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Centerfield wrote: It's like something out of the Back to the Future plot. Somehow we have to figure out how to take out Jason Bay so Duda can get into the lineup tonight. If we don't, the future may be irreparably altered. You don't remember that Bay reached for his cap right before game time and sustained a concussion?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: This thread smells a little bit like Mike Lupica. According to Lupica, Doc won 300 games. I'll take it.

Nah, Thole wasn't in the lineup. This was the night Shoppach told McHugh how to pitch to that hotshot rookie Harper and the rest of the league figured out from there that he wasn't so tough. How many of these guys are in the HOF now? I don't mean the Mets HOF. Ruben Tejada � SS Ronny Cedeno � 2B David Wright � 3B Scott Hairston � RF Ike Davis � 1B Kelly Shoppach � C Jason Bay � LF Andres Torres � CF Collin McHugh � RHP

Was that the same game when Josh Thole earned the nickname Joshhy Bench for going 6-for-6 or was that one of those two next nights when Dickey threw back-to-back shutouts to win his 19th and 20th "in style," as he called it?

Profile of O's NY connections in Times delves into Gary Thorne's history in the Mets' booth, particularly his reverence for the Voice of the New York Mets. In a season when the Orioles are surprising everyone by making a run at the Yankees, Thorne and Showalter have notable New York links. They made their major league debuts in New York: Showalter as the Yankees� manager in the mid-1990s and Thorne during two terms as a Mets broadcaster from 1985 to 2002. Between them, they own one World Series ring � Thorne�s, from the Mets� 1986 championship, a team primed to win and, therefore, as he put it last Thursday, �180 degrees different� from the current Orioles club. Only two current Baltimore players � Tommy Hunter and Jim Thome (on the disabled list) � have played in a World Series. When center fielder Adam Jones joined the Orioles four years ago, he noticed Thorne�s 1986 Series ring and told him he wanted one, too, Thorne said. Now that does not seem so far-fetched a notion, although Thorne laughed off the idea that he had imported some good luck from his time with the Mets, who hardly seem that fortunate these days. [...] Thorne began his major league career as a broadcaster with the Mets in 1985 and remembers Davey Johnson, who was then managing the club and is now steering the Washington Nationals to the postseason, allowing him to shag fly balls during that initial spring training. Working alongside Bob Murphy with the Mets helped his career greatly, Thorne said. �Bob taught me a lot, but he taught me most about focus,� Thorne said before departing for the first of two Ripken ceremonies. �He was amazing. He just never wandered.� Whenever Murphy called a game, Thorne said, it was impossible to tell whether the score was 20-0 or 1-0. �You were getting the same good information, the same good description, the same picture being painted of the game,� Thorne said. Also, each week, Thorne "puts on a souvenir of his Mets years: the pin issued the night in 1997 that Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson�s No. 42," wearing it in appreciation of what Robinson went through "to make possible what so many benefited from.�

METS ALL-TIME HIT LEADERS Through Games of 9/9/2012 1. Ed Kranepool 1,418 2. DAVID WRIGHT 1,405 COUNTDOWN: Krane Minus 13 2012 GAMES REMAINING: 22

Box Murphy 2.0 Young 1.5 Hairston 0.5 Wright 0.5 Edgin 0.5 Francisco 0.5 Rauch 0.5 Valdespin 0.5 Davis 0.5 Duda 0.5 Shoppach 0.5

Terry Collins with whatever he can scrape together: Baxter RF Murphy 2B Wright 3B Davis 1B Duda LF Turner SS Torres CF Thole C Young P

Fredi Gonzalez with no sense of occasion: Bourn CF Prado SS Heyward RF Freeman 1B Uggla 2B McCann C Francisco 3B Constanza LF Hanson P

METS ALL-TIME HIT LEADERS Through Games of 9/8/2012 1. Ed Kranepool 1,418 2. DAVID WRIGHT 1,404 COUNTDOWN: Krane Minus 14 2012 GAMES REMAINING: 23 The compiling commences...sans production, but what the hell? It's September and the Mets are lost up their own arses for another year.

Box Cedeno 1.5 Duda 1.0 Hampson 0.5

METS ALL-TIME HIT LEADERS Through Games of 9/7/2012 1. Ed Kranepool 1,418 2. DAVID WRIGHT 1,402 COUNTDOWN: Krane Minus 16 2012 GAMES REMAINING: 24

So no playoff baseball at West Side Park or its successor, known variously as Weeghman Park, Cubs Park and Wrigley Field.

