Chill Pill For Manager Will

Is it possible? Relaxed rules in the clubhouse, outbreaks of facial hair and salsa music? Is Willie on Chill Pills already?

So says he about how he intends to loosen the reigns a little bit, let hell break loose, not all hell, just bits and bobs of it, or so we think.

"For instance, if I feel like saying it's OK to wear a goatee this year," he says with a deranged twinkle in his eye, "I might even change that eventually. It could be music or whatever. I'm not saying I'm going to change that. I'm just saying if I feel like that, I'll do it. I never feel like I'm a taskmaster, going for the whip. I just go with what I feel for the team."

The first sore hammy has yet to be strung and already Willie is at his mid-season enigmatic best. What if he allows goatees and Crazy Jug Band sounds, but only on the road? At home it's back to the smooth shave and headphones:



There's no telling the lengths Willie will go to relax a clubhouse that's going to riding a crest of high expectations this season. Playoffs are expected, not dreamed of. The whore's been paid for, it's time to put out. If the Braves aren't dethroned by the Mets season, the ceiling on the patience of Mets fans will be tested early and often.

As far as I can tell, these facial hair edicts are just another Spring Training subliminal message to fans. Last season, struggling on with half a team, no closer and a few key underperformers, no facial hair, Steinbrennerian draconian wonderland, discipline trumping talent.

So look, the Mets are confident. Grow some facial hair in solidarity.

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On the other side of the mountain, Joe Girardi, who has inherited a virtually empty warehouse in his first season as a Major League manager, is not going to be let the anarchy of careless hair follicles seize the reigns of his team.

Instead, Girardi says he's going to run a hairless camp:

"I've never had a mustache, I've never had a beard and I've never had long hair," Girardi said, declaring that his Marlins won't either. Girardi gets his hair cut every three weeks. He has the barber use a "zero" blade on the sides and usually a "one" on top.



He looks less like a baseball manager and more like a stray in the cast of Jarhead:



Actually, now that I'm thinking of it, wouldn't it be better to make the whole team take on the DeNiro look?



Yeah, that looks more like the Marlins chances this season...


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- Is Manager Willie identifying the size of the chill pill he's just taken like a shot of cortisone, or the shape of Tio Pedro's big toe.

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You see, it's early in Spring Training - pens and paper haven't even reported yet so the lobbing and limbering has to come through images rather than words - I mean realistically, there's no point in being overly verbose this early on, might tear a typing finger or strain the writer's elbow.

So before things start getting too heavy, have a go at seeing if you belong in the Hall of Fame of Mets 2005 knowledge...not necessarily a challenging trivia quiz but hell, we're all still limbering up our brains, softly tossing out the first words of the season, getting our quips and tips in shape...