Frayed Knot

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Gay Jay Burnett leaves the MFY game with cuts on BOTH hands after "punching something" between innings of a humiliating MFY loss on Old Timer's Day. Something was fishy about this though. AJ was struggling in the 2nd and the Yanx got someone up in the pen in the middle of the inning. He got out of the inning and the guy sat down. Then he struggled again in the 3rd and suddenly he was injured and couldn't continue. If he punched anything it was after the 2nd but he was already in trouble before then. Sounded as if the injury were concocted or at least embellished so as to give the reliever more time to warm up. Announcers - Albert & McCarver - wondered about a pie-ing injury from yesterday but were clearly speculating out their blow-holes.

Niese - 4.5 Parnell - 0.5 Tejada - 0.3 Wright - 0.3 Beltran - 0.3 Turner - 0.1

At least they're sucking quickly in these late games.

Turner looking good!

From BA's Ben Badler as part of a general Q & A session: -- There's only a handful of position prospects I'd take over [Flores] in the minors. It's a special bat and the power is starting to come around even faster than I expected. I'd get him to third base as quickly as possible because that's his ideal position, but he's just a natural hitter.

soupcan wrote: The more of this kind of stuff I read, the more I believe the rumors that the Wilpon's are averse to spending money they may not have. Thanks Bernie! See that's just it. It's hard to know whether the Mets are after Myers because they can't/don't wanna increase the payroll or whether the the Mets-Myers rumors are invented or gain steam based merely on some guy's assumption - correct or otherwise - that the Mets can't/won't spend.

Dickey - 4.5 Parnell - 0.4 Bay - 0.7 Cora - 0.4 Wright - 0.4 Beltran - 0.4 Thole - 0.4 Tejada - 0.4 Carter - 0.4

Heard Buster Olney bring up his name this morning in connection with the Mets. At least one reason is that he's relatively cheap [remainder of a $5.1mil deal + $2mil buyout vs $10mil 2011] as compared to other possible targets like Oswalt [at least $25mil left], Lilly [pro-rated portion of $10mil], or Westbrook of Cleveland [pro-rated portion of $11mil]. Now whether the money situation is just a tack-on reason for him being linked w/the Mets or the sole source of it is tough to stay. Myers is having a decent season in Houston: 18 starts, 6-6; 3.41; 1/1 H/IP; 89-K/38-BB in 121 IP The ass-hole factor wasn't mentioned.

Our Beltran's back and there's gonna be some trouble (hey la, hey la, our Beltran's back) Going to stripe one in the gap and leg it to a double (hey la, hey la, our Beltran's back)

I was waiting for the sun Then I walked on home alone What I didn't know Was he was waiting for you to fall

Santana - 4.0 Parnell - 0.25 Rodriguez - 0.35 Pagan - 1.9 Cora - 0.8 Thole - 0.8 Davis - 1.9

Ashie62 wrote: What are the only two days of the year when none of the 4 major U.S. sports are active? The day before & after the all star break I despise the AS break. There used to be several other 'blank' days in the sports calendar, but that was before leagues starting deciding that the likes of Christmas & Christmas Eve were perfect spots for TV programming. But it could be worse, there's only seven games on the sked for today. So, even though we have to wait until 10PM EDT to renew our fix, we're fortunately not one of the Sixteen teams with an extra day off.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I probably have it all bassackwards, but Wilson bungled Roger Cedeno's fly ball into a triple and Cedeno then stole home off Pettitte. Looks like it was probably THIS GAME Two triples in that game, both to RF, a Cedeno steal of home, Enrique never plays RF again, and the Yanx trade for Mondesi two days later. But it was all off of future NYM Ted Lilly, not Pettitte.

The Second Spitter wrote: G-Fafif wrote: "The National League will win another All-Star Game over my dead body." --George Steinbrenner Duuuuuude............I thought of this, except I was worried one of the admins was going to tear me a new one, for typing it. Oh man don't ever think that. In nearly 9 years of this board the number of posts that got spiked is probably countable on one hand ... by Mordecai Brown. Let 'em fly.

Tom V: There is no way to put this to you gently: you've been hoodwinked. Baseball has sold you the idea that the All-Star Game is meaningful because the winning league gets homefield advantange for the World Series, ... But as long as managers keep running the game as if it's a church picnic softball game, the idea that the game "counts" is a farce. Dear Tom: DUH!!!! -- like you're just realizing this NOW dude?!?

