It Protects You From Swinging

David Wright: Hey Frenchy, you see this?

Jeff Francoeur: What?

DW: It's a new batting helmet ... it's supposed to protect you from 110 mile per hour fastballs. Not even Tim Lincecum can kill you.

JF: No way. I'm not wearing that.

DW: Why not?

JF: I'm just not wearing it. Absolutely not.

DW: But it's safer!

JF: I could care less what they say, I’m not wearing it. There’s got to be a way to have a more protective helmet without all that padding.

DW: But how can you have a helmet that protects you without padding?

JF: They could have satellites in space so that when a fastball comes near your head, it shoots lasers at it and obliterates it.

DW: Dude, the Wilpons aren't paying for a satellite to protect your head so don't even think about it.

JF: Well I don't care, I'm not wearing it.

DW: But what if a fastball comes at your head?

JF: What does it matter? I'm going to swing at it anyway.

DW: That's insane.

JF: You only get hits when you swing, dude.

DW: You should really think about wearing this helmet.

JF: We'll look like clowns out there.

DW: As opposed to how we look now at 52-61?

JF: I'm not going out there looking like Stan, Kyle, and Cartman from the Child Abduction episode.

DW: Do you realize that we play for a franchise that once took the field looking like this:

JF: We had Orel Hershisher?

DW: Frenchy, wear the helmet.

JF: No way dude. I'm not going out there looking like that.

DW: Dude,


JF: Oh that was like forever ago.

DW: All right suit yourself. Hey inning's over, let's get out there.

...

Cory Sullivan: Frenchy, look out!

JF: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!


DW: See, told you.

JF: Where am I?

DW: You're in Washington, you were just hit in the head by a fly ball.

CS: Do you know who you are?

JF: No, what's my name?

CS: You're Je ...

DW: VLADIMIR GUERRERO!

CS: Dude, really?

DW: Shut up Cory.

JF: You know, they should really let us wear helmets in the field.

Lowe Ball (Cheesy Title, I Know)

I gotta hand it to the Mets: Only they can find a way to be screwed by Carlos Silva without even signing him.

Derek Lowe has invoked the name of Silva as some sort of garlic clove that the great Wilpon vampire is supposed to be scared of. Lowe turned down a 3 year $36 million deal because that would be the same money at one less year than Silva got from Seattle.

(Silva, to refresh your memory, went 4-12 with a 6.46 ERA and a 1.60 WHIP for Seattle in 2008 after signing that deal. In the offseason, tragedy struck when Silva was eaten by Andruw Jones.)
So Lowe has gone from wanting Barry Zito money to settling for treading water at Silva level. Now if you remember, I thought the Zito thing was bizarre. And I realize that nobody wants to give in to Scott Boras. But the Wilpons are rolling the dice here. They're using the big bad economy to try to make the market work for them. Fine. But to someone who still remembers the Angels swooping in and getting Vladimir Guerrero, I still worry about somebody making a late run at Lowe and getting him for $45 million for three years. The difference between Zito and Silva is great. But the difference between Carlos Silva and making Derek Lowe realistically happy isn't that large ... certainly not that large for a team with a new stadium and a regional sports network.

Lowe will probably not find a better deal in the northeast, as he wants. But the longer this goes, the greater a chance a team will say screw it, and scrounge up some pennies and make a better offer. It happened with Guerrero, and it certainly happened with Mark Teixeira. If it happens with Derek Lowe and the dice come up craps, then the Mets will have to do something creative ... like trade for Carlos Silva.

Creativity ... not for everyone.

Dysfunctional Public Relationship

From our friends at Metsblog: A very serious charge has been levied by a beat writer for the Star Tribune in Minnesota regarding the Mets interest in Johan Santana:

"I still hear that, unless the names Wright and Reyes enter the picture (and I doubt they will), the Mets have no shot. The word at the winter meetings was that the Mets kept their name involved for PR purposes."

Yeah. Relations between the Mets and the public are at an all time high right now ... only bound to get better with this revelation.

Now we shouldn't all go half-cocked and assume this is true out of hand. But the fact of the matter is this: the Mets have done this before. Anyone out there old enough to remember when Vladimir Guerrero was a free agent who had back issues? Well, if you're like ... eight years old then I guess you're old enough to remember, yeah. But in 2003 the Mets ... after weeks of saying "we're not interested" repeatedly hoping that they would believe it themselves ... came into the bidding like leeches when it was clear that nobody else was willing to take a chance on him with a silly, incentive laden contract as if Guerrero was some sort of has-been.

