The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

Mets Manager Terry Collins (left) and General Manager Sandy Alderson

Rx for the Mets

For better or worse, I’m a Mets fan and have been that way since I was a kid. Being a fan of any team created in the 1960s with an “ets” as the major part of its name is coextensive with being able to endure and be inured to vast amounts of disappointment and even pain. The Nets? Moved to Jersey and then they became terrible. The Jets? They moved to Jersey and for the most part became terrible. The Mets? Well, at least they had the good grace to stay in Queens but apart for sporadic flashes of brilliance, are often prone to disappoint.

The Mets are actually tied with the Dodgers as the fifth most popular baseball team in America – up one notch from the number six slot last year – this according to a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,163 adults conducted online between June 13^th and 20^th by Harris Interactive. The Mets have risen steadily from the number 11 slot back in 2008. Hated rivals the Philadelphia Phillies are only ranked at number seven and the particularly loathsome Yankees are at the top of the heap at number one and have held that slot every year consecutively since 2003, yet another reason to despise them. Boston came in at number two and Atlanta third in American popularity.

One of the greatest assets the Mets have going for them is that they’re not the Yankees. By virtue of this alone, they are guaranteed a loyal cadre of fans irrespective of their prospects in any given year. I’ve worn my Mets hat at Baltimore’s Camden Yards (a great ballpark) and been high-fived by all and sundry in the stands and on concession lines. For Orioles fans, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In Boston people give me the thumbs-up.

I’ve been to the new Yankee stadium with some good friends and felt like Christians might have when visiting Rome’s Coliseum back when the lions were playing there. (No, I didn’t wear my Mets hat).

This has been a year of less and zero expectations for Mets fans. Attendance is down by more than 140,000 for the first half of the season. The Mets ownership is besieged by lawsuits from the Madoff trustee looking for a gazillion dollars and the Wilpons also lost a ton of cash in the Madoff fiasco on top of this, which is definitely crimping their style and their cash flow. Hedge fund wunderkind David Einhorn is poised to put $200 million into the team but this hasn’t happened yet. The Mets have been saddled with some mighty expensive payroll obligations many of which are for dud players procured during the reign of former General Manager Omar Minaya who was a big believer in overpaying hyper retail price for fading stars, never-have-beens and never-will-bees.

In a year where so many of the team’s top stars have been on the disabled list (injuries are a constant plague for the Mets) surprisingly, as I write this during the All Star break, the Mets are actually over .500 (barely) but have been playing exciting, fun and scrappy ball manned by a team primarily composed of recent graduates from the Buffalo Bisons (the Mets AAA minor league club) and other minor league teams including their new manager Terry Collins who spent umpteen years in the minor league wilderness before landing the big job at CitiField. Collins has essentially pulled off the impossible by turning around the miasma of utter hopelessness, poor morale and dejection that pervaded the clubhouse for the past few seasons and delivering if not a pennant-winning season then at least a respectable one against heavily overmatched opponents.

Right after the All Star game the Mets traded away uber-expensive closer Francisco Rodriguez (“K-Rod”). K-Rod never lived up to his hype and generally delivered nail-biting and heart attack inducing performances in the ninth inning. Every team wants a Mariano Rivera so every team feels they need an expensive “Superman” closer to end the game. Realistically, there are maybe a handful of guys pitching today who fit that bill and the rest are wannabees and pretenders. Better for the Mets to rotate different guys from the bullpen into the ninth inning slot (or let a good starter finish a complete game, heaven forbid) and save the money K-Rod was getting.

Likewise as we approach the July 31^st trade deadline the scuttlebutt is that Jose Reyes (probably the most exciting shortstop in baseball today) and Carlos Beltran may also be sent elsewhere. Reyes brings much momentum and drama to the team but he’s as fragile as a china doll – injured nearly every single year for some stretch or another and he’s on the DL right now. Can Reyes stay healthy for the next five to seven years? My guess is not as he’s always under the weather for some period and he’s only 28. Beltran? He’s never lived up to his potential, he’s pushing his mid-30s and he also costs a fortune.

