Jerry Manuel

If you can remember back to April 5th, you'll recall a beautiful Monday afternoon when the New York Mets defeated the Florida Marlins 7-1 and everything in Mets Land was perfect. Nothing is better than a 1-0 record.

I have a few choice words for the New York Mets. In particular three specific players that did not partake in a life-changing experience. Those players are Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez, and Luis Castillo. They recently denied the chance to take part in visiting wounded veterans to thank them for their service.

The choice words: solidarity, brotherhood, camaraderie, unity, and one accord.

Ever since I started following baseball and pretty much all four major sports, my favorite team has been the New York Mets. Why? I have no idea. But I have never been more disappointed with the Mets than the 2010 season. They have had so many bad memories and so few good ones.

The Mets have to make changes in the offseason and it starts off when Jeff Wilpon fires both Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel. These two alone have been absolutely awful for the franchise. Here is a list of the good players Minaya has gotten:

Every spring, it is the same scenario. As the leaves bud into a beautiful, green bloom and thoughts of spring renew hopes of glory, there comes a revitalization of interest from each fan.

The 2010 MLB offseason definitely will be known as one of the busiest in terms of managerial moves and firings. Some the of the games best might call it quits and it will certainly be the end of an era in baseball. 

We've already had a pair of managers who seem very much safe in the Royals' Ned Yost and Orioles' Buck Showalter.

Come Opening Day 2011, we will have seen a 60 percent of the managers from the 2010 Opening Day, an amazing and shocking drop from 40 percent. 

The Mets have an uncanny ability to not rise to the occasion.

Good teams find ways to win and bad teams, like the Mets, find ways to lose. Although, Mets fans can't pretend they didn't know this was coming. 

In probably the most important game so far this year (in terms of attempting to make the rest of August relevant) the Mets never showed up. They did not field (four errors including three infield errors in one inning), they did not hit (per usual), and of course they did not pitch (Mike Pelfrey was on the mound).

Jerry Manuel's one game suspension is over and done with, and the Mets won the game in which he was not on the bench. Yet, I still have a major problem with the fact that Manuel was suspended and fined by the MLB in the first place. 

Manuel was ejected from a game versus the Dodgers in Los Angeles on July 20, and was handed the suspension a week later from the MLB. Apparently, the brim of his cap brushed the cap of the umpire Doug Eddings. 

LOS ANGELES—For the fourth time on the 11-game West Coast trip—that the Mets ended 2-9 today—the Mets got shut out. For the third time on the trip, the Mets enter a prolonged scoreless innings streak.

After starting the trip scoreless over 24 innings, the Mets end the trip going 16 innings without scoring a run.

They had R.A. Dickey on the mound, and he did all he could do to keep the Mets in the game. Just like in his previous two starts, and like with any other Mets pitcher, no run support was given.

Generally, I am not one to blame managers for a team's performance.  Mets fans have wanted Jerry Manuel's head since he was hired in 2008.  

His even-keeled, sometimes humorous attitude about the ebbs and flows of a Major League season is, quite frankly, the way a manager ought to perceive the marathon that is a baseball season, but it has often rubbed Mets' fans, who live and die with every pitch, the wrong way.