If they didn't want Guerrero because of his back issues, they should have just said so. Going after him later when the market was low not only made them look like bottom feeders, but the absurdity of the offer made bottom feeders laugh at them. And it only served to make me angry. Because nothing says "hey, we tried our best, but I guess our best wasn't good enough" like the thin veil of an incentive laden contract that had no chance of getting signed.

If this new chatter is true, then it's just proof that less has changed from 2004 until now than we originally thought. If the Mets think that Johan Santana costs too much in prospects and money, then as much as fans aren't going to like it ... they shouldn't do it. Go sign Kyle Lohse and Mark Prior and freakin' Rick Ownbey and get it over with. But feigning interest in Johan Santana to make people feel better about a huge September collapse combined with ... dare I say ... a 20% increase in ticket prices, to me is reprehensible. Telling your fans that you're going after one of the best pitchers of our generation simply to get their hopes up only serves to make them feel like it's September, 2007 all over again when you don't get him.

Of course, I qualify that with the phrase: "if this is true". Because no, I don't believe everything I read. But I believe in learning from history, which the Mets have been dubious perpetrators of lately.

***

But here's your good news of the day:

"They have a good mix here of experience and promising young guys. I'm going to get tape of all the starters so I can get something on paper, especially on guys we'll facing in our division." -Brian Schneider on the Mets

Yeah, Schneider can't hit. And the Mets got him in a somewhat dubious, somewhat unpopular trade. But he's willing to do homework to hone his craft. The Mets could do worse.

Will There Be Donuts At This Meeting?

So Alex Rodriguez is going to Meet the Mets.

Perhaps he'll even Greet the Mets.

Will he bring his kiddies? Will he bring his wife? I can't guarantee he'll have the time of his life.

'Cause as a Met, he'd really sock the ball...perhaps knock some home runs over the wall.

But whether you're on the east side, or the west side, you should really consider coming down...to your senses. Because if you really think there's a chance that Alex Rodriguez is going to sign a free agent deal with the Mets, then you just don't know the Wilpons very well. C'mon...this is a team that once drew up a half-ast contract for Vladimir Guerrero when everyone else was scared off by his back issues, trying to sign him the same way John Spano tried to buy the Islanders.

This is a team that wouldn't overpay for Barry Zito, when Barry Zito was a necessity. You think this franchise is going to give a luxury like Alex Rodriguez more money than the gross national income of Equatorial Guinea to come to the Mets and move either their shortstop to second base (remember how well that worked out the last time) or their gold glove winning third baseman to parts unknown?

Look, I'm not saying that I don't want A-Rod. I'm also not saying that I do. There's a part of me that can do without that phony persona of his, and do without the circus that comes with him. But then again, there's a part of me that thinks 50 HR's and 125 RBI's in the middle of the Mets lineup is enough to make me overlook the A-Rod circus, so I frankly don't know what to think. That's what blowing a seven game September lead has done to my brain. I can't think in those kind of terms anymore. Notice I haven't put out a "how to fix the Mets" post here like I've done in the past. You know why? Because I have no flippin' idea! That's why.

For now, I'm leaving that stuff to Steve Phillips, who went on ESPN yesterday and said something like: "If the Dodgers go out and get Alex Rodriguez and Johan Santana, they'll have a good chance to win the World Series." Wow, no kidding??? What finishing school taught Steve Phillips that new theory of relativity which enabled him to go out on that far a limb to tell us that getting an MVP winner and a Cy Young winner in the prime of their careers will give you a good chance to win the World Series? Eureka!!!

(If I ever...EVER, sound that dumb, please come to my house and put polyurethane in my Dr. Pepper. You know who you are.)

But Steve Phillips is no longer employed by the Mets, so I suppose Alex Rodriguez can talk to the Mets without throwing a garbage can at the wall. Wonderful. Meet the Mets. But don't be surprised when after meeting him, they quickly say good-bye when that slip of paper Scott Boras slides to the other end of the table is about the size of the paper that held those candy buttons you ate when you were a kid, and you tried to eat them all while ingesting no more than the acceptable amount of stray paper that's allowed by the FDA.

So forgive me if I seem less than optimistic over the prospect of this meeting. Because it doesn't matter how I feel about an event that doesn't have a snowball's chance in Scott Boras' house...er, I mean, hell...of happening.

Balk Balk! Like The Chicken You Are!

