Super Choke

I'd be remiss if I didn't put something up about the Super Bowl...and I don't want to be accused of ignoring it because my team lost. Badly.

First, let's get this out of the way—undefeated regular seasons mean jack if you can't close it out. The Pats might as well have gone 12-4 or whatever if this was going to happen. The only thing "for the ages" about this season now is the fact that they got beat by the fifth seed Wild Card team.

Second. I didn't care about this game. Don't believe me? I took the opportunity to go to a deserted Lowe's and Home Depot early in the game, and never thought twice about it. I knew I'd catch some of the game here and there, and I TiVo'd the fourth quarter and watched it later since it was close, but I'm just not invested in this team anymore.

I got as sick as everybody else of all the hype this year. Belichick and the New England fans have become insufferable, and I consider this loss a nice karmic payback for "Spygate."

I'm just sorry Junior Seau worked his ass off to come back and lose, I hate that New York fans (not Giant fans specifically, but NY fans of anything, period) get to celebrate, and most of all, I wanted those bitter old Dolphins to STFU. But that's about it.

Eli strapped on a set that I didn't think existed in the Manning family combined, and he marched his team down the field in, well, Brady-like fashion and put this one away. David Tyree made a ridiculous catch after Manning somehow escaped a freaking 10-car pileup to heave it down the field, and Plaxico Buress got the last word on Tom Brady in the trash exchange.

Congratulations to the only Giant fan I can think of off the top of my head, Fridge, and to the morons back in New England who have gotten to the point of making Yankee fans look restrained, you had it coming.

Flushing

Condolences go out to Rickey and Mike who had to endure a slow-motion car wreck of a collapse by the Mets over the last few weeks. I wouldn't wish that kind of agony on anyone. Well, except Yankee fans. And most other Met fans...

While I lived in NYC, I overcame my '86-based hatred of the Mets and adopted them as my NL team and used them as a proxy Sox to counter the Yanks. I even bought (limited) season ticket packages a couple years. Plenty of guys I liked on the team then, and even now. I was there for the raucous Todd Pratt walk-off game against the D-Backs sitting right behind the plate, but in the very top row, and I actually feared for my life the way that upper deck bounced.

As a Sox fan who for intermittant periods this September seemed to be on the verge of a similar collapse from the "best record in the League" all the way to blowing the Division, I can relate. But they got the job done. The Mets were brutal—top to bottom—with very few exceptions. Minaya never equipped this team with the pitching they needed—coasting on a big lead, and counting on a dominant return from Pedro was a foolish strategy. Almost as foolish as giving Pedro a 4-year deal. Now, I loves me some Petey, and he is one of the few guys getting a pass from me—he battled back from surgery and gave this team gutty performances and a chance to win every time he pitched down the stretch, and they wasted them.

Forget Scott Kazmir, think the Mets would like to have Brian Bannister still? They gave up an ALROY candidate for 23 innings of Ambiorix Burgos. Actually, don't forget Scott Kazmir: Tom Glavine gave up as many runs in the first inning yesterday as Kazmir did the whole month of September—seven. The Kazmir deal is bad on a Bagwellian level. Actually worse, because Bagwell was a fringe prospect, while Kazmir was a highy-regarded flamethrowing lefty. If he was pitching in Queens this season instead of on the worst team in the AL East, he'd be an Cy Young/MVP caliber ace. His performance in TB (13-9, 3.48, league-leading 230 Ks) this season would probably have been good for twenty wins and an ERA under 3 in the NL.

What am I getting at? I'm saying Omar Minaya did a shit job as G.M. Throwing too much money and too many years at guys like Pedro, Delgado, Alou, Green and a host of downside veterans. He has followed the old Yankees strategy and it blew up big time this year. This roster was riddled with injury-risks and potential cliff-diving collapses, and none of it should have been a surprise. After last year, they were complacent when they should have turned things over.

Randolph beat his bullpen every bit as badly as Torre, but he didn't have a Joba Chamberlain to save his ass. He relied too heavily and too long on under-performing veterans in many cases, though he was hamstrung by the tools Minaya left him with.

But the blame* really lies with the players who just flat out stopped playing when it mattered most. They didn't lose nailbiters, they got their asses kicked in all areas. This might look like a photo-finish with two teams tied going into the final game of the season, but the reality is the Mets were dead men walking for weeks.

Blow it up.

UPDATE: *Actual blame goes to Rickey's beard.

Toasted Joe (not to be confused with Toast) offered a Baldwinian challenge to the Mets the other day worth reading.

UPDATE 2: Fantastic rant from Metstrodamus.