Touch 'Em All: Boras: Mets need a change

Never reluctant to stick his nose into somebody else's business, super-agent Scott Boras said the owners of the New York Mets are hurting baseball and should sell the team.

Boras even pretended he gave a hoot about the poor deprived Mets fans, when he really wants a big-wallet owner in the nation's biggest market, who will join in the bidding for his free-agent clients.

(Do you really think he wanted Ryan Madson to land in Upper Kentucky, a.k.a. Cincinnati?)

Boras began his campaign a month ago, quipping that the Mets and Dodgers "used to shop in the steaks aisle and now they're in the fruits and nuts section."

On Monday he told the New York Times, "The major franchises who are getting the majority of revenues should provide a product, or attempt at a product, that has the near-highest payrolls commensurate with the markets they are in."

The agent did not mention the two owners - Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz - by name, but clearly is irritated that the Mets' biggest off-season acquision might have been Boof Bonser.

On Monday a court ordered Wilpon to pay as much as $83.3 million into a fund for Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme victims. But according to Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com, all but $1.7 million of that amount is associated with Wilpon's other businesses, so the Mets operations should not be impacted.

I mean, what can you get for $1.7 mill in the Big Apple?

But the Noo Yawk-ahs did get some good news for a change. Once-nasty lefthander Johan Santana used just 29 pitches to complete two scoreless innings Tuesday in Port St. Lucie, Fla., in his first game facing major-league hitters in 18 months.

Infielder Carlos Guillen, a three-time all-star who played 14 major-league seasons, announced his retirement Tuesday at Seattle's camp in Peoria, Ariz., where he was a nonroster invitee.