring in a better replacement for Randolph, and that fresh face's capacity to lead the Mets next season.

But now that they've decided to keep Willie, I'm convinced this is the right decision, because I think Omar made it for the right reasons. Willie's a winner. It wasn't just Omar's personnel additions that turned this team around; Willie's no-nonsense approach for the first year, and cool confidence he projected last year transformed this team from a mediocre fringe contender at best to front-runners, the guys at the top, the team that was supposed to go the World Series the past two years.

And of course, we didn't make it. We rolled over in the NLCS last year, but I don't think it was for lack of heart, or passion, or even poor managerial decisions. Can't blame Willie for that one. Guillermo Mota, so reliable down the stretch, gave up that 2-run double to Scott Spezio. Steve Trachsel ate a bunch of you-know-what in game 3. Yadier Molina. Adam Wainwright. I still don't blame Beltran for strike three.

This year was of course a different story. No need to say anything else. Everyone knows what happened and everyone's stated their opinion as to why. Willie's to blame because he was stubborn, allowed his unwavering confidence to permeate the team in a negative way, and in a very Tom Coughlin-like manner, failed down the stretch to get his team to practice the focus and discipline he preaches.

Basically, we've seen the best and worst of Willie Randolph over the last two years. In 2006, the Willie attitude caused the Mets to play with a cool, superior swagger that won them games because unwavering faith in their ability to win made them play hard until the last out. I don't buy that anyone could have pulled off 2006 with that team. Willie set the entire tone for how they approached and played each game.

Somewhere between strike three and June 1st this year, the Willie attitude was corrupted. The Mets' cool, superior, swagger was replaced with an over-confident, superior sense of blind faith in their talented team that caused them to lose focus and assume everything would be alright even if they didn't play as hard as they could. The Mets got off track and in the end this attitude had infected them too much for the team to be able to regroup once they began collapsing.

In 2006, the Mets believed they were going to win every game as long as they played their game. In 2007, the Mets thought they could win every game just by showing up. Big difference. And we got what ended up happening as a result. Willie tried to guide us through it by saying and doing the same things as he did a year ago, but it didn't work because this year's was responding to his message completely differently.

"You guyyyyys that's not what I mean!"

Here's the thing, though - seemingly, at least, there's no way the Mets can possibly carry the '07 attitude into '08. They now know, hopefully, at least, that treating the season the way they did this year won't work. They're sure to return another talented squad next year, one that you've got to imagine will respond to Willie's message much more like the '06 team than this year's.

When your Manager's been given a second chance, the stakes rise. If Willie doesn't get the Mets back to the playoffs next year, he's gone. He knows this. The team will know this. You've got to believe that if there's any motivation on the part of the players, or any affection at all within the team for Randolph, that this will serve to bring focus and discipline back. And you've got to think that if anyone on next year's Mets has any pride, they come back and play a lot harder for whoever's at the helm.

This team is tainted, no doubt. Changes need to be made, and next year's team needs to look a lot different.

But I think that as much as this could have happened with a new manager, Willie Randolph himself isn't tainted. He can still lead this team.

Of course, the jury's still out on that one. In the meantime, though, I have full faith that the Mets can take the next step with Willie in '08 and beyond.

(Photos courtesy usatoday.com, tienmao.com)

Rockies Win NL Wild Card

"I have no idea how we just won that game." - Todd Helton

I didn't watch, but it's hard to ignore SportsCenter.

The Rockies played very un-Mets-like in late September, winning 13 of 14 to even force a one-game playoff with the Padres of San Diego.

It all climaxed when the Rockies scored 3 in the bottom of the 13th tonight to knock off San Diego and complete this incredible run. Down 8-6 heading into the bottom of the inning, the Rockies showed fight and resolve, guts and heart and came back to win the game against Trevor Hoffman, even if Matt Holliday didn't touch the plate to score the winning run just a few minutes ago.

At any rate, congratulations Rockies. There will be playoff baseball at Coors Field, if not Shea Stadium.


Kick the Phillies' ass.

(Photo courtesy www.baseballpilgrimmages.com)

The End

By now, just about every other Mets blogger has said just about everything there is to say about the end of the Mets' season. I'm sorry it's taken me so long. I had to travel back to DC and move yesterday. I can't blog at work. I didn't even get to watch the game yesterday - the post I wrote was the last I saw of it. Maybe that's for the better.


