There's an Elephant in the Room

We're not supposed to talk about this. No one in the media is supposed to talk about this at all, even though it's unbelievably obvious. Everyone's talking about why the postseason has been so strange this year - games called on account of snow, 30 degree weather, pounding rain, inconsistent pitching, fielding gaffs, windstorms, incredulous bad plays from solid major league players... What could possibly be the reason for all this?!?

No one else will say it, so we'll say it: THE WORLD SERIES WAS NOT MEANT TO BE PLAYED IN NOVEMBER!!! THE LEAGUE CHAMPIONS SHOULD NOT BE DETERMINED IN LATE OCTOBER!!! Everyone sees the elephant, yet no one mentions it.

Whether you like it or not, it's a fact: Weather becomes a factor from late October onward. It's just not right to see players playing important baseball games (games that decide major championships) playing with scarfs, earmuffs, wool face protectors, and 3 layers of clothing. This is baseball! To borrow a quote from Tom Hanks: "There's no shivering in baseball!" You shouldn't see the air when baseball players are breathing - leave that for football, where it belongs.

So what's the solution? It's simple: either shorten the regular season or (even more obvious) SCHEDULE MORE DOUBLEHEADERS! Remember doubleheaders? That's what used to happen when organizations and MLB in general really cared about their fans. If every team scheduled 3 doubleheaders, you could play an entire 162 game schedule, finish the regular season in late September, then play all rounds of playoffs and shockingly have a World Series Champion crowned on October 19th - today. Instead we're not even half-way through the League Championship Series and we have the whole World Series to "look forward to"... In even worse weather most likely.

Let's stop wondering why the baseball postseason gets less and less interesting every year (as it gets scheduled further and further into November). Winter weather and baseball don't mix. There!... I said it. That's the elephant. It's right in front of the entire media, but no one will mention it because it would be way too controversial to schedule doubleheaders because they effect the bottom line profits of a team. Shortening a season would be even worse for team owners since they'd lose all the revenues for the games that wouldn't be played.

And baseball wonders why it's no longer the "American Pastime". Nothing about the game is fan-friendly any more. The players know it, the announcers know it, the media knows it, the fans definitely know it... everyone's just afraid to come out and say it for fear of losing their cushy well-paying gigs.

Perhaps I'm just a disgruntled Met fan jealous of the teams playing in the postseason... Or perhaps I'm just a football fan waiting patiently for the baseball season to end - hopefully before Thanksgiving. Either way, when I watch a baseball game being decided because a player's hand is too cold to grip a ball in a game delayed by snow, I'm calling that a tainted victory indeed!

As the Major League Baseball Postseason Continues "Met-Less"...

Next time you're stressed out trying to make your mortgage payment, or you get laid off from work, or wonder where your next dollar is coming from, check out this video and ask yourself, how could this be?!?!?!

How can there be such incompetency in an organization and how can it continually get rewarded?

Too Much, Too Little, Too Late

Yes, it's over....
Call it a day....
Sorry that it had to end this way...
No reason to pretend...
We knew it had to end someday... this way....

AND THANK GOODNESS IT WAS TODAY! Who would have thought that Johnny Mathis & Deniece Williams would be singing about the Mets 2009 season at Citi Field when they released the classic Too Much Too Little Too Late way back in 1978?

Thankfully, the Mets celebrated Fan Depreciation Weekend by sweeping the Houston Astros in their final home series of this miserable season - perhaps the worst in the history of the team. After all, when they were losing all those games in the early years, the Mets were supposed to be bad. This year held many great expectations of another meaningful choke in September.

And please don't tell me the last three games (where the Mets pitching staff allowed 2 runs TOTAL in beating the Astros 7-1, 5-1, and 4-0 respectively) hold promise going into next year. Remember this is the same team that got swept by the lowly Nationals (who call the Mets the lowly Mets) right before the Houston series. This team is a train wreck, and Mets fans will need to see SIGNIFICANT changes before we can develop any confidence going into 2010 thinking next year will be anything different. C'mon - sing it!:

Yes it's over...
The chips are down...
What's the use of trying to hang on...
Somewhere we lost the key...
So little left for you and me... and it's clear to see...

