Edgy MD

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'm not sure that opening the World Series in a neutral site makes it any more of an event. You don't need to know the site in advance in order to hype the hell out of it. And if I wasn't interested in watching the Cardinals play the Red Sox in Boston, why would I care to watch them play each other in Honolulu or Memphis? And if the World Series was going to be played in my home town, I still wouldn't pay hundreds of dollars for tickets unless I knew the Mets were going to be playing, and I wouldn't know that until just a few days before. That in itself, no. But it's a step in pimping it out into an extravaganza that brings in curiosity seekers. You may not care if they had a weeklong media frenzy and reserved every hotel room in the city for dog and pony shows and Russell Brand and empty press conferences and Carly Rae Jepsen and press passes for the Cooking Channel and the Fashion Channel and glitz and glamour and hundreds of women with impossible chests... but others would. And MLB could use the Super Bowl model to attempt to create a phenomenon where the media feeds off of itself, and the event becomes the event, and nobody could avoid it, to the point where there's actual anticipation and critical analysis of TV commercials. TV COMMERCIALS! You might not have any more interest, but plenty of people would. Because people. Are. Stupid. I'm not saying MLB should do this. I'm just saying that I disagree that it can't happen. MLB, I imagine, would very much like to make it happen. They just have to proceed with caution, lest they fail miserably. My greater interest event-wise, as I've said before, is for a post-season awards show.

The World Series games can be any day or time the league decides. There's a movement both inside and outside MLB offices (Scott Boras is a proponent) to expand the World series to nine games and have the first two games at a pre-designated neutral site so they can spend months programming it into a media event, a la the Super Bowl. Another possibility is maintaining the seven-game format, with a single neutral-site game launching the series. There are a whole host of possibilities to event-ize baseball.

With regards to the day of the week, I'm not sure how that speaks to the World Series. They can start it on any day. I think you miss my point with regards to minor league ball, or at least don't speak to it --- that affiliation damages your desire to maintain an investment and interest. The greatest player in the history of the Binghamton Mets spent three months there.

Zvon wrote: That's kool and very well done. But only 1 Met and it's not even a player? Booooooo! Space is limited, man. Look at it from a Yankee fan point of view. No DiMaggio, no Mantle, no Berra, no Casey, no Reggie, no Jeffrey Maier, no Jeter, no Torre, and no Rivera. Key figures all. Part of the broader story. But no room.

I hadn't. No fun.

Gar-Batting Stance Guy wrote: Guaranteed you RedSox would win title within 2 years of Bobby Valentine's hiring. #boom

Great research. Excellent. We have confirmation. Moving over to the right branch there. The "Short Stinks" banners come from the last game at RFK for the Senators, directed at the owner bringing the team to Texas. (1) Are we in agreement that that's Ryan in the Astros uni? He should have a 34 on his thigh. (2) Is that, in fact, Musial next to the goat?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Gotta be Harper and Carter. Yes on the Doc reference. To me, totally insane how he just nails figures like Valenzuela. It's him. Which is what makes the Joe Carter designation dubious to me. If you look hard, you see, yeah, that's a figure of a person of color, but Carter's about five and a half shades darker than that, and wore a beard during his arm raising trip around the bases. Alomar would seem to have a stronger case, appearance-wise, but doesn't seem to me so iconic as to merit a spot on the tree. Neither does that pose seem to fit an iconic Alomar moment. He wasn't even on base for the Carter homer. Henderson and Molitor were. (And how's that for table setting? There's about 8,000 hits and a ton of walks right there.)

I disagree that the World Series can't be turned into an event. I think it can and they will try very hard very soon. I disagree, on the other hand, that you can get just as into a minor league team. Affiliated ball saps your year-to-year commitment right out of you. I think affiliation did as much damage to the game's standing as anything.

How embarrassing to get buzzed on a top branch guy. OK, I'm buying in and standing corrected on Pujols, and Marvin Miller. Let's take the next two ?s. That last guy on the top branch, I'm calling BS on my Strasburg guess. The eye black tells me that's Bryce Harper. Can I get an amen on that? And can we confirm Blue Jay with the raised arms is Carter?

Metstradamus hurt my brain. Kardashipon?

Well, lotsa content, anyway.

OK, continuing on the next branch... Venezuealan Flag (but you'll have to let me know who from Venezuela was in the league back then) / Ted Williams(?) / Lou Gehrig / Mexican Flag / Hank Greenberg(?) / YSI Roof Facade / Jimmy Foxx(?) / Bambino // John J. McGraw(?) / Hall of Fame Plaque / Rogers Hornsby(?) / Joe Jackson(?) / Walter Johnson / US Flag / Frank Chance(?) / Cuban Flag Old Hoss Radbourn(?) / Cap Anson(?) / Pyramid(?) / Cy Young(?) // Connie Mack(?) / Ty Cobb / Honus Wagner(?) / Super Rare Wagner Card

Has nobody else read the inscription on the second branch down on the right?

Trying to make out the textual stuff on the limbs... is that the Mercury Mets logo next to Ichiro's hip?!

