G-Fafif

Brian Schneider: A handy man with a texting device between pitches. Only answer I have as to how on earth 6% of team MVP votes would go to him. I've no idea how he made the final four unless it was as punishment to Billy Wagner. They probably could have issued the choices as Ryan Church or nobody.

But the win counts!

Gary cops to brain cramp, reassigns Maine's 2007 shutout to rain-shortened effort against Washington. An honorable broadcaster.

Gary just gave Maine a CG for the one-hitter last September 29. He departed after giving up the one hit in the eighth. But the more one forgets about last September, probably the better.

MFY Stadium Ninth Circle, HL 10451

More, more, more...how do ya like it, how do ya like it?

AG/DC wrote: As governor, I'd declare a bank holiday every time the Mets bat around. And every time the Mets batted around against Brad Penny, the use of what kind of currency would be suspended?

Let's roll us a Penny.

Let's Go Mets! Sometimes it just needs to be said.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: There was also a companion subway ad from that season promising Met fans all sorts of wonderful things that Swan, Falcone, Zachry and Scott were gonna do to the rest of the league. Bring your kids to see George Bamberger wince.

AG/DC wrote: Bollux, my favorite Mets year is and may well remain 19, 19, 1983. There were, in practical terms, three 1983s: � The first one, alluded to above, with the hopeless 6-15 start. � The second one, which included the extreme makeover of Strawberry and Hernandez and (though he wasn't a long-term solution, at least he showed some life as opposed to his predecessor) Frank Howard. There were growing pains aplenty, as the 31-50 mark between May 6 and July 30 would attest, but there was the wisp of hope in the air. Every win seemed to indicate a brighter tomorrow, no matter that the losses far outnumbered the wins. � Finally, the tangible payoff, beginning with the July 31 doubleheader to which you point, with Jesse winning both games and Mookie scampering home for the sweep. The most thrilling stretch of 31-29 baseball fathomable, last place and all, setting the table for what one could only imagine in '84. Within the parameters of hell represented by 1977-1983, '83 was the light at the end of the terrible tunnel. I personally view 1980 and its Magic summer with the most romance from this period but '83 clearly paved the way out of hell.

Willets Point wrote: Wow, it's hard to remember an era with Strawberry, Kingman & Foster all together at the heart of the order. Now if they were all together during their primes that would've been kickass. Puts me in mind of the ads I saw at LIRR stations in '82 of how Kingman, Foster and Ellis Valentine were going to form a metaphorical utility and light up New York with all their power. Timing is everything.

I'll always remember the absurdity of the double call-up; Strawberry and Ashford leapt to mind immediately when I saw "on this date," because it annoyed me that Hubie Brooks, one of my favorites, was being benched and/or made an example. The Mets were about as dreadful as they had been at any juncture in the entire 1977-1983 period (4-15 after winning their first two) and Darryl was there for the injection of life but Tucker Ashford? The ex-Padre? Granted, Hubie was (and this part I had to look up) batting .224 with 1 lonely homer and 6 stray RBI, but Tucker Ashford? It felt like some kind of strange "let's take the pressure off Darryl by bringing up somebody else while we're at it" gesture. You're benching the guy who finally solved the third base problem for Tucker Ashford? Seaver's return notwithstanding, 1983 from the beginning felt like we'll throw some guys on the field and hope the season is over soon and maybe nobody will notice how bad we're going to be (as did '79 and '80, come to think of it). That would change by September, but it was definitely the vibe of April and earliest May. Noble is right when he says no debut in Mets history was as anticipated as Strawberry's. Fine piece.

That settles it -- the 2008 Mets are to be known as the Wrightmen. Would you believe Churchgoers?

One year to the day of his final home run. He wore out his welcome here but I was rooting for him, too.

