Sad Mets fans and wounded Cubbie backers have been forwarding us emails this afternoon that they received from online price gouger StubHub today. The pitch? Playoff tickets to see the Mets and Cubs "chase baseball immortality." I have to admit, were either of these teams to find themselves in a playoff game in 2009 that would be pretty immortal.

Here's the message:

Where do you want to sit?

Hey Richard,

Be there alongside your New York Mets as they chase baseball immortality. Go to StubHub, where you'll find a fantastic selection of tickets to every playoff game – so you experience the championship chase live and in person. Check it out. Go to StubHub and get the seats you want today.

Insert "Chicago Cubs" for Mets and at least two other readers got the exact same email. This is what's known in targeted online marketing circles as "a dick move." It's not like ticket office printed up playoff vouchers only to see their teams cruelly shut out on the final day of the season. They were mathematically eliminated with weeks to go. Their terribleness was legendary. Yet, StubHub had to kick these loyal fans when they were down. It's almost as bad as what their teams did to them all summer.

Nice work, fellas. Just stick to selling me lower bowl Hannah Montana tickets for $12,000.

Update: Oh, and Nationals playoff tickets, too.

Hey Michael,

Be there alongside your Washington Nationals as they chase baseball immortality. Go to StubHub, where you'll find a fantastic selection of tickets to every playoff game – so you experience the championship chase live and in person. Check it out. Go to StubHub and get the seats you want today.

* * * * *

I think that's all for Monday. Join us tomorrow, when more adventures await. Maybe. Possibly. Honestly, I just hope my computer doesn't catch on fire when I try to log on in the morning. Our infrastructure's been a little temperamental today, so keep your voices down.

A Jeter-A-Rod home run tag team has the Angels thinking offseason travel plans. Dodgers-Phillies try again later, with Monday Night Football on the B-Side. Enjoy.

That man is me.

My name is Seth Fleischauer, and I am The Face of Mets Failure.

The date was Sept. 30, 2007, and Los Mets had just broken the Major League record for Piece of Shit. The next day, my face was everywhere -– the cover of the Daily News, USA Today's sports section, AOL's homepage, and so on. SNY interviewed me, a nameless blogger made it his personal mission to shame me, and even Regis Philbin exclaimed on his morning show, "It's that guy again … Who is this guy?!?"

Now every time the Mets fall on their collective face, someone, somewhere, uses my image. My favorite instance came on this very site when I was listed on a Mets injury report, right after Keith Hernandez and Mr. Met.

The attention has been an ego rush, sure, but the experience itself has taught me what it means to be a Mets fan. Being indelibly linked with their failure has made me appreciate the agony of it all. I get it now — we're not the Yankees, and we never will be. We fail in new and more interesting ways all the time, and if there's a pop fly to be dropped in the bottom of the ninth with two men on, we will find the man to do it. Part of the fun is embracing how utterly unfortunate we can be. Failing this fantastically can do nothing but make future victories all the sweeter.

Seth Fleischauer is an elementary school teacher who left New York three months ago for the comfortable vapidity of Los Angeles. His blog, with stories about teaching in New York, LA and Taiwan, is adventuresinteacherland.wordpress.com.

Photos by Becky Levitt

•Don't cry, Canes fans, The U looks like it's back after a blowout win over Georgia Tech. Next up: ranked Virginia Tech, higher ranked Oklahoma, and the very highly ranked "avoiding off-the-field controversies." That last one may prove unwinnable.

•The umpires claim that they were verbally abused by Angels coaches after two abominable questionable calls Wednesday night. You know what, Angels? Nick Green's OPS is .669. He deserves five-strikes-and-you're out, to make it fair.

•Roger Federer was fined $1,500 for this little remark at the US Open: "Don't tell me to be quiet, OK? When I want to talk, I talk. I don't give a shit what he said." Thanks to Roger and Serena, we know know that "fuck" is precisely seven times more offensive than "shit" in tennis. I don't even want to know what "mecrob" would cost you.

