Edgy MD

Hey, as destined as it makes me to forever by conflated with Chad Bradford, I've been invited to camp with the Mets. You may know little about me but I've been bringing it out of the bullpen for two years with Las Vegas, which is cool because I'm from the nearby suburb of Henderson, NV. Still, I want to pitch in the big leagues and having an infielder's name isn't going to stop me. I have no known attachment reported in the Wifey Watch thread. Edgy says I love only my country, but he's a jerk. He makes me want to hurl. Here, watch me hurl. Hey, look. An attachment: I know I kinda look like Matt Harvey's little brother. Dark intensity and stuff, but that's not my lifestyle, man. Anyhow, lifestyle or not, neither you nor anybody knows how I'll do in 2016. Or DO YOU?!

It's June 7, 1963. The Mets are 20-34, mired in 10th (10TH!) place, and have little reason more than their human dignity to keep playing. Fast on their way to their 35th loss, they're being shut out by Ron Taylor, who will one day be half of the two-headed closer for their 1969 championship team, but on this day is a rookie swingman, making one of only nine starts that season. But hey, it's the Mets, and you're pitching for the mighty Cardinals, and you're cruising into the ninth with a 2-0 lead. If you're Ron Taylor, that is. You've only allowed three base runners all evening, and you're practically on autopilot. But you're not Ron Taylor. You're a Mets fan. And if you're still watching at this point, you see Casey Stengel look down his bench and point a finger at Jim Hickman. Maybe a bubble of hope pops up in you as that whack-job Jimmy Piersall heads back to the dugout and slams his helmet. Hickman's a decent young hitter. But no, Hickman pops out to short. Dr. Taylor is operating nicely. Casey's locked in, though. And goes to his bench again! This time he sends his best hitter (and future Crane Pooler), the mighty Frank Thomas, up there for Choo-Choo Coleman. "Get a hit, Bub," mumbles Coleman as he yields in the on-deck circle. And that's just what Thomas does! The baserunner-impovershed Mets increase their total on the day by 33% as Thomas whacks a single. HEY! It might not be much, but the tying run is up. It's the Polo Grounds, so anything can happen! Crazy Casey goes to his bench again. It's Rod Kanehl he's looking to. Is Kanehl going to bat for rookie sensation Ron Hunt? No... no... it looks like he's running out to first. He's pinch-running for Thomas. Casey's thinking isn't what you'd call apparent here. That's not the tying run on first that Thomas represents, but maybe Thomas is hurting or maybe Casey intends to insert Kanehl into the game if we go to extra innings. CASEY HAS HIS REASONS, OK?! If nothing else, that puts pressure on Taylor. He doesn't want to groove one to Hunt, and ends up giving the young second baseman a free pass. The tying run is on. The winning run at the plate! Cardinals manager Johnny Keane gets up. He looks out at the on-deck circle and it's Duke Snider striding toward the plate. At this point in his career, Snider has a head like Michael Cuddyer and a gut like Bartolo Colon, but when he gets in the batter's box, 398 career homers are in there with him. He's seen enough., and he lifts Taylor. Does he signal for his lefty stopper Bobby Shantz? For fuck's sake, no! He goes to the young Diomedes Olivo. He's also a lefty, but why not Shantz? I don't know! Olivo's in his second year, but had a nice workmanlike season the year before for Pittsburgh. And Olivo... promptly uncorks a wild pitch AND THE RUNNERS ADVANCE! TYING RUN AT SECOND! Do you give in to Snider? Or do you pitch around him. If you lose him, it puts the winning run on base, but on deck is another lefty, 18-year-old Ed Kranepool, who will someday give his name to an online forum. Olivo... or maybe Keane... or maybe catcher Gene Oliver makes the choice. Oliver puts down the signal. Olivo winds... the pitch... _bLVUfw3C4A MLB is slowly pulling stuff like this from their vaults and putting it online. Today, by the way, is the fifth anniversary of Snider's passing.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Only the worst fans in the world (we have a few of those, sorry to say) would. If Chris Christie is Davidoff's source, I'm really gonna be pissed.

Don't believe it. Until/unless Nimmo (a) gets healthy and ( makes a bold statement in AAA, Bernadina is the insurance policy for Granderson, Conforto, and De Aza at least. It's seemingly a hair too ambitious to expect that everything goes swimmingly with all three of them the first three months. He gets 71 at-bats, and hits safely in 20 of them. Three of those hits leave the park... seemingly, but one gets overturned on review. That disappointment is balanced by one of his two homers that aren't overturned being against a very chokey Nationals reliever, who ends up getting pulled and slamming his glove around the dugout as the cameras roll.

