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Johnny Dickshot wrote: White people suck! First young kids, then white people. As long as you're not expecting any young, white kids/people to enter your life anytime in the foreseeable future, you should be fine.

Frayed Knot wrote: I think declaring yourself in favor of raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens is slightly more controversial than the stuff Wright listed. He's got a brother at Va Tech - explaining his football team of choice. He's totally rooting for the Hokies in whichever bowl they're playing in.

Things David Wright likes, according to his just-completed mets.com chat: His puppy Homer Virginia Tech football Cliff Floyd Willie Randolph Jay Horwitz Sleep Not having to face Billy Wagner Fastballs down the middle Howard Johnson Hearing "Let's Go Mets" at Yankee Stadium The chance to play at Fenway in 2006 Being a Met as long as they want him Not having himself on a fantasy team so he can win Representing the USA Uniform No. 4 but it was taken by the third-base coach Mixing up his AB music 3-2, two out, runner on third, ninth inning Traveling Texas over USC in the Rose Bowl The black home unis Spending time with his family Jessica Simpson and Eva Longoria: "I'm not picky" In other news, he picked the Mets to finish first; thinks Cliff sticks bricks or dumbbells in his luggage; is called D-Wright, D-Dubs and Rook by his teammate; and remembers playing for the Little League Green Run Padres like it was yesterday Let's just say it wasn't Zabriskie @ CPF.

Edgy DC wrote: The '86 combo is still a pretty good idea. Except that it took place on the road, what about KH, GC and JO going over their options in NCLS Game 6? At least we know that that mound conference led to good things. Adding my overexcited cheering for the Spaceman's design. You can't tell, but I'm jumping up and down.

Centerfield wrote: Who's the mystery Met hugging Mora? Roger Cedeno. It's 1999 NLCS Game 4 and Oly has just chased them both home with a single to take the lead.

Edgy DC wrote: Nonetheless, a death of OTD is lamentable --- a casualty, along with Banner Day, of the destruction of double headers. An OTD that brought back opponents of that era would be sweet, featuring a comical dressdown of Mike Scott. I was actually kind of looking forward to giving the business to Charlie Kerfeld. Show Gary Carter the ball will you? (So much for statute of limitations, let alone rampaging maturity.)

="Edgy DC"]Rafael Santana: No idea what he's up to. Elicits few positive or negative reactions from Mets fans. Will be conspicuous neither in his presence nor absence. A previous regime might have given less energy to finding him than Omar’s might. Chance that he'd show: 70%. Not to mistake your perception of the general for my very personal, but I LOVED Rafael Santana. He was a family favorite in that disproportionate way you have assigned to Lenny Dykstra (he was also well thought of back in the ol' homestead). No real reason, just Ralphie. We named a stuffed dog after him -- high honor in a household where real pets weren't welcome. When the Mets brought back oodles of heroes and legends for Amazin' Memories Day in 2000, two alums brought me jumping from a mere standing O. One was Willie Mays, the other was Rafael Santana. He also got a rousing ovation (not just mine) at 1992's OTD, possibly the last all-Met-hands on deck affair. If he was the "worst" SS in the NL that year, it certainly didn't hurt our cause. Re: Buckner -- In the old days, Old Timers Day brought back not just Mets but Met opponents. Other OTDs were like that. It would be, how you say, classy to have some Astros, some Red Sox, some NL opponents of the day show up. One would like to think Dave Smith would be treated better in 2006 than in 1986. Statute of limitations and all. The first "special" day I ever requested being brought to was Old Timers Day. The second, third and fifth games I ever went to were Old Times Days. I've given this at least as much thought as Fred Wilpon. That said, I'm with Elster88. Let's get another trophy and call it an anniversary present.

]He probably could have shown more foresight with regard to that when he demanded the 3-year deal. There is a sad, Clan of the Cave Bear quality to this, with the Mets operating as the Neanderthals and Seaver getting sucked into their prehistoric values system -- the three-year contract that predated free agency -- when he could have been one of the emerging Homo Sapiens exploring a new world. I may be drastically misrepresenting the movie here, but hopefully you get my drift. Seaver likely signed his 1976 deal with an old-rules mindset while baseball had moved on to new rules. The Mets' comfort level with free agency has been anything but consistent: 76/77: An insult to our delicate sensibilities! 77/78-80/81: Small potatoes, little meat. 81/82-89/90: Get that stuff out of here! 90/91-92/93: The answer to our prayers! 93/94-97/98: Can barely tolerate it. 99/00-03/04: Like it, don't love it. 04/05-05/06: Wait here while I find my checkbook. I wonder if any other franchise has swung back and forth on the issue in the thirty years since it became part of the player procurement equation.

