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!