Author: Shannon Shark @metspolice

Jerry Manuel summed it up for everyone when he said "It's bad. It's bad. It's bad."

Maybe it's for the best.

We're looking at a rain filled weekend, and even before you start talking doubleheaders you are already talking about starting Knight or Figueroa in game 161.

This is a team with one pitcher. Not one starting pitcher, one pitcher.

Maybe the some squeeze in. Maybe Santana throws 225 pitches on Sunday. Maybe Shea gets to have game 163 on Monday.

The Cubs are in coast-mode and are beating the Mets. What happens when the Mets start Four Inning Pedro and I dunno Knight and Figueroa in the NLDS. You might not even get to Santana.

So maybe it's best they collapse. Let Omar take the job a little more seriously before he gets 4 more years. Take a look at what the fanbase likes (homegrown scrappy kids that wear 28 and fewer Luis Castillos).

Maybe it's best we don't put playoff money in the Wilpon's pockets.

Maybe it's for the best that the team realizes you have to play hard in April too, a franchise-wide problem that goes back to the Bobby V days.

I'm ready to boo them one last time on Sunday and then join the rest of NYC in following The Further Adventures of Joe Torre.

See you at Citi Field by the yet unannounced thing that honors the NY Giants.

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I thought the finale was great – but the Times had an article yesterday with some interesting perspectives.  I saved it for today because I had a ton of posts yesterday that I wanted to give daylight.

This lazy “Field of Dreams” derivative starred team workers dressed in retro uniforms pretending to be the Yankees’ starting lineup on April 18, 1923, the day the Stadium opened, and assorted other greats. A security guard played Babe Ruth. A former batting-practice catcher played Casey Stengel. A tour guide played Allie Reynolds.

What’s next, Ronan Tynan played by me?

On ESPN and on the YES Network, which each broadcast the ceremony, the directors never chose close-ups, as if long shots with camera flashes bestowed majesty. The reaction shots of some current Yankees, save for an entranced Mariano Rivera, seemed to say, When I’m dead, which concession worker or usher will play me?  

I disagree with the criticism.  No matter who you get, someone is going to say “that doesn’t look like Babe Ruth” – so you hook someone up, and keep the cameras back.  I was in the upper deck and it looked “babe Ruth enough” for me.  People said it was lame on TV.  Everyone at the stadium said it was amazing andI got many text messages during the ceremony.

You can read the rest for yourself here:

Always a good thing when someone remembers that there was a baseball team in New York called the Giants.   Fred Dodgers Wilpon likes to ignore them (unless there’s a Mel Ott statue at Citi Field I haven’t been told about, and no “green seats” doesn’t honor the Giants any more than the Orioles do).

Merkle’s Boner.  You’ve heard of it, but what is it.   The Times hooks it up….

On Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1908, the New York Giants and the Cubs were embroiled in a 1-1 tie before 20,000 fans at Harlem’s old Polo Grounds. It was a critical contest, the Giants clinging to a one-game lead over Chicago. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and New York’s Moose McCormick on first, Merkle, a 19-year-old rookie first baseman making his first start, slammed a single into right field that sent McCormick to third.

“At that, I could have gone to second easily, but with one run needed to win and a man on third, I played it safe,” Merkle remembered later. It was a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

A hundred years later, think Chuck Knoblauch meets Steve Bartman, and you will have some idea of the enormity of Fred Merkle’s blunder.