Takin' Care of Business

The Mets did what they had to yesterday, and I'm not talking about firing Tony Bernazard. No, the Mets -- the ones who play on the field, the ones we cheer for -- did what they had to do yesterday by taking the opener of their 4-game set with the Wild Card-leading Rockies.

As regular readers are probably aware, I'm pretty sure this Mets team is dead and buried. But I'll say this, if they're going to make this thing interesting, they would do very well to start this week against the New Rox.

Having won the opener of the series and with Pelf, Johan, and New Niese set for the remaining three games, the Mets have about the best pitching breakout they could have asked for.

Winning the Wild Card would take a lot more than winning this series against the Rox; there are still six other teams between the Mets and Rockies, after all. But over the weekend the Mets got the ball rolling by taking two of three from the Astros (currently 6th in the running for the Wild Card, two spots ahead of the Mets).

If they can manage it, winning these series back-to-back would be an excellent way to reenergize a wary fanbase made all the more incredulous by Omar's bungling of the Bernazard firing.

Firing Bernazard had to happen. I'm sorry, there is no context that could ever, EVER, excuse whipping off your shirt and challenging subordinates (which, when you think about it, is what those minor leaguers were relative to Bernazard) to a fight. I mean, this is supposed to be a professional enterprise, not the corner of 78th and Broadway after a Collegiate-Horace Mann basketball game.

Bernazard's behavior made the Mets an embarrassment, and dismissing him was the only possible recourse; period, full stop. That being the case, Omar's insinuation that Adam Rubin orchestrated some sort of witch hunt to get Bernazard firing so that he could take his job is entirely beside the point.

So long as what Rubin wrote was accurate (and no one has denied it, and the Mets saw fit to fire Bernazard over it), Omar had no business questioning his motives. His motives didn't make Bernazard whip off his shirt and act like a lunatic.

But hopefully when we look back on this season, this week will be memorable not because the Mets fired a member of senior management or because Omar put his foot in his mouth; hopefully it will be memorable because it was the start of something special.

Believe me, I still don't expect anything special to happen this season. 10.5 out in the division, 6.5 out in the Wild Card with seven teams ahead of us. But if something special WERE going to happen this season, this is as good a time as any to start making waves.

We did it over the weekend and we did it again last night. As Gary Cohen reported in his happy recap, the Mets have now won three in a row for the first time since May.

What better time than now to make it four in a row?

- A.F.O.M.G.

Deadline Buyers... Say WHAT?

A few things Omar could buy to help this team at the trade deadline:

• Mount Sinai Medical Center
• A contractor to move the fences at Citi Field in about 40 feet
• Bobby Valentine
  
• A book on Mets history for Fred Wilpon
• Lenox Hill Hospital
• A copy of the 1986 Mets tape for Fred Wilpon
• A clue
• St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital
• A successor

In fairness, I can't kill Omar for saying that the Mets will be buyers at the deadline. I mean, when the general manager starts saying the team will be sellers, it's a concession that the team he's assembled has no chance to make a run at the playoffs.

That may be obvious to people like you or me who follow this team desperately, but it might be less apparent to your average Joe Six Pack who follows the team only casually. He may think that the team still has a shot when Beltran, Reyes, Delgado, and all the rest come back, and it might still be worth his while to shell out for absurdly priced seats at Citi Field.

So, no, I can't fault Omar for saying the team will be buyers at the deadline, but I sure as hell fear the possibility that he really believes this team should be buyers at the deadline.

There's a long way between the two, but given his track record as GM and the organization's continued delusion that it still fields the 2006 Mets, you really have to worry.

You can talk about whether the Roy Halladay deal would have made sense -- marquee players like Halladay can be worth shelling out for under any circumstances (just ask the 1998 Mets about Mike Piazza).

But the underlying reality is that there's no one the Mets can buy that would save this season, and we as fans have to pray that Omar realizes that.

Honestly, I have no idea whether he does or not.

Have nice weekends, all.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Remember, You Help Pay Tony Bernazard's Salary

Or you, and all the rest of us, contribute anyway. We contribute each time we buy a David Wright t-shirt or switch on SNY. We contribute by supporting this team.

