Howard Johnson is writing post-season reports for the Stuart News of St. Lucie.
In his first report, Johnson picks the Phillies to win the World Series, saying, “The Phillies are the best team I have seen this year.”
Ben Nicholson-Smith of MLB Trade Rumors looks back at the Victor Zambrano-for-Scott Kazmir trade, as one of the most notable trades of the last decade.
In a post to Amazin Avenue, Alex Nelson continues to look back on players who were drafted by the Mets in 2009.
The Brooklyn Met Fan, explains why, “Ya gotta root for Pedro Martinez.”
Ed Ryan of Mets Fever is intrigued by Kansas City’s catchers.
In a post for his blog, Ted Quarters, SNY’s Ted Berg discusses leadership in sports, and pies in the face.
Lastly, Tie Died of Mets Merized Online looks back at Jerry Koosman’s performance in 1969.
{ 34 comments }
You have to root against Pedro. Are you kidding me root for him.
He got a 4 year contract from the mets. Had a Year and a half of success. Repeatedly Gave the Mets hope year in a year out, but gave them nothing after his first season in ‘05.
How can a fan base root for a guy who pretty much flat out STOLE 53 million dollars for 32 wins and 23 losses. Or almost 2 million dollars per win.
How can I root for Pedro?
Because it’s more important that the Yankees lose the WS than for me to hold a grudge against Pedro getting an over-generous contract from Omar … which was not Pedro’s fault anyway. If someone throws money at him, why should he not accept it?
I’m not saying it’s pedro’s fault at all.
But I as one fan cannot root for someone who was so unsuccessful for one team being successful for a team i despise even if it is against another team i despise.
And I do believe pedro tried his hardest and is a class act and always held himself to a standard i wish most baseball players would. he’s a truely good guy who is good for baseball.
I just can’t root for a guy who stunk so bad for the Mets to be good for Philly.
Hey bottom-line, this Series is a no-win situation for us and we all know it. Last night ‘rooting’ for the Phillies may have been the emptiest feeling I’ve ever had as a sports fan.
1999 was the only other time we really faced this, but the Braves really had eliminated the Mets in the NLCS. This year we finished behind 3/4 of the league, not just the Phillies. I wanted to see that 99 Braves team humiliated, and felt we had a hand in wearing them out. And the Yankees were the defending champs like the Phillies are now, so we were all already dealing with it.
I just want the whole thing over, and over quickly. The 1976 Yankees were swept by a defending world champ while breaking in a new (well, renovated) stadium…I will take a repeat.
Dave,
I couldn’t pull myself to root for philly at all last night. While enjoy and like a vast majority of their players (victorino, Rollins, Howard, Lee, Utley, Werth) I cannot stand their fan base. Being a Giants fan makes it even worse for me as they rival both my favorite teams.
But i wasn’t rooting for the yankes to win either. I could care less who wins and the only thing i’m rooting for is a foul ball to hit Joe buck in the face rendering him unable to announce another Giants Football game or Mets baseball game for the rest of my time on this planet.
Other then that i love that philly beat the Yankees last night, and I was pulling for the Yankees to come back in the 9th to stick it to phillly.
I don’t know what to root for. On one hand if the yankee win we have to hear about it in the NY area for a long time….. If the Phillies win they are the Rivals currently of the mets.
The only solace i can take in the Philles winning is the Mets could have the opportunity to knock off the champs in the regular season next year. While if the yankees win I’ll have to Hope for a Subway Series to do that.
but please lets not have the next two years be a repeat…
Fortunately, the people who pay out these contracts understand the concept of injuries, and assume this risk when they offer them. Particularly in the case of Pedro, I guarantee you that neither Omar nor the Wilpons nor anyone else could have, or did believe that Pedro would pitch 4 years injury-free for them. They knew he had a bad shoulder the day they signed him, as well as that he was in his mid-30s. Do you suggest that Pedro, one of the great competitors of this era, gave less than 100% in trying to get out there? Really?
