YOUR Mets Bookshelf

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Current infielder Daniel Murphy shares his thoughts on his young career with the Mets and the difficulties of playing in New York, as well as describing the best game of his young career.

I'm not sure you can say Murph's career is all that young, much less saying it twice.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, I certainly caught that, but there's just so much. The implication that their 2000 World Series followed immediately after two last-place finishes, for instance.

Maybe Mr. Phi Beta Kappa should proof his own releases. And he's bragging on going to the top technical school in the country and bagging a humanities degree.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I think I've told this story before but I worked for months fixing every little thing in my crappy Mets book but was given like 5 minutes to look over the back-cover blurb (and responded with a million objections too late). It is probably the worst written thing ever associated with me.

Similarly, the PR people for the book wrote and distributed press notes about the book that I never saw or would have authorized; and only realized had been distributed after getting tripped up by the same question twice in separate live interviews.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Youse are all finding things I didn't even notice because the screw-up I picked up on was, I thought, so glaring, so key, I could barely read the rest of the piece once I noticed what I noticed.

[G-Fafif]

I wrote a new foreword to a rereleased book for the same publisher to which JCL refers. One of the items in the book regarded Joe Pignatano hitting into a triple play in the last game of the 1962 season. In the hands of whoever is responsible for book jacket copy (that I didn't see until published) it became "they hit a triple in their last game!" or some such construct that omitted "play".

So while I'm not sure what we're trying to ferret out in that description, something tells me it will have nothing to do with the actual book.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Readers are invited to a book reading/signing but are never told where to go. (In the very last sentence, a phone number is provided so that readers can call and reserve a seat or a book and presumably, to find out where the hell they should go if they wanna get to the book signing).

[G-Fafif]

That would be excellent information to have. More than a good catch -- one a roomful of people paid to read things closely missed.

[batmagadanleadoff]

G-Fafif wrote: I wrote a new foreword to a rereleased book for the same publisher to which JCL refers. One of the items in the book regarded Joe Pignatano hitting into a triple play in the last game of the 1962 season. In the hands of whoever is responsible for book jacket copy (that I didn't see until published) it became "they hit a triple in their last game!" or some such construct that omitted "play". So while I'm not sure what we're trying to ferret out in that description, something tells me it will have nothing to do with the actual book.

The Paskin book?

[G-Fafif]

Yup.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Long excerpts from the very soon to be released Gil Hodges book here.



Here's an excerpt from the excerpt:

