This just in: To cap a dreadful hardluck offseason when it comes to pitching, the New York Mets GM Omar Minaya missed out on signing this Putz!

This hotstove has been really boring.

From Mack's Mets blog comes this excerpt from an interview.

Kingsport: Here’s part of an interview that Will Bashelor had this week with his old college newspaper, The Dartmouth:

The D: So, what’d you do last summer?

WB: I spent the majority of my time hitting grand slams and stealing dozens of bases for the New York Mets minor league team in Kingsport, Tenn.

The D: Cool. Just for my own curiosity, how easy is it to pick up girls with that as the answer to “what’d you do last summer?”

WB: In Tennessee it wasn’t as helpful as having all of my upper teeth.

If you haven't already, check out my newly remodeled look on IMFM, the Mothership.

making fun of shawn green   more »

Hopefully Air Hern's agent isn't reading Adam Rubin's blog:

In some comments on game 7, Willie makes another contribution to the pile of needlessly colorful assessments of rookie/young players:

" … You can look back, and I don’t, and think about what you could have done, should have done. The bottom line is that thing played out the way we wanted to. As a matter of fact, even better, because we had our best hitter, a Cardinal killer, at the plate, one hit from the World Series. I wouldn’t change a thing. Who knows? I could have put Anderson Hernandez in there in front of 50,000 people – a 21-year-old kid – and he could have ---- his pants.

Well, we all know the status of Sleepy Joe Torre isn't so great with the management of ESPN's The New York Yankees. But how, in the midst of all this success, is the Omar-Willie Relationship going?

From the AP via ESPN:

Minaya praised manager Willie Randolph for his decisions against the Dodgers, saying "he took some bold chances."

"I was like, OK?" Minaya said, sounding surprised by the moves, which he didn't elaborate on.

These guys have run a tight ship this year, in that no management rifts or even mild arguments have been leaked to the papers. And that is with guys like Ledee on the roster -cmon there must have been some headbutting. Is Omar baffled by Willie's willingness to pull pitchers at the first sign of trouble? We can only speculate.

But as they say, winning cures everything. I guess we'll have to wait til the post-season to get any dirt.

 

It's sooooo fun to read about the way the Br*ves have NOT won the division for the first time since 1994!!! Jim Baker's ESPN pg 2 article is gently mocking, not really mocking enough, but fun to read anyway as it implies that a deal with Satan allowed the Br*ves to go on their run of sucess.Their 11 year run of division titles is OVER as of now. I could write up a nice postmortem, and stay classy. But to honor the team of John Rocker, the team that's fans still mock Native Americans with their tasteless and unoriginal "Injun war chant," I want to be just as classy as the team deserves.

In 1999 before facing the Mets in the NLCS, noted philanderer Chip Jones once said that upon being eliminated, the Mets fans could go put their Yankees gear on. So, to paraphrase Chip, "when it gets to postseason time, Br*ves fans can now go home and bang their sisters or cousins or livestock or whatever they're used to." 

Bobby Cox's wife better hide the booze, because Bobby is going to be around a lot more this October (though not much more, since the Br*ves are usually eliminated pretty quickly), and as everyone knows from the 1995 incident, Bobby like to beat his wife.

In conclusion, sniff the glove Br*ves fans, if there are still any of you left.

 

PS. F** you, Brian Jordan!!

 

The Br*ves just got a little creepier

I got no real beef with organized religion. Hell, I'm a beatitudes kind a guy. But I wonder a little bit about why some religious types are so drawn to sports--that is, both why they (at best) want to use sports figures and sports as material for religious activities, and at worst, try to infiltrate our secular kingdom of peace on earth to push their not-always-wholesome agendas.

Recent religion and baseball news caught my attention. David Wright, Fonzie, etc. probably don't follow the practices of the feces eating cult, or support the "Salvation Miracles Revival Crusade", although it is suspicious the Mets PR dept hasn't explained this a little better. Methinks maybe Mullet Man was in on the decision and maybe Jeff Jr.Duquette can't take the fall this time. Then I see that John Smoltz has lost interest in a trade or the Br*ves season and is instead using Turner field as a ministry.  At the first ever in the major leagues "Faith Day" promotion, was seens as "a cool way to get the message across about Jesus Christ." Hey I know these are not banner-days for our Constitution, but how bout a little separation of Church and America's Pasttime?

