Rare is the day that I actually get an opportunity to sit down and rebut an intelligent and thought-provoking blog post, but here’s an example from Monday [Not every steroid scandal is quite what it seems]. Honestly, I don’t really do that here, this was designed as an attention-grabbing blog PRIOR to the performance-enhancing drug suspension of Major League Soccer’s own Jeff Parke and, the namesake of this blog, Jon Conway. I was bored and the guy has rubbed me very wrong personally so I made this as a way to entertain myself and the fans/season ticket holders of section 105 (we sit in row 9 and I am pretty easy to find if someone wanted to talk about my opinions or even share their own!) and it didn’t catch a lot of heat from players, but there was some. We still get grief from other Metro/RBNY supporters because they feel that what we do/think is disrespectful when, in fact, it’s just in fun. Always has been. (more…)

Yesterday, RBNY lost veteran defender Jeff Parke to the Seattle Sounders. This made some people sad, but I wasn’t among them because, frankly, I am still bummed about the MLS Cup loss.

On Wednesday, the Red Bulls lost defender Jeff Parke (No. 2 on the club’s career list of most games played in the regular season with 132) to the Seattle Sounders in Major League Soccer’s expansion draft.

Then in the waiver draft, the club reacquired Mike Petke (No. 1 on the club’s games played list with 134) from the Colorado Rapids.

Parke, 26, one of team’s most reliable and inexpensive defenders since he was drafted 60th over all in the 2004 M.L.S. draft, is serving a 10-game suspension after violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. (Goalkeeper Jon Conway was also suspended with Parke and both missed the team’s run to the league championship game last Sunday.) Parke earned a shade more than $58,000 last season and Seattle will need to negotiate a new pact with Parke, whose contract has expired.

[New York Times Goal Blog]

Ugh. So how did we make up for this? We re-signed Mike Petke! Yay us. Boo Jeff Parke.

(Honestly, after the suspension of Parke and Conway for use of performance-enhancing drugs, I never bagged on Parke because he issued a statement. That illustrated a bit more regret than Conway’s lack of ANY statement. Eff Conway, and we’ll miss you Jeff Parke.)