Hello readers. This is former New York Met Lastings Milledge, coming to tell you his side of the story. In case you’re living under a rock with some terrorists, or you were out shaking what your momma gave you with some fine men or women that are the same age as you, Lastings was traded to the Washington Nationals for two guys that Lastings’ mentor and personal hero Rickey Henderson would call “chumps.” Now, he understands that Ryan Church can hit a little bit. But Lastings has seven years on the guy, and Church is always getting hurt. If he had a choice between an old man that can rake but gets hurt, or a young kid that can rake and isn’t hurt, you can guess who’d get chosen.

Brian Schneider was the other guy in the deal. He’s a catcher, and Lastings’ former GM Omar Minaya makes it sound like he was the key to the deal, since he’s now going to start for the Mets as their full-time catcher. That’s great for Schneider, but I thought the Mets already had a catcher when they traded for Johnny Estrada. Lastings isn’t sure how many catchers you can have on one team, but the Mets seem to have a lot, and it’s not too clear what they’re going to do with them all. Maybe one of them can play in the field in Lastings’ place. That could be the big plan.

To be honest, he was hoping to stay with the Mets a long, long time. Lastings liked New York, and he liked playing in front of New York fans. They know what’s going on, and even if they’re too loud or too dumb, their heart’s in the right place. Lastings has some problem with people in the New York press, because they don’t seem to realize that it’s OK for people to listen to hip-hop and wear certain things, and that doing these things doesn’t automatically make you a bad person or someone that likes to shoot people in hip-hop radio stations. But Lastings understands that old white people don’t like it when young non-white people live their lives without checking in with white people to find out what’s OK and what’s not OK.

What Lastings doesn’t understand is why no one on the Mets seemed to like him. Maybe he made some mistakes (which Lastings already apologized for, by the way), but young people make mistakes. Lastings is only 22. If everyone in the world was a perfect mature person at 22, then we would have socialized medicine, no traffic on the highways, perfect DirecTV reception 24/7, and a Fantastic Four movie that didn’t suck. But people make mistakes – that’s what makes them people.

Lastings doesn’t know what he did to get former manager Willie Randolph so upset that he had to ride the pine all the time while guys like Marlon Anderson and Shawn Green played a lot of games down the stretch. Maybe Willie is jealous of Lastings’ youth and contagious exuberance. Maybe Willie learned how to hate his own people from his former coach, well-known racist Joe Torre. Or maybe he’s just dumb. Lastings heard stories about how Willie would play Jose Reyes in the leadoff spot in spite of a bad OBP, or bat David Wright low in the order because he was too young to be a real RBI guy (whatever that means), or bunt with Carlos Beltran early in games in order to move a runner along. Lastings just chalked those stories up to a rookie manager’s mistakes. Like he said in the last paragraph, people make mistakes. Lastings bought a Young Jeezy CD and that Outkast album where Andre 3000 tries to front like Prince. It happens. But now, with hindsight and first-hand experience in mind, it looks to Lastings like Willie’s just as dumb as those cracker-ass crackers (pardon Lastings’ inflammatory racially-tinged language) Billy Wagner and Paul LoDuca.

What those two guys Wagner & LoDuca ever did to think they know what they’re talking about is beyond Lastings. All Wagner ever seemed to do was blow leads late in the season, and all LoDuca seemed to do was ground into double plays in front of Wright and Beltran. And that’s when LoDuca wasn’t hurt – when he was hurt, he was too busy getting shot down by college girls and flapping his lips about being a teammate to really be a teammate. Lastings wished that more old white ballplayers would just shut their damn mouths.

It’s the same in Los Angeles, where a bunch of cranky old white dudes are mouthing off because younger players – some of them black, by the way – are taking away their playing time. Lastings believes that you gotta earn your time on the field, even if you’re an old-timer with lots of pals on the team. And old white folk that have to stick a tube of Ben Gay up their ass to pull on their stirrups, or need a walker with wheels to go 1st-to-3rd on a hit to right-center, shouldn’t say word one about losing playing time.

But what does Lastings know? He is just a 22-year-old phenom that could have anchored a young and potentially dominant Mets lineup for the next five years. Instead, Lastings is just a 22-year-old phenom that will anchor a young and potentially dominant Nationals lineup for the next five years. Lastings is looking forward to watching Wily Mo Pena hit lots of towering fly balls deep into that river in Washington. Ryan Zimmerman is a stone cold pimp. If Elijah Dukes is as good as folks say, he’ll be the Bun B to Lastings’ Pimp C (RIP). And if they ever get any pitchers that aren’t straight-up garbage, the Nationals could run wild all over the National League. Maybe they don’t even need pitching – if a bunch of slugger dudes like Colorado can make it to the World Series, then it’s not a long shot that Lastings and company could do the very same thing next year, even if they don’t have their own personal dragon slayer.

Anyway, in the few hours since this trade happened, all those bad feelings are now water under that bridge. Lastings is moving on, and he is looking forward to hanging out with Agent Zero and Sheriff Gonna Getcha in the city that will come to know and love him, even if he has to share a locker room with that cradle-robbing Soprano-wannabe LoDuca. If that guy has the sense God gave a chicken nugget, he’ll keep his damn mouth shut whenever he gets near me. Just saying.

Finally, Lastings just wants to say that the 350 at-bats he wasted in New York, for a team that can’t tell a good player from an overrated pale-ass hustle chump, will be treasured memories. And when the Nationals come to visit Shea next year, and Lastings goes deep against that redneck know-nothing hick Wagner to take the lead in the top of the 9th, and that stupid ass apple pops out of that stupid ass hat, Lastings hopes some fans near the foul line will be ready for an enthusiastic and totally respectful high five in the bottom of the 9th. Lastings wishes you a very safe and very Merry Christmas! And a safe Jewish holiday!