The Mets are too dumb to win

Jeff Wilpon, son of the Mets primary owner
Fred Wilpon. The Wilpons just don't
know what they're doing.
{Photo from - SportsBusinessDaily.com)

I'm a Met fan and there's nothing I can do about it. I moved 3,000 miles away and still I'm a Met fan. I spent years with no television or radio coverage of the Mets, with not even a newspaper that covers the Mets and still I'm a Met fan. It's a life sentence.

At this stage of my life I know it's pointless to say anything like, "That's it. This time they've really gone and done it and now I'm done with them." It's pointless because I know that no matter what stupidity the team's front office engages in that when Opening Day comes I'll be transfixed, rooting for whatever collection of players is wearing the Mets' uniforms.

But let's get this out there right now: if you're a Met fan and a parent and you have a child young enough that they haven't yet selected their baseball team you should, no you MUST think long and hard before you start showering them with Met caps and shirts and other paraphernalia that will lead them down the same baseball path as you've trod. Why? Because the Mets are run by stupid people and they ain't gonna be gettin any smarter any time soon.

Yesterday the Mets released their schedule and announced their single game ticket prices for the 2013 season. Tickets to Opening Day against the San Diego Padres on April 1 are on sale starting at $63. Sixty-three dollars.

____________
Read More:

Mets manager Terry Collins - making all the right calls

Mets' Irish groundskeeper calls it a day after 50th season

The Emerald Diamond: The story of Baseball in Ireland: Video
_____________

For your hard-earned $63 you'll gain entrance to Citi Field with a seat in the upper deck in left field, which is almost within visual range of home plate. The game sounds great out there. Of course, the $63 doesn't get you a parking space or a scorecard or a box of cracker jacks. Or, remembering it's April 1 in Queens, you're more likely to want a hot bowl of soup. That'll cost you too.

Given the quality of the team the Mets are going to put on the field next season this is arrogant. Given that the Mets have shown a willingness to trade or simply lose the two most loved players left on the team - David Wright and R.A. Dickey - this is contemptuous.

Yet, if I thought they were going to sell those tickets and that this wasn't a policy that will have a long term negative impact on the franchise I'd say it's annoying, but good business.

However, they are not going to sell those tickets for far away seats at $63 a piece or many of the other seriously overpriced tickets on sale now. That they put single game tickets on sale before Christmas is an indication of how badly their season ticket sales campaign is going. There will be thousands of empty seats at Citi Field come April 1.

That's my biggest issue here. This ticket pricing strategy is an indication that those in charge of the Mets as a business, Fred and Jeff Wilpon who own most of the team, don't know what they're doing. The owners don't know how to maximize the value of their investment.

They don't know how to run a baseball team and they don't know how to run a business. For a few brief years the Mets had a good team thanks to the munificence of Bernie Madoff. The Mets' owners were one of the beneficiaries of Madoff's Ponzi scheme and those ill-gotten dollars helped build a strong team.

Now Madoff is in jail and the Mets owners are repaying a huge chunk of the profits they got from Madoff's funds. They actually have to run the Mets as a profitable business and they don't know how. Oh, and they have repeatedly vowed not to sell the club.

So the Mets are stuck with the current owners and, of course, we fans are stuck with the Mets. This nuclear winter we currently find ourselves in is going to get a lot darker and colder before there is any upside in Flushing. So think long and hard before you buy that newborn that Mets onesie you saw. Your son, your daughter or even your niece or nephew might have a winnable lawsuit against you in twenty years time.

Mets manager Terry Collins - making all the right calls

Mets Manager Terry Collins hugs pitcher Johan Santana after
Santana had thrown the first no-hitter in Mets history last night.

"I never thought I'd live to see this day." That's how I feel today; that's how all of us Met fans feel today after watching Johan Santana throw the first no-hitter in club history.

Many Mets have come close before. As we watched we knew we'd seen this movie before, but still we hoped we'd see the improbable. We'd see 50 years of history vanquished.

While Santana did the hard work on the mound, one man had a very difficult call to make as the game wore on: manager Terry Collins.

The Mets have been a revelation this year and a lot of the credit must go to Collins. The team has a self-belief and never-say-die attitude that was totally lacking in the talented, but under-performing teams in the years before Collins took over.

