G-Fafif

If this were truly about matchups, they would have kept Misch, who shut out the Marlins last year, around for the first week.

A friend who lives in Flushing adds this delightful tidbit: There's one pretty nifty thing about the Apple's placement that's not captured by those pictures, though. As you approach Citi Field on the Flushing-Bound 7, the Top Hat ended up being angled in such a way that the word "HOME"--and only the word "HOME"--is visible. It's pretty cool.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Weather looks great for an opener on Monday too. I got wood! Let's hope Angel Pagan has the same when he leads off.

Chris Swann's latest photo album here, including awesome shots of what appears to be an awesome Mets HOF & Museum.

What's the point of Mike Pelfrey if we have to hide him from a division rival in April?

Glendon Rusch, Chicago sports bar investor.

Paul Lo Duca and Jay Payton, like Tim Redding, all given minor league assignments by the Rockies, whose supersub will be Melvin Mora. Octavio Dotel feels "perfecto," or at least did as of last week, and will be the Pirate closer. With Jason Isringhausen and Paul Byrd unsigned, Mora and Dotel are the last of the '90s Mets slated to appear on an Opening Day roster in 2010.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Good one, CF. I needed a laugh after learning about the latest Mets' marketing catastrophe in the making, reluctantly documented here. No Luis Tomatillo? Nicely turned, sirrah. And thankfully, not nearly as ultimately depressing as last year's, which left one-- or me, at least-- with that waking-up-from-a-happy-dream-about-an-old-flame-only-to-find-it's-just-a-dream feeling. They haven't given up on that series, BTW. The 2009 bobblehead will be an unidentified ligament.

Good one, CF. I needed a laugh after learning about the latest Mets' marketing catastrophe in the making, reluctantly documented here.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I mean the walkoff kind that ends a post-season series. Oh yeah. That would be fine.

And by Todd Pratt-style home run, I assume you don't mean jogging to first and watching the ball instead of running hard all the way in case there was a bounce off the wall or something.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: You know Greg, in the future I can save you a lot of time if you run this stuff by me in advance. I could have generated the April-endings list for you in a matter of minutes. Of course, that's minutes of effort on my part, not in elapsed time from when you make the request to when I get a chance to tickle my database. Also, I suspect that you may enjoy doing the digging yourself, which I fully understand. Anyway, my point is that you can feel free to send special requests my way. I may not always be able to help in a timely manner, but I'm willing to do what I can. Actually, BG, you helped me more than you know (or hindered me terribly in my development as a human being who might have other things to think about) when you shared your spreadsheet on births, first games and last games here a few years ago. I saved it and have continued to update it. I appreciate the offer, however, and will keep it in mind for future Met categorization.

metirish wrote: Gary Matthews I guess has a shot at doing this twice. Indeed, GMJ has a shot at moving off this list and moving onto the Recidivist Met list. Or he could be traded before April 5. He's getting very trivial on us.

We worry incessantly over who will make the team coming out of March, as if that's the roster we'll have for the rest of the year and the rest of our lives. Player personnel matters, however, often prove immediately transient. Which begged the following question (for me, anyway): which Mets played last their last Met games in April? The concept is a bit of a downer for the player in question, I would think...unless they went to a better team right away (which has been known to happen). I checked, and found there are 39 to date, including 16 who were holdovers from the previous year or returnees from previous seasons and 23 whose entire Met career boiled down to their April experience. You can read all about them here. You can see who they are below (dates signify final Met appearance): Mets With Previous Met Experience Who Played Their Last Met Game in April Larry Burright 04/18/1964 Choo Choo Coleman 04/23/1966 Ralph Terry 04/22/1967 Ray Sadecki 04/23/1977 Tim Foli 04/18/1979 Mike Howard 04/05/1983 Ed Lynch 04/12/1986 Lou Thornton 04/24/1990 Andy Tomberlin 04/09/1997 Kevin Elster 04/12/1992 Bruce Chen 04/04/2002 Pete Walker 04/20/2002 Grant Roberts 04/18/2004 Victor Diaz 04/30/2006 Brady Clark 04/22/2008 Marlon Anderson 04/10/2009 Mike Jacobs 04/17/2010 Mets Whose Met Careers Took Place in a Single April Joe Ginsberg 04/15/1962 Clem Labine 04/24/1962 Bobby Gene Smith 04/24/1962 Herb Moford 04/29/1962 Bart Shirley 04/29/1967 Rich Chiles 04/24/1973 Mac Scarce 04/11/1975 Luis Alvarado 04/13/1977 Ken Henderson 04/12/1978 Rick Sweet 04/29/1982 Mike Bishop 04/24/1983 Jonathan Hurst 04/21/1994 Dennis Springer 04/26/2000 Brian Rose 04/20/2001 Brett Hinchliffe 04/26/2001 McKay Christensen 04/07/2002 Felix Heredia 04/18/2005 Mike Matthews 04/24/2005 Chan Ho Park 04/30/2007 Gustavo Molina 04/30/2008 Darren O'Day 04/16/2009 Casey Fossum 04/26/2009 Edited to reflect Gary Matthews, Jr. making it to May 2010 and Mike Jacobs not doing so.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: There wasn't a whole lot of passion at Citi Field in 2009. Everyone was probably too numbed to boo. Hostility vs. Apathy: Not the camps one wants to choose between.

