NFL Draft - Part Duex

So, this will probably be my last post about the draft. I think next year what I might try to do is a running commentary on the draft. Or maybe I'll save that for the year Jimmy Clausen comes out of college. I thought I'd just go over the Giants draft. I liked the first pick of Kenny Philips. Gibril Wilson is gone and Philips will fill in nicely. I really liked Wilson, but I thought after he got injured that he wasn't as good as he was in his rookie year. But, here's one thought. I was kinda hoping that the Giants would have traded their first round pick for one of two players, either Jason Taylor or Chad Johnson. I'm not sure what our cap room is like but if we could have picked up either player that would have been sweet. With Taylor we'd could put out a defensive line of Osi, Tuck, Strahan, & Taylor? Or, if Strahan retires then maybe we could run out Mathias Kiwanuka? No one could stop that line. They're too fast for any o-line to contend with. Or, if we had gotten Ocho-Cinco we'd have a wide receiver corp of Plax, Johnson, Steve Smith & Amani Toomer with David Tyree as the #5 wr. How sick would that be? But, I don't know our cap room and if we could afford to do that, but still. You know how I like to look at how my teams could be. In the second round we took Terrell Thomas, a CB from USC. You know he's gotta be good if he started at USC, ha ha. The only other player I would have liked us to take at this pick would be if Trevor Laws had been available, but the stupid Eagles took him. I've been watching Laws for 4 years and he's awesome. He was by far the best player on the ND team and he never quit, even during the worst of times. He's just a guy that doesn't stop. I think he'll do well in Philly, but he would have been a great fit with the Gmen. Our third round pick was Mario Manningham. This is one of those picks that will either be a great steal or not pan out. It won't be a huge bust if he doesn't do anything but I like our WR's now because Amani is getting ready to retire and I think M&M will be a great replacement. He knows how to score, as I unfortunately watched him do time and time again against the Irish. I like what our WR's will look like next season with Plax, Steve Smith, Amani & Manningham. We'll also have either Shockey or Boss out there also. That's a really great group right there. I just wonder what we're going to do with Sinoris Moss? I think we might have given up on him because he's always injured and hasn't been that effective when he's been out there. We took 2 line backers with the next two picks. Both should be good additions because at times our linebackers were a little thin. We'll miss Kavika Mitchell next season but Bryan Kehl should be able to replace him. He's really athletic, which was what Mitchell was basically. We just kept on sending him in on blitzes last season. The other pick Jonathan Goff is a tackling machine, which will be really really nice. Our next pick was a really really interesting one in which we could Andre Woodson. I think he'll be a career backup QB, like Matt Cassell. We had been struggling with our backups the past season and now we signed David Carr as the backup, but it's only for a season. We also have 2 other QB's, Anthony Wright and Jared Lorenzen so someone's got to go. Woodson broke most of Lorenzen's passing records at Kentucky so it should be interesting to see who stays. The last pick of the draft was Robert Henderson, who's a DE. The knock on him is that he's slow, so we'll see if he stays or not. We'll see what happens. My last note on the draft is that I thought it was bad for the Dolphins to take Jake Long. I think Glenn Dorsey is by far the best player in the draft. Jake Long is reported to have said that he thinks that he shouldn't be the first pick. Way to have confidence in yourself. Could be a forshadow on the Dolphins season. My prediction for next year's #1 is it should be Tim Tebow if he comes out early. If the Falcons end up with the first pick they should take him. He's just nasty.