The Mets used to be considered soft, quick to buckle when the pressure was on. Now the Mets are bulldogs, a reflection of their manager.
____________
Read More:

Conversion of an Irish baseball fan - how an Irishman in New York became a fan

Mets' Irish groundskeeper calls it a day after 50th season

Ireland used to produce baseball players
_____________

Collins, a college football player at Eastern Michigan, has a football mentality when it comes to playing baseball and playing with injuries. He doesn't care for the molly-coddling that seems so much a part of the modern game.

That brings me back to Santana. Nobody is closer to Collins in that bulldog mentality than Santana.

Collins managed the Mets last year without Santana, who missed all of 2011 after major shoulder surgery. He's back this year and Collins and his team of coaches have managed Santana perfectly. No pitcher has ever successfully come back from the operation Santana underwent. For that reason, Collins' main issue with Santana is holding him back, removing him from games when Santana would rather stay in.

That's why last night must have been such torture for Collins. He has set a limit for Santana of 110 pitches per game. Santana went past that limit with 5 outs remaining in the game.

Collins left Santana in. He threw 134 pitches to complete the game. I'm sure this morning Collins, with the euphoria fading, is wondering if he made the right decision. Did he hurt Santana? Did he hurt the team's chances of having a magical 2012? Did he risk too much for the sake of a number?

That's what makes baseball great and strange at the same time. I don't think there is another sport where a manager would take such a chance that had no bearing on winning either a game or championship. That's what Collins did last night, however.

I can't speak for Santana, but I bet he feels it was a risk worth taking. I think I can speak for the fans, however, when I say that we all wanted last night. No matter how the rest of this year plays out we won't second guess Collins' decision to leave Santana in to finish last night's game. We wanted that moment, a moment we thought we would never see.

Mets' Irish groundskeeper calls it a day after 50th season

Pete Flynn throwing out first pitch before his
last game as Mets groundskeeper yesterday.

Pete Flynn's New York Mets career ended yesterday with the last game of the 2011 season. If you don't know Flynn's name that's understandable because Flynn was the team's groundskeeper and yesterday marked the end of his time with the Mets that began when the team was first formed in 1962.

Flynn is an Irish immigrant from County Leitrim. Although it's fuzzy now, I can recall what I thought the first time I heard Flynn's name and that he was from Ireland. My vague memory is that it had started to rain and the grounds-crew was rolling out the tarp to cover the infield and, I think, Flynn fell or got knocked over. Mets announcer Bob Murphy spoke his name, hoping Flynn hadn't been hurt in the fall. He then said that Flynn was from Ireland and that he had been with the team since the first days in the Polo Grounds.

Two things went through my mind at that moment. First that Flynn had been with the team since Day 1 seemed an incredibly long time in the past (this was around 1978). Next was that a man from Ireland had, what seemed to me, a dream job - tending the grass at Shea Stadium. "How does he know anything about baseball?", I wondered, not giving any thought to reality, which was that all Flynn really needed to know was grass.

____________
Read More:

Ireland used to produce baseball players

Conversion of an Irish baseball fan – how an Irishman in New York became a fan

Baseball in DC won't last
_____________

Flynn said it took him a year to understand the game after he first got the job with the Mets back in '62. It wasn't just baseball either. The Mets shared Shea with the NY Jets for 20 years and Shea also hosted many concerts, including most famously, the Beatles in 1965.

Even if being groundskeeper for the Mets was a dream job, I'm sure there were moments when it was far from easy. Shea Stadium wasn't very well built and Flynn had to contend with a field that didn't drain well.

After the Mets clinched the division title in 1986 Flynn was angry. The fans stormed the field and basically wrecked it. Flynn was angry at the club because they hadn't heeded his warnings about the need for security. He knew what was going to happen. He was angrier at the fans, saying they - we - didn't deserve a champion. There was no repeat of that destruction during the playoffs or after the final out of the World Series or any time since.

Flynn met all the great Mets, many great Jets, the Beatles, other rock stars and Presidents Nixon and Clinton. He witnessed all of Shea Stadium's special moments, including the Mets' World Series wins in 1969 and 1986. Yet, Flynn says the greatest thing he ever saw was the rain giving way to the sun over Shea just as Pope John Paul II came out to say Mass during his 1979 visit to New York.




In 2009 Flynn was inducted as a member of the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame. No doubt about it, Pete Flynn had a dream job.

{Photo from Yahoo.com.}

Stupid, stupid, stupid - free hat day at the Orioles

It's almost three weeks now and I'm still shaking my head at the stupidity of the Baltimore Orioles and the Miller Brewing Company. On July 22 I was with my family among the small crowd who showed up for the Orioles' game against the Angels. It was Floppy Hat night.

