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Mets loss falls to $23M, but no help to payroll: source By JOSH KOSMAN Last Updated: 1:18 PM, September 6, 2012 Posted: 12:04 AM, September 6, 2012 The Mets are expected to cut their 2012 season loss by two-thirds from last year, to roughly $23 million � in line with expectations but not enough to support anything but a modest uptick in payroll in 2013, The Post has learned. The loss could continue to shrink next year, according to one source close to the situation, who estimated the red ink may drop to about $15 million. �They are pretty near their [pre-season] expectations,� the source said. But even with the losses at that level, cash-strapped owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz appear to have just over $21 million in free cash � from their profitable SportsNet New York cable operation � to sink into the club, the source said. That would suggest, unless SNY profits soar, that the expected $8 million decline in 2013�s projected loss would give the Mets just that much more money to add to payroll. The Mets cut their 2012 payroll by $50 million from 2011, to about $100 million. Fans, who are suffering through the team�s sixth straight season of missing the playoffs � and, perhaps, the Mets� fourth straight season with a losing record � had hoped an increased payroll would help keep All-Star David Wright, plus add some bona fide stars. The money might not be there. �There will be room to make gradual increases in payroll, but nothing dramatic,� the source said. To be sure, the days of the Mets� financial emergency are over. The team has repaid some of its loans and is on firmer financial footing, the source said. In large part, that�s due to the profitable SNY operation, which had profits of nearly $100 million in 2011. Wilpon and his partners own 65 percent of SNY � meaning their share is about $65 million. Wilpon�s Queens Baseball Corp., meanwhile, owes $43.5 million annually for Citi Field � which comes out of SNY profits. That leaves $21.5 million, slightly less than this year�s expected losses. Next year, if losses are reduced to about $15 million, that would leave a $6.5 million surplus. However, attendance is down 3.6 percent from last year, has dropped every year the team has been at Citi Field and could drop again in 2013. Mets GM Sandy Alderson told The Post last month that he expects David Wright and R.A. Dickey to sign long-term contracts with the team this winter. �This year we�re at $100 million, but I�m hopeful we�ll be in the same range if not somewhat higher,� Alderson said, adding he hasn�t discussed the subject with principal owner Wilpon. The Mets declined comment on its finances. The team last March sold minority stakes for $240 million � which went, in part, to repay $65 million in loans, $110 million to help refinance bank debt and $43.5 million to the city for stadium debt. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/red_ink_shrinkin_oSduO3mleUFk4leJwx8MAO

Lotsa financial stuff in today's press: Wilpon's Mets are still shrinking by Howard Megdal 10:53 am Sep. 6, 2012 In the New York Post, Josh Kosman reviews the finances of the Mets, and finds that Fred Wilpon's settlement of a Bernie Madoff-related suit against him didn't solve his financial problems. (In fact the settlement probably only happened because of those financial problems.) Kosman also finds that the $240 million Wilpon raised in minority ownership money, a sale the owner famously attributed to "uncertainty" from that Madoff lawsuit, is all gone. According to Kosman, the Mets lost $70 million in 2011, and they are on track to lose $23 million in 2012. The difference between 2011 and 2012 was a massive reduction in team payroll, from $143 million in 2011 to $91.6 million in 2012, representing slightly more than the difference in losses between the two years. So Wilpon and his partners are cutting losses by cutting salary. Attendance is down somewhat from 2011 levels, though comparable, thanks to numerous ticket discounts and creative marketing. Clearly, lawsuit or no lawsuit, the Mets aren't drawing enough to even break even on their own; it took all of Wilpon and his partners' profits from S.N.Y. to break even in 2012. The problem is that it's hard to see how they get out of this cycle. Absent a turnaround in play with a corresponding increase in attendance, team revenue isn't changing. Which in turn makes it hard for them to go out and get the players they'll need to contend. Kosman points out that if the Mets can cut their losses further in 2013, the deficit from the team would drop accordingly. Since the Mets expect to clear about $21.5 million from S.N.Y. again next year (quick math: about $65 million in profits, minus the $43.5 million due in debt against Citi Field each year), a $15 million deficit from the team means $6.5 million in profit. But how to reduce these losses is problematic. The only way the team managed to do so in 2012 was by reducing salary. And as I've previously written, the salaries owed in 2013 already, along with raises in arbitration, leaves essentially no room for any additions, let alone the kind of raises to R.A. Dickey and David Wright that would induce them to sign extensions that would keep them with the Mets beyond the 2013 season. The Mets can clear $16 million from next year's payroll by picking up Wright's option, then trading Wright this winter (or, I suppose, by simply not picking up the option, though that would make no sense). They can clear $5 million by doing the same thing with Dickey. Of course, those savings would presumably be offset by the cost of losing the team's best and most popular players, in terms of the toll it would take on attendance and marketing. Jeffrey Toobin's contended that 200,000 fans are worth $25 million to the Mets; Forbes estimated more conservatively $23 in revenue per fan. Either way, the resulting drop would eat into the team's 2013 revenues considerably. Right now, the Mets' plan appears to be to maintain salary at 2012 levels, while hoping some increase in attendance, perhaps fueled by tying season ticket sales to the 2013 All-Star Game. Both the 2012 Royals and 2011 Diamondbacks experienced bumps of about 100,000 fans in their All-Star Game seasons by doing the same thing. That might help. But simply increasing attendance by roughly 100,000 would put the Mets back at 2011 levels, when the team lost $70 million. How much further would payroll have to drop to put the Mets in the black if those numbers stayed the same? Without the prospect of further help from Major League Baseball, the Mets might be doing well just to hang on to what they have in 2013. After that, many onerous salaries, like those owed to Jason Bay and Johan Santana, will be gone, and the Mets have exactly one salary, Jonathon Niese at $5 million, on the books for 2014. So their prospects for making some money get better, if they're content to keep reducing salary. If they keep Wright around at $20 million per year and Dickey at $10 million per year, both conservative numbers, they'll only owe $35 million to three players. Players like Ruben Tejada and Ike Davis can earn a decent amount in arbitration if they develop and stay healthy, while replacing them at first base and shortstop will cost real money if they don't. How they'll fill most of the remaining everyday lineup is unclear, given the absence of position player prospects no more than a year away other than Wilmer Flores, who is a third baseman, it appears. If the pitching prospects pan out, they can field a team for more like $60 million without any improvements. If Dickey and Wright leave, they'll have to come up with a third baseman and top-tier offensive threat, along with a number one starter. But once again, that's assuming fans keep coming in 2014 at roughly the same levels they did in 2011, 2012 and (the Mets hope) 2013. The Mets are staring down the barrel of approximately $320 million left from the $430 million debt against the team (the Mets paid off $110 million of it from the $240 million in minority sales) due back in June 2014. It is awfully difficult to see how an ownership group simply holding on can pay back that massive debt; the trustee suing Wilpon and his partners on behalf of the Bernie Madoff victims settled in large part because he didn't believe they could pay him the $83 million awarded to him in a pretrial ruling anytime soon. Presumably, if ownership can convince its debtholders to roll that debt over, it will be at a higher interest rate, cutting into any new surplus from the shorn salaries even further. Wilpon might hang on. But for as long he does, it seems, the Mets will be a big-market team with a small-market payroll. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2012/09/6536279/wilpons-mets-are-still-shrinking

