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MLB begins All-Star balloting today, April 26, because 22 or so games is an excellent gauge of who the best players at each position in both leagues are. Your Met representatives include David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay, Ike Davis, Josh Thole, Angel Pagan and Brad Emaus. Yup. No time to make that change, apparently. Can't not start balloting for a game in the middle of July on April 26. Gotta include a guy whose tenure with his team ended April 17. So when Alex Anthony exhorts you to vote Mets in the coming months, don't forget the guy you've all but forgotten.

BTW, history on tap tonight, so be sure to tune in. In his last three starts against the Nationals, Chris Young has allowed three hits, two hits, and one hit.

Y'know, with four consecutive wins in the books, that top six looks almost formidable.

Fill in your scorecards!

The first rule of Rule 41 is you don't talk about Rule 41.

Section 528 takes apart Michael Kay better than Michael Kay takes apart baseball (which, admittedly, isn't a very high bar). The problem here, if I can be more than simply mordant, is that Michael Kay�s been a sports reporter for nearly THIRTY YEARS. And he�s covered the Yankees since 1987. He�s worked in newspapers, on the radio, on television for basketball and baseball. He hosts that Centerstage program, whatever that�s supposed to be. Can�t he think on his feet? Can�t he provide some level of commentary more scintillating, more incisive, more clever than musing about the Mets because a guy who had a couple cups of coffee with them is on the mound totally dissecting an AL powerhouse? No. The answer is no, he can�t. If ever he could, he�s been wholly incapable in the small number of games against varied opponents I�ve sampled in the past six years.

Mets have surged from last week having the worst record in baseball to currently having the best last-place record in baseball. Baby steps...

Close call. Committee found return of Scott so soon after '86 irresistible (and was probably put off by umpteenth airing of Endy bunt on Mets Classics).

Grudge matches, you might say: 019: 1987 -- Sid Fernandez (and Keith Hernandez) vs. Mike Scott 020: 1992 -- David Cone vs. History (and Benny DiStefano) 021: 1974 -- Bob L. Miller II vs. Bob L. Miller I (if not necessarily Bob G. Miller) The undercard... 019: 2007 -- Endy's non-bummer of a drag bunt 020: 1962 -- Mets go long and successful for the first time 021: 1988 -- Cincy crowd inspired by Shea counterparts from 15 years earlier

This is the danger of bringing old heroes (understanding real heroes are those who risk their lives for us -- always feel compelled to make that distinction) back into the fold. They'll develop feet of clay. Or mouths of nonsense. Or become indifferent hitting coaches. Leiter has already committed his sin of going back from whence he came, so he could come here and work his way back up into our affections since he has nowhere to go but up from an "UNCLEAN!" perspective. He's pretty good in his MLBN role and really, was there ever a more naturally talkative Met?

metirish wrote: LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: What, exactly, goes on in the BJ's clubhouse? Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's wholesome. Why else would they let kids in at a discounted rate? Mr. Met always pays a visit.....the dirty fucker I was wondering if that perpetual grin seemed a little wider this season.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: (Trying so very hard not to bring up yardwork-related in-season distractions) One of the News commenters brought that up (albeit with the details all awry). Yeah, Bobby Ojeda's the perfect arbiter of ballplayer behavior now that he enjoys the benefit of not being a ballplayer.

It doesn't appear the B.J.'s deal is exactly sucking in fans...I mean blowing people away...I mean humming along with all seats filled. That is to say, except on Opening Day, I've noticed it's about as empty as everywhere else in the park. And to my shock and surprise, I walked by Shake Shack around noon on Saturday, while the rain was in abeyance, and there was ZERO line. It was open for business, just not attracting customers. Not that there were many to be had in the vicinity. An hour before game time still usually whips up a line.

Oh, I got no problem with three innings of every desultory loss spent ruminating on past Met triumphs. But Ojeda, who experienced mixed results pitching at the Astrodome, can certainly fling it in a glass house.

It may not be exactly analogous (as Ojeda is no longer playing), but a News commenter makes an interesting point (which itself is a rarity): And there was Ojeda a few days later, on-air, during game one of the Houston series, having no problem whatsoever, chit-chatting with Gary, Keith and Ron about 1986, when the game being played was in April 2011, the 4 of them chatting as if the game on the field wasn't happening.

I'd forgotten John McSherry had gone down from dizziness early in the game and had to be replaced as the home plate umpire by Randy Marsh (eerie foreshadowing of McSherry's Opening Day death in Cincinnati less than four years later). Marsh's amazing, movable strike zone was indeed a point of contention. And Gant's ball did momentarily look like it had a chance to render Francisco Cabrera completely unknown.

