G-Fafif

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: 2012 is the first year in which teams named "The Giants" won both the World Series and the Super Bowl. The Yomiuri Giants are one win away from making a third championship team named "The Giants" this year. Son of a gun, something Gigantic happened again. Or as they say in Japan... Many people likely enjoyed the pleasures of baseball to the full as they watched a series of close games worthy of deciding the nation's best team.

[youtube:ggklja47]_0sE5EJKXdY[/youtube:ggklja47] What a truly wonderful awful production. Love the Dodger slam that comes late.

So, basically, given the date of his final Mets game, nobody lived longer being an ex-Met than Joe Ginsberg. If Bobby Gene Smith, whose final Mets game came nine days later, can live another week, he'll have the record.

Caught the Home Opener two days before his release, which was necessitated by the Mets' not yet infamous trade of a player to be named later for Harry Chiti, which he accepted as a part of life: "I thought I had a good chance to stay. But then I got off to a bad start and I knew they had to make a move. It's the perils of the trade." Going at around the same time was Clem Labine, who had to make way for the aforementioned Dave Hillman. Labine was a little less generous in that he felt he and Ginsberg had been duped by George Weiss into serving as de facto coaches in Spring Training when in fact they were players who were going to be cut eventually, and thus no longer paid. "We were getting a snow job," is how Clem put it. (Info gleaned from the incredibly thorough A Year In Mudville by David Bagdade.)

Oldest surviving 1962 Met: Dave Hillman, born September 14, 1927. (Yogi Berra, born May 12, 1925, remains the oldest living Mets player by dint of his not being dead at the present time.)

Joe was also the first Met to play his last game as a Met, as he hung 'em up on April 15, 1962, the team's fourth game ever.

Joe Ginsberg, a two-game veteran of the 1962 Mets and their oldest surviving member during the franchise's 50th anniversary season died on Friday at 86.

In a childhood flashback sequence this week during one of his Back to Brooklyn shows, "young Jimmy Kimmel" wore a Mets shirt. Kimmel is a real-life Mets fan.

Rhetorical question: What the fuck are the Astros doing in the American League?

SteveJRogers wrote: Gallagher's in NYC is due to close early in 2013. Would not shock me if they closed up shop a few months ahead of schedule. A seat from the Polo Grounds sits in the restaurant's lobby. Somebody monitor the front curb.

The whole schmear, here.

Listening to the WFAN simulcast on 101.9 FM with crazy new jingles to match. Steve Somers had Suzyn Waldman on in homage to the first voice ever heard on WFAN 1050. Sounds like a talk station on FM.

Seaver was 11-8 on August 1, while Jenkins was 17-8. That's four months of impressions Tom had to overcome in the era when wins really were the proving ground for writers.

30 Dickey 29 Wright 28 Niese 27 Murphy 26 Santana 25 Hairston 24 Davis 23 Tejada 22 Gee 21 Parnell 20 Young 19 Harvey 18 Thole 17 Valdespin 16 Duda 15 Baxter 14 Byrdak 13 Rauch 12 Francisco 11 Nieuwenhuis 10 Cedeño 9 Hefner 8 Acosta 7 Torres 6 Turner 5 Edgin 4 Shoppach 3 Quintanilla 2 Nickeas 1 McHugh This became a very grim exercise after Niese. Murphy gets credit for excellent attendance and stabilizing second base while hitting doubles. Santana was wonderful when the team was surprisingly good, and to me it overshadows the ankle- or innings-driven decline (plus there's nobody clearly better than Johan to keep him from being ranked high). Hairston had big moments in a part-time role; Davis got his act together when the team was falling apart and could be just terrible when not cranking up the power; Hairston doing more with less playing time is why I went Scott over Ike. Tejada filled a gap that could've been gaping, power-free nature of his hitting notwithstanding. Gee was fairly valuable in his presence, enormously so in his absence. Parnell seemed to get his act together late and makes the Top 10 by process of eliminating everybody else. The rest of the way was a matter of balancing out relatively competent if decidedly unspectacular types (Young, Thole, Byrdak, Rauch sometimes) who almost never excelled with those who didn't set the season on fire from April to October but made Met life a little less depressing in 2012 (Harvey, Valdespin, Baxter, Nieuwenhuis, with a nod to Francisco's better first-half angels). Duda is smack in the middle, which sounds right to me as he was the little girl with the curl...or fielded like one anyway (no offense to little girls with curls and gloves better than Duda's). It was with no personal malice that I omitted Mike Nickeas, Ramon Ramirez and Jason Bay, but boy did they suck.

