UMDB Posts of the Week

[Benjamin Grimm]

Very strange, huh?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

He could have had his disturbing experience while Alvarado was with another team.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Darylea Tickets is a great name for a poster. Get that one over here.

[A Boy Named Seo]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: What's going on here? ]Ray-Missouri October 20, 2007 I had a very upseting and emotionally disturbing experience with Luis Alvarado as a young fan. I can't help but think that I am not alone in this experience. Anyone care to comment? Dairylea Tickets October 28, 2007 I had a positive one - I got his autograph outside the stadium. He signed for a few of us and walked off with Hendu Ray-Missouri December 6, 2007 Let me repeat myself. I had a very disturbing experience with Luis Alvarado and I am also wanting to know if anyone can tell me the cause of his death.

Asking how he died took that contribution from strange to creepy for me. I googled for a sec and found no mention of how he actually died. Who would ask that in that manner unless you're wondering if someone killed him or he killed himself?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Maybe the disturbing experience involved exposure to some kind of disease?

[Guest Edgy DC]

My thought --- and let me state right out that there's little crecibility to this thought --- was that the very disturbing encounter (henceforth "VDE") was of a sexual nature and the poster was curious to find out if he died of a sexually transmitted disease.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Plausible conjecture.

[soupcan]

I was thinking child molestation.

Maybe the guy just wanted him dead for what he may have done? Maybe he thought someone else might've as well?

[A Boy Named Seo]

My brain was thinking along with Soup's.

[HahnSolo]

My first thought is that maybe Ray-Missouri himself is the cause of death. Hmm.

[Guest AG/DC]

Sweet Division:

DON FLORENCE
Greg
February 3, 2008
Don is my favorte step dad I have ever had. He is very cool. I want to say thanks to him because I love my step dad if he did not hurt his arm he would still be playing baseball and thanks for marrying my mom. And thanks for letting me get the ps3.

Funny Division:

MACKEY SASSER
kevin
February 3, 2008
Sasser was sitting in the dugout during a game. He removed a wad of tobacco the size of his fist from his mouth. He then removed a wad of chewed up gum that apparently he had stuck hamster-like in his other cheek and began to wind the gum around the chaw of tobacco. When he was done wrapping the gum around this entire glop and chunk of tobacco he put the mess back in his gob and began to chew with a bliss-like expression on his face.

Hater Division:

HEATH BELL
GR86
February 12, 2008
Chronic malcontent who hated Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson simply because Peterson wasn't willing to do it Heath's way or the highway (along with Peterson getting on Bell about his weight problems), not the other way around. His claims on WFAN were absolutely ludicrous. People think Aaron Heilman is so bad because he complains about being a reliever or Billy Wagner is so bad for criticizing the team. They're nothing compared to Heath Bell. The guy spreads all sorts of crazy rumors about the people he doesn't like. He'll get under the skin of the Padres and their coaching staff too and get dealt, you watch and mark my words.

Bizzarro Division:

CHUCK CARR
Aaron
February 3, 2008
I knew him in his days of living in Tucson, AZ. I hung out at his house, played RBI on Nintendo, and waited for his wife or girlfriend to come home and bring me laffy taffy* haha! I was just thinking about him for some strange reason. He was very well respected and I never even saw him as a "ball player."

*Wikipedia:

"Laffy Taffy" is a song by the Atlanta based hip-hop group D4L, which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 2006. ... There has been some debate regarding the meaning of the phrase "Laffy Taffy". Many understand the term to mean a woman's labia minora because of its resemblance to "stretched out taffy". It is a phrase commonly used by men who attend strip clubs. Women with larger labia minora lips are said to have "laffy taffy". The song's music video is set in a strip club.

[Guest AG/DC]

Cool. Wichita Wingnuts manager Kash Beauchamp posted.

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/profile.php?PlayerCode=0196&tabno=7

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Looks like Jason Roach won the popular lookup contest today by sharing a name with an Iraq war vet who killed his wife's lover in a jealous rage.

[Benjamin Grimm]

One thing I get a kick out of is when old minor leaguers show up posting memories of their teammates.

A bunch of such memories have been posted recently:

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/memrecent.php?tabno=3

[soupcan]

I wonder how Tim Bishop died.

[Guest themetfairy]

soupcan wrote: I wonder how Tim Bishop died.

Car accident

[soupcan]

Sad.

[Guest AG/DC]

I don't remember Tim Bishop. Seems a convoluted story, but Buster at least gets a lot of facts here for posterity.

A Death In the Minors Leads Mets To Dismiss 3

By BUSTER OLNEY

Published: June 23, 1997

On April 19, the Mets organization was stunned to learn that Tim Bishop, a 20-year-old outfielder on its Class A team in Columbia, S.C., had been killed late the previous night in a car accident. Now, two months later, the Mets have dismissed the manager and two coaches of the Columbia team because, according to a high-ranking official in the Mets' front office, the three men did not appropriately address whether players had been drinking on the team bus before the accident occurred.

Last Wednesday, the Mets asked for, and received, the resignations of the manager of the Capital City Bombers, Doug Mansolino; the pitching coach, Dave Jorn, and another coach, Tim Leiper. Steve Phillips, the Mets' assistant general manager, who had traveled to Columbia to ask for the resignations, would not offer specific reasons for the dismissals, calling them ''a confidential, internal matter.''

However, a highly ranked club official confirmed that the Mets did not feel the coaching staff had thoroughly investigated the drinking issue. Rather, the Mets official said, the Columbia manager and coaches readily accepted the players' insistence that alcohol had not been consumed on the bus.

