Lazy Sunday

Thank god the SAG Awards are on. A moment ago I was so bored I nearly... I don't know what, but I can assure you it would have been pretty effng depressing.

(However, in the 5 minutes now I've been watching, I've seen Mickey Rooney give a rambling speech that was horribly self-indulgent, then they went and botched their In Memoriam tribute to Heath Ledger. 0-for-2 so far.)

Thank goodness the Giants are going to the Super Bowl! Without Big Blue there'd really be nothing for me to get excited about except for the days getting steadily longer.

(My god, and now the woman from American Gangster is up there stammering and stuttering her way through her acceptance speech -- make it stop!)

That probably differentiates me from a sizeable portion of the Mets' fanbase, which is now, in all likelihood, in official countdown mode to February 6. For those not in the know, the next 10-day period has been identified as the window in which Johan Santana will be traded.

I've had a healthy skepticism about this whole Johan-to-the-Mets thing since the beginning, and I hate to say it but I'm not about to change my tune. I'd love to be proven wrong here, but... well, let me put it to you like this. Say we're the Twins and we've got to trade Johan -- would we ever feel good about doing it for the package of prospects the Mets are offering?

(Has an actress ever portrayed Queen Elizabeth and not been nominated for an award?)

That's not to say our package is awful -- frankly, I think there's something to be said for getting quantity out of a mega-deal, rather than putting all your eggs in one basket. On top of that, there's the whole trade-him-where-you-won't-have-to-face-him argument, which Mets fans know a thing or two about.

That all said, I'm not going to count on it. I think the Yankees or Red Sox will get him, and I think whichever one of those teams does will never lose again.

As for the Mets, even as seemingly every reporter on the planet writes about how they haven't done a thing to improve their roster thus far this offseason, the one thing I take a lot of solace in is that, to a man, every player leftover from last year's roster who's talked about the collapse has talked about how disappointing it was and how determined they are to become an elite club again.

Getting a sense that the players care is important to fans of every stripe. You can love teams that fall short, even ones that choke, so long as you never doubt their fire, as long as you think they care.

For the 2007 Mets, complacency was the order of the day, not intensity. As we look ahead to the 2008 season, well, the Mets aren't the team to beat in the National League any more, but damned if they don't sound like they're ready to play with some fire.

Hell, if we get really lucky, maybe they'll even play like the Giants.

- A.F.O.M.G.