As noted on Metsblog, some guy named Rich Hofmann (leave off the last “f” for “fuming”) spewed some good old fashioned NY hate on philly.com. The sub head says it all.

“New York disgustingly canonizes new ace before he even pitches”

Here are a few more gems:

“In the realm of the nauseating, this was even worse than Eli Manning and the fellas parading the Lombardi Trophy through the Canyon of Heroes (because the Giants earned it, after all). You really had to see the way they welcomed Johan Santana to the New York Mets to believe it…”

“And then the PR guy attempted to shut down the last shutterbugs and begin the news conference by announcing, ‘Johan, your public awaits.’

At which point, I gagged on some vomit.”

Hey, Jay Horowitz is Mr. PR Guy to you pal.

“The Mets … just spent up to $150 million on one of those green Christmas-tree things you hang from the rearview mirror. They would hate to find out that it failed to mask the stench of 7/17*.

By 7/17*, Rich is referring to the Mets collapse, but of course the obvious question is which “stench” smells worse 7/17*, or the effort of losing three straight to the Rockies in the playoffs. Real impressive. So much for NL East momentum.

It gets better. Our favorite coffee swilling “ex-Sports Reporter” Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News feels that Santana alone won’t heal all of the Mets problems.

“Fortunately, the team behind Santana will be basically the same one that went into the tank last September and helped the Phillies win their first East title since 1993 with only 89 victories. Rag-armed catcher Paul Lo Duca has been replaced by defensively superior Brian Schneider. But, really, do last season’s .235 and 54 RBI terrify you? First baseman Carlos Delgado played a lot older than 35 last season. Moises Alou turns 42 in July. The leftfielder hit .341, but 89 of his 112 hits were singles, and it takes a triple to score him. Luis Castillo had one homer and 38 RBI in 135 games between the Twins and Mets. The guy’s a Hoover at second, however.”

And by “Hoover” he means like himself at the buffet table.

What troubles me is that I don’t want to get into this NY/Philly thing, we were burned by it last year. Let’s face it, the Phils ARE the team to beat, but what on earth have THEY done to improve? Brad Lidge? Maybe if teams in Philly actually won something the media would know how to handle it instead of exhibiting their inferiority complex on paper. But then, we couldn’t have any fun with them now would we?

Hat tip to Andrew Smith for sifting through Philly sports rummage.