Los Metz

[DocTee]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/latinosrise/columns/story?id=2342637&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab3pos2

[metirish]

Good article although New York mag did it better last year.

]� Neither I nor the Mets think about race, creed or color when we go after a player. We're looking for the best talent possible to make our team a winner. Our goal is to put together the best team possible for the New York fans. �

from Omar.

[DocTee]

]Our goal is to put together the best team possible for the New York fans. �

I wish he'd have ended it with "best team possible".

Agreed that the NY Times did a better, more robust piece.

[metirish]

Doc I was talking about this article in NY magazine, maybe you never saw it, Pedro on the cover, I still have it.

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/sports/features/11260/index.html

[DocTee]

Wow-- thanks, Irish-- never saw that piece. cool stuff

[Guest cleonjones11]

I just want them to win

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

DocTee wrote: ]Our goal is to put together the best team possible for the New York fans. � I wish he'd have ended it with "best team possible"

The full quote was "..for the New York fans with their conveniently lower standards of excellence, which allow us to satisfy some of them simply by showing up in April wearing the correct laundry, God bless them all for their kind hearts."

Seriously, Omar just put the prepositional phrase in the wrong place, He meant to say "Our goal is to put together for the New York fans the best team possible" but no one ever accused the Mets of picking a smooth spokesperson. Omar's on the same level as a public speaker as I am at male fashion-modeling.

[Guest KC]

"Yeah, yeah, yeah - bake a pie, eat a pie" -- A. Bundy

What team's fans would you describe as having inconvenient standards of
excellence?. Surely, you can't mean the Yankee fans who jumped on the
bandwagon in 1997 and "live and die" with the team. Maybe you mean the
Braves? No, that can't be, because they've won all those division titles and
didn't do the necessary things to win it all. Hell, they can't even sell out
some playoff games. They have an extraordinary team building process -
but can't they be described as the type of team you now loath for not do-
ing enough to get over the top and just doing enough to get into the playoffs?
You certainly can't mean The Sawx � what a sappy group of rah rah wait
'til next year bozo fans they were for 70 years � and then you adopt them
like the second coming of Blackburne baseball mud � transparent horse
hockey, that was � even though most of us like them too.

Every team I can think of has had more downs than ups in the last twenty
years (regardless of market position � talk to a long time Dodger or Cubs
fan). Just because you feel betrayed by your lifelong team (if that really is
the root of your anti-Metdom) doesn't mean that you have to paint the rest
of the remaining Mets fans as having imaginary lower standards than the
fans of other teams on a forum filled with, duh, Mets' fans.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Why is it always about me? Why not make it about some of your fellow CPFers--I won't name names but they're two of the nicest people I know--who profess that they'll be loyal to the blue-and-orange forever whatever the W/L record? I love these folks, they're the salt of the earth and the bee's knees and all that, but I think this loyalty to the laundry stuff is just as loopy as you get.

You're citing this extreme loyalty as if it's a good thing, and in a way you make my case for me. Far better, to my mind, to exercise some self-control, go to fewer games, root less vehemently at the blowout losses you attend, do whatever it takes to pressure the Mets' organization to spend their money (indirectly YOUR money, of course) more prudently, to hire at least a few token competent people, avoid making trades so blatently stupid that literally NO ONE defends them at the time or afterwards, and adopt in general a critical stance in a longshot attempt to persuade the team that your ferocious loyalty (a passion you seem bent on expending in my direction lately) be repaid with a winning ballclub, or at least a ballclub commensurate with the income you so loyally provide them with. By my calculations, that would entail the Mets winning about 375 games this season, just to compensate for the lopsided ratios of income/wins for just the last four years.

Or you can blame it all on me. That's what I'm here for.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Mrs Fields--I can't help it. He asked me a question.

[Guest KC]

I hate the quote block, but ...

]What team's fans would you describe as having inconvenient standards of excellence?

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

And since nobody--certainly not Mrs. Fields--is interested in reading another defense of my position, and since I'm not about to let you attack me without defending my position, may I again suggest the Red Light Forum as the appropriate place for inter-poster issues? By jumping all over me whenever I post in the baseball forum, and refusing to take it elsewhere, you're shitting all over everyone else's threads (and, because people are rooting for you and the Mets against me and Satan here, I'm catching most of the flak for it). But if you really want to get into this stuff with me for the six zillionth time (why, I can't imagine), do it there and I'll discuss it with you. Otherwise, I'll try to avoid answering you at length whenever possible .

