Frayed Knot

Freddie & Jeffy haven't released any of the current details yet *** (SHOW US THE STADIUM PLANS NOW!!!!) *** but I would think that constructing a building that is intended for 45,000 but is able to be expanded in order to seat 80K pretty muchshoots down the whole sliding roof thingie, no? ... at least for thetime that this Olympic conversion thing is still a possiblity.They had apparently decided a few years back to do away with thesliding field idea that was in the orig plans.

]How will the rest of us follow that act?By including mulitple pictures of Eva Longoria!!! ]I didn't remember that Billy Beane had actually made it to the big club with the Mets.2 singles & a double in 18 ABs over 2 seasons ('84-'85).The guy that scouted and recommended him just retired last year to all sorts of acclaim for his great scouting/front office career -- I'm guessing that this pick wasn't on his highlight reel.

"Prince really ought to play for the Twins"Or the Royals ... where he could be teamed with Jeff King, Mel Queen, Jack Hamilton, Earl Averill, Duke Snider, Bris Lord, John Tudor, and Marv Throneberry.

If you buy the notion about success in hitting over different situations being largely random then there is some hope for improvement just by chance:Current OPS:None-on: .743 - 7th in NLRunners: .756 - 14th in NLRiSP: .712 - 15th in NL2-outs RiSP: .677 - 14th in NLWe should be scoring more runs simply by accident.

"How do you score when Molina hits the ball fair on a scorecard and is out running into the ball?"Unassisted putout to the closest fielder - in this case the catcher.A similar grounder hitting the runner going from 1st would result in a PO to either #3 or #4; those are more common."Haven't seen Piazza so whack since that spring training episode with I forget who"Guillermo Mota

It's Pedro's world, the rest of us are just living in it.The Scoscia/Molina contingent are making a habit this weekend of arguing home plate calls they have no hope of winning.Nice slide by Wright.

btw, that site was boasting yesterday that "sources were telling them" that a possible refurbishing and/or replacing Shea in conjunction w/a revised Olympic stadium plan were in the works.Of course that story had already been printed in the NY Times the day before.So I guess we can narrow the list of their secret sources down to the sub-set of people who can both read and have access to at least 75-cents.

Floyd - 3.5Benson - 3Anderson - 2Beltran - .75Heilman - .50Piazza - .25

"Despite some confusion over whether Reyes or Cairo should catch the infield popup for the final out of the inning, the ball gets caught and the inning ends."And - just to point out how pre-judgements enter into things sometimes - can you imagine the raking-over-the-coals Matsui would get from fans for daring to bump into Reyes while taking his pop-up?

Good catch/my bad.I actually do know the difference but I have trouble keeping my 'Rods' straight sometimes.Uh, lemme reprase that ...

That pitch was likely a strike - but the ump went out of his way to find himself a fight there.

One of these days we gotta start turning innings like these into more than one freakin' run. -- doubles off the wall, singles, wild-pitches, walks ... and only a one-spot to show for it.We did this against Houston last week too and never recovered.

That was the freakin' AB of the year -- Right. Fuckin'. There!!!!

WAAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

MUTHAFUCKINSUNAVABITCH - I thought that was gone!!!!!

Cliffy's the last chance for a hit w/RiSP.I think we're 0-for-85 otherwise.

And now that Cammy got on base by not bunting ... I don't want Beltran to FARGIN' BUNT EITHER!!!Hit one into the gap and let's go home.

DON'T FARGIN' BUNT!!!!

MUTHAFUCKINSUNAVABITCH!!!!

"The perfect Mets, in your world, made a perfect choice yet again"Yeah, that's what I said. Don't know how you summarized it so perfectly!

]it turns out this kid we've kept languishing in the minors and would have kept down there for months and months until this sudden injury, actually can play MLB!I'm still curious about the color of the sky in the world where keeping Reyes & Wright down on the farm - 19 & 21 y/olds at the time - for a collective total of a few months combined at anything above A-ball - constitutes "languishing" ... but I suppose that's another argument.On the Heilman/Ishii deal, it's nice to look at in retrospect or in the future, but we also have the hindsight of Heilman turning in a few performances which far exceeded anything he put up when he WAS given the chance in '03/'04: 19 GS, 6.36 ERA, 1.71 WHiPIt's also not a good idea to go into a season w/only 5 starters. The Phillips/Ishii deal was a reaction to the Trax injury - which was followed almost immediately by the Benson one (and then briefly Ishii). Heilman got his starts in spite of the trade w/LA. Now I don't have a problem - discussed in another thread - of swapping Heilman & Ishii, either now or if trends continue, but I see that situation as a luxury worth having, not as a problem to overcome. If depth in the pen is a weakness - as it is just about everywhere - this is a good thing, not a waste.JP's skills were nothing special and not so tough to replace.P.S. I knew it was you also (or at least strongly suspected).

fwiw; Buster Olney on BB2N says that Cincy claims not to be in trade mode at this time.Also Olney, plus Gammons the other day on the radio, both say that Prince Fielder remains a year or so away from being ready - which is only significant in that it means there's no push to deal Lyle Overbay any time soon (unlike Weeks being ready helping to push Spivey out the door)

Ishii was making the leftys look absolutely stupid the first 2 times around.That collapse was totally unforseeable -- even though I'm sure many fans undoubtedly "KNEW" it was going to happen. Problem is that the fans who claim that also predicted bad innings from Kaz before the game started, then after inning 1, after inning 2, inning 3, etc.After you've done the rain dance through a week of bone-dry weather you blow the chance to say "I told you so" when it finally rains on day 8.But the NYM fan is right about one thing; you can't win w/your 2nd baseman leaving all those runners on base all night and it's past time to get rid o ... oh wait!Manny Aybar certainly didn't do himself any favors with a new reliever hanging vulture-like over the clubhouse wall.

The speculation about Dunn stems from Cincy mgmt saying that they'll "talk about anyone" recently. That doesn't mean they're actively shopping Dunn but talk like that always sets off a frenzy. And now with Wily Mo Pena coming off the DL the strength of the Reds in clearly in the OF/1B dept.fwiw, Dunn is in his 4th full season so would controlled by his team from now thru the end of '07. He's into the arb-eligible range so those wouldn't be cheap years but he wouldn't go on the open market until the winter '07/'08.Casey already has hit his 6th year so he's under control for as long as his current contract lasts (I don't know what that is).Things like that are major factors when deciding not only IF you should make a bid for these guys but also what the price should be.

Take both Phillys MFS. They're less than a week apart so the 2nd one will only need the new pitching sked plus a brief update if anything new happens.