Benjamin Grimm

What kind of a name is Jaerock anyway? I think if Fred and Barney went to a Mets game last year, Jae Rock Seo would have been pitching.

What Norrin said.

I hope David doesn't believe this stuff. Maybe his agent isn't good at selecting endorsements. I'm getting the feeling that within a year or two we'll be seeing David Wright jumping up and down on Oprah's couch. I want David Wright to be our Cal Ripken, not our Tom Cruise.

If Delgado has to have a lengthy slump, now's as good a time as any. But he'd better snap out of it.

If he's in uniform, the Mets had to have approved it. Or at least, they should have approved it. There have been cases of players appearing in commercials in uniform without authorization, but they get slapped when they do that. (Ed Kranepool in an ad endorsing Al D'Amato comes to mind.)

Ten and five for Trachsel doesn't mean anything if he's a free agent who's not offered a contract. Piazza was ten and five too, remember.

This is even going to be less interesting than it was last year.

Read the second paragraph.

Congratulations! If not for my Alaska vacation I would have beaten you there! But I'll be joining you soon.

That's what happens when you paste without reading carefully.

Eek! Edited.

Because this received such a lukewarm response last year, it's time to do it again! I'm going to list the names of ten players who are currently in the Mets organization. For each player, give a number, from 0 to 10, indicating how likely you think it is that he'll still be Mets property on Opening Day, 2007. (He doesn't have to be on the active roster. If he's in the minors or on the DL, it still counts as being present.) If you think a player is definitely not returning, vote 0. Definitely returning, vote 10. For every player who does return, your score will be the number you assigned to him. For every player who's gone by Opening Day, your score will be 10 minus your number. Example: You think Player A is unlikely to return, but you think there's a slight possibility that he will, so you give him a 3. If he does return, you were pretty wrong, so you only get 3 points. If he doesn't, you were mostly right, so you get 7. A perfect score is 100. To get it you have to vote 0 or 10 for every player, and be correct every time. You can guarantee yourself a wishy-washy 50 by voting 5 for every player. Rumors may start swirling as we get closer to August 31, so the sooner you vote the more pure your guess will be. Voting will be closed once one of the ten departs, or August 31, whichever comes first. Here are the ten players, in alphabetical order: Bannister, Brian Delgado, Carlos Floyd, Cliff Glavine, Tom Heilman, Aaron Hernandez, Orlando Maine, John Milledge, Lastings Trachsel, Steve Valentin, Jose It was harder to find ten guys "on the bubble" this year than it was last year.

ScarletKnight41 wrote: That's a long way off Yancy. Not really, given the way time has been accelerating for me as I've reached middle age.

It won't be all that long before there's a large number of Mets fans who have no memory of Shea Stadium.

Why would that be nervousness? Camden Yards opened 14 years ago, when Wright was 9 years old.

You can have Lorn Brown if you want him.

Has anyone claimed Lorn Brown?

Actually, I think I've decided who I'll be, but I'll keep it a secret for now.

I guess I should start thinking of who I'll be. Would M. Donald Grant be tasteful?

And we'll both be Seaver about three times longer than we were both Gooden and Koosman. And after that we'll both be Joan Payson together until the end of time.

seawolf17 wrote: Having both of you as Doc Gooden made it look like you were answering yourself, which freaked me out. I'm the Gooden that's sitting on top of the big lumpy orange guy.

I enjoyed the movie. It was nice seeing the exploration of how difficult and lonely it can be to be Superman. I, too, noticed the nod to the cover of Action Comics Number 1. DC movies can't give me goosebumps, but that, along with the theme song playing during the credits, almost did the trick. Kate Bosworth is way too young to be Lois Lane. I had a similar beef with Katie Holmes in Batman Begins. I have nothing against pretty young actresses, but both Holmes' character and Lois Lane are accomplished women, who need to have had a certain number of years of experience to get to their position. There are plenty of attractive actresses in their mid-thirties would could have been cast. Another cool scene: when the thug shot Superman in the eye. Routh, by the way, is also too young. I assume that they cast younger actors because they want this franchise to continue for a while, and with a cast this young they may be able to do ten years worth of movies before they have to recast. The movie, though, was too long. Once Luthor was defeated I started getting fidgety. They could have wrapped things up a bit sooner. I didn't time it, but the film seemed to have a twenty-minute epilogue, which is just too long.

Great! Thanks a lot! Now I can't stop clapping my hands. (I had to type this with my nose and my feet.)

Beltran is one of my bigger worries. If his 2006 isn't better than his 2005, we'll be looking at another five years of a vastly overpaid mediocre player. No problem here! I also worry that we may get fewer than 60 combined starts from Pedro and Glavine; the closer we get to 70 from them the better. This one's still looking iffy. If Nady doesn't have that breakout season we're hoping for, and Floyd reverts to 2004, and Beltran continues 2005, the outfield's not all that potent. Nady's been pretty good. Floyd's been bad, but Beltran's been fantastic. The outfield could be stronger, but it hasn't been the weak spot that I feared. I still sense Julio being a disaster. Hopefully, if he is, the Mets will stop using him, rather than keep running him out there in the hope that he'll eventually justify dealing Anna. Julio's gone; he won't hurt us any more. Trachsel's a minor concern. I think he'll get it together, but if he doesn't Heilman is in the wings. (Assuming, of course, that Heilman doesn't have to step in for any of the other four starters.) Trachsel's been better than Heilman. He's the guy I should have been worrying about. I fear the July 31 deadline. I'll be quite relieved if Lastings Milledge is still Mets property on August 1. If the Mets are even within ten games of a playoff berth, Omar may start mortgaging the future. The Mets are in far better shape than I could have imagined. They're not going to make a desperate deal to get themselves back into the pennant race; they're solidly in. They may make a deal to help them get deeper into the playoffs, but that's a different kettle of fish. At this point, I think I'd be okay with a Milledge for Dontrelle deal, if such a thing were possible.

And a bag of chips!