Tom Watson

Moneyball and Sandy Alderson's Mets

When Sandy Alderson, speaking as the newly-arrived Moneyball guru of the New York Mets, openly mocked All-Star shortstop José Reyes with a line about sending the free-agent a box of chocolates to show  himhim he was loved, he signaled that the Mets future was a lot dimmer than it has been for decades. Alderson, it seems, got the job to run the Mets in order to disassemble the other major-league team in baseball's largest market. A year ago, Alderson promised Mets fans that the budget for the team would closely resemble (with a few cuts) what it has been for the last few years. He claimed that the Madoff scandal affecting Fred and Jeff Wilpon and their partner sol Katz the ownership group of the New York Mets would not change baseball operations in a significant manner.

He was not telling the truth.

Thus under Alderson's orders the Mets made no offer to one of the top homegrown star players in the team's 50 year history.

In the last 10 years  no Mets player has been as bright a spark on the field as  José Reyes. Signed by the Mets at age 17 out of the Dominican Republic, Reyes has been the rare baseball talent who publicly delights in playing the game at its highest level. The long triple. That cannon arm from deep in the hole. The race down the first base line on a dribbler past the pitcher. The sprint to short center field to grab a pop-up. The spark, the smile, the crazy hand gestures. The flying dreadlocks and sheer exuberance, and the love of baseball. All gone to Miami.

The Mets never made an offer to Jose Reyes, the greatest shortstop in the history of the franchise. And on the National League side of town, the Wilpons now own a small market baseball team in a new with no hope of competing and a quickly dwindling fan base. Here in Casa Watson the generation of fans that I usually take  to the ballgames has informed me in no uncertain terms that they do not wish to visit Citi Field on a regular basis in 2012. They perceive that the business entity known as the New York Mets does not care about retaining their business, that it does not care about their brand, that chooses not to compete for the entertainment dollar in New York area. But mostly, they are sad. They will miss their favorite player. And they realize that the team they call their own simply did not want  one of its greatest homegrown stars back.  And they know that the team across town would never let one of its star attractions get away. 

This is New York Mets baseball. In 2012, the team will celebrate 50 years. But  how closely will these Mets resemble the initial team of 1962 in the loss column, only without the lovability, without Casey Stengel, without the sheer joy of beingthe upstart New York National League baseball club.  Somewhere Dick Young is applauding Sandy Alderson, and slapping his buddy M. Donald Grant on the back.

Catcher's Card X Meets Lineout Max

Back in the gauzy wilds of the early 1980s in the neighorhood of Morningside Heights, four callow underclassmen decided the day's lectures held no interest and so piled into a brown sedan and rode to Glen Head, Long Island. Their mission was a simple one: arrive at the office of the Strat-O-Matic Game Company as the cards for the previous year's Major League Baseball season were released. The directions weren't the greatest, delivered as they were in those days not by handy smart phone or GPS unit but by a gruff voice at the end of pay phone line. The trip meandered along the North Shore. Yet the transaction eventually took place, and the four young men spend the ride back poring through the coded performance charts on a tall stack of white index-sized cards. The evening yielded yet another marathon session of play, the latest of many on that particular campus.

Strat-O-Matic turns 50 this week (a year before I do) and it's worthwhile to pause and recall all that wonderfully wasted time rooting for dice rolls and split card results. The Times had a piece this weekend on the anniversay and the Strat-O phenomenon, which is stubbornly anti-technology despite an online game that's a poor cousin to the original; heck, the biggest innovation in the company's history was the replacement of split cards number 1 to 20 with "the unique 20-sided die." That was nearly 30 years ago. The company's 75-year-old founder, Hal Richman, who may well have been the voice on the phone, told the Times that “Strat-O-Matic isn’t a religious experience for these people, but it does have tremendous meaning in their lives.”

I remember when Lenny Dykstra won a game with a homerun for the Mets back in 1986 and told sportswriters: "the last time I did that was Strat-O-Matic!" There's an alterative reality to the game that comes closer to the rhythm of baseball than any of the uber-realistic video titles. And the players felt that, as the celebration this weekend clearly showed.

Among the 600 aficionados was the former major league center fielder Doug Glanville, who spoke at the event.

“There’s a lot of pressure when you roll the dice on your own cards,” Glanville told the crowd.

He said that one year, he complained to Richman when his defensive rating dropped. Now an analyst for ESPN, Glanville said he sometimes studied players’ cards like scouting reports.

“I just saw an Ian Kinsler card today and saw he was an ‘A’ bunter,” he said. “I didn’t realize he was that good.”

Strat-O-Matic, in which rolls of the dice correspond to results on cards that mirror players’ real-life statistics, has survived in an age of high-tech video games.

“Like Othello or chess, you can learn the game swiftly, but you’ll never tire of the strategies,” said Glenn Guzzo, a former newspaper editor and the author of “Strat-O-Matic Fanatics,” who has been playing since he asked his mother for a set for his 12th birthday in 1963.

He said the game’s combination of playability (it can be completed in a half-hour) and realism were essential to its longevity. “There are also an infinite number of ways to keep your imagination fertile,” he added.

