That Won’t Sell Merchandise

Let me say something nice about the Mets organization. The sale of the premium games (Opening Day, Subway Series, Shea Finale) went rather smooth Sunday morning. It seemed like the site was capable of handling the onslaught of ticket requests and orders were processed quickly. Of course, if you weren’t one of the few lucky lottery winners you wouldn’t know this, but those are the realities of a larger fan base. No sense complaining about it now. Just wait until next year when there probably won’t even be one of these lotteries for the premium games at Citi Field.

So there you go… something nice about the Mets organization. I feel like it’s been a rarity this offseason, considering I’ve taken the Mets to task for raising ticket prices after an epic collapse, getting 50 cents on the dollar for Lastings Milledge, auditioning every catcher this side of Yogi Berra rather than bring back Paul Lo Duca, and finally adding a really-for-real “Last Play at Shea” after selling out the faux “final” concert. Hell, if they hadn’t signed Johan Santana, my offseason worth of posts might have been more bitter than all the fans that bought the tickets for the first Billy Joel concert combined.

And I’m about to do it again as the Mets unveiled the logo for their new home in 2009 and beyond, Citi Field. That’s it to the right. No, I didn’t just create something in PhotoShoppe and slap it on my blog. This is really the logo they came up with for their beautiful new ballpark.

Seriously, it’s like they didn’t even try. Does anything there evoke baseball? As the Green Machine put it, it looks like they asked an intern to whip something up before lunch. When I see it, I’m reminded of a wireless PCI card for your laptop. The “Citi” part is portion that slides into the slot and the orange part is the portion that sticks out. It’s even matches Cingular’s color scheme.

With all the meticulous planning that went into this ballpark, I honestly expected something spectacular for a logo. This is underwhelming.

Five Weeks For Five Spots

If you think this edition of the Academy Awards is dragging, just think about the next month-plus of spring training for the Mets. After all, for spring training to be exciting you need one of a short list of storylines. A position battle… the Mets don’t have one. A hot young prospect competing for a roster spot… the Mets don’t have one. A fight for a slot in the rotation… the Mets don’t have one.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Mike Pelfrey could beat out Orlando Hernandez for the No. 5 spot. Yes, he could. Transformers could win Best Picture too. (Actually, it can’t anymore since it wasn’t a nominee, but it could have been a nominee… technically… maybe… OK probably not.) Point is, Willie Randolph is not going to let one of his grizzled veterans lose a job to young upstart pitcher. So unless, El Duque is injured, there’s no opening in the rotation. And if there is an opening, there’s still no opening because it will simply go to Pelfrey.

And based on today’s results, it doesn’t even seem like there will be an opening. Hernandez threw 45 pitches today and said he was pain-free. He expects to be ready by Opening Day. If he’s right, he’ll be in the rotation.

What I’m getting at is the Mets don’t have a lot to figure out this spring. Their roster is pretty much set with very few exceptions. In fact, I don’t think there’s any more than five roster spots in play. That’s five weeks to decide five spots. Not much going on in Port St. Lucie these days.

But let’s look at what the Mets’ Opening Day roster probably will look like.

First you have your starting eight:

1. Carlos Delgado
2. Luis Castillo
3. David Wright
4. Jose Reyes
5. Brian Schneider
6. Carlos Beltran
7. Moises Alou
8. Ryan Church

Then you have your starting rotation:
9. Johan Santana
10. Pedro Martinez
11. John Maine
12. Oliver Perez
13. Orlando Hernandez

Then you have your key relievers:
14. Billy Wagner
15. Aaron Heilman
16. Duaner Sanchez
17. Pedro Feliciano

That leaves probably two-to-three more spots for pitchers, which will be filled with some combination of Scott Schoeneweis, Matt Wise, Jorge Sosa, Ruddy Lugo, Ambiorix Burgos, Joe Smith, not to mention Mike Pelfrey (though if he’s not starting in the majors, he should be starting in the minors.)

