Brogna Boys 2021

[G-Fafif]

Speak of the Monarch... https://twitter.com/kscitymonarchs/status/1354908891088375810?s=21https://twitter.com/kscitymonarchs/status/1354908891088375810?s=21

QUACK!



Monarchs trade Ty to Central Islip where he will be a Long Island Duck.

[G-Fafif]

Skipper Soup!

[G-Fafif]

Jorge Velandia, aiding and abetting the enemy these days.

Baseball is the national sport of Venezuela. The country has sent 428 players to the major leagues — a number topped only by the United States (over 17,000) and the Dominican Republic (794), according to the website Baseball-Reference. Some of the sport's biggest stars over the past few decades are from the South American country: Miguel Cabrera, Félix Hernández, Johan Santana, Bobby Abreu, José Altuve. Venezuela's newest star, Ronald Acuña Jr. of the Atlanta Braves, trails perhaps only Mike Trout and Mookie Betts as the best player in baseball. Given this rich tradition, many in the sport were astonished that a Venezuelan had not reached the upper ranks of a major league club's front office until December, when the Phillies promoted Jorge Velandia, a former player who had been working his way up through the organization, to assistant general manager. “When we were first getting ready to make an announcement and we were talking about it and somehow it came up, that this was going to be the first assistant general manager from Venezuela, I was like: ‘Really? I had no idea,'” said Dave Dombrowski, the Phillies' president of baseball operations, who has run teams for more than two decades. Dombrowski's teams featured Venezuelan stars like Magglio Ordóñez, Carlos Guillén, Víctor Martínez and Cabrera but never one of their countryman as highly placed as the 46-year-old Velandia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/sports/baseball/jorge-velandia-venezuela-phillies.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/sports/baseball/jorge-velandia-venezuela-phillies.html

[G-Fafif]

Sad news concerning 1988-1989 Met David West.

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[G-Fafif]

31 + the progeny of 41.

[G-Fafif]

[Benjamin Grimm]

Jim McAndrew, the Pride of Lost Nation, Iowa, dropped by the Ultimate Mets Database this week!



http://leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=1069&tabno=BUltimate Mets Database: Game of July 21, 1968 - Game Memories









https://www.tcdb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/71/71-428Fr.jpg> https://www.tcdb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/71/71-428Bk.jpg>



https://www.tcdb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/72/72-781Fr.jpg> https://www.tcdb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/72/72-781Bk.jpg>



https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/4hQAAOSwKDJf0XWK/s-l225.webp>

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Wow. Our bike trip last week stopped in Lost Nation. Very small town even by Iowa small-town standards (population 446). Just a post office, the Stagger Inn (Iowa has hilarious bar names) and beat up brick buildings. Met a woman there named Pat who told me she was a proud resident and knew 2 of McAndrew's sisters (Jim was older than her considerably). She thought he had lived in Texas for many years.



http://www.beta.mbtn.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/20210730_092519-scaled-e1628344416103.jpg>



http://www.beta.mbtn.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/20210730_091239-scaled-e1628344478167.jpg>



http://www.beta.mbtn.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/20210730_093937-scaled-e1628344528140.jpg>

(you can see the post office)

[Benjamin Grimm]

I recently noticed that when I take selfies the photos saves as a mirror image. I see that's what happened with you too. It's weird. I'll have to see if I can figure out how to disable that, when I get sufficiently motivated, that is.

[G-Fafif]

A reliable source told me a while back that Jim paid his own way to Kansas City to root the Mets on in the 2015 World Series.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I recently noticed that when I take selfies the photos saves as a mirror image. I see that's what happened with you too. It's weird. I'll have to see if I can figure out how to disable that, when I get sufficiently motivated, that is.

Yeah this is a new phone. My old one didn't do that so it must be some kind of adjustment

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

By the way there is fascinating twitter account out there that is posting photos of every post office in the United States. I spent like 20 minutes going through it

[Frayed Knot]

Instagram

WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM

Yes, Bob Murphy, it really does exist.

