Could anything prove most disheartening for a New York Mets fan than K-Rod, Pedro Feliciano and Sean Green collaborating to gift the St. Louis Cardinals with a 12-7, 10 inning win? How about a report from the New York Times’ Ken Belson on the state of the Mets’ floundering International and Eastern League affiliates in Buffalo and Binghamton, currently a combined 53 games under .500 for 2009. Even more incredible than one Bisons fan claiming (presumably with a straight face), “they™re trying, but the Mets are taking our best players” (Angel Berroa?), is Belson’s suggestion that publicity stemming from Tony Bernazard challenging the B-Mets to a fight might prove beneficial to the club’s bottom line.
In Binghamton, the team is dealing with a different kind of distraction: the attention that Bernazard™s tirade generated. Manager Mako Oliveras said Bernazard was trying to motivate his underachieving players, not threaten them.
œI™m not going to sugarcoat it, Oliveras said before his team lost to the Akron Aeros, 16-3, on Friday. œYou™re damned if you do, damned if don™t.
Despite the episode ” maybe because of it ” attendance is steady and spending at the park is up this year, according to the team™s general manager, Scott Brown. Like many minor league teams, Binghamton has numerous promotions, like fireworks on Friday nights.
œIt™s not necessarily about wins and losses, but the show you put on, Brown said. œAnd the more people who know about the city, the better.
Binghamton also achieved notice when a video of the team™s mascot, Bingo the Bee, became a sensation on YouTube. After Binghamton™s Lucas Duda hit a grand slam, Bingo was shown dancing in the outfield before failing comically to jump over a fence.
“It’s not necessarily about wins and losses, but the show you put on”
I can’t wait for Jerry to use the same statement in post game interview. Please please please let this happen.
In other news: Jon Niese is done.
there is an argument that the best way to measure player development is not necessarily in the W-L record of a franchise’s farm teams. For instance, you could have a Triple A squad packed with veterans/lifers that might do very well at that level yet offer little hope for the future. However, there’s nothing about being hopeless out of contention that indicates the Mets’ system is in anything but a state of disrepair, either. Buffalo is sort of the worst of all possible situations — a paucity of genuine prospects and just as few competent vets to fashion a taxi squad for Jerry Manuel.
There’s not always a correlation between a minor league ballclub doing well at the gate and performing well on the field — the PCL’s Round Rock Express continue to draw respectable numbers despite being 12.5 games out of first place. That said, I suspect some fans in Buffalo — a city that at one time touted itself as deserving of an MLB team — need more than dizzy bat races to maintain their interest.
Glad Lucas Duda’s doing well. I saw him as a Cyclone and thought that him and maybe Scott Shaw might be the only MLB-caliber players, but only marginally.