The Open? Hughes or the Mets?

Before remembering the Mets had a day game I was fully prepared to hear that the Yankees pitching woes were lessened by half. Granted, Hughes went out there and gave the NYY a performance they needed and NYY fans should be enthused with their prospects going forward. However, I anticipate Mike blowing this out of proportion, putting Joba back in the pen and putting to rest talk of NYY pitching issues.

After the Mets lost in the manner they did I am not sure where he'll start. This game had all the factors that Mike loves: bad bullpen work, no timely hitting, "core" failure in the "clutch" and lack of run support for one of his boyfriends.

So, which way will he go? The new golden boy or the standard whipping boy?

My prediction: Mets doomed season with this "core"

FRANCESER ON THE FAN

It's a busy Monday for Mike'd Up Francesa on the Fan. Not living in the NY Metropolitan area, I don't have the luxury of watching Mike's dress rehearsal on Sunday night on NBC. Is it still on? But since we all like to predict things, let's setup Mike's show today.

Chances that Mike...
*Opens the show with a call to end restrictor-plate racing. "Roe was very upset after watching Carl Edwards' car hurtle into the fence at Talladega." - 0%
*Flip-flops again and says that he now likes the Bulls to beat the Celtics - 20%
*Calls Andy Pettitte 'Andy' - 77%
*Brushes off the Red Sox sweep of the Yankees by talking about how the Red Sox are historically good in April - 100%
*Downplays Ellsbury's steal of home with 'Everyone's making this out to be Jackie Robinson. Enough already.' - 60%
*Calls Mr. T brilliant for getting Mark Sanchez, then talks about how Sanchez will have a hard time filling the shoes of Joe Namath - 20%
*Doesn't mention Mike Tannenbaum by name, just calls him Mr. T as if the rest of the listening public should know the nickname - 95%
*Criticizes the Mets for only winning two of three from the Nats - 100%
*Brings up a topic in the first segment that no one else is thinking about except him(for example, something that Mel Kiper said during two days of draft coverage, the 7th race at Aqueduct, Hedo Turkoglu's 'excessive' celebration for hitting a game-winning shot in a playoff series, etc.) - 30%
*Changing Met scapegoat status from David Wright to Ollie Perez - 86%
*Is lukewarm about the Giants draft - 50%
*In talking about the Giants draft, brings up Ernie Accorsi or George Young but doesn't mention current GM Jerry Reese - 10%
*Ridicules Al Davis - 100%
*Previews tomorrow's Barcelona-Chelsea Champions League game with Tommy Smyth - 1%
*Criticizes all the hype and coverage surrounding the draft and then continues to breakdown each team and how they fulfilled their needs - 40%
*Mentions the New York Rangers' playoff series - 2%

Any other prognostications?

The Sinking Ships that are NY Baseball

I already know callers today and fans of both teams are gonna set it up on tee for Mike. Both teams had bad performances yesterday and fans will complain all day. Clutch, expensive, obstructed views and despair will be all the rage for today. Don't do it, I implore you. The season is young and both teams, probably, will be fine. I mean, I hope the Yankees won't be fine but that's wishful thinking.

Now, I am not a major stat head. I don't wish that baseball games were played on a computer. I do like watching games and I do like going to games, eating hot dogs etc. That said, I wanted to lay out some quick numbers so we know that Mike's rhetoric is wrong. The first 10% of the baseball season is a small sample size and there is a good chance that they don't tell the whole story. So, here we go:

On the Mets being a sub-.500 team:

Mets Runs: 61 Mets Runs Allowed: 60

Outscoring your opponent will typically result in wins. Just saying.

Mets Don't Hit with RISP:

Mets OPS: .767 Mets OPS w/RISP: .792

NYY are "clutch":

NYY OPS: .767 NYY OPS w/RISP: .747

For comparison purposes, here is the LAD:

LAD OPS: .861 LAD OPS w/RISP .792

So, you see, the early numbers mean little, if anything. In fact, it seems as though the Mets are "clutch" and the others are not. Don't let Mike get away with his falsehoods today. The Mets have had some bad luck and haven't played very good defense. Hitting and pitching, while not ideal, have been pretty close to average, hence the 2 under .500 record.

