Pick a Horse, Any Horse

As if you needed another reason not to be too emotionally involved with the Mets the rest of this season, yesterday Johan Santana went down with an injury and the Mets completed what appears to be an entirely middling trade involving Billy Wagner.

I mean, it's hard to imagine things going any worse for this team. The best there is to hope for is that the Mets lose as many games as possible from here on in and position themselves for the highest draft pick they can manage. There are 10 teams worse than us, it's probably too late to catch the Nats and Royals, but there's still time to come in 27th!

Now, if the idea of rooting for a team to lose each night isn't appealing to you, I'm happy to report that there is an alternative. Actually, there are a 15 alternatives -- that's right, there are 15 teams out there with a puncher's chance at making the playoffs: the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Tigers, White Sox, Twins, Angels, Rangers, Phillies, Braves, Marlins, Cardinals, Dodgers, Rockies, and Giants.

Ahh, but which one to choose? Five of them we can discard completely out of hand: the Yankees, Phillies, Braves, Marlins, and Cardinals. These teams are either innately loathe to Mets fans (the Yankees), have done something esepcially crippling to us recently (the Cardinals), or have caused tremendous pain over a number of years (the Braves, Phillies, and Marlins).

That leaves 10 remaining teams worthy of your affection. Here's where it gets personal. For me, there's nothing to grab onto with the Tigers, Twins, Angels, Rangers, or Dodgers. Those teams just do nothing for me.

That narrows the number down to 5: the Red Sox, Rays, White Sox, Rockies, and Giants. I'm going to discard the Giants because of the Matt Cain incident, and the Rays (sorry Nails) because I just can't get into them and because it was fashionable last year for Mets fans to start rooting
for them.

Still with me? We're down to the final 3: the Red Sox, White Sox, and Rockies. This is where it gets hard. As much as I enjoyed pulling for the White Sox on account of my old friend Papa, I'm going to have to let them go. Not enough there for me to get excited about.

That means it's Red Sox and Rox. I want to pull for the Rockies on account of Denver D's, but my heart's with Boston. A Yankee hater through and through and a product of the Massachusetts university system, I get the whole Red Sox Nation thing. I appreciate the fans' passion and their underdog history.

The whole underdog thing has gone by the wayside more recently, but hell, this year they're sure an underdog to the Yankees, and as always, priority number one around here is keeping the curse alive. The Sox have a better chance at doing that than the Rox.

But hell, who said you had to pick one team anyway? Sox in the AL, Rox in the NL. 2007 REMIX!!!

- A.F.O.M.G.

The Bobby Valentine Hope Poster

Live in living color!

Hat tip to Nails who took up the challenge from yesterday's post to create this gem. Have a variation? We want to see it.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Bobby V, Please Report to Obama's Change Machine

I traded e-mails with my buddy Nails yesterday around the topic of Bobby Valentine. Nails was saying that if the Mets have no intention of bringing Valentine back, they need to squash the Bobby V reunion rumor in the bud. Remember, he said, disappointment is the difference between expectations and reality, and it goes without saying that this our fanbase is disappointed enough as it is.

I disagreed. My thought was that this is a fanbase that is tired of the status quo, a fanbase that expects ownership to leave all options on the table as it evaluates how to court the way forward. If the Mets ruled out Valentine before the process really began, fans might question the team's committment to changing.

It occured to me this morning that in the hopes and dreams of Mets fans, Valentine occupies a similar space to our current president. Barack Obama swept through the Democratic primary and on to the White House riding a campaign based on two premises: hope and change.

In a sense, that's what Bobby Valentine is about, hope and change. Because of his rambunctious temperament and past success, we expect him to come in here and return the Mets to their winning ways almost overnight.

But would the reality match the dream? As Obama knows, you can ride a motto for hope and change all day long as an outsider, but once you're in the office you're dealing with all the same old shit as the last guy. Bobby V wouldn't give the Mets depth in the rotation, a deeper bench, or a more promising farm system.

