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Meanwhile, from Schaefer Year 1979, this note from Marty Noble's game coverage in the Bergen Record of September 24. http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/wp-content/uploads/CCDA14C9-5654-4409-8F91-E0475BE2FA55.jpeg>

Luis thanks you for watching him work. The finale at Citi vs. the Astros won't show much for anybody in the box score, but Guillorme was a machine at third base (where he hadn't been playing much), with 10 assists and a pair of putouts. How one chooses to Schaeferize that is up to the voter, but it's definitely part of the game story.

Really wish those two long ABs, by McNeil and Smith, amounted to something other than making Verlander rear back for a little extra. Man, when your team's offensive highlights involve working deep counts twice, that tells ya something.

The other fellows: Altuve DH Pena SS Alvarez LF Bregman 3B Tucker RF Gurriel 1B Diaz 2B Castro C Meyers CF

Rob Manfred opens up to ESPN's Don Van Natta in an attempt to make it clear that he doesn't really altogether suck. "It is the most ridiculous thing, among some fairly ridiculous things that get said about me," he says. "The assertion that I hate the game -- that one does rub me the wrong way, I have to tell you the truth." I don't know if this profile altered my perception, but it got me through the bulk of a long waiting room session this morning. A lot on pitch clocks, a little on expansion, nothing helpful on blackouts. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34130915/hate-baseball-wants-save-ithttps://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34130915/hate-baseball-wants-save-it

Escobar is 2-for-18 lifetime vs Verlander. Canha, also sitting, is 5-for-14 with a homer.

[media=youtube]rvUMTpenVRI[/media] Thelma Houston Whitney Houston Cissy Houston Allan Houston North of Houston South of Houston Enough of Houston. Enough of losing to Houston. Let's leave the home & home with something to show for it. Taijuan takes up the cause vs this Verlander character. He's not any good, is he? 1:10 on SNY.

Ender Inciarte, as No. 22, has been promoted. Nick Plummer has been optioned. (With Locke St. John DFA'd.)

Looking over a list of those suspended from the Angels-Mariners brawl, I saw Dom Chiti, assistant pitching coach for the Angels, got five games. He is the son of 1962 Met Harry Chiti, who, as legends frames it, was traded for himself. Dom Chiti has been a coach and front office guy for many years (he was on Buck's staff in Baltimore) but had escaped my notice until tonight.

Also DFA'd this week: Jonathan Villar by the Cubs and Jerad Eickhoff by the Bucs.

