Welcome back Craig. All you missed was a brouhaha about the Cy Young on the remnants of your Friday ATH.
A scout can refuse no request on his prospect’s signing day. And may his first child be a masculine child.

Craig, the trip looks like it was good for - congratulations on getting out of the house . . .

. . . and back to blogging, where any apparent attempt to actually discuss things like race, baseball policy, etc., on NBC gets picked up by members of the racist ignoranti (hey - did I just make up a word?). 

Hey, I hate the Mets as much as the next person, but when bad baseball decisions dovetail into racial bigotry and xenophobia, I lose my $#!t. 

Did the Mets, Minaya and the brass decide to lean Latino over the last few years?  Well, looking at the Major League roster, probably.  Not a bad idea when you represent Queens.  Have Latino players been a pretty good addition to MLB in terms of quality of play over the last 50, and especially 10-20 years?  Absolutely. 

It’s not that Minaya and the Mets leaned Latino - whether they consciously did nor not, I don’t know, it’s just that the evidence on the field says that they did.  What they did, however, was pick up some Latino players, in the majors and the minors, who aren’t that good.  So, when that is coupled with the Latino GM/Latino-players-are-more-now-than-10-years-ago thing, you get those numbskulls claiming America and English first.  I don’t see that jackass talking about getting rid of - gasp - Jeff Francoeur!!  Or claiming that Wright’s season has been an atrocious regression. 

The real problem is that Mets fans are morons.  There - that’s my bigotry.  I think all Mets fans don’t know anything, think they can compete with the Yankees in NYC . . . 

Wait, where was I going?

Oh, it just amazes me those readers exist on NBC.  But there is definitely a racial undertone with the Mets situation; it was there when it started, if not openly, and this will definitely end ugly.  I don’t know what my overall point was - I guess it’s just to say watch that space over the next 6 mos. out in Flushing.  It’s only starting to get *really* interesting . . .

Cox just announced that he will return for one more year as manager and then retire to a consulting role.

Posted this on the four-letter this morning:

Which is why they should realign to two divisions, two wild cards. In the AL, play each team in your division 18 times, each team in the other division six times. That leaves you with twelve extra games, which could either be interleague or some kind of unbalanced schedule (first place plays extra games against first place, second v. second, etc). In the NL, play each team in your division 18 times, each team in the other division three, again giving you 150 games. Then, top half of the division plays an extra series against each team in the top half of the other division, bottom v. bottom. Best you can do until baseball expands and evens the leagues out.