The Mets Police

Ugh what a rotten Super Bowl.

Picture this.  It’s October.   The Jets are on the bye, your buddy invites you to the local pub to watch “the games.”

1 o’clock rolls around and you watch Giants-Redskins and enjoy some beer and wings.  On the other TV is some baseball wild card action on ESPN.

Now at 4, CBS has the late window and decides to give the country Steelers-Cardinals.  It’s the top of the first of Game 4 of the Wild Card game between the Cubs & Dodgers and the bartender reaches up to switch over to Steelers-Cardinals.

How many people are saying “hey put baseball back on!”

“But it’s Roethlisberger vs Warner!”

Please.

The mainstream media will spend the next two weeks telling us how great a story the Cardinals are, and start comparing them to long suffering Cubs fans.  61 years blah blah, as if there’s some old dude in Chicago who has held the flame for his Cards all this time.   We’re also to believe the people of St. Louis are pulling for Kurt Warner, and there are still some Cards fans there too.   Really, because they all adopted the Rams mighty fast when they were winning!

We’ll be told what a great story Kurt Warner is and he’ll be compared to cagey veterans like John Elway or Brett Favre.   What everyone will forget is that Kurt Warner has been (unfairly) mocked around the league since he lost the job to Eli Manning.

I’m not psyched for this Super Bowl.  I hope the Steelers take it by 50 points (hint, blitz!) and we can all stop talking about Coach Cowher and move on to Coach Tomlin.

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Manny Ramirez.

He’s still out there.

I keep reading that the Mets want to keep the payroll down, under $140 million.

According to the Ledger the payroll is at $116 million.

They want Ollie to take $10 million.   That gets you to $126.   (Or the same $10 for Pettitte/Sheets/Whoever).

Manny Ramirez declined 2 years and $45 million from Los Angeles.  Let’s bring that up to $25 million.   Yes that’s obscene.  Yes Manny is a jerk.  Yes I have sold my soul. 

$126 plus $25 is $151.    The Mets would be one or two million over the artificial cap.   With no facts and just a gut feeling, I imagine there’s one or two million dollars worth of tv ratings, jersey sales and hot dogs that Manny would bring to Taxpayer Field.

So I wonder what this is all about – and I think it’s the same thing that’s it is always about whether you are the Mets or the Marlins.  Not just make money, but make as much money as you can.

The Mets have the fanbase believing that the team could win.  So we’ll buy 4 million tickets or whatever Taxpayer Field holds.  It’s a new stadium and a good enough team, so we’ll take the bait and show up.

Maybe the Wilpons have run some numbers and find that’s it’s a better business if they finish second and play before 3.7 million fans.   Then next winter they can splash one free agent and fool us again.   Over time this will diminish (see Baltimore) and they’ll have to go all in and bring in a whole bunch of free agents (see the great Eddie Murray & Willie Randolph teams of the 1990’s).

So Fred, I ask you – do you actually want to win, or would you be just as happy being the Marlins?  You know what, I take that back, at least the Marlins have two rings since 1987.

As for that image in this article, check out this.

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Usually today is the big NFL day for me.   Even Mrs. Mets Police knows that I like the AFC & NFC championship games more than the Super Bowl.   While the last five years or so have given us some of the better Supes, traditionally it’s a bad game.   Not the Conference Championships.   4 teams, two go home, two get hyped for two weeks (and can we stop with that and make it one week).

Today, I’m not feeling it dawg.

I even have to stop and make sure I get my matchups correct.

Eagles-Cardinals.   The Cardinals.  Who cares.  Nobody likes the Cardinals.   So I have to root for Philly by default.  

Steelers-Ravens.   The Ravens are one of the most boring teams in the league, and at least with the Steelers in we can (a) pretend it’s the 70’s and (b) shut up about Bill Cowher already.  

The NFL needs the bad guys.  We need Belichick to root against.   We need some speculation that Bill Parcells will leave Franchise X after the season.   We need the 40 year old quarterback who never won the big game (I guess that’s Donovan this year).   We need T.O. doing something dopey.  We need the defending champion trying to repeat.

This year, eh.  I have the Tivo set.  I won’t be there at 3:30, maybe around 5 I will start the early game and catch up during the commercials.  

Go Steelers?

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SULLY BASEBALL: Teams haunted by 2006

An extremely slow day, and I don’t feel like writing about patches yet again, so I come to you with a premise:  You don’t know baseball like you used to.

I’m going to ask you some simple baseball questions.  15 years ago you would have rattled these off and laughed in my face about how easy they were.

1.  What is the current number of home runs needed to become the all-time career home run leader?  You have no idea do you?  You know it used to be 755 and it was 714 once, but what’s the number now?

2.  Remember 2130?  Of course you do.   Now Cal Ripken is baseball’s all-time Iron Man.   In how many consecutive games did Cal play?

3.  I will make this a little easier.   What is the current single season home run record?   72?  73?  74?  You tell me.  Are you sure?

4.  Who is currently the American League leader for most home runs in a season and how many did he hit?

The 2013 Hall of Fame ballot sure will be interesting.   Will the writers ignore Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens, and continue to ignore Pete Rose, Rafael Palmeiro (3,000 and 500) and the most popular post-strike baseball player Mark McGwire, you know the guy that restored baseball as America’s Past Time?

Amazing how things change.

(762, 2632 , 73 and 61 by Roger Maris).

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