batmagadanleadoff

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: I don't really care how much he's making, nor do I care what position he plays. I care about the aggregate of the entire team. So if the Mets had Stargell and Aaron and Bench and Morgan and Seaver and Carlton in their primes on the same team, it'd be OK with you if my mother was their starting shortstop, right? Yes. Though you exaggerate, I'd absolutely take a SS that hits like Rey Ordonez and fields like Wilmer Flores if the rest of the team is that? That team wins. Look, if you have an otherwise great team, one of the benefits is that you can carry lesser players. Everybody can't be an all-star, and supply and demand makes it almost impossible for any team to field eight position playing stars. Even the '86 Mets had Rafael Santana. But don't twist that into something it's not. Granderson is not anywhere near the reason this year's Mets are in first place. And a team full of guys performing like Grandy would be eliminated very early.

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: I don't really care how much he's making, nor do I care what position he plays. I care about the aggregate of the entire team. So if the Mets had Stargell and Aaron and Bench and Morgan and Seaver and Carlton in their primes on the same team, it'd be OK with you if my mother was their starting shortstop, right? Yes. Though you exaggerate, I'd absolutely take a SS that hits like Rey Ordonez and fields like Wilmer Flores if the rest of the team is that? That team wins. That team wins in spite of its shortstop. Ceetar wrote: You're also wrong about the average thing. Average is good in baseball. The average hitter is .253/.318/.397. That plays. That's better than half the players on most teams. It's hard to be that good. Yes, you need guys to play above that, and that Granderson is only a tick above isn't great, but the problem is still that the Mets lost two guys hitting WAY above that line. If you wanna build a pennant contender, average sucks in baseball. The average team, with a roster full of average guys, goes nowhere. Bigger picture, the average MLB'er makes millions of dollars a year while still a relatively young man and is one of the best players in the world. That part of average, I could go for.

A coupl'a opinions about Granderson: I think he kinda sucks big time. Last year's crappy numbers weren't a fluke in my book. Adjusting out the Yankee Stadium numbers that were inflating his overall stats and accounting for the fact that he was now gonna play half his games in Citi Field, and last year's shitty season was about right on the mark. That's who Granderson is. He sucks. But he does draw a lot of walks. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that that's a sign that he's getting older, lost some bat speed, and knows it -- so he's smart enough to compensate by fouling off pitches he can no longer handle until he gets his four balls. Nobody did this better than Willie Mays at the end of his career, and everybody knows where Willie ended his career at. I'd probably be wrong, though, 'cause Granderson has always walked a lot. Even in his prime. Walks aren't new with him. And those walks have value. But those walks aren't compensating for the rest of his offense, which is invisible. So how valuable is he, even with the walks? I got into a disagreement a couple of days ago here over whether Tejada should've been batting second in that game's lineup. I said "no", and it came up that Tejada's OBP was about league average, or a tick of a hair above average, to justify his spot in the #2 hole. Like Granderson here, whose 's OPS+ and WRC+ is about league average, or a teeny tiny bit more. The problem with average, or league average, is that in MLB, it doesn't mean what it usually means in the normal world. Major league baseball players are comprised of the coupl'a hundred best position players in the world. That's hardly a random sample. So when you plot the stats of MLB players, you don't usually get a bell shaped curve; instead you get a distribution that's like the right-most tail end of a bell shaped curve. In that curve, almost every player clusters around the average. So for example, if the league batting average is .260, you might get two or three batting average champ candidates batting 60 or 70 points above average. But don't expect to find two or three players with a full season's worth of at bats batting 60 or 70 points below average. The curve is skewed towards average. And in baseball, average is kind of crappy. You'd know this instinctively even if you didn't think about the math. Average is no good because only a quarter of the teams qualify to play full playoff series. The average team knows it's out of the race probably before Labor Day. It sucks to be average in MLB. And Grandy sucks. Ceetar wrote: I don't really care how much he's making, nor do I care what position he plays. I care about the aggregate of the entire team. So if the Mets had Stargell and Aaron and Bench and Morgan and Seaver and Carlton in their primes on the same team, it'd be OK with you if my mother was their starting shortstop, right?

