Oh, Rickey

The Mets announced today that they are inviting Rickey Frickin Henderson to Spring Training this year. No, not as a potential outfielder, and no, not to fill out the clubhouse poker tournament either. They want him to teach Jose Reyes how to steal more bases.

Rickey Henderson was fun to have on the club during the 1999 season, even though he was absolutely painful to watch play left field. This guy could not go back on a ball to save his life. A ball that was hit too deep right was automatically extra bases. Meanwhile, Melvin Mora was flat out amazing in center. ((TANGENT ALERT)) If only Rey Ordonez didn't fall apart, causing the Mets to play Mora at short, where he was mediocre at best, maybe we would have had more years of seeing More of Mora play the outfield and develop as a hitter.

This is why I hate Rey Frickin Ordonez. I blame him for everything that went wrong in 2001. Like I said, Melvin Mora was an absolute joy to watch in the outfield. But when Rey Ordonez got hurt in 2000, Melvin was asked to play shortsop and suddenly was viewed as a "utility guy." (This is how I remember it anyway). He was no Ozzie Smith at short, so Steve Phillips shipped him off to Baltimore for Mike Bordick, who turned out to be a pretty big disappointment himself. Last I checked, Melvin Mora was a rather good player.

Meanwhile, Rey Ordonez also is partially to blame for the Mets failure to sign Alex Rodriguez in the 2000/2001 offseason. With Rey Ordonez incapacitated, but with the Mets still on the hook to pay him big bucks for three more seasons, he had absolutely no trade value so The Mets couldn't trade him to free up dollars for the A-Rod tent.

Then, after stinking up Shea for another two seasons, O-Rod called Mets fans stupid. Great guy. Really hope his comeback attempt is successful.

Anyway, back to Rickey Henderson. He hasn't played in the majors in like two years but he still isn't technically retired. He likes to compare himself to active ballplayers and scoff, "if that guy can get a job, why should I be out of baseball?"

Well, I am outta here myself. I'm going on vacation, and will be gone all next week. In the meantime, Pitchers and Catchers report, so hopefully there will be more things to rant about when I get back. Meanwhile, I'll be teaching Costa Rican kids how to hit a curveball. Actually, I don't know how to hit a curveball, so maybe I'll just teach them how to blog.

Awards Show Season

I meant to watch The Grammys last night, but completely forgot about them. Instead, I watched a cool episode of Lost. I'm surprised that Lost was a new episode last night, going up against The Grammys, and I'm curious to find out how the ratings of each show were affected... In any case, I have no comments on The Grammys because I didn't buy much of the music that was nominated, but if you need to get some awards commentary from me I'll do my best:

Over at Faith and Fear in Flushing, Greg takes the time to list his assessment of The 100 Greatest Mets Of The First Forty Years. This is actually a list that was complied last March, but it's interesting to review again a year later. Still glad to see Mookie Wilson at #11, Mookie being the guy I named my dog after.

But what I am most happy about is that with the 2005 contributions of Pedro Martinez and David Wright, it's safe to assume that the next time a list like this is compiled, #98 Lenny Harris will have been permanently bumped off the list.

Here's a guy who was only kept around because he was buddies with Mr. Piazza. The fact that he broke the record for most pinch hit at bats in a season, as well as the most pinch hits in a career, only serves to remind me that he was too horrible to start games very often.

He might have a great personality, but I'd much rather see him as a character on some outrageous sitcom than on any kind of Mets list.

Mets' Super Bowl Picks

http://click.mlb.com/ct/click?q=f9-mtBTQxOZE_FTHDISMQP4dG4R

Willie Randolph and Cliff Floyd are picking Pittsburgh, while David Wright and Tom Glavine pick Seattle. Billy Wagner says even though he is a Steelers fan he really likes Seattle so he is rooting for a tie.

When the Braves played the Yankees in the World Series I was rooting for an earthquake.

Mets on DirecTV

Although I haven't been able to locate the original article online, Kranepool posted that the NYPost's Phil Mushnick is reporting that the Mets' new TV network, SNY, has reached an agreement with DirecTV.

No, this would seem to be extremely good news for me, seeing as I have DirecTV and I am a big Mets fan. Especially when in years past MSG, FSNY and YES network were all part of DirecTV's sports package, allowing viewers to get all of those channels and more, for just $12 a month. It would stand to reason that SNY will now be a part of that sports pack right?

When we moved down to NC in November 2004, we moved into an apartment. Mind you, this apartment was beyond my wildest imagination for what an apartment could be. A two-bedroom ground floor spread with everything you could want - tennis courts, fitness center, a pool, for just $700 a month. It was great, considering the 500 square foot sh*thole we lived in on Long Island with a higher rent.

Anyway, the first thing I did when we moved was call DirecTV to come and install a dish.The only problem was that we weren't allowed to bore holes into the property, so I had to settle for Time Warner Cable until we were ready to buy a house. Now, I thought Cablevision was about the worst company in the world until I started dealing with TWC. These guys are even worse, believe it or not! So I suffered with Time Warner until May, when we bought our house and I was finally able to get at DirecTV and, I expected, my Mets.

The guy comes and installs the dish, and lo and behold, Mike and The MadDog show up on my screen on the YES network. I tune over to FSNY and talentless twit Fran Healey is asking dumb questions to Willie Randolph. Sweet!

My joy quickly came to a halt that night however, when I tuned in to watch a game and there was nothing but black on the screen. I called up the folks over at DirecTV and after talking with a bunch of schmucks for two hours was able to surmise that for my $12 I got all the programming that YES and MSG had to offer, EXCEPT FOR GAMES! No, to get the games I had to subscribe to the ExtraInnings package for 40 clams a month, which shows about 50 games a week, without guarantee that the Mets would be on any given night. I balked.

Instead, I subscribed to MLB.com's radio package, which for $15 A YEAR I got to listen to the home or away radio broadcast of every game of every team in the country. A couple times (mostly when Pedro was pitching) I even plunked down a couple bucks for MLBTV.com and saw the game on the old laptop.

This season I'm going to give in and buy tea ExtraInnings package. I heard about a scam where I could tell DirecTV I moved back to New York, and they would start sending me the New York channels, but I haven't found anyone who has actually done this, and I also read something about "spot beams" or something, where the channels are only directed at certain regions of the country... I don't know what to believe, really, but I give up. Those bastards are getting my dough this year.

Enjoy the football game today everyone. I'm rooting for Amstel Light, and for Keith Richards NOT to have a wardrobe malfunction.

Pitchers and Catchers report in less than two weeks.