Let's Get It Up

I'm glad that the regularly televised baseball I ordered up for your birthday finally arrived (just in case my reminiscences about myself weren't enough for you). For you and all the FSNY/MSG-deprived out there, ya got your money's worth Monday night. Those of us in safe-til-'06 Cablevision territory got antsy and kept changing channels, missing many of the best bits and pieces. It was a schlep, but we made it through the rain with a win. We'll pry our eyelids open for one of those anytime.

The odyssey of Jeromy Burnitz has been an unfortunate one. He never should've been traded following 1994. That was all Dallas Green who could come down with the strangest case of assburrs over the most random players. Burnitz wasn't random when he was young. He was a No. 1 draft pick with power and an arm who didn't deserve to be given up on. All those years that we screwed around without a regular rightfielder (which has been basically ever since Burnitz was traded following 1994) might have been prevented.

Might have. Like Kent, the trade of Jeromy didn't look all that insane immediately after the fact given that his production wasn't all that with Cleveland. Plus we did get three interesting pitchers in Byrd, DiPoto and Mlicki. Interesting became depressing after a fashion and Burnitz became a genuine slugger.

I was hot for him to come back in 2002 and we remember how that worked out. Despite his decent stretch of play in '03, enough to pump up his exchange rate (Hello Victor!), his return to Shea was a sad one. Watching him in Wrigley, I decided Jeromy Burnitz's best years in blue and orange were the ones I imagined. And now I feel nothing for him except resentment over his nice catch.

Cub.

It's good to be three above .500 for the second time this season. It will be better to be four above .500, then five, then at a level where .500 is a given. Once we get to four above, just like that we'll be at our highest watermark since 2002. If/when we get to eight above, we will be in our best place since 2000; in '02, we peaked at 18-11. That's pretty damning of the last four seasons. Even as Art Howe's Mets battled for first last July, they never rose above 43-40. In 2001, amid that crazy, inspiring and ultimately doomed August-September rush, 79-74 was the best that could be achieved.

So let's get it up, right to the top. Let's get it way above .500 anyway. One game at a time of course.

Nah, let's play a dozen or so at a time. When will I learn that an all-sports radio station isn't generally a good thing? Today's afternoon show on the Mets' flagship featured a contrived controversy from Nimrod and Know-Nothing over whether Willie would be holding out Pedro from the Yankee series, more than a week away, because he feared an old-fashioned pinstripe smackdown would ruin everything he's accomplished thus far. It was insisted that Pedro was brought in for moments like these.

Ed Coleman, who unfortunately is too even-tempered to tell the hosts to shut the fuck up for once in your lives you overrated, self-important morons, countered that while nothing was official yet, it seemed unlikely that Randolph would want his ace to miss the Braves' and Marlins' series that follow. Those are, Eddie needed to explain as if to a small child, divisional matchups that, pound for pound, are really more important than the Yankee games.

Of course none of that made sense to Blowhard and the Blitherer who are only interested in the Mets when it suits their needs to trash them. Guaranteed that if the Mets were actively setting up their rotation to expressly get Martinez into the Yankee series, the spin from Dickhead and the Douchebag would be: C'MON! GROW UP! YOU CAN'T COMPETE WITH THE YANKEES ANYWAY! STOP BEING OBSESSED WITH THEM! YOU CAN'T USE UP PEDRO IN A GLORIFIED EXHIBITION GAME WHEN YOU'VE GOT CRUCIAL DIVISION SHOWDOWNS COMING UP!

It's too bad that in fact Willie has since decided to give Pedro a bit of extra rest and that he will indeed start the Friday night game at Shea against the crosstown rivals. It's not bad that Martinez will face them. It's bad that Schmuck and Shit For Brains will take credit for it.