Benjamin Grimm

Elster88 wrote: Do you still have a display of most popular over the last three weeks or whatever it was? And least popular? It's back.

I don't think there's going to be a Cliff Floyd with the Mets in 2007, no matter what happens. When Nady was first traded I thought it might mean a return for Floyd, but I don't think that's the case any more. I have a feeling the Mets will shop around for a new outfielder this winter. I suspect they'll be talking to Soriano.

I was thinking the same thing. Green will probably keep Ledee off the playoff roster. Or, on the other hand, maybe it's Milledge whose spot is in jeopardy.

Very convenient.

I would've said Zito, but he probably won't start until the second game of the 2007 season.

Pumpsie, Charlie, Dallas, and Shawn are your four Green(e) Mets.

Didn't Hidalgo go to play in Japan?

Alfonso Soriano, Opening Day 2007.

]kah-ZOO-oh mat-SOO-ee I don't think they're emphasizing those syllables correctly. In fact, one thing I've learned about Japanese is that (in theory anyway) you don't emphasize any syllables. It should be KA-ZOO-OH MA-TSU-EE.

You forgot to add, "And great for Tom's sleazy battery mate, Paul Lo Duca!"

I hope that the sense of relief that Tom feels inspires him to win six games this October.

I remember sitting at Shea in Loge reserved seats at Game 1 in 1986. I had my binoculars on Glenn Close as she sang the national anthem, and I could see how thrilled she was to be singing for the Mets as they opened the World Series. I think it was great that they invited her back for the ceremony. I wonder if Joe Piscopo felt snubbed? I had forgotten that he was in that silly video playing "bobblehead" with the Mets in the dugout.

don't see Koch as "our" mayor, either. He'd appear at Opening Day in his Mets cap but he'd be gone by the second inning. Sure he was glad to see the Mets win, because it reflected glory on his city, but he was by no means a fan. I liked Koch back then, but one thing these events don't need is politicians. Also, a handshake between Wilpon and Doubleday would have meant nothing to me. It really doesn't matter to me if they ever heal whatever rift they have. I don't need closure. I was also surprised that Strawberry was the last player introduced. Carter's Hall of Fame status is an argument for him going last, but instead of Keith, Gary, Darryl, I would have had it be Gary, Darryl, Keith. Scratch that. It would have been Gary, Darryl, Keith, Mookie.

Was that Pete Flynn serving as Frank Cashen's driver?

That 1994 jersey was a splash of ugliness on the ceremony. I certainly didn't want to be reminded of a strike-shortened season from the Dallas Green years. But I'm glad she was there. As soon as Howie said the words "national anthem" I thought, "I hope it's Glenn Close!"

I wasn't there, but even watching on TV it was Goosebump City. It may not have been perfect, but it was perfect. I think I'm going to burn it to DVD and keep it for a while. When I'm old and senile I'll watch it ten times a day.

I think I read that the test results are due back by the middle of the week. So maybe we're 48 hours away from finding out what's going on. I got quicker results when I got blood tests on my cat a few weeks ago. Maybe the Mets should take Glavine to a veterinarian instead.

I certainly had a good feeling up there in the Upper Deck. But I was also aware of Hojo and Sisk, and that did add bit of a sense of greater urgency to getting Knight home that inning rather than going on to the 11th.

Rick Aguilera looked pretty much the same as I remembered him. And Danny Heep looked to be in good shape, too. Wally Backman was least recognizable, I thought, along with Kevin Elster. I think if you combined the features of Wally and Howard Johnson, you could make a pretty good John Ratzenberger.

I agree, Knot. There's way too much angst in Metland.

No, I was right, it was 1984. Look at how he did in July, when the Mets were fighting for first place: http://leaptoad.com/mets/profile.php?PlayerCode=0335&tabno=9&vMonth=ALL&vYear=1984 His 1986 ERA was 3.06. He had good months and bad, but he was used less often in key situations (as you said) so he really wasn't hurting the team at all. Calling him Mel Rojas isn't fair, at least to the 1986 Sisk. It was the summer of 1984 that gave him his reputation. And I'm glad he got cheered at Shea last night. I was fearing that he'd be booed, but I guess time heals many wounds.

Sisk's worst year, I think, and the one that cemented his image in the minds of Mets fans, was 1984. I don't think he was nearly as bad in 1986. (I'm going from memory here; the stats may prove me wrong.)

Edgy DC wrote: Now can we try Heilman? I bet the Mets answer to that would be, "He's too valuable in the bullpen." While I'd hate to go into the playoffs with Trachsel and Hernandez as the top two starters, it's better than not being in the playoffs at all. I'd be willing to take my chances. But that's jumping the gun a bit. Pedro should be recovered from his current ailment by then. (I just hope the third shoe doesn't drop.) And there's been no diagnosis on Glavine yet.

