As Gang Green Turns: Jets Sanchez Extension Means Manning Turned Rex Down

Article first published as As Gang Green Turns: Jets Sanchez Extension Means Manning Turned Rex Down on Blogcritics.

In my previous article I indicated that Jets head coach Rex Ryan had to change his spots if the Jets had any chance of landing superstar quarterback Peyton Manning. One day later we learn the Jets have given current quarterback Mark Sanchez a three-year extension worth $40.5 million, meaning now we have five years more of the Ryan-Sanchez era. Excuse me, but the silence in New York is deafening this morning.

We Jets fans have to know what this means: we are stuck with King Rex and his brand of football, kind of the way we Mets fans are stuck with the 2012 team that is already beaten up and destined for .500 ball or less. I guess we should be kind of used to this by now, but it gets old pretty fast always waiting for next year.

Now don't get me wrong, there is a snowstorm's chance in July of me ever switching to Giant blue or Yankee pinstripes. I have Jets green and Mets orange and blue in my blood, born from losing and the hope that once sprang eternal from the mists over Ebbetts Field, the Polo Grounds, and Shea Stadium. Still, I think we Jets fans all woke up this morning, saw this headline about Sanchez, and wondered how things can go this way.

Quickly clicking on the radio to listen to my favorite sports stations (WINS, WFAN, and ESPN here in New York), I switched back and forth to get more details. One thing I heard really hit me hard: Jet icon Joe Namath advised Manning not to get into the Jets soap opera. If good old Willie Joe thinks Ryan and company are toxic, the prospects for the future (as long as Ryan reigns) are dismal to say the least.

You can imagine that Peyton was seriously considering the Jets chances for a trip to the Super Bowl, but with Namath's advice and his legacy to consider (no doubt also realizing how well things worked out for Brett Farve here) he decided it was not worth it. This is what Rex Ryan has done to the Jets; instead of attracting the best players the way he thinks, he is turning them away.

Some may feel that this extension confirms the Jets belief that Sanchez is their man for now and the future, but don't be fooled: this is strictly damage control. They are saying "Sanchez is our man; and this is Ryan's team." In reality this is pure desperation because the team was backed into the corner by Manning's decision to say no to Rex.

So Jets fans you know what we're in for now and for the next five years: more of the same, mediocrity disguised as a game plan. Better get used to it because Rex and Sanchez are here for there long haul on the road leading to nowhere.

Photo Credits - Daily News

Mets Mess: Oliver Perez Released - Thumbs Up or Down?

Article first published as Mets Mess: Oliver Perez Released - Thumbs Up or Down? on Blogcritics.

In the old Roman Coliseum days, the crowd got what it wanted based on thumbs up or down. Some say the gladiator spared his opponent if the thumb was down rather than up; whatever the case was in those days, now we know thumbs down means a bad rating. For former Mets pitcher Oliver Perez, he got a resounding thumbs down from the fans and has been finally shown the door.


There were lots of reasons to keep Perez and Luis Castillo - about 18 million of them. The team gave up on both players, exorcising at least some of the ghosts left behind by former GM Omar Minaya. In doing so they were giving the fans what they wanted, but it also will look pretty bad if both guys get picked up as cheap players by other teams and do well (the Mets will be on the hook for most of their salaries either way).

While Castillo never really had success here in New York, for a while Perez flirted with greatness. I can remember going to a Suway Series game back at Old Shea a few years ago on a rainy night, and Perez kept the Yankees scoreless for seven plus innings. What happened to him since then no one can tell, but some say he has just lost it; others thought it was a mental block of some kind. Maybe we will never know.

On this day the Mets parted ways with Oliver Perez, and in this move new GM Sandy Alderson is making a statement that goes beyond payroll and fiscal worries. Perhaps the Mets are no better now than they were before, but as was the rule back in the old coliseum days, the fans got what they wanted. At least Perez gets to leave town with his head on his shoulders.

Photo Credit: Metsblog.com

Knicks Knack: Anthony Debuts in 114-108 Win Over Bucks

Article first published as Knicks Knack: Anthony Debuts in 114-108 Win Over Bucks on Blogcritics.