Make Dickey a [crossout]Sporting News[/crossout] Schaefer All-Star. Coin him. Puzzle him. Supersize him.

If the Mets continue to pitch Dickey every 5th game throughout the rest of this season, then Dickey will have five remaining starts: 9/11 v Wash (team game # 142) 9/17 v Phil (team game #147) 9/23 v Mia (team game #152) 9/28 @ Atl (team game #157) 10/3 @ Mia (team game #162) Because there is an off day between Dickey's probable Wash & Phil starts, and between Dickey's probable Phil and 1st Mia starts, the Mets could have RA pitch every 5th day (every 4th game) rather than every 5th game during the period covering those starts. If so, Dickey would still get four days of rest between those starts. Still, that won't create enough room for a 6th RA start, unless he pitches on three days rest somewhere after his third projected start. And even then, I'm not sure that a 6th start is possible. Also, his 9/11 probable start could be moved to 9/10 as there is an off day tomorrow. In fact, ESPN lists Dickey as the Mets probable starter for the 9/10 Wash game. http://espn.go.com/mlb/schedule?date=20120910 If Dickey pitches every 5th day rather than every 5th game, then he'd still get five, but not six more starts. 9/11 v Wash (team game # 141) 9/16 @ Mil (#146) 9/21 v Mia (#150) 9/26 v Pitt (#155) 10/1 @ Mia (#160). Since it's unlikely that Dickey starts six more games, he might pitch on a combined 5th day/5th game schedule, to get an extra day or two of rest as compared to pitching on a strict every 5th day schedule --- and thus throwing a huge wrench into the two projected schedules I just posted. It's probably best to just ignore this whole post.

Or we could just wait and see what happens. There sure are a lotta ways to estimate the date of Wright's impending franchise record breaking hit. Here's the formula I've been using all along in this thread: 171x/y = z z = Mets game # of record breaking hit (remainders always rounded up, never down); 171 = total hits Wright needed to pass Krane at beginning of season; x = Mets games played to date; y = Wright's season hit total, to date. Thus calculated, Wright is on pace to pass Eddie in the Mets 152nd game, at home against the Marlins on Sunday, September 23, 2012. But as you implied, he'll pass Eddie when he passes Eddie.

http://metspolice.com/2010/04/16/31-pictures-inside-the-first-base-champions-club-at-citi-field/

Swan Swan H wrote: Looked more like an out Duda'd into a triple. I just saw the play and I'd agree. As I saw it, Duda, plodding as he was as if on a chain gang, wouldn't of stopped that ball from going to the wall no matter what angle he took. He's a slow and dreadful outfielder.

