batmagadanleadoff

Harry Nilsson. RIP. I've been a big fan ever since "The Point". I still have not been able to find a stereo recording of that theme. I have tried real hard over the years. I don't think one exists. http://www.amazon.com/Televisions-Greatest-Hits-Vol-From/dp/B000000GOL Got that, just for the theme. Its not in stereo ( and a pretty bad quality, IIRC). Pretty sure I still have all of my Harrys stuff on the drive. I'll look see. I watched and was a fan of My Favorite Martian (was that right before Ed Sullivan? Or After?) and Courtship. Didn't get into The Magician and The Hulk, tho I saw quite a few eps of both cuz one of my younger brothers was way into those shows. OE: The theme off that CD is not horrible bad quality. Very compressed (the orig, not the mp3 copy) but much cleaner/clearer than I remembered. I bet he went into the studio and knocked that out in a half hour. I have that CD. The sound on the Courtship theme is somewhat muddy, I'd agree, but not awful. I bet they taped it right off of the TV show.

Swan Swan H wrote: These guys suck. They all suck. Fuck the Wilpons, Alderson, Collins, all the coaches who I don't feel like naming individually, and every one of the players. Every one. I am now a disciple of the Church of Batmags. Praise no one. Now you've gone too far. There's probably six, maybe even seven or eight players on this year's squad that are at least OK.

Swan Swan H wrote: A shoulder issue for Niese, apparently. How will the Mets pennant contend now?

Harry Nilsson. RIP. I've been a big fan ever since "The Point". I still have not been able to find a stereo recording of that theme. I have tried real hard over the years. I don't think one exists. http://www.amazon.com/Televisions-Greatest-Hits-Vol-From/dp/B000000GOL

Zvon wrote: Okay Eddie, today we can either play baseball or try and look under Mrs. Livingstones dress again. Bill Bixby made the cover of TV Guide as a cast member of four different TV shows. I think that's a record. (But Lucy might have that record, or at least tied Bixby, what with all of the later incarnations of I Love Lucy.

To me, this year's pitching staff is Matt Harvey and the seven dwarfs. After Harvelous, they're all mediocrities who might surprise me once a month with a quality start. So who goes down? I couldn't care less.

What amazed me, in the original pic, was that it showed that fans have been nickled and dimed through-out history. I've seen set-ups like this before in old photos, but always thought they were just outdoor boards that were there to view for free. But they were free, weren't they? I mean, there's the display right downtown for everyone to see. And the full details in the Evening Telegram was stuff you couldn't put on a board anyway--the game write-up, the sportswriters ragging on McGraw for playing Beals Becker instead of Josh Devore, etc. That's what I thought, and always thought. But reading that article and seeing the admission prices in the photo makes me think they somehow made it so only payees could be in front of that board. That does appear to be outdoors. Went over that article again (really a very good read) after the game and it looks like they did have free versions of these. I guess the papers figured they would draw a crowd. Two years later, newspapers, themselves, got into the act, starting with Joseph Pulitzer�s The World in New York. They erected a ball-field diagram with holes for colored, numbered pins representing the players. It quickly attracted a crowd estimated at about 6,000 people (the pic above), blocking traffic on the nearby Brooklyn Bridge. Scroll down a bit for the case of Shaw's Jewelry Shop, Inc. v. New York Herald Co. http://books.google.com/books?id=IYE7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA651#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wright hopes Mets' walk-off win over Yankees can propel season Yes, Virginia .... (/rolls eyes)

metsmarathon wrote: well, fuck them even harder, then. they had to pay more for their already discounted tickets. boo fucking hoo. oh, waah, they couldn't get a discount on their already discounted tickets? poor widdle baby. I know. This story and the complainers involved get more repulsive as more details emerge. Talk about a lack of self-awareness.

metsmarathon wrote: tommy john Quick on the draw and right you are!

