Yankees' COO Lonn Trost to the 99%: Drop dead

Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost has an elitist excuse for why secondary ticket sales are bad, and why the team is trying to stop any other parties from doing them but themselves. Neil Best of Newsday recounted his explanation, as told to WFAN's Boomer and Carton (emphasis added):

"The problem below market at a certain point is that if you buy a ticket in a very premium location and pay a substantial amount of money. It’s not that we don’t want that fan to sell it, but that fan is sitting there having paid a substantial amount of money for a ticket and [another] fan picks it up for a buck-and-a-half and sits there, and it’s frustrating to the purchaser of the full amount."

Trost then added a comment that raised eyebrows on social media because of its seemingly elitist undertones. "And quite frankly," he said, "the fan may be someone who has never sat in a premium location. So that’s a frustration to our existing fan base."

So basically, only the 1% deserve to get to sit in the good seats in Yankee Stadium. And the 99% better know their place, because they don't belong in the premium location. And their very presence might upset those who paid full price for such seats.

Left unsaid was how these people would know that these interlopers paid less. Unless, you know, they weren't the "right" race or social class to be there. Not to mention that the idea that somebody could pay $1.50 for premium seats is ludicrous.

Whose idea in Yankeeland, exactly, was it to get Trost to defend this policy? He is about the worst spokesman for the team imaginable. He's the guy who blamed Hurricane Sandy for slow ticket sales. Who defended charging $2600 for the top seats at the new Yankee Stadium, saying "Some people can afford to fly first class and others can't." Who justified keeping kids from getting in front of the moat to see batting practice. Who called the obstructed seats in the current stadium's outfield merely "architecturally shadowed."  Who decided it was a good idea in 2013 to pick a fight with StubHub, claiming that they were "greedy," accused them, with no evidence, of counterfeit tickets and banned them from doing e-ticket sales. Then who had to back off on that plan when Yankee ticket sales plummeted.

It looks like he apparently was incensed by reports in the newspapers, and by bloggers about how the Yankees' new ticket policy would keep fans from buying last-minute tickets on StubHub. "Unfortunately, the papers, the bloggers have it wrong," he claimed, and said he presented the New York Post and the New York Daily News with the "facts." (An aside: Speaking of facts, I know for a fact, through somebody in the know, that I am one of the very bloggers he was unhappy about. I can't tell you how much that warms my heart!)

Trost also said fans could still use StubHub's "last minute pickup center that's right up from Yankee Stadium" to pick up hard copy tickets. Funny how Trost described that ticket center's location that way. Because when he first picked a fight with them, the team sued to make StubHub close their truly convenient location at 68 East 161st Street, saying it was too close to the ballpark. And StubHub had to move to a less convenient location for fans at the Bronx Terminal Market, Level 1, at 651 River Ave and 151st Street. which is almost 1/2 mile away from the stadium. All to prevent the team's own fans from using them.

He also blatantly played fast and loose with the truth about StubHub when it came to them being able to do mobile tickets."We know that StubHub can transfer tickets on mobile. If they choose not to, that's not our business." 

That is untrue. I reached out to Cameron Papp, StubHub's Communications Manager, to get clarification. Papp told me that they would not be able to do so without the Yankees' agreeing to this:

"As of now, due to this new policy, StubHub will only be able to offer the listings of hard tickets for Yankees games. If there’s enough time before the game, the seller will send their hard tickets through UPS directly to the buyer. If there’s not enough time before the game, the seller can send or drop off their tickets at our ticket office outside of the stadium ahead of time for the buyer to pick them up on game day."

Papp also gave me this official statement from StubHub:

"StubHub believes that the best customer experience is one on a free and open marketplace where fans can buy and sell tickets whenever and wherever they want. Yankees fans will still be able to purchase tickets on StubHub up until game time" if they go to the StubHub ticket office."

But the electronic method is out. Glenn Lehrmann of StubHub explained this to Neil Best:

"The only way we can transfer tickets is if the Yankees and Ticketmaster provide us with an API [application programming interface] feed that would allow us to do that,” he said. “It’s protected, and they have not granted us access, nor have they granted anyone access. If they wanted to grant us access, this is a different conversation."

* In addition, Trost claimed that people were printing out "multiple copies" of print-at-home tickets on "copy machines" and that "multiple people" were getting in. "And we don't even know how many," he said. Which is BS. Print-at-home tickets have a scannable barcode. And you can print one hundred copies of that ticket, but only the first person who had the ticket would get in. If the Stadium was somehow letting people in without correctly scanning their ticket, that's their incompetence, isn't it, not StubHub's or anybody else's.

