Typing on the Fringes

[batmagadanleadoff]

Topps did/does a bit of that with the "Topps Total" set, which did a nice job of catching everyone. The 2019 Topps Total set, for example, has the only Mets cards of Adeiny Hechavarria and Rajai Davis, and 2020 has Walker Lockett and Brad Brach.

Yes, but nobody covers the Citi Field Mets in cardboard better than Typewriter Chewing Gum. At Typewriter, every Met gets a card, even the fringiest Mets. Every Met. Every year. And to prove our point, we're opening up our vaults to feature a fringy Citi Field Met "all typed up". Pat yourself on your back if you can remember anything about any of the Mets to be featured in this thread. And watch this space. If youse ain't collecting Typewriters, you won't be able to flip through your baseball card collections to remind yourselves of these fringy Mets because they ain't appearing in any other sets -- at least not as Mets.



2015 Total Mets Set - Code Name: Neon

[FIMG=350]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52145112661_768b7ce15c.jpg[/FIMG]

[whippoorwill]

Typewriters are the best!

[batmagadanleadoff]

2018 Typewriter Total Mets Set - Code Name: Puppet, Pauper, Pirate, Poet, Pawn and King



[FIMG=444]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52146623226_d136dc510c_b.jpg[/FIMG]

[batmagadanleadoff]

2009 Typewriter Total Mets Set - Code Name:Vestigial Tails



[FIMG=355]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52145973522_b2763d7cb4_h.jpg[/FIMG]



Finally, a Mets fringe player from this thread that I remember something about. Vaguely. Brown committed some kind of base-running screw-up, I think. It may have been the last out of a close game. Something like that. Three games, six plate appearances, total. That's Emil's Mets record.

[Lefty Specialist]

We need a Mike Glavine card.

[kcmets]

Both cards are kinda ugly, The Life cover knock-off is nice.

[batmagadanleadoff]

From our award-winning inaugural Citi Field 2009 Mets set, the understatedly simple yet elegant Vestigial Tails total Mets set:



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"Form and function in a baseball card. Clean lines, uncluttered imagery and they flip well, too". One word -- Bauhaus! Yours truly, Roger Kaputnik

we bring you another blink and you missed him Met on the fringes -- the first Mets player you can rightly call "Casey of the Mets" (career Mets line - 4 IP). What took 'em so long?





[FIMG=355]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52148600189_089323af8b_h.jpg[/FIMG]

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Hey I think I was at The Casey Fossum Game

[batmagadanleadoff]

Luis Hernandez had all off 44 AB's for the Mets in 2010. That's more playing time than Fossum's 4IP, but still, that's a fringe Met if I ever saw one. So whaddyouse know about Luis Hernandez? I dunno how youse are even gonna distinguish him, let alone remember anything about him. Doesn't every team have a Luis or a Hernandez on its 25-man every single season? Luis was carded in a 2010 Typewriter Total Mets set, code named Rock & Roll. He was fringy, but every Met still gets a card. And isn't that the point?





[FIMG=522]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52149032807_21217411df_h.jpg[/FIMG]

[Edgy MD]

Luis' name is unfortunate, because as anonymous and interchangeable as it seemingly makes him with dozens of other Caribbean infielders named Luis, Hernandez, or Luis Hernandez, the way his Met career ended should be the stuff of legends. Of course, the timing wasn't much either.



With an anonymous Mets team struggling to get back to .500 before running out of season, with Jerry Manuel a dead man walking as he brought the team home, it had been five days since Luis had seen his name in a lineup card. But for some reason, Manuel thought he could get it done that day against Tim Hudson, and inserted him at second, batting eighth, because that's where veteran backup infielders getting a spot start in September hit.



In his second at bat against Hudson, he got a 1-0 fastball inside, driving it of the handle of his bat, down into his foot. He collapsed in pain. Jerry came out with his trainer, hands in his back pocket. Hernandez got up and put some weight on his foot. He tried to suppress his grimace, and told his manager he's OK. What else can you expect a veteran AAA guy to say? When he sees his name on a roster, he can pretty much make out where the words "Non-Tendered" and "DFA" have already been written and erased a half dozen times next to it.



Managers have a responsibility here. Trainers do also. They can't x-ray the foot on the spot. The player is not going to be honest, so the call is theirs. They spend the next five minutes doing the pantamime of professionalism. "What do you think? I dunno. What do you think? I dunno."



