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To be honest, I couldn't get past the title and wound up here with The Snakehandling O'Sheas. Pop is a hardhat Mom's an exec. Sis is a nun And Junior is gay. We all live in Pittsburgh Oh, that's a cliche. What else can we say? But we'll be okay. Because we're snakehandlers We handle snakes. Snakehandlers Junior is gay. Snakehandlers.." And, of course, nice job with the baseball stuff, too.

One-day contract for Doc...hope he's not suspended by noon.

According to Mike Sielski of the Wall Street Journal, Mets are re-signing Dwight Gooden...sort of. He is 45 now, and he will be at Citi Field on Saturday. The Mets this year are inducting Mr. Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, former manager Davey Johnson and former general manager Frank Cashen into their Hall of Fame, and they are holding a luncheon for the inductees Saturday before a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. More, because Mr. Gooden ended his playing career with the Yankees in 2000�he went 194-112 in pitching for five teams over his 16-year career�he agreed to sign a one-day contract with the Mets this week so that he could again retire, this time as a member of the team with which he is most identified. "To me," he said in a phone interview, "this brings it full circle." ESPN-NY's Mark Simon tracked down opponents of Doc and Darryl to collect their memories here. The Mike Krukow story has quite the interesting twist. "I was having a lot of problems with a hitter on the Astros -- Jose Cruz," Krukow said. "We had a rookie who said, 'Cruz has a high leg kick. You've just gotta pitch him down and in to get him out.' "Willie Mays was in our clubhouse at the time, and I said to Willie, 'Can you believe this rookie telling me how to pitch to Jose Cruz?' And Willie said to me, 'That's the same way they pitched to Hall of Famer Mel Ott.' "So when I saw Strawberry, and I heard all this talk about how the Mets had a hot-shot right fielder, I noticed he had a high leg kick. So that's why I always pitched him down and in. Any time I'd go away, he'd hit a rocket. And me, I listened to a little John Parr this morning and it briefly brought back the summer of 1985.

Jacobs' last game was the 20-inning affair. He can always say he went out a winner of the longest victory in Mets history. Probably isn't thinking that right now, however.

Update: DL stints by Barajas (who seemed like a distinct possibility) and Bay (signed long-term, thus moot) whittle down the possible 2010 candidates for One-Year Wonderdom to Henry Blanco and Hisanori Takahashi. They are the only new Opening Day roster Mets who have been on the roster uninterrupted ever since. Wouldn't bet the ranch that either will be back in 2011. Catalanotto, Mejia, Tejada and Igarashi all eliminated from contention since April 5 by being released, disabled, sent down, whatever.

Jacobs added to this list. Matthews since taken off. GMJ's last Mets game was June 2, 2010, pretty good (so to speak) considering his first term ended on April 3, 2009 and lasted two games.

I booed his triple-slashing at Citi Field, apparently.

So says Neil Best in Newsday... The stories never stop, a bottomless trove from the long, sharp memory of Ralph Kiner. An hour before yesterday's Cardinals-Mets game, he was talking to an audience of one about Ty Cobb, the 1952 Pirates, Lou Gehrig, Bob Murphy, Joe Garagiola and Bob Sheppard, among many other things. Soon he would continue on TV, veering from Gus Zernial (an Athletics slugger of the 1950s) to Terry Moore (a Cardinals outfielder of the '30s) to Rick Ferrell (a Senators catcher of the '30s). Even Toots Shor and Jackie Gleason made cameo appearances during Kiner's 4� innings in the SNY booth. "Two things good about being around a long time,'' he said before the game. "One is you can tell a lot of stories, and the people that might refute the stories are all dead now.'' But something else he said was more serious, and to the point. As he was comparing the 1952 Pirates, who lost 112 games with Kiner in the lineup, to the '62 Mets, who lost 120 with him in the booth, he interrupted himself and said this: "It's really one lifelong story.'' So it is. At 87, now 55 years after he retired as a player and 35 since he made the Hall of Fame, Kiner is living history, a guy old enough to have met Babe Ruth and young enough at heart to studiously follow the 2010 Mets and other teams. The trick is being willing and able at his age to share that knowledge with a television audience more interested in the present. Kiner does that consistently, tossing loose ends of baseball's past into the air and then tying them together during his 25 or so shifts for SNY each season. It is a role he takes seriously. "I want to keep the names of the people I knew and the ones I heard about before my time alive,'' he said. "I want that history to be preserved.'' For Mets fans of every age, Kiner is a link to their own memories as part of the broadcast crew since Day One. That includes play-by-play man Gary Cohen, who said, "It's such an incredible honor to sit next to him and actually get to work with him, I can barely express it.'' Cohen is impressed both by Kiner's preparation and the breadth of his material. "It fascinates me: A guy who hasn't played a game in the major leagues in 55 years constantly comes up with stuff I've never heard before,'' he said, "and I've been watching him since I was 6.'' Said another of Kiner's broadcast partners, Keith Hernandez: "I always feel Ralph's a bridge to the '40s, the '30s, the '20s, stuff that none of us can go back to and bring up.'' Kiner would like to work more games, but he largely is limited to day games at home to ease the burden physically. And more of a good thing might be too much. As it is, he is a welcome change of pace. (Early in the season, he commutes to Mets games from his home in Florida, but in the summer, he lives in Greenwich, Conn., easing the travel grind.) But SNY is looking for more ways to use him. Later this season, it plans to package clips from the old "Kiner's Korner'' postgame show with fresh insights from Kiner on the network's website. Reviving "Kiner's Korner'' on television is unlikely. "The players are making enough money that they don't need the 50 bucks,'' Kiner said. What would the then- 39-year-old Kiner have said in 1962 if someone had told him he'd still be working Mets games in 2010, let alone in a booth named in his honor? "I'd never have believed it,'' he said, adding that for his first several years, he worked on one-year contracts, never sure he'd be back. Those dreadful early Mets teams provided some of his best stories, Kiner said, as did the woeful '52 Pirates. How did they lose 112? Weren't there any other good players on the team? "I can't think of any,'' he said, laughing. "No, we did have some.'' Still . . . "After my last time at bat, people would get up and go. They knew we were going to lose it and they were going to beat the traffic.'' Kiner hit 37 home runs that season, his seventh consecutive year leading the National League. It was a very long time ago, but he often finds that teenaged players he speaks to are interested in that era, even if they know little about it. "I always say to them, 'Do you have a computer?' and they always have one, obviously,'' he said. "I say, 'Look me up on Google and you'll find out all you want to know about me there.' ''

