G-Fafif

A-Fraud was struck out on the previous pitch but ump didn't call it. Yet another case of someone in MFY gear taking something that didn't belong to him.

The Spoil Opposition: Infante 2B Heyward RF Prado 3B Lee 1B McCann C Diaz LF Gonzales SS Cabrera CF Hanson P

Edgy DC wrote: show the hose.. This sounds like a variation on Man Up. Don't yell it at Frankie Rodriguez unless you're willing to suffer the consequences.

seawolf17 wrote: G-Fafif wrote: I noticed last week there was an empty slot suddenly next to Tug McGraw. Uh oh. This was the Tug closest to the Apple. As you've probably noticed, they repeat several players multiple times. I tried to get as close as possible to Marv to get a picture of his banner after I took the Citi Field tour, but was stopped -- it was the players' parking lot and the kindly old guard (who absorbed and agreed with my tirade about how this fucking place is run like a prison -- it was a very disappointing tour) explained they can't allow David Wright's car to be scratched. Hmm, I wonder if the Mets park their cars by Throneberry and take inspiration from his befuddlement.

On my trip to the Empire suites level in August, I saw which baseball card (Topps, oversized) they had lining the walls to represent each season in Mets history. The 2010 choice was Jeff Francoeur. When I returned for a fleeting glance in early September, Frenchy had been taken down. In his place...nothing yet. Out in Mets Plaza, where they hang lamp post banners of mostly retired Met greats with a few current stars mixed in, two to a pole, I noticed last week there was an empty slot suddenly next to Tug McGraw. I couldn't remember if Francoeur had hung there before, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been Rodriguez. Those banners, which also line the stadium and dot the parking lots, are great, one of the true upgrade touches of 2010. But almost everybody portrayed on them was let go by the Mets at one point or another, so they could have left Frenchy up there for a few more weeks. FYI, one lamp post actually has Marv Throneberry, which shows the Mets do indeed carry a modicum of self-awareness to the table every day.

This is the Mets policy, this is final. Which means they didn�t really solve anything. And if that doesn't say it all...

Dodgers violating key rule of baseball: Don't put Don Mattingly in uniform during the regular season if you want to be in the World Series. The most successful franchise in the history of the sport stopped going to the World Series every season Donnie Baseball wore its clothes: 1982-1995, 2004-2007. Haven't seen the Dodgers there either the last couple of years.

Pelfrey 3.0 Pagan 3.0 Duda 2.0 Thole 1.0 PFeliciano 0.5 Parnell 0.5

7:20 start, impressive given the hours preceding and the gullywashers in the area.

Three games @ Mets, no starts for Milledge.

The loyal opposition: Andrew McCutchen, CF Jose Tabata, LF Neil Walker, 2B Garrett Jones, 1B Pedro Alvarez, 3B John Bowker, RF Ronny Cedeno, SS Chris Snyder, C Charlie Morton, RHP Charlie Morton, 2010: 1-11, 9.05 ERA, 1.924 WHIP...and not necessarily not praying for rain every fifth day.

MFS62 wrote: While we're waiting for a boilerplate team press release, this seems to be the typical boilerplate used by team bloggers after a loss. Date Score Blogger's name Expression of resigned exasperation with latest result. Acknowledgment that result doesn�t matter at this stage of season, yet it is always frustrating to encounter this sort of result. Link to article spelling out game details. Snarky aside. Key example of what went wrong in game. Assertion of saving grace, focusing on how this was just one game and player who committed key example of what went wrong in game will hopefully improve. Snide allusion to disliked secondary player�s particularly poor performance. Expression of resigned exasperation that big picture is as bleak as latest result. Link to article about newest discouraging development. Passing attempt to project what newest discouraging development means for foreseeable future. Explicit admission that future can�t be foreseen but newest discouraging development is indeed discouraging. Weaving together of various recent discouraging developments so as to suggest overarching discouraging trend that makes rooting for team difficult. Allusion to most embarrassing recent discouraging development that constitutes most disturbing manifestation of trend. Link to terrible article illustrating dimwitted coverage of recent discouraging development. Link to good article serving as counterweight to dimwitted coverage. Half-hearted analysis of most embarrassing recent discouraging development (undermined by personal conviction that most recent discouraging development was very much a non-story, yet not commenting on it at all after a few days doesn�t feel right, either). Link to archived blog post to demonstrate longstanding pattern of discouraging developments. Conclusion of analysis finding all parties are at least partially at fault (should include at least one point nobody else has made). Assertion of enduring fondness for team in spite of all prevailing evidence that team has become too exasperating to inspire any fondness whatsoever. Expression of dismay that season will soon be over in spite of latest result, recent discouraging developments and bleak big picture. Link to archived blog post from when things were better to serve as reminder that things aren�t always this bad. Gratuitous reference to Mike Hessman (optional). Later Used by this one anyway. But I don't generally put the score at the top or Later at the end.