The real Carlos Delgado is back. The one we all know and love.

The real Armando Benitez is also back. The one we all know and love...to hate.

Combine the two, and you have a recipe for a sweet night. And oh, how sweet it is.

Sometimes, karma lies dormant for a while. We had all hoped for this the minute Armando left the Mets...hoped for the Mets to have his number from the start. Instead, he went 12-for-12 in save opportunities against the Flushing Nine in 2004, and we all wondered what the Mets did to deserve that.

Oh that's right, they hired Art Howe, signed Shane Spencer and Karim Garcia instead of Vladimir Guerrero, and traded Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano. Now I remember.

But that bit of karma has been in someone's hip pocket for a long time, just waiting for the right time to be played. And between Lastings Milledge, and a gaggle of walks, it has indeed been well played over the past couple of seasons. But if there was a quintessential way to defeat the man we affectionately call "Blow-nitez", two balks and a walk-off bomb by Diesel was it. Especially after Armando threw his infield under the bus after a recent game against the Rockies:

"I'm doing my job, I got three groundballs and what happened?" Benitez asked. "We had an opportunity to win the game. How many times we got somebody on base and nobody moved him? Somebody had to pay and the person that paid was me. He hit a good pitch, a slider away, and a sinker."

Amazing that when it's someone else's fault, our friend Benitez is willing to expound to reporters afterwards. Not like when he was here right?

Oh, here's Armando's pearl of wisdom tonight...after he had nobody to blame but himself:

"I lost the game."

Yes, you most certainly did. Here's what Omar Vizquel should have said afterwards:

"I'm doing my job, I dive and rob Julio Franco of the game winning hit in the ninth, and Kevin Frandsen makes a great play on the barehand stab of my flip and what happened?" Vizquel asked. "We had an opportunity to win the game. How many times we got somebody on base and nobody balked him all the way home in the first eleven innings? Somebody had to pay and the person that paid was me."

Maybe Vizquel can put that in his next book whenever he decides he wants to piss off another teammate.

Tonight, for the first time since his departure, I can truly say I'll miss Armando Benitez when he leaves Shea Stadium. I'll miss his karma.

***

Speaking of members of the Hall of Hate, I had high hopes for one of them today, as Mike Francesa started out the "Mike and the Mad Dog" show at Shea Stadium by warning about revisionist history regarding Roger Clemens, and how people are making him out to be this savior after making his appearance in the owner's box at Yankee Stadium announcing his comeback. And how Clemens has never been a savior in his Yankee history, only a mercenary.

Loved it. Francesa was making sense.

Then, inevitably of course, he blew it.

Somehow, of course, he and his partner Russo called Met fans hypocrites for booing Barry Bonds and holding protests while cheering Guillermo Mota.

To clarify, Mr. Francesa, a group of fans at Boycott Barry organized the protests with the blindfolds. Somehow, Francesa associated this with "the Met fan" as Francesa liked to refer to us as repeatedly, as our protest. It wasn't our protest. The fans in the park on Tuesday played along (as evidenced by the crowd being somewhat subdued until Bonds came to the plate in the tenth), but it certainly wasn't organized by Mets fans. But hey, why let a little research get in the way of painting "the Met fan" with a broad brush.

And by the way, if you gentlemen are going to get on "the Met fan" for cheering Guillermo Mota upon his return (and if you see the small sample on my current poll question, it's basically split down the middle between cheers and boos...although I'm surprised more people didn't click the chicken and beer option), then "let's be fair", as you like to say Chris, and get "the Giant fan" for cheering Barry Bonds the way they do. Why not get on them, even though Giants fans actually have good reason to love him, because steroids or not, he saved your franchise from being moved to Tampa Bay in the early nineties.

Go ahead Chris, be fair.

Oh who am I kidding, this is a guy who's good friend Mike North got a shot at the Imus time slot on Tuesday morning, and according to someone who actually heard his show this morning, responded by calling the Mets "red-headed stepchildren". In reasoning that only proves that he's Russo's friend, since the Yankees got all the coverage in the morning newspaper, while the Mets got none, "nobody cares about the Mets."

...

...

THE METS DIDN'T PLAY ON MONDAY THAT'S WHY THEY WEREN'T IN THE NEWSPAPER YOU NASAL DISCHARGE!!!

I know, I shouldn't care what any of these people say or do, but I can't help myself. Watching these guys are like a drug, or a relationship that's a bad idea but somehow you can't break free from. Besides, restraint is no fun...for me, or for you.