[stevejrogers]

Two former Met infielders of very different quality of a Metly career were officially inducted in the Cardinals Hall of Fame recently



[media=youtube]hQvvnSzTYDs[/media]

[stevejrogers]

Speaking of team HOFs, similarly to Herr and Hernandez being honored for their pre-Met days, David Wright, Jay Payton and Preston Wilson will be inducted into Binghamton's Hall



https://www.themediagoon.com/2021/08/david-wright-jay-payton-preston-wilson.html?m=1https://www.themediagoon.com/2021/08/david-wright-jay-payton-preston-wilson.html?m=1

[G-Fafif]

Al Leiter must be missing all those PSAs during Mets games and not know about the COVID-19 vaccines.

Hall of Famer John Smoltz and former Met and Yankee Al Leiter will no longer appear in-studio for MLB Network after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, The Post has learned. MLBN has made it mandatory for all employees to be vaccinated, with the mandate going into effect Sept. 1. MLBN executives, Smoltz and Leiter made a compromise to keep them on-the-air, but not in the Secaucus studios. They will both appear remotely for the shows. Smoltz will also still call a Division Series game on site in October. The two are regular in-studio analysts for the network.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/31/al-leiter-john-smoltz-wont-appear-in-studio-at-mlb-network-after-refusing-vaccine/https://nypost.com/2021/08/31/al-leiter-john-smoltz-wont-appear-in-studio-at-mlb-network-after-refusing-vaccine/

[G-Fafif]

[G-Fafif]

Stanley Jefferson, still trying to cope.

The chemical changes in his brain and in his body weren't abundantly clear at first, even to himself. He didn't go out as much, but he was working constantly and didn't have time to. It was in 2002, after he was transferred to NYPD internal affairs, when he started to notice something was off. Jefferson was walking down a street in lower Manhattan, lined with brownstones, and felt like the buildings were closing in on him, squeezing him. He had to stop and stand in a doorway until the feeling passed. That feeling of suffocation around buildings, the anxiety he felt around crowds, kept happening. At first, he tried to ignore it. He felt he could fight through it. He was big and strong, a former ballplayer, a police officer, the man who was supposed to have all the answers. But then it got worse. So, Jefferson shut people out. He would deal with it himself, rather than show any weakness. Steve Brandstetter, his close friend of more than 25 years, said Jefferson is like a politician in that way. He's good at hiding what's really going on. As a ballplayer he had to sign autographs and talk to media with a smile. He learned to fake it.

https://www.foxsports.com/stories/mlb/stanley-jefferson-former-met-nyc-cop-9-11-experience-20-years-laterhttps://www.foxsports.com/stories/mlb/stanley-jefferson-former-met-nyc-cop-9-11-experience-20-years-later

[G-Fafif]

Lee Mazzilli sitting in on the radio tonight.

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[G-Fafif]

Devin Mesoraco didn't want to be the fourth guy.



https://metsmerizedonline.com/2021/10/mmo-exclusive-former-mets-catcher-devin-mesoraco.html/https://metsmerizedonline.com/2021/10/mmo-exclusive-former-mets-catcher-devin-mesoraco.html/

[Benjamin Grimm]

.





http://potg.leaptoad.com/mets/images/schaefer2018.jpg>



Devin Mesoraco made the Schaefer Wall of Fame in September 2018.

[Edgy MD]

Man, that near-sweep of Pitcher of the Month Awards by deGrom is incredible. Syndergaard was a hair better in September, if I remember, but only because he stepped it up. deGrom was just as good at the end of the season as he had been all summer.

[G-Fafif]

Mickey Lolich, reluctant Met. Or reluctant New Yorker.