]Decades apart, Mets clubs connected 08/18/2006 2:00 PM ET By Marty Noble / MLB.com NEW YORK -- In 1986, Arizona was home to Paul Lo Duca and snakes, but not to uppercase Diamondbacks. Lo Duca could have followed any one of 26 big-league teams back then. He chose to follow the Mets and suffer the slings and arrows of friends who considered him a front-runner. The baseball roots of Roberto Hernandez were decidedly blue and orange, too. He knew the Mets and embraced them, recognizing something special in Mookie Wilson six summers earlier. And he had seen Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter come to Flushing, witnessed the grand emergence of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. He was there, in the city, when the Mets began their remarkable 1986 season. But his own baseball interfered with watching that summer; the Angels drafted him and sent him to Salem, Ore. Outside Boston, a 20-year-old Tom Glavine was more attuned to the developments of the Boston Fens. "I knew the Mets were good," he said. "But I was New England." No television cable stretched from Queens to Arizona, Oregon or Massachusetts in those days. The respective distances separating Lo Duca and Hernandez from their baseball passions was something akin to what separated the first-place Mets from the rest of the National League East in 1986. "We know what we read, mostly," Lo Duca said. And TV or no TV, Glavine remained Mets-apathetic. The three veteran Mets, like most of their current colleagues, have little sense of all that happened 20 years ago in the ballpark they inhabit. Of course, they all know how Billy Buckner became Bill "E" Buckner. Some know about the 16-inning playoff game in the Dome and Mike "Dread" Scott. One or two even know that Kevin Mitchell, already a chuck of a man in 1986, played shortstop on occasion and that nails was an adjective -- it meant good in '86 Mets jargon -- before it became a proper-noun nickname. "Most of us were too young then to remember anything now," the 30-year-old Chris Woodward said. "Or they just didn't care." Then he feigned more ignorance. "Were they any good?" It is to that team of 20 years past that the current Mets are most often compared in these summer days -- not because the '06 edition has a Doc or a Darryl, a Nails or a Knight, but because the current Mets have spent most of the season bullying the National League as the '86 club did. So many of the achievements of the current team have parallels to accomplishments of the 1986 team -- biggest division lead after so many games, best road trip since, most games over .500 since, et al -- that comparisons are inevitable. Even the three-game glitch in Philadelphia this week could be linked to a four-game misstep in mid-August '86. Most players hate most comparisons, even when the evaluations are flattering. These first-place Mets are no different. But the comparisons and their limited knowledge of the franchise's second set of World Series champions occasionally prompt intrigue and wonder. "I know we had some pretty good teams in Atlanta," Glavine said one day in May, "and we never won 108 games." "Did the really have as much fun as they seemed to?" Aaron Heilman asked recently. "You think their pitching was that much better than ours?" Billy Wagner wondered. Some of their questions may be answered on Saturday when the '86 team reunites and is celebrated on the Shea diamond, where it piled on Jesse Orosco 20 years ago on Oct. 27. They won't wonder about Strawberry too much -- they saw him in March in Port St. Luice, Fla., and enjoyed his presence. But all will undoubtedly be touched by the warm reception Straw is certain to receive. The love-hate of '86 is love-love now. Shea Stadium, running out of future, loves its past. Lenny Dykstra is also a curiosity, even to those who know him well. Does he still chew? Does he still walk that way? How has a man whose uniform was always so dirty made millions keeping other peoples' cars clean? Hernandez and Ron Darling are so visible in their new roles as SNY commentators that the mystique that might have existed about them won't be there. The same holds true for Carter and Howard Johnson, who have been Spring Training fixtures the last few years. Sid Fernandez was there in March, too. But Wilson hasn't been around much. And everyone loves Mookie. They'll all replay his ground ball, wonder if he would have beaten Buckner to the base and whether he could outrun Jose Reyes even now. He looks as trim as ever. There is a mystique about Mitchell, who may not be so trim. He was gone after '86 after one season of production and promise, to become something no Mets player ever has been, an MVP. Mitch was a rookie in '86, but he, like Dykstra, had clubhouse impact, adding to the vernacular and the bully image the Mets loved. "The way Mitch used to talk," a former teammate said, "he wasn't a good bet to be alive for the 20th anniversary. Those not there will be conspicuously absent -- Ray Knight, the World Series MVP, manager Davey Johnson and, of course, Gooden. The Mets of '06 and '86 will lament the troubled turns his life has taken. "I'd like to know he's all right," said Wagner, briefly Gooden's teammate with the Astros in 2000. Lee Mazzilli, twice a Met, is now more a Yankee than a former Met. Roger McDowell is the Braves' pitching coach. He and his good friend, the Upside Down Man, can't make it. His other good friend, Bobby Ojeda -- the Mets' leading winner 20 years ago -- will be there. Draw a parallel between Bobby O, with his Red Sox past and offspeed left-handed stuff, and Glavine. There are no parallels that can be drawn to Sid Fernandez, not as a pitcher. He had a unique on-mound manner and delivery. * * * The '86 Mets were, and remain, everything the current Mets want to become -- a team of ongoing distinction. They have their place in New York's grand and rich baseball history because they won and because they were, as current manager Willie Randolph recalls, "pretty wild -- a bunch of renegades who enjoyed themselves and could play." This Mets manager, like Davey Johnson a former second baseman with a championship resume, watched Johnson's Mets. "I can't be sure of how they behaved. You hear so much," he said. "I'm sure how they played -- with attitude. "People said they were arrogant -- nothing wrong with that," he added. "They earned the right to be anything they wanted. They weren't real popular in the game, you'd hear people say. "I like my teams to have swagger. They cut themselves a nice, little niche. They wanted to roll over you and be remembered for it. That probably helped them get through the long season focused." Randolph and Howard Johnson were chatting on the field in March when the topic turned to the '86 Mets. "We were a pretty good team late," Johnson recalled. "We knew how to beat a bullpen. We had great players, and we had character." Darling stood nearby innocently eavesdropping before he footnoted Johnson's assessment. "That team did its best work late," he said. "We had character and characters."

What was it that gave it the R rating?