Thursday, February 23, 2006

Calm Before The Storm

It's day seven of spring training, and Pedro's toe hasn't exploded on impact thus far.

Rickey Henderson hasn't taught Jose Reyes to refer to himself in the third person yet.

Victor Zambrano hasn't sent a crowd of people scattering with an errant pitch so far.

Carlos Delgado hasn't made a guest appearance on "Larry King Live" to discuss his thoughts on Vieques and "God Bless America" in the past week.

It's quiet...too quiet. And that's a great thing.

The Mets have had a loud off-season with all of their acquisitions. The best way to match a loud off-season is with a quiet spring training. There's an old saying about three possible things that happen when you throw a pass in the NFL...and two of them are bad. Well I feel that way about spring training. Most things that can happen in spring training are bad. Mookie getting hit in the eye during a rundown. Fights on picture day. Rape allegations.

Meanwhile, the most notable thing to happen during this spring is the shocking revelation that Paul LoDuca is willing to carry boxes for rookies. Not exactly the kind of stuff that's going to end up in "Inside Edition".

Of course, the spectre of disaster always looms...after all, these are the Mets we're talking about. There is the toe. There is Rickey. There is Victor. There is the World Baseball Tournament threatening to pull a ligament or shatter a femur or rotate a cuff. And will Jose Lima be a problem in the clubhouse because MLB denied his request to wear number 42?

***

Speaking of disaster, I've figured it out. Have you ever seen the commercial where the boss comes in to some poor schlub's office and fires him...but he doesn't leave because his cereal is crunching so loud he can't hear him? And before you know it, this guy is getting his own corner office, a raise, and is the employee of the month...all after he was banished from his place of work?

Or maybe you've seen the episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza gets fired on Friday, but he shows up to work on Monday and hopes nobody notices.

Now you understand how Dae Sung Sisk actually got to return to the Mets this spring.

Well I can't think of a better explanation than that.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well said ... and in Bizarro World, the Knicks think Musclehead and Stevie Franchise are going to co-exist. I can hear it now: "That's just Stephon being Stephon".

Being that the Mets are giving off sounds opposite to the Knicks ... well, it warms my heart.

Anonymous said...

Clueless Art said...
Anyone remember when CLUELESS ART called for a hit and run like 5 times in a row with Floyd at first base. The batter fouled it off like 5 times then on the 6th time CLUELESS ART called the same play, the ball was way out of the strike zone and an exhausted Floyd was thrown out at second by a mile.

How in the world did this fool CLUELESS ART cash his Met paychecks in good conscience. He was payed millions to be a CLUELESS MORON!!!!!!

And how about his 'interviews' on WFAN where he repeated a few of his famous CLUELESS ART phrases such as:

1) We've got to take it one day at a time
2) We're all working hard to get this thing turned around
3) He's a real gamer [referring to lousy player)
4) Baseball can be a funny game at times.

Metstradamus said...

Hey, anyone remember when Clueless Art made this exact same post during the LAST Blog entry?

Hey, anyone remember when Clueless Art made this exact same post during the LAST Blog entry?

Anonymous said...

I know it is now Spring Training, but I want Metsradamus to take us back to before the Olympics started and his post saying that he can get behind rooting for the players from the Flyers, Islanders and Devils wearing USA uniforms. Well, after watching an embarrassment of a performance by Team USA (the word "team" is a joke in this reference), where is the post calling Rick DiPietro "the worst American Goalie in history"? Hell, I would have rooted for the USA hockey team if Ray LeBlanc was in goal like he was in 1992. Now we have this World Baseball Classic going on and quite frankly, the United States team is really not as dominant as people think. Michael Barrett as one of the catchers? All of these closers like Street and Lidge and Wagner...Maybe the best athletes are from other countries...
I know that I will be hoping that Henrik Lundquist wins the Gold for Sweden and then "come home" to bring the cup to the Rangers....

Anonymous said...

I certainly hope that was Rnager Fan hyperbole calling Rick Dipietro the worst goalie in US history. THe man played well. Too many old guys (Modano, Guerin et al) on this team. AWFUL defense. An all star team, not a team. Kind of like what the Rangers had until they let everyone go.

Metstradamus said...

DiPietro played well until the Finland game. Too many bad goals. But I agree with anonymous number 2...Team USA either contains guys who are too old to contribute in a dominant fashion (Modano, Weight, Tkachuk), or too young with not enough international experience (Gionta, Gomez, Erik Cole). That means that the US would have had to had made some noise on the strength of their coaching...and it's impossible for coaching to be a factor in a short tournament with professional players. Team USA was doomed before the first puck drop.

Ryan Miller should have been the goaltender for this team, in my estimation. But would he have made that much of a difference for a team that had trouble putting the puck in the net (save for the two periods that they faced a back-up goaltender for Russia)? Would other older players such as Brian Leetch and Jeremy Roenick have made a difference? Sadly, no.

And let's face it, the rest of the world has caught up to Canada on the international stage when it comes to the best 25 players in each country. Russia is on a mission after a much needed regime change, Finland's hockey program just keeps getting better (and the rebirth of Teemu Selanne doesn't hurt), and Sweden...well Sweden doesn't have Tommy Salo anymore so that's addition by subtraction.

Metstradamus said...

Isiah Thomas=Al Harazin

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Anonymous said...

OMG, Metstradamus. I never laughed so hard in my life about "Liberals hate hockey and g*d" post...Hockey an American sport. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOOL

(I think I laughed harder at the Bill O'Reilly rant though)