We Got The Beat - 2015

[duan]

I heard Carig on Baseball Prospectus' season previews and thought he seemed pretty good.
I'll be honest and say Rubin's the one I read the most, but I'm pretty ambivalent about his style and "all the sarcasm, all the time" feel.

I've always liked Tracky.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Carig made what (I think) was the season debut of the Mets Insider inning, where he chats with Josh in the top of the 4th on the radio -- MFYs have done a similar thing with the Snooze for years.

I like Carig but easy to see he's a writer and not a talker, although he offered up a little insights as the inning went on.

[Elster88]

Rubin linked to Faith and Fear in his blog today saying that F&F is undergoing a "spiritual awakening".

[Edgy MD]

It's about time. God, those guys have been spiritually asleep forever.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

As discussed previously Rubin is an absolute animal on the Mets beat but the guy is getting murdered on the trade speculation game. He's had almost nothing, while guys like Rosenthal and Sherman almost everything.


I guess being in touch with the team day to day means missing out on the agent & exec talk that the national guys traffic in, and I suspect a froisty relationship with Sandy isn't doing him any favors.

[TransMonk]

Rubin can't even find a pic of Tyler Clippard.

[Edgy MD]

I blame ESPN editors. They've made him look stoopid before.

Maybe they think that's Meisner.

[TransMonk]

Agreed. I was just having some fun with him after JCL brought him up earlier today...should have said so.

I like Rubin.

[dgwphotography]

Rubin has been posting images from Binghamton tonight. I guess he doesn't believe in days off.

[Ceetar]

dgwphotography wrote: Rubin has been posting images from Binghamton tonight. I guess he doesn't believe in days off.

you don't get jobs in baseball with days off.

[Guest themetfairy]

D-Dad half expected to see Rubin in Trenton last night for the end of the 5 pm B-Mets game.

[Guest d'Kong76]

My local paper The Journal News (Gannett Company serving Westchester
and Putnam counties) has virtually stop covering the Mets in their sports section.
The first place New York Mets.

Today's coverage:
*Yankees prospect makes debut
*Met Am golf story
*Giants linebacker story
*Boulders column
*McCann sits
*Some chewing tobacco story
*Olympics a year away
*Small AP MLB roundup
*Full page USA Today baseball boxes/standings, etc.
*Two more national USA Today pages
*Small transactions section, horses, other misc lists
*Small local field hockey blurb

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Yeah they dropped beat coverage years ago but phased it out via a staff blogger, but I don't even know if they even bother with that anymore.

Bad news for you ladies and gay guys out there: Beater Marc Carig goes off the market Saturday.

You can pick up a rolling pin for the happy couple here: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/registry/679ntscgxk/registry-list.html

[Guest d'Kong76]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Yeah they dropped beat coverage years ago but phased it out via a staff blogger, but I don't even know if they even bother with that anymore.

I guess people don't care, otherwise they would have to do something.
If what the mayor of Rio de Janeiro is doing to prepare for the Olympics
that are a year away is more important than the Mets, there are a lot of
assholes reading this paper.

[Lefty Specialist]

A kid I've known since I coached him in Little League with my son is an occasional reporter for nj.com, covering the Mets and sometimes the Yankees. A 20-year-old journalism major living the dream. And yes, I feel really old.

http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2015/07/mets_prospect_gavin_cecchini_unfazed_by_trade_rumo.html

[Edgy MD]

John Harper trying to stir the pot by nominating Wally Backman to replace Matt Williams, even going so far as to cite a long-term relationship between Backman and Mike Rizzo. (Backman spent one year as an A ball manager with Arizona in 2004 when Rizzo was farm director.)

Wouldn't the Mets have to give permission for a mid-season walkout by Backman? And wouldn't they be disposed against it?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think they would have to give permission, but it's very rare that those requests are denied.

[TransMonk]

Would the Nats really fire their manager with six weeks left in the season while their team is still in the hunt?

I know the Nats have under-performed this season, but a shake-up like that seems risky.

[Ceetar]

TransMonk wrote: Would the Nats really fire their manager with six weeks left in the season while their team is still in the hunt? I know the Nats have under-performed this season, but a shake-up like that seems risky.

certainly seems like this is a story because someone needs something to write about in this post-deadline period before we round that final turn where things get really interesting.

*checks* Nope, Steinbrenner does not own the Nats.

I'd be all for giving up Backman though, ask the Nats for a low-A prospect type back.

[Edgy MD]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think they would have to give permission, but it's very rare that those requests are denied.

Yeah, but how often do they come in-season from the division rival/favorite sitting just behind you in the standings as the season's stretch run begins? It would take some hell of lot of moxie for the Nats to even ask.

[G-Fafif]

Lupica, Madden, F. Bondy all out at Snooze. Would be great if it was for being overwrought hacks. Sadly, it's for budgetary reasons.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Wow!

[Lefty Specialist]

How'd they get Lupica's head through the door?

[Edgy MD]

Lopping off crappy, institutional name-brand baseball writers a few weeks before the post-season sounds less like budgetary constraints and more like a budgetary emergency.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The article in the Post loves pointing out that the News is struggling.

Daily News columnist Mike Lupica out as Zuckerman swings ax

(Although I suspect that the Post is struggling just about as much. It's not a good decade for newspapers.)

I won't miss any of those three guys. I just hope they keep David Hinckley.

[G-Fafif]

When Lupica wasn't being a legendary jerk, he could be worth the hype. Here he was in the aftermath of June 16, 1997, the night Mlicki shut out the MFYs.

The Mets and their fans had waited so long for innings like these. Waited through all these dreary losing seasons, one after another, six in a row. Really, this was the biggest game the Mets had played since the late 1980s, when they could still win 100 games and feel as if they owned New York and make the playoffs. They had lost their fans and watched the Yankees build themselves back into champions. They had watched the children of the city go back to wearing Yankee caps after all the years in the 80s when you walked down the street and saw more Mets caps. Sometimes the Mets felt like they were the kind of sports afterthought that the Islanders have become, that the Nets have always been in basketball. Now they had the stage again. The most famous stage. And were hearing "Let's go, Mets!"

[Benjamin Grimm]

The thing is, he's written various versions of that same paragraph about ten thousand times.

[G-Fafif]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: The thing is, he's written various versions of that same paragraph about ten thousand times.

And it always got me.

[Benjamin Grimm]

To each his own. I got sick of that paragraph twenty years ago.

[Farmer Ted]

Bondy is scheduled to be a featured speaker at a journalism panel in my hood on Oct. 2. Hope he still gets here.