NFL Draft - Part 1

So, as anyone can guess, I love the NFL draft. No biggie there. I think it's always interesting when people try and figure out who had the best draft because you really can't tell how a player is going to respond to being in the NFL. You see, now instead of having someone look over their shoulder every minute of every day, these players fianlly have some freedom. If they don't want to go to practice, they don't have to. If they don't want to study the playbook, they don't have to. If they want to go to vegas and start a fight that will eventually paralize a bouncer, they can do that. So, it's really hard to say who had the best draft class the couple days after the draft happened. We have to wait to see how they perform on the field. With that being, I think the best draft in the last 5 years has to be the Giants draft class of last year. They had 6 draft picks. Of those 6 picks, 5 played a significant part in their superbowl run and win. Pick #1 was Aaron Ross who ended up being the starting CB midway through the season. Pick #2 was Steve Smith. He was injured for most of the season but he came through big time in the post season and also in the superbowl. I don't know if we would have won if not for Steve Smith's catch on 3rd and 11, the play just before Plax's TD catch. Also, he had a huge 20 yard catch to set up the first TD. He's just good at getting open. Pick #3 was Jay Afford. Yeah, I think Tom Brady can still feel him after that last sack in which he crushed Brady into the turf. I can't remember who pick #4 was, but oh well. #5 was Kevin Boss. I'm not sure who hates him more, Jeremy Shockey or Rodney Harrison. I like him cause the guy is huge and he gives Eli another big target to hit. The last pick was Ahmad Bradshaw. He didn't do too much except for the Bills game in which he ran for 150 yards, but he always came up big in the playoffs. It seemed like he would replace Jacobs at the end of every game. I just don't know any team that has gotten that much production out of a draft class. Usually you don't see a team get production out of their bottom picks and their top picks, but the Giants ended up getting that. Could they end up being the new Patriots? We'll see. One last Giants note. I was sad that Gibril Wilson & Kavika Mitchell went to other teams, but I'm also glad that the Gmen didn't kill their cap room by overpaying for their services. That is definitely Patriot-esque.

A Quick Note

Here's just a quick note from the weekend before I go to work. I missed watching the whole draft, which made me sad. But, they did put it up at work, I just couldn't here anything. I'll have a couple more posts about the draft this week. I was happy that John Carlson, Trevor Laws and Tommy Z all got drafted from Notre Dame. I just wish Laws had gone to the giants, even though we're pretty stacked on the defensive line.

It was nice to see the Mets take 2 out of 3 from the Braves this weekend. Finally Delgado had a good game. I thought it was funny that the last time Delgado hit 2 home runs in a game was the day that Malone, Me, Perrotti, Kohanski, Malone's dad, my gf and 3 of her friends all went to the game. I can still remember that game because it was against the Giants and Lincecom pitched. It went extra innings and Reyes walked, was balked to second. Beltran grounded him to third. Then Armando Benitez balked Reyes home and the Delgado ended the game with a huge solo shot. That game was awesome, ha ha. Of course, Mike Jacobs is still better.

Hope everyone has a good Monday. Today is my Thursday, which is nice.

the big 4-0

So, I'm not sure if this is my 40th post or not because when I log into this it says that this will be post #42 but when you view my blog it says that it's post #40. whatever. just a few quick things. Everyone in the home run league better watch out. mike cameron is coming off of his 25 games suspension and is going to hit at least 30 home runs for the brew crew. the league is basically over so malone you might as well send me the winner's money. there's another big showdown for the mets this month as atlanta is coming in fresh off of losing 2 out of 3 to the marlins. we always seem to play them better at home than at atlanta so hopefully we can take 2 out of 3 like we did in philly. too bad glavine got injured so that the fans can't boo him. i really really really love call of duty 4. I've never really played a 1st person shooter that much before and I really haven't played against other people that much since we used to play half life at ticketnetwork at lunch. but, i'm having a lot of fun and I'm doing okay for a beginner and I actually won my first free-for-all(where you just kill everyone else) a couple days ago. so far in the 10 days I've had this game I've won 1, came in 2nd once, and came in third about 10 times. everyone should go out and buy a ps3 so we can all play online together. I'm thinking of buying a new tv and right now I'm just shopping around. The tv I want is cheaper at circuit city so I'm hoping that best buy would price match. But, I also found it a lot cheaper on amazon and I'm going to check out buy.com to see if that site has it also. The only problem with amazon is that I haven't found out where I can buy an extended warranty. at circuit city I can get a 4 year warranty, which is what I'm looking for. The tv I have now is okay but it's not hd. It's lasted me since 2003 and I haven't had any problems with it. We'll see what happens. Lastly, I'm sad that I can't watch the nfl draft tomorrow and Sunday. I really like watching the draft. It's a lot of fun to see what players my team makes and to see if the Gmen will take anyone from Notre Dame(Trevor Laws, please!) and to see where the other players from ND go. but, I've got to work, which stinks. But, it's okay as there won't be a lot of players from ND to get draft, I think it'll be like 3 or 4 players so it's no big deal. I'm looking forward to seeing the draft next year and the year after. I'll just have to watch part of it during my breaks at work.

