A Million Dollars A Game For The Mets

How crappy are things for the Mets?
The Mets and their fans are looking at a $162 million settlement as a POSITIVE development.

Hey! It wasn’t a billion dollars that the Wilpons et al have to pay regarding the Madoff scandal!
It isn’t $393 million.

It’s just one million dollars for every single game played this year.
I don’t care if they don’t have to pay anything for a few years or what further settlements can be reached in those four years to lower their payments. Or if the Wilpons themselves will get any money back that they were swindled from.

There still is no hope in Metsville.
Why?
Because the turkeys who put them in this position ARE STILL THERE!

Remember how people were upset how some of the same people who tanked the economy were put in charge in trying to fix it?

How is that different than the Mets?
The same people who took every single outrageous example and ran the team into the ground are still here.

Why would anyone have anything resembling trust or faith that the Wilpons will do the right thing going forward?

The Wilpons have been involved with the Mets since 1980 but Fred has been the chairman of the board since 2003 and been in charge since then.

The Brewers have made more playoff appearances than the Mets since then.
They’ve gone through managers, general managers, made horrific signings, lousy trades, had two monumental faceplants, one disgraceful managerial firing and have destroyed all the good will among a fanbase despite a new stadium and TV Network.

They have taken every advantage of playing in New York and made it a disadvantage.
On the other side of town the Yankees are spending more than a million dollars a game on players. Yeah it is decadent and has led the Yankees to only one trip to the World Series in the past 8 seasons, but there is no wondering what the priority of the team is there.

Exactly what is it going to take to have Selig intervene and force the Mets to sell?
Say what you want about the Dodgers fiasco. At least they have a winning product on the field and will have a new owner before long.

I have no doubt that in the next 2 or 3 seasons, the Dodgers will win the National League West and be a pennant contender.

Can ANYONE say that about the Mets? Can anyone look at the Mets in this Division with this much young talent and say they are better than a 4th place team?

And what exactly about the Mets under the Wilpons recently make you think things will turn around?

They are slashing payroll, which might actually be a smart thing to do. I mean why RAISE the payroll when you have no chance.

But someone else needs to drive the car.
Just remember, Met fans. The Wilpons will shell out a million dollars a game to make up for their screw up.

Would YOU still have your job if you did that?
Would your boss still have theirs?

Mets… you BLEW it. You should have retired Carter’s number

Mets, you have screwed up a lot since Beltran took a called third strike in the 2006 NLCS.

On the field the you have had epic collapses and last day eliminations.
You’ve had bloated payrolls that yielded losing records.
You’ve signed free agents that don’t fit.
You turned the incredible advantage of playing in New York into a handicap.
You have empty seats in a new stadium that was designed to honor teams that left town instead your own franchise.
You have dragged the team through the Bernie Madoff scandal.

But for some reason, the most recent blunder by the Mets just seems like the worst of them all.

You did not retire Gary Carter’s number while he was alive.
Why not?

Seriously.
What POSSIBLE explanation can there be for this? What justification can you vomit up to make me say “Oh, that makes sense”?

Not enough time?
He was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.
That’s 11 seasons where you could have found the time to have a day for the lone Hall of Famer on the Mets’ second World Series title… one that was saved by Gary Carter’s single that started one of the greatest World Series rallies in history.

Were you upset that he had an Expos cap on his Hall of Fame plaque?

You do know that he WANTED to have a Mets cap but the Hall of Fame decides such matters after the whole Dave Winfield situation.

Did you think “Hey, he had his number retired with the Expos and we don’t retire numbers that other teams have honored”?

Then explain why Casey Stengel’s number is retired.

I am going to go out on a limb and say the 1986 Mets were a better team than the 1962 Mets.

Were you mad that Carter publicly lobbied for the job of Mets manager?

Well maybe he thought, as a Hall of Fame catcher with a great knowledge of the game and connection to the organization, that he was qualified.

It’s not like Art Howe was the second coming of John McGraw while in New York!

What, was your schedule too busy last year to plan a day for him?

We found out that Carter was dying LAST SPRING!

The minute you found out, you should have said “Let’s have a day.” Some time in August. Get all the Mets together, rent a stage and get someone to make a big ass #8.

