G-Fafif

Shtick is shtick and so forth, but if you really didn't want to be a Mets fan, you'd probably forego the blogging about the Mets, particularly a blog you began in November 2009 when the Mets' front office ineptitude was no secret. You'd probably just go about your business ignoring the Mets.

Fundamentally, Marty is right about the act of voting. It's his vote. He checked off the players he thought deserved to go in this time and didn't check off the others. All are free to disagree with his choices and methodology, but what got me in the aftermath of the HOF announcement was the level of offense taken (not just with Marty but with others who didn't vote for the guys who came close). I listened to him on XM and saw him on MLB Network wherein he was asked "why, Marty?" He told them. And the responses were, essentially, "No, your opinion is wrong." So why'dya ask him if all you were going to do was tell him not going along with their decision was a terrible mistake? Shoot, just prescreen all voters to make sure they're going to go along with the preferred decision and give only approved voters ballots.

Marty Noble articulates HOF voting rationale here. Now people on the radio and television who never have been around the game on a daily basis are calling for a change in the voting because this year merely 73.7 percent of 539 ballots cast included checks for Alomar. The best second baseman I ever saw received 395 votes and came closer to election than any other first-time candidate who feel short. And the ripple effect of that vote ought to be that the system be overhauled? Now I will ask the question. Are you serious? So if eight others had voted for Alomar, the system would been deemed acceptable and allowed to remain in place to determine whether Blyleven, Tim Raines, Barry Bonds, Derek Jeter and Johan Santana are Hall of Fame worthy. Eight more votes would have made all of us look so much wiser? Are you serious?

Those who can tear themselves away from the most spelled team in football (or who can put together the letters D-V-R) might want to check out MLB Network at 6:30 for the Mets-Reds game of May 6, 1995. Fonzie hits his first homer, Rico has a big day, Mlicki makes his first Met start and the Mets build a huge, impenetrable lead in Cincinnati. Just don't watch to conclusion if you like happy endings. Boxscore here.

John Stearns, not such a Bad Dude.

Listen here for the first several segments of Art Rust, Jr.'s first WABC show in 1981. It's during Spring Training, so lots of Mets talk and Mets optimism. He sees good things from Swannie in particular as well as this Mookie Wilson kid. A couple of weeks from Opening Day, callers are still trying to make trades. It's great old-fashioned radio from a time when great old-fashioned radio was already long gone. In any event, sez Art, we're finishing third.

Signs for a year at $3.3 million. Nice work if you can get it...

David Wright will wear it and wear it cheerfully.

Mets Merized Online does its best to put the pieces together here. Key passage here: It was quite obvious that Omar Minaya was not in the loop while Wilpon, Howard and Ricco were scurrying around trying to delay the surgery. While they frantically attempted to find a doctor to get a third opinion, their GM (in name only) Omar Minaya was on the phone wishing Carlos Beltran good luck with his knee surgery in the morning. Can you believe that? How in God�s name was Minaya left out of the loop? He was absolutely oblivious to the fact the rest of the front office was trying to put the brakes on the procedure. On the morning of the surgery, Mets Trainer, Ray Ramirez signed and faxed all the necessary forms to Colorado for the surgery to go forward that morning at 7:00 AM. Without these signed insurance forms the surgery could not take place that morning. Not only was the surgery done with the signature and approval of a Mets employee, but the entire procedure was approved and paid for by the Mets insurance company. According to Dr. Steadman who performed the surgery, he was in constant communication with the Mets medical director David Altchek, who agreed with Steadman�s recommendation that he have surgery. Altchek left off with Dr. Steadman that he would relay the information to the Mets that Beltran would be having surgery in the morning. The Mets say they never knew, but that doesn�t ring true. They had to know. Why would they later mention that they wanted to get a third opinion, unless they already had the opinions of both their Medical Director and Dr. Steadman? During the conference call, Assistant GM John Ricco, refused to elaborate on the discussions both Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya had with Scott Boras in the 24 hours preceding the surgery. He would only acknowledge that there were phone calls made, but that he wasn�t on those calls. So why not wait until Omar Minaya was available to have the conference call? And even though both Minaya and Wilpon were In Arizona, why couldn�t they participate from there? It was reported that they were on a plane during the 2:00 PM conference call, but it was later revealed that they did not board their plane until four hours later at 6:00 PM. If they were going to levy these unsubstantiated charges against their star centerfielder, and if they are as committed to better communication as they said they would be, why weren�t the principal parties in those phone calls on that conference call to answer the important questions? Why did the Mets go out of their way to make such a public spectacle of this even going so far as to simulcast the conference call live on SNY to gain the widest possible reach they could? The conference call answered no questions and raised hundreds more. Not only were we not able to get the details of the phone calls between Minaya, Wilpon, Boras and Beltran, but John Ricco refused to elaborate on the legal aspects that the entire call was centered around. They wanted the world to know that they were invoking their legal rights under the terms of the contract, but they refused to tell us the whos, whats, wheres and whens. Is this the better communication they spoke of? And here: On December 3rd, Carlos Beltran was in New York to get an MRI on his ailing knee again. It was immediately discovered that there was loose cartilage and bone fragments caused by a degenerative disease known as osteo-arthritis. On December 13th the pain worsened and another MRI showed even more deterioration in the knee. He was told to �ramp down� his workouts. Beltran instead wanted a second opinion and he got permission to see Dr. Steadman who had treated him last season. It was determined that he would most likely need surgery to clean it up. Almost a month laster, a subsequent trip to Colorado this past Tuesday, only confirmed that original diagnosis which was also echoed by the Mets Medical Director. To answer David Wright�s question �why now?�, the Mets already knew of this serious condition on December 3rd and yet their plan was to wait. It was a plan that was doomed to failure. Bone fragments, bone spurs and torn cartilage does not go away with �ramping down your workouts� as the Mets advised him. If his knee got this bad due to some light pre spring training workout regimen, what did they expect would happen with the full throttle rigors of spring training? Is this the better way of handling medical information that they promised back in October? Could it be that the Mets suppressed that information for over a month so that they could sign Jason Bay without giving the player any further leverage in the negotiations? In the meantime they withheld the staggering news that their centerfielder�s knee was deteriorating rapidly. Is this their improved way of communicating player injury updates to the media as they promised in October?

