G-Fafif

Mike Marshall and Mike Marshall will serve as co-grand marshal(l)s of the Los Angeles Dodgers' unit of the 2013 non-championship parade. Mike and Mike's Dodgers receded from championship consideration on October 18. Our hearts go out to them.

MFS62 wrote: I hope they're going to simulcast on one of the WOR sister FM stations because I just tried to get 710 AM up here and got a festival of static. An excuse to revive the Mets Baseball Radio Network in earnest. Or, I suppose, the WOR Mets Baseball Radio Network.

The important thing is somebody lost this series at least.

From Sean Henn to Sean Hannity...

One of his first accomplishments was to come off the bench and help win a come-from-behind affair over his former employer. Not only did the Mets beat the Padres after trailing in he eighth that night, they did it again the next night, triggering a note that it was the first time they'd done it quite that way since 1965. Mike Baxter thus helped invoke Casey Stengel's "Vive La France!" remark that was originally uttered in praise of Danny Napoleon. First homer totally lost in the fog surrounding Jose Reyes's farewell and, to a lesser extent, Miguel Batista's complete game two-hitter. Five walks in San Diego. Two walkoff PHs in the same week this year. So more than the catch. But oh that catch. Someday enshrine his glove and whichever hand Adrian Johnson used to indicate foul in the Mets HOF.

Probably the Mets' leading run-producer per AB over his time on the active roster, albeit in the wrong direction. Seemed like a nice guy. Should've worn a better number than 73.

This was back when scouting really put a premium on outerwear. And not without good reason. Nevertheless, to paraphrase the late, great Leo McGarry in his wise counsel to overwrought Sam Seaborn on The West Wing, I think the Mets were putting too much faith in the magical powers of a new sweater.

Nice retrospective from the Times on signs carried and perhaps waved at the ol' ballpark and/or near ol' ballplayers.

Tommy John's comment, born of pitching in the Kingdome the previous week, reminded me that the All-Star Game used to be a much lower-key affair and not the peak of a multi-day festival. I remember reading NBC had done a mock broadcast, or at least the video thereof, one of those MFY-Mariner games in July 1979 because they weren't used to doing games from there and needed to figure out where the cameras would go. Today (aside from that seeming unnecessary) that couldn't happen because the All-Star host wouldn't be home so close to the game, given the Futures, the Derby and, most crucially, all the setting up beforehand, which apparently they decided was best done with more lead time. The last host that played a home game the Sunday before the All-Star Game was Cleveland in 1997. I would've thought that MLB would've come up with that sooner.

Gwreck wrote: G-Fafif wrote: I'd pay 1999 Mezzanine prices $12, if I'm remembering right. Sold!

Disgraces! (Please read the disclaimer at the top carefully.)

Harrelson was a top-notch defender and, like Grote, informed my conception of how his position was supposed to be played. Reyes was clearly the best two-way shortstop the Mets have ever had. But Ordonez...I think I'd pay 1999 Mezzanine prices just to sit and watch him field grounders into submission for three hours.

I distinctly remember Stearns as a last-minute replacement -- really last-minute -- in 1979. He was the sole Met rep in '77, '80 and '82. I'm happy as hell to call him a "four-time All-Star," because it's true and he was one of my favorite Mets of his era, but his greatest credential was playing for a team that usually didn't have an obvious selection. Agreed '78 was his best year. Swan's, too, though each was left by the side of the road as the Zachry Express zoomed to San Diego that summer.

I don't remember any Met pitcher ever going out of his way to praise Piazza for raising their game. Not saying none ever did (or that Piazza didn't), I just don't remember it. (They certainly praised his hitting on their behalf -- Leiter did so in his videotaped piece for the Piazza ceremonies two weeks ago.) Seaver went out of his way in his Cooperstown induction speech to thank his three primary catchers: Grote, Bench and Fisk. He knew and we know there's nothing incidental about that grouping whereas I'm guessing the non-Mets fan might think "two Hall of Famers and who?" It's a great question as regards what catchers do and how much they hit and what it all means. X Factor about Piazza, to my thinking at least, is he not only hit incredibly well for a catcher but he made up for the lack of slugging that the Mets weren't getting from their alleged power positions in left and right.

