MFS62

Hadn't there been an announcement that the Mets have picked up Steve Traschel's 2006 option?

And then there finally was a team: Born on this date: Grover Powell (1940) Transactions: Mets drafted Don Zimmer from the Chicago Cubs on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Hobie Landrith from the San Francisco Giants on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Al Jackson from the Pittsburgh Pirates on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Jim Hickman from the St. Louis Cardinals on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Roger Craig from the Los Angeles Dodgers on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Chris Cannizzaro from the St. Louis Cardinals on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Jay Hook from the Cincinnati Reds on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Elio Chacon from the Cincinnati Reds on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Felix Mantilla from the Milwaukee Braves on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Craig Anderson from the St. Louis Cardinals on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Gus Bell from the Cincinnati Reds on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Ed Bouchee from the Chicago Cubs on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Joe Christopher from the Pittsburgh Pirates on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Choo Choo Coleman from the Philadelphia Phillies on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Ray Daviault from the San Francisco Giants on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted John DeMerit from the Milwaukee Braves on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Sammy Drake from the Chicago Cubs on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Sherman Jones from the Cincinnati Reds on October 10, 1961. Mets drafted Jack Fisher from the San Francisco Giants on October 10, 1963. New York Mets released Takashi Kashiwada on October 10, 1997. ******************************************************* That date in 1961 will never make the highlights on "Great Moments in Drafting". The 1963 draft was conducted when MLB realized how really awful the Mets had done in both the expansion draft on this date in 1961 and their subsequent trades. Along with "Fat" Jack Fisher, they drafted a power hitting first baseman from LA, who had torn up the California League. I think his name was Bill Haas. He had hit around .350 with over 30HR and 120+ RBI. He never made it to the majors. BUT in the equivalent of the 1963 Rule V Draft later that year, the Mets had a chance to draft both Dick Allen AND Luis Tiant... and they passed on both. Later

From Today's Dallas Fort- Worth paper.The guy usually covers the AL Rangers."In My Opinion T.R. SULLIVAN Chris Burke hit a home run in the 18th inning so Phil Garner looks brilliant and the Houston Astros are on their way to the National League Championship Series with a 7-6 victory over the Atlanta Braves on Sunday. That it took the Astros nine extra innings to finally score the winning run against Braves pitching may have had something to do with Garner mistakenly using Burke as a pinch-runner for Lance Berkman, his best hitter, with two outs in the 10th and the game tied. That appeared to be folly, but Burke saved him with his home run and the world was left to marvel at Roger Clemens, at age 43, pitching three scoreless innings in his first relief appearance since he was a rookie in 1984. Forever lost to obscurity will be the fact that Dan Wheeler also pitched three scoreless innings, which may suggest that all those zeros on the scoreboard had more to do with the Braves' futile offense than with the Astros pitching. The Braves have won 14 straight division titles simply because they have some of the best starting pitching on the planet. But when they get to the playoffs, it becomes painfully obvious that they never bring enough offense to finish the job. Most ridiculous was ESPN broadcaster Rick Sutcliffe comparing Braves slugger Chipper Jones to Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, who is renowned for his terrific play under pressure. Sutcliffe was way off-base. Chipper Jones is to the baseball playoffs as a French cyclist is to the Tour de France, the English are to World Cup soccer and Lindsay Davenport is to women�s tennis. No matter how good you think they are, there�s always someone who proves to be at least a little better, whether it�s Lance Armstrong, South America, the Williams sisters - or Roger Clemens. Sutcliffe was much more astute when ESPN showed Nolan Ryan sitting behind home plate with a credential around his neck. Sutcliffe wondered why baseball�s all-time strikeout king actually needed identification for a baseball game in Houston. Speaking of ageless wonders: Enough of the Braves using Julio Franco at first base. He�s 47 years old and ought to be in the stands next to Ryan. Sure he has his uses. So do ice trays, Corona typewriters and four on the floor. But at some point you have to join the 21st century, and the Braves need to mix in a little offense with all that pitching. So the Astros are off to St. Louis for a rematch of last year�s National League Championship Series. Those who were paying attention will remember it as seven games of absolutely outstanding baseball. Most of America was far more engrossed in the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, particularly since their slugfests lasted twice as long as the crisp baseball being played on the National League side. The Red Sox, though, are sitting the rest of this one out, and the Yankees could be as well if they can�t survive their overnight cross-country flight and take care of business tonight against the Los Angeles Angels in Game 5. The idea of the Red Sox and the Yankees both out of the playoffs no doubt is a nightmare to the network bean counters, who rely on big ratings to justify their existence. They�re no doubt quivering at the prospect that the Chicago White Sox and the Astros have both the pitching and, unlike the Braves, the supporting cast to get to the World Series. A Heartland World Series would be perceived with utter disdain on Madison Avenue. The networks don�t mind crossing the Appalachians to cover our hurricanes, tornadoes and the occasional presidential caucus in Iowa, but they prefer to have their World Series based as close to the Hudson River as possible. Yet nobody will shed many tears for the demise of the Braves, the one team that still has trouble selling out their home playoff games. Some insist that Braves fans have become spoiled by success. But those fans may also understand that relying on some guy named Chipper and little else isn�t going to get the job done. That's true whether the opposing pitcher is Roger Clemens or Dan Wheeler."Later

Seven post-season starts for the Mets with only one win to show for it, and Leiter picks up the win for the Yanks. It must be the aura of the pinstripes. Later

OK, point taken. Replace that player's name with "perennial All Star Stud". The point I was making was that I would have thought that a player held in such high esteem to have been drafted by so many teams would have had a better career than Brooks did. He wasn't chopped liver. In fact he was a pretty good player. But my hopes for him (being a fan) were higher. Later

