VFC Likes These New York Mets

After the ups and downs of the opening months of the year, it looks like the Mets are finally back on track. I take back my promise to not go see a game at Shea this year, especially since it's the last season at Shea.

VFC's Keys to the Mets resurgence:

- Carlos Delgado has come around more than anyone expected after an atrocious first couple of months.

- Mike Pelfrey has been key, although inconsistent at times. His abilility to hold down his rotation spot amidst a slew of injuries early on has been key to getting the Mets back into contention. He's also shown glimpses of why he was a first round draft pick.

- Duaner Sanchez. Back by popular demand, Duaner is 5-1 since re-joining the team. He's anchored down the relief spot that Heilman has struggled with.

- Reyes and Beltran have performed like Reyes and Beltran.

- David Wright.

- And I hate to say it, the team not worrying about Willie's job every day has helped the team focus on baseball.

- Alou finally being done for the season is actually a good thing. No one knew where they stood when Alou was in and out of the lineup. His departure opens the spot for a possible trading deadline move to bring in another outfielder, although I wouldn't mind bringing up Martinez and throwin him out there in left. I gotta give props to Fernando Tatis, but he's not the season long answer.

- It's been a while since I picked the Mets as World Series Champs, and after a whole lotta drama this year, the Mets are back in the running to make the playoffs. Johan hasn't had quite the impact I expected, but I can see a monster second half coming up for him.

And that may be all we need to coast to the playoffs and forget last season's swan dive.

Give Favre a Break, and Give Us a Break!

Brett Favre has decided not to retire and has indicated he wants to play again next year.

Ordinarily, it'd be easy for VFC to jump on the bandwagon and make Favre out to be the bad guy; another highly paid athlete wanting the world to jump just because he wants in again after he said he wanted out. After all, he's already flip-flopped a few times this offseason and the Packers can't tell Aaron Rodgers that he is not the starter any more, that wouldn't be the right thing to do. And then what do you do if Favre flip-flops again?

The truth is, Favre does look a little silly going back and forth like he has, but the man has done nothing but football for the past two decades. You can't blame the guy for not being able to pull himself away. Every year when this time of the year rolls around, he's prepared to play football, and he's always played with a passion and passion like that is hard to just turn off.

He's been a leader, and his teams have counted on him to lead them, and now for the first time in a long time, he's got no team to lead. That's hard for a leader to take.

After giving his all to football, and the Green Bay Packers, for so long, he's got to find a way to turn it off, and that's not something that's easy to do.

I'd rather see him make the decision that if he can't play for Green Bay, then he won't play, but if it's getting to him that much, Favre will just have to do what he's got to do, until he finds it in himself to let go.

VFC was pretty surprised in the first place when Favre decided to retire; I couldn't imagine that he wanted his last pass to be an interception against the NY Giants.

The one thing that bothers me about this whole thing is the amount of attention the Favre story is getting, not just on ESPN, but on the regular media outlets, such as Fox News. It's ridiculous. Favre coming back is news, but it's sports news. Fox did about a 15 minute segment on the Fox News Channel yesterday; just ridiculous. When you want sports news we turn on ESPN. There's plenty of other more important stuff to report on the news networks than what Brett Favre has going on.

Now Green Bay is accusing the Vikings of tampering by making illegal contact with Favre. Sounds like a regular soap opera. For that I could watch Days of Our Lives.

When Favre signs or something, that'll be news. All this in between is getting ridiculous.

After Months Away, I Come Back and I Gotta Say,

I'm so tired of seeing Fernando Tatis in the headlines. Are we kidding here? Reyes? Beltran? Santana? And Fernando Tatis is the season's hero?