Damon's Decision

A hint of wistfulness swept over the Glass Man yesterday when I saw the news that Johnny Damon had declined the Red Sox' waiver claim that would have returned him to Beantown.

Having gone to school in Western Massachusetts and spent a good amount of time in Boston after graduating, I have a deep affection for the Red Sox and their fans.

Many Red Sox sympathizers turned on the team after they finally won it all in 2004 and/or after 2007 and/or after watching Fever Pitch and/or members of the team, Damon included, on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Not me. Between their fans' laudable passion for their team and their utter hatred of the Yankees, there's a lot to like about the Olde Towne Team for a guy like me.

Johnny Damon's defection to the Yankees after the 2005 season was one of the more disappointing episodes in recent free agent history.

Given all the drama between the Red Sox and Yankees in the first half of the aughts, it was disconcerting to fans of all teams to confront the reality that their best, most beloved players could end up with their most hated rival for the right price.

As Jerry Seinfeld put it, as fans we root for laundry. We can love a guy one day when he's wearing our shirt and hate him the next when he's wearing another team's shirt.

With Damon though I always hoped for some sort of redemptive run with the Red Sox. Yankee defection or no Yankee defection, because of his exploits in 2004, he remains an integral part of Boston sporting lore.

Time heals all wounds, and eventually Damon will come back for an old timers' day and be given a boisterous, standing ovation. That seems like a near certainty to me.

For now though he probably only compounded the hard feelings between himself and Red Sox fans by declining a return trip to Boston.

And the part of me that remembers the joy those 2004 Red Sox brought to a small New England town cradled in the Berkshires wishes Damon had chosen differently. 

- A.F.O.M.G.

Michael Jordan: Hitler Mustache Enthusiast

I've been saying it for months, but only now do I have photographic proof.

You know those Hanes commercials with Michael Jordan where His Airness is on a plane, chatting with some dude about his underwear? (What? It could happen to anyone.)

I've been saying for months that there's something about Michael's facial hair that's a bit... different. Something about it that pushes the envelope, shall we say. See for yourself:

Am I wrong, or is MJ sporting a Hitler mustache in this ad campaign? It's a decidedly less bushy mustache than the Fuhrer's, but still, it's kind of a Hitler 'stache, no?

The question really comes down to that little piece of soul patch underneath MJ's mouth. Does a soul patch, even one so small as he's got going there, obviate what is otherwise undeniably Hitler-inspired facial hair?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying MJ's an anti-Semite, a Nazi sympathizer, or anything like that. I'm just saying he's got "edgy" taste in facial hair.

I don't care if he's the greatest basketball player of all time, when you rock the Hitler mustache, you better be prepared to answer questions. That's all I'm saying.

* * * * *

Don't look now but the Braves and Phillies both lost last night. It's comeback time, y'all!

- A.F.O.M.G.

Coming Soon to Pinstripes Near You

Gotta love Filip Bondy's piece in today's Daily News.

I was intrigued by the teaser headline on the main sports page, which reads "Bondy: King Felix will make a good Yankee". Clicking through to the article, I was greeted by the incredibly reasonable-sounding fuller headline: "It's only a matter of time before Mariners ace Felix Hernandez becomes a New York Yankee".

Bondy's piece sounds like something Sip might have written once upon a time. A few choice quotes here:

• "Sometimes, you just know these opposing pitchers are auditioning to become Yankees down the road."
• "Everybody's aces become Yankees, sooner or later, for better or worse... when you stop to think about it, there are very few of these guys who escape pinstripes, or the contracts that come with them."
• "Mere months from now, Cliff Lee will be coming to New York, and then next year we will be greeting Roy Halladay, etc., etc."
• "Word to Hernandez, who is only 24: Become a Yankee sooner than later. Accept the inevitable quickly. You're better off leaving a day team while you still have a live arm."
• "Hernandez is way too good to be pitching for anybody but the Yankees. There ought to be a rule against it, when you think about it. Bud Selig should order every major league team to hand over its best pitcher to Brian Cashman, each Nov. 30. Steinbrenner Day. Sort of a reverse expansion draft."
• "The Mariners are renting Hernandez, prepping him for his Yankee debut. He could start the home opener in 2015, ahead of Halladay."

