Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and Ted Poe sent a letter to new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week asking that he demand that Citigroup (NYSE: C) withdraw from its 20-year, $400 million contract for the naming rights to the New York Mets stadium.

"At Citigroup, 50,000 people will lose their jobs. Yet in the boardroom of Citigroup, spending $400 million to put a name on stadium seems like a good idea," said Kucinich. "The Treasury Department, which forced Citigroup corporate executives to give up their private jet, should also demand that Citigroup cancel its $400 million advertisement at the Mets field and instead begin to repay their debt to the taxpayers."

If a $400 million naming rights contract from a company that's on government welfare doesn't seem ludicrous to you, it should. The notion that the $20 million per year will generate enough earnings for the company to offset the cost is a pretty silly one.

But maybe there's a compromise: Since all of us provided cash to Citigroup, maybe it should be given a name that's a tribute to grotesque mismanagement at the company: "Citigroup's Arrogance Arena" perhaps? Or how about "Failed Bank Field." The possibilities are endless, and definitely something that should be put in an online poll with one vote per taxpayer. If we're going to bail out the banks and still let them buy naming rights to baseball fields, we should at least have some fun with it.

Baseball is not always a perfect metaphor for life, but it is a good one for investing.

Good teams know how to find value where others may not see it. Spending gobs of money on expensive players does not always pan out and successful companies do the little things well. There is no better illustration of this than the current sad state of the New York Mets and New York Yankees.

Despite investing more money than the GDP of some small, developing countries on high-priced talent, the New York Mets and New York Yankees are being outperformed by teams from the vast baseball wasteland known as Florida. The pain being felt by New York sports fans pales in comparison to the anguish in the executive offices of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS)'s ESPN and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS)'s Fox Sports, which spent big bucks tor the rights to broadcast baseball games. I bet ESPN and Fox ad sales representatives would break out in a cold sweat at the thought of an all-Florida World Series.

What's ironic is that the people in Florida don't seem to like baseball. More than 80,000 people showed up to watch the football games of powerhouses University of Florida and Florida State in 2006. Last year, the American League Rays attracted an average of 17,148 fans to their games and the NL Marlins drew 16,919, according to the Baseball Almanac. That's roughly a third of the 52,739 who went to see the Yankees or the 47,579 who went to watch the Mets.

I was arguing about sports with my BloggingStocks colleague Barry Summerlin today. He was shook up by the Mets' melt-down over the weekend, and I guess I wasn't taking it seriously enough.

I know many women who follow sports, almost as fanatically as their menfolk. But I am not one of them.

So I say this out of complete disinterest in the sport and utter ignorance of the mechanism that causes player salaries to hurdle into the stratosphere: Tell the team members who threw the game (Tom Glavine?) that next season they get to live on $50K a year LIKE THE FANS DO until they get it together and improve their performance. Hit 'em in the wallet, where it hurts!

I mean, these guys are getting the really big bucks because they're so talented the franchise is guaranteed the big wins? Apparently that thinking didn't work with the Mets.

They say baseball is designed to break the hearts of fans: just when you think all is well, everything collapses around you. For a perfect example of this dictum, look no further than the New York Mets. With 17 games left to play, the Mets had a seven-game lead over the inconsistent Philadelphia Phillies. All in all, a pretty safe lead, right? Wrong!

The Mets lost nine of their last 10 home games -- no one loses nine of 10 at home! Yesterday, the Mets had only to win the final regular season game to win its division, or at least force a one-game playoff with the Phillies. Twenty-year veteran Tom Glavine was given the ball to start against the Florida Marlins. Yeah, that Tom Glavine, who pitched the deciding Game 6 of the 1995 World Series vs. the Cleveland Indians and won 1-0 for the Atlanta Braves!!

But before the second out was recorded in the top half of the first inning, Glavine was gone and the Mets trailed 7-0. It was over and the tears in the stands began to flow. ESPN showed several fans tearing up and watching what should have been a glorious season go the way of the fish -- like in Marlins.

News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch is probably too busy plotting world domination to spend much time worrying about something trivial like baseball -- until now.

America's pastime is about to start post-season play, most of which will be televised on the company's Fox television network. Already, there was one huge surprise as the Philadelphia Phillies overtook the New York Mets to win the National League East. But this isn't the type of surprise that the media mogul probably likes because a team from a smaller media market beat one from a larger one.

Remember that last year's series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers had record-low television ratings. Advertisers pay a premium price for television spots on the World Series because of the huge audience it attracts. Fox probably has guaranteed that the commercials will be seen by a set amount of viewers and must refund money to advertisers if these targets aren't hit.