The Continuing Careers of Ex-Mets

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm finding nothing on him after a March report that he asked for and received a release from the Orioles four days into camp, in order to pursue opportunities in Japan.

I can't find whereas he ever showed up there. Jim Duquette must've had a crush on him.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Red Sox have Lenny DiNardo on rehab assignement with Portland. In a show of fraternal fealty toward his Boston brethren that got lit up over the weekend, he got buried by a seven-run second by Binghamton.

Joe Vizcaino, recently cut loose by San Francisco, has been signed by St. Louis, who expected to disable David Eckstein. Jose is expected to be in uniform tonight --- unlike that lollygagging Shawn Green --- and wearing number 35.

On reunion night at Shea, Timo Perez got himself an intentional walk, Braden Looper through a shutout inning (with help from the ump), and Jason Isringhausen got yoked by Carlos Beltran.

Oh, wait, I'm sorry, you probably already heard about that last item.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Mike Kinkade returns to Team USA, leading them in the Olympic-qualifying tournament in Cuba.

In all-important Blue Hen news, the University of Delaware has added Brian Walker --- former Brooklyn Cyclone, Capital City Bomber, and St. Lucie Met --- as volunteer pitching coach.

The Twins have survived Shannon Stewart's foot injury thanks in part to Jason Freakin' Tyner.

[Guest OlerudOwned]

I'll do K-O, why not.

Dae-Sung Koo- Had his contract sold to the Hanwha Eagles of the Korean Baseball Organization, a league with a team called the Unicorns. I can't find any stats.

Al Leiter- After pitching in the WBC and getting one out in MFY spring training, Al hung it up. He does some MFY broadcast and hosted "Ask the White House.

]Ben, from Washington writes: Why are you pictured in a Yankee uniform? I thought your heart was with the Mets. Al Leiter My heart was with the Mets I had every intention of ending my career with the Mets, but it was not my decision. I was given the opportunity to finish my career where it all started, and that was in a Yankee uniform.

Luis Lopez- The last MLB team he was with was Baltimore, but I can't find anything after that. There's 3 Luis Lopez's in the minors, but none of them are our Luis. All I can find is the bizarrely funny Myspace page of fake Luis, which is part of the frighteningly large community of fake baseball players. Lopez and Coco Crisp are the resident badasses.

Mike Matthews- Seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth after leaving the Mets. Surely someone could use a crappy LOOGY.

C. J. Nitkowski- Pitching pretty well for the Pirates AAA club. Doesn't seem to have updated his website in a while. But if you feel like getting an autograph from the St. John's grad, seeing a list of every team and teammate he's had, reading his musings on the 2005 postseason, or reading about Jesus, check it out.

Hideo Nomo- According to Wikipedia, "He was seen on August 22, 2006 at Rancho Park in Los Angeles rehabilitating."
Makes it sound like the guy was kidnapped or something. Although if he was, I don't think many people would mind:

]...This led to him heading to the United States, where in February of 1995, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed him to a contract. Nomo's parents cried for him to come home, and Nomo was soon disowned by family for "disgracing" them.

José Offerman- In Norfolk, sucking like the rest of the team.

John Olerud- Retired last December. Can't find anything current, although I'd imagine that he is putting time into The Jordan Fund, a foundation whose "mission is to provide support to special needs children and their families". It's named for their daughter, who was born with some sort of chromosome disorder.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

C.J. had a letter to the editor published in this week's edition of Sports Illustrated. In it, he remarks on a story they ran a few weeks back on a one-eyed umpire who's son happens to be a current teammate of CJ's. CJ says the writer neglected to mention that the umpire/father was an absentee deadbeat and that the guy's mom is the one who ought to be getting the writeup for the son's success.

[MFS62]

Yancy - about your list. You say they were "active" in 2005. Is that limited to the majors?
I noticed that Craig Brazell played at Norfolk in 2005, but had no time in the majors. He is currently hitting .253 ,21HR, 88 RBI for Jacksonville in the Southern League.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

Yes, limited to the majors. I pulled that list from the UMDB's "this player also player for" table.

[MFS62]

Thanks,
Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

Good job on K-O by OO, covering his namesake.

[MFS62]

Jeff Keppinger was recalled yesterday from KC's AAA Omaha team.
He had been hitting .354 there.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

In the San Diego-Colorado game today:

Kaz Matsui went 0-4, leading off and playing shortstop. That drops him to .412 / .500 / .471 // .971 in five games since returning to big-league play.

