G-Fafif

The night after the morning after the long night lineup: Grandy CF Cab SS BRUUUUCE RF DUUUUDA 1B Don't Get Too Confortoable LF Wilmer 2B Jose 3B Thor P Rene Rivera, catching and batting ninth

I count 22 instances of a Mets pitcher giving up a grand slam and the Mets winning anyway. They're all in here, particularly last night's, on the heels of the night before's.

Gilmartin reportedly heading south and east. Don't know who Kayleigh's BF will be supplanting.

Now that you've helped me reassign him accurately in time, it turns out I was kinda prickly regarding his quittage in 2006. Bret Boone, non and future Met, hung 'em up this morning. Word is it was quite the emotional ordeal. For him anyway. No offense to a guy who just realized that his 14-year Major League career is over, but I'm sadder to realize the Mets will be without Juan Padilla and his bag of tricks for the duration of Puerto Rico's participation in the WBC. Padilla will return in a couple of weeks. Boone was never really here. Sure, he put on a Mets uniform, fielded a ball in it and then said goodbye to it, but what's that? That's Bret Boone playing a Met, not playing for the Mets. That's County Stadium and Camden Yards dressing up as the home of the Cleveland Indians in two Major League movies. It's like he rented out the Mets for a fantasy camp of pathos. Veterans sign and don't make the team every year. Fine and honorable. Spring training is the time for the Terry Puhls and Mariano Duncans to give it their all one more — possibly one last — time. But what's with the guys who get this far and decide the last thing they want to do as Major Leaguers is stiff the Mets? The Boone, as I'm told he was known when he was hitting home runs for other clubs, didn't even bother to show for the intrasquad game yesterday. Perhaps he was playing catch out in the swamps with Todd Van Poppel and Kevin Stocker, two others from recent springs who never made it over the business end of the Tradition Field wall. Yeah, they're people and they're entitled to make people decisions, but how could any of us possibly understand this kind of decision? In our minds, a baseball player strives all his life to one purpose: wear a Mets uniform in Major League competition. Only 771 such men have earned that highest privilege. And Bret Boone would rather abandon that opportunity and shed that uniform than attempt to reach the pinnacle of his profession? Shame on the Boone.

Edgy MD wrote: I'm pretty sure Boone came to camp the same year as Valentin: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/1329064 You are correct, sir! Met-a culpa. History will have a hard time grasping Emaus prevailing over future All-Star and serviceable second baseman Daniel Murphy for starting purposes, but ya kinda hadta be there.

I had the feeling Emaus got the gig because Sandy thought, in so many words, "ah, screw it, it's only the Mets."

Grandy CF Cabrera SS Cespedes LF Flores 1B Bruce RF Walker 2B T.J. 3B Td'A C Gsellman RHP Reyes seat

Laggy's home! Juan activated, Sewald Vegased.

Edgy MD wrote: That was one of Willie's great decisions. Fans were clamoring for José Valentín to be released based on his pinch-hitting numbers, and lamenting (amazingly) the loss of Miguel Cairo, and Willie was all, "José, get ready." Other secondbaseman that Valentín had to outplay to crack the lineup included Victor Diaz and Bret Boone. Boone was spring of 2005. Diaz was more versatile than I realized. Your larger point...yes, a thousand times. Other Jose was being pushed out the door faster than the Original Jose could run from home to third in those days -- even faster than scenarios in which Original Jose 2.0 is being exit-strategyed based on a dismal week. It's hard to not react, but it shouldn't be that hard to not overreact.

Edgy MD wrote: I associate Chapman with Anderson Hernandez and Brad Emaus. Opening day secondbasemen that in the light of spring in Florida, caused some important suit to think, "You know, why not? In fact, hell yeah! That guy has a certain something and if we put him at the keystone, and give him enough chances, there's every chance that he might stick!" And in each case before the second week of the season was out, coaches huddled and said, "We can't give this guy any more chances. Like, we totally can't." Agree on Emaus, which was wacky. Hernandez had shown some real glove the September before, plus Kaz Matsui was on the DL to start 2006, so what the hell? Anderson flew across the infield early that divisional championship season, broke a hamate bone shortly thereafter, caused a surge in the search term "hamate bone" among Mets fans and was never an essential part of the plan once Jose Valentin locked in at second. Thinking back, Matsui, Hernandez, the ghost of Jeff Keppinger and maybe somebody else were all ahead of Valentin on the 2B depth chart in Spring Training and it took until May, when desperation set in, for Other Jose to emerge from pinch-hitting purgatory and become a home run-socking Internet meme of sorts (his mustache was kind of a big deal). Which goes to show you how worthless Spring Training can be.

