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Hearing Bobby say, "It's not the team with the best players, it's the team that plays best," got me all warm and tingly. Vintage Bobby-ing. And his immediate reaction to losing Game Six in 1999 was the same as mine, except he threw himself onto the floor of his office bathroom and I settled for the living room carpet. His retelling of the Rickey-Olerud "I used to play with a guy who wore a helmet" story, even as it's acknowledged as apocryphal, was all messed up. He had it taking place in Mariner Spring Traning, which would be fine, except they were never in Mariner Spring Training together. Like Keith, Bobby's timelines get a little screwed up...but guys like them are busy being guys like them. It's guys like me who don't do anything worth talking about except fact-check.

My 62 failed to include the in-retrospect obvious Wrigley Field and Shibe Park guys, the woulda-got-it if I'd really thought about it Sun Life Stadium guy and the "who knew?" Safeco Field guy. Also missed Washington Park, which annoyed me since I once researched the topic. One answer I rejected before typing it for one ballpark would have been the answer for another ballpark, so there went my golden chance at 63.

DVR Alert (or just watch): Monday night, 9 o'clock, Bobby V with Bob Costas on MLB Network. Good old days to be discussed in addition to whatever our former skipper is doing now.

Gee and Tejada: Omar's boys.

Andrew Keh of the Times notices shopping at the dollar store doesn't necessarily yield bargains. But when Hu � who went 1 for 20 as a Met in 2011 � and Carrasco, Ronny Paulino, Russ Adams, Blaine Boyer and the others who have been acquired are taken as a whole, they provide a stark narrative of just how much the Mets� financial problems have restricted Alderson and left him to nickel-and-dime his way to 25-man rosters both last season and this season.

Luis Ayala joins the cast of the Baltimore Orioles.

Why, yes, Bill Pulsipher is the pitching coach of the Winnipeg Goldeyes. Brings a wealth of experience, too.

If only the 1979 Mets had been... [youtube:1hle7okq]dtvaTdc_qIc[/youtube:1hle7okq]

And if Lee Mazzilli had a theme song in 1979 -- maybe even a musical doppelganger -- it had to be this guy: [youtube:3f4nso4e]WtHXzmXlwhw[/youtube:3f4nso4e]

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Disco's death prematurely announced in 1979. Donna Summer had a chart year for the ages: � Heaven Knows (No. 4) � Hot Stuff (No. 1 for three weeks) � Bad Girls (No. 1 for five weeks) � Dim All The Lights (No. 2 for two weeks) � No More Tears w/Barbra Streisand (No. 1 for two weeks) Rod Stewart, Gloria Gaynor, Bee Gees, Amii Stewart, Blondie, Anita Ward, Chic, Michael Jackson and Herb Alpert all topped Billboard with hits that were plenty at home on dance floors of America in 1979. Amid that milieu, no matter Steve Dahl's fiery protestations, it wasn't at all surprising that Sister Sledge found a champion in the Pirates. Guidry's volunteering to go to the pen after Cliff Johnson took out Goose Gossage's thumb was one of the most selfless acts I ever saw out of a ballplayer in the realm of baseball (as opposed to the realm of Roberto Clemente taking relief supplies to Nicaragua). One of the few MFYs I could never despise. Astros and Expos broke through in a big way if not quite big enough. And Jesse Orosco threw his first pitch. I assume he'll be in camp with the Padres in a couple of weeks.

Someone with the Zeile of the Converted. Underwent a transformation as the MFYs were about to choke and never looked back. Well, he looks back a lot, but you know what I mean. I hadn�t seriously considered switching allegiances until I had the reaction I did during the ALCS in 2004. My favorite team had been the Yankees, but my second favorite team was the Mets. There was no point to hating the Mets, because the baseball fan in me just viewed it as that much more awesome that I had that much more baseball to root for in my city. I would root for the Yankees over the Mets, but outside of those games, I wanted the Mets to win just as much as I wanted the Yankees to win. One of the greatest baseball memories I have is watching the 15-inning classic against the Mets and the Braves, the game everybody now knows as Robin Ventura�s Grand Slam Single. I remember being extremely pissed off at Kenny Rogers (a f%∈ walk?) two nights later. In my study of baseball, I am extremely fascinated with the National League side of New York, even when I was a Die-hard Yankee fan. My cousin and uncle are Met fans, my grandfather was a Giants fan in Brooklyn, so when the transformation in 2004 happened in me, it only felt natural to join the die-hard Mets fandom mid-stream. Nobody thought I was genuine. The Met fans I had grown up with said, �You can�t be a flip-flopper, so don�t think you can go back.� And I said, �Of course not.� I had stopped identifying with the Yankees, and while the Yankees are a large part of baseball history and my personal baseball history, I feel much more a part of baseball being a Mets fan than I did as a Yankee fan in the latter years of that fandom. At first, my dad thought it was about him, and while he called me a traitor at the beginning, he eventually realized it wasn�t about him and only calls me a traitor jokingly now. He says he�s just happy that I love baseball and that he was a part of building up that passion.

Edgy DC wrote: This is all jocularity about a misplaced decimal point, right? Jocularity, jocularity, jocularity!

Long ago when the Mets were on WHN 1050 (and WFAN 1050, for that matter), you could pick up that frequency with little problem in NY area or up and down the east coast. I once listened to a Mets game on 1050 driving through the Carolinas. But 1050 in its current guise is unreliable.

Followed by Doug Flynn!

Y'all gotta listen to this Hillman interview. And then somebody's gotta sign him to do an Ex-Met Morning Zoo.

Eric Hillman exposes the Worst Team Money Could Buy as the Worst Team a Young Met Could Come Up With, on SportsTalkNY, via Metstradamus. These guys didn't care about anything. The worst of the worst was Bonilla. He did not care about the game, he didn't care about anything except his cars, his jewelry, and his real estate, and that's about all these guys, that's about all he cared about and I'd be happy to say that, hopefully he's listening because he knows it's true. And Frank Tanana was as depressing to sit next to as he was to watch pitch. I got Frank Tanana at the end of his career ... we're sitting on the bench one day and he said "E ... I've been on some bad teams in my career ... but this is the worst ... if you go out and pitch well, you're probably going to lose. But you go out and pitch badly, you're guaranteed to lose."

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: The Wilpon regime sure does like to project the benevolent-baseball-man/magnanimous aura They would've been great stewards of the Boston Braves in the 1930s or some similarly hopeless outfit.

metirish wrote: Our HQ could be that pizza joint made famous by Spencer and Garcia. And our rallying cry could come from that song made famous by Buckner and Garcia.

HahnSolo wrote: Take that, Neil Best. If he could Neil Best, maybe he wouldn't have blown the story. OH!!!

Read the book. Thought it was strong, demystifying advocacy journalism. He's advocating a pretty anti-Wilpon stance though isn't it? Isn't it common sense for the Wilpon party to want to bar access when they can? Howard's never been shy about his advocacy: He's a Mets fan seeking the truth. He's advocating a pro-Mets stance, just not a pro-Wilpon stance. He represents an established, legitimate outlet in the Journal-News. There is no common sense to this move, just bad PR executed out of pique.

Alex Cora signed to minor league contract with Cardinals, perhaps to provide the sorely missing leadership that benighted franchise needs to repeat as world champions.

Read the book. Thought it was strong, demystifying advocacy journalism.

Thin-skinned circular firing squad convening on the Mets' part.

I have an unused Galen Cisco parody from like three months ago if anybody wants it.