Thuggish Ruggish Omar: Time to Handle Biz

(Note: A piece from Cheddar follows this one from Sweet Lou. Also, Sip will be in with a piece later this afternoon so keep checking in for that.)

After a weekend full of appearances (performing “Lazy Mary” with Mickey Mouse’s severed hands on back-up percussion, checking out this dope art show) and celebrity sightings (the original Pretty Lou, the second Batman), Old Man Monte was feeling a bit under the weather and missed his deadline yesterday.

So I woke up around 11 and did what any other good New York sports fan would on a sick day: read The Times and wish Selena Roberts was hotter, check in with Steamin’ Mikey Lehman about the all-time greatest Mets shit-talkers and watch Nate Robinson thug it on YouTube — 37 times:



My first thought (Damn, Lil’ Nate just loves getting scrappy!) didn’t differ a whole lot from my second (How much would I pay for Jared Jeffries’ stretched-out jersey on eBay?) or, this, my third: Could the Knicks be as badass as they are bad, and could next year’s Mets, inversely, turn out as goodie-goodie as they are good?

It was a rash reaction on my part — some immoral, backwards logic based mostly on two inevitable conclusions that could shake any burnt-out, B-list singer to his core: Cliff Floyd will no longer be a train ride away, and Isiah Thomas is definitely getting away with this.

Uncle Cliff, I thought, was the last vestige of the thuggish-ruggish, Mota-as-the-enemy, bat-chuckin’, Mike-Cameron-lovin’, disguises-wearin’ Mets — that long line of 1998-2005 Flushing Flava that would get your back and talk shit to Larry in the tabloids.

Somehow, after Mardy Collins went all M. Bison on J.R. Smith for the third time, I saw all that personality and pride melting like some TCBY in an upside-down helmet bowl on a Shea summer’s day — as bland and soft as Willie Randolph.

And while the team will have still have stars in Boring Beltran and Cool Carlos and Dimples Dave and Tom Terrifically Not Terrifying, there’s no way, I said to myself, that the 2007 Mets (Pedro included) could hold a brawlers edge over anyone — let alone Isiah’s Death Squad.

Zeke seemed to have used all his soft-spoken ineptitude as a general manager in order to recruit hit men for his thuggish genius as a coach, which would leave a young star taunted and then out of the game for weeks. It was like Willie and Omar, inversed, combined and all-powerful.

But my reaction to a third YouTube replay gave way to my denouement after a 37th, just after Stephon Marbury (and shitty Jazz defense) had gone coast-to-coast to completely bail out Isiah from a miserable (if lucky) coaching performance, though more specifically at the very moment the Big Announcement came across the transom last night: Omar’s going back to Cali.

After all the ruckus about Thomas’ high-volume threat to Carmelo Anthony finishing up fist-to-face, it’s Minaya’s low-key pitch to Barry Zito that’s putting him face-to-face in Scott Boras’ office this evening — hopefully finishing up the Knicks' tabloid terror with a Mets deal inked on the back page by week’s end.

It’s the management balance in Flushing — Willie’s continuous calm roving separately from Omar’s quick-hitting decisiveness — that keeps the Mets the kings of the Hot Stove and keeps them from being called pieces of shit by George Karl (because you know he would). And that’s badass in its own way.

Believe (in Willie and Omar),
Louminati, Jr.

(Note: The pictures above appear courtesy of newspic.mop.com and mlb.com)