metirish

] �I�ve known Danny a long time and he�s tops in what he does,� said Jeff Wilpon, an owner of the Mets. �He also loves the Mets.� I'll take your word on that Jeffy. Joking aside it will be nice to actually go to a Mets game and hopefully get some decent grub.(at high end prices)

I just told my wife that one of the guys here posted a picture of himself online , she didn't buy it as she has seen that guys picture numerous times.

WOW , Gos Bless the internet.

That really is a great idea from Vic . FOX would never go for it I think.

In typical Post/Murdoch fashion they won't let this go, morons.

I'm frustrated by this , it's a fun thread but would be a lot more fun if the Mets were kicking his ass. R.A. Dickey does sound like a hard boiled crime novelist that I read.

Mets fans boo Perez coming to the plate then cheer when they think he gets hit with a pitch.....ugh.

Anyway so Castillo totally botched a routine ground ball and tried to recover with a good throw to the plate but Bloomquist made a good slide and scored the second run on the play.

Has Dickey and Wakefield ever pitched in the same game as knuckeballers?

Pity Steve was on the radio with that great insight , if he were on the telly he would no doubt have used the indoor home plate that Baseball Tonight uses to illustrate his point ( and that KC likes)

Yeah that would seem to be the reservation with Sheets , he' snot pitched 200+ innings since 2004 when he made 34 starts , which was the last time he made anything close to 30 starts.

Sabathia - 5 years / 90 million( won't get it done) Sheets - 4 years / 60 million. Question - If we assume three starters and we are choosing two then why have a fifth starter competition ?

