The Mets are taking on the Giants in San Francisco as I write this...I'll try to do next-day updates of the West Coast games.

TRIP PIC: I was going to end with this, but I'm afraid what I've spent most of my time writing about (venting about) is boring, and I didn't want you to miss it - in case it's worthy of a Pulitzer. So here's one of the pictures from the trip out West (a possible semi-regular feature, until I'm out of pictures):

I love this picture. This is from our trip to McAfee Coliseum, and the A's-Rangers game. It was Huston Street Bobblehead Doll Day. Unlike the Mets, who only give bobbleheads to kids, the A's give them to everyone. So I got a bobblehead. But that's beside the point. The A's took a 3-1 lead into the 9th, and Street comes in to nail it down. I'm telling the wife and the other two women we went to the game with how everyone always does very well on their Bobblehead Doll day. Well, Street proceeds to give up 4 runs, including a single and homer to the first two batters to tie it. I saw this kid waving the bobblehead, with Street in the background, and said, I should take a picture of that. I did. It was on the pitch that Street gave up the homer to Mark Teixeira. Glad I snapped it when I did - this was the last time the kid waved the bobblehead. I think if you click on the picture you'll get a large version of it - I love that the players are all following the ball as it heads over the fence. Walter Iooss, eat your heart out. Crap, I just realized I should have tried to sell this picture to SI.

I read in the Sunday paper that Street was the first player to blow a save on his bobblehead day, or something like that. I forget the actual stat.

And now these messages:
I need to throw the gloves down. I'm really disappointed in SportsNet New York (SNY)'s non-baseball coverage. (And to be honest, the jury's still out on the Mets games - I love Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez, but my sample size of seeing these games is very, very small.)

To the point, 'Daily News Live' is awful. (Maybe if SNY would have made me the official blogging partner, and had a show called "johnnymetslive", we could have avoided all this.) I've mentioned this show before - hosted by Gary Apple. He is brutal, and the show is bad. It's a roundtable featuring some guests, Apple, and three writers from the New York Daily News who have no business being on TV. (I have been anti-newspaper people on TV for a long time here in Boston, and now it's happening a lot in New York. It just doesn't work for me, outside of a select few who appear on ESPN. I just can't believe the egos on some of these newspaper writers.) Anyway, the main thing that has me fuming from Monday is an interview I saw on 'Daily News Live'.

The interview focused on Mets announcer Keith Hernandez, and a female trainer for the Padres. If you missed this story, here it is (I didn't see this happen live because I was flying back from California): Mike Piazza homered off Pedro Martinez*. The SNY cameras showed Piazza slapping hands in the dugout with teammates, and then a woman. Hernandez, on the air, said something to the effect of, "Whoa, what's she doing in the dugout? Players, personnel, and staff only! She doesn't belong there. I'm not going to say she belongs in the kitchen, but get her out of the dugout." Now, later in the broadcast, the Mets found out she was a trainer on the Giants staff, and Hernandez rescinded his comment a bit, making sure as long as she belonged there, it was OK for her to be there. On Sunday, on the air, Hernandez apologized to anyone he might have offended with his "inappropriate" comment.

So it's a big non-story, pretty much. Hernandez even called the trainer to apologize. So 'Daily News Live" does a big live interview with the trainer, with Gary Apple and the News writers asking her questions. What does she do for the team? She's a massage therapist. Does she belong in the dugout? Absolutely, she says. What exactly does her role with the team entail? She is a massage therapist, and a personal trainer...but not an athletic trainer. Not licensed as an athletic trainer.

OK. Dud interview. Then Bill Madden gets on, and he comes off like an absolute idiot. Let me paraphrase some of their exchange:

Bill Madden: So let me get this straight, you're a masseuse?
Trainer: I'm a massage therapist....
BM:(Cutting her off) yeah, a masseuse. So you give the guys massages?
Trainer: If that's what the player needs that day, that's what I'll do. But it depends on the situation - if I need to work a guy out...........(she continues, explaining her job)
BM: And you think it's perfectly OK for you to be in the dugout during a game?
Trainer: Absolutely.
BM: Now, do you usually wear that hideous camouflage uniform when you're in the dugout?
Trainer: (explains the Padres were wearing the camouflage uniform to pay tribute to the military on "Military Opening Night", then says if you think those uniforms are hideous, that's your opinion, but we were wearing them along with the team with good intentions).

From here on, the questions just got silly and irrelevant, and as the wife says, made Hernandez's comments look tame compared to what they were saying to her.

Hernandez was then interviewed by Apple, and he was clearly steamed that this had taken on new life. He said, look guys, I apologized for an inappropriate comment, the issue isn't that she was in the dugout, it was what I said. He was starting to call out the guys in the studio for trying to crucify the woman for being in the dugout. It was just awful, and I think I've wasted too much space trying to recount it here. I need the Mets to get off the West Coast.

Bottom line: it made the New York writers look like a bunch of ignorant jerks, with nothing better to write about. What a disgrace.

By the way, the Mets are already down 3-0 after an Alou first inning homer. Also by the way: despite his comments, the wife is still a fan of Keith Hernandez.

THE KID'S KIDS: After my lengthy time away from the site, the St. Lucie Mets are now 10-6. They're actually in third place in their division. I'm not sure if the record includes the Mets' 5-4 win on Monday night, though - over the first place Brevard County Manatees.

BEAT THE STREAK: Back to taking it seriously, after vacation. I'm on a modest 3-gamer, after a Jimmy Rollins hit tonight (actually, 2 hits, I think). I took Alfonso Soriano for Tuesday, against Dave Williams of the Reds (formerly with the Pirates). He is bad.