Chad ochoseis

[bLOCKQUOTE] Bob Alpacadaca wrote: NEW YORK -- Amid a flurry of moves, the Mets on Monday added another patch to their bullpen, agreeing to terms with left-handed reliever Dicky Lovelady on a Major League deal. [/bLOCKQUOTE] Guy gave up his flourishing porn star career to become a middle reliever, huh?

And some of Fman's live guitar. I've been doing a lot of traveling and am just starting to watch the Mets again. Alvy has looked lost at the plate. I assume that, since he's still better than Senger, this is just a chance to get him to figure it out in Syracuse and he'll be back up in a month or two. Ike Davis was a completely different story. Valley fever affected him long term. If he'd stayed healthy, he probably wouldn't have been a superstar, but he had a good chance at a perfectly solid Adam LaRoche type career. But, yes, we have Torrens now, just like we had Duda then. And Pete when first baseman of the future Dom Smith turned out to be a flash in the pan. And DeGrom, when Rafael Montero did likewise. Etc. Etc. Etc. Quantity is better than perceived quality when you're counting on prospects to pan out (yeah, I know - Torrens wasn't exactly a prospect).

Dammit.

I'd rather see Alvarez than McNeil if I were the DBacks.

Didn't we just see this movie a couple of days ago?

Chad ochoseis wrote: Big risk there with a 6-1 lead, but Marte can still move. Wasn't that something Looking rather valuable right now.

Big risk there with a 6-1 lead, but Marte can still move.

Good job by Winker and Mendoza not getting themselves run out of the game, and by the first base coach making sure Winker kept his cool. I would have lost it.

WTF?

The ghost runner feels like something out of a six-on-six wiffle ball game at Camp Wakaconda. And extra innings are great. The point of speeding up the game wasn't to make games shorter as much as to have more actual baseball played during a baseball game. The ghost runner doesn't help with that issue. The one change not listed is the no-pitch intentional walk, which is an innovation I like. I never saw the point of throwing four performative wide ones, even if once in a rare while something interesting did happen in the course of throwing them.

[bLOCKQUOTE]Jeff McNeil: McNeil (oblique) will start in center field during a rehab game with Single-A St. Lucie on Thursday, Tim Healey of Newsday reports. McNeil has limited experience in center field, having made three appearances there with the Mets in 2023 and another three in the minors. With Jose Siri (leg) sidelined, the club would like to have McNeil as an option to play center field. That said, most of McNeil's reps should still come at second base. The 33-year-old appears likely to be activated from the 10-day injured list early next week. Injury Oblique. Est. Return 4/25/2025[/bLOCKQUOTE] If it came to that, why not Nimmo in CF and McNeil in LF? There was a lot of talk about Nimmo being the second worst CF in the NL one year, but looking at the dWAR, I remember seeing that there were maybe three great center fielders and the differences among the rest of the pack weren't large. So a lot of that chatter was overblown. I never thought of Nimmo as a particularly poor center fielder.

Alonso really makes the most of what little speed he has.

Agreed. But "Jack the Twins" wouldn't have worked as a subject header. I'm all for honoring him with an annual Day. But having everyone going out there with 42 on their back is only slightly sillier than having the entire team play second base every April 15.

Happy April 15, everyone. Tylor Megill vs Bailey Ober, who is apparently quite good. 1.06 career WHIP in is fifth season. Keeps guys off the bases, strikes out plenty and doesn't walk many, gives up a lot of home runs.

And Baty, coming off a good day, sits against a righty. Can't be much clearer that he's headed for Syracuse in a few days.

Glad I checked the schedule. Was guessing that the team would get a day to fly from Sacramento to Minneapolis. 7:40 on SNY. Gametime weather forecast is 46 degrees, with not quite enough rain to postpone.

Ump gently reminding the batter that eight run homers don't exist.

I'd like to say the Mets are looking good, but mainly the A's are looking bad.

Senga vs Severino, 4:10 PM.

Fewest - Mile High Stadium

Love this. My mom actually did go to Monroe High School in the Bronx. But she was six years ahead of Kranepool.

I haven't had this big of a crush on a backup catcher since Anthony Recker.

Winker blows his shot at the cycle.

