Olympian Effort in Baseball?

Oh baby! Baseball’s really revving up now as baseball articles intrude on the Olympics and basketball coverage inundating the sports pages. But, this happens just as I was starting to get into Bode Miller and Lindsay Vonn, and, if I must say so, Julia Mancuso. And the ice dancing, something I ordinarily wouldn’t watch, drew me in last night as the coverage led off with a piece on White and Davis, one of the two American entries skating in the top 5.

What struck me were the sacrifices these two had put in for so many years of their lives. It makes you realize that these Olympians are athletes, highly trained athletes in every sense of the word. And then to see them put up some ridiculously high number to vie for gold was very gratifying. Their attitudes were great too, happy that they did their jobs pretty splendidly and only hoping for the best. They wound up with silver, of course, and I had to grudgingly admit that that Canadian couple looked pretty damned good too. (How’s that for analysis)?

It made me wonder too. Do baseball players try that hard to achieve excellence? More particularly, do Mets players try that hard? More particularly even than that, does Oliver Perez even toss the ball around in the off-season?

I pick on Perez as I had just finished reading that Sandy Koufax was impressed with him and that Jerry Manuel was impressed that he could duplicate the same delivery twice in a row. I can understand Koufax being impressed with his arm. Koufax was notoriously wild early in his career. His success came relatively late. I can recall watching some of his early games, wondering what all the fuss was about him. He couldn’t come near the plate some games.

Let’s hope Ollie’s career takes a similar path. That’d be nice. It’s encouraging too that Manuel had some good things to say about him. At this point, I don’t think Manuel would go out of his way to say good things about someone who has arguably been the Mets greatest failure.

But really, how hard is that guy capable of working? And how long will he be able to keep it up? I guess 2010 will tell us. We’ll see if he can become the #2 starter the Mets have needed. Not that a good or even great performance from Perez would have made any difference last year.

But, all in all, there have been a lot of good indicators coming out of Mets camp. You hear that Pelfrey dropped 25 pounds, not that that’s necessarily a good thing. I can recall Sid Fernandez, one of my all-time favorite Mets pitchers, dropping weight and being dreadful. But Pelfrey’s dropping some pounds is a good sign of effort.

Carlos Beltran, too, seems over his funk, or at least that has become his story. I personally don’t think Beltran is the type of person to worry too much about anything. And while he was obviously perturbed with the Mets and their medical staff, it sounds as if it was for good reason. He knows it, the Mets probably know it, and the whole incident just smells of bad public relations and bad communications within the Mets hierarchy. Again.

Ah well, let’s face it. Everything can’t be rosy. Sometimes it’s tough to be a Mets fan. For example, I had been looking forward to watching Omir Santos break out and have a good year. Next thing I know, he’s out and Rod Barajas is in. Why? I have no idea. And Santos won’t even be the second catcher. That job will go to another guy, Thole, nobody’s ever heard of. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it’s excessive perspiration or he needs a breath mint once in a while. He sure seemed to hit in the clutch. How bad can his pitch selection be?

And speaking of pitch selection, there’s the story out of Yankee camp that Burnett and Posada have worked out their differences, or, alternately, that there was never a problem to begin with. That Girardi gave Burnett Molina to catch all his games was just some kind of miraculous coincidence. Posada isn’t as stupid as he looks….or something.

Ah geez, there’s that Yankee hate coming out of me again. I just can’t help myself sometimes, like Newman (from Seinfeld) railing against the postal system. At least he had Kramer to rein him in and bring him back to reality. I have to rely only on Yankee beat writers and the few pearls of what is supposed to be wisdom from Brian Cashman.

Okay, he finally got them a World Series. After outspending the entire free world for baseball players for around ten years or so, he finally got one. Let’s anoint him baseball’s version of Bill Walsh. Oops, there I go again.

But really, the difference between the Mets and Yanks is astounding when it comes to PR. The Mets say nothing, the Yanks spin stories. For example, Joba is officially off his pitch count, but, oh by the way, he may be going to the pen.
I’m still amazed the Yanks let Johnny Damon go. He was the perfect Yankee in that nobody was ever more full of baloney. He’s thrilled to be a Tiger, he always wanted to play for Detroit, he’s happy with his one-year contract for 8 mill. Heeeere’s Johnny….

Let’s see now, is there a point to these ramblings? I’ll tie it all up with this….if the Mets put as much effort into communications as they expect their players to put into baseball, things would be better. And if the Yankees put as much effort into baseball as they put into baloney, they’d probably have some more Series rings to their credit.

Oh, and they really should have made more of an effort for Damon/Matsui. I can’t wait for crunchtime in Yankee games when it’s all on the line for, um, Granderson? Nick Johnson? Heh-heh.