•A lockout of NBA refs is "imminent and unavoidable" after talks with the league broke down yesterday. The refs turned down an extra million dollars in concessions, which leads me to believe they haven't looked at the poll on this page that says only 24% of fans care if they come back. Leverage indeed.

•A judge has ruled that Kobe Bryant's former housekeeper can sue him for being wrongfully fired, but can't claim emotional distress. Honey, you got off lucky. I don't know if you've heard about Kobe's last court case, but consider yourself lucky if the distress was just emotional.

•I hope Dash didn't think his Mets Season Of Failure gallery was finished. Elias says the Mets have three game-ending errors this season. That's three times as many as any other team.

•Finally, did you like the Commodore 64? Do you think it would have been better if only they put out a version of Guitar Hero for it? You're not alone:

Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in. I tried to close the door on the New York Mets season yesterday, but they just had to go and do this. Yes, yes. I know David Wright was severely injured by a pitch to the head and safety is the paramount concern here, but ... isn't he adorable!? It's almost too much to take.

Ok, now I'm done.

Please, David Wright, Never Stop Wearing This Helmet [The Fightins]
"Where is Barry Bonds in all this?" [The Sports Hernia Blog]

* * * * *

Welcome to Wednesday. You're no friend of mine.

Nothing has gone right for the poor Metropolitans in this calendar year. From the ownership down to the bat boys, the entire organization has been beset by financial issues, management missteps, injuries, errors, poor timing, and just plain bad luck. Every week seemed to bring a new crisis or terrible disaster and through it all, they constantly found inventive and entertaining ways to squander victory. And there's still a month left!

Join us now on a journey through the outer borough's season of hell, as we look back on the losingest bunch of losers who ever lost a baseball game.

January 15: The Mets kickoff 2009 by unveiling a commemorative patch for the upcoming season, their first at spanking new Citi Field. It is roundly and swiftly denounced.

February 3: Citigroup, which got its name on the stadium via a 20-year, $400 million licensing deal, considers backing out the agreement because they can no longer afford it. Suggested name change: "Taxpayer Field"

February 17: OF Carlos Beltran declares the Mets the "team to beat" in the NL East and in response to Philadelphia's Cole Hamels (who referred to the Mets as "choke artists") says, "Hopefully we kill him, and then he'll have to deal with the situation." Beltran, who will make $19 million in 2009, plays just 67 games before going on the disabled list for10 weeks (and counting.) [Photo: AP]

February 18: The last remaining piece of Shea Stadium is knocked down.

April 6: SP Johan Santana wins his opening day start against the Cincinnati Reds. Two days later, the New York Times reports that the Mets no longer offer group discounts to Little League teams that visit Citi Field, as they did at Shea Stadium in previous years.

April 12: In Santana's second start, OF Daniel Murphy drops an easy fly ball in the second inning against the Marlins, allowing two unearned runs to score. The Mets lose, 2-1. Santana says after the game: "It's one mistake that he made. It cost us the whole ballgame, but it's part of the game ... This is not going to be the first time. I don't think it's going to be the last one, either." That's called foreshadowing.... [Photo: New York Daily News]

April 21: One week later, Murphy badly misplays a flyball in the eighth inning against St. Louis, allowing the eventual go-ahead run to reach base on a triple. On June 24, after being moved to first base, Murphy makes another costly error that contributes to another Mets loss. (He did manage to make one nifty play this year.) [Video: MLB.com]

May 10: The Mets beat Pittsburgh, 8-4, and move into first place in the NL East. The three-game sweep of the Pirates gives them a seven-game winning streak, their longest of the season. They remain in first place for 8 more days, leading by as much as 2 games before dropping back to second. It is the high water mark of their season. [Photo: AP]

May 13: All-Star SS Jose Reyes hurts his right calf. He makes 7 more plate appearances before being placed on the DL and does not play again in 2009.