There are magic moments in sports; sometimes we get to experience them, and sometimes we wish that we did. Can you imagine seeing Don Larsen's perfect game during the World Series? My father saw that one. What about being there when Lou Gehrig said he was the luckiest guy in the world? My great moments include when Cleon Jones caught that last ball of the 1969 World Series. Another was when Bill Buckner of the Boston Red Sox let a ball hit by Mookie Wilson roll through his legs. Those were the days.

Last night such a moment happened: Brooklyn-born Carmelo Anthony came home, and what a homecoming it was. He scored 27 points, had ten rebounds, and helped lead the New York Knicks to a 114-108 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. This was not a blowout, but that was not necessary. The Knicks are now 1-0 in the Carmelo Anthony era; let's hope there are many more wins to come in the weeks ahead.

Even if the Knicks win 20 of those last 27 games, they aren't going to catch the Celtics, but that is not why Anthony stepped on that court last night. It is all about perception and intention: team owner James Dolan wanted to let the fans know that he is committed to win, and nothing makes that more clear than seeing the new forward wearing that number 7 in a Knicks uniform.

Anthony got the welcome we would expect from New York fans. Madison Square Garden was rocking last night, and many fans have not heard that kind of thing for too long at MSG. I remember one other time in my life when a sports arena rocked like that; it was when Mike Piazza came to Shea Stadium for the first time. Old Shea rocked like it hadn't since the Beatles played their songs on a stage erected over second base. It was that wild and that loud and Piazza brought the same kind of hope to New York that Anthony brings now.

In the end we fans all want the same thing: a championship. It almost happened for Piazza in 2000, but the Yankees got in the way. Now it's Anthony's turn. He needs to do a lot more of what he did last night, but his stature and the confidence that he brings to the team is immeasurably important. Now the Apostrophe Boys ('Melo and Amar'e) can work together for the cause. We believe because in essence we see something that makes us do so.

This 114-108 victory is a great start. There are more wins coming, and fans can feel it. We know the playoffs are coming too, and that's something Knicks fans haven't been able to feel sure about for a long time now. Stoudemire started this whole thing. If he were not here, Anthony wouldn't be either. Now things have changed dramatically, and next year the Celtics will be on notice just as the Patriots will be. The Jets are for real and now so are the Knicks. That gives New York fans something to smile about this morning.

Photo Credit:
Theodorakis/News

NY Mets Mess: Goodbye and Good Riddance to Minaya and Manuel

This article first appeared as NY Mets Mess: Goodbye and Good Riddance to Minaya and Manuel on Blogcritics.

Make no mistake about it: the NY Mets will finally part ways with Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel after Sunday's last game of the season. This cannot happen fast enough for me. Goodbye and good riddance to them both.

In the beginning I liked Omar Minaya. I figured this fellow who grew up in Queens in the shadow of Shea Stadium had been a Mets fan all his life. Surely, he would bring something to the table that other GMs lacked: knowledge of the good, bad, and ugly Mets past. This would have to help him fashion a team that would be a winner because every Mets fan wants that, right? Wrong!

Minaya was blamed for many things, but the worst thing I think he brought to the Mets was this: complacency was okay. He seemed to sit on his hands as big fish got hooked by other teams - especially the Yankees - and that made him look either inept or unconcerned about the team. Both attitudes (and I believe Minaya suffered from both afflictions) are deadly in the game and put the Mets into a terrible situation.

Things started to turn for me when he got rid of Willie Randolph. I don't believe that Randolph got sufficient assitance on the field from the GM; therefore, how can he be blamed for the team's performance. Randolph was another local boy who made good, one who went with his father to Mets games from his native Brooklyn. I liked Randolph very much and felt he had a chance to take the Mets all the way, but he was like a carpenter without his hammer and saw. No one can blame him for the team Minaya saddled him with back then.

Of course, Jerry Manuel is not as culpable in this situation. He got dealt a bad hand. He took over for Minaya and he too never got the personnel he deserved. Minaya seemed like a guy standing on the subway platform, letting all the good trains shoot by him. He never made an effort to get Manuel help this year. We wanted Cole Hamels, but what we got was Dillon Gee.

