To paraphrase those lyrical poets of the 80s, U2, on rooting for the Mets:

I have climbed the Flushing fences, I have run through the Shea and Citi Fields
Only to be with the Mets, only to be with the Mets
I have run with Jose Reyes, I have crawled with Timo Perez
I have scaled those Shea Walls (with Endy), now these Citi walls
Only to be with the Mets
But I still haven’t found 1986.
But I still haven’t found 1969.

If you are one of us Mets fans, you know the answer.

I wish I could say that I were making it up that the Mets’ (former?) closer Francisco Rodriguez (whose nickname K-Rod has nothing to do with what I am about to tell you) now appears to be out for the rest of the year due to injuries he sustained beating up the grandfather of his children.

Yes, you read that right.  Rodriguez now appears to require season-ending surgery to repair thumb ligaments he injured by repeatedly punching his children’s grandfather in the head and face.  The obligatory adjective “alleged” is barely appropriate here, given that the many stated witnesses to the attack included the wives and children of Mets players.

The “good news” (at least for the Wilpons, for whom the season has become an indictment of the damage they have let GM Omar Minaya do to the team over the last half decade) is that Rodriguez’s “non-baseball-activity” injuries may enable the Mets to void the remainder of Rodriguez’s contract, perhaps preventing him from poisoining the Mets current crop of young players who, we hope, might usher in a vastly more professional (and more talented) era than the current culture of which Rodriguez’s showboat antics and off-the-field troubles have become an symptomatic.

A hopeful good riddance to the classlessness exhibited by Rodriguez since his arrival.

Met closer Francisco Rodriguez was arrested and jailed for allegedly throwing his girlfriend’s father, Carlos Pena, against a wall and, until being pulled away by security, pummeling him with enough punches to bruise his face and send him to the hospital.  All of this occurred at Citi Field in full view of other Met players’ wives and children.   Met ownership expressed their “disappointment” in Rodriguez’s “inappropriate” behavior.  Inappropriate?  Really?  Met Manager Jerry Manuel said “We’ve had a lot of things go on here and there.”  “Maybe it’s a distraction we need,” Met Outfielder Jeff Francoeur said. “Not to say it’s a good thing. But maybe at the end of the day we can turn it into a positive. I know for him, it’s between him and his family.”

Where is the outrage for the Mets’ $12-million-dollar-a-year closer beating up his relative in front of players’ wives and children at the ballpark?  How about “unacceptable”?  How about “intolerable”?  How about suspending him for the rest of the year?  How about Mets management finally holding someone accountable for the inmates running the Met asylum?  Met fans have long given up the mantra of “meaningful games” in September, but is it too much to ask for condemnation when their players are arrested for assaulting family members in front of other players’ children?

… Then from the end of June until the beginning of August, as the Phillies and Braves added key pieces to make their playoff runs, the Mets made no moves and now have the worst record in baseball during that time.  Yet owner Fred Wilpon has just given GM Omar Minaya a vote of confidence for 2011.  Confidence in what?