Tom Watson

Metsie, Metsie, Metsie

There's nothing cute about the Mets getting pounded by the New York Yankees, the cross-town American League team whose management felt it necessary to install a field level moat to keep its regular fans away from the swells paying a couple of grand for the lame "Legends Club" seats in the $1.5 billion Vegas attraction that replaced the real American field of dreams on River Avenue in the Bronx.

Sure, the Mets play in a smaller, more fan-friendly ballpark in Corona and clearly their management feel more comfy in second team status - yet their lack of ambition as a franchise is showing; this is a team of Triple-A talent, journeymen, and 40-plus types on their last big league rosters. Yes, they're "hanging close" in the under-achieving triumvirate of the NL East with the Phils and Marlins - but that's because the Phils and Marlins aren't the Dodgers or Red Sox.

Blame the injuries if you will - two of this year's projected starting five are out, as are sparkplug Jose Reyes, cool centerfielder Carlos Beltran, and twilight slugger Carlos Delgado. David Wright is the one prime-time regular still in action, hitting for a high average with almost no power and a strikeout ration that should give him the nickname "Bonds." Filling in are a bunch of jumped up Mets like Santos and Murphy, and the elderly Gary Sheffield.

Even in their nice new park (despoiled by embarassingly and exclusionary "private" clubs built on the public dime that I'm formally urging Assemblyman Richard Brodsky to investigate) the Mets seem like a smaller, shrinking baseball team. The one exception: super-closer Frankie "K-Rod" Rodriquez, an upfront, in-your-face New York star whose temperament and talent are built for this city.

Pity he doesn't have the mangement or teammates to push his amazing closing talent to the post-season stage.

April One-Five - 1947 and 2009

The most beautiful view last night at Citi Field, the Mets' new ballpark in Queens, was the pre-game shot on the massive centerfield video screen of Rachel Robinson, resplendent at age 86 and a glowing, regal presence during the opening game ceremonies honoring the 62nd anniversary of her late husband's gift to the American nation. On a day that saw thousands of dead-enders, 9/11 conspiracy fanatics, immigrant haters and keyboard revolutionaries "rally" against the American form of representative democracy in so-called "tea parties" around the country, you got the feeling that Rachel Robinson could walk into any of these surly mobs in Cincinnati or St. Louis or Pasadena and part the waters of intolerance by the force of elegance and history alone.

Some conservative bloggers think baseball's annual tribute to Jackie Robinson is "over the top" and has "reached the point of absurdity," and perhaps they've got a point: teams should stick to their increasingly corporate business plans and steroid-damaged product, rather than pausing once a year to recognize the one true American baseball hero, who first suited up in Major League flannels 62 years ago yesterday. Let April 15th merely pass as tax day, when all ballclubs can cheer their anti-trust exemption and most can toast their tax incentives and stadium construction deals paid for by the American dime.

Yet last night, from my top-deck seats in the relatively modest and intimate taxpayer-assisted Citi Field - built on the Fitzgerald's Valley of the Ashes next to the No. 7 line in the former parking lot of the now-deceased Shea Stadium - the Robinson-flavored celebration was perfectly pitched to our times: a relatively subtle yet urgent tug on the sleeves of younger generations. That tug suggests a pause to consider the ideals Robinson embodied, as well as his evident humanity and brilliant baseball skill. Sketched around the outside wall of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, the Mets' main entryway built to evoke the ghost of Ebbetts Field in the neighboring borough, is the man's famed epitaph: "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

Robinson was famously a Republican, of course - but more of the Rockefeller variety, and he destroyed William F. Buckley on his own Firing Line program in 1964 by arguing forcefully (and accurately) that the John Birch wing of the party was dominated by racists. The former Dodger remembered the encounter with pride in his autobiography: "A man who prides himself on coming out of verbal battle cool, smiling, and victorious, he lost his calm, became snappish and irritated, and, when the show was over and everyone else was shaking hands, got up and strode angrily out of the studio."

April 15th was the day Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, but the entire 1947 season was his long trial, and into retirement he continued to civil rights and tolerance in tough but civil discourse. As his widow spoke about his legacy in Queens to a crowd of Mets fan that included my son (who reveres Jackie Robinson as his personal hero and raced down the aisle to snap a cellphone shot of Mrs. Robinson on the field) the recalcitrant and long-growing roots of American intolerance sent up a few shoots into the spring sun shine. You probably saw some of the "Tea Party" signs, and reached for your trusty weed-wacker (or felt the sudden need for a shower):

"Wake Up! Fresh Prince of Belair (sic) is Destroying Us -- Stop Drinking the Red Koolaid."

