Tell Elaine: Mets To Retire Keith's Number

[Benjamin Grimm]

I first read that as "SNL" not "SNY". THAT would also be interesting.

[kcmets]

=G-Fafif post_id=84458 time=1642006789 user_id=55]
SNY plans to “go live” at 1:30 ET for Keith coverage, presumably regarding 17 being retired,

[G-Fafif]

Keith casually mentioned Old Timers Day — something Steve Cohen said he'd revive — is on deck to return in 2022, with 50 or so alumni invited. The Mets haven't yet announced it, but Sandy acknowledged planning is underway.

[kcmets]

It wasn't on SNY here. Are there regional versions of the station?

[G-Fafif]

I watched it streaming on SNY's YouTube channel. Viewable here.



[media=youtube]OywoidKSP9A[/media]

[kcmets]

Coolio, thanks

[Edgy MD]

It certainly shouldn't be a disqualfier, but it kind of works against the case for retiring a number when it was re-assigned shortly after the player shed it, and has been worn by several other players in the interim.



I tend to think there should be a soft retirement for every player's number, and the digits should remain mothballed at least while the player is active, readily available for him to reclaim should he return to the Mets.



And then, as available sub-three-digit numbers start to wane, these non-retired-but-set-aside numbers start to get re-integrated in the reverse order of the impact on the franchise of the last player to wear them.



When a guy has been off the team retired and/or retired for 15 or more years, and his number hasn't been re-assigned under these terms, the official retirement of his number ultimately becomes a fait accompli.

[kcmets]

Yeah, but, yay or nay on #17 being retired this season?

[batmagadanleadoff]

=kcmets post_id=84493 time=1642024596 user_id=53]
Yeah, but, yay or nay on #17 being retired this season?

[kcmets]

I'm pleased as punch that #17 is being retired.



I'm asking Edgy to explain his post. He won't, he doesn't like direct questions.

[Edgy MD]

=kcmets post_id=84498 time=1642025198 user_id=53]
I'm pleased as punch that #17 is being retired.



I'm asking Edgy to explain his post. He won't, he doesn't like direct questions.

[kcmets]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=84496 time=1642024871 user_id=68]
=kcmets post_id=84493 time=1642024596 user_id=53]
Yeah, but, yay or nay on #17 being retired this season?

[batmagadanleadoff]

=G-Fafif post_id=84448 time=1642004593 user_id=55]
Keith, I believe, would request the ever popular blank cap.

[Willets Point]

Personally, I've come to believe that instead of retiring numbers, the numbers should be assigned anew each season in a special ceremony at Spring Training. Once the starting players for all the position players are determined, they are assigned a number that corresponds to the position's scorecard number (2 for catcher, 3 for first base, and so on).



Now the #1 is the pitchers number but since you have multiple pitchers, the starting pitchers numbers start with one so your ace wears 11, your number two pitcher wears 12, and so on.



Bench players wear numbers in the 20s. If you have a platoon you might want to assign both players a number in the 20s instead of giving one of them a number in the 2 to 8 range.



The bullpen wear numbers in the 30s.



Players acquired in-season through call-ups or trades get numbers starting from 40 in the order that they arrive.



If you have a player who is exclusively a designated hitter, they wear 0.



I would reserve the #1 as a special honor that can be awarded to a pitcher if they won the Cy Young Award in the previous season or some similar accomplishment like leading the league in ERA or strikeouts. Similarly, the #10 would only be given out to a position player who accomplished something great in the previous season like winning the MVP or leading the league in homeruns.



Anyhow, that's my system.

[G-Fafif]

Keith, with Howie and Wayne, intense as ever when recalling specific at-bats. Plus a little “what if” regarding a trade that wasn't made.



https://omny.fm/shows/880-apple-bites/howie-rose-wayne-randazzo-talk-with-keith-hernandehttps://omny.fm/shows/880-apple-bites/howie-rose-wayne-randazzo-talk-with-keith-hernande

[Frayed Knot]

An alternative to Willets's suggestion is for teams to keep certain uniform numbers out of circulation until they decide that a current player playing the position of a past star is worthy of the honor.

Such a decision would be like saying, 'Yes Pete Alonso, we now think you are worthy of uniform #17', or that some pitcher has earned the right to wear #16, some catcher #8, etc. This is a

tradition among at least some soccer cultures and those numbers -- and they'd be different for different teams -- would wind up being issued less often but usually for longer spans and thus form

a kind of team history. You might still want to permanently retire a few for the truly career great guys -- in our case Seaver and ... probably no one else -- but I'd really like to get away from this

trend where we seem to be in constant 'Who's next?' mode and the notion that they're somehow dis-honoring someone by not retiring their number, even if said player spent the majority of his

career on a different club.