Friday

Yeah, well I don't count February because I started it late in the month. I've been lazy but also I don't have internet access at my computer at work and I usually spend most of my lunch away from the computer. oh well. Rob, I wouldn't talk too much after the Angels' came in and smacked you guys around. Now with Beckett hurt, no Shilling, and Buchholtz & Lester not pitching well, the world series isn't yet yours. Plus, your bullpen got knocked around the past two days. But, here's my question. Who's under more pressure this season in NY, Willie Randolph or Brian Cashman? I think Cashman is because Georgie T's sons are just like him. I also think there's more pressure because he didn't pull the trigger on the Santana deal and so far Phil Hughes hasn't pitched well. If the Yankees don't make the World Series then I think that's the end of the Cashman reign. I think Willie will be saved if the Mets make the playoffs or if they're close to making it. It wasn't Randolph's fault the Mets pitching sucked at the end of last year. Omar didn't make any trades to beef up the bullpen. What does everyone else think? More pressure on Willie or on Cashman?

In demand

Sorry everyone. I'd love to give you a good excuse as to why I haven't posted lately but there really isn't any. Does anyone know if Koho has finally decided to go out and purchase the internets? At least his better half, Perrotti did. So, I've finished my first "regular" work week. It was pretty good. There's this stupid bean bag game they play in columbus and on sunday and yesterday instead of working we got paid to play this game. It was a lot of fun. I really like the people that I work with. Even the annoying people in my group aren't really that bad. There are no Merediths, for those of you from ticketnetwork, ha ha. Well, I was also a little sad because the mets got pounded by the cubs in the quick two game series. It wasn't really the starting pitcher's fault. Of course our bullpen blows. Really, it does. I wish Omar had revamped it with good players but he hasn't. At least Duaner is back and doing well. Hopefully he can manage not to get into another taxi cab accident. Of course nothing helps stop a three game losing streak like playing the nationals. How many wins will they have this year? Can they top 60 wins? Maybe. Now we just need the Marlins to lose. That would be nice. At least they beat Atlanta, which is great. Oh yeah, Malone, just so I can keep my I love Mike Jacobs t-shirt(well, if I had one) here are Jacobs stats so far this season. .288 batting average, 7 home runs, 17 rbi's, .310 on base %, .638 slugging %, .948 ops. Here are Delgado's stats. .211 batting average, 1 home run, 9 rbi's, .307 on base %, .289 slugging %, .596 ops. Now, yes I know Malone will say that at the time of the trade Delgado was a better player and no one would have known he would be this horrible. But still, Jacobs is awesome. He was awesome when he came up from the minors and you can't really tell how good a player will be but still. When Wright came up I knew he was going to be a superstar. His rookie season he came up and played in 69 games, hit 14 home runs, drove in 40 rbi's and did this in 263 at bats. Jacobs the next year played in 30 games and in 100 at bats hit 11 home runs, drove in 23 rbis, batting .310, had an obp of .375 and a slugging % of .710! And yes, for all of the David Wrights out there, there are 20 Kevin Moss'. It's just that when things are said and done and the Omar Minaya tour of duty is over I will look back and I'll thank him for doing these things right, Signing Wright and Reyes to long term deals, signing Pedro and Beltran, and trading for Lo Duca. But, I'll also remember him trading away Bannister for a bust, trading Jacobs for Delgado, not trading Lastings & Heilman for Haren and instead trading lastings for Church and Schneider. I think that if he had kept Jacobs the Mets still would have been good enough in 2006 to reach the nlcs, I think we would have been better last year when the offense started to fall apart at the end of the season and I would love to have a line up that looks like this: Reyes, Castillo, Wright, Beltran, Jacobs, Church, Pagan/Alou, Schneider/Castro, Pitcher. In fact, with the line up they could do a lot of things. I always like Beltran as a #2 hitter, because that's where he likes to hit. Just think if they did something funky like this: Reyes, Beltran, Church, Wright, Jacobs, Castillo, Pagan, Catcher, Pitcher. Pagan has been hitting really well and so has Church. You could put either of those guys in the #2 hole. In fact, I kinda don't want Alou to come back because he's soooo slow and a defensive liability. I like Pagan and I'll think he'll work out just well. With the actual lineup that we have, I'm glad Willie finally got smart and put church in the #5 spot to protect Beltran. Now pitchers can't pitch around Beltran because Church has been killing it. Well, I think I've done enough typing/complaining/dreaming for tonight. Til next time.