Obama's Plan: White Slavery

Somewhere in Kenya a Village is Missing itsw Idiot

The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama's Ovens

Obama Socialist Pig

Ostensibly an anti-tax movement in the long tradition of anti-tax movements in this country, yesterday's pathetic teafest was in reality just an excuse to vent: frustration at the failure of the conservative movement and the end of Reagan revolution, anger at the incompetence of the Republican leadership and the rise of the Democrats, some legitimate frustration with massive tax-funded corporate bailouts - and a whole lotta good old-fashioned Confederate flag-waving American intolerance, keyed to the inescapable fact that the President of the United States is not a white man.

Numbers guru Nate Silver estimated the total turnout nationally for the Fox-driven, Republican approved Tea Parties at around 250,000 people. Small, when you consider some of the largest protests in recent American life - the ones in favor of immigration, as James Wolcott recalled:

It's remarkable and telling how some of the biggest peaceful political rallies this country has ever seen took place only three years ago, only to be flushed down the memory hole. I'm speaking of the tremendous pro-immigration rallies that took place in 2006, with an estimated half-million people assembling in downtown Los Angeles alone. Those rallies did not lack energy, enthusiasm, or organization, and I daresay among those hundreds of thousands of people lobbying for enlightened immigration legislation were low-income workers with "real jobs."

As Al Giordano noted, the tea-baggers - steeped in stupidity, I just can't help it - lacked any kind of thematic coherence: "They’ve served up a menu of (some of them contradictory) complaints and conspiracy theories (some rail against “socialism” and “world government,” with large doses of the same paranoia and victimhood of that kept the United States left self-marginalized for three decades and more until now)."

Sure, some of the turn-out was driven by legitimate concerns about government spending on the propping up of failed finance companies; and the campaign of Rep. Ron Paul for President last year attracted some intellectually consistent (if wrong-headed) small-government conservatism. Yet Paul's campaign was also a mirror to yesterday's "tax" protests," in the form of a wild mish-mash of anger-driven reactionary sloganeering and hate speech riding shotgun next to the libertarians.

Some unfortunate Republican pols mistook it for some kind of right-wing grassroots tsunami that would flood the voting booths with anti-Federalist voters who don't want roads or cops or teachers or stimulus spending. They lumbered to the barricades of American dis-Union, like comic book versions of their 1861 predecessors - only to find themselves windmilling like Wile E. Coyote over the precipice when they realized they appeared foolish.

But you know how it goes. Once secesh, always secesh.

I don't think Jackie Robinson would be particularly surprised that one corner of mainstream Republican political action is still driven by intolerance. I do think he'd be gratified how that small that hate-driven movement is.

***

Kelsey and No. 42, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

Some notes on Citi Field: It's a fine ballpark, scaled for baseball rather than majestic brand-building, and filled with nooks and crannies - and decent food.

By far the worst part of the new stadium is (ironically, considering yesterday's Robinson festivities) the overt class segregation for ticket holders. While it pales against the moat (I kid you not) that the Yankees built to keep the unwashed from the high-rolling swells on the field level of faux Yankee Stadium, the class lines at Citi Field are nonetheless onerous and do not do the team's ownership or its municipal funding partners proud. The best seats behind the plate are predictably padded, wider, serviced by waiters and cut off from the rest of blue and orange humanity - and, quite noticeably on television, oftentimes empty of paying customers. Several clubs featuring bars and food service are available only to patrons who hold a certain ticket level. They too (I peeked in the doors) are half-empty and have to be costing ownership more than they bring in in bar bills. Given the bailout money that flows from Citicorp to the team, I expect either the Obama Administration or New York State Attorney General Andrew to open those no-go areas forthwith, or fire the team's management. (Or not).

