Benjamin Grimm

I guess so. Although I have to say that if I didn't have kids, I would've skipped half of those: Sky High, Chicken Little, Narnia, Harry Potter, and probably Charlie.

First editions tend to include more players, all of the guys who went to spring training hoping to make the team. The revised editions tend to zero in on the players who are still with the club in June, or July, or whenever. I like having both. Do the Mets still revise their yearbooks? Is there a 1998 yearbook with Piazza in it? If not, when did they stop the practice. I think (though I'm not sure) that in the 1960's they would sometimes revise the yearbook more than once during the season. (First revised edition, Second revised edition, etc.)

Based on Norrin's list, it looks like I saw exactly ten of the 2005 movies. That means that the only requirement to make my Top Ten List is that I had to have watched the movie. So, here's my list, such as it is: KING KONG GRIZZLY MAN BATMAN BEGINS FANTASTIC FOUR SKY HIGH WAR OF THE WORLDS HARRY POTTER/GOBLET OF FIRE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY CHICKEN LITTLE

Edgy DC wrote: I'm going after the 1981 yearbook. That one came with a fold-out poster that the one I'm bidding on is missing. Are they just referring to a two-page spread team shot, or was it a full wall-size poster? By the way, in that Gallo illustration on the cover, Lee Mazzilli, Doug Flynn, and Neil Allen are pretty indistinguishable. It was a wall poster. If I remember right it was four times the size of the yearbook; if you folded it in half twice it would fit inside. I removed my poster from the yearbook and haven't seen it in years.

I don't know Impulse.

Hey Mackey! Come visit us! We'd love to ask you questions about gay pornography!

I didn't linger long enough. The thread there is a reply to a blog or something. The poster said something like, "Don't forget Mackey Sasser!" I didn't want to keep poking around to see what she was replying to. Anyone else who's more adventurous than I am, or not currently at work, please go ahead. I am curious.

="cooby"] If only somebody would invite me here Speaking of Mackey Sasser, he's being mentioned on a gay pornography web site. (And in case you're wondering, I found it because of the link to the UMDB, not due to any browsing of my own! Not that... oh, never mind.)

You should contact Mackey and share that heart-warming story.

My 1969 yearbook is autographed by both Bob Murphy and Nolan Ryan. (Or by somebody pretending to be them.) I got it cheap on eBay last year. I think buyers probably didn't believe that the autographs were authentic and didn't want to pay for a marred yearbook. Me, I didn't care about it being slightly scribbled on, and was able to get it much cheaper than I would an unautographed copy. So I may have gotten a real bargain. The seller told me so after the auction ended. I think he was hoping to get many times more than what I spent. (I think it was something like $25.) (Zvon, I'll post a list of my missing faces maybe later today.)

I just dug mine out. Mine is merely "official." Sheesh.

Edgy DC wrote: When I first found the UMDB, there were very few photos of Mets before 1973, but a pretty complete set of the 1962 Mets. I fugured that pretty much summed up Yancy's yearbook collection. Interesting. I don't know when you first found the site, but in the early days I didn't expect that it would get nearly the number of visitors that it's been getting. I remember when Ed Kranepool was in first place in the most-popular rankings with something like 11 hits. I was impressed that someone reached double digits. My original goal was to get photos of the Mets who I thought would be most likely to be clicked. It wasn't until much later, when everyone's hit count was over four digits that I decided to try to fill in all the lesser-known guys. (Only 138 faces remain on the wish list, by the way.) I probably got the 1962 photos from my Donald Honig book that the Mets sent me for free many years ago.

I have 1964, and 1966 through 2005. I think I'm missing one from the mid-90's though. It's not with the others, but it's probably somewhere in this house. I don't display them but have them in a pile on a bookshelf. I used to collect the scorecards too, but haven't in a long time. I do have a scattered bunch, though. I also have an unbroken run of Sporting News Baseball Baseball Guides from 1963 to 2005.

I'm glad you're in the Duck Soup camp, and not hanging with the A Night at the Opera crowd.