I knew we were going to be in the area that night so I got tickets to go to the game. When we arrived at the gate we discovered the Orioles were giving away free hats. Among the four of us the only one who cared was my 10-year-old son. He was keen to get his hands on his free floppy hat.

I was first through the gate and was handed my hat. My son was next. "Sorry, the hats are only for those 21 and over." Thanks to the fact that the hats were sponsored by Miller Lite they could only be given out to those of legal drinking age.

This policy contains within it so much stupidity that it probably requires a PhD length thesis to do it justice, but the long and the short of it is that this is garbage.

First of all, the hats are so ridiculous that only a kid would want one. Sure many of those adults who got one wore it during the game – for a while – but the truth is only a kid would actually wear the hat. Why are the Orioles and Miller giving away hats that only kids would love, but only giving them to adults?

Next, if the team and beer company were only adhering to the law, then why not have two boxes of hats: one for adults with the beer logo and one for kids without? Maybe the kids' hats could have been sponsored by Build-A-Bear or whatever.

Next, if they were only for those 21 and over why were they not demanding ID from those who were in and around that age? My 16-year-old daughter was handed one by the same man who told my son 'no'. Anyone with half a brain knows why they weren't demanding ID before giving older teens these hats – because it's stupid, just as denying the younger kids was stupid.

Now I don't know if the team and Miller were (being seen as) obeying the law, but let's assume they were. Then the law is stupid too. My wife and I can better judge what's appropriate for our kids to wear than can any legislators. If anything I'd rather they barred my 16-year-old from getting a beer logo hat than my 10-year-old. He's still a long way from the beer-drinking age, legal or illegal.

Fortunately for us, we got three hats and only one of us wanted one. So my son has three hats. From what I could see there were no parents wearing the hats while their kids went without, but on the walk to the stadium I saw a man with four boys. I thought about him during the game and wondered how annoyed he was after hearing that the boys weren't entitled to hats. I'd have been fuming.

When I was a kid give‑away days at the ball park were for kids. They were part of what helped make you a baseball fan – that free batting helmet or batting glove or cap or bat (even if it was from the Yankees) – were cherished items. Nowadays it seems teams don't mind using give‑away days to alienate the next generation of fans. Stupid.

{Photo from mlb.com}

Ireland used to produce baseball players

It's not quite as tough as missing Thanksgiving, but Opening Day in Ireland is pretty flat experience. It's not as if there's a great buzz in the neighborhood or even in the papers or on TV or anywhere really. Today is just March 31 in Ireland, but it's a special day in America.

At least those few of us who care can watch the games thanks to digital television and broadband. Still it would be great if there was even something of a buzz here about the start of a new baseball season.

I've often wondered if there were a few players from Ireland would that create an interest in baseball here. Hard to say, but it's not that likely to happen. Baseball's no longer dominated by the sons of Irish immigrants as it was in the years before World War I.

Back then some of the biggest names in baseball were sons of immigrants, including John McGraw, "Wee" Willie Keeler and the game's first superstar, Mike "King" Kelly. None of those all-time greats was actually born in Ireland, however.

There have been Major Leaguers born in Ireland, 44 in all, but none recently and none were stars.

The best of the Irish-born players were Jack Doyle from Killorglin, County Kerry and Patsy Donovan {photo} from Queenstown (Cobh), County Cork. Both Doyle and Donovan played for 17 years in the big leagues, with Doyle finishing up in 1905 and Donovan two years later.

Obviously I never saw either of them play, but statistically they were very similar players. Both of them hit just around .300 for their careers and both stole 518 bases. Donovan was an outfielder and Doyle played a few positions, but mostly first base.

The last Irish-born player in the major leagues was Joe Cleary from Cork who pitched in one game in 1945 without distinction.

Just something to wet your whistle while you're waiting for the games to begin in a few hours. For us Met fans, Opening Day is tomorrow night (that's just wrong - the first game should always be a day game) and despite all the bad press about money and Bernie Madoff, Opening Day is all about hope and we're expecting a great run and fun in September.

{Photo: from Vintage Baesball in Ireland}

Was cricket invented in Ireland?

I was all set to wax lyrical on Ireland's big victory yesterday and simultaneously impress you with my encyclopedic knowledge of cricket. I was ready to put it all in context comparing yesterday's win over England with the 1980 US Olympic hockey team's victory against the USSR.

