I will be transferring my Blogs Followed list to my BLOGSPOT site; my true home.  And I will be visiting your sites from there.  I do everything from my Blogspot anyway and just copy stuff over to (formerly MLBlogs).  So, I am eliminating the redundancy.  Had they left the old system in place, I would have left things alone.  I still plan on following everyone’s blogs.  You’re all special people.  I’m just bad at managing two sites; that’s all.

I do not intend to build a WordPress blog mimicking the old MLBlogs.  I want to design something different.  But that will come in time.

So, from here-on moving forward, look for my http://theBrooklynTrolleyBlogger.blogspot.com/  signature.  You do not need to be a member to comment.

Mike.BTB

p.s.  I don’t know what I’m gonna do with this page now. I may keep it.  I’ll see.  Maybe I’ll just fix it.

NEW YORK METS: After a Miotic Month, MAY Might Be Even Harder To Watch.

A/O ~ Sunday

If you watched over the last month and your pupils didn’t contract and/or you didn’t squint your eyes over the sight of the Mets’ Month-Long Malaise, it means you’ve pulled the plug on this season and all your hopes are already dead.  The last true test will be a slap on the snout and waiting for a response in Philadelphia tonight as they face Cliff Lee.  Keep a mirror by the nose just in case.

Another loss to Philadelphia mimicking those of the most recent variety, and the first month of evaluation will truly come to an end for the Mets.  Welcome to the part of the calendar when GM’s around the League have a better sense of what they need and what they have to do going forward.  Sometime by the end of this month, there will be multiple trigger-happy GM’s looking to draw conclusions about their seasons and act upon them.

Do you want to know why Sandy Alderson, so far, has never been short for answers in the face of such Mets’ organizational adversity?  Answer ~ Because he’s usually beating the Media to the punch.  He’s answering questions after he does something.  Omar used to fumble for answers while still formulating an ever-tardy plan after situations went awry and the Media baked him on it.

In a month in which the Mets had a six game winning streak against the lowly Astros, D-Backs, and Nationals, they still finished the month with an 11-16 record.  And it’s my guess Sandy Alderson will make many-a-writer hit delete on stories they’ve been preparing two or so weeks in advance because the Mets used to be that predictable.  So, instead of snooping around and looking for dirt in the club house, which has been many a writer’s want over the last few years, if for lack of a better story waiting to be written, scribes are now filling their time writing about Sandy doing this, Sandy cutting that, and what his next move will be.

Recognize the condition and know the cause.  Sandy has been faced with the toughest questions I’ve listened a GM have to answer.  And yet he gives the Media nothing until after he writes the story first.  April was all about research and fact checking.  Now, listen for his cracking knuckles, because Sandy is about to starting penning a new story in METropolis.  And he has the Media right where he wants them, which is not running wild. 

From the desk of:  BLAME CARLOS MAY

new york YANKEES:  Getting Dusted With White Sox.
Chalk one up for the Front Office.  On tap, more woe courtesy of the relief pitcher Brian Cashman didn’t want.  Rafael Soriano coughed up another game for the Bombers.  But he’s looking really bad doing it; if not despondent.  But they say that’s just him.  Ok then,   ….Uh Oh!

I guess pitching out of roll for relievers fails to trigger something in their brains that doesn’t spark the appropriate chemical releases.  It seems former closers acquired to be Eighth Inning Men for another teams can’t, or don’t usually make the conversion…. Or shall we call it, the demotion?  While on the one-hand a team looks at such an acquisition as enhancing their bullpen,  the acquired pitcher sees it as a personal demotion from his former Alpha-Bullpen role.  It is what it is.  Just remember, Cashman didn’t want him.

Paul Kornerko’s blast was the latest reason for Soriano’s melancholy.  Blowing a save and getting the loss….again, can do that.  But a right fielder named Brent Lillibrand was the reason the White Sox won last night.  Outside of two Bomber home runs by Gardner and Cano, Brent ended the Yankees best chances of winning by making two game saving catches.  The first was a catch while crashing into the wall off a deep fly to right by ARod, then two, making a diving catch off Robbie Cano’s low sinking liner to end the game.