metirish wrote: Oh for fucks sake.....easy to tell what Tom Verducci swallowed that day....and damn happy to do it. While doing ten jumps and six slides, no doubt.

How can you people forget this man, this Good Son and Good Winner, is the reigning Sportsman of the Year? Last week, the day after the commercial shoot with Gillette, Jeter did a Gatorade spot at Angels Stadium. As Jeter and Jack Tiernan, one of his agents at the Creative Artists Agency, walked toward an SUV for their ride to the stadium, Jeter snickered at a stretch limo parked next to the SUV. "Somebody going to the prom?" he joked. As Jeter went to enter the SUV, its driver waved him off, pointed to the limo and said, "That's yours." Jeter was disappointed. The transportation company had tried too hard. Watching Jeter shoot a commercial is like watching him play for the Yankees: He exudes a down-to-earth charm and boyish enthusiasm that make him a star without acting like one, but he is out to win. "One moment he can be joking with somebody in the stands while on deck," says Casey Close, his primary agent, "asking them, 'What do you think they're going to throw me here?' And then it's like with a snap of his fingers, he gets lost in the moment of the at bat and his focus is incredible. One of the most impressive things about him is a calm sense of self, a complete confidence in exactly who he is." "I don't think I've changed," Jeter says. "I think people around you change. The way they react when you're around. My closest friends I've had for a long time." His inner circle is small, populated by friends he met before he got to the big leagues, including teammates Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte; two longtime friends, Douglas Biro and Sean Twitty; and former teammate Gerald Williams, who Jeter says "always looked out for me" in his first major league training camp (1993) and who lives near him in Tampa. "There are a few reasons why teammates look to Derek and respond to him," Posada says. "He doesn't make any excuses�about anything�and whenever he hears anything negative, he's going to prove you wrong. That fuels him to get better." For the Gatorade commercial, Jeter was shot in super-slow-motion high definition by a camera moving along a track as he made his trademark jump throw, a leaping throw to first base deep from the shortstop hole. The shot was spectacular to the point of artistry, a kind of Baryshnikov meets The Matrix. "It's almost perfect," gushed the young, enthusiastic director, Adam Berg. Almost. The director tried more takes. Jeter finally presented Berg with a proposal. "I told you I would do five jumps and three slides," Jeter said, referring to another scene in which he slid into second base. "But I'll make you a deal: I'll do 10 jumps and six slides, and all you have to do is swallow one spoonful of cinnamon. If not, five and three. Just one spoonful." "With water?" Berg asked. "Only after you swallow it." Jeter's jump throw ranks with the basket catch of Willie Mays as one of the signature plays in baseball history. Still, Jeter's defense, especially his range, has been an object of derision by statistical analysts. "There is no possible way you can measure it," Jeter says of defensive skill, which he said includes too many variables that cannot be quantified. "There's just no way. It's impossible. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but ... no way." After the 2007 season, at 33, Jeter hired a personal trainer, Jason Riley, to improve his leg strength and agility. As a young player Jeter didn't work out at all in November and December. "What I found out as you get older," he says, "is it's a lot easier to stay in shape than get back into shape." He worked with Riley throughout the winter, waking at 5:30 a.m. to finish by 7:30, even before spring training workouts. He worked with Riley again last winter. The results became obvious this year, when Jeter pleased even the statistical analysts with his improved range and footwork. And he showed no evidence of decline at the plate. Only three shortstops have hit .300 in the season in which they were 36 or older, but Jeter appears to have the staying power to join them. Indeed, Jeter, with roughly the same number of hits (2,747) as Pete Rose had at 35, could join Rose and Ty Cobb as the only players to reach 4,000 hits if he plays through his early 40s, and perhaps he will even challenge Rose's record 4,256. "I want to play as long as I'm having fun," Jeter says. "If I'm not having fun, I'm not going to be out there just to be out there. Right now I'm having as much fun as I've had since Little League. People say, 'How long do you want to play short?' I don't think about where I'll be playing six years down the road. I don't see any reason why I can't play it for a long time." Somebody fetched a plastic spoon and a jar of cinnamon. Jeter allowed Berg to examine them, then loaded the spoon with the spice, doing his level best to maintain an air of seriousness. He had arranged similar wagers earlier this year with teammate Brian Bruney and then one of the clubhouse attendants, not to be confused with his other favorite wager that involves asking someone if they think they can eat five saltines in one minute. Berg couldn't believe his luck; all he had to do was swallow the cinnamon and Jeter would have to give him 10 takes toward getting the perfect jump-throw shot. As soon as Berg shoved the spoon in his mouth, Jeter jumped away laughing. Quickly, Berg gagged, his cheeks puffed, his eyes watered and cinnamon smoke began spewing from a crack in his pursed lips. He looked like a man about to burst. Berg grabbed a bottle of water and began gulping from it. "That's it!" Jeter shouted. "You lose! The deal was no water until you swallowed it." After several minutes to recover, Berg asked Tiernan, "He's not serious, is he?" "Oh, he's serious," Tiernan replied. Another victory, however small, for Derek Jeter, today's superstar most synonymous with winning. But none of the accoutrements of his success�the five rings, the $189 million contract, the national endorsements and the starlet on his arm�capture the essence of his success. In the difficult days of the Philippines campaign during World War II, General Douglas MacArthur wrote A Father's Prayer, which begins, "Build me a son, O Lord." MacArthur prayed for a son with, among other traits, "humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness." Therein lies true victory. The great wonder is not that Jeter has won so much but that he has won so well. He is the good son, the good winner.

