Benjamin Grimm

G-Fafif wrote: It used to be understood that the YS that was rebuilt in the '70s was a substantively different entity than the one Ruth built. I have to disagree with this. I've always understood that it was a different ballpark, and apparently you have too. But I've been hearing forever that Yankee Stadium was "renovated" and not "rebuilt." I remember when I was in college, from 1981 through 1985, arguing that the current stadium dates to 1976, not to 1923.

What, no Billy Joel song?

Me too. I hope they don't get one.

1. First hit Reyes 2. First double Beltran 3. First triple Reyes 4. First home run Delgado 5. First stolen base Reyes 6. First baserunner caught stealing/picked off Green 7. First guy to hit into a double-play Alou 8. First batter to strike out Delgado 9. First fielder to commit an error Wright 10. First guy to score a run Reyes 11. First guy to drive in a run Delgado 12. First Met player to field a batted ball Valentin 13. First Met to draw a walk Wright 14. First Met relief pitcher to make an appearance Sosa 15. First Met to reach base on an error Reyes 16. First winning Met pitcher Wagner 17. First losing Met pitcher Perez 18. First Met to throw a wild pitch Perez 19. First Met to be hit by a pitch Green 20. First Met pitcher to plunk an opposing batter Perez

Ladies and gentlemen, your 1977 Jackson Mets!

I was just reading this again: http://cybermessageboard.ehost.com/getalife/viewtopic.php?t=4071 Be warned, I mention Cal Ripken somewhere in there.

Yancy Street Gang wrote: I'd ask myself, "What would Paul Shaffer do?" and go with a play on his name. Actually, the question shouldn't be what would Paul Shaffer do, but what did Paul Shaffer do? Does anyone remember what song David Wright entered to during his appearance on Late Show with David Letterman?

I'd be glad to wear 36. It was Jerry Koosman's old number, and it was the street address of the house I grew up in on Long Island. I'm trying to remember if my eight-year-old self liked Jerry Koosman any extra because he wore my house number on his back. I think maybe I did.

Adam Rubin says different: Speaking of numbers, here are the newcomers: Damion Easley (3), Ben Johnson (4), Newhan (17), Moises Alou (18), Ruben Sierra (19), Jorge Sosa (29), Aaron Sele (35), Scott Schoeneweis (36), Adkins (39), Ambiorix Burgos (40), Jason Vargas (43), Chan Ho Park (61) Among the youngsters: Fernando Martinez (62), Mike Carp (64), Joe Smith (70), Francisco Pena (76) and Kevin Mulvey (78).

Date actresses and supermodels, I assume. That's a lot harder to do if you spend half your season in Milwaukee or Kansas City.

I was thinking he meant Alex Rodriguez. And maybe that's the fate of anyone who tries to be a wholesome and handsome icon in New York City these days. Can David Wright continue his gee-whiz personna without being exposed as a phony like Rodriguez has? Gary Carter pretty much got away with it, but not without a lot of people rolling their eyes at him. Maybe it's because Carter acted like a phony but he had enough goofiness to him that it was possible that he was sincere in his phoniness. (Meaning he acted like a phony, but he really was the person that phonies pretend to be, so he was therefore sincere.) Could Cal Ripken have become Cal Ripken, and continued to be Cal Ripken, if he played his entire career in New York? Will Wright get a pass for his phoniness because he's a home grown player? I'm not aware that Alex Rodriguez had these problems in Seattle. It wasn't until he became a highly paid mercenary (I don't think) that his reputation started to suffer. Cal Ripken is probably benefiting from the fact that he never bolted the Orioles to go to a different team. If he signed with the Mets in 1992, would his legacy be different today? I'm asking a lot of questions here, and I don't really have the answers.

Yes, you are. But I can see where you're coming from.

Johnny Dickshot wrote: He'll do ANYTHING for money or attention, say whatever nice thing someone wants to hear, etc. This reminds me of the whole Jaerock Seo thing. Wright must be teflon-coated if endorsing a feces-drinker doesn't stick any taint to him.

At least the part about the 21st Century is a new twist.

He's a Cal Ripken for the 21st Century.

I'd ask myself, "What would Paul Shaffer do?" and go with a play on his name. How about, (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right, or maybe something by the Righteous Brothers, like Unchained Melody.

That second one looks a lot like those 1971 Topps cards that I love so much.

