I Am Not An Idiot
"I AM not an idiot, I am not abrasive, I am not running the day-to-day workings of the baseball operations, I "feel the pain" of Mets fans because I am passionate about winning and - most important - I am not going anywhere." - Jeff Wilpon, he who doth protest too much.

So goes the report of an extensive Jeff Wilpon interview with the NY Post. Joel Sherman notes:

"...when asked when Met fans could expect a winner, Jeff said, "I think in the next three years things will be turned around." That sounds like rebuilding from an organization that seven weeks ago traded a group of its best prospects, notably Scott Kazmir. Jeff insisted the pitchers obtained, Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano, will be part of the transformation back to the family goal of "sustained contending."

It's three years now? Isn't that setting the bar a little low? I don't know about the rest of Metsdom, but I don't think it is reasonable to expect us to wait three years for a winner when nothing the Mets Idiot Collective has done in the LAST three years has indicated we're gravitating towards winning anytime soon. In fact, if the last three seasons are any indication, you might as well guess three HUNDRED years.

But the one consistency of these last three seasons has been that the sole joy of Mets fans has been the final ejaculation of relief when local punching bags and scapegoats are finally jettisoned. Each season has had its poster boy for Met disgust and each season has seen the eventual elimination of that poster boy.

In 2002, it was arguably Rey Ordonez, the hitless, whimpering wonder who, after making a career high 19 errors, had the temerity to call Mets fans "stupid" for booing a team that was (little did we know) just beginning to set new standards of mediocrity in the 21st century. I saw "arguably" because there were a host of scapegoats like Fat Mo, Steve Phillips and/or Bobby V.

In 2003, it was a tag team of Steve Phillips and Armandogeddon which received the brunt of fan disgust. Phillips was finally fired in June as a human sacrifice to the frothing mouths of fan frustration but it wasn't until Armandogeddon was finally dumped on the Yankees that we were willing to accept the fate of losers for the season quietly.

And this season, who else but manager Art Howe, the manager no one but Fred Wilpon wanted managing the Mets and the manager whom the A's didn't even want managing for them after he'd blown a few postseasons almost singlehandedly for them.

We're already warming it up, it seems, on our targets for 2005 - The Wilpons - and deservedly so. Systematic incompetence will no go away with the wave of a magic wand and the annual sacrificial firing.

And we certainly aren't going to be satisfied with some three year plan that merely deflects attention away from the source of the current incompetence.

So far, two pitchers who I really question should be pitching for the Mets next season, have reaffirmed their tepid desire to pitch for the Mets next season. First, Al Leiter says he isn't sure he wants to be back and then says he does. Great. Where else are we going to find senior citizen lefty to pitch five innings an outing? Oh yeah, we've already got Tom Glavine.

Kris Benson, who faces his old team today in Pittsburgh, also says he might be interested in pitching for the Mets next season, IF, of course, they overpay him enough for a history of injuries and inconsistency and IF, of course, they ever decide on which sad sack they are bringing in to manage these aging clowns next season.

*****

As it IS Sunday, after all and one can not help but harken those woebegone days of America yore when that meant NFL Football, please allow me the pleasure of introducing the single funniest NFL commentator I've had the pleasure of reading:

The Mighty MJD:

"And now the barking Browns fans have turned to what may be an even more annoying habit: stealing someone else's chant. They're singing, "Here we go, Brownies, Here we go! WOOF, WOOF!" Good, I'm glad they mixed in the barking, because while I hate them, I hadn't actually wished for any of them to get in car accidents on the way home. Now I have."

Read it and weep tears of laughter.