Benjamin Grimm

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Wow, my memory isn't what it used to be. I only remember one of the two Neil Walkers. That close talking between Terry and the umpire... I could almost see the virus particles going back and forth between them.

Andy Martino, SNY wrote: Behind the scenes of MLB labor talks for 2020 season, it's calm and optimistic Tuesday's dust-up did nothing to change the industry expectation that MLB will launch its season in July The players want to play. The owners want to earn. A round of calls to sources reveals that everyone is surprisingly calm behind the scenes, and the PR/social media war is mostly kabuki. For these reasons and more, Tuesday's dust-up did nothing to change the industry expectation that MLB will launch its season in July. When we did our rounds of asking for reaction on the player/agent side on Tuesday and Wednesday after the owners proposed steep cuts for top earning players, we received a number of virtual shrugs. "Unsurprising," texted one agent, in a typical response. This is a contrast to the more heated online reaction of some players and agents. Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman tweeted that the season was "not looking promising." He wasn't alone in exercising his rights to say whatever he wanted about MLB's opening pitch. But behind the scenes, players are calmly discussing a first shot that they essentially saw coming, and deciding how to respond (the Players' Association isn't tipping the details of how it will counter just yet). Most players and agents know that they will have to sacrifice something in order to play. Perhaps they will agree to a much less punishing sliding scale of salary cuts. Perhaps they will accept deferred payments to their prorated salaries, as SNY reported last week was a possibility. The bottom line: Both sides want a season. Expect more rattling of sabers in public over the next several days, while the union lawyers quietly craft a response. By the weekend, the sides could be working hard on their negotiation, and finding compromises and givebacks that facilitate an agreement. Remember: No player wants to lose a season of his short career. And no owner wants to lose to a year of TV revenue. The sides remain highly motivated to make it work. https://www.sny.tv/mets/news/behind-the-scenes-of-mlb-labor-talks-for-2020-season-its-calm-and-optimistic/313477094https://www.sny.tv/mets/news/behind-the-scenes-of-mlb-labor-talks-for-2020-season-its-calm-and-optimistic/313477094

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I often forget that Bob Gibson wore a Met uniform. That's pretty cool. Not nearly as cool as the fact that Rogers Hornsby did, but still really cool.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: We just became landlords, not a great gamble on our part. We thankfully got the parents of our tenants to guarantee we get paid b/c making mortgage without their $$ would get difficult in a hurry. Two young 20 somethings, a gay guy and a girl. Is the guy really gay? Or is he Jack Tripper and you're Mr. Roper?

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=37382 time=1590459952 user_id=68]Yawn.

Is it cheating to refer to this page? http://leaptoad.com/mets/oppteams.php?ThisTeam=09&tabno=Ghttp://leaptoad.com/mets/oppteams.php?ThisTeam=09&tabno=G

That 2000 game you mentioned, with Franco striking out Barry Bonds, is the greatest game that the Mets have played in San Francisco. But the Giants were in their new stadium by then.

I saw some headlines but I have no idea what this is about. I suppose I would have read the article if I cared even a little.

I assume you're not talking about Kevin Dewayne Brown, who pitched two innings for the 1990 Mets?

I got the image from the Post's Twitter feed, downloaded it, resized it, and uploaded it to the UMDB site. I do this for all Mets covers for the Tabloid Cover Derby.

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Never seen Breaking Away. I guess I'll give it a try if I see it in the TV listings. Bad News Bears is a fun little movie but I don't seem to have the same esteem for it that Edgy does. My favorite baseball movie is Bull Durham, but I may have seen it one too many times.

Darling vs Tudor and Darryl homering off the clock, as noted above. That was during the week after Hurricane Gloria hit Long Island and there was no power at my house. My sister and I temporarily relocated to my grandmother's house and we watched the game there

I've started seeing speculation in a few places that one way the owners can recoup this year's losses (perhaps in addition to giant advertising tarps and instead of additional concessions from the players) is through expansion fees. According to sports.yahoo.com/covid-19-could-force-mlb-152452691.htmlthis guy (And let's just pretend that he knows what he's talking about. I have no idea.) adding two new teams could yield $50 million to each of the existing franchises. (Which leads me to wonder if they'd add four teams and get $100 million each. Or six teams for $150 million each. Or...) The article I linked is focused on Portland, Oregon, because of where the writer is from, but he also mentions other possibilities: Montreal, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Vancouver, Nashville, and New Orleans. I've long thought that North Carolina and Tennessee would be promising expansion options. You could put the Charlotte Knights and Montreal Dragons in the Eastern Divisions, New Orleans Pelicans and Nashville Sounds in the Central, and Vancouver Mounties and Las Vegas Stars in the West. Is six new teams too many? Yeah, but I don't really care!

Tommy Hutton?

But the new wrinkle might be a constant scroll. TRY THE NEW RASPBERRY LATTE AT DUNKIN followed by LOVE - IT'S WHAT MAKES A SUBURU A SUBURU followed by PORK THE OTHER WHITE MEAT etc etc.

This is the first one I remember: https://storage.googleapis.com/hipcomic/p/fb17a54f773e0016b48d7cf8ad4b7529.jpg> The series didn't last very long. It started out as Dr. Doom and Sub-Mariner, but I think later Namor was replaced with the Red Skull.

I can't remember the last time I thought of Dillon Gee.

Here's a way for teams to make money from the empty seats: https://frntofficesport.com/mlb-team-tarp-advertising/Tarp advertising The article mentions that advertisers would want to make sure their ads appear on screen often enough. The most effective way to do that, and it's a slippery slope, is to have an advertising scroll at the bottom of the screen. It's probably inevitable, and this may be the year that it takes a leap forward. (I think we do see ads at the bottom in the form of sponsorship of out-of-town scores, but I'm not sure of that.)

This is an interesting story, and one I don't recall having heard before. The article goes a bit too much into the alternative reality, but it's worth looking at. Apparently, the St. Louis Browns were on the verge of relocating to Los Angeles, but the plans were canceled because of Pearl Harbor. https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/the-story-of-the-los-angeles-browns-changed-baseball-foreverThe L.A. Browns? How one day in '41 changed MLB

Lefty Specialist wrote: Hopefully, he's battling. I hope so too. This thread title makes me think of "Martha Raye, Denture Wearer" http://www.celebritybite.net/uploads/3/6/0/3/3603938/martha-raye-and-her-dentures-starred-in-polident-commercials_orig.jpg>

From SNY's website: May 14, 1:57 PM: MLB has partnered with a Utah lab in order to provide coronavirus testing to players and support staff, in addition to "thousands more in the general public," reports Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, who says the testing plan was presented by the league to the Players Association on Tuesday. The lab, The Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory, will turn its current lab (which currently performs testing for performance enhancing drugs) into a coronavirus testing facility. Any return by MLB this season has been expected to include a coronavirus testing element, but there had been questions surrounding the ethics of potentially using thousands of tests on players during a time when many in the general public are still unable to get tested. It's fair to believe the above agreement would allay some of those concerns.

I was wondering if they'd have fake ballpark noises for the players' benefit. Will there be a public address announcer so that we know when the pinch hitter is officially in the game? Probably not necessary. I imagine they'll play a recorded national anthem. I have to say, I REALLY hope this works out. I'm wanting to watch baseball now more than I have in years.