FREE THE METS!

Editorial

April 16, 2005 -- Hey, Mayor Mike: You've just engi neered a deal that'll save a bunch of jobs at the Plaza Hotel — to say nothing of keeping tourist landmarks like the Oak Bar open.

Now what?

How about muscling the folks at Cablevision to get the Mets back on cable TV?

Hey, maybe the butt-inskis on the City Council can pitch in. And where's Eliot Spitzer when there's some truly useful work to be done?

Charles and James Dolan run Cablevision and control Madison Square Garden; clearly they are hell-bent on making life miserable for Knicks fans, Rangers fans — and, now, Mets fans.

As Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday, "Just when you think a company can't find any more ways to really stick it to the people of this city, they come up with another one — let's take the winning team off TV and don't let people see it."

It may be a tad early to call the Mets a "winning team," but they have real potential.

And Mike's got a point.

Let's count the ways the Dolans are sticking it to New York sports fans:

* Basketball? Following their purchase of the Garden in 1997, the Dolans turned a successful, if not championship, New York Knicks franchise into a bunch of stumblebums now suffering through their fourth straight losing campaign.

* Hockey? Three years removed from a Stanley Cup championship, the New York Rangers went into a seven-year playoff-less death spiral that was interrupted only by this year's NHL lockout.

* Football? Jealous that its monopoly on New York sports might come to an end, Cablevision has spearheaded a multimillion-dollar campaign to keep the Jets from building a stadium on the West Side (which, incidentally, might also help the city get the Olympics, too).

And now, baseball.

Some 2.4 million Time-Warner Cable subscribers are blocked from watching the majority of games of a promising New York Mets team.

With their new ace, Pedro Martinez.

How is this possible?

Cablevision owns the channels MSG and Fox Sports New York, the current cable homes of the Mets. Cablevision insists that Time-Warner — if it wants to renew its rights to those two channels — swallow a 30 percent royalty increase.

Royalty? Robbery is more like it.

Time-Warner points out that the Mets won't be with Cablevision next year, and the NHL has already had a year wiped out — so its subscribers need a discount.

Cablevision, of course, refuses.

So maybe it's time that Cablevision got a little bit of pressure. Cable is a regulated monopoly. If the company is demonstrably not acting in the public interest, isn't it time for somebody to take another look at the details?

Mike? Eliot? Council Clowns?

Do something for the sports fans.

Free Pedro Martinez!