G-Fafif

Now that I see it, I'm like, "yeah...that's what it looked like." To be fair, I didn't memorize the text, either, but dug it out to look it up five years ago while recalling what it was like coming down from the most invigorating season ever.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Wishing you a Happy Holiday and an Amazin� New Millenium. That is the message that was printed in the holiday card that went out in December 1999. And, yes, the Mets misspelled millennium. Then again, they got one run out of a grand slam. Is that a black card with the Mets logo inside of a snowflake? That sounds very right. The place where I worked had a former employee who had gone on to temp for the Mets and she sent us the card. It hung in the reception area well after the alleged millennium kicked in. I judged it up for grabs and I grabbed it.

Just put together the final piece of why that 1978 Jets game from Baltimore was on Channel 11: not just because it was at 2 o'clock, per usual Memorial Stadium scheduling but because the MFYs were in the WS in a game (Game Five vs. LA) that started at 4:30 that afternoon on Channel 4 (they still played weekend World Series games in daytime). NBC's AFC window was 1 PM in the east, so the Jets, starting at 2, wouldn't have been off in time for first pitch. That's where the policy about road team selling TV rights to another local station kicked in.

The Giants-Chargers game referenced took place a couple of days after the infamous "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD" headline in the Daily News, worth noting in that municipal budgets for items like stadium maintenance must've been as bald as the grass. Met Fairy, a regular at 1975 Jets home games, has noted on a couple of occasions that by December, the field appeared beyond the repair of even Pete Flynn's wizardry.

Amazin'ly, it's not the only song inspired by Ordonez, as folksinger Kate Jacobs has one here: http://www.katejacobsmusic.com/www.katejacobsmusic.com/home_game.html This one I know from, and it really is rather ballad like, which is why the title of the Isotopes' number threw me. Rey-Rey: so nice, they sing about him twice.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: [youtube]ZAoJoPgVG6M[/youtube] Holy Luis Lopez, that's Gold Glove stuff!

I suppose the news that the U.S. and Cuba might normalize relations is the most surprising thing I've learned today, but this comes in a close second: Today, it would be unthinkable for an NFL game to not be televised. So when was the last time an NFL regular season game did not appear on TV at all? According to the historical NFL TV research at 506sports, the answer is 1975 (when it happened twice). The last untelevised NFL game was on Saturday 11/1/1975 when the Giants hosted the Chargers at 1 pm. Why was there an NFL game on a mid-season Saturday? The Giants shared Shea Stadium with the Jets that year as their new stadium in the Meadowlands was under construction. Shea was unavailable to the NFL until the MLB season ended as the Mets were the primary tenant. This forced the Giants and Jets to play on the road the first two weeks of the season. To squeeze in 14 home games at Shea over 12 weeks, the NFL scheduled the Giants for a few Saturday home dates. For games like this played outside of the normal network TV windows, the NFL allowed the road team to sell the TV rights to a local station (same thing for the home team if the game was a sellout). But no local station opted to pick up this game so it was not on TV. So when was the last Sunday afternoon NFL game which went untelevised? That occurred just a few weeks earlier when the Patriots played at Cincinnati on Sunday 10/12/1975 at 1 pm. Why did TV shun that game? Well, NBC aired game 2 of the Cincinnati-Boston World Series that day at 1 pm. The same option for teams to sell the local TV rights applied in cases like this when NBC carried a Sunday baseball postseason game. All of the early afternoon NFL games bumped from NBC that day were televised by a local station except for NE-Cin. With the World Series featuring teams from the same TV markets, no local station wanted to televise it and compete with baseball. The idea that baseball would render an NFL game to not be televised seems hard to believe now, but it happened in 1975. Things to love here: 1) The presence of Shea in any historical finding 2) The contractual primacy of the Mets at Shea 3) The reminder that there was life before the NFL swallowed everything 4) The twist that the same markets in the World Series had their football teams playing each other the same day 5) That NBC was executing a "last" less than 24 hours after airing a "first" -- the debut of SNL I'd also throw in this helps explain a clear memory I have of a Sunday afternoon in 1978 when the Jets-Colts game from Baltimore aired on Channel 11. Colts games (I think by municipal blue law) couldn't start before 2 PM (or maybe just didn't by tradition), which would've punted it from the "normal" 1-4 PM window. WNBC apparently didn't want to deal with it so WPIX took it. The game sticks out as well because throughout, though it used regular NBC announcers, I don't think it was identified as such -- not a simulcast the way you'll see an ESPN game show up on a local station, for example. There were also constant reminders that there were still tickets available for next Sunday's game at Shea, which I guess was worth mentioning in the days when the Jets weren't a guaranteed sellout. This was the season the Matt Robinson Jets flirted with Wild Card contention but attendance hadn't quite caught up to the standings. As the article suggests, imagine any of this happening today.

