Tag: Mike Lupica

Mets 2010 Locker Room Harmony Overrated

Dave Doyle writes that the Mets harmonious locker room is completely overrated. Don’t credit Jeff Francoeur. Winning games makes everyone happy and working well together.

Whenever the Mets go on a really good run or a really bad one the media comes out in force. The latest bandwagon jumper is Mike Lupica. He’s all over the Mets this week because they’re winning and doing it in style.

The focus of his latest column is how Jeff Francoeur saved the Mets locker room. Francoeur didn’t save anything. Winning a few games saved the Mets locker room.

It really doesn’t matter if everyone likes each other or not. It’s a job to these guys. Most people don’t go to work together and get along with everyone at their job. But most can work productively with others. It’s the same thing on a baseball team. It’s their jobs. They don’t have to get along with everybody and to expect them to do so is ridiculous.

Let’s save the talk about the harmonious locker room until the Mets raise the World Series trophy over their heads. That’s when we can talk about the love-fest in the clubhouse.

Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js

Mets Links: Carlos Beltran and Bobby Bonilla

Bobby Bonilla 1990 Home
Image by BaseballBacks via Flickr

That’s a strange title for a post. Isn’t it? We haven’t heard Bobby Bonilla’s name for a long time and we’ve probably been the better for it. It’s a great way to start a Mets Links post though.

Here are the links:

I Heart Mets – They pick up a great story from CNN of how Bobby Bonilla is going back on the Mets payroll next year. It’s part of his deferred payment plan after he was waived by the Mets in 2000. The team owes him just over a million dollars every July from 2011-2035. What a deal!

Daily News – You have to love these occasional post from Mike Lupica about the Mets. He even writes with an air of superiority to the rest of us. This one start out like a fluff piece on Jose Reyes coming back and how well he’s starting to play. Then it turns ugly on Carlos Beltran. Lupica writes that Beltran is a bad contract and he’s staying away from the team so he can come back at 100% for his contract year in 2011. He also likens Beltran to Jason Giambi’s bad deal with the Yankees. It’s a bizarre turn in the column, even for Lupica.

Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js

Mets Links: Spring Training, David Wright, Mike Jacobs

I haven’t done a “Mets Links” post in a while so I decided to bring that back this weekend. There’s plenty going on in Port St. Lucie this week with only two weeks left before the regular season starts. I’ve got some good links for you so read up below.

  • Remembering Shea – Live posts from PSL including images on #1 celebrity Mets fan Jerry Seinfeld
  • Daily News – Somehow Mike Lupica got on a kick of writing about the Mets this week. His first column is about how the Mets should stick with Jerry Manuel for the long haul. I have no idea where he came up with this one.
  • Mets Today – Mike Jacobs is starting to work out at catcher again. It’s a great move for him to try to stick as the 25th man on the roster as the emergency catcher.
  • Daily News – Lupica’s second Mets column of the week is a fluff piece on David Wright. Just what we needed. Another column about how Wright is the face of the franchise.
  • Crave – A Japanese university created a batting tee that rests the ball on bed of air instead of the tee. Check out the picture, it looks pretty good.
Enhanced by Zemantahttp://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js

Mets Links: Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo, Jerry Manuel, More

New York Mets Jerry Manuel walks with his head down to the dugout against the St. Louis Cardinals at Citi Field in New York

I’m trying to be positive on the day that Mets single game tickets go on sale. It’s tough to do that after the team drove straight into a brick wall in 2009, but this is a new season. I’m ready for the Mets to start winning some games next month when the real games start. And I’m hoping that they can get some payback on some teams, especially in the division, that beat them down pretty badly last year.

The links below are pretty negative about the team, in general. I think that’s partially due to the news about the team but it’s also because it’s so much easier to write a negative story than a positive one. Negative stories seem to attract more attention than stories about how everything in great in Mets nation, if there is such a thing. I don’t think the Mets situation is ideal right now but I’m not completely down on them either.

How can you be completely down on the team with the highest payroll in the National League? The highest payroll certainly doesn’t guarantee wins as we saw last year. But it sure gives the Mets a chance to be in it to the end. This isn’t a Pirates situation going on here. There’s no rebuilding or looking forward to two or three years down the road. The Mets roster has a legitimate shot to be in the race late in the 2010 season.

Continue reading “Mets Links: Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo, Jerry Manuel, More”

Lupica On Mets Racial Divide

Last night the Daily News website published a new column from Mike Lupica on the Mets so-called racial divide. If you listen to WFAN or other sports talk radio shows, this column doesn’t contain any new information that you haven’t already heard. Omar Minaya gave Lupica some quotes denying that there’s a rift in the clubhouse. No surprise there.

Personally, I don’t believe that there is this rift that we’ve heard about. Paul LoDuca was one of the people that publicly raised the issue last season. Nobody ever accused him of being particularly perceptive or bright though. I wouldn’t use LoDuca as my barometer for anything. He exercised very poor judgment on several occasions while with the Mets and there was evidence on Facebook to prove it.

Billy Wagner’s comments about Carlos Delgado disappearing from the clubhouse after a Mets loss were also tied to the so-called rift. But I don’t understand that. It was one person talking about another person. That’s all.