Frayed Knot

Bring a sign that says: I Be Coo-Be so we'll know who you are.

Mendoza Line wrote: 6. Sixto Lezcano? It would be kinda cool if Sixto were the answer to question #6 though.

Anderson back from the bereavement list and the wrist he hurt in his final game prior to going away is OK. Also Castro is available, but not starting. Got a cortisone shot and is "a little stiff", but won't be DL'd and could catch if needed. IOW, like the rest of us, he's "Day to Day". In the meantime it'll be DiFelice until further notice.

Pedro has been balking at traveling for any of these rehab starts and he's apparently getting his way. He doesn't want to go to Bignhamton and this game was in the GCL because the High-A team was on the road in Florida. So it sounds like he's going to go straight from Rookie League & A-ball players right to the majors.

That might be the first linked Onion piece I've found funny in, oh maybe about 2 years. Yesterday's 1st game of the DH was just what you want if you're a player or a fan: Cain & Maholm hooked up and allowed 9 hits total in an hour & 51 minutes. Then they even got the 2nd game done in 2:33. If game times were routinely still like that there'd be more DHs these days. (OK no there wouldn't, but it's still nice to see)

#6 - David Wright?

#2 = Cal Ripken

Weird in that I was just thinking about Rizzuto this morning. Actually it was ESPN that triggered as there was a ARod tribute at Yanqui Stadium last night for his 500th and the gift took a tumble (I couldn't tell what it was) when they pulled the cover off of it. That made them dust off the film where the cow that was brought out on the field for Phil Rizzuto day wound up knocking Phil over. Anyway, that all made me wonder how he was doing since I knew he hadn't been well. There was an item in the papers over the last year where he had left NJ to go live with a daughter (upstate I think) and they were selling a lot of memorabilia, etc. None of those are good signs when you're in your upper 80s, neither is the fact that he hadn't been seen in public in a long time. Met him once briefly a bunch of years back and he was basically the same goofball that you think he was. Admitted to being a Dodger fan/Yankee hater when growing up although never liked to say that during Yanqui telecasts when he always professed to not knowing anything about "that National League". He wound up getting shoved aside as the regular SS rather unceremoniously by the Yanx in the late '50s and was up in the broadcast booth almost immediately after his last game. Doesn't belong in the HoF IMO, but that's an argument for a different day.

]... it detracts enough from his career so that I don't feel he should be enshrined. Detracts from his career to the point where it needs to be taken into consideration sure, but not to the point where it excludes him from being considered. Just think of it in the same way that you'd judge a 1st baseman's stats differently than similar offensive numbers from a SS. It's a factor, not a death sentence.

Y'know what would really help here? If opposing teams would stop playing like fuckin' idjits agains the Yanx. O's tonight couldn't match yesterday's pick-off withthe bags loaded and no one out, but they tried. Orioles take an early lead ... immediately give it back and more of course ... trail most of the game ... cut the defecit to one and head to the 9th. So they get a guy on with 1 out and wild pitch him to 2nd. Since he's the tying run the OF is real shallow when a single is dumped into CF. Melky fields the ball about 10 steps behind 2nd just as the runner reaches 3rd where he can score on an out ... except they decide to send him home. So Posada takes the throw from CF, lights a cigarette, finishes the Sudoku, reads his kid a bedtime story over the cell phone, then tags the runner out. Batter actually managed to make it to 2nd almost HE was almost out too. So the next batter also singles and THAT ONE ties the game, but instead of being 2 on w/1 out there's 1 on w/2 outs and they don't score again. Yanx then win in the bottom of the inning on a 60-ft Jeter single. Off Bradford btw. Rivera now has pitched 2.1 innings over the last two days and has coughed up 6 hits plus a HBP ... and has a save plus a win to show for it.

"Is it because they just aren't getting those extra 10,000 people on a consistant enough basis to have 81 near capacity dates?" But your argument all along - both by implication and by outright (*and false*) statements was that they used to draw like that all the time but are no longer doing so. And yes I did answer this question.

Just a rule of thumb to go by: 1,000,000 in attendence ~ 12,350 per game base on 81 home admissions so 2mil ~ 25,000 per 3mil ~ 37,000 per 4mil ~ just shy of 50K/per So if you have a number of days with 50K or better the remainder of the days would have to really suck in order to stall out at barely 2.5mil. Bottom line; attendence in NYC has never been better. Steinbrenner's complaint early on was that his team [u:9418dc24c4]Could[/u:9418dc24c4] never and [u:9418dc24c4]Would[/u:9418dc24c4] never draw 3mil. They're now headed for their 3rd or 4th straight year of 4+ The Mets + Yanks last year out-drew ANY year of the Dodgers + Giants + Yanx

Well at this point (unless there's bad news about Castro that I haven't heard about) they don't need to go with anyone yet. And if you're going to bring up a guy to essentially sit there in case of emergency it makes sense to bring up the better catch-n-throw guy in DiFelice. Depending on how things go with Ramon we might see Alomar up in addition to DiFelice and see Newhan increase his already formidable frequent flyer miles.

