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Other team whose fans likely can't believe we complain as much as we do: McCutchen CF Tabata LF Walker 2B Alvarez 3B Doumit RF Clement 1B Snyder C Cedeno SS Karstens P No Millz

My list is getting a little thin, so I'll borrow from Richard Nixon's enemy list. Fuck you, Jane Fonda, for not getting naked in more of your movies. Needless to say I won't be able to look at Ryan Doumit without seeing Barbarella. Or at least Electric Horseman. Fan-fucking-tastic KTE.

The Animal bats fourth. But will he bite? Jose Reyes � SS Angel Pagan � LF Carlos Beltran � CF Chris Carter � RF David Wright � 3B Ike Davis � 1B Josh Thole � C Ruben Tejada � 2B Mike Pelfrey � P

Misch 3.0 Acosta 1.0 Igarashi 0.5

Blanco's made a few cameos at first, third and in the outfield in his career. Not Super Joe, exactly, but emergency capability, one presumes.

Barajas is back, and in the showcase; F-Mart sent down. Jose Reyes SS Luis Castillo 2B Angel Pagan CF David Wright 3B Ike Davis 1B Jeff Francoeur RF Chris Carter LF Rod Barajas C Pat Misch LHP

I went to a game the last year of Shea with someone who said he knew the Spongetech guy (this as we were being assaulted by Spongetech signage and so forth). Crazy SOB, I think was the verdict. Spongetech's 2008 marketing agreement with the Mets here. Re: Shea Stadium Advertising Agreement Dear Mr. Moskowitz: I am writing to confirm the agreement reached between Sterling Mets, L.P. (�Sterling�), owner and operator of the New York Mets National League Baseball team (the �Mets�), and Spongetech Delivery Systems, Inc. (�Advertiser�), manufacturer of the Spongetech brand of vehicle cleaning products (�Spongetech�) for advertising rights during the 2008 baseball season. Per the agreement, Spongetech will receive the following advertising rights, goods and services during the 2008 baseball season: 1. The right to advertise Spongetech on one panel on each of two 7� by 35� rotating tri-vision signs, one located in right field, and the other located in left field, each next to the outfield foul poles. Each of Spongetech�s panels will be displayed on a one-third rotating basis during each Mets game at Shea Stadium (the �Stadium�) (i.e., three innings during a nine-inning game). Fabrication of the signage will be at the expense of Spongetech. 2. Four Field Box tickets to ten mutually agreed upon Mets regular season games at the Stadium. 3. Sponsorship by Spongetech of a mutually agreed upon promotional day on May 13, 2008 (the �Event�), at the Stadium. On the Event date, a mutually agreed upon promotional item supplied by Advertiser, displaying Spongetech and the Mets logos, will be distributed to the first 12,000 kids (ages 12 and under) in attendance at the Stadium. Sterling will promote the Event and Spongetech�s sponsorship thereof in: One 30 second announcement during each Mets game broadcast on each of (i) SportsNet New York; (ii) WPIX TV and (iii) WFAN radio, all during the two-week period prior to the Event. On the day of the Event, Advertiser will receive: (a) Sponsorship of a pre-game baseball clinic at the Stadium for up to 125 children. Advertiser shall secure releases of liability in favor of Sterling, in a form acceptable to Sterling in its sole discretion, from each individual who will be permitted to enter the Stadium field. ( 300 upper reserved tickets to the game. (c) Sterling will display two 3�X 6� banners bearing Spongetech�s logo on the first and third base camera wells (the banners will be provided by Advertiser, at its expense). (d) �Welcome to Spongetech day� will appear periodically on the matrix scoreboard from the time the Stadium gates open until game time. 4. Use of one 15-person Diamond View Suite, including food and beverages for 15 guests, on two mutually agreed upon Mets regular season home game dates. Advertiser shall be responsible for compliance with all usage rules issued by Sterling applicable to suite holders. The tickets and suites provided hereunder may not be used for a contest or promotion without the prior written approval of Sterling.