So the Mets built parts of their ballpark for the economic era just ended, when a certain percentage of patrons would think nothing of dropping several grand at the game. That's the bad news. The good news is that the Mets limited the hoi polloi seclusion, and built an intimate 40,000-seat park that has plenty of great sitelines, interesting angles, and fun places from which to watch the game and do what Mets fans did at Shea Stadium for four decades: kvetch cheerily about the Mets. My seats are in the upper deck, second to last row of the stadium - yet they're closer to the field than most of the seats in the old middle deck at Shea. The main field level concourse is wide open: anyone with a ticket can traverse the full 360 degrees around the field, and the game is visible for most of the walk.

Particularly in the new outfield areas, beyond the black and orange fences (a hat tip to the old New York Giants), the Mets have convincingly slammed a hanging curve. They're terrific - very open, replete with wiffle ball for the kiddies, and filled with New York food outlets like Blue Smoke and Shake Shack and authentic ethnic grub. As my son said last night: centerfield is like a Mets carnival before every game. And "Pepsi Porch" overhangs rightfield like the old Tiger Stadium; Carlos Delgado hit a majestic drive up there to cap the Mets first win in the new park.

I was looking around from my high perch last night and the panoramic view beyond the stadium seemed emblematic of the place, moving counter-clockwise from my right: the old Iron Triangle of chop shops and muffler joints in rotting Quonset huts, the Throgs Neck and Whitestone bridges in the distance, the water of Flushing Bay twinkling below the jetliners cruising into LaGuardia, the distant skyline of Manhattan on clear evening, the Arthur Ashe Tennis Center just beyond the subway el, and just past that, the old Unisphere of the '64 World's Fair. A view Robert Moses would certainly have approved of.

But also the right view for the Mets, whose comfort in "second team" status to the conglomerate Yankees now seems both apparent and somewhat charming. It's very much a National League park for New York: all steel trusses and dark seats and out of town scores, and boisterous fans streaming in from the bridges and the subway. Unlike the Woodlawn-worthy slab of granite across town, Citi Field looks forward despite its name and its awkward class-conscious grabs for the high-rollers - it plays lightly with history, and roots along with the fans.

Batting Third and Playing Leftfield, Bernie Madoff

In this, that short period between the Super Bowl and pitchers and catchers, let's go inside a couple of the numbers, shall we?

The first is $400 million - that's what bailout baby Citicorp is on the hook for over the next two decades to slap its misspelled metropolitan moniker on the home of the displaced Metropolitans. But really, what's the reason big companies pay big money get their names on new stadia anyway?

Branding. A positive association of the company's name with the great game of baseball. The recognition that the suits in the midtown office tower - and the the friendly little branch on the corner - are doing their patriotic best to help fund David Wright's long-term deal.

But let's face it - that positive association is gone, torn like the ligaments in Billy Wagner's shoulder, a mere vestigial sponsorship that ties a brand that is, shall we say, mired in robber baron territory to a new stadium whose hometown fans generally despise the naming, thereof.

Now, that new ballpark looks to me to be brilliantly designed, just right in scale - and I'm guessing it'll be the feel-good sleeper hit of the upcoming stadium unveiling season. From the pictures, it reminds me inside of Seattle's Safeco Field - wide open concourses, open views, and a lower-than-usual upper deck. Outside, it's all brick and huge arched windows - the Queen of Corona.

Still, every Mets I know hates the name. Some of us pine away for the rotgut pile of concrete that was Shea Stadium, now just a crumbling half-shell, soon to disappear forever. Others despite the too cute "Citi" - I once knew a girl named Patricia who spelled her name Patti, but I digress. Many just can't stand the chump change of corporate stadium sponsorships.

But this might not be chump change - that's because of the other big number: $50 billion, the rough estimate of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, a scandal that enveloped the Wilpon family in losses and may have been the death knell for any hopes of signing the transcendent professional hitter named Manny Ramirez to play left for the Metties. I think it certainly influenced their decision to allow innings eater Derek Lowe to sign with Atlanta.

It's amazing to me that Ramirez can't find a job, given that he's a hitting machine who constantly delivers despite occasionally goofy behavior. Sure , Manny can be a pain - but he's light years from Barry Bonds.

The Mets need  Citicorp's $20 mill this season. And the company said today that despite looming Congressional hearings on the money, the bank "signed a legally binding agreement with the New York Mets in 2006," a warm and fulsome endorsement if ever we've heard one.

Of course, the Citi execs won't be lining up for luxury boxes this year, now that their pay has been capped at a mere half a million a year, just above major league minimum - or less than the price of the last guy in the bullpen.

