Fred Wilpon Has Something To Say

So the Mets owner Fred Wilpon had some things to say about some of the players he has right now, mainly Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and David Wright, here they are:

• Shortstop Jose Reyes will not be getting a super-huge contract from the Mets. "He thinks he's going to get Carl Crawford money," Wilpon said, referring to Crawford's seven-year, $142 million contract with the Boston Red Sox. "He's had everything wrong with him. He won't get it."

• On right fielder Carlos Beltran, Wilpon refers to Beltran's huge postseason with the Houston Astros in 2004 and says: "We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on that one series. He's sixty-five to seventy percent of what he was."

• About David Wright: "Really good kid. A very good player. Not a superstar."

• On whether the franchise might be snakebit, Wilpon makes another pointed Beltran reference. Author Jeffrey Toobin writes: "At one point, I mentioned to Wilpon the theory that the Mets might be cursed. He gave a sort of half laugh, and said, 'You mean' -- and then pantomimed a checked swing of the bat. Any Mets fan (I am one) would understand the reference. The Mets took the 2006 National League Championship Series to a seventh game against the Cardinals."

Wilpon apparently does like first baseman Ike Davis. "Good hitter," Wilpon says. "[Word for poop] team. Good hitter. ...We're snakebitten, baby."

Well.... this certainly isn't going to get our players to play harder for you. Figuring the Mets are getting sued for a billion dollars because they had a hand in the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, I would try to deflect my hate talk of his own team and make it more about building for a great future. This is one of the most unprofessional things I have ever heard and if I were Jose Reyes, Calros Beltran and David Wright I would be strongly asking for a trade. It's bad enough that soon your job won't be able to pay you, but for your boss to be bad mouthing you on top of it is just a toxic work environment.

Who Wants To Buy Part Of A Minor League Baseball Team?

Yeah, that's right. I don't know if any of you heard, part of the delightful fallout from that whole "Madoff thing" is that there's a baseball club that's looking for some minority investors. Some of you may never have actually heard of this "baseball team" because their performance over the past few years has called into question whether or not they are a "real" baseball team, but sure enough they've been playing 162 games a year -- no more than 162, let's be clear -- right here in the Big Apple.

Come on. You've heard of them.

Yes, that's right people. Mets chairman Fred Wilpon and his son Jeff announced this week both with a released statement, a press conference, and a personal e-mail to their fans which made me feel oh so special, that they have decided to explore finding new investors interested in a minority stake in the New York Mets. A real live baseball team!

Now, if you've been following the 'Ropolitans like I have for more than a decade, this announcement seems like a particularly odd one for the Wilpons to make for a few reasons. For one, they've done an extremely large amount of work over recent years to consolidate and improve the financial potency of the franchise. The introduction of SNY in 2006 has gone quite a distance to bring more money into the team's coffers and give them a financial base, ideally, more in line with those crosstown rivals in the Bronx. In addition to that, the recent construction of the Wilpon moneyfactory, also known as Citi Field, was further intended to strengthen the team's position. Lastly, and perhaps most notably, Fred Wilpon has tried awfully hard to make sure this team would belong to him and only him.

Obviously, given the track record of one Fred Wilpon, it seems patently bizarre that he would want to unload a chunk of his baby just as he's finally prepared the setup to make the team flourish financially even if it doesn't do the same on the field. So what gives?

Oh right. That.

It seems someone has decided that considering lots of people have lost money due to the pyramid scheme of Bernie Madoff, and because the Wilpons, who had hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in those investments, um, didn't, they must be the perfect people to sue to get that money back. What with Bernie being in jail and all -- without his Mets jacket -- it makes sense. I won't claim to understand how all the legal liabilities work in this thing since I'm, you know, not a lawyer, and I'm sure there's a legitimate reason why the Wilpons might possibly be somehow liable in this whole horror story, but it all seems kind of silly to me. Regardless however, absolutely none of that matters. The only thing of note is this:

There's a part of the Mets for sale!

Why is this so exciting? Well, some people might claim it is, in fact, not exciting at all, and while Rob Parker may have a point here, he's also an unnecessary provocateur and an asshole, so I'm going to ignore him for the moment. No, for me this is more exciting because I've just realized this is as good a prospect as any to pull some money together and own a baseball team. Indeed, that prospect was the very first idea I had when I first saw the story.

Shockingly none of my other potential investors seem interested in joining in despite my assurances that the Mets could not possibly be worth more than $10,000 or so given their on-field performance the last few years, but the bigger obstacle than this might be competition. And apparently that competition is coming. My guess is these other potential owners are going to jack the price out of my personal range, but let me state this right here for all who are interested.

