G-Fafif

That was even weirder than the Dodger double-tag. And not nearly as satisfying.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: So how many years are left in Wagner's contract? How long is an eternity?

David Newhan sighting! Hide your children!

What does Richard Lewis know?

Richard Lewis called. He said this looks like the ninth inning from hell.

Though this isn't the least nausea-inducing quote of all-time... ]"I've been away for a while, but I think my heart and soul have always been here," he said. "I've got a lot of Yankee blood in me, and I always will." ...this seems classy enough: ]Part of Willie Randolph still is in his last job, with the people he used to manage. "That's my team," he said of the Mets Saturday... This is Mark Herrmann typically being a tool: ]...before going on the field in his Yankees uniform and being reminded that Yankee Stadium still is his home. He put his hand to his lips and then to the logo on his pinstriped jersey. He bowed and he tipped his hat to the fans in the bleachers and he soaked in Yankees fans' loudest, longest ovation during Old-Timers' Day The MFY will invite anybody to their ceremonies: ]"They were giving him a hug," said Al Leiter, a fellow Yankees old-timer and former Met. Anybody: ]"The two of us have been through the same thing," said Jeff Torborg, at Old-Timers' Day as a former Yankees coach 15 years after he was let go as Mets manager. They won't do it, but if they brought back Willie on the final weekend at Shea and introduced him as manager of the 2006 National League East champions, I'd stand and ovate. Someday, at Citi Field, should they have a reunion, same thing. And I'd overlook Leiter's easy-switch reaffiliation, too. I'd probably sit and look away if Torborg came back.

Murph is to 28 what Endy is to 10: an awesome leftfielder.

While Brandon Knight is off pitching for his country, Murphy has pinched his number, 28. Which will always belong to Bobby Jones and John Milner.

Willie at MFYS II for the massive genuflection that is OTD. Big ovation. Says his guys on Mets were David, Marlon, Damion, Aaron. Infer what you will about who weren't his guys.

For the first time September 25, 2003, the Mets have a Murphy: Daniel Murphy, called up and playing left as Marlon Anderson goes on the DL with hammy issues. He bats sixth. Carlos B. bats second to complete the retro feel (of sorts). Adam Rubin says this Murph "may be the best pure hitter in the Mets' minor league system, even surpassing Fernando Martinez." He's here after one day in Triple-A.

Colonial historians are already pushing for the nickname Massachusetts Bay.

Or not -- Bay becomes a Red Sock as part of Manny to Dodgers drama. Still doesn't have to call him Johnson.

NESN, says FAN, says Jason Bay is somehow involved...

Ya apparently have to call him Pirate.

Farmer Ted wrote: CNNSi says Manny and Torre to have man-love together in LA. Heyman reports it. That dude's got an edge!

You can call him Bay You can call him Ray But ya doesn't have to call him Pirate

Swells who buy season tickets aren't enthusiastic fans based on their being swells? The 4,000 affordable (or most affordable) seats is a scary number. All the numbers are already scary and that's in the present tense. The price on my ticket to see Billy Joel, the rarest and biggest of events for Shea, was actually less than the price on my ticket to see the Mets and Phillies last week, which was one of 81 games, even if it was a fairly big one (I was somebody's Field Level guest or I wouldn't have been sitting there). And it's gonna cost more than that? Even though I know it and have known it, wow. I can see the theoretical comparisons between Citi and MSG (all sold out to alleged corporate stooges), except there are twice as many baseball games as basketball games and Citi is twice as big as the Garden. Novelty does wear off -- April and May weeknights take up a lot of the season -- and an aftermarket infrastructure is in place, one that sometimes provides an in at relative (relative) bargain prices. It's a shame it has to be that way, but it appear it is that way. It's laughable that the "team of the people" all but dismisses walkup sales as a relic and isn't particularly interested in accommodating (that is taking money from) partial plan holders. One way or another, life will be different.

He goes into the Hall wearing a Yankees cap. Yankee for life. It's the fulfillment of a lifetime dream for him. (I assume.)

