G-Fafif

Geoff Hartlieb has assumed the role of The 27th Man.

=G-Fafif post_id=70916 time=1625888006 user_id=55] Walker named to replace deGrom.

Walker named to replace deGrom.

No NFL to any longer distract the pro sports fans of San Diego.

Another passage. He was everywhere, in uniform, because baseball was still in the national water supply, even as late as 1967, when Mays played in a celebrity softball game at Dodger Stadium. The game was televised in prime time on NBC, with Dodgers announcer Vin Scully on play-by-play and comedian Jerry Lewis on color. In the fourth inning, while facing actor Dale Robertson, Mays hit a towering fly to left field, where Woody Allen called off center fielder Peter Falk and made the catch. The Brooklyn-born Allen, 16 when Mays made the majors, would describe the moment in later interviews as a dream come to life. “Why is life worth living?” Allen's character, screenwriter Isaac Davis, asks in the 1979 film Manhattan. “That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Like what? O.K., I would say, what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing, and Willie Mays, and the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and uh, Louis Armstrong, recording of ‘Potato Head Blues,' uh, Swedish movies naturally. Sentimental Education by Flaubert. Uh, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by Cézanne ...” Deciding who is the reigning cultural colossus of any age is always a multiple-choice exam. But the possible answers are not infinite. “Some men define a generation,” the sportswriter Jimmy Cannon wrote in 1969. “It may be the Beatles or Lenny Bernstein or Frank Sinatra or Picasso or Willie Mays or Wilt Chamberlain or Marlon Brando or Tennessee Williams.” Or Bob Dylan, who, like the rest of TV-watching America, saw Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr in a commercial in the early 1960s. A young man was applying Brylcreem at a locker room sink when Starr intervened: “Sam,” Starr asked, “You still using that greasy kid stuff?” Old Bart knew what Young Sam didn't: “Vitalis keeps your hair neat all day without grease.” Brylcreem and Vitalis were hair-care products for white men. “Out of the shower comes the football man, with a bottle of oil in his hand,” Dylan sang in “I Shall Be Free” in 1964. “Greasy kid stuff. What I wanna know, Mr. Football Man, is what do you do about Willie Mays, Martin Luther King [and the Nigerian drummer Babtunde] Olatunji?

Nimmo CF Lindor SS Smith LF Alonso 1B McNeil 2B Conforto RF Villar 3B McCann C Walker P

The everyday mainstay of an injury-wracked lineup and field general of a defensively upgraded first-place team is the league's least valuable player. Okey-doke, Jayson Stark. Most disappointing offensive performer, especially for the money, perhaps. But somebody in the NL is likely less valuable than Francisco Lindor.

The Mets have claimed righty reliever Geoff Hartlieb from the incoming Pirates and assigned him to Syracuse.

Steve Rushin on the Willie Mays of Willie Mayses. Where are they now, these giants with a lowercase g? In the 21st century, when baseball is deep in the shadow of other amusements, it can be difficult to fathom. But 70 years ago, when he made his debut with the Giants, and for the next 18 years at least, Willie Mays was not merely a transcendent baseball player, like Mike Trout—or transcendent athlete, like Michael Jordan—but a transformative figure in the national psyche, a skeleton key that opened almost any door into American life. Peerless on the field, Mays was more often paired with other artists, many of whom measured themselves against him, and almost always found themselves wanting. Disgorged from the Deep South, in glorious full bloom in the 1950s, inducted into the U.S. Army in his white-hot prime, holed up in California in the '60s and in artistic decline by '70: In all of these ways, Mays was twinned with Elvis Presley, both men eventually finding themselves, in middle age, employed by casinos. By 1970, Presley and Mays were locked into memory forever, with an enduring body of work behind them, and moments of greatness still possible on any given night. Elvis opened the Las Vegas epoch of his career at the International Hotel in '70. This was the High Renaissance of Late Elvis—when the King was all jumpsuits, sideburns and sunglasses. But he was still fit and handsome, Elvis in excelsis. Cary Grant was in the opening-night audience. So was filmmaker Denis Sanders, making the MGM documentary Elvis: That's the Way It Is, in which he interviewed a young Presley fan in a powder-blue cardigan and eyeglasses so thick as to appear opaque. The man, about 30—a teenager in the late 1950s—told Sanders that the enduring appeal of Elvis is that “he can do it all.” That is, he can sing, dance, act, tell stories and just stand there, looking like a million dollars, with a humility that conveys authenticity. “He is,” says this unidentified Elvis fan, “the Willie Mays of entertainment.” But Willie Mays, like Elvis, was also supremely entertaining, and Willie Mays, unlike Elvis, was indisputably Willie Mays, making Willie Mays, even more than Elvis Presley, the Willie Mays of entertainment. https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/07/09/willie-mays-where-are-they-now-2021https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/07/09/willie-mays-where-are-they-now-2021

When I saw Tatis had homered earlier in this game, with the Nationals well ahead, I allowed myself to think, “If they somehow lose this, this has the potential to kill their season or at least wound it,” not really believing such a short-term result was likely. Don't know about the rest of their season, but damn, that's a nice National loss. The inverse of Diaz vs. Suzuki.

Jake seems to be warmly welcoming the neophyte award winners to his club.

Petco Park continues to nurture pitcher hitting magic.

Edgy MD wrote: Dumb question on this topic — I assume we still get the magic runner business in the post-season, right? I don't believe so. Last year, which birthed this BS, gave us normal extras https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL202009300.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL202009300.shtml

7 inning games remain an embarrassment and blight on the sport. The fans might think so but the owners and players seem to disagree: https://sny.tv/articles/mlb-exec-seven-inning-doubleheaders-could-stay-attractive-to-owners-playershttps://sny.tv/articles/mlb-exec-seven-inning-doubleheaders-could-stay-attractive-to-owners-players Very much a Martino story. Clubs and players are OK with it, who cares what grousing fans think?

1,141. Robert Stock

Stock is optioned; Tropeano stays and is promoted to 26th man.

“Hey, where's everybody going? It's still the bottom of the eighth!”

Jeff McNuggets all around!

Shootout time.

=bmfc1 post_id=70524 time=1625688762 user_id=73] Peraza has had big hits

Nicky “the Trope” Tropeano is 27th Man for 2nd Game.

Banged. Splitsies tomorrow. 2:10, 7:10, 7 each.

Corey Oswalt to the IL, Robert Stock up to take his place.