I mean, is there a single word of the above that sounds off base?

What amazes me more than anything is how other big market teams, like the Mets and Red Sox, never seem to have a chance when they bid head-to-head against the Yankees.

I get that the Yankees have the whole Yankee mystique going on for them, but if it's about the money, and it often is, why is it that the Yankees always take these guys down?

Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Yankees routinely sign the best players available, so the best players available want to play there both for the validation it provides them of being the best, but also because they know management's commitment to winning doesn't begin and end with them.

It's kind of the baseball equivalent of the Miami Heat. Why not play somewhere where you don't have to shoulder the entire burden?

It's easy for me to be critical, but if the goal is winning it all, it's hard to contest the history, both recent and ancient, suggesting that the Yankees are your best bet.

Sigh. Happy Saturday!

- A.F.O.M.G.

The Best Poster Boy This Side of John Rocker

By the way, watching SportsNite yesterday morning they had one of those segments with a local athlete saying "Hi, I'm [insert name], you're watching SNY. Get your New York sports here."

Could have been any athlete in New York, but who did the Mets have delivering that message yesterday morning? Francisco Rodriguez. He of the broken hand, legal troubles, clubhouse disrepute, etc.

I mean, was John Rocker not available? Somewhere the faculty adviser of my high school newspaper is barking: "Who's ensuring quality control around here!?!"

Ever since they got rid of Lee Mazzilli I've had very little to complain about when it comes to SNY. Sure, Gary Cohen sounds bored, but who could blame him? And yes, they still have those overwhelming blue boxes on the side of the screen during SportsNite, but I can respect the fact that they made this move and they're sticking to it.

But seriously, having K-Rod as your poster boy, like, the day after he goes on the disabled list for breaking his hand during third degree assaulting the grandfather of his kids? The optics aren't good to say the least.

* * * * *

Tough one for the boys yesterday. I was reading yesterday that with even decent run support this season, Johan Santana might have been 18-3 entering play yesterday.

Oh, what might have been.

- A.F.O.M.G.

And So It Starts...

Hey team, sorry for the lack of posts lately.

Although you'd certainly be forgiven for thinking I'd stopped writing either because the Mets suck or because they've become a complete sideshow in the past week between Johan's civil suit and third degree assault-gate, the dry spell actually has nothing to do with general disgust for the subject at hand.

No, the reason I've stopped writing is that at long last, the Glass Man is applying to business school.

It's been a long time coming. When I graduated I was sure I'd put in two years as a paralegal and be on my way to law school. In the course of those two years I realized that I didn't want to be a lawyer, that business was more interesting for me.

It took a little while longer to get my act together on the GMAT, but I finally got that out of the way last summer. Shortly afterward I committed to a job at my company for two more years; at present it's one down one to go.

The application process for business school, while brutal, is almost certainly more fun than watching the Mets right now. The trickiest part is also the most interesting: each school requires you to write 2-4 essays about various topics, some of which have overlapping themes, but none of which are carbon copies of one another.

It's a lot of work, particularly when you decide to apply to as many as eight schools (four are definites, four are maybes) and you make a goal of getting in as many first round applications as possible.

None of which means I've forgotten about the trusty blog, quite the contrary actually. My work here has gotten several mentions in my essays and in the rest of the applications under the extracurricular activities section.

I will say it's an open question what going to business school will mean for the future of the blog. Grad school has deprived us of Y2K legends like Sippy Momo and Cheddar Ben, and in truth I don't know if I'll be able to handle my blogger duties on top of schoolwork each night.

But I suppose we'll cross the bridge when we come to it; I'm not going to school for another year so until then it's just more of the same misery with the Mets.