Perhaps the Mets will even carry 12 pitchers, so that could mean it would like this:
18. Scott Schoeneweis
19. Matt Wise
20. Jorge Sosa

So that means you have five bench spots (maybe six, but for the sake of argument, let’s say just five). Obviously you need the backup catcher and a few role players are entrenched.

So let’s add them:
21. Ramon Castro
22. Endy Chavez
23. Damion Easley

That leaves just two spots for some combination of Angel Pagan, Ruben Gotay, Jose Valentin, Marlon Anderson and Anderson Hernandez.

I would guess Gotay and Anderson would have to be the favorites, though Valentin is a bit of a sentimental choice because he’s seen as a good clubhouse presence. If he’s not ready to go though, the Mets can’t afford to sacrifice the roster spot (see Franco, Julio). So it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him working into shape in Triple-A, awaiting a call when a roster spot opens up.

So my best bet is:
24. Ruben Gotay
25. Marlon Anderson

Five weeks for five spots. That’s it.

Ollie Gets His First Win of ‘08

So Oliver Perez is 1-0 and we’re still five weeks from Opening Day.

Perez won his arbitration case against the Mets today — now we know why it had been 16 years since a Met hit arbitration — and was awarded a $6.5 million contract for 2008. If he had lost, the Mets would have paid him $4.7 million. You can laugh about him making out either way, but the truth is he’ll double that figure next year on the open market. And he will hit the open market next season. His agent is Scott Boras and that makes his free agency as much of a certainty as Jon Stewart making a lot of Hollywood elite nervously laugh at the Oscars this weekend.

Ollie is a fan favorite at Shea and a 15-game winner a year ago. If he can duplicate that feat, the Mets are going to have to pay mightily to make sure he’s a fan favorite at Citi Field too.

*****

A lot has been made out of the bloodbath that might be the Mets-Phillies rivalry this season. Carlos Beltran said the Mets are the team to beat. Jimmy Rollins said be more original. An unnamed Phil said there’s going to be a rumble out on the promenade. Should make for an interesting 18 games, not to mention the fact that six are scheduled for the first three weeks of the season.

But let’s concentrate for just a moment on the fan rivalry. The always comprehensive MetsBlog.com noted that disgruntled Philly fans are planning a hostile takeover of Shea in September because they are, and I quote:

“sick and tired of stupid Mets fans taking over Citizen’s Bank Park.”

Far be it from me to tell the storied and always rational Philadelphia fan base how to go about their business, but wouldn’t a better strategy to simply buy up all the seats at Citizen’s Bank Park?

*****

Speaking of tickets, if you won the Mets ticket lottery you probably should have received notification by now. Tickets for Opening Day, the Subway Series and the home finale go on sale to winners on Sunday morning.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE TICKETS TO THE 2008 OPENING DAY, SUBWAY SERIES AND THE FINAL REGULAR SEASON GAME AT SHEA.

I still can’t get over the fact that we live in a world where we get all worked up over winning the right to purchase tickets.

Pleasing the Boss

There’s this great scene in Sean Connery/Nicolas Cage vehicle “The Rock” where the Ed Harris character loses his edge and redirects the rocket he’s launched at San Francisco so that it crashes into the bay. His underlings then question how they’ll get their ransom now that the government knows they don’t have the guts to follow through on their threats. Harris’ character responds that the government doesn’t know they missed on purpose. The henchman quickly retorts, “Great, now they just think we’re incompetent.” It’s a great example of how you can try to sell something you know is not true and actually end up with an even less-desirable scenario.

I was reminded of this scene after reading Fred Wilpon’s comments to the media Tuesday about Willie Randolph’s job security. In case you missed it, Wilpon claimed there was never any consideration given to firing Randolph after the epic collapse of September. Now, I never believed the Mets would actually give Willie the ax because the idea of paying Randolph to sit home for the next several years undoubtedly creates hives for the historically stingy Wilpon. But I do think they considered it.