Friday

Well, I have survived my first week on the phones. It wasn't too bad and I think I've gotten the hang of it. I no longer fear that I'm going to screw something up and I'm usually pretty good at getting people to upsell with us. I think yesterday I had a 60% sales rate, which is double what we're suppose to be averaging. Of course, that was just one day, the other days I think I was around 30%.

It's going to be a pretty exciting weekend b/c the Mets and Phillies are playing. I hate to say that it's a big series b/c it's, you know, April but this is as big as it gets in April for the Mets. We just came off of a nice sweep of the Nats, but really, it's not that hard to do. They're like 4-12 on the season. Hopefully we can win 2 of 3 from the Phillies. That would be nice.

I bought a new game for my ps3. It's Medal of Honor 4 and it's amazing! I started playing the in game missions and those were okay. Now all I do is play online. I was up til 3am playing online and I had a lot of fun. I've never been good at these types of games but I'm starting to get a handle on it. I just play the one online game where you just kill everyone else and I actually was able to finish in 3rd place three times, which is amazing for me. I just unlocked a couple more guns and a silencer for one of my semi automatic guns.

Lastly, apparently there was an earthquake last night. It happened 2 and a half hours after I went to bed so I slept right through it. That was the first earthquake that I've lived through. One little known fact for you all. The strongest earthquake in the US was actually right outside of Nashville. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Work

So, I've completed my first two days of "real" work. Day 1 wasn't that bad at all. It was pretty easy and there was usually 2 or 3 minutes in between each call. So, yesterday I came in and I was talking to the girl next to me and I joked, "Yeah I need to get a couple books to read." Yeah, that was dumb. Don't taunt the phone queue. So yeah, yesterday was a lot busier and it seemed that I got every strange call whatsoever and it was also fun to get cursed out by some lady, ha ha. And I got to stay at work an extra 30 minutes, so that was fun. At least I'll get paid overtime for that. So, hopefully today will be more of a "normal" day. We'll see.

I'm happy with my teams that I have in the ticketnetwork fantasy baseball leagues. I'm tied for first in the homerun league and I'm tied for second in the other two baseball leagues. I'm disappointed in my basketball team. After easily winning the regular season, my team was upset in the second round and now I'm playing for 3rd place. Oh well, at least I'm not going to lose any money on it!

Music

So, tomorrow is my first day on the phones at Dish Network. I'm surprised that I haven't started freaking out more about it, but oh well. I guess I'm more concerned with the Mets losing 2 of 3 to the Brewers. It's only in the 7th, but we're down two and it stinks. But, what I was thinking about as I was driving over to Maureen's place was music. More specifically, music in sports or sports entertainment. One of my favorite things about wrestling, and there aren't too many favorite things about wrestling, is the entrance music that each wrestler has. Not that a lot of the music is any good, but every once in a while you'll get really good entrance music. I watched Wrestlemania with some friends out here. We always go to some place to watch the ppv's, either it's hooters or for the past couple we've gone to this place called Buffalo Wild Wings. I never heard of it til I came out here, but they're pretty nice place to go to. Well, during Wrestlemania they did one of my favorite entrances. It's when the Undertaker comes out and does his druid like music. It's hard to explain unless you know what I'm talking about. But there's just something about that entrance music that I like. Personally, I think it's the best part about the Undertaker. I think he should have retired about 5 years ago, but whatever. Other wrestlers that I've enjoyed their entrance music has been Stone Cold, D-Generation X(when they did the Rage type entrance music), The New Age Outlaws(yes, they were part of DX but had their own theme), Chris Jericho, Piper(I always loved when he would have bag pipes playing when he would enter the ring) and probably Shane McMahon and the Rock.