* He also talked about Eric Schneiderman, New York's Attorney General, partially blaming him for the move to mobile. But he never mentioned that Schneiderman was looking into the team's policy of having a price floor in the Yankees Ticket Exchange; it may be ruled as anti-competitive. Gee, I wonder why.

Anyhow, it's really gut-wrenching to see such a twit represent the team I love. And to show such blatant contempt for fans like me. At a time when the Yankees face increased competition for ticket sales from the Mets, they ought to be doing their best to put fannies in the seats, not get those fannies to decide to sit at home on the couch and watch the games on TV instead. Good grief.

A rant: Why is Yankee Stadium ballpark food so bad, and Citi Field ballpark food so good?

We are now in Year 7 of new ballparks for the Yankees and Mets. The food at Citi Field, which was impressive to begin with -- Shake Shake, Blue Smoke, Catch of the Day, Box Frites, and El Verano Taqueria -- has gotten even better over the years, with new offerings each season. You can eat like a king at Citi Field, even if you are sitting in the cheap seats. 

Meanwhile, at Yankee Stadium, they might as well serve soylent green, giving how awful the food choices are. Lobel's, which with its steak sandwich used to have one of the few edible choices in the ballpark, has really gone downhill. I got food poisoning from the sushi stand a few years back, so that's out. Parm is good, but they are hard to find if you don't know where they are. Brother Jimmy's is no Blue Smoke, and Johnny Rockets is no Shake Shack, and both places are known more for their restaurants' atmosphere than their food, anyway. I am not six years old, so the nacho helmet and unlimited popcorn bucket hold no appeal for me.

Fried macaroni and cheese on a burger? Disgusting.

Of course, if you are in the Yankees' Legends seats, you can eat like a king there, with the unlimited crab legs, shrimp, prime rib, and celebrity chefs. (A telling anecdote: the one time Squawker Jon and I got to sit in the Legends seats, we met guest chef Frank Pellegrino of Rao's and got to eat his great food. Yet Mets fans can now get to eat Rao's food without having to have the fanciest seats in the ballpark -- most seats are eligible to get into the Caesars Club where the stand is.)

New York City is the food capital of the world. Squawker Jon and I have been to many great eateries in the city over the years. I recently even got to meet Red Rooster chef Marcus Samuelsson at the opening of his new rotisserie chicken place, Streetbird. So how is that the Mets can get so many big names in the food world -- Danny Meyer, Drew Nieporent, Josh Capon, Pat LaFreida, Dave Pasternack -- while the Yankees serve up swill like this horrible-looking "Bases Loaded Burger"? This abomination has fried macaroni and cheese on it. How thoroughly disgusting. Not to mention that the sandwich would be too unwieldy and messy to eat, unless they start handing out bibs like they do at lobster joints.

To add insult to injury, in New York City, a place famous for great pizza, the Mets have Two Boots pizza -- a fun choice -- while Yankees have Papa John's stands. Really? In a city with Lombardi's, Roberta's, Denino's, and a gazillion other pizza choices, they get Papa John's? What, Domino's wasn't available?

Meanwhile, Mets fans get delicious-looking items like these Rao's lemon chicken wings. The Mets folks do a great job at continually improving their food and drink choices (you can even get a Patron margarita at Citi Field!), while the Yankees seem content to serve up overpriced garbage and a lame beer selection.

Rao's lemon chicken wings look much more tasty. 

Aside from all the great restauranteurs in New York, there are so many food stand folks making interesting food these days. From Smorgasburg to Eataly to Hudson Eats to Le District to Berg'n to Madison Square Eats to all of the food trucks around, you can eat terrific food choices in the city made at food stands. You really would have to try to deliberately find bad food outlets to come up with the swill at Yankee Stadium.

Every time I write on this subject, people tell me I should bring in my own food to Yankee games. But why should I have to? Why can't the powers that be at Yankee Stadium get some decent food stands so that the masses, and not just the rich people, can have the choices that Mets fans do? 

A recent development sums up the contempt that Randy Levine et al have for us typical Yankee fans. There is now an app for your phone at Yankee Stadium, where you can order food to be delivered to your seat, a feature the Legends seats have had for years. But the app reportedly doesn't deliver food to the 400 level seats (the upper deck "cheap seats.") Figures.  

