G-Fafif

Tim Byrdak lets it be known the Mets won't be having him back. Any memories of the post-Feliciano overused lefty specialist? Still love this piece from his final Met comeback.

Tim Byrdak seems to be retired if not wholly voluntarily. Tweeted that it appears nobody's picking him up after all the surgeries he's endured.

From December, but just came across it today: Jim Burton, 64, pitched for the Red Sox in the storied 1975 World Series. Was traded to the Mets in the spring of '78 for Leo Foster. He pitched for Lynchburg and Tidewater that season before calling it a career.

Jon Rauch signs minor deal with Royals.

Edgy MD wrote: And perhaps indeed write to WOR, who likely would have less than no clue. Here's your guy: JoePuglise@clearchannel.com WOR's GM.

Howard Megdal: Jeff Wilpon fails to embrace Howie & Josh. Apparently, Mets COO Jeff Wilpon has big plans for one of the few things in his team's orbit that's seems to be functioning fairly well: the radio broadcast. According to sources familiar with talks between the team and WOR-AM, Wilpon is pushing to find a replacement for Josh Lewin, who partners on Mets broadcasts with Howie Rose [...] With the Mets moving up the dial from 660 WFAN to 710 WOR, after the former booted them for the Yankees, Wilpon is apparently unhappy with the situation. And with just weeks until spring training, the situation is still unresolved. [...] The sources who spoke to Capital say there's a desire from Wilpon to incorporate an ex-player into the booth, a change from the pure-announcer backgrounds of Rose and Lewin. It's hardly a revolutionary idea, and in fact the ex-jock formula has worked exceptionally well for the Mets on TV, with the extrordinary, anti-homer combination of Gary, Keith and Ron. But it flies in the face of how the Mets have typically deployed their radio announcers for the half-century they've been around. Consider that for most of the team's 52 years, the Mets have excelled on the radio side with a broadcast-first approach to their radio team's background. Bob Murphy, Gary Cohen, Lindsey Nelson, Howie Rose are all iconic names in Mets broadcasting, without a single M.L.B. game played between them. Only Ralph Kiner stands apart as a Mets radio broadcaster of note with playing experience. It's generally considered to have worked well to team Rose's analysis with Lewin, who excels on the play-by-play side of things. There's no downtime in a Mets broadcast with Rose and Lewin. But with a month until their first spring training game on February 28, the Mets haven't finalized arrangements with Rose, Lewin, or a replacement for either one. Which means that, after all this, they may have a hard time lining up any alternatives. This may be typical for the Mets, who hired Lewin to replace Wayne Hagin two years ago in early February, but most other broadcast teams are already in place, limiting the free agents available for the Mets and WOR to hire. Then there's the reality of the job itself, which would require someone like Cliff Floyd, one rumored Mets/WOR target who is currently an analyst for MLB Network, to travel with the Mets for months, at a wage far lower than what he ever received as a player, not to mention MLB Network. "Unless Cliff Floyd really, really doesn't like his family, why would he take a pay cut to leave his mansion in Miami for months at a time?" was how one of the sources put it to me.

When he entered the third-longest home loss in Mets history on June 8 (pitching a perfect twelfth), David Aardsma forced his way into The Happiest Recap entry No. 278, Opening Day 1989: �Move over, Tommie Agee� might be a strange sentiment to attribute to a veteran relief pitcher who probably never said any such thing, but when Don Aase entered the first game of the 1989 season, he took on a distinction hard for any Mets historian to miss. Between circumstance of birth and the club�s desire to shore up its bullpen, Aase and his last name of A-A-S-E moved to the head of the Metropolitan class whenever and wherever New York Mets were arranged by alphabetical order. Righthanded journeyman Aase supplanted World Series hero Agee in that regard the moment he was summoned in the bottom of the eighth on Opening Day to bail out a tiring Dwight Gooden. Sure enough, Aase gave an A-Number-One effort in his Met debut, as he stranded both of Gooden�s baserunners and pitched the final two frames of the Mets� 8-4 win over the Cardinals. Aase earned not just alphabetical glory along with a save but also won a bit of instant allegiance as a portion of the Shea weather-reduced crowd of 38,539 chanted �Ah-SEE!� in support. �I think the key guy today was Don Aase,� Howard Johnson said afterwards, despite being the man who gave the Mets a homer, three hits and three RBIs. �He gave us a big lift.� St. Louis skipper and erstwhile HoJo nemesis White Herzog agreed: �The rich get richer,� the White Rat sneered at Davey Johnson�s newest toy. If 34-year-old Don Aase making an unexpected impression after making the Mets as a non-roster invitee didn�t exactly measure up to Tommie Agee�s sensational catches from October of 1969, the emergence of the new first entry on the Mets all-time roster represented some kind of Met history. So did the game Aase saved: it was their fifth consecutive Opening Day victory and 18th of 20 since 1970, Amazin� stuff for a franchise that lost its first seven Openers. [...] Don Aase was a small, provisional part of the next step forward. That the transient reliever would be listed first in the club media guide for decades to come was ultimately trivial (and a distinction, alas, that went by the boards with the 2013 Met debut of another well-traveled righty reliever, David Aardsma). It was the Mets� determination to be listed first year after year in the National League East Standings that was paramount.

