G-Fafif

"Pimping"?

Agreed that Gary's the indispensable man in the booth. I love Keith (and like Ronnie well enough) but Gary transcends everything. Radio stopped being wonderful when he left...and I love Howie plenty (lotta love here; I feel like Nicolette Larson). Wayne technically replaced Tom McCarthy, not a hard act to follow.

I prefer when they wear their MLBN warmup suits over when they take off their suit jackets and field ground balls in ties. It's a little too Fox on NFL. I don't really understand suits and ties for baseball (or anything, I suppose). Sartorial tangent aside, MLBN is an asset, particularly when they have something to cover or talking about. Watching Jimmy Rollins or Tim Lincecum on a pretend field displaying fundamentals while Barry Larkin, Harold Reynolds and Al Leiter cluck approvingly -- not my favorite part.

We pretend win! Beats pretend losing.

'86 seems like the first year in memory. My friend joked that October that Double-A callup Elster seemed out of place on a World Series team. "He should be wearing a uniform that says KEVIN 86." Hey, if '86 was the first year, and they won the World Series, maybe they should take them off this year. Or take them off and put them back on.

Russ Adams moves to the top of the Mets' list! Alphabetically anyway.

Valadius wrote: It'll probably be 10 anyway. Let Rusty do it. Not like he has a restaurant to run.

I don't remember this being the custom until the 1980s. In fact, I'm looking at some pictures in We Won Today, a bizarre little book about the 1976 Mets, and several bat/ball boy/girl pix appear and there's no "76" in sight.

As tired of the Harrahs commercials in their second year as I was of the Foxwoods commercials in their...well, in their second airing. The Mets are enough of a casino for me.

I wanna be in Eddie C.'s corner for the booth, but every "cut on and missed" makes me yearn for whomever he's filling in.

Barajas Talks, Met Offense Rocks!

We've just completed the second consecutive offseason during which Wayne Hagin never crossed my mind. Howie and Gary cross my mind every day -- and twice on Sunday. They equal Mets. Keith and Ron equal Mets. Ed Coleman and Kevin Burkhardt equal Mets. Wayne Hagin's an enjoyable enough announcer who happens to broadcast Mets games 150 or so times per season. He does not equal Mets.

Neil Best in subscription/Optimum-only Newsday covers the big three as they start their fifth season: For Mets fans of a certain age, Bob Murphy, Ralph Kiner and Lindsey Nelson forever will be the voices of their youths - a trio that reigned on TV and radio for the franchise's first 17 seasons. But SNY's Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez are well on their ways to filling the same role for a new generation of fans. Cohen and Hernandez signed new deals after last season, so now all three are under contract to SNY at least through 2013, which would be their eighth season together. "I think it's fantastic for all concerned," said Cohen, who unlike his partners grew up listening to the original broadcasters. (The only surviving member is Kiner, who still contributes to SNY.) "The way the players change, managers change, general managers change, in many cases the one thing that remains stable is the announcers." That theory works only if fans actually like the announcers, and SNY's have received mostly good reviews as they begin their fifth season at 1 p.m. Tuesday when the Mets play the Braves in their exhibition opener. Said Darling: "We all have our strengths and weaknesses, but together, it kind of makes sense." Cohen recalled a similar dynamic among Nelson, Kiner and Murphy, although in that era, they rarely were heard together because they divided TV and radio duties. (Speaking of which, Howie Rose brings a long history of his own with the team to Mets radio.) "Let's call it for what it is," Cohen said. "This really works, and we're all really happy . . . Where are any of us going?" Cohen noted that in addition to the on-air team, SNY has kept the same well-regarded game production leaders in producer Gregg Picker and director Bill Webb. Although no one at SNY seriously worried that Hernandez would leave, he did raise the issue publicly after the 2009 season finale. "It's something that I probably shouldn't have said; it just kind of came out," he said. Now that the deal is done, he is "very thrilled." "We've been together so long, we know our moods and idiosyncrasies, and it's quite a little comfort level," he said. "We know we've got each others' backs." Darling also works for TBS on its national package. Cohen could be in the TBS mix, too, perhaps for a wild-card series. But even more so than Darling and Cohen, Hernandez is irreplaceable, thanks both to his quirky humor and his status as one of the most important players in Mets history. Thus it was a big story when he tutored first baseman Daniel Murphy last month. Might that put him in an awkward position if Murphy messes up while Hernandez is in the booth? "I don't believe it compromises me at all or puts me in a tough position," he said. "There is no reason, if he makes a mistake, physical or mental, that I cannot objectively comment on it." And if the subject of how well Murphy was taught comes up during a game, Hernandez can guess how the conversation will go. "There would be a little comedy," he said. "We'd joke and have fun with it." Bonus material from Keith: Leftover stuff from Keith Hernandez that I didn't get into the newspaper version of my story about SNY's Mets announcers: Hernandez said he gets along well with Gary Cohen and Ron Darling. That's quite an accomplishment after spending many months every spring and summer sitting very close to them in the comically small home-team TV booth at Citi Field: "I would say 99.9 percent of the time [there are no problems]," he said. At worst, someone might say or do something that rubs someone else the wrong way. "And 'rubbing the wrong way,' might be an extreme way to put it," he said. "Sometimes you might be sick or not in the most patient of moods, but we're not spending 24 hours a day together." It helps that every game is unique. "It's not like doing a rock concert and playing the same songs in a different town," he said. Here's Hernandez on the Mets' prospects for 2010: "I always like a team that's come off a bad year and players that have come off a subpar year and have track records, because they'll work hard in that offseason to have a bounce-back year. "The Mets have five guys with the potential to be the Comeback Player of the Year. "I think this team is going to hit and score runs and be fine offensively. But health is important. "To me it all boils down to pitching. If I could have both, I'd take a team like the '69 Mets with great pitching as opposed to an offensive team with mediocre pitching." Hernandez on the challenge of working meaningless games late last year: "It's much more fun when they win and they're competitive and it's down to the wire, and we had that three of the last four years. When you're playing it out like last year, there's not the intensity and you can be more relaxed. "Guys in the truck would say, 'These are the games now where you have to hold the audience.' But ultimately we're not going to bring the audience. The team is what gets people to sit down on their couches and come to the ballpark." Former Cardinal Hernandez on Mark McGwire and steroids: "I don't think he should be banned from baseball and coaching. If that's what he wants to do he should be doing it, and good for him. "But you know know how I feel about guys who did steroids, and my opinion will never change on it. I feel they knew what they were doing and why they were doing it and it was dishonest. "They put a stain on the record book that will forever be a brown spot on every page. They should never be under consideration for the Hall of Fame."