Under the Facade, Shadows Around the Monuments

When times were tough and people were tougher, media came in two flavors: black and white, all shadows and light with a clear line between good and evil (or so we thought). In another two weeks, we may all receive a massive inoculation of optimism in full, living color as our new president calls a generation or two of us to national action - but at the tail-end of this endless cloistered holiday in winter quarters, the flickering shadows call us. From his perch high above the West Side, Jim Wolcott looks east across the city of another era, to the epic struggle of another generation:

Every citizen-deadbeat in this country should be instructed to watch The World at War, an epic, riveting demonstration that, historically speaking, we have nothing really to whine about, not that that will stop us. Skip the episode on U-boats and wolf packs (too many tedious talking heads) and watch the Stalingrad and Red Star (siege of Leningrad) episodes back to back, and prepare to shiver. Laurence Olivier's narration--it's like listening to the eternal voice of the sea, if the ocean were noble and wise and had its own dressing room.

Personally, I preferred a gingerbread cookie to the horsemeat death grind of Stalingrad and so this weekend, I luxuriated in the sweet narration of "the Olivier of 161st Street" - aka Mel Allen - in the brilliant, full-game black and white cinescope rescue of Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, featured this New Year's week in the canny from-the-archives debut of the new MLB network.

The voices of Allen and his smooth Flatbush counterpart, young Vincent Scully, wash over the proceedings at the old Yankee Stadium like cool and sudsy vendor-poured beer in those long October shadows. This is the time of year when we're farthest from those familiar baseball patterns, deepest into the winter sports freeze, and the fascinating full-body baptismal immersion that is the experience of watching this 52-year-old bit of black and white sports media spreads a most welcome warmth.

In the fifth inning, Gil Hodges - the 32-year-old Brooklyn veteran and should-be Hall of Famer - rips a long drive to left center, headed toward the 457 sign to the left of the Monuments to Huggins, Ruth and Gehrig. Allen's voice rises with the liner: "There's a line drive to left center! Mantle still going, still going - great catch! How about that!"

So many details from the production and setting. No instant replay. No names on the uniforms. The single television sponsor: Gillette's new three-track razor, available with a pocket version of the Baseball Encyclopedia for a buck. ("Not a bristle!" marvels Casey Stengel, running a gnarled hand over his chin in the locker-room ad with Allen.)  Coats and ties in the stands. Uniformed ushers in peaked caps patrol the aisles. At the end of the game, the fans in the box seats simply walk onto the field and stream towards the exits in the outfield along River Avenue.

And the great baseball names. There's Jackie Robinson charging a grounder by Gil McDougald and firing to Hodges for the out. Sal Maglie, the ancient Giant pitching in his last Series game for his old rivals in Brooklyn, nearly matches Larsen in excellence - indeed, his breaking stuff looks phenomenal even on the cinescope wash. There's Carl Hubbell, a ghost from another era, visiting the broadcast booth to chat with Mel Allen. Frank Crosetti, teammate of Ruth and Gehrig, coaches third for the Yankees. Late-season pick-up Enos "Country" Slaughter, famed for his St. Louis dashes, patrols left for New York. The massive Roy Campanella faces Larson with a menacing open stance. Centerfielder Duke Snider is noticeably faster than Mickey Mantle, and smashes a rocketing upper deck shot - just foul - in the fourth inning. Mantle's own line-drive homer inside the foul pole in right puts the Yankees on the board in the next inning, followed by an incredible diving catch in left-center by Snider of a sinking smash by Yogi Berra.

The unparalleled feat of Larsen, pitching with no wind-up, is almost secondary - at least to me. It's the great tableau of baseball history unfolding in a single game that works its magic of escape and entertainment and curiosity.

Simpler times, some will mutter - the 50s of Ike and Mickey Mantle, post-Korea and pre-Vietnam. That kind of wishing cultural whimpering is just too easy. Better to simply appreciate the sound and the form and those shadows.

Besides, baseball ghosts are being turned out into this winter's wind by the dugout-full. Out in Corona (not Flushing), that beloved steel and concrete dump of my youth, Shea Stadium, lies like a decommissioned warship, the ribs of its once-proud hull - coated with generations of LaGuardia-bound jet fuel and watery Rheingold - lie bleaching and exposed in the thin January sun.

