With the news that Oliver Perez, long with his $12 million salary, bum knee, and bum brain, is the latest Met to find his way to the season-ending portion of he DL, a number of stories have begun to filter out about the unthinkable rash of injuries that has beset this club. Dave Lennon’s piece in Newsday is the most comprehensive I’ve seen so far in giving a chronology and in depth analysis of the kind of mismanagement and second-guessing that has poisoned this season.

Rumor has it this logo is about to be placed above the entrance to the Mets clubhouse

The most interesting point I took from Lennon’s piece is that the September collapses of the last two seasons had something to do with the way the Mets handled their injured stars during this campaign. Being around the team much more than I am of course, Lennon points out that he has heard “players and team officials alike” speak often of the “pressures” to do all they can to stay on the field  this season. This obviously stems from the idea that everyone associated with the disasters of the past two years understood the importance of trying to wipe away the stench and negativity that the collapses had created.

Incredibly, by the players maybe trying too hard to fight through serious ailments and management letting the training staff to cloud their better judgement and push the envelope and on how to treat these injuries, a monster bigger than either collapse was in my mind conceived. This season has been one of the greatest out-and-out disasters in the history of team sports. I mean, it has been so “Wrath of God” type bad that books will be written about it.

The crazy part to me is that it seems more than likely that two of the main players in this horror story, Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel, will still be employed by the Wilpons next season. You know my thoughts on Omar. His gross negligence on handling the Tony Bernazard situation and subsequent childish behavior in creating the Adam Rubin rift was grounds for immediate firing. Manuel honestly, has done a pretty decent job with what he has eventually had to work with (which if you watched this afternoon’s surprising 10-3 thumping of the Marlins, ain’t a whole hell of a lot these days). Still though, fairly or not, his name is attached to the past three seasons in some capacity, and thus should be jettisoned upon the idea of the need for a complete fumigation.

It will be interesting to see what kind of inside stuff filters out of the organization in the next month. I am guessing there will be a few more head-scratchers and eye-poppers in regards to organizational blunders over the past five months. Speaking of five months, only a little more than that to go until pitchers and catchers!!!!