In reality, as opposed to perception, there wasn't all that much booing at Citi Field in 2009, not when compared to the final Shea years. I wouldn't expect a torrent of it for any individual players on Opening Day, though I wouldn't swear Ollie won't absorb the brunt of what disgruntlement there is though he has never been a big-time target. It's often the reliever who "always" coughs it up, and we don't have a reigning champ in this regard. Schoeneweis was that fellow at the '08 Opener.

I thought this was a thread about Bob Mandt. Nice article kissing Shea goodbye from the Snooze...in 1999. That certainly took a while. A SWAN SONG FOR HISTORY-FILLED SHEA 3-DECADE OLD BALLPARK IS SLATED FOR DEMOLITION BY DONALD BERTRAND DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Tuesday, July 20th 1999, 2:10AM For 35 years, millions of New Yorkers have screamed their hearts out at Shea Stadium and walked away with memories to last a lifetime. From the Amazin' Mets to Pope John Paul, the Beatles invasion to the Rev. Billy Graham, Shea Stadium has been a place where people witnessed history, pursued their passions and refreshed their souls. It is where the Mets won the World Series in both 1969 and 1986. It is where the upstart Jets built a championship season, then went on to pull off one of the biggest upsets in sports history their 1969 defeat of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. It is where the Beatles packed the house in 1965 with swooning, screaming females in a frenzy over the Fab Four. The Pope drew more than 60,000 of the faithful to Shea during his 1979 visit. That visit was not the only religious convocation at Shea. There was Billy Graham in 1970, Jehovah's Witnesses in 1978 and the Promise Keepers in 1996. The Rolling Stones packed them in, too, playing six concerts during October 1988 at Shea. There were wrestling and boxing matches, soccer and college football games, and even the Ice Capades. Memories all, many of them great ones, for those who had a seat in the house. But it won't be long before Shea is just a memory, too. Ever since the Jets left Shea for Giants Stadium in 1983, there has been talk of building a new stadium in Queens. Though the final plan has yet to take shape, Shea will be torn down in a few years to be replaced by a new stadium where new memories will be made. Shea is named for William Shea, the attorney who fought hard to get the Big Apple a National League baseball team after the city was abandoned by the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants in the 1950s. In 1960, the league decided to expand to 10 teams and awarded franchises to Houston and New York. The Mets started play in 1962 at the Polo Grounds while Shea was built at a cost of $28.5 million. Originally it was to be called Flushing Meadows Park, but that plan changed after a movement was launched to honor Shea. Shea was the first stadium in the U.S. capable of being converted from a baseball to a football field and back, using two motor-operated stands that moved on tracks. The Mets ticket office moved in even before construction on the ballpark was finished. "There was no water. There were no toilets. There were lights, but there was no heat," said Bob Mandt, vice president of purchasing and special projects for the Mets and, in December 1963, the team's season box manager. Electrical heaters were put in to take care of the lack of heat, and chemical toilets were installed as well. "The women refused [to use the chemical toilets]. They rebelled. A couple times a day we would have a bathroom run" to the hotel near LaGuardia Airport where the Mets set up headquarters, Mandt remembers. On the eve of Opening Day, the field was christened with Dodgers "holy water" from the Gowanus Canal and Giants "holy water" from the Harlem River at the Polo Grounds. Then, on Opening Day, a strike at the World's Fair next door knocked out phone service at Shea. "The only [working] phone in the building was a private line that I had in my office, and somehow Dick Young, columnist for the Daily News, found out," said Mandt. "He called in his story from my desk. He was probably the only one who got his story in in a timely way," said the Whitestone resident. The Mets' inaugural home opener ended unhappily, with a 4-3 loss to the Pirates before 48,736 fans. ``In the early days of Shea, we had a lot of outside events. They were trying the place out. We had some prizefights, soccer matches, college football Army vs. Notre Dame, and Pitt vs. Syracuse and of course we had the Beatles," Mandt said. The Beatles made their first appearance at Shea in 1965, said Mandt.The biggest baseball crowd at Shea Stadium was in 1964 for the Mayor's Trophy game, said the Met executive, who noted that the game had been rained out twice before. "When we finally played it the third time around, everybody who had a ticket showed up plus all the standing room we had sold for the first two games also showed up so we had in excess of 60,000 people in the house. We have never matched that," he said. Mandt's fondest Met memories are of the 1969 team, the franchise's first-ever world champion. "Art Shamsky, Ed Charles, Cleon Jones, Buddy Harrelson, Tom Seaver, Ed Kranepool I still see these guys," he said. "They are around the ballpark quite a bit so we have become good friends over the years. It is a great, fond, shared memory the '69 World Championship. Nothing compares to winning the whole thing the first time." For Jim Gatto, a longtime part-time Parks Department employee at the stadium, the event that stands out the most is the Pope's visit in 1979, when Parks workers set up the stage for the pontiff. "I will never forget going up to the Parks Department office on the fourth floor. There was this beautiful carved chair for the Pope that came from a Manhattan church. I had the opportunity to carry it and put it on the stage," he said. Gatto recalls that it was raining as the papal entourage came off 126th St. and through the fence. "As soon as he came in the sky opened up and the sun came through. It was a funny feeling. It was really great." WAITING'S FUN Going to a ballgame at Shea? It can be a lot more than the game. Activity on the field starts up to three hours before gametime. It all starts with the Mets pitchers having batting practice, and after a half-hour the rest of the Mets get into the act. Regular batting practice goes for about 50 minutes. The visiting team is then given 40 minutes of batting practice. Next comes infield practice, with the Mets having 15 minutes and then the visitors 10. The grounds crew then takes over and prepares the field for the game.

