End of an Era: The Boss (RIP)

As regular readers are aware, Mets Extra began life as a Yankee-hating website called Yankees 2000: Promote the Curse.

Back in the day, Y2K Godfather Sippy Momo used to dispense Yankee hate on the daily, with yours truly appearing periodically to fawn on the Mets.

Gradually, and for a number of reasons, things changed for this site; hating the Yankees was no longer the point, it was just something we wrote about periodically because, as Mets fans, hating the Yankees comes as naturally to us as hating Armando Benitez.

We still hate the Yankees, but we were saddened yesterday to learn of the death of George Steinbrenner.

As I've written before on the site, the Steinbrenner of my recollection was always more bark than bite. By the time I started really paying attention, his days of hiring and firing managers compulsively or sicking private detectives on his players were over.

He was still good at calling out players (i.e., calling Hideki Irabu a "Fat Pussy Toad") and still good at obnoxiously aggrandizing the Yankees, but honestly I can't remember a truly bad thing the guy ever did. I know he did some bad things, plenty of them from the sound of it, but that's not part of my direct memory of the man.

He was, in most essential respects, exactly what you'd want out of your team's owner: passionate, obsessed with winning, vocal about losing being unacceptable, forever willing to spend money to get the player the team needed. Any fanbase would take an owner like that.

There will be time to hate the Yankees tomorrow. For now, final respects to The Boss. It's quite a legacy he leaves.

* * * * *

Finally!

I'm five years out of college now. Before last night, the last time the National League had won an All-Star Game I was in Middle School.

It was great to see the senior circuit take it down, and I'm pumped that the World Series will kick-off at the National League park and give the NL team home field advantage.

Good showing by David Wright last night... but question, was he wearing the Mr. Magoo helmet? Actually it seemed that a bunch of players were wearing especially large helmets last night. Maybe that only makes sense in an exhibition.

Anyway, one more day without regular season baseball. We'll be back tomorrow with our keys to the second half.

- A.F.O.M.G.