Well, I also like when baseball players come out to cool music. You don't really get it too much when someone comes to the plate. It's usually pretty quick and then they're in the batters box. But I love it when closers come out to cool music. Like how Wagner and Rivera both come out to Enter Sandman. I forget what Hoffman comes out to, I think it's Hell's Bell(s). I've talked about this with my friends from my softball team and we've always joked about bringing a boombox to one of our games and playing music for when we would go to bat or if someone was coming in as a relief pitcher. It would be really fun, but really nerdy. Not like it would really matter with me. I'm as big of a nerd as you can get. I already know what songs I would like to come out to if I was a closer. I'd choose between these two songs. The first one is After the Eulogy by Boy Sets Fire. It starts out really quietly with people saying, "For Justice, For Peace" and then after like 30 seconds with the people starting to get louder they just start playing and they singer's yelling "RISE!" over and over again. Now, I'd have to get them to edit out the For Justice, For Peace but I think it would be cool to come out in a save opportunity and have the team put up RISE on the jumbotron and have everyone stand up and start cheering. Of course if I was a Marlin it wouldn't be too hard to have that 'cause there'd only be 4 or 5 people at the game. The second song that I would come out to if I was a closer is Awe and Disbelief by a friend's band from college, Crutch. In fact, the only person who would know what band I'm referring too is Mike, ha ha. I just LOVE the guitars in the beginning of the song and I'd just have the pa people loop the first 20 seconds over while I'm warming up, he he. Now, if I was a hitter there is one song that I would save for when I was up in the late innings of a close game and I needed to come through for the team. I'd have them play the Dropkick Murphy's cover of Amazing Grace. I love the bagpipe player in the beginning and I thought they did a really good job of playing the song. In fact, I thought about this while I was at the gym and I actually got goosebumps thinking about if I came up to bat during the world series with my team down 1 and the bases loaded with two outs and having the pa play this song. Ha ha. Sad, but true.

Friday

So, today is the second day of my four day weekend! I finished up training on Wednesday and Monday I'm on the phones. It should be...... interesting. I was going to post something about the mets yesterday but I thought it would be better to wait for the phillies series to be over and I was right! Well, the first game sucked, big time! Our bullpen didn't come through and we lost! Wednesday's game was a very interesting game because we killed the phillies 8-2 but we only had 5 hits the entire game! That was because the phillies pitchers couldn't throw strikes and they also couldn't field as they had 4 errors(3 in one inning when we blew the game apart)! Then last night John Maine had an okay game. He only gave up 1 run in 6 innings but then walked 5 guys, which is bad. Then Aaron Hielman decided to wear his phillies jersey and give up 2 runs to blow the lead and tie the game(I'm still sad knowing we could have traded him and lastings for Dan Haren. Uggggghhhhhh). Well, the game went into extra innings and we ended up winning it in 12 off of tom gordon on a close play at the plate. It was nice to see Jose Reyes actually do something this season. And to get a stolen base. Hopefully we can build from this.

Also, it was nice to see Notre Dame beat Michigan in the frozen four! I don't follow hockey, but it was still nice to beat Michigan. Hopefully ND can pull it off against BC.

Last Friday I saw the movie Run Fatboy, Run! It was actually really really funny. Simon Peg is in it. For those of you who don't recognize the name, he's the guy from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. The movie is about a guy who ran out on his fiance the day of the wedding, while she was pregnant, and has been dreading that mistake the rest of his life. Well, the movie takes place 5 or 6 years after. He's basically turned into a loser. He lives in an apartment where he can't afford the rent. He works as a rent a cop at a female clothing store and is not reliable whatsoever. Well, he finds out that his ex is dating another guy who seems to be perfect. The guy is a rich banker who's in shape and runs marathons. Well, to prove that he still loves his ex, Peg decides to run the marathon also. The problem is is that it's 3 weeks before the marathon and he's never run before. I laughed throughout the movie and if you're looking for a funny movie to go to, I would see this(or forgetting sarah marshall, which I'll probably see this weekend).