Mini Mets Museum Graces Lake Hopatcong Home Now this guy's got a real Mets museum in his home. He Has Met the Mets and He Owns Them By VINCENT M. MALLOZZI Published: September 24, 2006 Even Hollywood has made the pilgrimage to the mecca of Mets memorabilia, a shrine to Andy Fogel�s favorite team. �I was 12 when the Mets were born in 1962,�� said Fogel, 56, who grew up in Brooklyn as the son of Dodger fans. �I grew up with the Mets, and I know an awful lot about their history.�� He owns a lot of it as well, an estimated 3,000 pieces, including Jerry Grote�s catching equipment from the 1960�s; jerseys worn by Casey Stengel, Gil Hodges and Tom Seaver; and team-autographed baseballs from every season in Mets history. In a never-ending bid to add to his Amazin� collection, Fogel spends about 25 hours a week visiting auction sites on the Internet and auction houses, a pastime he began to pursue seriously in 1990 after he and his wife, Rona, visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. �I saw a whole room filled with an art collection donated by one man,�� he recalled. �It was quite inspiring.�� So he began collecting everything Mets: autographed baseballs, pictures, postcards, pennants, yearbooks, programs, bobble-head dolls, even an original wood seat from Shea Stadium. He also owns unused tickets from every home and away postseason game in Mets history; a life-size Tom Seaver cardboard cutout from 1968; a 1969 World Series ring; a mannequin dressed in the complete 1973 uniform of the former Mets coach Roy McMillan; and jerseys worn by 24 members of the 1986 championship team. Most of those items are displayed in the bedroom that once belonged to Fogel�s daughter, Lauren, before she married five years ago, but there is much more in the basement of his house in Suffern, N.Y. When his son, Joshua, married two years ago, Fogel wanted to combine both bedrooms to increase the size of his Metropolitan area. �I told him that if he did that, he could take up residence in the garage,�� Rona Fogel said. �Hey, look, it�s a great collection, and it�s better than a mistress, but I still have to push him back if he oversteps his boundaries.�� Fogel has sold only one item from his collection, a 1969 Ed Charles World Series jersey. Price: $20,000. Reason: Priceless. �I used the money to pay for my daughter�s wedding,�� he said. Having retired last year from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as an assistant director in charge of E-ZPass, Fogel often takes relatives, friends and fellow collectors for a two-hour spin through what Ya Gotta Believe is the world�s first Mets museum. The collection includes such rare items as a cigarette lighter that plays �Meet the Mets,�� with a picture of Mr. Met on one side and Shea on the other, and name plates that once hung over the lockers of players from the 1960�s like Ed Kranepool and Marvelous Marv Throneberry. Among Fogel�s oddest items are a set of window curtains, adorned with Mr. Met and team logos, that had belonged to Joan Payson, the team�s original owner, and a straw hat that she wore at Shea during the 1969 World Series. Perhaps the most historically significant pieces are five pages of short evaluations of the 1964 Mets handwritten by Stengel, the team�s first manager. Stengel�s evaluation of Ron Hunt, which Fogel has framed with others, reads: �Demands that a ballplayer outplay him at second base. If so, he will try another position. Good, hard, tough game player that can execute almost every play. Could cover more ground.�� Memorabilia from Fogel�s collection appeared in the 2000 movie �Frequency,�� which starred Dennis Quaid and James Caviezel as a father and son who root for the Mets and communicate by radio across 30 years to track a murderer. In August, �Mets Weekly,�� a show on SNY, the Mets� network, filmed a segment at Fogel�s house, and members of the team�s public relations staff toured his treasured souvenirs. The team is considering using some of his collectibles for inclusion in yearbooks, programs or celebrations. But Fogel has visions of an even longer shelf life. �Maybe the Mets will open a museum inside their new stadium,�� he said. �I could certainly loan them some of my stuff for display.�� http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/sports/baseball/24cheer.html _______________ Journey to Metca With the demolition of Shea Stadium, I have been searching for a place where Mets dreams and memories appear before my very eyes. I won�t call it a glorious past, because that would be inaccurate, but it certainly has been interesting. The commemorative DVDs and TV specials are great, but they�re only two dimensional. Citi Field, for all its charm, does not work as a reminder of past Mets glory once you get inside�though the outside looks great. Citi Field is the best place this side of New Orleans for a po� boy, but the only tributes to the Mets inside the new park seem to be reactions to tough FAN love regarding the home team they forgot to honor (the old Apple repository, Doc�s signed wall, some bases in the parking lot�). I went to a subterranean museum of blue and orange gold (that statement makes sense if you want it to), a place not located in the Wilbert Robinson-Pete Reiser-Carl Erskine wine cellar at Citi Field, but far away from Queens, in the Iron Mountain of Mets Matter: Andy Fogel�s basement. Vincent Mallozzi of the New York Times, who wrote a story about my little Mets life last year, chronicled the Fogel tale just after the Mets clinched their last postseason berth in 2006. I got the �you�re crazy� reaction when I told a recent interviewer that I bought two seats from Shea Stadium and put them in my basement, the first major memorabilia purchase of my life. My defense: �The cost of those seats included shipping and it was cheaper than four tickets in the Ebbets boxes for a Thursday night game against San Diego in April.� Which is true by about $100, I�m told. And not that I believe in Mets Mojo, but twice on the recent homestand I sat in my Shea basement seats with the game tied late and the Mets put it away that very inning. My butt has become a rally cap. But this isn�t about me�or my butt�it�s about the great vein of Metrobilia found in Rockland County. Andy Fogel also has seats from Shea, along with seats from the Polo Grounds, stools from the Shea locker room, and a very rare wooden seat in pristine condition from the 1970s. New ownership burned the old seats in 1980. This came a few months after they removed and scrapped the signature aluminum panels that made Shea Shea. For the End of Sheas, the savvy Mets sold everything. The sale went so well that there doesn�t seem to be much left from the old ballpark to transfer to the new ballpark. Nor does there seem to be much inclination to muss up the new digs with such dusty relics. As I�ve told anyone who asks, I like Citi Field very much. It�s very representative of the retro ballpark era that started 17 years ago. Unfortunately, you could airlift any team into the place and tell them it was their home and there would few indications to say you were wrong. There appears to be no truth to the rumor that the Dodgers will wear their home whites when they come to New York in mid-July. Andy Fogel likes the new ballpark, too. But his basement has more Mets stuff than the million-plus square feet in Citi Field. (His collection recently moved from one of his children�s rooms to his clean, spacious basement and many of his items are newly returned from loans to NYC museums.) Andy has Joan Payson�s 1969 Styrofoam hat, not to mention her Mr. Met curtains, Casey�s uniform, Tug�s uniform, about 100 others Mets� uniforms, the spiffy 1960s jackets worn by ushers, Ed Charles�s Mets jacket that looks like it just came off the assembly line this morning, 1969 Mets figurines, every advertisement Tom Seaver seemingly ever did (he makes Jeter look like he�s not even trying to hawk), every ticket stub save one�July 31�for the 1986 Mets, the top of the Shea foul pole that they could use at Citi Field (those paying attention will note Gary, Keith, and Ron have been discussing how short the new poles are), and more Mets pennants than the franchise could win if it lasted a thousand years. I had a purpose for my pilgrimage. Since seemingly time began, Ken Samelson and I, plus many others have been working hard on a comprehensive telling of the 1969 Mets season and every player: The Miracle Has Landed, scheduled for fall release from Maple Street Press. It�s a group effort and a non-profit one at that for the Society of American Baseball Research. So this long-planned, much-delayed journey to Andy�s to take photos of the holy relics from his collection was well worth the wait. My reporting of his Art(Shamsky)ifacts does not do the collection justice, and neither has the team that inspired it. So much for trying not to hop on the Citi-bashing bandwagon. I�m late to a party I tried to avoid in the first place. The wonderful Fogel basement pushed me over the top. Enough now from me about a little more Mets presence at the new stadium. I�ll let Andy�s final words from Mallozzi�s 2006 article speak for itself: �Maybe the Mets will open a museum inside their new stadium,�� he said. �I could certainly loan them some of my stuff for display.�� Amen. http://metsilverman.com/may09.html