The Shea or Nay thread sent my mind reeling, or at least spinning. In the summer of '78 I was 15. It was the one summer when I was very much a beach bum, or at least went to the beach as a matter of course. Though I lived a few blocks from a perfectly good one in Long Beach, my friend Matt and I made a big point of riding our bikes several miles to Nassau Beach in Lido. It was somehow more exotic and had more amenities (snack bar, basketball court, swimming pool, girls who didn't know us). But there was one August Friday when I was told I would have to cut my trip short. Since I wouldn't have my cell phone with me for another 20+ years, I must have been under orders to check in or perhaps was given a curfew. Either way, my mother, going through a set of her periodic back miseries, insisted I come home early because she feared herself bedridden and didn't want to be alone in case of god knows what. So I rode home and I sat myself down to read about the Mets in the paper. Thanks to doing some digging as a result of the Shea or Nay thread and the question about where Gaylord Perry was pitching, I now remember precisely what I was reading. I was reading about the Padres beating the Mets on a Wednesday afternoon, which annoyed me because it was already Friday afternoon and the Mets had lost to the Padres Thursday night and why was I still on Wednesday's loss in Friday's paper? Because it was August 1978. The New York newspapers had gone out on strike earlier in the month and all I had at my fingertips were the strike papers that took the place of the Post, the News and the Times (we had stopped subscribing to Newsday when I stopped delivering it and it was hard to come by otherwise during the stirke, such was the demand for Long Island's paper bolstered by a temporary monopoly). The paper I was reading was the City News, which existed, like the Daily Press and the Daily Metro, to fill the void. They did a damn poor job of it, with their deadlines pushed way up from the norm. Printing and distribution was a chore, as you could imagine, for papers that had just sprung up in an industry that was rife with turmoil. Thus, in Friday's City News, while I sat around either hoping my mother was all right or wouldn't need anything (I was 15, what can I tell ya?), I had to settle for a game story from Wednesday afternoon with a picture of Jerry Koosman pitching in front of empty box seats (per usual in 1978). Kooz had pitched eight shutout innings and kept the Mets ahead 1-0, but gave up a baserunner in the ninth, left for Skip Lockwood and the Mets lost 2-1. It was another "poor Jerry, no run support" story. That's what was being relived in the paper on Friday, a game from 48 hours earlier. The Thursday night game, which Perry pitched, was a far less heartrbreaking 1978-style loss: San Diego 9-2. Mickey Lolich, I see, got the save. The Mets would lose that Friday night, too, to the Dodgers. Anyway, funny how all that sort of bubbled up from that one picture of Gaylord Perry at Shea.

I'm having a Dan Uggla type day. Perry's appearance at Shea is clearly from July 8, 1979. I failed to recognize the card itself as being from 1980 (thought it was '79; been a while since I was in those shoeboxes and what year were what cards becomes a bit of a blur for me after '77) and I confused the Padre road uniform with that which they wore in '78 (it changed quite often). Gaylord Perry pitched four times at Shea as a Padre. Three were day games, so it would have to be either June of '78 or July of '79 on the card. The uni gives it away. The last year of the big orange stripe as well.

Those short tan brick walls are one of the unremarked upon cues by which I always recognize Shea. Edited to reflect the August game was a night game -- and that it wasn't '78 at all; E-Blg'r

The Ron Darling for Sovereign Bank commercials strike me as surreal, as if I woke up on the couch and thought, "How strange -- I just had this dream where Ron Darling is walking around with his shirt untucked, telling me wherever he goes, he makes sure he's comfortable. Then he wanders into a bank. Then he's not there at all, just some teller. And everything is red! Whaddaya suppose it means?"

I've learned through the Edge commercial that the last-channel function doesn't work near quick enough to take me away from the "Jeter? That's guys' got an Edge!" coach character once the commercial starts. Bastard still gets to spit out the entire sentence while I'm fumbling to operate the remote effectively. Then I count off enough seconds to figure it's safe to come back to SNY, only to discover that those sneaks often go Edge commercial, something else, other Edge commercial (the one with the Latino cabdriver). Ironically, I have occasionally sought refuge at YES during Edge commercials. I'd rather get stuck watching real-time Jeter haughtily question how that last pitch could possibly be a strike if he didn't deign to swing at it than idealized Jeter be praised for his Edge. If others hadn't made a big deal about G. Franco, I doubt I would have noticed him, so great is the volume of shady infomercial-looking commercials on SNY.

Aren't "box seats," with the bars separating you from those in front of or behind or next to you, kind of archaic at this point? Perhaps they won't be configured the same way as Shea's (what with the advances in construction over the past 45 years) or perhaps they're just using familiar terminology. I don't think you really see them in the newer parks.

Certainly that is so, uh, prominent. Maybe NASCAR.