stevejrogers

Frayed Knot wrote: - famously served up Aaron Bleepin' Boone's ALCS-losing HR but came back to play a HUGE role the following post-season when his innings-eating durability allowed the spent Sawx staff to recover for games 5, 6 & 7 of the 2004 ALCS Hate to bring up Uber-douche Wally Matthews, but this does bear mentioning as it is a clear example of his douchebaggery. Heading into that 2004 ALCS, Matthews had declared that, thanks to the Aaron Boone homer, the Yankees had "solved" Wakefield, and that Wakefield was DONE when it came to pitching against the MFYs. Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh, about that...

Jason of Faith & Fear said on my posting of that collage on Facebook that it did help tell the arc of Carter's Met career in a way. Specifically his 1990 card.

The late Gary Carter's regular Metly Topps cards

Edgy DC wrote: I've in the past compared Paul McCartney to Tom Seaver. But there's a thread between Paul and Gary Carter. Both lost their mothers as pre-teens and were raised by doting single fathers, who sought to replace the lost maternal nurturing but delivered it with a grave manly ruggedness. The future John Paul II is another of this ilk. All were formed in part by this tragedy. And though they expressed and spread great amounts of exuberant joy, they did it with a deadly sober seriousness. While they were perhaps surrounded with teammates who took fun in more reckless behavior, they knew how short life was, and how powerful the opportunity presented was, and how huge the stage. All elicited eyerolls from their colleagues in response to the simple pieties they seemingly represented, but all nonetheless had the game to get accepted into the coolest of clubs --- though none of them were cool. And when systems and circumstances collided and there was nobody else in room willing to be a grownup when the time called for it, they all had the... whatever --- courage, arrogance, the gravity of their fathers --- to step up and lead those clubs. Strangely enough the thought came to my mind last night that Hernandez and Carter were pretty much the Lennon-McCartney of that 1986 Mets team.

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Whistleblower is saying that the Mets knew exactly what Madoff was, and chose to do nothing about it. Despite having her looking over the books. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/null/2012/02/5234058/whistleblower-returns-noreen-harrington-once-star-witness-spitzer-crusa

[youtube:4pdb2vuf]qYS732zyYfU[/youtube:4pdb2vuf]

Just to further illustrate the point about the downfall of pitching post 1970s. 13 of the decade's CY award winners were future HOFers. Granted that includes 2 each for Seaver, Carlton and Perry, and 3 for Palmer. But it still shows of the quality of pitching in that era. In the 1980s, Carlton would rack up two more Cy Youngs, Rollie Fingers gets an oddball AL one in 1981, and you have Roger Clemens' back-to-back in 86-87. Questions about Clemens' HOF status aside, that is still not an impressive tally of HOFers, or potential HOFers. You can talk nice MLB careers out of Fernando Valenzuela, Rick Sutcliffe, Dwight Gooden, Orel Hersisher, Frank Viola and Bret Saberhagen, but for the most part the CYs of the 1980s pale in comparison to earlier decades, and later decades.

So many absolute greats were coming around the final turn --- Seaver, Sutton, Palmer, Niekro, Carlton and such Speaking of Knucksie, at 21-20, the last guy to win and lose 20 in the same year! You know, it is kind of a shame that prior to Mike Maroth, the last 20 game loser was pretty much an obscure Brian Kingman. Had it been HOFer Phil Niekro, or even a guy like Jerry Koosman who had a solid big league career (I've seen people place his overall career over Glavine's) maybe the stigma of a 20 game loser would not have been so great. Speaking of the A's, and going back to your point. 1979 starts Vida Blue's career tailspin as well. Also, Dock Ellis' big league career ends in 1979 (but not before donning Metly pinstripes), to pick another star that burned bright in the early 1970s but crashed and burned by decade's end.

Couple of tragic baseball happenings of course with the death of Thurman Munson, and tragic in lesser terms, but still in terms of how his life would turn out in the immediate aftermath of, last full season for J.R. Richard.

Pirates and Reds also take the entire decade of the 1980s off in terms of postseason appearances. They'd do the same in the 2000s as well. Nolan Ryan, in his final year in Anaheim, is managed by the man he was traded to the Angels for. Fregosi survives 1980, but is replaced by Gene Mauch mid-way in 1981, who skippers the Angels to their two postseason appearances in the 1980s.

Edgy DC wrote: [*]The pennant-winning Orioles seemed to have a new batch of star pitchers to build around, but Stone, Flanagan, and McGregor ended up having modest mostly anonymous careers after. The last pennant for The Earl of Baltimore. They would still have good showings for the rest of Earl's run before winning it all in 1983, the first year of Weaver's first retirement. Also represents the last WS starts for Jim Palmer, who pitches out of the pen in the 1983 WS. Also the season pretty is the beginning of the end for his career as well.