My sense as a fan who goes to and watches a lot of games is let’s clear out all the deadwood along with the high-priced hand-carved mahogany – especially anyone and everyone associated with the ancien régime of Omar Minaya. That means high maintenance and temperamental pitchers like Mike Pelfrey. It means Reyes and Beltran. It also means David Wright who, while a heck of a nice guy and a good player, is no great player, no clutch player and no team leader. It means Jason Bay who was one of the biggest overpriced underperforming acquisitions of all time. Sweep them all out. I know I speak for many fans when I say, “let’s watch the young up and comers.” Tampa Bay won a World Series with these kind of guys. So have the Marlins. Let’s watch the hard charging Bisons out of Buffalo fight for stardom in the majors. It’s a lot of fun, it lowers the Mets owners’ costs, it lowers our ticket prices, it lowers our expectations, which in turn will lower our pain, heartache and disappointment. Met fans would rather root for young bucks on their way up than overpriced, underperforming lugs and we don’t need to try and mimic the Yankees with one of the biggest payrolls in baseball because that’s a contest the Mets will never win.

The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

Speaker of the House John Buehner in debate recently with President Obama

Hit the Ceiling

(Editorial I wrote for The South Shore Standard, July 15th issue)

Television news this week has been awash in President Obama’s dire threat/prediction that if the national debt ceiling is not raised by Congress by the August 2^nd deadline that social security and other benefits checks may not go out.

The debt ceiling is the maximum amount the Federal Government is permitted to borrow. Think of it as the credit limit on your MasterCard or Visa. If your limit is $5,000 and you’re already carrying a balance of $4,950 and need to charge another $500, you either need to get authorization from the credit card company for an expansion or increase of your credit limit or your new purchase will be denied.

Right now the U.S. is very close to maxing out on its credit. The limit is $14.3 trillion. Just for points of reference, take into consideration that in 1996 the debt ceiling was $4.9 trillion. In 2005 the debt ceiling was at $8.19 trillion. From 2007 thru early 2011 when the Democrats were in control of both houses of Congress the debt ceiling has risen from $9.8 trillion to today’s $14.3. That is an increase of $4.5 trillion or an average of $1.125 trillion a year in increased indebtedness and overspending. Just so you know, a trillion is a thousand billion. By comparison, the entire budget of the State of New York for the next fiscal year is $131.7 billion. New York City’s budget is $65.7 billion. That means that you could run New York State for over seven and a half years on justone trillion dollars. And New York’s spending is ridiculously high.

According to the Congressional Research Service “The debt limit…provides Congress with the strings to control the federal purse, allowing Congress to assert its constitutional prerogatives to control spending.  The debt limit also imposes a form of fiscal accountability, which compels Congress and the President to take visible action to allow further federal borrowing when the federal government spends more than it collects in revenues.  In the words of one author, the debt limit “expresses a national devotion to the idea of thrift and to economical management of the fiscal affairs of the government.”

The government is drunk with spending other people’s money – your money, our money. What the President is seeking is a more than $2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling – meaning he wants to borrow another $2 trillion and ramp the ceiling up to over $16 trillion. To supposedly pay for this he wants to raise our taxes, particularly on “the rich,” meaning folks and small businesses earning more than $250,000, which, we’re sorry to say, in New York doesn’t make you rich especially with the over 50 percent in federal, state and local taxes you’ll be paying on that quarter mil.

The stand-off between President Obama and The House of Representatives, more pointedly, with the Republicans is over the whole notion and philosophy of debt and spending. The GOP wants commensurate spending cuts to equal out borrowing. The Democrats want to raise taxes and spending. The GOP wants an end of deficit spending, advocating for a balanced budget amendment. New York State, New York City and Nassau County are all required by law to have a balanced budget, but not the Federal Government. The American people spoke quite clearly in the 2010 Congressional elections. They want fiscal probity.

The President is using scare tactics to try and pressure Congress to pass a higher debt ceiling. The government will not be broke on August 2^nd, taxes come in every day. Social Security has a trust fund. Money will be there. It’s just that the government won’t be able to borrow and spend any more than they already have – they’d be maxed-out on credit.

The President could ask for a temporary debt increase for August and September while negotiations continue with Congress but he’s thrown down the gauntlet and wants the whole $2 trillion-plus and is ready to scare seniors, veterans and the disabled to do get it.