Luis spits, curses his anonymous name, and assures the trainer he's fine. He's not fine, and in fact has broken at least one metatarsal bone. Possibly two, I'm not sure. But life is hard and it won't get any easier begging out of the game. Jerry rolls over and lets Hernandez make the decision for himself, because that's who Jerry is. He's wants you to think he's a gangsta, but he's a go-along-to-get-along figure like so many placeholder managers before him. Luis wins the nominal argument, but damned if he's going to prolong this agony. He's going back in there swinging.



He's a switch hitter, batting lefthanded, so there's no way he's going to let the righhanded Hudson surprise him inside again. But that's just what Hudson tries to do. Doubling up inside is really what a pitcher is supposed to do after successfully jamming a batter on the previous pitch. But Hernandez is almost insulted. At least, that's what the 9,000 or so of the 33,000 in attendance who were actually in their seats remember. Hernandez then proceeded to crush a low drive down the rightfield line. It was into the wind, but that made little difference. Rightfielder Jason Heyward made a perfunctory jog toward the fair pole, said a futile prayer that the ball might hook foul, before watching the ball fly 20 rows back inside the pole.



While Heyward comforted himself with a reminder that the Braves were fighting for first place and the Mets were limping home 10 games behind them, forced to start soon-to-be-forgotten AAAA infielders, Hernandez winced in blinding pain one last time as the reverberations vibrated down to his foot. "Oh, yeah," he thought, "that fucker is broken."



As ephemeral as his major league existence generally was, at this moment, it pretty much had the integrity of a soap bubble — floating beautifully for an instant in the sunlight, but it's doom promised at any moment, it's ultimate forgettability all but assured. Luis would in fact, exit the game and his Mets career the next half inning, with only two more plate appearances (for Texas) two years down the road to come before he would be forced to hang 'em up.



This was, effectively, it. The last time he would "run" the bases as a major leaguer. Any manager understands the drill when an obviously wounded player hits a homer. Let your guy get to first before replacing him with a pinch runner. But Jerry Manuel wasn't just any manager. Some say he was charitable that day, letting Hernandez soak in whatever glory was left in his career as he hobbled around the bases in obvious discomfort. Other said he was cruel, with Joaquin Arias already set to replace the wounded Hernandez, just standing there watching the journeyman grind bone against bone with each crippling step.



Most said Jerry was indifferent. Aloof. He had checked out and this is the sort of glorious but morbid spectacle you get when you're watching a team play out the string on autopilot as a doomed manager just sits there and feels sorry for himself.



It might have been 30 seconds, or it might have been 30 minutes, but Luis Hernandez completed his macabre circuit, giving inattentive fans a chance to return their focus to the ghoulishly heroic spectacle before them. They stood on their feet and cheered as he crossed home plate. His teammates were gentle with their congratulations, somberly knowing — as everyone in the park not named "Jerry Manuel" knew — that something was wrong. Almost luridly so.



Hernandez continued his listless trot toward the dugout and down the tunnel and into the greatest of Mets history, and ultimately, the vaguest of Mets obscurity. Giving his all in the most lost of causes — he became the strangest of heroes, in some measures never to be forgotten, but in most, rarely to be recalled.



[media=youtube]V5RF85VVax8[/media]

[batmagadanleadoff]

Great reporting there. And while you're on the mend, maybe you can give us another in depth write-up on our next fringe Met -- Joaquin Arias -- conjured up by your own last post. Just 30 Mets AB's, all in 2010, Arias was a midle infielder who didn't do much of anything. He was the player to be named later that the Rangers got from the Yankees when they sent A-Rod and his gazillion dollar salary to the Bronx. Arias is featured on Typewriter's 2010 Rock and Roll set because, natch, that was the set for the 2010 Mets. Whachyouse got on Arias?



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Edited June 16, 2022 by Guest

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I have vague memories of a guy who hit a home run with a broken foot in a Jerry Manuel hame but that was well done. You should graft on his vital statistics-- date of birth, perfunctory stats. Etc, and submit as a SABR bio, give that story a little life

[batmagadanleadoff]

From 2017's Ltd. Potato Knishes set, Tommy Milone. A coupl'a starts. an 8.56 ERA. And then he was gone. I think 2017 was the year when all of a sudden it seemed as if the Mets were going through a zillion pitchers a season. Still are. So whachyouse got.? I think I remember Mike Trout taking Milone deep, like in left the yard deep.