Providence provided one. Mets left fielder Cleon Jones was at bat when he was hit in the foot by a curveball in the dirt. But home plate umpire Lou DiMuro didn't think the ball had struck Jones. With their team desperate for base runners, most hitters would have instinctively dropped their bat and head toward first base. Yet, despite a Series batting average less than his weight -- and the on-deck hitter, Donn Clendenon, having already hit two homers in the Series -- Jones wanted to hit. So it was left to Clendenon to argue with DiMuro, to no avail. After striking Cleon Jones's shoe, the ball improbably traveled over fifty feet, bouncing into the Mets' dugout. What occurred there, after the ball bounced in but before Hodges stepped out with a shoe-polish-streaked ball in his hand, remains one of New York City's great twentieth-century mysteries. Ron Swoboda didn't see what happened, but decades later he could still recall watching Hodges play cribbage and how only a few seconds would pass from the time Hodges was dealt his cards until he determined which to keep, and which to throw back. Such skills were easily transferable to any and all fast-moving developments in the dugout. "Whatever happened," Swoboda said, "happened very quickly." Earl Weaver remembers otherwise. The Baltimore manager told me, "They had time to do anything they wanted with the ball." Three things are certain. First, immediately after the game, no less an authority than legendary Yankee manager Casey Stengel made it known that ever since the 1957 World Series between the Milwaukee Braves and the Yankees, when a Milwaukee player named Nippy Jones was awarded first after convincing the umpire that the polish on the ball had come from his shoe (which in turn led to a championship for the Braves), Stengel always kept a few shoe-polish-streaked balls close at hand in the dugout for just such occasions. In addition, before the fifth game of the 1969 World Series, as he did before every game, Nick Torman, the Met clubhouse man, applied shoe polish to all the Mets' game shoes. For this, and for all his hard work during the season, the players would take the unusual step of awarding him a full share of their World Series winnings. But Hodges's reputation for integrity would prove to be the most crucial certainty that day. Hodges treated umpires with respect. As a player, he held the distinction of never having been thrown out of a game. As a manager, Hodges would argue a call only if he was sure he was right. The umpires, in turn, respected Hodges. Tom Gorman, a National League umpire for a quarter of a century wrote, "Gil Hodges [was] as good a man as you'll find in a long day's march." Contemporaneous newspaper accounts reported that the ball rolled into the hands of Mets catcher Jerry Grote, who flipped the ball to Hodges as he was stepping out of the dugout. When Hodges reached home plate, he handed the ball to DiMuro and said, "Lou, the ball hit him." Hodges didn't yell or scream. He didn't have to. It was all measured and calculated -- even the modulation in his deep voice. But despite Hodges's quiet demeanor, there was "a certain menace" in his physical prowess that made you wonder "what he would do if he got going," said New York Times reporter George Vescey. Decades later, Vescey, who was at the game, told me, "Hodges had DiMuro hypnotized." DiMuro looked at the ball. Then he looked at Hodges. Then he reversed his call. [fimg=444]http://images.thepostgame.com/sites/default/files/Gil-Hodges-A-Hall-Of-Fame-Life_179153811.jpg[/fimg] Weaver immediately bounded out of the Orioles' dugout to ask DiMuro if he had kept his eye on the ball the entire time it was in the Mets' dugout. The question implied that shady shoe-polish doings must have occurred there. But Weaver didn't get too excited. The day before, he had become the first manager in thirty-four years to be tossed out of a World Series game, and he didn't want that happening again. Weaver couldn't bring himself to strenuously argue against a call he knew was correct. After the game, Weaver acknowledged that everyone at Shea -- except DiMuro -- saw the ball hit Jones. But Hodges had done much more than just supply the Mets with a base runner. Five years before, a little-known act of kindness on his part had helped bring the next batter to the Mets.

[batmagadanleadoff]

That picture can't be from the World Series. The MLB anniversary patch ain't there even though it should be. Kenny Singleton is there even though he shouldn't be. The crowd itself doesn't look World Seriesish because if it did, all those little kids wouldn't be there in the front rows behind the dugout. Ain't that ain't Lou Dimuro because if he was, he'd have one of those big ol' clunky AL ump chest protectors.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The players, the umpire, and the crowd don't seem to be dressed for October.

[G-Fafif]

Nice of Ken Singleton, from the 1970-71 Mets, to drop by the 1969 World Series.

That image doesn't appear in the book (or certainly not in the part of the book that's excerpted here).

[batmagadanleadoff]

G-Fafif wrote: That would be excellent information to have. More than a good catch -- one a roomful of people paid to read things closely missed.

Looks like you cleared up that snafu.

http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2015/03/01/meet-the-mets-authors/

[batmagadanleadoff]

Interview with Mort Zachter (below) the author of the recently released Gil Hodges book. Zachter himself experienced a pleasant and life altering reversal of fortunes when, in his mid 30's, he suddenly discovered that he was worth millions of dollars. Zachter then retired from his CPA job to write full-time.