You've gotta be trying really hard to hate if you're gonna hate that guy. I bet there's people in this world that Boo has beaten up that don't hate him.

I'm looking forward to this season more than I have any season since 2008. But not enough that I'll watch any spring training games. A few years ago I turned on a spring training game for the first time in years. Lucas Duda was batting. He struck out. In the course of that one at bat I was already bored and turned off the TV. You must be one of those haters who generated today's bizarre "Lucas Duda: Why Do Mets Fans Hate Me?" Ken Davidoff article.

I got muscles on my muscles and you know I always hustles, but making consistent contact at the big league level... that's another story. On the other hand, with clamoring and motivation to deal off Alejandro De Aza, the waiver claim of Nieuwenhuis, Ceciliani sold off, and Nimmo working his way out of Bootsville, I'm suddenly a relevant figure! Hey, guess what! I found an article reporting that the Mets have signed me, titled "Honkballer Bernadina krijgt kans bij New York Mets"! Who'd have guessed that the Dutch word for outfielder was "honkballer"? That's funny! Did Horace P. Osterdonk byline that article? Know what else is funny? You and you and you trying to guess what my 2016 will look like. But that's what you're challenged to do!

Wifey Watch!

Or himself doing "One Way or Another." Go to bank, deposit money.

d'Kong76 wrote: Blondie, Turner, Overdrive doing Let it Ride might be kool. d'Kong76 wrote: Cheap Funk Railroad! Yeah, but as almost perfect contemporaries, Blondie would have to synthesize with Cheap Trick to form Cheap Blonde. $$$! Right?

Styx announcements aren't enough for you?!!

One would assume there would be some cross-tolerance among their fanny bases.

Tom Scholz, Rich Williams, and Don Brewer ARE the BOSTON-KANSAS RAILROAD! They could play only in towns where Trump rallies are occurring and keep all the fat old white dorks like me away from the Kool-Aid.

Exactly. You're a veteran concert goer. You still love to get your freak on, but your life is complicated enough that your interest level has got to be at least a 7 in 10 to see an act. You may have a 5 to see a classick Doobies lineup, but a 3.5 to see the current one. You're similarly at 5 to see EW&F, but Maurice White is dead, and now your enthusiasm drops to a 3.7 (and you're a fool, because their current incarnation roxxx!). So both bands are fighting an uphill battle keeping their audiences engaged. But they fuse, and BAM! both their fan bases are at a 7.2, and they're playing venues three times the size either had been rocking the year before. They play an after-game show at Citi and it's sold out two months in advance! Purple Sabbath! Fleetwood Tramp! A Flock of Midnight Runners! And if you don't get along, or suck eggs, you go your separate ways at the end of the tour and the legacy of the individual bands remain intact.

I saw a vid where Styx performed on a double bill with REO. For the encores, they fused the bands into one. And the audience, who was meh about this Gowan guy, was knocked out to hear Kevin Cronin singing "Come Sail Away." I think that's a viable way for veteran bands to carry on without key members. Fuse with another band, and you get a good chance to get a star in every chair. You also can come up with cool mashup names ("REO Styxwagon"!) that make for a new marketing angle and avoid spats and lawsuits by absent members over use of the old standard name*. And you're free to switch back and forth between two or more catalogs without apology. All of the controversy over The New Cars never would have happened had they billed themselves as Cartopia! *Dennis deYoung, after much legal wrangling, is allowed to bill himself as as "performing the music of Styx" or "formerly of Styx," but not "the voice of Styx." Who does that serve but a lot of Canadian and US lawyers?

I've retired 15 of 15 batters faced in a Mets uniform, which pretty much makes me the perfectest Met pitcher in history, if also the most perfectly fragile. Why would I put such an impeccable record on the line? In a word, money! Gold-pressed latinum! The Mets are handing out contracts and I got me one! But what can you expect from an arm broken twice the previous year? You tell me!

Seems like every time the Mets make the post-season, a new rule is made the next year and/or a player is suspended over whatever screwed them the previous October. In 2001, you had Clemens fined heavily for the bat incident that somehow wasn't enough to get him ejected. In 2007, the changed the rules about post-season roster transactions, because the Mets almost got caught without a starter in the championship series. And now we have the slide rule re-written, even thought the rule as it stood should probably have led to a double play and ejection. The Mets mess things up just by being!

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Y'all are conflating two different exploding cars. I was gonna say. The 'sploding Pinto story was broken by Mother Jones, not NBC. I tend to doubt MJ had the budget in the early 70's to rig a car to explode and then film it.