[FIMG=400]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52153890704_f896620dee_c.jpg[/FIMG]

[batmagadanleadoff]

From 2017's Ltd. Potato Knishes set, Tommy Milone. A coupl'a starts. an 8.56 ERA. And then he was gone. I think 2017 was the year when all of a sudden it seemed as if the Mets were going through a zillion pitchers a season. Still are. So whachyouse got.? I think I remember Mike Trout taking Milone deep, like in left the yard deep. [FIMG=400]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52153890704_f896620dee_c.jpg[/FIMG]

Typewriter is extremely generous to Mets fringe players. We carded Milone on three different sets in 2017. That's probably three more Mets cards from Milone than you'd find anywhere else.



2017 Typewriter Total Mets set - Code: Hoosier

[FIMG=400]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52153900914_4ace017f21_b.jpg[/FIMG]



2017 Typewriter Total Mets set - Code: Ack

[FIMG=400]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52154156720_4cddf3181c_b.jpg[/FIMG]

[Edgy MD]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: I have vague memories of a guy who hit a home run with a broken foot in a Jerry Manuel hame but that was well done. You should graft on his vital statistics-- date of birth, perfunctory stats. Etc, and submit as a SABR bio, give that story a little life

Hmmm ...

[Edgy MD]

Handsome Ack card.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Yeah, Ack is one of the Best Typewriter sets. Nothing comes to Wonderama, but pretty good

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Handsome A ck card.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Yeah, Ack is one of the Best Typewriter sets. Nothing comes to Wonderama, but pretty good

Thanks. While I was working on that set about five years ago, I sneak previewed it for Zvon and he thought it was the best Typewriter set ever.



[FIMG=300]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52154487901_4bece20fdb_b.jpg[/FIMG] [FIMG=300]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52153475822_0fc2cca05a_b.jpg[/FIMG] [FIMG=300]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52154978215_ed01bd991d_b.jpg[/FIMG] [FIMG=300]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52154503813_56d691913f_b.jpg[/FIMG]

[Fman99]

Edgy MD wrote: Luis' name is unfortunate, because as anonymous and interchangeable as it seemingly makes him with dozens of other Caribbean infielders named Luis, Hernandez, or Luis Hernandez, the way his Met career ended should be the stuff of legends. Of course, the timing wasn't much either. With an anonymous Mets team struggling to get back to .500 before running out of season, with Jerry Manuel a dead man walking as he brought the team home, it had been five days since Luis had seen his name in a lineup card. But for some reason, Manuel thought he could get it done that day against Tim Hudson, and inserted him at second, batting eighth, because that's where veteran backup infielders getting a spot start in September hit. In his second at bat against Hudson, he got a 1-0 fastball inside, driving it of the handle of his bat, down into his foot. He collapsed in pain. Jerry came out with his trainer, hands in his back pocket. Hernandez got up and put some weight on his foot. He tried to suppress his grimace, and told his manager he's OK. What else can you expect a veteran AAA guy to say? When he sees his name on a roster, he can pretty much make out where the words "Non-Tendered" and "DFA" have already been written and erased a half dozen times next to it. Managers have a responsibility here. Trainers do also. They can't x-ray the foot on the spot. The player is not going to be honest, so the call is theirs. They spend the next five minutes doing the pantamime of professionalism. "What do you think? I dunno. What do you think? I dunno." Luis spits, curses his anonymous name, and assures the trainer he's fine. He's not fine, and in fact has broken at least one metatarsal bone. Possibly two, I'm not sure. But life is hard and it won't get any easier begging out of the game. Jerry rolls over and lets Hernandez make the decision for himself, because that's who Jerry is. He's wants you to think he's a gangsta, but he's a go-along-to-get-along figure like so many placeholder managers before him. Luis wins the nominal argument, but damned if he's going to prolong this agony. He's going back in there swinging. He's a switch hitter, batting lefthanded, so there's no way he's going to let the righhanded Hudson surprise him inside again. But that's just what Hudson tries to do. Doubling up inside is really what a pitcher is supposed to do after successfully jamming a batter on the previous pitch. But Hernandez is almost insulted. At least, that's what the 9,000 or so of the 33,000 in attendance who were actually in their seats remember. Hernandez then proceeded to crush a low drive down the rightfield line. It was into the wind, but that made little difference. Rightfielder Jason Heyward made a perfunctory jog toward the fair pole, said a futile prayer that the ball might hook foul, before watching the ball fly 20 rows back inside the pole. While Heyward comforted himself with a reminder that the Braves were fighting for first place and the Mets were limping home 10 games behind them, forced to start soon-to-be-forgotten AAAA infielders, Hernandez winced in blinding pain one last time as the reverberations vibrated down to his foot. "Oh, yeah," he thought, "that fucker is broken." As ephemeral as his major league existence generally was, at this moment, it pretty much had the integrity of a soap bubble — floating beautifully for an instant in the sunlight, but it's doom promised at any moment, it's ultimate forgettability all but assured. Luis would in fact, exit the game and his Mets career the next half inning, with only two more plate appearances (for Texas) two years down the road to come before he would be forced to hang 'em up. This was, effectively, it. The last time he would "run" the bases as a major leaguer. Any manager understands the drill when an obviously wounded player hits a homer. Let your guy get to first before replacing him with a pinch runner. But Jerry Manuel wasn't just any manager. Some say he was charitable that day, letting Hernandez soak in whatever glory was left in his career as he hobbled around the bases in obvious discomfort. Other said he was cruel, with Joaquin Arias already set to replace the wounded Hernandez, just standing there watching the journeyman grind bone against bone with each crippling step. Most said Jerry was indifferent. Aloof. He had checked out and this is the sort of glorious but morbid spectacle you get when you're watching a team play out the string on autopilot as a doomed manager just sits there and feels sorry for himself. It might have been 30 seconds, or it might have been 30 minutes, but Luis Hernandez completed his macabre circuit, giving inattentive fans a chance to return their focus to the ghoulishly heroic spectacle before them. They stood on their feet and cheered as he crossed home plate. His teammates were gentle with their congratulations, somberly knowing — as everyone in the park not named "Jerry Manuel" knew — that something was wrong. Almost luridly so. Hernandez continued his listless trot toward the dugout and down the tunnel and into the greatest of Mets history, and ultimately, the vaguest of Mets obscurity. Giving his all in the most lost of causes — he became the strangest of heroes, in some measures never to be forgotten, but in most, rarely to be recalled. [media=youtube]V5RF85VVax8[/media]

