What Mets fans talk about when not talking about the actual games.
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To me, I’ve always thought it was a combination of little brother syndrome and front runners. An awful lot of people bought Mets jackets in 1986, and you can out the frontrunners by their 25th anniversary patch.
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Good job out of Mushnick, as always, on policing the Mets on this one!
May 12, 2008 — THIS column has long maintained that if you’re unashamed of the business you conduct, you will gladly put your name, face, words and title to the sell.
Saturday night during Reds-MetsNew York Mets (shortly after yet another bogus Giuseppe Franco ad) SNY, the Mets’ co-owned network, ran a house ad. The spot was for Mets’ “Seven Packs,” a come-on that the narrator claimed, “includes a ticket to a sold-out Subway Series game at Shea.”
Once again, the Mets are selling tickets to games that they claim are sold out. That would be impossible, unless the Mets are perpetrating and perpetuating a fraud.
But what if those ads, instead of a faceless, nameless narrator, starred, say, Mets’ chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon? What if Wilpon put his name and face to them. Why not? If there’s nothing to be ashamed of . . .
“Hi, Met fans, Jeff Wilpon here. Our home games against the YankeesNew York Yankees , this season, are, unfortunately, sold out. As we all know, ‘sold out’ means all the tickets are gone, all sold out. Sorry.
“But I’m lying. We now tell such lies every year. There actually are plenty of tickets left to Yankees-Mets games. But if you want to buy one, you have to buy tickets to six other games. Sweet deal, huh?
“Would I want to be treated this way by my team? Well, no. Would I buy tickets to seven games just to get a ticket to one of them? Hey, I’m not a rich kid because my father’s a fool.
“But as you likely know by now, interleague games have been exploited by team owners to price gouge, to soak fans silly. And the Seven Pack is just one of the ways we, here at the Mets, do that. Hey, it used to be a Six Pack!
“But who’s gonna stop us, Bud Selig? Hope to see ya at Shea, suckers!”
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From Joel Sherman’s blog at the NY Post site. Interesting observation that there is no passion either way (love or hate) among the players for Willie.
I don’t think Willie Randolph’s players hate him. That is not the sense you get around the team. But what you sense is perhaps just as damaging. There is indifference about him. There is not a wholehearted disrespect, but critically there is not respect either. Not hate, but not love. And this is bad for Randolph. Because as I wrote in today’s Post, his job is clearly on the line. And at a moment like this, you would want your players invested in you. You would want your players at heighten concentration and effort levels.
Randolph, however, has been unable for a while now to get consistency in those areas. Maybe nobody can. Maybe there just are too many low-pulse players on this team. The problem is that the first in the firing line is not presently the man who assembled this group (Omar Minaya) or the people who pay the players (the Wilpons). It is Randolph. The fans don’t like this team and the media has picked up on that plus the uncomfortable environment that exists in the Met clubhouse. And the Wilpons are very susceptible to fan and media choruses. That is why Willie is in big trouble. And that is why if players in that clubhouse actually do like and/or respect Randolph, they better find another gear now, this weekend, the Subway Series. There might be a lot of tomorrows for the 2008 season. There are not going to be too many more as Met manager for Randolph unless the attitude and results begin to change swiftly.
http://blogs.nypost.com/sports/st/archives/2008/05/3_up_willie_cas.html#more
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I’m disgusted that Willie Randolph manages like an NFL coach staring at one of those go-for-two/don’t-go-for-two cards.
