It's getting increaingly more difficult to come up with a decent link page each morning about the New York Mets. Frankly, there just isn't much being written about them these days.
Various Mets writers are all calling for a long range plan for the Mets, which would be the correct direction to go. There really isn't a short range solution for this team, for various reasons:
1. It's just not special anymore being a New York Met. No baseball player involved in the current free agent market is telling their agent "hey, I want to win a world series before I retire so get me a deal with the Mets."
2. The recent off-season firing of front office personnel and flame out by Omar Minaya during a press conference have confirmed that this is a team in turmoil. If the front office can't behave, why would you want to be part of this team?
3. I can speak from first hand knowledge that it just isn't fun being a ballplayer for this team. Countless current and past Mets could speak of the infantile and gestapo methods used to "manage" the players, especially in the minors.
4. The new stadium is a nightmare for a player trying to increase his slugging percentage. Whether we like it or not, salaries and endorsements increase with positive statistics, and playing half your games in a stadium that reduces the chance of increasing those stats just doesn't make sense for players outside the system.
The New York Times had an article about Black Friday and how the Yankee store was slammed, while the Mets store down the block was empty. This speaks volumes for the perception of this team by the locals. Forget the press and the baseball community; New Yorkers currently wouldn't think of buying someone a Christmas present with something that had "Mets" printed on it.
I'll continue to try and find what I can each day and post it here, but it no longer a labor of love. I have never had a sponsor for my blog and, to date, have not made one cent. I don't expect anything exciting to come out of the free agency market and I really have no desire to write a feature about Elmer Dessens.
I guess it could be worse.
I could be writing about the Knicks.
1 comment:
You gotta keep the faith, Mack. You provide content that no one else does - and since the major league product is inferior, you're the guy who can tell us when better days will be ahead.
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