Edgy DC wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: I always thought Breslin was a bit of a phony. I always thought he was a lot of a phony but denying the existence urban environment that you made your name chronicling seems simply surreal. It's like Dickens saying there were no orphans in London or Clemens saying there were never steamboats on the Mississippi. Except, of course, moreso. "Next on ESPN, is Jacob Riis to tell us about immigrant slums in the late 1800s." "Slums! Those weren't slums! Those people had it made!" Then there was that incident a few years later where, after spending years decrying racism in the power structure of NYC, Breslin was caught disparaging a female Chinese-American reporter at the NYDN as "a yellow cur". Way to stay classy Jimmy.

Heard on ESPN this morning Buster Olney (then NYY beat writer for the NYTimes) and Keith Law (then a front office asst w/Toronto) talking about the events which led to Steinbrenner trading for Raul Mondesi. Yanx were short of OFers for some reasons (injuries maybe) and were playing backup IF Enrique Wilson out in RF. He muffed several plays that day causing Tim McCarver to suggest up in the booth that the Yanx needed a guy like former RoY Raul Mondesi out there. George immediately got it into his head that Mondesi was the guy and had his people call Toronto where Mondesi was a shell of his former self but still earning some $7mil/yr for the next two seasons. Cashman wanted nothing to do with it and was cut out of the loop with George taking charge of an "owner to owner" deal. Of course the Jays owner was consulting with his GM JP Riccardi all along and Law was saying they would have sent Mondesi via Fed Ex just to get him off their hands (and off their payroll) but had to keep up the facade that this was a real trade. Eventually they settled on some low-level prospect in return. I remember that situation because it was during a Met-Yanx game where Wilson was screwing up, but I didn't know that it all came about due to a McCarver comment in the booth.

Edgy DC wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: And, yeah, he sounded more than a bit goofy claiming that NYC was NOT down in the early '70s - "Stop spreading that fiction!" - but that was Breslin's prime and a gritty, run-down city was right up his alley. This is amazing. He was serious? VERY serious. It's like he was playing the local telling the clueless out-of-towner that the stories he's heard are nothing but tall tales that have mistakenly become accepted facts over time. Yes, New York has always been a wonderland with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly dancing in Columbus Circle, where even our mobsters were lovable shnooks in big-shouldered dapper suits eating cheesecake at Mindy's. I always thought Breslin was a bit of a phony. He could write, but writing about the gritty, crime-ridden parts of the city as long as you've got enough money and connections to hang in the high-living parts of it is a great way to claim 'aw it's not that bad' ... or, They can't say that about our city, only WE can say that about our city. NYC in the '70s was both broken & broke, not to mention filthy and averaging six murders a day. But, hey, Son-of-Sam was good for HIS career.

Zvon wrote: If I ever had a brew with you, FK, I think I'd wanna just sit there and listen. And eat pretzels. You're telling me I talk too much, right?

That interview w/Breslin was one of the few things I've actually heard today via mass media (it was ESPN). Breslin sounded even more out of it than the transcript probably made him sound, but the thing that took the interviewer back was that Breslin was likely the only guy interviewed today to go 'off script', telling the questioner to "STOP DEIFYIN' THE GUY! ... he was a good guy but he never hit a home-run, never caught a fly ball", etc. And, yeah, he sounded more than a bit goofy claiming that NYC was NOT down in the early '70s - "Stop spreading that fiction!" - but that was Breslin's prime and a gritty, run-down city was right up his alley.

The biggest sign of a bully - as JCL called him earlier - is that the lower down on the totem pole you were in the Yanx org the worse you were treated. It's going to be easy, particularly w/the ASG going on, to get quotes about what a 'tough but fair' guy he was from the group he gave multi-million dollar contracts to and whom he needed more than they needed him. Besides, they all still have to deal with his kids. And, yes, there are numerous Steiny stories - like Mole's - of spontaneous acts of charity. But the good journos* are going to be the ones who'll also track down those of the clubhouse boys he mercilessly mistreated simply because he could and because he had a childish temper which caused him to blame others for his failings, or for losses which were no one fault save for the fact that the other team was trying too, or for just plain bad luck. There's the one story which George told on himself frequently about how he has/had a secretary who he fired a dozen (or was it dozen[u:ym3duz1m]s[/u:ym3duz1m]?) times. The reason he was the one to relate the story is that he thinks the fact that he always re-hired her back makes him the good guy in the tale. No it doesn't George. * I could see Newsday dragging Steve Jacobson out of retirement for a guest column this week. He was the Yanqui beat guy back in the early Stein-years. After a while he realized that what George wanted most was his name in the paper and so Jacobson, when he became a columnist, simply refused to mention him by name, mostly calling him 'That man'.