Mini Mets Museum Graces Lake Hopatcong Home Liz Mottolese and her family pay tribute to their favorite baseball team. There are Met fans. There are even diehard Met fans. And then there�s Liz Mottolese of Lake Hopatcong, who, along with her husband Johnny and daughters Ashley, Nicole and Taylor Mueller redecorated a whole room in their home and turned it into a mini Mets museum. Mottolese opened the room with a traditional ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday. Filled with bats, balls, ticket stubs, signed photographs and highlighted by Mottolese�s actual seats from Shea Stadium, the room pays tribute to the team that Mottolese and her extended family have been fans of since 1969. The idea for the room actually came from Mottolese�s daughter Nicole Mueller. �We had all this Met stuff just sitting in the basement, so I figured we should do something with it. We all love the team, so it just made sense.� Once the idea took hold, it also took off. Mottolese said it took about five weeks to complete. �This had been a dirty old work room,� she said of the tribute. �We had to rip down old shelves, take out the old lighting and put in recessed lighting, pick out the blue and orange paint and then figure out how to display everything.� The room includes several highlights, including a bat given by Tom Seaver to Ashley Mueller when she was just four years old, during spring training and a ball signed by Jerry Koosman. Several friends and family members came to the ribbon cutting ceremony, including Ronda Ralph, Mottolese�s closest friend, whom she met at�wait for it�Shea Stadium, when the women�s two families had seats near each other. http://jefferson.patch.com/articles/mini-mets-museum-graces-lake-hopatcong-home#photo-11208565

