Who's Crazier: Met Fans Or Ozzie Guillen?

The good news is, the Mets are in Philadelphia to begin a very important three-game series with the Phillies, the 2nd-best team in baseball, a series in which their current 9-1, 1st-place status will come crashing down to Earth. Most likely, a lot of the Flushing Heathen have gone down there to get a right hiding from the Philly Phaithful, and will come back shellshocked.

The bad news is, they will come back. And, taking Met fans' place as the craziest people in New York, is Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, as crazy as any 10 Met fans.

When Ozzie was the White Sox' shortstop, he was a nice player, a fair hitter for a middle infielder and a good glove man. And we never had reason to believe that his El train didn't go all the way to the end of the line.

But as ChiSox manager, he's been the South American version of Billy Martin, yelling at his players, his team's owners, the media, everybody. It seemed to work at first, as he let the Pale Hose to the 2005 World Championship -- the first for either Chicago team since the 1917 White Sox, 88 years, and the first Pennant for either Chicago team since the "Go-Go Sox" of 1959. But his act has gotten stale, his comments have included bigotry (homophobic slurs at various non-gay individuals, including Chicago Sun-Times and ESPN columnist Jay Mariotti, who is, openly, a Cub fan), and, what's more, the Sox have been in just one Pennant race since '05.

We Yankee Fans don't care. As far as we're concerned, the White Sox are just another team on the schedule. Maybe White Sox fans hate us and our team, but we don't care, everybody hates us and our team. We don't take any special delight in beating any particular team other than the Boston Red Sox and, during those interleague games, the Mets. We don't care which American League teams we play in the Playoffs, or which National League team we play in the World Series: It doesn't matter who it is, we gotta play 'em anyway, so let's beat 'em. "Because it's there" is a dumb reason to climb a mountain; "Because that's the next team on the schedule, because they're there" is an excellent reason to beat your next opponent.

Oh yeah, last night, A.J. Burnett pitched fabulously, holding the Orioles to just 3 hits, and Robinson Cano was on fire again -- more so than Boog Powell's barbecue stand down there at Camden Yards -- and the Yankees beat Baltimore, 4-0. Next up, as I said, the White Sox/ChiSox/Pale Hose/SouthSiders/Go-Go Sox/Ozzfest.

Come on, Phillies, civilization is counting on you to put the Heathen in their place! Which is no higher than second place!