[fimg=222]http://images.thepostgame.com/sites/default/files/Gil-Hodges-Mort-Zachter.jpeg[/fimg]

LA Observed: Your first book, Dough, was a memoir about how your uncles accumulated a fortune that allowed you to leave your accounting job and pursue a writing career. Do you have any regrets about becoming a full-time writer? Mort Zachter: No regrets. When I'm writing, I'm in heaven. I never felt that way when I was a CPA. LAO: What compelled you to follow Dough with a biography of Gil Hodges? MZ: When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, Hodges was my childhood hero. He was also one of the most popular baseball players of his era. But because he was quiet and self-effacing, died young at 47, and didn't curse at umpires or gamble on baseball, he's been forgotten. I hope to shine a light on a mensch who is unknown to most people under forty. LAO: Hodges started as a catcher, but moved to first base when Roy Campanella joined the Dodgers. How was Hodges able to make that transition so smoothly, becoming one the best defensive first basemen of his era? MZ: Hodges was a great, and graceful, athlete. He played on the basketball, football, baseball, and track teams in college. Before that, in high school, he was a shortstop, so he brought a middle infielder's mind-set to first base. LAO: Why did Hodges, a right-handed power hitter, struggle when the Dodgers moved to L.A. and played in the Coliseum with that short porch in left? MZ: That season, Hodges especially tried to pull everything to left, even outside pitches, and it ruined his swing. It didn't help that he missed his family, who were still living back in Brooklyn, or that his father, whom he was very close to, had recently died. LAO: Hodges brought the Mets their first World Series title, but you point out that, under his watch, Amos Otis and Nolan Ryan were traded away. Did Hodges not see the potential of both Otis and Ryan - or did he think that trading them improved the Mets? MZ: After the Mets won the 1969 World Series, Hodges wasn't trading his centerfielder, Tommie Agee, a Gold Glove winner. This left no logical starting spot for Amos Otis, and they traded him for their greatest need, a third baseman. Hodges saw Ryan's potential. But two years after the Otis trade, the Mets, loaded with starting pitching, were in desperate need of a third baseman since Joe Foy (the player acquired for Otis) had not worked out, and Jim Fregosi, the player they traded for Ryan, had been one of the best infielders in baseball. Also, Ryan, who grew up in a small town in Texas, was not comfortable living in New York, and had requested a trade. LAO: Was Hodges a better manager or a better player? How does he rank among all-time Dodger first basemen? MZ: From what his players told me, I think Hodges was an even better manager than he was a player. And that says a lot. At the end of his last full season as a player (1962), his 370 home runs were tenth on the all-time list. At the time, only one other right-handed hitter in baseball history (Jimmy Foxx) had hit more. Hodges won three Gold Gloves, and would have won more had the award been established before his last three seasons as an everyday player. Hodges had more home runs and RBI's than any other first baseman in Dodgers history. LAO: Does Hodges belong in the Hall of Fame? If so, what is the most compelling argument for inclusion? And, why do you think he hasn't been voted in for all these years? MZ: Absolutely, he belongs in the Hall of Fame. The rules state that the veterans committee should consider a candidate based upon their "overall contribution" to the game. That means objectively considering both a candidate's playing and managerial careers. Hodges hit more home runs in his playing career than anyone else who also managed a World Series winning team. Every single player who had at least 300 home runs (the equivalent of 500 today) at the end of the 1962 season is in the HOF -- except Hodges. During his 15 years on the baseball writers' ballot [for the HOF], Hodges received more votes than anyone else not subsequently elected. But by the time he was up for consideration by the veterans committee, most of his peers on the Brooklyn Dodgers were gone, and he had no one with cachet lobbying for him. LAO: What is your next writing project and/or book project? MZ: I'm going to write a travel blog. It's time to get up from my desk and see the world.

http://www.laobserved.com/intell/2015/03/author_interview_mort_zachter.php

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Baker’s Million
By ANNE MENDELSON
Published: November 25, 2007