But I’ll play along with Wilpon’s statement and take it at face value. If there was never any consideration given to firing Randolph, why did it take two days for the Mets to schedule a news conference to announce that he would not be fired? Perhaps they intended to make Willie twist in the wind for a day or two. But that sure doesn’t seem like the way you’d want to treat your entrenched manager. Much like Ed Harris in “The Rock”, Fred Wilpon comes off looking much worse under his own scenario.

But of course the big headline out of Wilpon’s comments is that he expects to play deep into the postseason with this Mets team. I’m not sure why this is getting the play that it is because I’m pretty sure he said he expected to be in the World Series last spring. I don’t think the optimism is new. But then again, I don’t think it’s misdirected either. Wilpon should believe the Mets will go far this year, considering their overall payroll and the introduction of Johan Santana to an 80-plus-win team. I don’t mind the confidence.

But you also don’t want the Mets to forget about their failures last year either. They were supremely confident all season in 2007 and ended up humbled in September. That’s why it was nice to hear that Willie plans on saving his morbid reminder until the 25-man roster is set. According to our beat guy John Delcos from the Journal News, Randolph said:

“Why expose somebody to something that painful who wasn’t even there?”

I like the choice of words there. Painful. This sounds more like a football coach speech, but it’s one that the Mets absolutely need to hear before embarking on their campaign to erase last season.

*****

One last note about the Mets. It’s an absolute joke that they have scheduled a second Billy Joel concert for a few days after the one that sold out in 48 minutes last weekend. The first concert — like this one — was sold as “The Last Play at Shea.” I don’t care if they saved themselves with fine print or semantical arguments, such as calling it the “final concert stand”, the implication was clear: This will be the last concert at Shea Stadium. If they planned multiple shows, they should have put multiple shows on sale at once. That way, anyone who wanted to see history could pick the latter show and whoever just wanted to see Joel could choose between the dates. If one concert sold out in 40 minutes, I have a hard time believing that first show wouldn’t have sold out even with a latter date on the schedule.

If I were one of the tens of thousands that bought tickets last weekend, I’d be pretty upset right now.

The Team To Beat

It worked so well for Jason Giambi, why not try it?

That must have been what Paul Lo Duca was thinking this week when he decided to try the age-old tactic of agologizing without acknowledging what he’s apologizing for.

He released a vague statement Saturday, acknowledging a mistake in connection with the Mitchell Report. He then met with the media, but didn’t exactly expand upon his errors.

Here’s how the Associated Press reported the exchange between reporters and Lo Duca.

“Asked whether the Mitchell Report was accurate about him, Lo Duca said: ‘I’m not going to comment on that.’

When another reporter asked what he was apologizing for, Lo Duca replied, ‘Come on, bro. Next question.’ “

That’s pretty weak. Unless Lo Duca was magically not near a television set on Wednesday, he should know he’s not being singled out here. A lot of mistakes were made. If you expect the public to forgive and forget, you have to actually acknowledge what you did wrong. Lo Duca was a fan favorite during his time with the Mets, partially because he doesn’t mind speaking his mind when he thinks he’s in the right. Unfortunately, when he slips up — whether it be calling out his Latino teammates or having marital problems or showing up in the Mitchell Report — he seems to think no one should talk to him about it. That’s just not the way it works. Not even in a smaller market like D.C.

*****

While Lo Duca wasn’t saying much with his new team, Carlos Beltran was saying an awful lot for his old team.

The usually soft-spoken Beltran was anything but this week, telling reporters that the Johan Santana acquisition puts the Mets over the top in the National League East, echoing Jimmy Rollins’ claim a year ago.

“Let me tell you this: Without Santana, we felt as a team that we have a chance to win in our division. With him now, I have no doubt that we’re going to win in our division. So this year, to Jimmy Rollins — we are the team to beat!”