From the New York Times. I love this kind of stuff. ="BARRY PETCHESKY"] February 10, 2007 Stoic Link to Baseball History Stands Guard By BARRY PETCHESKY http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/10/sports/10brooklyns.1.600.jpg Washington Park, which was located in Park Slope, was the home of Brooklyn’s major league baseball team from 1898 to 1912. Once upon a time in Brooklyn, they used to play baseball here. Tucked away among ancient factories and garages is a massive relic of the Dodgers’ old ballpark. Not Ebbets Field, but Washington Park, where Brooklyn played before moving to Flatbush. It is believed to be the oldest standing piece of a major league ballpark in the country. And almost nobody knows it is there. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/10/sports/10brooklyn.2.190.jpg The west wall of a Con Ed facility in Park Slope is believed to be a remnant of Washington Park. At the foot of Park Slope, a block from the Gowanus Canal, is a Con Edison truck depot and storage facility bounded by First and Third Streets and Third and Fourth Avenues. Running the length of Third Avenue is a 20-foot-high stone wall that makes up part of a loading dock. The high, small windows of the wall have been bricked up. From 1898 to 1912, Washington Park was the home of the team alternately nicknamed the Bridegrooms, Superbas and Trolley Dodgers. “You sure?” said a security guard, Greg Montrose. “The Dodgers? Here?” Ebbets Field is at least commemorated by a plaque and an eponymous housing project. Yankee Stadium’s infield will be preserved in a public park. And Mets officials say the position of the bases will be marked in the parking lot that will replace Shea Stadium. Today, there is not so much as a plaque to commemorate where Brooklyn won its first modern pennants. “If there’s history there, it deserves some recognition,” said Marc Okkonen, a baseball historian. “Maybe no one wants to remember.” The field did not seem to be beloved in its time. The nearby canal gave off a constant stench, and as a late-season call-up, Casey Stengel, once remembered, “the mosquitoes was something fierce.” After the team’s move to Flatbush, a renovated Washington Park was the home of the Tip-Tops from the upstart Federal League for two years, and then sat unused until Con Ed bought the land in 1922. Only the wall survived. In July 2002, Con Ed announced plans that would have required the demolition of the wall. The plans were blocked by the Society of American Baseball Researchers, which organized an e-mail campaign and brought in historians and architects to attest to the site’s importance. They concluded that the wall was part of a carriage shed built in 1899 as part of an expansion of the ballpark, which had opened a year earlier. “That would explain why there are no pictures,” the author Chris Epting said. “Who takes a picture of a stadium parking lot?” The wall’s appearance supported the finding. Horse stalls were notoriously susceptible to fire, as were ballparks; the first Washington Park burned down in 1889 after a player’s discarded cigar ignited. The brick construction of the carriage shed would have kept flames from spreading to the wooden grandstands. Tom Gilbert, a researcher who spearheads conservation efforts, said the presence of horses was probable. “I’m going to assume that windows mean something that needs to breathe is on the other side,” he said, laughing. Con Ed has made unofficial proposals for the site’s preservation since 2002, said Gilbert, but all have included moving the wall or only retaining the cornerstone. “They offered to save one brick,” Gilbert said. Con Ed did not respond to repeated inquiries about its plans for the site. Preservationists have officially asked the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to investigate the site as a potential landmark. Simply having a file open at the commission could be enough to gain an injunction on future Con Ed construction projects. “We are aware of the wall, and have not ruled it out as a potential landmark,” said Lisi de Bourbon, a spokesperson for the commission. The commission is in the midst of designating as landmarks some 2,000 buildings in Brooklyn, but the process can take decades. It is sometimes accelerated by political or financial champions, neither of which Washington Park has. “The commission is often very reluctant to landmark something against the wishes of the landlord,” Gilbert said. Con Ed did not respond to repeated inquiries about their plans for the site. Recent preservation efforts have focused on publicizing the site’s links to history. A 2005 Brooklyn Cyclones promotion celebrated Archibald Moonlight Graham, whose single major league appearance was made famous in W. P. Kinsella’s novel “Shoeless Joe” and the film version, “Field of Dreams.” Graham played the field for two innings in a 1905 game at Washington Park. The opening of the park was a major event, something of a homecoming for the Dodgers, who had played since 1891 in what was then distant East New York. On April 30, 1898, the season was “inaugurated at the new grounds in South Brooklyn before a crowd of 15,000,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported. “And the war with Spain lapsed into temporary insignificance.” Thanks to a home run by Philadelphia’s Big Sam Thompson, the home team lost that day, a trend they upheld more often than not over the next half-century. “It was,” The Eagle continued, “for its size and enthusiasm, one of the most orderly crowds on record ... save for the few lingering cranks.” “Base ball” was a different game then — a 1908 contest against St. Louis used only one ball for all nine innings — but contemporary newspaper accounts painted a picture that was unmistakably Brooklyn. It was here that the entire team, including the Hall of Fame Manager Ned Hanlon, was arrested several times for attempting to play baseball on Sundays. It was here that Cubs Manager Frank Chance, after being bombarded with soda bottles for much of the game, returned fire with one, cutting a young boy’s leg. Chance had to be taken from the park in an armored car with a police escort. And it was here that three of the hated New York Giants were jailed after entering the grandstand to assault a fan who heckled them. Small and outdated, Washington Park inspired its first bout of nostalgia when the team announced it would leave after the 1912 season. On opening day that year, 30,000 fans overwhelmed the park’s official capacity, 18,000. Fans sat along the foul lines and in the outfield, no doubt contributing to the record 13 ground-rule doubles the Giants recorded en route to a 19-3 drubbing of the Dodgers. At the last game that season, also against the Giants, the park was sent off in style as a regimental band blared “dolefully about Auld Lang Syne,” wrote The Eagle. “The game with the New York Giants yesterday was also an old story,” Grantland Rice wrote in one of his earliest published articles in The Eagle, “for the Giants won.” Considering the fondness with which longtime Brooklynites recall Ebbets Field, it is surprising that the remnants of Washington Park are not acknowledged. Because there were few photographs and baseball had not yet become part of the popular culture, Gilbert said, the game’s history for many people begins around 1920. “Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth are household words, and you’re got to reference and revere them,” he said. “But if you disrespect Hughie Jennings, who cares?” Jennings was a Hall of Fame manager and shortstop at the turn of the century. “It’s only within the last 10 years that people have regarded ballparks as history,” Epting said. “I bought a seat from Pittsburgh’s old Forbes Field from a lady who kept it on her porch. Forty dollars.” He agreed that Washington Park should be designated as a historic site — Stengel played his first game here and Cy Young his last — but he does not seem disappointed. “It’s one of those diamonds in the rough,” Epting said. “Once there’s a plaque or souvenir stand, it becomes a spectacle. It drains the charm of doing the detective work yourself.”