I AM WILLING TO LISTEN TO ANYONE WHO IS INTERESTED IN FORMING A BID TO BUY A MINORITY STAKE IN THE NEW YORK METS.

Is that clear? I want to buy the Mets, I want to pool money to get the job done and I will actively seek partners. Not only will owning a piece of a Major League Baseball team be a great source of pride, but we'll get to see any Mets game we want for free (probably) and it'll totally help us get chicks. Or men if that's your fancy. Plus, I'm totally a really serious big time Mets fan. Just look at that picture of what I wore to my brother's wedding this summer to the right. I'm totally right for it. If I somehow won't be the right person for the job, the list of potential minority owners is certainly interesting.

My personal preference is for the minority bid to go to a group that is headed by Martin Luther King III, which also involves former Met Ed Kranepool and the son of Mets great Donn Clendenon. Failing that, however, the likely bid being brought forward by Martin Silver, the owner of Georgi Vodka, will at least make those long painful days at the park go faster.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more appropriate it seems to align the classy Mets organization with the class of a brand of vodka that is sold in plastic bottles.

If I'm unable to get my hands on any piece of the Mets, I will simply have to settle for watching the Wilpons' iron grip on the franchise slowly recede, which, given the team's prospects since they gained full control of the franchise, probably isn't the worst thing as I've noted before. Now to be fair, I suspect that regardless of ownership, the administration of Sandy Alderson will bring a much more professional auspice to the franchise and that success will follow, much as it did with Frank Cashen in the early 1980s, but giving the Wilpons less power couldn't hurt. And in the end, the prospect of the team forcibly getting better ownership is really enough for me.

Considering that this weekend already saw Southampton blow a second-half lead in the FA Cup against Manchester United and that Northwestern blew a tantalizingly close chance at knocking off No. 1 Ohio State, well, the promise that the Mets are on the way to better times would help salve those wounds. The fact that I also booked a flight to beautiful Detroit for a Pistons and Red Wings game this April also perks me up a little bit (more on that in a few weeks), but when I realize that the Pro Bowl is tonight, well, that just makes matters worse.

This is why, for the good of the Mets, and maybe my sanity, this chunk of the Mets being for sale is coming just at the right time. If it can't be me, maybe it can be someone else who actually knows how to run a baseball team.

But remember, I'm not giving up on my bid for a piece of the pie. Someone out there will want to take a bite, too. Who's with me?

Perhaps Elena Kagan Can Rule Fred Wilpon Unconstitutional

Some of you might have heard that the high court got a little bit of a makeover this week when Elena Kagan was confirmed and sworn in as the 112th Justice in the history of the United States Supreme Court. No one really knows just what kind of judge Kagan will wind up being -- her scant track record was probably one of the reasons the Obama administration thought she was a fit choice for easy confirmation and eventually sitting on the bench -- but I already like her. No this is not just because she noted when asked about the underwear bomber that, like most Jews, she was probably at a Chinese restaurant at the time.

Nuh-uh. I like Elena Kagan because, as I've mentioned before, we finally have someone to balance out Sonia Sotomayor and bring some Mets fandom to the highest court in all the land. In general, it's just nice to know that people have succeeded to great heights when they've suffered just like you have. I wonder if she, too, has cringed at nearly every back-breaking loss the Amazins have suffered this season, or been perturbed by the front office's inaction at the trade deadline that has rendered the team all but irrelevant this season.

And if she has, I have one request. Use your power.

Use your power to lean on the Supreme Court to rule Fred Wilpon's ownership of the Mets unconstitutional somehow. Please. I'm no legal scholar, but I'm sure there's a way to get the team back into the arms of either Nelson Doubleday or the Payson Family. Better yet, tell Mike Piazza and Tom Seaver to pool some resources and rescue the franchise, because it just might be in dire straights.

Need evidence? Here you go.

No, I don't think Omar Minaya has really done that poor of a job. This franchise doesn't get to within a game of the 2006 World Series without his orchestration and there have been some phenomenal finds he has made among other teams' discarded scrap piles. Finds like Endy Chavez, Angel Pagan, Damion Easely or R.A. Dickey. But for each of these great pickups there are just as many mediocre moves that simply waste space on the roster. People like Brian Schneider, Frank Catalanotto or Ambiorix Burgos. And then there are the huge financial disasters -- signings that haven't panned out like he'd hope, with millions being lost in the offing -- such as the wholly unnecessary extension given to Luis Castillo or the catastrophic decision to give Oliver Perez $36 million with no one bidding against you.