May 16: 1B Carlos Delgado is placed on the 15-day disabled list, after just 26 games played. Three days later he has arthroscopic surgery on his hip and does not play again in 2009. [Photo: New Jersey Star-Ledger]

May 18: The Mets commit five errors in an 11-inning game against the Dodgers. The game ends when 1B Jeremy Reed throws the ball away attempting to force out the winning run at home plate.

May 20: A fan gets her arm stuck in a Citi Field toilet, while trying to retrieve a dropped gold tooth. Plumbers must be called to the stadium to free her. [Photo: A Helluva Town]

June 4: RP J.J. Putz, acquired in 3-team, 12-player trade during the offseason, has surgery to remove a bone spur from his elbow. While on a rehab assignment in August, doctors discover a slightly torn ulnar collateral ligament in the same elbow. He will not play again in 2009. [Photo: Canadian Press]

June 12: SP John Maine is placed on the 15-day disabled list with "shoulder weakness." He does not play again in 2009. [Photo: NY Daily News]

June 12: Leading the crosstown rival Yankees by one run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, 2B Luis Castillo needs only to catch a routine fly ball to end the game. He drops it, allowing both the tying and winning runs to score. [Video: MLB.com]

July 2: On a one-game road trip to Pittsburgh the Mets are booked into the Westin Hotel. The hotel is also hosting Anthrocon, the "galaxy's largest Furry convention." [Photo]

July 3-5: Trailing the division leaders by just one game, the Mets head to Philadelphia for a crucial three-game series. They are swept, scoring just three runs all weekend. They fall to fourth place and are never closer than four games behind the rest of the season. [Photo: AP]

July 12: Mets fans boo their giant mechanical "Home Run" apple after it fails to rise in celebration of a Fernando Tatis dinger. [Photo: AP/Star-Ledger]

July 22: The New York Daily News reports that while visiting the Mets Double-A farm team in Binghamton, Vice President for Player Development Tony Bernazard took off his shirt and challenged minor league players to fight him during a locker room tirade. One day earlier, Bernazard loudly berates an assistant in front of scouts and fans at Citi Field, because someone else has taken his seat during a game. Five days later, Bernazard is fired.

July 27: At the press conference announcing the dismissal of Tony Bernazard, general manager Omar Minaya accuses Daily News beat writer Adam Rubin of "lobbying for a player development position," implying that Rubin's coverage of Bernazard was influenced by his desire to secure a job for himself in the Mets' front office. Minaya apologizes the next day, at the behest of Mets COO Jeff Wilpon.

August: In one of the season's few bright spots, 3B coach Razor Shines takes a stand against hiney-fingering.

August 4: Luis Castillo sprains his ankle after slipping and falling down the dugout steps during a game. The Mets lose in extra innings. [Photo: New York Post]

August 15: All-Star 3B David Wright is hit in the head by a fastball from San Francisco's Matt Cain. During the two weeks he spends on the disabled list, the Mets fall 5.5 more games in the standings. [Photo: AP]

August 20: Former closer Billy Wagner returns from injury and appears in his first game in over twelve months. He is immediately placed on waivers and (after waiving his no-trade clause) is sent to Boston within a week. [Photo: AP]

August 23: Adam Goldstein, better known as DJ AM, throws out the ceremonial first pitch at Citi Field. Five days later, he is found dead of a suspected drug overdose. [Photo: Reader Greg B.]

August 23: Trailing 9-7 in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Phillies, the Mets have runners on first and second with nobody out when OF Jeff Francoeur lines into the 15th unassisted triple play in Major League history. It's only the second time ever that a MLB game has ended with an unassisted triple play. [Video: MLB.com]

August 25: The Mets announce that Johan Santana, who will make $19 million in 2009, will have arthroscopic elbow surgery and is placed on the DL for the remainder of the season. [Photo: AP]

August 28: Erin Arvedlund, author of "Too Good to Be True," a book about jailed hedge fund manager Bernie Madoff, asserts that Mets owner Fred Wilpon will be forced to sell the team within the next year. Wilpon and his family lost an estimated $700 million as a result of Madoff's fraudulent schemes. The Mets deny the claim.

