A Boy Named Seo

Dodgers score an unearned run on an infield hit, David Wright throwing error, and a sac fly.

I did what I had to do for a few years with the baseball on the computer, and I'm glad I had it instead of nothing, but I'm really looking forward to getting to watch the games this year on a regular TV. I love Vin, too. Tons of neat anecdotes about the players, their families, their upbringing, etc. By the third game of the series, some of the repeat material sounds stale, but a man's gotta say stuff more than once occasionally when he calls his games solo. Perez cruises through the 5th. A single and 2 K's.

Perez through 4 shutout innings, just 2 hits allowed. I love the zeros and don't care how he gets them.

Frayed Knot wrote: When ABNSeo says the game is on locally, he means that HIS local team is showing it, not ours. It's on FAN here.Yeah, sorry 'bout that. Ollie got out unscathed in the third, but it could've been ugly. He walked Marlon Anderson on 4 pitches, went to 2-0 on the next guy before getting him, got Juan Pierre to pop up, gave up a hard single to Olmeido Seinz, before Adam LaRoche flew out to Ben Johnson's waiting glove on the warning track in left to end the inning. It looked just like a 3-run bomb might look when he hit it, though. Pierre shaved his mustache and now looks like an adorable 9-year old boy. My neighbor came over after that and I missed all of the Mets half of the 4th. Mets tacked on 3 more, though, 5-nil going to the bottom of the inning.

It's on KCAL here. Vin Scully in the booth.

Reyes walks on 5 pitches to start the third. He steals second and Kuo's pitch during the steal sailed to the backstop, letting Reyes move around to third base. Wright flew out to right, Beltran walked, Delgado bounced out scoring Reyes, and Easley popped out to center to end the inning. Kuo's come undone. 4 walks, 4 wild pitches. I hope Wright doesn't take this second hitter thing too literally, taking a lot of good pitches to hit and trying to hit behind the runner instead of just smacking the ball.

Easley makes a nice diving stab on a grounder to his left and throws out Ivan De Jesus Jr. at first. The Dodgers put the names on the backs of their uni's again this year, but young De Jesus doesn't have one above his #81. 1-0 after 2.

Reyes 1, Dodgers 0. Jose hits an infield single to short, steals second, steals third and scores on a wild pitch. The third of steal steal of third was especially cool. Delgado was up and the Dodgers had a shift on with the third baseman shaded way over in the hole. Reyes saw how far the third baseman was from the bag, waited for Kuo to put his head down and then he took off, strolling into third without a throw. With the shift still on, Reyes got half way down the line to third, which freaked Kuo out and he ended up throwing a wild pitch. 8th and 9th steals of the spring. Wright K'd looking, (looked like he was trying to go to the right side and move Reyes over), Beltran flied out, and Delgado struck out. Kuo looked pretty good. Better than the Mets gay, 2-button pullover little league tops.

Game's on locally so I get my first glimpse of the Mets this spring. Your New York Mets: Reyes - SS Wright - 3B Beltran - CF Delgado - 1B Easley - 2B Milledge - RF Johnson - LF Castro - C Perez - P Kuo's (lefty, tough on us last year) is on the hill for LA.

Add one to that 800K figure as I'm a new dish/Extra Innings person, too. Guy just left about a half hour ago. I ordered the same thing Yancy did, and am planning on the sports thing, too, to get SNY and Fox Soccer.

Hey, hey, looks like my kid Muniz is getting an inning against the Nats. I think that's his first appearance as a New York Met. Alright, alright, alright.

Mets can't pitch it or field it today. Nats up 13-nil now after Sosa gives up 6 (three earned) and Joe Smith's now given up 2 earned in the other game. Us: 0, Them: 21

Distant Replays Retro Store has home blues with and without the orange dot: No dot: Dot:

So green lids with orange bills? What kinda shirts are they wearing?

Both halves of the Mets are getting shellacked right now, Chan Ho Park (3 IP, 4 ER) and the A-Team are down 7-0 to the Nats, and Aaron Sele (4 IP, 5 ER) and the JV-Team are getting blitzed by the O's 6-0. Milledge has 2 of the Mets 3 hits against Baltimore. Wright has a single and a steal against the Natties.

That turf in the dome didn't slow the ball down any, I'm sure. Might make a routine-looking ball skip under a guy's glove. Watch for Darling smoking a cig in the dugout as they cut to or from a commercial in the 15th inning.