With Stephen Drew, Yankees show (again!) that they have no imagination

Remember that talk this winter that there might actually be a competition at spring training for second base, with Rob Refsnyder and Jose Pirela competing for the role? Remember how Brian Cashman claims pretty much every year that the Yankees need to get younger and more athletic? Heck, even remember the fact that Cashman signed great-defensive/light-hitting infielder Brendan Ryan to a two-year deal, so that he could fill in at the spot?

Well, forget all that stuff. As I noted yesterday, Stephen Drew has won the starting role at second base. Never mind that he currently has a slash line of .091/.231/.091, while Pirela is hitting .462/.533/.692 and Refsnyder has a slash line of .455/.538/.545. (Ryan has been out with a back strain.) So, yes, Drew is actually doing even worse than he did last season with the Yankees, yet the team is locked into him as the starter at second, even though Drew never played the position until last season.

It is bad enough that the Yankees let Robinson Cano walk away and put their franchise in this position in the first place. I would compare it to letting Darrelle Revis and Jose Reyes go. (Incidentally, Squawker Jon has written about that very issue today.)

It adds insult to the proverbial injury that with a team desperate for a hometown hero, that the Yankees wouldn't allow one of their farmhands a spot at the position. But how can a rookie compete with Drew's illustrious pedigree? Drew is a former Red Sox, he gets injured a lot, he is on the wrong side of 30, and his best days are behind him. Those facts are like catnip to Cashman!

Anyhow, the Daily News' John Harper writes about this situation today, and about the fact that no less than Reggie Jackson thinks that Pirela is the best hitter in the Yankees organization. Cashman completely disagreed with that assessment, snapping:

“That’s wrong,” Cashman said. “Greg Bird’s by far the best hitter (among prospects) in the organization.”

Cashman also said: "Once we brought Drew in, the roster was locked in. There’s no competition in the middle infield" and that while “the baby Bombers are hustling, showing their stuff,” that “the veterans are just getting their work in.”

Yeah, heaven forbid anybody earn their spot on this team from good play in spring training. Know your place, rook. You can't compete with the illustrious Stephen Drew, who earned a $5M 2015 deal (plus $1.5M in incentives) after going .150/.219/.271 (!) last year as a Bomber.

As it looks now, the only way the Yankees will dump Drew is if he ends up in a Brian Roberts situation. Remember how Roberts surprised everyone by staying healthy as a Yankee last year, and being in the position to make bonuses? He had these incentives, as Joel Sherman wrote:

Roberts bonuses: $175G for 250pa, 300pa; $250G for 350pa, 400 pa. $300G for 450pa, 500pa; $350G for 550pa $400G for 600pa, 650 pa

And wouldn't you know it? Roberts was benched, and then designated for assignment, when he came within two plate appearances of reaching the $250G bonus for 350PA. What a weird coincidence!

Drew's plate appearance bonuses don't start kicking in until he reaches 450 PA, though. So unfortunately, we may we be stuck with him until then! Oh, joy.

Met-Yankee comparisons at the All-Star break

Met shortstop Ruben Tejada has an OPS of .647. The Mets are looking to upgrade at the position.

Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter has an OPS of .647. Jeter is starting in the All-Star Game and batting leadoff.

The Mets have one All-Star - Daniel Murphy.

Excluding sentimental pick Jeter and injured Masahiro Tanaka, the Yankees have one All-Star - Dellin Betances - a middle reliever.

Curtis Granderson  is hitting .237 with 14 homers, 43 RBI, 46 runs, 7 steals and a .768 OPS. Granderson makes $15M per season.

Carlos Beltran is hitting .216 with 9 homers, 28 RBI, 22 runs, 1 steal and a .671 OPS.
Beltran makes $15M per season.

Bartolo Colon has eight wins and an ERA of 3.99.

In 2011 with the Yankees, Colon had eight wins with an ERA of 4.00.

Playing without Matt Harvey this season, the Mets are 45-50 with a winning percentage of .474.

In games not started by Tanaka, the Yankees are 34-42 with a winning percentage of .447.

Squawker Media Alert: Lisa on radio at 3:30 p.m. today

Lisa will be squawking baseball with Mike Lindsley of Syracuse's The Score 1260 at 3:30 p.m. today, Thursday, June 19. If you are in the Syracuse area, you can listen to her on 1260 AM on the radio. If not, check out the station's web site and listen to her there. Thanks!

Squawker Media Alert: Lisa on radio at 5:30 p.m. today

Lisa will be squawking baseball with Mike Lindsley of Syracuse's The Score 1260 at 5:30 p.m. today, Tuesday, May 20. If you are in the Syracuse area, you can listen to her on 1260 AM on the radio. If not, check out the station's web site and listen to her there. Thanks!