dgwphotography wrote: Edgy MD wrote: If we get skunked by Bud F. Norris, you KNOW we'll be sending out an SOS. I guess you could say that they would be sending out the "Bat" Signal... You're getting way ahead of yourself. Tonight, they'll be sending out the Fat Signal. [fimg=444]http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/unanything/images/9/9c/Fatman_2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121102145647[/fimg] And if the FatMan can't finish what he starts, then probably the Hat Signal. [fimg=444]https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRQzt5E3m0CknvrPG_s3CDy3FdP0RZfP1AB_4bmKGPXr91I_Yrvdw[/fimg] Fatman and Hatman [fimg=555]https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRGVzshn2sK4jYNYa7PLhg8OpnXTBLBOV63mGNq_uJhIbA0jFl7hw[/fimg] [fimg=444]https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSk6qzXGQtv7ingHUqZnFAEOCG9Nr1v42VVmcXqnFNki8iGZwbC[/fimg]

SteveJRogers wrote: TradingCardDB.com shows a 1966 postcard set with Throneberry as an Oriole. Also in 1991 the Orioles had one of those massive "All-Time Roster" stadium giveaway sets Fixed! Because, really, ya gotta have the Marv.

Boy does this division blow. You could barely tell that the Mets lost seven of their last 10.

G-Fafif wrote: I missed this feature. Appreciate having it back. Me too. Thanks. I stopped doing this because I did all the teams, other than whatever AL team the Mets haven't played in the last two or three years. I figgered everybody'd get tired of seeing the same old cards. How 'bout that Adam West appearance? That's what I wish everyone was posting about.

Omir Santos? Find me a card of Santos in an Oriole uni and I'll put him in. Some other missing Bird Men: Tim the Bird Man Byrdak Kevin Bass John Pacella Pete Smith Victor Zambrano and these: original coach Rogers Hornsby once managed the Orioles [fimg=555]http://www.albersheims.com/ItemImages/000005/2794a_lg.jpeg[/fimg] So did Juan Samuel, here shown restraining fellow missing Bird Man Ty Wigginton A Marvelous Spatuletail Bird Sighting

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: Who is the guy on the nameless card, second row far left? That's Bob Bailor, in a rare Oriole uni sighting. Bailor played about a dozen games for Weaver's Birds before his rookie season with the expansion Jays.

Holy Kathy Kersh! [fimg=755]http://www.hakes.com/product_images/14/78960/001_big.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=777]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e3/8b/44/e38b44296aae7666cbf80ac487cc17b4.jpg[/fimg]

[fimg=235]http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/105369/105369-15195694Fr.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=262]http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/9821/9821-111Fr.jpg[/fimg][fimg=262]http://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/9075/9075-455Fr.jpg[/fimg][fimg=255]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JIe2k7tSvp0/TpkbwKmf_dI/AAAAAAAAAY4/QOUjAA80icg/s1600/Elliott_Maddox.jpg[/fimg]

They should put their mouth where their money is. Or isn't. If the Yanks don't wanna honor that A-Rod deal, they should also have to forfeit all their past wins generated by A-Rod's tainted hits and their 2009 WS crown. And Derek Jeter, who's above it all, will give back all the runs he scored whenever A-Rod drove him in with a tainted hit.

