batmagadanleadoff

The folks here at the Typewriter Chewing Gum Company (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Plasticine Industries) lament the discontinuation of Heinz Vegetarian Beans, a staple of the TCG lunchroom and the linchpin of the famed Beaner Weiner - a grilled Hebrew National hot dog slathered with Nathan's deli style mustard, topped with Batamtpe New Kraut sauerkraut and a spoonful of Heinz Vegetarian Beans. There are no comparable vegetarian beans on the market. A few months ago, Heinz had decided to end production of all of its canned beans products. We mourn the loss of this edible delight which has given the TCG family decades of culinary pleasure. [FIMG=222]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51asCaLFD9L._SL500_.jpg[/FIMG] To honor the memory of this lost product, Typewriter will issue a special limited release of a Juan Soto Bratwurst card, available in the last packs of 2024 Typewriter Baseball cards. Check your local newsstands. [FIMG=333]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54268797316_3dfa30a2cd_h.jpg[/FIMG]

=Gwreck post_id=182759 time=1736665582 user_id=56] My advice is to first set a budget and then see what the options are in that budget.

OK, Nick. Whatever you say. Hey! I'm a Mets fan, so yeah. /does the raises one eyebrow thing

If the Mets offered Pete 3/90 in December and Pete now counters with 3/93.3, you'd figure this would gotten done by now, right? If the numbers are accurate and no other team stepped in to blow the roof off of those numbers, then what the hell could be the hold-up? Are the Mets haggling over one million dollars a year?

Bob Alpacadaca wrote: These two are punks and I have no problem banning them. But how is that enforced? What's to stop them from showing up at Wrigley or something for a random Cubs game? If they do that and are caught, they probably run the risk of being convicted of a crime. That should be enough of a deterrent. What else are you gonna do? You can't chop their heads off. And they don't have to be caught in the moment. Somebody could rat them out after the fact, too.

https://nypost.com/2025/01/10/sports/yankees-fans-banned-from-all-mlb-stadiums-indefinitely-for-mauling-mookie-betts/?utm_campaign=nypost_sports&sr_share=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitterhttps://nypost.com/2025/01/10/sports/yankees-fans-banned-from-all-mlb-stadiums-indefinitely-for-mauling-mookie-betts/?utm_campaign=nypost_sports&sr_share=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter Fans that tangled with Betts banned indefinitely Banned from all baseball stadiums for life. Good! That's what shoulda happened and anything less woulda been an outrage.

=metirish post_id=182631 time=1736471568 user_id=72] I've followed him for years in Twitter, he's just a fan... With some bad takes

My guess is that those slots haven't been sorted out just yet and that Spring Training performances will go a long way in deciding those matters. Baty's entire MLB career has been one dreadful struggle up till now but he has quite the pedigree: he was a high first round draft pick and not too long ago, a consensus top 25 prospect. And obviously whether the Mets sign a name corner infielder like Alonso or Bergman will impact this. This is all still very much in the air is my guess.

If the Mets ever reach that point, they won't say so in the way you describe. They'll just sign a different player as an alternative solution and that's how Alonso's camp will get the message.

I find it somewhat disturbing that Steve Cohen's interactions with David Stearns are described as "interferences". Is that credible? Who is Russ O'Brien, if I may ask?

=Centerfield post_id=182597 time=1736447340 user_id=65] Tanner Scott has been good for two years. He was kinda doodoo before then. Does anyone know what happened?

Give me a fucking break with this outsized credit this guy gets for the Mets winning it all in '86. He wasn't even the third best player on that championship squad. That team was such a juggernaut that Whitey Herzog, the manager of its most competitive rival Cards, was making concession speeches to his team before the fourth of July weekend and those speeches weren't psychological ploys. The divisional race was effectively over before the Summer even started and everybody knew it. That squad would've won the NL East even if the Carter trade never happebned and Mike Fitzgerald was still catching. Probably Mike Fitzgerald's mother, too. The idea that one guy gets that much credit for that title is lunacy. Frayed Knot wrote: Let's just retire the numbers of everyone who spends at least five years with the team. It'll be so much easier that way. Might as well if Carter's number is gonna be retired. And three year Mets who had twice the Mets career that Carter did. Like R.A. Dickey and John Olerud. It's a good thing that Carter was a five year Met. Those last two years, '88 and '89, when he was horseshit, are the essential years that should clinch his number retirement. Me, I'm not even convinced that Carter belongs in the Mets HOF.

