G-Fafif

Please Harvey, do hurt 'em.

METS ALL-TIME HIT LEADERS Through Games of 8/21/2012 1. Ed Kranepool 1,418 2. DAVID WRIGHT 1,389 COUNTDOWN: Krane Minus 29 2012 GAMES REMAINING: 39

Tejada 1.0 Murphy 0.5 Young 0.5

Charles Pierce can't resist the Nationals, unsatisying TV voices and all, though he'd have preferred they'd moved to Havana. The fact that Gonzalez is having the year he's having has enabled the Nationals to create the season's finest controversy � namely, the decision by Washington general manager Mike Rizzo to hold Strasburg to a strict innings limit, even if it means shutting down his 24-year-old ace for the entire postseason. (Strasburg had Tommy John surgery in 2010.) This decision has roiled up the Nationals fan base, thereby providing final proof of its actual existence. It has mystified Strasburg and, according to the Washington Post's Tom Boswell, Strasburg's father as well. (Back during the All-Star break, the younger Strasburg famously said that the team would have to "rip the ball out of my hands" if they wanted to sideline him at the end of the year.) And, discussing the matter during a Red Sox�Yankees telecast over the weekend, Tim McCarver nearly went into orbit. To be fair, Scott Boras, Strasburg's agent, has chipped in to support Rizzo � which is, of course, exactly the kind of support that fans adore. Strasburg is expected to pitch Tuesday night against Atlanta in the second game of the series that will determine if there will be an honest-to-god pennant race here, whether a Washington baseball team will stroll into the playoffs talking about Stephen Strasburg and not Walter Johnson. Unfortunately, looking out over this happy, if hopelessly generic, new ballpark, I can only think about what might have been.

DVR/live viewing reminder drowning in a sea of Schaefer: Mets Yearbook: 1974, Thursday night at 6:30.

Anthony Young, coaching kids by passing on the wisdom of Mel Stottlemyre and Bob Apodaca in SI's recent Where Are They Now? issue. The 46-year-old now spends most of his time with his wife, Mia, 42, and three daughters, Jaime, 27; Nikki, 23; and Addison, 11. He manages a warehouse for the chemical company Univar USA near his home in Kingwood, Texas. But he never forgets his star-crossed experience�in fact, he draws a positive to pass onto his pupils. If a team keeps sending you to the mound, you must be doing something right. And with his respectable 4.36 ERA during the streak and 3.89 career mark, the numbers bear him out. When Young gets past the distraction of his record, he passes on to his 13- and 14-year-old charges plenty more from his six-year career, advice handed down from former pitching coaches such as Mel Stottlemyre and Bob Apodaca, who taught him the importance of earning your team's faith. "The stuff I learned, I'm giving to kids," says Young, whose U-14 Elite team, Dynasty Black, is ranked No. 1 in Texas and 15th in the country. "I really wish this kind of stuff was around when I was coming up." And he wouldn't mind his record being broken.

I just spend 200 minutes with the Rockies and they are impossible to get to know.

METS ALL-TIME HIT LEADERS Through Games of 8/20/2012 1. Ed Kranepool 1,418 2. DAVID WRIGHT 1,388 COUNTDOWN: Krane Minus 30 2012 GAMES REMAINING: 40

Dickey 4.0 Baxter 2.0 Murphy 1.0

Thursday night, 8/23, 6:30 PM: Mets Yearbook: 1974. An aberration in the generally pleasing .500+ era during which several 'Poolers came of rooting age or, given the organizational that was setting in, a harbinger of the ill times ahead? I doubt Ralph, Lindsey or Bob will get that deep. If I recall, the postseason trip to Japan takes up a lot of airtime, as Joe Torre dons the blue and orange for the first time and Yogi Berra is greeted by somebody in a kimono. Good times, 71-91 record notwithstanding.

Bringing this over from the "Let's Go ____" thread because it's Piratecentric and really good besides. Grantland's Michael Weinreb with the Bucs fans who've grown up without. Will almost make you forget the lingering bad taste from September 1990. In September, when (and if, always if) the Pirates win their 82nd game of the season, a couple of things might happen. The first is that my friend JB, who has been flipping the bird to the Port Matilda highway exit as a spiritual release anytime he drives back through central Pennsylvania, may finally let his anger go. The second is that a man named Tim Crouse may engage in a solitary prayer ritual in Columbus, Ohio. Crouse grew up sitting in the cheap seats at Three Rivers; on that night in 1992, he sat by himself in the dark, in an armchair situated about two feet from the television because the rest of his family had gone to bed. He was 16 years old, and the next morning in the hallway at school, nobody really spoke. He has never gone back and watched the ninth inning since. Crouse lives in Columbus now. He, like Pat Lackey, is a member of the Lost Generation, one of those Pirates fans scattered across America who has spent the past 19 years feeling lonely and disconnected. A few years ago, his brother-in-law, as a taunt, gave him a baseball card, an Upper Deck commemorative shot of Bream's foot touching home plate while the Pirates' catcher, Mike LaValliere, lunges at Bream's thigh. He keeps it in his wallet as a reminder. "I'm just a really optimistic guy by nature," he tells me. "I don't think I ever really got close to giving up on them." Since he left town, Crouse's city has evolved, even as his baseball team has struggled to keep up. The transformation that Midwest cities like Cleveland and Detroit are trying to muddle through has already taken place in Pittsburgh. This is largely because of the fortune that industrialists like Carnegie and others endowed to local institutions; Pittsburgh is no longer one of the largest cities in the country, but it is a pioneer of Rust Belt urban renewal. If the Steelers represent the city's ties to what it used to be, it is not hard to imagine that the Pirates can become the embodiment of the new Pittsburgh, an extension of the aspirational ethos that led Barney Dreyfuss to build Forbes Field. There is no reason to endure history anymore, which is why, when (and if) the Pirates win their 82nd game, Crouse plans to remove the baseball card from his wallet, whisper some sort of invocation, and then set the damned thing on fire.

No. They're "awesome".

METS ALL-TIME HIT LEADERS Through Games of 8/19/2012 1. Ed Kranepool 1,418 2. DAVID WRIGHT 1,387 COUNTDOWN: Krane Minus 31 2012 GAMES REMAINING: 41

Cedeno 1.5 Acosta 1.0 Shoppach 0.5

At old Shea Stadium, the Mets would lose without irony. But at Hipster Shea Stadium, the Mets "lose".

Harper not so slumpy. Hefner not so...anything.

Rain in our nation's capital, Cablevision won't be able to not show game starting on time.

I have it on good authority from each side that it's the other side's fault.

Edgy DC wrote: Edgy DC wrote: I'm not sure I understand the complaint from that perspective. The Mets take on salary with this deal. I'm looking at the two deals: Salaries of Q and Beato (minor league) + money received from Nationals=plus Salary of Shoppach=minus. I'm sorry, but I'm not following. Where do the Nationals fit in? I'm thinking old Beltway habits die hard and Nationals = Orioles.

box Niese 4.5 Davis 4.0 Rauch 0.5 Francisco 0.5 Baxter 0.5

The curse of Cablevision is lifted. Long live the WFAN Mets Radio Network!

That's Frank with one K.

BAX TO THE FUTURE!

Swan Swan H wrote: Jason Bay, defensive replacement. "Hey! Stop criticizing how little I play!" Wow, he is defensive.

It's reasonable strategy: bring in your best option -- or the one you're paying the most.