September 1: With one month remaining in the 2009 season, the Mets begin the day 17.5 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies.

[Video: MLB.com/Mike Byhoff]

Shea rebellion: I direct your attention to Chapter 2 of Who Is This Tory Muppet and Why Is He Yammering About Baseball? George Will's subject is the birth in the 1960s of the multi-purpose stadium. He writes: "Almost everything about the 1960s, from politics to popular music to neckties, was marked by wretched excess." Now, one should remember that George Will is a pundit who seems to have a built a political philosophy out of a profound and unshakable fear that he was the only guy not to get laid in the '60s. (He is also maybe the only person on earth who'd place Shea Stadium on the same continuum as, say, Procol Harum.) George Will, to state it plainly, doesn't know dick. Not about the '60s. Not about baseball. He is wrong. Wretchedly, excessively wrong.

And yet, remarkably, the public seems to share Will's view that the old doughnut stadiums were some misguided fashion of a thankfully bygone era, a sort of architectural Flock of Seagulls. No ballpark's closing was as little lamented as Shea's, even though what replaced it, the enormous Geico advertisement known as Citi Field, is far more soulless, aloof and, yes, excessive than Shea ever was. (I'll grant Citi this: It is fully cognizant of the team's rich history; unfortunately, that team is now located in Los Angeles.)

It's too bad. For all their faults, Shea and its multi-purpose cousins represented an idea of a sports facility — versatile and utilitarian and forward-looking — that we might eagerly embrace today if owners hadn't spent the past 30 years convincing us they were all uninhabitable blights. I asked stadium guru Neil deMause for an estimate as to how much a Shea replica might cost today. He e-mailed: "I remember a calculation from the '90s that to rebuild Wrigley from scratch would cost something like $100 million — add in inflation and that Shea is bigger, and maybe $250-300 million? Certainly far less than Citi's $600m, anyway."

"There were no excesses in those stadiums," architecture critic John Pastier says of the multi-use stadiums. They were "economically very sensible," he says. "The Kingdome cost $70 million and could house every possible activity you could think of, and then they spent well over a billion dollars to replace it with three different structures and they actually lost functionality. You could no longer do Final Four basketball the way they had before. You could no longer do political conventions."

The doughnuts were egalitarian (despite the usual claims that Citi is more "intimate," the seats at Shea were actually closer to the field). They were built for mass entertainment of all kinds, which is why Sid Bernstein and the Beatles chose Shea for their first U.S. concert venue. They were cheap and ugly and did their job at relatively little cost to the common weal, and they were quickly supplanted by big, bright shrines to the kind of wretched excess George Will can get behind: making money.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

I'm from Philly but live in New York. A couple friends and I went to the game in early June when the right field corner would ultimately be christened "Utley's Corner."

First of all, it's ridiculous that Mets fans continue to talk shit to us at all after 2007 and 2008, but there we were, being told over and over again that the Phillies "suck." It was like walking through 1946 Berlin and having people talk shit about the Luftwaffe to you.

Anyway, during the game, the Mets took an early 4-1 lead, but my friends and I didn't bat an eyelash as we were, y'know, playing the New York bastard Mets. Of course the Phillies came back to force extras. Before I go on, the stadium itself is a piece of shit and looks like it was designed with Legos by a kid with ADD. Just these weird random shapes jutting out everywhere with no sense of symmetry whatsoever. Also, the food blows.

Anyway, the whole place started to empty out around the 7th, despite it being a tie game. No idea what it would take to sell that place out and fill it up because, as seen on TV, not only do the seats behind the plate stay empty for the entire game, but so did most of the rest of our row, and section. And if they can't fill it up for the WFCs, one of their most hated rivals, in the middle of what was, at the time, a pennant race (hahaha), what does that tell you? When asked, most of the fans around us identified themselves as Yankees fans. All except one.