I generally think umps do a perfectly fine intuitive job alternately indulging and breaking up mound conferences. Except in the (one time in 20? one in 100?) circumstance where a manager doesn't know if he's going to the pen until he speaks with his pitcher, there's no reason other than stalling that a skipper needs to walk to the mound to pull a guy. But that's part of the game's pageantry and we accept it. Embrace it at some level even. I'm not sure, but I tend to think they're thinking long games=bad, but not actually going after the right stuff. Tighten up the appeals system.

MLB, MLBPA ADOPT SLIDE RULE ON DOUBLE PLAYS, PACE OF GAME CHANGES Interference Rule Governing Double Play Slides Clarified; Mound Visits, Break Times Adjusted in Pace of Game Program A rule governing slides on possible double plays and two additions to the pace of game program have been approved for the 2016 regular season, Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) jointly announced today. The World Umpires Association (WUA) also has given its assent to the new regulations. SLIDES Under new Rule 6.01(j), which has been added to the existing Rule 6.01 on “Interference, Obstruction, and Catcher Collisions,” slides on potential double plays will require runners to make a bona fide attempt to reach and remain on the base. Runners may still initiate contact with the fielder as a consequence of an otherwise permissible slide. A runner will be specifically prohibited from changing his pathway to the base or utilizing a “roll block” for the purpose of initiating contact with the fielder. Potential violations of Rule 6.01(j) will be reviewable using instant replay. Also reviewable will be “neighborhood play” calls, which previously were exempted from replay review. Rule 6.01(j) reads as follows: Rule 6.01(j) – Sliding To Bases On Double Play Attempts If a runner does not engage in a bona fide slide, and initiates (or attempts to make) contact with the fielder for the purpose of breaking up a double play, he should be called for interference under this Rule 6.01. A “bona fide slide” for purposes of Rule 6.01 occurs when the runner: (1) begins his slide (i.e., makes contact with the ground) before reaching the base; (2) is able and attempts to reach the base with his hand or foot; (3) is able and attempts to remain on the base (except home plate) after completion of the slide; and (4) slides within reach of the base without changing his pathway for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder. A runner who engages in a “bona fide slide” shall not be called for interference under this Rule 6.01, even in cases where the runner makes contact with the fielder as a consequence of a permissible slide. In addition, interference shall not be called where a runner’s contact with the fielder was caused by the fielder being positioned in (or moving into) the runner’s legal pathway to the base. Notwithstanding the above, a slide shall not be a “bona fide slide” if a runner engages in a “roll block,” or intentionally initiates (or attempts to initiate) contact with the fielder by elevating and kicking his leg above the fielder’s knee or throwing his arm or his upper body. If the umpire determines that the runner violated this Rule 6.01(j), the umpire shall declare both the runner and batter-runner out. Note, however, that if the runner has already been put out then the runner on whom the defense was attempting to make a play shall be declared out.

Oh, I get it. You switched between your personae. Of course, real superstars arrive in camp riding shotgun, so they can focus on the task ahead!

1. You are driving a: 1984 Ferrari 308 GTSi 2. You are wearing: red, hawaiian "jungle bird" shirt, way-too-tight jeans 3. And of course, the shoes are: docksiders, no socks 4. As you get closer, reporters can hear instrumental music composed by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter blasting from your speakers. 5. Pulling in, they look in your passenger seat and see: Max 6. You turn off your engine, get out, and say: "Hi guys" Presumably, he's reporting to spring training camp with the Chunichi Dragons. Who's Max? Have I forgotten an element of the Magnaverse?

MFS62 wrote: Go to MetsMinor.net for an article regarding recent International signings. Thanks, MetsMinor.net. But you guys might want to go to WorldAtlas.com for info on how to spell Colombia.

Styx announcde for Saturday, August 13, following a Padres game. Classick-era Styxers James Young (guitar, keys), and Tommy Shaw (guitars), and Chuck Panozzo (bass) are still banging it out, though health concerns have limited Panozzo's appearances. They are currently joined by long-term Styx additives Todd Sucherman (took over on drums from John Panozzo circa 1996), Lawrence Gowan (the Dennis DeYoung keyboards/vocals chair since 1999), and Ricky Phillips (formerly of the Babys and Bad English, bass and guitars since 2003). DeYoung claims he's open for a chance to reunite with the old boys, but get this... in a total Cetera-level rock dick move, he's been touring with a Styx soundalike band and has deliberately hired guitarists that look like Young and Shaw. To further weirdify the situation, he's been replaced in the Chicago-based band by a Canadian, while he's now based out of Canada.

Status update! Adam Rubin is reporting that Ruben Tejada, originally scheduled to hit the free agent market after the 2017 season, has been apparently credited with one more day of service time, which moves up his free agency eligibility by a full year. Ruben's playing for a contract this year, man!