From The Perfect Game by Tom Seaver and Dick Schaap: ]On March 2, William Eckert, the commissioner of baseball, ruled my contract void. Jess Hill, the director of athletics at USC, had protested my signing to the commissioner's office, quoting organized baseball's rule that no team could sign a college player after his school's season had begun. By February 24, USC had played two other college teams -- California Poly and San Fernando State -- and even though I hadn't pitched in either of those games, I was off limits to professional teams. From The New York Mets by Leonard Koppett: ]Among the regulations that had been worked out when baseball adopted the free-agent draft was a provision to help college coaches and the professional game live together. A college player in his junior or senior year could not be signed once his college team's season had started. What came around went around and around: 1) The Mets gained Tom Seaver in 1966 because of a new rule involving free agents -- amateur free agents. 2) The Mets lost Tom Seaver in 1977 because of a new rule involving free agents -- this is a little more indirect, but certainly the Mets were flummoxed by the coming of the re-entry draft and what it meant to baseball. Seaver was still simmering over Grant's refusal to go after Gary Matthews the following winter and it was obvious to him that he was stuck in a plantation situation while all the other serfs were going free. 3) The Mets lost Tom Seaver in 1984 because of a new, short-lived and quickly discredited rule involving free agents -- the compensation pool. The name Dennis Lamp will forever turn me off since it was his signing by the Blue Jays that gave the White Sox (who lost him) a chance to pick any unprotected player they wanted. 4) Tom Seaver ended his career in a failed comeback with the Mets in 1987 in the wake of collusion winter, a shameful episode aimed at curbing free agency that Seaver, in an interview in the last couple of years (can't remember where), says kept him from re-signing with the Red Sox or getting any other offers. Claimed he could have rehabbed and pitched sooner than June of that year. By then he was done. Four different spins on free agency, four different impacts on Tom Seaver and the Mets.

Julio Franco is so old that he picked the White Sox to repeat...as long as Buck Weaver and the boys are playing on the level. Julio Franco is so old that he tested positive for the clear and the cream...on his liver spots. Julio Franco is so old that when he pops up, it's an ear of corn.

Sweet and cinematic reminiscence on Kong (or Sky King)... http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1767

Julio Franco is so old that when he heard the Mets would open against Washington, he studied his scouting report on Walter Johnson. Julio Franco is so old that when he heard the Mets would be going to RFK, he said, "count me out, I'm sticking with LBJ." Julio Franco is so old that when he was found out the Mets would be heading west on their next road trip, he told his teammates he'd meet them at Pennsylvania Station for the overnighter to St. Louie. Julio Franco is so old that when asked what he thinks of Wright, he replied, "he's good, but I'm not so keen on his brother Orville." Julio Franco is so old that he played with a guy managed by Casey Stengel who in turn was managed by John McGraw who played in the 1890s. Oh wait, that one is true.

Elster88 wrote: ]He's fucking Roger Clemens, that's why. I agree completely, though I prefer Roger Fucking Clemens. Yeah, I don't think anyone prefers the other thing.

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Imported players who stick around can become one of our guys. I agree that this sentence nails the sentiment square on the head. We all likely see Cliff Floyd as one of Our Guys. He wasn't once. Pesonally, I couldn't stand him for years. Thought he was surly, unnecessarily harsh toward Valentine and too much of a Met killer to ever adopt. Now he is, to borrow an unfortunate construction from another team, a true Met. He came over in a flurry of moves that I didn't like. I didn't recognize my team. But he endured. Glavine, even, endured from then and I tend to think of him as a Met. This is really more an issue for December (which is fine, because we need issues for December) than it is for June. Come June if the Delgado, Wagner, Julio Franco, Tike Redman Mets are in first place, and those guys are playing beautifully alongside David Wright, Jose Reyes, Cliff Floyd and Pedro Martinez, then we're less likely to think of the new guys as mercenaries or interlopers. They'll be Mets and we'll be happy. Assimiliation happens. Why not Clemens? Because unlike what some talk show hosts would have you believe, life and fandom are not either/or propositions. We do make choices. We do stretch and narrow parameters as logic and emotion instructs us. That's why not Clemens. He's fucking Roger Clemens, that's why. Invoking Robin, Mike, Al and other 1999 Mets who came from elsewhere wasn't intended as parody, Edge. They are proof that you never know where Our Guys are going to come from and how quickly they will become Our Guys. Robin Ventura was just some American Leaguer to me. Olerud was taking over for my man Rico. Mike was the guy who, to my warped sensibility, was getting credit that Todd Hundley deserved. Leiter was an annoying Marlin. Rick Reed beat us an important game in 1988 and then played in replacement games. Turk Wendell was a flake. And so on. Especially in this era, baseball teams are a process. The process tends to spit some guys out faster than we care for and absorb some guys we're reticent to have. The proof, generally speaking, lies on the diamond.