Around the 3rd inning, a dude in a Mets cap and his friend in a Phils cap came in two rows ahead of us. I recognized the guy in the Mets cap immediately as Finch from American Pie.

For the rest of the game, whenever something good happened, my friends and I were whooping it up and cheering with his Phillies friend because he was literally the only other non-Mets/Yankees fan in the section. And while a few people were getting their picture taken with him, we completely ignored Finch. But my friends and I agreed, "When we take the lead (as if there were ever any doubt), lay into Finch." Long story short, after Chase hit that bomb, Finch from American Pie gave us the finger.

It was one of the most gratifying moments of my life as a Philadelphia sports fan. Thanks Citi Field! (Brendan Burke)

Some of the largest signs in the outfield are: Buy and sell golduscoins.com, Arpielle equipment (read tractor) rentals, and freecreditreport.com. What, exactly, does this say about the people of New York? (Matt D.)

Let's go with the obvious one: it's the home of the Mets, yet it took them until August to actually have more reminders of the Mets than the Brooklyn Dodgers. I walked in the main entrance, and could've sworn I heard the ticket taker say "Welcome to Ebbets Field." Yes, we all know Fred Wilpon would rather have bought the Dodgers and moved them back to Brooklyn so that his daddy would say that he loves him. But leave the Dodger love to, oh, I don't know... the Dodgers, perhaps? (Ron Baker)

I went to an auction of Shea Stadium memorabilia last month. Mets fans were there, times were had. Among the lots was the vinyl banner of the artist's rendering of Citi Field from 2006, when the Wilpons were still selling the public on the idea and construction was just starting. The thing went for ~$60, which was ridiculous considering I got two other banners and three pieces of the box seats for the same price, and it was an auction of Shea Stadium stuff (a lot of good stuff went that day, Tom Seaver's locker chief among them), but that's not the issue here. The issue, as pointed out to me by another fan, was that the artist's rendering had more to do with the Mets then the real Citi Field does. Supposedly, they've recently renovated the stadium so that it's more Mets-y, but shouldn't a stadium designed for the Mets (unlike Shea, which was multi-purpose) be designed with the Mets in mind? (Zach)

When you first walk into the Jackie Robinson Rotunda you notice how much it looks like the pictures of Ebbets field you've seen. As you walk in, you see the six foot tall "42" statue in bright, Dodger blue. Then you look up and see a picture of Robinson and couple of other Dodgers in mid-celebration of their '55 World Series Title. Look right from there and you see a picture of Robinson with Walter O'Malley, then a picture of Robinson is his UCLA track uniform at a long-jump event a the Coliseum.

What do all of these things have in common? The Dodgers (even the Coliseum). Now, as an L.A. native and big time Dodger fan (yeah we exist) living in New York, I should be honored... and I am. For the Mets to honor Robinson in the city that he broke the color barrier is amazing and I have nothing bad to say about it. But I found it a bit insulting (to Dodger fans AND Mets fans) to see the tribute as such a big tribute to the Brooklyn Dodgers. You already stole your logo from the Giants, now you're stealing history from the Dodgers? (Scott B.)

We have a tribute to Jackie Robinson who never played for us (the son-of-a-bitch retired rather than play for the Giants for God's sake). We have a "Pepsi Porch" although taste tests prove we vastly prefer Coke. We have a big Modell's sign but I'm not sure why. We have GIGANTIC OUTFIELD WALLS so we'll never see a homer-stealing catch (only one of the most exciting plays in baseball along with the triple, the steal of home, and anytime that stripper with the big boobies runs out on the field to kiss the third-base coach).

What we don't have is any sense of our own history. Apparently our history is a gigantic apple, the neon frieze that used to be over the scoreboard, and Ralph Kiner (another SOB who never played for us).

