I just hope there’s a job for Tone Loc in all this

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The Internet is ablaze this morning with talk that some guy is set to become the new minority owner of the Mets. And despite the rampant speculation of several months ago, it is neither Donald Trump nor Michael Bloomberg nor Ralph Lauren nor Lady Gaga nor any other famously rich person. It is David Einhorn, a hedge-fund manager from Westchester.

Oddly, back on Feb. 11, when I wrote how unlikely it was that any rich person we’d all heard of would purchase the Mets, I suggested as a likely candidate “some hedge-fund manager from Chappaqua.” Einhorn’s Wikipedia page does not say where in Westchester he lives, but I’m going to pat myself on the back right now for nailing it on the whole not-Donald-Trump thing.

The press release just came through so looks like the deal is done. My friends who have real-guy jobs sound pretty bullish about Einhorn, and on top of that, the good news is it provides the team some financial stability. Here’s the release:

The New York Mets today announced that David Einhorn has been selected as the team’s preferred partner and that the Mets and Mr. Einhorn have entered into exclusive negotiations with respect to a minority, non-operating investment in the team.  The $200 million personal investment by Mr. Einhorn is subject to the negotiation of a mutually acceptable definitive agreement for the transaction, as well as required approvals by Major League Baseball. The parties expect to enter into definitive agreements by late June.

“We are very excited about David joining our ownership group for several reasons,” said Fred Wilpon, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, New York Mets.  “David’s investment immediately improves the franchise’s financial position.  Equally important, David’s intelligence, integrity and success in both business and civic affairs provides us with another perspective in evaluating what is best for this organization and our fans, and we welcome his input.  In partnership with David, we look forward to achieving our ultimate goal of again becoming World Series champions.”

Mr. Einhorn stated, “Having an opportunity to become part of the Mets franchise is exciting beyond my wildest childhood dreams.  I spent my first seven years living in New Jersey and rooting for the Mets.  In 1975, I even dressed in a homemade jersey as a Met for Halloween.  I have been a baseball fan for my entire life and have enjoyed teaching the game as the coach of my daughter’s little league team.  I look forward to partnering with the Wilpon and Katz families through the good seasons, the tough seasons and especially the championship seasons.”

Mr. Einhorn is President of Greenlight Capital, Inc., a private investment firm which he co-founded in January 1996, and is Chairman of the Board of Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd.  Along with his wife, Mr. Einhorn formed the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, whose mission is to help people get along better.  He also serves on the Board of Directors of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Robin Hood Foundation.

And the more important thing right now is we get to make a ton of Ace Ventura related jokes. They’re going to get old really fast but let’s go to town today.

Ridiculous jelly bean press release obviously some sort of practical joke aimed at getting Kanye West to spend $500 on jelly beans

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Influenced by food deconstruction masters such as Jose Andreas and Ferran Adria of El Bulli, David’s ‘Beyond Gourmet’™ jelly beans will enable one to create haute cuisine and exotic dishes using the taste elements of each jelly bean. It’s beyond candy! It’s literally an exotic trip around the world though the sense of taste via never-before-tasted jelly bean flavors. Imagine creating a Thai Lemongrass Curry or an Indian Mango Chutney dish by constructing complex dishes in your mouth, and giving it an explosion of taste that hits all your senses.

As part of the David’s Signature “Beyond Gourmet” Jelly Beans™ line-up, a very exclusive product featuring a “special blend” of the rarest and most exotic ingredients in the world will be enveloped in a 24-karat gold bean. They will be packaged in an exquisite Crystal jar and priced at $500. The 24-karat beans will be under armed guard at the show and are the most expensive jelly beans ever created in jelly bean history.

– PRWeb.com.

Yeah you heard right: Jelly beans that literally take you on an exotic trip around the world. That $500 price tag sounds a hell of a lot more reasonable when you realize jelly-bean mastermind David Klein has unlocked the secret of jelly-bean fueled human teleport. Just eat a jelly bean and you’re literally in Thailand.

Seriously though, this can’t be for real, right? PRWeb.com appears reasonably legit so it’s a pretty elaborate hoax if they’re kidding, but there’s just no way someone’s sincerely, unironically planning to sell 24-karat gold-leafed $500 jelly beans. Right? IN THIS ECONOMY!?

