Lost in Translation

What’s up Mets fans, Willie here while currently losing to the Rockies. Yeah, that’s right, I’m so bored with Oliver Perez’s poor outing that I’ve handed over the managing job to Jose Valentin for the rest of the night. I figure I’ll spend the rest game dictating this post to Rick Peterson who will relay it over the bullpen phone to Darren Oliver – who apparently has a laptop and the know-how to crack unsecured wireless networks.

Speaking of Darren…for all of you who were wondering why Darren Oliver couldn’t come in for Oliver Perez in the fourth (after all, Oliver Perez had thrown some 238 pitches), it’s not because he was busy with his laptop and writing down this post. It actually has to with a little known rule that says a relief pitcher cannot come in for a starting pitcher whose first name matches the last name of the relief pitcher. Or so Ron Darling, the Mets official scorer, tells me.

On another note, David Wright is finally making a case to earn my respect. At least a little of it. For example, yesterday morning he drove me to the Denver Denny’s without me asking. And he didn’t get lost. I know, right? That’s what I call stepping up your game.

And finally, let me express my relief that Kaz Matsui did not do anything to hurt us this series. At first I was worried. I mean, after all of his past antics, how could I not be? And on top of that, he steals two bases in the first five innings we see him. The only thing he ever stole under my managing was my half eaten classic tuna sub. Multiple times. I’d always hide it, but he would somehow find it.

Okay, Mets fans, Darren Oliver has come into the game. This means Mota will being doing the rest of the writing, and I accordingly need to have Julio Franco go down to the bullpen to have him translate it to Pedro Feliciano who will dictate it do Guillermo. The things I go through to bring this blog to you. Now that you appreciate me a bit more, I’ll apologize for what looks like my big mouth predicting a sweep ruining things again…

Angel (Nemesis) of Mine

What’s up Mets fans, Willie here again as I’m on my way to the Snowshine State, Colorado. I’m pleased with our recent performance during the home stand, but am again disappointed with the unprofessional behavior of a certain umpire, namely Angel Hernandez.

You may be wondering what on Earth he could have done, but as I’ve said before, you can always expect Angel to try to mess with me. Although his antics didn’t cost us the game today, he still managed to do something to mess up my team by indirectly undermining me. Let me explain.

In the third inning today, David Wright hit a bouncer down the third base line that was, from my spectacular viewpoint of the dugout floor (somebody had dropped a coupon for a free Subway sandwich), clearly foul. It’s at this point, being extremely delighted that I have a free sandwich coming later, decided to rest my eyes for a few minutes. And I actually mean a few minutes, because I woke up exactly seven minutes later. But at this point I’m stunned, because I see the umpires talking with each other. Then David is given first base. I asked my trusty batman, Endy, what was going on and he told me that Angel had just bullied Randy Marsh into changing his call.

At this point you’re probably very confused and don’t see why I’m talking about this. Well, here’s why: Angel apparently reads this blog in an attempt to be super awesomely fantasticcool like me, and he also is aware of my, shall we say, low regard for David Wright. So, in yet another attempt to take me down, he’s decided that he is going to award as many hits to David as possible to make it seem like he’s a good ballplayer and I need to give him more credit. Let me tell you something. David will never get enough credit from me until he learns to properly detail my car, memorizes the way to Denny’s, and quits messing up when relaying signs. So as you see, Angel is trying to undermine me by taking David’s side, and I just won’t have it.

Also, I’ve heard that Kaz Matsui has apparently abandoned his cheesesteak/hotel venture and is making a spectacular comeback with the Rockies. Because of this, I’m going to be in touch with Omar very soon demanding that he does whatever it takes to make Kaz our everyday third baseman. The price will be high, but well worth it.