Mike Piazza had two hits in that game, perhaps pulling out of his post-Shea tailspin.

Mike Cameron went 0-4 and whiffed with Piazza on second to end the game.

Might as well finish reporting on the exies in that game... Manny Alexander played short for San Diego and went 1-3. No knock on Manny, but tell me San Diego isn't making a playoff run with him at short. Thirty-five years old, Manny is, with 15 career homeruns (including 2 for the Mets in 1997).

[MFS62]

Sigh.
Those last posts on a page are rarely read.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

Fixed.

[MFS62]

Edgy DC wrote: Fixed.

Edgy,
I did like the story you posted. Didn't mean to ask you to delete the entire thread. But I felt the large print announcement of his return was a little overkill.
Sorry,
Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

Thanks for the tip on Manny Alexander. I didn't realize he had played for San Diego. I've now updated his UMDB profile.

Still waiting for Jeff Keppinger to appear in a game for Kansas City.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Who is the shortstop on the International League Post-Season All Star Team 2006?

Jorge Velandia.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And former Met farmhand Pat O'Sullivan is American Association (the Independent League, not the old AAA league) Batter of the Month.

[Frayed Knot]

You need to get out more.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Edgy DC wrote: And former Met farmhand Pat O'Sullivan is American Association (the Independent League, not the old AAA league) Batter of the Month.

This is probably the most obscure update yet.

I have no memory of Pat O'Sullivan, but it's nice to know he had a good month.

[Guest cooby]

What kind of Mets Database runner are you?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm a very good database runner. I'm just not a very good wizard.

[Guest OlerudOwned]

Marlon Anderson was dealt to the Dodgers to help off the bench for the playoff push.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Somewhere Rickey Hederson is growiling about Marlon Anderson being unfit to carry his jock.

[Guest sharpie]

Keppinger played for KC yesterday.

[metirish]

While reading the "memories of Eric Cammack" on UMDB a Senor Ortiz posted this.

] SENOR ORTIZ February 12, 2006 I noticed on the stats he had one career at bat and he hit a triple. My guess is he is the only player or pitcher to have ever achieved this. Another obscure Mets stat.

I'm guessing he's wrong.

[seawolf17]

metirish wrote: While reading the "memories of Eric Cammack" on UMDB a Senor Ortiz posted this. ] SENOR ORTIZ February 12, 2006 I noticed on the stats he had one career at bat and he hit a triple. My guess is he is the only player or pitcher to have ever achieved this. Another obscure Mets stat. I'm guessing he's wrong.

Ed Irwin of the Tigers played in one game (a 24-2 loss to Philadelphia) in May 1812. He had 3 ABs and hit two triples. He never played in the majors again.

Chuck Lindstrom had one career official AB, in 1958, and tripled. (He also walked in the game.)

Those were the only players I could find quickly. He might be right.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Tim Bogar is maybe big-league bound..

Kindred: Bogar managing to stay on fast track

Tim Bogar was in Altoona, Pa., Thursday. By night's end, he would be on a bus to Erie, Pa., and a four-day stay there. Bogar has been making such trips for three summers now, a throwback to his days as a 20-year-old minor-leaguer.

Travel agents don't advertise packages to Altoona and Erie, hoping to avoid career suicide. Still, these are not dead-end destinations for everyone. They have Bogar in the express lane toward baseball's most desirable locales, faster than even he could have imagined.

For the third straight season, the Bloomington resident and former major-league player has been named his league's Manager of the Year, this time with the Akron Aeros of the Double-A Eastern League.

He earned the honor in 2004 with the Greeneville (Tenn.) Astros of the Class A Appalachian League, and last year with the Lexington (Ky.) Legends of the Class A South Atlantic League.

"I never thought I'd win three of these in a row, especially at the minor-league level where you don't know what you'll have from year to year and with guys moving as much as they do --- getting promoted or hurt or sent down," Bogar said Thursday morning.

"All you can do is put them in as many good positions as you can. I've been blessed with a lot of talent, especially pitching talent."

He is being modest, of course. It is Bogar's way.

Meet him on the street, and you'd never know he spent nine years as a major-league infielder with the Mets, Astros and Dodgers. You might hear it elsewhere, but not from him.

He is as down to earth as bluegrass and blue jeans, able to adapt and fit in wherever baseball takes him, from New York to New Britain, Conn. --- home of the Eastern League's New Britain Rock Cats.

