The Continuing Careers of Ex-Mets

[Guest Edgy DC]

More minor league dealies: Karim the Stream Garcia with Philadelphia and Mike Kinkade with the Cubbies.

[Benjamin Grimm]

A Whiz Kid in Philadelphia, huh? That should bring back memories.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Cincy grabs Keppinger for minor league pitcher Russ Haltiwanger.

[Guest Edgy DC]

As mentioned earlier, Richard Hidalgo gets a minor-league deal from Houston.

Jeff Duncan and Geremi Gonzalez are taking a minor-league walk down Blue Jay Way. Geremi, to his relief, will never again have to pitch to Paul Lo Duca.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Cup of coffee Matt Watson is now a Chiba Lotte Marine.

[MFS62]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: A Whiz Kid in Philadelphia, huh? That should bring back memories.

EVERYONE WAITAMINNIT!!!

Stop.

Re-read Yancy's comment about Karim Garcia.

If there is a CPF Hall of Fame, that deserves to be in there.

Later

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: A Whiz Kid in Philadelphia, huh? That should bring back memories.

Brilliant!

[Farmer Ted]

The St. Louis Cardinals assigned manager Mark DeJohn to their NYPenn affiliate in Batavia.

DeJohn, the 23rd round pick of the Mets in 1971.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Cliff Floyd is officially added to the Cubs roster, as they release... Glendon Rusch.

No, I wouldn't be surprised to see 2112 back in camp with the Mets. Thank you for asking.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Rusch is suffering a blod-clot issue and I read he doesn't expect it will allow him to pitch at all in 07.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, then, I'd be shocked to see him in camp with the Mets.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Last shot for Ledee?

By Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports
January 16, 2007

It's mid-winter, going on baseball season, so most nights Ricky Ledee drives over to the local public batting cages.

Head down. Weight shift. Hands through.

At 33, he's been through seven organizations in seven seasons. Now he's beginning to wonder.

"I want to play," he says, "but nobody wants me."

Ledee patched together 85 at-bats last season for the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets. He hit .188. The Mets needed a left-handed hitter, traded for Ledee, and for them he hit .094. He wasn't on their postseason roster. Cliff Floyd, who could barely walk from the dugout to the on-deck circle, was. Ledee went home.

Now spring training is a month away, so Ledee's wife, Theresa, feeds miniature, weighted baseballs into the air. He is recovered from a groin injury that stole his strength for most of last season. She is recovering from surgery. Together, around parenting their three young children in Ocala, Fla., they maintain his stroke and, they hope, his career.

She flips those small, heavy balls in short arcs. He swings a thin bat that more resembles a broomstick, and the balls thwap-thwap from wood to net.

See the ball. Hard front side. Throw the barrel.

By the end of last season, some in the Mets' organization believed Ledee was ready to retire. Always on the introspective side, Ledee, they said, seemed distant and defeated. Maybe it was the injuries. Maybe it was the .188. Maybe it was the constant movement, from Philadelphia to San Francisco to L.A. to New York since 2004 alone.

Most of free agency's big names and big money are gone. In a rather light offseason for talent, baseball owners outdid themselves, spending $1.5 billion on free agents.

Roger Clemens still will get his. Jeff Weaver and Tomo Ohka will get enough to live on. David Wells looks to have another decade in him. Sammy Sosa might be back. But, there are others.

Steve Finley believes he can play another season or three.

It would be interesting to see Darin Erstad and his perpetual, interchangeable Gold Gloves in the National League.

Ronnie Belliard is being blocked by an abundance of second basemen, his previous two teams having added Josh Barfield (Cleveland Indians) and Adam Kennedy (St. Louis Cardinals).

Wouldn't the Boston Red Sox have been better off trying Chan Ho Park at closer?

Bernie Williams couldn't possibly play in another uniform. Could he?

Can't Trot Nixon play every day somewhere?

This is their time of year, the fifth starters and fourth outfielders and 25th men. Pushed from their primes by too many seasons or too many miles or too many injuries, they've been put off by two months, passed over and picked over. Most of the starting jobs are gone. So, Phil Nevin waits. And Shannon Stewart waits. So do Preston Wilson and Brian Lawrence and Ramon Ortiz and Craig Wilson.

