G-Fafif

Sal Durante, the kid who caught Roger Maris's 61st homer, 80. https://nypost.com/2022/12/02/sal-durante-who-caught-roger-maris-61st-home-run-dead-at-80/https://nypost.com/2022/12/02/sal-durante-who-caught-roger-maris-61st-home-run-dead-at-80/

Self-styled Met villain heads back to NL.

I hope he becomes known widely as Jimmy the Magnificent Met.

“Jimmy Yacabonis” has always sounded to me like an ancillary character from a mob movie or series is all.

The Mets have signed Sopranos crime family associate Jimmy Yacabonis. https://sny.tv/articles/mets-sign-jimmy-yacabonis-minorshttps://sny.tv/articles/mets-sign-jimmy-yacabonis-minors

Gaylord Perry has died at age 84. His seventh career win of 314 came in the final ten innings before the Giants took the lead in the 23-inning marathon of May 31, 1964, at Shea. https://www.wspa.com/news/baseball-hall-of-fame-pitcher-gaylord-perry-dies-at-upstate-home/https://www.wspa.com/news/baseball-hall-of-fame-pitcher-gaylord-perry-dies-at-upstate-home/ Might have also doctored a ball or two.

Craig Bjornson won't be back as bullpen coach, per Puma the reporter, not the sneaker.

Heyman reports Eric Chavez will be Mets bench coach, Jeremy Barnes will be hitting coach and Glenn Sherlock will concentrate on catchers. Glenn Sherlock, Showalter's right-hand man who served as bench coach last year, is to move to a role where he coaches the team's catchers and works to prevent the opposition running game via pitch calling. It's seen as a vital role, especially with the expectation that top prospect Francisco Alvarez will be on the team in 2023, if not at the beginning of the season than certainly at some point. https://nypost.com/2022/11/28/mets-promote-eric-chavez-to-bench-coach-amid-several-changes/https://nypost.com/2022/11/28/mets-promote-eric-chavez-to-bench-coach-amid-several-changes/

Wayne Robins, long ago of Newsday, now with a Substack, gets Gary Cohen on the musical record. "That's the thing about baseball," Cohen said. "It's often three and a half hours of game with eight minutes of action. It's a lot of time to fill. It gives us time to talk about other things, like music." I met Cohen for lunch earlier in November at a country restaurant near his home about an hour north of Queens' Citi Field. His network, SNY, does not provide him a driver; Cohen likes his long late night drives to unwind after home games. Keith Hernandez, as regular Mets viewers know, has an even longer commute, about 90 minutes from his home in Sag Harbor, on the East End of Long Island. Hadji, Keith's Bengal cat with a cult following and merch line of his own, must be fed. My favorite musical question from the 2022 season was when a player named Bird came into the game, and Cohen asked which version of "Surfin' Bird" Darling preferred: The Ramones' cover, or the Trashmen's original? (Because of surgery, Hernandez finished the season on the announcers injured-reserve list.) It was duly noted that both versions owed their existence to the root folder of the Rivingtons' "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow," a crazed moment of surf-doo-wop-dance fad intersectionality from late 1963. It's off-season, and we agreed not to talk on the record about the the Mets or baseball, and one suspects a mutual protection of privacy among the three men in the booth. Though Darling is Cohen's most frequent and adept musical foil, Hernandez has his own zone. Keith, Cohen said, is a Frank Zappa fan, which one might never expect, or totally expect from the inscrutable No. 17. https://waynerobins49.substack.com/p/gary-cohen-rocks-the-metshttps://waynerobins49.substack.com/p/gary-cohen-rocks-the-mets Meanwhile, Hope Silverman has created an Ultimate Gary Cohen Musical Reference Database. 6–July 8: Gary quotes the Mountain's 1970 sludge-rock classic “Missississippi Queen” and says “Mississippi queen, you know what I mean”. He then mentions band leader Leslie West. It didn't stop there. Both the song and West got namechecks on 8/4 and again on 8/17 ( by Gary AND Ron). The booth is weirdly obsessed with Mountain, West, and “Mississippi Queen”. https://pickinguprocks.com/2022/10/10/weekly-new-wonders-playlist-27-of-2022/https://pickinguprocks.com/2022/10/10/weekly-new-wonders-playlist-27-of-2022/ Needless to say, all of this transcends awesome.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: If my math is correct, he would have been 62 in 1999. No wonder I'm surprised!