You don’t have to root for Pedro or the Phillies if you don’t want to, but in terms of accusing Pedro “stealing” money? Grow up.
Personally, I will root for him as a class act, one of the greats of our time, a guy I loved seeing stick the Yankees BS tradition up their you-know-whats as a Red Sox AND Mets player, and a guy who I enjoyed seeing up close, even if the flashes were brief.
Good call, When we really needed PEDRO to step up and be the ace, where was he. on the DL! He was never there to win the big game and now he plays for the most hated team in the NL. I hope the YABKEES shell him and knock him out in the first. I really want to see the “the BEST TEAM” in the NL lose and lose big. I can put up with the Yankees and yet another ring, more than the Phillies reapeating. I HATE THE PHILLIES, Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Cole Hammels they can all watch as the Yankees win. These guys are sore winners and brag way to much for my taste, and, Jimmy Rollins and his “predictions” drive me crazy.
I will be rooting hard for Pedro tonight and for a sweep of the Yankees.
But the idea that the Mets missed out on Pedro this year is a bunch of crap. Pedro can no longer pitch every 5 days for months on end. And he didn’t do that for the Phillies this year either.
Come on, Pedro could have been the difference between 70 wins and 75 wins! Who, including Pedro, wouldn’t sign up for that?!
I am glad he is getting one last turn on this stage. It should have been in 2006, but in 2009 we were never going to get him there.
Agreed. While Pedro would not have made sense for he Mets this year, he is in the right place at the right time now and I hope he ends his career with a bang. I don’t resent him for him playing with the Phillies and wish him the best of luck tonight.
If a Met fan roots for the Phillies or ANY philly you are proving that the Phillies are not a rival. That the 18 games we play against them a year mean nothing more than playing the nationals.
Do you think ANY Yankee fan would root for the Red Sox over the Mets in the world series?
The philies are the rival… not the yankees. Don’t let the phillies rub another championship in our face. number 3 and two in two years is worse than number 27
It’s not about rivalries. It’s about what’s good for the game. The Yankees are an obscenity the way they buy their way into the playoffs almost every year.
Really? what’s wrong with paying for your team? It’s what we do? We have the third highest payroll but we aren’t “buying our way in”
The phillies payroll is up there too… and they bought Ibanez so aren’t they buying their way in? he carried them this year.
Spoken like a true Mets fan who has lost too many arguments with his Yankees-fan friends.
There is absolutely no similarity between the Yankees and the Mets, Red Sox, Phillies, or anyone else in the game. The Yankees are an abomination. They spent nearly half a BILLION dollars on 3 guys last winter in the face of a recession that had 29 other owners scaling back. Sabathia had no desire to play for the Yankees, but they overbid SO egregiously that he couldn’t say no, lest the MLBPA hunt him down. Teixiera, if you didn’t notice, was taken from the team they just beat to get to the WS. In the 90s, you would be right – the Yankees weren’t even the highest payroll most years. Now? They are double anyone else’s payroll and are flat out BUYING A TITLE.
As for whether Yankees fans would root for the Red Sox to beat the Yankees…who the F cares what Yankees fans would do? We’re not Yankees fans, and Mets-Phillies, though spirited the last few years, is not Yankees-Red Sox.
They say always favor the devil you know over the devil you don’t know. The devil we’ve known all year is the World Champion Phillies. What’s another going to do that the first one didn’t? The devil you don’t know is a new generation of spoiled, delusional, entitled Yankees fans spilled onto the streets of NY for the next 5 months. No thanks.
I am a die hard mets fan, but their payroll is 20 mil higher than the red sox and 40 more than us. and they spent half a billion over 8 years, not 1. they committed to it in one year… but so what? I want Wilpon opening up the piggy bank and buying Holliday, buying Lackey, trading and then paying Halladay, AND EVERY OTHER PIECE THERE IS OUT THERE!!!
We are not a small market team… why do we think that is what we need to be like?