Architecture Review A Ballpark That May Be Louder Than the Fans Marlins Park in Miami, Baseball�s Newest Stadium MIAMI � After 20 years of retro-style ballparks since the opening of Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, nearly all decked out with brick facades and calculated quirks that came to seem as predictable and interchangeable as the old doughnut-shaped arenas, Major League Baseball has its first unapologetic 21st-century stadium. Lumbering and dizzyingly white in the Florida sun, the new Marlins Park is an elliptical concrete, steel and glass boulder looming above the low-rise houses and empty lots of the Little Havana neighborhood. With retail on the outside and a public plaza in front, it�s designed partly to gin up some street life. Economic development is supposed to follow � that was the rationale for the public financing that covered most of the $634 million project ($515 million for the park itself) and contributed to the recall of Miami-Dade County�s mayor. Cities are always building new stadiums with the justification that they�ll catalyze the local economy. They rarely do. At the same time, the ballpark is unlikely to satisfy aficionados of the latest trends in architecture, but it is nonetheless a modern building, with genuine panache, as opposed to another pastiche. Give the team�s owner, Jeffrey Loria, credit. An art dealer, he cares more than most about aesthetics and took a gamble � part old-school civic improvement plan, part marketing strategy � that Miamians will recognize themselves in the stylishness of the place. He has festooned concourses and stairwells with art, photographs and sculpture. Most fans will no doubt focus more on the grass field, air-conditioning and retractable roof, which slides over the entry plaza onto slender, palm-shaped pillars, illuminated by pulsing lights. Because of the oppressive heat and rain, the roof isn�t likely to be opened for more than a dozen or so games a year, but even when it is closed, there are sweeping views of the city skyline through 60-foot-tall windows. The challenge now will be filling the park�s seats. With a capacity of 37,442, this is one of the smallest arenas in the big leagues, but Miamians have notoriously stayed away from Marlins games in droves. Mr. Loria and the city are banking, as so many other owners and cities have, that a new stadium can change a team�s and a neighborhood�s fortunes. Can it? The Miami Marlins, until this year the Florida Marlins, have labored since their inaugural season in 1993 in a 75,000-seat suburban football arena, where the Dolphins play, which can be as much as an hour�s drive from downtown, with lousy sightlines, crippling summertime humidity and no roof. The Miami Herald�s Marlins beat reporter, Clark Spencer, told me on a recent night that he used to pass the time with colleagues in the press booth counting attendance. �Once we counted 80-something people,� he said, �and that included some confused foreign tourists.� Mr. Loria, who took over in 2002, argued that it was pointless to spend money on top players without a domed stadium. Detractors said he was blackmailing the city into paying for a new park, meanwhile pocketing revenue-sharing millions from other teams that were meant to go toward a beefier payroll. But then in 2007, Miami officials consented to a new stadium on the site of the former Orange Bowl, a couple of miles from downtown. The city provided the land and $13 million. Miami-Dade County paid nearly $350 million for the bulk of construction, with the Marlins kicking in $161.2 million. The pliant architecture firm Populous, formerly HOK Sport, which designed Yankee Stadium and nearly every retro ballpark during the last two decades, was hired to do the architecture. Orel Hershiser, the pitcher turned ESPN analyst, got in first dibs as critic on opening night when, apropos the swooping �Star Trek� curves on the outside, he said that the stadium looked �like a cruise ship had a baby with a spaceship.� Almost endearingly, when we met, Mr. Loria countered with a few wishful comparisons to the Getty Center in Los Angeles and Frank Lloyd Wright�s Guggenheim Museum. He said the inspiration for the stadium�s electric color scheme, with its fluorescent-green outfield wall, was the palette of the Spanish painter Joan Mir�. Public art and native plantings are meant to lend his building�s exterior what might be called an aspirational gravitas. Inside Mr. Loria has also installed giant reproductions of paintings by blue-chip modernists like Roy Lichtenstein on or near the main concourse, called the Promenade, amid a souk of food stalls hawking $12 mahi-mahi tacos and $14 Cuban sandwiches. Nobody seemed to take much notice of the art the other night, fans clustering instead four-deep before a bobble-head-doll display. But Mr. Loria professed not to care. The goal is a mix of visual distractions. These include two narrow saltwater aquariums behind home plate, giving off a bright blue glow. The intended spirit is light-hearted. For the same reason that Florida�s hockey team never installed a panther cage in its rink, it�s now clear why no one had put an aquarium in a backstop before. Animal rights activists were traumatized after the team tested the glass with a pitching machine. The game aside, the main attraction is clearly the kinetic sculpture by the Pop maestro of kitsch, Red Grooms, in left-center field: marlins spin, flamingos flap and water splashes whenever a Marlin hits a homer. Miamians have been competing to come up with a name for it (the Marlinator and the Marlinstrosity are two, so far). This over-the-top gizmo is to the Mets� homely home-run apple what the video game Call of Duty is to a jack-in-the-box. Considering how few homers have been hit so far, the fences might need to be brought in before too long to make sure it is exercised. Mr. Hershiser was close to the mark about the architecture. Stadiums these days emulate cruise ships. They�ve got their first-class cabins and exclusive restaurants and nightclubs. (The one at Marlins Park even has a swimming pool.) The game is no longer necessarily the point for many people who buy a ticket. Baseball used to be a sport of reverie, with the murmur of the crowd, the chatter of announcers on transistor radios and the crack of bats. Now parks are entertainment palaces, telling us when to cheer and selling us overpriced food and merchandise. The longest line I saw on the Promenade was to get into the team�s souvenir store. Retro stadiums catered to nostalgia for an era before steroids and artificial turf, but even the past gets old. Fans may someday come to long for the doughnut stadiums. I almost miss Shea. Whether the tropical colors and aquariums at Marlins Park will appeal to local Latino fans, on whom Miami is relying to fill most of the seats, or play to outsiders� clich�s of the city, time will tell. Sightlines are good. Those at the top and behind the outfield fences feel close to the action, and field-level seats benefit from the narrow foul territory. With the roof closed, Marlins Park is chilled to a dry 75 degrees, a family-friendly environment in which to pass a hot summer day or night. Angled walls and cantilevered ramps on the building�s outside create a few elegant geometries, and multicolored tiles provide decorative pizzazz. It�s more than what you find in the grim concrete corridors of Yankee Stadium. Yes, baseball isn�t what it used to be � the modern game panders to the corporations and rich patrons who buy luxury boxes and seats behind home plate. But stadiums are about as close as many cities come today to creating large-scale public spaces. They attract untold numbers of fans who might never have gone to a game back when baseball was played before cigar-chomping men in jackets and fedoras. �A lot of us weren�t expecting something this nice,� said Adam Brownstein, a 38-year-old native Miamian, who spoke for what seemed like every resident I met. Ten clubs have opened new homes since 2001. The Phillies thrive in Citizens Bank Park, where they keep winning. Pittsburgh flounders in PNC Park � which may be the most beautiful of all the parks to be built in recent years � because the Pirates are perennial losers. Now that Mr. Loria has gotten his new stadium, he is doling out big money for marquee players, talking about World Series games played with the roof open, under the stars. Through seven home games, according to ESPN, the Marlins have sold an average of more than 29,000 tickets. If the Marlins are bottom dwellers in late September, that home-run sculpture may come to seem forlorn, the new team uniforms clownish and the cost of the stadium a renewed scandal. But that�s then. For now, Miami has reason to cheer. Roy Lichtenstein's The Manager http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/arts/design/marlins-park-in-miami-baseballs-newest-stadium.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Edgy DC wrote: And even the logic he uses speaks well for the Mets but he doesn't realize it --- if they have some prospects as good as "every team" has, plus two that few teams have, that's good. Maybe if you're the Atanta Braves or the Nats, this is good. But if you're the Mets ... if you're flat broke and your team has so many holes that it's like one of those dams that's sprung leaks everywhere, you need more than two blue chip prospects. How would the Mets get ahead with a farm as good as every other team? Their farm need to be among the best. Prospects don't come with guarantees. Not even the blue-chippers.

