Maybe he meant Piece of Ace, not Piece of Ass!

When you win 15 games, I believe you are afforded some "eccentricities."

Reported today at Page 6, and followed up at the Daily News and again at Deadspin, it seems that John Maine has decided to make a fashion statement. While out at a New York nightclub opening last week, Maine apparently asked several women to wear their dresses for a nominal sum of cash money.

Just about everyone naturally declined him.

For Maine, who is known to be a rather soft-spoken and sometimes milquetoast individual, who carries himself with little emotion on the mound, this behavior is indeed out of character. Apparently, Maine was ingratiating himself to people by stating loudly, "I'm John Maine! I pitch for the Mets! I'm a hot piece of ass!"

It was charming last season when we read about Maine's slight obsession with Jennifer Aniston, despite the fact that Maine is a married man. There's also this photo of Maine getting dressed up as a samurai while on tour with the MLB All-Stars in Japan. Now, we have the dress incident last week. Perhaps, after his success in last year's postseason, and building on his success in a very solid 2007 season, Maine is just allowing his humorous, adventurous side to come out a bit more. Or, maybe Maine just likes to dress in Japanese outfits and Women's clothes. Sort of like how Annie Savoy wanted Nuke LaLoosh to wear garters in Bull Durham.

At first, I thought no good could possibly come of this. But in reality, the only harm is that the non-Met fans (read: Haters) over at Deadspin are leaving a bunch of snarky comments about the article. Like I said, Maine won 15 games and nearly pitched a no-hitter in the biggest game of the year. Let's not send him up the river because of some ill-advised public displays. I'd be willing to bet the farm that Maine was likely inebriated at the time, and who hasn't been drunk and made an ass of themselves at one point or another?

Let's just hope that this doesn't make the Mets lump him in with the "rabblerousers" and deal him to Arizona for Tony Clark and Chris Snyder.

John Maine loves the Little Black Dress [Deadspin]
Mets Pitcher is a Drag [NY Post]
Met's pitch is a Changeup [Daily News]