R.I.P. "My Wife's Ass Is On Scott Hairston's Wikipedia Page"

On April 9, 2011, my wife – a veritable Gal For All Seasons – was invited to take the field prior to the game against the Washington Nationals as part of the Mets’ season ticket holder appreciation program.  I was unable to attend the game because I was coughing up a lung, kidney, gall bladder, and I think a gerbil came up as well.  Therefore, my Studious Metsimus co-blogger, Joey Beartran, accompanied my wife on the field.

Each season ticket holder invited to partake in the pre-game festivities was assigned a position on the field where he or she would be met by the starting player at that particular position.  My wife was hoping not to get second base because Chin-lung Hu was starting there on that night (come to think of it, I think I might have coughed him up as well).  Fortunately, she did not get Hu on second.  Instead, she was sent out to left field, which would have led to a tête-à-tête with Jason Bay had he not been on the disabled list to start the season.  The player starting in left field that night was Scott Hairston.  And so began the “wife’s ass” craze.

I'd be smiling, too, if I went out to my position and found THAT waiting for me.
(Photo by Sharon Chapman)

According to my wife’s report, Hairston gave Joey a high-one (Joey doesn’t have fingers, hence the high-one instead of a high-five) and was quite engaging in the short amount of time they shared together in left field.  Friend of Studious Metsimus, Sharon Chapman, took the above photo of the meeting and submitted it to Wikipedia, where it has been ever since.  The rest, as they say, is history.

For the remainder of the 2011 season and the entire 2012 campaign, any time Hairston made a positive contribution to the team –and there were plenty – my wife would tweet about it and:

• remind us all of the online reader-edited encyclopedia where her derriere could be found
• occasionally add the hashtag, #MyAssIsOnScottHairstonsWikipediaPage

After two seasons in New York, including an unexpected 20-homer season in 2012, Scott Hairston is now a former Met, taking his powerful bat and Wikipedia references with him to the North Side of Chicago.  The Mets’ refusal to give Hairston more than a one-year deal led to his decision to abandon Citi Field for confines that are rumored to be friendlier.  The Mets, already lacking outfield depth due to the departures of Andres Torres to San Francisco and Jason Bay to Siberia (a.k.a. Seattle), now have to cope with the loss of their most consistent bat in the outfield, one that finished third on the team in home runs.  But that’s nothing compared to the loss my wife and her Twitter followers are experiencing.

Scott Hairston is now a Cub. The real question is, will my ass still be on his Wikipedia page?
— The Coop (@Coopz22) January 24, 2013

For the time being, my wife’s ass is still on Scott Hairston’s Wikipedia page.  But now that Hairston’s ass will be bombing Wrigley Field (as in home run bombs, not what your 12-year-old mind is thinking), it’s only a matter of time before his photo is replaced by one of him in a Cubs uniform.  It’s now up to the Mets to find themselves an outfielder that will approach the numbers Hairston gave the team in 2012.  If they can’t replace his 20 homers in the outfield, it’ll be the front office that’ll look like a bunch of asses.