Anyone gonna be in Miami for the end of the season Mets at Miami series in October? Field level seats smack behind home plate can be had for twenty five bucks a ticket. No fish-feeding allowed. http://www.stubhub.com/miami-marlins-tickets/marlins-vs-mets-10-1-2012-2784280/

"They nailed it," said Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins owner who made his millions over the decades as an art dealer. "They had been used to doing buildings and baseball stadiums in a traditional way. This was not a traditional way of approaching a ballpark." Confession: Marlins Park is my favorite baseball stadium based on the "TV test" --- that is, how does the stadium appear strictly from the perspective of television. Haven't been there yet.

Putting aside Sherman's need to generate buzz and the very real possibility that as the "national" baseball writer for the Post his insights may be a mile wide and an inch deep, I found this the money passage of his column: And though the Mets have Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler, they are not overly populated with high-end youngsters. If you suggest Jeurys Familia, Wilmer Flores, etc., then you just have Mets-colored glasses. Every team has prospects of that level. Harvey and Wheeler are distinct. I don't want to write off anybody before they arrive, but I'm kind of thinking that "every team" bit carries some merit to it. I'm also intrigued that he threw Niese into his trade pile. Counterintuitive to a young, building team but if he can yield more in return -- and he's reasonably priced for others, not just us -- then it's something to think about (probably because I must admit I've thought about it). Hell, everything is something to think about. Doesn't mean you'd do it, but it's September and we're out of it again. I just finished reading the Sherman article, and I also came away thinking that his "Every team has prospects of that level" line was his most memorable. And best. In fact, I re-read that paragraph as soon as I finished it, before continuing with the rest of the piece.

Dickey's their best trading chip. If you're dead serious about rebuilding, about taking two steps backwards in the hopes of taking three steps forward sometime in the near future ... if you build the team with ice in your veins ... unemotional ... like a stone cold killer ... then you trade Dickey. You trade him a month and a half ago. Because it's very reasonable to think that a 37 year old pitcher (turns 38 next month) ain't gonna be pitching anywhere near like a Cy Young candidate the next time the Mets contend. Because who the hell doesn't need a Cy Young award caliber pitcher? I'll tell you who doesn't: a team that's 20 games out of first place and'll probably finish at least 20 games out of first next season, too.

CREATING August 31, 2012, 6:37 p.m. ET EARL SANTEE, SPORTS STADIUM ARCHITECT Redefining Baseball From the Outside In After a lengthy architectural discussion about image-making, color quadrants, function following form and dynamic thinking, Earl Santee gets a nostalgic catch in his voice. "I remember sitting in old Tiger Stadium, right next to the dugout, just marveling about how intimate it was, and how loud it was," said the 56-year-old architect, "and I could smell Italian sausages and green peppers and onions cooking in the concourses. "There's just a spirit in the place, even if no one's there," continued the senior principal for the firm Populous, based in Kansas City, Mo., where Mr. Santee grew up. "It's hard to forget that." A lifelong Royals fan who took courses as a kid at the Kansas City Art Institute, Mr. Santee has designed 18 Major League Baseball stadiums. In 1992, he and his team came up with Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which started a trend of friendly, open-air throwbacks. In 2009, Populous was responsible for the new Yankee Stadium, whose limestone-and-granite facade recalls the original House That Ruth Built. In early March, the Miami Marlins opened Marlins Park, a Populous design that is like no other ballpark. It's supremely modern, a flat, white part-sphere with sapphire-blue glass that brings to mind the teeth of a space alien. More than that: With its perfect sightlines to the Bermuda-grass outfield and with hot dogs and Cuban sandwiches for sale throughout the park, it retains that peppers-and-onions ambience. "They nailed it," said Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins owner who made his millions over the decades as an art dealer. "They had been used to doing buildings and baseball stadiums in a traditional way. This was not a traditional way of approaching a ballpark." Populous signed on in 2003, the year the Marlins won the World Series. Mr. Santee and his staff began by renting apartments in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, eating at local restaurants and, for nine years, generally becoming part of the community. By 2006, they were leaning toward the site of the former Orange Bowl, in part because East Little Havana, an impoverished neighborhood full of great old theater buildings and beloved eateries, was ripe for an upgrade. Miami, Miami-Dade County and the Marlins ultimately picked the same site, and Populous went to work. At that point, the architects turned their attention to the ballpark itself. "They all have different ways of how they express themselves," Mr. Santee said. "Some people can't hand-draw very well, but they can do 3-D modeling. Some people doodle. Some people sketch. That's part of the process." Greg Sherlock, a senior architect, was keeper of the sketchbook. By project's end, it contained 140 pages by several different people, some doodled with felt-tip pen, others painted with watercolors. Eventually Mr. Sherlock drew an abstract sketch that he describes as "nothing more than a swirl of lines" that approximated what a curvy, stadium-size mass might look like, with the Miami skyline in the background and the ocean in the distance. When Messrs. Santee and Loria happened to be in London at the same time, they met at a Claridge's hotel restaurant. Mr. Santee showed Mr. Loria a book that contained Mr. Sherlock's drawing and others. Mr. Loria, who studied art history in college, liked "bits and pieces" and made a sketch of his own on a napkin. Mr. Santee drew a few things, too. Mr. Santee shared the napkins with his Marlins project staff of about 35 people. They tinkered in their design labs, working to reconcile the broad art ideas (Mr. Loria was obsessed with Spanish sculptor Joan Mir�'s colorful surrealism) with ironclad specifications (a retractable roof that would withstand hurricane winds of 137 miles per hour). Finally, Mr. Sherlock walked down the street from his office to a Hobby Lobby to buy modeling clay. "I started to sort of sculpt," he said. "And it quickly came to fruition in a lot of ways." Mr. Loria's napkin was what Mr. Santee calls "a moment." Mr. Sherlock's clay model was another�it broadly shaped the final design. "Our philosophy is, whatever it takes to get it out of your mind and on the table, do so," Mr. Sherlock said. While the Populous architects were working on fitting the elements together, Mr. Loria and the Marlins were coming up with ideas of their own. They invited artists to apply for a Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places commission to design a sculpture to loudly celebrate every Marlins home run. Pop artist Red Grooms won with a whizzing, brightly colored sculpture made of water, spinning fish and flamingos. David Samson, the team's president, suggested the two large aquariums that wound up on either side of home plate. "I had reservations: 'How is that going to work?' " Mr. Santee said. "But they have a kind of luminescence to them. They're kind of a calling card." Mr. Loria crammed the park with art, by Mir� and Roy Lichtenstein, and the overall effect of the 37,442-seat structure is both soothingly contemporary and ridiculously over the top. Economically, the ballpark is a work in progress. Attendance was up 52% by early August, from 18,700 per game in 2011 to 28,400. But none of the nine other teams that built a new stadium during the last 10 years has had lower average attendance in the first year of a new park, according to baseball-reference.com data. And some Miami critics are already fretting that the $515 million park, mostly funded with public money, is turning into a disaster given the Marlins' disappointing play this season. Mr. Santee's standard for success is different. After a decade of turning himself into a Miamian, he wants locals to see themselves in the stadium. "When you've done so many buildings, that's really the fun part of the job�trying to create different ways to come up with an original idea, where people say, 'That's me,' " he said. "It's for them. It's not something they've seen anywhere else." THINK IN PEN: Earl Santee and Greg Sherlock drew these frameworks of the tree columns that support the roof. 'I have a little book,' Mr. Santee said of his sketching habit. 'I'm just thinking and doodling. It's all pen. I don't usually erase.' http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577619621297601792.html?google_editors_picks=true

