Benjamin Grimm

="Edgy DC"]I'm glad you did that, despite the funny 1972 results. It's been on my to-do list for a long time. I still want to add ERA and will hopefully get around to that soon. ="Edgy DC"]Perhaps you'd do well to "award" the title to the player who would have won, had he gotten enough at-bats to qualify and made out each time.. If there was an actual award to be given, I might consider doing that. I once had someone write to me and argue that I should give Mike Piazza the award for best slugging percentage of the 1990's on this page even though he didn't have 1,000 at bats. (This guy was really passionate about it, too!) If Piazza had gone 0 for 72 his .546 percentage would still be better than John Olerud's .515. But Piazza really slugged a .588, and it would be misleading to say he led with a .546 when he really slugged .588. What displays on the UMDB pages is often a result of the pure numbers that are stored in the database. I don't generally make exceptions to that unless I can see a compelling need to go to that effort. It's probably just a matter of time before I hear from an irate Tommie Agee fan. ="Edgy DC"]Bill James gave Duffy Dyer the most win shares on the 1972 Mets. The CPF has Jon Matlack as our top 1972 Met. Duffy Dyer? Wow. No wonder the 1972 Mets didn't win anything.

Ohhh, stammering! (Or is it stuttering?) Haven't seen so much of that around here lately.

The 1972 Mets had so many injuries that only one player, Bud Harrelson, had enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. I recently added some of the "percentage" stats to the text on the UMDB page that shows which categories a player led the team in. Bud's status as the lone qualifier in 1972 led to some pathetic verbiage: Led Mets in batting average with .215 in 1972.Led Mets in slugging percentage with .266 in 1972.Led Mets in on base percentage with .313 in 1972.Led Mets in on base plus slugging with .579 in 1972. Tommie Agee just missed the required number; he fell short by a fraction of a plate appearance. His numbers would have looked much better than Harrelson's do.

My favorite one from that list is Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

My guess is that it's not a coincidence that the Mets are abandoning Norfolk at the same time that Scranton is becoming available. I've never made the trip to Scranton to see the visiting Tides. For whatever reason, I find AA baseball more interesting that AAA. I was figuring I'd go to Allentown, which is closer, to see the Tides when they came to town. Maybe instead I'll go to Allentown to see the Red Barons as a Mets affiliate.

The only reason I ever went to Scranton was to visit Steamtown in 1999.

The Phillies are going to abandon Scranton, PA. Their AAA team will be on Ottawa, Ontario next year and the permanent location will be Allentown starting in 2008. Scranton is pretty close to New York.

Excellent point, Knot. And don't forget, the Mets are only winning in order to fool more people into buying tickets for next year.

If that's the case, then when the playoffs start, isn't the first-half team represented by a bunch of guys who had nothing to do with winning that title?

Final reminder. If you don't play, you won't be able to win the prize that won't be awarded.

I'm a very good database runner. I'm just not a very good wizard.

Edgy DC wrote: And former Met farmhand Pat O'Sullivan is American Association (the Independent League, not the old AAA league) Batter of the Month. This is probably the most obscure update yet. I have no memory of Pat O'Sullivan, but it's nice to know he had a good month.

Good point. Why can't the Mets take that same approach? Two things (among many) that I hate about corporate names: Sometimes they just sound awful. 3Com Park is a prime example. They can change far too often. It gets hard to know how to refer to the place. In the UMDB I ignored corporate names that were given to existing stadium. Riverfront, Candlestick, Skydome, etc. kept their original names. I'm not sure what to do about the parks in San Francisco and Houston that have changed a couple of times already. I've been thinking about looking up their street addresses and using them.

Is there a local company with a name that sounds like a person's name? The Brewers can at least pretend that their stadium name isn't a corporate one. (There are probably other examples too, but I can't think of any.) Or maybe Wilpon will go the Ted Turner route, or will ask himself, "What would Donald Trump do?" and we'll end up with Wilpon Field.

They should put Ralph, Lindsey, and Bob's faces on the new stadium like Manny, Moe, and Jack on Pep Boys.

Forget the Mets. They should just honor the Beatles. Or they can combine the two and call it Strawberry Field.

I wouldn't want to honor Kiner and Murphy without also honoring Lindsey Nelson.

Yeah, I'm afraid it'll be corporate. My current guess: Estadio de Banco Popular

You can call them and ask, but doing so would probably land you on Homeland Security's watch list.

Wow, thanks for all of the images, people. I'll have to grab a few of those. Meanwhile, in hit popularity news, this guy seems to be generating a lot of UMDB hits for a rather unpopular former Mets relief pitcher.

Edgy DC wrote: Marlon allowed the Mets to have a player on their all-time roster sharing a name with a player on the Jacksons' all-time roster. What about Jermaine Allensworth and Tito Navarro? And Michael Tucker.

Thanks for the tip on Manny Alexander. I didn't realize he had played for San Diego. I've now updated his UMDB profile. Still waiting for Jeff Keppinger to appear in a game for Kansas City.

Endy should marry Edgardo Alfonzo's sister. They'd have to compromise on what they'd name the children. Maybe half of the kids would be named a variant of Endy and the other half would be a variant of Edgar.

I hope Endy doesn't slip away like Marlon Anderson did. He's the type of role player that championship teams always seem to have.

Green is 797. Perez will be 798.