Now, as I wrote when the Mets acquired Santana, he’s not the cure for all that ails the Mets. There are injury concerns in the rotation, bullpen, infield and outfield. Santana can’t solve those problems. And the Phillies didn’t exactly get weaker in the offseason. He doesn’t single-handedly negate that either. But he does solve the Amazin’s largest issue, which was the lack of a frontline starter, so it’s certainly fair to raise expectations for the Mets.

Do I think that makes them “the team to beat”? Who knows? But it’s good to see Beltran take a step forward as a leader. I’ll take a little bit of swagger out of one of the Mets’ cornerstones, even if it means ignoring some of the other roadblocks that might come before the Mets this season.

And besides, last year it worked for Rollins.

A Day To Misremember

There’s nothing quite like four-and-a-half hours of televised perjury.

But that’s exactly what the American public got today as the House committee held its hearing on the Mitchell Report, with a focus on the conflict between Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee. It was every bit the circus that most figured it would be, if not more. In fact, it was a horrible day for Clemens, McNamee, Major League Baseball, Congress and nearly everyone touched by this saga. The only person coming out of this looking even a little bit good is the same guy who revealed that he used Human Growth Hormone in greater quantities than previously thought. When that’s the best you’re able to find, you know it was a rough day on the hill.

But that person is Andy Pettitte and he really is the key to today’s proceedings. Pettitte revealed that Clemens told him in either 1999 or 2000 that he was using HGH and when he brought up the subject again in 2005, Clemens said Pettitte must have misinterpreted (or ‘misremembered’ to use Clemens’ own word, which apparently is a real word, but sure sounds fake.) Clemens talking about his wife Debbie using it. Of course that took place in 2003 so in addition to having a heck of a fastball, Clemens can also apparently see the future. Shame he never saw today’s proceedings coming or he could have saved himself a major headache. Clemens also offered a rambling excuse about seeing a television program about older gentlemen improving their quality of life with HGH and suggested that was his only HGH conversation point.

None of this, however, carried greater weight than Pettitte’s testimony. You don’t want to get too worked over someone telling the truth under oath, but Pettitte’s unforced admission about a second run-in with HGH in 2004 added to his already high credibility. He obviously didn’t “misremember” because his wife recalled him telling her the same thing. Perhaps he misinterpreted Clemens, but whether the Rocket claims he was talking about his wife or some old guys he saw on TV, it’s a pretty big leap to believe Pettitte got either story confused with Clemens himself. So if he didn’t remember it wrong and he didn’t misinterpret it, the only thing left for the Clemens camp is that Pettitte is lying. And the only reason he would have to lie is to defend his friend. That’s not what he did. And that’s Clemens’ biggest problem.

Clemens can probably survive the Brian McNamee testimony, if for no other reason than McNamee is not the least bit likeable. He came off very poorly under the bright lights of Congress — much more so than most probably expected. He seemed to be someone willing to do seedy things in the seedy underbelly of the national pastime. The details of his threats of lawsuits, worthless PhD, requests for merchandise, willingness to use his star clients’ likenesses to sell himself all painted him in a very unfavorable light. And that doesn’t even take into account his history to lies, whether it be to police investigators, the media or feds. If this were a film, McNamee would have been played by a Steve Buscemi-type. Shifty, weasely and always in question. This is not a star witness and that probably will be the only thing that keeps Clemens out of jail.

Because as bad of a witness as McNamee is, the Pettitte testimony does lend credence to the idea that he is finally telling the truth. Chuck Knoblauch backed up his claims. Pettitte backed up his claims. Hell, even Debbie Clemens backed up his claims. The only one disputing them is Clemens, and not so conviently for the Rocket, he’s also the one with the most to lose. Why would McNamee tell the truth about Pettitte, tell the truth about Knoblauch and then lie about Clemens? It doesn’t make any sense. It took several hours but finally Elijah Cummings posed that very question to Clemens and not surprisingly, Clemens had no answer. It wasn’t the only time the Rocket dodged a question. Early in the proceedings, John Tierney repeatedly called Clemens out on inconsistencies within his own testimony, such as claiming to never have talked about HGH to McNamee despite his own heroic story of his outraged call to McNamee about his wife’s use. Clemens answered as if Tierney was asking him an entirely different question. I wonder if B-12 can be used to cure listening comprehension problems.

