Wow—you like the Mets? Okay—congrats. A thousand apologies for my failure to immediately fall to my knees and worship your great moral courage.

Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson's skills include rapping, surviving gunshot wounds, never masturbating , and clowning on Solange and Jay Z . But, as we saw Tuesday night at the Mets-Pirates game, they don't extend to pitching. The announcers generously described 50's ceremonial first pitch as "a little outside."

The New York Times today alerted its readers to the urgent political news that Bill de Blasio, the current maybe co-front-runner for the Democratic mayoral nomination, identifies as a fan of the Boston Red Sox. According to the paper, tradition appears to require that the city's chief executive be a fan of the Yankees. Javier C. Hernandez writes:

Mets centerfielder Angel Pagan delayed last night's game because he was in the bathroom pooping. Apparently Pagan "felt a rumble at the end of the fourth" and ended up spending a significant portion of the fifth shitting, while his coach screamed his name from the dugout in vain. The announcers stalled! The crowd booed! His team played miserably! (The Phillies won 10-0.) But all that is beside the point. The point: What fecal nickname of shame shall we bestow upon Angel Pagan, problematic pooper of the New York Mets?

One of those "good work, Yankees" congressional resolutions seems like a no-brainer. But! Some Congressmen who represent the New York metro area pretend to root for the Yankees, while others of them pretend to care about the Mets.

When the Bernie Madoff scandal broke, New York Mets fans were momentarily terrified because the team's owners had huge accounts with Madoff's firm. Turns out that was the Mets' best investment. Hey-o!

The New York Daily News busted a Mets executive for repeatedly losing his temper, and today the Mets fired the guy. Case closed right? Except the Daily News reporter is being accused of making a play for the executive's job.

Bernie Madoff's tickets for the Mets season opener at Citi Field next week are now on sale on eBay. Just a few rows from the field! Access to the Delta Club and free parking included! Low reserve! Cash, money order or certified bank check, please. [Ebay]

The very last piece of Shea Stadium was torn down this morning in Flushing. The time of death was 11:21am. Video of her final moments after the jump.

• More details about President Obama's plans to limit Wall Street pay are emerging. So is plenty of criticism. "I don't think the president should paint everyone with the same brush," says JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon. [BN, WSJ, BN]
• Wells Fargo has scrapped plans to host a employee conference in Las Vegas after the bank was pummeled with criticism. [WSJ]
• A dozen top bankers from Merrill-BofA have defected to Deutsche Bank. [TD]
• Lazard's fourth-quarter profits dropped by 50 percent. [DB]
• Daniel Och is doubling down on his hedge fund, Och-Ziff. [WSJ]
• Both Citigroup and the Mets say they're standing by their stadium plan. [NYP]
• Bloomberg LP is laying off staff. [Clusterstock]
• The House will hear testimony about Bernie Madoff today from Harry Markopolos, the investigator who tried to blow the whistle on him. [NYT]

• The chief executives of nine Wall Street banks have been "summoned" to Washington to testify before Congress next week. [BN]
• UBS has held talks with Wachovia about combining their wealth management units; this comes amid the news UBS tried to sell its brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley late last year. [NYP, Reuters]
• After repeatedly saying it wasn't a possibility, Citigroup is now contemplating backing out of the $400 million deal to name the Mets' new stadium. [WSJ]
• Under pressure to boost lending, Citigroup says it will spend $36.5 billion to issue new mortgages and make credit card loans. [AP]
• Credit Suisse is cutting bonuses by 55%. [BN]
• What's BofA been doing with its bailout cash? Hosting parties. [ABC News]

It looks like Michael Bloomberg has won the battle to redevelop Willets Point in Queens. The City Council will officially vote on the matter tomorrow, but key members of the Council announced earlier today that they'd reached an agreement on the outstanding issues that had thus far kept the plan in limbo. Which means by 2013 several thousand New Yorkers will get to watch the Mets play ball at Citi Field without getting off their living room couches. [NYO]

New York Post sportswriter George King just can't get enough spanking! A tipster with plenty of time on his hands went back through King's baseball coverage and found that he takes every available opportunity to relate how the Yankees or Mets were "spanked." It's his favorite word! Just today King wrote about the "14-3 spanking administered by the Blue Jays." But that's just the beginning of his spankfest:

Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker continued to defy the rumors that there's trouble in their personal paradise as they sported matching gray cardigans on Wednesday. Their child's own gray cardigan was taken out of commission earlier in the day thanks to an incident involving chocolate ice cream, but the couple vowed not to let that affect their trip. Broderick said with pride, "It's like we're the Mets. Right now, we're in first place in family fun and we're going to go all the way to big show."

Here is the entire video of Mets star pitcher Pedro Martinez presiding over a cockfight in the Dominican Republic. Yesterday we anticipated the scandalous fallout, but response seems to have been muted by the fact that the video disappeared from YouTube before most people got a chance to read the story. It's now resurfaced on a Spanish-language website. Newsday and the Daily News have follow-up stories today, but as far as we can tell, no New York paper has posted the video.

Potential tabloid sports shocker! The Post stumbled onto a YouTube video of Mets' pitching ace Pedro Martinez presiding over a cockfight in the Dominican Republic. In a sinister twist, the video has now been pulled, and the owner of the blog that posted it did not immediately respond to the Post's emails. WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED? The Daily News was lagging on the story as of early this morning, meaning the Post is bound to hype it up as much as possible while they still have the competitive advantage. Just look at how much mileage the Atlanta papers (and everybody else) got out of the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. But ask yourself, before the hysteria strikes: Is this story really a big deal?