Management felt like the club needed hitting and decided to send Lolich to the Mets in exchange for outfielder/first baseman Rusty Staub. It wouldn't be that simple, though. Lolich didn't want to go. “I was never happy in New York when we visited that town,” Lolich said. “The people in New York were not very friendly and I spent all my time in the hotel room except when I went to the park. It was not one of my favorite towns. In fact, it was my least favorite town. So I was in a bit of a conflict when I got the call from Jim Campbell. He said the Mets wanted me and I said I wasn't playing in New York. I didn't like being there. “He said damn, I want to make this trade. I need a hitter to play every day. But I said I am not going to New York and hung up the phone. Next I get a call from the vice president of the Mets and he said we really want to make this trade and we will give you a $25,000 raise. That was a nice offer but I said money isn't that important and I'm not going to agree to the deal. So I hung up and the phone rang again and it was Campbell again. He said if I didn't agree to the trade he was going to cut my salary 20 percent per MLB rules. I said Jim, maybe it's time for me to retire and he said go ahead, it wouldn't bother me in the least and slammed down the phone.” After cooling down and discussing the situation with his wife, Lolich agreed to a two-year deal and the raise. But he remained unhappy. He was living by himself in New York and couldn't see his family. He said he only saw his kids twice during the season and that “a little depression set in”. “I enjoyed playing with the Met team,” said Lolich, who went 8-13 with a 3.22 ERA in 31 games [30 starts] for New York. “Tom Seaver amazed me. Not just the pitching. He had a great personality. I sort of figured he was going to be a guy who was a little uppity but he wasn't. He was a funny man but boy, would his disposition change when he crossed that line. He was out there to win. “Ed Kranepool, Joe Torre, all the guys there were great. I signed a two-year deal and I'd go back the next year for the same money but my wife refused to bring the kids to New York City. I lived by myself so when the season was over it was time for me to retire. My wife said, ‘You're going to turn down that kind of money' and I said, ‘Joyce I'm not happy'. She said if that's the way I felt she understood.”

https://ballnine.com/2021/10/22/the-workhorse/https://ballnine.com/2021/10/22/the-workhorse/

[G-Fafif]

Lance Johnson selectively remembers 1997.

“I had a real good time when I was with the Mets,” Johnson said. “I never really wanted to leave the Mets. If you go back and look at '97, the Marlins were not going to win the World Series. We were, because we owned Florida. When they made the trade, I told Bobby it was a mistake. He asked me why and I said I'm not going to educate you but in two-weeks' time, you're going to know why. They lost [12-of-18] after I left and I was in a Cubs uniform. “When I saw [Florida manager] Jim Leyland after the trade, I said, ‘Don't be afraid to share some of that World Series money with me.' He said, ‘Lance, that trade just won us the World Series.' There was a month and a half left. We were going to win that year. It was unbelievable. I really loved New York. It's some place to play.”

https://ballnine.com/2021/10/08/one-dog/https://ballnine.com/2021/10/08/one-dog/

[Edgy MD]

Lolich came out of retirement after a year to pitch relief for Roger Craig's San Diego Padres. Craig apparently wasn't Craig yet, because Lolich might have been an early version of one of Craig's veteran reclamation projects.



Retirement was a big decision, because he had potential HoF status within reach. One more big year or two or three solid ones and who knows?

[G-Fafif]

Son of a Brogna: Tim McIlvaine, progeny of former Met GM, is reportedly the Angels' new director of scouting.

[G-Fafif]

Another son of a gun, in the Twin Cities.

While Sharrer said there was an adjustment period for the players — the Saints' in-game presentation offering something different than they've seen at other parks around the country — he credited Saints manager Toby Gardenhire and his staff for helping make that transition seamless, especially during a year in which front office and player interaction was limited because of COVID-19 concerns.

https://www.bemidjipioneer.com/sports/baseball/7237744-Saints-Twins-partnership-thrives-in-first-seasonhttps://www.bemidjipioneer.com/sports/baseball/7237744-Saints-Twins-partnership-thrives-in-first-season