But, why did the Yankees lose?  Because they haven’t been able to hit ChiSox pitching over the first two games of this four game series.  They Yanks were outdone by former Mets’ farmhand Philip Humber, who no-hit the Bombers over the first six innings in game one of the series.  The Yankees managed four hits before losing 3-2 Monday night.  Then Tuesday night, The Bombers were held to the same numbers.  Two runs scored off four hits (two solo home runs) is all they managed off Gavin Floyd over eight innings.

Game three is Wednesday night.  Mark Buehrle faces off against Bartolo Colon.  For the moment, Bartolo Colon seems like the more effective of the two (remarkable), as Mark Buehrle is off to another sluggish start.

DEREK JETER:
I’ll keep this brief because I’ve said it many times before.

Right now, Derek Jeter’s 2011 batting average is at .259 and climbing.  He started the season with a lifetime batting average of .314, and twenty games into the Bombers 2011 season, he caused it to slip to .313 due to a rough start.  That may not seem like such a disaster, but when you think about him being signed for three more years, he may stick around too long and ruin his lifetime .300 average just like the legendary Mickey Mantle did.

What I’m about to say isn’t Anit-Yankee of me.  I’m trying to protect him.  He is fifty-three hits away from the magical three-thousand plateau.  I say when he achieves that milestone, he should retire post-haste!  I mean that.  Unless he demonstrates he’s capable of sustaining a .300 average for another 2 1/2 years…over the next three months, which I don’t think he can, he should take his 3,000 hits and his lifetime .300 batting average and retire; get married; ride off into the sunset; and start a family while his greatness is at it’s most legendary.

It is my sincere hope that he surprises everyone, and mostly the Yankees, by taking this step towards protecting what would be an attractive combination of  career numbers.  And he’s actually that self-aware and cunning enough to do it while not let anyone in on the secret.  Do not forget the bitterness Derek Jeter expressed towards some of the negotiating tactics Cashman and the Yankees employed.  Maybe he was just playing hardball with the Yankees based on principle and though maybe he deserved the respect of an overly-representative offer.

Why else should he pull off such a startling move?  Because over most of his career, through the days of Tejada, ARod and Garciapara, Ripken,  etc….; and all the years of knocking Jeter’s defense,  -  Derek Jeter has always had his naysayers.  And they’ll never go away.  If Jeter ruins his .300 lifetime average, those same naysayers (writers and fans alike) will be emboldened to diminish what Jeter has accomplished even more.  If Derek can retire with over 3,000 hits and still end his career with a batting average above .300, that would be BLING for LIFE and make him, a without-a-doubt untouchable in the barber shop debates across America!

Think about it.

However, This IS…Yankee Bashing:
Again, this is something I’ve said many times before.  But things continually happen that reinforce my notion. 

What happened this time?  PHIL HUGHES.  But it’s more than just about him.  This is about Joba, and if you can remember…Ian Kennedy also.

The Yankees acted like spoiled brats when they opened up all their gift prospects too early.  When it came time to open presents, all the Yankees had left were broken toys.  They should have left the three much-hyped pitchers below in the minors from the start.  Joba was promoted after only 88 minor league innings pitched.

That’s Folly! 

No…, Brian Cashman’s whole plan for pitcher development has been complete folly!  All three pitchers?  All three injured?  All three rendered ineffective?  If I were those three, I’d hire a lawyer and sue Brian Cashaman for Wreckage of Career!  (I’m KIDDING!..of course.)

The truth remains, the new York Yankees don’t know how to groom pitchers, and  they never have in the last 36 years.  They’d rather pay the premium for another team’s pitcher.  That’s just the way it’s been.  After Ron Guidry, Dave Righetti, and Andy Pettitte (I’ll be kind and throw in Wang, Doug Drabek, and Jose Rijo), name the home grown starter who has done anything credible in Pinstripes worthy of our mentioning?   I’ll wait.

: /

Stumped, aren’t you?

Right.

Like I was saying, three young, hurt pitchers is not a coincidence.  It’s a pattern….of destruction.

First Game Of the Year:
Tuesday night was my first baseball game of the season.  But it wasn’t my first opportunity.  Regardless, there I was, back at the Old Ball Game.  There is something very right about that, even if it was a Yankee game.  But then again, any game in any park is fine with me.  Now with the Rangers and Knicks out of the Playoffs, this was my Opening Day.  Let the Games begin!

