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ATL to honor Henry Aaron's 715th tonight on the 40th anniversary of the home run that passed Babe Ruth. Lord, that was a big deal. With the possible exception of Ripken supplanting Gehrig with 2,131, I'm thinking there was no chase of a record or milestone in my now 46 seasons as a baseball fan that elicited more attention and awe. Others that come to mind in terms of massive scale: � McGwire surpassing Maris (Bonds taking both HR records didn't quite have the same snap) � Hershiser surpassing Drysdale � Carew and Brett pursuing .400 � Brock surpassing Wills for SBs in a season, Henderson passing Brock for everything SB-related � Rose surpassing Cobb � Rose chasing DiMaggio (imagine somebody getting really close) Maybe a little less overwhelming, at least to my thinking: Ryan striking out more than Koufax; Cabrera nailing down 1st Triple Crown in 45 years; Ichiro supplanting Sisler...probably harder to impress the nation today given that there are fewer readily identifiable "forever" numbers like 714 and 2,130; less of America is aware of everything (or anything) going on in baseball; and the cynicism that makes nothing particularly impressive to too many people. But Aaron topping Ruth -- wow. It's still amazing to consider.

Eric Young, Jr. � LF Daniel Murphy � 2B David Wright � 3B Curtis Granderson � RF Lucas Duda � 1B Juan Lagares � CF Travis d�Arnaud � C Ruben Tejada � SS Bartolo Colon � RHP

Alderson's had the world's longest large-market honeymoon with its supposedly ferocious press corps, all of whom have basically taken him at his word every step of the way. There's probably no hot seat for Sandy even if it's another 74-win snooze to the finish and, because this is a long-term project -- with pitching just over the horizon and who-knows-what with the budget -- he and his brain trust deserve a decent-sized benefit of the doubt. But a diligent beat reporter implying that the small improvements you might expect from a bunch of front office whiz-bangs (bullpen, bench, resolution at first and short) have been slow in coming is a perfectly legitimate observation. On the loosely paralleling Cashen Calendar, this season looms as the modern 1983, Year IV of the regime brought in to fix things. We know with hindsight that was the bottoming out moment -- 6-15 out of the gate; 37-65 well after Straw was promoted and Hernandez was acquired -- of the endless darkness. But light flickered in August and September (31-29) and we know what happened next. So let's see a little Art Howe action by the season's final third, so to speak. Let's light up the room with a little more than promises.

After five seasons and one week, here's your Top 10 Mets Citi Field HR leaders: 1. Wright 41 2. Davis 30 3. Duda 23 T4. Murphy 15 T4. Pagan 15 6. Beltran 14 7. Hairston 13 8. Reyes 13 9. Bay 10 10. Francoeur 9 With his HR Opening Day, Andrew Brown (4) tied Anthony Recker for 19th place. Juan Lagares (2) forged a nine-way tie for 27th place. Curtis Granderson became the 15th Met since 2009 to accumulate one HR at Citi Field, good for 36th place. Fifty Mets have hit at least one home run at home since their current ballpark opened.

Your homeland's security is being overseen by Jeh Johnson, who has every reason to protect a slice of Queens. Johnson, a lifelong Mets fan who played first base and was a designated hitter when he was growing up, will throw out the first pitch at Citi Field on Thursday afternoon when the Mets end their home stand against the Washington Nationals. Asked whether he�s practicing, the secretary said: �This is probably a huge mistake, but I�m going to wait until I can get to the bullpen at the stadium to loosen up.� How�s your arm? �I�ll find out 30 minutes before game time. I was a huge fan of the �69 Mets. So, throwing out the first pitch is living the dream for me.� He did a fine job, this eyewitness can attest. And he gave his favorite team an award as well. No doubt, as a lifelong Mets fan, it pained him that jeff Wilpon accepted it.

Sports On Earth remembers.

This Monday was Opening Day of the new Major League Baseball season, and the reopening of old wounds day for Mets fans. --Colin Jost, new Weekend Update anchor, SNL, 4/5/2014

Niese 2.0 Germen 1.0 Farnsworth 0.5 Valverde 0.5 Davis 0.5 Lagares 0.5

Davis 4.0 Gee 2.5 Granderson 1.0 Rice 0.5 Torres 0.5 Lagares 0.5 Tejada 0.5 Recker 0.5

Duda 3.5 Mejia 2.5 Farnsworth 1.0 E. Young 1.0 Recker 1.0 Valverde 1.0

Whaddaya know, they were vulnerable, at least last night.