Some of you serious autograph collectors will enjoy this piece from Mark Simon at ESPN on he and his Giants fan dad tracking down the signatures of the '51 Giants when he was a kid and the "teach your children well" aspect of fandom. I had a discussion with a group of people about the idea that young fans don�t have any idea who Thomson is, or his significance in baseball history. I think that�s pretty sad. If you�re the father of a son or daughter who is a baseball fan, take the time to show him Thomson�s home run and explain the significance of the moment to him. Maybe take the time to write a former player or two, and explain to your son the importance of baseball past to baseball present. I can assure you the payoff will be worthwhile. In the vein of Bobby Thomson's signature, came across this on Facebook the other day: Did you hear that Bobby Thomson died yesterday? He was such a nice guy. When he lived in NJ, he came into the Post Office my dad was supervising at and my dad asked him for an autograph and he said wait until tomorrow and he came in the next day with a 16x20 of "The Shot Heard Around the World" He filled in all the names of the players and wrote about the Home Run. I still have that hanging up to this day.

Hang on as long as you can. Just don't keep tearfully announcing your retirement and reneging. Willie's begging for the call in the '73 WS was, of course, on behalf of Buddy Harrelson. He was being a good, engaged teammate, not falling prey to Father Time. 1973 wasn't a great year for Willie, but he did give the Mets two big on-field moments in the regular season, one that was obvious when it happened in the bottom of the ninth inning of the second game of the season and one in July, immortalized 28 years later by Ira Berkow in the Times. Well, let me tell you about the greatest play in baseball I ever saw -- or thought I saw. Few recall it, though it was probably the greatest play Johnny Oates, a second-string catcher and later a big league manager, also ever saw -- or thought he saw. Oates was the hapless catcher in the play, which was executed by the wondrous and wily Willie Mays, who incidentally, is in the news, being frequently lauded by his godson, the basher Barry Bonds. I was reminded of the play at the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cooperstown last weekend when I saw Mays. I had wondered what he saw on that play -- if he even remembered -- it being so subtle, so long ago and his career so crammed with highlights. The play was not, to be sure, the famous, stupendous back-to-the-plate catch in center field off the Vic Wertz drive in the 1954 World Series, or any other of Mays's acclaimed swats or snares. It took place when Mays was a Met, in a Saturday afternoon game at Shea Stadium in July 1973. The great Say Hey Kid was no longer a kid, and no longer even greeting people with, ''Say hey.'' Mays was then 42, and in the 22nd and last season of his brilliant, Hall-of-Fame career. In my mind's eye, sitting in the press box that day, this was the situation: Close game. I forget the opponent. Late innings. Mays is on second base. The batter -- don't remember who -- drives a hit to right field. Normally, the runner would score from second fairly easily, but this is no ordinary runner. Mays seems to trudge around third, like, well, an old man, and heads home, cap still on head -- remember, in his heyday the cap used to fly off his noggin as if he were in a wind tunnel. The right fielder winds up to fire the ball to the plate, certain to nail Methuselah Mays. But incredibly, Mays picks up steam and there he is racing to the plate like, well, the Say Hey Kid! He beats the throw and is safe at home. Not only that, but because he drew the throw to the plate, the batter is able to go to second, sitting there now in scoring position. In an instant, Mays had craftily set the whole thing up in his marvelous baseball brain. He obviously had run slowly at first to draw the throw, knowing all along he could make it home. For me, there is nothing quite as exciting in sports as watching a player -- particularly an aging veteran -- use his experience, his intelligence and his considerable if waning skills to accomplish something remarkable under pressure. One hesitates to use the word genius in such endeavors -- especially with such folks as Einstein, Picasso, Freud and Frost looking from the stands -- but in my view certain athletes performing certain feats may indeed possess a kind of genius. Some three decades later I recalled the play to Mays, describing it as I remembered it. Did he remember it? ''Absolutely,'' he said, in that familiar high-pitched voice. ''It was against the Braves. But there's more to it. See, I was on second base and Felix Millan was a runner on first. Ralph Garr was in right field. But not only did I score, I slid into the catcher -- it was Johnny Oates -- and I pinned him to the ground so Millan could score, too.'' I didn't remember the pinning business, so I later called Oates, at his home in Virginia. ''I always tell that story at banquets,'' Oates said. ''It was the smartest play I've ever seen, and an embarrassing one for me.'' I told Oates what Willie told me. ''I was under the impression that it was a sacrifice fly,'' Oates said. ''And I don't remember him on top of me. He made a perfect slide and took my legs out from under me. My recollection is that I wound up on top of him. But definitely we were lying on the plate, and somehow Willie wouldn't let me get up. The throw went over my head, and the runner behind him did indeed score -- how he found the plate with us lying on it I don't know.'' To check further for details, I called the Elias Sports Bureau, located in Manhattan, the record keeper for Major League Baseball. Elias confirmed the play essentially the way Mays remembered it, with him and Millan scoring on a hit by Wayne Garrett. (Those runs gave the Mets a 7-6 lead in the eighth, but they lost the game, 9-8.) I like Johnny's version of the play, I like Willie's, and I still like mine. Take your pick.