Bob Raissman asked Ojeda about his Kilimanjaro eruption: When the media looks for a go-to guy in the Mets clubhouse R.A. Dickey is front and center. The boss scribes, for good reason, are enamored with him. That didn't stop Bob Ojeda, SportsNet New York's Mets studio analyst, from advising the knuckleballing philosopher to watch what exits his mouth. Ojeda arrived at this conclusion - very loud and in no uncertain terms - after the Mets dropped the first game of a Saturday (April 16) doubleheader to the Braves, 4-2. The game aired nationally on Fox. During the tilt, with the Mets trailing by two runs, Dickey did a live interview from the dugout with Tim McCarver and Matt Vasgersian. Their questions were not about baseball. Instead, they asked Dickey about his plans to hike up Mount Kilimanjaro in January with two pals. Dickey will be doing this for charity. Dickey, as usual, came off genuine and likeable. On SNY's postgame show, after the Mets loss, Ojeda said Dickey's interview "drove me up a wall." "When you got one of your pitchers talking during the game about what he's going to do next winter, that's inexcusable," Ojeda ranted. "That's a mental error as far as I'm concerned. We're in April and you're worried about next January?" More than insinuating Dickey was showing a lack of focus, Ojeda said he couldn't remember a player talking about his "upcoming" offseason so early in the regular season. "I honest to God don't think I've ever heard that in my 50 years in baseball," Ojeda said. Okay, but there's a good chance Dickey had no advance notice about what the Fox voices would ask him. A few days after his postgame commentary, someone brought that to Ojeda's attention. "If R.A. didn't know what they were going to ask him that's fine. You answer the question. It's a great cause, it's a great thing he's going to do, but then you got to spin it back to baseball," Ojeda said. "He's not schooled enough in media. It's all new to him. He came out of nowhere. He had a fantastic year, now people are interested in what he's doing. "But I believe there's a time and a place for those conversations," Ojeda said. "And I didn't think in the dugout, down two (runs), (in a) five-game losing streak in April, is the time to be talking about hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro in January. By the way, I don't expect the player to agree with me on that." Ojeda said as he was listening to Dickey's interview "the coach in me came out." He said he thought about Terry Collins "struggling" to get his team's attention. "You have to be savvy enough to understand the fans are watching. Fans want to hear: 'We're struggling right now, but my main focus is on this ballclub. I want to turn this thing around.' It can't be fake. You've go to feel it." Ojeda understands his analysis of this Dickey thing might be considered too rigid. He doesn't really care. "If that's old school, fine. I'm fine with being old school," Ojeda said. "But there are constants about this game. Some things I believe in over the years never really change."

And now that I think about it, I couldn't have been flipping between Game Seven and L.A. Law because this was a Wednesday, and L.A. Law was on Thursdays. Must have been something else distracting me between pitches. Perhaps CNN was doing a live remote from Griffin Hospital.

Fans of whoever my team is playing or needs to lose so my team can advance is the deeper answer. Caveat: If I'm in the vicinity of fair-weather fans, like the Nats kind, they're worse. If I'm in Philadelphia, they're worse. I'm situationally oriented.

All fans who can't calibrate their rooting properly are to be disdained.

However, when you�re in the Metro, don�t be a jerk. You can take the boy out of New York...