Subway Series:Zack and Shack

The Mets swept the Yankees in the Bronx and have now beaten the Bombers six straight. Squawker Lisa is so discombobulated she ended up with tickets to see Joe Torre's number get retired. But it's never a completely sunny day with the Mets. Zack Wheeler couldn't get out of the fifth inning with an 11-4 lead. And there are reports of food poisoning at one of the best things about Citi Field - Shake Shack.

The Mets' mantra has been, just wait until all the great young pitchers are up. Never mind that Matt Harvey is recovering from a serious arm injury, and even if most Tommy John patients recover successfully, they often don't fully regain their form right away. In eight starts this season, Wheeler now has a 4.53 ERA, 1.60 WHIP and 24 walks in 41 innings. While I'm looking forward to seeing Rafael Montero tonight and Noah Syndegaard next month, there are of course no guarantees with young pitching.

As for Shake Shack, I find it hard to believe that there could be an outbreak of food poisoning at such a popular place and that there would not be many more reports of people getting sick to their stomach. (Unless lots of people are getting sick to their stomach and assumed it's from watching the Mets.) Maybe if it were two people from the same team who may have shared an order, but not a Met (Lucas Duda) and Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg.

And now the Mets say that Duda got sick at another Shack Shake location outside Citi Field, which makes the whole story even more outlandish. Two different baseball people at two different Shake Shacks? Something about this story is not adding up for me.

Two of the main areas where the Mets are clearly superior to the Yankees are young pitching prospects and stadium food.  So I hope Montero does well tonight and thousands of fans continue to enjoy their Shackburgers. And that the Mets become the first team to beat Masahiro Tanaka.
    

Subway Series Game 1: Shades of Luis Castillo, but with better result for Mets

It's been five years since the Luis Castillo game, and it still gives me nightmares. During the ninth inning of last night's Subway Series opener, it was starting to look like deja vu all over again.

Five years ago, the Mets let the first game of the Subway Series, 8-7, in the bottom of the ninth. Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira reached base, A-Rod popped up to Castillo, and I still don't want to think about what happened next. 

Last night, the Mets led the first game of the Subway Series, 9-7, in the bottom of the ninth. Once again, Jeter and Teixeira reached base. But there would be two crucial differences between 2014 and 2009.

In 2009, the game ended when Met infielder Castillo muffed what should have been an easy play. 

In 2014, the game ended when Met infielder Lucas Duda made a great play on a sharply-hit grounder by Brian McCann, starting and finishing a double play.

The other difference was Teixeira's health.

In 2009, Teixeira scored the winning run from first because he was hustling all the way when A-Rod hit what looked like a game-ending pop out.

But in 2014, a hobbling Teixeira could only make it to first when he hit what should have been a double. Teixeira was immediately removed for a pinch-runner.

If Teixeira had made it to second, the tying run would have been in scoring position. Duda would not have been able to get the force at second to start the double play. The inning would have continued after McCann's at bat, and the way Farnsworth was pitching, the Yankees would have had a good chance to give Met fans more nightmares.

Instead, the Mets have now beaten the Yankees five straight.

Subway Series: Old Timers' Day

Last year, the Mets swept the Yankees in the Subway Series. But this season, the Mets don't have Matt Harvey while the Yankees have Masahiro Tanaka. And the Mets figure to embarrass themselves before the games with the presentation of the ridiculous "true New Yorkers" letter and whatever fawning retirement gift they have for Derek Jeter.

Jeter turns 40 next month, and perhaps the Mets are already honoring him by collecting elderly ex-Yankees. Bobby Abreu and Bartolo Colon are 40 and Kyle Farnsworth is 38. The fourth ex-Yankee on the Mets' roster, Curtis Granderson, is a comparative youngster at 33. (The Yankees have one ex-Met - Carlos Beltran.)

By the way, Squawker Lisa, while Beltran got off to a great start in the Bronx and Granderson was awful in the early going, over the last two weeks Granderson is hitting .308 with two homers, seven RBI and five runs, while Beltran is hitting .147 with no homers, two RBI and three runs. 

Lisa has justifiably ripped me for having Kerosene Kyle on my fantasy team, but I remedied that by dropping him for Jeurys Familia after Terry Collins said Familia was moving closer to being the closer. I hope that's true, but after trying Jose Valverde and Farnsworth, I hope the Mets don't turn
next to just-released 36-year-old Heath Bell.

