When Black Friday Comes...

Hello dear reader(s), it's your favorite Joo again.

Surprise - I found something to bitch about.

Black Friday sucks. People camping out overnight and trampling over others just to save a couple of bucks. Funny how it comes after a day of thanks. I'm all for saving a dollar (ok I'm all for saving a lot of dollars) but at what expense? Is it worth getting up that early and/or running around a store like a lunatic?

On the flip side, Small Business Saturday is something I can totally get behind. People who are able to maintain a small business or have the balls to start one never cease to amaze me.

Why should we be encouraged to shop at a small business one day out of the year? It should be a yearly thing. Get out there and support these people who need it a lot more than Starbucks.

PS: Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It was very hard waiting for a call I knew wasn't going to come. Thank you to my family and friends for being awesome.

Mass Hysteria!

Look at this picture. It makes me want to punch something.

That's silver-spooned Mets COO Jeff Wilpon shaking hands with future HOF and forever Mets killer Chipper Jones while admiring a painting that details all the exploits Jones had against Wilpon's Mets in his career.

WHAT.

THE.

FUCK.

“The body of work ... is very impressive,” Wilpon told Jones. “Unfortunately, you’ve left a lot of Met fans’ hearts broken at times.”

Right - so let's rip off all those scabs and let Chipper pour salt into the wounds. And notice Jeff didn't say "MY HEART"? Fuck him.

From a business standpoint, it doesn't make sense. This is someone who either prevented you from getting to the playoffs or prevented you from advancing in the playoffs, which equals money you didn't make. You're honoring THAT?

I'm not saying just sit there and do nothing. Chipper Jones is a first ballot HOF player so he demands respect in that aspect. I will applaud him and rightfully so, but STOP with the showering of gifts.

Players retire every year. They don't get all the bells and whistles Chipper is getting from every team (a surfboard from SD, the Braves flag from Wrigley, etc.). Let's not act like it's Hank Aaron saying goodbye. This is being done because Jones announced his retirement in March and teams were able to prepare. Cal Ripken, Jr. never got anything, Tony Gwynn never got anything, so what's the difference?

And really I'm angry because it seems like once again the Mets treat a nemesis better than they do their own fans. This is a team that had no problem giving Mariano Rivera the pitching rubber from Citi Field after he got his 500th save there. Let me know when every paying customer receives their own painting and then we can discuss honoring someone who destroyed your seasons for over a decade and a half.

Maybe instead of honoring someone who treated your team like Bobby Cox treated his wife, maybe you can work on getting oh I don't know, a competitive team out there?

No Mas Burg

Various media outlets are reporting that Nationals manager Davey Johnson has informed ace and all around fucking stud Stephen Strasburg that his season is over, even before the rumored 180 IP limit.

I'm not in favor of shutting down an uninjured player but if you're going to, then make sure it's when you're having a typical Nats year, not one that has you fighting for the NL East title.

I've mentioned this a few times on my podcast Wait 'Til Next Year but I can't fathom how you would shut down a player of Strasburg's caliber when you're knocking on October's door.

I understand the basic idea of playing it safe when it comes to someone like Strasburg. His kind of talent doesn't come around every year and yeah, you should probably baby him and think more long term but NOT during a pennant race and not when he's pitching lights out and not showing any kind of injury.

What does that message say to the fans? Hey thanks for supporting us from April to September but when the games are really important, we're basically giving up. Same thing for the other Nationals players. Hey thanks for fighting it out and grinding through a tough but fun season, but come playoff time we're bringing a knife to a gunfight.

What are you protecting him from? He could take a line drive to the face as easily as he could hurt his arm. Grow some balls, roll the dice and send out your best possible players when the games mean the most.

A starting trio of Strasburg, Gonzalez, and Zimmermann could do some damage in a best of 5. Take Strasburg out and I have no idea what to expect.

The baseball fan in me is disappointed today. Farewell, Strasboner.

See you next year.

Thank God.

The Bay Situation

I'm not a fan of Jason Bay. If you follow this blog, you know this. Anyone who's listened to me on my podcast is probably tired of hearing me bitch about him. Or just tired of hearing me, period, but whatever. I'm tired of it too.

He tries, he hustles, etc. I don't care how nice of a guy he is, he's still 10 pounds of shit stuffed into a 5 pound bag.

My problem is the situation - more specifically, the fact that the Mets are not playing with the best 25 options right now. This was the same problem with Oliver Perez, to the point where Jerry Manuel refused to pitch him for a month.

Maybe Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins are just following orders, but stop trying to sell me on Bay regaining any chance of him being that player he was in Pittsburgh and Boston. He's done and so is this season. 

Doesn't it kill those other players in the clubhouse that not only does this slappy make more than them but he's not even being held accountable for his failing? Why should I care about him platooning when he doesn't even deserve a roster spot? How could you take Collins seriously when he tried to rally the troops by not only starting Bay but hitting him 5th or 6th for as long as he did?


