Fortunately for the Mets (and my sucky ass fantasy team), John Maine actually put together a quality start. Even more importantly, Billy Wagner was on the mound to close it out. While the Mets are still not a championship caliber team, they are not even a .500 team if Billy ends up missing an extended portion of the season. His absence Tuesday highlights the Mets need for another shut down reliever (Brain Fuentes, Huston Street) to solidify the bullpen. But as for last night, the Mets can enjoy a hard fought victory.

God I love when the Twins come to town. Make that 19 “W’s” in our last 22 against the Twinkies at The Stadium. Remember back on July 6th, after our second consecutive piss-poor performance against the Sox, when I said the Yanks were far from being done? Well, after six wins in a row (10-straight at home), two consecutive sweeps (over teams that were ahead of us in the standings at the time) and 11 wins in our last 14 games (10 of the 11 coming against teams with winning records), I think it’s safe to say “We’re baaaaack.” Hide the women and children, Beantown. We’re on our way. Not even Big Papi can save you from the Yankee buzzsaw now. Should’ve buried us when you had the chance, putzes.

Everyone’s saying all the “right” things in light of this event, the oft-used “I can’t believe this happened,” and “What a travesty,” and whatever else sounds like something we’d expect them to say, but honestly, how can anyone even be remotely surprised by this? If you spend the last 20 years completely emasculating every male on the planet, doping them up with ritalin every time they show even a hint of precociousness (thankfully I’m not speaking from experience here), and convincing them that even the slightest form of aggressive behavior demonstrates their true inner-chauvinist, then someone had to step in and fill the void and these amazons were all too willing. But seriously, look at all that feminism has accomplished: now women everywhere can say, unabashedly, that they are finally our equal… right down to getting into massive brawls at professional sporting events.

By the way, what is in the Gatorade in Detroit? First there was the “Malice at the Palace,” and now a sequel? Every time I watch a game there (and by “watch” I mean “catch the highlights” because I’d rather have bamboo shoots shoved under my finger nails than watch more than 20-seconds of Chickball) it’s like that scene from Little Nicky where all hell breaks lose at the basketball game. And what was Rick Mahorn thinking here? Clearly he misinterpreted Chris Rock’s famous tutorial on domestic violence. It’s “I won’t hit a b*tch, but I’ll shake the sh*t out of her,” not “I won’t hit a b*tch, but I’ll throw her down in front of 15,000 people and make sure ESPN catches me doing it on 20-different camera angles.” Though I will say this– it’s hilarious when something embarrassing happens to a chick. Whether it be a girl falling down in public, or getting hit in the head by a random foreign object (get your mind out of the gutter, people), it’s always good for a laugh. I’m sorry it came at the hands of Rick Mahorn assaulting Lisa Leslie in this instance, but hey, sometimes that’s the price you pay for high comedy.

PS– Forget the disaster you watched up there, this is how God intended for women to fight:

Yeah, throw that towel right in Danica’s face, Milka. What’s with the dudes trying to break this thing up? Freakin’ amateurs.

I didn’t know that the Joba Rules also applied to Johan Santana. In the biggest series of the season, with Billy Wagner unavailable, Jerry Manuel sends out freakin’ Duaner Sanchez for the 9th inning????????????????????? You’ve got your best pitcher on the mound, dominating the Phillies through 8 innings, you don’t have anyone you’re willing to trust to get the toughest 3 outs in the game, so why exactly is Johan NOT in there??? This is the precise reason why Omar gutted the Mets’ farm system and gave Johan 137 million dollars– TO WIN THIS GAME. I could understand if he threw 115-120 pitches already, but taking him out after 105 is just ridiculous. This is the second time this season that Jerry’s babying of Johan has resulted in a loss to the Phillies. It’s obvious that Santana is on a strict pitch count because tonight called for a complete game, not another blown save by the Mets’ bullpen. And this just further exemplifies why the Mets are far from a championship team.

I wanted to write about Danica Patrick’s cat fight with Milka Duno, but the Giants made a big move that needs to be discussed. A few weeks ago I told you that I heard from a reliable source about an unlikely trade of Jeremy Shockey for Twinkle Toes Taylor. I also said that despite the reliable source, I didn’t see why it would happen from either team’s perspective. It turns out they did end up being traded at pretty much the same time, just not for each other. The dancing Dolphin was traded into the NFC East, but to the rival Redskins. Shockey was sent to the south, but the NFC South and the New
Orleans Saints.