batmagadanleadoff wrote: David is on pace to pass Krane on Saturday, September 22, 2012, at home against Miami. Nuthin's changed.

What the Miami press is writin' about RA. Excerpt: Manager Ozzie Guillen before Friday's game said owner Jeffrey Loria had asked him where they could find a batting practice pitcher to simulate knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. Guillen's response: "I said, 'If we find a guy like that, he's not throwing batting practice. He's pitching for us.'" For the fourth time this season, Dickey confounded the Marlins. He held them to five hits in the Mets' series-opening 3-0 win at Marlins Park. Dickey this season is 4-0 with a 1.16 ERA, five walks and 24 strikeouts in 31 innings against the Marlins. "Make sure when he gets the speech for Cy Young Award, make sure he mentions the Marlins, please," Guillen said. "We would appreciate that. He was good. I think it's the best I've ever seen him throw, and I've seen him throw quite a bit." The shutout was the sixth of Dickey's career and third this season, strengthening his case for the National League Cy Young Award. The Marlins have been blanked 15 times, including five times in August, establishing a new single-season franchise record. They set the previous high of 14 in 1993 and matched it in 2006. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-marlins/fl-marlins-mets-0901-20120831,0,7512445.story

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Makes sense-- post-fire-sale, it's the most valuable resource they have not named "Joe Kings." And the velvet ropes ain't made outta velvet, either.

I can't help it.

It appears that the Marlins installed a velvet-rope barrier to the Bobblehead Museum, mid-season. [youtube:2eox4xjs]aXRXH9haZZk[/youtube:2eox4xjs] [youtube:2eox4xjs]t_O5K8KFRGs[/youtube:2eox4xjs]