Politico New York beat reporter Maggie Haberman does not wish to be portrayed as a criminal and is illustrated, instead, as a decent citizen of Gotham.

Ken Cosgrove attended at least two Mets game we know of in Seasons Two and Three. The meeting in Lane's office regards Ken coming to the new firm. which is why Pete Campbell, who considers Ken a rival, appears so pissy. My theory is Ken and Lane schmoozed about it at Shea (early May of '65) using Birdseye's seats and then retired to the Charcoal Room to toast their tentative deal. From Leonard Koppett's The New York Mets: The Whole Story: As the list of subscribers grew, the Charcoal Room on the fourth level at Shea became a nightspot in its own right. After a night game, it became the scene of an impromptu party [...] In addition to the stadium organ, there was one in the Charcoal Room, at the end of the long bar, and Jane [Jarvis] would play that for a while after the game. The sing-alongs would echo far into the night sometimes... As for the pennant, I have a display board of miniature Mets pennants from (mostly) the 1960s and the first one is the one in Lane's office, listed on the board as representing 1962. Would the Mets still be selling it in 1965? Or maybe Lane bought it downstairs from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's Time & Life Building offices at a 30 Rock gift shop that sells NYC trinkets. That's where I purchased my favorite 1986 World Champions pennant. Important thing is Mad Men captures the Zeitgeist of its period correctly: The Mets. Pete is old New York money (though his father went through it all before dying in a plane crash). Other than pestering Hollis the reticent Negro elevator operator over what kind of television he bought (it was Pete's clumsy attempt at market research) and Pete protesting that you must watch baseball, he's never betrayed any particular team allegiance. It would be easy to assume Pete would have MFY leanings (though he's the only consistently forward-thinking character on the show), but he's never mentioned it one way or the other. Of course going back as far as he does in Manhattan, it's quite possible he comes from a long line of old Giants fans. Or, better yet, Cubans fans. See, Pete's mother's family is the Dyckmans, the uptown aristocrats who gave us the Dyckman Oval, onetime home of the same Negro League team whose uniforms the Mets occasionally sport as an overdue tribute to one of their NYC predecessors.