More problems for Clemens. Rep. Stephen Lynch presented an independent analysis of a “palpable mass” on Clemens’ buttocks. (And let’s be honest, there was way too much discussion of Clemens’ a$s today.) Without knowing who’s MRIs he was examining, a Dr. Mark Murphy concluded the mass was more compatible with Winstrol injections than B-12. Of course, Rep. Tom Davis nearly fell over himself to counter with a different analysis (I believe) provided by the Clemens’ camp. Davis even went as far as to call Lynch’s questioning of Clemens a “lynching.” How punny. How embarrassing.

And now seems to be as good a time as any to discuss the deplorable display by so many of our Congressmen and women in that room today. I try not to bring politics into a baseball blog, so if you’re easily offended by partisan chatter, you should probably skip the rest of this paragraph. If you’re still here, that can only mean that you know in your heart that the majority of the Republicans on this committee were an absolute disgrace today. From Christopher Shays making McNamee go step-by-step through a line of questioning that resulted in him being labeled a “drug dealer” to John Mica testing if Clemens or McNamee were color-blind as it pertained to the hues of B-12, Winstrol and HGH to Virginia Foxx asking Clemens if he noticed any difference in her Kinkos photo presentation, it was a bad afternoon for the GOP. Even more disgraceful, Foxx was the first person to go greet Clemens after the hearing. She should have been waiting backstage with a bouquet of flowers the way she glowed over his performance. However, the Democrats were far from perfect. I think it added a lot to the proceedings that Eleanor Holmes Norton thinks Clemens will go to heaven. Thanks for coming. And it’s a real shame that Clemens didn’t answer William Lacy Clay’s question about what hat Clemens would wear in the Hall of Fame. After today, that might have been our only chance to find out.

They were few and far between, but a few of these guys and girls did their homework and looked like respectable public servants. No one looked better than Elijah Cummings. He was a freakin’ rock star. He stuck to simple, clear facts from the testimony and pressed Clemens every step of the way. When time ran out on his 10 minutes at the beginning of the hearing, it was like Clemens had been saved by the bell. It was one of those bloodbath, first rounds where the only chance the fighter has is to regroup in his corner and hope his opponent punched himself out. To Clemens’ benefit, no one else had the punching power of Cummings. He was Mike Tyson in his prime. Everyone else was Glass Joe. When Cummings got a second shot at Clemens, he didn’t miss. This exchange was without a doubt the most powerful of the hearing.

“I’ve listened to you very carefully and I take you at your word. And you’re telling me that Andy Pettitte is an honest man, and his credibility is pretty much impeccable. You said you were misunderstood. But all I’m saying is, it’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe your story.

I hate to say that. You’re one of my heroes. But it’s hard to believe you.”

Clemens was speechless and he looked as white as he’s accused Pettitte of looking when talking about HGH in 2005. If you only took one moment out of the entire four-and-a-half hours this would be it. And it came courtesy of Rep. Cummings. Maryland should be proud today.

Another Congressman who was very much on point was a Republican from Indiana named Mark Soulder. He addressed McNamee’s ever-escalating memory of steroid injections and noted that these type of miraculous recoveries of knowledge are not uncommon when dealing with cocaine dealers. It’s not necessarily a flattering comparison for McNamee but it does go to the point that just because someone is rather unsavory (and McNamee is) and has lied in the past (and McNamee has), it doesn’t mean he’s not telling the truth now when he’s under oath. And it helps explain why he’s been more forthcoming now than at any time previously. That’s the type of thoughtful analysis that all Congressmen should have been making.

