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Bobby Winkles, legendary Arizona State coach who went on to manage Angels and A's, 90. One of his Sun Devils was Gary Gentry.

https://youtu.be/ztPatNHuQHwhttps://youtu.be/ztPatNHuQHw Or is it woodwinds? Either way, here's to blowing our horn.

Gazed upon with Collector's Cups half full, these are the days of Jacob deGrom and Rafael Montero, which produced two days of good sidebar news in a pair of senses. One, of course, is that two reasonably highly touted rookie pitchers were promoted and matched their hype, at least on an introductory basis. DeGrom exceeded it, actually, doing everything he could to win his debut. Not only did he throw seven innings and give up but one run — the product of shaky defense, mostly — but the kid ended the notorious hitless-by-pitchers streak at last. Jacob singled in the third and somewhere, I'd like to believe, Tom Seaver stood on first base snapping his warmup jacket shut as he looked to Eddie Yost to see if the hit-and-run was on. DeGrom also laid down a beautiful bunt, proving the young man was born under the sign of Chub Feeney…or at least the former National League president's signature on a Spalding baseball. Of course it's wonderful that deGrom pitched (and hit) well and Montero pitched well. Of course it will be wonderful when Zack Wheeler settles down a bit and Noah Syndergaard Super 2's his way up and Matt Harvey recovers and Steven Matz maybe keeps coming. Take those guys, mix in Niese and Gee and whoever else is bubbling under the Hot 100, and you know what you might very well have in the not-too-distant future? Revisit the first night of Jacob http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2014/05/16/hello-jacob-goodbye-jeter/here.

DeGrom was initially replacing Germen in the bullpen, then Gee went on the DL.

Damaso Garcia, 63, backup infielder of yore. Came up with the 1978 MFYs, traded to Jays, played through the eighties.

From a 2008 recollection of that twi-nighter in 1998: So we booed: long and loud and lustily and totally outnumbered. The instant Cardinal fans cheered. The event people, taken in by the lure of the deuce, cheered. The idiots in Yankees caps cheered. Probably a few too many Mets fans cheered. Not us. BOOOOOOOOO! It was not a popular decision, particularly with one red-shirted McGWIRE 25 one row in front of us and six sheets to the wind. He turned around and addressed us directly: “OH, WHO THE METS GOT? THE METS DON'T GOT NOBODY! THEY GOT RUSTY STAUB! RUSTY STAUB'S A FAG! A FAG! YOU BETTER SHUT UP! RUSTY STAUB'S A FAG! THE METS SUCK! YOU BETTER WATCH IT!” We didn't, but I was a little put off. Fortunately, Reynoso did not give McGWIRE 25 home run 52. He walked him in the first and struck him out to end the third and fifth. The more McGwire failed, the fewer fans he seemed to have. And Rusty Staub tied the consecutive pinch-hit record, so screw you, scary and drunk man. The guy in the red shirt got up and never came back. He went to the men's room. I know that because when it was all over, he was slumped over a urinal and not moving. Pity. That Cardinal jersey looked brand new. The whole thing is http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2008/03/01/two-games-as-rare-as-february-29/here, if you're so inclined to read...the rest of the story.

I went to the second of those doubleheaders. The frontrunner readings, as gauged by the sudden explosion of Cardinal/McGwire gear, were off the chart.

Straw in a 2019 interview with SNY's Anthony McCarron: Strawberry recalled the first time Jim Frey, a Mets coach in 1983, asked him to be at Shea Stadium at 2 p.m., hours before game time, for some early work. Frey waited at the batting cage, but Strawberry was a no-show. "He pulled me to the side later and said, 'I'm never going to wait for you again. If you want to be great, show up early,'" Strawberry said. "It taught me something about how it's not going to happen overnight.”