Finally, I wanted to end with something that many of you may have forgotten already. I’m talking about a play Jose Valentin made at second base on Saturday night. In case you forgot about it or missed it, Jose perfectly executed a play I’ve been working with him on for a long time. Basically, with a runner on first, you field the ball, wind up as hard as you can and start the throwing motion to first, then do a 180 and fire it to second even though you’re only 10 feet away. Jose executed it wonderfully, and I am so proud of him. It’s one of the most beautiful plays in baseball, and I just happened to be the one who invented it. Things like this remind me of what a genius I am.

Geniuses don’t lose at Coors Field. I’m calling it now: a sweep of Rockies.

If You Believe In Magic

What’s up Mets fans, Willie here. I’m a little disappointed our winning streak came to an end tonight. I was honestly expecting it to end last night after Wednesday’s night craziness. Wednesday was, of course, Julio Franco’s birthday and the team did quite a lot of celebrating that night (on top of celebrating our 10th straight home win). Still, we somehow managed to get a W the day after.
As for tonight, I only have one explanation for our loss: the thing some call the magic number. For the average baseball fan who doesn’t understand the magic number, let me explain. The magic number, or numbero magico for our Latin speaking friends out there, has been around ever since the Egyptians discovered numbers (circa 1912) and thus allowed baseball players to start wearing numbers on their uniforms.
Anyway, so basically, the magic number is some number the baseball gods will pick every night. If the number is your uniform number you get to do something special that night. Most players choose to go 3 for 4, or perhaps throw six shutout innings. At this point you’re thinking that Bannister’s number didn’t come up tonight and that’s why he lost the game. Well, the number 40 was chosen, actually, but in what some might call a typical rookie mistake he wasted it. Instead of picking something useful, he instead chose to have the ability to throw a pitch exactly down the middle. Usually I’ll have Paul LoDuca call the down the middle pitch a few times an inning, but my pitchers usually miss the spot and the uncertainty messes up the hitters. But tonight was a different story – I only found out that Brian had this special ability a few innings into the game, and that’s when I stopped calling the down the middle pitch.
Anyway, that’s all for tonight. I’m not sure what is on the radar for tonight. I might go out for a good Friday night on the town, or I may just take it easy and take in a movie. By the way, for all you out there who think I’m getting old because I just said I might watch a movie on Friday night, you should know that watching a movie is code for “plan Angel Hernandez’s demise.” Yup, that’s right, my old enemy is town for this series and I see the need to prepare for retribution just in case he does something. But don’t worry, Mets fans, I’m steering this ship and no iceberg named Angel can sink it. At least I hope not.

Tony Isn't a Cardinal, He's a Stealer!

What’s up Mets fans, Willie here again after an awesome win tonight. We have a sweet home winning streak going on, and I attribute it all to me. I do so many things to make this team what it is I can’t even think of one of them right now.

We had an off day yesterday, and the time off clearly helped us in our effort today, as I spent the time at the Jets training camp interviewing players to gather information about Albert Pujols. My information proved valuable, as I effectively managed to keep him from reaching double digits RBI in one game. I’m a big believer in only setting goals that at first seem impossible to accomplish, but through the magic of the internet you can figure out a way to succeed. By the way, this trip to Jets camp almost didn’t happen because yesterday was supposed to be a travel day. Turns out there was an emergency situation at my house and I just couldn’t have the team leave the city. I’m not going to get into the personal details now. Anyway, it sure was nice of Bud Selig to move the series to NY. I guess I owe him a favor. I wonder if needs somebody to clean his house – Endy has been asking me for more work lately.

So I only have one thing to discuss about today’s game, but it’s a very hugeomongus thing. The Grand Slam Play! I know, you all love it, but let me tell you the story about tonight’s version of it. After Pujols hit his Grand Slam I knew something wasn’t right, so I naturally sent Endy on a mission. After being gone for a couple innings and picking up a pretzel for me on his way back, he shared some shocking news. Tony La Russa and the Cardinals are stealing signs! You may think you now understand how Albert was able to hit those homeruns. He knew what pitches were coming because the Cardinals knew the signs I was putting on from the dugout. Well, not exactly. It’s actually far worse than that.