The day before the 2013 Subway Series, the Met rallied for three runs in the eighth inning and broke a five-game losing streak. Yesterday, the Mets rallied for three runs in the ninth and went on to break a five-game losing streak.  So here's hoping the Mets can pull off another sweep of the Yankees.

Of course, the Mets followed the four-game Subway Series sweep by losing ten of their next twelve. 

At 17-19, the Mets now have to go 73-53 the rest of the way to win 90 games.

Yankees acquire former Met phenom Fernando Martinez

Tuesday was a great day for top Met prospects, but as Met fans know all too well, the results haven't always been quite so spectacular. Fernando Martinez, the great hope just a few years ago, was finally waived by the Mets last year. This year, he was DFA'd by the Astros on the same day they DFA'd Rick Ankiel.

Just as the Mets learned with Ankiel that when you're not good enough for the Astros' outfield, you're probably not that good, the Yankees now have a chance to learn that with Martinez after trading a rookie-ball pitcher for him.

Martinez does have one characteristic that could help him fit in with the Yankees - he's been linked to the Biogenesis scandal. 

Shocker: Mike Lupica makes more sense on the Yankees than the Steinbrenner sons do

Sports columnist Mike Lupica may be the newspaper equivalent of a slugger whose best days were in the 1970s, but every once in a while, he can still hit a mistake pitch out of the ballpark. The New York Daily News writer had a great column this Sunday about what I've been saying and thinking recently about the Yankees front office -- that the Yankees' rhetoric about how the season is a failure without a World Series title no longer matches reality.

Lupica writes:

Yankee fans really need to take a deep breath here, be a little more realistic about who their team is, has been for a long time. We hear constantly about the Yankee “brand.” Well, here is what the Yankee brand has become: Winning a lot of regular games, drawing a lot of people, making a lot of money. They are big winners, unprecedented winners, April through September. Just rarely in October. October was the old brand.

And they’re still working off an old script at the new Yankee Stadium. The comments from members of the Yankees’ high command after the team doesn’t make it to the World Series have become as predictable as their baseball team not making it to the World Series.

Lupica is right to point out that the Steinbrenners are now more concerned about "profit and loss" than playoff losses. Quite frankly, fans are more upset over the ALCS than Hal Steinbrenner or Brian Cashman is. While Hal acknowledged in a statement that the Yanks "fell short of our singular and constant goal, which is a World Series Championship," and called it a "bitter end" and a "disappointment," nobody is going to lose their jobs over this. George Steinbrenner may have gone too far when it came to firing people, but the Steinbrenner kids are way too passive on the opposite end of the spectrum, guaranteeing Cashman and Joe Girardi's jobs after the postseason even began. 

By the way, a "disappointment" is when Starbucks ran of Pumpkin Spice Latte mix. The Yankees are a disaster. They didn't play hard and just come up short in the ALCS -- they were annihilated, embarrassed, and humiliated.  But Hal doesn't seem really upset over it. If he were upset, he would get rid of at least one of the architects of this disaster.

Anyhow, Lupica didn't stop there. The columnist calls the Yankees the "New York Braves" (ouch!) but notes that the Braves got further into the postseason than the current Yankees did when Atlanta was dominant (ouch again!) Lupica also notes that the Yankees "consistently fall short of what they say their mission statement is, but nothing really changes in the organization." Yep. So we will have another year of Joe Girardi panicking, and Brian Cashman getting ripped off in trades, and Kevin Long no longer being up to the job. Oh, joy.

As Lupica says:

They consistently fall short of what they say their mission statement is, but nothing really changes in the organization. You know the only person who effectively got fired from the World-Series-or-bust Yankees lately? A.J. Burnett. They paid the Pirates to take Burnett off their hands. They might pay somebody else to take A.E. Rodriguez off their hands. That is the modern Yankee idea of holding somebody accountable.

By the way, I loved Hank's complaining to the Associated Press about too much blame being put on A-Rod, saying that it wasn't fair "to accuse him of everything but the Kennedy assassination." Um, Hank, your crew did that all by themselves! Hank also had this to say about his feelings about the ALCS debacle: 

"It was something to not be very pleased about," Steinbrenner said. "Everybody is kind of a bewildered and a little angry, too. But that's natural."

Even hothead Hank is way too passive in his comments.