In Mo� Better Blues (a 1990 feature shown on HBO Signature in the early hours of November 1, 2012), Spike Lee�s character, Giant, bets on the Pirates to sweep the Mets a doubleheader because �the Mets need to get some more black ballplayers.� Also takes a shot at Steinbrenner and salutes Frank Robinson in the same betting scene.

Just when it was getting good, too.

New York's best sports owner continues to be true to the orange and blue (and black) when out and about. The Giants are blanking the Tigers and Bill Maher is Mets all the way. Now that's some Real time. I mean, the man travels with his Mets cap!

The Giants: Highly effective. The Tigers: Less so. The MFYs: Idle, but I couldn't help but think that the impending storm would have made an ideal alibi for why there would have been so many empty seats MFYS III in Game Three...though I imagine SF fans would have snapped them up.

A-Rod, he whose feelings needed to be spared. New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi had the team's public address announcer leave out Alex Rodriguez's name when Eric Chavez pinch-hit for the struggling slugger during the playoffs, according to a report by CBSSports.com. Announcements usually include both the pinch hitter and the player he is replacing in the lineup. But in this case, Rodriguez's name was not heard in the stadium. The move was made in the eighth inning of Game 1 of the American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers. Rodriguez was 0 for 3 with a strikeout when Girardi sent Chavez up to hit for him. According to CBSSports.com, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman confirmed that Girardi made the call to shield Rodriguez from further embarrassment. Despite being pinch-hit for, and even benched throughout the playoffs, Rodriguez spoke positively of his manager, saying Girardi had "built up a lot of equity with him." Rodriguez was a mere 3 for 25 in the postseason, which ended with the Yankees being swept by the Tigers in the ALCS. He especially struggled against right-handers, going hitless in 18 at-bats with 12 strikeouts.

In a more perfect world, 2-0 World Series games in which the runs score on a double play and a sacrifice fly in the seventh and eighth; in which the turning point is a large man being thrown out at home; in which one pitcher is hit in the head yet keeps pitching and all the pitchers give up only seven hits total...in a more perfect world, this is the kind of game that would have "saved baseball," not home run chases or whatever got people (and players) all pumped up fifteen years ago. Old school is an overused phrase. But this was old school.

As Grimm uncovered in May, R.A. foresaw his second-place 2012 finish 35 years earlier.

Outstanding execution on every level of calculation and creativity. Looking at 1970 Wright makes me wistful that I never got one in all the packs I purchased at the Cozy Nook and Belle's Luncheonette the summer I was seven. In the writeup for Wright (or the Wrightup), he's described as player of the year for 2011. Posterity would like to be assured he won for 2012.

Jose Reyes, Knicks fan, Mets kibitzer. The New York Mets let Jose Reyes leave in free agency last offseason. Reyes hopes the same thing doesn't happen to former teammate David Wright. "They should sign David (long term). He's been the face of the franchise for a long time," the Miami Marlins shortstop told ESPNNewYork.com at halftime of the Brooklyn Nets-New York Knicks preseason game Wednesday night at Nassau Coliseum. "If they let him go, that's gonna be difficult to see the New York Mets without David Wright. I can't imagine that. You never know in this game what's gonna happen, but I wish all the best to David. He's a good friend of mine." The Mets hold a $16 million option for Wright in 2013. A CBSSports.com report suggested the Mets' first offer to Wright will be in the $100 million range. Wright has said he wants to stay with the Mets, but would be open to testing the market and playing elsewhere if a deal can't be consummated. Reyes wanted to stay a Met, too, but the cash-strapped franchise elected to move in another direction, so he signed a six-year, $106 million contract with the Marlins. Miami's season -- its first in a new ballpark -- ended a complete disaster, culminating with manager Ozzie Guillen being fired. "It's surprising to me, of course," Reyes said when asked about Guillen. "Like I said, it wasn't his fault the way we were playing. We are the ones who are playing on the field. I had a great relationship with him. We had a lot of good communication. To see him go is kind of sad for me, like I said, because I got along very good with him. But I don't make those decisions; I just play baseball." Asked if he regretted going to Miami given what transpired, Reyes replied, "It's tough to think about that (now) because you never know what's gonna happen. But like I said, I'm really happy where I am now in Miami. The people there treat me good. I have my family there in Miami. They like the way I play. I feel now like I'm home." Reyes lives 10 minutes from Nassau Coliseum, and will work out this offseason in the New York Metropolitan area with Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada. Reyes is a Knicks fan and is friends with Carmelo Anthony. When he was shown on the JumboTron on Wednesday night, the crowd booed him. "It's OK," Reyes said, laughing. "Every time I came to Citi Field this year, they booed me. They still feel bad because I left the Mets, but it wasn't my fault. I wanted to stay. I said that so many times, but it is what it is. I'm happy with where I am now." New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who had a horrendous postseason, has been linked to a possible deal to the Marlins, as well. "Those are just rumors, but if he went to Miami, it would be an honor for me to play with Alex," Reyes said. "He's a future Hall of Famer."

