Lost At The Wheel

If you consider what I wrote yesterday, I shouldn't have a fundamental problem with the following passage:

“Someone asked me what I thought of our team. I said, ‘What team?’ We've lost 13 games [Glavine’s victory total], and now we are going have to give up something to get those games back. I’m afraid we’re just going to create other holes if we give up a [Lastings] Milledge, a [Mike] Pelfrey or a Heilman. I’m trying to be positive. I’m saying we have some good players. But I’m worried. The Braves are getting better, and the Phillies made a move [acquiring Brad Lidge]. We've brought back some people, and that’s good. But losing Tom is big. It’s a lot more than the 13 games he won. It’s what he did for John Maine and Oliver Perez and how professional he was. People want to focus on one bad game or just the day-to-day stats. I do that myself when I read about football. By I’m involved in this, and I know how important [Glavine] was. We don’t have him, and we don’t even get to the last game with a chance. He was one of the few leaders we had. The Mets didn't do anything wrong. I know he wanted to be home more. I understand that, but where does that leave us?”

Kinda sounds like something I would have written, eh? I probably wouldn't have gone so far as to defend a return of Tom Glavine in 2008, but I would at least see that side of the argument.

Here's the problem, though: Billy Wagner said it. And while I agree with the fundamental principle of the soliloquy of Country Time, I have a problem with this particular person perpetrating the passage.

Here's the difference: When I whine and bitch, it's because I have no choice. You see, I write a stupid blog called "The Musings and Prophecies of Metstradamus". It can also be called "Whining and Bitching is What I Do". Because I have no control over anything else that happens with this team. If I did, I'd earn a paycheck as a consultant...and Omar Minaya doesn't listen to a thing I say anyway (although if he wants me to whine and bitch on WFAN during telecasts, I hear there's a job open). So I bitch. And I moan. And I bitch and moan some more. And I complain about stories like the one that says the Mets are going to go after Livan Hernandez (which is like filling your diet with empty calories...I mean, yeah it's food, but it's not going to enhance the quality of your life or your health).

But when you, William, bitch and moan about Tom Glavine being one of the few leaders the Mets had, you know because the team is way, way too young with guys like Orlando Hernandez, Carlos Delgado, Damion Easley, Moises Alou, Pedro Martinez, Luis Castillo, Scott Schoeneweis, Carlos Beltran, and oh yeah...you, it concerns me. Because you can do something about it! You can, oh I don't know...be a leader yourself??? Gee, is there any wonder that a group of thirty-something men, many of which had never won a ring before including yourself, got bored at the end of the '07 season??? I mean, if I whine from the back seat about getting lost on the highway, you can tell me to shut the hell up! But if you whine from the front seat about getting lost, then all of a sudden we're in a gas station in Elmira asking some guy in a lumberjack shirt directions on how to get back to New York City, and then we get back on the road and all of a sudden we're a left turn away from f***ing Canada because there's too much whining and not enough driving!

Are you happy now, Country Time? All I wanted to do was log on to my trusty lap top, visit my friends at Faith and Fear, and download select games from the Mets 2007 postseason on my PC. Instead I come across your quote and I'm ticked off all over again.

Maybe I can still download that great game from this past October where Glavine threw that two hitter against Colora...I mean, the one where Shawn Green drove in those five runs in Arizon...ooh, I know, the one at Fenway Park where Pedro Martinez...dammit!!!