The King of Queens

This ace won't be in Fenway, but look on the bright side.

Dear Johan Santana:

I hope this reaches you down among your fellow pitchers at the New York Mets spring training home in Port St. Lucie, which, I believe, is only a short way up the Florida coast from the city of Port St. Ricky. Anyway, I'd like to congratulate you on your great good fortune in landing in the proper borough of the proper East Coast city. Seriously, Queens is a fine place to work. Consider the US Open tennis championships, held across the road from the ballpark at the end of every summer. How often does a ballplayer get to go to work and watch people in pink cargo pants pay $12 for a bottle of water? You can't see that in Minneapolis. In addition, Queens is not the Bronx. No Steinbrenners work there. It has that going for it.

Welcome to the senior circuit. Why would you have wanted to stay in Minneapolis, playing in a building built with Hefty bags? Now, I will grant you that Shea Stadium looks like an auto graveyard with bleachers, but what were your options? That other team in New York? The Bronx is a far inferior borough, and you'd have had to make those regular road trips to Boston. Bad traffic in Kenmore Square. Bus always gets stuck. Miserable superannuated ballpark. Crazy fans. And imagine how much worse it would have been if you'd actually come here to play. You'd still have the traffic and the old ballpark and the crazy fans, but now they'd all be yelling all the time about the guy who wasn't in center field anymore. Who needs that noise, right? Good luck, and we'll see you in the Series. That'll be quite soon enough.

Charles P. Pierce
Cpierce@globe.com