I haven't played Strat-O-Matic in a while, but I find myself on Long Island quite a bit for business these days. Maybe I should light out for Glen Head one early spring morning.

Reyes of Sunshine

Over at A Train Baseball (where you really should be a regular) the Mets Fans Suicide Hotline is now open. Shortstop Jose Reyes has a hyperthyroid condition and long-suffering fans have a hyperpanicked reaction: "...the Mets season appears to be headed toward another broken tumble into the baseball region known as lower mediocrity. Some call it Pittsburgh…but expensive."

The Baseball Quotient

A long hard winter followed a long and difficult year, and - as Lance Mannion so eloquently puts it - stress takes its toll: "When our thinking gets un-well, our bodies feel it.  We get sick."

And so we turn to baseball, that game of inches and carefully measured feet that perfectly branded its rules and rhythms on us as children. The simple and basic plays, the sounds and smells of the game (even in upscale new stadiums), the thinking and strategy between pitches and innings.

And spring. Pitchers and catchers. Intrasquad games. Exhibition tilts. That sure-fire prospect or the comebacking starter who all the writers say "is throwing the heavy ball this spring." Sandy Koufax trying to fix Ollie Perez's delivery and his psyche - the mission impossible. Yet we're back and despite the gathering darkness on the landscape, we're pulled toward the game once again - even the steroids and supplements and salaries can't turn off the baseball habit.

This year, Jason Chervokas and I are adding a new pitch: we've soft-launched A Train Baseball, a new blog dedicated to New York baseball, from the turn the 20th century to the match-ups for tomorrow's game. Here's how the pitch arrives:

A Train Baseball is a new website dedicated to New York baseball, from 1900 to tomorrow’s game. If you like Oscar Gamble, Cleon Jones, Strat-O-matic, real stirrups, stories about John J. McGraw, Reyes triples, Jeter professionalism, Seaver fastballs, Ruthian clouts and pinstripes in two shades – well, pull up a bar stool and join the conversation.

We're not completists, and we're not stat hounds or hard-core fantasy gamers; you can get that elsewhere. In some ways, we're romantics when it comes to baseball - we actually, kinda, sorta believe in the daily redemption available at a distance of sixty feet six inches. So expect a range of posts.

We'd love to see you over there. And that pic? That's our blog mascot: one Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel, circa 1914 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Says it all.

Mad Men Mets

I love this video - the 1963 Mets promotional video, featuring Casey Stengel, Ed Kranepool, Duke Snider, Lindsay Nelson, Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy. It says as much about the New York of the early 60s as it does about baseball. There was real optimism in the air. Shea Stadium ("the most modern edifice ever constructed for the game of baseball") was going up in Queens and the Polo Grounds saw its last games. George Weiss talked about the farm system that would soon produce Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Cleon Jones, Bud Harrelson, Nolan Ryan and Jerry Grote. And dig those New Yawkah man-on-the-street interviews. Just brilliant, and in such contrast to the doom and gloom downer (until the last episode of season three) of everyone's favorite costume drama, Matt Weiner's Mad Men.

That optimism is in stark contrast to the attitude Mets fans in this off-season, though I'd argue that the hour Jose Reyes did with Mike Francesa this week on the FAN was like a brief summer win blowing across the frozen tundra of Citi Field. If Reyes's evident love of the game - not to mention his speed - makes its return at the top of the Mets order, we may avoid the horror of last summer, a baseball dead zone capped by the Metsies' worst-choice World Series match-up.

The Mets haven't made a big off-season move as yet, banking on comebacks from the Season of the Surgery (unless yesterday's signing of Japanese set-up man Ryota Igarashi counts as big-time); they've an offer into slugger Jason Bay, and another for aging catcher Bengie Molina. All these moves are incremental and could improve the on-field product next season. Certainly, the Mets - if reasonably healthy - should return to a team that plays well above .500.

But they don't (at present) have enough to challenge the Phillies' growing Eastern hegemony. That's a team built for the present and the future. The Mets' biggest hole is their rotation, and Citi Field's capacious pastures demands a herd of rawhide arms like the Metsies produced in the mid-60s. Right now, the Mets have a come-backing Johann Santana and a possible inside straight of 20-something head cases. The rotation simply won't make it.

Across town, meanwhile, it appears that the Yankees had a better team in the parade up the Canyon of Heroes than they do entering 2010. Trading out Damon and Matsui for Grandersn and Johnson is an obvious net loss, despite the gains in average age. Matsui was underrated for his entire Yankees' stint, and Damon in the two-hole was absolutely vital to last year's production. Both will be missed in the extreme.

Broad Street to Broadway

Jimmy Rollins is wrong. The Phillies won't beat the Yankees in five games, in what promises to be a fascinating Jersey Turnpike pileup of a baseball affair beginning tonight in the faux House That Bloomberg Built in La Belle Bronx.

Nope, it'll take six games.

