G-Fafif

Heartwarming story of yet another fringe signing. Landon Powell converted from shortstop to catcher as a 9-year-old while playing for the Mitchell's Hair Styling-sponsored team in the Tar Heel League in Raleigh, N.C., because no one else could handle the zip on Josh Hamilton's pitches. He stuck with that position change because his father Ron, an Atlantic Coast Conference umpire and now soon-to-be inductee into the North Carolina American Legion Baseball Hall of Fame, believed catching would prove the optimal route to a professional baseball career. Sure enough, Powell became the 24th overall pick in the 2004 draft -- one of three first-round picks on that Mitchell's Hair Styling team, along with Hamilton and Paul Wilder, the first-ever selection of the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Now, after two surgeries to repair the ACL in his left knee and another to clean out cartilage, a scary ordeal during which he experienced the early stages of liver failure and may ultimately require a transplant, and career highlights such as catching Dallas Braden's perfect game, the 30-year-old Powell is the New York Mets' newest catcher. He signed a minor league deal last week, reuniting with bench coach Bob Geren, his manager for three seasons with the Oakland Athletics. The Mets promised Powell a chance to compete with Anthony Recker for the backup catcher's job behind John Buck -- at least until highly regarded prospect Travis d'Arnaud is deemed ready for the majors and Buck recedes to the backup role. Powell faces a challenge to make the Opening Day roster, since each of the other three catchers -- unlike him -- is on the 40-man roster. Powell may very well end up mentoring d'Arnaud at Triple-A Las Vegas in April. He has confronted greater obstacles. "I spoke to him the other day. He's feeling great," Geren says. "He's a tough guy. He's gone through a lot. It makes you mentally tough, too."

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Great! Someone should go and tell the team seamstress to embroioder another pennant. I'm picturing a lonely lady getting up there in years hoping the arthritis that's kicked in since her last assignment more than a dozen years ago doesn't betray her when Fred Wilpon's office finally phones.

"If Colonel North ripped off the Ayatollah and took $30 million and gave it to the contras, then God bless Colonel North!" The Pedro Fleeceiano'ing of the MFYs sort of feels like Pat Buchanan's rationalization for Iran-Contra. Except legal.

BTW, longest-tenured living HOFers now that Stan Musial, inducted 1969, is no longer in that category: Yogi Berra and Sandy Koufax, 1972; Monte Irvin, 1973; Whitey Ford, 1974; Ralph Kiner, 1975; Ernie Banks, 1977; Willie Mays, 1979; Al Kaline, 1980; Bob Gibson, 1981; Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson, 1982.

What about that Ralph Kiner fella?

Seaver looks so good in that uniform, even if it's the wrong uniform. He could've gone on a goodwill tour and pitched one game for every team in the majors (save one) just to class up all the non-Mets uniforms out there -- and to treat the fans of those teams to perfect pitching form. Nice to see Comiskey in the background as well. Those yellow dividers among the box seats were distinctive.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: Do White Sox fans think of it as the "Seaver Era"? Well, they should! If a "Dennis Lamp era" Blue Jays uniform had remained on Dennis Lamp, there'd be no Seaver Era White Sox look.

Musial drove in the first run ever scored against the Mets, went 3-for-3 in their first game and never stopped taking it to them until he retired.

Now this is some detective work.

Andy Green, 2009 Met for as long as it's taking to type this sentence, is the manager of the Diamondbacks' Double-A affiliate, the Mobile BayBears.

Subplot: Battle between reigning and former Gold Glove/Silver Slugger third basemen. David Wright comes out of the winter super well-compensated but according to the votes of National League coaches and managers, he's no Chase Headley.

Mark Rosenmann, same guy who gave us those interviews with Eric Hillman and Doug Flynn after attending a previous fantasy camp.

You're gonna like this guy. He's all right. He's a good fella. He's one of us. You understand?

Relax. Daniel Murphy has it on good authority that Collin Cowgill comes to play. "I�ve heard nothing but good things about Collin Cowgill. I actually got a text message right after he [got traded] from Andy Green, who used to be in our organization. He said that we�re going to love this guy -- that he comes to play hard every day. He said he�ll really fit in well in the clubhouse." Good thing Cowgill's not bringing too many personal effects, otherwise he might fit no better than snugly in the clubhouse. Andy Green, meanwhile, is still looking out for his 2009 teammates' best interests.

Fred Talbot, Seattle Pilot, 71.

Kong76 wrote: not that I'm anal Leiter was. An Al.

seawolf17 wrote: Kong76 wrote: metirish wrote: That Frank Thomas was actually me........yeah, hard to believe that was 2005. Pretty convincing ruse. You couldn't tell? The Irish accent gave it away. Now that you mention it, I thought it strange when Frank said "that was just Choo Choo takin' the piss."

Ralph Terry already guessed and rejected...but it might need to be checked again.

Ralph Terry.

Orlando Hernandez.

Armando Benitez.

