G-Fafif

Box. Young 2.5 Niese 2.0 Lagares 1.5 Murphy 1.0 Wright 0.5 Francisco 0.5 Black 0.5 Germen 0.5 Centeno 0.5 den Dekker 0.5

Last dance: Eric Young, Jr. � LF Lucas Duda � 1B David Wright � 3B Daniel Murphy � 2B Mike Baxter � RF Juan Lagares � CF Juan Centeno � C Wilfredo Tovar � SS Jonathon Niese � LHP

Scout Harry Minor gets the Mets HOF Award today, same one given to Bob Mandt and Pete Flynn since its inception in 2010.

There's also this. SHaMs have won 32 games since the All-Star break.

Zvon wrote: Mets and Phils tied for third at 73-88. Also hanging in the balance of Game 162, the outcome of the all-important CPF prediction contest: doctee 74-88 msf62 74-88 G-Fafif 73-89 sharpie 73-89 Wow. May the best men win. And I can't believe G or Sharpie want the Mets to lose today. You kidding? The glory attached to having won last year's prediction contest is still getting me free subway rides, provided I refill my Metrocard sufficiently and swipe it properly.

Mets and Phils tied for third at 73-88. Also hanging in the balance of Game 162, the outcome of the all-important CPF prediction contest: doctee 74-88 msf62 74-88 G-Fafif 73-89 sharpie 73-89 Pregame, Mike Piazza will be lavishly honored and his plaque will be added to the Mets HOF...assuming they've figured out a place to put it. Seriously, the way it's set up, there is no obvious slot for it, but I'm sure they'll figure something out. They are the Mets, after all. Niese started Opening Day and starts Closing Day. Sym-Met-ry!

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Box with the familiar final score. Harang 2.0 Murphy 1.0 Young 1.0 Lagares 1.0 Recker 1.0 Hawkins 0.5 Francisco 0.5 Feliciano 0.5

Tim Rohan finds yet another heretofore unknown Mets angle for the Times. Meet their mailman: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/sports/baseball/neither-snow-nor-a-losing-streak-will-stop-the-mets-mailman.html September 28, 2013 Neither Snow Nor a Losing Streak Will Stop the Mets� Mailman By TIM ROHAN In a hallway beside the Mets� clubhouse, two sets of large wooden cubbies hold the players� fan mail. Some cubbies are larger than others. David Wright and Matt Harvey have entire shelves to themselves. But for many players, mail has piled up throughout the season. When the season ends Sunday, the Mets will presumably clean out their cubbies, take home the envelopes and small packages, and sift through them. They will read the handwritten notes, the words of encouragement and of scorn. They will sign the baseball cards and return them. Some will read six months� worth of mail. The mailroom is a nondescript area in the recesses of Citi Field, beyond the wall in left-center field. It is the office of Tod Tillotson, the Mets� mailman. His official title is special services clerk, but he sorts the mail for everyone at Citi Field. He is believed to be the Mets� longest-tenured employee. He is an institution. But not all of the Mets� staff knows him or his story. As an infant, Tillotson climbed out of his crib, fell and smacked his head on a radiator. He was bruised but otherwise considered fine until he lost his hearing at age 5. Tillotson started working for the Mets in 1964, when he was 15. His father, Gerald, then a manager at the Regency Whist Club in Manhattan, a social organization known for its contract bridge games, had befriended M. Donald Grant, a member who was an owner of the Mets. Gerald Tillotson asked Grant for a favor, and his son went to work in the Shea Stadium mailroom that summer, and for the next few summers. After he graduated from the New York School for the Deaf in 1968, Tillotson worked full time in the Mets� ticket office for about 10 years, then returned to the mailroom, where he has been ever since. Early on, he delivered the players� mail and sometimes slipped into the clubhouse. He fondly recalled conversations with Bob Taylor, who first played for the Mets in 1964. Taylor, known as Hawk, was very good at reading Tillotson�s lips, Tillotson said, and he understood Taylor, too. But the Mets traded Taylor in 1967. A lot has changed since Tillotson�s first summer with the team. �Everybody�s gone,� he said through a sign-language interpreter. �I�m the only one left.� And these days, he has less mail to sort. Some current Mets, like Travis d�Arnaud and Daisuke Matsuzaka, check their cubbies every so often. Matsuzaka said his fan mail followed him wherever he pitched, even at Class AAA Columbus in the Cleveland Indians� system this season. Fans sent kind words, inspirational notes and Bible verses. He said reading the mail had helped him get through that tough period as he tried to rebuild his career. D�Arnaud, a 24-year-old catcher, said he received similar messages from people who root for him. �I�m still, like, so honored to be looked at like a hero,� he said. Others, like pitchers Jon Niese and Dillon Gee, will wait until the season ends to go through their mail. The correspondents, they said, include youngsters asking for autographs on baseball cards, people wishing them luck and those telling them how to pitch. �Everybody tries to put their two cents in,� Niese said. �You get old men who think they know everything about the game and tell you what to do.� Tillotson, 64, stopped delivering the players� mail when the Mets moved to Citi Field in 2009. Because of stricter clubhouse rules, he said, he does not visit the players anymore. But he has worked for the Mets from Tom Seaver to Harvey, from Keith Hernandez to Wright, through their best times and their worst, through the good letters and the bad. Tillotson�s workday routine begins at 9:30 a.m., after he drives from his home in Fresh Meadows, Queens, to Citi Field. Then he sorts the mail and makes his rounds, pushing his large metal cart. He takes about six trips around the park, delivering mail and picking it up, walking on average, he said, about eight miles each day. Although he is not familiar to the players, his co-workers know him for his smile, which creases his whole face, and the photographs he shows them of his ski trips to the French Alps. Sometimes, Tillotson will watch the Mets on television at home. But their final game is Sunday. Then winter will come, and he might go skiing. But next spring, the Mets will return to Citi Field, and so will their mail. And Tillotson plans to be there too, in the mailroom, for his 51st season with the team.

