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1. Bill Wakefield

2. Brock Pemberton

7. Robert Person

6. Stan Jefferson

No one hated the Mets more than Billy Hands. http://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2017/03/73892/orient-resident-mlb-20-game-winner-bill-hands-dies-76/ At least he had 1,969 good reasons.

Adam lets it all hang out for The 30. https://30letter.wordpress.com/2017/03/09/a-qa-with-adam-rubin-on-15-years-covering-the-mets-his-departure-from-espn-and-what-really-happened-with-omar-minaya/ According to a reliable source (Rubin himself), ESPN doesn't care about Mets fans, at least not in a "thorough" way.

Bill Hands, 20-game winner for the 1969 Cubs who gained infamy for throwing at Tommie Agee, 76. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-bill-hands-cubs-obit-spt-0310-20170309-story.html Hands settled out east in Orient after a last attempt to pitch in the majors 41 years ago with his old archrivals the Mets.

1. Tom Parsons

5. Shawn Gilbert

2. Leroy Stanton

3. Rich Chiles

4. Butch Benton

6. Kenny Rogers

9. Frank Catalonotto

Edgy MD wrote: Pretty entertaining how Lugo's presence at the start of the game is emblematic of Sandy's idiocy, and then him getting pulled became emblematic of Terry's idiocy. Those morons keep screwing up the perennial playoff team they've built and guided.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: He'll get about 18 outings over 3 visits to the big club, most pretty good but in true reliever fashion the handful of bad ones will make him look like he sucked, fans will get down on him, he'll only appear in games we're losing already and he'll get totally forgotten. I'm pretty much that fan where Goeddel is concerned. I'm always amazed when he creeps up in the pecking order and am never surprised when he is knocked back down to Vegas.

David did return to camp. Whatever they said about DH, apparently, as of last week, he wasn't jumping at the chance. Sandy Alderson, the Mets’ general manager, said Wright would not throw for about two weeks and then would begin doing so gradually. A recovery in time for opening day is most likely out of the question. But Wright refused to put a timetable on his return. He has received medical clearance to swing a bat and play as a designated hitter in spring training games. Wright de-emphasized that, saying his primary focus is to get the shoulder back to health first.

Mensch on a Bench is totally a thing. https://mobile.twitter.com/Scoreboard_com/status/838781686217310208/photo/1 So are Ike, Ty and the Israelis, now 3-0.

The Randazzler is doing a nice job meshing with Keith and Ron.

OTOH, Webb explained that he left college early in his Sports Broadcasting HOF profile. Born in West Orange, NJ, in 1951, Webb attended Kinnelon High School and then the University of Tennessee, where he was pre-med. In 1969, he broke into the broadcast industry with his first job at WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV). “My parents and I just could not afford for me to [continue college], and my father, who was in advertising, told me about a job opening at WOR in the traffic department,” says Webb. “I rotated the commercials and put the commercial cards in the deck. That’s how it all started. It worked out okay, to say the least.”

This rather thorough article from a TV sports production site says 1951, though as noted above, the college experience cited doesn't really jibe with the 1969 start date at Channel 9. Born in West Orange, NJ, in 1951, Webb attended Kinnelon High School and then the University of Tennessee, where he was pre-med. In 1969, he broke into the broadcast industry with his first job at WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) New York. At WOR-TV, he quickly worked his way up to associate director. In 1971, he became AD on all Mets home games at Shea Stadium, marking the birth of a storied career in the truck at the ballpark. In 1979, he got his first job directing baseball when WOR elevated him to lead director on all Mets games. It was there he first crossed paths with analyst Tim McCarver, who served on the Mets’ broadcast team from 1983 to 1998 and would go on to team with Webb at Fox Sports from 1996 until McCarver’s retirement from Fox in 2013. Webb directed hundreds of Mets games before leaving to join ABC Sports following the 1987 MLB season. During his time as lead director at ABC Sports (1988-96), he diversified his directing portfolio, steering the ship on a cavalcade of Wide World of Sports shows, as well as on college football, college basketball, and horse racing’s Triple Crown, for which he won four Eclipse Awards. Throughout the 1990s, Webb maintained his New York roots, directing Yankees games and a variety of other properties for MSG Network. After narrowly missing out on the opportunity to direct his first World Series in 1994 because it was canceled, Webb finally got his shot the following year, directing the 1995 Series for The Baseball Network. His star shot into the next echelon in 1996, when Fox Sports won the rights to one of two Major League Baseball TV packages and tapped him as its lead director, including the 1996, 1998, and 2000 World Series. Fox would gain exclusive national MLB rights in 2001 and has aired every World Series since — with Webb in the director’s chair through 2014. Along with long-time producing partner Pete Macheska, play-by-play man Joe Buck, and analyst McCarver, Webb has changed the way America watches baseball, embodying Fox’s “Same Game, New Attitude” mentality without ever sacrificing the art of storytelling. Webb had a homecoming of sorts in 2006, when the Mets launched their own regional sports network, Sportsnet New York. He was among the first production hires for Mets broadcasts. Webb — along with producer Greg Picker and the broadcasting trio of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling — was a staple of Mets telecasts for the next decade. As McCarver noted last year, “Bill Webb has been such a pioneer. He took what Harry Coyle and Roone Arledge had mastered before him and extended that into an even greater way to bring the game to the viewer at home. There’s simply never been anyone quite like him.”

Gary recorded an interview last night. [youtube:3nd724tn]BzwmRaob4ek[/youtube:3nd724tn]

Richard Sandomir has him at 70, Ken Rosenthal 66, Neil Best 65. Bill Webb is perhaps best described as timeless. Remembered for his framing the Mets as both incredibly cool and smokin' hot here.

Will be back on the roster before long. Will play a key part in at least one wild comeback. Will run everything out.

3. Jorge Sosa, whose successes always seemed too good to be true