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

KC wrote: I hate the quote block, but ... ]What team's fans would you describe as having inconvenient standards of excellence?

Marlins fans seem pretty good at giving their team the back of their hands when the organziation fields a Little League team, and charges MLB prices.

Or was the right answer "NO TEAM, I'm a jackass"?

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I don't know, it seems to me that Mets attendance drops when they suck.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

And yet Fred still doesn't get the message. It needs to drop more. I'm doing my part, why aren't you?

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I'm supposed to be apologetic for rooting for the Mets while posting on a Mets board?

[Guest KC]

You change the story like the wind ... the Marlins aren't a big market team
and were a somewhat "lucky" but talented wildcard team that won some
championships.

This is direct contradiction of things you have posted in the past
with regards to clubs building a team to just make the playoffs and then
roll the dice to see if they win - oh wait - those are only big market teams like
the Cubs and Dodgers.

I don't really know how you drew so much anger from this conversation this
evening - if you re-read it, a lot of your response was kinda over the top - again.

Way.

If you would put down the "the cpf against is against me" agenda and just
focus - you might be able to see what I mean - and tonight I didn't mean to
make you get all whack on me if that's the way you FEEL* or if that's
the way you chose to paint it - again.

*Ms. Met reference

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

KC wrote: a somewhat "lucky" but talented wildcard team that won some championships.

If this isn't the quintessential losers' view of other organizations' ability to win, it will have to do until a better example comes along. They DON'T have the income stream Fred pisses away, and still their fans refuse to come to see lousy baseball. So what's Fred's excuse? "Stop me before I spend again"?

Yeah, maybe I misread "duh" and "transparent horse hockey" and other love-coos as hostile. My bad.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

ScarletKnight41 wrote: I'm supposed to be apologetic for rooting for the Mets while posting on a Mets board?

That would be a start.

BTW, did I make Omar say the foolish phrase that got me rolling here? I'm almost sure I know how to make Omar say stupid things at will--now where did I put those damned puppet strings, anyway?

He puts his foot in his mouth, his dick in the blender, assembles an awesome squad of middle-relief hiumpties with ERAs of over 5.00, trades off your best prospects for garbage, pays Delgado more, and gets one fewer productive year than he could have gotten last year, and--well, either defend this silly yutz or apologize. Or explain to me why I'm wrong again. I'm sure everyone is eager to read another thread like that.

[Guest KC]

We might want to consider turning off the ability to edit posts. Ya read stuff
and then you go to post a response and what you're responding to has been
changed a couple of times.

>>>Yeah, maybe I misread "duh" and "transparent horse hockey" and other love-coos as hostile. My bad.<<<

Yeah, mean ol' me. I can see how that could get someone's feathers all in
an uproar. Sorry. Jeez, "duh" - I can't believe I said that. Horse hockey,
jimminy, alert the internet police.

Someone really needs to drop the cpf against me stuff and we'll all get along
much better. I'm sure of it.

[metirish]

]pays Delgado more, and gets one fewer productive year than he could have gotten last year,

Again, Delgado had a better offer form the Mets last year and chose instead to go to the Marlins, not a lot Omar could do about that.

[Zvon]

="Bret Sabermetric"] "..for the New York fans with their conveniently lower standards of excellence, which allow us to satisfy some of them simply by showing up in April wearing the correct laundry, God bless them all for their kind hearts."

HEY!
I resemble that remark!

Cept for the word convenient......and lower, and excellence,and,.mmm....lets see,...scratch out standards/allow us to,..and add some other words in there so it makes sense.........


And Im proud of it.

[Guest KC]

Wow, how did you make that text so tiny?

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

="KC"]"Yeah, yeah, yeah - bake a pie, eat a pie" -- A. Bundy What team's fans would you describe as having inconvenient standards of excellence?. Surely, you can't mean the Yankee fans who jumped on the bandwagon in 1997 and "live and die" with the team.

You don't know me well enough to keep calling me "Shirley." You call it bandwagon-jumping, I call it refusing to support an insultingly bad team year after year no matter what the results. Maybe George goes too far, but he recognizes that his fans won't support him if he doesn't put a good product on the field, and hires people who know that it's their jobs to do that. I think the Mets' staff believes it's their primary duty to order lunch and make inane, self-serving statements to the press while CYA at all times.

] Maybe you mean the Braves? No, that can't be, because they've won all those division titles and didn't do the necessary things to win it all. Hell, they can't even sell out some playoff games. They have an extraordinary team building process -but can't they be described as the type of team you now loath for not doing enough to get over the top and just doing enough to get into the playoffs?"