SteveJRogers wrote: Just that he was just as guilty as Gary Cohen is when he puts JUST as little more into "ITS OUTTA HERE" when calling a Met home run than an opponent's. As well as the fact that Murph just plain wanted to accentuate the positives of Met players. Sure he wasn't a negative person, but that can be taken as homerism by non fans. The guy sure wasn't a Caray, or a Rizzuto, or a Sterling or a Hawk Harrelson, but one could sense that Murph indeed was a fan of the team he called games for. Listen sometime, if you can find it, to Murph's call of Terry Pendleton's home run off Roger McDowell from September 11, 1987. As Howie Rose has put it in appraising the beauty of Bob Murphy's broadcasting, you couldn't tell if the call came from the Cardinal feed or the Met feed. It was typical of Murph's work. You spend decades with one team, you're going to have an inflection betray your affiliation from time to time, but the good ones give you the action and let you figure out your emotions for yourself. Murph did that. Cohen does, too. You've got to stop creating vague straw men to make your points, Steve. "That can be taken"... "one could sense"... "have been grounds"... these framing devices are beneath someone who's as much a student of broadcasting as you are. If somebody's accusing Bob Murphy of homerism (and in 2008, I can't imagine it's coming up very often), state who said what. Otherwise I don't put much stock in the "some people are saying..." school of reportage. It smacks of Walter Winchell at his red-baiting worst.

SteveJRogers wrote: On the flip side, Murph's "Happy Recap," the fact that EVERY lazy fly ball was a "line drive," the fact that he rarely (if ever) had a bad thing to say about a Met have been grounds to label Bob Murphy a "homer" by non Met fans through the years. Except that Murph didn't call lazy fly balls line drives.

From Tom Verducci's masterful 2003 SI profile, "What Is Rickey Henderson Doing In Newark?": ]Mets manager Bobby Valentine removed Henderson from Game 6 of the 1999 NLCS, replacing him with Melvin Mora. New York lost on a series-ending bases-loaded walk by Kenny Rogers. Henderson reportedly was in the clubhouse playing cards with teammate Bobby Bonilla when the deciding run scored. Asked about the incident, Henderson offers a qualified denial: "Kenny Rogers came in the clubhouse, and we was playing cards? If Kenny Rogers made it off that mound and we was playing cards, everybody in America, even the press, would have been there when we were playing. So you can't say that. "Was it an excuse? These two guys [Henderson and Bonilla], you had took us out. We tied the game up, and you took me and him right back out of the game. What for? For defensive purposes that you said? Moore [sic]? That's your judgment, and you're my chief and you're the manager. And I have no say-so. Does it frustrate me? Yes, because during the postseason I feel that's when the people that's gonna rise to the top should rise to the top, and I feel I was always one of them type of players." What he said.

From Page Six, the guest list here a bit intriguing. ]May 2, 2008 -- TO celebrate his 31st birthday the other night, Mets centerfielder Carlos Beltran craved some rice and beans with pollo frito, so he asked Jimmy Rodriguez to shut down his East 57th Street joint, Sofrito. Diving into the authentic Puerto Rican cuisine were teammates Jos� Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Oliver Perez and David Wright, as well as catching instructor Sandy Alomar Jr. When the band cranked up, pitcher Johan Santana rattled the maracas and Endy Chavez pounded the drums. Marc Anthony took the mike to sing "Feliz Cumplea�os" and "Mi Gente." Just when you thought it couldn't get any wilder, Jennifer Lopez grabbed the birthday boy and shook her world-renowned booty. Then, the crowd improvised a song with the lyric, "We're going to win the World Series." The team that plays together, stays together. At the risk of overreading Los Mets subtext into the situation, I was rather elated to see David Wright among the celebrants. A leader on and off the field, bridging whatever cultural gaps may (or may not) exist among the players? Or just hungry for rice, beans and pollo frito? And will Beltran ask his pal Jimmy to open a concession at Citi Field to boost the Mets' ballpark food rating?

Oliver Perez probably believes Billy Wagner to be a real son of a...

