mets get delgado (apparently)

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

"I wanted Number 25, but Mr. Matsui has it, so I took #21"

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

"Once you come to New York you're going to feed off the energy that is here."

"I'm not crazy about the cold weather."

[nymr83]

25 should be vacated for you shortly.

[Guest Edgy DC]

"He's still shooting them off. Get him under control, Officer!"

[metirish]

Was full of praise for Wright, wishes he could hit like him, or something like that.

[Elster88]

Edgy DC wrote: At that point the cliche police came in with their billy clubs, knocked him senseless, and threw him in the back of the wagon.

Let's leave him alone. David Wright is in that wagon, too.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Just having fun. It's not like I (or any reasonably smart player) wouldn't be saying a lot of the same things.

Is it a bilingual press conference?

[metirish]

Yes, some questions were asked in Spanish and answered in spanish...he seemed ok about it...

[G-Fafif]

I can see the headlines:

PLAYER HAPPY TO BE HERE
Excited to Join New Team

[Benjamin Grimm]

I guess it wasn't "street Spanish."

[Centerfield]

Yancy: I guess it wasn't "street Spanish."


The Sharks think Delgado is a major sellout.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Willie (under his breath): Shave that godawful beard off.... NOW!!!!
Carlos (same): Fuck you Willie.

[metirish]

Did we resign Lenny Harris...lose some weight Carlos..

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I can't find the Wifey Watch thread, but I have something for it -




Carlos Delgado, left, and his fiance Betzaida Garcia smile after taking their seats before Delgado was introduced as the New York Mets new first baseman, Monday, Nov. 28, 2005, at Shea Stadium in New York.
(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

[Benjamin Grimm]

Betzaida. That's a name I've never heard before.

If they call her "Betz" it rhymes with Mets. (Might be useful if we ever do a wives song parody contest.)

[Guest Edgy DC]

Paydirt. Thanks.

Hopefully it's not her last appearance. It's unfortunate when we meet a wife in mid-winter, pastey, turtlenecked, and jet-lagged, and that becomes the permanent image in our gallery.



And Shandia Anderson, we hardly knew ye'. Literally.

[Guest sharpie]

Until Carlos makes an honest woman of Betzaida she shouldn't be in the wifey watch thread.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Fiancés have always been welcome.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Edgy DC wrote: Hopefully it's not her last appearance. It's unfortunate when we meet a wife in mid-winter, pastey, turtlenecked, and jet-lagged, and that becomes the permanent image in our gallery.

It could be worse. At least she's smiling, and she hasn't just walked off an airplane. I think she looks quite nice.

[metirish]

Willie looks great, Delgado is huge, or maybe Willie is small, is that a WS ring Willie is wearing?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Hey, personally, I'd be grateful to be on Kwan Hun-Jung's dance card.

[Willets Point]

Wifey Watch is wallowing in the Featured Archives wearing that same old shabby dress. C'mon Edgy, just some flowers, dinner -- try a little tenderness.

[Guest Edgy DC]

We'll leave that be and re-launch an '06 version.

[metirish]

Wally Matthews thinks Delgado should protest...

