batmagadanleadoff

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I would prefer a blue button on top of the cap instead of an orange one, but It's not a big issue for me. Have the Mets changed the shade of the blue in their cap? I've noticed that the blue caps that Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman wore back in the day were a darker blue than the closer-to-primary blue that the Mets have worn in recent seasons. I think this year's caps are a bit darker, but I'm not really sure of that. This year's caps are definitely a brighter blue than those worn by Tom and Jerry. I noticed that immediately. It's especially obvious when the Mets are on the road. The contrast between the bright blue caps and the duller blue on the not dull road unis is stronger than ever, I think.

By the end of this season, David Wright might own the Mets offensive career records, for the most part.

Ceetar wrote: They probably didn't tell the designer where the monstrosity would be going, so he figured against a wall since it'd be beyond the wall. They didn't even consider if it would be distracting to batters when placing it though, so clearly not a lot of thought went into it. Why would it be distracting to a batter? Why would it be any more distracting than the Mets home run apple?

I'd bet anything that the exposed mechanism was (ahem) by design. Totally calculated, every step of the way. What? No body ever saw anything like this before? Like the exposed gears on some wristwatches or clocks? Or the exposed chain, chainstay and pulley on a bicycle?

Picard determined that the Mets/Sterling were so money strapped that they would've been unable to pay any large verdict; hence the settlement. Great. IOW, Sterling's financial mess might, counter-intuitively, prevent them from losing the Mets. Trustee Says the Mets� Owners Had a Limited Ability to Pay By RICHARD SANDOMIR Published: April 14, 2012 Nearly a month ago, the owners of the Mets avoided a jury trial by agreeing to pay $162 million to the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff�s fraud. More than a year of acrimony ended the day the trial was supposed to begin. To get the settlement, the trustee, Irving H. Picard, dropped his central claim: that the Mets� owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, willfully ignored warnings about Madoff during their years of investing with him. On Friday night, Picard revealed � with some hindsight and a look at financial information provided since the settlement by Wilpon and Katz � that it would have been difficult to quickly recover more than $162 million. In a court filing, Picard wrote that �the defendants� cash flow and lender covenants would not have enabled me to recover more� if he had won at trial. Picard did not offer any details of Wilpon and Katz�s finances, but the implication is that they were hamstrung by loans and did not have enough money on hand to pay as much as $303 million, the maximum payment they faced if they lost at trial. Wilpon and Katz may not have to pay any part of the $162 million in so-called fictitious profits that they received from Madoff accounts described as net winners by Picard. But other accounts were net losers, entitling the owners to be reimbursed for $178 million from Picard�s cash recoveries. That is to be applied to pay the settlement. The more Picard recovers � the figure is currently at $9 billion � the less Wilpon and Katz pay. In another filing, Picard described the pragmatic method behind recovering the money. �With the collectability of a favorable judgment in doubt,� Picard said, he found a way to recover money from Wilpon and Katz that is not based wholly on their financial resources, �but rather on the trustee�s own ability to maximize� the size of the fund that is being used to pay Madoff�s defrauded customers. If Picard�s recoveries do not yield $162 million after three years, Wilpon and Katz have guaranteed that they will pay as much as $29 million. Picard did not say which documents he examined in Wilpon and Katz�s business empire, which includes real estate, a hedge fund and other investments. The Mets, the most public of their holdings, have been under a financial strain. They lost $121 million the last two seasons, have had attendance tumble at Citi Field, needed loans from Major League Baseball and Bank of America to help their sagging finances, and slashed their player payroll this season by $50 million. The settlement gave them financial relief, as did $240 million raised by selling limited shares in the team. The proceeds were used to repay the M.L.B. and Bank of America loans and some of the team�s other debt, as much as $400 million, with other banks. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/sports/baseball/trustee-in-madoff-fraud-says-mets-owners-had-limited-ability-to-pay.html

Each of the three Mets pitchers with two starts are among the top 15 in ERA (NL).

Oh my god! Bay did something good.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: My problem ... with the spreading "Meyer concept" at Nats Park): now we're "part of the growing number of ballparks" with a Shake Shack. Yeah. All two of them. LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: MFer, Shake Shack IS New York. And DC. And Connecticut. And Miami, too. And they're spreading at such a rate, that I no longer feel compelled to have Shake Shack at Citi Field. The way I make my rounds, I can have SS just about every single day now, - assuming, in theory, that I wanted SS every single day, which I don't, because their decent fast-foodish burger doesn't trump their crappy fries and overly sweet and overly yellow mustard that's a deal breaker for me on the dog. And that's good for me because who wants to go to a game to spend three innings on a food line anyway, even if you can get the Gulden's from another stand and the Box Frites fries? I don't.

