Benjamin Grimm

And how about that elaborate signature?

Oooh, fun with silly putty: http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/images/players/mugshot/ph_123431.jpg http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/images/players/mugshot/ph_123431.jpg

="Edgy DC"]Duaner, by the way, got himself an $850,000 contract with a $100,000 incentive clause. And, finally, a blue cap photo on the Ultimate Mets Database!

Good point. What undermined the Mets was that Pedro got hurt instead of Trachsel.

I wasn't saying anything about "trends." I simply said that just because the Mets ran away in 2006 there's no reason to think it will happen again. Winning the division by 15 to 20 games is a rare thing. How often has that happened two years in a row?

The top Mets catching prospect was born in 1990.

Corey Ragsdale?!?!?!? I read somewhere that he was evil incarnate!

It turns out I've seen exactly ten 2006 movies to date. Eight of them I saw in theaters, one on DVD (Cars) and one on an airplane (My Super Ex-Girlfriend, on the return flight from Tokyo). Here they are in order from my favorite to least favorite: Borat X-Men: The Last Stand Superman Returns Monster House Cars Happy Feet Departed, The Eight Below Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest My Super Ex-Girlfriend I would say that I enjoyed the first four. The next four were "okay" and the last two were pretty bad.

I don't know. Probably not at a movie theater. (When does it open, by the way?) Taking two kids to the movies on a Friday night requires more incentive than Ghost Rider offers. It may turn out to be a good movie (or not; I have no idea) but it offers zero goosebump potential. The Ghost Rider character never meant anything to me. I'm looking forward to Iron Man in 2008, though. Robert Downey Jr. is reportedly going to play Tony Stark, which should be interesting. I'm glad they didn't cast a 23-year-old, which would have been a bad sign.

Falling twice, huh? Actually, I never got to the goosebumps stage with the original Fantastic Four movie. Rereading the thread that CF bumped this afternoon confirmed that I went in to that movie fearing the worst. That trailer for Rise of the Surfer got my spine-tingling in a way that no part of the first movie did, so we're already ahead of the game. At this point I'm eagerly awaiting the second FF movie. As more information becomes available I may start feeling differently, but right now I'm fired up. Spider-Man 3 on May 4. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on June 15. Pencil me in for opening night for both pictures.

I've noticed that in movies that have people in them, you usually see at least one scene where somebody is sitting, and at least one other scene where somebody is standing. Anyone else notice that?

The first movie didn't do much for me, but this trailer gave me goosebumps: http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/fantasticfourriseofthesilversurfer/large.html

Wake up call!

Edgy DC wrote: Nothing personal. No offense taken.

My votes weren't included.

Jack Matthews, writing in The Daily News, called Happy Feet the "best movie of the computer-generated era." It was a fun movie, and visually beautiful. But I wouldn't call it the best computer-generated film. Off the top of my head, I know I prefer Toy Story, The Incredibles, Shrek, and Monster House. In Happy Feet the few humans that we saw looked very realistic. I'm sure they must have been actual actors who had a CGI effect added to them. If in fact they were completely computer-generated, then the animators did an astounding job.

Well, it looks like, as someone who doesn't love this movie, I am in the minority, but at least I'm not alone.

]Stratton would love to have a wang-wang season, one free from injuries. There's a potential new entry for Urban Dictionary: a wang-wang season is one free from injuries.

I was generous too and gave it two lamps. In the other thread I called it "unwatchable" which was a bit harsh. I don't think it's all that funny though.

30 Carlos Beltran 29 José Reyes 28 David Wright 27 Carlos Delgado 26 Tom Glavine 25 Paul Lo Duca 24 José Valentin 23 Endy Chavez 22 Orlando Hernandez 21 Billy Wagner 20 Aaron Heilman 19 John Maine 18 Pedro Martinez 17 Duaner Sanchez 16 Steve Trachsel 15 Cliff Floyd 14 Xavier Nady 13 Chad Bradford 12 Pedro Feliciano 11 Oliver Perez 10 Darren Oliver 9 Julio Franco 8 Guillermo Mota 7 Shawn Green 6 Lastings Milledge 5 Chris Woodward 4 Brian Bannister 3 Heath Bell 2 Dave Williams 1 Alay Soler

Me too. It's always nice to reclaim one of our own from the Dark Side.

What an awful statue. He looks like he's sad and frustrated and about to kick something.

Here's a more interesting photo of Rick Anderson. Note the wood paneling on the baseball card and the bold blue Sharpie signature. He looks like he's about to speak. I can imagine that just outside our view, Keith Hernandez is approaching the mound. And that brings us to BOB APODACA. Ideally I would have liked to have found a photo of him shaking hands with Jerry Grote, since he once reportedly said that shaking hands with Grote is better than sex. But I suppose that I have "safe search" on so if such a picture exists it was probably pre-empted by Google's filtering software. So how about this one, of Bob in action as the Rockies' pitching coach? Combine that face with Jose Lima's hairdo and I think you get Harpo Marx. I kinda prefer Bob's old school look though, when his hair swept away from his face like Farrah Fawcett's did: It's a slow day today, people. Would somebody care to track down an interesting photo of KEVIN APPIER?

I've also heard it described that Gotham is New York below 14th Street and Metropolis is New York above 14th Street.

More about Lorn Brown. I just did some quick Googling. A couple of times I followed the links, other times I didn't bother. But here's what I found: According to answers.com, Lorn Brown was with the Brewers in 1980 and 1981. It looks like he was with the White Sox before he went to Milwaukee and again after he left the Mets. I'm not getting a clear read on the exact dates. He may have had a female radio partner named Mary Shane in the White Sox booth for one year in the 1970's. A couple of New York Times articles that might have some useful information, if I had free access: NewYorkTimes.com wrote: TV SPORTS; OFF-CAMERA PEOPLE LIFT METS' SHOWS By LAWRIE MIFFLIN During their Saturday telecast, the Mets and WOR-TV proudly announced that they had won the 1981 award for ''Outstanding Telecast of a Local Sporting Event'' from the New York State Broadcasters Association. For those who consider it a tiresome burden to listen to Lorn Brown and Ralph Kiner announcing Mets games, the immediate question was ''Why?'' How could the Mets' television team win any awards, when its announcers so often sound dull? The answer: There is much more to a sports telecast... August 3, 1982 Sports News Tim McCarver, the St. Louis Cardinals' catcher in three World Series in the 1960's, will be the new voice in the booth for the Mets for their games on commercial and cable television next season. He succeeds Lorn Brown, who had been badly received by television critics and sports columnists during his one season in New York this year. Al Harazin, a vice president for the Mets, said McCarver would join Ralph Kiner and another announcer to be named in the Channel 9 telecasts, and that he would wor... December 28, 1982 Sports News A CPF post (I think by me) pops up on this search result page: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22lorn+brown%22&hl=en&lr=&start=30&sa=N Lorn Brown remembers Peoria "Back in 1968, we (Channel 19) were WIRL-TV (later WRAU-TV). I came over from WIRL radio to be the sports director. Clark Smith came in from Columbus, Ohio, and was joined with female Roz Deeter, just out of the University of Illinois. Two other ladies followed during the next five years. Bob Rice became general manager and brought in the New York City-style newscast, a lot of interplay, still being used today. We turned the local TV market upside down, going from No. 3 to No. 1. Rollie, like all of us, was very versatile and a capable announcer and was a huge part of our success," noted Brown. Lorn Brown with Steve Trout in 1979.