Greg Maddux started more games than any other pitcher not in the Hall of Fame. Maddux, of course, is a no-brainer first ballot shoo-in, waiting to be eligible. Roger Clemens has the next most number of starts for a non HOF pitcher. He's a first-ballot shoo-in but for extracurricular circumstances. Which non HOF pitcher has the third most # of starts, after Maddux and Clemens?

Jesse's untouchable.

same story ... more details ... secret ticket website for players .... players tickets are free ... players pay tax only ... Yankees not happy with Mets' ticket prices May, 29, 2013 1:30 PM ET By Darren Rovell | ESPN.com Last week, a New York Yankees player was looking at a website called CompTix, the password protected site that all major league players order their complimentary tickets from, when he saw the price: $245. That was the going rate for a ticket in the friends and family section at Citi Field for the upcoming series against the Mets. While the players get up to six free tickets for each game -- four for family and two for friends -- they have to pay taxes on the tickets. So seeing a $245 face value, which one source told ESPN.com was the highest they've ever seen at any ballpark, matters. Even a player who makes the league minimum is in the highest tax bracket, meaning the players are taxed at at least 40 percent of the value of the tickets, according to Robert Raiola, senior tax manager at FMRTL in Cranford, N.J., who advises athletes on their tax planning. As the New York Post first reported, due to the Mets' variable and dynamic pricing, the same $245 seats for the Yankees cost $80 for a series against the Braves. That means that a Braves player who took all six tickets would pay at least $192 in taxes, while a Yankees player who used same seats would pay at least $588 in taxes. A Mets spokesman said that the ticket price quoted was simply the ticket price that fans in that section would pay for that seat at that given time. The Yankees don't have variable or dynamic pricing so the ticket prices don't fluctuate. Sources say the Yankees were confused by two things. Why did the tickets rise so much in value if the demand wasn't there? Games on Monday and Tuesday weren't sold out and had the lowest attendance of any matchup between the two teams in their history. The Yankees then asked why the Mets couldn't assign a lower value to players' tickets since the team wasn't making money off the comped tickets anyway. The Mets refused, and for what it's worth, charged their players the same amount. While Greg Bouris, spokesman for the MLB Players Association, said the union is "aware of the situation," a source said it doesn't look like the Mets committed any violation and therefore wouldn't expect any action. It is up to the individual teams to assign whatever value they want to the tickets the players get, but as variable and dynamic pricing becomes more common, situations like this could become a bigger issue. http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/36459/yankees-not-happy-with-mets-ticket-prices

First baseman "Marvelous" Marv Throneberry was sent down to AAA (Buffalo) in May of '63, and never returned to the majors.

G-Fafif wrote: Nelson knows! (Or is that Miller?) Just recently got my hands on that book but haven't dug in yet. I've owned this book for years, but never got past the 2nd chapter. Finally tore through the whole thing in about two and a half days this week.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Who's the narrator? The trouble with the Yankees was that, although you could see magnificent baseball played by a magnificent team, you had to do it with decorum. You could cheer, even boo, but you couldn't bring pennants around, or noisemakers, or anything else that might draw attention away from the field and into the stands. The Yankees were remote, a proud haughty team sufficient unto itself. The fans who watched them were expected to be spectators, not participants. Yankee Stadium was a place where you took your guests, your clients, your out-of-town visitors. It was part of the New York scene, like the Empire State Building.... Any baseball fan in for a brief visit didn't consider his trip complete without seeing the Yankees in their own back yard. It was time well spent, but you had to behave while you were there. You didn't go to the stadium to make a riotous racket or have a load of laughs, You went in the same spirit that you went to the United Nations or the Statue of Liberty. You were going to see something, not to take part in it. It's altogether different with the Mets. Their fans have no awe, no reverence, no deep stirrings of the soul. At Met games, the fans are part of the spectacle. They go out as much to watch other people as to watch the ball game. They laugh and wave flags and signs and sing songs and write poetry and enjoy themselves, much as they did at Ebbets Field when the Dodgers were there.... Excerpted from page 77, 1st edition of

bump batmagadanleadoff wrote: What's the deal with the Mets being able to adjust ticket prices dynamically "down"? I thought they promised not to sell tickets below face value?