Jeff Wilpon's a scumbag and I am shocked shocked shocked. ____________________ Pedro Martinez says in new book that Mets COO Jeff Wilpon urged him to pitch hurt D.J. Short May 2, 2015, 12:03 PM EDT Tyler Kepner of the New York Times has some interesting teasers from Pedro Martinez’s new book, “Pedro,” which is set to be released on Monday. In one of them, Martinez claims that Mets COO Jeff Wilpon urged him to pitch hurt during his first season with the team in 2005. Martinez writes that his toe was hurt and that Manager Willie Randolph had told him he was done for the season. But, he said, Wilpon, now the Mets’ chief operating officer, wanted to sell tickets for a matchup against the star Marlins left-hander Dontrelle Willis. Martinez said he protested the order and offered to give back the rest of his contract. “While I’m the boss here, you’re going to have to do what I say,” Wilpon said, according to Martinez, who gave in and pitched. He lost the game, which drew 25,093 fans, and said the injury prolonged the toe problem. Other parts of his body broke down the next season, and Martinez was inactive for the Mets’ run to Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. “I couldn’t help but think about how when I was healthy in 2005, our team wasn’t that good,” Martinez writes. “But as my health declined, I was urged to pitch a meaningless game at the end of 2005 that wound up shortening my recovery time for 2006 and led me to a hospital where doctors performed a three-hour arthroscopic procedure to repair my shoulder.” The Mets were only on the fringes of contention in 2005, but they rode Martinez hard down the stretch despite his nagging injury. He threw 122 pitches in a shutout against the Braves leading up to this particular outing. While he ended up making the start against the Marlins, he was pulled after just 75 pitches and Willie Randolph said after the game that he was “really banged up.” It turned out to be his final start of the season. It’s worth noting that his toe issue dated back to 2004 during his time with the Red Sox and there had long been questions about how long his shoulder would hold up. Wilpon has denied Martinez’s claim and said that decisions on player health “have always been put in the hands of our baseball people.” He’s not going to get much benefit of the doubt from some Mets fans and others, but Martinez said in an interview that he puts more blame on himself than Wilpon and that he should have listened to his body. http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/02/pedro-martinez-says-in-new-book-that-mets-coo-jeff-wilpon-urged-him-to-pitch-hurt/ _________________ [fimg=444]http://a1.nyt.com/assets/article/20150501-104932/images/foundation/logos/nyt-logo-185x26.svg[/fimg] Pedro Martinez Tells His Story MAY 1, 2015 By TYLER KEPNER The transformation of Pedro Martinez — from ferocious competitor to baseball sage — is now complete. In the last few months, Martinez, the former star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and four other teams, has analyzed the postseason for TBS, been elected to the Hall of Fame on his first try, joined MLB Network and, this week, become an author. The intellect behind the fire is on regular display. “A lot of people, when they saw me competing, they never saw the human being behind it,” Martinez said in a recent interview. “I’m totally different than they think, and I don’t know if they took the time to notice that I was totally different when I wasn’t pitching. Some people now are starting to put the pieces together.” Martinez and his co-author, Michael Silverman of The Boston Herald, assemble those pieces for more than 300 pages in “Pedro,” published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and set to be released Tuesday. From his boyhood in the Dominican Republic — where he used the heads of his sister’s dolls for baseballs and lived in a home with no refrigerator, TV or closets — to his final game, for Philadelphia in the 2009 World Series, Martinez chronicles a wild ride. “I think it’s important for kids to understand that there’s going to be adversity, and that even if you’re not looking for adversity, it will show up,” Martinez said, explaining why he wrote the book. “It’s important that they see hope, and they see that they belong and there’s no need to believe anybody that tells them, ‘No, you can’t.’ ” When the Los Angeles Dodgers told Martinez he was too frail to start and traded him to Montreal, Martinez won a Cy Young Award. When the Expos could not afford him — and sent him to Boston, where he did not want to go — Martinez won two more. When the Red Sox waited too long to offer a three-year contract after their 2004 championship, the Mets gave Martinez four years. His first New York season was mostly successful — until, he said, Jeff Wilpon forced him to pitch in a game in late September when the Mets were far out of the race. Martinez writes that his toe was hurt and that Manager Willie Randolph had told him he was done for the season. But, he said, Wilpon, now the Mets’ chief operating officer, wanted to sell tickets for a matchup against the star Marlins left-hander Dontrelle Willis. Martinez said he protested the order and offered to give back the rest of his contract. “While I’m the boss here, you’re going to have to do what I say,” Wilpon said, according to Martinez, who gave in and pitched. He lost the game, which drew 25,093 fans, and said the injury prolonged the toe problem. Other parts of his body broke down the next season, and Martinez was inactive for the Mets’ run to Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. “I couldn’t help but think about how when I was healthy in 2005, our team wasn’t that good,” Martinez writes. “But as my health declined, I was urged to pitch a meaningless game at the end of 2005 that wound up shortening my recovery time for 2006 and led me to a hospital where doctors performed a three-hour arthroscopic procedure to repair my shoulder.” Continue reading the main story In a statement through a spokesman, Wilpon denied that he told Martinez to pitch hurt. “Pedro was always a great competitor and deserving of being in the Hall of Fame,” the statement said. “This particular excerpt in the book is false as those kinds of decisions have always been put in the hands of our baseball people.” Martinez said in the interview that he did not blame Wilpon. “When you’re going to get hurt, you’re going to get hurt,” he said. “I don’t have anybody to blame but probably myself for not listening to my body. I think I was brave to pitch games, but I think I took it to extremes that day.” Martinez was 32-23 with a 3.88 earned run average in 79 starts for the Mets over four seasons. He stressed that he enjoyed “every aspect” of playing for the Mets. “I was paid to pitch, so I went and did that,” he said. “I did it whenever you asked me, whenever I could. I wanted to do it for as long as I could, and that was my limit.” His actual limit, it turned out, came the next season with the Phillies, and ended, appropriately, at the new Yankee Stadium. Martinez had some of his most memorable moments in the Bronx, including the seventh game of the 2003 American League Championship Series, a few days after he had tossed the Yankees coach Don Zimmer to the ground in a brawl. Although Zimmer, then 73, tearfully took the blame, Martinez writes that the incident is his only regret. Fans sent him death threats, he writes, and it was not safe for his family to travel to New York for Game 7. “I don’t think I ever faced a game where my mind was so distressed by everything that was going on,” Martinez said in the interview. “The game, actually, got me more relaxed than anything, to get to the game and know that I was able to pitch and not have anything happen to me. After having bodyguards in the room and everywhere I walked — and my food had to be pretty much checked out by everybody — that was a sense of relief.” Of course, the Red Sox lost Game 7 after Manager Grady Little let Martinez give up the lead in the fateful eighth inning. That story is recounted in the book, a feisty memoir of a career that, at its peak — and without the help of performance-enhancing drugs, Martinez says — was among the best ever. “During those five or maybe six years, I didn’t feel intimidated by anybody regardless of what they were using or how they were doing it,” Martinez said. “I felt like I belonged and I could get you out.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/sports/baseball/pedro-martinez-tells-his-story.html?ref=sports&_r=1