Too few > Too many

[kcmets]

So after Keef, let's do David and be done with all this for another decade.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I agree. David Wright, then no one else until deGrom (potentially).

[Centerfield]

If the sentiment is that Keith deserves his number retired, why don't Doc and Darryl deserve similar? They had longer, and better Mets careers.

[batmagadanleadoff]

=Centerfield post_id=84548 time=1642101335 user_id=65]
If the sentiment is that Keith deserves his number retired, why don't Doc and Darryl deserve similar? They had longer, and better Mets careers.

[Willets Point]

Straw started using coke in the minor leagues if not earlier. Not that I hold that against him since I consider the "drug abuse is a personal failure" narrative to be bullshit.

[Centerfield]

Doc and Darryl are #3 and #5 in career Mets WAR.



https://www.metshotcorner.com/2016/mets-all-time-top-10-by-war/https://www.metshotcorner.com/2016/mets-all-time-top-10-by-war/



Keith and Piazza, both who have numbers retired, are 12 and 13.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Doc and Darryl are #3 and #5 in career Mets WAR. https://www.metshotcorner.com/2016/mets-all-time-top-10-by-war/https://www.metshotcorner.com/2016/mets-all-time-top-10-by-war/ Keith and Piazza, both who have numbers retired, are 12 and 13.

Carter's 45th, behind Saberhagen, Backman, Nimmo and Lagares. .But at least he singlehandedly delivered a WS title to the .Mets, all by himself. With the 6th best WAR of any '86 Met. He put the Mets over the top.A team that won 108 regular season games and clinched their division by the 4th of July. The '86 Mets didn't win the WS; Gary Carter and the Mets won that WS, with the rest of the Mets playing The Pips to Carter's Gladys Knight-like star-billing.



It's those intangibles. Carter worked in mysterious ways.

[stevejrogers]

No one has yet, emphasis on yet, taken down Doc as the second best Metly pitcher of all time.



All-time of course is a much taller order with Seaver ranking among the all-time greats to ever toe the rubber!



So I can get behind #16 getting officially mothballed, if this (more so Koosman than Hernandez) is the road the franchise is going down.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Typewriter Chewing Gum commemorates the retirement of Keith Hernandez's Mets unifom number with a special subset to its 2022 total team Mets set (code named Rock and Roll Part 2).



[FIMG=600]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52207693855_77f019f9df_h.jpg[/FIMG]



[FIMG=600]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52203971759_e55a70d4c4_h.jpg[/FIMG]

Edited July 8, 2022 by Guest

[Edgy MD]

I realize temporal parallels aren't really a thing with the Rock 'n' Roll set, but it's kind of weird seeing the B-52's Cosmic Thing-era lineup posing with the Bouncing off the Satellites-era Mets.



Strange that I probably wouldn't have the same reaction seeing players in a card with musicians photos from decades before, but it's weirder seeing players with musicians photographed four or five years later.



Cool card, though.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: I realize temporal parallels aren't really a thing with the Rock 'n' Roll set, but it's kind of weird seeing the B-52's Cosmic Thing-era lineup posing with the Bouncing off the Satellites-era Mets. Strange that I probably wouldn't have the same reaction seeing players in a card with musicians photos from decades before, but it's weirder seeing players with musicians photographed four or five years later. Cool card, though.

I know what you mean. When I made that card, I was aware of the issue, but didn't make much of it. Ordinarily, when I'm making a current card, like a 2022 card in 2022, I'm not concerned about putting a future rock and roll image in the card because it's impossible to do that. The future hasn't yet arrived. The future's in the future and when the future finally gets here, it won't be the future anymore: it'll be the present. But the time-space continuum could get screwed up when I make a mid-1980's Mets card in 2022.



So you put the bug in my head after I read your post. So much so, that I couldn't get it out of my head and so I ended up compelled to fix things. I swapped out Jesse Orosco for Sid Fernandez. So now, with Big Sid in there instead of Orosco, that card can pass for an image of the 1989 Mets and the 1989 Mets can rightfully hang with the Cosmic Thing B52s without potentially causing a time traveling universe altering caastrophe. Doc would be proud of me. And I mean Doc Brown. Emmet Brown. Not Doc Gooden.



[FIMG=666]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52207467964_ae5bf84af0_h.jpg[/FIMG]



[FIMG=500]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52207693855_77f019f9df_h.jpg[/FIMG]

[whippoorwill]

Sid with the golden Hawaiian suntan