Jason Kendall - No home runs? As on ZERO? I noticed that the other day. No wonder he's been leading off. Later

Based on that player he turned out to be, I guess he was just trying to prove that you can fool all of the people all of the time. He was working his way through all the ML teams. Youda' thunk that someone rated that highly by so many people was going to turn out to be at least as good as a Reggie Jackson. Then again, there was Todd Van Poppel. Later

Its that time of the year again. The Junior GMs on the other boards have begun their mental masturbation.And when that happens, they have traditionally done something that is as useless as a third nostril.When they propose a trade of Player A for Player B, they get this urge to then post the entire 25 man roster with player A in it and player B not.I guess this is their way of proving to others on those boards how much they know about baseball. But it is a pure waste of computer resources.I'll climb down off my soapbox now.Later

""y'all got another think coming" totally the wrong word for the phrase, but it still works in context. i like it." That expression has been around for a very long time. You're right. It may not be proper grammar, but it "works". Later

"I never really thought about it before ... but New England might be the one section of the country that's both a strong baseball area at the same time as having strictly an American League mindset. " And St. Louis showed what they thought of AL baseball by driving the Browns (now Orioles for you young'ins) out of town. Of course, what the woeful Browns of the time were playing might not even have been classified as baseball. Later

Start that thread. Posting all the crap we hear from them shoud make it one of the longest threads ever to grace the CPF. Later

About the Levy comment: One of the most respected (as being knowledgeable) sportscasters in New York history was Bill Maser. He was also one of the pioneers of sports talk radio. I remember one broadcast of his when he was making a point that anything can happen in a baseball game. He said (and this is close to his exact words ), "Last night Koufax pitched a two hitter. One of the hits was by a guy names Tolan. Who's Tolan?" Bobby Tolan went on to be a pretty good outfielder for a number of years. But even the best sportscatsers can't be expexted to know everything about every prospect on every team. That knowledge is reserved for fans. Later

I have a soft spot for the Reds, too. (Except for the gambling mother-fucker) When my Brooklyn team moved West, I couldn't bring myself to root for them, or the MFYs. So I kinda floundered around looking for a team. There were a few newspaper stories that said the Reds were "reportedly" going to move to New York to fill the void (and also get out of 30,000 seat ancient Crosley Field into a new large NY stadium). When I read that, I started rooting for them, into the 1961 NL Championship (losing to the MFY's of course). But once the 1961 expansion draft took place and the Mets were a real team, they were mine. And they still are. Later

I loved watching the Connecticut TV station news this morning. The sportscasters on the stations, and even the announcers, love their Sawks. A typical sportscast is: 1) Red Sox game tape 2) Red Sox Interview 3) Yankee game tape, then 4) MAYBE (depending on the station) they give the score of the Mets game (even though more than half of the population of the state lives closer to New York than it does to Boston) One time, one of the anchors asked the sportscaster the score of the previous night's Mets game. The sportscaster said "I don't know". Then, after the sports, the anchors talk about last night's Red Sox game before resuming the rest of the news telecast. Well fuck them. Fuck them all I loved the looks on their faces today. I really did. Later

What does "Franco Still Alive" have anything to do with the thread so far? Its been all Manny, all the time. Or were the words just put in the title to pique our interest enough to make us want to open up the thread? Later

AL - Giambi NL - Griffey Jr. Comments? Later

="Edgy DC"] Almost as if the owners use Baseball America to select their managers from.Edgy, that might not be as outlandish as it seems. I remember reading that when Ned Irish was an executive with the NY Knicks, he was rumored to have shown up at the NBA draft with a copy of Street and Smith's College basketball annual, and would flip through the pages and draft the first high profile players he could find. (There were more rounds to the draft in those days)The story is most likely not true, and apochrycal at best. (I hope I used that correctly)But at least it is in keeping with your comment.Later

Now that you've had a chance to check out the playoff games, have you seen a player/ pitcher about whom you've said: THAT guy is starting for a playoff team? My thoughts were, "How lame must a team be if Orlando Palmiero is their regular left fielder?" Any others you've spotted? Later

I voted "d", but wish you had a choice like: I'm laughing at transaction #1 of the post-Cashman era. (Boss George goes totally bonkers in his never-ending quest to steal the back pages from the Mets.) Later

Yancy Street Gang wrote: We're not slackers. We're multi-taskers! Multi-taskers who are slacking? Later

Edgy DC wrote: Don't color commentators, particluarly athletes brought in as ringers in the post-season take their cues from the play-by-play guy as a rule? Yes, and that's what made Mike's performance so impressive. He seemed to fit right into the flow of conversation. He didn't seem to need a cue or lead-in. It was like he'd been doing it for years. Later

The early edition of the Daily News I saw this morning had the headline "Gaffe- anino". Cute. It was too early for the MFY game results. Later

I remember reading some stats a while ago that said that a runner on second has a 20% higher chance of scoring than a runner on first.(Not sure if that meant with the same number of outs.) But if that ratio is still true, then it seems that a successful steal should have a positive effect on scoring. Later

I wonder if the White Sox want to swap Japanese second basemen with the Mets? Theirs just went yard after Gafanino did his best Bill Buckner imitation. 5-4 Sox, of the Pale variety. Later

By comparison, I listened to today's Braves/ Astros game on radio. John Franco was doing the color. He basically sucked - he had to take his cues from the play-by-play guy about when to speak, and then showed a firm grasp of the obvious. And I'm sure his New York accent was grating to listeners in the hinterlands. Later