Edgy DC wrote: Randolph too, to my thinking. It was more an impression than a statement of fact, however. I hear ya. Randolph came to the Yankees via the Pirates.

Edgy DC wrote: [*]The Angels become the first Frankenstein team (to my mind, anyhow) to make the post-season seemingly completely comprised of parts from other teams.[/list] I believe the MFY of 1976-1978 counted Munson, White and Guidry as the only homegrown cogs to those pennant winning teams.

metirish wrote: Makes no sense American League Championship Series MVP: None. For reasons known only to the BBWAA, the NLCS award was created a few years before the NLCS one was.

It is also weird in the sense that all 4 1978 postseason teams would return in 1980 in one form or another (DAMN IT, I AM CALLING A PLAY-IN GAME #163 OR THE OLD NL SERIES PART OF POSTSEASON PLAY). Though all except for the Dodgers returned under a new full-term skipper (Dallas Green stepped in late in 1979).

DocTee wrote: I like that the Mets cards reflect the "new" uniform color scheme-- hardly any black visible, save for the Wright "throwback" card. Unfortunately,

Being the guy that forced Jose Reyes to take that final curtain call after the last game of the season.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Heck, I'd say Michael Jordan more closely meets the description than Jeter. Jordan, or Tiger Woods, might have been the most recognizable and popular athlete in the world. I like how he takes Jeter's shortcomings -- the blandness -- and pretends they are virtues. Which he, and Tiger as well, took from Jordan. metirish wrote: Jordan and Woods are bad choices too, did either of them EVER say anything remotely interesting on matters like race , equality and justice? , if anything they have been shills for big business and would never say anything to upset that. Comparing athletes to a man like King is folly , perhaps the athletes with the raised fists at the Olympics fit the bill here. Good point. Especially damning in Woods' case since that is how his father tried to hype Tiger as being that next transcendental type of athlete, on the level of Ali. I do think that the mainstream sports media really wants to write that narrative though, that there is an athlete today that fits that transcending the toy and games department persona. Hence tripe like Mathews' piece. Great case in point, when the Olympics were held in China, in the build up, (preliminary tournaments, etc) there were some rumblings that some of the USA Basketball players (LeBron, Kobe, etc) would be making statements in some form. Nothing eventually came to pass and ESPN through Outside The Lines ran a piece wondering what happened and suggested that the NBA, and/or their corporate partners wanted to quell any thing that could jeopardize growth of big business commerce in China.

Ashie62 wrote: SteveJRogers wrote: It is amazing that he's take that stance considering the current narrative among the emo Met fanbase is to point out how many potentail HOFers, or just plain stars have had career nosedives upon joining the Mets. emo fanbase? Whatever term you want to describe the fan that always decries the fact that as soon as a star player puts on the Met uniform, they start playing well below their career norms, often break down or whatever other malady befalls the likes of Glavine, Alomar, Vaughn, and any other Met that never quite did what Met fans expected of them (current whipping boys would be Bay and the injured and often "not clutch" Santana (don't look at me for that)).

Ceetar wrote: Edgy DC wrote: Bill Price somehow thinks Barry Larkin vetoing his trade to the Mets diminishes him and therefore hopes he doesn't get into the Hall of Fame. which is clearly why A-Rod won't get in right? Ah but the Mets were the ones that didn't want him. Not the other way around. =

Oh, and I forgot the other narrative in the situation about praising the guy who already has a championship ring in his pocket* for sticking with the organization that they came up with. *usually they get shat on if they had yet to get a championship or even play in a postseason like Delgado refusing trades from Toronto

It is amazing that he's take that stance considering the current narrative among the emo Met fanbase is to point out how many potentail HOFers, or just plain stars have had career nosedives upon joining the Mets.

So, I'm reading a season-by-season review of baseball in the 1970s called Big Hair and Plastic Grass by Dan Epstein. I get to the 1973 NL East race segment and he begins the origin story of Ya Gotta Belive. However, well I don't think the author has the story quite right in terms of what usually is the story, and from Tug himself. In fact quite the opposite with McGraw saying it in the snarky sort of way, as opposed to the way McGraw always told it that he was legitimately fired up by Grant's weak ass pep talk. IIRC the story goes that he had spoken with a therapist or something like it earlier in the day, so he was riding high on positive energy (probably chemically induced as well) And speaking of Grant, the author paints him as a doddering old fool (which could be the case, but that's another story) who commended McGraw for his attitude. Yet, and I forget where exactly I saw it, but Grant really did see it as McGraw mocking him and it probably sealed Tug's eventual fate to be an ex-Met. Sure it would take a while, but it wasn't exactly a case where Grant was so naive that he thought McGraw was seriously THAT taken by his words.