Archie Bunker's Army

Whilst the Mets are getting older by the day and waiting desperately for yet another 40+ regular in Tom Glavine to make the choice between Hell and Queens, whilst baseball fans across the pond are shoveling turkeys into their gobs and watching an unprecedented THREE NFL national holiday games, the Army will be trudging miserably through the gale-force winds and rain comfortable in the notion there is yet another cross-planet sporting occasion to stay up all night for. That's right, The Ashes . As baseball is rumoured to have be slightly older, the Ashes have been around since 1877, the traditional tournament between The Barmy Army and the hated Sheilas. This year it's Australia's turn to host and as such, the inaugural match of this test series began, (predictably perhaps, considering all the late-nights spent up watching the Mets) at 11 at night and goes on all through the morning. (Back from the tea break now at 6 am with the English getting a wee bit pounded at the m...

Ah yes, so we all remember the little controversy about the guy who urinates on his hands to toughen the skin and theoretically at least, improves his hitting. Well now he's a Met. So, the Mets made a little "splash" signing the oft-injured and rapidly ageing Moises Alou to replace the oft-injured and rapidly ageing Cliff Floyd in left field. Soon-to-be 41 year old for left field? (well, he'll be ONLY 40 until the All Star break...) I don't mean to be alarmist but didn't having a rotation of old timers come apart at the seams in time for the post season learn yea something about the fragility of the agèd? Yes, I unnerstan' - a bat against the lefties, something the Mets were alleged to sorely need late last season, is what Alou stands for. In fact, a .349 average against lefties last season. I see the logic in that sense. Another saavy veteran on the bench, I see that, yes. 98 games played last season due to injury. I see that too. On the heel...

"IT is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day 5 Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be." from Ben Jonson A Part Of An Ode Now that the naming of the stadium controversy has subsided, blindsided as it were by a "bold" pair of roster moves involving our Mets and the Padres, I can happily proclaim the Mets to have just traded for a major English Renaissance dramatist and poet... Aha, not Ben Jonson but Ben Johnson . This is all so confusing. Not CitiPark but CitiField. CitiPark , unlike the new Mets stadium, is a parking facility in Vancouver. CitiField, unlike the parking facility in Vancouver, is a blueprint befitting a millenium of Mets dominatio...

"There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no greater guilt than discontentment. And there is no greater disaster than greed." --Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu I think it was the photo of Mayor Buffoonberg trying desperately to look blue collar with a shovel of dirt in his hand that set me off this morning. The ONLY guy/gal out there who wasn't wearing a hard hat. Whatsamattah Mikey, afraid you'll muss up those gorgeous locks of grey and your gorgeous age-spotted scalp? What we can note about CitiPark (CitiField), which is a deceptively catchy name with far less dignity than Jackie Robinson Stadium - (I mean if we're standing on history here, Jackie Robinson has alot more to do with baseball and the Mets than bloody Citibank, doesn't he? But Jackie Robinson wasn't a kazillionaire unfortunately for him and his family, so he'll get a nice little rotunda instead.) Yeah, let's celebrate the Mets for being capitalist whores like the Y...

Well alright, the postseason burn of Carlos Beltran leaving his bat on his shoulder with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the 9th is officially history. Yes, I've been lamenting quietly these last few weeks but the true rationale for the paucity of posts is that frankly, I didn't know what to say next. Nor do I now but I reckon for anyone who has been visiting this site in the interim, we're all getting rather sick of seeing Roger Clemens so it's time for something new: The winter. Now the last two winters have been pretty good to the Mets. We signed Pedro and Beltran in one winter and then got Billy Wagner , Carlos Delgado and Paul LoDuca the next. (yes, there were other significant additions and subtractions but this isn't a bloody roll call or a body count, it's the Superstah we're pondering here...) So after these last two flurries of activity in the offseason, what does Brother Omar do for an encore? Possible target Barry Zito pi...

We've already (probably) got two Hall of Fame pitchers coming back again next season to our rotation, why not a few more? Bienvenidos al estadio de Shea Come and sniff my 8-4 2.93 ERA post-All Star break numbers... Couldn't help but rub my chin with a cosmogenic stare into the space of hyperbolization when I read the headlines this morning that Clemens, Pettitte File For Free Agency , and allowed mad scientist's thoughts to manifest themselves. These two, traveling as a pair, just as they were signed with Houston a few years back, on the way to Shea. Yes, far fetched, isn't it. Firstly, if they were going to do something crazy like leave the comfort homes of Texas for the mad-dash media feeding frenzies of New York, they would likely return clothed in pinstripes, not the auld Dodger Blue and Giant Orange of debauched Queens. But because this is early morning conjecture it doesn't have to be much based on reality, freeing one from the nagging constrictions that real...