The man who held the fort has been asked to continue holding it. Positively inspirational.

Here's to a smooth and refreshing thread title!

Turner 1.5 Germen 1.0 Torres 1.0 Duda 1.0 Murphy 0.5

Malone's prize is the 2012 (that's what it says) Nolan Ryan Award for "outstanding Strength and Conditioning Coach in professional baseball," voted on by his peers. The award "also recognizes the recipient's personal accomplishments and integrity as a Strength and Conditioning Coach," according to the Mets, who note Malone "worked with the Padres in 2012," in case you're wondering why a Mets coach charged with strength and conditioning would receive something like this.

Jim Malone, MLB's Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year, per Rubin. As one person put it in response, sure, give it to the guy from the team where everybody gets hurt and nobody hits home runs.

Mets love themselves some fantasy football. Times implies Niese really comes out of his shell where this other sport is concerned. Where Mets Go Deep By TIM ROHAN The Mets held the annual draft for their fantasy football league a few weeks ago, after a day game in Atlanta. Participants gathered at the team hotel, ordered food and placed a big draft board at the front of the room. One by one, each team went up, announced its pick and placed a sticker with the pick�s name on the board. It was an ordeal, and now the board is on display in the team�s training room. The clubhouse is often filled with chatter about football lineups and the waiver wire. David Wright and Jon Niese recently chirped at fellow owners from across the room. ESPN�s �Fantasy Football Now� was playing in the clubhouse before the game, and the late-starting Sunday football games were put on televisions immediately afterward. �It�s like a drug,� Niese said. �You have to have it. You can�t stop watching. Every week you�ve got to see how your guys are doing. It�s crazy, but it�s fun.� Wright, who runs the league with Dave Racaniello, the bullpen catcher, said they played for the camaraderie and for a way to stay in touch in the off-season. It has become a Mets tradition, something the players look forward to. It perhaps resembles any other league among co-workers, friends or extended family members who want something else to discuss around the dinner table at Thanksgiving. In the case of the Mets, it doesn�t hurt to have a distraction from what will now be five straight losing seasons. The Mets have 12 teams split among 23 owners, including players, coaches and bullpen catchers. The rules are pretty standard, although they award a half-point per reception and one point per 15 yards gained by a skill-position player. In years past, points were hard to come by, Niese said at his locker. �If you scored 100 points, you�d win,� he said, wistfully. �Now, this year, it�s crazy � half the teams are scoring 100 points.� He scanned the waiver wire in search of a boost or a gem, but found it bare. Because it is a 12-team league, all of the worthwhile players were taken. Niese was among a group crowded around a TV, watching the San Francisco 49ers play the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday, chatting about teams and players. �I like to stir the pot, get everybody going,� Niese said. The trash-talking generally picks up once the baseball season ends and the players go their separate ways. Eric Young and Tom Goodwin, the first-base coach, may brag about LeSean McCoy. Daniel Murphy can hype Giovani Bernard. And Anthony Recker and Andrew Brown will boast about Aaron Rodgers and Marshawn Lynch. Last week, Josh Satin and Justin Turner sat at their lockers, listing their injured players. �I liked our team the first week,� Satin said, �then half our team got hurt. Ray Rice, Jones-Drew, pretty much all our good people.� Turner said they were trying to trade for a running back. Scott Rice was apparently shopping Knowshon Moreno for a top wide receiver. But Turner scoffed at the idea. �We�ve got to do a complete makeover on our roster now,� he said. �I don�t know what we�re going to do. We�ll definitely be up for G.M. of the year if we end up making the playoffs.� He and Satin plan to watch games together in the off-season. Maybe Matt Harvey and his co-owner, Jim Malone, the strength coach, will find time to get together, too. Dillon Gee said he did not know anything about football, but he owns a team with Rice just to be involved. They have one of the better team names: �GEEsus RICE.� Murphy�s team is �Co-Captain.� And Wright�s is �Score That E-5.� �It�s kind of funny because he never makes errors,� Turner said, shrugging. Anyone who wants to join the league can, but some choose not to. Carlos Torres decided not to play fantasy football at all this year, so he could focus this off-season. �Nobody really likes playing with me,� Torres said. �I have an obsessive personality, so I�m the guy calling and texting a trade to everybody, every single day.� Tim Byrdak hears all the football talk and smirks. He is amused how each September, as the season winds down, he hears more and more about football around the clubhouse. He used to play fantasy football, until one day while at his daughter�s cheerleading competition he had his buddy race to a computer to get him a quarterback. His friend got Vince Young. Byrdak knew then he had to stop. �I have a wife and four kids,� he explained. But his fellow relievers, Scott Atchison, David Aardsma and LaTroy Hawkins � the �old guys,� Turner said � own a team together. Atchison said this was common in baseball. Most teams, if not all of them, he said, have a fantasy football league. Wright has been playing fantasy football with his Mets teammates since his rookie season, in 2004. He was not running the league then, but as time went on and older players left, he assumed the responsibility along with so many others. He missed the draft for the first time this year, rehabbing from his strained right hamstring. He had to message in his selections. He had the 10th pick and drafted Calvin Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald, Randall Cobb, Steven Jackson and Eddie Lacy. �I�m putting a lot of stock in the wide receivers,� Wright said, then mournfully added, �but both my running backs are hurt.� He is having a trophy made for the league. He does not know what it will look like yet, but he wants something they can engrave names on, something that will last, something that can be passed down for years.