Week 15 NFL and Aspetta! to Mets Fans

Well, Week 14 worked very nicely, thank you. The weekly record was 10-5, making the cumulative a nice comfy 82-63-1. Oh, and did I mention going 4 for 4 on best bets, thus pocketing another ten big ones?

The first best bet was the Eagles to cover vs. the Giants. I said there was no way the G-Men should be favored and unfortunately for the Giants, Coughlin and especially Sheridan, I was only too right.

Miami beat the Jags who were favored in Jacksonville, and my thought was that there might be more Miami fans in the stands than one might think at any other stadium, and that the Fish would prevail, or swim faster or sumthin’. That worked out too.

I felt really strongly about the Skins running ALL over the Raiduhs and lo and behold, Quinton Ganther went nuts and the Silver and Black turned black and blue, 34-13.

Another line I thought was all messed up was the Boyz being favored over the Chargers. Even a 3-point spread was ridiculous. The Chargers proved me right by holding on for a 20-17 outright win.

On top of all that, my fantasy team, dem Crabs, won in the first round of the playoffs, romping behind Brees and Colston, Grant and Ganther, a late pickup.

So life is good, and there are some real nice matchups scheduled for Week 15. I’ve continued my practice of ignoring Thursday games so I’ll just say that the Jags defense really isn’t so super. The Colts couldn’t be stopped or even slowed down very much.

Week 15 resumes Saturday night, of course, with the big Cowboys-Saints matchup in N’Awlins and the Saints are favored by 7, a pretty big spread for a Boyz team backed up against the wall. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here’s the picks for all the games, with spreads again from The Star-Ledger

Favorite Spread Underdog 4 Best My Pick Reason

SAINTS 7 Cowboys * Cowboys Boyz need the win
JETS 4 Falcons Falcons Falcons too good to end so badly
PITT 1 Pack Pack You are what your record sez, no?
TITANS 3 Mia TITANS Very strong run D and home cookin’..
Pats 7 ½ BILLS Pats Pats away not so hot but still….
Cards 12 LIONS Cards Schizo Cards come back big
EAGLES 8 ½ Niners Niners A real defense shows up
RAVENS 11 Bears Bears 11’s too much if Bears show up
CHIEFS 2 Browns CHIEFS Browns improving but road wins hard
Texans 10 RAMS * Texans Still a lot to prove for Texans
SD 7 Bengals SD Hard to weigh Henry loss
DEN 14 Raiders * DEN New QB in hostile digs
SEA 8 Bucs * SEA Hawks tough at home
Vikes 9 CAR Vikes What’s to recommend Car?
Giants 3 SKINS SKINS Giants just run around stupid


The best bets for Week 15:

Cowboys – It’s been almost painful seeing the Cowboys get roughed up. They may play better away from home and Saints defense can be had. Brees and Colston, Meachem, Shockey, all these weapons may have to score a LOT. Boyz may be able to control the ball for long stretches.

Texans – Texans HOT and Rams are NOT. Texans may be finally growing up and won’t have to do too much to pull away from a struggling Rams squad.

Broncos – Gigantic spread but the Raiders go with a veteran QB they pulled off the street. Seems like a punishment for Russell. Can’t imagine a team responding to that kind of thing. Broncs happy and they do have a running back or two to pound the ball.

Seahawks –All that noise in Seattle should rattle the young Bucs and 8 points doesn’t seem to even things up that much. This could be another blowout.

I’d just like to bid a fond farewell to Johnny Damon. It looks as if his Yanks career is over. He’ll wind up somewhere else at more years and money and wish he and his agent weren’t so greedy. Damon was as responsible as anyone for the Yanks resurgence to the top and they really don’t have anyone as clutch as he was, unless it was Matsui who’ll be hanging his hat in La-la Land.

Matsui will probably wind up being another great pickup for the Angels, much as was their one-year Bobby Abreu deal of last year. But his knees are very shaky and the Mets couldn’t realistically look to him for any long-term solutions.

I wish folks could show a little more patience with the Mets. I applaud their move back towards Holliday. Bay is over-rated and Mets shouldn’t tie up their long-term future with anyone, never mind a Jason Bay.

As for pitching, we’ll see how their Igarashi signing works out. He should be an adequate setup man for K-Rod. The Mets could see a resurgence from any one of their young arms, especially given the return of Reyes and Beltran to the lineup.

Free agency isn’t the only route towards acquiring a hitter and it seems to me that a trade may make more sense in the long run. I think they could offer any of several of their young pitchers as bait for a guy with power. They just aren’t all that rare.

So….as my Dad would often say….aspetta!