So I’m schlepping through Target the other night earnestly searching for presents for all of the wonderful people in my life. I painstakingly select the most appropriate gift for each, knowing how much my gestures will be treasured. I got a guy who my wife hired from Angie’s List who cleans up the poop that our dogs leave all over our backyard. He gets like 8 dollars per week for this, and though that doesn’t sound like much, apparently he has like 700 clients, so he’s doing just fine. Last week he had an unfortunate misstep that essentially ruined the sneakers he wore every day while working, so I thought it made sense to get him a new pair of kicks.
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ow, in spite of my son telling me to get him some KDs or the LeBron 11’s I stick with Target and head over to Mens’ shoes, where every possible type of “skips” are on display. Not sure of the origin of the term “skips” but it’s a pejorative term, and one you never wanted to hear as a kid growing up in Queens. “Skips” back then were sneakers that weren’t Chuck Taylors, or Puma Clydes, or even Pro-Keds. They were just generic, plain sneakers that could get a kid beaten up for showing up wearing them at school or on the playground. Anyway, I load up my cart, pay the cashier, and then head out to the Mall of America sized parking lot. I’m parked about a mile and a quarter from the store and it’s about 9 degrees out, so I head towards my car with all of my goodies. About 100 feet from the store, the wheels on the shopping cart stop going round and round, and I cannot budge this wagon an inch! It is locked down and I cannot move this thing at all. Stop me if you knew about this, but apparently Target employs a security feature on the their carts which automatically disables them once they’re moved more than 150 feet from the store. It got ugly from there. This giant freak with a shaved head screaming in the night, cursing everyone and everything-incapable of moving this freakin’ cart at all! The Police seemed to understand my concerns, and let me off with a warning.
So back to the KDs and such. If you don’t have kids at least 9 or 10 years old, you may not be aware that these things cost upwards of $200. a pair. They sell these similarly inspired socks at $18-$20 a pop to go with them, and if you’ve got more than one son as I do-well, you’re a shmuck and like me, you’re dropping about a thousand bucks a year so your kids don’t get beat up by some North Shore of Long Island tough guy. More grumpy old Dad stuff? Have you visited a “LIDS” retailer lately? There, you’re asked to spend $32 for a flat brimmed hat that makes your kid look like 1996 Allen Iverson or a 2003 Kevin Federline. The apocalypse is indeed upon us. But enough grumpy old guy stuff…
Given the nauseating performances of every Fall and Winter sports team around here, the most interesting spectator sport remains the Baseball Hot Stove. It was disturbing and entirely discrediting of Matthew Cerrone on his (SNY’s) Metsblog site to conjecture that Sandy Alderson may be the Best GM in Baseball. He mentions some yokel named Will Leitch as the provocateur in this case who actually floated this as a possibility. As everyone is painfully aware, I’ve covered and chronicled Sandy’s follies ad infinitum in this space, but let’s examine his moves this Winter thus far.
Chris Young: Good defensive outfielder, can hit LHP a bit with occasional Pop. He strikes out very often, doesn’t hit RHP and is 30 years old. His price tag was $7.25M for 1 year.
Curtis Granderson: Hard not to like this guy. Squeaky clean good guy who hits home runs, plays pretty good defense and can still swipe a few bags. He’s 33 and will cost $60M over the next 4 years.
Bartolo Colon: Will be 41 in May, is obese, and cheats. Having said that, he’s coming off a great season and at 2 years-not a terrible baseball signing.
What do these moves mean? Well, just spending any money at all has put a charge into the Flushing Faithful this Winter so far. The Mets added a few players who absolutely represent upgrades to last year’s roster. But, was this really part of Sandy’s “plan” that we’ve been hearing about for 4 years? Was his plan really to tread water with a 74 win team for half a decade, and then make a couple of “one-off” acquisitions of a couple of guys on the wrong side of 30? There never was a plan. There’s still no plan. The best GM in the Sport? Sounds more like Sandy’s gotten himself some new Skips.
One thought on Eli Manning… the last time Eli was this overmatched, the last time he was a deer in headlights with skittish and happy feet looking worse than Mark Sanchez on Sanchez’s worst day? Jason Phillips was the Mets’ first baseman. Stephon Marbury was riding in limos, Lindsey Lohan had not yet been introduced to crack by her Mom, and Barack Obama was a Community Organizer. That’s how inept and hopeless Eli has looked.
Leave your comments below and tune in tomorrow for someone that is anything but hopeless or inept, Angry Ward.