Jim Bowden, writing for The Athletic, predicts where the remaining top free agents will land. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6039098/2025/01/06/mlb-free-agents-team-signing-predictions/

Collins' Dictionary 2024 Word of the Year is "Brat". https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/wotyhttps://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/woty Brat remembers the fringiest Met of this year, Joe Hudson. [FIMG=333]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54245378023_91c0899854_h.jpg[/FIMG]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: I have told the story before and must once more. My Dad took Bernie Sanders & I to Shea in '83 and for the first time in my life we got yellow seats (field level, front row in shallow right field). Sitting behind us that night was an Irish guy obviously watching his first baseball game ever, and we're helping his companion explain what he's seeing. At one point he asks if it were possible to get a home run without hitting it over the fence and we all assured him it's possible but never happens. Then sure as shit Mark Bradley bloops one near us--it's too shallow for Mike Marshall to catch and he awkwardly charges it but the ball goes behind him into the corner. Inside the park HR for Mark Bradley (starting for Strawberry who sits against Fernando Valenzuela). Wait a second!!!! You glossed over the part about Bernie Sanders. That Bernie Sanders? Tell us about that. This is shaping up to be some story.

Randle died in Murrieta, California. Lenny Randle, ‘Most Interesting' Major Leaguer, Is Dead at 75 His career was defined by bizarre episodes — blowing a rolling ball foul, knocking down a pitcher and being at bat when the lights went out in New York City. Lenny Randle, a versatile major league ballplayer whose career was defined by unusual events — he once blew a ground ball into foul territory, battered his manager on another occasion and was at bat for the Mets when the power went out in New York City — died on Sunday at his home in Murrieta, Calif. He was 75. His wife, Linda Randle, confirmed the death but did not cite a specific cause. Randle was playing third base for the Seattle Mariners on May 27, 1981, at the Kingdome in Seattle, when Amos Otis of the Kansas City Royals tapped a ground ball that trickled toward third. As it continued to roll in fair territory, on artificial turf, Randle dropped to his hands and knees and blew on the ball, huffing and puffing until it veered foul. The home plate umpire, Larry McCoy, called it a foul ball. But Jim Frey, the Royals' manager, lodged a protest with the umpires, and McCoy reversed his call, sending Otis to first base. Randle insisted that he had only been talking to the ball. “I said, ‘Please go foul, go foul,'” he said afterward. “I did not blow on it. I just used the power of suggestion.” By then, Randle was near the end of a peripatetic career, which had begun in 1971 with the Washington Senators. (He remained with the team when it moved to Texas, becoming the Texas Rangers.) He also played for the Mets and the Yankees as well as the Chicago Cubs. He was known for his speed and reliability, whether playing at second base, third base, shortstop or center field. A switch-hitter, he had a career batting average of .257, with 27 home runs and 322 runs batted in. He had his best season in 1977, with the Mets, with a batting average of .304, five home runs, 27 runs batted in and 33 stolen bases. But in baseball lore those statistics were, in more ways than one, overshadowed by the great New York City blackout that year. On July 13, the Mets were trailing the Cubs, 2-1, in the bottom of the sixth inning at Shea Stadium when Randle came to the plate. The Cubs pitcher Ray Burris went into his windup when, suddenly, as if a giant switch had been flicked off, the lights went out. “I thought, ‘God, I'm gone,'” Randle told The New York Times. “I thought for sure He was calling me. I thought it was my last at-bat.” Ten years later, he told Newsday: “I couldn't figure out whether he threw the ball or not, so I just swung. Then I didn't know whether I hit the ball or not, so I took off.” When he pulled into second base, he added, the Cubs' Manny Trillo “was waiting for me to hug and kiss him.” In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine called Randle baseball's version of the “most interesting man in the world.” Several months later, the MLB Network premiered the documentary “Lenny Randle: The Most Interesting Man in Baseball.” Leonard Schenoff Randle was born on Feb. 12, 1949, in Long Beach, Calif., and grew up in nearby Compton. His father, Isaac, was a longshoreman, and his mother, Ethel Lee (Smith) Randle, worked in the garment industry. After playing baseball and football at Centennial High School in Compton, Randle went to Arizona State University, where he was part of the Sun Devils' 1969 N.C.A.A. championship. He also played varsity football. He was chosen 10th overall, by the Senators, in the secondary phase of the Major League Baseball draft in 1970. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1973. Randle continued to be in the middle of bizarre doings. In 1974, he was at bat for the Rangers when the Cleveland Indians' pitcher Milt Wilcox threw the ball behind him, nearly striking Randle. Then, after laying down a drag bunt along the first base line, Randle retaliated, deliberately running off the base path to knock Wilcox down, sparking a brawl. And during spring training with the Rangers in 1977, Randle lost the starting second base job to Bump Wills and became so upset that he punched the team's manager, Frank Lucchesi, three times, causing a triple fracture to his right cheekbone and other injuries. “I never thought it would come to this,” Randle said afterward. “I'm just not that kind of person.” He was suspended for 30 days and fined $10,000 by the league. In court he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery, was fined $1,050 and settled a civil lawsuit filed by Lucchesi. Randle was then traded to the Mets a month into the 1977 season. The Mets were entering an especially dismal phase in their history: They would win 64 games that year and finish in last place in the National League East. But Randle excelled that year. On July 9, when the Mets played the Montreal Expos, he had hits in 13 of his last 14 games and was batting .310. During one game he made two diving catches, one saving a run. Then, in the bottom of the 17th inning, he crashed a two-run home run off Will McEnaney into the left field bullpen at Shea to win the game. After struggling in 1978, Randle was released by the Mets during spring training the next year. He played in the minor leagues in the San Francisco Giants' and Pittsburgh Pirates' systems before the Yankees acquired him on Aug. 3, 1979, the day after Thurman Munson, their All-Star catcher, died in the crash of an airplane he was piloting. Randle played sparingly for the Yankees but had a strong season for the Cubs in 1980. He finished his M.L.B. career with Seattle in 1982. In addition to his wife, whom he had met in elementary school when she was Linda Bradley, Mr. Randle is survived by their sons Bradley, Kumasi and Ahmad; three grandchildren; four sisters, Becky Osborne, Ruthie Downs, Barbara Edney and Theresa Price; and two brothers, Ronald Randle and Clyde Williams. Randle continued playing baseball for several years in the Italian Baseball League, or Serie A1. He was the first former major leaguer to play professionally in Italy and led the league in batting with a .477 average in 1983 playing for the Nettuno team, which he later managed. Fans nicknamed him “Cappuccino” for his “hard-hustling play, charismatic swagger and impish sense of humor,” according to Rolling Stone. He also ran a baseball academy and conducted instructional clinics, spoke five languages, performed stand-up comedy and recorded music with his band, Ballplayers. “He was like the wind that can never be harnessed,” Ms. Randle said in an interview. “He was never upset, mad or mean, and always had something positive to give to you.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/sports/baseball/lenny-randle-dead.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/sports/baseball/lenny-randle-dead.html [media=youtube]nEElfEsrYOY[/media]