Uh, I think you're confusing me with Ambler here. Or some other hater of all that is good and holy. You think I'm angry that the Mets have done just enough to get into the playoffs? I haven't noticed them in many playoffs lately, or in many Septembers either. Their suckitude has been quantum leaps below that of the Braves --let them approach the Braves' failure to win the big enchilada, and then maybe I'll complain about that then, but you're getting WAY ahead of yourself. Or is this another sad loser's prototypical complaint? "Yah, Yah, the Yankees and the Braves haven't won the World Series in a few years either--so they suck and we suck and everybody's equal, ha,ha,ha."

]You certainly can't mean The Sawx � what a sappy group of rah rah wait'til next year bozo fans they were for 70 years � and then you adopt them like the second coming of Blackburne baseball mud � transparent horsehockey, that was � even though most of us like them too.

As I said, and as you didn't hear apparantly, so you need this repeated, Sox fans are vicious about their team's shortcomings. I like being able to voice criticism about the Sox and have it go over as fair and reasonable, without having my sanity or my manners or my human decency questioned.

]Every team I can think of has had more downs than ups in the last twenty years (regardless of market position � talk to a long time Dodger or Cubsfan). Just because you feel betrayed by your lifelong team (if that really is the root of your anti-Metdom) doesn't mean that you have to paint the rest of the remaining Mets fans as having imaginary lower standards than the fans of other teams on a forum filled with, duh, Mets' fans.

You're something of a paranoid nut yourself, btw, if you think my attitude about the Mets has anything to do with you or your fellow co-admin (am I reading you right here? "If that really is the root of your anti-Metdom?") Like finishing last for three straight years with a huge budget isn't enough to generate some animosity, no, I need you and Edgy being difficult pricks to set me off. (And since you're not a difficult prick, just a little cranky at times, that would leave Edgy.) I've got terrific reasons to root for the Sox, I've got terrific seats any time I want, I've got my friend's kid, whose intelligence and character I've got an intimate knowledge of, running the team, I've got a great and critical and knowledgable fan base around me, I've got a more devoutly anti-Yankee sentiment than I've got in Queens, and to you this is "horse-hockey" that transparantly disguises my petty problems staying on good terms with Mr. Hostile Pedant DC? Please, get over yourselves, would you?

] Someone really needs to drop the cpf against me stuff and we'll all get along much better. I'm sure of it.

Someone sure does. if you read this thread, for example, you'll see that I criticized (jokingly) Omar's attitude about Mets' fans. Nothing about me in there, nothing about you, nothing about anyone but Omar and Mets' fans. If you want to assume that my remarks are an attack on Mets' fans, and by implication CPFers who are also Mets' fans, and so you start getting personal with me, commenting on my rooting choices and calling them falsehoods and calling me a hypocrite, that's fine. I'll discuss my character flaws (preferably in the Red Light Forum, where all such discussions belong, or would belong if you and Edgy lived up to the same standards you set for others), but please don't pretend that I'm interjecting "cpf vs me" agenda items into a discussion of Mets' baseball. You're the one insisting on doing that and blaming me for it.

See ya over the Red Light Forum for further discussions of this tedious nonsense.

[Guest KC]

You sound awfully pissed off for someone who isn't. We're two stubborn old
goats - let me have the last word, for old time's sake.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: And yet Fred still doesn't get the message. It needs to drop more. I'm doing my part, why aren't you?

I've been to Shea three times in the last eleven seasons.

I'm more than doing my part.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

What? We had a good team the first part of the past 11 years. Yancy, the plan is this: support them when they play good ball.

I hope your three visits were all before 2001.

[Guest KC]

You go to games. I've been there with you and saw you.

For shame.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: What? We had a good team the first part of the past 11 years. Yancy, the plan is this: support them when they play good ball. I hope your three visits were all before 2001.

Two of the three were: 1999, 2000, and 2005. (All were in winning seasons.)

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

KC wrote: You go to games. I've been there with you and saw you. For shame.

Yeah, but not as much as I used to go when I really had a Kool-Aid addiction problem.

You've got no idea how hard it's going to be to have a semester off, and to live walking distance from Shea, and still to deal with my Kool-aid addiction. I just know there'll be a sunny day, with Pedro on the mound, and I'm feeling like taking a walk, and I won't have a Kool-Aid counselor to talk me out of it...

Also when I go, I restrict my snacking to hot dogs I find on the ground...