Arod = overrated

So, I was going to have this as a comment but it was getting to long so I decided to cheat and put it as a new post:
Thank you for expressing your opinion mike, but you're actually completely wrong. I know, my blog, my opinion, but I also like to refer to the facts when calling someone "not clutch". There's a reason why they call A-rod Mr. April, Reggie Jackson Mr. October and Derek Jeter Mr. November. See, Arod did have some clutch hits last year. I'll definitely give you that. BUT THEY WERE ALL IN APRIL! April!!!! And they were off Chris Ray who finished April on the DL! See, just to prove my point about Arod not being clutch, here were his stats from last season, when he was considered "clutch"(I think Shane Spencer is rolling over in his grave, errr... his couch): .267 batting average, 1 hr, 1 rbi, 15 at bats in 4 games, 6 k's 2 runs. So, basically you're paying him $250 million to suck in the playoffs. Good spending. And here are the wonderful stats from the year before: .071 batting average, 1 hit(a single), 14 at bats in 4 games, only 4 strike outs, 0 runs, 0 home runs, 0 rbi's. And the stats from the year before: .133 batting average, 0 home runs, 0 rbi's, 2 hits, 2 runs, 5 strike outs in 5 games. The yankees record in those three seasons in the playoffs: 4-9.
Now, onto hating Arod because of his salary, I said that I didn't completely blame him for that because there are other people involved. But, he does have some say in it. If he really cared about winning, if he cared about other people than himself he would have gone somewhere else, for less money and I wouldn't have had a problem with that. See, what people forget is that when Arod signed his contract with the Rangers his yearly average was almost DOUBLED the nearest player. You're telling me that the market was set up for that? No way. There's no way that arod is twice as good as the next best player. There is no one in baseball who is worth twice as much as the second best player because baseball is a team sport and the other players are just as valuable to the team. It's like they say, you're only as good as your weakest link. Now, to say that Arod is the only player who would be worth $25-30 million a year is outrageous! Nobody in baseball is worth $25-30 mil a year. Nobody is really worth $1 million a year because they're playing a frakkin' game. But, because of the times people get paid these amounts. So, if I was to pay one player the most money in the league this player better come through all season long and into the post season. See, Arod will put up big numbers. And yes, maybe once in a blue moon he might hit an rbi single to tie or win a game, but there's no way that you can justify him being clutch last year in the playoffs(please see numbers from above). If I was going to pay someone $25 mil for a season, someone who was going to come through in the clutch during the entire season and also into the playoffs there are really only a handfull of people who qualify. And sadly most of them are on the Red Sox. They would be Big Papi, Josh Beckett(yeah, see his stats for the 2003 and 2007 playoffs), Papplebon(when hasn't he been nasty), and probably Pujols. I might put Manny in there just because he's also entertaining. But there's really no one else that would qualify, or I can't think of them. These are the players that I could justify in my head $25 mil a year. I just can't for Arod.

