Frayed Knot

Here's an exacta I bet few would have had before the season started: Carlos Zambrano R 3-3; 5.83 vs John Maine R 5-0; 1.79

NYTimes sportswriter George Vescey has taken to calling the crew at ESPN "the silly boys" for their routines treating the SportsCenter shows as a virtual stand-up audition. I'll check into BB2N (a wholelot lower on the silliness scale) to see what's going on in the out of town games but generally avoid SportsCenter and most of that station's packaged shows.

It's been a big week for CFers getting back at their hecklers (Griff & V. Wells) Seinfeld must be so proud.

ESPN has become very "Star" crazy in recent years, blurring the line between athlete and celebrity to the point that anytime one of their chosen guys: Bonds, Tiger, Terrell Owens, Bobby Knight, Parcells, etc., makes a move they're sending a camera crew and makeup artists to cover it. Clemens and all his on-again/off-again retirement plans has become part of that crew and if they got footage of him or any of the above milking a cow they'd not only televise it but probably turn it into a mini-series or reality show.

I consider that [the PH scenario] to be a form of a double-switch, yes, and frequently hear it referred to that way by announcers and fans. It's certainly not the only way to do it and if Morgan said that then his writing skills are ... well, about where I've thought they were all along.

]Unless I'm missing something badly, a doubleswitch has nothing to do with pinchhitting... Well it certainly CAN have something to do with pinch-hitting; like when you PH for the pitcher and the pinch-hitter stays in the game while the replacement pitcher slots into the spot of the guy the PHer replaced. Morgan's prose (or that of his ghostwriter) is poorly worded and incomplete, most notably using the word "simultaneously" to mean 'before the next half-inning begins'. * I think I'm turning Turk-ish ... I really think so

]Fans booed when Heilman was announced into the game in the 9th That's fuckin disgusting. He's hardly been great this year, but had a dozen or so scoreless IPs before that (meaningless as it turned out) HR in game 1 against the Brews. I guess only perfection is acceptable to some. ]Strange tho that he left Howry and Eyre in the pen I think Gary et al said something about Howry not pitching well lately and currently residing in the Chateau Bow-Wow

Glavine - 1.6 Feliciano - 1.0 Smith - 1.0 Heilman - 0.5 Wright - 2.6 LoDuca - 1.2 Delgado - 1.1 Reyes - 1.0

It's not just the six games against the Yanx (the Mets play ALL 15 IL games against last year's AL playoff teams while other NL squads play ZERO), and it's not just whether the distribution goes for or against your team in any particular year, I just don't like when schedules are made uneven, especially when they're that way mostly for marketing purposes.

I didn't get the Cubbie strategy with all the intentional and semi-intentional walks. The pitcher's gotta go after Endy there. Then, once losing him, you can kind of understand being careful with Carlos I because you'd rather face Carlos II, but the one downside there is the one that actually happened. Lou - never patient with hurlers to begine with, has gotta be steaming at his staff tonight. Can't hold a 4-0 lead, then 3 walks to lose it. Heilman "vultures" himself a nice 1-pitch win.

Did Lou really think Willie WASN'T going to respond to Daryle Ward ph-ing with a LHP? Cubbies are going to run out of both bench & pen pretty soon.

Futhermucker!!

Is that a pitcher or an ice cream flavor?

Wow, Quick hook from Lou! The defensive worm has started to turn a bit in this game.

bmfc1 wrote: Braves being no-hit through 7. 8th inning HR by Brian McCann 2-1 Nats in the 8th (and the new guy is no longer a Monsterously huge batboy!!)

Chipper is, of course, correct that the system is unfair. With the so-called "traditional" rivals and the random nature of the other opponents it can't help but be unevenly distributed. It's just not all that seemly to go complaining about it only during the season when the deck seems stacked against you.

Monday night's game is a national ESPN game for youse out-of-towners

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Kim by the way made his ML debut against the Mets at Shea, absolutely baffling us in a xtrra-inning win. Anyone remember that? Used that big-breaking "frisbee" slider to make Piazza look clueless.

Especially so since: a) It wasn't unexpected!! OK so it wasn't expected That Day ... but virtually every sportwriter everywhere predicted he would wind up w/the Yanx this season. So how exactly was this "Dramatic"? she treated him like some all-time Yankee hero! Half the Yanx fans never liked him much, and even some of the ones who did aren't too enamored by this return since he's only slightly younger than Matlock at this point and the whole thing just reeks of mercenary ballplaying. c) the "Welcome Home" part was the real killer. Here's a guy born in Ohio (his bio usually skips over that part), raised in Texas, who spent exactly FOUR of his 23 seasons the Bronx ... and we're going to pretend that this is "home" GMAFB!

Dang, I wish I had heard either one of those. I'm guessing that Suzyn didn't go into her; "OF ALL THE DRAMATIC THINGS I'VE EVER SEEN" routine. Best line I've heard on her Clemens announcement was that women everywhere who heard that turned and said; "I'll have what she's having" Challenging month coming up for the Yanx. After a relatively easy two weeks of playing Texas, then Seattle, then Texas, then Seattle (where they started 3-0 but then ended 8-5) their next three weeks shape up as: - at ChiSox for 3 - at Shea for 3 - host BoSox for 3 - host Angels for 3 - at Toronto for 3 - at BoSox for 3 - at ChiSox (again) for 4

I don't remember it and apparently there's no existing video. On the other hand, Howie Rose used to talk about it all the time - even going back to his pre-announcing days when he was just a WFAN jock/Mets Extra guy. He either claimed to have been there or simply remembered it - even to the point of suggesting to the then still-living Agee in an interview that it should be acknowledged in some way which, I believe, is what set things in motion for the marker that's up there now. Only problem was that, because there was no visual evidence, they could never be sure where exactly to mark it - although Agee claimed; "I know where it landed". So the bottom line seems to be that the shot did indeed happen, and that the marker is at least a good approximation of the real spot.

Perez - 4.8 Easley - 2.0 Gomez - 0.8 Reyes - 0.5 Castro - 0.7 Beltran - 0.7 Wright - 0.5

And it's not like I have a philosophical objection to trading Milledge. Hell, I'll trade anyone if it'll help the team and I'm pretty sure Omar will too. (I was reminded this week that he once dealt Grady Sizemore ... albeit under different circumstances). It's just that I'm sensing a growing school of thought among Met fans (not just here) that Milledge is now something akin to excess baggage because of Gomez & Martinez as if the success of those two is more assured than his. Much of that speculation is a product of the backup quarterback syndrome.

And back to the Gomez topic for a sec; I think I've already spouted off on this before, but don't be too quick to assume that Gomez has made Lastings expendable. Gomez is actually a shade older making his ML debut than Milledge was making his last summer and Lastings already had more AA time plus some AAA under his belt by then. He was also rated - and still is - considerably higher than Gomez by those prospects surveys. Gomez still has yet to show much power in the minors and needs work on plate discipline; not uncommon shortcomings for developing players, but not every prospect overcomes them. In effect, Gomez needs a good season in the minors this year just to get himself to where Milledge was, and I don't think Milledge has fallen all that far - especially after a good ST - except maybe to those eyes who are looking at his age 21/22 seasons as make or break. I trust most teams (including his own) aren't going to do that. One could even envision a scenario where the NYM "whispers" that have made their way to newspapers since the Spring about Gomez possibly passing Milledge by in some eyes is in-house hype in order to pump up then trade HIM, counting on his raw athleticism and "potential" to attract, and maybe extract, a king's ransom. Speed may still be over-valued by many, even in this post-Moneyball world.

But he sucks with promise. If one truly sucks then no one would ever trade for him