Nice story on Old Timers Day coming together, save for the unnecessary shot at Josh Thole. In the aftermath of the Mets' joyous announcement on Feb. 8 that they were going to hold their first Old-Timers' Day in 28 years on Aug. 27, one question probably reverberated around the offices at Citi Field: How exactly do you put together an Old-Timers' Day after not having had one since 1994? For answers, the Mets turned to the one baseball team in America that knows how to put on an Old-Timers' Day, having held one almost every year since 1947. The Yankees. Who were only too happy to help. It's not exactly like Macy's asking Gimbel's for help (or, for the younger crowd, Google asking Microsoft). The Mets and Yankees may be rivals on the field — at least for the four Subway Series games they will play in July and August — but share a city and an industry. So when Mets vice president of alumni media relations Jay Horwitz needed some help, he reached out to Debbie Tymon, the Yankees' senior vice president of marketing, to ask for advice on the massive logistical challenge that is Old-Timers' Day. “The first thing I said was, ‘Good luck,' ” Tymon said. “The fans love the rivalries, but I think on the business side of the game, sometimes they don't really always understand the challenges we all face. Sharing this type of information is a wonderful thing. There's the baseball side of the business and then there's just business. None of this is confidential or proprietary.” Said Horwitz: “I was picking her brain. ‘How long are the introductions?' The logistics of setting the game up. Debbie's an old friend. She's been very helpful to me.” There was more to it than that, of course. Tymon described the process a bit like a large wedding, with “Save the Date” notices followed by invitations and then trying to figure out who is coming from around the country. Then there are the financial arrangements. Each Old-Timer is given an “honorarium” for attending and also will receive a gift. The Mets settled on a snazzy ring for each participant, meaning the club had to find out the ring sizes for every single one of the 65 Old-Timers who as of this date have committed to attend (many of the names have been publicized, but the Mets have not yet released the complete list). Second-year owners Steve and Alex Cohen have made honoring Mets history a priority. Already this season, the Mets have unveiled the Tom Seaver statue (which was commissioned under the previous owners and delayed by the pandemic), honored late 1969 Mets manager Gil Hodges for his Hall of Fame induction, and are retiring Keith Hernandez's No. 17 on July 9. “Steve and Alex have really been supportive of everything we've done,” Horwitz said. “They said, ‘Let's just do it. Let's do it the right way.' And that's what we're trying to do.” The Yankees, who are holding their first Old-Timers' Day since 2019 on July 30, traditionally have an Old-Timers' game after the players are introduced. In 2019 — before the pandemic canceled Old-Timers' Day in back-to-back years — Mariano Rivera hit an inside-the-park home run, played centerfield and (of course) picked up the save. This year, the Mets' Old-Timers are going to play a game. But the Yankees' Old-Timers are not. “We are not doing a traditional Old-Timers' Day this year,” Tymon said. “We are not going to have a three-inning game. I have several alumni on the injured list — a little hip replacement, a little knee replacement. So when that all came into play, you say to yourself, ‘We still have to bring back Old-Timers' Day. There's a clamoring from fans to see the alumni.' So we're modifying it and going in a different direction just to move forward this year and then hope to return to our standard event in 2023.” Tymon said the Yankees are planning on having “well over 30” Old-Timers at their event, with the names to be announced shortly. The Mets, who are celebrating their 60th anniversary, have a guest list that is nearly twice that. That's because it's the first time they've held the event in nearly three decades, and also because one of the lessons Tymon taught Horwitz was you have to invite a lot of former players — and a bunch of younger Old-Timers — if you plan to play a game. For example, 35-year-old former Mets catcher Josh Thole is coming. Thole caught Johan Santana's no-hitter and was R.A. Dickey's personal backstop in his Cy Young Award season of 2012, but he's no one's idea of a Hall of Famer. But he's a catcher. And he's able-bodied. So Josh Thole will be introduced among the legends on Aug. 27, and then will be asked to do a lot of squatting. “I said, ‘Josh, you might have to catch for both teams,' ” Horwitz said. “He said, ‘Do whatever you need me to do.' You've got to get guys who can play. I was on a call with Mike [Piazza] and he said he's practicing. Mookie [Wilson] said he's getting in the cage a little bit, too.” Yankees Old-Timers' Day games used to be organized by former general manager and manager Gene (Stick) Michael, who Tymon called “the GM of the event.” Michael passed away in 2017. Since then, former Mets and Yankees player Lee Mazzilli has helped out with the game, and he also offered Horwitz advice about how to stage one for the Mets. “The Yankees do a phenomenal job with their Old-Timers' Day,” Mazzilli said. “There's no reason why the Mets are not going to do a great job with that, too. The most important thing is no one wants to be embarrassed out there. Baseball players or any athletes, they have that gene instilled in them, that competitiveness. You always want to do well whether you're 30 years old or you're 80 years old. “We'll have that all set up. You're going to ask a player, ‘Hey, can you go out and play shortstop?' And they might say, ‘Hey, I have a really bad hip. Can't go out there.' And then you say ‘OK, no problem.' And then you might tell a pitcher, ‘Go out and play second.' That's the fun part of it. “There's some guys you just run out there and let them throw for one batter so the fans can see them. There's no organization to it other than letting the fans enjoy seeing the players. You're going to have a fan that's 70 years old, 80 years old — they want to see the Art Shamskys. “Then the younger generations want to see their favorites. That's the beauty of it. ‘Oh, there he is. There's that player.' That's all it is. There's no rhyme or reason why someone is playing in what position or whatever. It's just a good ol' Sunday afternoon pick-up game that you want to see your favorite player play. Fans are going to see the players that are most recognizable when they were kids. They can tell their grandkids, ‘Hey, that was my favorite player back when.' And the kid will say, ‘Who's that?' and then you're able to tell that story about that player. That's the beauty of the game of baseball — to share those memories.” Tymon also advised Horwitz to prepare for a potentially hot late August day by having folding chairs ready for the more senior Old-Timers, stocking up on ice water and having at least two EMTs on duty in the dugout. Those and a million other details are all it will take for the Mets to successfully hold their first Old-Timers' Day in 28 years. “We haven't done this since 1994, right?” Horwitz said. “It should be nice. It should be a nice thing.” https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-yankees-old-timers-day-fm66awrxhttps://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-yankees-old-timers-day-fm66awrx

