It would appear the endgame is nigh for Fred and Jeff Wilpon. The judges are convening – even as we speak – and the fate of the ownership seems a fait accompli: the Wilpons will be forced to sell their chunk of the Mets in order to pay off mammoth debts on Madoff victims, SNY-TV, [...]
I’ve been a Met fan for as long as I can remember. I could say since 1967, but I was two-years-old and don’t really remember much. I could have been swayed to the Yankees at the time, since when people would ask me who my favorite baseball player was and I would reflexively answer “Mickey [...]
To sound like a Madison Avenue hack flak from days gone by, it’s a whole new ballgame in Flushing. This Metsian year has taken on the all-too-familiar hue of 2009 and 2010: some early hope, a crippling wave of injuries and a total capitulation to the rest of the NL once the temperature finds itself [...]
“Contenders hate August. It’s hot, sticky and uncomfortable: the pennant races don’t start for another month. Bad teams, like the Mets, hate August. It’s hot, sticky and uncomfortable: the season doesn’t end for another month.” — Maury Allen on the 1968 Mets (just before Gil Hodges’ first heart attack), from the book The Incredible Mets [...]
Apparently, I spoke too soon: fire the fanboy. I suppose this is what a .500 team looks like. A sublime string of wins, crisp games and smart play is followed by a ghastly stretch of boneheadism, vapid offense and corresponding losses. Baby steps, I suppose, but that doesn’t make the dour, Indian-pudding taste of these [...]
I’m a fan. I’d like to think I’m a realistic, objective fan, but I know I border on being a fanboy. The Mets are my team and I root for them come hell or low wins. They say love is blind and in the world of the fanboy, it’s also deaf and dumb. I teeter [...]
As we rapidly approach 2011’s edition of the dreaded “Trading Deadline” (cue dramatic organ music: DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUUNNNNNH…!), the Mets are in a situation they haven’t been in since at least 2004: being courted. It only makes sense that Carlos Beltran will be traded in-season. The logical, clear-cut, business and baseball reasons have been enumerated since last [...]
When I left you last time , faithful reader, I had just sworn off buying Met tickets. You may recall, I was in high dudgeon, brimming with moral outrage and righteous wrath. I vowed that my own personal boycott would force the House of Wilpon to revamp the front office, which would turn out a [...]
I used to be a partial season plan holder at Shea Stadium. I bought the seats in 1992, splitting a weekend plan with a friend of mine: he took Saturdays, I took Sundays. Just in time for The Worst Team Money Could Buy. Isn’t my timing exquisite? I loved those seats. Mezzanine level reserved, section [...]
A Billy Joel lyric never seemed so apt. Tomorrow night (7/15), the season re-starts with a half-clean slate. This is when baseball takes on a different hue: more serious, less romantic, more about action than speculation. The stakes get raised in the second half, and the surprises of April, May and June are usually worn [...]
We’ve reached the halfway point of the 2011 New York Metropolitans’ baseball season, chronologically, if not statistically. The Mets sent two players to the game, one of which will play – a commendable showing for a team which had been predicted to act as the spittoon of the NL East and began the year five [...]
“Walk right side? Safe. Walk left side? Safe. Walk down middle? Squish, like grape.” – Mr. Miyagi to Daniel-san in the original KARATE KID So they’ve hit a season’s high in terms of winning percentage, climbing the dizzying heights of three games over .500. So they’ve taken a second step on the way to what [...]