Oh Dickey your so fine...

If you read my last blog you'll see that I, by no stretch of the imagination, am even remotely close to being a fan of the New York Mets. Aside from a guy like a Mike Piazza the players on the team, the managers and the front office people have always just irked me — and they still do, especially today.

Yesterday, off the back of Wednesday's 8-7 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Mets salvaged the series finale winning 4-0 thanks to the efforts of R.A. Dickey, a 35-year-old knuckleballer in his first season with the Mets.

I'm not bothered that they won, partly because they can't lose every game but mostly because Dickey is a great story. Coming up to the majors initially with Texas as a part of the draft class of 1996, Dickey was a conventional pitcher with an unconventional problem; he was missing is ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow, more commonly known as his Tommy John ligament. According to Rangers physicians, Dickey shouldn't have been able to turn a door knob without pain much less pitch. Still Dickey took to the hill in 2004 for Texas and enjoyed modest success as a conventional pitcher but not enough to amount to a long career.

So, with the desire to compete still burning Dickey spent two years reinventing himself as a knuckler because there is no stress on the arm with that particular pitch. And eventually after kicking around several teams Dickey seems to have found a home in New York where he is now 7-4 with an ERA close to 2.00.

So with this feel-good story what do I have to be irked about? The answer is simply management's treatment of Dickey, particularly that of manager Jerry Manuel.
All season long Manuel has found a way in comments and interviews to backhand Dickey, even after wins Manuel finds something to fault him for. Mostly it seems because Manuel's arrogance won't let him accept that knuckleball pitcher could be consistently successful (despite the fact that, in his prime, Tim Wakefield was one of the better pitchers in baseball).

But it was yesterday's comments that really made my anger boil over. In commenting after the game Manuel said that he didn't realize that Dickey was such a competitor.

Are you kidding me?

The guy has been one of your best and most consistent pitchers all year. Forget Johan, forget Pelfrey, the Mets top guy has been Dickey. And you are just know realizing that he's a competitor? Wow Jerry way to backhand a guy. Furthermore, how could you not realize that if he weren't such a competitor he probably wouldn't even be there to pitch for you. You're the manager, you're supposed to know these things and see these things.

Hopefully though justice will be served and after this year Dickey will get a nice contract and Manuel will, fingers crossed, be fired.