I think of wine and how his career went sideways, as described in this George Vecsey column from his renaissance. The grapes are ripening near Ukiah, Calif., but the Chapman family is one hand short for the harvest. Kelvin Chapman used to go home right after Labor Day to help operate the forklifts and the tractors and then haul the chenin blanc and petit sirrah grapes to the Colony and Asti wineries, but he won't be home for at least a month. ''My father will find somebody else,'' says Kelvin Chapman, who is hauling in ground balls rather than grapes this harvest season. ''And he'll go down to the Sports Attic, the bar in Ukiah, where they can pick up the Mets' games by satellite.'' Kelvin Chapman has been a farm worker in the literal and the baseball sense. He grew up around the lush, rolling vineyards of Mendocino County, and he spent eight seasons as a farmhand for the Mets. There was that one promising spring of 1979, when the Mets took him north and he dared to dream of being voted rookie of the year, but the hopes died on the vine and he was in Tidewater by May. Five years later, Chapman is back with the Mets, a mature 28-year-old who is sharing the second-base job with Wally Backman, batting .294 and dreaming of a September surge that would help the Mets catch the Cubs. ''There are so many horror stories, you like to see the fairy tales,'' says Dave Johnson, the Mets' manager, who rescued Chapman from the farm system this spring after managing him at Tidewater last season. A lot of baseball players flit into and out of the major leagues, but few spend five years between tastes.

Edgy MD wrote: Breaking camp in 1979 was some pretty weird stuff, with the Mets taking north guys who clearly weren't ready and wouldn't seriously contribute to a big league team for years (Orosco, Chapman, Scott), as well as a guy who would retire (but first appear as a Met on SNL) because he couldn't agree on a big league salary (Briles). Neil Allen was pretty much the only survivor of (I think) five out-of-their-depth rookie pitchers that made the opening day staff, before getting thrown back into the lake, and Allen had to switch to relief to hang in there. Chapman is the closest position player allegory I can come up with for Wheeler, his having spent four full seasons in the minors between stints, except in Kelvin's case, there weren't periodic updates as to his whereabouts because we'd pretty much forgotten he ever existed. Still blows my mind to have looked at box scores in '84 and seen Chapman 2B. Briles was released because he would have made $60K. Even for 1979, that was, if not peanuts, then legumes. Ladies and gentlemen, the de Roulet administration.

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: Orosco, Franco and McGraw never left the organization. Leach did but didn't play in the majors while he was away. nor did Pedro Feliciano True, but I was looking only for those whose wait was longer than Zack's. My bad, I just assumed that was Feliciano from his departure to the medical offices of the Yankees which I knew was longer than Wheeler, but alas he did not get a win when he came back. His stretch was from much earlier when presumably he was also injured. (his time between losses however, is greater) Pedro spent 2005 in Japan and 2003 in the Tigers' organization, but ultimately, he just couldn't quit us.

Hunter and Orosco both knew how to make up for lost time, each eventually winning both ends of doubleheaders post-dry spell.

Ceetar wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Orosco, Franco and McGraw never left the organization. Leach did but didn't play in the majors while he was away. nor did Pedro Feliciano True, but I was looking only for those whose wait was longer than Zack's.

Orosco, Franco and McGraw never left the organization. Leach did but didn't play in the majors while he was away.

Reportedly a manager's decision, not injury-induced.

A change at the top has been announced: Conforto cf Cabrera ss Cespedes lf Bruce rf Walker 2b Duda 1b Reyes 3b d'Arnaud c Wheels p

If memory serves, Jose slammed from the 9 hole in Anaheim in support of Trachsel one-hitter.

Edgy MD wrote: I salute that shakeup, though I might have thought about ninth for JoséJoséJosé. In 2010, he batted third for a while, but this is the first time in his career he hasn't batted in a featured position of first, second, or third. Whole bunch of 8th and 9th early on. http://leaptoad.com/mets/profile.php?PlayerCode=0707

Grandy CF Asdrubal SS Yo LF Bruce RF Walker 2B Duda 1B Reyes 3B Td'A C Harvey RHP Big drop for Jose.

We also would have accepted C.C. Sabathia.

All threads should devolve into pictures of cats in Mets apparel.

Ceetar wrote: Whatever happened to Mettle the Mule anyway Good ass, bad team.

soupcan wrote: the pussy-grabbing definitely softens the blow. That's what she said?