What kind of God will sit still while rich athletes blasphemy him everyday by pointing up at him for something so insignificant as an RBI?--The kind that has yet to smite Trot Nixon I guess, who exploits the Red Sox victory to sell "Reverse the Curse" dvds. Now some folks in Boston might tell you different, but I hardly think one WS championship should be discussed in the same context as parting the Red Sea, or feeding a lot of folks with a couple of fish. Five world championships in a row, maybe. What is the possible message of this dvd? Get to know Jesus so you too can win the World Series? Should the incentives of the material world really be the basis for you to devote your life to Jebus? Wow. Craven would be the word.

Sports in this country ain't about loving your brother, sacrifice, or charity--they're about hating and never forgiving your enemies,blind greed, lacking all loyalty, getting drunk, objectifying women (you know Catholics, like Eve or Mary), exposing your kids to foul language and even worse behavior at the park, worshipping the false idol-millionares who abuse drugs and women while giving little if anything back to society, and frivilously spending money that could go to better causes on exorbitant tickets parking and junk food. Is there a less-Christian endeavor? Eating babies?

Lets turn our attention to John Smoltz, who "with the help of the Spirit and... the help of accountability partners" received Christ into his life and grew by his own accounts. (What the hell are accountability partners? Sounds like Jesus' bully-boys or something.)

This got my attention as I have always jokingly referred to John Smoltz as the "AntiChrist". As the longest standing member of the most evil and henious professional sports franchise in world history, I think the name is fair.  He stands for all that is evil in the Mets universe. And he looks kind of creepy. So I admit this. I have even said some unChristian things about what I would do to him if I ever caught him on my lawn. So i wasn't surprised to hear he knows Jesus, just that he actually likes him.

Here at the "Goal.com," Smoltz suggests "having a big god," whatever that means, but more damningly in my eyes, refuses to take responsibility for the evil he has done (to Metsfans):

"Only God know he gave (sic) up the big ego-the big ego that can spell big trouble.

"When you have a big ego, especially in sports, you're going to have a tough time," Smoltz says. He suggests having a big God instead, specifically, following Jesus Christ.

"The things I do, it's not me!" Smoltz says.

John believes Jesus Christ is exactly who he says he is: the "Way, the Truth and the Life-THE one through whom we can have eternal life (see John 14:6). Smoltz studies the Bible to learn about Jesus-and about how to handle life.

Perhaps because their religious leaders are so prone to hypocrisy and double standards, Christian parents always seem to take things too far. This guy even lets his brainwashed kid (supposedly) write about an "encounter with Smoltz":

"John Smoltz is feared by opposing teams and loved by those who bear the tomahawk. He does many things on and off the field to make his fans cheer. However, his biggest cheerleader of all is Jesus. After personally looking into his eyes and seeing his soul, I can honestly say that without a doubt, he is a cheerleader for Christ also. He worships and lives for God along with the rest of God’s children, no matter if they bear the tomahawk or if they wear “Mets” in script across their chest. No, the playing field is even here. There is no competition. The truth is, his win - loss record here on earth may be 177 – 128 with 154 saves, but in his soul, in God’s eyes, he is undefeated."

Now lets skip over the awkward "Jesus as Cheerleader" imagery and "bear the tomahawk" idolatry for the moment to ask a bigger question --we all know God did some damage in the Old Testament in terms of slaughtering human beings, but I wonder how Jesus, Prince of Peace would take to the celebration of tragedy, bellicosity and racism that is the Atlanta Br*ves "tomahawk" chop and accompanying warpath song tradition? Not too kindly I think. Jesus might have been a hippy, but he was no hypocrite.

Only the poor are getting into heaven folks. I looked it up on Wikipedia! If that leaves out a lot of rich hypocritical ballplayers, well I guess that's more face time with the BIG GUY for me!