I could have sworn I saw Tony touch his nose with tongue while tugging on his left ear right before Albert hit the big one. That’s my exact sign for the Grand Slam play! Tony stole my sign for the Grand Slam play! I can’t believe it! Why can’t he think of his own signs for his plays?!?! Stealing another manager’s signs is a pretty dirty thing to do. Granted, I didn’t know there was another manager in the game who was capable of putting the Grand Slam play, but I can only assume somebody on my team has leaked the information needed to put it on. Somebody will be sent on a mission tomorrow morning, the only question is who.

Anyway, after I had saw that Tony stole my sign for the GS play, I had no choice but to put it on for Carlos. Beltran got the sign first but messed it up. Delgado picked him up though, and Beltran hit half of one later on, so he can make up the other half tomorrow.

Time for some celebration, Mets fans. Today’s huge win definitely calls for some. The longer this home winning streak goes on the crazier the celebrations will get. A new pitcher appeared in my bullpen today, and I hear there’s a new outfielder coming soon, too. I’ll let you know my take on this once I figure out who they are.

Curses

What's up Mets fans, Willie here and I am steamed. Not only did we lose 3 out of 4 to the stupid Philadelphia Pirates, which I'm still upset about, but my pitchers are dropping like flies. First, Pedro goes out, then his replacement Dave Williams (who was great on the mound and as Uncle Joey on Full House) got leg cramps and who know s how long he'll be out, then today I hear Tommy Glavine has an aneurysm. I wasn't sure what that was, so I looked it up in the dictionary and it turns out that an aneurysm is an old wooden ship from the civil war era. I don't see why that's a big deal, but I'm guessing maybe Tommy has severe seasickness. On top of all those, my best pitcher Jose Valentin is out injured too. I really don't know why we're having this rash of injuries. I feed my players Subway sandwiches for breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner, post-dinner, and pre-breakfast, so I know they're getting all the critical nutrients and vitamins they need, like sugar and Vitamin 4. I'm really speechless about the latest shock injury, to David Wright. It looks like someone hit him repeatedly with my belt. Maybe this will show David that when I tell him to detail my car, I don't mean write me a list of all the specifications of my car.

After our off day tomorrow, we head to St. Louis to begin a critical 3-game series with the Cardinals. Right now it's a bit of an adjustment period for the team, having moved from Arizona in the offseason and switching sports from football (or soccer as the Europeans call it) to baseball. I think the key to beating them will be scoring more runs than we give up, and making sure that their big bat, Mark McGwire, doesn't beat us. Let's go Mets!

Good Bye, Hello, I'm a Genius, See You Sunday

What’s up Mets fans, Willie here. You’ll be happy to know I’m in a slightly better mood now that I’m no longer in Pee-Town, or Philadelphia as some like to call it. We are out of the reach of Kaz Matsui now, and all should be better soon.

Although, I’m honestly not quite comfortable with this team right now, so I’ll be doing some more soul searching to try to find out if there is something else wrong that needs to be fixed. Granted, we somehow won on Thursday afternoon – don’t ask me how, I told the guys to take the afternoon off and start over again with our series with the Rockies. Telling them not to try is one possible solution I’m considering using more often, as it seemed to work Thursday.

But I still don’t know, I really think it has to do with our lead in the division. I’ve spoken in the past about ideas to motivate my team, and am considering implementing them on a regular basis. My drinking game idea has yet to take off, mainly because I put David Wright in charge of buying the alcohol. I should have known this was a bad idea because I’ve seen his fake ID. It’s horrible. I’ll let you know what I decide to do about this shortly. I may have to come up with a points/bonus points system to encourage them after all.

Finally, let me end with a reminder of how lucky these Mets are to have a genius like me as their manager. After picking up the rulebook a few nights to check on this “balk” rule that’s given our pitchers some problems in the past weeks, I came across one of the least used, but perhaps most useful, rules in the book. By the way, I’m still uncertain what exactly a balk is. For now, I’ll just keep thinking that it’s a walk to a base runner given when the pitcher makes four pickoff throws that are out of the strike zone for the appropriate base (first base and home plate have different strike zones, and unlike home plate, the strike zones for the bases doesn’t take into account the height of the runner).