His long-range goal is to manage in the big leagues, and at this rate, it may not be that long.

Bogar leaves such talk to others, saying, "I know I have a lot to learn."

"I know I'm a long way from being a successful major-league manager ? if that happens," he said. "I'm just learning as much as I can from year to year, and hopefully I'll get a shot at it.

"Every year I've learned a lot, especially on the pitching side. The first year I had Jack Billingham (as his pitching coach), who was a quality starter in the big leagues and he taught me a lot about that. This year, I have Scott Radinsky and he was an unbelievable relief pitcher. I've learned a lot about how to run a bullpen and what they think and getting them in good situations."

Akron took an Eastern League-best 83-54 record into Thursday night's game against the Altoona Curve. The Aeros have clinched the Southern Division championship and qualified for next week's playoffs.

They've done it despite having four players called up to the Cleveland Indians, Akron's parent club. Eight players in all have been promoted to either Triple-A or the big leagues.

"You're dealing not just with prospects here, but players who can make an impact at the major-league level," Bogar said. "Handling the game is a little different because of their ability. The game is a little faster, and you can't get away with as many things as you do at the lower levels.

"You have to play more of a pure baseball game. You have to be a little more decisive in what you want to accomplish that day."

Bogar appeared in 701 major-league games from 1993 through 2001, batting .228 as a utility man who played all four infield positions. He also was the No. 3 catcher with the Mets and Astros.

He watched even more games from the dugout, listening and learning while his managers plotted strategy. He would have preferred to be on the field.

But...

"I don't know if I can say it was the best thing that ever happened to me to sit on the bench, but it might have been," Bogar said. "I got to sit there and take in the game and understand why my manager was doing what he was doing, and why the other manager was doing what he was doing.

"Sitting on the bench, you can either waste your time --- which I did a little bit of --- or apply it to your future. I was fortunate to be around some really good managers and good players who helped me with my future."

Bogar works hardest at communicating with his players, seeking to "let them know where I stand."

"I try to make it enjoyable to come to the park every day," he said.

Soon, the parks may be a lot bigger.

The cities, too.

Randy Kindred is a Pantagraph columnist. To leave him a voice mail, call 820-3402. By e-mail:

rkindred@pantagraph.com

. The Randy Kindred Blog is at

www.pantagraph.com/blogs

.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Kablammeron speaks.

Reminiscing with former Met Mike Cameron

August 11, 2006

With all the hype surrounding Mike Piazza's return to Shea Stadium and Paul Lo Duca's marital stress and gambling habits, former Mets outfielder Mike Cameron was able to sneak back into Shea almost unnoticed. But, as one fan screamed several minutes after a Piazza ovation Tuesday night, "Hey, Cameron, we didn't forget about you!"

So we caught up with Cameron, who's enjoying a successful season back in his natural position of center field for the Padres, and asked him what he did and did not miss about New York.

Three things you don't miss "¦

1. "Traffic."

2. "Traffic — put that one down again." (smiles)

3. "I guess that would be it ..."

How about right field?

(Smiles) "You know, I don't even think about it, man. After all I went through, I just get to play ball and that's all that's important."

Three things you do miss "¦

1. "My place. I had one of the most beautiful places in Alpine, N.J. Had a big backyard."

2. "The food — going to the same place I used to always go to — this Italian joint. After a while, they didn't even have to ask my order, they just knew — pasta with vodka sauce."

3. "The people that I came in contact with, that were pretty close to me. Those are the things that don't change no matter how much everything else does. Cliff (Floyd), of course. We endured a lot of tough times together."

Dave Buscema

[Guest Edgy DC]

Melvin Mora, and His Ass of Crimson

Defeatist attitude rankles O's Mora

Third baseman getting tired of losing, teammates who don't care

By Dan Connolly

Sun

Staff

Originally published September 17, 2006

Third baseman Melvin Mora recoiled in the far corner of the Orioles' clubhouse before a recent game.

He wasn't flitting about, no longer being the silly, goofy effervescent Mora that has been standard issue during much of his time in Baltimore.

No, on this day he was the introspective, tortured, moping Mora that occasionally emerges. It's September, after all. Another painful, losing September.

And Mora, one of the few in the room who has played in the postseason, wondered if this team will ever win. Or if it wants to. As usual, he sugarcoated nothing.

