All-time favorite non-Mets

[Guest cooby]

Mine is Tony Pena. I named my son after him

[Guest Edgy DC]

I hate Helton.

And all you Helton fans? Hate you. Hate.

[MFS62]

I grew up a Craig Nettles fan oddly enough. Go ahead and flog me now!![/quote:865tqzeq]

Flogging is too good for you.

Later

[dgwphotography]

Rod Carew
Tony Gwynn
Johnny Bench
Mike Schmidt

[metirish]

I anxiously await for Rogers favourite non Mets

[HahnSolo]

Maybe because he looked funny and ran funny, but I always had a soft spot for Ron Cey.

[metirish]

Ralph Kiner

[soupcan]

Garvey? Ouch.[/quote:2g1m2rip]


Yeah - I spent a lot of time in L.A. as a kid and also did 2 years of high school out there. Was a fan of those late '70s Dodger teams. Liked 'em all really but Garvey stood out.

Also when I was in high school (North Hollywood High) I ran in the 'Steve Garvey 10K'. He was at the finish line and high fived everybody that crossed the finish line. Got an autographed t-shirt with his likeness on it.

[Frayed Knot]

Was it really his likeness or one of the Bob's Big Boy statue? ... because they're really kind of the same you know.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Mine is Tony Pena. I named my son after him[/quote:12o9r3j4]

I always thought you were a big Carlos Baerga fan.

[MFS62]

Mine is Tony Pena. I named my son after him[/quote:hgqllykm]

I always thought you were a big Carlos Baerga fan.[/quote:hgqllykm]
Stop trying to be logical.

Later

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

During my childhood, when I looked up to baseball players as my heroes, it was Willie Mays and Brooks Robinson that loomed large. Over the years I matured and realized that my true heros were my parents, but I always pulled for Kirby Puckett, Tony Gwynn, Nolan Ryan, Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank White.

[Guest themetfairy]

Um, Carlos Baerga is not a non-Met.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

All-time: Will Clark, Joe Carter, Cal Ripken Jr, Andre Dawson, Barry Bonds, Kirby Puckett.

Active: Ken Griffey Jr, Vlad Guerrero, Nick Markakis.

[Guest themetfairy]

3D! How have you been, Man?

[Guest The Second Spitter]

Still on holidays, believe or not. I haven't had access to my laptop for the last month and posting from an iPhone is no fun.

[Piggiestomatoes]

Only saw him later in his career but Yaz was my favorite non-Met growing up. I've also been very fond of Tony Perez and Carlton Fisk. I still have no issue with Mark McGuire (they were supplements, damnit!).

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Um, Carlos Baerga is not a non-Met.

[Frayed Knot]

Only saw him later in his career but Yaz was my favorite non-Met growing up. I've also been very fond of Tony Perez and Carlton Fisk. I still have no issue with Mark McGuire (they were supplements, damnit!).

[Guest attgig]

living in baltimore, I'm really loving all the YOUNG o's. Markakis, Jones, Reimold, Weiters, Pie, Guthrie, and am waiting for the younger pitchers to start making their mark. Also, Brian Roberts is another guy that i like

Other current non-mets i like, pujols, bartlett, Choo, vlad.

other past non-mets i've rooted for... schilling, puckett, van slyke, sax, venezuela

[Guest Edgy DC]

Are you rooting for Schilling for Senate?

[MFS62]

Yikes! I forgot to list two of my Upper Manhattan homeys - Manny and Carew.

Later

[Chad ochoseis]

Mark Fidrych. Wasn't he everyone's favorite non-Met in 1976?

Also Freddie Patek, because I'm short, too.

[metirish]

Are you rooting for Schilling for Senate?[/quote:3gtc7utd]

Not one but surprising that he is thinking about running for Kennedy's seat......I'm pretty sure I liked Schilling at one point but can't remember when or why

[Guest Edgy DC]

Perhaps because he started and won the Game Seven that ended the Yankees' run forever.

[metirish]

Perhaps because he started and won the Game Seven that ended the Yankees' run forever.[/quote:1zysrfbu]

yes of course , that is it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I take it back. He started, but the Diamondbacks won (and, more importantly the Yankees lost), in the ninth, with Johnson pitching.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Best thing about that game is that it featured four of the best pitchers of the generation (Clemens, Rivera, Schilling, and Johnson) in a game seven, plus two pitchers who are on nobody's list of the best pitchers of the generation, but are simply the most inescapable pitchers of the generation --- Miguel Batista and Mike Stanton.

[Theoldmole]

This is my new all-time favorite non-Met.

From Poetry Magazine:

Para Rumbiar
Robert Creeley in the outfield.

by Fernando Perez

I write from Caracas, the murder capital of the world, where I�ve been employed by the Leones to score runs and prevent balls from falling in the outfield. At the ankles of the �vila Mountain amongst a patch of dusky high-rises, the downtown grounds of el Estadio Universitario packed beyond capacity are ripe for a full-bodied poem. A mere pitching change is an occasion �para rumbiar,� and the purse-lipped riot squad is always on the move with their spanking machetes swinging from their hips. The game isn�t paced necessarily by innings or score. It�s marked by the pulsating bass drums of the samba band that trail bright, scantily-clad, head-dressed goddesses strutting about the mezzanine. The young fireworks crew stand mere feet from flares that don�t always set out vertically, sometimes landing in the outfield still aflame. �The wave� includes heaving drinks into the sky.

In earning my stripes as a professional baseball player I�ve been through many cities and have stared out of hotel windows all over the Americas. Ball players are mercenaries, taking assignments indiscriminately. Throughout the minor leagues you�ll find yourself slouched on a bus, watching small towns roll by matter-of-factly like stock market tickers, on your back in a new nondescript room, or �shopping for images� (Allen Ginsberg) in a Wal-Mart, hunched over a cart in no rush.

Like poetry, baseball is a kind of counter culture. The (optional) isolation from the outside world (which I often opt for); the idleness about which�and out of which�so many poems are written or sung: I see this state of mind as a blessing. Sometimes, in fact, when I haven�t turned on a television or touched a newspaper for months, freed from the corporate bombast, poetry is the only dialect I recognize.

Long ago Robert Creeley confirmed my suspicion that words strung even sparingly together can be as aurally powerful as anything else we have. He has been my most important poet, because I can take him anywhere, like oranges�even reduced to nothing in both physical and mental exhaustion, nauseous and half asleep bussing from a red-eye.

One of my first managers always preached separation from the game for the sake of our own health, and for the sake of our performance. The game can be maddening, and we ought to corner ourselves in this trade only so far. I�m in love with baseball, but eventually my prime will end, and she�ll slowly break my heart. Baseball has remained remarkably impervious to modernity, but is, like any modern industry, highly alienating. I turn to poetry because it is less susceptible to circumstance. I�m not especially touched when a poet deals with a ball game; I�m not especially interested in having one world endear itself to the other. Right now I need them apart, right now I�m after displacement, contrast. The thick wilderness of, say, late Ashbery can wrangle with the narrowness of competition.

[Guest themetfairy]

Mark Fidrych. Wasn't he everyone's favorite non-Met in 1976?

Also Freddie Patek, because I'm short, too.[/quote:13ft9lbj]

I did love Fidrych. And Patek, for the same reason.