How weird are things in Yankeeland these days? Even Lupica, who has been a longtime A-Rod hater since he was on the Mariners, thinks that Alex should have played in the postseason. He has this to say about Hal's comments:

But whatever Steinbrenner the Younger does say, you have to say he seems pretty happy with the way his team is being run, and managed. For now he doesn’t say a word about his manager benching A-Rod in favor of a guy, Eric Chavez, who couldn’t hit or field by the end. Doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that after a decade of record spending, the Yankees have won one World Series to show for all that spending.

Lupica ends his piece by noting that while "the people in charge say what they think George M. Steinbrenner would have wanted them to say," but with "the old man, it was more than just talk." Ain't that the truth!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Squawker Media Alert: Lisa on radio at 1:30 p.m. today

Lisa will be squawking baseball with Mike Lindsley of Syracuse's The Score 1260 at 1:30 p.m. today. If you are in the Syracuse area, you can listen to her on 1260 AM on the radio. If not, check out the station's web site and listen to her there. Thanks!

Bring back the chicken! Mets' (c)luck runs out

Everything went right Friday night. Ike Davis' homer made it over the wall. Frank Francisco's chicken comments did not come back to haunt him. Squawker Lisa was at Citi Field and the Mets still won.

Then Davis came down with a mysterious illness, Francisco went on the DL and Lisa and I returned to Citi Field on Sunday only to find ourselves in a section (507) with way too many Yankee fans in the rows just in front of us (I counted six Derek Jeter shirts and jerseys - every one of them a different design).

On Friday, Nick Swisher had Davis' three-run homer bounce off his glove. On Sunday, Swisher hit a three-run homer.

About the only thing Friday night and Sunday night had in common was Miguel Batista giving up an eighth-inning homer to Robinson Cano. Also, the rain picked up in the ninth inning both nights.

So why did things turn out so well Friday and fall apart after that? I'd like to find a way to blame Lisa. But maybe it was getting rid of the chicken.

On Friday, Tim Byrdak brought a chicken into the clubhouse. That night, the Mets had one of their best victories of the year. Then Byrdak said they needed to find the chicken a new home. On Sunday, the chicken was sent packing. 

Sure, I'd rather have a decent bullpen than a lucky chicken,  but the Mets had their own good-luck charm and let him go. And they haven't won since.

Think a lucky animal can't make a difference? Last year, an image of the Cardinals' rally squirrel ended up being part of their world championship ring. 

When the Mets realized they couldn't take care of the chicken, they put out a public call for some sort of sanctuary and found it upstate. But maybe they should have found a way to take care of the chicken themselves. These are wealthy ballplayers with plenty of resources. And it's not as if it's a horse.

Or maybe Lisa and I should stop going to games following great Met pitching performances. We went to Johan Santana's game following his no-hitter and he got rocked. We went to R.A. Dickey's game following his consecutive one-hitters and he gave up five runs.

But I keep coming back to the chicken. Terry Collins admitted last night after the game he should have brought Byrdak in to face Cano. Byrdak (Bird-ak?) - the man who found the chicken - and the man who sent it away. On Sunday night, the Mets could have used Byrdak - and the chicken.

Mets vs. Yankees, R.A. vs. CC -- Who will win the battle of the initials?

Listen up, Met fans -- my presence at Citi Field Friday meant nothing. Your team still beat the Yankees! So much for my so-called jinx. Now, I am about to head to your ballpark for the battle of the initials -- CC vs. RA -- but if Dickey's scoreless streak ends, don't blame me!

I hope it doesn't rain tonight -- Jon and I and 40+ thousand fans had to wait out an hourlong rain delay Friday. Not fun, although at least I didn't feel claustrophobic like at the old ballparks. Speaking of which, that's when I finally felt it was time for a new Yankee Stadium -- during a 2006 Subway Series rain delay, and the hallways inside were so cramped and crowded.

The last play of Friday's game, of course, was a popup. Needless to say, I was hoping to see another Luis Castilloesque play, but no such luck.

That was an awful Andy Pettitte start to the game -- five runs in the first took the crowd out of the game right from the beginning -- but at least he settled down, and the Bombers even made it get close. Did the Roger Clemens verdict mess him up?

Meanwhile, Clemens was at Fenway Park Friday, watching a Boston game. Good, Rocket -- stay with that old team and forget about going to any Yankee games!

I noticed that Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden do a "Let's go Mets" chant. Of course, I helpfully pointed out to Squawker Jon how many rings each had as a Yankee!

Anyhow, as much as I like R.A. Dickey, here's hoping that CC wins the battle of the initials!

