G-Fafif

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I might be missing something here, but I don't see why the revenue sharing system requires MLB teams to equate attendance with tickets sold. It's all so Orwellian. What? Teams can't properly chip in a third of game revenue into the pool if they release the tickets used figures? It's an excuse, that's all it seems to be. Yeah, now that you mention it, those would seem to be mutually exclusive issues.

Until 1999, National League clubs reported attendance based on turnstile counts and the American League teams reported paid attendance. In 2000, all clubs started reporting the number of tickets sold because those figures were used to calculate revenue sharing between the clubs, according to Major League Baseball/ That change was made in 1993, the year the woebegone Mets were drawing reasonable-sounding crowds of "17,000" or so in late September for midweek night games when there were clearly no more than a few thousand in the house.

Why must Klapisch suck so ever-loving hard? "David Murphy" may just be one of those things (is David Murphy ever identified as Daniel Murphy?), but what fucking makes him suck is the "irrelevant" trope. What the hell does that mean exactly? Irrelevant to those who don't care about the Mets to begin with? Those who are paid to write shitty columns and can't bear to find an original angle? The Mets are allowed to say their attendance is almost even from last year�s, but that�s because their accounting is based on ticket sales, not the number of people who actually show up. Hey, disphit: Everybody's attendance is calculated that way. It's BS, but it's everybody's BS, not a charming Wilpon defect. The Mets are going to honor Rivera before Tuesday's game. I hope it's by shoving Klapisch's head ever further up his Rivera's ass.

Just chillin' on the DL since his start. Hasn't played since April 29.

Hefner 2.5 Murphy 2.0 Buck 1.5 Byrd 1.0 Parnell 1.0 Tejada 0.5

Tejada 1.0

Gary Cohen with another great review, this time from the News. Accent on how hard he works, even though he won't be workin' the ninth inning from last night tonight.

FYI, this is not the first rainy Braves @ Mets game to be suspended after eight innings. Revisit 1979's version and its quirks here.

Ronnie indeed alluded to Davey doing that sort of thing, but as I recall, it generally wasn't when the pitcher in question was pitching very well (right up through his last inning of work) and his continued presence was a determining factor in maintaining a lead. Also, that was more of a raw rookie thing. By the second year, the training wheels were off the likes of Gooden, Darling and Fernandez. The Mets had games to win as much as they had pitchers to nurture. Somehow they managed to do both. All of it is different from "not gonna let him lose," which is a weird priority and defeatist thinking. What's wrong with showing faith in Hefner for another inning? "He's our guy, we trust him in that spot" is confidence-building. "We knew he'd blow it eventually" would seem to be the opposite.

And yes, the Pitch Back was a hunk of crap.

Sure as shootin', Sure Shot it was. I think I was mixing up the Bench/Brooks endorsement on Pitch Back with this super fun item.

I played this at a friend's house. I had a slightly earlier version, perhaps with Johnny Bench's or Brooks Robinson's name attached. I fucking loved that chute used for pitching.

A chance to listen to Justin before one instinctively turns down the sound on him. The interviewer suffers from that wanna-be disease of talking way too fucking much by way of asking a question before giving his guest a chance.