MONDAY

MIKE'D UP FRANCESA ON THE FAN
Mike came out swinging this morning about the new Yankee Stadium. Mike believes that something must be done on this road trip. Maybe they can put some gaffer's tape on the openings in the stadium to slow down the wind. Maybe they can rope of the Jeffrey Maier seating section to move back the wall. In any case, this is all a smoke screen for Mike. He's making a big fuss about this to deflect any criticism of Wang and the Yankee bullpen. He downplayed Wang's ineffectiveness and said the Yankee should 'come up with an injury' so they can DL him. "No one checks these things," he told us in making a case for summoning a strained muscle. Nice, Mike. Let's encourage cheating. Besides Maier and the Swipe, is that really the Yankee way.

MAD DOG UNLEASHED
I expected Dog to come out and spend a lot of time on the offensive propensities of the new Yankee Stadium. Instead, Dog is doing the NBA today. Snore. He said that he was going to 'catch us up' on Citi Field later in the show because that's where he was this Saturday. Aren't you a little late to the party Chris? I know they banned your show from there, but couldn't you have made an earlier trip? The highlight so far was when some guy asked for his analysis of the Rangers/Capitals series. It ceases to amaze me that over the years, even on the Fan, people would call up to ask hockey questions of both Chris and Mike. Are you paying attention people? That's not their bag, baby.

The Pope has Spoken

OK...I am no finance major BUT Mike telling some caller just a few minutes ago that taxpayers didn't help finance the NEW Yankee Stadium is just grossly wrong. This is merely from Wikipedia and it took me < 10 seconds to find. Enjoy...

Financing

Rather than the $800 million value affixed to the stadium (which is for the stadium and not for the parking garages, highway improvements and other items associated with the construction), independent analysts have set the tab for the complete project closer to $1.3 billion. The city's share includes allowing the Yankees to occupy 22 acres (89,000 m²) of Macombs Dam Park and John Mullaly Park (which is already used for stadium parking on game days), and to build parking garages on those parks. City-funded artificial surface will be placed on top of those parking garages to make up for the lost parkland. The city would retain ownership of the land, but would not charge the Yankees rent or property taxes. In addition, the city would foot the bill for acquiring scattered parcels of land near the waterfront, about a half-mile away, and building smaller parks as replacements there. The cost of renovating the existing parkland would be about $25 million; building new parkland will cost $150 million. That cost includes demolition costs for the historic Yankee Stadium, which would be completely torn down. The building's destruction would be paid for entirely by the city and replaced with parkland. The city will also issue tax-exempt bonds for the Yankees' new stadium. The Yankees would repay those bonds with payments in lieu of taxes; the Yankees have not paid taxes.

View from right field upper-deck during the first contest held at Yankee Stadium, April 3, 2009

The Yankees have arranged for the lease on Yankee Stadium to be classified as an "operating lease", even though many accountants think that the Yankees' early involvement in the building of the stadium should have precluded operating lease accounting. This is extremely important to the financing because it means that the Yankees will be able to keep significantly more revenue from the stadium and will not have to share it with the rest of Major League Baseball.

New York state taxpayers will pay $70 million to help the Yankees build parking garages (as authorized by the State Legislature). The parking garage project would cost $320 million. City and State taxpayers will forgo up to $7.5 million annually in lost taxes resulting from the sale of $225 million in tax-exempt bonds authorized on October 9, 2007, by the New York City Industrial Development Agency (administered by the New York City Economic Development Corporation) to finance construction and renovation of the parking garages.^[13][14] However, if the parking revenues are not enough to pay a reported $3.2 million land lease to the City of New York, the entity that will operate the parking garages and collect revenue will be able to defer that payment.^[15] State taxpayers, through money that has accumulated from the MTA's budget since the 1980s, will also pay all of the costs of a train station on the Metro-North commuter railroad.

In addition to the public subsidies and billions of dollars of increased revenue, the Yankees will benefit from a change to Major League Baseball's 2002 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that deducts new-stadium building costs from a team's net local revenue, which in turn reduces a team's revenue-sharing payments. For the Yankees,the largest contributor to the revenue sharing pool with roughly $300 million in overall revenues, this rule means 40 percent of their share of the price tag may be borne by the remaining 29 baseball teams. All told, the Yankees and the taxpayers can each expect to pay about $450 million, and the Yankees will cover the remaining costs from diverting revenue sharing payments that would have been paid to the other baseball teams.

Lonn Trost, the Chief Operating Officer of the Yankees, confirmed in February 2008 that the new stadium would retain its original name, Yankee Stadium.

AS PER JD'S REQUEST

Mike has opened the floor to every disgruntled Met fan who has stepped inside Citi Field. Of course, the number of those people compared to the rest of Met fans is approximately 0.012%. But hey, WFAN is the voice of the fan, so that's what we get.