"I think people here have taken the losing mentality," Mora said. "I don't like it when people think, 'OK, we'll go home. We played a good year or whatever.' It's frustrating when you see guys like the Yankees come to town and play for something and you are going nowhere. ... That for me is not baseball."

Mora said he listened in disgust as one teammate made offseason plans back in July. He said there's a lack of appropriate leadership on the club and he's afraid the younger guys will become nonchalant or negative, a potential epidemic throughout the organization, management included.

"Things need to change here. Big changes," Mora said. "The Orioles can carry on, but people have to understand, I get [ticked]. I get [ticked] when I go home. My wife says, 'Relax.' How are you going to relax when you go to the ballpark for no reason?"

Yes, frustration is speaking. Mora, who made the playoffs with the New York Mets in his 1999 rookie year, has suffered through more terrible Septembers than any other Oriole. Since he arrived in 2000, the club is 70-117-2 in baseball's final full month. That's a woeful .370 winning percentage.

In those six years, only once has the club posted a positive ending - 19-13 in 2004. But Lee Mazzilli's club lost 12 of 14 to end August that year before his lone successful September.

"I don't think the fans get used to [losing], I think the fans get mad," Mora said. "But I think the people here [do]. I see people [that when] we win the game but ... are 20 games behind ... they act like we win the World Series. They want to play some music, they want to play around. Hello? We are 21 behind.

"But they say, 'We won the game.' [Forget] that, I don't care. ... We don't want to give up in September, but I don't want to be playing no music. I want to play music when we go to the playoffs."

Orioles manager Sam Perlozzo, ever the optimist, stresses that the club hasn't given up despite mounting losses. He lauded several players for that last week.

"The one thing we've got to be able to take with us is that we played the game hard and had heart the whole time," Perlozzo told a group of position players. "We've got to go home that way. You can't leave this place thinking you didn't do that. Forget the win-loss record. Let's go home saying we gave it everything we've got every day."

Club vice president Jim Duquette said he hasn't picked up on a defeatist vibe within the clubhouse.

"Losing in general can wear on guys," Duquette said. "I think for the vast majority of players on this club there's not an acceptance of losing. Our job is to find out if there is a player or two who has accepted it. And, if there is, to have them change uniforms. It's not easy to find out, but that's one thing you have to eliminate."

Most veteran Orioles dismissed an inherent losing attitude.

"People care. Everybody cares in here," shortstop Miguel Tejada said. "Nobody wants to be a loser. Nobody likes to lose."

Pitcher Rodrigo Lopez added: "When we start in spring training we have a competitive mind-set. We don't think this is going to happen again in September, that doesn't cross our minds. I don't think it can be explained. I think if we knew how to fix it, we already would have fixed it."

There are theories for the poor Septembers, of course. The most obvious is the schedule. Each September, the Orioles play the sport's financial powerbrokers, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, usually a minimum of six times each. This month, they've also had to face the Los Angeles Angels, Oakland Athletics, Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins.

"Just look at the teams. How the heck in 2002 were we going to compete with the Yankees? I mean, that's just the fact of it," second baseman Brian Roberts said. "There's no other reason except the fact that we haven't had a team good enough. We're trying to head in that direction, but we are still not there, obviously."

Add in the Orioles' glaring lack of depth through much of the past decade. By the time September rolls around, the best Orioles are gassed from constant play, rookies are reeling from overexposure and the farm system has no reinforcements left.

"That's been true in the past," designated hitter Jay Gibbons said. "Our farm system has gotten better. But we have needed all these guys in June. We called up all these young guys early and so now you have a lot of young guys who have never played in September. They are in uncharted territory. I've been there and I know it is tiring."

First baseman Kevin Millar , who was critical of the Orioles' clubhouse attitude earlier this season, said he believes the team has "turned the corner" in the past few weeks. Now, he said it's up to the front office to fill the club's holes this winter.

"When you want to play is in October," said Millar, who last missed the playoffs in 2002. "And we are a little short. Have we quit? No. We are just a little short."

Tejada, Gibbons, even Duquette, echoed those sentiments.

"We can win. They've just got to believe," Tejada said. "And they have to bring in some more players here."

It's a leap of faith, one that has grown tiresome for fans and some players, including the most tenured Oriole. For the line between September swoons and surrenders blurs with each losing season.

[metirish]

From an article I read about the Dodger game last night.

] Kent hit two doubles, giving him 499 in his career and tying him for 45th place on baseball's career list with Rusty Staub.