"The Big Bollox Clemens" is so much better a nickname than the Rocket. Though not as good as Fresh Fish.

Obviously Lafayette High School graduated only the fine, upstanding young men. "If I went there, everybody must be made of the best moral fiber." Was recently treated to a Kiner's Korner interview of the then new owner/president from 1980. Fred was indeed very big on assuring Ralph and the hundreds of viewers between games of that Mets-Padres doubleheader that he and Nelson would leave the baseball to Frank. Their greatest equity, it seemed, was that they weren't George Steinbrenner.

Fred, not Jeff, 1993, not 2010 -- Tom Verducci examined the first Wilponian downfall in-depth for Sports Illustrated 17 years ago here. Goes into why trades were made, why managers were replaced, what went wrong in the front office, all kinds of personnel misreadings. Some you'll remember, some might surprise you. Kind of sad to realize that like all Wilpon Met rebuilding and reimagining programs...the pledge to clean things up, get a fresh start, become a model organization...it was essentially left half-assed and incomplete. The details would change again and again but the Mets were always going to make things better. It never took, it never takes. Only constant is ownership. And then there was the long-term goal, spelled out toward the end. "Come here, let me show you something," Wilpon says. He rises from a chair in the Fifth Avenue office of his real estate company and walks across the room to a white rectangular box that is so large it is resting across four chairs. There is a great sense of purpose in his walk now. He is finished watching others run his baseball team. McIlvaine and Oilier will report directly to him. The Mets won't embarrass him again the way they did in 1993. "It was," he says, "one of the most painful years of my life. The business community and the private community, with all of the charity work we do, know that Nelson and I are at the top. To see what happened with this team was very, very painful. That's why I tell you this is a whole new thing we're starting." Wilpon wants former Mets such as Tom Seaver, Mookie Wilson, Lee Mazzilli and Rafael Santana to come work for the organization. He wants "the greatest community outreach program" in sports. He wants grand entranceways and redesigned fan services at what has been a tacky Shea Stadium. He wants updated, cheery uniforms for the ushers. He has ordered intensive customer-relations training for all of the organization's business managers, including himself. He has talked with the Disney people, Universal Studio executives and other resort managers to learn how to attract and treat customers. "Go to any of my buildings right now," he says. "I guarantee you, you won't find a piece of paper on the floor." Wilpon pulls away the lid from the large white box. It is an architectural model of a sprawling entertainment complex. The centerpiece is a grass-surface stadium with a retractable dome, to be built within five years near the current Shea Stadium site and financed by state and city bonds. The stadium is surrounded by several pointed pavilions that resemble huge tents. Wilpon explains they are state-of-the-art exhibit halls that he intends to be the permanent home of the World's Fair. That portion of the complex will be privately funded. Wilpon opens and closes the little retractable dome, which splits open at the center like dual sliding doors. It is a perfectly happy and orderly place. The little plastic trees are always full and green. There is never any traffic on the access roads. It is kept immaculately clean. This is the world Fred Wilpon wants for the Mets. He wants the litter of a live-year decline swept up. He wants not a single piece of paper on the floor. The following year brought Nickelodeon Extreme Baseball to Shea and a modicum of fan friendliness. No World's Fair, however.