Arizona-raised Ike explains why he's so durn stupid. Ike Davis, who allowed Brandon Phillips' tiebreaking double to bounce past him at first base in the ninth inning Wednesday, calmly explained his reasoning after the 7-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds: Davis said, at least in his mind, he saw the one-out grounder with runners on the corners bounce foul the hop before it got to him. It was close, though. And he figured with the spin off a righty's bat, it would kick further into foul territory and be clearer for ump Phil Cuzzi if he let the ball go. Obviously, that turned out to be the incorrect decision, because Cuzzi ruled it fair. Davis said he subsequently watched replays multiple times and could not discern whether the ball was fair or foul. He noted Shin-Soo Choo would have scored from third base with the go-ahead run anyway had he fielded the ball because it was hit too slowly for a play at the plate. For that same reason, Davis said a 3-6-3 double play that would have negated the run was impossible as well because of how slowly the ball was hit. Davis suggested his only option would have been to get the force out at first base and then attempt to get Joey Votto headed for second. But Votto then would not have been forced. So Choo would have scored anyway, Davis noted. "I couldn't get the guy at home," Davis said. "Choo runs really fast. And it was really slow to my backhand side. I was trying to get off the bag to get in the hole because it was a right-handed hitter. They usually don't hit it down the line like that. The second bounce ... I thought it bounced foul. In my head, I can't turn two. I can't catch it, touch the bag and then throw it to second and get the guy out, because then it's a tag play and the guy [Choo] scores anyway. So, in my head, when I thought I saw it bounce foul, I pulled my glove back, because then we'd be 0-2 on Phillips [if it were foul] and the run wouldn't score. That was my thought process on that. I still can't tell if it was foul or fair on replays. But I definitely did think it bounced foul right before I got it. He made the call fair. "Everything that can go wrong for me right now is going wrong." The dog ate his glove, in other words. If he's still here by Friday, then the complacency is galling.

Ankiel 2.5 Murphy 2.0 Harvey 1.5 Tejada 1.5 Lyons 1.0 Rice 0.5

Niese 2.0 Hawkins 1.0 Rice 1.0 Buck 0.5

I didn't see this quiz or any of the answers until late in the game, so to speak, and I swear the first name that occurred to me was Jim Marshall, no doubt because Ralph, Lindsey and Bob drove home his 1962 pedigree when he was managing the Cubs. Al Pedrique is a recovered memory. I would have missed Norm Sherry for the next several years.

Jim Marshall, Cubs, early '70sish.

Other Bests: Ron Gardenhire, Met from 1981 to 1985, cut late in Spring Training '86, spent season at Tidewater. Traded to Minnesota on the eve of the next season, which seemed to set up his post-playing career nicely. Last cut for postseason roster in 1969: Bobby Pfeil (though the Secret Service borrowed his glove to protect Mrs. Nixon from foul balls at Memorial Stadium); in 1986 (with 24-man roster in effect): John Gibbons. Ever so slightly bitter about being offed in 1986 despite starting the season as Gary Carter's backup: Barry Lyons, who was quick to bring it up when I got to speak to him for a spell at Citi Field last September. Special Best supporting player award should go to Jim Gosger, on the roster in both '69 and '73, nowhere near postseason eligibility either time.

Byrd 3.0 Marcum 1.0 Hawkins 1.0 Lyon 1.0 Burke 1.0 Murphy 0.5 Duda 0.5

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: He's the guy who bumped Hank Aaron off the first entry in the Baseball Encyclopedia. That was just plain un-American. If he pitches for the Mets, he'll do the same thing (on the Mets all-time list) to Don Aase. Aase displacing Agee is a minor Happiest Recap plot point. Not quite like reworking all the "...and they were still searching for their first no-hitter" references in volume one, but still.

Gettin' the Red out: Murphy 2B Ankiel - CF Wright - 3B Duda - LF Byrd - RF Davis - 1B Buck - C Tejada - SS Marcum - RHP

Lou Thornton: all tied up when Ken Levine attempted to interview him.