Anyway, back to this rule. Basically, it’s too complicated for most managers to use, but this is what it says: exactly once a year a manager is allowed to substitute his entire team with a team from exactly twenty years ago if that team won the championship. What extraordinary luck! It just so happens the Mets won in ’86. Accordingly, you’ll be seeing a different, slightly older, but no more boisterous, version of the Mets out on the field tonight. I have complete faith that they’ll come through for me, and the the Saturday off will be good for the real team. With that being said, the boys and me are on our way right now to Keith Hernandez’s place in the Hamptons for a relaxing afternoon BBQ and a even more relaxing pool party tonight. Let’s go (’86) Mets!

Curses!

Mets fans, this is Willie. No what’s up today. In fact, consider yourself lucky that I’m even writing tonight. I’m not sure I can convey the extent of my bad mood, but I have an explanation for our team’s performance.

Some of you might think the Phillies just have it out for us after we killed Chase Utley’s streak last time we saw them. Some of you might think Tom Cruise is the most attractive man in the world. Nonsense, I say. I’m clearly more attractive than Tom Cruise, Chase Utely and the top 10% of the middle quartile of the most attractive fans from Philadelphia.

Anyway, during our last trip to Philadelphia, the well-known run-in with ex-Met Kaz Matsui occured. Little did I know this would be the beginning of some sort of curse! I should have seen it coming when Tommy Glavine and Cliffy Floyd got sick from two Kaz cheesesteaks. Let me explain things in more detail.

Our last series in Philly was the first one there since Kaz had started working his new um...position. As a result I was unable to warn my team about this hazard. This time, though, I was smart – I told them in advance not to go out for any cheesesteaks where Kaz works. I even handed out Kaz Matsui’s special edition platinum baseball cards in case anybody had forgotten what he looks like.

But this is the part in the story where I became so stunned in I needed David to get me a Fresh sandwich post haste. After an Italian Sub (with only 6 grams of fat!) I was back on my feet, though. Anyway, for reasons even I can’t imagine, Kaz decided to approach an area Philadelphia businessman and open up a conglomerate of restaurants and hotels. So by sheer dumb luck the team happens to be staying in a Kaz run hotel, and for the first two days my pitching staff has ate at the hotel restaurant. There was no way to know that the Cheesesteaks down there were Kaz steaks and thus deadly for a pitcher's well-being. But I have more bad news: in what the front office thought was a money saving move, they booked us in the hotel for the next 4 seasons. This will make life difficult for me, as I’ll have to stay up all night to make sure none of my players are eating midnight snacks there. Also, to add insult to injury, I have legitimate reason to believe this area Philadelphia business man was no other than my archenemy, Angel Hernandez.

Okay Mets fans, time to get my tub of Cookie Dough Ice Cream and watch the rest of Baseball Tonight. So far I’ve heard about a million times that Livan Hernandez gave up 11 runs in four innings for me, but I’ve called up Rick Peterson to confirm what I originally thought: I did indeed send El Duque out there to start tonight. I don’t know how they could be confused. Duque and Hernandez are not similar last names in any regard. Oh well, lets hope tomorrow’s a better day…

The Truthality Comes Out!

What's up Met fans, Willie here again after a nice little series win over the National League Washingtons. I was more than a bit upset by our loss Friday but our wins Saturday and this afternoon have made me feel a lot better about myself. Today's game in particular made me ecstatic because of the game-winning homerun by my boy Michael Tucker. Like I like to say, I have the golden touch, and I knew that sticking that guy out there would yield results.