Of everything else that's happened this season, the news that the Mets have a senior management member who would whip off his shirt and challenge our Double-A team to a fight is easily the most infuriating thing I've read about this organization.

The Mets say they are going to conduct an investigation into the incident. I've got news for them. This kind of behavior doesn't just pop up out of the blue. It follows on warning signs that rational people can identify and then use to ensure the person never amounts to anything within their organization.

Except the Mets, who promoted this imbecile and let him shape the strategic dirction of the franchise. Meanwhile, our minor league system, which he oversees, is a complete mess.

But that makes sense. The Mets are a mess, a joke, an embarrassment, choose your disparaging adjective. And this man is symptomatic of the absurdity we've become. I say symptomatic because the problem starts at the top, with people like Jeff Wilpon or Omar Minaya, who empower this fool.

Screw an investigation. Bernazard needs to be fired, as does everyone who ever championed him.

- A.F.O.M.G.

The Tipping Point

Just to ask the question... when do we, as a fanbase, as a franchise, reach the point of no return with this season?

You probably know the numbers by now, but to recap briefly: 10 games behind the Phillies in the loss column, 9 back in the division, 5 games under .500, the 22nd worst team in baseball by won/loss record.

At what point do you decide it isn't going to happen this year, no matter who returns from the DL? At what point do you start equating losses not with heartache but with higher draft picks? At what point do you ask yourself whether it's harder to imagine this team without player X/player Y anymore, or if it's harder to imagine this franchise winning a championship with player X/player Y still in the fold?

Putting a championship team together means never being loyal to any player. Rather, it's a game of value maximization. Is a given player most valuable to you as they are, or would they be more valuable if you traded them for a collection of other players?

I think that's the question the Mets never ask themselves. If they did, I think we would have traded Delgado away during the offseason. It would have been the ultimate sell-high move; from what I recall, the idea wasn't even entertained.

Oh well. Another lost weekend, another lost series, another lost pitcher. The wheels keep tumbling, tumbling, tumbling off.

What on earth can we do to fix it?

- A.F.O.M.G.

Y2K: The 1K Post

One thousand posts for the little site that could. Honestly, if you'd have told Sip, a bored paralegal back in October 2005, that the site he created to pass the time at work would make it to 1,000 unique posts and still be around almost four years later in July 2009, I'm not sure he'd have believed you.

I joined Y2K shortly after its inception. When I joined I was a fresh-faced college graduate working a paralegal position at the same financial firm I work at today. Like Sip I was mostly bored out of my mind.

For most of my life I'd been a journalist. I started at the high school newspaper with a piece on the junior varsity tennis team at the bequest of Nails (the rising Editor-in-Chief, and Sip, the rising "Sports Editor").

From there I went on to become Editor-in-Chief of my high school paper. In college I orked for the paper all four years, ultimately becoming Editor-in-Chief there, too (succeeding Nails once again). The summer before my senior year, a year before Y2K started, I worked at a local newspaper covering mostly baseball, but also wrote tennis articles, profiles, and fall sports previews.

When I started working I felt suffocated without the creative outlet that writing provides for me. I needed something, and all of a sudden, thanks to Sip, there was Y2K.

* * * * *

Sip and I have been best friends for a long time. We grew up across the street from one another, and met mostly through West Side Little League competition. Sip came to my school when he was in third grade and I was in second.

The rules of the schoolyard being what they are, two kids from different grades couldn't actually be friends until much later, but around Sip's junior year, my sophomore year, we started spending a LOT of time together. I'd basically head across the street, park on the couch he had in his bedroom, and we'd watch the Mets, watch a movie, maybe drink a 40, whatever, just kind of waste time.

When he started Y2K on October 12, 2005 I was on the initial e-mail launching the site, but I wasn't involved in any way, but I knew immediately that I wanted to be involved. So I offered to edit his pieces before they went up on the site, and he was happy with that arrangement. I can't remember which was the first post I edited, but I want to say it was within the first two weeks.

When the site began it was almost entirely about hating the Yankees. I hated the Yankees, but what I could write about (and write about and write about) was the Mets. I figured the same people reading the site because they hated the Yankees probably were big fans of the Mets, so I asked Sip if I could write a piece every now and then.