Then there's Ledee, kind and affable and easy to root for. He's too young to be old, too talented to be done, and yet wonders what's next, if anything.

"I have no idea," he says.

When I think of him, he's in a New York Yankees uniform, a 24-year-old rookie, smiling, shrugging, lugging around that "next Mickey Mantle" thing or whatever it was New York was laying on him at the time.

It was 1998. The Yankees were the best team I ever saw. Ledee moved silently, respectfully among the superstars, and there was hardly getting out of their way: Derek Jeter, Darryl Strawberry, Williams, Mariano Rivera, Tino Martinez, Tim Raines, Paul O'Neill, David Cone, Wells, Andy Pettitte, Hideki Irabu, Chili Davis, Orlando Hernandez.

There wasn't a lot of room for Ledee, and not much use for him. Scott Brosius batted ninth and drove in 98 runs. The team scored nearly 1,000. Ten players hit at least 10 home runs, none as many as 30. This was a machine.

Ledee's time was out there somewhere, beyond this Yankees team, when Chad Curtis moved on or when O'Neill or Raines retired. So, he ran between Columbus and New York, playing in 42 big-league games. He mopped up around the veterans, took his at-bats where they came, and showed more in the way of athletic grace and promise than hard numbers.

But, when October arrived, left field had become troublesome for manager Joe Torre. Curtis wasn't hitting. Raines was aging. And Shane Spencer was less tested than Ledee even.

So, in Game 1 of the World Series against the San Diego Padres, Ledee started in left field. The Padres started 18-game winner Kevin Brown. Because Ledee batted left-handed and was a capable defender, Torre took the flier.

"Yeah," Ledee says, "that's still so fresh in my mind. It feels like it was two months ago."

Of course, Ledee hit .600 in that series. He was four for six with a walk and a sacrifice fly against Brown in Games 1 and 4.

The Yankees won in four and Ledee, it seemed, had arrived, at least seven months earlier than expected.

Just eight years later, he's a career .244 hitter, and without a promise for another season. His agent, Sam Levinson, told him teams have called.

"They really want to give me minor-league deals," he says. "I understand. I was hurt. So, that kind of hurt me."

He says he hopes to hear something encouraging in the next few days. He says he's sure last season wasn't really his last. He says he'll stay at it.

Balance. Hips. Extension.

"I'm going to keep battling," he says.

[metirish]

Ledee never struck me as easy to root for,no real reason why,he just didn't.

[Frayed Knot]

I never had a personal opinion on him one way or the other, but I did think he would have had a better career than what turned out; at least that of an above-average platoon player. He had a nice swing when he first came up.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I think a writer is going to find any player sympathetic when his wife is loading the pitching machine in January as he tries to stay sharp and get a team to take one more bite at the end of his career.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Jaketime:

Jacobs shows all-around improvement

Click-2-Listen

By Joe Capozzi

Palm Beach Post

Staff Writer

Saturday, January 27, 2007

WEST PALM BEACH — On Sept. 28, four days before the end of his rookie season, Marlins first baseman Mike Jacobs received an urgent phone call from his mother in Southern California.

Your brother Vince is in the hospital, she said. They found a tumor. They're running tests. It might be cancer.

"Once she said there was a possibility of cancer, I mean, I was devastated,'' Jacobs said during a recent charity event at CityPlace.

"I lost my dad when I was 6 years old to cancer. Growing up, my brother was like a father figure to me. My dad was 36 when he died. My brother's right around the same age. Just thinking of the possibility of him being gone was hard to take.''

Jacobs, 26, knew he had to return home. When he went into manager Joe Girardi's office to seek permission to leave the team, he broke down in tears.

"He was real supportive,'' Jacobs said of Girardi, who has since been replaced by Fredi Gonzalez. "He said, 'We only have three games left. No matter what anybody says, family is the most important thing. You should be there with him.' "

After confiding in just a handful of teammates, Jacobs left the club and arrived that night in Southern California in time to see his stepbrother, Vince Bucca, come out of successful surgery.

Doctors removed a tumor from his stomach, along with his appendix and part of his intestines. The tumor was benign, and Jacobs said his brother is making a remarkable recovery.

Bucca, a mortgage loan officer, was able to see Mike get married Nov. 11. Now, Bucca is well enough to play golf.