This was the quote from that same NYTimes article that got me. �He doesn�t have that deer-in-the-headlights look,� Wagner said. �Now, he is a lot more mature. He understands that his role here is not to pitch and get paid, but to pitch and win championships.� Not so complimentary of your teammate, Bill. We need a 2007 quotes thread.

Joe Smith continues to impress and Guy Conti offers some philosophical insight. What's the difference between a swing-and-miss pitch and a put-away pitch? ] HE'S NO AVERAGE JOE METS' SMITH MAKES MARK March 3, 2007 -- JUPITER, Fla. - So I walk up to side-arming Joe Smith, and playing the part of the wise guy, say, "Joe Smith. That's the most common name in America." "I've heard that my whole life, but I've never met another one," the Mets reliever answers with a smile, although he did admit to collecting all the Joe Smith basketball cards he could get his hands on and wore the jersey of the 6-foot-10 NBA forward when he was a kid . Baseball's Joe Smith continues to make a name for himself. He had another strong outing yesterday in the Mets' 6-5 win over the Cardinals at Roger Dean Stadium. The Mets are taking it slow with the rehabbing reliever Duaner Sanchez and Smith's stock continues to rise as the come-from-nowhere story of the spring. A year ago at this time Smith, 22, was playing college ball at Wright State. Now he is the right man in the right place. The right-hander throws first-pitch strikes, and, here's the key, pounds the strike zone low and gets batters to swing and miss at pitches that are in the strike zone. That is a huge measuring stick for the Mets. Not all strikes are created equal. It's one thing for a batter to swing at a pitch out of the strike zone. You see that a lot in the minor leagues; that's why minor league strikeout statistics can be so misleading. "Major league hitters don't swing at those pitches," explained Mets bullpen coach Guy Conti, Rick Peterson's right-hand man. It's quite another for a batter to swing and miss at a strike. That is something the Mets watch closely. "He looks to me that he is not intimidated at all being here," Conti said of Smith. "He throws the ball over the plate and he starts throwing ground ball after ground ball, that's what we need. I look at three things: swing-and-miss pitches in the strike zone, ground ball to fly ball ratio and a put-away pitch." Smith has shown all three. He pitched the seventh inning yesterday and got a grounder to short, a strikeout looking, gave up a two-strike single on a high changeup and then froze Preston Wilson for strike three on a slider, his put-away pitch to right-handers. Smith's changeup is his put-away pitch to left-handers. As Smith came to the dugout, Willie Randolph was the first to greet him with a congratulatory fist pound. It's too early for Randolph to get excited about any minor league pitcher, but the manager did say: "If he can attack the bottom of the zone he will get those ground balls naturally. I like what I see." "Pound it, and ground it," is how Smith put it. Here is your key statistic of the day, courtesy of Conti: "Major league hitters hit .190 at the bottom of the strike zone. That's why we want to keep that ball where they have the most trouble with it. We have a better chance of getting them out." Smith is not intimidated, but sometimes he looks around and can't believe he's in the same clubhouse as Tom Glavine, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Carlos Delgado. This is the same Joe Smith who was having a few chicken wings and a beer with friends, watching the Mets play the Cardinals last October in the NLCS. He gave up only one earned run in 20 innings last year with the Brooklyn Cyclones. "It's crazy," Smith said. "Especially when I first got here, it was like, 'What am I doing?' I just tried to stay out of the big boys' way and stay low key." On the mound, though, he attacks the hitters. "It's hard to pick up his arm slot, and he gets ahead of you," Mets outfielder Ben Johnson said. "Then he throws that slider. He's got good stuff and he's a good kid, too." Smith lives in Cincinnati. His pitching hero is Greg Maddux and he grew up a Cubs fan. He came up with the sidearm angle at Wright State, "goofing around in the bullpen one day" in 2004. Now he's got a major league career in front of him