I'm thinkin' you're thinkin' of this game wherein Schmitty went yard (or Field) four times. Final: Philadelphia 18 Chicago 16. On the same day a few hundred miles east, Dave Kingman's Mets beat the Pirates 17-1 in a game that saw Wayne Garrett called out at home when I swore he was safe. Yes, we won by 16 runs and I'm still pissed off about being jobbed. It was early in the game and seemed important enough to harbor a grudge over for the next 34 years.

MLB Network showing Phillies @ Cubs, 5/17/79 as we speak. Just your typical 23-22 pitchers' duel. In the five or so minutes I sat down to watch it, the first three Cubs batters, top of the second, were Mike Vail, Bill Buckner and Dave Kingman, each a Met icon in his own way. The Met quotient was very high all day. In addition to Vail and Kingman, former/future Mets who saw action included Larry Bowa, Del Unser, Nino Espinosa and Tug McGraw of the Phillies and Jerry Martin and Ray Burris for the Cubs. Tangentially, beyond Buckner, Tim McCarver would announce Mets games, Barry Foote would coach Mets catchers, Pete Rose was already the Met villain and Mike Schmidt, of course an all-time rival, would find new legs as a Met nemesis in 2008 with his dopey note to the modern-day Phillies about how the Mets knew they weren't as good as them (which I still find a bizarre use of a legend's time). In admittedly very peripheral Mets terms, the game also included Bobby Murcer (an ex-MFY in part because he couldn't handle hitting at Shea in 1974) and Donnie Moore, who came very close to being the opposition closer in the 1986 World Series (which would have rendered Buckner's Met context immaterial). Others see 45 runs in one game and think that's plenty. But they're not watching through blue and orange-colored glasses.

Before he was on SNY, Ron Darling was "special guest" on FNV -- Friday Night Videos, that is. (The "FNV" bit never really caught on.) For those of you who went to bed early in the 1980s or perhaps weren't yet born, this was NBC's answer to MTV. It began in the summer of '83 and became video wallpaper by late 1986, which is when Ronnie joined that week's casual hosts, Bob Costas and Ahmad Rashad. Lots of talk about the '86 Mets, lots of meandering, some uneasy introductions of Van Halen videos, in three parts. Found via Neil Best. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Three days from now, Mets will be playing Braves at baseball. They'll be wearing uniforms, people will be sitting in a stadium and score will be kept. It won't count, yet it will mean everything. Life becomes worth living again in less than 72 hours.

If it was funny, I'd say it. Like Alka-Seltzer, cupcake, pickles, chicken -- words with the "k" sound. You don't get laughs with tomatoes or lettuce. Or Frumpies. --Willy Clark, The Sunshine Boys They both have the "k" sound, but Julio Franco doesn't strike me as nearly as funny as El Duque. Then again, Ed Bouchee doesn't strike me as nearly as old as Julio Franco.