Have Ron Darling, Darryl Strawberry, Mookie Wilson and everyone else there.

And you should have given Carter the chance to wave to the fans and CitiField to give him a standing ovation.

What was last year too jam packed with events? The team was sub .500 and the attendance was in the lower half of the National League.

You barely outdrew the Padres last year! Just for cynical dollars and cents and paying back the Madoff debt, you have Gary Carter Day so Met fans could see an ACTUAL MET PLAYOFF TEAM ON THE FIELD!

But no.
You didn’t.

And now he’s dead.
You screwed up.

Say what you want about the Yankees, they know how to honor their stars.

Lou Gehrig is dying? They gave him the greatest ceremony of all time.

Babe Ruth slipping away? They have a day for him.

When Mickey Mantle was dying in the 1990s and Bobby Murcer was dying in the 2000s, they had ceremonies where the fans could give them a standing ovation.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination.

It doesn’t take a lot of planning.

It doesn’t take a lot of brains.

It doesn’t take a lot of heart.

And you, the New York Mets, evidently have none of the four.

This is not second guessing. People have been saying this since last year!

Not just bloggers… the New York Post did as well.

And now you can’t. Even if you do now, it will posthumous.

It will be a sad day instead of a joyous one.

I ranted last year about how stupid it was that the Reds waited for Sparky Anderson’s death to retire his number.

This is even worse.

You screwed up Mets.

Is there ANYTHING you can do right?

MLB needs to take the Mets away from the Wilpons

The Mets have become the walking argument AGAINST the notion that you need to be in a big market to succeed.

How about New York?
Is that a big enough market for you?

Want more revenue streams than New York City?
How about a new stadium?
How about a new TV network?

Nope?
I’m not just talking about putting an uninspired team on the field (three straight losing seasons) and I’m not just talking about them losing stars. (I actually think after three straight losing seasons with no end in sight it is smart to shed payroll and go young.)

I’m talking about how the team is run.

Only the Yankees have the advantage that the Mets have. New York! The New York media. The New York spotlight. THE Metropolis that is baseball first. And a passionate fanbase that as recently as 2008 made the Mets the best draw in the National League.

The Wilpons took all those advantages and needed a $25 million loan from baseball to stay afloat.

And guess what? They need ANOTHER $40 million loan now!

I can understand if this were Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Oakland or San Diego.
They are small cities with low revenue streams.

Not the Mets.

Mix this in with the whole Madoff mess and MLB needs to intervene.
Seriously, they did with McCourt and the Dodgers. The McCourts took a crown jewel franchise, drove them into bankruptcy court and Selig and company intervened.

They clearly couldn’t run the team.

Well if the Mets have to keep loans to stay afloat and can’t make a BASEBALL TEAM IN NEW YORK PROFITABLE… then why should they be allowed to run the team?

Baseball is healthiest when each team can put a good product on the field (and the number of different division winners over the last decade shows that we are getting closer to that.)

But it also helps to have a team in New York and Los Angeles be at least competitive. They make for good villains and bring a lot of casual fans to the gates.

(At least the Dodgers with all the bankruptcy mess put a winning product on the field in 2011!)

The Phillies, Braves and Marlins should be competitive next year. If the Mets were halfway decent, it would be the most exciting Division in baseball.

For now they need to rebuild. And who knows? Maybe in a few years they will be a pennant contender.

But it won’t happen with the Wilpons in control.
They have proven that they can’t run the team.

Now Met fans have a tendency to write nasty things to me. They think I am trashing their team constantly and have some sort of vendetta.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
I’d like to see the Mets become successful.
I like David Wright and Johan Santana.
Many friends of mine are Met fans and I’d like to see them be happy.

This isn’t me picking on your team.
This is me being outraged and you Met fans should be the angriest of all!

Somewhere out there is a business man or woman who is smart enough to run a baseball team in New York and make a profit while putting a winning team on the field.

Go find the next Mets owner.
And if you want to write something mean to me, use your time and energy towards the Mets and MLB.

They are keeping the team afloat.
They should go bankrupt and have someone turn the Mets around.

Remove the Wilpons.
We can ALL agree on THAT.