T.J. Simers seems a bit bitter himself. ] T.J. Simers: Gary Carter is suddenly a dead-end kid Hall of Fame catcher is managing in Fullerton because no one in the majors will give him the time of day. June 24 2008 I don't know Gary Carter. Never met the guy until Monday. I know he's a Hall of Fame catcher, a Dodger for a season, born in Culver City, raised in Fullerton, a local high school field named for him, the most accommodating player to fans and media, but a controversial figure in New York recently and working now as manager of the Orange County Flyers. Nothing against the Flyers, who are in first place under Carter, but the next step down after games against the Outlaws and Scorpions is out of baseball. There might not be a wider gap than the Hall of Fame and the Golden Baseball League. And it's pretty hard to explain. It almost makes you wonder if "Kid," as he was known in the big leagues, has been blackballed by baseball. "Sure does," says Kid. He has undergone 17 surgeries, and I know this, because I say hello, ask why he's working here, and he launches into "this is my life." Details, details, and he remembers each one, beginning with his right knee, and what that has to do with managing the Flyers, I don't know. Eleven surgeries on both knees, he says, and it's on to the thumbs, a little toe, and I'm expecting to learn it's not really a prerequisite to be down on your luck in Fullerton -- as it is to be down for the count. But he's moving, picking up a case of water and negotiating a flight of stairs in the Flyers' clubhouse that appears aimed to heaven -- back for a second trip on those rebuilt knees for a case of beer. Amazing how folks can push themselves when motivated. He spent his own money at Costco to fill the refrigerator so the guys who make almost no money playing for the Flyers can get a feel of what Carter is talking about when he mentions "the mountaintop." He was up there for 18 years, most of them in Montreal, several more in New York before stops in San Francisco and L.A. -- 101 games for the Dodgers in 1991 and then a final year in Montreal. An All-Star 11 times, three Gold Gloves and second in MVP voting one year. "Baseball has given me my identity," he says, "and everything I could possibly ask for, or dream of having." But he fibs, and you don't really have to spend much time with Carter to know that, because he's still driven to be a manager in the major leagues, and for some inexplicable reason, he says, his phone is not ringing. The team he played for most of his career, the Expos, no longer exists, and so much for those opportunities. They became the Nationals, and in Washington they pay homage to the Senators rather than the Expos, so AaronBoone is wearing Carter's retired No. 8 jersey. Carter's Expos jersey hangs in the arena where the Montreal hockey team plays. And I thought the last rung of the ladder was Fullerton. He loves the Mets, but they don't seem to think much of him. A few years back, he managed one of their minor league teams and won, a year later did it again and won a title, but then he didn't go along with the plan -- the one that had him advancing to yet another minor league post. He won't go, he tells them, unless the Mets assure him it will lead to Shea Stadium. He spends the next year out of work. He admits now, he misplayed his hand. He also gets a chance to interview with Ned Colletti's Dodgers and manage Las Vegas, but gets the brush-off. "Still no idea why," says Carter, recruited to play quarterback for UCLA before pursuing baseball instead. "Took them less than 30 seconds on the phone to say they didn't need me." Mike Scioscia could relate. Carter sent letters to 29 teams with his resume attached, and got 10 responses. "Mostly form letters," he says, coming home at times to ask his wife if anything had come in the mail only to get the message in the most agonizing way. "Nothing." He begins ticking off the names of others who have been given the chance to manage, mentioning the "pictures Joe Girardi must have on Steinbrenner," and so a job with the Yankees is also probably out of the question. He doesn't understand any of it, everything he has to offer, and everyone settling for so much less. He goes to work for the Flyers, 22 players, a salary cap of $83,000 for the year and "Roger Clemens makes that with one pitch," Carter says. He signs a contract allowing him to leave for a job in the majors, and a short time later a radio station calls to ask him about beleaguered Mets manager Willie Randolph. It takes only a few minutes with Carter to know how confident he is in his own abilities. And why not? He set out to make the majors by age 20, earn $100,000 by age 25 and is now an honored resident of Cooperstown. He believes he can do anything, telling the story about his time with the Dodgers, "May 7, and I've got 15 at-bats, one start where I went three for four against the Braves, throwing out three runners, one of them Deion Sanders and Tommy is playing Mike [Piazza]. . . ." There's more, the Dodgers obviously better off with Carter at catcher as he tells it -- the competitive athlete always driven to be the guy no matter what. And so here he is, being asked what he thinks about Randolph's situation, and of course he thinks he could do a better job. So he wants the Mets to know he's available. Former teammate Keith Hernandez trashes him, the New York media pile on and Carter backtracks but today contends he did nothing wrong. "I'm here because I want to manage in the major leagues one day, so what am I supposed to say when asked if I'd be interested?" Another time, another place and it blows over, but New York is probably his best shot at getting back into big-time baseball, and now it's gone too. "It hurts," he says, banished to Fullerton and then buried on top of it. "I thought, what the heck did I do to cause this? "But hey, I'm not bitter, and will not be bitter. I'm too grateful for everything baseball has given me, and if this is it. . . ." It's time to go, a ballgame in a few hours and his third baseman waiting outside to tell him he has another opportunity and Carter may need to find another infielder. "Our highest-paid player," but he's not concerned, Carter says, because as manager, the Flyers have the guy to make the best of it. T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.

Predictably this " story" is all over the internet.

Some of my favorite M&MD stuff was when they used to have NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on , neither of them sounded like they knew much about the NHL yet they would tell Bettman how to make it better. Other faves would include M&MD as movie critics , or spending the show talking about The Sopranos.

It's not often I look forward to IL games but I am looking forward to watching this pitching match up tonight. Got to say I really like Harold Reynolds on the pre-game , would like to see SNY work him in the booth.

Delgado uncomfortable speaking English? , his English is excellent .

Apparently the handoff with Maine happened becasue Manuel felt John was pissed at the umpire and he wanted to keep him on the mound to cool off , Pedro followed the next day and the rest is history. From what I have seen and heard so far things with Manuel seem to be more defined.

I'm sure Russo will keep us up to date with a post or two.

There is even a show on SNY called loudmouths. Russo could go to ESPN and do a show with Michael Kay.

Well, mostly as a demonstration of support for the managerial change. I can only hope I suppose.

This is a shit story , enough of this crap.

Funny , in my mind I thought I saw his name somewhere , and I did actually read your post. I'm losing it.