I mean really... are those classic lyrics to describe the Mets or what? The 2009 season at Citi Field and away showed way too much baserunning blunders, managerial mishaps, fundamental flaws, fielding follies, management meltdowns, and minor-league mindsets. TOO MUCH!!

This season also saw way too little power from the lineup, too little gutsy pitching performances from the starters and bullpen alike, too little heart, desire, and overall willingness to go that extra mile to do what it takes to win. TOO LITTLE!!

And as a result, we keep hearing things like Jerry Manual and Omar Minaya will be back for next season... and when everyone comes back healthy, this team will be competitive again... and despite being totally cleaned out by the likes of Bernie Madoff, that situation will have no effect on how the team approaches the off-season. Well, it's way too late for platitudes. Fans want to see results. Cut the price of tickets? Be more fan-friendly? Play solid, fundamental baseball? Sweep the Astros in the last series of the season? TOO LATE!!

I know a lot of lifelong Mets fans who tell me they'll have nothing to do with this team right now. And can you blame them? When Met fans are actually rooting for the Yankees to win the World Series to hammer down the most embarrassment possible on the franchise, things are bad. Even David Wright called the season "A failed opportunity". But here's the key question: Does Mets ownership know that? If so, what will they do in the postseason to give the fans ANY REASON to look forward to next year?

Remember: if you keep doing the things you're doing without changing, why would you think your results would be any different? Too much? - we've never seen a season like this before... wait till next year? Too little? - Can Omar convince rival general managers that he's not playing checkers in their chess game during the off-season? Too late? Will Met fans ever be the same knowing the incompetence this organization rewards?

Sing it like Deniece: Yes, it's over... IT'S OVER!!! Yeah, yeah, yeah...

YA GOTTA BELIEVE ... Part One

... or maybe not.

This has been an excruciating year for any New York Mets fan. This season, the third consecutive one of failure, is even more difficult to accept than the prior two. Granted, the past two seasons our Mets seemed to crumble under the weight of a potential playoff birth, and just so soon after being one win away from making it to the 2006 World Series. This season however, it seemed that they just decided to implode before they ever got off the ground.

Yes, there were injuries, but that was something that this organization's crack medical staff should have been able to handle - or was that medical staff on crack?... I forget. As the season progressed, this new Citifield seemed to become the setting for a remake of "The Gunfight at the OK Corral". Week after week players seemed to drop like flies.

The worst of it was that nobody seemed to know what the injuries were. Not the organization, the GM, the manager, the trainers, and most of all the players themselves. One day it was this, then next it was that. Oh, this player will be back in a week, then a month, then out for the season (can anyone say Jose Reyes?), and June was only looming around the corner. It even gets to be telling when one of your top players, if not franchise player, seeks an outside opinion from his own doctor. Very telling indeed. Who is on their medical staff anyway? One can only guess ...

How much more does this organization think we can take as fans? They could not erase the memory of Shea Stadium fast enough and begin anew by spending billions of dollars on a new ballpark for The Mets. Yet when you are in Citifield, you would never know what team played there. (DISCLAIMER: I have not been to the new ballpark. I just could not bring myself to do so, but I have it on good authority, (no... make that on MANY a good authority), that if you were blindfolded, taken into the ballpark then unmasked, you would not be able to tell where you were just by looking around.)

Here is my problem with Citifield: After looking at photos and video it is clear. Nothing personal against Jackie Robinson (and I hate having to qualify myself on this one), but in his entire career he had nothing to do with The New York Mets. If you are going to name a rotunda where The New York Mets play, why not make it a Memorial Rotunda and name it after the only true voice of the New York Mets Bob Murphy, or Gil Hodges, or Casey Stengel, or even Tug McGraw. How can you put BILLIONS into a ballpark and not have the history of the team, the World Series', the great players of the past and present? Again, this organization could not seem to part with not only Shea, but the memories of it, fast enough. This will be its downfall, for the past is what
makes your future. Get rid of the past ... there will be no one around for your future.