Unfortunately, two things conspired to stop me. First, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of cricket, although I was almost able to explain a 'yorker' to my daughter last night, which impressed her no end. {Cricket has an amazing language all its own. You can get a sense of that here.}

Second, Kevin Cullen of the Boston Globe has done a great job of putting yesterday's win in context, including the 1980 Olympics reference. It's worth a read if you're a sports fan but know nothing about cricket.

What Cullen can't quite convey is just how much this cricket win has caught the imagination of the Irish people, most of whom are as cricket-savvy as I am. To put it mildly, cricket is a minor sport here, but everyone in the country from north to south and east to west is thrilled by the Irish part-timers' success against the English all star team.

The Irish team is a collection of electricians, carpenters and salesmen whereas England fields the stars from their professional cricket league. Beating England at anything is always special here, but particularly in cricket it's extra special because nobody here really understands anything other than "We beat England." The fact the team contains players who have experienced the same troubles as the rest of the country due to the economic downturn has only enhanced the joy people feel.

If you live in America or Canada, cricket is most likely a mystery. That wasn't always the case, however, as cricket was widely played in America before the Civil War, but was eclipsed by baseball after that. Of course some people claim baseball evolved out of cricket, but I'm skeptical of such claims, which ignore the fact that "Base Ball" was being played in Pittsfield, MA in the 1790s (sorry Abner & Alexander, although Alexander Cartwright did lay down the rules we recognize today). Besides, the two games aren't really all that similar.

The origins of cricket are pretty murky and despite some claims that the game was invented in Flanders (now Belgium), most believe it was invented in England many centuries ago. However, I had a friend who believed it was invented in Ireland.

I wish I could ask him about this now, but unfortunately he died some time ago. From what I remember of the conversation (1993) he said the game was played in and around Wexford way back when (c 1250) and that the first English army to set up camp in the area absorbed the game from the locals and over the centuries it spread wherever the English/British Army went. I can't remember why he said it died out, but if it became associated with the English that may have been all that was needed.

I can't assess his claim, but I can tell you he was not just some loon. He worked for the National Museum of Ireland and his working life was devoted to the history of Ireland and protecting and interpreting the archaeological artifacts in the Museum's care.

I really wish I could remember more, such as was this theory based on items found in Wexford, which is what I think he said. It's really annoying me today, but that conversation sort of went out of my head until yesterday when I was suddenly transformed into a die-hard cricket fan along with the 5.5 million other people living here. We cannot wait for the next 'innings' this Sunday.

{Photo from Getty Images: Yesterday's record-breaking hero Kevin O'Brien}

Baseball in DC won't last

I was in Washington a couple of weeks ago and went to see the Nationals. I love going to baseball games and I knew I wouldn't be able to see the Mets this summer for the first time in years (and it doesn't look like they'll be drawing me back in late October for any big games) so I was looking forward to this one.

The Nationals have a new ballpark and it's nice, I guess. There's a part of me that recoils at the shopping mall/food court model of modern stadiums. I've been to Citi Field in New York and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and those are nice stadiums too. Actually, both of those are better than Washington's park, but maybe only marginally so.

Washington has its nice new stadium and, from what I can see, a team on the rise. The Nationals have a core of good, young talent and more on the way. The future is rosy for the Nats.

Or is it?

They have everything going for them - except their fans. In fact, I doubt Washington has many fans at all.

The game I went to had almost a full house because Stephen Strasburg was supposed to pitch, but he was injured and replaced by a spot starter. The crowd booed the starter. Loudly.

Okay, they were disappointed. I was disappointed too, but I didn't boo. And, if you're a fan of the team you still root for the team to win - that means rooting for the replacement if a star can't play.

That was only a small thing, but it was indicative of what the Nats' have in DC. Strasburg is clearly the crowd favorite even though he's done very little. It was pretty obvious that Ryan Zimmerman is playing second fiddle to Strasburg even though Zimmerman has been with the Nationals since their first year and he's young, an excellent ballplayer and a legitimate star. Yet, the Nats fans are all about Strasburg.

This focus on a pitcher you've seen, what? - four or five times?, rather than an established hometown (Zimmerman's from Virginia) star is a sign of a phoniness and a fickleness among the Nats' so-called fans, whose interest will pass quickly and leave the team with virtually no fan base.