I know, it takes a lot of lovin' to make a house a home but I'm not so sure I have enough love in my heart for this place. (Mmole)

Citi Field looks like it was the aborted love child of countless different stadiums. "Oh let's put an overhang in the outfield like Tiger Stadium!" "Busch Stadium's brick entrance is nice, lets use that!" Only the Mets could manage to take the best parts from some of the most beautiful and classic stadiums and have the end result look like absolute shit.

Some other things to note: There are over fifty advertisements from foul pole to foul pole in Citi Field, likely a side effect of Mr. Wilpon's lack of understanding Ponzi schemes. The team's championship banners were on a brick wall facing away from the stadium, invisible to anybody watching the game, until they were finally moved about a week ago. The bullpen is under a fucking canopy for some reason. The entire outfield wall lacks any semblance of symmetry, and throughout the whole field there must be about a hundred different heights for the outfield fence. The tops of the dugouts are red and black. Why? Not a fucking clue. And when faced with criticism about the field, the Wilpons sloppily added a third video monitor in the right field corner, apparently hoping that they could distract the fans form the shittiness of the stadium by just adding more shiny TVs.

It would take me too long to describe how almost every non-field level seat has an obstructed view of some sort either from unnecessary plexiglass or an abundance of poorly constructed railings, but by now you probably get the idea. Lets just say that the aesthetics of Citi Field make it perfectly deserving of that hideous and embarrassing Domino's Pizza logo it was adorned with. I miss Shea. (David V.)

Went to see the Reds on a Sunday afternoon. Brian Schneider hits a HR,...everyone goes ape shit....the Apple makes an appearance for the first time in the previous eight home games. Fernando Tatis then goes yard for back to back HR's. But no Apple! Where's the F'n Apple? People get restless,...then the chants start..."we want apple....(clap clap...clap clap clap), we want apple...(clap, clap....clap clap clap). No Apple. Then people get mad...and they start booing....THE APPLE!!! Make no mistake, they were booing the Apple!!! Newsday did a story about it the next day. Apparently it takes the apple 105 seconds to recharge after it is "deployed", at least that was the official explanation given as to why the apple could not rise again after the second HR,....but that doesn't explain why a good ten minutes went by before the Apple came out again..., between innings if I remember correctly.. (Jim H.)

I went to Citi Field a few weeks ago to catch the day game of a double header against the Rockies. I am not a Mets fan but I was excited to see the new ballpark. Aside from the painfully awkward shrine to Jackie Robinson, a great player who never played for the Mets and played for a team that STILL EXISTS, the stadium is what you'd expect. Corporate, boring, and no sign that the Mets actually play there. However, my favorite part of the game was during the national anthem when the videoboard scrolling the words crapped out and flashed a giant question mark during the entire song. (Catherine R.)

yeah, i have a citi field experience. i watched the new york mets play during the 2009 season. (dylon)

Photo via beau-dog's Flickr account.

Next up: Dodger Stadium. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

It was just the second game-ending unassisted triple play (the first since Johnny Neun in 1927), and the 15th unassisted triple play of all time.

In other NL East action that interests myself and a perhaps few dozen others, the Nationals snapped a five-game losing streak with an 8-3 win over Milwaukee.

Video courtesy of The Fightins.

*****

Another weekend, another painful moment for Mets fans everywhere. I didn't intend to bookend the day like this, but that's how things go sometimes. That's it for me, enjoy the rest of your Sunday. DMV stand up.

Image

The Mets lost another one to J.A. Happ and the Phillies last night, and their fans didn't fare much better. A fight broke out in the stands during the sixth inning, fortunately the cameraman took notice. Watch as this Phillies fan dumps what's left of his beer on an unsuspecting Mets fan who then walks in to a pair of sloppy right hands.

And that's the Mets' season in a nutshell.

Video via The Fightins.

* * * * *

We're just three weeks away from the first NFL Sunday of the new season. My advice is to sit back and enjoy a nice relaxing day before a long stressful season. Now enough of this fighting, let's embrace the love.