Mike.BTB

New York Mets:  Mr. Mets’ DeLOREAN is Spinning it’s Tires In The Flushing Mud.

Welcome to Day 797 of the 2009 Baseball season. 

So when exactly do we get to move on and enter this new decade?  When do we finally get to Pass Go and collect our $200 dollars?  Oh…That’s right; Bernie Madoff’s dog ate it. 

Of course I know the answers to my own questions.  So, in the mean time, can someone just kick me instead?  After all, we have become the Fan Base with the “Kick Me” sign on our backs.  Haven’t we?  So please, tap into your inner-Nike and just do it; Kick Me…and make all this ridicule worth the aggravation.   That’s right!…That’s us! – The Fans with the sign.  Do I speak truth or am I just angry?

Today Ladies and Gentlemen, I am just plain and simply…TIRED!  I have to open up the release valve because somewhere down the line I’ll bust if I don’t.  I’ve been trying to bury myself in Hockey and trying to pay the Mets as little mind as possible before the season kicks off, for the sake of not being repetitive or sounding like a malcontent.  I’ll have six months for that so there’s no need to rush The Spew.  But being in your forties and learning to compartmentalize doesn’t necessarily insure you for 365 days a year.  The Mets have given me no choice but to pick and chose my battles because it seems they present the same dilemma everyday.   General talk regarding the Mets will invariably sound awfully similar to all the garbage we’ve been heaping on them for over two years now.

But Mike…what about the good? – The Thole’s and the Ike’s and Parnell’s?  Yea;  I know.  But that’s not what’s coming out of my radio or being printed in my paper.  So, what you’re getting from me today is a rant because I’m sick and tired of hearing about Carlos Beltran’s “good” knee – or is it his “bad” knee?  I’m fatigued with Luis Castillo’s mock battle for the second-base job.  Oliver Perez has me completely lethargic with apathy.  And the more we learn about the Wilpons’ legal mess and their money woes, the more the whole “Hey Brother, can you spare a few Million?” – just makes me want to throw up huge chunks of Blue and Orange ambivalence.

When does the circus show stop and Sandy Alderson finally makes the clean-up type moves the new GM of the Mets was hired to handle?  After today’s outing, what can the possible justification for retaining Oliver Perez beyond tomorrow be?  What of Luis Castillo?  One of these gentlemen have to go.  I’m not asking for both.  But certainly one has to go…..and soon.  I need more done to tell me we are moving away from the year 2009.  This isn’t a woe is us thing.  This isn’t a “My team sucks” deal either.  I’m just tired of being locked-in to the year 2009.  Seven hundred and ninety-seven days after the calendar marked January 1st, 2009, here we are juggling the same flaming torch, razor-sharp axe, and lit stick of dynamite like a blindfolded clown with no one watching.

The season hasn’t started and I’m already fed-up with all the derisiveness coming out of my radio when the Mets are topic one.  But I just forgot to recharge the Anti-Met Rhetoric Shield last night and now today I’m cranky and paying the price for it.  I don’t mind when “We” do it.  Quite the opposite; I find find the Met Bloggers very entertaining and engaging.  But sometimes the Media really rubs me the wrong way.  Today is just one of those days.

Wasn’t it Einstein who said Insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result?  Or was that Joan Rivers?  …Or something like that?  They had equally bad hair and pale complexions.  Regardless, STOP The Insanity!  If you know me, I like dabbling in sarcasm like the rest, but I try hard to stay away from mindless anger.  And that’s why a little release today will serve my Mets’ Loyalty better later.

Like Time Bandits, the Mets have stolen years from us.  Wake me when the Mets arrive in 2011 or when Wilpon the Clown stops juggling our team in front of anyone with pocket change.

Pfffff!!

Mike.BTB

After dominating the National League East all season, on September 18, 2006 – the New York Mets clinched their first Division Title in 18 years with a win over the Florida Marlins.  We are now entering the fifth year since that fateful season and we’re still trying to capture another flag.  It’s been a tumultuous four seasons since that night in 2006 and we are still suffering through the ramifications of the former GM’s attempts at trying to get back to that night.