Who's the narrator? The trouble with the Yankees was that, although you could see magnificent baseball played by a magnificent team, you had to do it with decorum. You could cheer, even boo, but you couldn't bring pennants around, or noisemakers, or anything else that might draw attention away from the field and into the stands. The Yankees were remote, a proud haughty team sufficient unto itself. The fans who watched them were expected to be spectators, not participants. Yankee Stadium was a place where you took your guests, your clients, your out-of-town visitors. It was part of the New York scene, like the Empire State Building.... Any baseball fan in for a brief visit didn't consider his trip complete without seeing the Yankees in their own back yard. It was time well spent, but you had to behave while you were there. You didn't go to the stadium to make a riotous racket or have a load of laughs, You went in the same spirit that you went to the United Nations or the Statue of Liberty. You were going to see something, not to take part in it. It's altogether different with the Mets. Their fans have no awe, no reverence, no deep stirrings of the soul. At Met games, the fans are part of the spectacle. They go out as much to watch other people as to watch the ball game. They laugh and wave flags and signs and sing songs and write poetry and enjoy themselves, much as they did at Ebbets Field when the Dodgers were there....

Mets Defend Ticket Prices For Yankees Families; MLBPA �Looking Into It� Amazin's Say Price Of Admission Same For Home Team May 29, 2013 8:48 AM NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) � The Mets insist there was no funny business going on when they raised ticket prices for players� family members ahead of the Subway Series. The New York Post reported this week that the Yankees were �angered� when their families had to dole out $250 per seat at Citi Field after relatives of the Atlanta Braves were charged $80 apiece for their weekend series at the Mets� home ballpark. �The tickets are the same as Mets family members and priced the same as Mets family pays for tickets,� a spokesman for the Amazin�s told the paper. �Because of the variable pricing, ticket prices are different. It�s the same as Opening Day. It�s not gouging.� The Mets use a dynamic pricing plan at Citi Field. Ticket values �can be adjusted on a real-time basis, either upwards or downwards, based on market demand,� according to the team�s website. �We are aware of the situation and are looking into it,� MLB Players Association director of communications Greg Bouris told the Post. �There have been no grievances filed.� The attendance for Monday�s game was 32,911. There were also plenty of empty � and wet � seats Tuesday. The official attendance was announced at just 31,877. The Bombers will be looking for their first Subway Series win of the season when they host the Mets for two games at Yankee Stadium starting Wednesday. http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/05/29/mets-defend-ticket-prices-for-yankees-families-mlbpa-looking-into-it/ ____________ What's the deal with the Mets being able to adjust ticket prices dynamically "down"? I thought they promised not to sell tickets below face value?

