G-Fafif

I thought Yankee fans, frankly, were awful. They were either violent or apathetic, neither of which is good. So I thought Yankee fans were by far the worst of any I've seen in the postseason. I thought they were an embarrassment. That's Rangers co-owner Chuck Greenberg on Dallas radio. That's also spectacular.

Run-of-the mill football beat championship baseball in last night's ratings. Sigh.

Too many Rangers fan in costume -- focus.

Gwreck wrote: Quilvio Veras, member of the 1998 National League Champion San Diego Padres. I would've guessed Kevin Tapani but after checking, he threw 7 innings for the Mets before leaving in the Viola trade. Good one! I had Veras on an ancillary list of those who made the postseason but not the World Series (one that encompasses the likes of Jody Davis, Lloyd McClendon, Heathcliff Slocumb, and a few others) but blanked on the '98 WS...much as the Padres did. Will amend -- thanks.

Exclusive and obsessive Faith and Fear research has revealed Nelson Cruz is one of ten former Mets minor leaguers who never played for the Mets but eventually reached the World Series. Read about Nelson and the Other Nine (if you like) here. If you have anybody else that will make me slap my palm to my forehead, please let me know and I will addendumize. Thanks.

Joe Buck sucking up to NFL during MLB's showcase. Ah, good old Fox... Because everyone watch the World Series in October is wondering what channel the Super Bowl is in February. Heeding the words of Abraham Simpson, January 12, 1969: "I'm trying to watch the Super Bowl. If people don't support this thing, it might not make it."

Joe Buck sucking up to NFL during MLB's showcase. Ah, good old Fox...

Looking forward to hating Buck and McCarver in real time.

One more, typically fascinating, from Keith Olbermann: No matter what the game was, how long it dragged on or how quickly it passed, how unpleasant the weather or how perfect the setting, it was always better if I got to say hi to Bill Shannon. He was already a veteran of the press boxes at Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden long before I got into this business in 1979. He knew virtually everything that had ever happened in baseball and probably just a little bit more about everything that had happened in New York sports reporting. The topics occupied him, mystified him, energized him, endlessly. Off-and-on for several years, we individually dabbled in trying to unearth such mysteries as who had preceded the legendary Public Address Announcer Bob Sheppard at Yankee Stadium before Sheppard got the job in 1951. Off the top of his head Bill went through the identities, resumes, and secret lives of Sheppard's counterparts at Ebbets Field and The Polo Grounds, and details of the days when the Yankees refused to install a PA and stuck to having men walk around the field with megaphones, and then after rolling out all this information he said, with no sense of irony, "but let me look a few places." We were still engaged in what had become a near-decade-long search for the etymology of the official scoring system by which the shortstop is numbered "6" and the third baseman "5" (as in "6 to 3 if you're scoring at home"). I had found an 1890's Giants program with "how to score" instructions that indicated it had been the other way round. "Ah, yes," Bill bellowed, in an accent I knew from my childhood to be authentic New York City, "At some point it was. What we need to do is find out when it changed." He then launched into a story he'd been told by a veteran writer with whom he had worked in the '60s, that was from itself from a veteran writer from the teens, who had heard it from one of the combatants, of a near fist-fight between the two official scorers at an early World Series, one of whom adhered to the Midwest preference of "5" for the shortstop, while the other one came from the Northeast, where he had always been "6." These tales, these miniature trips through time, were at Bill's fingertips. They were instantaneous and generously offered and if they could help you, they were so much more joyful for him. Bill could do this about any topic. And any crumb of research that might enlighten him on something he didn't know - or better yet, something he mistakenly thought he knew everything about - was like a gift of a gold nugget to him. He was publishing a brief (and impeccable) guide to official scoring (and he was the senior in the field at both New York ballparks, and I never heard anyone complain about one of his decisions) and asked me if I could help him with identifying the ones at some of the early World Series. I dug up the information fairly easily. He treated it as if I had written half the book for him. It is impossible, it is personally physically painful, to write here that Bill Shannon died in a fire at his New Jersey home this morning, a fire from which his mother was rescued. He was 69 years old. He had worked for everybody: UPI, AP, the local papers, his own stringing service, Madison Square Garden, at least two soccer leagues, Who's Who In Baseball. Loss is a part of everything and everywhere, and I'm confident I did not see Bill once in 31 years outside of one of the Stadiums. But as I write this I literally cannot imagine walking into either of the New York press boxes next year knowing I will not see this lovely man again.