Beyond their talents and their ceilings and their youth, Reyes and Wright give us emotional cover. The Mets are not trying to buy a championship. They developed two great young players! The second either one of them is gone (prior to said championship being actually garnered), we're rooting for just a bunch of Messians. Whatever happened to the good old days of building a team you loved with homegrown guys like Piazza, Olerud, Ventura, Henderson, Cedeno, Dunston, Hamilton, Leiter, Reed, Hershiser, Yoshii, Franco, Benitez, Cook and Wendell? The only prospects we watched climb the organizational ladder to 1999 were Alfonzo and Ordonez (I wasn't watching Agbayani, he just appeared). That was enough. I will borrow a line from my blogging partner: Having a team full of guys who came up through your system is like excellent posture. It's nice, but it doesn't make that much of a difference. This is not an endorsement of a trade for Jose Reyes or David Wright. Don't be crazy.

When the Mets presented their Ten Greatest Moments in 2000 as voted by the fans, the founding of the Mets was voted No. 10 and you were introduced to the crowd to represent the '62 Mets. What did it mean to you that almost 40 years later the fans remembered that team and what did it mean to you to be their standard-bearer and receive their (our) applause?

Valadius wrote: Greg, you beat me to it - today is the sixth anniversary of John Olerud's signing with Seattle. It's also the 64th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The reason I clearly remember it as December 7, 1999 was that in discussing the breaking news with my skewed-perspective pal Joe, he said, "Screw Pearl Harbor. We lost Olerud." I responded silently to Joe as I usually do when he gets a little too caught up in the moment.

Zvon wrote: Pete Rose wore one in the '73 playoffs. Between then and Olerud Id never seen it done. Reggie Jackson wore one for the top of the ninth of the final game of the '77 World Series to protect him against his own loving fans.

Zvon wrote: Pete Rose wore one in the '73 playoffs. Between then and Olerud Id never seen it done. Reggie Jackson wore one for the top of the ninth of the final game of the '77 World Series to protect him against his own loving fans.

A couple of noteworthy Met items on Gotham today, both from Mike McGann in Dallas. He rounds up some thoughts from Willie, most notably a straight-faced insistence that Kaz is his 2B. http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10261 And -- this I found surprising -- Jeff Wilpon is by no means an impediment to progress or universally considered a nimrod with a lucky last name. http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1732 Judge for yourself if you like. Thanks!

A couple of noteworthy Met items on Gotham today, both from Mike McGann in Dallas. He rounds up some thoughts from Willie, most notably a straight-faced insistence that Kaz is his 2B. http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10261 And -- this I found surprising -- Jeff Wilpon is by no means an impediment to progress or universally considered a nimrod with a lucky last name. http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1732 Judge for yourself if you like. Thanks!

From one of the absolutely GREATEST baseball books ever written, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book by Brendan C. Boyd and Fred Harris (published in 1973): ]Everybody remembers Wayne Terwilliger. But nobody can remember exactly why. Wayne was the perfect utility man. He couldn't hit his hat size, but he could field every position. He wouldn't help you out very much, but he wouldn't embarrass you either. He had a a good disposition, was always sober, and liked to pitch batting practice -- in other words, a manager's dream. He also looked like a utility man -- he had a utility man's face, a utility man's build, and a utility man's outlook on life. And certainly no one could argue the fact that he had a utility man's name. He always looked to me like the sort of guy you might send for to unplug a drain in a large apartment house. Of course, what made it even better was that he played with some of the worst Washington Senator teams of the early fifties, teams consisting of entire rosters of utility men.

Centerfield wrote: Great article. And that!

Edgy DC wrote: History doesn't necessarily need a villian. The record is pretty strong that Steve Phillips, whatever his flaws, didn't turn his back. I've always harbored a grudge against Phillips over the departures of Olerud and Reed based on the feeling that if a guy wasn't a "marquee name," the GM found them disposable. They both overachieved here. They both contributed to winners. Neither of them caused a lick of trouble. Each was let go. Olerud has indicated that if he were shown a little love ($$$) after 1999 that perhaps Seattle wouldn't have felt so much like home. Granted, this makes him a human being, not the saint I prefer to think him, but I could've handled that. (And thanks for the "lovely".)

Except for those who lost money betting on him in relay races, I've never heard a Mets fan say a bad word about John Olerud. He probably belongs in the recent discussion of most beloved Mets ever. Given his truncated tenure, nobody ever had a chance to sour on him. As such, his stature only grew. Not that he didn't deserve it. http://faithandfear.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/7/1439373.html