Gwreck

It was pretty well documented that MLB provided assistance (ie. loans) to the Willpons; and that they refused to assist Frank McCourt as he attempted to negotiate a new TV rights deal which was key to his maintaining control of the Dodgers.

Tigers up 3-0 in the 6. Verlander retired the first 16 in a row before giving up a walk.

The Dodgers winning the LCS would be yet one more example of the positive change that can happen when you dump your shitty owner with legal troubles in favor of people with actual cash to spend. Plus the Cardinals have a couple of recent titles. The rooting choice is clear, however unsavory it may be.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: "At least he went down swinging." -Some Mets "fan," somewhere Let's not encourage it

If you absolutely must load the bases in the 9th inning of a 1-run game, at least you did it by putting ball 4 into Victorino's ribs. Good job Fernando Rodney!

Pittsburgh --- Oakland Tampa Detroit --- Los Angeles Boston St. Louis I have very little against the Dodgers, other than jealousy that they got rid of their disastrous owner and we're still stuck with ours. Boston the city may be generally sympathetic but their baseball team? Forget it. Two recent World Series wins together with a long period of general competitiveness (1 crappy season doesn't do it when 15 of your last 16 were winning seasons) engenders little reason to root for them.

I can sort of understand rooting for Boston if you live there. Which I think you do. But who else would want to root for the Red Sox? Particularly given all the other choices in the AL. -- Amazing facts learned tonight watching the Braves-Dodgers: 1. Freddy Garcia turned 37 years old yesterday. Yes, he's only 37! 2. Freddy Garcia is still in the major leagues! 3. Freddy Garcia is starting a must-win playoff game!

All of the first round games are on cable.

Great KTE. Although I am [crossout:36qp7k4y]pretty sure[/crossout:36qp7k4y] positive that Victorino is still a colossal douchebag.

Burnett totally crapped the bed for Pittsburgh. Two scoreless innings, and then he starts the third by walking the pitcher. Two batters later, it's Carlos Beltran. And well, we all know what Beltran does in the postseason. Holliday doubles, followed by a hit batter, and then two walks to load the bases and force in another run. One more single and it's all over; 7 runs in. Pirates relief corps did fine afterwards but that was just a terrible job, AJ.

Travis here. Reviewing the situation: It'd be fair to say I didn't really have a very good start to my major league career. Sure, I'm pretty good at framing pitches and my defense is solid but that's a fairly steady thing and not one that shows up in spades on any particular day. I guess I did have two hits and caught Dillon Gee's complete game victory on September 21 in Philadelphia. Rain-shortened? Who cares. --- Ike? Your season wasn't total shit, right? You must've had one good day in there somewhere...right?

I also would note that it's reasonable to assume that gross revenues will also be decreasing in 2014.

Vic Black had a nice September 24 in Cincinnati. Pitched the ninth inning to seal a Mets win over the Reds; struck out two batters (albeit one reached on a wild pitch) before ending the game by retiring the potential winning run on a ground ball double play. My first major league save. I also figured out that my teammates Rick Ankiel and Andrew Brown aren't the greatest spellers. What did you do this year, Scott Atchison?

Seemed like an outstanding crowd. Go Pirates.

Either Howie or Ed remarked on the the broadcast that he had a stroke.

Ceetar wrote: there's a minimum though ($6 i think) That's Stubhub's minimum charge. You can sell your ticket for one cent if you want. Stubhub will charge the buyer no less than $6.

metirish wrote: IIRC Stubhub sets the price when you submit a ticket to be sold, based on comps with similar tickets. I know it did when I had a ticket to sell for a concert(it didn't sell") No. The seller chooses the price. The comps to similar tickets is for the seller's reference.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Gwreck wrote: Plus, I am sometimes uncomfortable buying at a discount and having a third-party eat the loss; You mean the StubHUb seller? Isn't he presumably selling at market? Would you be more comfortable if he tried to gouge you by selling way above market even though the face value of his ticket has depreciated significantly? I get that this is not an economics argument. Of course the Stubhub seller is pricing the tickets at market value. I have no qualms whatsoever about buying a ticket under face value from a "professional" ticket scalper. It becomes a little more uncomfortable if it's a "ordinary fan" eating that loss.

Yes and no. There are still plenty of games this year which I did not go to (including the games against the Yankees) because the asking price was above my (and apparently many others') willingness to pay. Stubhub is only a partial remedy because the availability of tickets there is still limited due to the Mets' artificially high face value prices; many tickets go unsold and never reach market value because nobody wants to find out what that really is (ie. how much of a hit they'll have to take in order to sell their tickets). Plus, I am sometimes uncomfortable buying at a discount and having a third-party eat the loss; I'd much rather that the Mets price their tickets fairly from the start. If they did, I'd buy them from the team directly.

Edgy MD wrote: An interesting effect to introducing dynamic pricing is the reality that it's almost impossible to imitate constantly shifting marketplace of scalpers outside the venue, with tickets instantly spiking as demand increases, and nosediving below cover price the moment the event started. That might be true, but the "dynamic" pricing the Mets offer doesn't even adjust to the shifting marketplace for the week or two weeks or two months before the game even occurs. I know I have beat this drum many times before but the Mets have an artificial price floor. Dynamic pricing would be welcome if it was truly dynamic, but nobody wants to approach that reality, that the $100 "Field Box" seat they sell on their website is going for $60 on Stubhub. The Mets can't even plead ignorance here, as they know full well that tickets are selling for those prices there, given MLB getting in bed with Stubhub on ticket resales. We need look no further than the two games against the Yankees this year, which didn't sell out (or anywhere close), yet the Mets never dropped the prices.

Ceetar wrote: between Opening Day and the ASG and today.. I've seen it full a lot this year. If those were the only games you went to, sure. There were three games this year with paid attendance over 41,000: opening day, fireworks night, and this game. Attendance this season was 2,093,766, down 6.6% from last year. It was the fifth straight season of decreasing attendance.

Mets players threw all of their hats to the crowd after the game ended. I thought that was classy. Howie had a very nice sign off, thanking lots of people over the last few innings and then inviting everyone to join them for next season - "check your local listings." Seeing a sellout at the ballpark was strange. On days like this I am left to wonder what our stadium could be like if only we could get a winning team to play in it.

Great story on the WFAN broadcast (RIP) from Howie about the Piazza homer off Wagner in 1998, how the stadium went quiet and the only thing he and Gary heard were each other in adjoining broadcast booths going crazy on the air.

He was introduced as being on the Hall of Fame committee and also presented the award to Minor.

Props to the Mets for having a corporate-logo-free giveaway today.