Edgy MD wrote: Both Rubin and Deadspin have featured this. Check the fine print on Rubin's piece. Videos don't go viral by chance.

I'm not Red-y. I've been wanting to do the Reds for years but JCL always grabs them. This time they were available so I called "Reds!" forgetting for a moment they were the second series of the year...and crap, is it KTE time already? I won't pretend I know anything about their contemporary selves except but what most of you do: no closer at the moment; a new manager who was a pitcher; a really fast guy who doesn't get on base; a first baseman who walks a lot but seems to be hitting already; a cranky second baseman whose better days seem comfortably behind him; a third baseman from those Little League champs from New Jersey everyone feted a generation ago but when the Mets invited them to Shea, via local boy Al Leiter, they were like, "nah, we're tired"; assorted injuries; a lousy first series; and weariness from bad weather, which maybe will play to our advantage as they trudge into town. This is all without looking at Adam Rubin, who per usual, beat man on the spot with all the details. I suggest you dig in if you want a lot more current Reds. So why did I want them? Because they're the Reds. They're the flagship franchise of the National League, sort of. Cincinnati was first with professional baseball, where the NL convened officially after the Dodgers and Giants vamoosed. They were the team that was in the playoffs almost every year, the team that a big machine named after them, the team that went it tightened its last critical gear rolled over everybody and everything in 1975 with frightening efficiency, the team that didn't lose a single postseason game in 1976. The team that lost to the Mets and swept the MFYs. The team that provided safe harbor for Seaver when Shea was too toxic. The team that greeted me as quasi-home team when I went to college in Tampa because they trained there and kept a single-A club there. A team that moaned about having the best record in baseball but not getting a sniff in 1981. A team that fell as far and fast in 1982 as the Mets did in 1977, compelling them to -- what else? -- trade Tom Seaver. A team that refound its mojo with our old villain, Pete Rose. A team that could not get the last out against one night in 1986 and thus opened the door to the epic signature game of that Met regular season, the best regular season any NL team had put on the board since the Reds of 1975. Except we had better pitching and couldn't wait to rid ourselves of George Foster. And there they were, back in the spotlight four years later, our closer exchanged for theirs. With nasty boys and a kooky lady owner, they went wire to wire and Randy Myers led them through ninth innings to a world championship and Eric Davis nearly killed himself and Jose Rijo made George Steinbrenner look bad and so did Lou Piniella. And then the Reds faded into the shadows of the Braves in the last years of the authentic NL West of our youth. The Reds of the National League Central had their moments in the '90s. They wore their own 125th anniversary patch. They brought Kevin Mitchell to Riverfront Stadium, but not as an enemy combatant. They got screwed in 1994 like the Expos but didn't bitch about it. Marge Schott got crazier and crazier and sold out. The Reds hired Jack McKeon and decided to make the Mets' lives miserable from afar during the precipitous Wild Card collapse of 1999, but then they stutterstepped and we regrouped and, as in 1973, they succumbed to the Mets when it counted -- with Al Leiter of Toms River blowing them and their rapidly obsoleting stadium into the Ohio. No Rose in sight, but a new stadium in the 21st century. The team we see now coalesced while the Citi Field era was getting us down. They've been to the playoffs three times in four seasons under Dusty Baker yet came away perceived as failures because, well, that's what happens with expanded, extended playoffs. And this year is probably a rebuilding year or a descending year. They might be who we need to play right now. (Bite my tongue for saying that.) Forty years ago today, Hank Aaron homered off Jack Billingham at Riverfront for career No. 714. The 1974 Reds, coming off their defeat to the 1973 Mets, would go on to win 98 games but lose their division. You wouldn't see a situation like that for eleven years, when it happened to the 1985 Mets in the NL East. Thirty years ago today, the Mets won their first game of the Davey Johnson era at Riverfront after an embarrassing Opening Day loss. Before that road trip was over, the Mets be 6-1 and on their way to better days. Tonight would be a good starting point for better days, too. Mejia vs. Leake. Gee vs. Cueto. Niese vs. Simon. Duda is your everyday first baseman. Wear a coat and bring an umbrella is your best advice. Hope the short version of the KTE was adequate. Enjoy the long version of the song that wouldn't leave my head the one time I visited Cincinnati. zgrVP_J0BHk

Midnight WOR airs "Mets Rewind," repeating that day's broadcast. Hell, if SNY can do it, why not the new radio flagship for New York Mets baseball?