Anyway, without further ado, I'd like to reveal the results of Pedro's investigation into who revealed the existence of my blog to MLB. But before I tell you, I'd like to discuss a number of other things. Firstly, a number of columnists in so-called "newspapers" are more than a bit doubting of our corner outfield rotation of Lastings Milledge, Endy Chavez, Michael Tucker and Ricky Ledee. I can't imagine why. When I think of those four guys rotating around the corner outfield positions, the only thing that comes to my mind is fear. By opponents. Of us. I mean seriously, c'mon! These are budding megastars and everyone's ready to dump them for nothing. One writer asked if Ricky Ledee wasn't entirely worthless, especially considering how he'd just been released by the Dodgers. But I pointed out that Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays and even Albert Pujols were all claimed off of waivers from the Los Angeles Dodgers, so I was pretty sure picking up Ricky like we did was a good sign. That shut him up pretty good.

Secondly, if 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?

Now back to the investigation. Pedro tells me that word on the street is that the man who told MLB about my blogs was NOT David Wright, but was in fact Jose Guillen! Now I know how difficult it was for Pedro to reveal this information to me, since he and Jose are such close friends, but I appreciate Pedro's honesty and loyalty to me. After the game, I sought out Guillen in the Washington clubhouse, but their manager Frank Robinson told me that Guillen had undergone "Tommy John" surgery a few days back and was rehabbing at his house. Now out of all the scummy things to do, faking an injury and going through the trouble of having surgery just to escape my wrath is pretty much the worst. But now that I think about it, it was a wise move on his part. No one wants to feel my wrath. Just ask Duaner Sanchez.

Anyway Met fans, it's off to another city for another series. (Mexico City I think.) Let's go Mets!

Good News Despite Bad Signs

What’s up Mets fans, Willie here after a great series with the Padres. Congratulations to me after our first sweep at home this year. Billy tried to make things difficult again yesterday, but things worked out in the end.

As for today’s game, it was a 12 noon start, but today, unlike our last 12 noon start, I was there on time without a police escort. I took a different approach this time – since I knew there would be no way I could wake up on time I didn’t let myself go to sleep. Last night was a typical night out on the town celebrating our solid one-run win, but I needed to find a way to keep busy during the wee hours of the morning. So first, quite naturally, was a trip to the diner to sober up. Unfortunately there are no Denny’s in the city, so I had to settle for a second rate place. After this I had a good 6 or so hours to kill, so I decided there was only one thing that could take up that amount of time: a game of monopoly. It was a four player game, with Endy, Cliff, and David joining me. I won easily, with the key moment in the game being the trade I made with David. David offered me Park Place, Boardwalk and four railroads in exchange for my two utilities. It took some convincing, but I eventually let go of that second utility.

So for today’s early start I rested some of my outfielders and replaced them with two new guys I didn’t even know existed. Unfortunately, since I didn’t know they were on the team, I didn’t go over our signs with them; this lead to a couple of problems. I put the double down the left field line play on for Michael Tucker, but then to my dismay he grounds into a double play! It turns out his old club used the same sign for that play. I then took the time to explain the signs to him during the seventh, but while I was showing him the actual sign for grounding into a double play Manny Acta thought I was giving real signs and instructed Julio Franco to hit into a DP. Next thing I know, my plan to put the Grand Slam play on again for Jose Reyes is out the window. Still, after all of this Michael Tucker couldn't get it right, because his next turn he doubles in the left field gap. I told him that a double in the gap and a double down the line are two very different things and if he wants to play for me ever again he should learn the difference. I may be hard on my players, but this is what you need to do to win games.

Finally, I have some very exciting news. Pedro has informed me that he is very close to cracking the case of who told the Mets about this blog. I’m expecting the report this weekend while we’re in D.C., so check back and watch the drama unfold…

Fan Appreciation Weekend

What’s up Mets fans, Willie here again. As the title suggests, a lot of good things have happened recently. Omar made a couple of these moves, but I helped out a little as well.