Dubbing myself "this site's answer to Doug Mientkiewicz," on October 25, 2005 I made my debut. It took a little while for me to become a regular at the site, but I was hooked.

Corny as it may sound, writing for the site filled a need within me, and it still does. That's why even without Sip and Cheddar Ben writing on the regular anymore, I can't let the site go. Maybe if/when I go to business school two years from now I'll put down my pen, but so long as I'm working I can't imagine not doing this.

It's a creative outlet and it's a diary in a way. I love picking a random month from way back when and seeing what was on my mind or what I'd done that day.

* * * * *

A lot of things have changed over the course of these first 1,000 posts. Sip, Ched, and I aren't fresh-faced recent college grads anymore. The Mets don't play at Shea anymore, and to echo Ched's point from the other day, they aren't that good anymore.

But for me, the compelling reasons to write for the site don't change no matter what else I have going on.

These first 1,000 posts have been a gas. Here's looking at the next 1,000.

- A.F.O.M.G.

The Nine-Nine-Nine

One night back in college, I went out to dinner with a bunch of friends at a local place. Decent food, regular bar, a very easy type of restaurant. We went there all the time. On this evening, we were all fairly drunk when we showed up to eat, but one of my buddies was truly wasted. Sloppy. Exxon Valdez sloppy.

Sitting next to our table of eight loud drunkards was an old couple who were celebrating their sixtieth anniversary. Just the two of them, an evening out together, and they had to put up with our nonsense. It was truly unfortunate. My drunk buddy kept leaning over to their table, asking what they were eating and making drunken nonsensical conversation. They were appropriately horrified.

Then, the waitress shows up to take our order. She hurried around the table, clearly looking to get away from us as quickly as possible. But when she got to the sloppy guy, he looked her dead in the eye, and said, "I'd like a thousand fajitas." We completely lost it. I don't think I've ever seen a waitress taken so aback. The order was, of course, repeated. He also mispronounced "fajitas" so that it rhymed with "vaginas," which only added to the booziness of the whole incident. Excellent times. He only got one order in the end, but they were delicious.

I bring up this story only because "a thousand fajitas," intentionally mispronounced, has become a go-to phrase whenever one of our friends wants to signal that he, or someone else, is out of control. It's a code word; a red flag; an air-raid siren. Duck and cover, and get out of the way of whatever's coming. And I kind of feel like that about the impending thousandth post here at Y2K.

It is, quite simply, not a good time for the Mets. I feel drunk just talking about it.

Now, none of that necessarily has anything with Y2K, whose impending thousand-post milestone deserves some kind of commemoration. Whatever the current situation, the blog has followed the team through a bizarre range of highs and lows.

One one side, the Mets have been a contending club for most of the site's tenure, which is certainly more than you can say for the Amazins at many points throughout their history. The team has boasted a bevy of young talent, big and not-entirely disastrous free agent signings, and easy-to-root-for types. There have been playoff runs. There's a brand spanking new stadium. In the scheme of things, Mets fans have had plenty to cheer about since 2005.

Of course, as chronicled herein, there have been some setbacks. Some, ahem ... "less-than" moments. For all the potential in the various iterations run out by the club, there remains a profound and lingering sense of underachievement. I don't want to get too deep into it here, mostly because I'll end up bloodying my knuckles against the photo of Yadier Molina tacked onto my wall. And I need my knuckles.

But none of that is necessarily bad for the site. No news is only good news if you're not interested in writing about the news. I think Edward R. Murrow said that once. When he was high. And whatever else you want to say about the Mets over the past four-odd seasons, they have certainly been newsworthy, often in a train-wreck kind of way.

Plus, scandal and intrigue make for interesting copy, despair even more so. The blog had a great year covering the 2007, for all the heartache that followed. I know I've personally had some fun with the misadventures of, say, Paul LoDuca. And over the years, Alex Rodriguez has provided an embarrassment of riches for anyone who despises the Yankees. Someone should write a book about that guy.

What I'm saying is that we -- A.F.O.M.G., Young Sip, me, the site's readers -- need to look beyond all the storm clouds on the horizon. We need to get past the fact that the team is currently sub-.500. We need to accept the fact that the Buffalo Bisons are now known as the worst team in baseball. Especially me.

