Investigate A Smoking Gun Too Closely And Your Eyes Will Burn

And you’ll have soot all over your smug mug and probably resemble Wile E. Coyote like after one of those Acme bombs blows up in his face. And you’ll probably cry a little, too. Because nothing institutionalizes a policy like a memo:

The NYPD will launch a probe into memos at a Brooklyn stationhouse that appeared to set quotas for traffic summonses, Mayor Bloomberg said Monday.

(Don’t not take a look at the copies of the memos at the Daily News link, because they’re awesome.)

Earlier: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Quotas — We Have Productivity Goals For That!; Abolish The Quota System! Now!; No Ticket Quotas, Eh?; The Urban Speed Trap; It’s Not So Much A Quota As It Is A Make-Work Plan For Its Enforcement Agents; The NYPD Tow Operation Division’s Version Of “Drugs On The Table”; “Productivity Goals” Return.

Yankees Fans Doing Their Best To Welcome Cliff Lee Into The Fold

Yankees fans were on their best behavior during the ALCS, which apparently impressed Cliff Lee’s wife:

Perhaps the Rangers’ greatest sales pitch simply was having Kristen sit in the visiting family section at Yankee Stadium during the playoffs. She says there were ugly taunts. Obscenities. Cups of beer thrown. Even fans spitting from the section above.

“The fans did not do good things in my heart,” Kristen says.

“When people are staring at you, and saying horrible things, it’s hard not to take it personal.”

Not to worry — Yankees fans treat you like royalty once you wear the pinstripes.

And WABC’s Scott Clark just called out Philadelphia, saying on the 6 p.m. news that this was behavior you’d expect from Phillies fans, not Yankees fans. Maybe he’s right — in Philadelphia they’d probably vomit on the players’ wives.

Location Scout: Yankee Stadium.

Nothing Says “2010 Mets” Like Oliver Perez Walking In The Winning Run To End The Season

Better than 2006, better than 2007 . . . it’s Oliver Perez losing the last game of the season for the Mets:

In the top of the 14th, with no other relievers left except those who had been overworked, Manuel went to Perez, who had not pitched since Sept. 6. With one out, he hit Adam Kennedy with a pitch and walked the next three batters as Washington took the lead. That brought Manuel out to remove Perez, who earlier in the season had refused to go to the minor leagues and had been used only five other times after the All-Star break.

As Perez walked off the mound and descended into the dugout, where he pounded the bench with his glove, the few thousand fans who remained assaulted him with jeers. Then the fans turned their venom on Manuel, who has a 204-213 record in his two-and-a-half-year tenure with the team.

Then that was that.

How Not To Escape The Cops

People learn nothing from other attempts at riding the exterior of a train on the ACE line in an unorthodox fashion:

A knife-wielding robbery suspect tried to flee police in a lower Manhattan subway station by leaping onto a moving train — but ended up falling under its wheels, officials said.

. . .

The cops halted one train pulling into the station, but the suspect then tried to hop onto a moving E train that was just leaving, police said.

Investigators believe [the suspect] slipped as he tried to leap into the space between cars — and fell under the train.

[The suspect] died at New York Downtown Hospital a short time later, officials said.

“Francisco Rodriguez’s Domestic Violence Charge” Is An Anagram For “Convenient Way To Jettison Millions From A Bloated And Underperforming Payroll”

Actually, it’s not. But there was once a time when J.J. Putz and K-Rod seemed like a pretty solid 1-2, er, punch. Now Putz is blowing saves for the White Sox and K-Rod is headed to the DL:

But the deteriorating 2010 season is now attached to the Mets like a tin can and will apparently follow them everywhere. No sooner did the Mets gather in their locker room to play the Houston Astros on Monday night than the team announced that Francisco Rodriguez, their highly paid closer, had torn a ligament in his right thumb, apparently during a violent altercation with the father of his common-law wife last Wednesday night.

The incident led to misdemeanor assault charges against Rodriguez, a ton of bad publicity for the Mets and an agreement by Rodriguez to participate in anger-management counseling.

As it turns out, it has also led to the near certainty that Rodriguez will have surgery for the torn ligament — which is on his pitching hand — and that he will be out for the remainder of the season. The Mets, in turn, will now determine whether they have any chance of voiding the remainder of Rodriguez’s contract, which runs through 2011, with an option for 2012.