Mets Closer Billy Wagner's Dreams of the Big Stage -- New York Magazine

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Anatomy of a collapse
Published 10/1/2007 by Ed Ryan at Mets Fever
... In Queens, though, the Mets are hostage to aged limbs. Tom Glavine, 41, is tired; Pedro Martinez is recovering from major shoulder surgery; and the geriatric Orlando Hernandez missed large chunks of the season. Perhaps Omar Minaya should have made a bold trade months ago. But the costlier miscalculation has been of the team’s young prospects. To maintain momentum, Minaya’s (necessarily) quick fix required the Mets’ homegrown talent to mature. Yet Lastings Milledge, Mike Pelfrey, and Philip Humber have all turned out to be less than advertised, and even the wondrous Jose Reyes has vanished. source NY Magazine ...

Why is Billy Wagner apologizing?
Published 10/1/2007 by Beau Dure at Sports Scope
... . Here's what he said , in the context in which the magazine put it: Wagner stoically accepts responsibility when he fails, but his sense of loyalty, and his frustration, leads him to punch back at critics of the worn-out bullpen. “We’ve been throwing four innings a night—for months!” he says. " Our pitching coach [Rick Peterson] has no experience talking to a bullpen. He can help you mechanically, but he can’t tell you the emotions. He has no idea what it feels like. And neither does Willie [Randolph]. They’re not a lot of help, put it that way. " That's it. The ...

Read: Billy Wagner in New Yok Magazine
Published 10/1/2007 by Matthew Cerrone at MetsBlog.com
... In today’s edition of New York Magazine, Chris Smith writes about his day following around Billy Wagner, who, according to Smith, is “honorable, defiant, and quite possibly doomed.” ...

Shifting Thru The Wreckage
Published 10/1/2007 by GC at Can't Stop The Bleeding
... By now, you’ll know whether Billy Wagner was a hero, a goat, or a merely a bystander in the final act of this historic meltdown. But as he sat in the dugout last week, speaking evenly in his lilting southern accent, Billy Wagner reminded me of those Confederate soldiers in Ken Burns’s Civil War documentary: honorable, defiant, and quite possibly doomed. - Chris Smith, New York Magazine ...

Wagner’s Comments: What’s the Big Deal?
Published 10/2/2007 by joe at Mets Today
... Anyway, let’s look at Billy Wagner’s comments in New York Magazine — the ones that he apologized for: ...