We need to ignore all the REALLY disturbing omens, like Nails going bankrupt (with up to $50 million in liabilities, no less). I mean, if Lenny's still fighting, we can keep the faith too, right?

We need to get past nonsense like this allegedly complete 2003 MLB drug testing list. I've never seen such a load of hogwash in my life. A quick comparison of that list with, say, the 2003 Mets roster is fairly instructive there. And really, six years later, aren't we all ready to move on?

We need to remember that, for Y2K's purposes, no news is bad news. We're here to write about sports and cheer everyone up as best we can, and the disappointment and frustration and annoyance is a big part of all of it. I root for the Mets, and I want them to play great baseball and make the playoffs and enjoy all the success in the world. But seeing as how that's never going to happen, I have to be ready to find the humor in the tragedy.

You live longer that way, and you have a smile on your face in the process. So when I say I'd like another thousand posts, I may or may not be trying to signal that the Mets are wildly out of control, and you should all get out of the way.

You'll just have to keep reading to find out.

Irrelevanter and Irrelevanter

In the end, I can't blame the players on the team, the coaches, or the manager. Jerry's right when he not-so-subtly points the finger at Omar Minaya for giving him "the players we have."

Irrelevant is a tough word to toss around about a team that's 4.5 games out of first place, but looking at the way the team has played, you really have to start wondering whether this season is past saving.

Sure, we're going to get Reyes, Beltran, Delgado, Maine, and Ollie back; if those guys can come back at full strength that's a huge boost. But let's face it, how often does anybody come back from the DL at full strength? At best you need a couple weeks for each of those guys to find their groove, and a couple of weeks is a long time when the calendar turns to August.

And who among us would rule out the possibility of another John Maine arm issue, or Carlos Delgado old issue?

The team just isn't constructed to survive without the marquee guys. In some respects that's fair, but the challenge of assembling a good team is piecing one together that can both minimize injuries and absorb injuries to key players through a deep bench.

The Mets have neither of those qualities. Too many key players are either old or brittle, and when one of them goes down, the next best option off the bench is... Argenis Reyes?

To me, the Big Mistake this past offseason was betting the farm on Carlos Delgado's resurgence. The team should have sold high on Delgado in the offseason and made an all-out push for Mark Teixeira, an in-his-prime guy who mashes and plays gold glove defense. You could have flipped Delgado for bullpen arms, prospects, or high-grade utility players.

The team never should have bet on Delgado duplicating his 2008, not after what we saw in 2006 (when he was streaky as all get-out, essentially terrible for the three middle months of the season), 2007 when he was mostly bad, and the first couple months of 2008 when he was terrible.

But we did and for me that's where things went wrong. The question now is how to make it right, and I really don't know the answer to that one. I don't know how much value a guy like Delgado or even Beltran brings back in a trade now, given their injuries.

The only option may be to play out the string. Maybe our various injured stars come back and turn this team around. Maybe. For this team that looks more irrelevant each day, maybe's about all we have to hope for.

- A.F.O.M.G.

57 Is the Loneliest Number

Honestly, last night was a joke. I hope the team feels embarrassed; half the time I'm embarrassed just watching them.

Last night wasn't just one game, it was a microcosm of our entire season. Fernando Martinez tripping and falling in the outfield was just the latest in a string of dropped fly balls (Daniel Murphy in Florida), missed bases (Ryan Church in Los Angeles), failed slides (Carlos Beltran in St. Louis) and dropped pop-ups (you know who against you know who).

Johan Santana must hate this team.

You know what I love about Johan? I love how in the top of the fifth inning, Johan struck out swinging on a ball in the dirt, and he immediately darted out of the box to run to first, eluding a tag attempt from the Brewers' catcher. How many other players on the Mets would have even made the attempt?

It gets me thinking, you know what the worst part of Luis Castillo's dropped pop up in the new Yankee Stadium was? For me it was the near certainty that had the roles been reversed and had a Met been on first base, he would have been jogging around the bases and he wouldn't have scored. That's just the way this team plays the game.

Except one guy: Johan. Johan plays the game the right way. He plays the game like he lives and dies with every pitch, like every moment he's out there is a potential game-changing moment.

No one else on this team plays with that kind of urgency. And that's why they fail season in and season out.

- A.F.O.M.G.