I think the winner in the Baty vs Vientos battle to stay with the team is going to be Acuña.

metirish's post in yesterday's IGT thread reminded me that this hasn't been posted yet this season. Forgive us, Stockard and Swoozie. I knew it was a bad sign when my ex called me at work to tell me my boy wouldn't be coming down to the city to go to the game with me. She says he had a math test in the morning and she didn't want him getting home at midnight. I razzed her about that it was only one test, the Mets had their backs against the wall, it would be a good night for him and me, and on and freakin' on and then she just comes out and, blammo, hits me with the whole thing. She doesn't want the boy hanging around with me anymore after what he saw last time in the city, which was this girl who lives downstairs from me flopping on the couch. Also she said I was a drunk and I said doesn't going into N.A. and A.A. count for shit with you? But when I went into the rehab again that just set off all kind of alarm bells with her. She had forgotten that I had a problem I guess and it worried her that the boy would be hanging around with a man always on the verge of heading over a cliff. I said Come on! I haven't touched even a freakin beer in three months. But forget it. My son would not be going to the ballgame with me. You know I am not like these season ticket holders. I am in a "share" and go to a few ballgames a summer. I thought I was being cagey as hell, back in the winter, when I selected this Sept. 26 Atlanta game as one of my nights as Shea. For the last month or so I'd been staring at the ticket and thinking I was some kind of freakin genius. You and I, we were made for each other! That was my attitude. Even two weeks ago, I thought I was going to be present for the climax of the pennant race. But it turned out a whole hell of a lot different. And not only was creaky old Hershiser on the mound for a game that was just a backs against the wall game instead of a true pennant fight game, but my kid couldn't go with me... and my new boss at this new freakin place where I have been on my "best freakin behavior" for two months was holding me back, keeping me at work until almost 8 freakin o'clock. Christ, I hit the N and took it to Queensborough Plaza, switched to the 7 train there. Read that free paper, New York Press, on the way. That rag always depresses me. I was also listening to the game on the FAN. Down 5 nothing. Didn't bother me. I thought, "I will be there when we make our comeback." I had almost that same thought one Sunday night earlier this summer when I was helping the junkie girl through a bad time, and the Mets were down 5 zip to the Phils in the 8th and I nearly turned the radio off but something told me NO and we rocked Schilling for 5 runs in the ninth. What a ballgame that was. But that's a long freakin time ago now. Anyways, there was Shea. First thing I tell myself is, "I will not get a beer tonight. I will not get a beer." Because that could start the whole slide all over again. A losing streak of my own. I go in gate B with my two tickets and right away hit the Italian sausage cart. The line was long and I swear the guy was makin us wait for no good reason. You always see a lot of funny guys at Shea, guys who really make you laugh, and the guy in front of the sausage line was watching the guy turn over the onions and green peppers with his spatula and searing the meat until it had black stripes on both sides, and the guy was saying, he said, "I'm gettin' delirious here! I'm having a hallucination, I'm so hungry. Finish cooking it already!" But the cook kept taking his damn time. I guess that was the one power the cook had over other people, making them wait for their freakin sausage, and he was going to take every advantage of it that he could. I do the same kind of bastardish things at my job, too, I guess. Because who wants to be a freakin worker, an employee, a cog? Nobody. We were all kids once. Nobody aspired to be middle management or to stand at a hot sausage cart. Christ. So I said to myself, "Christ. This world is fucked up, get me a beer." And I paid the freakin $5.50 for a 16 ounce can of Bud poured agonizingly slowly into a cup. Got to my seat. I saw Weissman seated a few rows ahead of me and to the left. I wished my life were simple like Weissman's. Belief in God. Belief in a team. No alimony payments. No woes beyond what Valentine did or did not do. The girl sitting right in front of me was just a peach. Man, she looked like a young Stockard Channing. I always liked Stockard Channing. I have a thing for her. My wife used to say, my ex wife, I mean, used to say, "What do you see in her? She looks like a puppy dog! With you it's her and Swoozie what's her name. Why can't you be normal and like Christy Brinkley and those kinds of girls," and I would say, "Stockard and Swoozie just kind of do it for me, what can I say?" She secretly liked it, that I wasn't into the supermodel types. I quaffed down the beer. God it tasted good. It felt good too. I immediately kept my ear open for the beer man but now they got those bonehead waiters by the field and the beer man never comes. This Stockard Channing girl was damn smart and she knew it. Her boyfriend was a bonehead. He says to the other guy they were with, "She was a classics major. Do you even know what a classics major is?" And the guy goes, "Sure, Roman and Greek." As the girl starts talking about studying at Oxford and tra la la la di da, I did something I don't usually do. I started