Mort Zachter’s small, wry memoir suggests that with the right sort of talent a man can not only rob and ill-treat his nearest and dearest, but also convince them it’s his just prerogative. The theater in which Zachter’s uncle Harry Wolk spent 40 years exercising this gift was an East Village fixture known to the family as “the Store” and to the general public as the Ninth Street Bakery. (Despite the name, the shelves were filled from wholesale sources of day-old merchandise.) Harry’s trustiest pawn was his older brother and partner, Joe, but the store and its 119-hour work week also demanded the part-time toil of their younger sister and her husband, Zachter’s parents, whose pay was “whatever leftover bread, cake or cookies” they could lug back to a shabby Brooklyn tenement via subway and shank’s mare. Zachter’s view of the Little Business That Could and its four penny-scrimping engine stokers shatters one August day in 1994 when a phone call from a broker looking for “Mr. Zachter” reveals that his surviving uncle, Harry, now adrift in terminal dementia, had somehow amassed several million dollars in stocks and bonds. “Dough” follows Mort Zachter’s attempts to discover the story behind this bombshell. It proves as resistant to tidying as the layers of schmutz propping up the walls of Harry and Joe’s rent-subsidized Mitchell-Lama bachelor pad. All the grown-ups were in on the secret, but they managed to shut out Mort until he accidentally stumbled on it at the age of 36. Apparently, his mother had enough sanity and resolve to keep him from serfdom at the store, but at the cost of leaving him in the dark about the money and the choices it might have provided him, as his uncles’ eventual heir. Sifting through the Mitchell-Lama midden, Zachter arrives at still more incomprehensible truths about his elders’ willing acceptance of penury. Because “he’s the boss, and I’m the horse,” pious Uncle Joe abandoned life away from the cash register except for moments snatched to attend shul on Saturday mornings. And Zachter’s parents managed to talk themslves into a righteous pride in the fact that they’d never received a dime from Harry — or the store. Eventually, Zachter discovers that funny, personable Harry, the brains of the enterprise, seems to have used supposed pickup, delivery or bank-deposit duties as a cover for visits to prostitutes, dance halls and saloons. For Zachter, a struggling suburban accountant, these personal and fiscal revelations change everything — and yet nothing — about his memories of the family, the store and the Lower East Side of his youth, a neighborhood in which aging Orthodox congregations were yielding to rock clubs. In the end, the only score-settling he can accomplish is to break the family cycle of workaholism. It takes him six years, but he finally gives himself the leisure to sit down and recreate both his childhood world and his adult truth-seeking. The result is a memoir that is as miraculously loving and nonjudgmental as it is cleareyed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/books/review/Mendelson-t-1.html

[batmagadanleadoff]

Commentary on the new Alderson book, including rare insights into the gamesmanship Sandy engaged in to engineer the Beltran trade:

Book report: Sandy Alderson, 'Baseball Maverick'
March, 18, 2015
Mar 18
7:45
PM ET
By Adam Rubin | ESPNNewYork.com

