How often can you beat this horse?

At least one more time when you are a grumpy ole cuss.

The thick Boston accent whined over the phone, piercing Ned with the nasal accuracy of a sidewinder missile. "Good God Ned, can't you do anything right? It is bad enough that you have wasted our money on the tattered shoulder of Schmidt, the buffoonery of Andruw Jones, the surliness of Jeff Kent, and complete uselessness of Juan Pierre, but now I'm hearing that you traded our best prospect for two months of so so production from the bearded one."

Ned paused before answering, and tried to keep the disdain for his boss from his voice as he replied in an equally whiny voice  "You told me to do what it takes to make sure we didn't bring back any salary. That is what I did."

The Boston accent didn't take long to reload. "Sure, sure, that was the mandate, but I didn't say to rip the heart out of our farm system to accomplish the task. You told me Santana was no big deal and now here he is being touted by everybody as the Indians best prospect. Kim's intern just gave me a report that says he would have been our best prospect and would have been perfect to flip for that Alabama kid the boys down South are trying to peddle. That little chip would have been golden and all we got for it was the bearded one.  I watched Russ turn into mush and you dealt the guy who might have been his cheap replacement. You better damn well hope that Furcal stays healthy this time. From where I'm sitting if I have to watch Berroa play SS  I might throw up on Tommy. Do you have any good news on how Jones is doing this winter?" Schmidt?

Before Ned could reply, McCourt snorted out "Never mind, I already know the answer." After a few seconds of silence Ned thought the call was over but then Frank piped up with one last dig before hanging up. "We need to get this Manny thing resolved. You better nutt up and give the devil a call. This BS about them not calling you is not going to fly if he ends up playing for the Giants."  His voice dropped an octave  "You know Ned,  we need to get Manny but we need him on our terms. Jamie tried to lower expectations by floating the whole fifty field thing and that was a public relation fiasco. My emails have been burning up with pissed off season ticket holders. They want Manny so we need to get them Manny. Don't screw this up, these negotiations are to important so I'm going to send Kim and her interns over to help you out on this.  She knows how to handle that prick."  By the way Jamie, Kim, Logan, and DeJon asked me to  wish you a Happy New Year"