But of course you only had to go to his fellow Republican from Indiana to find another Congressman using childlike judgments. Dan Burton came off rather naive during his five-minute grandstanding questioning of McNamee’s prior lies. At one point, he didn’t even know what he asking McNamee to confirm. So McNamee lied to reporters about steroids? I’m shocked. McNamee worked for someone he didn’t completely trust? Unbelievable. And Burton can be as insulted as he wants about McNamee’s previous lies when Clemens’ reputation is at stake, but forgive me if I’m wrong, but weren’t all those offensive lies to protect Clemens’ reputation? Pollyana has a new name and it’s Dan Burton.

There’s so much more to dissect. Bloody pants. A long-lost nanny. Clemens not knowing what a Vegan is. But the bottom line in all of this is you can’t come out of this thinking Clemens had a good day. In fact, I don’t think you can even believe Clemens at all, but I came to this from the perspective of someone who believes most major leaguers were and are on some sort of performance-enhancing drugs. So I’ll concede that someone predisposed to believing Clemens may not be completely swayed. But you’d still have to say this was a bad day. The best you could probably say for the Clemens camp is that McNamee continued to have serious credibility issues.

But Andy Pettitte did not. And as Henry Waxman pointed out in his closing remarks, Pettitte didn’t believe Clemens in 2005. It’s hard to believe him today.

The Apple Lives… Maybe

You may have caught this headline circulating around the Web the last few hours: “Home run apple will follow Mets to new Citi Field ballpark.”

Good news, right? Yes and no.

It’s a bad headline, prompted by a misleading quote by Jeff Wilpon during today’s CitiField presentation. He said, “The big home run apple is coming.” What he should have said is a “A big home run apple is coming.”

The Mets are still unsure whether it will be the same dented fiberglass apple that currently resides at Shea, because they fear the near-three-decade-old apple will not survive the trek into the new stadium. However, they’ve made room in center at Citi Field for an apple of some sort. That’s the good.

Not everyone is thrilled with this announcement however. The team at SaveTheApple.com is not satisfied and still wants the original apple at Citi Field. They’ve got an online petition that’s up to 6,734 signatures at current count. When I first wrote of the campaign in August, they were at 815. So that’s some good growth. But I do wonder if nearly 7,000 signatures will be enough to sway the Mets if moving the original apple is going to prove to be an ordeal.

In fact, I suspect it won’t. So if you feel strongly about this, I’d advise you to get over to SaveTheApple.com ASAP.

Cue the Clowns

The circus is coming to town.

No, not Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, though they will be in East Rutherford from March 5-9, New York March 20-April 5, East Rutherford again April 9-13, Phily April 16-27, Trenton May 14-18 and finally Newark Oct. 16-19.

No, not the Big Apple Circus, though that too will be around in March at Commerce Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater from March 1-23.

No, I’m talking about the circus that will take place in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.

The one featuring Roger Clemens, Brian McNamee and a cast of dozens. It should be one of the most bizarre scenes featuring people under oath since the heart of the O.J. Simpson trial. Clemens will call McNamee a liar. McNamee will call Clemens a liar. It could even approach Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men.” But while they call each other liars at will, the question of course is will Andy Pettitte call either of them a liar.

Of course, Pettitte won’t be there himself to do it, as he was excused from testifying late Monday night along with Kirk Radomski and Chuck Knoblauch. But Pettitte’s sworn deposition will likely be center stage Wednesday nonetheless. It’s already the source of much discussion as Newsday reported late Monday that Rep. Tom Davis said Pettitte’s testimony supported McNamee’s account. One source said Pettitte once asked McNamee why he didn’t give him the same stuff that he gave Clemens and McNamee responded because its illegal. Rep. Davis has since backed away from that depiction, telling ESPN that Pettitte didn’t get into a lot of detail. It will be interesting to see just how much Pettitte did say and it could tip the balance one way or another.

Right now things don’t look especially good for Clemens. The common assumption is that Pettitte asked out because he didn’t want to sit next to Clemens as he incriminated him. That could be presumptuous, but at the same time, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Pettitte asking out is good for Clemens. The best the Rocket can hope for is that Pettitte simply didn’t want to have his face on the screen as he answers uncomfortable questions about his own past.