Nah, not pissed. Not disappointed, either, let alone devastated. Mainly discouraged for the tangible reasons of being without a key component of the lineup for an indeterminate period of time. I had actually been detecting unvarnished shards of optimism in my Met anticipation because of Jason Bay; I hadn't felt this Met-optimistic (which is to say at all) in quite a while. Now I'm a little less optimistic, pending further roster construction. And again annoyed that management allowed this runaway story to gain traction. When it first saw light Wednesday night, the status of Beltran was coupled immediately with the team's being unhappy about the process. That implies somebody in management was leaking that angle pretty aggressively, as if it was important for the world to know Beltran (or Boras) was doing something wrong. It implies, too, that management had gone into its default CYA mode lest they take more heat over their medical team/medical track record (Mets, again, coming off as more concerned with seeming like they know what they're doing rather than actually knowing what they're doing). "He did this without their permission," of course, became the story as much as the operation and resulting time missed. Then it becomes here we go again, which will wear down a Mets fan some. Beltran's camp, legitimately in my opinion, issuing a statement contradicting the Mets' characterization of Carlos as some kind of renegade arthroscope-seeking malcontent only makes the whole thing look even more like one of those carnivals that takes over our LIRR station's parking lot a couple of weekends every summer: you've seen it before, it's not much fun and you wish it would move on because all you want to do is find a space and get to the game. It doesn't quite add up to pissed. It would actually be quite amusing if it were happening to some other team. Alas, it is not.

The conf. call operator mispronounced "Klapisch" -- and didn't even mention soft rain.

This appears to be a positive development. It's so hard to tell, though, not having seen that many.

I had no idea this came with an avatar!

Thanks for your support. I owe it all to listening too often to Mike Francesa, damn it.

Swan Swan H wrote: I agree. I think the tendency is Mets-Jets-Islanders, and Yankees-Giants-Rangers, although I am an exception (Mets-Giants-Rangers). For a swath of New Yorkers, it's Frontrunner-Frontrunner-Frontrunner.

Swan Swan H wrote: Under the category of Big Shot Loving Mets (or, considering that the fourth round of the shootout was the first time a puck crossed the goal line the whole night it should be Big Save Loving Mets) Murphy, Pelfrey and Santos were at the Garden for last night's Rangers-Devils pitcher's duel. The reaction when they showed them on the big screen was not quite Potvin-level, but the boos definitely outnumbered the cheers. I recall Piazza at a Rangers game before his penultimate Met season getting a similar reaction, which caused one of the clueless weathervane columnists (Matthews probably) to insist Mike Must Be Traded. All I can really glean from these boos is that the Rangers attract a lot of MFYLDBs.

In the interview, Eddie mentions having appeared in "It's My Turn," the 1980 Jill Clayburgh vehicle. I was wondering what Eddie Kranepool was doing in a major motion picture thirty years ago. Son of a gun, I'm flipping around and on Universal HD, a channel with which I'm barely familiar (fairly new to HD as I am), I discover it's on tonight. So I put it on, endured its soppiness for an hour and a half and, at last, there's Eddie...and Buddy! It's an Old Timers Day at MFYS II where Jill Clayburgh's potential love interest, Michael Douglas, is appearing. They lingered on this scene for a long time. They linger on everything for a long time. The movie is in its ninth hour right about now. But Eddie Kranepool and Buddy Harrelson in high definition 1980 iterations of themselves -- worth it. FYI, Eddie wears the contemporary blue and orange cuffed, two button top, while Buddy's uni is straight out of 1977 or thereabouts.

That interview was not a little outstanding. It was totally outstanding. Calling Tom Seaver a "professional" seems Eddie's version of what Bill Clinton would do when he didn't much care for somebody: he'd tell him "that's a nice tie."

Reliving the Reyes Hot Start of 'Genny and the Mets, here.

The Mets were 10-0 in the first ten games in which he played, which must be some kind of Met record. He was batting, slugging and on-basing .316 when that stretch ended.

He dropped below 300 on the 2008 Forbes list of richest Americans, so he'd better keep charging. ETA: He bounced back to 272 in 2009. He has, in fact, kept charging.