Benjamin Grimm

I don't think he's found his way here yet...

You need to at least have a Linus avatar!

I'm going to have to get my head around the idea that you're not cooby anymore.

Maybe he took that in the mirror. The flower looks like it's been reversed.

You were expecting maybe Joey Bishop?

I meant the Brooklyn/Queens side of the river. Should have specified that.

Its location. I'd put it on the shore of the East River somewhere.

Diamond Dad wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: At least it's not one of those Mariano Rivera pools. Come on in . . . that water's AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!! Note the little up arrows in the quote boxes. If you click on it it will take you to the original post that's being quoted.

You probably should have opened this new thread at the new address, as this place will be locked down in a few days.

At least it's not one of those Mariano Rivera pools.

Here's where we are at the close of the third round. We're down to eight contenders, four from the Daily News and two each from Newsday and the New York Post. Voting will resume after the New Year with the following matchups: MIDNIGHT BADNESS (Daily News) vs GOOD WIL! (Daily News) A WRIGHT TO REMEMBER (Daily News) vs WHERE THERE'S A WIL (Newsday) SWEEP SNAKES (New York Post) vs GSELL THE MAN! (New York Post) IT RAININ' METS (Daily News) vs SMILE HIGH (Newsday) http://leaptoad.com/mets/covers/images/2018/brackets2018_003.png>

The final poll from Round Three has now closed, with GOOD WIL! of the Daily News defeating Newsday's SUCCESS. With the elimination of the last Yoenis Cespedes cover, along with the earlier elimination of the final Noah Syndergaard cover, we're now assured that this year's ultimate winner will feature a player whose picture has never before been displayed behind Maja's desk in Stockholm. GOOD WIL! is now one step away from the Final Four, and seems to be favored to get there; it's next opponent is MIDNIGHT BADNESS, which faces a daunting challenge. Fourth-round voting will get underway in January. And if you've read our announcement, either in this forum, in your e-mail, or on the CPF Facebook page, you'll know that that voting will occur in our new location. HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE TABLOID COVER DERBY! We'll see you in 2019!

We're moving to a new address! This version of The Crane Pool Forum will be shut down on or shortly after January 1. Get all the details! See you at the new place!

soupcan wrote:Mets Hall Of RecordsI don't think this link is what it used to be!

Speaking of that... The four prominent players that Brodie has brought to the Mets are Cano, Diaz, Familia, and Ramos. And yet nobody is raising the "alarm" (as we saw with Omar in the 2004-05 offseason) that there's a nefarious plan to make the Mets more Hispanic. Are people more tolerant now? Or just more likely to be suspicious of the motives of a brown-skinned GM than a Mr. Whitebread like Brodie Van Wagenen?

On Mets Hot Stove last week, Anthony DiComo started shouting that the Mets should sign Harper. He said that if Brodie really wants the Mets to be the team to beat, SIGN BRYCE HARPER! He said that would hands down make them the best team in the NL East. He also said, in his column on MLB.com the other day, that the Mets have a payroll number that they will not go above. He didn't say, and probably doesn't know, what that number is, but it appears that he knows that there's a fixed ceiling. Maybe if the Mets can unload the contracts of Lagares and Frazier they can fit Harper? I wish I knew. I just agree that Harper is the kind of game-changer that could very well put them over the top, and it's frustrating that they don't seem to be in on him.

The seventh poll of the third round has now closed, and the New York Post's GSELL THE MAN! has severed our final connection with Matt Harvey, as MATT OUTTA HELL is now eliminated. The Post had only two covers among the 22 that emerged from the first round, and now as we approach the Final Four, both of those covers survive. It's good news/bad news for the Post: They're now guaranteed to have one, and only one, of their covers in the Final Four, as fate has determined that GSELL THE MAN! will face off against the only other remaining Post cover, SWEEP SNAKES, in the next round.