I am boldly predicting a Philadelphia win in a classic World Series, featuring two terrific and interesting baseball teams - both of them, unfortunately, teams that New York Mets fans love to hate. It gives me no pleasure to pick the Phils, who have the clear makings of an NL East dynasty just 90 miles south of the GWB toll booths. But I think they'll edge the Yanks in dramatic fashion, and here's why.

First, I give the Phillies the edge at more positions than the Yankees. The quick run-down goes like this:

Catcher - Yankees, but not defensively.

1B - Almost shocking to put anyone above Texeira, but Ryan Howard's better (but not defensively). Phils.

2B - Easy choice - Utley and the Phils.

SS - Jeter, Yanks. Always.

3B - The New A-Rod, NY.

LF - I'm going with Ibanez over Damon. Philly.

CF - Not close, Victorino outclasses Melky. Phils.

RF - Again, easy - Werth's better than Swisher.

So that's 5-4 for the Phillies. Now, on to the starters. Philadelphia did a little patching this season after last year's championship run and the starters weren't nearly as good. Yet, at this stage it's pretty even. The two brilliant aces, Cliff Lee and C.C. Sabathia, may go head to head three times, while the Yanks may face a suddenly much-younger Pedro Martinez (who dominated the Dodgers) even as Andy Pettitte continues to show post-season toughness. The key to the series, starter-wise may well be the difference between eratic whipped-cream flinger A.J. Burnett versus the come-backing Cole Hamels - I'm giving the edge to Hamels in that match-up based on his work last year, and thus the very slight edge to the Phillies among starters.

Where the Yankees totally outclass the Phillies is quite obviously the bullpen - Rivera's the best of all-time and Philly closers were awful. The Yankees have a better supporting cast as well. Big edge to New York from the seventh inning on.

That said, some of the Yankees' bullpen effectiveness is blunted by the strange managing of the ever-hyper Joe Girardi, who loses the managerial match-up to Philly's Charlie Manuel, who is perfectly matched to his team and drives that squad like AJ Foyt used to run Chevy's.

On that basis - and because the Phillies have quite simply "been there before" as a unit while most of this Yankee team hasn't - I'm giving the edge to Philadelphia. They're a tough bunch that doesn't quit, and the extra game in New York won't bother 'em.

Now back to looking forward to Omar Minaya's next move, and the latest on the Wilpon-Madoff saga. Oh, baseball joy.

Tweet the Mets: Meltdown @CitiField

Shades of Sarah Palin 'round Citi Field today, as Mets management sought to blame the circus around now-ousted VP Tony "Talk to My Naked Chest" Bernazard on the media, specifically Daily News beat reporter Adam Rubin. You almost expected embattled GM Omar Minaya to borrow Palin's line about American soldiers riskin' their lives so that reporters could be makin' things up. It was that bad in Metland today, a descent into bizarre adolescence that brought us back to the days of Saberhagen's bleach bottle and Vince Coleman's firecrackers.

Amazin' Avenue's Sam Page had the hideous details:

In his press conference addressing the Tony Bernazard firing, Omar Minaya made a very explicit insinuation that Adam Rubin of the Daily News, who first broke the story of Bernazard's tantrums against Mets' minor leaguers, had an ulterior motive. Minaya stated that Rubin had lobbied for a job in the Mets organization. As user dcrockett17 pointed out, Rubin seemed to be the source of all the anti-Bernazard material, but regardless, this call-out looks like a seriously bad move by Minaya. Whether or not Rubin had another motive, Minaya is creating unnecessary controversy and definitely risking his job.

Rubin allegedly called Minaya "despicable" during the press conference and said he only inquired with Fred Wilpon about how to break into the industry. He went on to say, "I don’t know how I’m going to cover the team now… To make this type of accusation is obscene."

It's just the latest sad chapter in a season that finds the once-contending Mets mired six games under .500 and out of the running for the post-season in the year when they opened their shiny new $800 million replacement for Shea Stadium. As Chervokas just messaged me, this latest episode is "Dolanesque embarrassing." Phew. That's pretty tough. But well-deserved, alas. To gauge the pulse of despair on the Mets side of the baseball tracks, I turned to Twitter for company. Rough crowd:

I feel Omar is going to lose his job over this...what do you guys think?

Mets' Minaya losing control

So It’s Rubin’s Fault Bernazard Was Out Of Control?: Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but WTF?!

Adam Rubin just sold me a beer and two hot dogs, AND he wiped my seat dry! Thanks, Adam! Great hire, Mets!

The Mets really may be the worst team money can buy. I'm looking at their payroll right now: 2 mil for Alex Cora? 4.9 for Schneider?

Most surprising aspect of yet another #Mets mess: learning that they have a HR department.

Daily News now sponsoring the Mets PR Blunder of the game.

Quote a day for the Mets. As Ron Darling just said on TV: "It's an awful day in Metland."

Darren can't believe the Mets management did what they did today.....threw a reporter under the bus

Where have you gone....Willie Randolph?

Note to self: Don't ask anyone at Citi Field for career advice. Never ever ever ever ever.

Ah, don't worry. I hear George "The Stork" Theodore's rehab in Port St. Lucie is really coming along.

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.