At this point they should really just drop all pretenses of contending this year and focus on playing the kids, assuming they're ready and won't lose confidence by playing at this level.

Anyway, I'll try to write more regularly the rest of this week. As for now... there are essays to write and a game to tune in and out of. New Mets!

- A.F.O.M.G.

Even Gary Cohen Sounds Bored

Did anyone else just hear Gary's open to today's ball game? Wow.

He didn't even sound interested. You know things are going bad when Gary Cohen, a pro's pro, has lost his ability to fake it.

Going into a three-game set with the Phillies in early August, who among us a month ago would have thought there would be so little excitement, so little to hope for?

Make no mistake, it's every bit as bad as Gary just made it sound.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Behind Enemy Lines

It was a wild night for the Glass Man yesterday as I made my first trip to the cauldron of evil, i.e., the New Yankee Stadium.

Now I had my reservations about going, of course, but as a baseball fan it was important for me to see what hte New Stadium was all about.

Honestly, it was a night like few others for me, but that really had nothing to do with the Stadium itself, which in fact I saw very little of.

My group was seated in our firm's corporate suite, which affords very little in the way of an authentic fan experience. It does, however, provide an opportunity to meet former players and presidents.

There we were enjoying our "East Meets West" menu and drinking our beer when all of a sudden who should saunter in but David Cone.

I'm old enough to remember David Cone as a Met, but my primary memories of him are as a Yankee. He was in there to glad hand... I was in there to grill him. Here's the dirt I gathered:

• He has a "soft spot" for the Mets... I'll take it. 
• Having thrown a perfect game himself, he feels sorry for Armando Galarraga, but if it means anything to him, Galarraga became more famous via his non-perfect game than he would have if the ump had made the right call
• Speaking of the ump, Cone felt really bad for him. Apparently that umpire's a really good guy and a pro

Anyway, Coney was there for about 15 minutes shaking hands, talking, signing autographs. Those of us not hoping to see A-Rod's 600th home run were sure it would be the highlight of the night.

It wasn't anything close.

Seated two boxes down from us with a silver-haired man who recently became a father-in-law... one William Jefferson Clinton, Wild Bill himself.

The best part of the game, honestly, may have been when a foul ball came into his vicinity, hitting the wall below his box. He didn't make much of an effort to catch the ball, leading to cat calls from our box ("you gotta lay out for that, Bill!") and, ultimately, an amused look and shrug in our direction.

Long story short, it turned out someone in our group kind of knew Bill Clinton because he had gone to her father's restaurant on occasion. Remarkably (creepily?), he remembered her as well, and after the game she was invited to Bill's box to say hello. She did so, and then afterward she orchestrated a picture for four of us with Clinton before he left. It was pretty awesome.

The Stadium itself? Not so mind blowing. I'd heard this a million times before, but more than anything it just reminds you of the old Yankee Stadium.

Of course, that's the point, but whereas when you go to Citi Field you're getting a completely new and interesting experience, going to New Yankee Stadium is like going somewhere familiar with really fresh coats of paint and a new interior design.

It's nice and all, but it's kind of the same thing, except you no longer have the one legitimately cool element of the old Stadium, which was looking around and seeing the positions that Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle once patrolled.

* * * * *

As for the Metsies... well, they sure needed that one last night, didn't they? Great to see Jeff Francoeur get the game-winner, and to see the team completely mob him when he got back to the dugout (try telling me Carlos Beltran would have gotten the same kind of reception if he'd hit the game winner).

Don't get me wrong, I'm very much in the camp of people who believe this season is over (I'm also in the camp of people who think this season is a success if we end up at or above .500 -- 2005 redux, baby).

But if the Mets are going to make a run, they desperately need to win today and take this series. We have Mike Pelfrey going in the rubber game, which once would have been awesome, but now is just kind of sad.

Maybe he can capture that old first half magic. Let's hope so.

- A.F.O.M.G.