The Mets Police

Memo to London:

A bus and a chick with big legs and Jimmy Page playing a 35 year old song ain't gonna cut it. You also might want to leave umbrellas out of your tourism design.

I come away feeling like Beijing is a wide open city with Boston-like tree lined avenues. Somehow I doubt it.

The Jets should retire Brett Favre's number right now.   He is a Hall of Famer.  He is one of the best ever to play his position.   He is the best at his position to ever play for the Jets.

Do you think that's a stupid suggestion?  Then go back to the sentence above and replace Brett Favre and Jets with "Mike Piazza" and Mets.     It's still a bad suggestion.  That's my point.

I'm heading out to the Mr. Mets dash with Mets Police Junior and he dressed himself.  He is wearing a black Mets shirt and the blue/black hybrid hat.  I'm choosing to congratulate him rather than berate him over the organization's marketing scheme.    But if you see us at the game roll your eyes and make fun of our hypocrisy.

Newsday wrote a nice piece about Kelvin Torve, best known for wearing #24 after Willie Mays.  As much as I give Wilpon crap about ignoring the Giants, there is no reason the Mets (who are not the Giants nor are they the Dodgers despite evidence to the contrary at N'Ebbetts Field) - there's no reason the Mets should not issue #24.  They give out 17 to anyone and everyone, and that was worn by the captain who had a ring.

Speaking of captains, can we just give the C to #5 already?

Speaking of captains, will Jerry be shaking Gary Carter's hand?   Will the Mets have Gary Carter back?  Oh yeah he was a Dodger in 1991 so they will.  Then again he was a Giant in 1990 so maybe they won't.

Speaking of Giants, the Football type are evil money grubbers for screwing their fans with PSLs.  I have nothing new to add but I don't like dropping the subject.

Speaking of PSL's - the Jets haven't announced theirs yet.  Something tells me the arrival of Brett Favre just made your seats more expensive.

The Little League World Series is evil.  There is no reason to subject 12 year olds to the pressures of playing on ESPN.   What's wrong with being the champion of your town.  Your county.  Even your state.   Why do we have to have an international tournament.    What does it mean when teams will use a 16 year old to win (I've had that happen to me - it wasn't Danny Almonte - but someone used a 16 year old against my 12's.  Why???)    These aren't even real teams, they are regional all-star compilations.   It's just offensive.  Go win the county championship and let your town have a parade.   Enough.  Done.

It's starting to look like my September 21st Yankee tickets will be quite valuable since there won't be any games in October,   Conversely I was looking to sell my September 7th Mets-Phils tickets so I could watch football that day, and they are going for nine bucks on stubhub.   There's no demand what so ever for Mets tickets even thought they've sold more tickets than ever.  I think it's the old "Howie Rose 40,000" again.  For you newbies, Howie often counts high when estimating the amount of people in the stadium.

At last look $336 gets you into the final game at Yankee.  $127 gets you into Shea on the 28th of September, but as well all know there will be games there in October.  I wonder if Seaver can be bothered to come.

Chris Carrino sounded great doing the (evil) Giants game on WFAN the other day.  Of the young sportscasters named Chris around these parts he's the best and I'll leave it at that.  Hopefully he gets some more chances.

I loved the Olympic bike race yesterday.  6 hours?  150 miles?  Those are real men.  Swimming is cool.   NBC's coverage seems to lack the nauseating 'up close and personal' nonsense and it's more events focused.  Nice.  Now someone tell them there are other countries too.  

Mets Police are big Misty May (sigh -Treanor) fans and so is President Bush!
 

Finally, this has nothing to do with sports but don't clone your dog.  There will be four million dogs "put to sleep" this year.  Your dog might look similar, but it's not the same dog.  Go hit a shelter.

The opening ceremonies were absolutely amazing.   Those were some of the most amazing images I've ever seen.   That "boxes" thing being done without computers - humans inside boxes - amazing.  That thing with the globe and people racing around it defying gravity - I can't even begin to imagine how they did that.

Hats off to whoever the choreographer is.

I'm watching the parade of nations now - also very cool.  How much fun to see all the people from differemt lands.

The telecast is very nice as well - watching it reminded me how nauseating Katie Couric was last time around.  Costas as always is being understated and a great listen.