This is brilliant as usual. You have a gift, you know.

[batmagadanleadoff]

It was the end of the line for this fringe Met who, by the time he put on the blue and orange, was playing on fumes only, his gas tank practically empty and the needle in the red. Just a few weeks in a Mets uni and then retirement. His career, in the main, was well documented though, much of it played under intense scrutiny and a bright spotlight. So whachyouse got on fringe Met Rick Ankiel, pictured below on a 2013 Typewriter Total Mets set card, code named The Wonderama (or Has Anybody Here Got an Aardsma?)





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[batmagadanleadoff]

It's Grand Slam Sunday here at T.C.G. and today's fringe Met is Taylor Teagarden, the eight game Met, pictured on a 2014 Total Mets set, code name: Welcome to Kiner's Korner. I'm Ralph Korner. Whatchyouse got?







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[Edgy MD]

Rick Ankiel was almost doomed to end his career as a Met, being originally from Port St. Lucie and graduating from PSL high.



He indeed had little left, but he was, in a weird way, the right fit for a team starved for outfielder and professional polish.

[batmagadanleadoff]

If Teagarden stumped youse, maybe this fringy Met won't. Colin Cowgill's sizzling spring training earned him a spot on the Mets 25 man Opening Day roster in 2013 and also, an Opening Day start. But 61 at bats later, he was a goner, relegated to fringe Met history. Me, I sometimes conflate Cowgill with our previous fringer, Teagarden. Maybe it's that they each have compound worded last names, I dunno. Pictured here on a Typewriter 2013 Total Mets set trading card, code named The Wonderama (or Has Anybody Here Got an Aardsma?), whachyouse got on Cowgill?





[FIMG=355]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52161330915_161333be2b_h.jpg[/FIMG]

[Edgy MD]

A 2013 opening day grand slam, along with a double earlier in the game, provided about 90% of his Mets value.



