Author: Shannon Shark @metspolice

Wow here’s a quote!  Missed this one yesterday.  Darryl Strawberry in the Post discussing the 2010 Mets and their lack of swagger.

“They beat all over them and they laugh at them..”

“It’s like, ‘If I get a hit, OK; if I don’t, I don’t.”

Here’s the lineup as we all head inside to avoid the rain – and don’t forget we’ll be doing the podcast live at 6:30

Sunday, July 25
@ Los Angeles

Jose Reyes – SS
Luis Castillo – 2B
David Wright – 3B
Carlos Beltran – CF
Jason Bay – LF
Ike Davis – 1B
Jeff Francoeur – RF
Josh Thole – C
R.A. Dickey – RHP

A guest post from Larry:

Jerry Manuel and The Peter Principle

From Wikipedia: The Peter Principle is the principle that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book.

Jerry Manuel is a well read individual. The problem is that he has used the Peter Principle as his way of doling out playing time and roles for his players.

Early in the season he helped decide to keep Mike Jacobs and Frank Catalanotto on the squad when they were soundly outplayed by Ike Davis and Chris Carter in spring training. Then he annointed Gary Matthews Jr. as his starting CFer when every piece of evidence held that Matthews was incompetent while Angel Pagan was not.

Recognizing Jose Reyes’ comfort in the leadoff position he formulated the idea of moving him to the 3-hole in the lineup.

Having one of the best LOOGYs in the business (that’s a left handed pitcher who is death on lefthanded hitters) he immediately decided to expand his role so that he could face more of the hitters, the righties, that he is less effective against. Are you seeing the Peter Principle at work?

Let’s do some more. Fernando Nieve showed some modest abilities early on so he gained the promotion to 8th inning guy to be used 4 or 5 times out of every 7 games. Nice.

And here’s where the manager had to work extra hard to gain that elusive incompetence. Once he finally pinned Matthews’ fanny to the bench he started using Pagan in the bottom half of his order. Angel hit. So he moved him to leadoff. Angel hit even more. Then Jose Reyes returned and Pagan slid into the two-hole. Bazinga, Pagan kept hitting.

What was Jerry to do? This guy has been competent everywhere.

But his persistence paid off. Manuel moved Pagan to the 3-spot which was a double whammy. This put Castillo and his wasted bunting right back behind Reyes and finally found a spot in the lineup where Angel was overmatched.

Now there’s a lesson for you.

It’s another steaming day here on the deck at Mets Police HQ – thought I’d see what was happening in the comments section, and it’s a good day to catch up on the inbox [email protected]

MattFitz writes:

As a HUGE Mets fan of the 80′s and a vendor for 10 years I can see the pain of deciding to pay for a day of reminiscing of good times versus feeling that you paid the devil to do it. I painfully think you have to pass. The owner has put up a below par staff (GM and coaches) and an average performing team. Remind yourself they need you you do not need them. 3 years no effort and to their credit this year they wont break our hearts in September, they are doing it in July. Stay home and play catch with your kids.

There are 80 other games to blow off.  If we (you and I) don’t sell this out then Dave Howard gets a free pass on never having Old Timers Day or Banner Day or even hanging a picture of the 1986 champions anywhere because clearly fewer than 45,000 people can be bothered with Mets history.

I’m going to rail about this all week, but I’m just a dopey fat guy on a deck with a reasonably popular blog…need you other bloggers to help move the needle on this (especially YOU, cough) and from there hopefully an actual newspaper and maybe some chatter on the sports talk stations.

45,000 people out of the entire tri-state area.   Show up.

Brian:

Let me be clear: I’m the farthest thing from a Wilpon apologist. However, I respectfully, but very strongly, disagree with any argument that these Mets HOF inductions are meant as a pure money-grab.

Will the ceremony possibly increase attendance? Sure. But, this is a summer Sunday afternoon, involving a team that only visits once a year–already a desirable game. If they just wanted to cynically sell a few thousand extra tickets, why not a September Tuesday? Or a cold April Sunday?

I think these inductions are unquestionably a response to the criticisms of Citi Field from last year (i.e. no celebration of Mets history, etc.). They actually listened to fans and constituted a committee this past winter (including Howie Rose and Gary Cohen) to evaluate who should be inducted:http://mets.lohudblogs.com/2010/01/19/gooden-strawberry-among-mets-hall-of-fame-inductees/ (last paragraph).

The fact is, these inductions are overdue no matter what (and I’m not being a Strawberry or Gooden apologist by saying that, either–both have been far from perfect). Actually, the Mets are overdue for ANY inductions; these are the first since Agee in 2002.

I mean, if they’d done these inductions in 2006, for the 20th anniversary of the championship, or next year for the 25th anniversary, would it make a difference? Of course not. It would still cost plenty to attend, and it would still boost attendance for that 1 game–and the most cynical of Mets fans would still suggest impure motives by the Wilpons. So, why wait any longer?

In the end, we can debate the particular date chosen this year, or ticket/food/parking prices in general, or whatever else. But, I think the last thing this event can be called is a pure money-grab. (If you want a prime example of a money-grabbing, slapped-together event, how about Gary Carter Night in the dark days of 2003, right after his HOF selection?) And even if this event were a money-grab, I don’t think complaints about a happy event should be used as the springboard into every saved-up Mets-related complaint fans have. That’s not fair to anybody.

Continue reading “Debate: lack of sell out for Mets Hall of Fame game”