New York State of Mind

I call it accidental arrogance. Or, I would if I thought it was accidental. The wancors in the New York media provide the tweak of the day, getting CL just a bit perturbed by their item on Billy Wagner. With the Metropolitans in hot pursuit of the Virginia Ham, city meets country in every aspect of stories filed over the past week. In some cases, you can't get past the headline, without running head-first into some allusion to the yocal coming local.

Never-you-mind that this tour of the city will include southern Connecticut and West Chester County New York (did his initial visit to Philly in '03 include Malvern and King of Prussia? Certainly the 422 bypass will wet his appetite for staying in the Delaware Valley). So much for the cosmopolitan aspects of the upper West Side or the bohemian charm of the Village. My man wants a yard, fellas.

But, to be honest, that's not why we're irked. No, its more a case of the Big Apple, in time honored tradition, ignoring its junior partner in the mid-Atlantic, leaving our City of Brotherly Love to rock itself to sleep at night alone. Its a case of ignoring the last two years of history.

It's plucking the best closer in the National League from us and the Daily News not even having the common courtesy of running a file photo from the last two years with the story. That's right. Apparently, the Mets are signing Billy Wagner straight from Houston, as if his tenure with the Phils is nothing more than an abberration, as if the big city team is ashamed their new star ever spent time in the east coast's second city.

Thanks for the memories.