Omar Minaya was given Jose Reyes and David Wright to him by the last regime.  After signing Carlos Beltran to play center field, every Met position has since been a compendium of ever changing names.  The ensuing years since 2006 turned out to be ruinous for many players; two managers; a GM; and the Owers, who are taking the biggest hit of all since that night the Mets last celebrated on that night back in Sept. 2006.

Here’s to our last flag of any kind, five years later:

He was hardly the player he was in Toronto and Los Angeles.  No one was mistaken about that when we picked him up at the 2006 deadline. 

But here’s my Shawn Green Story; the short version.  I was loitering around the first base side before the game taking pictures, when some of the players came out to sign autographs.  I was already supremely positioned where I was, so I stuck around and tried to get one.  Shawn was closer to me than Jose Reyes was.  I stood there with my program out and ready, but down.  He knew it.  He saw me.  But I never muscled a kid for a chance.  I just waited to see if he’d offer.  I only ask once and I hadn’t yet.  He finished signing and started to walk away.  After about three steps I asked, “Shawn, Do you have time for one more please?”  He stopped, turned and looked.  It was one of those “long” seconds in life, and he replied with a, “Yea, sure…You bet.”   Thanks Shawn.

WELCOME BACK!

We know all about these players, from their greatness to their ultimate downfalls.

Do they belong in our

HALL OF VERY VERY GOOD?

VOTE!

Read PART ONE Here; The Case To Sell The Team

NEW YORK METS:  Fred Wilpon; Sink or Swim?

PART TWO

A Case for Fred Wilpon to Keep the Team Under His Control:

Building a case from a Fan’s perspective on whether Fred Wilpon should fight to retain Sole or Controlling Interest in the New York Mets is no doubt based more on sentimentality than actual results and success achieved over the last 30 years because there is only the one Championship to speak-of.  But it is a Championship none-the-less and we are grateful for it…right? 

Let’s try and be fair with Fred and skim over the whole body of work.

We did manage to extend the seasons of 1986 and 1988; 1999 and 2000; and most recently 2006.  That averages out to a playoff appearance every six years.  It is fair for Met Fans to expect more than that for 30 years worth of work; Sure.  But the pattern of playoff appearances does identify three distinct periods where the Mets managed to recreate themselves into a contender.  Met Fans most of all, should know once you’re in the playoffs, anything can happen whether you’re Tommy Agee, Lenny Dykstra, Jay Payton or Carlos Beltran.  That goes for winning as well as for losing.

But the big question is ~ Have the responsibilities of Ownership been met?

The 1990 season represented the end of the 80′s and the end of an Era for us.  Moving forward, Ownership opened up the wallet and allowed the GM to spend quite freely.  We know 1991-1993 turned out to be unmitigated disasters in every respect as Al Harazin took the check-book and purchased a genuine MESS.  So, Ownership then agreed on a very prudent decision to bring back Joe McIlvaine as GM and rebuild the organization from within again.  All (most) Met Fans were in accordance with this plan (leave some..I guess).  Generation-K and the “Burnitz” Boppers Project failed just like the previous spending spree did.  But this process was worth pursuing none-the-less.  We all knew it then.  It was a needed course of action and we still know it now in hindsight.  And besides, one of my all-time favorites comes from this era; Todd Hundley.  But I digress.

To this point, the Ownership still proved to be flexible, capable, and acted with a level of pro-activeness.  The organization was still vibrant.  But the times changed.  So Ownership moved on to a new plan with Steve Phillips.  They remained ever agreeable dollar wise, signing off on some big trades trades and then free agents like Robin Ventura while incurring huge increases in payroll.  They were Owners of a contender again and still in possession of a fertile Farm System that would yield Wright, Reyes and Kazmir in the future.

I’m trying to set this up fairly for Mr. Wilpon, so let’s see if we can agree that before his Sole Ownership, while Mr. Wilpon was still a partner, he and Mr. Doubleday somehow managed to keep warm blood running through the arteries and veins of METropolis all while sometimes having to make tough decisions in the process.

*There was The Early Years ~ the lead-in; the farming.
*The Glory Years ~ ’84-’90
*Years of Transition; For three years they ALL lost their way.
*The Second Rebuilding ~ Was a necessary and prudent plan.
*The Return to Contention Years ~ The Piazza Era; We got close.
*The Ensuing Down Period and the End of the Doubleday Era and his partnership with the Wilpons.