Dave Anderson remembers here. Over the years, I often played in Bobby Thomson�s annual charity golf outing at Plainfield Country Club in New Jersey to benefit arthritis research. After the last tournament, in 2007, before he moved to Savannah, I received a thank-you letter from him, as many others did. Next to his signature, he wrote: �Dave, you were with us from the start. Thank you so much. In case you�re interested, I did not get a sign. Bobby T.�

May everything be just Dickey.

Santana 2.5 Reyes 2.0 Wright 1.5 Thole 1.0 Martinez 0.5

Personal remembrance of listening to Bobby speak (and meeting him ever so briefly) here.

Bobby lived in Jersey until a few years ago and was always very accessible. To a person, every NYG fan I've met who met him (and they all seemed to) glowed when they spoke of the experience. I saw him on two occasions (once when he was the featured attraction, once with Branca) and he was soft-spoken and humble and seemingly never not conscious that his big moment was just one moment in a long life. Once heard a great story about Bobby, a Rangers fan, was sweating out the Rangers-Devils Game 7 semi-final in 1994, how he couldn't stand the tension while watching such a big game at home on TV, how he had to step out onto his patio to compose himself between periods. The person who told the story was dumbfounded. "Bobby, YOU got nervous watching a playoff game?" It's different to watch than to play, he said.