For the Mets, who were concerned by a county coroner's autopsy report that showed the victim's blood-alcohol level was fairly high, this was not good enough. And now, the three men are gone from the organization.

The 40-year-old Mansolino, who was in his first year as a manager in the Mets' farm system and had been a major league coach for the Chicago White Sox, could not be reached for comment. Neither could the 30-year-old Leiper, who was starting his second season as a Mets minor league coach. The 42-year-old Jorn, who was in his second tour of duty as the Capital City pitching coach, was reached at his home in Illinois but declined to comment.

''That's something between myself and the organization,'' he said. ''I'm not going to comment on anything.''

The accident that ultimately led to the dismissals killed Bishop, who had turned down a football scholarship from Indiana University to sign with the Mets as a 57th-round draft pick in 1994.

Last year, Bishop hit .325 for the Class A team in Kingsport, Tenn., and was an Appalachian League All-Star. He had subsequently moved up the ladder to Columbia, and on April 18 he and his teammates were scheduled to play a South Atlantic League game against the Hagerstown Suns, a Toronto Blue Jays farm team, in Hagerstown, Md.

However, the game was called off because of poor weather, and about noon the Capital City players were on the team bus for a nine-hour drive back to South Carolina.

After stopping for a meal along the way, the team arrived at its home ball park in Columbia about 10:30 P.M. After the players stored equipment in the clubhouse, they departed for their homes.

According to accounts provided by the Mets and the police after the accident, Bishop and his teammate Randy Vickers left the ball park in Bishop's car, with Bishop driving.

Shortly before 11 P.M., a front tire blew out on the car at the Colonial Life Boulevard interchange on Interstate 126 and the vehicle spun around and stopped in a highway passing lane.

Bishop and Vickers got out of the vehicle, but Bishop returned to the car to put on its hazard lights. But as he attempted to do so, the vehicle was struck by another car. The impact sent Bishop over the median onto the opposite side of the highway, where he was struck and killed by another vehicle. Bishop was declared dead at the scene from head trauma and the police filed no charges against the drivers of the other vehicles.

Frank Barron, the Richland County coroner, said Bishop's blood-alcohol level tested at 0.096 percent, 0.004 percent below the South Carolina limit for legal intoxication. Barron said Bishop's urine-alcohol level was higher than that, indicating that his blood-alcohol level was descending at the time of his death. Bishop, the coroner said, was ''certainly'' drinking before he died.

Vickers, whose alcohol level was not tested after the accident, maintained that Bishop had not been drinking. In an article published in The State, a newspaper in Columbia, Vickers said that he had spent the entire day with Bishop and that the only beverage he had seen Bishop consume was a soft drink.

In the article, Vickers noted that team policy bans drinking on the team bus. Phillips said yesterday that the Mets have a policy against drinking on team buses at all minor league levels and that Class AAA, the highest level and the one in which minor leaguers are usually above the legal drinking age of 21, ''is the only level where there's beer in the clubhouse.''

Two days after Bishop died, Capital City retired his uniform number and held a moment of silence during a doubleheader in Columbia.

One of the players who took part in the observance was Bishop's teammate Ryan Jaroncyk, the Mets' No. 1 draft pick in 1995. And just a month later, Jaroncyk surprised the Capital City team and the Mets by quitting baseball, saying he never liked the sport that much.

Bishop was buried in his hometown, Valparaiso, Ind., on April 23. A month later, his parents and his two sisters attended a Capital City game in Columbia.

In a prepared statement during the visit, Bishop's mother, Mary Lou, said:

''This is our first trip down here and it's been a bittersweet trip. This has been a tragic loss for our family. Good luck for the rest of the season and when you look to left field, our angel, Tim Bishop, is out there and behind all you Bombers. God bless you all.''

Yesterday, Phillips said the family had been told that the manager and two coaches had been dismissed.

The new manager in Columbia is John Stephenson, a former Met catcher who had been the team's roving catching instructor in the minors. The new pitching coach is Buzz Capra, a former Met reliever. The other new coach is Juan Lopez, who had been with the Mets' Class A Pittsfield, Mass., team. And the Capital City Bombers are now 1-3 in the second half of the season, after a first half that is painful for the entire Mets organization to recall.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Dick Rusteck's wife checking in, nice of her. Rusteck's only Mets and Major League win was a complete-game shutout of the Rds on the day I was born.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Back in 2006, I drove through that town in Alaska that she mentions.

[Guest AG/DC]

]Richard Breese: Chris April 2, 2008 I think he was a wonderful player. He gave it his all and we all think he should have made it to the pros.

Or maybe not: Richard Breese.

As uncompelling as his stats are, the sad thing is the regard that the major leagues are the only "pros" there are.

Richard Breese was a pro. More pro than I'll ever be.

[seawolf17]

Tim Bishop?

[Guest AG/DC]

Looks older than 20.

At least one Tim Bishop got to play for New York.

[Benjamin Grimm]

A former Mets farmhand has shared a nice memory of Sheriff Robinson

I didn't realize it until I just looked it up, but Sheriff is dead at the present time. I must missed news of his death six years ago.

[Guest AG/DC]

Pretty cool that Jeremy is a 1963 Quincy Jet. That's a pretty obscure thing to be, but you have a memory from him and a memory of him:

http://leaptoad.com/mets/profile.php?PlayerCode=3T57&tabno=7

[Benjamin Grimm]

Jeremy also returned the favor and left a memory of Don Engbers.

They both posted e-mail addresses. I wonder if a couple of old farmhands would be interested in visiting with us?