Hi Everyone:
The most important thing I am going to write this week, is thank you for calling, texting or responding to the post I wrote last week about my Mom. I can't thank you enough for all the kind words. I've said it before and I will say it again, I very lucky for the family I have, and the friends that I have met along the way. Very lucky indeed.
And if I haven't reached out to you in some way shape or form, I promise I will very soon.
For now, I'm going to jump back into what I usually do on these pages, which is complain.
Both our baseball teams are done for 2025.
At least one of our football teams are basically done. And I don't have a ton of confidence in the other one, though they pulled off quite the upset on Thursday night.
So let's start with our baseball teams
THE METS- Bob Raissman (who come to think of it hasn't written a column in a while) refers to sports talk radio, and the folks who call into it, as the Valley of the Stupid. And since I spent my morning commute listening to Boomer and Gio, and my drive home listening to Evan and Tiki, I am amongst the VOS that Raisman is referring to.
The question that came up amongst both shows was: Was this 2025 Mets collapse worse than the ones that took place in 2007 and 2008, or even 1998? The consensus amongst the hosts was that yes, this one was the worst of all.
And as bad as this season turned out to be, I have to disagree.
Part of the reason for this is semantics. For what actually constitutes "a collapse"?
On September 12, 2007, the Mets were 7 games up on the Phillies with 17 games to go.
Three days later, my sister and brother in law tied the knot. The Mets lost that day to the Phillies, their lead shrinking to 4.5 games. My uncle in law Shawn, a huge Mets fan, asked at the wedding me if I was worried.
How? They are still up. There is no way they are going to cough up that kind of lead.
Two weeks later, their season was over. They were calling it the biggest collapse in MLB history.
One year later, the Mets were once again in first place on September 15, albeit not nearly as far ahead. They still had a chance to make the playoffs as a Wild Card, but they lost the last game of the season and the Brewers won, giving Milwaukee the final playoff spot.
In 1998, the Mets went into the last week of the season a game up in the Wild Card race. They led the Cubs by a game and the Giants by 4 games. They ended up losing their last 5 games and finishing out of the money. The way things shook out, had they won 1 of those 5 games, they would have forced a playoff. Two wins they would have clinched a spot.
2007 was the worst as far as I am concerned. They had that division in their pocket. 1998 was bad too, losing 5 straight like that. By 2008, you almost kind of expected them to lose.
What happened this year to the Mets, at least from where I'm sitting, doesn't constitute a collapse.
This was just bad baseball. They were a bad team. A gutless team.
On June 13, the Mets were 45-24, in first place with the best record in the league. They went 38-55 from June 13 on, one of the worst records in all of baseball.
That's no collapse. That's a bad team.
Last week, the Mets let go of most of their coaching staff. Manager Carlos Mendoza was retained, but the hitting, pitching and fielding coaches were all fired. To me this is nothing more than feeding chum to the sharks.
As I said in my last post before our summer break, the main blame for this season falls at the feet of team president David Stearns. He is the one who went into the season with a pitching staff full of retreads. He's the one who forced Mendoza to burn out his bullpen. If anyone deserves to lose their job, its him.
The thing is, I still believe he is the best guy out there to build a winning team. Joe Beiningo was on WFAN on Saturday morning saying that the Brewers, who were still alive, seemed to he doing OK without Stearns. I'm wondering if Joe B thinks that Brewers team drafted itself.
No I'm not ready to give up on Stearns just yet, but his rope just got a lot shorter. A team with a lineup like this and a payroll like this should not be on the outside looking into the playoffs.
I had a bad feeling though going into that last game of the season. I was in Rockaway for my sister Kate's birthday, and I saw the Mets were winning against the Marlins and even more spooky, had only allowed Miami one hit. Go back to the second to last games of the 2007 and 2008 seasons, both against the Marlins. Both games featured dominant pitching performances from John Maine and Johann Santana respectively. Only to go out and poop the bed the next day.
And to have the Marlins party like it was 1999 all three times. The time in 2008 was especially nauseating, as the Mets were shutting down Shea Stadium that day, and had pretty much every living Met that mattered take the field for a post game ceremony. My dad and Kate were at that game and stayed for the ceremony. I have often tipped my hat to them for that, because I told them I would have been on 7 train even before Howie Rose began the festivities.
The Marlins celebration apparently puzzled Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez, but again this is what the Marlins do. Their fanbase and city are made up of transplanted New Yorkers, it has to suck to be 2nd class citizens to a team that doesn't even play in your city. It's bad enough that the Mets are 2nd class citizens here in NY, but at least the Yanks also play here. The Marlins are just a cut rate franchise who probably should have been contracted.
One more thing as we close the door on the 2025 Mets, all these past two weeks I've heard is they better re sign Pete Alonso. Well, I've got some bad news kids, not only do I not think they are going to resign him, I also don't want them to. Not after what he pulled after that last game in Miami.
While the Marlins were acting as if Rob Manfred was going to hand them a trophy, and the rest of his team was licking their wounds, Alonso told the gathered press that he was planning on opting out of his contract and re-entering the free agent market.
Really? You thought that moment was a good time to say that?
Edwin Diaz, in the same situation as Alonso, at least had the common decency to say "You know, I'm going to take some time and discuss this with my family and my agent." We all know he's going to opt out, he'd be a fool not to. But to me at least he showed that he cared about his team and the fans. Alonso? He just cares about getting paid. Just the way his agent, Scott Boras taught him to. I've been told I'm overreacting to this (perish the thought) and maybe I am, but that to me was just bush league. He can go kick rocks.