Want more evidence? By the end of the 6th inning the stadium was way more than half empty - on a night when a stand-in starter and the bullpen had the Nats in front of the first place Braves 3-0. {I took this picture just after the 3rd out in the bottom of the 6th. Those fans are all heading for the exit.}

Strangely, the crowd arrives early, very early. We got there more than an hour before the first pitch and the place was buzzing. The Nationals announced that the first 10,000 fans through the gate would get free tee shirts, but they were all gone when we entered. (I should note here, that when the announcer asked the fans to wave their shirts it looked like 2-3000 people had shirts and not the 10,000 who should have had them.)

Yeah, they get there early because, I think, it's the place to be. Yet, the place to be seemed to be not so much in the seats, but walking around, sampling the various concession stands, etc. In fact, the Nats' fans seem to spend as much time out of their seats as in them despite the fact we had beautiful weather and it was an excellent game with a home team victory in the offing.

Of course you can read too much into one experience, but the one impression I left with is that compared with New York or Philadelphia, this team, in fact baseball itself, is just a fad in DC. I really doubt that franchise will be there in 10 years.

Steinbrenner won but with no class

George Steinbrenner is dead and Yankee fans should say a little prayer of thanks for all he did and they might want to throw in a few prayers asking one or two saints to intercede on his behalf and ask God to overlook many of the things he did.

I'm a Met fan and hate the Yankees. It warms my heart when they lose or even just do something stupid.

Most Met fans, including me, enjoyed the fact that George turned the Yankees into a circus. Before Steinbrenner the Yankees were supposedly all about class and professionalism, but once Steinbrenner got involved all of that went out the window.

Oh, he made the right noises, but George wasn't a classy guy. He didn't hire classy guys. Unfortunately, he did hire winners.

I never understood why Yankee fans hated Steinbrenner. In 1973 he bought a team mired in mediocrity and in a few years turned them into champions. Sure, Steinbrenner's Yankees might not have been the same as (the mostly mythological) cool professionals of the past, but they won.

Unlike other baseball owners, Steinbrenner didn't fear free agency when it came in the mid 1970s. He threw himself - and his checkbook - into building a winning team. In 1976 he had his first pennant, but that wasn't enough and following the loss to Cincinnati in the World Series Steinbrenner brought Reggie Jackson to New York to play for manager Billy Martin.

That year the Yankees romped home in the American League and won the World Series. Reggie Jackson lived up to his big contract and his own bragging and delivered when it mattered. Across town the Mets' cheapskate owners were dismantling the team and off-loaded the franchise player - Tom Seaver - because they were determinedly refusing to join baseball's new era.

It was the darkest of times as the Mets found a new long term home in last place. Meanwhile the Yankees won again despite the George & Reggie & Billy circus act.

However, George's interfering ways caught up with him in the 80s and the Yankees stopped winning. They weren't terrible, but they were never quite good enough. And what was more, the Mets were better. Those were the glory days. The Mets dominated New York, the Yankees played second fiddle and we Met fans were all able to fully enjoy Steinbrenner's show because we all knew the Mets' success was killing him.

Then came the 90s. Steinbrenner was exiled from active involvement in the Yankees for paying a gambler to try to get dirt on Dave Winfield, a big money signing who Steinbrenner derided as a bust. George became an obscure figure, unfortunately the Mets became an obscenity so Met fans couldn't enjoy Steinbrenner's discomfort as much as we would have otherwise.

Then something terrible happened. Steinbrenner returned, chastened. And he seemed to have learned his lesson. He still wanted to win, but he just wrote the checks and let his baseball people run the show. Just like that it was the 1950s all over again as the Damn Yankees won and won and won even beat the Mets in the World Series. Oh yeah, and the team was full of classy professionals. Sickening.

I think it was around that time - the late 90s - that Yankee fans mellowed on Steinbrenner.

In recent years Steinbrenner has been less and less involved in running the Yankees, leaving most of the responsibilities to his son Hank. George managed one last hurrah, a final gesture towards what he'd been in the 70s, when he all but dismissed long-time manager Joe Torre after the 2007 season. He was old and frail then and Yankee fans mostly gave George a pass on that one as they were as annoyed as he was that the team had stopped winning (temporarily, unfortunately).

Steinbrenner made the Yankees interesting and winners and for that Yankee fans should be grateful to him. Most Met fans would have loved to have had to endure the 27 years Steinbrenner has given the Yankees.