A stand-up guy in Flushing

I suppose I really should weigh in on the New York Mess -- not the storm, but the baseball organization in Flushing, which is looking more like a fitting location for part of the Wilpon empire every day. I haven't yet, mostly because I am just too damn busy trying to get a project out the door (and falling flat on another one that I just didn't have time to do, which no doubt will reflect on my annual review, but I'm not sure how much more time I can put into work when I am going full-bore seven days a week since early December anyway.

But all that aside, Fred Wilpon are starting to look like the Hosni Mubarak of New York, insisting that his family retain full control of the New York Mets in perpetuity while expecting someone else to sink a couple hundred million into an organization which was so deeply intertwined with Bernie Madoff he might as well have changed his last name to Wilpon.

But in the face of this utter clusterfuck in Flushing, there's one gleam of light in the person of an erudite 36-year-old knuckleballer who is in no way affiliated with Scott Boras and recognizes what a boon even a modest multiyear contract is for a player. Fred Wilpon could learn something from R.A. Dickey:

“I’ve played on 14 one-year contracts, none of which have been guaranteed, so when the opportunity arose to have some financial security from a financial standpoint and also feel like I was treated fairly not only by the New York Mets as an organization, but also the city, it made it very easy for me to want to return for more than just next year.

“My goal at this point is to be the best bargain in baseball for the next three years. That’s my goal. To win championships, you really have to have an altruistic approach, in that I wasn’t out to break the bank from the get-go and I know that if I want to be part of the solution here, which I do, giving some things up, so to speak, might help the collective good, and I was willing to do that for this organization and still am.’’