The Mets Police

February 21, 2009

Why This Mets Fan Doesn’t Wish Death Upon The Yankees

I’m a Mets fan. I want the Mets to win the World Series for the next twenty years. They tend not to.

Sometimes I’m seen at Yankee Stadium. I even have a partial ticket plan at both stadiums. Yes, I spend money in the Bronx. Horrified?

I know for a ton of Mets fans you have to wish death upon the Yankees. I don’t.

The Yankees only matter to following the Mets six times a year, and every 50 years they show up to face “us” in the World Series. My choice for the 2000 series would have been Mets in 4. It didn’t happen. My choice in every subway series game: Lets Go Mets.

There’s still 156 other games. You can hate. I root. Yeah I said root.

I live in New York. It’s more interesting and better television for me to have the Yankees be good. It makes my use of sports radio more interesting. It’s better reading in the Post. It gives me stuff to write about and things to talk with friends about. The Mets spent last week doing nothing and not signing Manny, so I followed the A-Rod & Torre stories.

Sometimes, on a random Wednesday night in August if the Mets are down 17 to nothing and SNY goes to commercial, I even change the channel. I know you don’t Mr. Die Hard Mets Fan. You sit and wait for the 18 run rally that Willie Randolph just knew was coming (otherwise why else would he chase losses and use the bullpen the way he did? – but I digress). I switch over and see what’s going on, and often come right back to listen to Keith Hernandez rip lousy baseball.

When the Yankees played in the series in 2001 I was there. Game 5 was the best baseball game I’ve ever been to. The Brosius home run gave me the same rush that Tom Seaver did when he walked in from right field on opening day 1983.

I went to the final game at the Stadium. I’m a baseball fan. It was a cool event.

My Met friends gave me a hard time back then, and I told them that they’d be the first ones reading (a madeup book I called) “The Jeter Yankees by Mike Lupica.” I got the title and author wrong, but they are all reading Torre’s book now.

So I don’t hate the Yankees. Yeah they have a lot of steroids up in the Bronx. I’m not convinced that the Mets have dodged that bullet.

The Yankees can go 156 and 6 for all I care, just make sure the six are against the Mets. Go ahead, hit the comments button, call me names. I just choose to enjoy baseball in New York.

www.metspolice.com

February 21, 2009

Verducci’s…I Mean Torre’s Book "The Yankee Years"

I got through a big chunk of The Yankee Years over the weekend and it’s not at all what the Post would have us believe.

It’s really a Tom Verducci book. There is a great sidebar chapter about steroids and another about the Red Sox coming of age.

The book quotes Torre at length, but it might as well say “Tom Verducci with David Cone, Mike Mussina and Joe Torre.” Cone gives the players perspective for the first half, and then Mussina for the post-Dynasty years.

This book is right there with Summer of ’49 for great baseball books. You don’t have to be a Yankee fan to relive all those post-seasons especially 2001.

Grab it.

www.metspolice.com

February 20, 2009

Citigroup donated to certain House members (Newsday)

Your tax dollars at work. You pay tax, Citi gets a bailout, Citi donates to politicians.

Newsday reports the below. Sorry for the cut and paste but I’m busy and they’ll say it better anyway:

By now it is well known that Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Ted Poe (R-Texas) urged Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to demand Citigroup cancel its $400 million, 20-year deal to put its name on the new New York Mets ballpark in Queens. Their rationale is the $45 billion the bank received in federal aid.

It is also well known by now that six regional members of Congress countered with a letter of their own stating that they “strongly disagree” with their out-of-town colleagues on the naming of the new Shea ‘Citi Field’.

Now for the followup, which is not as well known: Federal records posted on the Web show that three of the six House members who signed the local letter â€” saying “it is deceitful and unreasonable to single out Citigroup for an agreement signed several years ago” â€” received campaign contributions in the last two election cycles from the corporation.

Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) logged $6,000 from Citigroup in the 2005-6 cycle; Rep. Greg Meeks (D-Queens), $10,000 total in 2005-6 and 2006-7, and Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Queens, Bronx), $20,000 total in the two cycles. (For the record, on Long Island, Citigroup also contributed during that period to Long Island Reps Peter King, total $1,000, and Carolyn McCarthy, total $4,500.)

Full story here: http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/blog/2009/02/citigroup_gave_to_signers_of_m.html

February 20, 2009

Mark Teixeira was on the 2003 Rangers

I am told that if you call the Yankees main number today you are greeted by Sterling & Suzyn calling Teixeira home runs (presumably edited from the past and not phony play by play).

Been reading a lot about how Tex is the future of the franchise and the right one to follow in the steps of Donnie & Tino.

I hope so.

I observe he was on the 2003 Texas Rangers.

February 20, 2009

A Eulogy For A Cap

I’ll be getting a new Mets cap this year. Fitted (7 5/8). All blue of course.

I decided towards the end of last season that it was time to retire my old cap. That cap was Shea, the new one will be Corporate Field.

The decision did not come about lightly. I’ve had that cap for about 13 or 14 years – can’t exactly remember when I bought it, but I know it was before the late 90’s good years.

It fits my head like a glove. The blue isn’t quite the shade of Mets blue it was when it was new – sweat and dirt will do that over the years. During the 2007 season the soon-to-be Mrs. CyclonesFan took note of how “seasoned” the hat was and offered to wash it. Thankfully our relationship survived that incident. She still doesn’t quite understand why it was wrong to even suggest that, but she accepts it.

MLB changed their caps a few years back. No longer are they 100% wool. The manufacturers claim that the new blended caps breathe better. Is it really that big of a difference? All I know is that my new cap when I get it won’t feel or look the same as my old one.

I wore that cap in rain outs and playoff games. It traveled with me to other parks and other countries. I’ve thrown it, squeezed it, and turned it inside out – sometimes all at once.

The last time I wore the cap was the other day as I saw that Shea was no more. Standing there in the parking lot, I took the cap off my head for the last time. I’ll keep the cap – but it now becomes a souvenir, a memory of something gone but never forgotten.