Granderson 2.0 Murphy 1.0 Wheeler 1.0

Lagares 3.0 Colon 1.0 Germen 0.5

Hope you guys are cognizant of the work Bronx Banter's Alex Belth is doing with the Stacks, preserving and disseminating -- in conjunction with Deadspin -- spectacular sportswriting, particularly magazine stories from the pre-Internet era. Basically a lot of everything that isn't SI (whose Vault is readily accessible). For example, now playing on the Daily Beast (with whom Alex shares a few of his rediscoveries), Murray Kempton profiles Willie Mays in 1972, with a more appropriate picture included with Alex's own Stacks teaser here. Berra had him leading off against Mike Torrez, the Montreal pitcher, was not yet five years old the afternoon in 1951 when Willie Mays threw out Billy Cox from center field in the Polo Grounds, a ball traveling three hundred sixty feet to catch a fast man who had to run only ninety. Torrez paid his respects to this shrine by throwing two balls, the first wickedly close to the cap, the second evilly close to the chest. Willie Mays then watched a strike and another ball�he seemed as squat, as archaic, as immobile as some pre-Columbian figure of an athlete�then melted to protect himself with a foul tip and walked at last. Ted Martinez came up to drive a long ball to right center and two outfielders turned and fled toward the wall with a gait that at once informed the ancient, glittering eyes of Willie Mays that men run like this when they have given up on the catch and hope only for a retrieval from the wall. Mays gunned around second and then, coming into third, quite suddenly slowed, became a runner on a frieze, and turned his head to watch the fielders. He was inducing the mental error; he had offered the illusion that he might be caught at home, which would give Ted Martinez time to get to third. And only then did Willie Mays come down the line like thunder, ending in a heap at home, with the catcher sprawled in helpless intermingling with him and the relay throw bouncing through an unprotected plate and into the Montreal dugout. He was on his feet at once; his diversion had already allowed Martinez to run to third and he jumped up now to remind the umpire, in case he needed to, that when the ball goes into the dugout each runner is entitled to one more base. Ted Martinez was waved home and those two runs were the unique possession of Willie Mays, who had hit nothing except one tipped foul.

My main problem with De Blasio throwing out the first pitch was it didn't follow the distribution of World Series rings.

Flushing is actually geographically expansive enough so that driving to Citi Field on a "normal" day, except for how much it would cost to park in official lots, wouldn't be crazy. But it's Opening Day, Linda. Find a spot/use a lot downtown and take that 90-second trip.

I was disappointed when Jason Bay's paternity leave wasn't extended.

The family's down in Florida.

From Rubin: Brandon Nimmo chills with Andrew McCutchen, could be more Captainy in his praise toward his elders. “Cutch doesn’t act like an NL MVP at all,” Nimmo said. “He’s a very down-to-earth guy. He’s very much like [Curtis] Granderson, where any questions that I had he would answer them, and anything that I needed he would come right to me and be honest with me. It was just awesome to be around that kind of guy and understand what kind of work ethic will get you there.” Also, the kid is bulked up, explaining PEDs are totally the way to go if you want to achieve results fast. No, of course not that. “They put 20 pounds on me,” said Nimmo, a 6-foot-3 outfielder from Wyoming. “And it was really good muscle. None of it was bad weight. I had a nutritionist watching what I was eating. We just did it the right way. And I felt like that was what I needed. I felt like I needed to move on and train a little bit more like a professional. Obviously now you see the results of that physically.”

Friend of mine did some teaching in Indonesia. He's teaching them well. [youtube:2omtpgij]crkL7fRNlMc&feature=youtu.be[/youtube:2omtpgij]

Fox Sports 1 (check local listings) was hyping MLB Whiparound at 10 last night. Not sure if it's a nightly program. Seems to be some UFC action tonight in that time slot.

Bumping along.