Only thing missing, I think, is any reference to Negro League ball. So I've got. Swirling circles from the White Sox exploding scoreboard. A Devil Ray and Marlin presented in the style of the Marlins' dancing scoreboard, with a beer and a dog in between. Bill James / Steve Bartman with Rally Monkey / Barry Bonds / Pedro Martinez // Ichiro Suzuki / Mark McGwire(?) / A strikeout plackard / Steven Strasburg(?) Randy Johnson and the ghost of the bird he killed / Coors Field Seat / Joe Carter(?) / Bo Jackson mysteriously missing a leg / Rickey Henderson Declaring his greatestness // Mike Schmidt / Fernando Valenzuela / A banner that may represent generic banners or have a meaning about Bill Short that I'm overlooking / The Original Brewers' Beer Slide / The San Diego Chicken / The Tower Suspending the Roof at Stade Olympique Jackie Robinson / The Cubs' Cursed Billy Goat / A Lighting Tower Representing Night Baseball / Stan Musial(?) / The Puerto Rican Flag / Ernie Banks(?) / Signs Representing Perhaps a Renewed Strategic Engagement by Fans or Maybe the Birth of Strat-O-Matic(?) / Warren Spahn(?) / The Dominican Flag / Mr. Met // Sandy Koufax / The Japanese Flag / Roberto Clemente / The Mets' Home Run Apple / A "Here" Flag Representing...(?) / Ted Turner(?) / Canadian Flag / Henry Aaron / Pete Rose / The Anaheim Scoreboard Structure / Billy Martin Gotta get home. Feel free to correct and enlighten me or take on the lower limbs.

Mr. Met looks scary. And kinda hungry. �rbol de B�isbol

Not very much. "Sabermetrics" was goofy word coined by Bill James as a fun tribute to his colleagues that he's long expressed regret over, because it mis-represents both the science being entirely (or even mostly or primarily) emanating from one outlet, and the purpose of the organization as scientific stat crunching, which is a very small part of what they are about.

I like that the success they cite is his work with Justin Verlander. I mean, good for him, but the guy was a #2 overall pick with a spectacular collegiate career and a brief, comet-like run in the minors. It's sort of the like the joke about private-school admissions: "Give us your brightest most successful students and we'll make successes out of them!"

I'm sure Sandy was free to spend money, within a context --- that it could be demonstrated that the money would come back to them in the short-term and stem their increasingly widening shortfalls. Priority one was to close the shortfall. Clearly they did it by cutting.

I mean, I don't like them at all --- what with their regular changing of uniforms themes while never finding anything REMOTELY appealing; their Disney history; their plastic-ness; their indecisiveness over the regional-designation part of their name, leading to a horrible Frankencompromise; and their regularly outfitting their lineups with guys in the second half of their careers that seem to belong elsewhere. But in the eternal debate over what mode a team should be in --- rebuilding or go for it, stand pat or back up the truck --- the Angels are always perpetually making moves and arming up for battle. There's a a few big free agents out there? The Angels are going to help set the market. There's a guy that a team wants to move before he becomes expensive? The Angels are here to talk. You want a team to give you their good-to-decent-but-overpaid outfielder? The Angels will eat a bunch of that contract for the right package. I say this in the context of the early drama of the hot stove league being the Angels apparently shopping Bourjos and Trumbo for pitching. Things are always in motion with these guys. They're on everybody's favorite list of trading partners and on speed dial with every agent. Without the Angels, Peter Gammons' life would have no meaning. They're bad as often as they are good, but they are always retooling, trying to find the right combination. Patience is for other guys! We're the Angels! Anaheim didn't become a great city by WAITING AROUND!

Daily News runs with their own distortion: Mets COO Jeff Wilpon says team has just quartet of solid players

No, I wouldn't be surprised at the paucity of beat reporters at a charity event. To the rest of your post, I am struggling to suss out what you're getting at.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: It seems like every year there are some free agents who the scribes feel the Mets should fixate on, and then pummel them when they go elsewhere. Note that Wilpon is put in a defensive mode here about not signing an unproven Cuban defector for a position at which they are well-stocked and have much more pressing needs. But the Mets don't sign them, the team is derided as failures and you get those "Player X rejected the Mets because they are a crappy organization." What you don't get are the stories later, when it becomes clear that the team made the right move. Remember the frenzy last year over Michael Bourn? Who was the pitcher who we were allegedly chasing hard who ended up signing with Angels had a shitty season? We don't see those "Mets made right call" stories. Are you thinking of Tommy Hanson? Latest case of the Braves dealing high on pitching that.

I don't know, but if bloggers are re-posting it, it has value to somebody. And the bigger outlets are the only ones who can afford to keep a beat reporter or stringer showing up at stuff like a charity building rehab. The greater issue is the ethics of everybody copying and pasting copyrighted info all over the net. I wish I had an answer there. But clearly Rubin is a model of the good contemporary beat reporter, producing a clickable story about every. Little. Thing.