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41Forever wrote: That might be the coolest thing -- ever!!!!!!!!! Congrats! Well, it ain't Thor on GoT, but for us, it was a most unusual event. Thanks.

This Sunday's episode of Madam Secretary (CBS, 10 PM ET) will include Faith and Fear in Flushing bloggers Greg Prince and Jason Fry playing themselves as baseball fans waiting in line to see a baseball documentary outside a movie theater. It's the stuff of blink and you'll miss us, but it's for real. The series producer/episode director is a Mets fan and a reader of our blog, so... The riveting inside story is here. One of the caps we wore, provided to us by the wardrobe department, is here: [fimg=400]http://i66.tinypic.com/2dw7qkh.jpg[/fimg]

41Forever wrote: Vince, you got run over by a tarp. You are not a bad ass. At one point in 1991, Coleman had to go on the DL with a bad ass.

Flown in from New York fresh! Conforto CF Cespedes LF Cabrera 2B Bruce RF Frazier 3B Gonzalez 1B Lobaton C Harvey P Rosario SS Gonzalez was a Brave in name if not in actuality this past winter.

Well, we're big Met hurlers We've been All-Star twirlers And everybody knows we're tops We throw ninety-eight miles per hour And nobody calls the cops We have powerful arms with their powerful charms But we're not immune to the hook If Mickey doesn't trust us, then you know they'll expunge us From the cover of the Mets yearbook Mets yearbook... Wanna see our pictures at concessions (book) Wanna brag between bullpen sessions (book) Wanna see our eee-normous hype On the cover of the Mets yearbook We got some European supermodel girlfriends Who land our names in Page Six We get cameos in HBO dramas And sit courtside for the Knicks Now we all intend to help contend But what'd give us a winning look Is to throw another inning as the year's beginning Earn the cover of the Mets yearbook Mets yearbook... Wanna be a part of franchise lore an' (book) Wanna get some votes on Crane Pool Forum (book) Wanna take at least one round For the cover of our Mets yearbook We got a verified Twitter-blue check mark So you can trust us when we tweet Dave Eiland and that brand new trainer Monitor the meals we eat We've all got game and we've all got fame And we never have to much atone Yet we'll be sad starters if we can't go farther Than the inside of the Mets yearbook

Cespedes's slam, his 27th Citi Field Mets home run, pulls him into a three-way tie for sixth place with Conforto and Murphy. Murphy so couldn't bear to watch the further chipping away of his Mets legacy that he didn't even show up.

I learned early that 200 strikeouts was the mark of a very good pitcher. I learned it because Tom Seaver struck out 200 or more batters every year. But I'm not sure that I was acutely aware Seaver simply pitching as Seaver was the stuff of records until I saw the cover of the 1975 yearbook. It may have been the most informational cover in Mets history. It's not the most attractive. The wood paneling you can't ignore. The Fun-Tak I'd never noticed. Since I had read every Seaver biography I could get my hands on, I knew Tom saved the balls from all his milestone starts, but there's something about those inscriptions, even when I know they're fake (which is to say not the balls from every 200th strikeout of Tom's), that seems flat inauthentic. The perspective is weird. Is he the mama duck taking a break from hatching his eggs? It always bothered me he wasn't wearing his cap. If they're not careful, one of these years he's going to put on one from the wrong team. Oh, I'm voting for it. It's from 1975 when I was 12 and the Mets were everything to me and it's got my favorite player ever. He set his strikeout record that year on September 1 versus the Pirates and he won 22 games and another Cy Young. It makes me as happy to note that now as it made me happy to live it then. Seaver had competition for the Cy in Randy Jones. He has no competition here from the 2005 yearbook. I was plenty excited by the composition of the roster at its upper echelons before I ever saw the yearbook. The yearbook added nothing to the excitement. It's not just dark, it's impersonal. Maybe they felt they had to be all business after the way the Howe era ended. Willie Randolph is going to keep two sharp eyes on everybody (or everybody who isn't on the cover). Pedro's gonna bean somebody off the page. Beltran is laser-focused on Piazza's right ear. Nobody's gonna do anything dopey on The New Mets. We'll smile some other year. The 1975 and 2005 teams were both bounceback editions, improving from 71 wins the year before to break .500. In 2005, it took the addition of two stars, the maturing of two youths and whatever was left from the resident icon to start winning. In 1975, all it took was Seaver getting over his nagging sciatica. As Jack Lang asked, "Were the Mets eleven games better or was it just that Tom Seaver was eleven games better?" Sometimes one man can do all the winning that is needed.

