$36 Million could buy a lot of Bananas

When Oliver Perez was a young prospect with the Pirates, my buddy George and I got to see him throw against the Redlegs. We guzzled down several Jack & Cokes and began to poke fun at Mr. Perez. His screen shot on the jumbo-tron looked a lot like a monkey, or so we thought in our hazy state. We started to make monkey noises. We were acting like assholes.

Ushers and security warned us to stop. We did, when Perez was pulled from the game. He got the last laugh, beating the Reds on that summer night.

Perez got the last laugh again, this time to the tune of a 3-year, $36 million dollar deal to stay with the Mets. As we heard one Mets fan say, the guy isn’t a superstar but when he’s on he has flat-out nasty shit. He throws hard for a lefty. He has a good build. Don’t be surprised if he goes and wins 19 games with a low ERA in one of these next three years with 238 K’s.