I think the trade makes sense for the Saints. But being a Giants fan, I couldn’t care less about that side of the trade. Is it a good trade for the Giants? I’m not sure. Shockey is very gifted as an athlete and has the skills of a top-five tight end. He is as complete a tight end as you’ll find, which has become a rare commodity in the NFL; he is a great blocker and a true weapon as a pass catcher. And I know it seems like Shockey’s been around for a while, but he’s only 27. Kevin Boss filled in admirably for Shockey after Jeremy broke his leg, but those who are ready to count Boss as an adequate replacement for Shockey are drawing from a very small sample size. The guy showed some skills getting open and catching the ball, but he was an unknown to defenses who were much more concerned with limiting receptions for Plax and Amani. Additionally, it’s been well documented by the coaches that, despite his size, Boss is not (yet) nearly the blocker Shockey is.

On the other hand, Shockey can lose focus at times and drop passes… key passes. More importantly, though, Jeremy has been known to act like a baby. His selfish crying has been a major distraction to the rest of the team. Nobody but Eli knows for sure, but the evidence pointed to Manning being much more comfortable quarterbacking the Giants when he didn’t feel like he had to force the ball to Shockey ten times a game. It’s entirely possible that Eli’s coming of age as an NFL quarterback just happened to coincide with Shockey’s absence from the lineup and the two were completely unrelated, just like it’s entirely possible that the beautiful chick that was totally into me for a little while actually suddenly had something better going on just as I was entering the “extremely drunk” zone Saturday night. The bottom line is if Shockey was as unhappy as a Giant as he led us all to believe, then he was going to be a poison in the locker room and needed to go.

Everyone has their opinion as to whether this was a good trade for the Giants or not. However, the fact is only Eli Manning knows if Shockey’s antics truly hurt his performance. Only the coaches have seen enough of Kevin Boss to know if he’s capable of replacing Shockey. And only the Giants organization truly knows how happy/unhappy Shockey was and how much of a distraction he was threatening to be. Journalists don’t know. Talk radio hosts don’t know. Drunks in the bar don’t know.

If Shockey was truly unhappy the trade needed to happen. My only question is: why didn’t it happen on Draft Day? The Giants were offered this very deal on the day of the 2008 NFL draft and passed on it. If the Giants took the deal back then, they could have used the extra second round pick (number 40 overall - next year it won’t be as high) on a linebacker like Tavares Gooden or one of a number of very good corners that were still available at 40 but gone by the time the Giants picked at 63 (and it turns out they could have then grabbed Gooden at 63). The Giants could have taken a very good player at a position they needed to address and therefore helped themselves THIS YEAR rather than wait until 2009 for any benefit from the trade.

Forced to choose, I think this was probably a good trade by the Giants. Hopefully Eli will continue to excel as he’s able to relax and find the open receiver regardless of who it is and hopefully Kevin Boss will continue to improve and become a top level tight end in the NFL. If these two things happen, the trade will prove to have been a good one for the Giants, but it still should have happened on draft day.

What do you think about the trade? Share your thoughts below or email me at mfh@subwaychatter.com

While the Giants may have improved their team chemistry by trading Jeremy Shockey, they have placed the success of the 2008 season on the fragile shoulders of Plaxico Burress. I know Shockey was crazy, sensitive and a sometimes divisive figure in the locker room. But, he was the Giants best blocking tight end, best receiving tight end, and the second-best playmaker on offense behind #17. Now with Shockey gone, Plaxico basically becomes the Giants’ lone receiving option. Many of you are thinking “Hey, that scenario worked out pretty well for us this past January/February,” but my question is “What happens if Plax gets hurt?” Who does Eli get the ball to then? Good character may get you a Boy Scout badge, but in the NFL talent rules (Adam “Pacman” Jones, Terrell Owens, Ray Lewis, Randy Moss, the list goes on-and-on). With this trade, the Giants have not only fallen behind the Cowboys and their all-star roster, but now the Eagles have to be considered a threat with a healthy Donovan McNabb, the always ridiculous Brian Westbrook, and a much-improved defense led by Asante Samuel. Right now it looks like the Giants are in store for another mediocre 7-9 season and I have a better chance of winning the lottery than Plaxiglass has of staying healthy for 16 games.