"Those are totals, what was the average attendance for both years?" Umm, off the top of my head I'd say the avgs would be higher in the year where the total attendence was higher than it was for the year when the total was lower. At least math tended to work that way when I was in school although admittedly that was a while ago. There may have been a few fewer dates in the '80s (although DH's were rare then too) but not enough to make up for the 22% increase in the total. "Other than shoehorning more luxury boxes don't you think there is a reason why there are going to be 45,000 seats at Citi?" Yes, as has been discussed, it's to create a supply/demand ratio that better suits them making money. "Because the Mets just aren't drawing 50+ as consistantly as they once did." Show your work. If they were drawing more 50K+ dates then they must also have been drawing more under-15K dates to balance it off, no?

They actually did tweak the voting process in the last few weeks, but I think it mostly had to do with having the existing H-o-F players vote only on players and have a seperate committee choose the writers, execs, etc.

Valadius wrote: I do hope we've got some young catchers in the minors waiting in the wings - Dookie's not getting any younger. Not anyone close. Current crisis aside, we'll almost certainly have to go outside the organization for next year and the near future.

"Even last year Shea wasn't quite filling the turnstilles like they where back in the Big 80s. " 1986 = 2.768 mil 2006 = 3.380 mil please stop before you mis-state again

"... but the point I'm saying is that the economic structure of the game right now is hurting baseball more so then when it did back then. " No it isn't. "Give me that wise crack when new stadiums like the ones in Pittsburgh, and Cincy do not have that "new ballpark" spike in attendance because they can't field a team. " Pitt attendence: 1979 WS winner = 1.436 mil 1992 3rd consectutive NL winner - 1.829 mil 2006 14th consecutive losing season and in market that's losing population both in the city intself and the surrounding areas = 1.861 mil the good old days weren't always so good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems - B. Joel Someone split this discussion off please

- Nice showing by the seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" this weekend huh? They haven't really been good since the AS break anyway, plus the Yanx missed Sabathia. But Carmona, who has been pitching well, didn't. Then the one game they kept close (Sun) they gave away any shot they had at winning. With the bases loaded and none out in the 7th down by 4 runs ... Jhonny Peralta gets picked off 1st!! Where da fuck ya going a-hole? Was there a triple-steal on we don't know about? Then they manage to get 6 hits plus a HBP in a 9 batter span over the 8th & 9th innings but score only twice and miss 3 chances at getting the tying run in from 2nd. - Meanwhile, the RedSox lose 2 of 3 in Baltimore, both on walkoff hits. In 5 appearances for Boston, Gagne has given up 7 ER in 4 IPs on 10 hits and 2 BBs - Detroit manages to take 2 of 3 from Oakland and re-take 1st place in the Central by a half-game. - Mariners lose the first one to the ChiSox but take the final two and are tied the Yanx in the WC race, a game and a half in front of Cleveland. In Sunday's game, ChiSox closer Bobby Jenks extended his run of retired batters to 42 straight over 14 outings!!

I suppose we could try kidnapping; - we could kidnap Jesus Flores back from Washington - we could kidnap Javier Valentin and convince the league that it's Jose back from the DL - we could kidnap Mark Teixeira and trade him for Jason Saltalamacchia - we could kidnap mama Molina and see if she's got any other kids to ransom Or we could pre-emptively trade for Ronny Paulino since [media-cliche]everyone knows Omar has an obsession with him[/media-cliche]. A list of catchers currently hauling down ML paychecks: http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/index.php?view=basic_batting&linesToDisplay=50&qual_filter=ignore&season_filter[0]=2007&league_filter[0]=All&pos_filter[0]=2&Submit=Submit&orderBy=pa&direction=DESC&page=1

]The park is still going to seem big during those rebuilding years (or decades). I don't think this is going to happen. Not that I don't believe there'll be rebuilding (read: bad) years - but MLB attendance as a whole is just at a much higher level now than it was during the '70s & '80s so I don't foresee a return to the days where even bad NYC teams average 15K/night as did happen in decades past. Throw in that the new place will be - at least for a while - an attraction in and of itself and I'd be surprised if we're not looking at a Jacobs Field-like string of sellouts or near-sellouts for anything short of a really, really bad team. And while that scenario is certainly part of the appeal of the smaller place to them, I think it's going to be too small a lot more often than too big for the foreseeable future and that they might come to regret their decision to slice the capacity as low as they did.

Phils hold on 5-3, which wasn't easy considering that the Braves had 2 runs and 3 hits out of the first 3 batters in the game.

Francouer had a shot at 3 home-plate kills in one game ... but missed the plate with his throw by about 30 yards. Heaved it over the 3rd base dugout and everything. 5-3 Phils and my Lord Antonio Alfonseca is fat!

* 4-2 Phils after 5 thanks to a Ryan Howard HR after the Phils got the rarely called "neighborhood" play in their favor as the Braves did NOT get the call at 2nd on a DP try on account of a straddled bag, and then they didn't get the close call at 1st either. Phils earlier had two seperate runners thrown out at the plate, both by Jeff Francouer, and both were out by numerous yards. * Eric Gagne blew another lead for Boston today - serving up a 2R HR to Tejada. Baltimore later won their 2nd of the 3 game series, both wins came via walk-off hits.

Oh Jeff Wilpon essentially said just that a while back; that you don't really make all that much money off those last few thousand seats so that it's not really worth it. However I'm still not all that sure that that's the best model to follow. I understand why it doesn't need to be 55,000+ but something a little closer to 50 than 40 seems like a good idea for NYC. I also wonder if they listen to two of their announcers talking about the glories of growing up in the cheap seats and contemplate losing the next generation's young Howie & young Gary.