In fact, at this weekend's annual Sabermetrics Convention in Atlanta, it was determined that the franchise with the worst overall performance in the last decade relative to its payroll was, yup, you guessed it, the Mets.

So, with that kind of mediocrity given the resources poured into the team, to say nothing of the apparent lack of class displayed by moves such as firing Willie Randolph in the middle of the night, why is this man being brought back for another shaky season at the wheel of the ship? What could be the cause? The only reason that rationally comes to mind is that the Wilpons, ever mindful of their money, were not interested in continuing to pay Minaya while paying someone else to do the job. This has been one of the curses of the Wilpon ownership -- not that they refuse to spend frivolously, but that they refuse to make the sometimes necessary and expensive moves to improve the product on the field when they have the resources to do it.

And they do. This is a team that plays in the media capital of the world, has a brand new stadium where some tickets run up to $400 each for a regular season game, and that owns a highly profitable cable channel that allows it to appropriately price its broadcast rights. Yes, attendance is down this year and tickets have been easier to have than the Wilpons might have anticipated in their second season in Citi Field, but that is less a sign of disinterest than it is a symptom of the now fading recession and growing dissatisfaction within the fanbase over ownership that refuses to funnel money into areas of need.

The most obvious sign of this, recently, was the immediate acknowledgment that the Mets would not be in the hunt for Roy Oswalt simply because he was too expensive at an average of $16 million a year over the next two seasons. Instead, the perspective should have been, "We have a chance to control one of the best pitchers in the game through 2013, giving us a top two (Oswalt and Johan Santana), which would rival any in the game." Add into this that Oswalt's superb isolated pitching statistics have come in one of the most hitter-friendly parks in baseball, and that he would be moving to one of the biggest pitchers parks in the Majors, and the pursuit seems like a no-brainer.

Instead, the Wilpons pulled tighter the reins on Minaya, and Oswalt will spend the next three seasons dominating the National League for the Philadelphia Phillies. Seeing him and Roy Halladay for the next half decade is just what the doctor ordered right?

And so, Justice Kagan, I beg of you -- plead of you -- please allow some test case to reach the bench that lets you use your jurisprudence to re-energize the millions of Mets fans who suffer with this ineffective and apparently indifferent ownership.

When you're not making Jews everywhere proud by chowing down on some Pekking Duck on December 25th, you can do something to bring joy to half the city of New York. And maybe, just maybe, that ship will right itself.

(Ed note: I am well aware that Elena Kagan does not have the power, nor is it appropriate for her to use her position to change the ownership and front office of the New York Mets. But a Man can dream, damnit.)

Lastly, I've spent most of this morning watching Emmitt Smith's induction speech to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Mets' horrid debacle in Philadelphia. Add in the nonstop barrage of drums from the Dominican Pride Parade on Sixth Avenue right now, and you might not be too far off by assuming I'm stuck in my personal hell at the moment.

It has, however, given me the time to ponder two notes, which should probably have their own entries altogether, but, you know, I've got things to do, so I'll just point them out right now. First of all: Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith are, probably, the two greatest players of the 1990s. I don't think it's outlandish at all to make that statement. And they may just be the greatest to play their position. While Smith, the NFL's all-time leading rusher could face competition for the title from the likes of Jim Brown, Walter Payton or Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice is almost certainly the greatest wide receiver that has or, quite possibly, will ever play the game. Period. And they're going into the Hall together. Now, I can't remember every other Hall of Fame class off the top of my head, but I find it hard to believe any rivals this one in prestige, to say nothing of the other inductees, Floyd Little, Russ Grimm, John Randle, Rickey Jackson and possibly the greatest defensive mind of the game's modern era, Dick LeBeau.

The last thing I noticed, while watching the nonstop coverage on NFL Network this weekend was this: Emmitt Smith is the last of the Cowboys' star trio from their three-time Super Bowl Champion teams of the 1990s to be inducted in Canton. The others, Michael Irvin and Troy Aikman, were equally deserving of enshrinement. What was most remarkable to me about this, aside from how difficult it was, as a Giants fan, to choke down the vitriol during a three-way discussion the three held at Cowboys Stadium this weekend, was that they were all first-round picks in successive years. That means that in 1988 (Irvin), 1989 (Aikman) and 1990 (Smith) the Dallas Cowboys drafted a Hall of Famer, not just at all, but with their first round pick.

When has that ever happened for any other franchise in any sport? I'm willing to bet the answer is that it hasn't, and while there were many other pieces to that Cowboys dynasty in the 1990s, those were the big ones. And that they all arrived in Dallas the way they did is remarkable.

You don't need to be a Supreme Court Justice to figure that out.