BTW, I it took me 10 minutes between learning that news and applying it to baseball. Where the hell are my priorities?

US and Cuba reportedly talking about normalizing relations. Maybe we find a shortstop that way.

Spellcheck existed at least as early as 1991, when the magazine I worked for installed Macs and it was all "guess what this thing can do!" We don't know if the Mets had proofreaders in the last century.

Ceetar wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Wishing you a Happy Holiday and an Amazin� New Millenium. That is the message that was printed in the holiday card that went out in December 1999. And, yes, the Mets misspelled millennium. Then again, they got one run out of a grand slam. Also wasn't the end of the millenium, so.. I first read a variation on this argument at the end of the 1970s. "It's not really the end of the 1970s," it was said in so many words. "That won't be until December 31, 1980. And, really, this decade should be called the '80s, and the one that begins on January 1, 1981 should be called the '90s." Nobody bought it in December 1979. Few bought the larger albeit arguable version in December 1999. Brooklyn is technically part of Long Island, so the Islanders aren't really leaving Long Island. Except they are. And rolling the odometer from 2000 to 2001 floated a fraction of the boats that 1999 to 2000 did. Sometimes reasonably informed perception carries the day.

If you follow the link on the spreadsheet to the voter who thus far has ixnayed Piazza (specifically to the column in which the voter explains his ballot), you're almost glad not to have the support of one Dan Shaughnessy. So let it rip. Bring on the hate. Bring on the humiliation. Bring on the blogboy outrage. Bring on the analytic arrogance. Bring on the PED Hall Pass. It�s a tradition like no other. [...] Raines and Trammell are problematic and I am guilty of inconsistency with their candidacies. Raines was a rare combination of power (170 homers) and speed (808 steals). He had six 100-run seasons. Trammell is going to be off the ballot soon, and won�t make the Hall with the BBWAA, but there�s lots of value in a shortstop who hit .300 seven times, won four Gold Gloves and should have been MVP (he lost to George Bell) in 1987. [...] no votes for guys who just don�t look right. Bagwell and Piazza are the two players most penalized for this arbitrary crime. By any statistical measurement, Bagwell and Piazza are first-ballot Hall of Famers, yet their vote totals (62 percent for Piazza last year, 54 percent for Bagwell) remain considerably lower than their r�sum�s merit. Sticks his tongue out at readers. Doesn't say why Raines is problematic. Is down on Piazza and Bagwell for not looking "right" and uses as a further argument for not putting them in the HOF the fact that they're not in the HOF.

Wishing you a Happy Holiday and an Amazin� New Millenium. That is the message that was printed in the holiday card that went out in December 1999. And, yes, the Mets misspelled millennium. Then again, they got one run out of a grand slam.

Ceetar wrote: Josh Lewin giving out awards, yours truly wandering around with 'CEETAR' on his back. Good times! If Josh is wearing a CEETAR jersey, then harmonic convergence shall be achieved.

I am now morally obligated to root for Cam to hit a solo home run off some transient Met reliever when the Mets are up by nine runs in the ninth inning someday just so I can say, "See...?"