Mets vs. Yankees: The cluck stops here

Squawker Lisa, what happened to your jinx when we went to Friday night's Subway Series game? Did you "misremember" it, to use a word associated with last night's losing pitcher?

And after your criticism of Ike Davis for hoping the Mets could just get a victory, Ike had as much to do with anyone as to why the Mets got the win, with his three-run homer.

As much as I enjoyed last night's game, I did not enjoy the ninth inning. Frank Francisco is at best a serviceable closer who has no business shooting off his mouth. When he put two Yankees on in the ninth with the heart of the order coming up, I was dreading the game headline "FRANCISCO LAYS AN EGG."

Instead, everything went the Mets' way for a change. Davis' ball barely made it over the wall, Jon Niese gave up two homers but still got the win and Francisco got out of  the jam he got himself in.

Lisa, you like to say that when the Mets win, I do the Snoopy Dance. But last night, it was the chicken dance!

Mets, Yankees and Chickens

I'm not chicken, Squawker Lisa. Just like Frank Francisco - I've done it before. I'm referring to going to a Subway Series game with you and seeing the Mets win. Sure, it's been a while, but I've got two more shots this weekend, one with the hottest pitcher in baseball.

But I'm not going to say I'd be happy with one win - I agree with you writing  that Ike Davis shouldn't have said that about this weekend. But put Ike's season in perspective. Ike was hitting just .158 two weeks ago, but he's finally finding his groove and has raised his average 32 points since then. That puts Ike at .190. For a week or so now, his big goal has been to get to .200. The Mendoza Line.

Maybe you'd rather hear Ike blustering about leaving Russell Martin (.205) in the rear-view mirror or vowing to make Andruw Jones (.206) eat his dust. But Ike's taking it one step at a time.

Francisco, however, is, uh, counting his chickens before they hatch when he says, “I want to strike out the side against them. I’ve done it before.” As the Post notes, he did it in 2004.

Not sure that Francisco should be bringing up things he did back in 2004. That was also the year he threw a chair in the stands and was suspended for the last 16 games of the season. The MLB executive in charge of the investigation was Sandy Alderson.

But I do like the Post graphic of the chickens with Yankee heads on them. That could be a Subway-Series themed scoreboard graphic - the Yankee chickens slide by in a row, carnival-game style, and when a Yankee strikes out, the chicken flips over and we hear a loud ding.

For this weekend, I'll predict one Met win (at a game we attend!) though I want more. And plenty of clucking from Lisa when she sees her team lose!

Subway Series Game 1: Forgettable night for Mets

There was only one positive thing about attending another Met game with Squawker Lisa that ended in a shambles for my team. Lisa spent two innings on a long, slow-moving drink line because she wanted to check out the Malibu party deck and got back to our seats in the top of the sixth. She looked at the scoreboard and said, "Holy bleep, it's still a no-hitter!" On the next pitch, Omar Quintanilla broke it up. Looks like I'm not the only jinx for a change.

But don't feel bad about not realizing it was a no-hitter, Lisa. Mariners pitcher Tom Wilhelmsen was on the mound when Seattle completed a six-pitcher no-hitter last night, and he didn't realize it until the Mariners catcher told him. The Mariners' catcher, by the way, was some guy named Jesus Montero.  But I thought he couldn't catch, much less call a no-hitter with six different pitchers?

If there had to be a no-hitter last night, at least it wasn't in the Bronx. Hiroki Kuroda made it look like it could happen. And if it hadn't been for an error by Derek Jeter, he would have been working on a perfect game. (Imagine if Kuroda had pitched a no-hitter that would have been a perfecto if not for an error by Jeter on a routine grounder.)

When Josh Thole comes back to the lineup, the Mets pitched a no-hitter.

When Jason Bay came back to the lineup, the Mets were nearly no-hit.

As for Johan Santana, we'll always have the no-hitter. Santana actually had a better game than he did in the Bronx in 2009, when he gave up nine earned runs in three innings. At least he was said to be rusty from too much rest rather than hurting from the 134 pitches. Santana's ERA in three games at the new Yankee Stadium is now 12.21.

I had no idea that Ryota Igarashi was pitching in the majors, much less for the Yankees. In 82 MLB games, Igarashi has an ERA of 6.21. And they say Brian Cashman doesn't know pitching.

Meet the Mets (and Yankees) managers

I had a chance to go to an event this morning featuring Terry Collins and Joe Girardi, who took questions for half an hour at the Audi Club in Yankee Stadium. The event was hosted by Dunkin' Donuts in conjunction with their new commercial starring Collins and Girardi.