Marlins create own bobblehead museum By Doug Williams | ESPN.com Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has personally amassed much of the team's bobblehead display. his past winter was a busy one for the Miami Marlins, who invested in shortstop Jose Reyes, closer Heath Bell and starting pitcher Mark Buehrle for their first season in Marlins Park. In separate moves hardly noticed outside South Florida, the team also acquired Carlos Beltran, Fernando Valenzuela, Willie Mays and Robin Yount. The four -- and hundreds of others -- are part of a collection of more than 1,000 bobbleheads compiled by Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria to display in his shiny new ballpark. Marlins Park not only features that Giant Garish Thing In The Outfield that shoots off fireworks after a hometown homer, tropical aquariums and a retractable roof, but also the Bobblehead Museum on its main promenade behind home plate near the team store. Or, as it�s also labeled, the �Museo de Bobblehead.� It�s a glassed-in, two-sided display case for 609 bobbleheads (the most that can be displayed at one time), with one side for the AL and the other for the NL. The case has interior lighting so every little player is clearly visible, and each shelf has its own vibrating mechanism so the heads on the little dolls are constantly in motion. While the Marlins� first season in their new park has been largely disappointing, the museum -- the largest permanent and public display of bobbleheads in the big leagues -- has been a hit. �It�s tremendous,� said Chelsea Hirschhorn, the team�s associate counsel and director of special events who oversees the collection, when asked about fan interest. �Absolutely tremendous. Honestly, it�s a place not only for Marlins fans, but our out-of-town-team fans to really connect to our ballpark. It�s a breath of history and moments in time that people can relate to. �A lot of bobbleheads reflect special moments. ... It�s like any commemorative museum in that respect. You see fathers pointing out to their children moments that they themselves watched on TV. It�s very cool.� She called it a �360-degree experience� in which fans circle the display and stop to examine favorites. Loria acquired the bobbleheads from a variety of sources, but the majority came from Houston Astros visiting clubhouse man Steve Perry, who sold Loria more than 600 from his collection for an unspecified price. He�d kept the little dolls in his office at Minute Maid Park since he started collecting in 2001. The Marlins' bobblehead case holds 609 of the team's collection, which now numbers more than 1,000. Loria thought adding a bobblehead museum at his new park would be a fan-friendly feature. And, though there are more than 1,000 pieces in the collection, he told MLB.com earlier this year, �We�re going to keep building the collection.� �It�s not for kids,� he said when the new ballpark opened in April. �It�s for kids like me. It�s something different that you don�t see.� Loria, a successful art dealer, views the bobbleheads from a collector�s perspective. �They�re fabulous little objects,� he told the Palm Beach Post in June. �They�re sculptures. To me, they�re works of art.� There certainly are bobbleheads with a Marlins flavor. There�s Craig Counsell raising his arms in triumph in the Florida Marlins� Game 7 victory of the 1997 World Series, former standout hitter Jeff Conine and even current manager Ozzie Guillen as a shortstop from his days with the Triple-A Las Vegas Stars. But there also are mascots from around the major leagues, baseball announcers and stars past and present. Hirschhorn�s favorite is �The Catch� bobblehead of Willie Mays that recreates his celebrated back-to-the-diamond running grab in the 1954 World Series. It was given to fans by the San Francisco Giants in May 2010. �Not only does his head bobble, but he�s actually reaching out to make that famous catch and the baseball itself is on a spring, so it bobbles as well,� she said. As of now, the Bobblehead Museum display is �at capacity,� said Hirschhorn, with a few open slots to accommodate new figures that will be given away this season by other teams. With some bobbleheads in storage and more being made each year, she said the team could eventually add another kiosk to the museum. Certainly, there are other bobblehead collections to be mined. Across the country, for instance, Harvey Hodgerney has more than 700 bobbleheads covering his desk and the shelves in his office at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Hodgerney, the visiting clubhouse attendant for the Giants since 1984, has been collecting since 1999, when the team ignited the current bobblehead boom by giving away figures of Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds. Harvey Hodgerney, visiting clubhouse manager for the San Francisco Giants, turned down a $50,000 offer to sell his collection to the Marlins. �I thought it was neat,� said Hodgerney of his first three. �It just started growing and growing and growing.� His collection isn�t out in the open the way the Marlins� is, but fans who take tours of AT&T Park are often welcomed in personally by Hodgerney to see his bobbleheads or can look through his office window when he�s unavailable. Hodgerney said Loria approached him last season about buying the collection to display in Miami. �He came in and he says to me, �Do you know what it�s worth?� And I said, �No, I don�t,�" said Hodgerney. �So he came in the next day and he goes, �You figure it out?� And I go, �No.� He says, �I�ll give you $50,000. And I said, �Let me think about it,� and I told him no. Because, you see, all the bobbleheads I�ve got, if a guy�s been through here, they�ve signed them for me.� He said some players have noticed gaps in his collection and filled them. �Larry Walker one time came in and said, �Wait a minute, I don�t see mine.� He said, �I�ll make sure you get it,� and he brought it to me,� said Hodgerney. Hodgerney also has sought out bobbleheads from the early 1960s, when generic bobbleheads in team uniforms were sold. But his favorite, he said, is a little bobblehead trophy given to him by a boy of about 9 who brought it in for him because he noticed Hodgerney didn�t have one like it. That one�s special. While the Marlins� total might now be larger than his, Hodgerney said people in baseball have told him he has the largest personal collection of bobbleheads. �Nobody�s heard of anybody else having that many,� he said. That doesn�t mean, however, that he won�t someday part with it. What if Loria, for instance, were to make another offer? �If he came up with the right amount of money, I would [sell],� said Hodgerney. http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/fandom/post/_/id/8892/marlins-building-massive-bobblehead-collection

Going Back To Miami or Mets Gone Fishin? -- The All Purpose Thread for this weekend's Mets/Marlins series. The Money Quote: On his twenty-ninth wedding anniversary, a few weeks ago, [Marlins manager, Ozzie Guillen] was asked by his twenty-six-year-old son, Oney, how he was planning to celebrate. �I�m going to fuck your mom very well tonight,� he said. Read the rest of Ben McGrath's Spring Training piece for the New Yorker about the retooled, and rebranded Marlins: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/09/120409fa_fact_mcgrath#ixzz258ZoJlQ3 CSGfS6DC9MY

Anybody know why Joan Payson didn't officially retire #24? Was she waiting for Mays' induction into the HOF? Payson didn't wait for Casey to be voted into the HOF before retiring #37. And the Payson family still owned the team in '79, when Mays was voted, and then inducted into Cooperstown. Did Joan's daughters bumble it up for Joan? (And Willie).