i see when there are posts that are negative to your views you just delete them. where is objective journalism? who cares about your opinions about anything other than the mets? for example, i saw a pvt screening of “MoneyBall” last night. Since when are you a movie critic? i can go on and on-you are a no talent.

– Jason, via email.

Usually I don’t indulge folks like Jason here with responses via blog posts, but since he did not furnish me a working email address with which to reply privately, I figured I’d have a go at it here. This is all extremely petty:

First of all, I have no idea what he’s talking about. As you may know, I was on vacation last week. I spent part of Saturday cuing up a few posts to roll out while I was gone, then set off to California on Sunday. I did not touch this site while I was gone. A few others have administrative access, but since they (obviously) have less invested in the site than I do, I imagine it would take a particularly hateful or profane comment to capture their attention.

Also, best I can tell from the site’s CMS, no comments have been deleted, flagged or unapproved in the last 30 days. If you were around the comments section while I was gone you might know something I don’t, but best I can tell, whatever Jason’s referring to did not happen.

This is not a democracy — the site is called TedQuarters, and I maintain the right to delete any comment I want for any reason. But it so happens I rarely do. We’ve been through this: The people who regularly comment here are awesome enough that the comments section does a pretty good job of policing itself, and I can rely on a very vague commenting policy of “everybody just be cool” and count on it happening. The only comments that will reliably get deleted are bigoted ones and personal attacks on other commenters that cross the line — provided I catch them.

Also, Jason, I’m not sure why you came here looking for objective journalism. I don’t believe any such thing exists, for one thing. For another, this is a blog, not a news source. All the content here is driven by my opinions. Again: The site is called TedQuarters.

I don’t know why anyone would care about my opinions about anything besides the Mets. But I don’t know why anyone would care about my opinions about the Mets, either. Who the hell am I? I’m not a former player or scout. I’ve never been employed by any Major League front office. I stumbled my way into a job at a team-affiliated television network because I have a decent sense of the English language and a strong sense of how hard one has to work to find and maintain a job in sports. I got my first full-time job in journalism in part because — no joke — another guy got hit by a car and died soon after I started a part-time job in journalism. Random chance.

And that’s not me trying to sound humble; I’m anything but. I think I’m good at the blogging part of this job and the other parts too. But I recognize that there are hundreds of unemployed Mets fans that could do an equally fine job who just haven’t been as lucky as I have.

Jason, why you managed to get so upset over the post I made about Moneyball is beyond me. If someone deleted some inflammatory comment you made about that post that did not deserve to be deleted, I apologize. And we are all very impressed that you found your way into a private screening of that film. But if you are not interested in my opinions — which is undoubtedly your right — there is a very, very simple solution: Do not read TedQuarters.

And then you won’t have to even bother sending me nasty emails about my lack of talent and objectivity.

“I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.“