Niese 2.5 Mejia 0.5 Parnell 0.5

I certainly hope Daniel Herrera will be leaning over that guard rail with a first responder cap next week.

R.A. makes his own boyhood photos available in his book. I'm sure JCL would loan you his copy for scanning. Or Little Archie, which sounds a little like Little R.A.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Any card is a bit nicer if Laurie Partridge is on it. Go ahead. Make my Dey.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Thank you, everyone! I'm almost out of available 1970s cards for R.A. Dickey. I've now done 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, and 1978. All that's left is 1973, 1979, and 1972 in action. If he keeps winning I may have to expand to 1970s football, basketball, or hockey cards. Would it be heresy to try Kellogg, Hostess, SSPC? Or maybe these...

Horizontal Dickey RULES! One of the most perfect issues from the Schaefer series. Congrats on an artistic achievement to BG, who truly blessed the rains down in Africa in August. And kudos to Cedeno, the 1972 version and his contemporary doppelganger, for giving the Mets a little extra boost here and there this year. Didn't see him coming. Rauch deserves his accolades, too, as the bullpen has bounced back nicely from sucking for, oh, years, but I'm a little surprised R.A. didn't win that, too. Just seeing him on the mound late in a game is a relief.

I'm just happy R.A.'s joined such a notorious gang. A third-grade student in Greeley, Colorado was told he could not wear a Peyton Manning Denver Broncos jersey to school because, well... "They told me I couldn't wear 18 anymore because it's a gang number and I had to take it off," Konnor Vanatta told KDVR-TV in Denver. The policy apparently doesn't allow six different numbers: 13, 14, 18, 31, 41 and 81. The policy also does not allow for common sense.

Speedo Tracksuit with author and Mets fan Paul Auster this past Sunday. Paul Auster still does not understand why Lucas Duda matters to him. Or why, at age 65, the author wants to be on this leather couch, gripping a stemless wine glass, sucking a cigarillo and caring about the fourth-place Mets. It is Wednesday evening, August 29, and Gary Cohen is reciting the starting lineups in Philly. On the top floor of his longtime home in Park Slope, Auster is reclining deep into the sofa, his long legs unfurled on a coffee table. This living room has bookshelves built into every wall, but Auster�s eyes point at the television in front of the couch. When Daniel Murphy steps in against Phillies rookie Tyler Cloyd with one out in the first inning, the phone rings. It is Auster�s publisher, informing him that his new memoir, �Winter Journal,� is ascending the New York Times bestseller list. �I don�t care,� Auster says, amiably, hanging up as Lucas Duda bats. He tops off my glass, and returns to what interests him. �Oh, we have to talk about Duda,� he continues. �He is a case of temperament and character. The way he hangs his head, the look in his eyes � he could be a great player, but he is bedeviled by doubts.� Confidence is the great Duda question, but there is also the Auster question, which tonight is the adults loving sports question. What is fandom all about, anyway? Or as the author frames it: �What is this thing that compels middle-aged and old men to keep watching younger men banging their bodies against distant ballfields?� * * * Paul Auster is a perfect laboratory for this inquiry, having spent a life digging for big ideas, but always returning to baseball. The arrival of the Mets-infested �New York Trilogy� in 1987 announced Auster as a top novelist, and he has remained perhaps the definitive Brooklyn writer of these last few decades. Among his books are 14 novels, seven works of non-fiction, and one collection of poetry. He has written and directed films, accumulated awards, and seen his work translated into 43 languages. But before all that, while Auster grew up across the river in New Jersey, baseball lit sparks that have never extinguished. Awe for Willie Mays in the 1954 World Series, and time as a New York Giants fan. Watching a 1955 World Series game at Ebbets Field. Once he saw Mays at the Polo Grounds and asked for an autograph. �Sure kid,� Mays said, �you got a pencil?� Eight-year-old Paul did not have a pencil, and neither did Mays. The Giants left. Then, in 1962, Auster made an April visit to Casey Stengel�s new club at the Polo Grounds. �The minute New York got a National League team again, I was a fan,� he says. There was normal teenage drifting. Auster was a high school shortstop, a good one, until he �discovered alcohol, tobacco, girls and literature,� and quit. But he never fully extricated himself from the Mets, and by early adulthood was addicted again. Graduating from Columbia and worried about the draft in 1969, his mind drifted to Tom Seaver. Writing poetry on the French countryside in 1973, he listened to the World Series on a transistor radio. That Mets heat has simmered through many of Auster�s novels. In �City of Glass,� characters chat about Dave Kingman and George Foster. The protagonist, Quinn, writes mystery novels under the pseudonym �William Wilson,� and eventually realizes that he shares that moniker with �Mookie Wilson, promising young player whose real name was William Wilson.� �Surely,� Quinn thinks, �there must be something interesting in that.� Surely. But what? Throughout this Mets-Phils game, I prod Auster to theorize, but the action intrudes. Having noted Duda�s confidence gap a few innings earlier � with sympathy, not scorn � Auster stands when the sulky slugger wraps a third-inning homer around the right-field foul pole. �Oh, Duda! Duda! Good for you!� he says. In the eighth, Duda steals second base; after sliding, he pops up and seems to inflate. �Look at Lucas,� Auster says, smiling. �He is looking prouder tonight. Did you see the way he jutted out his chin?� * * * And that right there, Lucas Duda�s human development, is why we watch. This, at least, is the opinion of Auster�s wife, the acclaimed writer Siri Hustvedt. Hustvedt joins us for some of the game, willing as usual to engage although not sharing the same mania. When she and Paul have movie nights, Siri allows frequent SNY check-ins. During the couple�s post-film discussions, she does not mind that Paul keeps the broadcast on mute. About six-feet tall, with blonde hair swept atop her head, Hustvedt curls in a chair opposite the couch. The 3-2 Mets win is completed, and the couple is grappling with the fan question. Hustvedt recently re-read Tolstoy�s �Anna Karenina,� in which the heroine commits suicide by throwing herself in front of a train. She compares her absorption to Auster�s interest in Duda and the rest of the Mets characters. �Baseball is like a novel,� Hustvedt says. �You enter into fiction really just as eagerly and passionately.� Auster is not convinced: �I just think that the vehemence and passion that are inspired by these games is something I haven�t fully understood yet.� His wife presses. �It�s like Anna Karenina,� Hustvedt says. �I�m living through these people. How is it different?� �But why do we care so much?� Auster counters. �It means nothing.� I pipe in. �But does it mean less than anything else?� Hustvedt, emphatically: �No. (Anna) lays down on the tracks, then she changes her mind. It feels horrible, but it isn�t happening to me. Isn�t that what a great game does?� Earlier in the night, Auster had made a similar point, and he does not challenge his wife now. �It is kind of an aquarium of human life, a baseball game,� he�d said, before emitting a throaty laugh. �Or perhaps it�s a terrarium. You�re not swimming.� Now it is late. The wine is nearly drained, and on TV Bob Ojeda has wrapped his postmortem. Auster has other theories � he played in high school, so observing recalls a joyful physical experience � but Hustvedt�s idea of baseball�s narrative pull is impossible to refute; why else would anyone watch this garbage-time game? �Other sports mimic war,� Auster finally says. �Baseball is life.�

