Edgy MD

It'd be funny ... for about a day.

You may be thinking of Al. I don't think Bob Oliver is even a Royals Hall-of-Famer. Though he was an original 1969 Royal, and that's not nothing.

I'll go with Wally Backman, 1986. Nah, fuck it. Brandon Nimmo, 2018.

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Reed players generally find it workable to jump to other reeds and train themselves up quickly, so you may frequently see the sax player in a band pull out a flute. That's true of "mouthpiece" brass to a lesser extent. Boners and baris use the same mouthpiece size, so it's a quicker jump between them than, say, from trombone to French Horn.

I think it was pretty much something like this. Scheffing: He's definitely someone the organization likes a lot. He's awful athletic for a slugger. Winkles: He is. His legs are strong and healthy. Scheffing: Is that his girlfriend he's talking to? Winkles: Yeah, that's her. Name's Juanita. Scheffing: Mmmm. * * * Jackson: Coach, that the Mets guy you were talking to? What was he asking about?

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=35367 time=1587255740 user_id=68]This allegation was denied years laer by Bob Scheffing, Mets GM. I don't know what's true and what's not, but Scheffing had a motive to lie and conceal the truth, while Winkles, as far as I know, didn't.

Duffy Dyer and Lenny Randle too, I think.

We've got ourselves a ballclub! In theory!

The Mets have rolled a lot of snake-eyes trying to develop a starting catcher in the first quintile of this century. You can go back to Jason Phillips and Vance Wilson, and throw in Josh Thole, Travis d'Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki, along with guys who barely saw daylight (Juan Centeno), guys who only saw a gleam or two after sailing on to other seas (Drew Butera, Francisco Peña). And then there's the guys still floating underneath (Ali Sanchez, Patrick Mazeika). So yeah, another Francisco makes it feel even more like we've been down this road. It's hard to develop MLB starting catchers. At least part of that is something that's hard to teach. Have a guy who can show up ,and either through the charisma of Piazza or the red-ass of Grote, impress upon everybody that he's calling the shots, and he says go fuck yourself if you don't see it that way, even if he's 23 and hitting .220. The caste system of today's game makes it hard for a young guy to just show up and step in like that. Butera and Peña, both being sons of longtime big-leaguers, would seemingly be as good as any to land like that, but neither had the offense to escape backup status even after they left the Mets. So, having the juice to take charge among players with stature and tenure seemingly being a prerequisite of the job, the 21st Century Mets have been modestly more successful importing vets (Lo Duca, Buck, Buffalo) who can arrive as equals. Also, the ones who stick are the ones who find away to take the punishment four days in five and not let their bat fall into a black hole. No small matter even for the guys who hit in the minors. Catching's tough. So, yeah, that's a long-winded way of saying it's really stupid to pin my hopes on young Francisco Alvarez. But he needed a home, and I found a place in my heart. He's still but a teenager, but he already has the catcherly frame (officially 5''11" and 220) that Travis d'Arnaud was never going to have. He was pushed so obscenely hard in his rookie year, skipping the DSL and going straight to stateside at only 17 with the GCL Mets, that you would have expected him to take his lumps and take them repeatedly. Instead, he fucking toyed with the league, hitting .462 / .548 / .846 / 1.395 in his first seven games, with two homers. Look at those numbers and try not to drool. The Mets, amazingly, looked at him and said, "Fuck it, let's push him harder," and sent him to the Appy League. He took a few games to get going, but even there, as the very youngest player in the league, he pushed people around, copied their homework, stole their lunch money, and stepped on all their blue suede shoes, and simply gave not a single shit. He hit .282 / .377 / .443 / .820 with five more home runs in 35 games. Did I mention that he was the only 17-year-old in the league? I don't think I did, but I alluded to it. Implied it. it was a sorry situation. All the girls swooned and all the guys felt like shit because their girls all looked at them in a new light. A yellowy light. Like they were suddenly all defective giveaways and Francisco was the only prize to be had. Alvarez didn't give a shit. He didn't even take advantage of his newfound popularity with the ladies. He was too busy passing through Kingsport to even get anything started. All the guys hated him but respected him, and at the end of the day, he invited anybody who had a problem to meet him at the flagpole, and nobody would ever, ever show. So yeah, eyes were on him. God knows how anybody's going to track minor leaguers this season, but Keith Law, Rany Jazayerli, and Casey Kasem's ghost all saw him moving toward their Hot 100s. Would the Mets have stayed aggressive and had him bypass Brooklyn to send him on to full season ball? God help me, but I think they would have. Look at him turn on this pitch: http://metsminors.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/francisco-alvarez-e1561635732560.jpg> Look at the catcher's glove and see how inside that pitch is, but like the David Wright worshipper I'm raising this guy to be, he keeps his hands in tight, and is quick through the zone. And let's turn out the lights and get a little pornagraphic here. Tell me those aren't the legs of a major league catcher. Tell me that isn't the ass of a major league catcher. He's years from the big leagues and there are no big leagues any way this year, and certainly no All-Star team, but that ass is already a Major League All Star. So get out of here with your crappy adoptees. Your relief pitchers and toolsy infielders. Yeah, they may make it to the bigs someday, but when they get there, it'll be Francisco Alvarez calling the shots. [fimg=379]https://miro.medium.com/max/2048/1*6jnXcsSkD5jlwZMdETq7xQ.png[/fimg] [fimg=321]https://metsjunkiescom.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/img_1507.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=350]https://miro.medium.com/max/4094/1*0VFtGq-6QamPLiBQEyyuHw.jpeg[/fimg] [fimg=350]http://metsminors.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/AGP_6886-1-e1564061058368.jpg[/fimg]