But beyond Pettitte’s testimony, it’s hard to envision how this will play out as anything more than a very heated, quite personal game of “he said/he said.” Pettitte’s testimony might be enough to prompt a perjury investigation, but it’s not going to be a smoking gun. Anyone expecting any real bombshells will probably be disappointed. There won’t be the deus ex machina of postal workers dumping bags of steroids at Clemens feet, ala “Miracle on 34th Street.” Even if Clemens is guilty, a reasonable strategy at this point is simply to deny, deny, deny with the knowledge that McNamee’s latest evidence will not be admissable in an eventual perjury trial and sans the physical evidence, it’s hard to envision Clemens going to jail. In that scenario, we probably won’t get any definitive answers out of Wednesday’s hearing.

However, even with that presumed strategy, Clemens still can’t answer the obvious question which is why would Brian McNamee lie? At first, there were the rumblings that perhaps he was pressured by the government, but any suggestion of that has gone quiet. Now they’re accusing him of fabricating evidence, but still can’t answer the obvious question of “Why?” And not just why would he lie about Clemens? Why would he lie about Clemens but tell the truth about Pettitte, Radomski and others? And perhaps an even better question, if McNamee is of such awful character (citing a half-decade-old shady incident with a woman in Tampa as an example), why did Clemens continue to employ and befriend “Mac” (as Clemens called him repeatedly in the now infamous recorded phone conversation) right up until the Mitchell Report in 2007?

Those are the questions that need to be asked of Clemens on Wednesday because they’re the questions he likely can’t answer… at least not truthfully.

So let’s recap by setting some odds for Wednesday’s proceedings.

Even money: Clemens calls McNamee a liar.
Even money: McNamee calls Clemens a liar.
Even money: At least one Congressman embarrasses himself.
2-to-1: Pettitte’s testimony backs McNamee.
2-to-1: Pettitte’s testimony only discusses himself.
3-to-1: Clemens presents statistical data that favorably compares him to other aging pitchers.
4-to-1: At least 10 Congressmen embarrass themselves.
6-to-1: Clemens pleads the fifth.
7-to-1: McNamee offers to do for Rep. Davis what he did for Clemens.
8-to-1: Clemens places 8×10s on the table to sign, mistakenly thinking the hearing is a memorabilia show.
10-to-1: McNamee pleads the fifth.
25-to-1: Clemens presents data that proves the aforementioned aging pitchers were not also on PEDs.
50-to-1: All Congressmen embarrass themselves.
75-to-1: Clemens throws a broken bat in the direction of a Congressman.
100-to-1: Either Clemens, McNamee, Pettitte, MLB or Congress come out of this looking good.

Pedro’s Problem

Only the Mets could introduce the best pitcher in baseball, and spend the rest of the week talking about their No. 2 pitcher.

But that’s the situation the Mets find themselves in after a video of Pedro Martinez surfaced this week, showing him at a cockfighting event in the Dominican Republic. It was off YouTube before most could see it, but TMZ (a gossip site that I first clicked on two weeks ago when they posted the video of Tom Brady’s fateful walking boot.) has re-uploaded the video here.

Conveniently — almost amazingly — this is not the first time I’ve written on this sort of subject, thanks to the Michael Vick saga over in my NFL blog. There are few differences here however. First of all, cockfighting is legal, and socially accepted, in the Dominican. And secondly, Pedro is not denying his role.

Here’s his statement:

“I understand that people are upset, but that is part of our Dominican culture and is legal in the Dominican Republic. I was invited by my idol, Juan Marichal, to attend the event as a spectator, not as a participant.”

There are a couple problems here. One, even as a spectator, the video clearly shows him presenting one of the roosters for the fight. Even if this is largely a honorary position, as The Associated Press has reported, it still seems more participatory than Martinez is owning up to.