In the Bronx: the grossest epithet of non-preservation by a city that undervalues culture and its own history. A facsimile rises. The real thing, the broad and green playing field below the courthouse where the greats wrote the story of the game, is abandoned with a wave of churlish ignorance. Abandoned to the luxury boxes and restaurants that make up the new sporting playground designed for very rich men. Abandoned to an era of lavish accommodation and a criminal's gambling leverage that is very plainly coming to its stunning and impoverishing end.

The Tough Cleon Jones

When I was seven or eight or nine I'd often grab a bat or a broom handle or just an old stick and stand in the backyard in Yonkers imitating the batting stance and swing of Cleon Jones. While I dug in right-handed  - a closed and upright stance - down the hill from the old crabapple tree, my voice would take on the twang of Lindsay Nelson or Bob Murphy as I described myself-as-Cleon taking his hacks against Fergie Jenkins or Bob Gibson. Unobserved for the most part, the solitary game always reached dramatic heights. Agee was almost always on third and Boswell or Harrelson on first, Mets down by two, ninth inning. Wouldn't you know it, Cleon - we were on a first-name basis like on Kiner's Korner - always went deep.

Cleon Jones was my favorite player on the Miracle Mets and the teams that came immediately after. He was a feared line drive hitter until his knees did him, and a fine left-fielder with a good arm - his left one actually; Cleon was one of those rare hits-right, throws left players. Jones batted .340 for the 1969 Mets (third in the league behind Rose and Clemente) with a .422 on-base percentage and was their best everyday player, starting on the All Star team. That was easily the best year Jones put up, though he was a productive player on some decent Mets teams, including the improbable '73 National League champs.

But he remained my favorite throughout - even as he seemed to attract the kind of attention and trouble that eventually led (along with sore knees) to leaving New York in the era of M. Donald Grant and Dick Young. There was the time Gil Hodges trudged all the way to leftfield to remove his best player from the game for dogging it after a base hit. The fight with Bud Harrelson. The feud with Yogi Berra. The prominent scar on his left cheek from a head-on crash in the early 60s. The woman in the van and the Met-mandated public apology. Cleon Jones would never back down.

Yet Jones also had his goofy but good moments: the shoe polish pitch in '69, catching the last out off of Dave Johnson's bat against the Orioles in the Series, that crazy play in '73 when a sure homer landed on top of the left-field fence - and bounced directly back to Cleon. I was reading some of the great stories about Cleon Jones on the excellent Ultimate Mets site, and this jumped out:

One sad incident in my life also involved Cleon. About 8 years old (I know it was before the '69 season) I was talking baseball with some friends, and stated that Cleon Jones was my favorite Met. Another kid looked surprised and commented, "But he's black!" (And all of us were white.) It was my first exposure to racism. Thankfully, it didn't affect my worship of the Mets greatest left fielder.

Yep, I remember that too - when the most coveted baseball card in my pack was No. 21 on the Mets - that huge thread of Jones stories proves I wasn't alone.

Last year, I was out at the old heap of Shea Stadium watching the new place rise in its beam ends and light towers out behind left-field - a short toss from where Cleon Jones caught the last out of the '69 series - and the team had a special guest on top of the visitors dugout to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Gravel voice, face like Google Earth set to 3D topography. Sunglasses. George Thorogood, bad to the bone at the old ballgame - which reminded me of his devotion to the Mets, and to my favorite player:

I liked the Mets, and the tough Cleon Jones. Not just Cleon Jones, see, but The Tough Cleon Jones. When ever my friends mention him to me it’s The Tough Cleon Jones. So they’re my team, and they’ve been my team since 1965.

When they won the World Series in 1969 it was the greatest thing to happen in baseball. It was David slaying Goliath. It was fantastic. After that, I was content for them to slide back into the second division.

Cleon Jones, like his buddy Tommie Agee and Hank Aaron, hailed from Mobile, Alabama, growing up during an era of legislated segregation. He was one of those young players in the era after Jackie Robinson, a time when black players could indeed be tough and outspoken. Three years ago, he told MLB.com a story about playing in Atlanta in the early 60s:

"Now, I was 20, 21 years old, and I hadn't been exposed to a lot. The year before I played in Raleigh, and we lived in a segregated area. The bus would drop us off at a family's house and take the white players to a hotel. But now we're in the big leagues, so to speak, and Atlanta is coming to town the next year and they have to integrate the hotels."