I will state upfront that I am a Met fan. Not like that's a huge secret that this blog is populated by Met fans. So I heard the first two segments of Mike and wondered if he was being fair. And I think he is. On a Tuesday in April, with no big sporting events, no PED scandals, no more deaths, what else is there to talk about? The opening of this ballpark is a big deal. Obviously, some people are missing the days at Shea. The same Shea stadium which was brought to the ground by criticism and it's out-datedness. Yet apparently, the Mets have built a stadium worse than Shea. That is if you believe the first hour of a sports radio talk show in New York represents the overwhelming majority of opinion of the quality of this new field.

Mike said after hearing a couple of callers vent, "Hey. This isn't coming from me. It's coming from you guys." Deep in his heart of hearts he wish he could rip the Mets a new one. Instead, he'll let everyone else do it. Mike noted how the Mets were going to have to place 'a premium on defense' because the outfield was so good. I have a feeling that one will work itself out and actually become a home-field advantage.

But while this is a worthy topic today, I don't anticipate much stadium talk about after June 1. Then we can settle into baseball talk. And when they rip down Citi Field in 40 years, some of us can call up and complain about how the new park sucks.

Speaking of over/unders, what are the odds that the day after the new Yankee Stadium opens, it's a lovefest? But that is in essence the difference between the two teams, their fans and their culture. I'll leave it to you to fill in the blanks.

Mike Hearts Phil; Mike from Montclair Hearts Himself

I don't know if I ever realized exactly how much Mike loves Phil Mickelson. He was honestly distraught about the water and the missed eagle putt on the back nine. He wants to shake Phil, hug Phil and give him the Robin Williams/Matt Damon treatment from "Good Will Hunting." I think it's touching. Or, maybe it's creepy. Either way, I hope Bronson or Manny don't get too jealous. The opening stuff about Citi field was boring but the 2nd segment about the Masters was riveting. Until, M from M emerged. This guy is unreal. First, he always allows for a pause after he's introduced and before he opens his stupid mouth. It should be fair warning to quick, turn the station but I am a masochist so I stay. Maybe the pause is so he can record the call for his ever-growing audition tape? Then, he never greets the host. Just launches into his nonsense. Who does this guy think he is? Just from listening to him I know he reads Lupica and watches the Sports Reporters while slowly nodding his head as the rest of us wait, impatiently, for Lupica to shut up. He has this pompous, arrogant air about him when he talks about cut shots into the green or the prices of tickets at Brooklyn Cyclones games. I wonder how many times he's had his life threatened at some stupid cocktail party?

Mike, the Mets, Joba, Chicken Little and the Mets

We're going to (maybe) be spared from overreactions from all NY baseball fans today. NYY fans playing the role of Chicken Little and NYM fans playing the role of whatever too happy is, too early in the season. Since Mike is coming on after the NYM, it gives the NYY's a chance to win this afternoon and quiet the brewing storm. Same goes for the NYM fans. If the Mets don't complete the sweep, DMurph may not be HOF caliber and the NYM might be concerned with their shoddy avg with RISP. Either way, plenty to talk about, including Mike maybe re-opening negotiations with Arroyo if he can silence the NYM offense.

Now, onto Joba: I don't know much about this story except some blurbs I've read on the internets. To me, this is much ado about nothing. NY fans care that he "dissed" our driving? That he called Yogi short? This is arrogant and disrespectful? Please. On the way home last night I had to listen to more than one caller to Mike'D Up talk about Joba's "privilege", his lack of respect for the game and how he's another athlete that is too rich, too young. Bullsh*t! I hate when people pull this card. He owes nothing to anyone but himself and his family. He got to where he is on his own steam and merits. I assume he worked hard to get there. His hard work turned into a MLB baseball career. There, his services are valuable and he's paid accordingly. He's paid his market worth.

As far as the DUI goes, well, he's lucky that's all it was. No one was injured and he'll hopefully learn a lesson. My only question: Who the heck drinks Crown Royal?

Joba'd Up

For the first time in a long time, I could not agree more with Mike. He just launched an anti-Joba rant after he played Chamberlain's comments today regarding a certain video that has become the craze of the internet. Joba came off awful in that interview today, referring to himself in the third person "Yogi is Yogi and Joba is Joba." I was curious to see how Mike would respond. And Francesa went off - in a somewhat tame manner - but still went off on number 62 for "not getting it." I thought Mike nailed this and this is the reason I still tune in to Mike'd Up - because even though you have to sit through a ton of ego and arrogance, every now and then you still get a nugget like this. If you watch the YES pregame show tonight, you will likely get some "Joba apologized and it's time to move on" type of analysis. But it was extremely refreshing to hear Mike take the approach he did...your thoughts?

