Today, Mike and the Mad Dog were at it again, bashing the Mets that is. It has become the afternoon drive time team’s favorite pastime. Mind you, they don’t come out and say the Mets suck. No, that would be too obvious. How Chris and Mike speak negatively of the Mets is through subjectivity and opinions generally not backed up by fact.

The crux of their criticism was based around Omar Minaya having a meeting with Willie Randolph. The assumption being that Omar was taking Willie to task for the team getting off to a bad start. Of course they had no real information to back that up but what the hell. I guess a general manager has no right to meet with his manager. According to this logic, Willie has no right to meet with any players. Jeff Wilpon shouldn’t meet with Omar either.

Both hosts have no love for the Mets. Mike is a die hard Yankee fan who makes excuses for anything the Bombers do. Russo, through some childhood resentment toward his father, has embraced the San Francisco Giants. That’s fine. People have the right to root for any team they want. What is troublesome about these two is they seem to revel when the Mets struggle. That’s alright for you and me to discuss at the water cooler in the office. But for two sports talk show hosts who are supposed to be so knowledgeable, I find their demeanor irritating to say the least.

You don’t get this from Boomer Isiason and Craig Carton in the morning. Both, Mets fans, talk about other teams including the Yankees with much objectivity. Carton may have some fun at Yankee fans expense, but he doesn’t trash the Yankees for the sake of being an irritant.

Another thing that drives me crazy is the generalities thrown around as fact. Russo ranted that one problem with the Mets is that they are an old team. An old bunch of guys is what he actually said. Now it is true that as far as average age goes the Mets have an older team, one of the oldest. But let’s look at the facts. Russo mentioned one name regarding age, Carlos Delgado. True, Delgado at 36 is an older player. Let’s go around the field. Luis Castillo is 32, hardly ready for retirement. Brian Schneider is 31, 3 years younger than Paul Lo Duca. Carlos Beltran will be 31 next week, a veteran player but still has productive years ahead of him. Ryan Church is 29, Angel Pagan is 26, David Wright is 25, and Jose Reyes is 24. Russo went on to mention Alou who is in his 40s but did he mention that Moises hasn’t played yet. You can hardly blame him for the Mets lackluster beginning. John Maine, Oliver Perez, Mike Pelfrey, and Johan Santana are all under 30. So are Aaron Heilman, Duaner Sanchez, and Joe Smith. The rest of the Mets pitchers currently active are 35 or younger except for Billy Wagner who is 37. Granted when Orlando Hernandez, Pedro Martinez, and Moises Alou are activated, the team looks older, I would be the first to admit that. The Mets bench, in their 30s, is a bit older too.

Perhaps now I appear as an apologist for the Mets much like Francesa is for the Yankees. Certainly the Mets are not as young as the Rockies or Diamondbacks, two teams that made the post season last year. I have been saying since the winter the Mets need to get younger. I was in the minority when it came to the Santana deal. I would have kept the young pitchers and Carlos Gomez. But I understand why the Mets made the deal. If Chris would have at least offered some facts behind his criticism I might have agreed with him or at least respected the fact he took the time to justify his opinion. I guess that’s a bit much to ask for.

I guess until the Mets real off 15 in a row, we are just going to have to put up with it.