Dave Anderson reflected on Strawberry and Frey in 1989. Now that a hitting coach is needed, the critics wonder if Strawberry will respond to the new guru as he once responded to Jim Frey, the Mets' hitting coach in 1983 when Strawberry hit 26 homers as a rookie. Frey, of course, is now the general manager of the Chicago Cubs, the team that outhustled the Mets for the National League East title. But in the memory of many Metophiles, he remains forever linked to Strawberry. Especially the memory of that steamy midseason moment in Shea Stadium's indoor cage when Straw dropped his bat after about 150 pitches. ''That's enough,'' he said to Frey. ''If you walk out of here now,'' Frey said, ''don't talk to me about hitting ever again. You're the guy looking for help, not me. If you want to work, work. If you want to walk out of here now, you don't need me. Some people already are starting to call you a 'cruiser,' a guy who can get by on his ability alone. If you want to be a cruiser, go find somebody else to help you. But if you want to be the best player you can be, I'll try to help you.” Strawberry picked up his bat. After about 150 more pitches, Frey said, ''That's enough'' and they walked down the tunnel to the Mets' clubhouse together. ''After that,'' Frey recalled yesterday, ''he and I developed a good relationship. I was hoping he would want to be the best player he could be.'' As that season progressed, Strawberry emerged as the National League rookie of the year. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/26/sports/sports-of-the-times-when-straw-responded-to-jim-frey.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/26/sports/sports-of-the-times-when-straw-responded-to-jim-frey.html

The thing that sticks out from Frey's tenure, beyond his relationship with Strawberry, was the first intrasquad game of Spring Training was billed as the Small Freys versus the Jumbo Franks, the sides managed by Jimmy Frey and big Frank Howard.

Hank Steinbrenner, 63, brother of Hal. Had been ill a while; reportedly unrelated to COVID-19.

Former Mets batting coach Jim Frey, first major league mentor to Darryl Strawberry, has died at 88. Frey worked under George Bamberger and Frank Howard prior to accepting the managerial role with the Cubs, a club he'd steer to its first postseason in 39 years. Prior to joining the Mets, he managed the Royals to their first pennant. Frey came to baseball fans' attention as a coach for Earl Weaver and the Orioles in the '70s.

Glenn Beckert, All-Star second baseman for the Cubs, 79.

Liked: Tom Seaver. Everything that every Met should be. Disliked: Ron Santo. Click these, pal.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I hope they find a scheme that works. Sounds like a plan!