That’s 22 years and there’s nothing about that body of work that should cause Met Fans to go hunting down Ownership with pitchforks and torches; not when there are so many more worse-run organizations than ours.  I know that means little to most of us, but every organization makes it’s share of mistakes and the Mets made theirs along the way too.  A New Ownership will no doubt make theirs also.  But the time between Davey Johnson, the attempt to rebuild, and then Bobby Valentine, is a fair amount of time for an organization to regroup and re-emerge with a new cast, while allowing for a few disappointments along the way.  Our Ownership, as it still pertains to the Partnership, more than anything always relied on the strength of their General Managers. But both partners, although much more in favor of stability, have never been shy about making a change when change was warranted.

On the other side of the year 2000, we know how fast it all fell apart. So let’s just fast forward to 2003 when Steve Phillips, Bobby Valentine, and Nelson Doubleday are all finally out of the picture and it’s just Us and the Wilpons with a last place club.  Isn’t the sole ownership of the Wilpons what this is really all about anyway?

Let’s face it, just like what Al Harazin did to the Mets 10 years earlier, after the 2000 N.L. Flag, Steve Phillips assembled a high-priced MESS and left a 2002-03 disaster behind with another monster bill attached to it.  And he left it in the lap of Fred Wilpon to pick-up the tab (….again), while also leaving the team in need of another major fix-up.  But this time Fred was left to pay this bill down on his own after recently cutting Doubleday a check for his half of the club.  So, lurching forward, of course Jim Duquette was told to not spend any money.  Can we really hold the Howe/Duquette years against Fred?  I guess we could if you chose to.

One argument in the treatment of Jim Duquette goes like this ~ He never had a chance and was a stop-gap GM. But the way they replaced him with Omar before firing him was an act of folly. Another way to look at that situation is ~ Fred Wilpon pounced on the person he felt most comfortable with and if Jim Duquette had his feelings hurt, Oh Well.

You pick.

I guess we could also blame Fred for not trying to sign Vlad Guerrero, whom everyone thought had a bad back AND sign him so as to make the pain of Mo Vaughn and Alomar go away.  Right?  That’s what we really wanted; for Fred to spend a BuZillion dollars on Vlad while having no-one to surround him with from leftovers of  the ’03 Mets.  Oh!  Oh!  AND…only we can imaging the complete disaster that would have been A-Rod in a Met uniform when his Steroid troubles surfaced.  OH MY Goodness!  That would have been a real friggin’ beaut!

So…, Can we really blame Fred for trying to manage the Club’s coffers after so much money was debited from our favorite team’s accounts?  Surely we can afford our owner some slack in that respect?  Are we that poisoned by entitlement these days?  Are we so driven to be about “Me” all the time?  There is still a certain level of loyalty we should hold in reserve for trying times.  By taking on the full financial ”burden” of 100% ownership at that time, what Fred Wilpon did was keep our Mets Team operating as a stable Franchise.

But the fact remains, within two years of securing 100% of the team and having it left behind in need of a massive
 renovation project courtesy of the outgoing Steve Phillips (AND Nelson Doubleday), Fred and Jeff Wilpon locked up Omar Minaya and let him proceed forward with his plan; and let him do so with a check-book in hand and a farm system left barren by a previously mentioned Steve Phillips.. (after Wright, Reyes, and Kazmir).  The fruits of Omar’s labors with regard to minor league development haven’t been realized until the last year and a half.

The Wilpons seemed to be back on their feet after two years and even showed a little chutzpa in the process.  Fred and Jeff Wilpon initially proceeded the way Fred has always operated before with Nelson Doubleday.  Their GM presented a case based on the needs of the team.  Ownership; Mr. Wilpon and Jeff, have never been in a habit of saying No.  And there wasn’t a time before we got wind of the Ponzi Scheme, that the Wilpon’s weren’t proceeding as they normally would have, only now with their full confidence bestowed upon Omar Minaya.

Omar Minaya was well regarded around Baseball by the time he assumed the office of GM for the Mets.  There were few complaints about the Wilpon’s latest choice for General Manager.  Omar put together a team that put Fred Wilpon’s Mets one pitch away from a World Series in 2006 in only his second year on the job and Fred’s 4th year as sole owner of the team.  The Mets had done it again.  They recreated themselves into a contender and this time Fred and Jeff did it without Doubleday around.  If you were there that one night during the 2006 NLCS, when the entire exiting crowd at Shea sang, “Jose, Jose Jose”, all the way down the ramps, into the parking lots, and all the way home, like I did, you know damn well no one was hating on Mr. Wilpon then.