Asdrubal has batted first five times, second five times, fourth once, fifth four times...and tonight he bats third. Versatile!

Giddy for this thread title.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: This might be the most logical way to explain the Mets going from whatever they were in 1968 with Phil Linz and Jerry Buchek to winning 100 regular season games and beating the O's in the WS. Not only is it as logical as any other explanation (beyond lights-out pitching, airtight defense and extremely timely hitting), but I was earlier today down a research rabbit hole that brought me into contact with Linz and Buchek (among others).

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Mullin's Met went from kid (Time mag cover) to adult (Mets WS program) in about one month's time. Some growth spurt! But then he devolved back into a pre-pubescent David against the Goliath Orioles. I wonder if somebody drew the first bottle of PEDs.

"The Mets are hot! Get me Mullin!"

In the essential 2013 book that collects so much of his baseball work, it was said Mullin scoffed at being called an artist, that he was happy to go by cartoonist. Yet he was in his element on the 1968 cover, creating an artist portraying art. Fifty years later, this art reminds us what an outsize figure Gil Hodges was before he became known for his singular feat of leading the Met to a land so totally unforeseen that it couldn't rightly be labeled promised. Yes, yearbooks have been known to hype new managers as if you've been wondering when they'd arrive to rescue us from the morass the last guy left behind, but this feels different. This feels like Gil Hodges was somebody we were in fact waiting for. The Mets fan knew Gil and loved Gil already. This cover amounts to a housewarming and homecoming present for all concerned. All the accoutrements of the studio are on point. The purposeful cartoonishness of the presentation keeps us in the age of innocence, which probably wasn't the easiest sell in a year of turmoil everywhere else. The Mets runt probably would have spooked me out when I was five, but that's Mullin's style, and I accept him even if I'd probably cross the street to avoid him. Willard does draw a weird "s" at the end of "Mets," but that, too, makes things unique. Thanks to the 2012 cover, we can see that as the era of the Mets competing as a legitimate major league entity is commencing in earnest (because we understand what Hodges and 1968 signify), we also see another era closing. This was the last of the Mullins -- save, of course, for the 1969 World Series program -- but the years and the yearbooks would roll on. Unless you're participating in some sort of tournament to select the best covers, you'd have a hard time eyeballing just about every one of them (minus a couple of revivals/originals) from a fifty-year span. But the 2012 yearbook gave us that opportunity, and I appreciate it. It's quite the trip through changing aesthetics, through prevailing values, through the annals of Metsiana for sure. One snapshot after another makes for a compelling family album. I should note I'm a sucker for this kind of collage. I'm also always surprised to learn the Mets bother to remember anniversaries let alone celebrate them. The 2012 commemoration got off to a promising start -- the logo, the yearbook cover, the yearbook cover display in the team museum, season tickets that spotlighted 81 different franchise greats, bringing back Roger Craig for a first pitch on an April afternoon -- but as usual kind of forgot about it over the course of six months. (I'm convinced a 50th anniversary reunion of Original Mets was kiboshed as a concept because management feared the easy-shot 1962 comparisons to 2012 that hack columnists and lazy beat writers would have typed.) Oh well, they sort of tried. Yearbookwise, though, they tried and succeeded. Framed in gold, it's a classy half-century keepsake. A work of art versus the sweep of history. I'm a history guy, mostly. But the art here is so enchanting. Hold it, 1968 .... I think you got me!!

Celebrities love to wear Mets garb when cameras are around. • In the second part of The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling (HBO, March 27, 2018), Chris Rock is spotted in a Mets cap and director Judd Apatow is wearing a Mr. Met. t-shirt. • Eric Bloom of Blue Oyster Cult wears a Mets cap while he’s interviewed in New Wave: Dare To Be Different, the 2018 documentary exploring the impact of WLIR (debuted on Showtime, March 30, 2018).