The Mets have finished with worse records. They had those aforementioned years where they fell apart and choked at the end of the season.
2025 will go down as one of the most disappointing and frustrating seasons, in Mets history.
THE YANKEES- They managed to make it to the post season, even took care of business against their arch-rival Red Sox, including a brilliantly pitched game by their rookie sensation Cam Schlittler. But they ran into the Blue Jays who sent them packing in Game 4 of the best of five series.
I always say when it comes to writing about the Yanks, it's a bit unfair. Since I'm not as emotionally invested with them as I am the Mets, it could seem like what I write doesn't come from the heart.
For example, my FB feed had several Yankee fans calling for the heads of both Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone. That is no surprise and in many ways I can't say I blame them. Cashman has been in charge for almost 30 years which is unheard of. Boone just completed his 8th year. Since they beat my Mets in 2000, they have played in 4 World Series, only winning in 2009. The others were 2001, 2003 and last year. Boone in his 8 years has only last year's WS against the Dodgers, and no rings.
I get why fans would want them gone, and again, if they were both let go, I wouldn't call it a miscarriage of justice. But I also see that they have made the playoffs in 7 of Boone's 8 seasons (6 as far as I'm concerned because WM doesn't count the play-in game they had a few years back as a playoff game) and that they haven't had a losing season since the Bush administration.... the Bush 41 administration. That has to count for something. Right?
I also hear an awful lot about how Hal Steinbrenner doesn't care about winning, he's just looking to make a profit. I'm sorry man, I get the frustration, but seriously? They lost Juan Soto because they were outbid, supposedly by a luxury box. They then took the money they would have spent on Soto, and signed Max Fried, Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger, who all contributed big time to the Yankees playoff drive. The idea that Hal is only looking to make $$$ here is absurd.
No, he's not writing season ending, "heads are gonna roll" screeds like his old man did, but again, I think that's more a question of style rather than substance. People don't remember the mid to late 80's where the fans were pleading with George to sell the team. you know who probably remembers that more than he'd like to? Hal.
I think he keeps Cashman and Boone around because he feels like stability breeds winning. And I know I've written that before and perhaps you believe I'm full of crap. But in my defense, I know a team around here that changes GMs and coaches/managers every couple of years and now own the longest streak of not making the playoffs in all of North American sports. And that team would be..
THE JETS- Per Wikipedia-
The Song Remains the Same is a 1976 concert film featuring the English rock band Led Zeppelin.
It also could be the franchise motto for my football team.
It's the same song since 2011. The Jets have had a grand total of 6 GM's and 6 head coaches since the last year they made the playoffs. They also have started 17 different quarterbacks. The singers change, but the song remains the same.
What also remains the same is the team has been done in this year by penalties and turnovers. Aaron Glenn stood up there at his press conference and said, no more penalties and no more turnovers. I learned a while ago not to get excited about GM/Coaches introductory press conferences, but this one seems like a particularly bad joke.
That game against the Cowboys last week was as bad as any game coached by Robert Saleh, Adam Gase or Todd Bowels. I'm not suggesting Aaron Glenn be fired after 6 games, but somewhere along the line the turnovers and penalties have to stop.
They lost to the Broncos today in London. The good news is they only ruined my morning, I could go out and enjoy my Sunday. (Except for this nor’easter they are talking about)
There is a real good possibility they could finish 0-17. The song remains the same.
In the same time Woody Johnson has burned through all these GM's and coaches, Hal Steinbrenner has had one GM and two managers. The Yankees have made the playoffs in all but two seasons in that span. You guys want to trade owners? Woody for Hal, with a luxury box to be named later?
THE GIANTS-I had every intention of writing off the Giants this week as well. They have only been slightly less repulsive as the Jets have been. The Jets gave the Steelers a run for the money on Opening Day, while the Giants got destroyed by the Commanders. After starting out 0-3, they turned to their prized Rooke QB Jackson Dart, who won his first start against the Chargers, lost to a bad Saints team, and then miracle of miracles knocked off the defending Super Bowl Champion Eagles Thursday night. That was impressive.
I'm still not sure giving the ball to Dart was the right move here. Especially since GM Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll are operating under a playoffs or bust edict from owner John Mara. That's an awful lot of pressure for a rookie QB to handle. And when you see that former Giant Daniel Jones is amongst the league leaders in passing, and former Jet Sam Darnold led the Vikings to the playoffs last year, you think it might give the press pause around here to maybe not advocate for running young QB's out of town at the first sign of struggle.
But if Dart keeps playing like this, the fans will be happy, the owner will be happy, the staff will keep their jobs and maybe they'll be some good news to report in sports in 2025. That's a huge IF though, and I'm still not ready to put the smart money on that happening.
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Back to Jet quarterbacks for a second.. did you happen to catch what happened to Mark Sanchez last week? Or more to the point, what happened when Mark Sanchez decided to allegedly pick a fight with a 69 year old truck driver in the wee hours of last Saturday morning?
It sounded at first like some maniac attacked the former Jets first rounder, but now it appears that Sanchez was the aggressor, and the truck driver stabbed him to save his own a$$.
The hospitalized truck driver immediately filed a lawsuit vs Sanchez and Fox Sports because let’s face it, that’s the American way. The Sanchize is looking at 1-6 years up the creek. I’m very curious to see how this all shakes out.
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I’m not going to get into the government shut down this week. I really don’t have the stomach yet to get back into the political debates. All I know is that the only people who aren’t getting screwed here are the politicians. That’s really the only thing that ever changes when you have these government shutdowns.
Thank you again for all the kind words. You are all truly appreciated.
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
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