Rick Reed

A life of Falcons fandom misery (written before Sunday), by Thomas Lake of SI. (No link yet for non-subscribers; it's the issue with Alabama winning the national championship on the cover.) Told through the prism of his brother Red and himself. Makes it a universal feeling. IF YOU'RE LIKE ME AND MY OLDER BROTHER, you've waited all your life for something that may never come. Nothing you do can make it happen; no amount of screaming or holding your breath. This thing is small -- meaningless, compared with cancer or hurricanes -- but we still care about it, desperately, a little more with each passing year. We are waiting for a championship, a ticker-tape parade, a license to dance in the streets of the city we call home. Just once we wish we could be the best. Today I'm writing about our favorite team, the Atlanta Falcons, playing since 1966 and still without a Super Bowl victory, but I could just as easily be writing about your favorite team. You are loyal and unwavering. Your team is your birthright, your fate, and you would never jump on anyone else's bandwagon. You would rather wait 44 years with your Jets than have anything to do with the Giants. You are from San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle. You bought season tickets for the '86 Clippers and actually showed up. You were born in 1909 on the North Side of Chicago, and you'll go to your grave without acknowledging that the White Sox exist. You are the Vikings, the Lions, the Buffalo Bills. You are the city of Cleveland. Imagine our story, then, as a stand-in for yours-as an ode to a lifetime of hope and disappointment. There is nothing more human than falling short. Where it begins: November 3, 1991. We're losing again, to the Niners again, but this time it's close, less than one touchdown instead of six, and we have time for one more play. Our starting quarterback has left the game with injured ribs. The end zone is 44 yards away. My brother and I have never been to a game because we can't afford tickets, and we can't even see the game because Mom and Dad don't believe in television, but we have the radio, a portable thing on the carpeted floor of the family room in our house in Stone Mountain, Ga., and we hang on the words of Larry Munson. He is grim, as always, narrating the game in the voice of a weary general, infusing it with the drama of life and death. We overload three to the right, trips are on the right, we're goin' Hail Mary.... With his choice of personal pronoun, Munson has taught us how to follow sports. There is no dividing line between players and announcers and fans. We are all the same: winners together, losers together. Mostly losers together. My brother and I have followed the Falcons since 1989, during which time we have won 12 and lost 28. ... there goes Tolliver, a long, high pass ... We've shared a bunk bed for as long as I can remember. I'm short for 11, with olive skin and blond hair, and he's tall for 13, with pale skin and red hair. I'll call him Red. We look nothing alike. He has punched my stomach, and I have bitten his nose. But we are the closest in age of the six children and the only two who really care about sports, and so, although we rarely say anything nice to each other, we spend many hours together by the radio. ... down in the corner, batted, they fight ... We should not even have this chance. We do only because Joe Montana is injured, and Joe Montana's replacement, Steve Young, is injured, and the Niners missed four field goals in the first half, and they fumbled a punt with 2:39 to play, and our own Andre Rison caught a pass for 19 yards on fourth down to get us this close, and now: TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN! That couldn't have happened. Ungodly. My God, somebody caught the ball. Who caught it? It's Michael Haynes. I can't believe that happened. That couldn't have happened. Red and I yell very loudly, and perhaps jump on the furniture, but we don't hug, because that would be weird. With a 17-14 win over the team we hate most, we stand at 5-4, with a chance to reach a high and unfamiliar place: the playoffs. January 4, 1992. Biggest day of our football lives. Dramatic win last week against the Saints in the wild-card round, and now we face the Redskins in the divisional playoff. Even better, we get to watch the game on TV at Grandfather's old house. Grandfather showed us how to watch football. Taught us the meaning of third-and-six. Predicted the result of one or two plays per game, and was never wrong. Stood up and walked toward the television when the game was on the line, as if by proximity he could alter the outcome. On special occasions he'd pack up his old 19-inch RCA, rabbit ears and all, and drive his pale-green Monte Carlo to our house, stopping at Big Star on the way for Nacho Cheese Doritos and Eagle potato chips. And then we would watch football on television in our TV-free house, the rules suspended because he was Grandfather. Now he's moved far away, to help Grandmother look after her old family homestead in south Georgia, but he hasn't forgotten us. He calls his youngest daughter, our aunt Helen, who lives in the house where he used to live, eight miles away, and asks her to come pick us up so we can watch the big game on her ancient cabinet-style Zenith. And she picks us up and serves us a fine array of Grandfather-style football snacks. We're a team built for speed. Rison, our slowest receiver, runs the 40-yard dash in less than 4.5 seconds. We beat the Saints on a 61-yard touchdown pass to the explosive Michael Haynes. We have "Neon" Deion Sanders, the best return man in the game, the superlative cornerback who occasionally lines up at receiver in the Red Gun offense. None of this matters today. Heavy rain has turned the field at RFK Stadium into