Frayed Knot

A Stage 3 colon cancer diagnosis for Orioles star Trey Mancini This was first indicated during pre-season physicals then diagnosed via further testing back in March although he's just going public with that info now. He won't be playing in the 2020 season even if there is one as he'll need chemo treatments over the next few months, but says the tumor was removed just days after it was discovered and things are looking optimistic for now and for the 2021 season.

As I've said before, I'd reduce the playoff field for this season. Get an extra week of games in then go right to the final four. Or maybe six qualifiers with the best record in each league getting a bye while the others play maybe 3-of-5 (no days off?) to reduce the field to four.

I can't see the union allowing the players to take different cuts in salary -- and since the union IS the players it would have to be the players themselves agreeing to different cuts. You have to figure that they'll be in their typical 'all for one/one for all' mode. I mean, the NFL DID pull off a similar plan: the players' increase in salary for agreeing to a 17-game schedule was skewed towards the lower-paid players while the upper tier essentially took a pay Cut on a per game basis (a 6.25% increase in the length of the season vs a less than that bump in pay). This was passed as it part of the new CBA which the union passed at a 51.5%/48.5% ratio in a league where the vast majority of players are at or close to minimum wage. The stars came out against it but they're at a huge numerical disadvantage. But that union has never been even a fraction as together as the MLBPA so the NFL was able, as usual, to get its way.

[table][tr][td][b]POINTS[/b][/td][td][b]PLAYER[/b][/td][/tr] [tr][td]30[/td][td]LENNY RANDLE[/td][/tr] [tr][td]29[/td][td]STEVE HENDERSON[/td][/tr] [tr][td]28[/td][td]JERRY KOOSMAN[/td][/tr] [tr][td]27[/td][td]JOHN MILNER[/td][/tr] [tr][td]26[/td][td]JOHN STEARNS[/td][/tr] [tr][td]25[/td][td]NINO ESPINOSA[/td][/tr] [tr][td]24[/td][td]LEE MAZZILLI[/td][/tr] [tr][td]23[/td][td]TOM SEAVER[/td][/tr] [tr][td]22[/td][td]BRUCE BOISCLAIR[/td][/tr] [tr][td]21[/td][td]ED KRANEPOOL[/td][/tr] [tr][td]20[/td][td]MIKE VAIL[/td][/tr] [tr][td]19[/td][td]SKIP LOCKWOOD[/td][/tr] [tr][td]18[/td][td]JON MATLACK[/td][/tr] [tr][td]17[/td][td]JOEL YOUNGBLOOD[/td][/tr] [tr][td]16[/td][td]ROY STAIGER[/td][/tr] [tr][td]15[/td][td]FELIX MILLAN[/td][/tr] [tr][td]14[/td][td]PAT ZACHRY[/td][/tr] [tr][td]13[/td][td]DAVE KINGMAN[/td][/tr] [tr][td]12[/td][td]JERRY GROTE[/td][/tr] [tr][td]11[/td][td]BUD HARRELSON[/td][/tr] [tr][td]10[/td][td]CRAIG SWAN[/td][/tr] [tr][td]9[/td][td]RON HODGES[/td][/tr] [tr][td]8[/td][td]BOB MYRICK[/td][/tr] [tr][td]7[/td][td]BOB APODACA[/td][/tr] [tr][td]6[/td][td]DOUG FLYNN[/td][/tr] [tr][td]5[/td][td]MIKE PHILLIPS[/td][/tr] [tr][td]4[/td][td]BOBBY VALENTINE[/td][/tr] [tr][td]3[/td][td]LEO FOSTER[/td][/tr] [tr][td]2[/td][td]JOE TORRE[/td][/tr] [tr][td]1[/td][td]RICK BALDWIN[/td][/tr][/table]

I fear it's only a matter of time before Despondent Ivan meets up with Sniveling Jeffrey somewhere in Memeville.