We'll be paying lots of attention to Misty May (sigh -Treanor) around these parts the next 17 days.

Oh yeah, the Mets won.

First a mini-controversy with the American cycling team showing up wearing black face masks (not the bank robbing kind, the "I don't want SARS" kind).

Now this morning a story of a protest banner being unfurled.

Although there is some soccer this morning, the Olympics Proper don't start for two more days.   Should be interesting.   

I bought 7 TVs, plenty of uppers and quit my job so I can watch NBC's coverage all 225 hours a day.

What a hideous blown save that was last night.  It was like the opposite of the playoff game where two runners for tagged out at home.  If the bullpen is going to blow games night after night, well then you're going to finish third.   It's not time for panic however, I was actually angrier about OverReyes wearing his hat sideways walking off the field.

I really hope Yankee's PA announcer Jim Hall is ok.  Because if anyone in their right mind thought it was a good idea to have Ed Randall be the stadium announcer for Old Timer's Day, then the ghosts won't be coming across River Avenue in 2009.    I'm going to choose to believe that Jim had sudden food poisoning and Ed Randall jumped in with 5 seconds notice.

And of course we wish Bob Sheppard well.

The Yankees had an awful lot of nobodies at old-timers day.    It was very cool to see Paulie O get the ovation he did (time to hang the 21 on the wall).  

Why can't the Mets have Old-Timers Day?   Maybe 15 years ago it was kind of lame, but now there's plenty of 86 Mets, heck even some 2000 Mets.    Surely we could welcome back our old friend Lee Mazzilli. 

Mets Old-Timers Day would be a nice occassion to retire #17.  Maybe The Former Franchise could be bothered to come by, if he hasn't planted any new vineyards.  At this point I'd just as soon not invite him.

Willie Randolph looked quite at home at Yankee Stadium as he should.  It's where he belongs.   As I've stated over and over, let the Yankees (and Dodgers) have their own history, and the Mets should acknowledge their own. 

The Olympics are sneaking up kinda quietly.   The Opening Ceremonies are Friday.   It looks like NBC's coverage will be pretty cool.  My cable system has added a few bonus Olympics channels,plus the website looks pretty beefy.    I'll be rooting for Misty May-Treanor if you know what I mean.

I'm really glad Manny is a Dodger because it means he's not a Met.   If he showed up at Shea and asked for #99 I think I'd lose my mind.

How about The Rays with a 3 game lead at the start of August.  Unbelievable.   Baseball's got a shot at the playoff teams being LAD, LAA, NYY, NYM, CHC and CHW with two others.  I hope the TAMs are there - it would be a nice story.

Mets Police is still taking suggestions for "Dopiest Moment In Shea Stadium History."  If you have any suggestions please click comments.

The Times is reporting of folks who became "newly minted citizens" to represent the U.S.A. in the Olympics. Is that really the point? To me that's as bad as the Mets hiring "the guy from the Braves" (Glavine) to beat the Braves. That's not what I want out of the Mets nor out of my own country.

Sad news this morning as longtime ABC announcer Jim McKay passed away at age 86.

Growing up McKay's voice meant 2 things to me - Wide World of Sports (who will ever forget "The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat"), and the Olympics. McKay covered a dozen Olympic games, including the winter games of 2002 when ABC "leant" him to NBC for their coverage (one of the cooler things done on TV in the last decade).

China has issued behavior guidelines for foreign visitors. There are a few reports trickling out on the internet, but only the Wall Street Journal version contains this language:

Inside Olympic venues, too, it is illegal to display "any religious, political, and ethnic slogans, banners, and other items"-- but the guidelines don't give any specific examples of what such items might be.

I'm not saying it's accurate or not, just that The Guardian and a chinese news source didn't mention that, and I haven't seen the release. But that's not that the point....

I'm troubled by: illegal to display "any religious, political, and ethnic slogans, banners, and other items

So I can't bring a "Go USA" sign? Can I wear a cross around my neck? A guy i know wears a small Christian symbol on his jacket - will he be jailed? What about someone from Cleveland bringing a "Go Tribe" pennant?

Here's where I saw it: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121241380981137725.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

And what ever happened to Banner Day at Shea? Do they still have it? Maybe if a rainout forces a double-header they could send off Shea with one last solid Banner Day Doubleheader!