Faint Praise and Madoff Free Megdal The night Lucas Duda beat Mariano Rivera By Howard Megdal 10:53 am May. 29, 2013 Lucas Duda hits Mariano Rivera's cutter. MLB.com Though manager Terry Collins said all the right things about building on Tuesday night's 2-1 victory over the Yankees at Citi Field, team, fans (and owners, naturally) realize there probably won't be too many bright spots this season. This may well top the list. In a ninth-inning rally as surprising as it was inspiring to those fans who stuck through a 91-minute rain delay, consecutive hits from Daniel Murphy, David Wright and Lucas Duda ended Mariano Rivera's night with a blown save, and no recorded outs. That's the first time in Rivera's career that ever happened, by the way. And it took his opponents 1,072 tries to get there. The Mets didn't exactly crush Rivera's pitches. Murphy's double was of the bloop variety, settling just on the fair side of the left field line. Wright's line drive was the hardest-hit ball of the inning, scoring Murphy. But Wright only got to second base on the throw when center fielder Brett Gardner threw over the cutoff man, putting the winning run in scoring position for Duda. As Duda put it, "I took a swing and shattered my bat into 50 pieces. Luckily, it just went over the second baseman�s head." Duda hit a cutter, Rivera's trademark pitch. And he hit it, as he said, "just enough." Terry Collins, whose flirtation with laissez-faire management has apparently given way to doing things like batting Ike Davis eighth, he explained the Mets' strategy this way: "You can't figure it out. There's no words to explain it." The game over, Yankee fans took to Twitter to explain to Mets fans how terrible their team is, as if anyone is more aware of that than Mets fans themselves. But the Mets have won three in a row, not thanks to an offense that has scored five runs or fewer in 22 straight games, but because of three solid-or-better pitching performances, the best of them Tuesday night from Matt Harvey. It's hard to know precisely how to illustrate Harvey's greatness in a single moment. Is it the eight innings without a walk, but ten strikeouts? Is it reaching 98 miles per hour with his fastball on his 106th pitch? Is it the slider he threw to Robinson Cano with two on in the third that dropped a foot? It's all of this. And the one run he gave up came thanks to an outfield misplay by Marlon Byrd that allowed Brett Gardner to take second after a single. Harvey's greatness, then, is clear to everyone. As for the meaning of the win itself, Mets fans have no illusions. This Mets' offense proved it's too potent for Mariano Rivera just like Matt Franco proved, back in 1999, that no pitcher could get him out when it mattered, or Omir Santos proved in 2009 that he was the heir apparent to Mike Piazza. David Robertson gave up the lead Monday night, proving the best setup man in baseball can have a bad night. And Rivera, on a night he was honored by the Mets for an iconic career, proved even the best closer there's ever been can occasionally give up the game. The gloating Yankee fans are missing the point. The Mets and their fans, especially through this dark half-decade, are well aware that there will be no meaningful baseball in Flushing for a while. The Yankees are better, sure, and Rivera's the very best. For once, though, Lucas Duda was too much for them to handle. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/05/8530473/night-lucas-duda-beat-mariano-rivera

Those running the Play-O-Graph could run a scam ala the con depicted in The Sting by delaying the posting of the information that came in on the wire.

Yankees Family Members Pissed At Mets Ticket Prices Subway Series tickets can get pricey. No surprise there. Apparently that also applies to Yankees family members, who had to dole out $250 per seat for Monday night�s opener against the Mets at Citi Field, according to the New York Post. The Yankees were �angered� because relatives of the Atlanta Braves were charged $80 apiece for their weekend series at the Mets� home ballpark. The Mets use a dynamic pricing plan at Citi Field. Ticket values �can be adjusted on a real-time basis, either upwards or downwards, based on market demand,� according to the team�s website. The announced attendance for Monday�s game was 32,911. http://waswatching.com/2013/05/28/yankees-family-members-pissed-at-mets-ticket-prices/