[size=150][u]Top 30 NYM Players of the Sixties[/u][/size] [table][tr][td][b]RANK[/b][/td][td][b]PLAYER[/b][/td][td]Curr Rnkg[/td][/tr] [tr][td]1[/td][td]CLEON JONES[/td][td]10[/td][/tr] [tr][td]2[/td][td]RON SWOBODA[/td][td]44[/td][/tr] [tr][td]3[/td][td]TOM SEAVER[/td][td]1[/td][/tr] [tr][td]4[/td][td]ED KRANEPOOL[/td][td]13[/td][/tr] [tr][td]5[/td][td]JERRY GROTE[/td][td]20[/td][/tr] [tr][td]6[/td][td]JERRY KOOSMAN[/td][td]4[/td][/tr] [tr][td]7[/td][td]RON HUNT[/td][td]84[/td][/tr] [tr][td]8[/td][td]JACK FISHER[/td][td]85[/td][/tr] [tr][td]9[/td][td]JIM HICKMAN[/td][td]93[/td][/tr] [tr][td]10[/td][td]AL JACKSON[/td][td]108[/td][/tr] [tr][td]11[/td][td]BUD HARRELSON[/td][td]27[/td][/tr] [tr][td]12[/td][td]TUG McGRAW[/td][td]19[/td][/tr] [tr][td]13[/td][td]DON CARDWELL[/td][td]133[/td][/tr] [tr][td]14[/td][td]ART SHAMSKY[/td][td]106[/td][/tr] [tr][td]15[/td][td]TOMMIE AGEE[/td][td]35[/td][/tr] [tr][td]16[/td][td]RON TAYLOR[/td][td]91[/td][/tr] [tr][td]17[/td][td]JOE CHRISTOPHER[/td][td]142[/td][/tr] [tr][td]18[/td][td]DICK SELMA[/td][td]150[/td][/tr] [tr][td]19[/td][td]GARY GENTRY[/td][td]64[/td][/tr] [tr][td]20[/td][td]ED CHARLES[/td][td]156[/td][/tr] [tr][td]21[/td][td]CHARLEY SMITH[/td][td]165[/td][/tr] [tr][td]22[/td][td]ROGER CRAIG[/td][td]167[/td][/tr] [tr][td]23[/td][td]FRANK THOMAS[/td][td]168[/td][/tr] [tr][td]24[/td][td]KEN BOYER[/td][td]184[/td][/tr] [tr][td]25[/td][td]DENNIS RIBANT[/td][td]186[/td][/tr] [tr][td]26[/td][td]GALEN CISCO[/td][td]193[/td][/tr] [tr][td]27[/td][td]TRACY STALLARD[/td][td]194[/td][/tr] [tr][td]28[/td][td]JIM McANDREW[/td][td]65[/td][/tr] [tr][td]29[/td][td]CAL KOONCE[/td][td]206[/td][/tr] [tr][td]30[/td][td]DONN CLENDENON[/td][td]95[/td][/tr][/table]

Oh I've still got the data from all the seasons so nothing is LOST lost, and I can easily recreate all the lists. I just couldn't remember when and why so many years went missing from the Rankings Forum.

This needs to be moved to the Rankings Forum before it gets gobbled up by the archive fairy. Speaking of which, we seem to be missing a bunch of the years in that forum. Were they lost in the last software update or something?

So aside from Alex Cora being, in effect, pre-fired for his role in the Red Sox version of the sign stealing scandal, MLB's investigation raps the Sox with only a suspension to the Video Replay System Operator [entire 2020 season plus post if any] and a loss of a 2nd round draft pick.

=HahnSolo post_id=35690 time=1587579037 user_id=63]JRod will replace the 42 in the rotunda with this.

Yeah, Jeter put up almost nothing out of his own pocket and will get paid enough over the first few years to essentially make back the meager amount he did put in. Same as how GWB wasn't the money man w/the Rangers either - at least not on the way in. On the way out it was a different story. It's the old 'In Living Color' motto: How to make mo' money without using any of yo' money. Most celeb bids fail, either because they can't round up enough outside money or because some other group out-monies them to the punch. Jeter's win was Jeb Bush's loss. And sometimes the group that loses winds up glad they did and verse vica.

Yeah, but there's an obvious connection between say Cardinals & RedBirds or Pirates & Buccos, while Senators and Nationals gives the impression that two different teams are being referenced. Certainly if I had read that headline at the time my reaction would have been: 'Wait a minute, the Yanx were playing the Senators last night ... who the fuck are the 'Nats'?!?' I might not have phrased the question to my father in quite that way, but you get the idea.

I like how the sub-headline for the Yanqui game (at the bottom of the page where it belongs) refers to them losing to the 'Nats' in 18 innings. This was, of course, the team most of us know as the Senators, the second version of that team after the first one moved to Minneapolis nine years earlier. When I discovered that my grandfather had grown up in Washington DC (1899 thru early 1910's) I asked him, because I saw everything through the lens of baseball, if he followed the (original) Senators. He told me he did but that he and his friends never referred to them as the Senators, only as the Nationals. This confused my young self as it never occurred to me that team nicknames were anything other than cast in stone. But that really only became true when it started to occur to these teams to start marketing themselves and selling merchandise. Prior to that nicknames were much less official (much in the way EPL soccer still operates) and the name you used for the locals often depended on variables such as what neighborhood you lived in or which newspapers you read. And even the team itself altered their own semi-official name from year to year such as the Brooklyn 'Robins' when Wilbert Robinson was their manager or Cincinnati distancing themselves from 'Reds' during anti-communism 1950s (Redlegs from 1954 thru '58) What does surprise me here is that the NYDN was still using that name, even for brevity purposes, as late as 1970. I don't remember ever hearing/reading that as a kid and, until that conversation with my grandfather, I always just assumed that team nicknames were things that came down from the mount on a stone tablet.