How can you send Lucas Duda or Kirk Nieuwenhuis to AAA while Bay still gets to play in the major leagues? Yeah these guys are professionals but what's that message you're sending to them? One little slump and you're gone, while the guy hitting a buck fifty sticks around just because he makes a fuckload of money?

It's easy for me to tell the Wilpons what they should do with their money (it's also easy for me to tell them to go fuck themselves with a giant fucking elephant cock), as I know simply releasing Bay and eating the remaining $16M on his contract (plus the $3M buyout) isn't an easy thing to do. Especially when Alderson did the same with Perez and Luis Castillo a year ago. It sucks paying a guy $19M just to not be around, I get that. But he offers no value right now. None. Any kind of upside or trade value is gone and he needs to be released immediately.


Start fresh next year and win or lose with your best 25.

Hot Garbage

I don't really like referencing Justin Drew on this site, on Facebook, or on my podcast (found RIGHT HERE!), but I have to give him credit for introducing a new term to my vocabulary: Hot Garbage. I don't remember the context in which he said it, and since it's Justin, it doesn't really matter.

Point is, I was thinking of that term last night when I was at Petco Park watching the Padres host the Mets (with both teams wearing AWESOME 1989 retro jerseys). The old saying goes "You root for the laundry"... well last night I literally was rooting for the laundry, as the '89 jersey was the only reason (outside of Dickey) to crack a smile last night. Not that 1989 was a fun year, with the Mets trading Lenny Dykstra to the Phils the SAME fucking day we headed to Philly to watch them play.  True story.

Dykstra, Wilson, Carter, and Hernandez all left after '89... remind me again why the Mets agreed to play along with the Padres on this one?

Anyway, hot garbage time. R.A. Dickey pitched very well but was the victim of some putrid defense behind him. I'm looking at you, Scott Hairston and Josh Thole.

Hairston is what he is, a glorified bench player in his walk year. But at least he offers something with his bat. Thole brings nothing to the table except a giant pair of pussy lips. I'm not asking for Johnny Bench but at least hold on to the fucking ball when a runner is trying to break up a 1-1 tie. Easy for me to scream at Thole (and I did) while pudgy Carlos Quentin is colliding with him, but it's Thole's job to make the play, especially when Quentin was out by 15 feet.

And if the offense decided to score more than 1 run on 9 fucking hits, that would have been swell. I know it was '80s night but that wasn't Mark Davis on the mound, it was Clayton Fucking Richard. Outside of Hairston, they're getting no production from their outfield and their catcher position is the biggest black hole since Oprah's snatch. If Wright and Davis are cold, this lineup is DEAD.

Dickey deserved better. This was a winnable game against an awful team. No more hot garbage, please.

Game 107: Padres 3, Mets 1
Mets 2012 record: 52-55

GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP

Well Terry Collins predicted the Mets would be sluggish after last night's loss to the Yankees... and his team backed up his words by spraying hot liquid diarrhea all over Wrigley Field tonight (a reversal for the home fans, since they've rooted for dog shit since the 1870s) in a sloppy 6-1 loss.

Sloppy isn't even the right word. Ugly, lazy, disrespectful, pretty much everything Mrs. Bender said to Mr. Bender, according to their son John. Go to the two minute mark here.

Not one but TWO three-base errors in the same inning. One is rare but two? Unheard of and there's no excuse for it, especially not the one of having to play Sunday Night Baseball.

TC - I like you, I think you're a good guy even if you don't bring in Byrdak to face Cano and leave Miguel Fucking Batista in for multiple innings, but I can't defend what you said. It's YOUR job to prepare your team for every game. When you predict a sluggish game and it happens, that's on you, little man.

Plenty of teams play Sunday Night Baseball and don't shit the bed the next night.

Three errors and the offense makes Travis Wood look like Wilbur Wood. In a fucking Johan start. Against the Cubs, a team that will probably lose 100 games this year.

This had "gimme" written all over it but I never thought it would have been for the Cubbies. Fucking garbage.

But nooooooooooooooooooooooo

I've been trying to come up with the right words for what happened last night with Johan Santana and the Mets.

I wrote earlier in the week how I've been spoiled with other sports. You can call me a dick, but I know how to react to my team winning the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, and at one time, the World Series. But I have no idea how to react to a no-hitter by the Mets. Over 8,000 games and a pitching lineage of Seaver, Koosman, Gooden, Cone, Pedro, and it never happened.  It's fitting that someone of Santana's caliber finally got it done. Miguel Batista getting the franchise's first no-hitter just seems wrong but almost expected, given the craziness that has surrounded this team since 1962.

But it happened last night and I still can't believe it. No matter what happens the rest of the season (and who knows what to expect from Johan after a career-high 134 pitches), nothing or no one can take away the experience of finally seeing something I thought would never happen.