We think Congress should stand firm and not buckle to this kind of pressure. We urge them to pass a one or two month extension, send it to the President and let him decide if he wants to hit the ceiling or not. Congress should also pass spending cuts concurrent with the increase in spending. This is no time for weak knees and in this economy this is no time for increased taxes and trillions in more spending that we can’t afford.

The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

    

 The cast of "Breaking Away" and an advertisement for men's bike shorts.

Breaking Away

I’m a bike rider, strictly of the hyper amateur variety, without a shred of pretence at semi-professional status or aspirations. In fact, the bicycle I own is decidedly on the quasi-fuddy-duddy side of the spectrum. It has tires somewhere in between a mountain bike and a serious racer, meaning they are on the wide side. The bike has a heavily padded seat and shocks and I’m told it possesses 15 or 21 speeds, although, generally, I use just three or four of them depending on the level of incline I encounter while pedaling over our mountainous terrain here.

As is typical of many of my generation, I don’t wear a helmet. I know, it’s stupid, might be life threatening or dangerous but I grew up riding more than I walked and somehow thanks to the good graces of the Almighty, I’ve never had any kind of serious incident in more than 40 years on two wheels. Some think it’s kind of a Hells Angels motorcycle gang type of aversion to helmets, or a reaction to government regulation. Really, it’s that I didn’t wear one when I was 15 and don’t wear one now. Not a James Dean or Brando act of passive rebellion against the myriad powers that be – thumbing my nose at The Nanny State. Just benign neglect and feeling like its 1975 every time I get on a bike.

In my travels across the various back Hewlett villages and the back of Lawrence I encounter many serious riders. They have razor thin high-tech bicycles probably constructed of graphite or aluminum or some NASA-type of material. The bikes must cost an entire mortgage payment. They have water bottles with actual places to put them on the bike frame. They wear helmets and most significantly, they wear the latest in latex or spandex bicycle racing attire.

Now, shoot me, but I think that spandex bike attire looks ridiculous on middle aged guys. It’s one thing if you’re really training for the Tour de France or some bona fide Iron Man triathlon but your average suburban Joe trolling around on Ocean Avenue and maybe even over the Atlantic Beach bridge just looks like a middle aged guy in spandex. What must guy’s wives think of this get-up? Why do some people feel it is either de rigueur or a badge of honor to wedge oneself into the kind of shorts that skinny women even have difficulty breathing in? I’ve heard all about wind resistance and aerodynamics, but to be real, how many people can even break 15-20 mph for long stretches? Me, I wear either shorts or sweats and a t-shirt/sweatshirt depending on the temperature and topped by a baseball hat. Again, no pretences, no affectations. This is just to take in the scenery and get the heart pumping. I will never be Lance Armstrong and don’t need everyone and anyone to think I harbor any aspirations of being confused for the multi Tour de France champion.

Bike garb has become a whole industry and some of my friends and neighbors in the shmatte business probably are seething while reading all this. “What, you want to throw thousands of Chinese slave laborers out of a job?” Not my intention here. The goal is to encourage guys over 35 to reclaim a measure of dignity. Would you wear a Speedo at the pool or beach? Probably not. A major beer company even has a funny commercial spoofing a dude in a Speedo who asks for a generic light beer. The hot female bartender tells the clueless fellow that “American guys don’t wear Speedos.” We wear surfer shorts, preferably just above the knees and definitely not skin tight. The only exceptions are Olympic athletes and surfers in wet suits.

All this bike suit spandex stuff got started in Europe, home of the Speedo. Ever been to a beach full of middle-aged Euro guys? Generally not a very attractive sight. Men, I wouldn’t steer you wrong here. Drop the latex and get into basketball shorts. You’ll be more comfortable and your significant others will thank you – moreover – they might actually again want to be seen in public with you and maybe even would take a bike ride with you. Think also, would you wear spandex to the gym?

Finally, while I’m at it – I’m wagering (this is utterly un-scientific here) that many of the spandex guys also wear briefs. Take it from a newly single guy – boxers make for a more sophisticated presentation while affording a lot more breathing room, something critical during hot summer days and nights.