Your numbers are wrong. See my post below. Moreover, the Yankees have spent about a billion dollars over the last 4 years alone. No one in baseball is even within 50% of that amount.
The Mets spent the same as the Cubs this year. At no time have they ever spent 90 million more than the second highest spender in their league, let alone all of baseball. So, what the Yankees do is NOT an even playing field. They don’t break the rules of baseball, but they don’t follow the spirit of what is sport — an even playing field.
MLB has decided that the luxury tax threshold constitutes a level of fairness in this sport. I agree. The Yankees flaunt that and make it virtually mpossible for small and mid-market teams to win a WS.
Moreover, the Yankees are the #1 reason for the quickly escalating baseball contracts and rise in ticket prices and cable fees. They are exactly what the Red Sox owners said they are — the evil empire. Death to the evil empire!
While I agree that the Yankees are evil and they are th ereason why prices are so high, the Rays and Rockies both made the WS and have a low patroll, so, payroll does not = a ring. I also dont like the way the Phillies carry themselves, they are spoiled winners, and worry more about the teams they beat then themselves. They are arogant and rude, I hate them, as much as, NO, more than the Yankees. If it was any other team, I would root for them over the Yankees. I rootes for the D-backs in 01 and the MArlins in 03, I cannot root for the Phillies. I am not rooting for the Yankees to win, I am rooting for the Phillies to lose.
The point is, it’s a blue moon when a low to mid market team can actually win a WS. The Marlins did it in 2003, but it may never happen again for 20 years or more if they don’t change the system.
You have to be in it to win it. And almost every year, it’s the big market teams that predominantly get into the playoffs. And the reason the Yankees get in almost every year is due to their humongous payroll advantage.
It’s not fair.
And, FYI, the Phillies spent about $115 this year. The Mets about $135 million. OTOH, the Yankees once again spent over $200 million. How can one even think that type of spending is all equivalent?????
Both the Phillies and Mets were under the Luxury Tax threshold. The Yankees far exceeded it.
Please, God, for the good of the game, make the Yankees lose to the Phillies.
Yankees are 192 this year.. They committed to new contracts LESS than they took off the books. They CUT payroll.
No, they are well above $200 million. See my post below.
A Mets fan would root for the yankees or not root at all…
The rest of you aren’t being Mets fans… you are being Yankee haters… That stems from jealousy and envy.
You root for your team… and against their enemies.. the Yankees are not the enemy. Jimmy Rollins and the Phillies are
Your numbers are wrong. I suggest you go here and look at the facts:
http://content.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2009
Those are actual payrolls, not Luxury Tax palls but they are close enough for the purposes of this discussion.
The Yankees spent over $200 million this year according to that source (and others) and their LT payroll is even higher (as they lots of back-loaded contracts.
The Mets spent $135 million this year so the Yankees spent about $70 million MORE than the Mets. And about $80-90 million more than the Red Sox.
Remember, the Tigers paid almost all of Sheff’s contract this year so you have to subtract about $14 million from the Mets’ numbers at USA Today.
It is you who are jealous of the Yankees. I agree with dave27 — it stems from an inferiority complex from never having experienced being on top in this city. You are probably in your late teens or twenties.
IMO, there is nothing to be jealous of when it comes to the Yankees. Almost all of their success since 1996 came because of PEDs and payroll. It’s the cheapest form of success.
Let me try this again:
Those are actual payrolls, not Luxury Tax PAYROLLS but they are close enough for the purposes of this discussion.
The Yankees spent over $200 million this year according to that source (and others) and their LT payroll is even higher (as they HAVE lots of back-loaded contracts).
Where are your numbers from? I checked MLB and Yankees and both showed UNDER 200.
I gave you the link right above. Just click on it.
All sources have the Yankees above $200 million this year. It’s much more when using the Luxury Tax method too.
