G-Fafif

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=57411 time=1614924408 user_id=68]Greg goes high-tech!

An appetite-whetting excerpt from Devin Gordon's forthcoming So Many Ways to Lose, seemingly a sympathetic iteration of Chico Escuela's Bad Stuff ‘Bout the Mets. So there they were, Mike Piazza and Roger Clemens, 11 years after the Incident at the Subway Series between the Mets and the Yankees in 2000, infamous nemeses now settling into easy breezy retirement, wedged next to each other on a pair of folding chairs at Michael Jordan's celebrity golf tournament in Las Vegas, live on a talk-radio show, hot mics in front of them. Together again, at last. The key chapters of that whole saga—Piazza's repeatedly owning Clemens at the plate; Clemens's responding like a big, fat psycho baby with a fastball to Piazza's skull, knocking him out with a concussion; then Game 2 of the World Series, the showdown in front of the whole world, the shattered bat, the jagged shard that Clemens may or may not have slung in anger at Piazza, the benches emptying, the near brawl—none of it ever got resolved with a peace accord.They never hashed it out years later, they never put it behind them and they never will. Mike Piazza and Roger Clemens and the broken bat during the Subway Series will connect them forever. So much has changed in New York since then. George Steinbrenner is dead, and so is one of his sons. The Mets—the Mets!—now have the richest owner in baseball, the second coming of Tom Seaver in their rotation, a home run king at first base and Francisco Lindor—Francisco Lindor!—playing shortstop. It's been so long since the Yankees have been to the World Series that they have to ask Mets fans what it feels like. As a lifelong Mets fan myself, though, I can assure that on a genetic level, nothing has changed. Steve Cohen (estimated worth: $12 billion) could buy the Yankees (estimated worth: $8 billion) and make them rent out Yankee Stadium, and they'd still be the Evil Empire. Meanwhile, if we've learned nothing else from the Mets this offseason, it's that they'll always be the Mets. Piazza and Clemens were two of the greatest ever to play their positions, but in retirement their legacies have gone in opposite directions. Piazza can seemingly do no wrong with Mets fans, no matter what he tries, and in 2016, on his fourth attempt, he got elected into the Hall of Fame with 83% of the vote. Clemens, on the other hand, has become the Lance Armstrong of baseball, another straight-shootin' Texan brought low by a cheating scandal, and now Yankees fans talk about him as though he's just a guy they used to work with for a while. Put “Piazza” and “Clemens” in the same sentence, though, and two decades later, every baseball fan of a certain age starts downloading the same video clip in our heads. Until that afternoon in Las Vegas, they had been forced to interact only once, at the 2004 All-Star Game, when Clemens was in the NL with the Astros and Piazza had to catch him for an inning. “That was awkward,” Piazza says now. He's a funny guy, dry and forthright. That night at the All-Star Game, Clemens got shelled, giving up six runs, five hits and two homers, which was magnificent, but it also made things even more awkward. “I think maybe he was feeling the same thing,” Piazza says. “I think we just didn't know what to say.” Before the game, one reporter had asked Piazza whether he and Clemens were kosher enough to do their jobs together, should the circumstances require it. Sure, Piazza said. He could've left it at that, but he couldn't resist sneaking in a quick joke: “I don't know if we're gonna be playing golf anytime soon.” Seven years later, here they were, playing golf together. Not together together. They weren't playing partners, but they were at the same tournament. They were playing in the same place at the same time. After Piazza finished his round, a local sports-talk producer from an ESPN drive-time show called Gridlocked buttonholed him and asked whether he'd sit down for a quick interview. Sure, Piazza said. It was a charity event, after all. https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/03/05/piazza-clemens-and-the-broken-bat-daily-coverhttps://www.si.com/mlb/2021/03/05/piazza-clemens-and-the-broken-bat-daily-cover