A-rod

So, I've had an interesting argument with my good friend Mike, who, like Perrotti, has been unfortunate enough to be a Yankee fan. I know, I know, it's okay to feel bad for them. It's probably not their fault, but what can you do? Well, one of the best things to do with a Yankee fan is to make fun of them for Arod. It really is, you should try it if you haven't. The reason being is that although they're going to pay arod more than a quarter billion dollars(that's right) nobody is as uncluch as A-rod. Nobody is(well, maybe Jeter post 2001). And if you're wondering why people hate A-rod, it's not because he makes a lot, lot, lot, lot more money than me, it's because he doesn't deserve the money. He doesn't. It's outragous to pay someone who's going to suck once it comes to October. This is one of my favorite Yankee stories. In 2006, right when I had mono, I took my little sister to see a Mets-Yankees game at Shea for her birthday because, unfortunately she's a Johnny Damon fan. So we went with my older sister and one of my younger sister's friends. This friend happens to be a die hard Spankee fan. So, she came dressed in all Yankee stuff and we went to the game. It happened to be the Sunday night game and it was on ESPN. Well, I really can't remember who was pitching for the Mets(it could have been Glavine) but for whatever reason the Yankees were leading 2-0 until the 5th inning. Now, if you had watched the game, the Yankees should have been up a lot more. I mean, it should have been like 8-0 or worse, but the Mets had a strategy that when there were 2 outs, let people get on base until A-rod gets up. I believe A-rod came up 4 times with runners in scoring position and 2 out and all 4 times he got out. It was unbelieveable. It was awesome. By the third time up, my sister's friend admitted that A-rod sucked. There was no denying it. And as luck would have it, in the 5th inning the Mets were able to get 2 men on base for Delgado who happen to crush a pitch into the NY skyline for a 3 run homer and then David Wright followed with a solo shot and the Mets won 4-2 with the Mets hero really being A-rod because I believe he left something like 10 guys on base and 6 of them in scoring position. My friends from high school and I joke about A-rod that the only time he hits a home run is when the Yankees are either up by 5 runs or down by 5 runs and last week against the Rays was a perfect example of this. In the 7th inning, with the Yanks down 5-0, A-rod hit a 2 run homer. Fast forward to the ninth inning, the Yankees had 2 guys on and no one out and A-rod up. What does he do when it really matters? He hits a can of corn for the first out. He he. To be honest with you, I didn't hate A-rod at the beginning of his career. Actually, I kinda liked him when he was on Seattle because the guy was a monster. He was a 40-40 threat every year he was there. Then came free agency and that's when I started to not like him because he went to Texas, signed a $250 million contract and killed that team. I can't wholely blame A-rod for signing for that kind of money, because anyone who just cared about themselves would sign for that much money. You also have to blame the gm for being that stupid. How can you spend most of your money on 1 player, when you have to get 24 other guys to play on that team? Really? How can you do that? There was no way for that Rangers team to compete because they really couldn't sign more good players and they would have to contend with a rotation that was lead by Chan-Ho Park pitching in a hitters ballpark. Ugghhhh. See, if A-rod cared about the team more than himself, maybe he would have "settled" for something around 16-17 mil a year and give the team some flexibility to sign a couple more good players. Role players. You know, people who will come through in the clutch. And, as you can guess, the Rangers finished in last every year that A-rod played for them. And what did he do? He put up HUGE numbers. That's because he didn't play in any meaningful games. Nobody really cared what he would do because the Rangers were always out of it by the end of April. No pressure at all. Now, I'd like to say that I'm upset of the way that he acted before he signed with the Spankees, but really, I can't be upset at anyone who would pull the rug out from under the Red Sox. I realy can't, so I'll give him a pass on that, he he. Now, my good friend Mike's argument is that if A-rod was on my team, I'd love the guy. And my response was it would really depend on when he would have become a Met. Now, if he became a Met this past offseason I would still hate his guts and I'd dump the Mets for the Rays. I really would. There's no place where A-rod would fit on this team, unless he wanted to play in the outfield. But, if the Mets had signed A-rod, how would we have gotten Santana? It's not like our offense is really bad. Our offense is pretty good, even though Omar wants to sabatoge it by keeping really really old guys and getting rid of the younger guys. So, yes, A-rod would make our offense a little bit better. But Santana means a lot more to the Mets than A-rod would. We NEED Santana. We need him 250 million times more than A-rod, especially now that Pedro hurt himself. I'd be even more of a mess if we didn't have Santana. Now, there is an interesting fact that has come out now. A-rod actually said that he wished he had gone to the Mets instead of to the Rangers, if he could do it all over again. Hmmmm..... now that would be interesting. Plus, it gives me another reason to hate Steve Phillips. See, that would bring up all kind of interesting options for the Mets. It makes me think if maybe the Mets wouldn't have traded Kazmir to the Rays? And then maybe Omar would have pulled the trade on the Lastings & Heilman for Dan Haren. And maybe Omar would have kept Brian Bannister because we wouldn't have needed to call him up in '06 and no one would have been interested in him. Hmmm.... very interesting. Because, then maybe we'd have a rotation of this: Haren, Kazmir, John Maine, Brian Bannister, Oliver Perez. Pretty nasty, eh? Then our infield would probably be something like this, Wright @ 3rd, A-rod @ SS, Reyes @ 2nd, Jacobs @ 1st because I don't think that Omar would have made the trade for Delgado because we would have already had enough fire power in the lineup. Plus, we'd have an outfield of Carlos Gomez, Beltran(I think Omar makes this signing because he would want to bring in another hitter to bat infront or behind of Beltran because when Beltran was a free agent we didn't know what we were getting from Wright. He was only a rookie) & maybe they would bring up Martinez from the minors? Maybe we still have Alou. Who knows. But this team would be pretty sick. Our lineup would be something like this, Reyes, Beltran, Wright, A-rod, Jacobs, Gomez, Other outfielder, Castro. Or you could put Gomez in the 2 hole and move Beltran to 3rd, Wright to 5th and everyone else down a slot. That's still a nasty lineup who can hit for power and steal a lot of bases. And maybe A-rod would come through in the clutch because there's less pressure if you're a Met and honestly, I doubt we'd be in that many close games. And even when A-rod doesn't come through, he'd still have someone to back him up so maybe we could mask his struggles better. But, that is a different life.