Also, I really like that they feel the need to mention that these are the most expensive jelly beans ever created “in jelly bean history.” I guess that implies that the person writing the press release is doing it with his tongue at least a tiny bit in cheek, but I like to imagine he needed to specify because there have been more expensive jelly beans in other, alternate, non-jelly bean histories. I’m blowing your mind right now, I know.

Baseball is awesome sometimes

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I play in a pickup baseball game in Brooklyn on weekends. I’ve mentioned this before a few times, at greatest length here.

I’m a terrible defender but a decent hitter, at least for level. I usually manage to put the ball in play, and since errors abound, I often end up on base. I don’t have much power but I handle fastballs pretty well. There aren’t many regular pitchers in the game who can blow one past me, and I’m usually patient enough to lay off or foul off offspeed stuff until I get something straight to hit. Plus I got off to a hot start this spring — seeing the ball well, driving a couple legit extra-base hits to the gaps in the first few games, poking some singles over infielders’ heads.

On Sunday, though, I guess I came in to the game with a little too much confidence. We switch up the teams every week, and I wound up facing the game’s lone lefty junkballer, a shrewd musician with a frustrating array of breaking stuff.

I’ve faced the dude enough times to know how I should approach him — wait and wait and wait and wait. Don’t bother trying to drive the ball because it’s not going to happen. Just take pitches until he’s forced to throw a strike, then try to go with a pitch or work out a walk.

But screw that, I roped a double last week! I’M BIG-TIME POWER BRO! So in my first at-bat I dug in and crouched deep like a fool, prepared to put a hurting on one, eying that 320-foot left field wall as if I’ve ever hit a home run in my damn life. On my third huge, awful swing, I tapped out to the pitcher.

Humbled, I decided to adjust my approach the second time up. I stood up a little straighter, trying to use the wrist-hitting style I honed in years of dedicated backyard Wiffle-ball play. Still couldn’t hit him, though. I managed to foul a couple off and wound up walking, but the whole time I felt generally uncomfortable.

Before my third plate appearance, the southpaw grew wild and got pulled from the game, and our opponents turned to a hard-throwing righty that I’ve hit OK in the past. He got ahead of me quickly, though, and after five straight fastballs he struck me out swinging on a 2-2 curveball that fooled me so thoroughly it had me laughing out loud before it reached the plate (and somewhere midway through my flailing off-balance whiff).

I came up for the fourth and final time with one out, nobody on and my team down 7-3 in our last licks at the plate. Another new pitcher was on for the bad guys, a guy who throws almost exclusively fastballs, mixing in the occasional curveball that he struggles to control.

By now, though, I’m lost in the batter’s box. The first pitch waes a pin-straight fastball down the middle, and I just looked at it. The second was a fastball low and inside, but I swung anyway and fouled it straight down into the dirt. The third pitch was obviously a wild curveball from the moment it left his hand, spinning toward my front knee. For some reason, as I stepped out of the way I took a godawful hack out of it. But the barrel of the bat made solid contact with the ball, smacking it down the third-base line for a single.

A few batters later, we wound up with a walk-off win. Baseball is awesome like that sometimes. Most times, really.

 

Yeah, what he said

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Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

– Sandy Alderson.

Following the discussion around the Mets since Fred Wilpon’s media blitz has been nearly impossible. Every pundit and columnist and blogger and fan has an opinion on Wilpon’s comments themselves, the team’s response, and what the comments mean for the future of the club. But it seems like everyone’s sort of taking snippets of quotes and running with them, drawing conclusions without context and not necessarily based on fact, then assuming those conclusions and advancing in conversation.

We are, to paraphrase Alderson, getting too far ahead of ourselves.

The Mets lost last night and looked miserable in the process, and it’s tempting to go all post hoc ergo propter hoc and assume Wilpon’s comments distracted them into terrible play. Maybe it did. Probably not.

Memorial Day approaches. If you haven’t been following, that’s the arbitrary cutoff point used here and elsewhere to determine when the early returns on a baseball season can be deemed meaningful.

And so we beat on…