Frayed Knot

Trachsel - 0.5 Wright - 2.0 Beltran - 1.7 Floyd - 1.1 Matsui - 0.6 Reyes - 1.6 Heilman - 0.9 Julio - 0.8 Sanchez - 0.8

Yeah it def wouldn't be Zamby as he's pitching the next day. Woodward's possible for the 3rd backstop in a generic way but he had already come and gone by that point. The 3rd catcher call might not be as tuff as figuring out which pitcher goes in and where. Glavine seems like the best athlete although you'd hardly want him throwing a lot the day after he pitched. Trax might be next but of course not tonight either. Who knows about Maine and I'd tie Pedro's showlaces to the bench before allowing him out of the dugout on non-game days. So it would almost certainly have to be Glavine, or else do a Oliver/Julio switching between the mound and a position (1st of OF) depending on the hand-ed-ness of the batter stunt.

Maine's finger injury (swollen? sore? whatever?) is apparently bad enough to prevent him from making his start on Sunday. It's affecting one or more of his pitches - and apparently was doing so during his previous start. Nothing official yet but Eddie C. said around 5 or so Friday that a switch was likely. No word on what [u:d460073063]40 man[/u:d460073063] shenanigans would need to go on before getting him up here. DL-ing Maine would be the probable 25-man swap I'm guessing.

"By the way, what's a Betamit?" It's the follow-up to an Alphamit

MIDNIGHT IS THE WRIGHT TIME!!!! There's your headline for tomorrow (except that it won't make any of the papers)

Delgado came up as a catcher - put Glavine at 1st

It's midnight in Manhattan, this is no time to get cute

DoLuca - Beltran - Deglado

Why must they torture me so?

Semi-positive I'd call it - which is OK actually, particularly from Bondy.I'll almost always dismiss it when fans rant that a particular writer/announcer/media-type is 'biased against their team', I think it's generally childish and stupid. Except that Bondy admitted a few years back - quite proundly in fact - to hating the Mets both before and during his professional life and having no intention of ever writing anything positive about them. So - despite him managing to get in cracks about the bad opponent, mediocre division, so-so attendance, and weak back of the rotation - this piece is practically a long song.

Nady = strong sum'bitch Let's also not pretend that $5-$6mil (whatever the diff between Cameron & Nady is) is an insignificant bit of money. Plus Nady's under control for another year or three after this one where Cammy would have had to be purchased on the open market once again or replaced. [u:64a7380923]Could[/u:64a7380923] they have afforded Delgado if they hadn't done the deal? Probably, but the owners still have to approve the budget going to a higher figure and it's possible they'd either want cuts to come from elsewhere or there'd be less flexibility for future moves.

Apparently the whole 'Lima thing' was that Maine had some kind of "finger issue" they were monitoring for a bit but has since blown over (I forget which paper mentioned it). It seems that Lima may have been pulled early from his last AAA start in case Maine couldn't go - something that's no longer on the radar screen.

The Braves recently picked up former Met Tyler Yates - signing him to a minor league deal.

="Willets Point"]Shiver me timbers. I'm leavin' my fam'ly Leavin' all my friends My body's at home But my heart's in the wind Where the clouds are like headlines On a new front page sky My tears are salt water And the moon's full and high And I know Martin Eden's Gonna be proud of me And many before me Who've been called by the sea To be up in the crow's nest Singin' my say Shiver me Timbers 'Cause I'm a-sailin' away -- Tom Waits This one's been going through my head since I read that quote so I had to get it out. I feel much better now.

"What are you guys talking about?" Burnitz was interviewed on that 'Daily News Live' show yesterday and they showed a few clips of it during the game last night, mainly the part where they asked him about the pressures of playing in NYC when things aren't going well.

Except that your original claim was that DC (in this case) politicians pulling for specific owners - and the attendant goodies that go along with having 'their guys' on the inside - is somehow a function of MLB's A-T exemption. But making that exemption disappear won't make that go away as the other sports have shown us. And besides, those sports have the ability to control franchise movement, they just need better specifics to enforce it rather than relying on a blanket protection which likely won't stand up to scrutiny anyway.

