Can I trade teams?

Yesterday in Florida the pitchers and catchers reported for the Beloved Mets. And I think the season is already over.

Not that, as far as I know, anyone got hurt already, although I think the Trojans had fewer injuries in The Iliad than the Mets do in an average season. And it's not that there were any tremendous changes to the squad, which was very competitive in the latter half of 2019, when it was already too late. And it's not that I disagreed with the dismissal of manager Mickey Callaway, who racked up the streakiest W-L record I ever saw.

And no, it wasn't even the fact that new manager Carlos Beltran was sacked before day 1, because of his involvement with the Houston Astros cheating scandal.

No, it's because we almost pulled off a major trade, and it looked like it was in the bag, and it all fell apart a couple of days ago.

I am referring to the trade of our owners, the Wilpons.

The Wilpons have a bad rep for spending money stupidly, not spending it where it would count, charging fans for everything short of the air they breathe while watching the games, for falling for two pyramid schemes including Bernie Madoff's, and mostly ignoring the team until they bumble in and do something dumb. Aside from that, they've been great. As Rolling Stone of all places noted five years ago, "the Wilpons have lived on a shoestring budget for six years, taking profits from their ownership in SNY to make up team shortfalls and hoping that a tight budget and crossed fingers can arrest the team cratering that began in 2009. The Wilpons have seemingly never met a problem for which an absence of a solution will do, unless they have a solution worse than the problem, and that solution is invariably 'them.' As a distraction, they've repeatedly used the Daily News as their mouthpiece to trash players and deflect attention from complaints."

Apparently what screwed the current deal to sell the team to Steve Cohen, according to the New York Post, was Jeff Wilpon, heir of the family, who for some strange reason had to hold on to operational control of the team for at least five years after the Wilpons sold the majority stake. Which is like saying, "Okay, Turnaround Artist, I'm glad to sell you my interest in Amalgamated Widgets for a tremendous amount of money, but I will continue to run the company into the ground for five more years."

Which is a little strange.

Now they claim that they won't insist on maintaining control of the team -- but why say that now, when the deal has fallen through? Did they just use that as a torpedo to sink the Cohen deal for some other reason? Don't tell me that it's because the Wilpons are such good judges of character.

Further, they want to keep hold of SNY, the Mets' cable channel, which by many reports is more lucrative than the team itself, probably because the expenses are so much lower -- but without the team it would be a really poor sports channel. Anyone else would sell the channel and team as a package deal, but not this bunch.

And so now we're stuck with them again.

We're certainly not alone in the world of sports for having hated ownership. When the Yankees fell into a funk in the eighties, fans wanted Steinbrenner's head on a pike. Dan "Chainsaw Dan" Snyder of the Washington Redskins is loathed -- well, pretty much by everybody, not just Redskins fans. Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks sometimes acts like he ought to be locked up somewhere before he hurts himself or others. And there are many others.

Probably everyone who loves a team has had to hate the management at some point. But to have the bright sunshine of a new Mets era blackened over by the storm clouds of Same Ol' Crap at the last second truly is hard.

Oh, well. Wait till next year!