Pagan 2.0 Reyes 2.0 Hessman 1.5 Davis 1.5 Beltran 1.0 Arias 0.5 Dessens 0.5 Parnell 0.5 Misch 0.5

Gary discussed "briefly and ineffectively" and relayed that he was told by the official scorer that Raul Valdes's 1-2/3 inning stint wasn't brief enough for it to be invoked. On the legendary night at the end of June 2000 when the Mets scored ten runs in one inning, such judgment was rendered. Eric Cammack was the pitcher of record when the Mets trailed 8-1. He had pitched one inning and given up three runs. Then came the ten-spot. Though he was technically pitching in a save situation (and brought the tying run to bat), the win was credited to Armando Benitez for his scoreless ninth.

No kidding, according to the Times -- they're a bunch of crime-committing hooligans. Crime Blotter Has a Regular: Yankees Caps By MANNY FERNANDEZ Two men and a woman broke into a locker at a Manhattan gym in February and stole credit cards, the first in a series of similar thefts. Three months later, in May, a young man tried to rob a Chase bank in the Bronx armed with only a note, which he slipped to a teller. She read it and stepped away, and he fled empty-handed. Weeks later, in June, a gunman robbed a Family Dollar store in Queens. Gym-locker heists, bank robberies, daylight holdups � these New York City crimes have only one thing in common, and it is not the culprits. It is the Yankees caps they wore. A curious phenomenon has emerged at the intersection of fashion, sports and crime: dozens of men and women who have robbed, beaten, stabbed and shot at their fellow New Yorkers have done so while wearing Yankees caps or clothing. One of the three suspects in the gym break-ins wore a blue Yankees cap. A security camera photographed the man who tried to rob the Bronx bank, and though his face was largely obscured, his Yankees hat was clearly visible. The Queens robbery suspect was last seen with a Yankees cap on his head. In some ways, it is not surprising that Yankees attire is worn by both those who abide by the law and those who break it. The Yankees are one of the most famous franchises in sports, and their merchandise is widely available and hugely popular. But Yankees caps and clothing have dominated the crime blotter for so long, in so many parts of the city and in so many types of offenses, that it defies an easy explanation. Criminologists, sports marketing analysts, consumer psychologists and Yankees fans have developed their own theories, with some attributing the trend to the popularity of the caps among gangsta rappers and others wondering whether criminals are identifying with the team�s aura of money, power and success. Since 2000, more than 100 people who have been suspects or persons of interest in connection with serious crimes in New York City wore Yankees apparel at the time of the crimes or at the time of their arrest or arraignment. The tally is based on a review of New York Police Department news releases, surveillance video and images of robberies and other crimes, as well as police sketches and newspaper articles that described suspects� clothing. No other sports team comes close. The Mets, forever in the shadow of their Bronx rivals, are perhaps grateful to be losing this one: only about a dozen people in the same review were found to be wearing Mets gear. �It�s a shame,� said Chuck Frantz, 57, the president of the 430-member Lehigh Valley Yankee Fan Club in Pennsylvania. �It makes us Yankees fans look like criminals, because of a few unfortunate people who probably don�t know the first thing about the Yankees.� The Yankees organization declined to comment for this article. Antisocial behavior has no dress code; people wear what they please when they please, whether they are going to see a movie or going to rob a bank. And in New York City, that often means Yankees attire, regardless of the hour or the season. In April 2008, on the day after the Boston Red Sox defeated the Yankees in the Bronx, a man in a Yankees cap robbed a bank about a mile from Yankee Stadium. The woman who robbed a Manhattan bank on July 7 was diplomatic in her clothing choices: she wore an orange Mets cap and a gray Yankees T-shirt. Three gunmen burst into an apartment in Washington Heights on July 23, bound the hands and feet of the tenants and left with cash. A surveillance video released by the police and broadcast on television showed one of the suspects in a Yankees cap � one of the most iconic brands in sports represented, however briefly, by someone accused of helping tie up a 9-year-old girl. In 2007, after activists