A pointless double L in both his first and last names gave him a reputation as a notorious L-hoarder, and that is believed to have contributed to the thinking behind his mid-season trade

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: A pointless double L in both his first and last names gave him a reputation as a notorious L-hoarder, and that is believed to have contributed to the thinking behind his mid-season trade

As did his insistence on breaking into verses of THE RAIN, THE PARK, AND OTHER THINGS at inappropriate moments.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: A 2013 opening day grand slam, along with a double earlier in the game, provided about 90% of his Mets value. A pointless double L in both his first and last names gave him a reputation as a notorious L-hoarder, and that is believed to have contributed to the thinking behind his mid-season trade

I'm declaring you the winner of the Cowgill fringe contest. I mean, what else is there on Cowgill? I probably conflated Cowgill and Teagarden because they both hit grand slams in their first games as a Met.



[media=youtube]V9ilKWJpd_E[/media]



[media=youtube]hVvG0kWhm6E[/media]



Catch the theme? Grand Slam Sunday? Grand Slam Debuts? At Citi Field? This guy?



[media=youtube]G8xjTplR57o[/media]

Edited June 20, 2022 by Guest

[batmagadanleadoff]

Sam Haggerty was a Cleveland Indian prospect who finally broke through as a major leaguer in 2019 with the Mets But after four at-bats, he was a goner, his place on the fringes of Mets history firmly engraved. He's remained in the majors every season since, never accumulating more than a few dozen at bats in any season, fortifying his fringiness. Picture on Typewriter's beloved 2019 total Mets set, code named Holy Curt Gowdy!, whachyouse got on Haggerty?



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[Edgy MD]

Haggerty was widely considered to be the best baserunner in the system — not merely fast, but skilled all around as a bezrunner.



A 2019 Mets team going into September was still on the fringes of the race, but had a really bad run of baserunning mistakes, and pressed the Haggerty button — a particularly rare Esix Snead of a move where a dude is called up specifically to run the bases. The Sons of Rod Kanehl.



But here's the thing — Syracuse manager Tony DeFrancesco had his own way of going about shit. Rather than call a player into his office and play a teasing game with him before letting know he's been promoted to The Show, Tony liked to let the player know in front of the whole team while addressing his squad before and after the game. This way not only did the player get the support of his teammates, but the teammates also get the vicarious thrill of "Hey, I've played alongside this dude all year, and seen how hard he's worked, so maybe my work will be recognized as well, and I'll get my call. Besides, I've played with this guy since we were 18. I've met his folks, and I have a crushy-wushy on his sister, so good on him!!"



I had watched a few videos that year of DeFrancesco doing just that, and it had pretty much worked out as scripted. But not so much with Haggerty. Sam had only been with the organization for one season after coming over from Cleveland in the Kevin Plawecki trade. And he had only been called up from Binghamton to Syracuse for a week or two. If anybody in that clubhouse was invested in anybody's career besides his own, Haggerty's wasn't at the top of the list. DeFrancesco was acting all dramatically, and saying that he got a call from Mickey Callaway and Callaway wanted a guy who knew what he was doing on the bases. And then he said the word "Sam" and my God, he got the softest and most embarrassing round of applause.



It was early September, and I guess the players all realized that if wasn't their name being called then, it wasn't going to happen this year at all, and "Fuck! I'm a minor league free agent at the end of the season, so this looks like the end of the line. And who the fuck is this Sam guy anyhow? It's that guy that's been using Matt Kemp's old locker?! Fuck him! Any asshole can run the bases!"



It was like that scene in The Kominsky Method when Sandy announced that one of his students got a gig as a regular on a TV show and all the other students provide the most miserable congratulations ever. That's what Haggerty got as a sendoff to the big leagues.



Haggs, for his part was uses almost exactly according to his mandate, making about 80% of his appearances as a pinch-runner — particularly used to replace ... I wanna say Todd Frazier? I imagine he ran for Wilson Ramos on occasion as well.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Holy Moley, Edgy! I think we've discovered your niche. Fringe Mets. This stuff is great. I think you know more about Haggerty than Haggerty himself. I remember the base running stuff (look at Sam's card; he's taking a lead off a base) but nothing about Syracuse.



Whachyouse got on P.J. Conlon, fringy Mets reliever pictured on a 2018 Typewriter Total Mets Set - Code Name: Puppet, Pauper, Pirate, Poet, Pawn and King





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[Edgy MD]

P.J. Conlon — the first Irish born Major Leaguer in like sixty years. Born, in fact, on Falls Road in Belfast — ground zero of The Troubles.



His family fled to The U.S. to raise him in a safer environment. When he made his debut, a big contingent of extended family came out to support him, despite being largely baseball-illiterate and an auntie or somebody held up a picture of beloved Capuchin Saint Padre Pio to bless him whenever he was on the mound.