Ken Davidoff's baseball insider

The Mets issue is simple. This team doesn't try to win. They never hustle, make dumb plays, and hate their fans. All we want is effort...because with effort would come results. But they Big League it too much. Willie has lost the team and needs to go. My dream fantasy? Have John Stearns manage, and have Rex Hudler and Andy Fox become coaches. I get laughed at whenever I bring up the Mets lack of hustle, but if they hustled on every play last year (like a 7 year old or a girl softball player does) then the Mets win that division going away. Same this year. But they wont, and they wont.

I don't know who is more fragile - the Yankees, the Mets' as a team or the Mets' fans.

Ken, right now, the Yankees and Mets both stink. It would not surprise me if Willie gets fired before the All Star break. Brain Cashman wil be out at the end of the season if the Yanks don't turn it around. Heck Cashman might be out reguardless with his contract running out. And Hank keeps talking to the press.

Mets fans have been fragile for 46 years. They have an inferierority complex and are notorious for not supporting their team when they stink. And the odor is pretty bad, even though my TV here in Fla. The Yankees will be Ok when they get healthy but probably won't make the playoffs this year.

Well, at least they can't both lose, but one of them can still get swept. Each teams needs a catalyst. Who or where is it? Maybe it'll be the usual desperation and more public outbursts after the All-Star break.

Nice call on the Bay City Rollers! There's no better song to roller skate to.

Friends can disagree, can't they? So - Ken - Say it ain't so. Jeff Wilpon a +3? You're a funny guy. I wish you were my teacher in high school. I could have gone to a fine school like the U of Michigan with such grade inflation. I know you like Jeff. We all have our own sources. Mine tell me he's an empty suit, and not very well liked either. Fred Wilpon is equally undeserving of his +2 if for no other reason that he he stabbed Nelson Doubleday in the back to get his 50% share of the franchise. Taken together, they both make me sick.

I don't think fans have focused on the fact the Wilpons are cheap and this cheapness has resulted in a stadium being built that significantly reduces the per game capacity as compared to Shea. So, expect corporations to dominate the tickets, expect much higher prices for far fewer available seats and expect howls of complaints when fans realize they can't get a ticket - ever.

If Cashman decides to walk away because he's upset that Hank Steinbrenner shoots off his mouth from time to time, then I say he should go. He can't be that big of a baby can he? The guy has made millions with the Yankees, and he's made some terrible deals/signings. We all get questioned in our jobs. Why shouldn't he?

Isn't Jeff Wilpon more to blame than anyone for the deal that imported Victor Zambrano and Bartolomé Fortunato and exported Scott Kazmir? Don't give me that it was Duquette's sole doing. I don't buy it and neither do many others.

Mets fans have been fragile for 46 years. They have an inferierority complex and are notorious for not supporting their team when they stink.

Do you mean in the early 60s, when Mets fans filled the Polo Grounds and then Shea to watch some of the worst teams ever?

But I guess Holy Cathedral of Baseball was filled in the late 80s/early 90s when the Yankees were terrible, right?

Historical revisionism at work.

I believe that the problem with both teams is that the individual players make so much $$$ that they are no longer "hungry" and don't have a real passion or committment to the game .They don't have the required enthusiasm, respect and love for the game that is necessary to hustle and be "up" for 162 games.. If you are making 13 million a year and are not playing up to that capacity, does the player really care?? Probably not. When that enormous check comes in on a regular basis, it tends to heal any temporary wounds. Randolph and Girardi can stand on their heads, if it makes them feel better, but that problem is not necessarily cureable.

Mets attendance in the Polo Grounds? 11000 per game and 13000 per game.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/metsattn.shtml

Yankees attendance in 1962 and 1963 (whilw winning the WS?
18000 and 16000.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/yankatte.shtml

The golden age of baseball wasn't the 50's - it is now.

Hey Bob - I was thinking the same thing and looked up the same stats. People have romanticized the earlier era from an attendance perspective.

Re: Yankee attendance in the 80's and 90's. From 1982 to 1995 (non championship years) the team drew more than 2 million nine different times.

If you really want to remove the romance, check out the Brooklyn Dodgers attendance from 1946 till they left for LA.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/laatte.shtml

1.8 million in Robinson's first year, 1 million their last in Brooklyn

Tufts is right...