Comic and Friars Club macher Freddie Roman, 85, posted here in deference to his stellar job MC'ing a Hot Stove dinner I attended following the 1999 season, where he praised the Mets and their postseason run to the high heavens. I kept waiting for the punch line, but he was quite sincere in his Met-Lovin' Big Shottery. https://apnews.com/article/freddie-roman-dies-friars-club-borscht-belt-catskills-5cef8baba9c4f10ddea7ad0c9f49ad00https://apnews.com/article/freddie-roman-dies-friars-club-borscht-belt-catskills-5cef8baba9c4f10ddea7ad0c9f49ad00 I'm amazed to learn he was only 62 then. All Catskills comedians have always seemed 85 to me even in their prime.

Twenty-nine games as Mets combined for the two Mets we've most recently lost. One appreciation of Dave Hillman and Chuck Carr http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2022/11/23/life-after-the-mets/here.

The closest thing the 2022 Mets had to a lefty specialist has signed with Boston. Never fully gained the trust of anybody but Buck Showalter. Excelled in building the bridge from deGrom to Diaz upon Jake's return to Citi Field on August 7 vs the Braves. Went on the IL during the NLDS after spending every day of the regular season active.

What most of these back pages have looked like: STRAINED IF CLEVER PUN Tortured explanation of play on words added on assumption readers are dense

According to UMDB, Frank Thomas.

We have lost our oldest living Met at 95. https://www.baseballhappenings.net/2022/11/dave-hillman-oldest-living-met-and-red.htmlhttps://www.baseballhappenings.net/2022/11/dave-hillman-oldest-living-met-and-red.html

Jacob deGrom is fifth among Met starting pitchers all-time in games started, and first by far among Met starting pitchers all-time in games started by Mets who never pitched for another MLB team. But if Jake were to leave, leadership in that latter category would fall to... http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2022/11/19/once-a-met-starter-only-a-met-starter/Read about it here.

Alonso 8th, Lindor 9th in NL MVP voting. Scattered down-ballot support for McNeil, Diaz and Marte. https://bbwaa.com/22-nl-mvp/https://bbwaa.com/22-nl-mvp/

Satch didn't often get to the railroad station. He had spent so much of his life hopping from town to town by himself that he had a rather cavalier attitude toward communal travel. It can be said of Satch that he missed countless trains but no scheduled games. He had the plane schedules committed to memory. When the game was due to start, Satch and the umpires would be there. It was a mark of the special esteem in which he was held that the other players permitted him this special privilege. --Bill Veeck with Ed Linn Veeck -- As In Wreck, 1962 Page 194 (Paperback Edition)

One night after Buck Showalter is named NL Manager of the Year, Edwin Diaz collects a second place vote and a pair of fifth place votes to finish ninth in NL Cy Young balloting.

Baseball wives, then, are their own club. "I always joke that when you get traded they kind of throw you into the family room and say, "Pick a friend," said Lory Ankiel, wife of former Nationals outfielder Rick. "And you think about it. What if I would not be friends with any of these girls? Who would understand? --Barry Svrluga The Grind: Inside Baseball's Endless Season, 2015 Page 27

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Nate was a complicated figure. He always seemed emotionally ill-equipped to join up with his brother David and run the family mortuary, Fisher and Sons, but run it he did. Family and relationship dynamics were never easy for him (Brenda could be a handful) and having day after day after day of death as your 9-to-5 is no way to turn off stress. I always felt for poor Nate. In a way, I hope the brain tumor that felled him provided some sort of relief from all the trauma he dealt with in life. RIP Nate Fisher https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sixfeetunder/images/e/ec/Nate_Fisher.jpg> And he buried opposing batters Sixty Feet Six Inches Under.

Hodges was The Sporting News's NL choice in 1969.

A new stadium grows in Flushing, to be built for NYCFC soccer. https://nyti.ms/3hKedTthttps://nyti.ms/3hKedTt