WELCOME TO THE NEW HOME OF THE CRANEPOOL FORUM! If you're an existing member visiting for the first time, http://thecranepool.net/phpBB32/ucp.php?mode=registerplease take a moment to re-register. You'll be asked to solve a simple puzzle that should be easy for any Mets fan. (It involves looking at a list of famous Mets players and determining which ones were and which ones were not pitchers.) If you're having any trouble registering please let us know, either by posting in the "Bitch to the Admins" forum at http://thecranepool.net/phpBBour old address, or by sending a PM to one of the admins from your account at the old place. Why do I have to re-register? Our previous version of the phpBB Bulletin Board software was so old that the upgrade tools provided by the vendor didn't work. (You may have noticed the brief downtime we had in mid-December, and the weird characters that have appeared in some of the existing posts or thread titles.) Our choices were, therefore, to stay forever on the old platform which would continue to become more and more out of date, or to start fresh. We decided to start fresh. As we open the doors here, we'll each be back at zero posts, in a forum with no existing threads. What about all of our history? Our old posts will continue to be available on our http://archives.thecranepool.net/Archives page, and the old forum isn't going away any time soon. It will continue to be there for viewing of old threads for the foreseeable future. But on or around January 1, 2019, all forums at the old address (except for Bitch to the Admins) will be locked and posting in those forums will no longer be possible. If you want to continue a thread from the old place, just start a new version here and you can, if you like, include a link to the original thread. What benefit does this provide? The main thing we're hoping is that this will allow the forum to be open for new members who follow the Mets to easily enroll, while keeping out the spambots and Russian trolls who have flooded this place in the past every time we opened the doors a little bit. The little quiz about Mets knowledge, mentioned above, is a key part of that. Will it work? Only time will tell, but we felt we had to give it a try. You'll also see that the forum has a new style template, one that provides a less cluttered (and hopefully more appealing) look. All of the old features that we know and love (or loathe) seem to still be here, and perhaps after we've settled in we'll find a few new bells and/or whistles that we'll come to appreciate. Will this new style work on my mobile device? Yes. It's a new style, called "Mrs. Payson", and it's based on a phpBB style called "Simplicity" which is optimized to run equally well on PCs and phones and tablets. Unlike in the old place, you don't have to choose a style. There's one and only one here and it should work for everyone. I had tens of thousands of posts at the old place, and now I'm back at zero??? Yes. What about the rankings, from Jim the Monstrous Bat Boy to Tom Seaver? Those are not in place, at least not yet. Maybe at some point in the near future, but so far we're going commando-style, without any ranks. I don't like change. Can we go back to the old place? No. This is where we are now, and unless it turns out to be a complete disaster, this is where we're staying, and we'll just work through any kinks that we may discover.

G-Fafif wrote: The Brodie Van Family is so good-looking their picture probably comes with the frame. I love how the fans immediately responded by saying "We want Bryce Harper!"

And Jacob deGrom... is out of this competition! The sole remaining cover featuring our Cy Young winner was narrowly out-smiled by Brandon Nimmo and SMILE HIGH in this battle between two Newsday covers. The only thing standing between SMILE HIGH and the Final Four is IT'S RAININ' METS, which it will face in the fourth round.

The David Wright cover, A WRIGHT TO REMEMBER has won this poll, and it will advance to the fourth round, where it will face Newsday's WHERE THERE'S A WIL. The winner of that poll will advance to the Final Four. MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE TABLOID COVER DERBY!

Did Matt den Dekker leave the organization again?

WHERE THERE'S A WIL has found a way to defeat the Rusty Staub memorial cover and will advance to Round Four. This is the first Newsday cover to enter the Elite Eight this year, joining two from the Daily News and one from the Post. Four voting threads are still in progress. All of our eight fourth-round entries will be decided by Friday.

I haven't really paid much attention to this kind of stuff. In the past, how accurate have their forecasts proven to be?

Shelby claims to be allergic to zebras, so we had to get Bob to fill in for her.