" It's all his fault !!!!"
Last night as I was putting the finishing touches on my Halloween costume – I am going as Ryan Howard with the bat stuck to my shoulder while watching strike three pass me by. I wondered if the Mets franchise is cursed or even haunted?
We have all heard the myths and legends of how the ghosts of Yankees Stadium helped will the teams of the past 15 years ( with a little help of PED’s) to post season supremacy. I wondered if this affected us conversely ? Did the Mets front office spearheaded by the Wilpons and many ex general managers such as Harazin, Duquette , Phillips and Minaya anger the ghosts of Stengel, Payson, Hodges, Agee, Frisella and Tug McGraw ? Did they cast a hex on this organization by the acquisitions of Mo Vaughn, Bobby Bonilla, Tom Glavine Vince Coleman and Oliver Perez ? And if this is the case other than sacrificing Chris Carlin while he’s eating a bucket of fried chicken ( there’s a visual for ya) how can we appease the spirits that called Shea Stadium home and have them embrace Citi Field – the mega mall that Fred “O’Malley” Wilpon built as their new home?
Well I think the Mets with the recent hiring of Sandy Alderson is finally exorcising the demons from this franchise – removing the malycha if you will. But Alderson’s hiring will not be the only bit of magic that the will need. They will have to organize a plan for winning and execute it with perfect precision. They will have to obtain great pitching via trades and the minor league drafts. They will have to shore up the defense which in recent years has been shaky. They will have to show disinterested players along with ineffectual management types the door. They will have to be more fan friendly by lowering the price of tickets and parking, bringing back banner day and hell even possibly retire Willie Mays and Keith Hernandez’s number during the season . And finally somebody has to find Mike Cubbage and lock him in a fortified prison because I am sure that he is the root cause of this team falling into oblivion !!!
With the events of the past weeks it looks like the Mets are climbing out of the deep dark hole that they fell into a few seasons ago. But it will take some time before the Ghosts of Mets past totally embrace our franchise and help will us to post season excellence !!
And with that said… HERE COMES THE INFAMY !!
Today would have been Mets organist, Jane Jarvis 95th birthday (1915) .
Steve Trachsel, the pitcher who took so much time on the mound between pitches that even the umpires took up needle point is 40 today (1970) .
New York Mets traded Richie Hebner to the Detroit Tigers for Jerry Morales and Phil Mankowski on October 31, 1979. Gravedigger Hebner is still seething over the trade !
New York Mets released the longest tenured Met at the time , catcher Ron Hodges on October 31, 1984.
Fifth outfielder from the ’06 team, Michael Tucker was granted free agency on October 31, 2006.
Our saviour that never was – Pedro Martinez was granted free agency on October 31, 2008. He gave s a decent year and a half of a four year contract. We all said it was a gamble when we signed him and it turned out that we crapped out on the deal.
Awesome when not injured (which seemed he was perpetually on the d.l), outfielder Moises Alou was granted free agency on October 31, 2008.
Middle reliever, Ricardo Rincon was granted free agency on October 31, 2008.
Mo Vaughn is going as Richard Simmons this Halloween !!!
11 comments
stickguy
10/31/2010-11:22am at 11:22 am (UTC -4)
dipping into the candy bowl a little early today Rusty?
Also, Harper in the daily news has a nice piece today about Riccardi. Certainly made a good case for bringing him in as the scouting/player development guy, and why he is different that Depodesta (and geared toward a different role).
Would be hard to argue with those 3 guys reuniting. GOtta be better than Omar and Tony B!
rustyjr
10/31/2010-11:23am at 11:23 am (UTC -4)
just the babay ruths man – just the baby ruths !!
kranepool
10/31/2010-11:38am at 11:38 am (UTC -4)
To commemorate the trade of Richie Hebner as an extra added Haloween treat to any one you dares darken my doorway on a Football Sunday along with the uneditable bags of candy corn I give out all will receive a middle finger salute as well
metsfan4decades
10/31/2010-12:56pm at 12:56 pm (UTC -4)
Didn’t even realize it was Halloween today. Living on a very busy thoroughfare for the past 27 years I get no door to door trick or treaters. Do they even do that anymore in this day and age? I see lots of town and county sponsored kids parties and such so thought they were getting away from that. Anyway, beautiful fall day here for that.
I really hope the pendulum is swinging back the other way with this franchise now. Hiring a new GM, one who is almost over qualified, should be a good start.
If bad luck befalls us yet again this year (another rash of prolonged injuries, Johan out for the entire year, players landing in jail….) I’ll be ready to lead the expedition to dig up that Phillies jersey someone surely had to bury beneath Citi’s field.
stickguy
10/31/2010-1:27pm at 1:27 pm (UTC -4)
yes they still trick or treat door to door. We live in a development that is pretty well self contained, so condusive to walking. Last year we probably got about 125-130 “customers”. A few years ago our peak was about 160.
hazmet
10/31/2010-2:03pm at 2:03 pm (UTC -4)
I hate when Halloween is on the weekend. One year we went through 45lbs of candy and when we ran out at 6:30 some little bastard wrote “You Suck” on my freshly poured concrete driveway and stained it for about 2 months. Oh, his parents were watching and I almost mixed it up with them over the incident. Which is saying something since I never snap because I go insane and it usually is very ugly. We usually tip out around the same on the total. So far only 15 today but the Jets are on and it’s a Jet fan neighborhood so I’m waiting for the late day rush that will follow.
Mr North Jersey
10/31/2010-2:04pm at 2:04 pm (UTC -4)
The freaks come out at night Haz. Be afraid be very afraid.
njstuckintx
10/31/2010-2:10pm at 2:10 pm (UTC -4)
MNJ, there is a post on MLBTR that has Steve Phillips as the 6th best GM in Mets History. You should shoot that over to that Phillip’s Fanatic over at MMO and watch the fireworks…
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/10/ranking-mets-gms-all-time.html
metsfan4decades
10/31/2010-2:09pm at 2:09 pm (UTC -4)
100+ groups of kiddies? 45lbs of candy? wow. I didn’t realize that the custom of going door to door is still obviously very much a tradition.
Messed up your concrete driveway? What is with some parents anyway? I think my question to them would have been ‘where do I send the bill for you to have this fixed’?
It’s sometimes a pain, but I think today I’m glad I live on a busy country road.
njstuckintx
10/31/2010-2:12pm at 2:12 pm (UTC -4)
In my old neighborhood in Jersey, they would come in by mini-van. We’d get almost 300 kids. It was nuts. So some neighbors and myself went about boycotting Halloween. We’d all to out to eat to avoid being home for the swarm of kids. It sucked, cause the little kids who enjoy it are great.
Prismo
10/31/2010-2:18pm at 2:18 pm (UTC -4)
That’s why it’s “Trick or Treat” – you don’t give them treats, so they trick you! I would argue that causing permanent property damage is a bit extreme though.