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Zvon wrote: "Action" Jackson Todd. That nickname never stuck, like all my nicknames. *sob How'd you know that?

Zvon wrote: "Action" Jackson Todd. That nickname never stuck, like all my nicknames. *sob How'd you know that?

Identify the Met whose Shea locker was adjacent to Tom Seaver's when Seaver was traded to the Reds.

In the end, it's always the Mets fault. Orioles' gesture showed respect for totality of Baltimore Howard Bryant, Senior Writer excerpt: The novelty of the Orioles-White Sox game played in front of no one was out of necessity, but not because the entire city of Baltimore is aflame (it is not, despite repeated images of a local CVS pharmacy burning), but because of the high potentiality that another front in a war between two Americas risked being opened on national television, with sports at center stage. [***] If the league was committed to playing the game under normal circumstances, however, Manfred was 100 percent correct to play it without fans, for sports, ostensibly the great healer, is revealing itself as the great divider when it comes to the racial and class issues that have returned protest to America. [***] When Eric Garner's death at the hands of the New York Police Department in July -- followed by a grand jury's December decision not to indict the officers involved -- fueled the "I can't breathe" protests, the New York Mets offered no moment of silence or acknowledgement of Garner's death, but on Opening Day held a pregame ceremony honoring two slain policemen, even though no connection was ever made linking the lone assailant to the protests, as the New York policeman's union asserted. Instead of lamenting the unfortunate deaths of three people, the Mets focused only on two, sending a message that only cops' lives mattered, and siding with the police over the widow of a troubled citizen killed at the hands of police. There was no healing, no reconciliation or recognition that everybody in New York had lost. The Mets, ostensibly the entire city's team, could have chosen not to get involved, given the emotional climate that was created by an officer choking Garner to death. Instead, the Mets sided with the police. The line is clear. http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/12793629/baltimore-orioles-made-correct-call-not-mixing-fans-protesters

