Hard not to delight in Mets' and Wilpon's troubles

Sex sells, but so does schadenfreude. The public's appetite for bad news concerning the rich and famous is nearly impossible to sate. The more embarrassing the tale, the more it tends to interest people. According to the New York Times, TMZ, Radar, and other scandal peddlers pull in more than $3 billion annually.

It took me a while to digest that figure at first, partly because I've never been an Access Hollywood type of guy. I don't care which Dancing With the Stars entrant is two-stepping outside his marriage, and I don't spend much time thinking about former bodybuilders/politi-

cians who father children out of wedlock. The people following that stuff always seemed so sad and desperate to me - until I recently realized that I'm one of them. I'm just as sad and desperate as they are, and maybe worse.

Hi, I'm John, and I have a problem. I'm addicted to the Mets' misfortunes.

I want to quit the Mets - or, rather, I want to quit delighting in the club's many public mistakes. I planned on it, resolved after the last Mets column to leave them alone and laugh at the next inevitable misstep in private. I'm weak, though, and it's a hard habit to kick - especially when the Mets freely feed my craving. They make it too easy. They might as well send me compromising photos of Mr. Met via overnight mail.

The Phils will travel to Queens on Friday to open a three-game series with the Mets. That's impressive and sort of shocking, because at this point you wouldn't expect the Mets to band together for anything, let alone a baseball game. The club, from the players to the front office, reminds me of Italy during Pope Alexander's run - a loose collection of warring, bickering states with individual agendas and no real or lasting connection to one another.

This latest internal tiff came courtesy of owner Fred Wilpon, who gave an excellent interview to the New Yorker - excellent in its scathing, brutal, jaw-dropping candor, though it probably wasn't so well-received by the Mets or their backers. (Quick note: As a former magazine writer, I commend the piece's author for extracting such damaging quotes. The New Yorker must have developed a whiskey/sodium pentothal/Jedi Mind Trick cocktail.)

About Jose Reyes, Wilpon said: "He thinks he's going to get Carl Crawford money [seven years, $142 million]. He's had everything wrong with him. He won't get it."