Jason Pridie seems to be an Oriole. Castilloed a fly ball tonight. Valentino Pascucci installed a new deck of which he's quite proud.

Note: With his third Citi Field home run, Josh Satin reluctantly moved into a six-way tie for 16th place with Andrew Brown, Ronny Cede�o, Josh Thole, Jason Pridie, Carlos Delgado and Brian Schneider.

Gee 2.00 Young 1.5 Aardsma 1.0 Turner 1.0 Satin 0.5

Hope the Mets don't get all chickenspit over this and not have him on the field for Piazza Day. Unless Piazza hates him this week too.

Last time I posted these covers under the heading Players who appeared on the SI cover before they were Mets. And you came up with this cover: That was probably just an excuse to gaze into Tom Terrific's eyes (and not those letters on his chest).

I think the Bust-er has a bigger problem with the cards than the careers. Agreed the content does seem a bit snippy. I'd more readily accept "BUST" for Ed Hearn coming from a Royals fan still licking wounds over the brilliant trade that sent David Cone to New York.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Pitchers who made the cover of SI before ever pitching for the NY Mets. (I have this nagging feeling that I left somebody out). Technically, Johan had yet to pitch in a regulation game for the NY Mets when this cover appeared.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: What's with that "Bust" bowl in the upper right corner of Ed Hearn's card?? Busted!

Not content to merely fall in line behind the already-eliminated MFYs, the Kansas City Royals have prepared for their entry into the 2013 non-championship parade by bringing up Omaha coach Jerry Cram, who had been assigned to their famed Royals Baseball Academy for the fall, to coach their chosen standard-bearer, Ed Hearn. It is the Royals' hope that with a little extra tutoring, Hearn's team will march into the playoffs in 2014. This year, however, Kansas City was eliminated from championship consideration on September 25.

MFYs may be eliminated but MFY-related douchiness is never far away. Hard Rock boots Metallica for Mo By Darren Rovell ESPN.com Throughout the year, teams have honored Mariano Rivera's final season in different ways. On Thursday, Hard Rock Cafe will offer its own special spin to send off the closer, who likely will be playing his last game at Yankee Stadium. In a ceremony before Thursday night's game, Hard Rock will announce that Rivera's warm-up song, Metallica's "Enter Sandman," will be yanked from its song system to be retired from all Hard Rock-branded restaurants, hotels and casinos worldwide -- with the exception of Hard Rock Cafe Yankee Stadium. David Miller, director of operations for Hard Rock International, said it was a small gesture to honor "one of the greatest athletes of our generation." It's the first time the company, which has a total of 173 venues across 53 countries, has "retired" a song. As part of the pregame ceremony, Hard Rock will present Rivera with a unique Martin D-18 1939 acoustic guitar and a check of $10,042 to the Mariano Rivera Foundation. The song was played live at Yankee Stadium on Sunday by Metallica, whose "Enter Sandman" debuted on its 1991 album. The Yankees started using it for Rivera beginning in the 1999 season. Aside from the Hard Rock at Yankee Stadium, the two brands are co-owners of NYY Steak, with locations at Yankee Stadium and Coconut Creek, Fla., and one scheduled to open in Manhattan in November.