no one thought this. I doubt that the Mets soured on Alonso so fast, if at all. He led all major leaguers in HR's in 2019, his rookie season, while playing half his games in a pitcher's park and had hit more HR's than anybody else after his first four seasons. That's not why Alonso was allowed to debut on Opening Day of his rookie season, 2019. Fred Wilpon couldn't give a flying **** that Alonso's free-agent eligibility would come a year earlier because Wilpon knew that his days as Mets owner were numbered and that 2019 would very likely be his last full season as owner. So Wilpon went all in on the 2019 season and Alonso's early free agency was going to be the next owner's problem. Fred Wilpon wouldn't be around for that. That's the same reason why deGrom was given an opt-out clause -- because by the time deGrom would be in position to exercise that clause, Wilpon wasn't gonna be around anymore. That would be the next owner's problem. That's also why the Mets signed Robinson Cano to a multi-year back-loaded contract that was guaranteed to age terribly. Because, once again, Wilpon wasn't gonna be around when Cano was guaranteed to collect eight figures while age-reduced to a scrub. That bad contract was also gonna be the next owner's problem. And that's why the Mets traded away a promising prospect with a high ceiling, Jared Kelenic. Because by the time Kelenic panned out, assuming he ever did, Wilpon wasn't gonna be around to benefit from Kelenic's prowess. Wilpon put every last one of his chip on the 2019 season because he knew that for himself, there wasn't gonna be a 2020 season.

