stevejrogers

I thought FK was out of options at this point? I could see putting FK on the DL, and giving him some rehab assignments. You know, an IGT start down there, couple of meaningful posts in rather pedestrian threads, etc.

KC wrote: Nice win, tomorrow the media will be all over the Mets for celebrating too much for a May win. Add "for a sub .500, fourth place team" to that. Though I think a lot of the attention will be on some guy returning to New York.

In the books!

Sorry Irish, Then again, these are three ultra right-wing "ends justify the means" guys. One of which, one of my cousins, pulled the same EXACT thing on a high school level when he heard a coach was soon to be out the door! Should also be noted that despite their devotion to the Mets, I wouldn't call them the most knowledgeable though. I mean they are the types who advocate the Joe McEwings and Endy Chavezs for starting time when the players they are replacing return, despite all evidence that the replacement players aren't good enough to be everyday starters (and often aren't good enough to be normal off the bench guys).

I have found the only guy, well actually the only three guys (all from the same family, one of my uncles and two cousins, all of them pretty much life long Met fans (uncle since '62)) who actually think Carter did the right thing, and should have been given the job! Then again, I'm dealing with three ultra right-wing "ends justify the means" types, including one (one of my cousins) who did the same thing on a high school level (contact a school before a coach was officially canned). I was completely stunned when all three of them agreed that what Carter did was a good thing, and that Carter should have been given the job on the spot! Starting to wonder if I'm actually the sane one in the family...

Frayed Knot wrote: It's all especially good when seen in contrast to the AL voters and their picks for the BoYank-Star Team where it's all pin-stripers and beaneaters plus that Ichiro guy - about half of which (maybe less) actually deserve the top spot. Yeah seems like every single year since the "rivalry" went super nova thanks to ESPN and the blogsphere that it's Red Sox v Yankees at just about every position. IIRC Robin Ventura was leading the pack for quite a while in the 2002 voting, but a surge of Sox Nation got Shea Hillenbrand the nod.

KC wrote: Checking the all-star voting totals on May 28th. It is Metly news. Update one, and should be the All-Purpose-2008 All Star Voting thread. To that end, the Red Sox are kicking all kinds of ass in the AL

Update # 1 Can't say this was unexpected the way things been going at Shea 1st Base, Lance Berkman of the Astros in a tight race with the Cardinals' Albert Pujols with the Cubs' Derek Lee not that far behind. 2nd Base, Chase Utley of the Phillies has this one all but wrapped up, and he actually leads all NLers. Luis Castillo shows up in the top 5. 3rd Base, Chipper Jones of the Braves by a little less than 100,000 votes over David Wright. Short Stop, Marlins' Hanley Ramirez leads with Miguel Tejada of the Astros and Jose Reyes not too far behind. Catcher, The Cubs' Geovany Soto leads over Brian McCann of the Braves. Outfield, The Cubs' Alfonso Soriano, and Kosuke Fukudome, along with the Reds' Ken Griffey Jr. are your top vote getters with Carlos Beltran about 48,000 shy of the leaders, Matt Holliday of the Rockies is just below him.

IIRC Caro and [u:215095l3]The Power Broker[/u:215095l3] is a big influence on MGIM and his career.

TransMonk wrote: Yeah, killjoy. Be careful what you wish for, we could easily get Journey or some crap instead. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON'T STOP...

IIRC it was always assumed that Hernandez was always the "unofficial" captain without the title as he brought his 1982 ring with him, was the unquestioned field general of the infield and the guy always talking to the pitcher. In Jeff Pearlman's book Keith describes an incident in the summer of 1986 where he actually identifies himself as the Met "captain" so even if he wasn't the official captain, or even the MLBPA rep (I believe it was Ray Knight at the time) for the Mets at the time he did consider himself a leader of the Met clubhouse. Not sure why it was made "official," perhaps the Mets were concerned with some off the field issues with Hernandez, or just plain thought he needed to be more of a leader than he actually was? Was he named after the infamous photo day fight with Strawberry in 1987?