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- A healthy percentage of New York Mets fans may get frustrated by "Baseball Maverick: How Sandy Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Revived the Mets" before opening the new book. Revived the Mets? After all, the organization has endured six straight losing seasons. Alderson has presided as general manager over the last four. Alderson noted he is not the author. It was penned by friend Steve Kettmann, a former A's beat writer. Alderson did grant Kettmann more than 100 interviews spanning four years. The book is still worth reading, despite its excessively positive tone. It traces Alderson's entire life. He collected incoming cables from U.S. embassies while working in the CIA's basement after college. He studied Vietnamese for months while in the military and stationed in California, and successfully lobbied to be sent to the Vietnam War when his orders instead had him shipping out to a safe perch in Japan. Passionate fans won't be surprised by much covering the Mets years. Yet there are enough details to satisfy: • Amid reports manager Terry Collins' job was safe last August, Collins' chance of returning actually was 51 percent, according to Alderson, who told Kettmann at the time: "Frankly, for me, that percentage has been eroding." Alderson was upset about a drop in walks. "We can't just throw up our hands and say, 'We're not being selective at the plate anymore, so much for that,'" Alderson said. A meeting with hitters saved Collins' job. • Alderson vocally expresses frustration during games. Regarding reliever Gonzalez Germen, Alderson blurted: "How do you go on the DL with an abscess?" • Kettmann writes that Alderson "accepted a nudge" from commissioner Bud Selig to take the Mets' job. "Fred Wilpon is an extremely close friend, and I told him, 'You'll never do better than Sandy Alderson,'" Selig said. • Alderson was naive about the impact of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. "Madoff wasn't even a topic of conversation in my interview for the Mets job," Alderson said. "I didn't raise it. Maybe I should have. The bottom line is, I would have taken the job anyway. It just added to the challenge." • Alderson approached Peter Greenberg, the agent for Jose Reyes, in June of Reyes' walk year, but the GM was rebuffed in extension talks. Alderson never made an official offer that winter, but informally indicated the Mets genuinely were prepared to bid $100 million. "The sad thing is if we sign Jose, we're just maintaining the status quo. We're not improving the team," Alderson told Kettmann at the time. • The Mets focused on the Brewers, Phillies, Red Sox, Rangers and Giants in trade talks involving Carlos Beltran in July 2011. Beltran initially only would consider Milwaukee and Philly. Alderson labeled it a "baited hook" that Beltran flew with Giants personnel to the All-Star Game that year, because the publicity increased pressure on Giants GM Brian Sabean. The Mets initially had insisted on Gary Brown, Brandon Belt or Zack Wheeler for Beltran. Belt was preferred. During a lull in Mets-Giants talks, Alderson presumed Sabean was talking to another team. So Alderson pretended to be interested in Hunter Pence. He called Astros GM Ed Wade to see if Pence was available. Told Pence likely would go untraded, Alderson concluded Sabean lacked leverage. Boston offered Chih-Hsien Chiang and Alex Wilson, plus one from a list of seven players, for Beltran. Texas and the Mets agreed on Joe Wieland and Robbie Ross, but Alderson wanted a third player. Alderson asked for Mike Olt or Rougned Odor. Alderson indicated inclusion of either would seal the deal. The Rangers balked. Texas was surprised by Beltran's trade to San Francisco because the Rangers thought they had a deal with Alderson involving Wieland, Ross and a different third player. • The Orioles "toyed" with the idea of giving up heralded Dylan Bundy for R.A. Dickey before the knuckleballer went to Toronto. The Mets wanted Cody Buckel from Texas, which the Rangers wouldn't do, and which Alderson admits would have been a bust. • Ruben Tejada is one of the few criticized. "Gradually you come to the conclusion that Tejada is just a placeholder," Alderson said. "He's not a long-term guy for us." • Alderson wanted to sign Robinson Cano. Alderson told one of Cano's agents: "Anything over $200 million, we're not there." When the agent didn't then dismiss the Mets, "that led me to believe something less than $200 million was feasible," Alderson said. • Alderson explained the "90 wins" hullabaloo from last spring training to Kettmann as sensationalism. Alderson had googled "winning culture" and read articles before spring training. Alderson then said to staff: "We shouldn't just try to be better. Let's have the mind-set that we're going to go out and win 90 games. When we wake up and look in the mirror, let's make our goal to play like we're trying to win 90 games." Regarding the tabloid reaction after the comment leaked, Alderson said: "It was misleading. ... It was really a challenge to change the mind-set."

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/98964/book-report-sandy-alderson-baseball-maverick

[batmagadanleadoff]

More from the Sandy book: Collins was this close to getting the axe:


New book claims lack of walks almost cost Mets manager Terry Collins his job

Justin Ferguson
Email RSS
March 19, 2015 1:03am EDT

A new book on Mets general manager Sandy Alderson claims manager Terry Collins was close to not coming back for the 2015 season. One big reason? His hitters weren't drawing enough walks. According to ESPNNewYork.com's Adam Rubin, Alderson was quoted in "Baseball Maverick," written by Steve Kettmann, as saying Collins' chances of returning to the Mets were "51 percent." Alderson was upset with a drop in walks during a sixth consecutive losing season, and the fourth during Alderson's time in charge of the front office. Alderson has preached patience at the plate for decades. "We can't just throw up our hands and say, 'We're not being selective at the plate anymore, so much for that,'" Alderson said in the book, per Rubin. Rubin said a meeting with the Mets' hitters "saved Collins' job." By season's end, New York had drawn 516 walks, eighth-most in MLB. Even with the improved plate discipline, the Mets reassigned interim hitting coach Lamar Johnson to the team's minor league system and hired former Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long to be the permanent hitting coach last October.

http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2015-03-19/sandy-alderson-terry-collins-job-fired-50-50-hitters-walks-new-book-baseball-maverick-new-york-mets

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't read too many baseball books anymore, but I may read this Sandy Alderson book.