Omar

So, things were a little better yesterday because, well, Oliver Perez is awesome, ha ha. Of course we beat up on the Marlins in Florida, so that's nothing new. I think we're like 14-2 there in our last 16 games. It's something like that. Of course we can't beat them at home. It was also nice to see how many extra base hits that we got. And it's nice to see that Carlos Beltran remembered on how to hit doubles. I think he's on pace for 240+ doubles this year. I'm pretty sure that'll break the record for doubles in a season. Also, it was nice to see Wright hitting his first home run of the season because he didn't hit a hr in April last season. But, as much as it was nice to see the Mets pound the crap out of the Marlins there was still a pain in my heart while watching the Royals shut out the Tigers. Now, you're probably wondering why I'm so sad to see that. Well, that's because Brian Bannister was pitching for the Royals. And guess how he got to the Royals? Oh yeah, Omar Minaya traded him for Ambeauoux Bergous(I don't remember how to spell his name). And yeah, that was a horrible trade. See, during the 2006 season the Mets actually had a surplus of good pitchers. See, we had El Duke, Pedro, Oliver Perez, Tom Glavine. Plus, we had these rookies who pitched well for us: John Maine, Brian Bannister, Dave Williams, and Mike Pelfrey. So, you could see how we had a big crowd with our starting pitching. Plus, we also had Phillip Humber in the minors. Well, after the 2006 season Omar decided that he needed to get more pitching in the bullpen after we lost Duaner Sanchez for the season. So, he called up the Royals and sent one of our young starters for A.B. How much does Omar wish he had sent Dave Williams instead of Bannister? I think, alot! See, El Duke and Pedro always get injured. Glavine went back to Atlanta. Pelfrey still needs some work and will probably never really be that good. Humber was traded for Santana. Dave Williams, I think is either in the minors or was released. Now, we do have 3 really good starters in Johan, Perez and Maine. Now, with El Duke and Pedro on the DL, don't you think that we'd all breath a little easier if this was our starting rotation: Santana, Perez, Maine, Bannister, whoever? Ugghhhhh. Now it's Santana, Perez, Maine, Pelfrey and then maybe El Duke if he can get healthy. Omar, please trade to get Bannister back. Admit you made a boo-boo and get him back!

Ugggghhhhhh

So, it's fun the way one day chnages everything. I guess everyone was wondering when Pedro would go down with an injury and whoever had his first start won. It sucks. I don't think there's word on how long he'll be out, hopefully not too long. Too make myself feel better I watched the superbowl again last night. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, now I feel better.