Mets Haranged in Cincy, The Maine is Sunk

The awfulfense is back. And John Maine certainly was no All-Star last night. If the team with the most double plays hit into and lame bounce outs to second was declared the winner, the Mets would have no problems right now. But unfortunately that is one part of the game that Bud Selig has not meddled with, and the Mets still must score more runs than the other guy to win.

The Br*ves and Phillies sharks have to be sniffing blood at this point, and the Mets still have the look of chum.

Many of the flaws that general manager Omar Minaya cited as reasons for the firing of hitting coach Rick Down were still clearly on display Friday.

If the Mets are really moving Pelfrey to the Bellfrey, I mean bullpen, I think that's a good idea. Perhaps he can get some confidence and a record of sucess there.

My hands are starting to hurt from having been thrown up so many times.


"Empty Base Syndrome"

MLB's pricey and controversial out-of-market game package is not featuring today's Mets-Reds game. Which is odd, given that the package is called "Extra Innings." So I will miss the Ralph Kiner festivities in their totality, or I will go hunting for free wireless to watch my equally pricey MLBtv buffer and stall for a few hours tonight. To prove that MLB's so-called extra innings package is indeed an Orwellian nightmare, the MLB has a new ad campaign to get new subscribers, but more likely just to toy evily with the out-of-market fans driven out-of-their-minds by patchy coverage. If i remember correctly, the ad's tagline is the out of market fan who can't get their own team's games locally suffers from "Empty Base Syndrome," which can then be remedied by purchasing their "Service."

Well, thanks to Madison Avenue, we current subscribers now have an ironic new way of describing how we feel when MLB does not include a game, whether its rights are "covered" or horded by Fux Network, or whether there isn't a good damn reason under the sun, like today. "Empty Base Syndrome."

Jeter: a Reinterpretation

The annals of Derek Jeter worship have a new addition today in a story by Jack Curry called: "Players go giddy for autographs, but not Jeter."

Based on the fact that Derek Jeter does not collect other players' autographs during All-star game festivities, the author imputes some wonderous characteristics to Jeter: he "asks for nothing in return" and "keeps it simple". In other words, he's just to darn modest to ask for autographs.

Here are some tidbits:

So, although the San Francisco Giants Barry Bonds, who is about to become baseball’s career home run king, asked Jeter to sign a jersey, Jeter requested nothing in return.
...
Jeter was content to attend Bonds’s All-Star party, even if it made him claustrophobic.
“Too crowded,” Jeter said. “I don’t like crowds.”
...
“I’ve had some of the players on Old-Timers’ Day ask me to sign for them,” Jeter said. “It’s weird. I’ll look at them and say, ‘Are you sure you want me to sign this?’ ”
...
It is not shocking that Jeter avoids chasing autographs, since he prefers keeping things simple.

Well Jack Curry, in my business, we do a little thing we like to call accounting for alternative hypothesis. Want to hear one? Derek Jeter is such a smug self-righteous asshole that even on the biggest stage, at the Allstar game with players far more talented and equally as famous, such as Barry Bonds and Yogi Berra--even if they ask him for his--Jeter thinks it is beneath him to ask for their autographs because that would place him on less than equal footing with them, and his massive ego wouldn't allow this --his star power would in his mind be dampened. More modest players, such as Barry Bonds (!) have no problem getting starry-eyed around their comrades. But Jeter isn't going to "chase" autographs when he could be pretending to be modest! I wonder if Jeter needs to hire a publicist...he gets it for free most days.


We have a winner:

I want to share something with you, in case you missed it on that little-read but still spunky blog Metsblog. My response to a poster:

As any reader of this site knows, any monkey can come up a bad trade idea. I've done a few myself.

However, your "Dunn and Weathers for Pelfrey, Heilman, and Milledge" is a magnificant work of performance art. I commend you. Nay, I worship you.

This trade idea is not the work of any inferior intellegence. This, my friend, is genius. Ostensibly a trade idea floated on a blog, it subtly mocks all conventions, and even makes us examine the very meaning of the concept "trade."

I hereby credit you with the WORST TRADE IDEA I HAVE EVER HEARD.

Why you ask?
1) it would be so bad for the home team (the good guys, you know the Mets) as to be unthinkable.
2) it pretends to exhibit not even a passing knowledge of baseball or recent history, while actually undermining an entire conceptual apparatus we use to evaluate baseball transactions.
3) as any true work of genius, it appears effortless.

So kudos to you! Dont take this the wrong way, i didnt come to flame you, merely to honor your genius.