batmagadanleadoff

My dad bought me my first Sporting News the week I graduated elementary school. The Cubs "Three M's" were on the cover: Mitterwald, Morales, Madlock. He offered to get me a subscription; "It's the Bible of Baseball," he told me (a description a little out of code by then). I declined, mostly because I enjoyed going to the Cozy Nook and purchasing it every week. I had a sub to the Digest after having read it off and on for 2 1/2 years, but would get antsy when an issue hit the stands before it arrived in my mailbox. Once I was so overcome with impatience that I bought it ahead of delivery, which annoyed my mother. Once I went to college, I subscribed to TSN and continued for ten years until it became useless and I switched to SI, which I still take 25 years later. [fimg=666]https://guideimg.alibaba.com/images/shop/2015/08/12/6/the-sporting-news-june-7-1975-bill-madlock-rick-monday-ron-cey-baseball-magazine-publication-dean-s-cards-6-ex-mt_7503006.jpeg[/fimg] The first subscription TSN issue I ever received in the mail was also a Cubs cover. [fimg=777]http://i.ebayimg.com/images/a/(KGrHqR,!qYE-ZMj5lcLBPq73g746g~~/s-l300.jpg[/fimg] Folding Baseball Digests and stuffing them in your back pocket? That's a sin.

I got a subscription to TSN shortly, probably immediately after discovering it. I remember taking one particular issue to school to show to a friend of mine because there was a cool picture of a Met swinging a bat with some newfangled contraption attached to the bat to create wind resistance when swinging the bat. The bat looked like the wings from a rocket ship were attached to it. This was in elementary school. Anyways, I left the issue inside my desk, and when our class came back from lunch that day, I noticed that my TSN was missing. Someone stole it.

45 is "Bench".

Spoiler Alert: 44 is "Kiner".

Gasp!

[fimg=655:1vkikdj2]https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8126/29060574223_ea5af2bdf5_o.jpg[/fimg:1vkikdj2]

https://baseballdigest.com/ It's the longest running baseball magazine, ever. Still.

The thing about this bullpen strategy that we've been discussing on and off for years now, is that it ain't rocket science. You don't need to be Albert Einstein to grasp it. And if you don't know it, you should be able to get it easily once it's explained to you. This is easy stuff. Which makes it even more maddening to see the way MLB generally uses its bullpens.

Or the "CALL UP" font could the same one also used for the bottom line of text, only bigger and bolder.

Zvon wrote: Pretty sweet card. Unless Batmags is tweeting as Topps, this ones real. [fimg=300]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsVjf2EWYAATmyT.jpg[/fimg] Do I want this card? I'll leave it up to you guyz. You tell me. No rookie symbol but this card could be attractive if I am starting a TJ collection, and I see no reason not to. I never saw three lines of text. That's a new font for the "CALL UP" line. Are there other ToppsNows with three lines of text?

538.com piece sez that managers are getting smarter about using their bullpen. Excerpt: Even in Major League Baseball’s enlightened sabermetric age, you’re liable to see at least one instance of obvious bullpen mismanagement on any given night. Such blunders usually come in the form of a manager hewing too closely to traditional inning-based roles — “saving” bullpen aces for a meaningless ninth frame when the game is on the line earlier, or bringing in a closer to hold a three-run lead in the ninth when a rookie would do just fine. These tactical errors can be frustrating to watch, as tenuous leads become deficits while the team’s best relievers are sitting in the bullpen waiting for “their” inning. Logic and hard-won experience have shown that a team’s best relievers should pitch during the most important junctures of a game, regardless of when those moments occur. It’s a philosophy that saber-savvy analysts inside and outside the game have been pushing for some time now. And despite their occasional lapses in judgment, it appears that managers across the league, in addition to deploying some of the best bullpens ever in an absolute sense, are getting much better at optimally deploying their relievers according to skill, regardless of their age or experience. To measure this, .... The article then demonstrates how it measured to arrive at it conclusion. All data is league-aggregate: the data is not subdivided for each team or manager. Personally, I'd suspect that Collins's bullpen use drags the data down a bit. I never liked Terry's bullpen use and think that it's prolly his worst area managing -- tactics-wise. Terry fits that manager described in the first paragraph from the 538 piece, posted above in the quote box -- to a "tee". OTOH, it's kinda fun to see Familia's saves totals climb past Mets record territory and close in on the '50s. Read it all at http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseball-managers-are-getting-smarter-about-handling-their-bullpens/

Jesus H. Christ. I was logged onto this forum most of the day, posting and all and I didn't even know there was a game going on. I thought this IGT thread was yesterday's game thread.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: There's one more 1962 Met who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, only he's not pictured in the photo above or the other shots from that same shoot that appear in this thread, and for good reason. Who? Joe Pignatano was a '62 Met who also played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pignatano is not pictured in any of these bench photos because he did not join the Mets until the Summer of '62 and therefore, was not at the Mets first Spring Training at Butterball, where these pictures were shot. Pignatano retired after the '62 season, famously hitting into a triple play in his last MLB at-bat. So he never appeared at Butterball Field as a Mets player. Thank you for playing.

Some game, huh?

dinosaur jesus wrote: Jack DiLauro? There's no uni # on the front of the jersey, so the photo's gotta be from one of the first three seasons. It looks more Shea than Polo to me, but I can't make out the World's Fair Patch that the Mets wore in '64.

Zvon wrote: I tried to clean that up^ but it always comes out worse. Walter at his fountain. Who's "Walter"? There's one more 1962 Met who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, only he's not pictured in the photo above or the other shots from that same shoot that appear in this thread, and for good reason. Who?

Here's another mis-autographed Mets photo. This picture of not Jerry Koosman has a Jerry Koosman sig. [fimg=555:3m5nlmi8]https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8162/29014089734_74f63228f1_o.jpg[/fimg:3m5nlmi8] Who's this Met?

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Zvon wrote: Wow. Excellent pic. Oh, I almost forgot. I ran into this. Taken moments apart. It was actually in my Mets 60s folder from my old PC. I don't recall finding the pic or where it came from (probly Baseball Fever or Baseball Birthdays). I've been saving Mets photos for 15 years now. This is almost worth colorizing. Awesome. I wish it was at a higher resolution. Lotsa images floating around from that photo shoot. This is my favorite of the three photos from that session. It's got Casey. It's got the most Butterball details. And it's the cleanest, least cluttered background.

Zvon wrote: We should do a mash of ToppsNOW cards with airbrushed caps. Like for the Bruce trade. Ugly airbrushed caps!

You could see the water fountain and the diagonal metal fence bar in the photo you posted. More details!

Zvon wrote: Wow. Excellent pic. Oh, I almost forgot. I ran into this. Taken moments apart. It was actually in my Mets 60s folder from my old PC. I don't recall finding the pic or where it came from (probly Baseball Fever or Baseball Birthdays). I've been saving Mets photos for 15 years now. This is almost worth colorizing. Awesome. I wish it was at a higher resolution. Lotsa images floating around from that photo shoot.

This has to be one of the latest Butterball pics posted to these threads: [fimg=555:odyxvb6u]https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8113/29437627432_e1f4425ac6_o.jpg[/fimg:odyxvb6u]

Technology-wise, we've come a long way to where Topps can produce a ready to sell action card based on yesterday's action from the days where Topps had to airbrush caps and helmets very crudely to accommodate trades that were made months before the card in question was sent to the presses.

No. Udaman!

Zvon wrote: Zvon wrote: I'm thinking about getting that tho. Please tell me the time already expired. You mean the Reyes 9/7 card? Oh man. You got me again didnt you? lolol. Yeah, I think I got you again.