Hands used his right hand. Fella in that picture was a portsider. . Hendley is most famous for pitching the game of his life versus Sandy Koufax on the absolute worst night to pitch the worst game of your life against Sandy Koufax. Bill Hands never got a Mets card but he was positioned to maybe continue his career as a Met upon his trade from Texas for George Stone prior to 1976. It wasn't his kind of situation, as he told Rick Talley in The Cubs of '69. I was at home trying to get into shape -- pitching with a high school team during the players' strike actually -- and both my back and arm were killing me. So I said, "I've had it. It's just not worth it." Besides, I didn't want to pitch for the Mets anyhow. Hands made that statement in the late 1980s as the owner/operator of a gas station near Orient Point, way the hell out on Long Island. "Now I'm living here in New York," the Cub who hit Tommie Agee said, "and I still have to listen to everybody talk about the Mets. That's OK. You have to give them credit when it's due, and in 1969, they had one great year. They were lucky as hell too, but did you ever think of this? Did you ever think that maybe we weren't really quite as good as everybody thought we were?"

batmagadanleadoff wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: A visual career retrospective, courtesy of The Man From Topps, of a pitcher who grew a mustache, learned to throw lefthanded*, and ended up at Butterball Field, older, but not a single pound heavier. Who is he? * Not really. The Met image is reversed. Good Greif! Met image fixed.

Mets in 2014.

I wonder if anybody else in baseball or professional sports history is so renowned as a postseason player yet has had as many as three separate bids to move into the championship round halted in the seventh and deciding game of the semi-final round -- with three different teams, no less, while (as of yet) not finding his way in on a subsequent occasion.

Ed Charles is graciously leading the Oakland Athletics into the 2013 non-championship parade despite his having skedaddled from the A's before they vamoosed from Kansas City. The A's, you see, have come so close to advancing so many times that they wanted to be represented by a true champion. That desire grew only deeper upon their elimination from championship consideration on October 10. Gliding alongside the Glider, the notably Athletic Rickey Henderson, who swears he used to know a guy named Ed Charles when he was in New York. "Showed up at a thingamajig once," Rickey says. "Talked to me and some guy who always wore a batting helmet. Or was that Tommy Harper in Seattle?" With that, Rickey took off, swiped the baton from Ed and declared himself, as of today, the greatest of all time.

The MFYs' archrivals, the Red Sox, will take on the team that knocked the MFYs out of the postseason the last three times they had the chance, the Tigers. From that perspective, they are both worthy combatants for the American League pennant. Your Red Sox and your Tigers have never entered the squared postseason circle against one another. They did engage each other manfully for titles in 1915 (Red Sox by 2 1/2), 1967 (Red Sox by 1), 1972 (Tigers by 1/2 -- strike year with games that went unplayed) and 1988 (Red Sox by 1) before Detroit suddenly found geography and shifted its stripes to the Central Division (which sounds very Soviet). This is only the second ALCS between original junior circuit members that have stayed permanently put -- not like your carpetbagging Baltimore MFYs who moved to Manhattan in 1903; the other was in 2007, when the Boston Americans edged the Cleveland Blues in seven games. Many find the Red Sox and their Nation overbearing. I imagine the good people of the East Bay have had it with the Tigers, particularly the habit Justin Verlander has of tossing his glove on the mound and destroying their dreams. But save for the disgusting presence of Shane Victorino, I have no complaints with this matchup. Gotta love a (an?) MFYless ALCS.

[youtube:u828ff1t]6rVaDhTnagQ[/youtube:u828ff1t] No Albert, no Mazer, but the fifth part from a pretty intensive five-park network special. Given that this was before all-sports radio, I wonder who saw fit to air it in its entirety. Oh yeah, pennant.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: His last name is practically a homonym for the last name of a player who is among the 10 greatest Mets ever. Though "Jackie Robinson" is pretty darn close to "Kevin Roberson," I'm going to go with Roy Sievers.

Is it March 31 yet?

Smog vs Smug TM.

This guy is probably thrilled by the Dodgers and Cardinals meeting in the NLCS, and not just because he's in Southern California. Don't know if anybody else is totally stoked, but here they are, meeting for the fourth time in postseason play. 1985 went to Ozzie and Clark over Niedenfuer. 2004 was a Redbird triumph, marked by Jim Tracy and Tony LaRussa making their players shake hands afterward a la the Stanley Cup; it didn't catch on. 2009 belonged to the Dodgers when Matt Holliday experienced a whoopsie. And now this, the team that spent a ton of money versus the team that keeps manufacturing mint-condition rookies. It's the kind of series only an '80s movie villain would relish.