The hands on the hips say it all: “I was the G-Men’s poster boy my first couple of seasons, and then I didn’t get involved as much as I wanted, and we were one and done in the playoffs a few times, and then I was still pissy after we won a SuperBowl (one in which I sat out with a broken leg), but now things are better ’cause I get to play with Reggie Bush.”

While this sounds like a trade made in Madden Heaven if you’re living in N’Awlins, it’s gotta make you question whether Shockey ever truly embraced being a G-Man. After 9/11 he came back with that ridic tat that screamed “U.S. pride” — and even more so “NY pride” — but now he plans to trade in the Big Apple and a SuperBowl ring for a pair of floaties… what, to soon?

Stephon Marbury, Gary Sheffield, and now you can add Jeremy Shockey to the list of bush league cry babies who are unworthy of calling New York “home.”

I don’t know what I’m more pissed about: the fact that our playoff hopes just took another big hit today, or that I traded Kevin Youkilis for Jorgie a couple weeks back in one of my fantasy leagues. Considering Jose Molina’s defensive prowess won’t have nearly the same impact on my fantasy squad as it does in real life (and that I’m jockeying for 1st place and stand to pocket 300-bones if I win the title), I’m gonna go with the latter. Either way, all that posturing B-Ca$h has been doing about how we don’t necessarily need to make a trade for another bat, and how our offense will come around, and blah blah blah just went out the window faster than a freshman at NYU…

A steady diet of Rockies, Giants, and Reds has turned the Mets — in the eyes of many — from mediocre pretenders into post-season contenders. Lost in the hysteria of the Mets having won 11 out of their last 13 games are the glaring holes in the outfield and the back-end of the rotation. While this might not be a problem when feasting on the dregs of the NL West, potential match-ups against the Cubs and Brewers in the post-season will expose these gaping holes. I don’t know Omar’s plan for fixing this problem (and no, I’m not advocating signing Barry Bonds), but depending on Ryan Church returning to full strength anytime soon, along with a Triple A outfield rotation of Marlon Anderson, Endy Chavez and Fernando Tatis, is not what championship teams are made of. Especially with the muscular line-ups of the Cubs and Brewers looming in October, the Mets lack of depth after the 5-hole does not bold well for a title run.

Now let me be clear: I am not saying we should sacrifice what’s left our mediocre farm system for players like Xavier Nady and Jason Bay; we’ll let the Yankees do that (Editor’s note: we Yankee fans won’t argue with that). However, I do think we should call up super-prospect Fernando Martinez to upgrade the position… and if we can’t avoid a trade, then it better be for a difference-maker like Matt Holliday. All I know is, as presently constituted, the Amazins are not ready for an extended post-season run.

Thankfully for the Yanks, the only thing(s) more pitiful than their offense are Huston Street and Lenny DiNardo.

No spoiler alerts here. I wanna make sure a good majority of you see this movie in all its surprise-filled splendor before I review it/ruin major portions of it. In fulfilling my duties as SC Nation’s utmost authority on worthy-of-seeing-ASAP movie titles (as if anyone needed to tell you to go see The Dark Knight anyway), I went and saw it at 12:45am last night, er, this morning– which, by the way, is a great way to hype a flick. You basically create the perception that the movie is so ridiculously amazing, no one should be able to wait until the afternoon or evening of the day it comes out to see it, so they must abandon all rational behavior and stay up till 4 in the morning to see it despite the fact that they have work the next morning. Needless to say, all those corporate marketeers earned their paychecks: my showing sold out (thankfully I got my tix online) and just to be sure I wasn’t off-base on what a great idea this is, I asked the theater’s manager how the 3am showing did on my way out (loser-ish behavior, I know) and, surprise surprise, that one sold out too.