Jones said he and his teammates had no problems at their hotel during their stay. It was when they left the hotel to get something to eat that the issue of race arose. Jones and his teammates encountered bigotry at a nearby restaurant, which led to his first sit-in.

"[Elio] Chacon went across the street to eat and they wouldn't feed him because of segregation. He came back to the hotel, upset with tears in his eyes, saying he wanted to go back to Venezuela, saying how could he play ball if he couldn't eat. Ricketts was our captain, and he said we should all go eat there. So we went back there, sat in and they said they wouldn't feed us.

"We sat there until they called the police. But they said that civil rights had passed and they had to feed us. About that time I made up my mind that I didn't want to eat, that I was just going to sit there and see what took place. Finally, they said they would feed us, and they brought out food but I wouldn't eat."

The Tough Cleon Jones - I like that, Thorogood has it right - though I also remember his great sense of humor on Kiner's Korner. And I remember my grandmother sitting with me in front of the television in those Nixonland days yelling "C'mon Cleon, get a hit!"

Not the Jackie Robinson Way

The New York Mets are building a grand monument to National League baseball next to the 7 Train in Queens, replete with a soaring entry rotunda along along Roosevelt Avenue. The rotunda is to be named for Jackie Robinson, that timeless New York baseball presence, and a moral leader even 35 years after his death. The Wilpon family can go ahead with their ceremonies honoring Robinson, with their statues and their plaques as they open the terribly named "CitiField" next spring - but as they made clear about about 3 am this morning they don't know very much about Jackie Robinson and how he lived his life.

Firing Willie Randolph, a proud son of New York, the city's first black manager, a great player on the field and gentleman off the field is bad thing indeed. But firing him in the dead of night by cowardly communique after making him fly across the country to manage one last game, after allowing him to dangle in public for weeks, after showing him no respect for his accomplishments or station or persona at all...well...that's a baseball obscenity, in my book.

Look, Randolph may not have been a brilliant manager, but he was a good one; he did hold the second best record in Mets history after Davey Johnson. Randolph was stoic and taciturn, a Gil Hodges rather than a Billy Martin, and his city roots in the housing projects of Brooklyn and the infield of the Bronx should not be dismissed. At 53, he was trying to turn the Mets around after their 2007 collapse, just  a season removed from their heart-breaking NLCS playoff loss - and he was ticketed to coach for the National League at next month's All Star game at Yankee Stadium, a fitting career moment for a man like Randolph.

This was a moment of disgrace for the Mets franchise, for the discredited and cowardly Omar Minaya, and for the Wilpon family, owners in stock certificates but not in spirit. As a lifelong Mets fan who was born the day the first pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, this is second in karmic catastrophe only to the dumping of Tom Seaver in June, 1997.

This is an old Mets lineup aside from Reyes, Wright and Beltran and thin in starting pitching; it's slow, below average in the field, and doesn't hit in the clutch. Outside of Santana, the starters are either old and injured or youngish and erratic. It's the talent, it's the roster. And it's the upper management of this pathetic franchise - here's ESPN's Buster Olney, one of my favorite baseball scribes:

Even the writers of "The Sopranos" could not have invented a more recklessly handled hit. The process really started after last season's collapse, when Minaya -- who came to the Mets having been promised full autonomy and, for more than a year, has had all the power of a marionette -- first regressed into lawyer-speak. "Willie is the manager," Minaya said over and over, as if repeating the phrase would somehow give the crafted but flimsy words backbone and fool anyone into thinking that Randolph wasn't one really bad day away from being fired.

He's exactly right. And then there's Bill Madden of the Daily News, a hard-boiled throwback, who said that "in the history of New York baseball, there has not been a more cowardly, indecent, undignified or ill-conceived firing of a manager."

Yeah, the Mets will dedicate their new Jackie Robinson Rotunda next spring with soaring words about character and courage. But last night, the owners and executives who will utter those words defiled the memory of the very man they will try to honor - and if Jackie Robinson were still with us, he'd reject the Mets and their fancy new "Citi" field.

UPDATE: I love this post from Jason over at the aptly-named Faith and Fear in Flushing blog, so here's a healthy dose - but go read the whole thing, which hammers the middle-in fastball on the screws:

The people who run the team to which we give an unhealthy portion of our lives are stupid, brutal cowards.