When we start pointing fingers, I’m going to point the first one at you; us; we the Fans.  Why?  Because with the first home game back from a road trip, the Mets had the opportunity to clinch the ’06 Eastern Division Title on our home field against the Marlins and we didn’t sell the place out.  It turned out to be our first Division Flag in 18 years and it was a damn shame the place wasn’t packed.  Shame on us!  I was there and shook my head over every empty seat.

Then, to blame Carlos Beltran’s state of shock over an in-coming curveball and his inability to react to a called third strike in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS on Fred Wilpon is irresponsible at best, as is also putting Willie Randolph’s failure to bunt a runner over prior to that. 

The failure to make the playoffs in both 2007 and 2008; or as many like to refer to them as the two choke-jobs; is like-wise not a matter of Fred Wilpon’s futility as an owner but rather a failure at the field level to execute and perform their jobs well and rise to the occasion.  That responsibility falls on the Manager and General Manager.  We can can come up with many reasons of course.  The owner might have hired the person who put it all together, but Fred Wilpon did his part to fund and support his GM’s plans.  He footed the bill after hiring someone everyone thought was up to the task of being a GM in New York (after all, Minaya grew up in Queens).  But more spending solves everything right?  Sure…, regardless that we concurred Omar put together a formidable team in 2006 (even though we knew the pitching was flawed and he would still remain with unsettled positions moving forward)..   I have my own theory as to why we fell short in ’07 and ’08, but neither of which I can place blame with Mr.Wilpon.  My reasons would center more on Omar and his reliance on Pedro, El Duque and Tom Glavine…Blah  blah blah and his inability to rectify LF, RF, C, and 2B blah blah…

The problem is we have a radically different view of things today than we did when I was a kid.  Being a good contending team has now morphed into a failure waiting to happen in the absence of winning a Title.  When I was a kid, I didn’t boo any Met between 1977 and 1982!  I’m proud of that.  Yet, we boo’d Johan Santana in his first ever start at Shea Stadium.  So with that new-age thinking, we singled-out our Owner to vent all our anger and frustrations on;  …an Ownership that was failed by it’s players, managers, and General Managers.., foiled by plain old bad luck, victimized by some horrible timing and stymied by untimely, and very costly injuries.

If you want to complain that we’re snake-bitten; jinxed; cursed; or doomed and it’s the Wilpon’s fault, - as Owner, he takes a share of the blame.  But his appointments and the teams created under them, with his consent, failed in spite of however much the owner supplied them with the resources to succeed.  The Wilpon’s did eveything Omar asked them to do.  He cut the check.  He did what owners are supposed to do; supply resources to good Baseball minds…(and the debate about Omar is another topic).  The rest gets decided on the field.  Omar wound up creating his own perfect storm with Fred’s money, but Fred and Jeff must be made to stand trial for it (.) (!) (?).

I know what we wanted.  We wanted the Wilpon’s to spend even more money.  We wanted him to outspend some mistakes.  THAT’s what some of you wanted.  Admit it.

The truth is we were always more upset with the directions our GM’s took us, than the course of actions our owner(s) decided upon.  But because Fred is the constant, we choose to pile it all on him.  And because we say accountability starts at the top, Fred Wilpon gets the wrap.  We displaced our frustration with getting stymied for so long throughout a long series of GM’s and their big, bright ideas and who incidentally racked up high payrolls with little hardware to show for it all the while playing in a New York town of big  expectations.  And well…, what you get is a lot a heat-seeking rants targeting Mr. Wilpon and rumblings about the state of the team even after all those darned managers and GMs get fired and replaced.

The last two seasons; 2009 and 2010, set-up to be a perfect storm and the S.S. Wilpon definitely got tossed-about on some pretty treacherous seas.  The crippling, incapacitating injuries suffered by the roster over the last two years, compounded with an ill-timed and unforeseen Madoff Scandal threw a big stick into the spokes of this wheel and sent everyone hurtling head over feet into on-coming traffic.  And now “everyone is looking for someone to sue”.  Meanwhile, if we had just one more positive outcome in both ’07 and/or ’08, Mets History would read very differently.