I figured No. 3 was where Game Six 1986 WS was headed. Too much adoration out there for Game Six 1975 WS for ours to overcome. Its climax continues to rank in the Top Three Moments of My Life. Anyway, No. 4 provided a fascinating presentation, with Sid Bream and Mark Lemke representing the victorious Braves and Andy Van Slyke sitting in for the losing Bucs. A few thing that struck me: 1. Andy Van Slyke is a deceptively bitter guy. I never did like him as an opponent. I guess I'm not supposed to like Met opponents. Enjoyed learning that when he tried to motion Barry Bonds to play shallow when Francisco Cabrera came up, Bonds flipped him off. Not much to choose from in that outfield in terms of for whom one might root. 2. Mets couldn't stop the Pirates of Bonds, Bonilla and Van Slyke in 1990 and fell helplessly behind them by the second week of August 1991. So we signed one-third of that triumvirate away for 1992 and what happens? Mets suck even more and Pirates are hardly deterred from their third consecutive N.L. East championship. Bonds leaves and the whole thing falls apart like the proverbial house of cards. If one needed a reason to dislike Bobby Bonilla a little more, this served as a good reminder. 3. Van Slyke described the sense of desperation that permeated the Pirates in terms of trying to extend a 2-0 lead to 3-0. It was most apparent when we see the Pirates' third base coach waving Orlando Merced home from first in the eighth with one out on Jeff King's double to right. It wasn't a crazy decision but I was taken aback by the Pittsburgh third base coach who did the waving: Rich Donnelly...same guy who, 14 years later, waved Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew home for the Dodgers against the Mets in Game One of the NLDS when Paul Lo Duca tagged them both almost simultaneously. I'm sure the old boy network in baseball would rally to Donnelly as a great third base coach the way everybody asserted Jim Joyce was an awesome umpire the moment he made one of the worst safe/out calls in baseball history, but man, nice way to show up in all the wrong places. 4. Stan Belinda, who allowed the Braves their three runs, was the Pirate closer but just barely. Even though Leyland could bullpen an opponent to death (I'll never forgive him for drawing out a Saturday night game at Shea that year when he used seven bleeping pitchers to nail down a 3-2 win...in three hours and forty-seven minutes), he never saw fit to keep his closer sharp. Circumstances hadn't called for Belinda to save any of the three Pirate wins in the NLCS, so he only pitched one mop-up inning, in Game Two. Suddenly he's on the mound trying to hold a tenuous lead in the ninth inning of Game Seven. Impossible to imagine today. 5. Bream's journey from second to home on Francisco Cabrera's pinch-hit, given his complete lack of speed and the practically perfect production values of the play at the plate, was lingered on generously in this show, which makes sense, since Bream was there and it was a historic slide (and the not-quite throw from left after Van Slyke received the finger was Bonds's last moment as a Pirate), but it seems Cabrera was almost an afterthought in the retelling. I mean, c'mon...Francisco Cabrera drove in the tying and winning run with two out and a pennant literally on the line. Ten plate appearances the entire season and then he pulls a reasonably effective impersonation of Bobby Thomson. Thomson had a genuinely strong ML career. Cabrera didn't accumulate 400 plate appearances in his whole career, and he won the NLCS for Atlanta. He (and Barry Bonds's agent) pulled the curtain down on a proud franchise's viability for the next two decades, and the denouement of the show was, "You're great, Sid!" 6. I don't know how severely this was edited, but Bob Costas's contempt for Bonds dripped through, per usual, and he couldn't resist taking a shot at Braves OF Deion Sanders for shuttling back and forth between football and baseball that month. I mention editing because neither Bream nor Lemke took the bait on Sanders. I recall every Brave in those days going on about what a fantastic teammate Deion was, and sure enough, Prime Time was on the top of the step as the top of the ninth ended, next to Bobby Cox (he had already pinch-hit), slapping butts and shaking hands and encouraging the hell out of everybody. He's not a sympathetic figure, and the football-baseball thing was probably not ideal, but Costas gets on my nerves with his holier-than-thou act. 7. Tom Verducci shared a stat that Bream had scored from second on an outfield single in the 1992 regular season exactly twice. And there he was doing with a championship in the balance. 8. Verducci (who's big on the innings pitched) pointed out Drabek never went on fewer than four days' rest in the regular season and now he was doing it twice in a row, and Leyland left him in there into the ninth. Van Slyke said, essentially, this was the postseason, it's all about adrenalin, you don't think about that spit. They both seemed like valid points, one from the dispassionate sidelines of hindsight, one from a guy who's been in the middle of it. 9. I remember Jose Lind as a marvelous second baseman, but, to put it unkindly, man did he choke in the ninth when he couldn't pick up Justice's grounder after Pendleton led off with a double. There had been a ground ball earlier where Lind had trouble and it was clear (then and in this presentation) that he was playing back on his heels, not charging, not doing whatever made him marvelous during the regular season. The more I stared at these Pirates (who made the Mets' lives so miserable for three years when the Mets weren't making their own lives miserable), the less likely they seemed to be in the position to go to a World Series. They were Bonds, Van Slyke, Drabek and a bunch of guys. 10. As the game went on, and I stopped nervously flipping between it and L.A. Law, I somehow knew the Braves were going to come back. It was an improbable ninth inning but the Pirates just looked ready to crack on some level. I was a big Braves fan (in that second-team sense) in those pre-realignment days and this was as gratifying a non-Mets win as I ever experienced. On some level, I felt bad for Leyland and Pittsburgh but watching this show reminded me how much I couldn't stand Leyland and Pittsburgh in those days. I wouldn't wish their post-1992 death spiral on anybody who isn't the MFYs, but I didn't really mind Van Slyke sitting in center field at the end, cap askew, nowhere to go but home. OTOH, I find it hard to believe I used to root in any capacity for the Braves. It was a long time ago, but baseball has a way of transporting you right back to where you were.

Wright 3.0 Niese 2.5 Pridie 2.0 Beltran 1.0 Davis 0.5 Byrdak 0.5 Murphy 0.5

Promenade Club: When nowhere else will let you in. Should be its slogan. Waited out the rain delay at what's basically the Braniff Lounge, but it was perfectly fine. Guess it would rain until the dogs went home, but skies parted and it was a lovely enough day at Citi Field. Sat way out in right field, 403, accompanied by about twenty twentysomethings enjoying somebody's birthday which included not a flower cake but a flask of vodka. It was passed around enough so its impace on any one celebrant was diluted. Delighted in shouting at Enright that he's a MEDIOCRITY! even though my lingering rasp made me a mediocre heckler. I would've left Beato in for the eighth, but who's complaining? Kid's outstanding.

Bay 2.5 Davis 2.0 Gee 1.5 Beato 1.0 Isringhausen 0.5 Rodriguez 0.5 Turner 0.5 Murphy 0.5 Reyes 0.5 Wright 0.5