just winking at her blatantly and smiling and making goofy faces. Her boyfriend couldn't see me. He was directly in front of me. She was to the side. She smiled at me and gleamed up her eye for me and met my eye a couple time. God she was great. On the field the Mets were in hell. Cook couldn't get it over the plate. I felt funny from the beer and guilty. When Cook came out of the game and started giving it to the umpire, a weird thing happened to me. I started feeling all jittery. I was WITH Cook. You know what I mean? I know what it's like to be squeezed by an ump and it's freakin frustrating. I thought of all the calls I didn't get, maybe, and I stood and clapped like hell with everybody else. When Cook started covering the outer half of the plate with dirt, I tried to shout something, but my voice caught and I realized I was crying. Not like blubbering, but really tearing up and they were running down my face. I told myself this was not good. But I was really so touched by Cook and his frustration and the whole damn losing streak and my son not being there and paying that freakin much for the tickets and getting to the game late and the beer and the pretty girl it just sprung out of my eyes or something and I thought it was very beautiful, what Cook was doing on the field, and sad, too. And even as I was crying a little I wanted to kill the ump, too, and I mean really kill him. Chase him with torches through Queens. The Stockard Channing girl turned around to me. "Are you all right?" "Yeah, yeah," I go. "It's just... boy they were squeezing Cookie out there." She goes, like, "Whatever." Probably didn't know what "squeezing" or "Cookie" meant. I wiped my face. She still had the gleam. The boyfriend, a handsome soft guy, turns around and gives me the fish eye. "What are you looking at?" I go. He does the classic, "You two know each other?" I go, "Not yet." That was all. He didn't want a piece of Big Al. The bottom of the eighth inning was one of those beautiful baseball moments. The fans really got up and cheered, even before Henderson's single. It was loud, World Series loud, and everyone was following the counts and it was great. But then Piazza hit the ground out and Alfonzo had that soft, soft fly ball his second terrible swing of the night. I've never seen his swing the bat with such lack of authority. He is messed up right now. Either hitting sixth does not suit him anymore or he is in a radical slump and needs a night on the bench. All the "good" people filed out after that, including the Stockard Channing girl, who would not look at me now, after my little altercation with her beauty boy, and it was only the rabble left. I went behind home plate because I thought I saw an old friend of mine there, but it was someone else. A guy was wearing a Yankee jacket and a funny guy started giving him the business from a few rows away. "Yankees suck dick!" the guy shouted. The usher told him to can the profanity. And the guy said, "I said a bad thing. I'm sorry." Then he said things that were almost profane but not quite after that. Another guy started yelling at Rickey in the on deck circle. "You're old, Rickey! You can't do it anymore. Hall of Famers don't run, right, Rickey? Hall of Famers don't run!" Rickey shook his head and smiled. It got uglier thought when another heckler called him "boy." I wanted to kill that guy. That guy would have been cheering Rickey like crazy if things were going better, so why the "boy" crap? Why bring this racial shit into it? Man. Even in the field seats, the Mets fans can get freakin ugly. I mean, I will boo and yell, but not like that. After the ragged ninth inning, everybody left, but I noticed these two hot girls sitting with some guy. I mean, these women were incredible, one in tight leather pants with humongous cha chas under a tight sweater. "What's going on here?" I said to myself and waited for them to leave their seats. I followed them into the parking lot, and I was right. These were not usual fans. They were strippers from this place called the Airstrip and outside they and some other girls started passing out fliers to people. I took one. Christ. I got in a cab with some drunk fellows, Wall Street guys, who were going to check the place out. We got there and it was... you know. It's in the zone where you can legally have a strip club in New York. A "waitress" asked me what I wanted. I said Scotch, God help me. You know when Chris Rock does that routine, something about the girls don't do it in the Champagne room? Well, they do it, friends, they do it. I left there at about 5 A.M., much poorer both financially and spiritually. I was drunk, too, and couldn't find a cab. I walked out to the water. There was trash in it. What a losing streak. What a night. I had for some reason a pack of cigarettes in my pocket. I smoked one there. A guy was waking up by the dock. The planes started coming in from Europe overhead. The dirty seagulls and pigeons were battling it out as usual. I started walking until eventually I found the Jackson Heights subway stop and rode the 7 back to Manhattan. I stopped by my place for a shave and shower, slugged down a hell of a lot of coffee, went to work. And here I am at my desk, still looped a little bit, and the boss has been giving me kind of a cold look. I must look the way I feel. Hungover. This far from being a bum. But if that guy could have seen me when I was 17, 18, when my arm was at full strength, and you had the scouts and everything... ahh, Christ, what's the use. What's the use?