So because I'm a sucker for these sorts of interactive hocus-pocus ads (this one is for Aquafina where Razor is supposed to be your "3rd Base Coach Of Life), I spent a good 45 minutes today typing random questions into this little box to make Razor Shines talk to me. Unlike that BK subservient chicken site from a couple years ago, Razor won't wag a finger if you ask him an inappropriate question. Nope, Razor will take the time to give you a carefully crafted response to everything from "Do you like my pants?" to "Will you finger my hiney?" as demonstrated in the video above. August!

UPDATE: Apparently, you can take it too far. Reader Jeff H. informs us that he was "ejected" by an umpire after asking Razor if his "wife tosses his salad." I typed in "Can I fuck your face?" and was told by Shines to "wash my mouth out with Aquafina." Then I asked "Is your wife a salad-tossing whore?" immediately after and I was ejected as well and sent to the showers. This is new media journalism at its finest.

Mets third base coach Razor Shines is answering your questions today [Sports Hernia]

Last night, Mets' third baseman and face of the franchise, David Wright, was cracked in the melon by a wayward Matt Cain fastball. Down he went. Wright, woozy, concussed, eventually rose up from the dirt and was shipped off to the Hospital for Special Surgery for observation. Fun Saturday night.

Thankfully, Wright appears to be okay after the beaning, but the damage to the Mets already fragile psyche is irreparable. Johan Santana is exasperated: "I don't know what else we can go through..."

Perhaps a clubhouse fire? An earthquake in Queens that knocks the Arpielle Equipment Co. scoreboard ads onto centerfield?

All possibilities.

PHOTO: AP/The 'Hoo!

******

Good morning. It's Sunday. Wake and bake.

Start with the cover, a portrait of the so-called Melting-Pot Mets, commandeered by Omar Teodoro Antonio Minaya y Sanchez. Or, O. Joining him on newsstands everywhere were Orlando Hernandez, Endy Chavez, John Maine, Oliver Perez and Willie Randolph. Three have since left the Mets, and the besuited gentleman in the middle may be next on the outbound train. "He's this close to being out of baseball," Jeff Wilpon told Newsday's Wallace Mathews today today.

After all, Tony Bernazard — the yin to Minaya's yang — was recently the instigator in a Binghamton brawl, but with his reaction, Minaya managed to make himself the villain. ("Too wide-eyed, too trusting?" Gary Smith wrote of Minaya. "Well, here's his narrow eyes, Tony Bernazard, the vice president of player development from Puerto Rico who squinted down O two years ago when he wanted to bring Sosa to the Mets.")

Most of Smith's flattering profile of Minaya analyzes his childhood and inability to snag a G.M. job. There are times, however, when Smith delves into Minaya's psyche through the lens of miniscule anecdotes. Back in 2007, when Minaya walked around with a hat that simply read RELAX, it seemed quaint and adorable and, hey, look, the oh-so-metropolitan Mets are winning and it's all because O is as inclusive as a circle, round and smooth, like a ring of trust. In hindsight, those same details seem strange. After Monday, they're eerily foreboding.

The tide had shifted. Teams were hiring Ivy League grads to be their G.M.'s, lawyers and businessmen and statmongers who'd never hit fungoes to a flock of skinny 16-year-olds and picked out the weed that would bloom five years later. O's frustration grew. "Look, if you want paperwork, I'm not your guy," he'd tell his inquisitors. "I see the job in bigger terms. Paperwork, that's false hustle. It takes away creativity. People who are into paperwork are into covering their asses, so if things go wrong they can point to all the work they did. They're thinking more about failure than success. The more paperwork the opposition does, the better my chances are. Know what I'm sayin'?"

O awoke at four each morning, arrived at five, worked till 10 at night. Lunch? Wolf down a salad from the players' spread. Dinner? Order in sandwiches. The phones sizzled, O looking for help, help looking for O. The office buzzed like mayflies with 24 hours to live. But O trusted tomorrow. The trust spread. "He energized everyone," says his farm director, Adam Wogan. "You wanted to do it for Omar. You'd run through a wall for him."