If the season ended yesterday, the Mets would be traveling to Phoenix for a one game do or die qualifying game against the D-Backs.

Esquire magazine's Eater online guide to Citi Field Eats, 2012: http://ny.eater.com/archives/2012/04/citi_field.php and another standout rec for Blue Smoke's fried bologna sandwich.

Holy Catalanotto! The third baseman has to bat third!

What's on Second? Who cares. Here's a link to Esquire magazine's Eater on-line guide to eating at Citizen's Bank Park. http://philly.eater.com/archives/2012/04/05/what-to-eat-at-citizens-bank-park-home-of-the-phillies.php The Schmitter Chickey and Pete's crab fries with white cheese sauce

metsmarathon wrote: or they could give us a bigger screen there. lousy cheapass wilpons. That's another scoreboard peeve. It's one of the smallest main screens in all of baseball, maybe even the smallest one from the new generation stadiums. There are auxiliary scoreboard screens that are bigger than CF's main board. Not to mention that it's ugly. Both of them. And look like an afterthought, as if they realized at the last second that they forgot to allot for scoreboards and so just stuck 'em there, the both of them, right next to each other, practically touching each other, without regard for their surroundings, or how they'd fit in. Collectively, and again, practically touching each other, they look as out of place as cactus growing on a Manhattan sidewalk. Who the hell puts two scoreboards right next to each other like that? But the new old pinstripes homies are a thing to behold.

Get well, David.

The Mets are bigger than The Masters and the Easter Bunny. (Yanks are feeble).

Tell us what you think of the Buffalo Dog in this thread. Robert Sietsema, food critic for the Village Voice, attends his first Met game of the season (the Niese No-Nose game), and passes on some culinary observations, stadium wise. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2012/04/best_citifield.php His fave: the Memphis style Barbecued Bologna Sandwich

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Bobblehead Museum fan videos [youtube]aXRXH9haZZk[/youtube] I count at least 12 one time Mets Bobble-headed in this video (none in a Met uni) and one Bobble that looks like a one time Met but the uniform number on that Bobble would be wrong if it represented the one time Met I'm thinking of. Best part of about the bobble display is that it moves so the heads all bobble. That's cool! And the 12 one time Mets bobbling in the Bobblehead Museum are: Carlos Beltran (Royals) Henry Blanco (Twins) Mike Piazza (A's) Rickey Henderson (A's) Joe Torre (Yanks) Frank Viola (Twins) Yogi Berra (Yanks) Cliff Floyd (Marlins) Jeff Conine (Marlins) Luis Castillo (Marlins) Jeff Reardon (Twins) Hideo Nomo (Dodgers) I also thought I saw a Ron Gardenhire (Twins) bobblehead, but the bobble's uni # is 36, not Gardy's 35.

Edgy DC wrote: Lindsay Nelson interviews Rusty Staub, Tug McGraw, Willie Mays, and Cleon Jones going into the 1973 World Series. No video, but a great historical asset. Fixed. ys8atAUSkaw

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Bobblehead Museum fan videos [youtube]aXRXH9haZZk[/youtube] I count at least 12 one time Mets Bobble-headed in this video (none in a Met uni) and one Bobble that looks like a one time Met but the uniform number on that Bobble would be wrong if it represented the one time Met I'm thinking of.

More Bobblehead Museum fan video while the ballpark sound system goes all psychedilc with Disraeli Gears sounds and then some MonkeeMusik. 41CS7WpQhjU Between that music, that scoreboard, and that bobblehead display, I'm there this year, Jose or no Jose.

TransMonk wrote: I agree the unis look sharp. Give me the pins more than the snowballs at home, though. If it was up to me, I'd ditch the whites altogether. I only tolerated the whites because they were less of an affront than the blacks. The Mets are pinstripes. The whites are bullshit.

Ruben. Ruben Ruben Ruben. Ruben. Ruben.

Nose loses his Niese hit bid in the top of the 7th. There goes the nose-hitter.

Haha. Made you look.