[G-Fafif]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: That would be excellent information to have. More than a good catch -- one a roomful of people paid to read things closely missed. Looks like you cleared up that snafu. http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2015/03/01/meet-the-mets-authors/

This thread reminded me that sort of thing can be important.

[G-Fafif]

In the midst of the Hodges book. Whitey Lockman is "Lochman"; the Gowanus is "Gowanes"; and, most egregiously for those of us of a certain geography, Rockville Centre is "Rockville Center". That's not reflective of the Gil content, just discouraging.

[Edgy MD]

Interesting that the book alleges that Terry was on the hot seat over a lack of walks, but the Mets have hung on to Daniel Murphy — who reportedly openly resists the base-on-balls discipleship — throughout the Alderson era.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Looks like I'm going to try & get my copy of the Sandy book this evening at Foleys (18 bwest 33rd near 5th) where the writer and the subject are supposed to be in attendance from 5-7.

[Edgy MD]

Nice. Very jealous.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

So I got to say hello to Sandy and his writer, got a copy of the book and their sigs. Not a whole lot of people at the event but I was there early. I asked about whether Sandy was invited to join the Mets or installed there but didn't get a real satisfying answer. The writer asked me to "read between the lines" to get that story. Anout two pages into the introduction I learn SA was "nudged" by Selig to take the Mets job.

After I was signed for one of the publishing reps handed them a stack of books and told Sandy to sign one for Yo La Tengo. Sandy wasn't comfortable even spelling it and it was obvious he hadn't any idea what that was so I volunteered it, telling him, "this is a Mets thing, you should know this" Then I proceeded to tell a lame version of the YLT story leaving out the whole funny parts, but he laughed politely anyway. My account on this has since gone viral on the twitter. Sandy's a good guy.

[Edgy MD]

I just dialed up "Sandy" and "Yo la Tengo" on Twitter and man, I got me some serious porn.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Jeff Wilpon's a scumbag and I am shocked shocked shocked.
____________________


Pedro Martinez says in new book that Mets COO Jeff Wilpon urged him to pitch hurt
D.J. Short
May 2, 2015, 12:03 PM EDT

Tyler Kepner of the New York Times has some interesting teasers from Pedro Martinez’s new book, “Pedro,” which is set to be released on Monday. In one of them, Martinez claims that Mets COO Jeff Wilpon urged him to pitch hurt during his first season with the team in 2005. Martinez writes that his toe was hurt and that Manager Willie Randolph had told him he was done for the season. But, he said, Wilpon, now the Mets’ chief operating officer, wanted to sell tickets for a matchup against the star Marlins left-hander Dontrelle Willis. Martinez said he protested the order and offered to give back the rest of his contract. “While I’m the boss here, you’re going to have to do what I say,” Wilpon said, according to Martinez, who gave in and pitched. He lost the game, which drew 25,093 fans, and said the injury prolonged the toe problem. Other parts of his body broke down the next season, and Martinez was inactive for the Mets’ run to Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. “I couldn’t help but think about how when I was healthy in 2005, our team wasn’t that good,” Martinez writes. “But as my health declined, I was urged to pitch a meaningless game at the end of 2005 that wound up shortening my recovery time for 2006 and led me to a hospital where doctors performed a three-hour arthroscopic procedure to repair my shoulder.” The Mets were only on the fringes of contention in 2005, but they rode Martinez hard down the stretch despite his nagging injury. He threw 122 pitches in a shutout against the Braves leading up to this particular outing. While he ended up making the start against the Marlins, he was pulled after just 75 pitches and Willie Randolph said after the game that he was “really banged up.” It turned out to be his final start of the season. It’s worth noting that his toe issue dated back to 2004 during his time with the Red Sox and there had long been questions about how long his shoulder would hold up. Wilpon has denied Martinez’s claim and said that decisions on player health “have always been put in the hands of our baseball people.” He’s not going to get much benefit of the doubt from some Mets fans and others, but Martinez said in an interview that he puts more blame on himself than Wilpon and that he should have listened to his body.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/02/pedro-martinez-says-in-new-book-that-mets-coo-jeff-wilpon-urged-him-to-pitch-hurt/