'62 Met Clem Labine died on Friday at the age of 80. LATimes: ]Clem Labine dies at 80 Steve Henson, Times Staff Writer 8:37 AM PST, March 2, 2007 VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Clem Labine, a pioneering relief pitcher and a member of the "Boys of Summer" Brooklyn Dodgers 1955 World Series championship team, died Friday at Indian River Memorial Hospital. He was 80. Labine, a right-hander, played in five World Series, four with the Dodgers and one with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Three of the teams—the Dodgers in 1955 and 1959, and the Pirates in 1960—won championships. One of the first pitchers who specialized in entering a game in the late innings to preserve a victory, Labine twice led the National League in saves and recorded 96 during his 13-year career. He had a won-loss record of 77-56 with a 3.63 earned-run average, and notched a win and a save in the 1955 World Series, appearing in four of the seven games. Labine had lived in Vero Beach since 1987 and was a popular instructor at the adult baseball camps at Dodgertown, recounting stories along with former teammates that included Duke Snider, Carl Erskine, Ralph Branca and Preacher Roe. Shortly after making his 40th appearance at the camp last month, Labine was hospitalized because of pneumonia and congestive heart failure. He fell into a coma and never awoke. "Clem Labine was one of the main reasons the Dodgers won it all in 1955," said Vin Scully, the longtime Dodgers broadcaster. "He had the heart of a lion and the intelligence of a wily fox. And he was a nice guy too. He will be truly missed by all who knew him." Born Aug. 6, 1926, in Lincoln, R.I., Labine was raised in Woonsocket, R.I., and attended St. Ann's Park school. The Dodgers signed him in 1944 and he made his major league debut in 1950. Labine established himself as a valuable relief pitcher the next season, but his most memorable game that year came during a rare start. He shut out the New York Giants, 10-0, in the second playoff game of a three-game series, setting up a finale made a part of baseball lore when Bobby Thomson hit "the shot heard around the world," a home run in the ninth inning that sent the Giants to the World Series. "I always thought Clem would've had a great career as a starting pitcher," said Erskine, Labine's teammate from 1950 to 1959. "But he told me, 'I didn't want to start. I liked the pressure of coming into the game with everything on the line. I could also do it more often as a reliever.' " Labine led the National League with 19 saves in 1956, but again, his most memorable outing was a postseason start. Brooklyn trailed the New York Yankees three games to two in the World Series when Dodgers Manager Walter Alston called on Labine as a surprise starter. He pitched a 10-inning shutout to keep the series alive. The game was overshadowed because it came between two Yankees victories—Don Larsen's perfect game the previous day and the Game 7 clincher the next day. Labine remained with the Dodgers when the franchise moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and pitched on the 1959 team that won the World Series title. On June 15, 1960, Labine was traded to the Detroit Tigers for Ray Semproch and $350. Upon his departure, Labine left a handwritten note in the dugout that expressed his admiration for his teammates and the Dodgers. Team owner Walter O'Malley sent a note to Labine, thanking him for his service. "Clem Labine was one of the greatest guys I had the pleasure of playing with," said former teammate Tom Lasorda. "He represented the Dodgers with class, dignity and character." After he retired from baseball in 1962, Labine worked for a clothing company, then became a banker, maintaining homes in Rhode Island and Vero Beach. Labine is survived by his wife, Barbara; his son, Clem Jr. of Woonsocket; four daughters, Kim Archambault and Gail Ponanski of Smithfield, R.I., Barbara Grubbs of Reno, Nev., and Susan Gershkoff of Lincoln, R.I.; five grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Condolences can be posted on the website of Cox-Gifford-Seawinds Funeral Home at www.seawindsfh.com. Donations can be made to St. Jude Children Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN. A memorial service is pending.

I thought this movie was a warm pile of poo.

Carlos Muniz showed up at the pro alumni versus Cal State Long Beach game again this year. Last year he was torched and was the losing pitcher. This year he tossed a quiet scoreless inning, striking out one. New Met Jason Vargas also threw a scoreless inning for the alumns. The Pro's beat the Joe's 1-0.

Yeah, they had a bunch of midday times earlier, too. Might be worth keeping an eye out for.

="Nymr83"]SUNDAY THE 25TH WAS NO AVAILABLE (EXCEPT AT 9AM) SO I SELECTED SATURDAY THE 24TH AT 6:30 PM FOR OUR DRAFT we can still changwe it but those dates fly fast. there are NO drafts whatsoever (it wasnt even a choice) on sunday april 1st. if anyone joins other leagues and sees that later times on sunday the 25th of march have opened up please post here IMMEDIATELY when that happens. Looks like they've added some more times. You might be able to find a late 3/25 now.

]"Everything�s clean," MIlledge said. "Everything�s fine. Everybody�s all right. I�m fine with everybody. Everything�s OK. I don�t have any problems with anybody."So is everything okay or what? I didn't know it was Wagner who hung the "Know your place, rook" sign.

Yeah, it looks like the user gets a "dynamic toolbar" that offers "safer and smarter surfing". And all you have to do in return is install an invasive piece of software on your computer that reports to Alexa "valuable information about the web, how it is used, what is important and what is not."