(EDITOR’S NOTE : Not quite sure how this happened, but the following post was supposed to have been published on December 22, 2013. Though it’s hardly timely — 50 Cent’s celebrated appearances at Citi Field having taken place some time ago — there’s no possible way I could resist the opportunity to run the photo of Jay Horowitz shown below, no matter how old it may be – GC)
The scribe in question is unsurprisingly, the New York Post’s hip-hop-phboic sports media critic, Phil Mushnick, who expresses dismay the New York Mets have tapped 50 Cent to perform a June postgame concert at Citi Field. Mushnick, who had nothing negative to say when the Mets invited such (aesthetic) criminals as Third Eye Blind to spark a dangerous stampede to the 7 train, takes a dim view of the club’s association with the MC, sneering, “being financially partnered with Ponzi legend Bernie Madoff, 1-800 flower-power ad-scam king Jim McCann, the fined folks at Amway, and manipulative hedge-hog Steve Cohen isn’t sleazy enough,”.
Buyer beware. At least when the Nets ran a “Guns For Tickets” promotion they requested the owners first empty the clips — that slug in the chamber, too.
50 Cent — that’s “Mr. Cent” to the New York Times — puts the rap sheet in rap. And what he raps for a living is beyond both the pale and the pail. As the Mets’ first manager, Casey Stengel, urged, “You can look it up.”
It doesn’t matter that Cent was arrested, again — then copped a plea to avoid another felony — just this year, this time for assaulting the mother of one of his children. Nope, the Mets are pitching this warm, cuddly angle: The Mets and Fiddy are homeboys, both from Queens!
Hey, so is the Queensboro Correctional Facility! Why don’t the Mets send over a few buses, fill them with inmates and take them out to the ball game — perhaps Banner Day. Maybe that’s why the cons on the top floors have been secretly collecting bed sheets.
Perhaps, too, the Mets can conduct a rap-along — follow the bouncing stray bullet! — posting Fiddy’s lyrics on the big scoreboard.