G-Fafif

Eleventh-greatest Cub, by Bleed Cubbie Blue's reckoning. A Cub who played in a World Series. Can't be too many of those fellows left.

How this beauty was covered by Faith and Fear.

His walkoff homer off eventual world champion Gullermo Mota was f*cking awesome. One of my two favorite Citi Field memories to date.

First dedicated Mets hitting coach who I can recall. Ralph spoke fondly of him from time to time. RIP, Phil.

Dan Wheeler keeps on turnin' (turnin'!), Boston Red Sox keep burnin' (burnin'!). And for the record in this thread, Feliciano Comma Pedro, a Y Comma MF.

More fun than the entire 2011 season, probably.

Fun little formula and the rather quiet denouement of his five years aside, Bill Price took a moment from being Bitter to recall the acquisition of Gary Carter, here. Goodness, that was a big trade, and goodness did Carter deliver for the next two years. He came, he saw, we conquered. Stood at that press conference podium, said he was saving that right ring finger for a World Series souvenir, and had it wrapping that finger within two years. If only every December acquisition worked like that.

metirish wrote: yankee apologists on twitter, that would Klapisch and the like are selling this as a guy who "demands the ball in a big spot" That's Jeter's influence, already at work.

Vic Sage wrote: I am in possession of a Rafael Santana game-used bat... so its never been used, i take it? And why the sadness over Raffy-2-Yanks? Was he an "icon", too? I must've missed the memo. Last i remembered, he was a no-hit/no-field SS that Davey sat in favor of Hojo and Mitchell whenever he thought he could get away with it. 1986 World Champion Met becomes a 1988 Yankee. Do the math.

I can suss out the logic, but still: Dave Kingman outranks Gary Carter?

Then again, he did leave Dallas.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: So they can have that Lee-Harvey-Oswalt rotation? Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Great Googly Moogly-- we've had this comedy pyramid before, haven't we? I hope Lee doesn't pitch any shutouts next season. Because when it comes to the Phillies, I'm no zip-rooter. He could pitch a gem. Maybe even a Ruby.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Valadius wrote: He gets a spot in my all-time Mets bullpen. Definitely gives Dennis Cook a run for his money for lefty specialist. (Not a huge cast to choose from -- Carlos Diaz and Mark Guthrie were breifly wonderful, but Cook and Feliciano had endurance going for them.) Pedro going to the MFYs reminds me of Rafael Santana going to the MFYs. I will be more saddened than infuriated by their appearance in ill-fitting pinstripes. If I was Santana, I woulda demanded my old #3. I am in possession of a Rafael Santana game-used bat, albeit a bat used in a game in which he wore not No. 3 for that organization. But I try to look past that unfortunate aspect.

Valadius wrote: He gets a spot in my all-time Mets bullpen. Definitely gives Dennis Cook a run for his money for lefty specialist. (Not a huge cast to choose from -- Carlos Diaz and Mark Guthrie were briefly wonderful, but Cook and Feliciano had endurance going for them.) Pedro going to the MFYs reminds me of Rafael Santana going to the MFYs. I will be more saddened than infuriated by their appearance in ill-fitting pinstripes.

Weren't Duke, Gorzelanny, Maholm and Snell going to be an awesome rotation at one point?

metirish wrote: Used to love Fanta....not that popular over here is it?, kinda popular in the way 7UP is.... Fanta was dormant as a U.S. trademark for a couple of decades until it was relaunched with more of an ethnic bent (as evidenced by the Fanta Girls). 7UP was huge back in the day, but that day long ago passed. The tipping point came when Pepsi introduced its own lemon-lime, Sierra Mist (competing with Coke-owned Sprite), which chased 7UP out of Pepsi bottlers, leaving it to fend for itself with a generally ragtag band of distributors. No beverages were offered media/quasi-media covering the Mets' holiday party.

I wonder how much the consultant who sold them on the brilliance of the bread question as "incredibly revealing" got paid.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I conflate Fresca and Fanta. That's the second time this week that somebody brought up those two beverages in the same sentence to me.

metirish wrote: Ha... When thinking about the New York Mets, what are the first five (5) words or phrases that come to mind? Word/phrase #1: - mediocre Word/phrase #2: no direction Word/phrase #3: new direction Word/phrase #4: leadership Word/phrase #5:- less Jeff I went with: Amazin' Amazin' Amazin' Amazin' Amazin'

Frayed Knot wrote: They still make Fresca? Yesca.

"If you were a brand of bread, would kind of bread would you be?" If there were an MFY logo on my favorite brand of bread, I'd get a new favorite brand. If the implication is "will you buy anything we slap the Mets logo on, no matter how stale?" well no on the bread, but I did buy into Gary Matthews, Jr. for a few weeks last April.

Mets -- doing their best to come off at their worst...again. I guess Sandy isn't in charge of the marketing yet. Survey linked to from a Post story that was linked to by Mets Police. Just to be clear, the first couple of pages are pretty standard. It's when they ask you to describe the Mets...oy.

Fman99 wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Full writeup (mole and all), here A great read, G. Sucked it down like it was a tall, cold vodka & Fresca. It's nice to get this hybrid fan's view/reporter's access. A real change of pace from the usual fare. Much appreciated, F. And though I've never had a tall, cold vodka & Fresca, I suddenly kinda want one.

Henry Blanco headed to the D'Backs. He and Takahashi now officially in the One-Year Wonders division of Metsdom. I read your one year wonder piece, which you linked (above) in the ex-Mets thread, and came across this observation you made nine months ago about 2009 OYW Jeremy Reed: Reed played in 126 games in �09 but started in only 24 of them, or about 19%. From what I can tell, no Met who has ever played in that many games in a season has been a starter so rarely That's what I was talking about: I eyeballed [Grimm's] charts quickly and unscientifically, looking for individual seasons that combined the most orange beads with the least amount of white space. I was looking for the most often used Mets that were primarily back-ups. My quick and dirty (and perhaps, inaccurate) winner is Jeremy Reed, 2009. Reed managed (or was managed) to appear in almost every game in 2009, even though he was almost exclusively, a substitute. Honorable mentions go to: Did you check with any databases before writing that, or were you going by memory? Because those pictures with the beads obviously didn't exist nine months ago. As the '09 season wound down, I noticed Reed among the leaders in the games played category and it struck me as odd since he didn't seem to start very often. So I did a little digging on Baseball Reference considering (seeking out the pinch-hitting and defensive replacement suspects) and came to the aforementioned conclusion. The beads are/will be a great asset.

Mel Allen -- not impressive. Perhaps not wired for TV.