Yankees Stupid, Mets Smart.

"The Mets came out of this weekend looking a whole lot better than the Yankees did."

The Yankees took two out of three from Anaheim while the Mets finished up a 2-5 road trip. But that's not what true baseball fans care about.

"All weekend, all of the talk around baseball was about this humongous deal the Mets were trying to make. They owned the sports pages, coming within an eyelash of landing the kind of impact player for which the Yankees no longer have the ability to even shop. It must have been driving George Steinbrenner nuts (insert wisecrack here), and there was nothing he could do about it.

While the Mets dreamt of deals for Ramirez and Soriano -- two of the most electric bats in the majors -- the Yankees fished around and came up with the following:

• Shawn Chacon, a pitcher the Rockies (the Rockies!) have been trying to dump since the winter.
• Alan Embree, a left-handed reliever so bad that he was released by a first-place team that needs bullpen help and for whom he was a playoff hero just one year ago.
• Hideo Nomo, whose 83-mph fastball has been most effective this year against ... the Yankees."

Huh?

The Mets came out better than the Yankees because they almost got Soriano and/or Ramirez? Because they got a little more play in the newspapers as the deadlines neared?

The Yankees are still in the AL East race and the Wild Card race, even though they clearly have major problems. (It's nice to see that they're finally trying hard. Took 100 games, but better late than never.)

Nobody is claiming that Embree, Chacon, and Nomo are blockbusters, but they came cheap and they couldn't hurt. They're better than nobody.

The Yankees are still drawing 55k to every home game and, you know what else? The Yankees are cutting some deadwood salary after this season, too.


The Mets are in last place, one game over .500. Graziano claims the Mets signed the best pitcher and best hitter in the offseason, but their fans should still be patient. They weren't built to win this year. Any day now, Beltran is going to display one of his five tools.


The Mets are not taking over this town anytime soon, no matter how hard Graziano is rooting for them. Graziano really believes the games are played in the newspapers and not on the field.