2011 Carlos Beltran has had it with 2011 Justin Turner. In 2011, Turner's first season with the Mets, Beltrán pulled him aside and told him it looked like he didn't care. “You're a young guy,” Beltrán said. “You can't just be flipping balls from second base. Get the ball and throw it, show a little bit more effort.” 2013 David Wright had only an inkling of what 2013 Justin Turner might become. At that moment, Wright did not anticipate Turner developing the player he became with the Dodgers. But he detected in that conversation an edge in Turner he had not heard previously. “You could tell in his voice he was upset and hurt that (the Mets) didn't view him as good enough to be on our team,” Wright says. “He used that as motivation. You could tell that day moving forward that he was going to prove us wrong, that he was going to show baseball we made a mistake.” 2021 Justin Turner is considered the world champion Dodgers' leader because 2011 David Wright told him to stop being such a little bitch with the press after a bad game. After the game, Turner drifted from the training room to the weight room to the food room, seeking to avoid reporters. He had settled in a sauna when Wright found him and asked what he was doing. “I don't want to go talk to those guys,” Turner said. “I'm going to get buried.” “Look, you've helped us win way more games than you've lost us,” Wright replied. “The best thing to do in these situations is go out there and tell these guys exactly what happened. If you don't tell them what happened, they're going to write whatever the heck they want and assume whatever they want.” With that, Wright escorted Turner into the clubhouse and stood by his side as he answered questions. Turner recalls experiencing great relief when the interview session was over, and to this day he tells Dodgers teammates the story, using it as a lesson in accountability and responsibility. Wright's guidance in that moment is something Turner says he will never forget. And as he became more established with the Dodgers, he also emerged as a model teammate, particularly with the way he regularly demonstrated concern for others. Ken Rosenthal with https://theathletic.com/2417940/2021/03/04/why-justin-turner-heart-and-soul-of-the-dodgers-was-never-leaving-los-angeles/the rest of the story.

Anthony Swarzak is an Arizona Diamondback invitee.

ESPN hosting a remote baseball-themed chat show, with one of the locations being Port St. Lucie. Some Mets-Nationals baseball going on in background.

MLBN will show it at 6 AM Thursday.

Another Orioles icon: Joe Altobelli, their 1983 World Series-winning manager, 88. Also helmed the Giants in the ‘70s.

Old Met nemesis Gio Gonzalez gets a non-roster invite to Marlins camp.

Edgy MD wrote: I may have this wrong, but I'm only just now realizing that if we are categorizing the Negro Leagues as Major Leagues, then we now can say we have had three female big leaguers. Not quite. The timespan covered is 1920-1948. The ladies came along a little later. https://tht.fangraphs.com/tht-annual-2018/the-negro-leagues-last-hope-three-brave-women/https://tht.fangraphs.com/tht-annual-2018/the-negro-leagues-last-hope-three-brave-women/

A Mets game is about to begin on SNY.

New Athletic article with https://theathletic.com/2420251/2021/03/02/indians-mickey-callaway-behavior/more self-inflicted Mickey mud, mostly about Cleveland, but with this Flushing nugget: ”He was on his phone all the time,” recalled one male Mets employee. “(I was like), ‘Two hours before a game, buddy? Aren't you having a meeting?' You could tell it had nothing to do with the game. It's 5:15, who are you texting?” According to one former Mets employee, Callaway earned a nickname among several people within the organization: “Dick Pic Mick.”

Still unsigned Yoenis Cespedes to hold a showcase (or Yo!case) on March 2. Sandy Alderson gets droll. https://twitter.com/jonheyman/status/1363968963470843912?s=21https://twitter.com/jonheyman/status/1363968963470843912?s=21 What a rascal.

A little Faith and Fear tribute to Mr. Hunter http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2021/03/01/a-two-time-winner/here.

Mets lose their ST opener to Marlins, at least 2-0, running the bases with no particular sense of direction. They're playing a bottom of the seventh in Jupiter to get more work in, but the game is effectively over.

Willard M. Hunter died at the age of 85 on February 3, his funeral conducted earlier this month in Omaha. The date of birth on Mr. Hunter's https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/omaha-ne/willard-hunter-10040697?fbclid=IwAR2gT-zlnJEUCtWxkoCA6O1e7NUR2_MnlcJt1QMJHOFk9zhlvOm2SQWjm30brief obit (March 18, 1935) differs from the one on Baseball-Reference for the Willard M. Hunter who pitched for the Mets (March 8, 1934), but our Willard did, in fact, settle in Nebraska, so the deceased is apparently one and the same. A 1964 program I have handy also lists the birthdate as 3/18/1935 — and his home even then as Omaha. Hunter was on the Mets' staff in 1962 and 1964. His claim to fame was winning both ends of a doubleheader in ‘64.

Terrence Long Beach is in the house.

Not too far from Lindorhurst.

The Mets sign a veteran catcher who isn't Rene Rivera, per multiple reports.

This passage from https://theundefeated.com/features/hank-aaron-and-the-eternal-connection-to-black-baseball/Claire Smith's tribute on The Undefeated, which I only just today read, really stopped me in my tracks: His presence in the major leagues created a safe place for Black players from Dusty Baker to Joe Morgan to Ken Griffey Sr. It was almost like the baseball version of the Underground Railroad. When you get to Atlanta, look up Aaron and he'll take care of you. When you get to San Francisco, look up Willie Mays and he'll take care of you. When you get to Pittsburgh, look up Willie Stargell and he'll take care of you.

That is a fun article. Every one of those writeups gave me a little late-season every-pitch-matters rush. God, baseball can be great.