The 0's and 5's don't mean what they used to mean, reports Stuart Miller, writing for ye olde Times. Card Company Changes Numbering System Collectors Counted On By STUART MILLER When Cee Angi was young, a neighborhood bully forced her to trade her 1992 Topps Dave Winfield card for a David Segui. The bully did not know much about baseball, but he knew that the number Topps had assigned to the back of Winfield�s card, 5, made it more valuable than Segui�s, which was 477. But this season, Topps tossed its idiosyncratic formula for assigning numbers to the players� baseball cards, and some traditionalists are dismayed. �It�s unnerving,� said Angi, now an SB Nation columnist. �It�s an unnecessary change.� �The problem with the lack of consistency isn�t just that it rocks the boat of nostalgia,� she wrote recently, �but it eliminates a common language that existed from year to year.� Joe Posnanski, a national columnist for NBCSports.com, said, �I don�t like it at all. � He added, �Baseball exists on a continuum more than other sports, and Topps is part of that.� As far back as the mid-1950s, a few years after Topps began producing baseball cards, upper-echelon players were distinguished by card numbers ending in two zeros, like 100, 200 or 300. The next best would be identified by numbers ending in a single zero, with 50, 150 or 450 held in more esteem than 160 or 440. The level below them had numbers that ended in 5; multiples of 25 were the best in this bunch. Starting around 1990, the best player would often be No. 1. Everyone else seemed to be assigned a number randomly, at least at first. For instance, in 1967, before Tom Seaver�s rookie year, he was No. 581. In 1969, after two straight 16-win seasons, Seaver was promoted to 480. That year, �00� honors went to Hank Aaron, Bob Gibson, Felipe Alou, Don Drysdale, Mickey Mantle (probably a farewell gesture because he had just retired) and Tony Oliva. But after winning 25 games, a Cy Young Award and a World Series with the Mets, Seaver was No. 300 in the 1970 set. Last year�s No. 1 was Ryan Braun, and the �00� cards were Jose Bautista, Miguel Cabrera, Josh Hamilton, Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez and Clayton Kershaw. This year, however, Kershaw is No. 22. That is not intended as an insult but as an honor in Topps�s new system. Kershaw�s uniform is No. 22, and players who wear the same number were bumped elsewhere. Stars of a slightly lower caliber like Andrew McCutchen and Jason Heyward received Nos. 122 and 222. Similarly, Derek Jeter is No. 2, while Denard Span is No. 102 and Zack Cozart is No. 202. Joey Votto�s card bears his jersey number, 19, as does Justin Verlander�s, 35. The new cards have more oddities, like the No. 322 assigned to Alex Gonzalez, who wore No. 11 last year, most of which he spent on the disabled list. Topps has maintained the tradition of never acknowledging that it uses a formula for assigning card numbers. One marketing executive would not discuss the topic, and another did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article.The Topps numbering system was never exact, especially because the decisions were made not by general managers but by card makers. But the patterns were clear enough that fans could evaluate a player�s worth based on his card number. Some scholars found evidence of racism in Topps�s early decisions. Robert M. Regoli, Eric Primm and John D. Hewitt published an article in 2007 in The Social Science Journal that revealed that white players had received �preferential placement� until the mid-1960s, the civil rights movement took hold and black players started receiving their due. Posnanski recently undertook a study on Joe Blogs, his personal Web site, creating a points formula to determine to whom Topps had assigned the best numbers during their careers. His top 10 left no doubt that although this system was imperfect and inconsistent, it was in place for decades. Those 10 players were Reggie Jackson, Alex Rodriguez, Willie Mays, George Brett, Rod Carew, Aaron and Barry Bonds (tie), Mantle, Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose. Card collectors loved knowing there was order in their world. R. Lincoln Harris, who writes the Blue Batting Helmet blog, said, �The first thing I�d do when I was looking for good players was look for the double zero.� Angi said her father would separate her �00� cards � the Cal Ripkens and Don Mattinglys � to protect them. But not everyone seems to mind the changes. �I don�t get the concern,� said Josh Wilker, the author of �Cardboard Gods.� He added that his 18-month-old son dumped most of his cards on the floor and that he usually grabbed a few and read the backs. �I like the new ones. They�re fun.� Posnanski acknowledged that �the cards are much better than they used to be.� But he dismissed inserts like autographs as gimmicks and said that Topps had underestimated how much fans, as opposed to investment-oriented collectors, cared about tradition. The Topps strategy seems contradictory, Harris said, because it is tapping into fans� nostalgia by putting current players on 1972-style cards this year while altering the numbering system. Topps veered from tradition at various points in the past two decades but then returned . That gives Posnanski hope for the future. �Maybe next year, they�ll just bring the old way back,� he said.

Interesting Photoshopping of Seaver into a Reds uniform. I'm not sure I get the significance of pretending the greatest Met ever was not a Met at some point in his career, but kudos on the handiwork, I guess.