Frayed Knot

OHernandez - 3.3 Reyes - 1.5 Tucker - 0.9 Wright - 1.3 Valentin - 0.9 Chavez - 0.9 Heilman - 0.6 Feliciano - 0.6

When adding to this thread, do we have to be actually standing?

No, merely a 2R single and a 6-3 lead.

Well, only 1 "done" so far. Bags now loaded for Valentin

If nothing else we have a stacked bench for the late innings. Of course so do they.

Martinez - 4.2 Reyes - 1.5 Delgado - 1.0 Chavez - 1.2 Valentin - 1.1 Heilman - 0.5 Wagner - 0.5

He's the one who just gave up 2 doubles to tie the game

="metirish"]Are retired numbers unique to American sports Probably. If so I suspect it started with Ruth, as much for the fact that he was dying as for his status. Numbers weren't even used in baseball until half way through his career so it would be tough to find one much earlier. Of course the Yanx DID issue #3 to others between his retirement and the number retirement, just not since. on edit: although maybe they retired Gehrig's #4 first since he died 10 years earlier than Ruth ]infact it's seen as an honor in football to be given certain numbers, like #11 for a winger and so on. And that honor is what I think fans are missing in their rush to retire every number that they recall fondly. Like Dickshot's site says; the line of numbers form their own bit of history. Solo's argument that says (in a sense): 'I want to retire some numbers ... so that there'll be some retired numbers up there' misses the point also IMO. There's also a contingent of Met fans who want to start a conga line of numbers so we "can catch up to" the Yanquis ... and I don't even think I need to tell you what I think of that argument.

El Ducky mowin em down since the 1st

The internet has certainly given fans access to writers from across the country to the point where there'd be less incentive for a magazine to put together such a stable a la the old Sporting News ... except that they were already abandoning that format and steaming downhill long before Al Gore began connecting all those tubes.

Bottom 1: Reyes - bunt out Chavez - infield single, then steal Wright - walk * double steal Delgado - K swigning Valentin - walk loading the bases So now Michael Tucker gets an AB which will decide whether Met fans love or hate him for the remainder of his career

It's the 5th anniversary Mets On-line picnic game The actual date was yesterday, but this serves at the anniversary seeing as how it's the Thursday Noon start ... just minus about 25 degrees It's sub-day lineup: OF of Chavez in C, Tucker in LF, Ledee in RF Neither Piazza nor Cameron in the SD lineup

I've mentioned on more than a few occasions on these and other airwaves that, while I'm not totally against retiring numbers, I'd err on the side of retiring fewer numbers rather than too many. In this case I'd be against mothballing both #17 & #8. I'd consider #31 (about a decade or so from now) as at least Piazza will satisfy two criteria which should be strongly considered in every case: 1) HoF member 2) majority of career as a Met Having both isn't an absolute requirement ... but it would certainly help. Carter gts #1 but isn't even close to #2. Mex doesn't cover either. Piazza will likely have both (may fall a wee bit short on 2 if he plays a few more years) - although it wouldn't kill me if they kept that one in circulation too. And, btw, it should have NOTHING to do with what "he goes into the HoF as" -- something I consider to be one of the dumber arguments of recent years. He's a NYM (and Dodgeer) HoFer no matter what insignia is on his hat/plaque. I'm spending absolutely zero energy on worrying about that eternal question even though it's twisting some Met fans into knots (maybe even frayed knots?) for years already.

I followed an internet link to a free 1-year subscription to TSN a while back. After reading it for that year I relized I was overcharged. It's not just the de-emphasis on baseball (although that's bad enough) but the '80s version I came to know was filled with actual journalism and the reader was exposed to some of the best sportswriters from around the country writing about issues both local and national, controversial and universal. Now it's all lists, charts, rumors, and quickie "insights" in a more-or-less generic form for the short attention span set; sort of a 'USA Today' in magazine form. Ken Rosenthal's baseball coulmn is worth a quickie glance, but that's about it.

I've found a very effective deterrent for when I think things are overpriced

In order of how the various stats correspond to runs scored, IIRC, they go something like this: - OPS (and actually cetain variances of OPS, like OBP*1.4+SLG, score even higher) - OBP - SLG - BA - SBs, which are way down the list, ranking barely better than random

So the Sox are down 7-0 when they break up the no-hitter in the 7th - they bust the shut-out and put two on the board in the 7th chasing Johnson ... and still have the bases loaded with no outs - at which point they proceed to pop-up 3 times in a row against Ron (pro) Villone and don't get any more - then they throw up a 4-spot in the 8th to make it 7-6 (capped by a Crede 3R HR) meaning ... THAT IF THEY HAD JUST PUSHED EVEN ONE MORE FREAKIN RUN ACROSS WHILE THEY HAD ALL THOSE BASERUNNERS THEY WOULDN'T BE LOSING THOSE FAT SCHMUCKS!!!! Going to bottom 9 down by 1, trying to get to Rivera for the 2nd night in a row. He came in for the final out in the 8th.

Well we can save tyring to look up that fact cuz Tad Iguchi just singled leading off the 7th ... and now a Thome walk. ... which reminds me, I was listening to a (live) Bobby V interview last night and the subject of Iguchi & KazMat came up and Bobby quoted Sadahura Oh who managed Iguchi and against Matsui. Oh's comment was that every year, every game, and in every way, Matsui was the better player in Japan. Sigh

Big Unit tossing a no-hitter against the ChiSox - thru 6 so far. He was also the last guy to toss a no-no, his perfect game against the Braves 3? years ago. I wonder if that's ever happened before where one guy has the last 2 consecutive no-hitters... aside from that Van derMeer guy of course.

Are the Rockies going to wear replicas of their 1986 unis also?

Not for the first time either. He was the cover boy in May of '03

Milledge goes 1st to 3rd on a Pedro bunt. He was running on the play and just never stopped and beat erd baseman Blum back to the bag. Nice hustle play but it was kinda close and that's one of those 'yabettermakeit' plays - esp since there were two out at the time. He came in on Reyes's 1B which may not have scored him from 2nd.

]Mets announcers have been pronouncing it BEL-tran Seems to me that Cohen has been pronouncing it bel-TRAHN all along. He's usually pretty good about that stuff.

I'm just curious to see who Stone blame the attacks on?

Journalistically, The Post actually looks "better" so far in this mini-war. They at least got ahold of the divorce filing first before doing the predictable thing and playing up the infidelity angle and splashing the babe all over the front page. The DN, on the other hand, went with the gambling story as their "scoop" which was backed up by absolutely nothing aside from 3rd hand rumors from un-named sources.