Gwreck wrote: That's all fine and good but the truth is that the Bay trade was not something that could be obviously identified at the time as a bad trade. Apparently you never read my July 31, 2002 piece on Unprovable Hindsight.com. Mark my words. This trade of Jason Bay will look very bad in a couple of years. Sure he's a non-prospect who's gotten no discernible attention this season, but I suddenly have a very strong feeling about his future. He'll probably win the Rookie of the Year award by 2004, become a multi-time All-Star and become a big deal for some contending club. If the Mets ever want him again, they'll have to pony up major bucks. And by then, Shea will be gone and there's no telling how the dimensions of their new park -- which will probably be named for a bank that will be in some trouble when a financial meltdown hits our country around 2008 -- will affect his game. Oh well, at least we know for sure that Robbie Alomar is going to snap out of his doldrums soon. The Wild Card is ours! So unprovable hindsight isn't everything.

Gwreck wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Sharing season preview thoughts, along with a few other fine bloggers, on the NY Times Bats blog here. Good stuff there. I think it is unfair, however, to claim that you want Jason Bay's past seven seasons back and that he "shouldn't have been traded for Steve Reed." I'll also take Nolan Ryan, 1972-1993.

Nothing against Green and Parnell, but good. No scholarships, as Keith would say. Let 'em earn their way back, particularly submarinin' Sean.

In the neighborhood of 78-84, 4th place ... unless they do a lot better, in which case I can't wait to recall what a wrongly pessimistic mope I was on a rainy Monday morning in late March. Sharing season preview thoughts, along with a few other fine bloggers, on the NY Times Bats blog here.

The Metness Protection Program continues to emerge, as the Mets move the beloved Shea Home Run Apple from the shadows of the desolate Bullpen Plaza out onto Mets Plaza. A photo, taken by one of the diligent baseball-fever posters, is featured on several blogs today, MetsBlog among them. As for the aforementioned BPB (which couldn't feel further from Citi Field despite technically being inside Citi Field), they seem to be in the process of installing monitors so revelers and stragglers alike can follow the game up on the field.