A few weeks ago, the two climbed into a car and drove 3,000 miles cross-country, partly to spend time together and partly so that Jacobs could get a head start on spring training.

Marlins position players don't have to report until Feb. 19, but Jacobs has been working out at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter since early January. Monday morning, he'll be joined by teammates in a mini-camp that is closed to the public and will continue Wednesday and next Friday.

Jacobs faced high expectations last season after coming to Florida from the New York Mets in the Carlos Delgado trade.

Jacobs, a left-handed batter, hit 11 home runs in his first 100 games with the Mets in 2005, including a string in which he became the first player in history to homer in each of his first four big-league games.

But last season he was limited to 136 games, 120 as a starter, because of a sore right ankle and his struggles to hit left-handed pitching.

He finished with 20 home runs, helping the Marlins become the first team in 47 years with five rookies each hitting at least 10 home runs.

But Jacobs said he wanted to do more, and that's why he has been in Jupiter, testing his ankle with light running and agility drills.

"I felt like I missed out on a lot of opportunities, the way I could have played last year," he said. "I don't want to let any injuries this year hold me back. Right now, the ankle feels good. I am running with no pain.''

One of Jacobs' main goals this spring will be to hit lefties better. In 2006, he batted .182 with two home runs against lefties and .281 with 18 homers against righties.

"Hopefully I'll face a lot (of left-handed pitching) in spring training,'' he said. "I hit lefties in the minor leagues so it's not something I've never done. Hopefully, with experience it will improve.''

[Guest patona314]

Last shot for Ledee?

ledee is a yankee and he's ugly

[stevejrogers]

Zambrano going North of The Border

]Extra bases The Mets' Carlos Delgado, who also appeared at the Munson Dinner, said that he had been cleared to hit. Delgado is recovering from left elbow surgery. Rich Gossage, also at the dinner, said that he would be a Yankees spring training instructor. Gossage had not been in Yankees camp for the past five years, at first leaving for the Rockies, then spending the past couple of years at home. Former Met Victor Zambrano signed a minor-league deal with Toronto. Zambrano had been negotiating with the Mets, as well.

No word yet if Jays pitching coach Brad Arnsberg made any 10 minute declarations!

[Farmer Ted]

Todd Pratt invited to spring training by NYY.

[metirish]

I'd like to see Todd make a club but not the yankees,I have some fond memories of him as a Met.

[Benjamin Grimm]

metirish wrote: I'd like to see Todd make a club but not the yankees,I have some fond memories of him as a Met.

I think we all do. That home run against Arizona was classic. The best part was that we didn't see the ball go over the wall; we realized that the Mets won the series because Steve Finley looked into his glove and then slumped against the wall. Very cool.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Unless you happened to be seated so far out, and so high up, in rightfield that you could see the back the center field fence, as JD and FK happened to that afternoon.

I recall our area cheering just an instant before the sound blasted back at us. I was saying "Went off his glove! Went off his glove!"

[MFS62]

His new career is as a dad.

]Baseball's Mike Piazza Becomes a Dad MONDAY FEBRUARY 05, 2007 05:05 PM EST By Stephen M. Silverman Oakland A's catcher Mike Piazza and wife Alicia welcomed their first child, a daughter, on Saturday. Nicoletta Veronica Piazza was born at 4:07 a.m. in New York City. She weighed in at 5 lbs., 8 oz. and measured 19 inches long. "Both baby and mother are doing fine," Piazza's rep, Josh Goldberg, said in a statement to PEOPLE. A onetime star hitter for the New York Mets, Piazza, 38, married the former Alicia Rickter, 34, a Baywatch alum, in a candlelit ceremony in Miami on Jan. 29, 2005.

Mazel Tov, Mikey.

Later

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

My 8-month-old son is excited to meet his future wife.

[metirish]

Congrats to the Piazza family.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

That's nice news. I'm sure that Mikey will be a great dad

[seawolf17]

Nuts. JD called dibs before I did.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Looks like Piazza's competitive career is done and his stud career has started.

Braden Looper, meanwhile, is audtioning with the Cardinals to be a starter. Jay Gibbons has signed an extension with the Toronto Blue Jays covering the 2008 season.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

john

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yeah. John Gibbons. That's what I said.