Well, Lee is over 50 now. So maybe not. Even before Willets' comment, I was thinking that this is an awfully gay thread. Not that... Never mind. Seinfeld has been quoted too many times.

What a lame league. Why wouldn't they attempt to attract fans? I guess they estimate that the cost of having a stadium staff (ushers, vendors, etc) would exceed the amount of the gate receipts.

I found this while I was reading Business of Baseball's report on the DirecTV situation: ]The Toronto Blue Jays added a sixth affiliate when they joined the Gulf Coast League just months after they abandoned their team in the shrinking Appalachian League. There was a lot of speculation as to how the Blue Jays would manage their franchise with just five affiliates, but it looks like they answered the question by just switching venues. The minor league team will play at the Blue Jays' Spring Training facility in Dunedin, FL. The Appalachian League still hasn’t figured out what, if anything, it will do with only nine teams. It’s definitely going to make scheduling difficult with one team off at all times, but the idea of having a team of non-drafted players fell through when the nine teams in the league decided they didn’t want to pay for it. I had no idea that the Appalachian League was in trouble. The Mets have been in the Appalachian League for a long time. They've been in Kingsport since 1980, and they were in Marion as far back as 1965.

metirish wrote: I'd like to see Todd make a club but not the yankees,I have some fond memories of him as a Met. I think we all do. That home run against Arizona was classic. The best part was that we didn't see the ball go over the wall; we realized that the Mets won the series because Steve Finley looked into his glove and then slumped against the wall. Very cool.

metirish wrote: Can I submit my nightmare rotation due to age and injury?....thanks Sele Wiliams Sosa Vargas Humber I think cleon has hacked irish's password.

I agree with Johnny: 1. Glavine 2. Hernandez 3. Maine 4. Perez 5. Pelfrey