One New York Life

The following clip is of Steve Carell on the Daily Show… of a segment he filmed in Mechanicville. When I talk about “my townhouse,” this is the town that it’s in. I’d like to say it makes the city (yes, the one square mile that is Mechanicville is, in fact, a city) look bad because they only film old people and drunks — but 90% of the city’s population is old people, drunks, and old people who are drunks. Ms. L and I often joked that we were the youngest people in Mechanicville with jobs and without kids. It really wasn’t a joke though.

I saw this originally the day after it aired. The bar that Steve Carell goes to is called Costanzo’s. I have ordered pizza from there but it remains the one bar in Mechanicville I have never had a drink in. Primarily because I’ve always thought it was kinda shady and, from the stories I’ve heard, it’s been shady since my grandma’s day. The bar is this far from my townhouse. It’s the closest to me and I’ve never gone there. Unfortunately, if I ever did happen to move back it’s one of the only ones left in town. The bar where my 30th birthday was held has shut down. Another has become a parking lot for a nearby motorcycle repair shop. A third is for sale. A fifth relatively historic one has been flattened and the land is stuck in a pissing contest between a-holes. A sixth tried to charge me a cover last time I was home and seems to be out of place considering the surrounding population. Not good times in the city of Mechanicville.

In my defense… this wasn’t my town growing up. Mine was the next town over.

I think Omar Minaya took a bold step.

Omar was right. The management cloud over the organization was getting ridiculous. It was hanging over the players, dominating the media, and was a daily distraction. Today Minaya took steps to remove that distraction.

To his peril.

Now that the manager has been removed the daily distraction of Williewatch is gone. The story is going to shift now. Take your pick of the following:

• The line-up for the Mets tonight featured the following batting averages .292 (.246), .269, .275, .270, .238, .192, .238, .250, .230. Zero players on the Mets are currently carrying a .300 average.
• They are carrying three catchers. Their second catcher is currently hitting .282. He is not DHing.
• Carlos Beltran is making $18.5 million dollars and is batting .270
• Carlos Delgado is making $20 million dollars with a line of .242/.321/.407
• Their terrible bullpen is the same bullpen that blew a 7 game lead last year
• Their bench consists of a host of Quadruple-A players, none of whom are very good.
• Their best bench player is a back-up catcher who they can’t use.
• Their back-up catcher is arguably much better than their starting catcher and has a jaw that could kill a mammoth.
• Carlos Delgado strikes out twice in a game and refuses to run out a ground ball.
• The defense, at times, is embarrassingly sloppy.
• Jose Reyes threw a hissy fit and showed up his manager on the field.
• David Wright’s body language indicates that he might murder a room service guy for bringing him two packets of ketchup instead of three.

The players, to a fault today, repeated the story that the manager issue was a distraction. Now there’s no distraction. Now the focus is on them and how they are failing. So one of two things happen now:

1) They start playing up to the potential that the fans and the media think they have.
2) They find a new excuse to answer why they suck.

They lost tonight. That’s fine — it was a jetlag game. But the New York media will quickly find a new storyline if this doesn’t solve the problem… and this probably isn’t going to solve the problem.

When answering the question about the lack of clubhouse leaders, Manuel said something to the effect of “they need to see me lead before I can ask them to lead.”

They better learn quickly.