_________________

[fimg=444]http://a1.nyt.com/assets/article/20150501-104932/images/foundation/logos/nyt-logo-185x26.svg[/fimg]

Pedro Martinez Tells His Story
MAY 1, 2015
By TYLER KEPNER

The transformation of Pedro Martinez — from ferocious competitor to baseball sage — is now complete. In the last few months, Martinez, the former star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and four other teams, has analyzed the postseason for TBS, been elected to the Hall of Fame on his first try, joined MLB Network and, this week, become an author. The intellect behind the fire is on regular display. “A lot of people, when they saw me competing, they never saw the human being behind it,” Martinez said in a recent interview. “I’m totally different than they think, and I don’t know if they took the time to notice that I was totally different when I wasn’t pitching. Some people now are starting to put the pieces together.” Martinez and his co-author, Michael Silverman of The Boston Herald, assemble those pieces for more than 300 pages in “Pedro,” published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and set to be released Tuesday. From his boyhood in the Dominican Republic — where he used the heads of his sister’s dolls for baseballs and lived in a home with no refrigerator, TV or closets — to his final game, for Philadelphia in the 2009 World Series, Martinez chronicles a wild ride. “I think it’s important for kids to understand that there’s going to be adversity, and that even if you’re not looking for adversity, it will show up,” Martinez said, explaining why he wrote the book. “It’s important that they see hope, and they see that they belong and there’s no need to believe anybody that tells them, ‘No, you can’t.’ ” When the Los Angeles Dodgers told Martinez he was too frail to start and traded him to Montreal, Martinez won a Cy Young Award. When the Expos could not afford him — and sent him to Boston, where he did not want to go — Martinez won two more. When the Red Sox waited too long to offer a three-year contract after their 2004 championship, the Mets gave Martinez four years. His first New York season was mostly successful — until, he said, Jeff Wilpon forced him to pitch in a game in late September when the Mets were far out of the race. Martinez writes that his toe was hurt and that Manager Willie Randolph had told him he was done for the season. But, he said, Wilpon, now the Mets’ chief operating officer, wanted to sell tickets for a matchup against the star Marlins left-hander Dontrelle Willis. Martinez said he protested the order and offered to give back the rest of his contract. “While I’m the boss here, you’re going to have to do what I say,” Wilpon said, according to Martinez, who gave in and pitched. He lost the game, which drew 25,093 fans, and said the injury prolonged the toe problem. Other parts of his body broke down the next season, and Martinez was inactive for the Mets’ run to Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. “I couldn’t help but think about how when I was healthy in 2005, our team wasn’t that good,” Martinez writes. “But as my health declined, I was urged to pitch a meaningless game at the end of 2005 that wound up shortening my recovery time for 2006 and led me to a hospital where doctors performed a three-hour arthroscopic procedure to repair my shoulder.” Continue reading the main story In a statement through a spokesman, Wilpon denied that he told Martinez to pitch hurt. “Pedro was always a great competitor and deserving of being in the Hall of Fame,” the statement said. “This particular excerpt in the book is false as those kinds of decisions have always been put in the hands of our baseball people.” Martinez said in the interview that he did not blame Wilpon. “When you’re going to get hurt, you’re going to get hurt,” he said. “I don’t have anybody to blame but probably myself for not listening to my body. I think I was brave to pitch games, but I think I took it to extremes that day.” Martinez was 32-23 with a 3.88 earned run average in 79 starts for the Mets over four seasons. He stressed that he enjoyed “every aspect” of playing for the Mets. “I was paid to pitch, so I went and did that,” he said. “I did it whenever you asked me, whenever I could. I wanted to do it for as long as I could, and that was my limit.” His actual limit, it turned out, came the next season with the Phillies, and ended, appropriately, at the new Yankee Stadium. Martinez had some of his most memorable moments in the Bronx, including the seventh game of the 2003 American League Championship Series, a few days after he had tossed the Yankees coach Don Zimmer to the ground in a brawl. Although Zimmer, then 73, tearfully took the blame, Martinez writes that the incident is his only regret. Fans sent him death threats, he writes, and it was not safe for his family to travel to New York for Game 7. “I don’t think I ever faced a game where my mind was so distressed by everything that was going on,” Martinez said in the interview. “The game, actually, got me more relaxed than anything, to get to the game and know that I was able to pitch and not have anything happen to me. After having bodyguards in the room and everywhere I walked — and my food had to be pretty much checked out by everybody — that was a sense of relief.” Of course, the Red Sox lost Game 7 after Manager Grady Little let Martinez give up the lead in the fateful eighth inning. That story is recounted in the book, a feisty memoir of a career that, at its peak — and without the help of performance-enhancing drugs, Martinez says — was among the best ever. “During those five or maybe six years, I didn’t feel intimidated by anybody regardless of what they were using or how they were doing it,” Martinez said. “I felt like I belonged and I could get you out.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/sports/baseball/pedro-martinez-tells-his-story.html?ref=sports&_r=1

