Mets Blog of the Year Award Deathmatch!

Man I love doing this blog.  Yesterday was one of those really cool days.

Somehow I found myself at the Mets Christmas Party.

That’s so so strange.

I had a nice quick conversation with Dave Howard who I really like.

I met Daniel Murphy and whiffed hard on that opportunity and spent the day mocking myself at my Man-Date ineptitude.

I mean really, I got invited to the Mets’ party?  Wow, if I could tell my 15 year old self that one.  (I was invited last year too but couldn’t make it, in case you are keeping score.)

Media Goon and I did a recap last evening and we both felt the same way.   We also felt really good about guys like Murph, or the really charismatic Justin Turner.  I know most of you disagree but I’ll go to war with those guys, and guys like R.A Dickey, and I will take my chances.  They are the kinds of guys I want to root for.  Mix in a MAN like Santana (see 2008’s attempt to keep Mets in pennant race) and I’m in.

Thanks once again to my friends out in Queens.  It has been a thrill to get to know all of you and thanks for letting me and my dopey blog in the building….

..which brings us to the next part.  Goon and I were talking about how newer readers think that the blog is soft.  How far we’ve come from the days when all the comments were about how all this blog was was about complaining!  As always, I write what I feel, and these days I actually feel good.  I love my Mets, and I can’t wait to go to Opening Day with my new VB Day jersey.

But back to the emotions from last night….really, me?  Somehow I got to go to the Mets’ party?  Amazin’

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In just a few weeks I will be announcing the 2011 Mets Police Awards (aka The Mazzillis) and thanks to all the recent monetary discussions we suddenly have a two horse race for Blog of the Year.

First we have the front-runner (no not that kind, they won’t be around until the Mets are in first on July 4th at which point there will be a million of them, Paul is the guy in the lead in the blog award race) Paul’s Random Stuff who does awesome posts like this find…pictures from 1986 Spring Training!

I’ll dive into those photos tomorrow, we have so much content spillover from yesterday (of course now I’ve tipped off MetsBlog and I bet they link, oh well.)

Then, we have the late charge by Howard Megdal for work like this:

But let’s be extremely optimistic, and estimate the team loses just $35 million next year. That leaves $100 million. That’s just about enough to cover the two more debt payments against Citi Field, the $30 million in interest on the debt against the team, and the $20 million in interest on the debt against SNY.

And it doesn’t address some other massive issues for this ownership group: the $430 million in debt against the team (due in 2014), the $450 million in debt against SNY (due in 2015), or even a penny of the massive legal fees they’ll be paying to fight the Madoff lawsuit, with a trial date set for March 19 of next year. Oh, and they’ll owe $200 million, plus 3 percent per year, to their ten minority investors in 2017.

So the best-case scenario places them right back in this position a year from now—on the brink.

I’m not smart enough to know if Howard is right or wrong but it’s sure another must read.

So Mets fans, who do you think will get the award? Will it be the cude cuddly site that has posts about 1962 Mets baseball cards, or the aggressive financial reporting? We’ll know in two weeks!

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In other news, I don’t want this one to get lost since there have been so many posts in the last 24 hours – Mets Blue is the same as 2011.  Definitely confirmed.

Lots coming up today, and there were a few posts last night – so poke around and enjoy!