I used to go Yankee games back in college (early 80's) and sit behind the catcher (lower tier)...attendance was usually 30K per night and the tickets were only $12....I walked up, there wasn't any need to buy in advance.

Now it's $63 to sit upstairs and you're forced to see the Texas Rangers or Orioles...

Jim, I'm curious - what do your sources tell you about Doubleday?

Ken, you already know the answer to that. But we are mixing apples and oranges. You know the issue and you know why Doubleday stopped speaking to Wilpon and he certainly had a point, especially considering they had been partners.

Except for those first two years of the Mets' existence (the years at the Polo Grounds), the Mets outdrew the Yankees every single year until 1976.

You can look it up:

here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/attend.shtml

and

here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/attend.shtml

The Mets drew 3 million fans before the Yankees did (Mets did it for the first time in 1987 and the Yankees did it for the first time in 1999). The Jays drew 4 million (1991) before the Yankees did (2005). I've been to games in both stadia where you could walk up at 7 and get a good ticket to a 7:05 start. I went to a Yankees/Red Sox game in 1991 where there were "plenty of good seats available."

And the thought that this Yankee Stadium is "the House that Ruth Built" is bogus. If Ruth walked into this current incarnation of Yankee Stadium, he wouldn't recognize the place (except for the facade). The old Yankee Stadium had character; this one is as much of a dump as Shea.

Yankee fans seem to spend so much time patting themselves on the back for being better than the rest of us because they root for a team with 26 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS BABY! that they don't have the time to pay attention to historical facts.

Anne, you are right about the current Yankee Stadium being vastly different from the original one. But, it is still an excellent place to watch a ballgame. It isn't a dump and not anything like a real dump such as Shea. One interesting item about the facade behind the bleachers: It isn't an original. It is merely a replica.

If I recall correctly, it was Yankee Stadium that shed a hunk of concrete a few years back and had to be closed for a couple of days, and not Shea. If that's not one sign of a dump, I don't know what is.

The last time I was at Yankee Stadium (5 or 6 years ago) I had a seat in the Upper Deck where the previous night's vomit was still on the wall - less than 6 inches from my knees. Add to that the stench wafting over from some local garbage dump and we lasted 4 innings. PU.

I repeat -- Yankee Stadium is a dump. I don't deny that Shea is, but so is Yankee Stadium.

Vomit can be on the wall at a new stadium, too, and Shea Stadium was actually built on a dump.

My point was and is that when you sit in your seat at Yankee Stadium and look at the field and across the Stadium it is very nice and a great place to watch a game. I have been to stadiums all over America and Yankee Stadium is still one of the best places to watch a game. Yes, a bolt snapped and the structure is very old. I don't think the Yankees are building a new stadium because the current one is a dump. It's all about the luxury suites, etc. $$$ Plus it costs them nothing because the $40 million in yearly debt service comes off their bill to MLB and they don't share luxury suite money. It's more than a wash and it increases the value of the franchise.

Steve from South your so right. The majority of players dont care if they win or lose. Guys that play in softball leagues would rather win their championship than Major Leaguers who want to win the World Series. Dont get me wrong, they would like to win, but if they dont, they dont care.

Just look at Glavine from last year. What was his initial reaction?? I was a Mets fan, but I cant root for these clowns.

Mets have histories of drawing poorly when they stink re: late 70s when they closed the upper deck down for a whole year, 80's before Doubleday and Wilpon bought the team from Lorinda de Roulet, 90's before Piazza showed up, late summers when they are entirely out of the pennant race. Polo Grounds was filled when the Dodgers and Giants came to town, when they weren't around 6-15,000 tops in a 58,000 seat stadium. Believe me it was a huge place.
I also went to old Yankee Stadium for night games that drew 5,000 in the early 70's when the team had been run into the ground by CBS and Michael Burke. And day games with 10,000.
I also sat in section 16 in the loge at Shea Stadium and had rain pouring down on top of me from the mezzanine drain. I never froze to death in Yankee Stadium the way I could do in Shea in April, September and October nights. Shea Stadium is a complete dump, compare it to Dodger Stadium which was built 2 years before it and is still beautiful to this day. I don't live in NYC anymore, but I stopped going to Shea in 1988, I never missed the experience. I miss the heck out of Yankee Stadium and went there for my last time to basically say goodbye in July, 2005.