The Yankees strike out looking on Dan Haren, the Mets simply strike out. And look for someway to blame it on New York — and this nebulous, ominous specter of how everything gets “exaggerated” in Gotham. This is your current state of New York baseball.
Fred Wilpon,who isn’t exactly working himself toward later-life George Steinbrenner love status, doesn’t have the resolve to tell Omar Minaya that losing nine of 11 games would get noticed in any city in Major League Baseball. Even Pittsburgh.
Still, Minaya gets away with making it seem like he’s working in a coal mine in every national story concerning the Mets. The GM brings up the pressure cooker of this area’s media market so often that there should be a standing New York press boogeyman graphic included with any story that bears a Flushing dateline.
In reality, Minaya’s the one who’s left hitting coach Howard Johnson (of all people), twisting in the wind, handing out two-faced votes of confidence faster than any politician. And it’s Minaya who should have brought back Bobby Valentine long before he started campaigning for the Chicago Cubs’ job. Of course, it’s Wilpon who should have made certain that Minaya was never in a position to screw up these type of decisions again.
The New York of the Mets isn’t unforgiving. It’s downright utopian with the Wilpons resolutely determined to save President Obama from two more on the nation’s unemployment roll. Minaya and Jerry Manuel would have been lucky to get this many chances in Milwaukee. Yet, they play the part of beleaguered men. If only the media wouldn’t exaggerate all their losses. Hey, they’re only a 10-game winning streak from first!
Too bad Mets fans can’t sue the organization for stealing away their summers the way the Titans are going after Lane Kiffin for apparently “kidnapping” that wayward assistant coach.
The Yankees, meanwhile, couldn’t be more content. Brian Cashman didn’t land Cliff Lee or Haren and almost everyone rightly agrees that’s OK. The idea of Joba Chamberlain being untouchable is laughable, but he still carries more potential than Joe Saunders.
Minaya is out there wondering why Cashman didn’t blame the failed deal on New York. What amateurs they have in the Bronx.
– Chris Baldwin covers the sports media for Metro.
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