O twitched and turned down the job. It took one more year of misery for Mets owner Fred Wilpon—his team's clubhouse divided, its credibility with fans and free agents shredded—to call back. "We've become irrelevant in New York City," Wilpon told O in September 2004. "You've got to come home."

"What's the job?" asked O, wary.

"Everything," said Wilpon. "I just want Omar to be Omar."

O's heart raced. "Let's talk as soon as the season's over," he said.

Of course, this is all just another example of that pesky SI cover jinx. No one ever said it's effective immediately.

The Story Of O [Sports Illustrated]
Mets haven't fired Minaya? [Newsday]
EARLIER: Minaya Sort Of Apologizes
EARLIER: Mets Season Descends Further Into Farce

Minaya and Wilpon materialized in the Citi Field press box before last night's game against the Rockies. The former was there to make a half-assed apology for assailing Daily News reporter Adam Rubin at an earlier press conference, about the firing of the Mets' shirtless, two-fisted VP for player development, Tony Bernazard, during which the general manager accused Rubin of plotting ornately to use the column inches of his newspaper to wangle a front-office job with the Mets. The latter was there to contradict just about everything Minaya had said. Writes the Star-Ledger's Brendan Prunty:

"I want to basically, really apologize for what I raised in the forum," Minaya said in the Citi Field press box before the start of Monday's game against the Colorado Rockies. "That was not a proper forum for me to raise those issues and I just feel that in bringing it up there, I don't think that was right and I want to apologize for that."

Minaya was joined by Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, who offered similar words.

"Omar came right up after the press conference to talk to me about it and said, 'Listen, this is what was going through my mind,' and that's private between him and myself," Wilpon said. "But (Minaya) very much wanted to come up here and talk about it."

Wilpon backed Rubin's version of their conversations about front-office work, which Minaya had characterized as "lobbying" for a job.

"I did have the conversation with Adam and what Adam said is correct," Wilpon told reporters. "We did have a conversation on career advice and I don't think there's anything wrong with that — for Adam to come to me with that and speak to me. We had an impromptu conversation somewhere."

Rubin, for his part, addressed Minaya's comments in print today, calling the allegations "misguided." Elsewhere, the attack on Rubin played out like a cheap move by a cornered politician. As Faith and Fear in Flushing's Greg Prince writes:

Lobbied. (Or "lobby" as Omar pronounced it in the past tense.) It struck me as a strange choice of phrasing. It could mean nothing - maybe he walks around the office saying "lobby" or "lobbied" all the time - but it didn't sound like a natural word for Omar Minaya to toss around in conversation. There was even the slightest pause before he spit it out the first time.

What it sounded like was a talking point, the kind politicians use ad infinitum on talking head shows; the kind that is intended to spread virally so it will become woven into the discussion, a discussion you wish framed on your terms; the kind consultants drill into their clients for maximum impact in the hopes that if it is repeated enough, it will begin to sink in as fact.

If it seems a little paranoid to hear a prepared talking point in Minaya's charges, note (as this guy does) that SNY, during the first Minaya presser, cut to Rubin almost immediately after Minaya said his name. It was as if the network knew what was coming and had a camera trained on Rubin the whole time, waiting.

In any event, Minaya has been roundly panned — by the team's own broadcasters, no less — and publicly undermined by his own boss, and now he looks even more like a man not long for his job. Meanwhile, Fernando Tatis beat the Rockies on a grand slam and no one cared.

NY Mets GM Omar Minaya apologetic after tense press conference with reporter Adam Rubin [Star-Ledger]
Undressing the misguided charges of Mets general manager Omar Minaya [Daily News]
SNY voices rip Mets GM Omar Minaya for Adam Rubin debacle [Daily News]
Yet Another Sterling Example [Faith and Fear in Flushing]
So George Santayana Walks Into A Bar ... [Metstradamus]