The Columnist Manifesto

Is it time to reintroduce the sports pages into my restricted news consumption?

Although I’m still experiencing personal news blackouts due to Post-Election-Stress-Syndrome, I felt kind of stupid and out of the loop that I missed the New York Mets' hiring of Willie Randolph as their new manager. Then I saw that they made the announcement on November 3. Is that kind of weird, or are we to assume that the Mets just needed to know whom to put at the top of their list for throwing out the first ball?

Now that Flushing Local is back in business, I plan to be very up on Mets news. Here is Flushing Local’s sage commentary on the recent Mets trade rumors:

Mike Piazza for Shawn Green? Mike Piazza and Cliff Floyd for Sammy Sosa?Jose Reyes for Alfonso Soriano?

Is everyone taking crazy pills? Has no one learned a single lesson from the Mets' 21st century descent? How many more aging, declining, injury-prone, brand-name sluggers with bad attitudes will the Mets have to acquire and be disappointed with before we all understand that this strategy does not work?

....I'm hoping these reports of nascent trades are just rumor sausages churned out from the media machine because there's nothing else of substance to report.

Let’s hope that Omar Minaya’s apparent brilliance as GM was not mere craftiness imposed by Montreal’s low budget and that he doesn’t now go crazy having lots of bucks to spend.