Because if so let me know. Now I won't get off this train if things are going to be mediocre at best, no. Too much has been invested into the Metropolitan Express to get off now. Yet if we plan on switching to the Metropolitan Local I'd like to know so I can expect to be late to work.At least the MTA has the decency to print up a little poster to let me know a certain train isn't going to be working properly before I get on. If you live in New York you know exactly what I'm talking about - "There are no C trains on this track. A trains making all F train stops." They never really mean much. They just prepare you mentally to be annoyed for the entire length of your journey. Omar did no such thing for this ride. It took Jerry making an announcement over the PA system yesterday to make me realize this is going to be an irritating trip. That's right, the express will be making all local stops for at least the next month.
But hey at least we'll be above .500! Who cares? That shouldn't be our team's goal. If you're the Pirates and your goal is to finish above .500, good. Your team hasn't done it since '92 and you're a small market team forever in re-building mode. .500 is a baby step that should be taken and would make your fans happy. The difference here is this is New York and since the Minaya era began, we are now all fans of a team built to win (yup, just like those fans across town). I don't want to hear my conductor telling me the goal is something otherwise over the PA system. If he's going to lead this train in that direction then the engineer needs to let him off at the next stop.
Update:
First off, thanks to everyone that has stopped by the blog today. I love the discourse, and it's one of the reasons I love the blog format. That being said, let me clarify what I meant by this post with a similar example to the one I gave Cerrone in regards to the .500 attitude:
I don't think they are only going to want to win half of the time. Not just because they are professional major league ball-players, but because they are living, breathing human beings that love their job and want to excel at it. Hell even if they hate their job they should want to excel to get to another level - just as I do in my workplace and others do in theirs. You work hard to get ahead.
I just don't think that the .500 talk realistically creates a sustainable environment...at least not a temporary one. If anything it sets up a structure that could become a permanent school of thought in the clubhouse. You may see this as taking it out of context, but hear out the logic for a second. So the Mets were expected to perform at around a .585 winning percentage this season right? So just for the sake of easy math, let's say 60%. That is what we expect of the Mets.
For this formulas sake, let's say Matt makes 20 posts to his site per day. 12 of those posts involve solid content that draws readers to his site. 60% of the time, he knocks it out of the park and the rest is just filler - but that filler is okay because the majority of the content is just that damn good. All of a sudden Regis and Ted both leave for a 2 months. SNY provides some temps for the time being.
The temp staff is good, but not great and the content drops in quality. Now only about 10 posts per day are solid reading material. 50% makes daily reading more of a crapshoot. The posts just doesn't pique the readers interest the way they used to and readers seek out some other outlets with more consistency. Numbers decline a bit, but it's okay because SNY understands that it's a new staff without much experience, so they just keep running with it anyway. They even declare it as such with the staff, assure the temps they still have jobs, and that things will eventually pick up once the old staff returns. Ted and Regis don't come back and the blog is now left with an environment that doesn't encourage.
Is that any sort of environment to be motivated in? Again I stated earlier that as human beings alone, the players should want to excel. Yet if they are not in a work environment that warrants success, trying to do so becomes a daunting task. Maybe I'm reading a bit too far into it, but I just don't think it's right.
I've been a Jerry supporter for some time and this is the first thing he has done to really irk me. I'm not saying I'm right nor am I trying to spin any content. I'm merely voicing an opinion on my humble blog. Thanks to everyone who responded today, and please keep visiting and commenting.
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