Ex-Met Jeremi Gonzalezexits this world in a very tragic way. Translation from Google's translator ]The baseball player, Venezuelan, Geremi Gonzalez has died today in Zulia state when he was on a beach in the company of a friend and was hit by lightning, according reported the director of Civil Protection of Zulia to channel Globovision. The director of Civil Protection Zulia, Herm�n Bracho, confirmed the death of baseball player of the Magallanes Navigators Geremi Gonzalez, after a lightning fell on him in the town of Punta Palma Miranda del Zulia state. After the 9:30 at night this Sunday, the police forces of the municipality and Civil Protection Miranda approached a beach in the Punta Palma and found the body of Gonzalez in a spring. Those accompanying Gonzalez withdrew his body from the area and did not allow the authorities would approach, according to the version offered by Bracho. The body was removed in a boat sporting aimlessly known. It is assumed that it moved towards the town or township Mara Maracaibo. Wow, two years to the day of his last Met apperance

Nicely done, now lets go and squish some Fish this week!

Frayed Knot wrote: Losing to Lou's 114-win Seattle team in 2000 can't be the biggest sin in the history of managerial-com. The 116 wins was in 2001. In 2000 the Ms won 91 games, ended up winning the Wild Card due to the A's record against them in the regular season, and the White Sox won 95 games, which was the best record in the AL and tied for the second best record in the majors that year. The Mariners ended up sweeping the Sox in the ALDS.

Mike Piazza 10

]Now that Mike Piazza has retired, people are already debating whether his Hall of Fame plaque should depict him in a Mets cap or a Dodgers cap. If you look at the numbers, it's no contest -- his greatest years were in L.A. And as a lifelong Mets fan who never warmed up to Piazza, No need to read further. Already he is admiting a bias against Piazza, the rest is just semantics. But unlike Delgado, or even Gary Carter, Piazza still gave the Mets very solid years for a guy in decline. ]1. When it became apparent that he'd have to move from catcher to first base, Piazza's behavior ranged from disingenuous to manipulative. A classy player would've stepped up and said, "I'll do anything to help the team -- where do you want me to play?" But Piazza kept playing dumb, tossing out quotes like, "Well, management hasn't said anything to me about it, so I really don't know." Right, the whole city of New York is talking about it but you have no clue. Sure. When skipper Art Howe eventually mentioned to some reporters that Piazza would be taking some infield practice at first base and the reporters then told Piazza, he acted all offended because Howe didn't tell him beforehand. Look, dude, just play where the manager tells you to play and shut up. Show me where Piazza said that. A good journalist should be able to back up their use of quotations and actions. And since when does any player/manager/GM/owner actually come out and respond to media and radio caller SPECULATION if it hasn't actually been talked about amongst themselves. Did Lukas learn editorial writing from Wally Matthews? ]2. One reason he didn't want to play first base was that he was obsessed with that stupid record for most home runs hit by a catcher -- a record that exactly one person in town cared about. Can you guess who that one person was? (Hint: Rhymes with "Mike Piazza.") But was it really hurting the team though? 1) Was there a Todd Hundley type that Piazza was holding back by still catching (and no, Phillips doesn't count) 2) You didn't know it at the time, but Piazza made Jason Giambi of 2008 look like Keith Hernandez out there! ]3. Of course, once Piazza finally played first base, we found out the real reason why he'd been avoiding the issue: The guy's a horrible athlete. Great hitter, yes, but not a good athlete. No coordination, no footwork. And it went way beyond his inability to play first base. I defy anyone to find one instance -- one single instance -- of Mike Piazza properly executing a slide into second or third base. Never happened. Why? Get this: MIKE PIAZZA CAN'T SLIDE. It's true. When he tried to slide, he'd spaz out and trip. Really! Very, very picky there. Al Leiter was embarrassing as a hitter, but when Leiter was on, did you NOT want Leiter on that mound because he'd embarrass himself at the plate several times that night? ]4. When the New York Post implied that Piazza was gay, he held that little press conference where he declared his heterosexuality. OK, fine. But he missed a huge opportunity to say, "But what if it was true? What if I was gay? So what? What if one of my teammates is gay? What if one of YOU is gay? It's no big deal. Listen, I'm straight, but this whole thing is really a nonissue." In a city with a huge gay population, that was an opportunity to show some real community leadership, and he totally spit the bit. And there are Met fans who find fault with Delgado because of his stance against the US using his country as target practice. But if Delgado produced like Piazza, I'm sure those fans would begrude his status as major contributor without using it as a reason why he should not be remembered fondly as a Met. ]5. A few days after Roger Clemens beaned him in 2000, Piazza said that the incident had made him reassess the DH. "I thought the DH could be a good thing for me later in my career," he said, "but now I see that it's bad for baseball, because the pitcher can throw at the batter with no fear of retaliation." So what did he do after leaving the Mets? He shopped himself to American League teams with hopes of becoming a DH. None of them were interested, so he signed with the Padres, but then he went to the A's, where he happily DH'd. Hypocrite. Not the first, or last time someone, let alone a baseball player, made a declaritive comment after a real bad situation, then went back on his word, but again, show me where he said that. ]6. "The runner goes, here's the throw from Piazza -- and it comes in on two hops." Which really is the most overrated thing about catching. Please, to say nothing about how overrated the stolen base is in general. Did opponents run more on Piazza than other teams? Well maybe, but you'd better back that one up with some stats along the lines of it costing the Mets wins and such. ]Was Piazza a tremendous offensive player? Yes. Did I sometimes cheer for him? Yes. But he never fulfilled his potential as a star, in the fullest sense of that term. Too bad. Never fulfilled his potential as a star huh? Or is it that he never fulfilled his potential to win a championship? That probably is what Lukas means. Piazza was more Pattrick Ewing than a Darryl Strawberry in this regard.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: the sad part of that list is that Gooden and Strawberry could have been Nos. 1 and 2. I'll always see them for what they should have been instead of what they were, which I suppose isn't fair. Put the number on the wall -- quickly. Amen to that about Doc and Straw.