Method Man of Wu-Tang Clan wore a Darryl Strawberry 1986 Mets jersey and a Mets cap as he and Ghostface Killah appeared in a sketch with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, April 17, 2018. Method Man’s outfit got more exposure in a widely circulated Instagram photo he and his bandmate took with author and former FBI director James Comey, who was Colbert’s main guest on the same episode. [fimg=360]http://i68.tinypic.com/zojfic.jpg[/fimg]

Cabrera 2B Cespedes LF Flores 1B Frazier 3B Bruce RF Lagares CF Nido C Wheeler P Rosario SS

Mickey don't take no mess: Hansel to Vegas, Gerson up from Bingo.

I'm a .500 starter myself. I blame my bullpen.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I think they're all wearing sweaters for the Humboldt kids. I didn't realize. Very touching (and still quite Canadian).

Edgy MD wrote: Most Canadian thing ever? The Nordiques sweaters push it over the top.

Tribute to Rusty from Canada's House of Commons.

seawolf17 wrote: Anyone know if they're selling the patches yet? I feel like I should have purchased the KID one when it was available too. Yup, in at least a couple of the stores at Citi Field, $20, with a portion going to charitable causes (from what I've read).

"The Flushing branch of the Met Lodge is proud to recognize its new members, all of whom are pictured on the cover of the program you'll find next to your water glass. Please give a nice welcoming round of applause to Brother Jeff, Brother Eddie, Brother Bret and Brother Bobby and wish them success as they join us on our mission of fellowship, community service and bowling. On to the next order of business..." I'm wary of what the Mets try to tell us and sell us via these covers. When they take four guys who've never been Mets before and pose them in Mets uniforms they have yet to manage or play a game in and push them front and center as exactly the manager and players we've been yearning for, I feel I'm the subject of a brainwashing experiment. Forget whoever it was you were rooting for last year. Root for these guys this year. These are your Mets. Gaze upon them so you can bask in their gentle decency. To be fair to four men who distinguished themselves in baseball prior to misguidedly donning those uniforms, they could represent the Mount Rushmore of Methood and it would still be a cheesy photo better suited to the Chamber of Commerce's costume night ("did you see the boys -- they decided to come as baseball players!"). The cover of the Mets yearbook? I'd cringe if this were in a high school yearbook. And what's with the yellow/gold background? A new day subliminally dawning? The picture harks back to a simpler time when nobody put much thought into promotional photography. Any instantly iconic image from the 1986 World Series would have made an excellent 1987 yearbook cover. The Mets took one look at the menu and agonized over what to order. Like everybody from out of town I've ever brought to a Long Island diner, they were practically paralyzed by choice. Unlike those folks, the Mets ordered basically everything on the third page. I like that they decided they needed a revised edition, as if they suddenly remembered they forgot how incredible it was to have won the World Series. There were no in-season personnel procurements of note (I doubt they were revving up the presses simply to swap out Al Pedrique for Bill Almon). That logo from the first edition simply didn't say enough, I guess. I love all those images. I love Shea in the middle of it. Could have one celebratory scrum or the ticker tape parade communicated the message WE WON? Adequately. But the Mets were coming off 108 wins, a 21 1/2 game romp, two of the most hellacious postseason series ever witnessed and a pair of Game Sixes within a dozen days' time you'd figure you'd have to wait a couple of lifetimes to experience. Plus we were primed for more in '87. A tad gauche, but I appreciate the impulse for excess. It was, ever so briefly and beautifully, the Met Way. I somehow missed the Revised Edition in 1987. I'm reveling in it now.

Nimmo RF Cabrera 2B Conforto LF Frazier 3B Gonazlez 1B Lagares CF Lobaton C deGrom P Rosario SS Bruce's plantar fasciitis has flared, but is available to PH. Cespedes getting the night off.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: We're kind of maxed out right now. Last year we expanded to 54 images, which is one third of a season. There are currently no plans to add any more images, but if that should change, your request will be cheerfully considered! We do appreciate your interest in the Schaefer Mets Player of the Year voting! And to show our appreciation, we'll be sending you, via mail, some Rice-A-Roni coupons! The San Francisco treat -- hot damn!