a quagmire. Gusts of wind reach 30 mph. We slip and fall and turn over the muddy ball six times. The Redskins smash us up and down the field with their hulking linemen and powerful running backs. "We like to say it was Redskins weather," their coach, Joe Gibbs, says after winning 24-7 and sending us, chastened, back to Atlanta. This excursion into the playoffs has taught me and Red a cruel lesson about sports and life: The closer you get to the thing you want most, the more it hurts when you see it slip away. A "highlight" of the story is the hope Lake and his brother invested in Michael Vick and what happened to it. December 24, 2006. Soon, of course, the search warrant will be served, the indictment will be returned, the details will emerge-the hanging, the drowning, the death of at least six dogs who were deemed unfit to fight-and the plea will be entered, and our quarterback will go to prison, and lost in the worldwide uproar will be this simple fact: Long before the full truth came to light, we knew we had lost Michael Vick. Knew it from his endless repetition of the same mistakes. The fumbles. The running into sacks. The failure to hit receivers in stride. The complete lack of improvement from his first year as a starter. The lame excuses and the shifting of blame. The Ron Mexico incident. The water-bottle incident. The Rolex incident. The 2005 collapse. The 2006 collapse. His two middle fingers raised to the bleachers. And today: the worst loss in the history of Red and me and the Atlanta Falcons. The Panthers enter the Georgia Dome on a four-game losing streak, including a 37-3 dismantling by the Steelers last week at home. Their starting quarterback is injured. Their substitute quarterback, Chris Weinke, has lost 17 consecutive starts over the past five years. Today he will throw for only 32 yards. And it will be enough to beat us. The Panthers come out with 12 straight running plays. They score the game's only touchdown on a drive that lasts nearly 11 minutes. We know what they will do, and we do nothing to stop it. We let the NFL's 27th-ranked rushing offense hold the ball for nearly 42 minutes. Vick goes 9 for 20, for 109 yards, with two interceptions, for a rating of 22.7. It's been a hard year for Red. He tells me a few things and keeps many more to himself, but I know the lost children weigh heavily on his mind. Now he watches the man who took our love and our money and never loved us back. Red watches him sleepwalk right out of Atlanta. And Red kicks a hole in the wall. Nice to read a sportswriter not pay obeisance to the gods of professional detachment and still care as much now as he did then about his childhood team. November 29, 2012. Another fall, another season, and with the cold we feel a strange new energy. I board the MARTA train at the East Lake station and head west toward the Dome. The train is full of my brothers and sisters in black and red. We are white women in Julio Jones jerseys. We are black men in Matt Ryan jerseys. We are a married couple in our 60s with our season tickets on lanyards around our necks. We are loud and boisterous and confident. We are 10-1. We have won games we should win and games we should not. We picked off Peyton Manning three times in the first quarter and withstood his furious comeback. We stormed back from the dead against Carolina. We destroyed Kansas City and San Diego. We swaggered into Philadelphia and took down Vick and the Eagles. We neutralized Doug Martin and survived the red-hot Buccaneers. We threw five picks against Arizona and still won. We bend without breaking. We find a way. We've lost only once, barely, in New Orleans, and tonight we have another shot at the Saints. We get off at the Dome station and pour onto the escalator. I meet Red at CNN Center for a pregame Sweetwater. Then we march through the cold night, up Andrew Young International Boulevard, into the Dome, our home for the last 20 years. Red and I like the Falcons' owner, Arthur Blank, and the winning ambition he brought when he bought the team 10 years ago. But we also like our Dome, the comfort, the noise, the gray light that always reminds us of November, and we see no need for Blank's plan to abandon this place in favor of a costly new home with a retractable roof. We climb to our upper-level seats. On the giant screens above the end zones, Samuel L. Jackson and a Gospel choir costar in a video designed to fire us up. "When a city lights up," he says. "We all rise up together. "When we come on the field, we rise up. "From kickoff to the last play, WE RISE UP. "THIS IS OUR TIME, ATLANTA. "WE'VE BEEN KNOCKIN' ON THE DOOR. "NOW IT'S TIME TO BLOW IT UP. "TELL ME, WHAT DO FALCONS DO?" "RISE UP," the choir sings. "WHAT DO FALCONS DO?" Jackson thunders. "FALCONS, FALCONS RISE UP," the choir sings, and we intercept Drew Brees. A 350-pound drunk man staggers to his seat in front of us, looking for Saints fans to heckle, and we're astonished that he can't find any. We intercept Drew Brees. Red and I jump out of our seats, slapping fives with strangers and with each other. We intercept Drew Brees. In a couple of hours, after our 23-13 win, we'll be the least respected 11-1 team in NFL history. In 17 days we'll beat the defending Super Bowl champion Giants 34-0 and still get no respect. We intercept Drew Brees. Maybe we'll fall short again this year. The experts have already written us off. We have 46 years of losing behind us. We intercept Drew Brees for the fifth time. The clock runs out. My brother and I walk into the night, looking straight ahead.

The 2012 thread is here. The 2013 thread begins with sad news regarding the reported suicide of light-hitting 1970s Padre shorstop Enzo Hernandez, 62.

Garry Templeton will manage the Newark Bears in 2013. Presumably all his players will be startin'.