Having gone through it, I know what it feels like.  Man!  It was rotten!   But how do we translate what happened on the field to deny us playoff berths in those two years with Fred Wilpon being an incapable owner?  It doesn’t.  We just want it to, because after the fans trade everybody, fire every manager, and fire their GMs at their whims, it’s still never good enough when we play Fantasy GM with Fred’s money.

The whole call to end our time with Fred Wilpon as owner of the New York Mets is and has always been a knee-jerk reaction we chose to conduct ourselves with and act upon.  I’m not trying to insult anyone; I include myself among the Met Masses.

Mr. Fred Wilpon is not a giant, corporate, cold and distanced conglomerate megalomaniac, who treats the Mets as a satellite holding within his empire.  He is very open and proud of the fact he runs his operation as a F
amily Business; the very thing old Baseball sentimentalists and old school gentlemen clamour for.  And quite frankly, I like it too.  It’s the way Baseball Ownerships ideally should be.  He’s a local guy too so he knows what we’re like around here and how we can get.  You can not deny the man cares about the team and suffers right along-side us with every loss.  That’s well documented and talked about.  AND absolutely, without a doubt, you know he listens to us.  We Fans do have the Ownership’s ear.

In Metropolitan’s History, we’ve been in the hands of two Ownership Groups ~ The Original; Lady Joan Payson and the continuing portion of the partnership between Doubleday and Wilpon.  We are a very stable Franchise, and have been since our birth into the National League.  I think I speak for all Met fans when I say we found that to be a tremendous source of pride with regard to our Club.

We have a new General Manager now with his new lieutenants in place.  He still have very credible veterans on this club and a new crop of prospects starting to make their way to the big club.  Of course the plan is changing as we speak and the landscape of METropolis will change, but this General Manager has built a winner before and he comes here with assets in place to be creative with.

So Madoff Dilemma aside, what’s so wrong with staying the course and siding with continuity and stability with our ownership?  Is it beyond us at this point to give our presently embattled Owner a shot in the arm?
If we would focus our frustration more correctly, I think we will all find that we really do like the guy.  If we knew he turned a deaf ear to us, then why not let him fall, crash and burn like the Hindenburg.  But he does listen to us, and we do appreciate that whether you admit it or not.  What other fan base can say that right now?  When we speak, the Wilpons know.  So, search inside your Mets-Sole and let’s tell him to tough this out and fight.

We are New Yorkers, or relatives in the areas thereof.  We are invested fans in the whole deal.  And one of the measures of character is how you react in the face of adversity.  Who’s to say he can’t make a come-back (like one of his teams did in 1986)?

Well, Wilpon has his adversity to face, and we have ours.  Can we agree to let TIME be an ally and see if we can stick this out with our owner, until the moment if he faces an ultimate end with the Metropolitans?  He said he ran things like a family, and we always seemed to be OK with that right up until three years ago during the second “Choke”.  And now, we all have a Family member in need.  OR, is the bad-blood between us too thick?

If in fact he does survive this,  maybe he’ll have that epiphany and start bleeding Met Orange instead of Dodger Blue and we’ll get an owner who’s going to re-check his efforts and try to make a better go of things.  Maybe then we can badger him for a Tom Seaver statue and get him to retire a few more numbers for us.

That’s all I got.  If one of my arguments sounds more convincing than the other, then that’s where I stand.  There’s obviously a slew of details and occurances left out of all this.  But this is a case for Fred Wilpon to keep the team versus selling it.

So,  for the sake of stability, familiarity and preservation of our tradition…,Good Luck Mr. Wilpon…may some Met Magic come your way and things turn out Amazin’ for everybody.  But, Ya Gotta Believe…first.

Mike.BTB

Now, they have an open interest to sell up to 25% of the team.  Some Mets Fans are calling for the Wilpons to sell the whole team.  Some Met Fans are hoping for the best outcome possible while Mr. Wilpon maintains his controlling interest in the team.

Me?  I’ll let you judge where I stand.  I am making a case for both sides; Mr. Wilpon keeping the team and for Mr. Wilpon selling the team.