Reese has retired (and such a young man).

Some overriding impressions offered here. Seconding JCL's take on Darling & Fry (riveted by the former, kvelling from the latter), Simon and Gompers. It struck me how Kranepool, while he attracted a nice audience, didn't draw total focus. C'mon, this is Ed Kranepool, and the median age didn't preclude knowing what that means. Maybe it was the logistics of the space but I think it was more about how those attending weren't necessarily in it for this or that speaker but just the chance to be in Metsland for a few hours in winter. MC bmfc1 (an excellent choice) and I agreed that you probably could have put out the word that Mets fans were welcome, thrown the doors open and still collected a healthy admission and gathered a decent group. That may not be a business plan, which would explain why organizing a QBC is best left to those who actually did it, and they're terrific at it. I caught only the tail end of the panel with second-line Mets execs, just enough to hear them say, when asked why they don't put one of these on themselves, that, nah, you don't want that, it wouldn't be as authentic as you guys doing it. There was both patronizing piffle and truth in that sorry response. The event was capped in classy fashion by Gil Hodges, Jr., and semi-surprise guest Art Shamsky joining us to accept the first Gil Hodges Unforgettable Fire Award on behalf of Gil's dad. (GHJ asked me on Friday if it was OK to bring Shamsky; I checked our policy on accepting unsolicited World Champion Mets and said, oh, fine.) I had the honor of presenting, but I credit Shannon Shark -- the Mets Police and QBC mastermind -- for the impulse to recognize Hodges in the first place. My microphone gave out in the middle of the presentation but Shannon found a working mic at the very end so we could finish on high/loud note, which indicated that like 1969, this, too, was meant to be. Or he just found another microphone. Fun day. Look forward to its 2015 incaranation.

Newly retired Rod Barajas to skipper in SDP system.

Rod Barajas hangs 'em up, prepares lateral move into continuing careers thread as mgr in Padre system.

John Buck reportedly filling the J.B./John gap in Seattle by following Jason Bay and John Olerud to Seattle.

Bud Harrelson was a 3-0 manager in 1988 when Davey Johnson had to leave the team for the August series in L.A. due to family emergency. No mere caretaker, Buddy abandoned the CF platoon in the second and third games, keeping hot hand Mookie Wilson in the lineup against righty starters instead of going with Lenny Dykstra. The Mets swept, put long-sought distance between themselves and the Pirates and established themselves as darn near unbeatable at Dodger Stadium...at least until October. Buddy, meanwhile, enhanced his credentials as a potential manager, perhaps forcing Frank Cashen's hand a bit by 1990 when ousting Davey would serve the dual purpose of not losing someone who had been talked up as a prime managerial candidate. (The Blue Jays were interested in Harrelson at one point.) The benching of Dykstra may have also paved the way for his trade to Philadelphia the following June.

That got better and better until it couldn't get any better...and then it did anyway.

[youtube:2z4lxma1]estoaDYf_Vc[/youtube:2z4lxma1] Creeps.

Baseball Card Theater... [youtube:2r34slk8]j4KvW9RFZWg[/youtube:2r34slk8]

Jason Bay, about to no longer have a continuing career in baseball.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Heck, here is a list of hall the writers who sounded the alarm: So if there is blame for not speaking up, it's on their hands as well. Deciding to write about bacne and back hair a decade later is crap. Bryan Curtis on the silent alarms: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10261642/mlb-hall-fame-voting-steroid-era

Ceetar wrote: Glavine and Maddux on the other hand, those bums, didn't use their connections to clean up the game, so as guilty as everyone else that played during that time. I can think of 25 players Gl@v!ne kept from sullying the postseason one year.

