G-Fafif

THE LOSING STREAK IS OVER!!! (The winless streak continues.)

Mets went .500 in ST in 1962 and again in 1986. There's a nut to crack in there somewhere. Related: If on Twitter, follow @TodayIn86Mets, an ongoing real-time of everything the Mets were up to thirty years ago. Then scroll back a few days and notice how much they sucked for a spell en route to 108-54. The guy (let's assume) does his homework. I get the feeling the momentum carries over from a great spring record if you weren't that great the season before. Last year's Mets, the 1984 Cubs, the 1982 Braves all come to mind. Established teams come at it differently. Then again, I clearly remember sustained sucking in March 2007 and being overcome with a sense of doom that lingered until it exploded in September. Win a few before April 3 and it's all good. The Victorino point and shoot himself in the foot occurred to me as well. It wasn't quite so clear to the naked eye that day that Angel's ball wasn't stuck (though it wasn't). When I was watching last Sunday's pretend game with my dad and some Red Sock ITPHR'd, he asked if I'd ever seen an inside-the-park HR in person, and I referenced Pagan's. "Those are exciting," he said. I agreed, putting a capper on our one and only conversation on the subject ever. As for Yo, if that ball was so great, he woulda picked it up.

Edgy MD wrote: One of my favorite lineups had Alex Treviño at third and John Stearns at first. Along with Ron Hodges behind the plate, Joe Torre deployed his entire catching staff. My last pre-renovation game at Shea was a game in which indeed every catcher played. Stearns in left, Trevino at second...after that, they had to put in new seats.

The Hot corner has never been hotter. Met Catchers Ranked by Games at Third Alex Treviño: 43John Stearns: 29Jerry Grote: 18Johnny Stephenson: 14Clint Hurdle: 9Mike Kinkade: 4Jim Tatum: 3Gary Carter: 2Anthony Recker: 1 Not-Really-Catchers-Anymore Guys: Joe Torre: 87 Todd Zeile: 46 I found it the weirdest thing when Grote moved to third late in some game in the early '70s. Even weirder when it was mentioned it wasn't the first time. Talk about systemic breakdown. Zeile played two years as a Met without ever donning a third baseman's glove, left, came back, and he was all "oh sure, let me get some third going." Also weird.

Chad Ochoseis wrote: Aha! 2013, not 2012. I was at the game when Recker pitched and the game when Recker played third. I don't think that wins me a damn thing, but still.

Yay, 158 again! I thank you and Mrs. Recker, that lucky she-devil, thanks you.

I'm forever vigilant about this page, but I'm pretty certain Recker was in there last year, while maybe Muno wasn't. Perhaps Kelly Johnson's late-season cameo trampled Anthony.

The beautiful Anthony Recker is missing from UMDB's third base files despite his having played it on April 14, 2015, the night David Wright went out with what became diagnosed as spinal stenosis and Terry Collins plum ran out of more suitable if less good-looking players. Don't let down the most gorgeous Met ever. Please give him his versatile due.

The world is down to 22 living New York Baseball Giants.

Two events coming up: Saturday March 26 (noon to three) at Foley's, Thursday March 31 (6 to 7:30 PM) at the Central Branch of the Queens Library in Jamaica. All kinds of info here, including a report from Bergino last week, where you can impress all your sedermates with a baseball yarmulke. [fimg=400]http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/gp-bergino-march-2016.jpg[/fimg]

d'Kong76 wrote: After the Mets win the 2016 World Series will the sequel be Amazin' Again Too or ll? As long as it ends in Electric Boogaloo, I'm fine with either.

Lefty Specialist wrote: A great read. It was fun to luxuriate in all that good stuff again. Needed a happier ending, but waddya gonna do? Glad you liked it. I'll talk to casting about fixing the final scene in the sequel.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Me and my mom. She thinks everything on the computer is Google. Your mother doesn't wear army boots, but she sounds a bit like this characterization of Mike Francesa. As Bill Buchanan, the Francesa impersonator famous within this community for his "Mike Zaun" videos, once put it to me, "The way he views the Internet is - he literally views the Internet as one person, and that one person has made fun of him, and he does not like that one person."

Benjamin Grimm wrote: The beauty of this card is I feel as if I got it 12 or 18 times in 1975.

They both stared out the window and waited for spring.

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Ya mean besides Utley? I really liked him as a second baseman when he was just a pup. Davis-Tejada-Reyes-Wright is supposed to be beginning its seventh record-breaking season as we speak. Often managed a hit when you'd absolutely given up on him. I'm thinking Mother's Day vs. the Philths in 2014, which he won versus a drawn-in infield and Mrs. Fafif and I could get going for Indian food in Jackson Heights. Could go back on pop-ups like Buddy Harrelson. Out-averaged Jose in his first full year as his replacement, but didn't make anybody forget who he was succeeding. Was the Mets' hottest hitter for about a week and a half last year. Played third base all of a sudden, too. Adios, amigo. Don't come back to haunt us.

Officially released, leaving Lucas Duda as second-longest tenured and only Met to arrive on roster during the Manuel administration.

If LaRoche had retired sooner, Mets would be working on their umpteenth consecutive division title. (Yeah, umpteenth.) The other day, Skip Schumaker hung 'em up. Very much a "seems like yesterday he was just coming up" player. Even more recently, was a defensive star in a losing cause in the suspended game completion that preceded Steven Matz's instantly legendary debut. He was 36. Still is, I suppose.

Chase Utley is a modern-day Ed Ott except with a rule named for him and nobody, as far as we know, becoming a Taiyo Whale as a result.

Along with fellow No. 1 picks Gavin Cecchini and Dominic Smith, Brandon was dispatched to minor league camp. Of top Met picks who eventually debuted in MLB as Mets, Brandon's limping into some notorious territory. A cursory glance down the list indicates nobody drafted first by Mets has waited this long to break in as a Met. Terrence Long was a first-round pick who needed five years, but he wasn't the first Met pick overall in his year, 1994. Alan Zinter, top Met pick of 1989, needed 13 years, but he wasn't a Met by 2002. Then again, Kirk Presley might still make it, so who knows?

Hard to think of young Angel Pagan as anything but a Met, having seen him at the dawn of the Cyclones. It is my theory that he was in the midst of a baserunning drill at PSL and wandered so far from first that he wound up in Chicago. The Cubs eventually returned him and the Mets were so grateful, they gave them a random minor leaguer as a reward. "It's not much," Omar said, "but we insist you take it. Now Angel, you gave us such a fright -- don't ever do that again!" But it was too late. Angel had already gone hiding in the bathroom just off the Met dugout.

themetfairy wrote: My copy FINALLY arrived today! I can't wait to have the chance to sit down and read it Perhaps if I'm lucky the author would agree to autograph it for me.... Hurrah! And we'll see what we can do.

While I as of this moment have no answer to the Mets-Cubs trade of apparently early 2008, I have to say I am shocked by how long ago so many of these dates suddenly are. That Bannister trade, for example...ten minutes ago in my head. Sort of like noticing Skip Schumaker retired this week, which seems unlikely in that he just came up those same ten minutes ago -- and played eleven seasons. Since Carlos Gomez's name came up in one of the answers, I will share that I was on a podcast the other night and the name Carlos Gomez also came up. A caller to the show said he had no idea why the Mets ever let him go. "For Johan Santana," I said. Santana was a pretty big get, I vaguely recall, but that's suddenly more than ten minutes ago, too.

Font use so cleverly subtle that I completely missed it.