[snip] 

I've thought for a while that Willie Randolph's tenure as manager of the Mets should be over. But I've thought so reluctantly, mindful of a good man who's seemed every bit as tormented by the last 10 months as we are. And it never occurred to me that the Mets would handle his dismissal in a way that a kind person would call jaw-droppingly incompetent and a less-kind person might call deliberately low and vicious. The just-hired entry-level guy at a downsizing firm -- the one who gets the news from the HR harpies instead of from the boss -- got more consideration and kindness than the Brooklyn native who managed the Mets to within one gapper of the 2006 World Series.

It's embarrassing to be a Met fan today. Embarrassing, humiliating and infuriating. That's not a unfamiliar feeling as a Met fan -- I've seen Tom Seaver exiled to the Midwest, de Roulet era crowds that barely broke four figures, Vince Coleman throwing explosives at children...

The Old Wreck

Jamie Moyer is nine months younger than I am, but he's also the oldest player in the majors. The obvious calculation: for the first time in my life as a baseball fan, I'm older than all the players. It shows, of course, just as it does on the aging wreck of a stadium the Mets are "celebrating" this year as they prepare to move into what appears to be a gorgeous but terribly-named baseball shrine next season. They didn't bother painting Shea Stadium this off-season. The seats were filthy. The grass was patchy too. And the old guy, Jamie Moyer, mowed down the younger Mets today - well, that may be a bit strong. He threw lefty junk off an 83-mph "fastball" and the Mets made easy outs, scoring only two runs off the ancient Phillie. Meanwhile, Oliver Perez fell apart in the fifth, the bullpen choked, and the powerful Philadelphia lineup finally broke through, wrecking an Opening Day we were told endlessly marked "the final one at Shea Stadium." I sat up there today, looking at the workers high in the steel of City, er, "Citi" Field and watched the Mets' slow start continue. This team is one big hitter short, especially as Carlos Delgado continues to morph into the late-career pinch-hitting Rusty Staub, slapping heaters to left. They'll miss Pedro. And the middle relief is, to coin a term that will undoubtedly emerge after the first losing streak next year anyway, "Shiti."  Ah well, it's spring.

The Left Wing

Clearly, the photos of the week! [from David Pokress at Newsday]. Ahhhhh.

And Now For Some Real News

The Mets have traded for the fireballing left-handed ace of the Minnesota Twins, Johann Santana, giving them the best rotation in the National League East. According to USA Today:

The deal is pending the Mets and Santana reaching agreement on a six- or seven-year contract extension and that Santana passes a physical; they have been granted a 48 to-72-hour window to do so. Santana has a no-trade clause that he will waive if agreement is reached on a contract extension.

Santana won the American League Cy Young Award in 2004 and 2006 and is 93-44 lifetime. The Mets gave up centerfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey. Patience clearly paid off for Omar Minaya.

On to Florida! [Port St. Lucie, of course - what, you thought I meant that  primary today in which a million Democrats are voting - the one that "won't count."]

Valley of the Ashes

Today I had a pleasant and productive meeting in a coffee shop just a fungo shot from the Elysian Fields, that sacred patch of downtown Hoboken where legend tells us the first game of organized baseball transpired. In 1845, lower Manhattan's fields were no longer deemed roomy enough for the Knickerbocker Club, so they ferried across the Hudson and a  year later, took on the New York Nine in what was reputed to be the first game between two rival clubs. Less than a decade later, the National Association of Base Ball Players used the grounds for their new league, and New York Times cricket writer Henry Chadwick wrote this account, before becoming an ardent promoter of the new sport:

"I chanced to go through Elysian Fields during the progress of a contest between the noted Eagle and Gotham Clubs. The game was being sharply played on both sides, and I watched it with deeper interest that any previous ball match between clubs I had seen. It was not long before I was struck with the idea that base ball was just the game for a national sport for Americans."

This account the game's evolution toward professional status has always been a more credible story than the Abner Doubleday "founding" myth from 1876, which had the former Union general from New York formally inventing our pastime. Silly, but then again the Doubleday heirs did own half of the New York Mets until the Wilpons bought them out, so perhaps silly is as silly does.