They were called up at the same time, but the two missing pitchers were only supposed to miss one turn each. So the plan was that Montero would go back down but that deGromio would stick around and help out the bullpen, as he was older and had had a much more affirmative start at AAA. As it happened, and as tends to happen, a spot would open up longer term in the rotation before he made a single relief appearance. And in fact, he has yet to appear out of the pen a single time as a major or minor-leaguer, unless you want to count All-Star Games. He has appeared 11 times as a pinch hitter, over which he has gone 0-for-8 with three walks. But he's never relieved. Not even in post-season.

Yeah, probably. They could probably get three games in per day there.

Indeed. Some films, if they really need you to be revisit them, will manage to find you. You, the viewer, can't be expected to do all the work. But The Money Pit is currently an available featured download on Netflix. Among the performers not figuring in the PotG voting above was a just-on-the-verge-of-their-brief-success White Lion, and a pre-Fisher King Michael Jeter.

That book is also in my unread pile. The printed-on cover is still vivid.

Torre should have been fired in the middle of that play.

I'm not sure it can get much better than that.

=G-Fafif post_id=35136 time=1586876116 user_id=55] The thing that sticks out from Frey's tenure, beyond his relationship with Strawberry, was the first intrasquad game of Spring Training was billed as the Small Freys versus the Jumbo Franks, the sides managed by Jimmy Frey and big Frank Howard.

So, Betances, Wacha, and Porcello could each become free agents without ever having debuted. Marisnick too. Céspedes, Stroman, Ramos, and Wilson would all see their contracts expire also.

Are major-leaguers and minor-leaguers both being paid? Are they being paid to the full value of their contracts? Where is that money coming from? Does the league have a reserve? Is it insurance-covered? Are the teams hemorrhaging money? Are contracts still moving toward their expiration dates? Will they all be extended by one season at the average annual value or have the option of such? The control clock is still ticking for Jeff McNeil and Peter Alonso and everybody else, isn't it? Are minor leaguers moving toward their control deadlines as well? Will guys hit six-year minor league free agency despite only playing five years? Are 5-and-10 clocks ticking as well? Will this time count toward pensions? Are facilities even being maintained? Is Country Joe West still an umpire?

It's very much (1) of it's time (despite a lack of gratuitous bewb shots), and (2) of a much earlier time, being a re-make of a 1948 Cary Grant/Myrna Loy film, and also incorporating comic stunts that were seemingly lifted straight out of a Buster Keaton silent. It certainly asks you for some charity, but parts of it are golden. Whether you were wrong depends on how much nostalgia can trigger that charity, but probably mostly not. Alexander Godunov was fantastic in his first three US films — Witness, The Money Pit, and Die Hard — at a time he could barely mouth out any English. He gets PotG for this one and is very much in the running for Die Hard. A deep emotional investment? Yeah, that's probably not going to happen. But as a married dude and as a homeowner, you'll probably dip your foot in a little deeper than you did in 1986.

Alexander Godunov: 3.53 Tom Hanks: 2.88 Shelley Long: 1.58 Yakov Smirnoff: 0.67 Philip Bosco: 0.51 Josh Mostel: 0.29 Joe Mantegna: 0.27 Maureen Stapleton: 0.18 Body by Jake: 0.09 https://img.moviepostershop.com/the-money-pit-movie-poster-1986-1010730008.jpg>

Sweatin' like a maniac.

The Dodgers were in Florida so long that it would be kind of nifty if they returned to Vero Beach.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think they had it just right, up until the Koosman decision. Wright should be next, and nobody else for a while. deGromio.

Until I started going to games, at 10 or so, players were just abstractions in the newspaper and on the radio. When I finally got out to Shea and saw these guys up close, for some reason, I just fixated on Doug Flynn doing infield practice. And practicing the double-play, the ball never seemed to pause. it would come from third or short and just make a right turn toward first, while accelerating. So, I became a big fan of a guy who hit .230 with neither power nor walks nor a particular baserunning acumen. Still hit his share of triples, though. Disliked? I dunno. Mike Torrez? Len Dykstra? I can't recall particularly disliking a whole lot of dudes — Mets or non-Mets. But Steve Garvey and Pete Rose both smelled exactly as phony to me as they turned out to be. Most issues of Boy's Life told me I ought to have the grit of Rose along with the polish of Garvey. But I wasn't much of a Boy Scout.