A different take on the firing here , it was Biblical in a way. ] Willie firing was standard procedure John Jeansonne | HOT TOPIC 7:43 PM EDT, June 21, 2008 Mets management might want to think of its critics, who all week hurled charges of cowardice and villainy in the Willie Randolph affair, the way playwright Eugene O'Neill did: "I love every bone in their heads." There certainly was no shortage of numbskullian outrage from many among the same chattering classes who for weeks had been calling for Randolph's dismissal. That Mets general manager Omar Minaya proved to be anything but nimble in sending Ran.dolph packing -- first literally, to the West Coast, then figuratively -- was obvious enough. But the act of firing a boss for his employees' underperformance hardly reached the level of "spinelessness" and "bullying" widely ascribed to it. The deed was not done via e-mail after 3 a.m., as many reports had it. (Minaya delivered the blow face-to-face when the Anaheim clocks had not yet struck midnight; it's just that reporters were informed of the move electronically and referenced Eastern time.) "I don't think it was cowardly," said Randy Cohen, who considers questions of morality and principle for National Public Radio and the New York Times Magazine as "The Ethicist." In what sense? "No one woke him up in the middle of the night. There was no slapping. If it was less than ideal, it didn't seem brutal. [The Mets] seem to have made a professional judgment. It was not as smooth and elegant as it might have been, but they didn't fail by much. Being imperfect is not being unethical." To Duke University cultural anthropologist Orin Starn, a keen observer of the sports universe, Randolph's termination of employment not only was very 21st-century American, it was downright Biblical. "It's part of mainline anthropology: the idea of the scapegoat," Starn said. "The word comes from the ancient Israelis, when the priest would lay hands on a goat and put all pains and troubles and sickness of the time into the goat, who'd then be sent into the wilderness to be eaten by lions." Straight from Leviticus and with roots in Yom Kippur ceremonies. "By making a sacrificial victim, by expelling somebody from the Garden of Eden, expelling him from his job, you make everything right again, make possible the idea of a new order," Starn said. With the team sandbagging against the rising floods of mediocrity, in the face of playoff expectations, sending Randolph into the baseball wilderness logically "fits with the America of the instant fix and CEO performance thing," Starn said. "If you don't get the job done, you're out. Those old guarantees of lifetime employment and a pension don't apply to anybody anymore." Where so much of the commentary on Randolph's treatment seemed to be at cross purposes was in the cries of injustice following so closely on the heels of salivating talk radio and tabloid death watches. It was Will Leitch, the snarkily observant Deadspin.com blogger, who wrote in New York magazine earlier this month that "for sports fans, collapses are much more fun than victories ... There's something delightfully retro and charming about the hunt for Randolph's hide." Leitch reasoned that "our teams are extensions of ourselves and, when they fail, we fail ... To hate your coach is to love your team." Ethicist Cohen saw "no blood on anybody's hands" in that scenario because "speculation about how to correct the team" came with Randolph's public job description. "Within the bounds of ordinary courtesy, emotional well-being is not the concern of the fans," Cohen said. "It's the concern of his family and his friends and his therapist." As a figure in the professional entertainment business, Randolph reasonably is "remote," on the human level, from those judging his performance. "It's certainly true," Cohen said, "that when you go to the movies, villains are more interesting than heroes, and tragedies are much more engaging than successes. What's to say about success? Nice going? So failure is more interesting in every way, because the outcome is still in doubt: How will we reverse this? We're headed for the rocks, and people's characters will reveal themselves." That Randolph suddenly became a sympathetic character no doubt was the result of Minaya's Kabuki theater, the bizarre path taken to confronting Randolph while Mets ownership stayed out of sight. Starn submitted that there might be "some racial angst, this unspoken subtext that this is an African-American guy who was known as a good guy, played by the rules, loved baseball and now was getting the shaft." Except, of course, Minaya is a minority himself, a man of color with Latino roots, and Randolph's replacement, Jerry Manuel, also is black. Which may leave us with very little to be critical about. "If everything were always going well," Leitch added via e-mail to Newsday, "fans would be bored and talk radio would be silent. Unless, of course, we're Boston. Which, fortunately, we're not." I never read or heard of this John Jeansonne before. http://www.newsday.com/sports/ny-sphot0622,0,5404606.column

Pelfrey 3 Beltran 2 Sanchez 1 Wagner 1 Smith 1 Reyes 1 Wright 1