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Monday, June 2, 2008

The New York Mets Payroll is Still $140 Million Dollars!

I told you that's the name of every post I do from now on... okay, not really. But you laughed, didn't you? Shooting from the Lip. For the record, isn't the phrase "shooting from the hip"? Is that what passes as witty wordplay these days? Am I getting old? Or is Lupica just a complete fucking douchebag?

Tom Coughlin's football Giants finished one of those seasons just four months ago, the greatest finish and the greatest season any New York sports team has ever had.

Really Mike? So the 2008 Giants had the greatest season in New York history?

What about the 1996 Yankees? You remember? Down 2-0 and came back? Wade Boggs riding around the Stadium on a Pony and crying? The end of an 18-year drought for the Yanks? Jeter's legacy beginning? Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden getting their second rings? David Cone? Jimmy Key? Rivera-to-Wetteland?

Shit, what about the 1986 Mets? Doc and Darryl and Keith and at least 700 lbs of cocaine? And Lenny Dykstra walking around the clubhouse with steroids in a fucking I.V. drip? Mookie and HoJo and Lee Mazzilli and George Foster? Buckner handing the series to Los Mets in a refrigerator box?

What about the 1994 New York Rangers? 1940!! 54 Years!! The Curse is Over!! Now I Can Die in Peace signs!! Stephane Matteau!! Messier's guarantee!! Does any of this ring a bell at all? Mike? Are you there? Mike?

I've gone back as far as 1986 and listed 3 different championship seasons better than the 2008 Giants. Don't get me wrong, I love the Giants, and I'll be forever grateful to them for ruining the Pats perfect season... but greatest championship in New York History? Sorry, but no.

But no one we are going to have will win as long and as often as Joe Torre did.

Know who won more than Joe Torre here? Casey Stengel. Know who else? Joe McCarthy. Know what they have in common? None of them are the SOLE REASON the Yankees won championships. None of them hit or pitched the Yankees to a ring as the manager. None of them made a diving grab in Game 7.

Stengel and McCarthy had terrific, amazing, outstanding baseball players. Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Maris, Berra, etc. You know the names.

Torre had the biggest, most ginormous payroll in baseball history, as Lupica can't stop reminding us. He also had O'Neill, Tino, Bernie, Jeter, Wade Boggs, Pettitte, Key, Cone, Clemens, Mo Rivera, Graeme Lloyd, El Duque, Hideki Irabu, Jorge, Scott Brosius, Homer Bush, Chuck Knoblauch, Chad Curtis, Shane Spencer, the mummified corpse of Glenallen Hill, Jimmy King Leyritz and Halle Berry's ex-husband! So lets not act like Torre managed the Yankees to anything that my fucking Shar Pei couldn't have managed them to.

He is, by all accounts – and starting with his account – thrilled to be in L.A. and thrilled to be a Dodger, even with his young team fighting to stay around .500. Good for him.

The warm weather is probably nice for his old body. And his young team is seriously underachieving, despite a strong pitching staff, good bullpen, and nucleus of GREAT young offensive players (who usually get benched in favor of veteran stiffs.)

Maybe he will win another World Series there, or two, be as big all over again with the Dodgers as Phil Jackson has become with the Lakers.

Probably not. And how many rings has Phil Jackson won without having the hands-down, unquestionably BEST talent in the game?

How many 'St. Louis Cardinals in 2006, how the fuck did they actually win' championships has Jackson won? Here's a clue. The same number that Torre's won. Fucking zero. Stop sucking their cocks. Winning when you should makes you good. Winning when you shouldn't makes you a legend. Wasn't that your point about the 2008 Giants?

Blah blah blah and some meaningless shit about what a nice guy Joe Torre is, even though I personally called for his fucking head every time the Yankees lost for the last 7 years. Now that he's gone, I feel like waxing poetic about the fucking guy because it's another subtle way to criticize the Yankees while ignoring the $140 Million Dollar tank-job that's happening across town.

Well, he might as well have said it.

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I keep waiting for the news that Joba's first start has been declared an instant national sports holiday.

And I keep waiting for the Mets to win a World Championship. You've been waiting a couple of weeks. I've been waiting for over 20 fucking years. So shut the fuck up you pudgy, grey-haired, vertically-challenged little cunt.

A year ago at this time the Yankees were trying to keep from falling 15 games behind the Red Sox and this time they are already 10 games closer than that even with all the time that A-Rod missed.

Possible reasons the Yankees are 10 games closer this year:

A) The Red Sox aren't out to a 37-17 start.
B) Joe Torre is willing the Yankees to perform better from Los Angeles as a favor to Joe Girardi.
C) The Yanks are 8-3 since A-Rod came off the DL?
D) The best offensive player in the AL missed a bunch of time with a quad injury.

If you chose D, please slam your face into your computer screen repeatedly. I'll tell you when to stop.

The AL East is better this time around, starting with the Rays.

Did you listen to me? The Red Sox were 37-17 on June 2 last year. The Rays are 35-22. The Rays are not as good as the Sox were last year... and the number of games back is determined solely by relationship to the division leader. So "games back" is probably a shitty way to measure the quality of a division.

If the Mets want to make a run at Kevin Millar sometime this summer, well, that's fine with me.

What? Like if they cut Carlos Degado... and want to replace him with someone who'll give them the EXACT SAME LACK OF PRODUCTION?

Kevin Millar: Age 36. Stats: .236/.330/.379, 8 HR, 26 RBI.
Carlos Delgado: Age 36. Stats: .224/.306/.383, 8 HR, 25 RBI.

It's hard to find two players who's statistics through 200 at bats are that fucking similar. That is actually kind of amazing.

If my man Barry Melrose is coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning, I'm ordering my Lightning cap and T-shirt today.

Your man? Are you coming out of the closet Mike? And another thing... when did you become aware that Hockey is a sport? Did Barry whisper it in your ear last night?

So I'm sort of wondering when my good friend Paul Westphal, who was merely 191-88 his first time around with Phoenix, gets a call from the Suns.

Your good friend Mike? Yeah, Lupica Friends tag added. Just for the record, here are the known definitions of the word "friend" in the Encyclopedia Lupica:

1) Human-shaped plastic or rubber apparatus into which air is blown and is then used for sexual pleasure. See also: Blow-up Doll
2) Fuzzy, stuffed animatronic talking bear. See also: Teddy Ruxpin
3) Anyone who has berated or completely ignored Mike Lupica. See also: Joe Torre, Paul Westphal, John Calipari, Larry Brown, The Spice Girls (shortly after filing the restraining order)

Who's wearing the thong now, Abreu or Cano?

Allow me to rephrase this question.

Who's wearing the thong now, Lupica or Barry Melrose? And what is Jose Reyes going to say when he finds out?

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