Happy New Year From The Apple

Mets Announce Cost Cutting Plan For 2011

In professional sports the traditional manner of improving a team's revenue stream is to put an exciting winning product on the field. Fans flock to the stadiums and arenas which leads to incredible amounts of money going to the team.

Clearly that is not going to work for the 2011 Mets. Excitement and winning do not figure to be prominent during the first full year of the Alderson administration. But they haven't given up on the idea of improving the owners' bottom line.

Today the Mets announced some cost cutting measures for 2011:

BUFFALO/BROOKLYN SWITCHEROO
In recent years the Mets have had Buffalo as their AAA affiliate while the Brooklyn Cyclones have been an A ball team for them. Given the Mets' propensity for injuries there has been a shuttling of triple-A players up to the big club and then returned in those rare instances of injured players actually returning to the field.
Having priced out flights from Buffalo to LaGuardia and compared that to the price of a subway token it is clear that making Brooklyn the triple-A team is a clear moneymaker.

WHY BRING DEAD WOOD?
Also to save on travel and hotel rooms the club has decided to only send on road trips those starting pitchers who are scheduled to play. Why bother paying for a plane ticket and hotel room for R.A. Dickey and Dillon Gee on a trip to Cincinnati when perhaps it's Pelfrey and Misch scheduled to pitch in the series? That's pure savings.

THROW BACK THOSE FOUL BALLS
Ever notice how cavalier teams are about letting fans keep the foul balls that go into the stands? And what's with the ball-youngsters handing perfectly good balls to kids down the 1st and 3rd base lines? Do you think these balls cost nothing at all? In the NBA fans routinely toss the "air balls" back onto the court. They don't hand it over to their six year old kid who then grins from ear to ear. So this year all foul balls must be returned.

Not to be too chintzy the club will permit fans to keep homerun balls hit by the Mets at CitiField. After all, a couple of dozen freebies won't hurt the bottom line.

LIGHTS OUT AT 10
What's your electric bill look like? Right, it's not pretty. So imagine lighting a huge place like CitiField. That's big bucks. In 2011 the Mets plan to start all night games at 6:30pm and no inning will be permitted to start after 9:30. This way the building can be emptied and lights turned off by 10pm. After all, with the way the Mets figure to play this season does anyone really want to see them for more than three hours at a time?

KEEP RALPH IN CALIFORNIA
No Mets week is complete without that once a week visit by Ralph Kiner. We all need our periodic reminder of how Dazzy Vance use to spit tobacco during the early 30's. But to fly Ralphie in every seven days so that he can schmooze in the booth for three innings, well that's just wasteful.
Instead the club has sent an SNY tech out to Kiner's home to teach him how to turn on his computer and connect to the booth via a free Skype video conference. The effect will be the same as if he's in the TV booth but at another great savings.

PRICE OF ESCALATION
A final revenue enhancing step will be to charge fans for the use of escalators at CitiField. It has been decided that any fan choosing to use the UP escalators will have to pay a $.50 fare. Use of the DOWN escalators will be free, since there aren't any.

All articles featured on The Apple are fictitious. No Mets were harmed in the writing of this story. Today's story by Larry Smith.  You can follow Larry Smith on twitter @dr4sight

Fred Wilpon Throws Kwanzaa Party At Citi Field

Always in touch with the community, Mets owner Fred Wilpon threw a Kwanzaa party at Citi Field on Wednesday afternoon.  In honor of the fourth day of Kwanzaa, or Ujamaa, Wilpon spoke of the virtues of cooperative economics and how he intends to stimulate the economy of the local area by offering 10% discounts on Mets tickets.

But the afternoon took a strange and slightly offensive twist when Wilpon donned his shades and his bling and performed as "Rappin' Freddy Dubs".  The audience uncomfortably watched as the patriarch of the Wilpon clan dropped rhymes like, "Disappoint me and you're gonna be fired/Don't believe me, ask Omar Minaya" and "I got my man Sandy to brainwash the bloggers/ Because next week we change our name to the Dodgers."

To be fair, Wilpon was pressed into duty at the last minute.  Originally the plan called for a more traditional performance by Mets ownership partner and deposed Nigerian Prince Dr. Clement Okon, unfortunately the team has had trouble locating Okon since they wired him ten million dollars last summer.  With Okon unavailable, the team sought to recruit one of their African-American players to perform until they realized that they don't have any.  They briefly toyed with the idea of re-branding Jose Reyes as Joey Smith but wisely decided against it.  It was at this time that Wilpon, not wanting to disappoint the crowd, took to the stage.

Fortunately for the Mets, the crowd was mostly comprised of rich White business owners and Citibank execs.  The few African-Americans in attendance we're too busy feeling sorry for Wilpon to be offended.

Happy Kwanzaa everybody!


All articles featured on The Apple are fictitious. No Mets were harmed in the writing of this story.

The Apple Wins Mazzilli Award For Blog Of The Year

Monday night at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, the best and the brightest in the Mets blogosphere were gathered together for the 2010 Mets Police Awards or the Mazzilli's as they are more commonly referred to.  These awards, given out by Shannon Shark of the fan advocacy site metspolice.com, honor excellence in the Mets online community.

The night was a time to honor many of the more well known names in the blogosphere.  Greg Prince from Faith and Fear took home the best writer award while Michael Baron from MetsPhotos.com won for, you guessed it, best photos.  Metsblog's Matthew Cerrone took home the lifetime achievement Mazzilli for being the "Most Powerful Man In The Mets Blogosphere".

But the surprise of the night came when The Apple was chosen as blog of the year.  We here at The Apple are humbled by this honor.  And while we feel there are many more blogs deserving of this honor (cough...cough... Pauls Random Stuff...cough...cough) we would like to point out that no one did more butt kissing than us to get it.

So on behalf of everyone here at The Apple, which as you may know is me and occasionally Larry Smith, I graciously accept this award.  I didn't even mind it when Ted Berg jumped on the stage during my acceptance speech and shouted that Kerel Cooper has one of the best blogs of all time.

All articles featured on The Apple are fictitious. No Mets were harmed in the writing of this story.