Mets closer Bobby Parnell looks like the real thing By Howard Megdal 10:15 am May. 28, 2013 The Mets will honor Mariano Rivera Tuesday night at Citi Field in the great Yankee closer's last season. Monday night, the Mets deployed Bobby Parnell, who might just become the best closer in New York once Rivera finally quits. Parnell recorded the final three outs Monday night in a tense 2-1 Mets victory at Citi Field, giving Mets fans some rare bragging rights for an evening, and letting a wider audience see the development of Parnell, though nowhere close to Rivera, as a first-rate late-inning option. Parnell has a widely unjustified reputation as unduly wild and unreliable, one that dates back to his prior effort to pair his plus fastball with a slider and occasional changeup. That Parnell walked four per nine innings, with a good, but not great, ground ball rate. The strikeouts, a solid 8.3 per nine, weren't enough by themselves to make him more than intermittently effective. But Parnell totally changed his approach heading into 2012, ditching the slider and changeup for a knuckle curve that he commanded better than either, and that offered a significantly better velocity differential from his fastball than his slider did. The results are uniformly positive. The strikeouts stayed relatively constant, at 8.1 per nine. Meanwhile, Parnell's groundball rates inproved significantly, to tenth in baseball last season among all relievers, 18th so far this season. And the walks went down to 2.6 per nine since the start of 2012. This doesn't make Parnell into Rivera. It does, however, make him a credible closer. And it will make him, sad to say, an extremely valuable trade chip this summer. So the Mets will face a referendum on where they are as a franchise with Parnell. They control Parnell's rights for another two seasons, though he'll be in arbitration both winters, and if his season unfolds as it has so far, he'll make significantly more than the $1.7 million he's getting this season. The Mets could deal Parnell to a contender, and almost certainly receive a prospect or two they can expect to contribute once Zack Wheeler, Rafael Montero and whoever else can come up from the group of prospects they have a Single-A can come together. Then again, waiting for that group to come together might mean punting all of what is likely the prime remaining years of David Wright, the team's highest-paid and best position player. Keeping Parnell around to buttress Wright means an attempt to win sooner. But even if Wheeler came up and immediately contributed, and Travis d'Arnaud, still recovering from a fractured foot, also came up and assumed the regular catching job, would that be enough to make this Mets team into a contender? Unlikely. The best of both worlds is probably a mutually beneficial deal to buy out Parnell's two remaining arbitration years along with a free agent year or two, in a cost-controlled three-year or four-year contract extension, locking in a bullpen piece for his remaining peak years. If the plan isn't to contend within the next four years, it isn't any kind of plan at all. By then, Matt Harvey will be closing in on free agency. That, alas, requires the kind of financial outlay that has been beyond the Mets of late (unless Parnell is willing to defer as much money as David Wright), due to ownership's awful finances. The Mets keep insisting they'll be aggressive in going after an outfielder, or even two. They can start their long-discussed but unfulfilled spending spree by shoring up the bullpen here at home, and they don't need another team or to wait until the offseason to do it. How the Mets handle Parnell this summer will be an indicator of both what they can do as an organization and where they think they are. In the meantime, the Mets have themselves a closer. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/05/8530420/mets-closer-bobby-parnell-looks-real-thing

batmagadanleadoff wrote: If I read Wifey watch more often, I wouldn't be the last to know.

A Daniel Murphy Appraisal 28 May 2013 by Howard Megdal It�s probably worth taking a look at what the Mets have in Daniel Murphy. Daniel Murphy, Jordanny ValdespinThrough a third of the season, Murphy now has an OPS+ of 121. That�s good for sixth among the 19 second basemen who are currently qualified for the batting title. And with the plan to let Murphy hit enough above average at the position that his below average defense makes him an average performer at second, that�s plenty of offense. But Murphy has, per Ultimate Zone Rating, defied this plan so far by defending at an above-average rate. He�s lifted his UZR/150 from -13.3 last season to 5.2 this season, a massive improvement. With defensive stats especially, it is important not to jump to conclusions so quickly from small samples. His offense is in line with his career rates, roughly. But the Mets need to see more of this new defense before assuming it is his true talent level. Still, the idea that Murphy could be a solid defender at second isn�t so crazy. He�s a fine third baseman. He�s now been at second for more than a full year, allowing reps and knowledge of the position combine with what was already strong range. All I�m saying is, this isn�t out of left field, whereas Murphy playing a competent left field would be. A working assumption of mine, and I�m guessing, the Mets, was that Murphy�s defense meant he�d be, at best, an average 2B, and dealing him this winter for some help elsewhere while promoting Wilmer Flores to play the position next year wouldn�t mean losing much. And really, the lack of viable options to help the Mets win in 2014, even with Murphy, still might make that their best bet. But as it stands, per wins above replacement, Daniel Murphy is the eighth-best second baseman in baseball, and one hot week out of cracking the top five. The Mets may have a worse first baseman and shortstop than they thought. But they also may have a better second baseman than they had any right to expect. http://mets.lohudblogs.com/2013/05/28/a-daniel-murphy-appraisal/