As I rode the ferry to lower Manhattan (and what a fine afternoon for the ride), it seemed to me that the Mets' story during this long, dark off-season is even less compelling than Abner's mythical founding. The news from Shea is as dreary as this time of year, while in the Bronx the second generation Steinbrenner has resigned A-Rod, and Posada, and Rivera and is in keen pursuit of Johann Santana. The Mets? The big Yorvit Torrealba-Johnny Estrada dance for platoon catcher is all the waltzing we've seen in Queens.

The Mets are moving to also-rans in a division they gave away two months ago, falling behind the Phillies - from Philadelphia, for heaven's sake! Outside of the core Wright-Reyes-Beltran ring of gold, this team is notable for what it lacks, for the gaping holes in its pitching staff. Tom Glavine is back in Atlanta (and good riddance on the lackluster lefty) and the coming stars (the Humbers and the Pelfreys) haven't panned out. Pedro and El Duque are older than Brooke Astor (combined) but more injury-plagued (the grand dame still clocked in the high 80s on the philanthropy gun when she checked out, and hadn't missed a gala start in 82 consecutive seasons), and that leaves two terrific three-four type starters in John Maine and Oliver Perez. The pen, of course, is much worse -it cost the Mets the division title and needs an almost total overhaul.

In the field, outside of the golden three, we've got age and production problems at first, injuries at second, and gimpy 74-year-old Moises Alou in left. Rightfield? Lastings Milledge perhaps, though he remains the team's greatest trade bait - itself a sad story when you're competing for Santana with the young, talent-hungry Twins.

This is a thin year for free agent material and dangling trades of team-changing talent, it's true, but Omar Minaya can hardly use that as an excuse. He has to produce a high-quality team and fast, especially in this last year of Shea Stadium - a thought that depresses me almost as much as darkness at 4:30 in the afternoon. Sure, it's a massive pitted pile of concrete with narrow seats, bad sight lines, and a constant cold wind off of Flushing Bay. Still, I've spent so many pleasant afternoons pondering the deep green grass and Jerry Koosman's prodigious sweat glands, that the notion of the wrecking ball seems like an executioner's song for my baseball childhood.

And then there's the new park. Another short journey last week put me on the train between the city and Great Neck, and I took a gander at the rising stadium. It grows quickly, and the upper deck seating is taking shape.  Citigroup gets the name - to me, it's like spelling the great catcher's name Jeri Grote, but what do I know about brands - and can obviously afford a stadium while laying off up to 45,000 people in the next few months. Which is a hell of an irony because that's exactly how many people the new bandbox will hold! Maybe Citigroup can hold a fired employees day with free tickets as part of its severance package.

The new place is small, and covered in brick. Fred Wilpon thinks of the stadium as a new Ebbetts Field, which was a whole borough over and far away. The rotunda, hard by the Flushing line, will be named for Jackie Robinson, who famously retired rather than play for the Giants. Those were the days - times that flashed briefly during the very early days of the Mets, when Yogi Berra caught and Duke Snider played centerfield. Gil Hodges played a little first base during his last playing days, and later managed the greatest squad in team history, just four years before another National League championship team was graced by the dotage of Willie Mays.

The throwback impulse isn't necessarily a bad one, but the Mets need a perennial contender to pay for it - or they risk being a a kind of Gothamite Seatttle Mariners franchise: nice little team, gorgeous field, never wins it all.

But you know, location is everything in New York real estate and Shea's site - excuse me, Citi Field (shudder) - has quite the literary pedigree. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg no longer glare from a billboard near the railroad, but the Valley of the Ashes still shows its smudges at times, especially during rainouts and Aaron Heilman meltdowns. It was here that F. Scott Fitzgerald placed his great symbol of refuse on the ride from East and West Egg (Manhasset and Great Neck) to the city, along the class line from old money to new money to just plain poor. (Has anyone ever plumbed the irony of Arthur Ashe Stadium and its locale?)

These strange connections wander in, given a sports section and bit of time on the railroad to Long Island or ferry from Hoboken. Still, I wonder if the Mets have reached their high point with this particular vintage, if the statuesque pose of Carlos Beltran in the 2006 championship series at its last money will symbolize a team moving into a new stadium with old problems, and older hamstrings. If Citi Field won't be some diamond-shaped nightmarish version of:

"...a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through powdery air."

UPDATE: I should have worked this in higher up, but if you're looking for the best off-season baseball rumor site in the world, click here. 'Tis great.