Of course, it also helps when the movie you’re hyping is the greatest superhero flick of all time. In fact, it’s not even close at this point; you’ll never be able to watch the first Batman with a straight face again and the Spiderman franchise might as well be a Disney Channel series after this. My only complaint was with Maggie Gyllenhall playing the role of Rachel Dawes (apparently Katie Holmes is still chained to the bedpost in Tom Cruise’s room and wasn’t available to reprise the role). Obviously the producer and/or director are either gay or have terrible taste in women because (VERY SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT!) there is no way in a million years I’m buying the fact that Batman and the District Attorney of Gotham City would both be vying for the affection that broomhilda. Me personally, I would’ve cast Megan Fox, especially taking into consideration the other chicks you see Bruce Wayne with throughout the film (it’s a fairly precipitous drop off when you go from this chick to this one if you ask me). See, there’s even some eye candy (and a Lambo towards the end)! Like I said, this movie does not disappoint. That said, the special affects were so out of control to begin with (think Terminator 2 meets Batman Begins) that adding Megan Fox to the mix would’ve caused every male in the theater to go into cardiac arrest half-way through the movie. So, I guess for that reason alone it was probably a good idea to go with Gyllenhall and keep everyone’s blood pressure down. Anyway, stop reading this and start making plans to go see it. Chuck Wipple just bought his tickets online and I suggest you do the same.

At the end of the day it’s comforting to know that, despite all his shortcomings, Brian Cashman was able to identify our most glaring need — a sub-.220 hitter who strikes out twice as much as he walks to go along with fellow black holes Robbie and Melky — and was able to fill the gap without even having to trade one of our prospects. Just another masterful stroke by B-Ca$h. It’s moments like this when you wonder how anyone in their right mind can even be down on him these days.

I just can’t believe Red Sox fans. Whether it be MFH — or any other more despicable members of the Nation — I can’t get over what a bunch of f@#kin’ crybabies you all are. You’re winning World Series left and right, one of your guys even wins the All-Star game MVP in our ballpark, and yet you still find room to whine about petty bullsh*t? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the year was 1998 and you guys are doing all this complaining just to get some much needed attention. I mean you’d think being at the top of the sport would be enough get you guys off the rag, but apparently it isn’t. Plus, the blame here clearly falls on Papel-boner. Seriously, what was he thinking bringing his wife to parade in Midtown? It’s like taking your kid to the ball room at Mickey D’s and then suing the joint when he comes down with E.coli poisoning a week later. What did you f@#king expect?

And let’s not paint Papel-boner as an innocent bystander here, ’cause his words (if anyone in Sox Nation even bothered to read them, which clearly they didn’t otherwise they wouldn’t all be standing around shrugging their shoulders, mumbling “What, not our guy.” ) spoke for themselves:

“If I was managing the team, I would close,” Papelbon said. “I’m not managing the team, so it don’t matter.”

“We’ve both earned that right; us, by winning the World Series and having the opportunity of having our manager there and our team being represented, and Mariano by what he’s done for this role, we’re in Yankee Stadium and blah, blah, blah,” Papelbon said. “It’s not that easy. Everybody thinks it’s a cut and dry answer, but it’s not.”

And when you say “blah, blah, blah,” Jon, do you mean “being the undisputed, greatest closer in the history of baseball… having the 5th lowest postseason ERA in history… having the most career World Series saves (9, next closest is Rollie Fingers with 6)… and owning the most career postseason saves (34… the next closest is Dennis Eckersley with 15)?” There’s a fine line between being a “competitor” and being an arrogant, self-delusional prick. I’ll let you all decide where Papel-boner falls here.

And last, but certainly not least, please spare us the etiquette classes, thanks. It’s not like you’ve all distinguished yourselves in the class department over the years. I mean which is more unbecoming of civilized baseball fans– making idle threats against a ballplayer’s wife, or tipping over/keying every car in Kenmore Square that had New York license plates when the Sox won the Series in ‘04? Yeah, sorry to be break the bad news to all you ignoramuses, but I guess most of you “card-carrying” members of Sox Nation wouldn’t know any of these dirty little secrets considering you’ve never spent more than 24 hours at a time in Beantown. If you wanna b*tch and moan when Joba puts a 99-mph heat-seeker in Youkilis’ ear next weekend, be my guest. But until then, shut the hell up.