Regardless of his box score line, you could automatically lay in a half-point for Guillorme every game based on his defense and it would be very valid.

Angels DFA Juan Lagares. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/06/angels-dfa-juan-lagares-promote-monte-harrison.htmlhttps://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/06/angels-dfa-juan-lagares-promote-monte-harrison.html

McCann returns. Mazeika optioned.

You're quite welcome.

So I'm trying to remember a game at Shea - late 80's or early 90's - went super late. As I recall, some player didn't start - was out because of a family illness or wife gave birth or something - but as he was flying back home he saw the lights at the stadium, came to Shea, and got into the game. Am I totally making this up? Mackey Sasser, returning from his father's funeral. I was at this game, was freezing (April night; shoulda brought gloves), left in the tenth, got home, it was still going and there was Mackey in civilian clothes wandering into the dugout. Suddenly he's pinch-hitting. Made the last out. https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN199004170.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN199004170.shtml

I hate that the MFYs came from behind to win, but I'm so delighted to have seen the heretofore impenetrable Astro bullpen crack.

Jose Valverde was briefly the 2014 closer, though his mentoring of an emerging Jeurys Familia was his longer-lasting legacy.

Kyle Farnsworth is jacked, dude. Well, the pitcher who was named baseball's toughest player in 2010 is even more intimidating now. After hanging up his cleats following the 2014 season, Farnsworth turned to semi-pro football. That wasn't enough, though: Now Farnsworth is a competitive bodybuilder. https://www.mlb.com/news/kyle-farnsworth-is-absolutely-jacked-nowhttps://www.mlb.com/news/kyle-farnsworth-is-absolutely-jacked-now

Mark Canha, ally. “Well, baseball is an extreme example of a sample group,” Canha said. “It's a very different place from anywhere else. You have people from different places, geographically and culturally, but it's also a similar age group, demographic and a similar education-level demographic. There are a lot of factors that make a baseball locker room what it is. It's a pretty small sample of America, so I don't know if you can gauge the temperature of the country based on what's going on in a baseball clubhouse. “Coming from where I came from in the Bay Area, and in particular Cal-Berkeley, where I went to school, the professional baseball locker room was a culture shock. It is so much different from what I was used to, and it was a wake-up call. [Where I came from], you would be in the minority if you weren't an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. So I was working under the assumption that young people in their 20s and 30s are all on that side. And then you get here and you quickly realize, ‘Oh, okay, that's not the case.' “And it's athletes, too. You have masculinity, testosterone, whatever. The Rays situation doesn't really surprise me. It is what it is. The right way to approach it isn't calling anybody out, because that's where we are right now. That's like the thing to do, calling everybody out. Twitter slamming is what's fun for everybody to do, and easy for everybody to do, so I think that's the wrong way to go about it.” https://sny.tv/articles/mets-mark-canha-talks-pride-night-2022https://sny.tv/articles/mets-mark-canha-talks-pride-night-2022

Taxi squad, perhaps. Dom didn't arrive until late.

Ender Inciarte was released last week by the only team in MLB with a better record than his new one.

Mets sign guy who always killed them with his glove. https://twitter.com/martinonyc/status/1538974842816544770