The Post's Ken Davidoff https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/a-warning-for-alex-rodriguez-in-his-mets-ownership-dream/gives a cautionary tale for the potential J-Rod ownership. In short pretty much what I said: Own, don't run. As evidence he cites Jeter, Derek as a case where excellence on the field hasn't (so far anyway) translated to the front office and also Johnson, Magic as a guy who, by his own admission, missed his celebrity life and various outside interests too much to spend the necessary time in the office and wound up walking out on running the team for which he was a legend within two years.

=metsmarathon post_id=35595 time=1587499390 user_id=83] honestly, if arod puts his name on this thing, do you really think he'd be okay with floundering? image and perception seem to be important to the man.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-can-get-mets-at-coronavirus-discount/More on the J-Rod front -- Thorton McEnery, NY Post - J-Rod is assembling an ownership group of four-to five-people that could pay up front for the entire franchise. But insiders also point out that the Wilpon family, which has been trying to sell the team for months, might have to accept a low offer thanks to the financial impact of the pandemic. “He's got a group with some real names,” one source familiar with the J-Rod bid told The Post. “Alex is gonna get this because of COVID. It's gonna fall in his lap.” - Multiple sources say that the key money player in the arrangement being put together by investment bankers at JPMorgan would appear to be Miami billionaire Jorge Mas, who tried to buy the Miami Marlins in 2017 but lost out to a group fronted by Derek Jeter. Forbes has estimated Mas' net worth at just over $1 billion. “I can see Mas being A-Rod's money guy here,” said one source familiar with the Miami power player. “He and Alex went to the same high school and [both have a connection with the University of Miami]. They're birds of a feather.” - A motivated seller has a problem right now,” a source close to the Wilpons told The Post. “I think the Wilpons are motivated sellers.” With the season indefinitely postponed by the pandemic, the Mets are pulling in almost no revenue from tickets or in-stadium sales, and MLB has decreed that all franchises must meet their payroll obligations to players. The Wilpons have had cashflow problems for years, creating debts that would turn toxic if this season were even cut in half. - “The league wants to see someone with liquidity,” one source familiar with the league said. “They want someone with a lot of cash to run the Mets and avoid the second coming of the Wilpons. To be frank, they want Steve Cohen to come back to the table.” Sources close to Cohen declined to comment on his current interest in buying his childhood team, but sources close to the Wilpons made it clear that he is a longshot. “They'd rather sell to someone for less money than sell to Steve Cohen,” one Mets insider said. “There is so much bad blood there.”

And keep in mind that, like Jeter, they'd be just the names in this deal rather than the majority owners. Who else would be part of the group will be a YUGE factor yet still TBD. The real key for owners is to hire smart people to run the org and trust them to do a good job: owners own; managers manage; players play; lather, rinse, repeat. The downside to this duo is the impression that they'd be too publicity hungry not to want to meddle and steer the ship themselves: him on the field, her off of it. I have no doubt ARod will be enthusiastic about this ... whether he'll be any good at it is a whole 'nother question.

While I'm certain other owners are going to raise similar concerns... The other owners are not just going to have the same concerns, they are all going to do the same thing. The question remains, what that 'thing' is. When the owners & players agreed to stop ST and put the brakes on the not-yet started season (iow, the agreement which triggered the beginning of this thread) that agreement included a stipulation that the two sides would "discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators or at appropriate substitute neutral sites". iow: more talks to follow since you couldn't even discuss specifics back in March because no one knew (or still knows) what the future looked like at that point. To the owners this means a negotiation to be had on pay structure in an altered economic landscape. Not surprisingly Scott Boras sees it differently. He thinks any talk about economics is limited to whether they play or don't play, but if they play the players expect to get paid at the same rate and that the clubs didn't bring it up the possibility of a reduced rate during the March talks because they knew it would be a non-starter for the union. MLB estimates that the clubs get about 40% of their revenue from tickets and related income (parking, concessions, etc.) all of which would obviously be lost in games are to be played in empty stadiums so a big hit to the clubs. And then there are the complications of what to do if playing in smaller and/or neutral parks where attendance will surely be lower. And how long will empty parks be needed, and supposing some cities/states approve of gatherings prior to others. So there will be a ton of moving pieces to consider and it's quite possible that the old money issue will be, in addition to Covid, the factor which sinks the season entirely.