There have been some messed up things done by fans of both teams during the long history of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, but earlier this week Yankee fans went for a new low, threatening the life of Jonathan Papelbon’s pregnant wife during the All-Star parade. Come on, Yankee fans. It’s open season on the Sox closer (even though all he said was that he wanted to close, not that Mariano sucks or didn’t deserve to), say anything you want to him, but don’t make death threats to his pregnant wife. You don’t go after the family. That’s classless.

By the way, how did it feel to have a member of the World Champion Boston Red Sox win the All-Star MVP in Yankee Stadium?

Since last night was one of the few times I’ll have left to spend at the current Stadium, I figured I’d treat it as a field trip and try to pick up a thing or two during the Derby. Well, here’s what I learned:

1. Kevin Youkilis’ kid has the biggest Jew-fro I’ve ever seen. Somewhere Jonah Hill fears that the clock has started ticking on his ownership of the ugly-guy-who-everyone-finds-hilarious-simply-because-he’s-funny-to-look-at typecast role.

2. Drunk chicks should not be allowed at sporting events… unless they sign a waiver to keep their mouths shut and agree to “act out” only by taking their shirts off. Do I love women? Absolutely. But believe me, nothing is more annoying than loud, drunk chicks at sporting events that they know nothing about. They spend most of the night screaming things that make no sense… only to spend the rest of the evening looking around to see if any dudes found their idiocy amusing (which no one did). And any time a popular rap song is played (which happened pretty frequently last night), they start flailing their arms around like they’re in a club and try grinding with any guy within five feet of them. And if that fails, then they bop their head up and down and start flailing their arms again. Listen, if you want to dance around and get so drunk that you wake up tomorrow morning and forget the fact that you slept with a random dude the night before then hail a cab and take it about 130-blocks south of here, bimbo.

3. The “De-rek Je-ter” chant after Reggie threw out the first pitch was freakin’ awesome. My buddy told me that you couldn’t really hear it on TV, but it served notice that no matter how many Red Sox are in the All-Star game, we Yankee fans are determined to turn this thing into our own exclusive party.

4. Evan Longoria getting booed was pretty cool too. That’s what you get for beating the Giambino in the final vote and stealing his rightful place in the Derby. Now go find your husband Tony Parker and catch the first flight back to Tampa, bastard. Hmmm, that reminds me…

5. There weren’t any Yankees in the Derby. Ah, so that’s what everyone’s been b*tchin’ about the last few days. I didn’t think it would matter that much, that is until I sat in my seat and realized I had to root for Josh Hamilton (No joke, everyone within five rows of me was talking about Hamilton was their guy well before he pulled a “2005 Bobby Abreu.” More on that in a minute.) And not that that’s the worst thing in the world necessarily, it’s just that for 99% of the people in the Stadium, this is the first time we’ve been forced to root for someone NOT wearing Pinstripes. Sacrilege, my friends. Though this brings me to my next point…

6. Notice how subdued the crowd was last night? This is what I love about New Yorkers, and Yankee fans in particular– we don’t care that this is supposed to be some big, historic event. If there aren’t any Yankees (or Mets, if you’re so inclined) involved, then we aren’t going to feign an interest in something we couldn’t give two sh*ts about. Will we sit and watch it? Sure. New Yorkers are all too happy to turn anything into a social event. But you won’t see us going all ‘99-Fenway-Park like Boston did, celebrating like they had won the World Series every time Mark McGwire ‘roided balls onto I-90. Well, that is until we realized that…

7. Josh Hamilton will be the next great Yankee. Everyone was rooting for this guy and how could you not? His comeback story is more-than-inspirational and it also helps that he’s the best player in baseball not named A-rod (and considering he hasn’t even played one full season yet, I’m thinking it won’t be long before that title is his to own exclusively). But when he hit the Bank of America sign behind the bleechers, put a few more balls into the Black Seats, and had us all chanting “HAM-IL-TON!”, he might as well have been wearing Pinstripes right then and there because we basically embraced him as one of our own. I don’t know when Hamilton becomes a free agent, but after last night, this is a match made in heaven. Hopefully whoever takes over for B-Ca$h after this season realizes this as well.