The cover I thought was ugliest was, I think, the 1980 one. 1980 and 1981 were both ugly, but of the two, the one that wasn't by Bill Gallo was the uglier. Actually, there was a long stretch of bad covers. The 1982 had those awful portraits of the two Georges. The illustrations on the 1983 cover were hideous. And as for 1984, I couldn't see anything but the pimple on Keith's nose.

Oh, and my other observation:Katie Holmes getting exposed to that insanity gas totally explains the whole Tom Cruise thing.

Just saw this for the first time on DVD (thanks, Santa!) the other day. I gave it a six. Pretty good. There are so many different ways to interpret Batman that it would be impossible to make everyone happy. I prefer Batman to be serious instead of campy. I'll take Frank Miller over Adam West any day. I wonder if, in future movies, they'll let Batman be humanized by adding Robin. I'm also unsure of whether or not I'd like to see this happen.As I was watching, two things that Edgy pointed out above occurred to me as well:...and bringing back Joe Chill as Dr. Wayne's killer. It's important that the killer was just an otherwise ordinary thug, and not a supervillian. Why does Gotham have an Assistant DA, as well as an expert-testimony-giving psychologist with his own asylum, both under 25? I didn't have any "goosebump" moments (it's much harder for that to happen in a DC movie than in a Marvel movie) but it almost happened at the end, when Gordon showed Batman the clue in the sandwich bag, and Batman said, "I'll look into it." Made me really anticipate the sequel. Any info on when that might happen?

I only saw the movie once, and was unimpressed. I was also 15, so I'll withhold my opinion until I've seen it as a grownup. I'll have to keep an eye on Turner Movie Classics to see when they show it again.

I also consider a movie within its genre. I think Vic had said something like, "How can you give The Incredibles five stars? What then, do you give Citizen Kane?" Me, I think the The Incredibles was as good as it could be. It wasn't trying to be Citizen Kane. It had no chance of being Citizen Kane. I don't see any contradiction in giving The Incredibles five stars while acknowledging that it's not the equal of the best movies ever made.

Vic Sage wrote: Yancy and I had the same childhood. twin sons of different mothers, as it were. The years are probably roughly the same, too, huh? As I recall, you're about a year older than me? (I was born in 1963.) I went to my first Mets game in 1971 and bought my first Marvel Comic (FF #144) during the winter following the 1973 season.

My most impressionable early year as a Mets fan was 1972, when I was nine. For me, the seminal Mets are Seaver, Koosman, Matlack, McGraw, Milner, Jones, Grote, Boswell, Agee, Staub, etc. I came on board midway through the 1971 season, so I do also have memories of Gil Hodges, Donn Clendennon, Bob Aspromonte, Ken Singleton, etc. When I was 12, though, I was temporarily disconnected from the Mets. I still paid attention, went to games, watched on TV, etc, but in 1974 (when I was 11) and 1975 I devoted the bulk of my energy to Marvel Comics. By 1976 the comics frenzy had receded and my Mets rabies returned. I remember being surprised that I didn't even know where Dave Kingman had come from.

The impatient charge against Omar rings true to me. Because he's pushy and eager, he'll occassionally get to beat some other team to a good deal. But he'll probably more often act rashly and make a deal that's not as good as one he might have made had he been patient.

Really? I hated that "Cheer up Charlie" song that Charlie's mother sings in the original. Slows the movie to a dead stop.I completely agree about Wilder over Depp.I feel the same way about Robert Armstrong over Jack Black.

It did seem strange reading about how Frank Thomas, just a few years into his 20's, was negotiating on his own with Branch Rickey. I think many of the younger players would have their dads or somebody negotiate for them, but even a 50-year-old dad probably won't have the negotiating skills of a seasoned GM like Branch Rickey. Many fans hate free agency (I don't), but Frank's book reminds us of how unfair the old system was.

It doesn't look like it. I'm up to 1957 in Frank Thomas' book, and he's always been doing his negotiating himself.