[Edgy MD]

That's a serious accusation.

And it's also the type of demand that Pedro, of all people, should refuse with violent disregard.

[G-Fafif]

Regarding recent Met releases...

GIL HODGES

You know what’s coming at the end of Gil’s story. You want a different ending. You want something else to happen on April 2, 1972, yet you can’t have it. It can’t help but cast a pall over your reading. On the other hand, there’s the life Gil Hodges lived, and that’s something that’s wonderful to visit. Zachter is an able tour guide who commits to his self-appointed duty.

More here.

GAME OF MY LIFE

The book hits every era of plenty in Mets history and several of the eras of less-so. Each of the 25 players profiled (most of whom sat and talked to Garry, though a handful of chapters had to be cobbled from outside accounts) is given a respectful hearing and adds something to the overall theme. Our narrator presents himself as a lifelong Mets fan and gives the proceedings a light, loving touch.

More here.

BASEBALL MAVERICK

Is there, then, a straight line to be drawn from the 2015 standings back to what Kettmann wrote? Do we leave his book’s final, post-2014 ruminations convinced Alderson transformed the Mets into something permanently better than they were — something they couldn’t possibly have been without the Maverick’s visionary leadership? It’s hard to say that every time I watch something go right of late that I think I saw it coming because of a tidbit I read in Baseball Maverick. The book seems to take place in an adjacent if not exactly alternate universe to the one we’re used to seeing the Mets in.

More here.

[batmagadanleadoff]

This one came out a year ago. Never knew about it until today.



Also, thanks to a heads-up from Faith & Fear,

There's no denying that the seven year span between 1977-1983 was one of the darkest in New York Mets history. After all, it was during this time that the team failed to post a single winning season, traded away the most beloved Met of all-time, and took a back seat once again to their crosstown rivals, the Yankees (who were busy winning two World Series). But it was also a time in which quite a few colorful and memorable players donned the Mets uniform, while the Amazins slowly but surely began putting together the "pieces of the puzzle" that would eventually lead to a dramatic World Series win in 1986. 'The Seventh Year Stretch: New York Mets, 1977-1983' is the first-ever book to focus solely on this era of the team. Featuring all-new, exclusive interviews with players and those close to the team, the book is a fly-on-the-wall view of what was going on behind the scenes and on the field. Set up in the oral history format, 'The Seventh Year Stretch' reads like a documentary, but in book form.

[batmagadanleadoff]

[fimg=333:3slnkzv5]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61uacg67r2L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg[/fimg:3slnkzv5]

An all Donruss card cover (81's and 82's exclusively).