If you want to root for Pedro, go ahead, but I am really getting sick of him and hearing about him. It’s fine for him to join a team already pretty much secured in the playoffs and now he’s pitching in the WS, when the mets missed the playoffs by one game the last two years, pedro could have stepped up but instead he’d go five innings, give up 4 or 5 runs and we’d be fighting from behind. I hope he gets shelled tonight, i hope they yankees absolutely shell him
I don’t know how oud ‘our turn’ is, but there are two distinct breaks among NY fans.
There are those of us who are over 30 who have lived through eras when the Yankees were garbage and the Mets ruled this town. The Yankees fans in the mix grasp the concept that their team is not simply entitled to win every year, and that don’t embrace the massive payroll and extravagences of the new stadium. The Mets fans in the mix refuse to genuflect to the Yankees and their fans and don’t ‘accept’ that the Yankees are superior in any way other than when they are a better on-field team in a given season.
Then there are those under 30, who have only known a world of Yankee dominance. The Yankees fans feel they were essentially born into royalty…that they are better than everyone else, that the ‘belong’ in the World Series every year, and that the 2009 title is not just a right of passage, but it’s the only conceivable way to open their new stadium. Mets fans under 30? They have never had to stop defending their Mets fan-status and been forced to accept that Yankee Dominance is just the way things are as a virtual survival mechanism. They constantly make comments like “well we aren;t the Yankees” and have grown comfortable accepting second-class status. They might also lack the historical perspective that prior to 3 years ago the Mets and Phillies had no discernable rivalry, despite their divisional and geographical proximity.
My guess is most older Mets fans are rooting for the Phillies to shut up the insufferable Yankees fan base, while most younger ones don’t think they are allowed to root againt the all-mighty Yankees when a “rival” is in play.
I’m right at 30. I think the phillies are much more insufferable. I HATE them… I prefer NY over ANY OTHER TEAM because it would make the phillies miserable and maybe shut them up. I grew up in a Yankee household and hated having to deal with the dynasty and all the talk, but I still would never root for OUR ACTUAL RIVAL!!! The one who has stolen our division and flapped their lips non-stop since 2007
I hear you. It’s a tough cutoff…I am 35 and was 12 in 1986. I am not sure I did anything that entire year but watch Mets games. I feel bad for any Mets fan who hasn’t had the experience. At 7 I would imagine you at least remember some of it?
Beyond what I said about it really comes down to personal preference. In 1996 I actually rooted for the Yankees. They’d been bad for a long time. Their fans were humbled and grateful to be back. From then on though, their fan base just turned completley insufferable.
And as mush as there are some likeable Yankees, there is also ARod…and I will never root for that guy to validate his career. His old teammate Griffey will likely retire this year never having seen a WS. For ARod to win a ring the same year…just one of many ways to describe the travesty.
I couldn’t agree with you more Dave. For me, the motivation behind supporting the Phillies is more about preventing the Skankee fans I have to encounter all winter from sticking my face in it every chance they get. I won’t see Philly people on a daily basis. What’s more, the Yankee mentality is crushed of a WS victory is not secured. It’s all or nothing for them. Don’t get me wrong, we all wanna win the big one, but as the “Captain Oh Captain” says, if you don’t win the WS, the whole season was a waste. The elitest, spoiled, non-NY native celebrity sightings, the average fan arrogance, expectation of supremacy has sickened me since 1996. Perhaps I’ll admit to some jealousy of their winning. I mean they have been able to secure a whole new generation of fans because of their success which I would love to have recruited for us but such is life. On that note I’ll sign of with a Let’s Go Phillies to spare me from all the jerk *** Skankee fans I know!!
heres what i am hoping ot see tonight…the yankees are losing in the late innings and then it hits the fans in the new ‘cathedral’…omg…our corporate heirarchy went out and overspent on the 3 most desirable free agents this past season and this may be the last game of the season here at the new ‘hallowed ground’ unless we win 2 of 3 in philly…what a profound tragedy this is….baaaahhhhhhhh……………
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