Bobby Thomson, New York sporting icon and gentleman of gentlemen, passes away at 86. The man who hit the most famous home run in baseball history is gone. Bobby Thomson, whose "shot heard 'round the world" capped a best-of-three playoff and the Giants' miracle comeback to win the 1951 National League pennant over the Dodgers, died Monday night at his home in Savannah, Georgia. He died peacefully according to his daughter Megan Thomson Armstrong. He had been in declining health for years. He was 86. Of baseball's historic walk-off home runs - Bill Mazeroski's in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, Joe Carter's in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series, Carlton Fisk's in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series - Thomson's shot off of Ralph Branca into the left-field seats of the Polo Grounds on Oct. 3, 1951, will always be regarded as the granddaddy of them al. The dramatic blast capped the Giants' incredible charge to the pennant after they had trailed the Dodgers by 13 1/2 games as late as Aug. 11. Beginning on Aug. 12, the Giants won 16 straight games and went 37-7 down the stretch to force a tie with the Dodgers at season's end. In the playoff series that ensued, the Giants won the first game, 3-1, on a two-run fourth-inning homer by Thomson off Branca and the Dodgers came back to win the second game, 10-0, behind the six-hit pitching of Clem Labine. That set the stage for the deciding game, which the Dodgers led, 4-1, going into the ninth inning. But Dodger starter Don Newcombe, who had logged 272 innings that season, tired in the ninth, surrendering a leadoff infield single to Alvin Dark, another single to Don Mueller, and then, after Monte Irvin fouled out, a two-run opposite field double to left field by Whitey Lockman. On the play, Mueller severely sprained his ankle sliding into third and as he was attended to and finally removed from the game for pinch-runner Clint Hartung, Dodger manager Charlie Dressen summoned Branca from the bullpen to replace Newcombe with Thomson coming to the plate. "I was sorry to see Don hurt," Thomson had said, "but the delay really helped me. I walked out to talk to (Giants manager) Leo (Durocher) and he said: 'If you ever hit one, hit one now.' I could see he was plenty excited too and I calmed down a bit. On my way back to the plate, I said to myself: 'You're a pro. Act like one!'" Like Newcombe, Branca had been used extensively as Dressen desperately sought to hold off the surging Giants, and after pitching 1 1/3 innings of relief in the last game of the season and eight more innings the next day as the Dodgers' starter in the Game 1 of the playoff, he didn't expect to be called on again two days later. But when Dressen called down to the bullpen, Clyde Sukeforth, the bullpen coach, reported that Carl Erskine, warming up with Branca, had just bounced a ball in the dirt, and the Dodger manager told him to send in the burly righthander from Mount Vernon, N.Y. Branca's first pitch was a fastball called strike. His second pitch, another fastball, Thomson hit on a low rising liner toward left. As Dodger leftfielder Andy Pafko drifted back to the wall, the ball sailed over his head into the seats for a 5-4 victory, and from the broadcast booth Giants announcer Russ Hodges could be heard screaming, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" "Right away after I hit it I thought it was a home run," Thomson said. "Going around the bases, I could hardly breathe. I was starting to hyperventilate." Although Thomson and Branca actually became friends years after their careers ended and capitalized on the historic home run by doing card show autograph sessions together, their relationship became strained again some 50 years after the fact when an article by Joshua Harris Prager in the Wall Street Journal quoted backup Giants catcher Sal Yvars' detailing an elaborate sign-stealing scheme on the Giants' part during that 1951 season. The story, which was later incorporated into a book, essentially credited the Giants' historic comeback - and by extension Thomson's home run - to their ability to steal the opposing teams' signs. Branca took that as his exoneration while Thomson insisted he didn't know what pitch was coming. "Bobby was a really good guy," Branca said from his home in Rye, N.Y. "He was just doing job and I was just doing mine. I don't condemn him for knowing what pitch was coming. I condemn the leaders of the Giants - (manager Leo) Durocher, (coach) Herman Franks (team captain) Alvin Dark. Bobby was always a class act and I'll miss him." In some ways the home run was a bit of a mixed blessing in that, with it, came future expectations that Thomson was never able to meet. Thomson hit .293 with 32 homers and 101 in 1951 and had similar seasons in '52 and '53, but he never achieved superstar status. After the '53 season in which he hit .288 with 26 homers and 106 RBI, the Giants traded him to the Milwaukee Braves for pitchers Johnny Antonelli and Don Liddle, both of whom played key roles in their winning the world championship in 1954. For Thomson, the '54 season was a complete bust as he broke his ankle sliding into third base in spring training and appeared in only 32 games for the Braves. Thomson, who was born in Glasgow, Scotland and moved to Staten Island when he was two years old, would never again approach 100 RBI and was traded four more times before retiring in 1960 with a lifetime .270 average, 264 homers, 1,705 hits and 1,026 RBI for 15 years. "The Flying Scot", as he was called, took the high road when the Wall Street Journal story came out. Branca maintained the sign-stealing story vindicated him; that Thomson knew what pitch was coming. "Ralph has a right to believe what he wants," said Thomson who, through their mutual fate, had formed a close, lifetime friendship with Branca. "But I can assure you nobody gave me any sign. I was looking for a fastball and that's what I got. We're married to each other by this. This is the first sign of any trouble between us and it's nothing big. We're too damn old to let it bother us now."

Takahashi is insisting he be used only in save situations, except for when he needs to get some work in to stay sharp, at which point he will expect to be inserted at his request, regardless of the score or how the pitcher on the mound is performing. No, not really, but give him three consecutive save opportunities and watch what happens. The important thing is "heavying up" his entrance music with some shit off this album: From now on, Takahashi said through an interpreter, he will enter ballgames only to "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" by AC/DC, "but it should be clear to Mr. Minaya that my deeds will now be far more expensive to him than previously."

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Mostly for the 8 updates a day. I think his book was pretty good, actually, and don't understand much of the complaints. But my goodness, it's these tossed-off, barely considered "opinion" pieces, many of them from a perspective every bit as narrow and naive as John Rocker's, that makes ya nuts. Bingo. That and the "lazy" remark.

Ashie62 wrote: I don't need scattershot hyperbole to remind me or inspire others. Scattershot Hyperbole would have been a great name for an overblown art-rock album. Or perhaps the band itself.

Can't decide whether Rosenthal's last line is akin to a seventh-grade current events oral report or a call to Richard Neer. Either way, it's pretty intense analysis.

Someday the Mets will have a closer who, when he is lost for the year, won't generate from me a shrug or a no-pun-intended sigh of relief.