Mets Programs, Get Your Programs Here

There's a great picture in this article of Jeff "G-Money" Wilpon in tan Mets vest and matching khakis pretending he knows how to throw a baseball. Whatever speculation I might offer as to whether he is a living, breathing human made of flesh and blood or in fact a robot commissioned by his "father" must be put aside for now, because it's what he said and not his origins that I'm concerned with today. In the article he and Duquette spout the usual party line which we're all familiar with by now, namely: "Pitching and defense is how we won in the past the Yankees are not our enemies we are a greatly improved ballclub just you wait and see" -- at which point some bright young reporter flipped the switch on Wilpon's neck from boring but logical to nonsensical blather, and he authorized his GM to say the following.

In previous years we came out publicly that our expectations were the playoffs and I think that's unrealistic. Meaningful games is much more realistic until we make a trade or two to get us over the hump.

Call me Grant Roberts, but meaningful games to me is another way of saying "games with bearing on a playoff run". What else could it possibly mean? If you're not shooting for the wild card, you might be playing "academically interesting games" -- Glavine tries to avoid his twentieth consecutive loss tonight -- or "hope-inspiring games" -- Victor Diaz has really come alive in right field this month -- but you can't tell me that what you're playing is meaningful baseball.

One slightly encouraging note is that his programmers managed to sneak in another statement indicative of ownership's willingness to spend money mid-season to improve the team.

We're anticipating that because we'll be playing meaningful games, we're going to be more active on the trade market. I don't feel that we're one player away from the World Series. Maybe we're a couple of players away.

To which Wilpon added:

zero one zero one one zero zero one error in function main

But at least it appears they've got his head screwed on tight.