And the second problem is that very first line: he understands that people are upset. While this may be an accepted part of the Dominican culture, Martinez is well aware it’s not an accepted part of this country’s. He is paid tremendously well to represent a baseball franchise here and his actions will reflect poorly on that organization, not to mention the millions of fans who cheer for Pedro each year. And none of this even touches on the fact that just because something is socially accepted, it doesn’t mean you have to do it.

So this will not be the headache for MLB that Vick was for the NFL, simply due to the lack of a criminal case. But it is a bit of a black eye for baseball, the Mets and of coure, Pedro himself.

The Johan Santana Era Begins

If you told me after Super Bowl XXV that I’d see another Giants Super Bowl win before another Mets World Series win, I would have been awful surprised.

Not that the Giants didn’t have some good teams in that stretch, but everyone knew the Giants were an aging squad that even still featured the remnants of the ‘86 champs. Meanwhile, the Mets seemed primed to make a run in the early ’90s. Bobby Bonilla, Eddie Murray, Bret Saberhagen… we all know how that worked out. Then the Giants really went in the tank with the Dave Brown years of the mid-90s, while the Mets rejuvenated the franchise with the Mike Piazza deal. Things worked out better in ‘98 through ‘01, but still there was no championship. The Giants had a forgettable Super Bowl, a horrendous collapse in San Fran and then came back with playoff teams the last three years. But the last two seasons, the Mets had teams that were built to win World Series. The ‘06 team almost got there. The ‘07 team… well let’s not talk about that one.

Regardless, over the last 17 years I’ve had more faith in the Mets than the Giants to win their respective championships. But it was the Giants that got the job done.

So it’s somewhat fitting that as the entire area still basks in the afterglow of Super Bowl XLII, the Mets will once again enter the upcoming season with far higher expectations than the Giants had in August. And the entire reason for that is the man that was introduced at Shea Stadium today.

Johan Santana makes the Mets the immediate favorites in the NL East — some would say the entire league. I say one thing at a time. If we learned anything from last September, it should be not to overlook the division race. The Phillies have a rather strong team once again, and will be better if Brad Lidge remembers how to close, because that gives them a serviceable No. 2 in Brett Myers. They lost Aaron Rowand and Pedro Feliz’s two-year deal is not something I would have done, but when you’re sending Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins out there every day, you’re going to have a chance to be successful. The Braves can’t be counted out, but I do think they’re a notch below.

Because there’s absolutely no reason to believe that Santana won’t make the Mets markedly better. All of his key stats — from ERA to WHIP to home runs allowed — should decrease in a hitter’s park and a lighter-hitting league. And remember, the Mets only had to be two games better last season to be adding a “National League East Champions” banner at Shea on Opening Day. But Santana is worth more than that. He’s the proverbial brain wash for everyone dwelling on what happened in September. He replaces doom and gloom with fervent optimism.

But before you go clearing your October schedule, remember that health will be the No. 1 issue across the board. Just look at all the Mets question marks that revolve around health in one way or another.

1. Everyone assumes moving Pedro Martinez to the No. 2 slot gives the Mets a fearsome rotation, but it’s been a few years since he’s been healthy enough to start every fifth day.
2. Moises Alou showed the world that he remains a professional hitter — at least in the couple months of the season that he played. He’s a crucial part of the Mets batting order, but he has to be in the lineup to make that difference.
3. Carlos Delgado denied all season that he was hurt, but no one believed him. If he has a bounceback season in 2008, his aging body will have to be healthy in order to do it.
4. The Mets bullpen melted down late in the season, but thankfully Duaner Sanchez will be back. Of course the same thing was being said around this time last year and his last major-league pitch was still thrown before that fateful cab ride in Florida in July 2006. The Mets need him to come back strong, but that means coming back as the player he was a year-and-a-half ago. That’s a tremendous leap of faith.

So today is day for optimism for Mets fans. But those fans, as much as any in this area, should be used to the idea that preseason optimism does not always translate to postseason success.