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Given a choice I'd remove the caramel & nuts and just have popcorn. Me, I'm a prize man.

Edgy MD wrote: Edgy MD wrote: [fimg=480]http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BONF2_ICcAAApa2.jpg:large[/fimg][fimg=250]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2QGRpS3UEms/U9UVpODEs_I/AAAAAAAASDQ/tFBdVD5eZDk/s1600/larry.jpg[/fimg] COME ON! This is the easy one. I figured this one out, finally, by recalling your fascination with Larry Elliot's '67 Topps card. Behind Blue Eyes.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Bobby O'Rally.

Baseball team bans peanuts, Cracker Jack for allergy awareness night [fimg=555]http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001635363/3348636263_458354503_1a7d1ce84e_xlarge.jpeg[/fimg] They're as American as apple pie -- but peanuts and Cracker Jack will not be welcome at the ballpark Wednesday night in Indianapolis. The minor league Indianapolis Indians baseball team is holding its first Peanut Allergy Awareness Night to bring attention to this increasingly common medical condition and make peanut-allergic fans feel welcome. For one night only, Victory Field will not sell peanuts or any products that containing them, including Cracker Jack, peanut M&Ms and ice cream toppings. The team partnered with a group called Indy PoCHA, or Parents of Children Having Allergies, to organize the event. The team says it "will make every reasonable effort to thoroughly clean the stadium, but cannot guarantee complete absence of peanut particles or residue," which could cause serious reactions in people with severe peanut allergies. More than 30,000 bags of peanuts are sold at Victory Field in a typical season, the Indianapolis Star reports. "We've received calls from fans over the years about not being able to come to the ballpark due to peanut allergy," Jon Glesing, Indians senior marketing and communications manager, told the paper. "Awareness for this is far from new in baseball, (but) we're finally at a point we can coordinate an awareness night." About 3 million Americans are allergic to peanuts or tree nuts, and according to Food Allergy & Research Education the number of children in the U.S. with a peanut allergy more than tripled between 1997 and 2008 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/baseball-team-bans-peanuts-cracker-jack-for-allergy-awareness-night/

"So good to be back in The Big Apple. Let's Go Mets" [fimg=666]http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/53283654-american-actor-and-entertainer-jackie-gleason-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=MjkDRpR5qwpbZPnS7T%2FqIeJlIqBDLsC0oDyaerZGGLVRO9LZp88K9Leppr5zrHP7HoL0rSB09Ck2mClN24YR%2Bw%3D%3D[/fimg]

Edgy, I must've misplace my decoder ring. A little help?

I especially liked the early Who stuff, when they were a "Mod" band, in the mid through flower power sixties, putting out albums that were essentially singles collections. To my sense of taste, everything after Who's Next had a jump-the-shark smell to it. Only they kept on jumping sharks; a rock and roll version of Evel Knievel, always adding more things to fly the motorcycle over. I had an opportunity to attend that Shea concert and had no interest in it at all.

British video news-doc on The Who's Shea Stadium concert: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3538i_the-who-shea-stadium-1982_music Pete Townsend during his limo ride to Shea Stadium: Goodbye to this place [shea Stadium], I've never been here before. I mean, I'm looking out the window at it now. I don't like the look of it. I'll be glad to say goodbye to it. I'm saying goodbye to it now. Bye bye Shea Stadium. I'll never fucking see you again. I mean ... who needs it? You know, I never wanted to be a baseball player.