Mets New Rules
Upper Stank
New Rule – The Mets have to stop saying what great site lines Citi Field has. Recently I attended a game and sat behind the plate in the Promenade reserved, three rows from the top of the ballpark. Yes, you are on top of the field more so than at Shea but unlike Shea, once everyone gets into their seats, unless you are six feet tall, you have to bob and weave to see the batter’s box. If I wanted to see the backs of people’s heads I would have stood in line at Shake Shack.
Oh-my Minaya
New Rule—Stop rewriting the tenure of Omar Minaya. Yes many of his draft picks are now doing well at the major league level but under Minaya, the entire direction of the organization was in disarray. Minaya had Tony Bernazard in charge of minor league operations. If you recall, Tony ripped his shirt off in the Binghamton clubhouse then challenged his AA players to a fist fight. Then in a press conference to explain the entire Bernazard affair, Minaya verbally attacked beat reporter Adam Rubin who broke the story, saying that Ruben was upset because he was not offered a job in the Mets front office. Yes, under Minaya the Mets did become relevant again—for one year. Beyond that, mostly what Omar did was over pay aging players, stammer through interviews, and over pay more aging players.
D’oh Hitter
New Rule—Yankee fans really have to grow up and stop raining on my parade in regards to Johan Santana’s no-hitter. Because Carlos Beltran’s line drive foul was really fair, Yankee fans are saying it really wasn’t a no-hitter. The scoring is based on the umpire’s decision, not what you saw on TV. But fine, I will give you back the no-hitter if you can admit that your team should have never won game one of the 1996 ALCS. In that game 12 year old fan boy Jeffrey Meyer leaned over the railing in right field and deflected a fly ball into the stands for a Yankee home run late in the game. The homer tied the game and allowed the Yanks to eventually win game 1 against the Orioles. Had the Yankees lost, who knows what would have happened the rest of the series. So if I can’t have Santana’s no-no, you have to give the ‘96 trophy back or I am taking my bat and ball and going home.
Big Head Cheerleader
New Rule—Mr. Met must come clean and admit he took steroids. Why else would he have such a large head shaped like a baseball? And look at his youthful appearance. He hasn’t aged since 1963 when he first showed up at the Polo Grounds. Mr. Met’s head rivals only that of Yankee announcer Michael Kay.
Maher-ed Ownership
And finally, New Rule—Mets fans have simply got to get over the fact that Bill Maher is now a part owner of the New York Mets.
Recently it was revealed that Bill Maher, host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher is one of the new minority share owners of the Mets. The news brought outrage to some Mets fans who called up WFAN sports radio talk show host Mike Francesa to complain. The main complaint is that Maher is un-American and represents the Mets poorly. Francesa said that he will not spend any time on the fact that Maher has bought into the Mets. That’s why Francesa then took call after call, all relating to Maher’s buy in to the team. Francesa made four main points in regard to Maher… 1) “He’s a comedian and I don’t take him seriously”, 2) “He’s a comedian and I don’t take him seriously”, 3) “He’s a comedian and I don’t take him seriously” and 4) he still likes Inge.
It appears that according to the many phone calls I heard, there are many conservative Mets fans. Mr. Maher’s biggest crime apparently is that he is a liberal and that he hates religion, or at least the ones represented by those calling in. The assumption I make from the comments is that these people have never seen Real Time.
Now I have been a fan of Mr. Maher for many years from when he was the host of ABC’s Politically Incorrect and now Real Time. I won’t try and persuade you to my side of the aisle. This is a Mets blog not a political forum. The only thing I will say is that Mr. Maher is being wrongly represented by very informed fans when it comes to the Mets but very uniformed when it comes to Bill Maher, much like Mike Francesa who is uninformed to the fact his name, Francesa, does not end with an “r”.
Your opinions of Mr. Maher are not coming from your personal experience listening to Maher, it is coming from other talking heads who inaccurately report what he said. You know the talking heads I am referring to. Rush Limbaugh comes to mind. He’s kind of the political equivalent to Mike Francesa in sports. One is a pompous loud mouth and the other is Rush Limbaugh.
On religion, Bill Maher hates all religion, he does not cherry pick. One criticism I heard is that he defends Muslims but trashes Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and the rest. That is false. On a number of occasions, and specifically after 9/11, Maher challenged the Muslim faith as much as he has any other religion. On many occasions during his show, he spoke of violence in the Quran and wondered aloud why there were not Muslim leaders condemning such passages. You could only know that if you watched the show, not believed the loud mouths who tell you what he said.
Maher is an atheist. That may rub some fans the wrong way but as far as I can tell, as Americans we still have the right to choose not to believe. Maher makes a strong case for his position in his hilarious movie Religulous. Maher is not telling you not to believe, he’s just telling you he doesn’t and provides compelling and funny arguments why.
One commenter on Metsblog.com said Maher is sexist and hates women. Really? Well Bill’s got one smoken’ girl friend and I never saw him treat women badly on his show or in the press. If he is such a misogynist, why does he have so many female guests on his show? Also, he’s very good friends with Ann Coulter who is extremely right wing and much more divisive that Maher. Is it because he routinely jokes about Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman that some assume he hate’s women? No, he doesn’t hate women, he hates stupidity. Sorry but these two are stupid. They just happen to be women.
If Maher is so un-American than why did he do such a capitalist thing and buy a piece of the Mets? Twenty-million is a lot of cash. Certainly Maher could have done something better than investing in a baseball team. He could have donated it to the Muslim church. And if Maher is such a socialist the way many have depicted him, then why didn’t he buy a piece of the NFL?
In an episode of Real Time from last year, one of Maher’s New Rules outlined how the NFL is run just like a socialist country. NFL owners put all their money in a big pot, no matter how much each team earns in revenue, then divvy it out equally to all 32 teams. That’s socialism. By comparison, Major League Baseball is pure capitalism my friends. That’s why the Yankees have a payroll of 198 million and the San Diego Padres spend 55 million and can never compete. I guess buying into the Mets makes Maher a true capitalist. That should warm your right wing hearts.
Maher grew up in New Jersey and was a Mets fan as a kid. Not sure how much of a Met fan he is now. But who cares? Hate him or love him, Maher has a lot of cash and decided to give some of it to the Mets. If the money he provided helps the Mets sign the next wunderkind from the draft or a Major League free agent down the road, do you honestly care where the money is coming from? And if you really want to open the can of worms of where all baseball money comes from, I can guarantee you much of it comes from far more questionable sources than Bill Maher.
Someone said to me that I would be upset if Rush Limbaugh bought a piece of the Mets. They’re 100 percent correct. But there’s a huge difference. Limbaugh spews his anti-left punditry with impunity. He interviews no-one and provides no background for the alleged facts he spits out. On the other hand Maher does. He actually employs a staff who is responsible for fact checking, something Maher’s detractors despise.
Finally if you really can’t get over it, remember one thing. All Maher has done is given the Mets money. He has no say in baseball operations. That still is and will continue to be under the jurisdiction of Sandy Alderson, the Mets general manager. Like the collapse of 2007 and 2008, the curveball that froze Carlos Beltran at the plate in the last at bat of 2006, and now with Maher buying in to the team we love, just get over it. There are more important things to worry about…like when the hell Ike Davis will start to hit!