Omar signed three hugely important contracts this weekend. I’m sure you’ve heard of Jose Reyes’ deal. Then came David Wright’s deal. But this is where I come in. I told Omar to make sure David’s contract includes all the right clauses. For example, he still needs to be my personal driver, breakfast delivery boy, etc. There is also now something in there called the “David Wright Screw Up Clause”, or simply, the David Wright clause. It’s actually quite simple: every time he messes up, he pays the Mets between one and five million. But there’s one more part, which just goes to just show how bright I am. Since David has the potential to mess up so many times that he loses all of his salary and owes the Mets money he doesn’t have, I made David get a guarantor to co-sign his contract (given his history of botched grand slam plays and the like, he may lose everything in a week). This way, once the salary is gone, the Mets keep getting their money. Now, I don’t know how he did this, but apparently David did a great job forging A-Rod’s signature…ugh, I mean…getting him to go along with this.

Anyway, after this most recent episode of Willie Genius Time, Omar decided to reward me with what is very well deserved: a new, 19-year, $314.1592654 Million contract. This will ensure that the Mets keep the best manager in the game on board for most of the rest of Julio Franco’s career. This is, in my humble opinion, one of the best things that has happened to this franchise since its days as a founding member of the National League.

One last thing that was for you fans this weekend. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to. I’m talking about the beloved grand slam play, of course. Manny Acta, who apparently keeps track of lots of random stuff, tells me that we’ve properly executed the play 6 times in the last nineteen games. Now considering my Willie Break goals, that’s super fantastic! I was a little unhappy for a moment during the fourth inning of tonight's game, though. I actually put the play on while John Maine was up, but alas, failure. Still, I put it on again for you fans, and Jose came through.

Okay Mets fans, we have an off day tomorrow, which means celebration tonight, Denny’s in the morning, and BBQ in the afternoon.

I'm In a Jam, and Too Bad It's Not Strawberry

What’s up Met fans, Willie here. I’m on my way home after a 4-1-1 road trip. I’m really glad we managed to get four points from our series with the Marlins. After a little drama, we split the first two games and then managed to salvage a tie in the rubber game. I can only guess the game ended in a tie as the score was 1-1 when I fell asleep.

So normally I would not be happy with this result, but given our current bullpen situation, I am quiet pleased. The situation consists of two parts.

First, Billy Wagner is mad at me because I recently beat him at a game of scrabble to take the title of best scrabble player in the clubhouse. He insists that he will continue to blow games until I accept his challenge to a rematch. The problem is that I can’t accept his challenge because I pretty much exhausted my entire vocabulary in that one game and don’t want to look stupid by using the same set of words again. I’m in a bit of tough spot here and don’t know exactly what to do, so for now I’ve logically decided to continue to send Billy out there until I come up with a plan.

The second situation is of course Duaner. It’s a shame what happened. I’m sure you all have heard about the taxi accident, but let me tell you what really happened and who’s to blame (it’s surprisingly not David Wright). So it’s our first night in Florida and me and some of the boys hop on an evening booze cruise (I was trying to do things to help my team win as suggested in my dream). Duaner was running a little late because he was at the hotel unpacking my suitcase for me, but decided he still wanted to join us. So he gets on a water taxi and is on his way. All is good, right? Wrong. Turns out Xavier was lying to me when he said he was going to spend the night having a nice dinner with some family at the local Miami Subway. (Remember Mets fans, Eat Fresh. Eat Classy.) Instead, he apparently decided to “borrow” a speed boat that was sitting at the dock with keys in it for the evening. Unfortunately, Xavier does not understand how boats, rubber duckies, ice cubes, anchors or other floating things work. So Duaner thinks he minutes away from a Booze cruise when all of a sudden his water taxi has to swerve to avoid Xavier, and boom! Duaner’s shoulder hits the side of the boat. I think you all now understand why Xavier was traded. The deal made perfect sense, although my trade to get Harold from ESPN was far more perfect.

Ok Mets fans, that’s all for now. I have to come up with a plan of action to stop Chase Utley’s streak. I’m currently wrestling my “conscience” and considering the use of the appendectomyball…