G-Fafif

rpackrat wrote: Nice story, but I'm not sure what your point is. Are you arguing that a GM should never trade young players for veterans on the off chance that one of those young players might become a Nolan Ryan? Never's a long time and no, it's not my point. If anything, I've spent the winter defending Omar's moves. I want to win now. I want to win now every year. The Mets are a little short on having won now, so I'm all for taking a shot with the players who have the best chance of making it so. But everything is a risk-reward situation and sometimes the risk yields no to little reward. The next Nolan Ryan is one possible outcome. The next Gary Carter or Mike Piazza -- the veteran acquired pays off and is worth the youngsters sent in exchange -- is also a possible outcome. I was just having fun with one of those outcomes. For the record, as a 9-year-old I thought 1) Good. Nolan Ryan's never going to become a winning pitcher. 2) Fregosi? Isn't he a shortstop? And we're getting him to play third base? That doesn't make any sense. Oh well. I was halfway there.

Good stuff, MF!

My Gotham homies are in Dallas tracking down winter meetings news as it happens. Me, I bring you no scoops and no sources. Just this: http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10032

Yancy Street Gang wrote: (Note: I haven't figured in the LoDucas, Delgados, Wagners, etc. This only covers the 771 who have played for the Mets through 2005.) And no doubt leaves Jerry Moses and Mac Suzuki checking their mailboxes in vain for birthday cards.

When the rest of you are celebrating New Year's Eve, Rick Aguilera and I are blowing out candles. He's got one more than me.

Elster88 wrote:Wow, you'd think I had bought some advertising space on their site the way I pimp it in this thread.We prefer to think of it as our Urban Businessperson's Platinum Package. It's the same one Scarlet purchased.Thanks to all FAFIF Ho's for your patronage.

Mark Healey wrote: I've stayed and tried to make nice because I have the utmost respect for Mr. Prince. I feel like Bill Clinton at the dedication of his library in November 2004 when he asked, "Am I the only person in America who likes both George Bush and John Kerry?" I'm down with Mark and I dig you guys. All questions about stories and motives are legitimate -- that's the beauty of the interactive life. But Mark is not making up stuff. He's a hard-working baseball journalist who shares a lot more a lot quicker than most do. And CPF is not a rumble. It's intelligent and generally friendly baseball talk, the only such place I've wandered to when I've wandered from my cozy blog nook. Bill Clinton tried to make peace in the Middle East. He didn't get it done. You guys can keep going at it if you want. But since my name was invoked, I just wanted to say that. And Let's Go Mets.

Zvon wrote: Never met the guy but we both attended Newtown High School the same years, from what Ive read. My dad's a Newtown grad, from waaay before Omar and you. Recently learned that a blogquaintance of mine went there as well. So many distinguished alumni! Well, you'll have to take my word on my Dad. The back page business is a Yankcentric contrivance. As my FAFIF partner Jason once put it, who cares if the Mets are on the back page, they're on my front page every day of the year.

Oh my gosh, I totally have to root for this team! They're awesome! Seriously, it's refreshing to see the view from outside the NY media cauldron, that not everything the Mets do has to be framed in terms of what might go wrong next. Boy do I hope we live up to Mr. Jenkins' expectations. (Rickey led AL for NYY in SB 3X, but I'm willing to ignore that in the interest of a good storyline.)

Oh boy, a dead horse! Count me in! http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1618

This was the first game in which the Mets wore names on their backs. It was an N.L.-mandated rule for all road teams. Even when the Mets went to nameless home togs for two Shea Subway Series games in '98 and all of '99, they kept the road names. With no separate league offices, the Dodgers and Giants now flaunt this regulation with impunity. Makes me wonder if the Reds were to show up to Opening Day with a DH whether anyone would stop them.

You might want to check footage of YS after Chambliss's homer in '76 or the last out was made in the '77 Series. No horses, lots of horses' asses.

Out: Mets named Mike. In: Mets named Tike. I'm head over heels over this. No foolin'. Tike Redman has been slapping us around for however long he's been in the big leagues. He was right in the middle of that Friday night debacle at PNC. I refuse to look up any statistics to disturb my perception that he's hitting .877 against us lifetime. I'm sure it's true. Tike Redman can't hurt us anymore. Except, perhaps, from within.

If it had been projected a year ago, it would've qualified as science fiction: ]NOVEMBER 28, 2005 -- The New York Mets have reportedly signed relief ace Billy Wagner. He will close games for the likes of Pedro Martinez. The news came hours after the Mets introduced Carlos Delgado as their new first baseman. Delgado mentioned he was happy to join his friend Carlos Beltran on the team. Truth is stranger than fiction. Happier, too, I hope.