protested the sale of Yankees caps that bore the colors and symbols associated with three gangs, Major League Baseball�s official cap manufacturer pulled the headwear, and the Yankees said in a statement that they were unaware of the caps� symbolism. Yankees caps have even played a central role in a few crimes. One day in 2003, a fight over a missing Yankees cap broke out between two brothers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. One brother, an ex-convict, ended up stabbing and killing the other. One criminologist said the trend might be a result of what could be called the Jay-Z effect. The rapper Jay-Z has worn a Yankees cap for years � on his album covers and in his videos � and has helped turn the cap into a ubiquitous fashion accessory for urban youths (�I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can,� he boasts in one song). Criminals might be wearing Yankees merchandise not because they are fans of the team, but because they are fans of the cocked-hat look popularized by Jay-Z and other rappers, said the criminologist, Frankie Y. Bailey, an associate professor at the University at Albany, who is writing a book about the role of clothing and style in criminal cases. �He wears it and makes it look cool,� Ms. Bailey said of Jay-Z and the cap. �It�s almost like the Yankees have acquired a kind of street rep, a coolness.� It is but one of several theories. Sports marketing analysts say it is a matter of numbers: the Yankees sell more merchandise than any other baseball team. As of August, they hold a 25.13 percent market share of nationwide sales of merchandise licensed by Major League Baseball, with the Red Sox second at 7.96 percent and the Mets seventh at 5.32 percent, according to SportsOneSource, a firm that tracks the sporting goods industry. For criminals outside New York, the team�s caps and clothing are nearly as popular. The man who robbed a Chase branch in a Chicago suburb in May wore a Yankees cap. In July, a young man in a Yankees cap assaulted an 81-year-old woman in her home, about 2,800 miles from Yankee Stadium, in Seattle. �Why people pick the Yankees over the Mariners, I don�t know,� said Detective Mark Jamieson, a Seattle police spokesman. �It just happened to be an article of clothing he was wearing on that particular day.� And Yankees caps hold a distinguished place in the annals of crime: the man who robbed more banks than anyone else in American history wore one. Edwin Chambers Dodson, known as the Yankee Bandit because he wore a Yankees cap and sunglasses during most of his holdups, robbed 72 banks in Southern California in the early 1980s and the late 1990s. Mr. Dodson, who died in 2003, was a fan of the team. �We did everything we could to get this guy,� said William J. Rehder, 69, a retired special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who was the longtime coordinator of bank robbery investigations in the Los Angeles area. Mr. Rehder not only named the Yankee Bandit, but helped put him behind bars twice. �I couldn�t figure out why he was so lucky,� he said. �I didn�t attribute anything to the cap, but I�m sure he did.� Mr. Rehder, now a security consultant in Los Angeles, is a Dodgers fan. Nevertheless, he keeps an old, worn Yankees cap on a shelf in his office at home. Mr. Rehder never wears it. It belonged to the Yankee Bandit.

Mejia taken out. Shoulder. Oy.

A Met-Pirate game is in progress.

Justin Maxwell does to the Braves this September what he did to the Mets last September: hit a grand slam to beat them. Grand slam totals since last September: Justin Maxwell: 2 Mets: 0 Braves 2-1/2 back.

May I say this (along with knowing Fman's actual enemies) is the best KTE concept I've read yet.

This is an annual September rite of passage to reflect the callups if not the ultimate 2010 reality (whose face will you recall first when asked to hark back to this year -- Joaquin Arias or Jeff Francoeur?). In 2003, Pedro Astacio came out of DL mothballs to join the team picture, but not Mo Vaughn. He was off posing with his money...and who he gave it to, one dollar bill at a time.

It's wait 'til next year in Brooklyn once again as the Cyclones are eliminated. Gersh covers Wally pissedness. �My guys were overwhelmed � and we didn�t look prepared,� Cyclones skipper Wally Backman told the Cyclones beat reporters in his post-game news conference, steps from the sad lockerroom. �Like we were improvising out there. �So, yeah, I�m pissed,� he added. �But they�ve got to learn this [losing] feeling themselves.� Improv: Not as much fun as it sounds.