Tim Bogar, not thrilled with Bobby V aftermath. "I'm not upset about him or anything he says, but what bothers me is the perception of me and the other coaches is completely wrong," he told ESPNBoston.com. "That bothers me because of what the coaches went through this year and what we dealt with. I did exactly what (general manager) Ben (Cherington) asked me to do. I'm not saying I did everything perfect because I didn't and I know that." Valentine has not been shy about criticizing his coaches. In the final week of the season, Valentine said during a radio interview that he felt his coaching staff was not loyal to him. On Tuesday, the same day the Red Sox introduced John Farrell as their next manager, Valentine appeared on the "Costas Tonight" program on NBC Sports Network and was again critical of the coaching staff, saying, "I should have made sure the coaches were my guys." Bogar's comments Wednesday were the first from any of his former coaching staff since Valentine's latest remarks. Bogar was a holdover from ex-manager Terry Francona's staff, serving as first-base coach in 2009 and third-base coach in 2010-11. He was promoted to Sox bench coach under Valentine, who approved the move. "The coaching staff was prepared to do everything that we were supposed to do to help Bobby succeed," Bogar said, "but not once did he portray what he wanted us to do to help him and eventually he shut some of us out completely."

Gary Sheffield, player agent. He's also thinking of opening a cigar bar. During our interview, he brought me into Lit, a cigar lounge in a Channelside strip mall, next to a Hooters. "This is something I wanna do, but on a bigger scale," Sheffield says. Lit features one moderate-sized room and an adjoining humidor, with a few TVs turned to ESPN, monochrome posters of naked women, and 16 bottles of Grey Goose standing on a mantel. It is everything you'd ever dream a cigar bar in a Tampa strip mall would be. Sheffield lit up a Rocky Patel Freedom, a new cigar he got at a show. He had been carrying around a plastic bag full of sample cigars and cigar tools -- a hole-borer and a silver torch that shoots four prongs of blue flame. When he puffed through, the stogie produced the smoke of a small rubber fire. Sheffield thinks he might enter broadcasting soon. He did some radio for a sports-talk station in Tampa, and a few shows on the MLB Network, and he got good feedback. He says that ESPN wanted him to come to Bristol, but he said no -- too far. The local station wanted him to come work full-time for them, but they had moved the studios to St. Petersburg, across the bridge. Also too far, he said. He shot a television pilot in spring training with other ex-jocks for what he describes as a "Best Damn Sports Show-type deal," and he says some networks are interested. Sheffield says he'd move for work if he could land a gig like Charles Barkley's or Michael Strahan's. He has opinions, and he'd like to share them on television. He's not going to get on Twitter, though: "I don't like when people think I'm boisterous about everything. Most things I just don't care about." What else does he do? He owns a beach resort. His business partner, Xavier James, tells me that Sheffield also has a deal with "a Vitamin Water-type company." Sheffield says, "I'm thinking about buying -- well, I can't tell you -- it has to be approved with a big organization. I'm about to buy that." He skis, too. He has a house in Aspen, which he bought after a vacation there with his mentor, Dave Winfield. "Dave introduced me and my family to skiing," he says. "It's the best thing that's ever happened to us." And he does whatever there is to do in Tampa. He was curious, so he attended every night of the Republican National Convention in August. He liked the atmosphere of the convention, but didn't care for how few black faces were in the audience. He didn't like Clint Eastwood's speech, either. He sympathizes with Mitt Romney, though, because both men are oppressed by capital gains taxes on overseas profits. He says, "If you're smart enough to make money out of the country, you shouldn't have to pay taxes on it. Mitt Romney would have done more here, created jobs, if the government let him." Sheffield says his primary concern is with the plight of the working poor, and thinks the government should do more to help them. He's particularly troubled by what faces black men. Poor black men will never go to work, he explains, when the government lets women take half their income in child support payments. Then they get involved in crime, so the government doesn't see any income at all. "Change the laws, make the women responsible," he says. "Then they'll stop having all those kids." Sheffield, a veteran of several paternity suits and child-support battles, knows that his position isn't a popular one. But, as usual, he doesn't care. "The thing is, I'm not really pro-this, pro-that, no. I'm pro-right."