Both managers seemed a lot more friendly and relaxed than they often come across in their post-game interviews. Girardi asked Collins why his roster had 26 players at the moment and Collins told him it was because someone (Chris Young) was on paternity leave. Then Collins added, "When we play you, we need 26!"

Someone said they saw a tweet that injured Yankee prospect Austin Romine is cleared to resume baseball activities and Girardi quipped that it was amazing how many things he learns through tweets.

Later, someone mentioned blogging to Girardi, who said, "Me blog? Oh no. Tweet? No."

Collins was asked about how the Mets' farm system has helped out the big club this season and he smiled and said they were going to "run out of shortstops."

Both managers praised hard-working veterans (David Wright and Andy Pettitte) for setting examples for the younger players. Girardi noted that the whole rotation has improved since Pettitte came back, though also noted that along with inspiring his colleagues, perhaps the other starters were also now afraid of losing their jobs. 

Girardi had an interesting observation about the Subway Series. When asked about what it was like to play at Yankee Stadium with a lot of Met fans in attendance, Girardi said that now he sees what other teams feel like when the Yankees go on the road.

After the Q and A, I had a chance to shake hands with both managers. (No, Lisa, I did not get a chance to shake hands with Cuppy, the Dunkin' Donuts mascot, who was also present.)

*

Tonight, I'll be returning to Yankee Stadium for the second time in one day for the first game of the Subway Series. Lisa has had far more memorable Subway Series moments that I have (at least positive ones), so I'm hoping that I can be her jinx tonight for a change.

Mets have better record than the Yankees

Squawker Lisa, in case you don't have access to the standings, I thought you should know that the Amazing Mets are 18-13 while the Yankees are 17-14. If the season ended today, the Mets would be in the playoffs thanks to the new system, while the fourth-place Yankees would be playing golf (maybe they could invite Josh Beckett).

Despite the NL East being much improved this year while the Mets cut their payroll by $50 million, the Mets are 13-5 so far against their divisional rivals. They have already swept series from the Phillies, Marlins and Braves. In the just-completed sweep of the Phillies, the Mets had to face Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, while both Johan Santana and R.A. Dickey missed the series.

Tonight, however, I won't get to watch the Mets make their first visit to the new Miami stadium because the Squawkers will be heading up to the Bronx to see Jesus Montero's first game back in New York.

Lisa was opposed to the Montero trade from the start, while I thought it was more evenhanded, though not without risk considering how poorly Michael Pineda did in the second half last year and how bad his record was pitching outside of Seattle.

Montero has played 29 games for Seattle and been the catcher in 12 of them. Montero is now hitting .268 with 4 homers and 16 RBI.

Current Yankee catcher Russell Martin is hitting .188 with 3 homers and 7 RBI.

Look who's 3-0 and look who's 0-3

Squawker Lisa, there's still plenty of room if you want to climb aboard the Met bandwagon. See what a closer looks like when he's 3-for-3 in saves. See a veteran pitcher coming back from a serious injury pitch five shutout innings on Opening Day instead of jumping on a trampoline. See a young starter who shows up in camp in shape, isn't nervous about pitching in New York, and instead of going on the DL, takes a no-hitter into the seventh.

I'm going to enjoy the Mets' success as much as I can now because it isn't likely to last. Maybe it's not a coincidence that they swept the Braves, who are coming off a historic collapse. The Red Sox are also 0-3 and there are lots of theories that it could be a hangover (no clubhouse pun intended) from last year, so it could be the same thing with the Braves.

One of the best pieces of news for the Mets might have been that Jon Niese's no-hit bid was broken up in the seventh inning. Terry Collins said emphatically after the game that he would have have pulled Niese after 115 pitches, no-hitter or not.

But the Mets are desperate for good publicity. They've been accused of pushing players to play through injuries. If Niese had been pulled, the Mets' great start would have been drowned in boos. Instead of celebrating Niese's strong performance and new contract, the fans would come away feeling cheated.

Last year, the Mets found a way to spoil what should have been a franchise triumph - the team's first batting title - when Jose Reyes abruptly came out of his last game in the first inning. I didn't have a problem with Reyes making an early exit, but the whole situation could have been handled better.

Imagine if Niese had thrown 130 pitches and the Braves broke up the no-hitter in the eighth or ninth. Now it's the clueless Mets risking the health of a pitcher they just signed to a five-year deal.
 
So things are actually looking pretty good for the Mets at the moment.

At least until Mike Pelfrey pitches tonight.