New York

With this season finally drawing to a close, I have spent most of the past six to eight weeks listening to Mets fans and those who cover the Mets in the media trash over and over and over again the Mets first baseman, Daniel Murphy.

To me it's just unbelievable what extremes these fans take when it comes to blame and evaluation of a players year.

Joe Girardi and the Yankees are praying that A.J. Burnett will be able to return to his summer form come playoff time.

After a dominant stretch from June 14 until August 7, in which he went 6-2 and posted a 2.32 ERA, the Yankees' hard-throwing righty has been dreadful on a regular basis. Entering today's game, Burnett had allowed 25 earned runs in 36.1 innings in his six starts following the gem he tossed against Boston on August 7. He was 1-3 in those starts.

There was a baseball game played on Friday night. The Yankees lost it 10-4 to the Orioles. Truth be told, nobody cared.

Honestly, nobody is going to remember the result, not now nor down the road. Baseball fans are only going to remember that on Sept. 11, 2009, they saw baseball history.

It took 90 minutes to get Friday night's game between the Yankees and Orioles going because of a rain delay, but the fans in the Bronx stuck around to witness a chance to see Derek Jeter surpass Lou Gehrig for the all-time Yankees hit record of 2,721.

Eight years ago, New York City and the world stopped to watch the events that had taken place on the morning of 9/11. Humanity as a whole had been changed as thousands of lives and hundreds of towns had been turned upside forever.

On Friday night, the baseball world too stopped and watched as one of it's most prolific players snapped a 70-year-old team record and re-stamped  his ballot for the hall of fame. 

The Mets are tired and numb from injuries. They're trailing the Phillies by an impossible 18 games in the NL East. They trail the Colorado Rockies by an equally insurmountable 18-1/2 games in the NL Wild Card race. It's time to put their long, miserable season to sleep.

But not before a bedtime story.

The year is 1969.

The Mets are playing in a new ballpark—playing quite terribly, too. Coming into this season, New York has gone a dismal 321-648 since the opening of their new stadium. Shea Stadium.

In a somewhat surprising move today, the Toronto Blue Jays have cut ties with former All-Star relief pitcher B.J. Ryan.

The Blue Jays signed Ryan to a mammoth five-year deal, which was the largest ever for a reliever at the time, following the 2005 season.

Ryan, who was the Blue Jays' closer as recently as this year, has struggled mightily this entire season. In 20.2 innings pitched, Ryan posted an ERA hovering near seven, which is more than double his career ERA (3.37).

On Thursday, July 2, I went to the new Yankee Stadium for the first time. Overall, I was much more pleased than I originally thought. I had expected much different things from the stadium, and I will describe everything that I saw, and explain all of my opinions.

Clutch: the word that is tattooed into every idiotic baseball fan's vocabulary, and into the ears of every intelligent baseball fan during an argument regarding a player's talent. 

Why is it that we assign more value to performances in the seventh, eighth, or ninth innings as opposed to the previous six innings? 

Why is it Joe Crede can strike out three times, leaving nine men on base, but if he hits a solo home run in the ninth inning to send the fans home, he is glorified for his performance?

Much credit has been given to Yankees Manager Joe Girardi for his “inspiring and motivating” rant and subsequent ejection on Wednesday night.

Girardi was on a mission to not only light a fire under his team, but to also make opposing manager and “ejection extraordinaire” Bobby Cox proud of his tirade.

Derrek Lee hit two homers on the day today, bringing his season total to ten. Anyone who has read this blog at all knows that I am very anti-D-Lee. He had that one great year, and has basically been a good average guy with little power that ends up on the DL a lot. Matches his initials, isn’t that cute? 

He is having a pretty good season, but he hasn’t really been injured yet, and I still would not touch him.  If you have him, I would try to cash in on this time and see if you can trade him for someone a little more safe.