Early versions of the MLB draft had them conducted in virtual secrecy (future players often wouldn't know until some time afterward that they had even been drafted much less where and by what team) in part because the pro teams figured that if they drafted a HS kid it would tip off his potential to colleges who may have missed him but still had scholarship slots to fill. This would give the kid an option and therefore bargaining power towards a bigger signing bonus and of course half the purpose of establishing the draft in the first place was to reduce the pre-draft bidding wars which escalated signing bonuses. So, yeah, it certainly wasn't the highly publicized and scrutinized scientific pursuit it is today. And, as in the case of FA-gency (think George Young of the NFL Giants), there was reluctance by some to fully embrace and/or trust this new-fangled way of doing things.

I also never know how much of that story to believe. And while Winkles had no motive to lie about it I'm also not sure Winkles ever confirmed this story. Reggie claimed that Winkles told him of NYM disinterest based on issues other than baseball -- and actually I think the story went that Reggie says Winkles said that he was told of this so the story was second-hand at best even if it were all told accurately. What supposedly made the Mets skittish, meaning on top of Reggie already having the double whammy of being both a loudmouth AND black in an era when athletes were expected to take whatever they were given without complaint, was that his college girlfriend was white (actually Mexican). In the parlance of the times, this all added up to Jackson being an 'uppity nigger'. To many that attitude fit the NYM brass at that time or at least it fit a stereotype of the NYM brass. But this is also Reggie we're talking about here, a guy who is only lying when his lips are moving and, as far as I know, HE is the only one who has ever been a source on this story. Maybe it's true, but my guess is that it's at best embellished and quite possibly invented entirely. If so he certainly wouldn't be the first or last athlete to invent a story where he is portrayed as the victim for self-motivation purposes. And then there's the part about how everyone knows what the "correct" draft pick should have been after the fact so side reasons take on an added level of importance because OF COURSE you'd draft Jackson ahead of Chilcott if just basing things on baseball terms. But in the year that Joe Mauer was to be the first overall pick Baseball America ran an article on the relative lack of success with 1st round catchers up to that point. Naturally Chilcott's story was brought up and his case got his own sidebar article. The story went that Whitey Herzog, then in charge of the Mets draft, was torn between Chilcott & Jackson and ultimately went how he went with no mention being made of outside factors or dictations from above. Curious about how other clubs felt, Whitey went around to his [then 19] counterparts to ask who they would have drafted if they had the #1 pick. He claimed that the results of his informal poll was 10 Jackson / 9 Chilcott, making it of course a dead heat with the Mets vote thrown in. It might help to remember that this was just the second ever draft in MLB and I think the notion existed early on that drafting them young (Chilcott was a HS player) was better because it gave the team more time to mold them properly. Years later that attitude would change somewhat but this draft wasn't done years later. Most post-analysis also ignores that it was injuries that drove Chilcott from the game, not failure.

The most [CROSSOUT]amazing[/CROSSOUT] amazin' thing about that was just the act of finding identical sextuplets who are musically inclined in the first place. I mean, once you do that, teaching them the M-t-M theme is pretty mundane.

I can't believe that so many folks here were at that DH and not one of you stopped by to say hello. Fuck youse all!!

=G-Fafif post_id=35135 time=1586875969 user_id=55] Hank Steinbrenner, 63, brother of Hal. Had been ill a while; reportedly unrelated to COVID-19.

I was at the second of those two back-to-back DH's -- had one of those 'Six-Pack' plans that year and just happened to have that as one of the games and just happened to have it turn out to be a DH/pennant race/HR chase game. I remember two distinct McGwire facts from that day 1) that a while lotta Met fans were incredibly pissed off when they showed up to the park and realized that Big Mac wasn't in the Game 1 starting lineup (he later PH'd). Did they really think he was going to play all four games in a 30 or so hour span? Were they really Met fans? Did they get tickets for that day just to see him? 2) That I got there early but thought of myself as a baseball fan who was far too sophisticated to be awed by batting practice theatrics. Then McGwire stepped up and with his first dozen or so seemingly effortless swings hit a dozen or so screaming liners either into or beyond the LF bullpen ... and I found myself jaw-droppingly awed.

Glenn Beckert and Don Kessinger are linked in my mind the way Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker are for others, probably even more so in my case since it was early in my baseball years and in the NL. Coming up the same year ('65) they were pretty much everyday starters at 2B & SS for the Cubs across nine seasons. And in case you forget how much the role of middle infielders has changed over the years, together they made ten All-Star games between them and garnered MVP votes five different times despite combining for a total of just 36 career HRs. Back when spring training was still in gear I caught a glimpse of Kessinger's grandson playing for Houston -- Grae Kessinger, 2nd round draft pick out of U-Miss 2017