]Yeah, I was thinking that G- had more guys who were at least summat like Orsulak than he'd care to admit. I have to admit I'm pretty shallow when it comes to favorite players. I tend to revolve toward good ones, at least in the context of good as it applies to the Mets at a given moment. Ask me this 25 years ago, I'd tell you my favorite Mets "are" Mazz, Hendu, Flynn and Stearns. In 1980, that would be the Met version of front-running. I have my share of Keith Millers, Ray Sadeckis and Marlon Andersons, too, I suppose, but they're not quite in the pantheon. Same could be said for Mike and the Kid. Loved them, just not excruciatingly. ]Rico? Really? Rico Brogna came along when I was vulnerable, just as Doc was falling into the abyss, just as baseball was taking a powder, just as the Mets were slipping off the surface of the Earth. His was the face that represented what I missed during the extended winter's nap of 1994-95. End the strike so I can see Rico Brogna. I never stopped rooting for him, not as a Phillie, not as a Brave. Just struck me as a great kid.

Universally speaking, Ralph Kiner has said for 20 years that Mookie Wilson is the most popular/beloved player in Mets history. Of course one could never tell if Mookie was being booed. Personally and chronologically speaking, it begins and ends with Tom Seaver. Growing up, the Mets were a 24 + 1 proposition for me. I liked everybody but I loved Tom. Doc and Fonzie are the only other two to reach that level in their time. At the next tier are three first basemen of the first order: Mex, Oly and Mr. Good Fit himself, Rico. Tremendously honorable mention: Darryl, Wally, Reeder, Melvin, the reigning champ Jose (Reyes, not Offerman) and, because everybody needs a guy like this on his list, Joe Orsulak.

I can see the headlines: PLAYER HAPPY TO BE HERE Excited to Join New Team

JD, I know this was one of your white whale quests, so congrats on harpooning irrefutable proof. The images immediately transport me to the afternoon I rushed home from the final dress rehearsal of "Li'l Abner" to catch the final inning of Opening Day and wondered "61? How come everybody else has a name and 61 is just 61?" It represented Jesse's debut and my Craig Swan song in the musical theater. If you told me that day in tenth grade that the guy who finished off the Cubs would be pitching well into the following century, I would've asked, as Senator Jack S. Phogbound, don't that take the rag off'n the bush?

Braden Looper Boner Or Pedal And many more: http://faithandfear.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2005/4/5/554647.html

The Mets may have been minted in 1960, stocked in 1961 and sent off into battle in 1962, but it was on this day in 1944 that The Franchise was born.Happy birthday Tom Seaver. Make it a Terrific one.

Gotham shares content with NY Sports Day. NY Sports Day shares content with Sports Fan Magazine. And they told two friends. And so on. And so on.Ah, the Web...

Edgy DC wrote:Greg, who decided to illustrate your column with an Ortizzle tee shirt?Dunno. I had no idea I wrote for Sports Fan Magazine either until you pointed it out to me.

San Diego of all places. Hope Cammy doesn't have flashbacks.

November 16, 1964: The birth of the single most dynamic performer and single biggest disappointment in Mets history.Happy birthday Dwight Gooden. Don't blow another one.

I knew of a guy in another industry, not sports, who would publish blind items like "major shakeup coming at big company". And when, eventually, a big company experienced a major shakeup, he could write, "as first reported here..." If you read "Worst Team Money Can Buy," you'll see Bob Klapisch and John Harper were caught in a vicious cycle of "One Met said" during their time on the beat. They each had their sources who could feed them inside stuff but didn't want to be identified. The question then became did they not use unidentified material and risk being beaten all together on this story or that or did they swallow the anonymity and keep the juicy bits coming? Obviously they went the latter route. Sources say lots of things at lots of times. Everybody has an agenda. Players and front office people have their reasons for floating trial balloons. Reporters and editors have reasons for wanting to run what they say even if it has to go without attribution. If readers suddenly revolted and said, "we don't want unsubstantiated information in our hands," then the various media outlets would print nothing until it was official. But the market doesn't work that way, especially today when not only is the score of last night's game long known before the paper comes out but ten rumors have made their way around the Web before the game even starts. I don't think any responsible reporter invents sources, not when there are so many people willing to talk in the first place. The rest comes down to discernment on the part of the reporter and the editor in terms of what to use and when to use it.