As for Kris Benson and the ever-mouthy Anna Benson, well, Kris is still a Met for the time being. Anna caused a stink earlier in the week by blasting the Mets' organization for even offering Kris as trade bait (hey, Omar, Benson for Abreu -- how's that sound??). She claims that published reports that she's planning to pose naked in Playboy drove the team to offer Kris, which the team denies. But Anna, by wagging that tongue just a bit too much and too publicly, may force the issue. The team may not be driven to trade players because of their spouses' extracurricular activities, but a spouse with a runny mouth can poison a clubhouse, and no team wants that. Shut up, Anna, and let the Mets' people do their jobs.
Here's the ESPN story on the winners and losers at the winter meetings: ESPN.com - Mannyfest doesn't materialize
No idea what you're talking bout there. Some strange USA-specific thing probably. How about subtitles for those of us in the rest of the world?
ReplyDeleteActually, it's even more specific than that -- it's New York- and baseball-specific. The New York Mets are one of the area's two major league baseball teams, and Omar Minaya is the team's acquisition-happy general manager. Last year he made a big splash by bringing Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran, two of the biggest names in baseball (and hated by fans of the crosstown New York Yankees), to the Mets. This year he's been hot for Manny Ramirez, Pedro's former teammate on the Boston Red Sox (and also hated by rabid Yankee fans). There were reports that the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team were interested in trading their player Bobby Abreu for Ramirez. I thought that Abreu would be a better fit for the Mets since he lets his bat do his talking for him rather than mouthing off to the press and anyone else who will listen, as Ramirez tends to do. And I have long wanted to see Abreu playing on the Mets, if it could be done without causing riots in Philadelphia over his leaving.
ReplyDelete[Note about the Yankees fans' hatred of current and former Red Sox players -- there's been a rivalry between those two teams and their fans for, believe it or not, almost NINETY years now, ever since Babe Ruth left the Red Sox to join the Yankees after the 1918 season. Sup-posed-ly there was a curse placed on the Red Sox after that, causing them to go 86 years without winning a "World Series," the end-of-season championship series. But the Sox victory last year put an end to all that foolish talk.]
Meanwhile, Mets' pitcher Kris Benson has been offered as trade bait, and this came about shortly after Benson's wife, Anna (a former stripper), had made a tentative deal to pose nude for Playboy. She claims her deal made her husband expendable, and I was saying that if her Playboy deal didn't do it, as the Mets' bosses assert, her mouth just might.
Two additional bits of explanation, and a correction. Correction first: It's just Pedro Martinez that Yankee fans hate, not Beltran... well, OK, the crazier ones hate anything to do with the Mets. It's been said that true-blue Yankee fans hate the Mets, their fans, and anything to do with the team, while true-blue Mets fans can coexist peacefully with all that is Yankee without feeling any hatred or even dislike.
ReplyDeleteWith Pedro, though, it's a bit more understandable, though, because when he first came here the hurt was personal. During post-season play in 2004, when Pedro was still playing for the "cursed" Red Sox, a brawl broke out during a game with the Yankees. Pedro responded to a taunt from 72-year-old Yankee bench coach Don Zimmer by grabbing Zimmer and throwing him to the ground. He wasn't hurt, but everyone all around (including some of Pedro's then-teammates) agreed it was a crass thing to do. At the time Pedro was courting an image as a crazy man in the style of Mike Tyson.
The other is that Pedro has done an image turnaround worthy of former National Basketball League badboy Latrell Sprewell, who was hated by New Yorker basketball fans of every stripe until he came here and won them over by playing well and keeping his mouth more or less shut. So who knows? If the Mets do go out and get their Manny (I know I'm overworking that tired pun), maybe Pedro can help rehabilitate him. And maybe being in front of hometown fans (Ramirez was born and raised in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan) will temper his tantrums somewhat (how's that for a pun?)
And thanks to get-em-while-they're-hot Minaya, if Ramirez (or Abreu -- please...) comes to New York he will just be the latest new Met for rabid Yankee fans to hate, following Billy Wagner, Carlos Delgado (who spurned the team last year), and Paul LoDuca. A rival team's GM says 'Omar is trying to field a 55-man team while the rest of us have to make do with 25.'