batmagadanleadoff

The issues here are whether or not the Mets adequately examined Putz; whether they failed to diagnose a discoverable injury, and if so, whether or not they asked Putz to cover for the Mets. That Putz might have talked about his injury does not mitigate any screwups the Mets might have commited.

Speaking of Mets ad campaigns, I don't recall seeing any commercially-sized poster print ads for the team in 2009. If so, last season would've been the first in about 30 years that the Mets didn't run a city-wide public print ad campaign. If I'm right, I wonder if the Mets thought they didn't need that type of advertising what with their new stadium.

To me, it's an embarrassment. And forced and contrived, especially given that the franchise has been marketing a slogan every single year for over 30 years running. Considering that they finished in first place once in the last 21 years and have won just one World Series in the last 40, I'd recommend that they just shut up and get it done. If the team were listening to me, though, they'd surely defeat the purpose of my message by adopting it as a slogan --"This Year We're Going to Just Shut Up and Get it Done".

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Yeah, I remember thinking it was a ripoff that both Fregosi and Ryan were depicted as Angels. If they knew that Ryan was an Angel, how could they not have known that Fregosi was a Met? Fregosi appeared as an Angel, probably because his card was included in the earliest First Series (card #115). In all likelihood, the First Series had already been printed by the time he was traded to the Mets. Ryan's card (#595) appeared in the 5th Series; Topps, presumably, had time to airbrush an Angels logo on his card.

That's neat. I just remembered that in the 1972 set, some traded players were carded with an airbrushed cap, , while others appeared in later series', photographed in their new team's uniform with the word "Traded" stamped over the picture, stencil style:

Frayed Knot wrote: He was one of the earlier leaders in those nascent days of the player's union so there may have been some battles with the Topps folks and their monopoly at the time. There were. It was Marvin Miller's idea to seek higher royalty fees from Topps for the players during the very early 1970's. Initially, Topps wouldn't budge; they had all the players signed up and thought that Miller and the Union were powerless to effect any change. Topps did not even bother to negotiate with Miller. But when players began refusing to renew their expired contracts, Topps saw the light and eventually caved in. It appears that there was no reserve clause in baseball card contracts.

If my theory rings dings true, then that Hostess card might've been Staub's 1972 Topps card, but with better cropping: a head shot.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Uniwatch was having a discussion about the old Hostess baseball cards that were on the backs of Twinkies boxes, and I was reminded of this Rusty Staub disaster. Among the flaws: 1) They left the Expos logo on the jersey 2) They painted on only some of the pinstripes. 3) They used a photo that was more than three years old, as this is from 1975. I can only guess that the artists were on a major sugar buzz from eating too many Ring Dings and was distracted. Or, they just didn't give a damn. I'm guessing that Hostess licensed their pictures from Topps and that the screwup with the Expos "elb" logo and pinstriping was not an artist's oversight, but that the photo was supposed to be cropped higher up, at around Staub's neck and through the shoulder line. I've seen several proofs of old Topps cards where the cap or helmet was airbrushed to reflect the player's brand new team. In those proofs, the jersey top (former team) was left unaltered. The final card was cropped above the jersey.

Is this an SNY premiere, or a rerun from 2009?

I wonder if Hostess had nothing but Expos pictures to work with because Staub was a Topps hold-out for the 1972 and '73 seasons. Staub was not included in the '72 and '73 sets. His first Mets card is from the 1974 set. Perhaps Hostess got their pictures from Topps and that was the most recent one available. If so, then maybe Topps also did the airbrushing. Just a theory.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Fman99 wrote: I remember as a kid trying to figure out what the letters JL had to do with Montreal or Expos. Stupid logo. That's funny. I always saw it as "elb" Same here -- exactly. I had even decided to myself that the "elb" logo stood for Expos League de Baseball. That's French for Americans. I didn't figure out that the logo was an "M" until adulthood. That Expos logo was never explained to me when I was young -- not by the Mets announcers, The Sporting News, Baseball Digest or anything. If anybody ever did, I would've caught it because I devoured baseball as a kid.

What's the point in worrying about whether this pitcher's a #2 guy or that one's a #4 or maybe they're three of #5 and and two of #3? And if your supposed #5 is supposed to offset the shortcomings of your #3 pitcher, than maybe your 5 is really a three and your three a five. The Mets need good pitchers. They should get good pitchers and hope that the ones they already have are good.

I haven't rented a movie in over 10 years. I got tired of forgetting to, or not bothering to return the movie in time and then paying late fees that exceeded the cost of the movie itself. I've been buying DVD's for keeps ever since DVD technology went mainstream about 10 or 11 years ago. I have a very large DVD collection, but I've hardly bought any DVD's in the last two or three years. Once in a while, I'll tape a movie off of TCM now that technology exists to record TV programs digitally. I don't tape movies off of cable TV because they're usually not letterboxed even though they should be. I try to avoid pan and scan whenever possible. I'm like that.

Edgy DC wrote: How do you feel about this defense? Will it be a minor issue? A hewage one? What do you propose be done? I was going to write that the Mets could dim the lighting by about 10% whenever the other team bats. This way the visitors would strike out more and more K's means less worrying about our fielders on account of there'd be less batted balls to catch. But then I realized that it might be even harder to field the ones that are batted because of the more darkness --the Mets might lose out on that deal. So I don't know anymore. What about darker by 40%? And if anyone complains about the dark, I figure that they could play that Rick Astley song, only really really loud and then no one would hear all the griping about the 40% darker. Besides, they'd probably start to complain about Astley and forget about the darkness. Plus, Fred can always say that it's another Ebbets Field tribute -- 1950's style lighting. Honoring the Brooklyn Dodgers means never having to say you're sorry. Also, I won a Strat O Matic tournament a long time ago (First Place!!!) by drafting mostly Home Run Hitters who also walked a lot. I had the most "4" fielders but I still won running away. Mariano Duncan was my shortstop and his backup was even worse -- this in an All-Star League. I was the last team to draft a shortstop because I went instead for the power hitters. I had Pedro Guerrero who couldn't stop a beach ball but no one raked like Petey did back then -- and against righties too. Fielding's overrated when you can outhomer your opponent by a lot. You can't catch a Home Run. So if Luis Castillo hits a Home Run for every error he makes, I think we'll be okay. We could also use some better fielders.