While fans throughout New York City and Northern New Jersey celebrate the 27th World Championship of the New York Yankees, there is a strong and awful odor coming from somewhere nearby.
People stop in the streets, sniff the air, put that "this-is-gross"-look on their faces, try to hide their noses underneath their shirts, and move as quickly as possible to a car or building, anything that will protect them from the smell of rotten eggs in burning garbage.
The smell wafts across the streets of Manhattan, terrorizing the people like a Godzilla stomping the citizens of Tokyo.
The smell stretches across New Jersey, causing people to run through the streets crashing onto the hoods of cars pleading for help, and jumping through windows like people trying to avoid a gas attack.
From whence is that smell emanating? New Jersey? No! Newark? No! The Governor's office in New York? No! The Giants? No! The Jets? No! A foreign power bent on world domination? No ... not yet.
That smell is coming from Flushing Meadows, Queens, in particular, from a broken down, leaking, creaking, and rusting building that is only a year old. That smell is ... the New York Metropolitans.
Yes, as the dust settles on the euphoria of another Yankee title, and as it becomes disturbingly clear that neither the Giants nor the Jets are going anywhere but home for the holidays, hot stove baseball takes center stage, and, yes, unfortunately that includes the Bernie Madoffs.
For the past three years, the Mets have wowed us with the brilliance of their own ineptitude. First, it was the Choke Job in September 2007. Seven up with 17 to play resonates with Met fans to this day.
Then, it was Choke Job II in September 2008 that was preceded by the firing of the only smart guy in the building, manager Willie Randolph, during a slump in June of 2008.
Once the calendar turned to December 2008, the comedy of errors continued; this time in the front office. First, it was the Bernie Madoff scandal, as it was revealed at the time, that the club lost nearly $400 million in the ponzi scheme followed by the near collapse of CitiBank, the corporation that has its name on the Mets new home.
The Mets denied that the financial losses would hurt them in acquiring players, but they spent the entire offseason playing scared.
They refused to sign Orlando Hudson, refused to trade for Jason Marquis, refused to take a chance at Randy Wolf, refused to throw a few extra dollars at Derek Lowe, and never thought twice about Manny Ramirez.
2009 turned out to be the cruelest of years.
Injuries galore took over, taking out almost every single player in the Mets lineup, including Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana.
David Wright suffered a concussion and started walking around with a helmet big enough to fit five people underneath it, and things got so bad on the field that Jerry Manuel started channeling Art Howe: "We battled." Nice!
The Mets tried to fool their fan base into believing that Mike Pelfrey, John Maine, Oliver Perez, Nelson Figueroa, and Tim Redding were solid starting options in the rotation. And they watched the likes of Daniel Murphy, Angel Pagan, Jeff Francoeur, Omir Santos, and Luis ("I got it, I got it, I don't got it") Castillo lead the way to embarrassment in 2009.
Add to the fact the humiliating episode in which Omar Minaya's deputy, Tony Bernazard ripped his shirt off in the Mets double-A affiliate and challenged the players to a fist fight, and the even more humiliating moment when Minaya accused New York Daily News reporter Adam Ruben of lobbying for a job in the Mets organization.
Larry David, Ben Stiller, and Adam Sandler couldn't write a zanier and funnier script than the one the Mets created throughout 2009.
Will the 2009 offseason be any different? Will 2010 bear better fruits? It's up to the Mets. In the meantime, let's put those red noses and clown shoes aside, and look at a list of demands that the Mets must meet if they want to start building a solid MLB franchise.
1) Pitching, Pitching, and More Pitching
Mets cannot go into 2010 with a rotation of Maine, Perez, Pelfrey, and Redding to follow the brilliant Johan Santana ever again. Some say that the Mets need just one starting pitcher, but the fact remains, they have to add at least two starting pitchers this off-season.
John Lackey
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