Now that I'm sitting down to say my piece - to give my unique perspective on 2007's humiliating ending for the Mets - how do I even put it into words? How do I distill 6 months of roller-coaster feelings, of love/hate, of doubt, of denial over whether I even wanted this lifeless, pathetic team to win...into any one piece of writing? This sucks. It's devastating. I'm depressed about it. The Mets, my team, a huge part of my life - I'll say it proudly - are going to be laughed at and ridiculed for the next 6 months; longer really because this will hang over them until they actually win anything. 2007 backfilled any inroads the 2006 Mets made into the Yankees' domination of New York.

They could have at least lost in the division series. Then this season would only have been a disappointment, rather than a profound disgrace. Or, of course, they could have actually acted like a team on a mission as opposed to a group of cocky, unmotivated bums who treated the playoffs as a given and were a .500 team for two-thirds of the season.

Screw you, Mets marketing. "Your season has come." The stage was set for this from the day that over-confident, presumptuous slogan was unveiled, revealing the over-confident, presumptuous attitude that hung over this team like a cloud as big as the cloud of embarrassment that now surrounds them. In every successive installment of the season, the Mets played like that part didn't matter and they only had to turn it on for what came next. Remember Spring Training? You don't just go 12-21 in March and have that not be at least somewhat of a dangerous indication of things to come.

It matters

Then, it didn't matter because those games don't count. Errors, sloppy play, weak hitting...you play like you practice; anyone who's ever played a sport knows that. You don't just suck in a scrimmage and turn it on with any sort of continuity on game day. Spring Training is a month-long warm-up for the regular season, and if you play like crap and lack focus from the get-go, that's going to come back to haunt you. I don't care what anyone says. 15-16 in the Spring you can write off. It tells you your minor leaguers blew a few leads. 12-21 is bad. Like I said, dangerous indicator - nobody admits it because when your team is full of talent, getting worked up about exhibition games really does seem and feel irrational.

And it didn't look like it mattered when we killed St. Louis to start the year. Or when we owned Atlanta in that first Friday night game. But maybe that's when it all went downhill. I was feeling a little complacent, certainly pretty good, when our record stood at 4-0 and we'd held outscored our opponents by a combined score of 31-3. Perhaps Spring Training didn't matter. Maybe that's when the team got too loose.

I denied it back in April, and most fans denied it, because we were winning series and that was all that mattered, but all the signs really have been there from the very beginning. We couldn't finish off our opponents or get on any sort of roll. We didn't look quite the same as last year. There was no killer instinct. We couldn't step on anyone's neck. From the beginning of the season, even during our successes, we exhibited the lax play that eventually spun entirely out of control and doomed us in the end. Failure to close the deal in several spring series led to failure to close the deal in a September divisional race.

Which brings me back to the Spring Training thing. We treated March like a joke because it wouldn't matter in April. And we got comfortable enough in April that we decided we'd treat the next 6 months like a joke because as long as we stayed in first place, they wouldn't matter in October.


Well guess what, Mets? Karma just kicked you in the ass. To be fair, the Phillies and Braves played into the Mets' warped mindset. Had the Phils gone ahead in June, maybe we could have gotten our act together. Looks like the Fightins pulled off one big, sick, giant stunt by waiting until the last weekend of the season to make the Mets realize that they weren't quite as much of a lock to win the East as they thought they were. Or we just blew it. I'll go with the latter.

We, and we alone, screwed this whole thing up. It sucks because the Phillies, already cocky, are never going to let us hear the end of this. Neither are their fans. Before this year, they had no platform to stand on but they were still talking smack. Now they've got something to hold on to and don't hold your breath because they won't let go. Ever.

And it's all our fault. The Phillies didn't win this; they capitalized on the fact that we gift-wrapped it for them with an industrial-sized bow. Of course, we're pretty much obligated to commend them for doing so when we couldn't capitalize on Philly pretty much gift-wrapping it for us for the first 5 months of the season. Make that the first 5 1/2.