Gwreck wrote: -Larry Rocca votes for Trammell, Raines, Jack Morris and Hideo Nomo. Rocca followed Bobby V to the Chiba Lotte Marines as his Jay Horwitz, so maybe there's something about Nomo's role as a pioneer in the US that appealed to him. That's the only reason I can come up with for any vote for Nomo, two no-hitters and fantastic rookie season notwithstanding. But why he'd omit Maddux is a mystery (unless he was protecting the 98.84% legacy, in which case, what a great voter!).

Strong conviction for a first five (Harvey, Wright, Byrd, Murphy, Gee), very little thereafter. Thus will abstain courteously.

Nimmo invited to big league camp.

Bill Conlin to Roger Angell in three years' time. Something's improving via the BBWAA. Dennis D'Agostino, former Jay Horwitz assistant (later director of Knicks PR) and author of the indispensable This Date in New York Mets History, was completing his loving oral history of Conlin-era beat writers (Gammons, Madden, Maury Allen, Chass, Phil Pepe, Stan Isaacs among others), Keepers Of The Game (sort of an update on Jerome Holtzman's No Cheering In The Press Box), just as the story broke. He explained in the foreword that Conlin was a gracious, wonderful interview, but he decided against using it in the book in light of who he turned out to be.

Bill Conlin, whose Spink award was overshadowed by revelations that he was the worst kind of creep, 79.

Jorge Arangure, Jr., grew up in San Diego. For him, Jerry Coleman was very much Bob Murphy. Coleman had been there through all the lows -- and there have been many of them -- and some of the rare highs, moments made more special because Coleman was there to call them. "Nettles to Wiggins, and the Padres have won the National League Pennant! Oh, Doctor!" was Coleman's call in 1984 when San Diego upset the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series to advance to its first World Series. I vividly remember exactly where I was when I heard Coleman utter those words. As a young boy growing up in south San Diego, I had the responsibility of being the scorekeeper for my father's semi-pro men's adult league team in Tijuana. It so happened that one of the games fell on the same day as the deciding Game 5. I never thought twice about skipping out on my scorekeeping responsibilities, because I knew Coleman would describe the game to me on the radio as well as anyone would on television. So I took my small G.I. Joe transistor radio and listened to the game while in the dugout keeping score. I excitedly listened to Coleman describe San Diego's surprising late-inning comeback. Then, when the game was coming to a close, the group of semi-pro players gathered around my little radio to hear Coleman's call of those final outs. When it was over, we all jumped up and down in joy, knowing that our lovable losing Padres had finally made it to the World Series. From that moment on, I tried to relive Nettles to Wiggins again and again in my backyard by bouncing a tennis ball against the wall and pretending I was making that final out throw to second base. Nettles to Wiggins. Each time I would shout "Oh, Doctor!" pretending that Coleman was using his signature catch phrase. If I close my eyes now, I can still hear Coleman's call rattle around in my head. Coleman's death is truly an end of an era in San Diego sports history, one of those heartbreaking signs that life moves on more quickly than you hope or wish that it would. Coleman wasn't the greatest game caller, and his mistakes become almost legendary -- at times he'd mistake a shallow pop fly for a fly ball to the warning track -- but that wasn't the point. Every night for 162 games, during his peak game calling years, you could count on Coleman to describe the action, to bring you close to the games on the days and nights when you were at school, or working, or were supposed to be asleep in bed but instead had snuck a small G.I. Joe transistor radio into your bed to listen to the final few innings. Announcers play a unique role in people's lives. They are the caretakers of the game. For many fans, announcers become as important as the players themselves. Of course the dynamic has changed. Technology has brought new ways to track games. In Coleman's day, most games weren't televised, so you were forced to listen to the radio in order to know what was happening on the field. But that wasn't a bad thing. You wanted to listen to Coleman. You wanted to hear the "Oh Doctors!" Now, most every game is televised, and fans can chose to watch on television, on their computer or on their smart phones or tablets. Fans on the East Coast can watch games from the West Coast. If you don't have the time to listen or watch, then there are gamecasts on most every major sports website. It's never been better to be a sports fan. Yet the one constant is that while national broadcasts are often slicker and better produced, hometown announcers still play an important role. In reliving a historic moment, fans still want to hear the hometown call. The Dodgers may very well win the World Series next year, and you can be assured that any Dodger fan worth their salt will want to hear Vin Scully call the final outs of the game rather than listen to the Fox broadcast. That's the way it was with Coleman too. It wasn't an important San Diego baseball moment unless you heard him call it.