It is almost difficult to accept the bonehead after bonehead move the organization of this team just keeps making. You have two straight seasons of complete collapse and failure and what do the they do? They reward that failure by giving one of its architects, Omar Minaya, a new three year deal. Steve Phillips should have been so lucky... Oh wait, he was, showing up on ESPN Radio with SP40, and television, as an authority on baseball, and adding insult to injury, actually permitted to comment on actual live Mets games and getting paid for it no less. Someone still needs to explain that one to me. And what happens to the manager of one of those failures, "We are going to stand by Jerry "Manual". (Paraphrasing here folks) ... Like they stuck by Bobby Valentine? You better watch your back Jerry. What is ownership's love affair with this these guys? What clouds their vision?

Not only how he handled the VP of Player Development Tony Bernazard fiasco, allowing for the decimation of The Mets minor league system, throwing Adam Rubin under the bus, not knowing the condition of his players, throwing players under the bus, allowing the trade deadline to pass without making a play for someone to help lift this team out of the quagmire. I believe that if most of us were in the GM position, and it was looking bleak on the return of any of my regular players and there was a whole hell of a lot of season left, there would be no other choice but to find replacements, however temporary they would be, to at least give my team a chance at winning, or at least make a good showing as if you really care. How Minaya is not gone is beyond me.

As fans, all most of us want when we watch a game is to have a chance at a win. This season I'm thinking that most of you were like me, when you turned on the radio or television that even though the Mets had the lead you were never that confident that they were going to keep it and win. Even I remember The Secret. You have a brand new ballpark to play in, where is the motivation to win? They could not win the opener, and as of this writing they are playing the first of the last three games of the season at the new ballpark and they beat Houston (7-1). There's only two games left of this glorious season. Hope there was enough sarcasm dripping there.

Since mentioning Bobby Valentine a bit ago, I cannot help but wonder ... yes, I know that it will never happen, we can only pray, but wouldn't it be great to have him back?

"I believe this man has forgotten more about baseball then most know who are playing the game today."

A shout out here to fellow Mets fan Karen for that one. Contrary to popular belief, it was not the fans that wanted him gone, it was the press, media, and organization itself that wanted him gone. Not only did Steve Phillips need a patsy, a then rumor had it that then players Franco and Leiter had a hand in it as well. Let us think like a Wilpon for a moment: wouldn't the cheapest way to immediately improve the team and get fans butts back in the seats for next season be to fire Minaya, fire Manuel, and hire Valentine? I'd make sure I was there for Opening Day for that one. How many of you would as well? Let us know.

What, improve the team with players, coaches, a new GM, and manager? No way! What concerns ownership, let's get rid of the pinstripes, why not?, we have just about torn apart all other traditions concerning the Mets, what is one more, and go with cream color jerseys even if another team already has them. Not only does ownership have a love affair with the GM and manager, they have one with teams that have not been part of New York for over fifty years, the Dodgers to Los Angeles and the Giants to San Francisco. I think I will let another fellow Mets fan speak her mind about this one upon hearing of the possible uniform change amongst other things...

"Is this true??? This organization has so much more important decisions to make on how to run a professional baseball team; replace the front office personnel, medical staff, general manager, manager, coaches, etc. Yet, their first priority for next season is the uniform. This explains why we are fighting the Washington Nationals for last place!!!! And props to the Nats for winning and beating K-ROD with a walk off grand slam. Hey, today the Mets announced that Reyes tore his hamstring on Tuesday down in Florida rehabbing. Has Reyes aged fast-forward to the age of 80????? before our eyes. Can he stand up without tearing a muscle, hamstring, ligament whatever........ I can't stand this organization anymore."

- Taylor Tears

Hey Taylor, we could not have said it any better ourselves.

So, by August, life as a Mets fan just kept getting worse. Bad enough the other team here in New York started to surge, mostly every team in our division began to pull away. All but the lowly Washington Nationals, they had to be worse than the Mets. Wondering why the tone of disappointment? here's why:

(to be continued in part two).

END PART ONE