Taking a break from interpreting inside Seawolf's head (where it's tough to read because every thought is expressed in the form of a question) to announce DOC DIDN'T DO IT! Well, he did it, but it was Ambien he did, according to his agent. Agent decries media portrayal of Dwight Gooden's arrest in Franklin Lakes Thursday, March 25, 2010 BY PHILIP DEVENCENTIS FRANKLIN LAKES - OAKLAND SUBURBAN NEWS OF SUBURBAN NEWS FRANKLIN LAKES � Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Dwight Gooden, whose budding baseball career was often eclipsed by spells of legal trouble and substance abuse, was arrested on Tuesday, March 23, for allegedly driving under the influence of drugs. Police say the three-time World Series champion, who won rings with the New York Mets and New York Yankees, was taking his 5-year-old son, Dylan, to school that morning when he bumped another car from behind. Police say he was driving south on Old Mill Road, near the entrance to MedCo Health Solutions Inc. Gooden�s agent, Ronald Goldstein, maintains, however, that his client was not intoxicated at the time of the accident and that his mottled background made him an easy target for police. Just three years after Gooden won the 1984 National League Rookie of the Year award, his off-the-field problems began. Gooden spent the first two months of the 1987 season recovering from cocaine abuse. He was suspended for two months in 1994 for using the drug and again, for the entire 1995 season, after testing positive. The Tampa, Fla., native stepped off the mound and released an autobiography, "Heat," by the time his problems returned in 2002. Gooden was arrested in his hometown that year for allegedly driving while intoxicated; the charge was later reduced to reckless driving. He was arrested again in Tampa the following year for driving with a suspended license. In 2005, Gooden was charged with domestic violence for allegedly punching his girlfriend and was sentenced to three years� probation later that year for fleeing a police officer who stopped him on suspicion of drunken driving. According to Goldstein, Gooden�s track record has unduly tarnished his reputation. "All the facts have been distorted by the media," said Goldstein, who also represents Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano. "He is a very good father and a very good friend. The amount of lies and untruths being spread hurts me." In a phone interview on Thursday, March 25, Goldstein said Gooden and his wife, Monique, recently celebrated the birth of their second child, a girl named Milan. Gooden has seven children, five of whom live in Tampa, he said. Gooden also was celebrating fours years of sobriety, Goldstein said, after his last arrest in March 2006 for violating probation by using cocaine. He served seven months in jail. Goldstein said Gooden was losing sleep lately because he was caring for his newborn daughter and because he had traveled cross-country signing autographs. Gooden was prescribed and had been taking Ambien, a sedative, to help him sleep, Goldstein said, and the drug had affected his ability to drive. "Four years of hard work have been destroyed," Goldstein said. "It�s just appalling." A woman who answered the doorbell at Gooden�s Shadow Lake home on March 25 asked for a visitor�s identity and, when informed, said, "No, thank you." Gooden lives less than a mile from the accident scene. Gooden�s attorney, Neal Frank, did not return a call seeking comment. Police Detective Lt. John Bakelaar said his department received a 911 call at 8:50 a.m. on Tuesday, March 23, from borough resident Ronald Schmidt, who said Gooden, 45, had struck his car. Schmidt, owner of Ronald Schmidt & Associates, an Englewood-based architectural firm, said he was driving to work from his Edgewood Road home when the accident occurred. A sports fan, Schmidt said he recognized Gooden and introduced himself. Schmidt described the exchange as "pleasant" and said Gooden told him he was taking his son to school, then returned to his car and drove away. Bakelaar said Gooden was arrested shortly thereafter, before he reached his son�s school, by Patrolman Jon Rynander and Traffic Officer Robert Lyon on High Mountain Road, near the Summit Avenue intersection. No one, including Gooden�s son � who rode, unbuckled, in the back seat of Gooden�s 2007 Chrysler Aspen � was injured, Bakelaar said. No ambulances were called. Gooden and his son were driven to police headquarters on DeKorte Drive, and were picked up by Monique Gooden after the former pitcher was released on his own recognizance, Bakelaar said. Gooden was charged with being under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, endangering the welfare of a child, driving while under the influence of drugs, driving while intoxicated with a child passenger, leaving the scene of motor vehicle accident, reckless driving, failure to keep right and failure to notify a change of address on his driver�s license. Bakelaar said police have probable cause to believe Gooden was under the influence of a drug, but that an investigation is pending on what the drug is. He would not speculate or say what, if any, tests were performed. Bakelaar said the most serious charge is child endangerment, an indictable offense that carries a 10- to 20-year jail sentence. Gooden made his first appearance in municipal court before acting Judge Francis Leddy Jr. on Wednesday, March 24, and pled not guilty to all charges. The case was referred to the Bergen County Prosecutor�s Office. Gooden most recently worked as vice president of community relations for the Newark Bears, an independent, professional baseball team that plays in the Atlantic League. Goldstein said he left the post in November after the team was sold. Goldstein said Gooden was supposed to assist the Mets at the club�s camp in Port St. Lucie, Fla., as a pitching instructor this spring, but withdrew because of his wife�s pregnancy.