How things change. Two or three years ago, you woulda figured that Pete would be in line to score one of the biggest contracts in baseball history.

Randle batted over .300 in his first Mets season -- no small feat in those days as Shea Stadium, pre-Doubleday ownership, was absolutely brutal -- just sheer hell on batting averages. After Randle's '77 season, the Mets franchise had about as many instances of single season .300 hitters as the Red Sox had batting champions in roughly the same time frame.

Did an awful, terrible thing in Texas and then found redemption in New York. Was one of the few bright spots on that free-falling 1977 Mets squad, having the best season of his career and becoming an instant Mets fan favorite. In hindsight and upon reflection, it's surprising that the very conservative-thinking Mets brass of that era would've acquired Randle in the first place after the Texas scandal. [FIMG=555]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54235174626_e7e8f8265b_h.jpg[/FIMG] [media=youtube]QfFN4oJQq-4[/media] [media=youtube]QmKQ2Z1odSc[/media] [media=youtube]E5ofVsxTPoc[/media] Edgy MD wrote: How many weird things is he known for? Punching his manager, blowing a ball foul, being at the plate when the lights went out ... the guy was a TWiB highlight reel all by himself. Here's some more Randle weirdness: He played in two games that ended up as forfeits: The last Washington Senators game ever, which was forfeited after fans stormed the field before the game ended in protest over the team's move to Texas and the ten cent beer game in Cleveland that was rendered unplayable after rowdy, drunken fans commandeered the stadium, the stands and the playing field itself. [media=youtube]CFtR38Mlscc[/media] One of the cooler cards from one of my all-time favorite Topps sets: [FIMG=411]https://cdn2.mavin.io/production/soldItems/304494634/images/image-0.jpg[/FIMG]

Frayed Knot wrote: Nor do I think bringing this all up is in poor taste. The death of someone in the public eye is a time for a review of their life. That doesn't mean the summary needs to be whitewashed. Totally agree. Besides, we're talking about public figures here. Celebrities. People that have lived their whole lives in the public eye. And presumably, none of us knew them on a personal level. So of course it's fair game. This is such an annoying pet peeve of mine. What? We shouldn't have said bad things about Charles Manson, either, right after he died? Ninny talk. OOOOOh. What bad taste! I'm with the Vipers! Everybody's an angel that goes to Heaven. So show me where Heaven is. Like on a fucking map. Thank you.

The Rod Gaspar book, published in 2019: [FIMG=311]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71QKWnO5NML._SL1360_.jpg[/FIMG] The Sports Illustrated cover: [FIMG=311]https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/2/baltimore-orioles-brooks-robinson-1969-world-series-october-20-1969-sports-illustrated-cover.jpg[/FIMG]

I wonder if people would go apeshit if he were to make a Dwight Gooden or a Darryl Strawberry lawn jockey?

Gaspar is blunt in assessing the rest of his baseball career. “I was very immature,” he said. “I was a single guy with a nickel brain who thought he'd be in New York for the next 10 years. No excuses.” Hodges wanted Gaspar to play winter ball, but Gaspar decided to stick around in New York. He and teammates Ken Boswell and Wayne Garrett were on the Dating Game, and he was chosen and won a trip to Switzerland. “That was the first year I didn't work out year-round,” Gaspar said. “I used to come home and play with the Long Beach Rockets, which was always good training since there were so older guys on the team. “I paid the consequences. Next spring, I couldn't hit and couldn't judge a fly ball. I deserved to be cut. Life is attitude. Sometimes people think they're owed something, and that was my attitude. I messed up in a big way.” Irony can be thick, too. He was sent to the minors by Hodges in '70 a year to the day after Hodges told him he'd made the '69 team. But he also met his future wife the next day. “God has plans for all of us,” he said. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Gaspar played well in the minors but never got a regular shot again in the majors. He played in 11 games for the Mets in 1970, then was traded to San Diego. He played in 33 games in 1974, then finished his career with two more years in the Padres' system in Hawaii. https://www.dailynews.com/2009/10/13/keisser-gaspars-time-with-69-mets-a-miracle/https://www.dailynews.com/2009/10/13/keisser-gaspars-time-with-69-mets-a-miracle/

Do you suppose Rod and Lynette "did it"?