While completing transfer of adoption papers for Cam Maron to the prospect page at the Oester Bar in Cincinnati, I noticed I misposted this Brandon Nimmo article from September in the Cam thread. So for those who might have missed how 2011's No. 1 draft pick was looking in Double-A... Nimmo earned Florida State League midseason All-Star honors while with St. Lucie before his promotion to Binghamton. Combined between the two levels, Nimmo this season has scored 97 runs, driven in 51 runs, hit 21 doubles, nine triples, 10 home runs and logged an on-base percentage of .396 to go along with a .429 slugging percentage. "We're very pleased with where Brandon is right now," DePodesta said in an email. "Since this is just his age 21 season, we're very happy that he has spent the second half of the season in AA and is already making the adjustments to succeed at that level. For a guy who didn't play with the amateur competition in somewhere like Florida or Southern California, he has been very quick to make adjustments at each and every level." Big things ahead Nimmo has just begun to tap into his power potential with added muscle this season on his 6-foot-3 frame. He has as many home runs this season as his previous seasons combined. B-Met manager Pedro Lopez has put Nimmo in the leadoff spot 41 times in 61 games, but he believes his future will include batting near the middle of the lineup. "I'm almost positive that's going to be his role whenever he gets to the big leagues," Lopez said. "... He's got some pop. He drive the ball to all fields." Now that he's no longer chasing big brother, Nimmo has has found other driving forces. "Now I'm chasing my personal dream of being a major-league baseball player," Nimmo said. "Once I got drafted it's all about leaving no regrets that I gave it everything that I had. I like to think that I'm not only making a name for myself, and I'm trying to uphold a reputation of my family — obviously I want the Nimmo name to be a well-known name and I want to honor my parents and my brother — but also just the fact that people hear Wyoming and they chuckle." Nimmo bristles at the idea that baseball does not count or is not played at the same level in Wyoming as in other parts of the country. "In Cheyenne, baseball continues to get bigger and bigger and kids dreams continue to get bigger and bigger," Lain said. "People follow him and not just in our program. People across the state follow Brandon." Mets fans all over the Northeast also follow Nimmo. On the road or at home, he does interviews and he stops to takes pictures and talk with folks who are eagerly awaiting his arrival in New York. Their expectations never seem to overwhelm him. He greets them all with a smile. Then again, it shouldn't be surprising considering Nimmo embraced his brother's mantle as the guy paving the way for an entire region of baseball players. "If anybody out there that's from where I am back in Wyoming — and I know that South Dakota is similar to that and North Dakota — if they have a dream that they want to be a professional baseball player, a major-league baseball player," Nimmo says, "I want to be one of those guys that broke through the barriers and said, 'If you work hard enough. If you make the sacrifices and have no regrets about what you do. You work as hard as you can, then dreams can come true.' "

QBC is proud to announce this year's Gil Hodges Unforgettable Fire Award winner is... http://metspolice.com/2014/12/11/qbcs-gil-hodges-unforgettable-fire-award-presented-1969-legend-ed-charles/ Ed Charles. The Glider and Gil Jr. are scheduled to join the festivities on Jan. 10. Be there!

And that, unless the transactional fates have other ideas, puts a wrap on prospective Met Cam Maron. Selected by the usually catcher-heavy Reds in the minor league draft today. New marriage, new team. Tweeted a couple of gracious thank yous to the Mets organization and fans. Good luck, Hicksville-raised Mets fan.

With Rollins's departure and subsequent Dodger participation, the active MLB player who's played the most games for one team and one team only is...David Wright. Wright, NYM: 1,508 Utley, PHI: 1,478 Howard, PHI: 1,331 Molina, STL: 1,328 Mauer: MIN: 1,298

Centerfield wrote: December 10 kinda roxx: New York Mets traded Hubie Brooks, Mike Fitzgerald, Herm Winningham and Floyd Youmans to the Montreal Expos for Gary Carter on December 10, 1984. If they pulled off a trade like that this post-season we'd be World Series contenders in 2015. Murphy, Flores, den Dekker and Montero to the Rockies for Tulowitzki a rough equivalent.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: Ringo. There you go. Morgan, too, seems like kind of a goofball. I would love to know who they voted for -- if they supported any candidates at all. �Gil Hodges should have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago.� --Joe Morgan, 1992

By my calculations, this marked the 35th different election, conducted under various auspices, in which the Hall of Fame rejected Gil Hodges. Being a Dodger and Mets legend might just have to do.

Edgy MD wrote: That's a total Brooklyn pickup line: "Your name is Madison Bumgarner? No shit, that's my name too." You could pick up Brooklyn Decker with that line.

2 PM EST, sources say.

Your World Series MVP is also Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year. Congratulations to Madison Bumgarner, who rides an epic postseason to a December magazine cover. First baseball Sportsman since Captain Intangibles and his Cinnamon Trick in 2009. First palatable baseball choice since the Red Sox were chosen as an entity in 2004. Tom Seaver won it in 1969. He remains the standard for all things excellent.