Glavine - 4.1 Nady - 2.2 Beltran - 1.1 Wright - 1.4 Sanchez - 0.3 Julio - 0.3 Reyes - 0.3 LoDuca - 0.3

"Doing all what? I don't quite get you" Moving franchises and threatening cities with further movement in order to have public money spent to enhance the value of billion dollar businesses. The other 3 major sports - particularly the NFL - have been much more active on those fronts than has MLB. "They shouldn't. Certainly not if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers moved to Shea." But they certainly would and the big bad A-T exemption monster wouldn't be the cause of it.

P.S. The new Oakland A's owners are looking into a stadium deal in Freemont which would bring them much closer to the pop center of San Jose but is still in Alameda County and therefore wouldn't be considered an invasion of the territory of the SF Giants.

]... That may have really meant, "We're not all that interested in stopping them." That's exactly what it meant. Commissioner Rozelle was directly told by judges and his own legal people that the NFL had the power to prevent unfettered franchise movement but that the criteria they were using: a 3/4 majority of teams needed and no guidelines as to when & why a team could leave it's existing market, was not ony unfair -- a simple majority would be more in line, but also was being applied unevenly -- other fanchises were moved while they denied Al Davis's Raiders the same right (he claims because he wasn't part of Pete Rozelle's inner circle). Rozelle falsely continued to claim - after losing the Davis case - that he had no power to prevent future movements (Colts among others) hoping that politicians in danger of losing a team would get mad enough to grant the NFL enough anti-trust exemptions that would give it carte blanche power over all their franchises. It didn't work however since the A-T power cede to MLB was considered an legal anomoly by that time and was already being steadily scaled back. So the NFL sat back as Oakland, Houston, Baltimore, LA (twice), St Louis & Cleveland (am I forgetting anyone?) were abandoned and many of the remaining cities threatened with future abandonment if new stadiums weren't built and/or upgraded. I also suspect that LA is still kept as an open city as a relocation-sword over the head of current cities who are reluctant to fork over enormous amounts of cash in order to keep their franchises. And the entire point is, that the NFL (and other sports) are doing all this w/o the blanket anti-trust exemption that baseball has; and, as much as I wouldn't mind seeing it go away, it's just not that important in the grand scheme of things and citing as the root of most of baseball's problems doesn't solve anything. Angelos got money for "territorial infringment" just the same as the billionaires who own the NJ Jets or Giants would if a new or moved team were to suddenly try to play at Shea.

So in the NBA & NFL - where there's no blanket anti-trust exemptions - a new team could just spring up in a city w/o league say so? Or as if the businessmen of America simply choose to collectively ignore the LA market as a potential spot for an NFL team? I understand your objections to closed-shop leagues but you (and many writers about baseball it seems to me) have a habit of blaming the A-T exemption as if it's the source of the problems. If that boogy-man of an exemption disappeared tomorrow (and it's been weakened to the point where it practically has) I don't think a blessed thing would change.

So this would differ if it were a football team or basketball team being sold ... how exactly? <----- oe: I'm Ron Gardenhire and I just pulled a hammy typing that.

I suspect it's as much a case of councilmen getting all upset because if their guys don't get chosen how will they get a hold of any of the inevitable graft and spillover? Stuff like that has nothing to do with MLB's anti-trust exemption and is only tangentially related to minority ownership.

The stragglers have all now hit the 25 game mark. Records shown are as they were after each team's 25th game. TEAM25 GamesMETS17 - 8BRAVES11 - 14PHILLIES11 - 14NATIONALS8 - 17MARLINS7 - 18REDS17 - 8CARDINALS17 - 8ASTROS16 - 9CUBS14 -11BREWERS14 - 11PIRATES7 - 18ROCKIES15 - 10GIANTS13 - 12DODGERS12 - 13D'BACKS12 - 13 RED SOX14 - 11YANKEES14 - 11BLUE JAYS13 - 12ORIOLES13 - 12D-RAYS11 - 14WHITE SOX18 - 7TIGERS16 - 9 INDIANS13 - 12TWINS9 - 16ROYALS5 - 20 RANGERS13 - 12A's13 - 12ANGELS12 - 13MARINERS10 - 15

Way! I like Utley a whole bunch.