https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/10/sports-arent-coming-back-soonhttps://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/10/sports-arent-coming-back-soon O.K., but what about empty stadiums? “The idea of a quarantined sports league that can still go on sounds really good in theory,” says Binney. “But it's a lot harder to pull off in practice than most people appreciate.” Conversations with experts painted a picture of what exactly it would take to make these sports vacuums a reality. Before any of this can begin, every person who would have access to the facilities will need to be isolated separately for two weeks to ensure that no infection could enter. That's players and coaches, athletic trainers and interpreters, reporters and broadcasters, plus housekeeping and security personnel. No one can come in or out. Food will have to be delivered. Hotel and stadium employees will have to be paid enough to compensate for their time away from their families. Everyone onsite will have to be tested multiple times during this initial period. That brings us to the question of testing. At the moment, screening is scarce enough that many healthcare facilities cannot even clear their employees. Asymptomatic professional athletes are not high on anyone's priority list. But here Carl Bergstrom, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Washington, offers some hope. Testing is not technologically difficult, he says. There are supply chain issues—we will eventually run out of the long Q-tips required for the nasopharyngeal swab, for example—and questions of bureaucracy, but he is cautiously optimistic that we might have ubiquitous COVID-19 testing by the end of May. All right, so the 14-day period is over and everyone has tested negative at least twice. Now they are allowed to begin spending time around one another—but not too much time. If one person gets it, he or she will begin spreading it immediately, so everyone will have to continue practicing social distancing. That probably means using a new ball for each play. It probably means seating players in stands rather than on benches or in dugouts. It certainly means banning high-fives. All personnel must continue to be tested daily. We will be unlikely to have enough rapid testing by then, so they will probably have to settle for the tests that take several hours to produce results. That means the testing will probably run a day behind. Any major sporting event hires ambulances, stocked with EMTs, to idle outside in case of injury. If a player needs treatment by outside medical personnel, even just for a sprained ankle, he or she has left the secure area and will need to isolate for 14 days before returning to it. And, of course, medical resources need to be abundant enough that society can afford to have ambulances and EMTs on call for games, plus doctors and nurses—clad in currently-scarce protective equipment—who can tend to sports injuries. Minor leagues cannot afford to play to empty stadiums, so you also need a taxi squad of players practicing in isolation in case someone gets hurt. And because players recognize that a championship won under these circumstances will be seen as tainted, expect them to be less likely to play through injury. After each game, everyone will need to be transported back to the hotel. If the NBA plays in Las Vegas, as has been proposed, the personnel might be able to walk from the court to their rooms. If MLB plays at spring training sites in Arizona, as it is considering, the league will have to hire bus drivers—who will, of course, also have to be isolated. And then once they are back in their rooms, every person involved will have to follow rules. You can't take your kids to the park. You can't run to the grocery store. You can't invite your Bumble match up to your room. These are humans, so the leagues would surely require insurance: That means security personnel (another group that would need to isolate) or invasive cell phone tracking (good luck getting that by the players' union). If your wife gives birth or your father dies of cancer and you want to be there, that's another 14-day reentry period. And ethically, Bergstrom says, “you need informed consent.” That means everyone has to opt in and no one's paycheck can hang in the balance. Fine. So no one touches anyone else or goes anywhere. Experts agree that if everything goes perfectly, the leagues could theoretically pull this off.

Extended Spring Training takes on a new meaning.

We're not seeing anybody in 2020, but should we at some point, Mark Reynolds won't be among them. He has announced his retirement. He hit one of the longest home runs Citi Field barely contained fairly early on in the life of the ballpark.

In the Bob Murphy Learning Annex talk from 1990 (posted in another thread; still recommended heartily if you're any kind of Mets fan with any kind of memory or level of historical curiosity), Murph matter-of-factly referred to Doc Gooden, then in his seventh season, as a future Hall of Famer. He rattled off his career win total to date, noted he was just 25 and marveled. And it wasn't to make a case. There was simply no doubt that Gooden would follow Seaver, who was still awaiting eligibility, into the Hall. They're different pitchers and different people performing in different times, but I'll wait a while to worry about Jacob deGrom's Hall of Fame path.

Tag plays will be interesting. At least they'll be wearing gloves...which ballplayers love talking into while communicating with their teammates six inches from their face. Yeah, this has a great chance to work.

Speaking of 2015 Mets, Murphys and Blevinses featured among those Baseball Couples Coping with No Baseball and so on and so forth and what have you. https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/07/baseball-players-coronavirus-quarantinehttps://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/07/baseball-players-coronavirus-quarantine

From today's Times: Her television outings, like others who have defended Mr. Trump, have often been at the extreme end of the administration's talking points. For instance, in a video of Ms. McEnany on the Fox Business show “Trish Regan Primetime” from February 25, circulated by Andrew Kaczynski of CNN, the new press secretary said, “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here, and isn't that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?” Since Ms. McEnany made that statement, more than 350,000 people in the U.S. have been infected with the coronavirus. Government job.

Sean Gilmartin's wife Kayleigh McEnany has just taken a government job. She's the new White House press secretary.

Jeff Passan reports details that would seem crazy-ass in less lunatic times. Actually they're still pretty bananas. https://t.co/zDoNa3k4pm?amp=1https://t.co/zDoNa3k4pm?amp=1

Al Kaline retired in 1974 and he's probably still the first player I'll think of if you say "Detroit Tigers" to me.