To History or Not To History, That is the Question..

I have had most of the interview with Roy White on mute and I just turned up the volume because it looked like it was coming to a close. The first thing I heard Mike say was "It’s amazing, after all these years, people can’t get enough Mantle stuff." That brings me to my point - one that I admit I might be in a minority about. I for one, have had enough Mantle talk. And this isn't a personal attack on Mickey. It's more an attack on history. Mike and Chris used to do this a lot - bring on an old ballplayer or an author who wrote a book about the good old days. Then they would open the phone lines and callers would chime in all day about their favorite Yankees moment from the '50s, etc. Personally, I am so over these types of segments. I have never been a fan of them. Lt. Weinberg here at the blog used to mock me for this, as he loved the history lessons from Mike and Chris. He liked hearing about the days of yesteryear. I don't. I find it extremely...wait for it...wait for it...boring. It's not that I have a disdain for the past. I just prefer to talk about the here and now. Now I realize that I might be opening a can of worms here and offending the couple of older readers of this blog (not sure if those actually exist)...but the point is that I have had enough Mantle stuff. Where do you stand - do you enjoy these trips down memory lane or are you as uninterested in them as I am?

COLD WATER AND BATTLE LINES

I have to give it to the big guy. He knows how to get me angry. As a UNC fan, I wanted to hear him lavish some praise on potentially the best Tarheel team ever. And also admit that he had not given them enough due because he was busy batting his eye lashes at Jim Calhoun. Cold water right in my face. "Kudos to North Carolina. They were the best team. Nothing else to say." I guess since his bracket was blown up a long time ago, the tournament doesn't mean anything to him.

As a Met fan, I knew there would be overreaction to yesterday's game considering that the revamped bullpen were involved directly. If the bullpen blew it, then Minaya screwed up. If they saved it, Minaya is a genius. Obviously, yesterday's game means nothing more than a win. But for Mike to come out and mock the Met fan about winning over 100 games is more than cold water. He wants to draw the battle lines. Mets fans, calm down. Yankee haters, you're crazy. Either way, he wants an intercine NY blood feud.

Professuhh Francesauhh

Mike Francesa 5:29PM: "They're very different stadiums"

Gman pointed this out to me last week and he couldn't have been more on the money. Mike is going to use this phrase about 1,000 times this year comparing the two new ballparks. The professor told us that one is majestic, while the other is cozy. Mikey hasn't seen enough of each park yet to fully give his verdict. But "they're different stadiums." Mike did note that the Mets "tricked" up their field, by raising the height of the walls and the little angle in right center. The Yanks of course would never do such a thing. Mike hasn't watched a Yanks game on TV, so he can't get too crazy about the problem with the nets at Yankee Stadium. The professor did tell us that the Bombers did build a separate media entrance, while the Mets did not. But according to Mike, the fans don't care about that. Apparently Mike does though because he felt the need to mention it (now he doesn't have to interact with the masses when he enters the park). But listening to Mike try to politically balance describing the two Stadiums, you can't stop but think he considers himself THE final voice on the matter. He will continue to hold court all season long and once he has gathered all the research, he will issue his final verdict. After all, he is professuh Francesauhh.

The Real Enemy

Many of us that comment on this site complain about various radio personalities. Most of us complain about Mike, some about Joe and Evan and Michael Kay has recently generated some buzz. It's a simple matter of taste and we all get a chance to vent about who we don't like and defend or promote who we do like.

I'd like to throw another name to the slaughter: Wayne Hagin

Did the Mets get a discount on him? Was it a dare? What in the world were they thinking with this guy? Say what you will about Sterling and Waldman, they ain't this bad. I mean, Sterling botches a few calls per game and Waldman, well, she is who she is but at least Sterling is entertaining. Especially when they NYY are struggling he's a laugh riot. Wayne Hagin has none of that. Annoying voice, boring etc. He makes Howie Rose seem like the coolest guy on the planet.

Some people watch college hoops games with Vitale muted. I think Hagin is the only radio announcer that makes the masses scurry to Yahoo Gamechannel even on Opening F*cking Day.

Update: CC has a nice line in the 4th. I especially like the 0 K's. Oh baby! Just got inning ending DP. Damn.