Everything I've written this year exhibiting any sort of victorious exuberance, excited confidence in the Mets, or condescension toward the city of Philadelphia or its baseball team now makes me look like a fool. But that's okay, because my job as a blogger is chiefly to express my opinions and feelings in as raw a form as possible so that they can accurately convey how I feel as a fan watching my favorite team. I talk. The team is supposed to go out and do. And they didn't.

That's a baseball team celebrating. They're not the Mets.

This one really hurts, maybe because I've been taking the time to sit down 3 days a week and express those feelings for most of the year. I'm new to the blog thing, and as devastated as I was when I sat motionless in a dorm lounge chair and watched the Cardinals celebrate last fall, it's connected me to this team and this season in a way that I've never felt connected to the Mets before. I didn't cry yesterday, because the feelings that used to make me cry about baseball manifest themselves differently now than they did when we lost the World Series in 2000, or when we screwed up 1998 with another horrible final home stand and another unceremonious 88-74 finish.

But the feelings are there. My buddy Nate called me yesterday to apologize about the Mets:

"This is pretty much the worst day of your life, huh?"

Indeed. There are many worse things than losing a baseball game, but it's amazing how until you can summon the capacity to realize this it certainly doesn't seem that way in times like these. I get as depressed about this sort of thing as I do about anything. And yet I keep coming back, and year in and year out I keep tuning out 6 months of taunts from my Yankee fan friends. And the Yankees continue to win, and my friends' parents continue to waste their season tickets in the beginning of the summer while the team's losing, only to cheer as loudly and obnoxiously as anyone when the Yanks end up on top in the end. Still, I keep cheering for my beloved Mets, and I continue to be perennially optimistic despite the perennial heartbreak. So it goes.

But what now? What do we need? How can we not only make sure that this never happens again, but come back with a performance in '08 and beyond that will exorcise 2007's demons? 2007 will always be a part of the Mets, but, and I'm going to quote Robert F. Kennedy, "the future depends on what we do with what others have left us." This happened. It's where we go from here.

And the entire identity of this team needs to change; if nothing else, for the sake of fan confidence - and sanity, really. We can't just bring back 2007's team and give it another crack, looking on the surface like the same group of lame, under-performing losers that we did at the end of this year. It's about the book, but the cover matters too. This is one situation where perception will go a long way toward shaping reality.

The Mets need to be reshaped to look like 2006's fast, exciting club, showing youthful energy with a splash of savvy veteran experience. What a difference a year makes. 2007's team wasn't all that different, but they really came to look like a squad of lazy, expressionless, under-performing vets with a trickle of youthful fire. This team, this Mets look, is tainted.

I won't talk right now about specific player decisions; we know what the obvious ones are (Guillermo Mota can never pitch another game in a Mets uniform), and I can save the rest for the long off-season. As far as the organization goes, Willie Randolph probably doesn't deserve to be fired. But there may need to be new buzz surrounding the team next year that only a managerial change will be able to create. Bring in Wally Backman, or another member of the '86 team. I dunno - just as long as it's not another ex-Yankee. (cough Joe Girardi cough)

Remember what happened when the Red Sox fired Grady Little, not because he had really done anything terribly wrong (Pedro said he was fine) but because a change just needed to be made? Look, I can think of plenty of reasons why Willie deserves to stay, but there's also a strong argument for why he needs to go. You can't fire the entire roster.


I'll examine this more tomorrow, when a decision is likely to be announced. My hunch is that Willie's here to stay, and if he is, more power to him. If he stays, I hope his laid-back managerial style is validated once again and he genuinely leads the Mets into the period of success and dominance that that was supposed to have begun last year, that this year was supposed to continue. If he goes, I also think that's a good decision with sound reasoning behind it.

We'll see, but I'm keen to move on from all this. I'm intent on staying excited about the off-season, about what Omar might do, about how we can rebound from 2007, rather than mope more about how much this whole thing sucks. I have said my piece. And I feel better now.

I'm going to have a hard time watching the playoffs; I'd love to root for the Red Sox and Cubs but I don't know if I'll be able to turn the games on. We'll see. I'll be rooting for the Phillies to fail, and the Yankees to screw up, but that's nothing new. My Mets just won't be a part of the equation.

And as hard as that is to swallow, I'll be alright. With any luck, my Mets will be too.

(Photos courtesy nypost.com, mindspring.com, mcb.mcgill.ca)