None of this makes any sense and it never will because there is no explaining Minaya's baseball philosophy. It seems to me that he was like a guy trying to hammer nails into a table, but all he did was stand over it and toss the nails in the air. The table is never going to be completed that way, and I think that's why we have the Mets mess we have today.

So goodbye and good riddance to Minaya. I wish Manuel well, but he needs to go someplace else. He is a good fellow and deserves better. Much better.

Whom will the Mets hire as GM? The only more salient question is who will be the new manager. I like Wally Backman very much, and his kick butt attitude got him a long way with the Brooklyn Cyclones. Maybe he is what this team needs. It also needs a guy who can hit 30 homers, a couple of starters who can win 15-20 games, and a bullpen that can close the door.

We have all winter to think about these things, but the Mets organization had better get working on next year this Sunday, October 3, 2010, as soon as the last inning is played. Otherwise, next year Citi Field is going to be a ghost town.

As Gang Green Turns: Jets and Giants Pre-Season Game Overshadowed By a House That's Not a Home

Article first published as As Gang Green Turns: Jets and Giants Pre-Season Game Overshadowed By a House That's Not a Home in Blogcritics.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
- Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities

It should be so exciting: the Jets are playing their first game in a new stadium, but sadly it is not.
The pre-season game played by the Jets and Giants tonight at the New Meadowlands Stadium is not so much a tale of two teams but rather of two cities. In Dickens's novel, it was about two unrelenting forces in history: London and Paris; in the saga of Gang Green and Big Blue, it is New York City and East Rutherford, New Jersey. Uh, yeah, New Jersey!

The point is as a Jets fan I feel like someone without a home. Fifty years of existence has brought us to this moment: the Jets play a game tonight as a "home" team in a city that is anything but. The Jets haven't truly had a home since December 1983, when they left Shea Stadium for the decidedly unfriendly confines of a place called Giants Stadium in the state of New Jersey, no less.

I grew up as a fan of the New York Jets, and I have never been able to get comfortable with them playing someplace other than New York. I went to one game at Giants Stadium, and I couldn't enjoy it at all. It was kind of like having your mother's Christmas dinner in a stranger's house. Yeah, Mom is still there and serving her turkey, but I am sitting at somebody else's table.

I am the first to admit that Shea Stadium was never really home either. As a Mets fan, I didn't mind the Jets sharing space with their baseball cousins. Both started in the Polo Grounds and then made the move to Queens, but at least it was in New York City. Shea was built as a baseball stadium, but it still felt better than going to the alien world of the Meadowlands. It is as if the Mets would have moved to Yankee Stadium and had to play their games there. How do you call a place "home" that is named after your cross-town rivals that most of your fans despise worse than an Elvis impersonator?

Some of you have heard this rap before: The Jets and the Mets are always playing second fiddle to the established titans of the Giants and the Yankees. They are supposedly the teams that own this town, and no matter what the Jets and Mets do it isn't good enough. Well, after all these years, there is no way to undo this perception, and it has not helped that the Jets and Mets have performed poorly over recent years.

Last year, however, the Jets were steps away from the Super Bowl. Rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez led a team that defied expectations, and we excitedly watched playoff games that mattered to us as Jets fans. Now the team is back better than ever, though lacking Darrelle Revis on defense and that has many of us nervous and worried.

Still, as the Jets step on that field tonight, they do so as a home team; unfortunately, their home is still not their own. They share it with their rivals the Giants, and it is located in a state that is not New York. It is a tale of two different teams and takes place in two different cities. As Dickens noted in his famous book: "it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us."

Yes, Jets fans, another season where we have it all and yet we have nothing. If only Citi Field could have been built as a home for both the Mets and Jets, but that was not to be. The Dodgers left us; the baseball Giants left too, and it's time for New York Jets fans to wake up and realize we are empty nesters. Our little green birdies flew the coop a long time ago. We can either be fans without a home or fans without a team. For now, I'm staying with the Jets, but like it has always been since 1983, it will not feel like a homecoming by any means.