WFAN is reporting that the Mets have agreed in proverbial principle to a deal with Carlos Beltran. I'm really psyched about this. I suddenly feel a sympathy toward the Mets that I haven't felt since pre-'86 when I was a little kid who used to go to Shea and watch a really lousy team that happened to be close by. In the years since, I never hated them, but they were always just kind of easy to make fun of, especially these last few years. But I'd really like to see them take over New York from the yanks, and now they've got Pedro and supposedly Beltran, so it really might happen.

I heard a guy call Michael Kay saying how the Mets will never be the yankees, Shea will never be yankee Stadium, etc. It was so pathetic and hollow-sounding. Here's this yankee fan, knowing that his team just collapsed in historical fashion (to their REAL rival), acting all high and mighty about the team's rivalry with the Mets. I just imagined yankee fan listeners everywhere going, "Shut UP, dude! At least wait til we win again before we start making fun of someone else." The beauty part was, Kay, being one of those yankee fans, shot the guy down, saying, "Why can't the Mets be the yankees? They've got the money. Besides, they were the toast of the town in '86, and nobody cared about the yanks."

I still won't be watching the Mets on TV, though, or any other game that doesn't involve the Red Sox or yanks. Maybe when Pedro pitches I will. And I'm not one of those people that follows a player around and roots for his team, like when Chan became a Redskins fan because Danny Wuerfel from his college got drafted by them. I think that's weird. But it's kind of a special case when a player you love so much gives you a championship, then leaves to play for a team who is also a rival of your team's rival. So if Pedro happens to pitch the Mets to the World Series, and they happen to play the yanks, I can root for the Mets all-out in that Series, as opposed to '00, when I just said, Great, the Mets are who the yanks get to beat in the Series, and I didn't even really watch it.

Speaking of the Mets, I heard an ad on the FAN for the Riviera Cafe, which as you know is the Red Sox bar in NYC. They said that the FAN will be there giving away Mets stuff, and that whatever game you're looking for, it's on at the Riviera. So I hope this doesn't mean the Riv is changing loyalties, but I doubt it. And this has to be their first time doing something with the FAN, since Mad Dog had never heard of the place as of last season, and Mike Francesa totally ripped it during the WS, referring to the mob scene there as "twenty people around a table." I bet he's PISSED that his station is now advertising for the home of the Red Sox in NYC...I love it.