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Other seasons that were light on home runs by a catcher. As Ceetar said, there were zero in 1980. 1967 Grote Jerry 4 1970 Dyer Duffy 2 1970 Grote Jerry 2 1971 Dyer Duffy 2 1971 Grote Jerry 2 1973 Dyer Duffy 1 1973 Grote Jerry 1 1973 Hodges Ron 1 1981 Hodges Ron 1 1981 Stearns John 1 1983 Fitzgerald Mike 1 1984 Fitzgerald Mike 2 Extra credit, but no extra home runs, for Fitzgerald in 1983 -- it was his first MLB AB.

Dickey 3.0 Davis 2.0 Baxter 1.0 Thole 1.0 Murphy 1.0 Turner 0.5 Edgin 0.5 Rauch 0.5 Francisco 0.5

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: LOL Cardinals. That's not what a playoff team does in September. Playoff team doesn't blow ninth-inning six-run lead either but so did eventual 2011 World Champion Cardinals -- to something resembling these Mets, too. But, yes -- LOL Cardinals anyway.

R.A. joins a club that now includes 7 Met pitchers and encompasses 15 individual Met seasons. MUST BE 18 OR OVER TO BE ADMITTED 25 Seaver (25-7) 1969 24 Gooden (24-4) 1985 22 Seaver (22-9) 1975 21 Seaver (21-12) 1972 Koosman (21-10) 1976 20 Seaver (20-10) 1971 Cone (20-3) 1988 Viola (20-12) 1990 19 Koosman (19-12) 1968 Seaver (19-10) 1973 Gooden (19-7) 1990 18 Seaver (18-12) 1970 Ojeda (18-5) 1986 Gooden (18-9) 1988 DICKEY (18-4) 2012