Not quite the trivia hot button it used to be (thanks David) but Mike Hessman became the 142nd third baseman in Met history today. Justin Turner became No. 141 on the Coast. Confidential to BG: UMDB is missing Andy Green on its list of second and third basemen on the overall positional lists and within the 2009 lists. He played them both on August 19, 2009. Green's page doesn't have his position information or those cute little icons from the 1973 cards. He was forgettable, I grant you, but what is UMDB if not a safe haven for forgotten Mets?

Dickey 5.0 Davis 3.0 Pagan 1.5 Beltran 0.5

R.A.H.!

Pagan 2.0 Hessman 1.5 Davis 1.5 Rodriguez 1.5 Parnell 1.5 Beltran 1.0 Wright 0.5 Reyes 0.5

Quite a night. The Mets invited a dozen or so bloggers to be quasi-media, giving us field access for BP and then accommodating us with some very nice seats. One gigantic lowlight obviously (my personal 14-game Citi Field winning streak tried its best to stay alive but nothing lasts forever), but many highlights, none of which was bigger, particularly in the realm of Forums inspired by him, than getting to hang out with Ed Kranepool in two doses totaling approximately ten minutes...and when I say hang out, I mean stand next to him on the warning track behind the batting cage and spout an inanity every now and then to which he'd respond relevantly pleasantly. He's Ed Kranepool. And I sort of chatted with him. After that, what's a 13-inning, streak-breaking loss?

Billy Loes, purchased by the Mets from the Giants in 1961, dead at 80. The Long Island City native and ex-Dodger never officially suited up for the new club, having retired during the first Met spring, but left us one of the great quotes regarding the not so distinguished collection of talent amassed in St. Petersburg: The Mets is a good thing. They give everybody a job just like the WPA. Loes is best known for claiming to have lost a ground ball in the sun during the 1952 World Series. Overlooked amid the colorfulness was the eleven-season lifetime record of 80-63 he compiled for Brooklyn, Baltimore and San Francisco. He made one All-Star team and appeared in three World Series, including the Big One for the Bums in 1955.

Niese 3.0 Francoeur 3.0 Reyes 2.0 Beltran 1.0 Davis 0.5 Pagan 0.5

Wainwright's good. I hate them. A Dodger fan acquaintance of my wife's called them the Yankees of the Midwest. I hate them more.

I see no evidence of Bay DL'd or Feliciano coming up.

Reyes SS Castillo 2B Pagan LF Wright 3B Beltran CF Davis 1B Francoeur RF Thole C Niese P

Optimal lineups would utilize fewer Met batters.

Home plate Bacchanalia claims another victim Excessive celebration after a dramatic walk-off win has proven costly for the Marlins. During the elation in the aftermath of the Marlins' 5-4 win over the Braves in 11 innings Sunday afternoon at Sun Life Stadium, Chris Coghlan was injured while attempting to smash a shaving-cream pie in the face of Wes Helms, who delivered the walk-off single. After the Marlins edged the Giants, 4-3, on Monday night at AT&T Park, the club announced Coghlan was going on the disabled list with a torn meniscus to his left knee. If surgery is required, the team's starting left fielder and leadoff batter will be out six to eight weeks..

Matt Franco game airs tomorrow afternoon. I'd kill to see a 1963 game (kill in the figurative sense, or the killing of time at the very least). I see nothing wrong with a recent "classic" thrown in. I see plenty wrong with limiting the variety as they do. "The Night Chicago Died" is literally my second favorite song of all time. And if they wanted to show the game in which Benny Ayala hits a home run in his first at-bat, that, too, would be awesome.

Nice of the gas station to give him the time off. Then again I guess they plenty of Hessmen around.

May 7, 2010 airs toinght @ 7. It's the first Citi Field walkoff home run, courtesy of the formerly healthy, formerly productive Rod Barajas.

Dickey 4.0 Valdes 1.0 Castillo 1.0 Pagan 0.5