] Carlos should've stayed course November 29, 2005 In 1966, Muhammad Ali refused to submit to the draft and fight in a war he opposed on religious grounds. That decision cost Ali nearly four years of his athletic prime and countless millions. Nearly 40 years later, Carlos Delgado, with more than $40 million guaranteed him over the next four seasons, has been faced with a choice not nearly so gut-wrenching and with none of the consequences that confronted Ali. He could continue the silent protest he had begun as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays and continued during his one season as a Florida Marlin, in which he would slip away to the clubhouse while his teammates stood for the playing of "God Bless America." Or, if he wanted to fit in with the Mets, he could swallow his convictions and stand like everyone else. Delgado chose the latter. It is up to each individual to decide if this represents progress or regress. To Delgado, it simply represents reality. "I think the most important thing about integrity," he said yesterday, "is to realize what your priorities are." For Delgado, who was acquired for Mike Jacobs, Yusmeiro Petit and Grant Psomas last week, that priority is to win enough ballgames to make it to the playoffs, one of the few goals he has yet to achieve in 12 seasons. "I'm a competitor," he said. "When you're a competitor and you don't win, it -- -- , man." In the past eight years, Delgado has averaged 38 home runs and 119 RBIs per season, which makes him very good. But his stance on the war, unpopular at first but now shared by a majority of the country, according to recent polls, made him special. Even if you disagree with his politics, Delgado's willingness to break out of the mold corporate America loves to jam us in set him apart from the thousands of interchangeable young men who thrive athletically and financially in our sports-crazed culture. And it is tough to believe that the Mets, desperately in need of a big bat in the middle of their lineup, would have considered Delgado's silent protest a deal-breaker. So it was mildly disappointing when Delgado, informed by the Mets of the "team rule" concerning "God Bless America," readily agreed to be a team player. "I follow orders," he said. Delgado, of Puerto Rican descent, has always seemed a man whose sensibilities go beyond the ballpark and whose reading does not begin and end with the boxscores. He was a vocal critic of the U.S. military maneuvers in Vieques, P.R., and two years after their cessation, he remains active in the efforts to clean up the environmental damage done by years of weapons testing there. And after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Delgado began his own quiet protest against what he has called "the stupidest war ever." Yesterday, Delgado's agent, David Sloane, said, "He told me he felt ["God Bless America"] needlessly brought politics into baseball, and he felt those two things should never be combined. He never called attention to himself. He just chose to go quietly to the dugout and sit down." By doing so, Delgado was not demonstrating his lack of patriotism. Quite the opposite. He was invoking that most basic of American freedoms, the right to free speech, independent thought, the holding of a dissenting opinion. Predictably, he was vilified for it at visiting ballparks around the country, especially at Yankee Stadium, which is run by George Steinbrenner as if it were West Point South, and last year at Shea Stadium. But now Carlos Delgado is not just some visiting pacifist. He is our pacifist. Thus embol.dened by the home uniform and justified by changing popular opinion, it might have been safe to assume Delgado would bring his silent protest to Flushing with him. But no. One of the few pro athletes who had the guts to say no is now a yes man. And the silencing of his voice, whether you agree with it or not, is not a victory for democracy but a defeat. "Fred has asked and I've asked him to respect what the country wants to do," said Mets senior executive vice president and first son Jeff Wilpon, who must not read the front of the newspaper. "If the team rule is everybody stands for 'God Bless America,' he's going to stand. We told him we would like it if he did." The official line of Mets thinking is that to allow Delgado to continue his protest would create "a distraction" on the team. Delgado was asked yesterday if that was the case in Toronto or Florida. "Not at all," he replied. "It was never an issue." And yet, here, in a city that considers itself the most sophisticated in the country, if not the world, it seems as if conformity ranks second only to offensive production. "If you hit, they're gonna like you," Delgado said. "If you don't hit, they're gonna boo." No matter how well he performs as a Met, he already is less than he could have been.

[Elster88]

Would someone write to Wally Matthews and explain that Delgado's decision not to stand was not about the war?

OE: Changed "right" to "write". This is why I shouldn't [u:d0201e0897]write[/u:d0201e0897] said letter myself.

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Ditto with Michael Kay.

Though Matthews is one of the ones who thought Yogi Berra should still have boycotted Yankee Stadium

Wally is not one to bury hatchets, his comment to people who ripped Piazza for not "accepting" an apology from Clemens has always been along the lines of "Why the hell should he accept, families have always had long standing feuds so why do you want athletes to forgive and forget?"

I think its more the priciples of the protest than the reasons that Kay/Matthews are upset about, the sudden "lack of convictions" and perceived comformity in order to "make people happy" which can make people seem very phoney

Steve

[metirish]

That is part of the problem here Elster, Delgado's protest apparently evolved from the the United States Navy's use of Vieques as a bombing site into the use of "God Bless America" as a rallying cry for the war in Iraq and all things patriotic, at least that's how I read it....

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

metirish wrote: That is part of the problem here Elster, Delgado's protest apparently evolved from the the United States Navy's use of Vieques as a bombing site into the use of "God Bless America" as a rallying cry for the war in Iraq and all things patriotic, at least that's how I read it....

I have a feeling most of the posturing by folks like Kay, Matthews, and others, is based on their own anti-war, anti-Bush sentiments, and so after Delgado "backs away" from his original protest they become enraged thinking that the guy is backing off his stance for the good of the team

[Elster88]

Engaged or enraged?

42 voters in this poll. More than any parody.