It was the summer of 2000 when I first started feeling the symptoms.  I would go to the bathroom in the morning and, seemingly, as soon as I finished the urge would start up again...two, three, even four times.  Then, driving to work, it could start all over again.  I began to have to learn exactly where the accessible bathrooms were on my daily trips.

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(In honor of of our new manager -- sung to the tune of the Theme from F Troop)

The end of Minaya's reign had come
Now here were the nerds - all three
Sandy, Paul DePo and JPR
To turn those Mets defeats into victory

Terry Collins was the man picked to lead
The proud little Wilpon group
To his previous stops they paid no heed
And so it was planned he'd command...Jeff Troop

Where Bernazard fights are colorful sights
And every injury's tricky
Where the favorite son's
Still R.A. Dickey

When taking his orders from the top
He knows their grission can't droop,
As long as they get some guys with pop
To drive in some more runs for his team...Jeff Troop

To the tune of "Oliver's Army"

Don't start me talking
Signed up for thirty-six and three
All this to see him walking
The winning run that reached by HBP
He pitches high, he pitches low
Why can't he just pitch in Buffalo

Oliver Perez is he just crazy
Oliver Perez is he just lazy
And I would rather pitch anyone else
Than him today

Rick Peterson
Said he could fix him right away
But there was just one problem
Omar Minaya wouldn't let him stay
Now all we can do today is face
The fact Ollie's one big head case

Oliver Perez is he just crazy
Oliver Perez is he just lazy
And I would rather pitch anyone else
Than him today

S.D. said no can do
Pittsburgh traded his ass too
We all thought he was done here - phew!
But then Omar said he would just make do
To have Ollie re-up with the Orange and the Blue

He is no danger
To NL batters far and near
Nothing can be arranged
Without a word in Scott Boras' ear
We're all out of luck
He's not out of work
Get out of town
You're just a jerk

Oliver Perez is he just crazy
Oliver Perez is he just lazy
And I would rather pitch anyone else
Than him today

In honor of the version created by MookieTheCat Thursday night:

Jamesey he works at a blog for the poor.
Saving his good sense for someday.
After Omar and Jerry could not take to no more.
Might as well blog cricket or rugby…

And he’s trading in the Metsies for what they lack ack ack ack…

I figured I had a second verse in me:

James K. is a having a big conniption

Down in his mother's basement

"Cause the Mets are rating players based on their grission

Instead of on Wins 'Gainst Replacement

And Frenchy just took another hack hack hack hack hack hack

You oughta know by now

Three hours of your life you're not getting back

Is that what you get for your blogging

Let me get this part out of the way first:  if Howard Johnson gets fired now or after the season, it won't bother me one bit.  But if he gets fired now, exactly what does this accomplish?  Who is going to take over the position and magically turn around the bats for the next two months?  Chip Hale? Razor Shines? Ken Oberkfell? Tim Teufel? Wally Backman? (Well, maybe they could be platoon coaches.)  I don't think even Charlie Lau in his heyday would have proclaimed, "I can fix Jason Bay in 15 minutes."  I just don't see hitters reacting to a new hitting coach in mid season the way a team might react to a managerial change. (Maybe during the All Star break like the last time we fired a hitting coach, but not at the end of July.)  Absent other forces, hitters tend to go back to their old habits.  Anyone remember this April and the French god of walks?  Yeah, that one lasted...almost into May.  When the season's over, we can get a new hitting coach.  (A new manager wouldn't hurt either.)  Right now, all you're doing is rearranging deck chairs.

Oh yeah, I might as well say this too:  this probably should be a FanShot.  So there.

Bumped from FanPosts. --Eric

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Last week’s post by DanDotLewis asked the members of AA about, among other things, their most memorable Mets moment.  Mine was a little unusual because not only was I not at the game, I didn’t even see it, unless you count, as Terry Cashman or Charles Osgood would say, seeing it on the radio.

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When the Penguins went up 3-0, Sports Illustrated decided to do a story about them.  If I recall correctly, the article was entitled "Who Says Penguins Can't Fly?"  (No, it was not a cover story.)  Deadlines being what they were at the time, by the time the issue had arrived the Islanders had tied the series and would win Game 7 a couple of nights later.  Being a smartass 15 year old,  I sent off a letter to SI:  "'Who Said Penguins Can't Fly?'  The New York Islanders did, and they proved it."  To my utter shock, SI printed the letter.  It would be great to say that was the beginning of a great writing career, but little things like talent tended to get in the way.  Still, it seemed pretty heady stuff at the time.

Needless to say, there will be no letter this year for Flyers - Bruins.

1) Hit a home run off the top of the team bus

2) Hit a home run out of Wrigley Field into someone's house across the street

3) Do very little else positive at the plate besides an occasional tape measure job

4) Send a rat to a female sportswriter in the press box

5) Be a jerk on general principles

6) Bounce around from team to team as a result of item # 5 (as opposed to just sucking on the field)

7) Get traded from the Mets

8) Find your way back to the Mets like a bad penny

9) Continue to suck on the field

10) Get benched and released by the Mets (we can only hope)

Last month I turned 50 years old.  (December 14 to be precise – exactly 10 years after Bill Buckner and exactly 10 years before Craig Biggio.)    I suspect that unless somebody wants to own up to it, I am probably the oldest person commenting on AA.  (Myrick4gm would have to be about 40 by my calculations; so far, no one else has admitted to be in sniffing distance.) 

Sorry if you’re expecting a whiny middle aged guy, but that’s not me – at least the whiny part.  From my point of view, I was born and raised at the right time.  (the one exception:  my older sister and brother once went to see a game at Ebbetts Field when they were young; by the time I came around, the Dodgers had already been in LA for two years.) 

I have had the privilege to watch and remember the Mets for almost all of their existence except for the Stengel era through 1968, although I suspect I saw some games that were not in my conscious memory.  I have seen players from Seaver to Santana, prospects and suspects, world champions and cellar dwellers.  I heard the calls form Nelson, Murphy, Kiner, McCarver, Cohen and Rose.  (Actually, I was at Columbia for a year and a half in the 70s and heard Gary Cohen call Columbia basketball games on WKCR.) 

I joined AA last summer through the Yahoo! link and have stayed with it.  Admittedly, I don’t comment as much as a lot of you, mainly because I actually do have a life, in the form of a wife and twins.  The sabermetrics I got in general; I had read the Bill James Abstracts in the 80s.  Of course, that was crude compared to current methods, and I am the first to admit I have catching up to do.  For example, he was still using Runs Created (when did that go out of style?), and a revolutionary pitching stat was simply calculating how much run support each starter got.  But I also enjoyed the commentary on AA, whether from posts, articles or just the game threads.  Congrats all around.

I guess the there are two main points to this post, both of which are centered around perspective.  First, while I hope to post more in the future (as time allows), don’t expect me to be saying anything about WAR, UZR, OPS+ or any of that.  I suspect anything I write will be about my memories of times past which will hopefully help in understanding the present.  Second, I’d like to offer the concept of perspective in general to you, my fellow Mets fans.  There are lots of things worse than being a Mets fans; you could be a Cubs fan.  We are not jinxed; in fact, I have seen miracles first hand.  (I still remember the neighborhood bar I passed on my school bus route in 1973; the marquee simply read “God is a Mets fan.”)  While I can’t guarantee success, there is no reason to believe you will not see another World Championship in Flushing.  Until then, keep the faith, and still enjoy it even when things aren’t going well.  It’s never as bas as you think it is.  Oh, and one last thing:  YOU KIDS GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN!!!