Ken Davidoff in Newsday creates an Alderson attribute from very thin air: Alderson gets it. Fully. He gets New York, as he worked here for many years as a senior executive for Major League Baseball. He gets the Mets; his 1988 Oakland Athletics were set to take on the Mets in that World Series before Mike Scioscia went deep off Dwight Gooden. How on earth does the fact that his team might might have played the Mets 22 years ago mean Alderson "gets the Mets"? Unless Davidoff has proof that Sandy thought to himself, "If I were running that organization they'd have beaten the Dodgers," and obsessed on it from there, this strikes me as one of the more absurd throwaway lines I've ever seen. Marty Noble would have used the 1988 near-collision of A's and Mets as a jumping off point and probably gotten a great quote from Dave Magadan while doing so.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Anybody else pleased that our GM can speak in complete, coherent sentences? Omar always sounded like he was juggling bottles of nitroglycerine when he would talk to the media. Low bar, but he exceeded it. Alderson manages to sound on message without sounding programmed to spew talking points.

Davey Johnson never sold a single ticket. Davey Johnson's winning ballclubs sold a ton of them.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: G-Fafif wrote: "62 is the new 35," says Alderson in his signoff. I'm heartened by his maturity...but he sure did sound tired. Well... do keep in mind that he'd been doing these in ten-minute chunks for about two hours straight-- and mostly answering the same questions-- BEFORE reaching Francesa. No doubt. He's chunking it up with Kay on ESPN 1050 now.

"62 is the new 35," says Alderson in his signoff. I'm heartened by his maturity...but he sure did sound tired.

Alderson sounds like a person. In that sense, it's like hearing Duquette after the shtick of Phillips. But Alderson's coming at it from a base of security.

SA says Mets have some cachet that has never gone away. MF snottily dismissed his assertion. SA laughed and moved on. SA should have kicked dirt.

Talked about a manager who kicks dirt. Any manager who promises to kick dirt on Francesa would be OK by me.

Sandy on with Francesa. I have to say he sounds rather tired (then again, I feel the same). OTOH, he doesn't sound like he's spouting talking points. Consistent with previous answers, but not scripted. Of course Francesa will figure it all out for him and get back to him.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Turns out, Bill possessed one of the finest collections of artyfacts around Mets history and was a heretofore unknown (to me) creator/keeper of the All-Time Numerical Roster. http://mbtn.net/remembering-bill-shannon Great note from DD. Thanks for posting.

Jeff says Josh Byrnes was great "but he was born 20 years after Sandy." Byrnes has an ageism lawsuit.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: "'Inscrutable,' eh... so he's thinking about a Chinese?" --Flushing News reporter Or as Omar would have said, "Just because Ollie exercised his right not to be sent down, I don't think that makes us screwable."

seawolf17 wrote: "Dropping breadcrumbs"... like someone who OWNS A RESTAURANT?!? YES! I hear ya, but the idea that this guy will be charged with hiring a manager actually imbues me with confidence it won't be a horrible choice even if it's not the restaurant guy. (We are talking about Darry Strawberry, right?)

And now Sandy dropping breadcrumbs that it won't be Wally Backman. The man's inscrutable!

Sandy dropping lots of breadcrumbs about Wally Backman being the next manager.

Sandy just name-checked Buddy Harrelson with Burkhardt.