He could improve things at the margins (and there's a lot to be said for that), but New York fans, like the American public, hail from a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately type of crowd. Ultimately, Bobby Valentine alone probably wouldn't make the Mets that much better in 2010; the responsibility for that falls with the General Manager (of course, there was that story yesterday that Valentine would only return in a hybrid manager/front office role, so who knows).

I don't know what I want to happen. I like Jerry Manuel, but the truth is that the team's play this year has been troubling to say the least. He probably (and that's a big probably) can't be faulted for the injuries, but if the fundamental errors that have plagued the team all year aren't his responsibility, then whose are they?

More than anything, I guess my worry that we're applying too much of a Barack Obama Change Machine-style hooplah to Bobby Valentine. Bringing Bobby V back would signal the start of a new era, but it wouldn't solve our problems in one fell swoop. We've got a much longer way to go than that, I'm afraid.

Either way, could someone good with photoshop make us a draft of the Obama Hope poster with Valentine's face behind it? That'd be butter.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Incidentally, apologies if this post drastically oversimplifies Obama's successful campaign and recent woes in the polls. The post is ultimately about Bobby V, so please limit any discussion to that topic.

Kind of Feeling the Mets' Throwbacks

Anyone else with me on this one? It's kind of nice, right?

It's not the giant NY so much, it's the color of the jersey. It's more of a cream color than the snow white the Mets typically wear.

If you took the throwback uni and replaced the giant NY with the Mets logo across the front, I'll bet it would look pretty dope.

And PLEASE, keep the Mr. Met animation on the sleep rather than the Citi Field Domino's patch.

Anyone agree?

* * * * *

Meanwhile, how big a douche is Matt Cain, tipping his cap like that as he was lifted from the game?

I mean, it's one thing when fans boo you kind of indiscriminately. But when you bean the home team's best/favorite player with a fastball to the head, yeah, you can expect to hear some boos. At that point you deserve to hear some boos.

By tipping his cap, Cain signaled he either didn't get why the fans would be pissed at him, or he didn't care.

Asshole either way.

- A.F.O.M.G.

I'm Officially on Bobby Parnell's Jock

You know who I'm talking about, the man from south central North Carolina.

The author of 6 strong innings.

The man with the deer-in-headlights postgame interview (with his arm iced up and his hat still on), twanging up an aw shucks storm.

We haven't seen this kind of energy from a Mets prospect since a young Bill Pulsipher.

I could not be more certain this kid is going to be dominant through May 2010 before flaming out and leaving us all with the bitter thought of what might have been.

Somebody get me a Bobby Parnell t-shirt, I'm so back!

- A.F.O.M.G.

Please Stand By

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the lack of posts this week reflects a broader disinterest in our team. The truth is that after momentarily duping us with a 5-game winning streak, the Mets quickly reverted to the norm, incomprehensibly losing players to injury and dropping games/series that they should win.

I'd be lying if I said some apathy hadn't begun to creep into your boy A.F.O.M.G. On Tuesday when the Cards tied it up against K-Rod, I didn't curse the TV or curse the Mets, I just sort of accepted it and turned off the television.

Earlier in the season, last year or the year before that I'd have stayed up and watched it to the end, but why bother? I'm in the middle of a good book and besides, did the outcome really matter? Losses help our positioning for the draft, wins help, what, our pride? What "pride" are we going to take away from this season?

And yesterday when the Mets played at 12:10? I checked in periodically but I wasn't feverishly checking gamecast. It's just not a white knuckle season, simple as that. (In spite of everything, I do find myself strangely desperate to make it back out to Citi Field; I haven't been in a while.)

But that all said, the real reason for the lack of posts is that I moved over to my new job on Monday and I'm still trying to figure out my routine and how Y2K fits into it. In my old job I worked to very late at night and could kind of come in whenever I wanted in the mornings (or at least, could come in any time by 9:00). In this job I leave a lot earlier but have to be in by 8:30, no questions asked.

The end result is that my 2-year-old routine of writing in the mornings may need some revision, it may make sense to write more during the evenings and go from there (with posts appearing in the mornings, most likely).

It'll take me a little while but once I get it all sorted out we'll be back to normal. In the meantime, please stand by.

- A.F.O.M.G.