Willets Point wrote: I could see 31 being jointly retired for Piazza and Franco. I don't think it would violate the Mets standards to honor two beloved sons that way. I'm not so sure Franco qualifies as a beloved son though. Franco has a lot of Carter in him, but in this case the hype and legend is much greater than the actuality.

="Nymr83"] one more thing, and this isn't willie's fault but o'connors dumb editorializing: ]Randolph knew this second game with the Yanks was too important to watch on a clubhouse TV. what makes it so important? are they in your division? do you trail them in the wild card standings? i wish the writers would stop treating the "subway series" like it is anything more than the least important regular season games the mets will play. ITA, especially considering sometimes the same writers who write stuff like that will at the same time will state that there is no juice in the SS. You can't have it both ways, you can't say "Oh, there is no juice in the SS" and then go on about how important the games are as opposed to last weekend's series against Cincy. Perfect example last year, Wally Matthews often will discuss how meaningless the Subway Series games are to everyone who isn't a fan, but then called a Carlos Beltran at bat against Mariano Rivera during the first series Beltran's biggest since ending the '06 NLCS. Like Beltran's early season ABs against the Phillies and Braves didn't mean a thing.

Strike three and he has his NO HITTER!

One out to go. Runner on third (leadoff walk, advanced on successive ground outs.

In games that matter to the Mets, Nats leading the Phillies 4-0 in the 7th.

Jon Lester, no hitting the Royals through 8. Sox are leading 7-0.

Nymr83 wrote: can't make it, that spot you marked with a X used to be fine but wit the citifiel construction the Mets have turned everything they can into parking so not sure whats up there now. for example, they now charge you to park under some of the freeways where once you could park on your own for free. Wow. This year, because they were afraid of the lack of partial plans announced for Citi Field, my Dad's company (well, its just him and his partner in the firm) bought the entire season, just for the CHANCE to get in the park in 2009. Well anyway, pre-paid parking came along with the seats, so we (my Dad and myself) haven't driven to our usual spot underneath Northern Blvd. Heh, I guess its a good thing then! The only other place we generally parked is right around College Point Avenue. Which probably is safe from the Shea parking patrol!

Now THIS is more like it! 9 more outs, come on Oliver!