Wow, that was painful. I don't know him well, but I've met Will a couple of times, and Jason of FAFIF is good friends with him, and there's nothing overtly diabolical about him. I agree with JCL that you could slip, fall and dislocate a shoulder from all the detached snark and irony wrought by Deadspin and its imitators, but the whole enterprise strikes me as pretty harmless and mostly entertaining. Buzz Bissinger wrote a great book about high school football once upon a time. Bob Costas was an erudite breath of fresh air in the stale world of sports once upon a time. Those were very long times ago.

From Adam Rubin's game story: ]Wagner called the Mets "fortunate" to be 14-12 and openly criticized Perez. "Perez has honestly got to step up and know that we've just used every guy in our bullpen the night before," Wagner said. "He can't come out there and decide that gee, he hasn't got it today, and so be it." Asked if someone ought to relay that sentiment to Perez, Wagner suggested it would be "pretty much" like talking to a wall. Perez, for his part, was unfazed by Wagner's remark. "You have to help your team going deep in the game," he said. "I was trying to do that." Pleasant cross-country flight these fellows must be enjoying.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: There were better choices at Tradition Field when I was there in March than there were at Shea when I was there two weeks ago. Shea has variety at the Field Level, but if you're in Loge or above, it's not much more than pizza or hot dogs. (You can also get nachos and sausage heroes. But I think that's about it.) Knishes seem to come and go. Grilled chicken sandwiches aren't too bad and accessible. I miss the all-level Havana Cubanos. But yes, there is a bizarre caste system to the concessions, a vestige, perhaps, of the early 20th century when "box seats" must have carried far more cachet than they do now.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: ="G-Fafif"] Shea has tried to do some interesting and local things, like the aforementioned Daruma.... Next time I'm at Shea, I'm gonna give this one a shot. I've never tried the Shea sushi before because of some preconceived notions I harbor about eating sushi from a baseball stadium ... Shea Stadium, particularly. Yeah, there's definitely an East Coast bias working against it as overly chi-chi, but it's pretty close to the perfect ballpark food, fingerwise. Daruma does it, so you're not at the mercy of Aramark. Within the realm of overpriced, it's a pretty decent value compared to the $4 pretzel and such. But if you're not seated in the orange circle, better show up 45 minutes or more before game time when you can roam field level unimpeded, otherwise you'll find yourself trying to convince overofficious ushers that you, an adult, aren't trying to pull a fast one, just trying to buy something you like. It's often a losing argument.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Does anyone think Willie gets fired during this season with the Mets reasonably in contention? I'd like to hope it can happen. But what has to happen for that to happen? Ownership seems uberconscious of image. Until lately I thought they'd never consider offing Willie or Omar en route to Citi Field because they'd like to be stable or at least take on the appearance of stability. But if the first month is indicative of the team's performance, a little over .500, hanging in there in a so-so division, and if the play is lethargic (injuries notwithstanding), I can't see them hearing the FAN and reading the back pages and not getting itchy. Willie, right or wrong, will be judged as much on last year as this year. If he's doing his zen master thing and the Mets aren't producing any more than they did in the last four months of '07 (I think returning him was his get-out-of-jail-free card, as in "hey, collapses happen, he won a division last year"), there will be consequences. Since the one-third mark of 2007, the Mets are a .500 ballclub, exactly: 67-67. That's five-sixths of a season, a pretty large sample. They have not lived up to their payroll at all. They have a new toy and he can only pitch every five days and he's not rubbing off on anybody else or sparking anybody or doing more than, well, pitching every five days. Santana's fine, but he didn't raise the offense or the hustle or the general competence of his teammates. That's not his fault. The miasma that has overtaken the team more days and nights than not may not be anybody's fault except those who might be judged to have underperformed. And who generally receives the blame for circumstances like those? The manager. The manager is supposed to be the team leader (isn't that what David always says when asked about being the captain of the future?). The manager is supposed to set the tone. Whatever tone is being set isn't really sounding a great note. Perhaps it will in May. Perhaps a little calm and a little patience is what this team needs. I have a hunch it isn't and I have a hunch that Willie will be the fall guy...before fall.