NUMBERS GAME

Ratings have always been important to Mike and Chris. So Friday I called into Chris Russo's show. Mike Francesa's show wasn't quite doing it for me. I don't have YES, so a visual tour of Citi Field with my ears fell short. On Mad Dog Unleashed, Doggie decided to mix it up. Over the past week, he had molded Jay Cutler into a 'baby'. Any caller who defended Cutler got 'Do you want a crybaby on your team?' Chris kept on saying that he didn't want Cutler on his team. That was the inspiration for me calling in, because we all know that while Chris loves his baseball Giants and Roger Federer, he doesn't have a football team. And then he called Orlando Pace a 'good not great offensive lineman'. I'm no connoisseur of Left Tackles but I thought Pace to be at least somewhere in between those two adjectives. So I had the crybaby scenario, Orlando Pace's honor and FTLT had suggested that we get a plug in for the blog. Fair enough.

This post is actually not about retelling the story of my call. You can read about that somewhat accurately in the comments of the previous post(speaking of defending honor. Brian did an admirable job for the gman). This is more about how far the mighty have fallen. And that is evident through this call.

I got through on Russo's line within 4 rings. After that, I was on the air in 20 minutes. I don't think that will happen on the Fan. More importantly, is what happened after my Mike and the Mad Blog plug on the air. Granted, I botched the delivery slightly, but it was enough for anyone curious to find this blog.

We use this site called StatCounter which monitors the numbers of people that visit the site. After FTLT got his plug on with Russo on the FAN last summer, the traffic on our site spiked dramatically. We did our biggest numbers ever. How did the numbers fare after my plug on Sirius XM? A collective yawn. Fridays are usually slow and we did better than usual, but there was no spike, no dramatic increase in traffic.

Point of the story, we have heard about various claims of 'we're not in competition' and I think there is some truth to it. Purely on anecdotal(the phone call) and some statistical(Statcounter) evidence, Russo's satellite show is not in the same league as Francesa's. Obviously it's early on for Chris. But he does have the advantage of being national, to Francesa's partially national(YES is on DirecTV and the Fan streaming website). Anyway, the point of the story is that although Francesa is a ticking timebomb and his show sucks, not all is peaches and cream with the Angry Puppy. How do people see it out there? Just like Francesa is a Calhoun apologist, I'm sure the Russo faction will come to Chrissy's defense.

Mike'd Off?

Hard to imagine that the big man would give up one of his "#1 rated shows" but this from Neil Best:

TV version of 'Mike'd Up' might be entering final months

Len Berman's departure might not be the end of the changes in the Channel 4 sports landscape.

A TV industry source familiar with the station said Mike Francesa is considering giving up his Sunday night "Mike'd Up" show effective this summer.

The problem is not ratings or money but rather - at least in part - the day-long grind of football Sundays for Francesa, who has a syndicated Sunday morning radio show during the season. He has been doing double duty since the TV show debuted in 2003.

What are the odds of the Sunday night program surviving into the 2009 NFL season? Perhaps 50-50.

The Core Of It

Here we go again. We haven’t even reached opening day and Mike is already getting to his core issues. A caller just told Francesa he thinks the Mets will win the NL East and Mike’s response was:

“Did they tinker with the core? Why is the core going to be different?”

Jesus f’ing christ. Can’t we at least play one game of the season before you start using words like “core, clutch and big spot?” I mean, Mike, please, please, please stop talking about the Mets core until they have actually played one game...Yeah we know you hate Reyes' antics, Wright's clutch hitting and Delgado's Puerto Rican heritage, but talking about the core already? It's going to be a long season....

THE BATTLE OF THE MIKE'S

i am about to do something i have not done in a very long time... POST

i have not listened to the show, watched it on YES, or very often thought about it outside of the times that I read our little blog here. As I read the comments recently i am beginning to get a sense that a little rivalry is actually developing. It's sort of the same way that people might look at a rivalry of the Yankees and the Rays. Everyone would say that there was no rivalry, especially not til August, and then you look up and the Rays are in first place and the Yankees, well they are not.

Could the same happen with Mike Francesa and Michael Kay? It seems from reading the comments that more and more people are tuning to Mr Kay and leaving the Big Fella behind. While Francesa will rant and rave that Michael Kay is not a pimple on his fanny, could that pimple be developing into a full on, can't go out in public, have to deal with cold sore?

I have rarely listened to Michael Kay, but my distaste for the ESPN talent that he has on the air most of the time keeps me away from the show but I equally detest the ego that is Francesa.

Is there a rivalry developing? Is it a sad state of affairs that Chris Russo is not even in this conversation?