Edgy MD

Zvon wrote: He would'a looked good in a Met uniform. But then again who wouldn't? And what uniform would he have looked bad in? OK, the Angels.

On the other hand, what's the point of exposing Hefner? If a team grabs him, they can store him on the DL all season.

Guys They Probably Feel They Can Remove Without Sweating: Centeno Hefner (is that allowed?) Henn Guys They Might Sweat a Little Over, but Se la Vie if He Goes Baxter Brown Carson Quintanilla Torres Valdespin Guys They Might Roll the Dice on by Removing, but Hate It if He Gets Selected Robles So that's about six spots they can open, plus one that's open already. Players They'll Add to Those Seven Slots Bennett Ceceliano DeGrom Huchingson Kolarek Sandoval Walters Most Likely Players To Be Selected Cohoon Dykstra Valdespin

"I think I've had enough of Rivera's showboat entrances."

And now you know why all us Mets want to locker next to Ol' Luke. The smell of squirrel funk can motivate a man. And motivation can be in short supply in extra innings. But extries is when you call the bullpen with the game on the line and the only guy left is yours truly. Edgin. Sweet 66. And if I get in to a fix, well, there ain't too many guys behind me. It was like that July 8. Fourteen innings are gone and the Mets and the world champs are tied at three. Matt Harvey started and went seven, but we don't score for him. We agreed to do that the minute we saw the Escalade. But you know, after we've burned a tankful of Torres and an aggregate of Aardsma, a sack of Rice, and a few volumes of Burke, it's me and it's Parnell, and they're saving Parnell for a dance that won't happen unless I pay the piper, or something. So I'm out there and I'm working without a net, LIKE A BOSS, I tell myself. But I'm not sure I have it. And you know, without a net means they make you face righthanders and stuff. So before I go in, I've got my earbuds in, and I'm playing Warrant, and I'm playing Poison --- all the classics --- and I'm PUMPED. Bottom of the 14th, I'm in there against Gregor Blanco. Just as I'm thinking "Who names a guy Gregor in this day and age?" BAM! he drives one the other way. But Eric Young is out there, and as deep as he plays in general, you should see his no-doubles defense. Dude was pretty much in had to buy a ticket for the left field bleachers. But I'm not complaining when the ball drops into his glove. And that was the lefty, the guy I'm supposed to get out. Punch-and-Judy-hitting lefty, too. GULP! But hey, an out's and out, and "Cherry Pie" is still pumping through my veins. I can DO THIS. Next up, Marcos Scutaro. A righty. I DON'T CARE! You are kindly invited to ground out, to... fuck, it gets through and he's on first. ("She's my cherry pie! Tastes so good, makes a grown man...") One on and Terry's giving me that shitty-assed beady-eyed look. That one that says, "If I have to come and get you, you're not gonna be happy about it." How does such a short guy do that to me? He's not my father! So, you know, Brandon Belt. Another lefty. Another drive the other way. Another beautiful picture of Eric Young in left. I'm getting pretty good at this induce-a-drive-to-the-warning-track business. But Buster Posey. That guy's my bete noire. But one more chorus of "Paradise City" floats through my head and that punk is drooling a ball to third base. The fifteenth inning is over. I go back to the dugout, sit next Terry. Like a boss. Natch we don't score. We're the Mets. Number 66 has to go back out there. Sandoval is up. And, I'm sorry, but he's fatter than me. And I'm FAT. I mean, to look at me on the street, you might not say, "Hey, look at that FAT guy," but you see me in the clubhouse, and you ask somebody who I am, and they ask which one, you say, "the fat one." It's true, and I'm self conscious about it. So Sandoval is up, and I'm pulling my belt up a little, feeling a little good because I'm not the FAT one in this confrontation. But you see, this is the ADD at work, because I'm all wrapped up in thoughts about relative fat and my head just isn't in the game, which is what Warthan is trying to tell me. So I hit the guy. And you know, next thing, shooting me from the dugout are Terry's beady little eyes. BEAR DOWN, JOSH! WE'RE GOING WHERE THE DOWN BOYS GO! Kontos, whoever that is, bunts Sandoval to second. Thanks for the gift out guys. I know he's the pitcher, but I was all set to waste six or seven pitches getting him out. I watch Sandoval run and I KNOW it's going to take four of five hits to get him home. So I'm feeling a little better. Brandon Crawford is up, and you know, he resembles a major league hitter, so I'm sure not going to face him. Not with the winning run on second. Four quick balls of intention, and it's Andres Torres. I know his flaws because I saw them close up last year. He overswings like Cab Calloway on speed, so I teeeease him with the offspeed shit. My new specialty is turning these guys over, getting rollouts to third. And that's what he does. Two down. Runners on second and third. Last hitter off of San Francisco's bench is Cole Gillespie, which is ONE JAZZY NAME! But that's the ADD kicking in again. I walk him too because he also resembles a big league hitter. Bases loaded. Blanco again. I've been in a game long enough to face the same guy twice. Perhaps for the first time in my career. I say a quick prayer to Sebastian Bach and let if fly. He turns it over. Weak grounder to second. And I'VE PITCHED TWO (highly eventful) SCORELESS with one long game on the line. Bottom of the inning, the dam cracks just a little as the Mets score the best way they know how at such times, plating a guy on an error. Parnell takes about 20 minutes to close it, and I have my only win of 2013. Jani Lane would've said it more poetically, but sometimes glory is a flying stallion, sometimes it's a plowhorse trudging through the mud. �Es la verdad, si, Jeurys?

while he certainly doesn't disprove Reggie's contention

HOLY SHIT! Ken Singleton! There's the guy right there that, while he certainly doesn't disprove Reggie's contention, throws a big bucket o' cold water on it. Wifey Watch Machine, do your thing.

"Trust me, Brother, there are worse things to be than a glorified intern sitting in the right place when the big job came open."

Which still leaves us with somebody needing to call Winkles while he's still available. I vote for MetsGuy, who has press credibility. Reggie takes on the Casey angle: He blamed the Mets� infamous draft-day decision on Bob Scheffing, the team�s director of player development. According to Jackson, he was also the guy who would later trade Nolan Ryan. But Scheffing tried to pass the blame on to Casey Stengel, who was scouting for the team at the time. �I know I never saw Casey Stengel when I was being scouted,� writes Jackson. �And how could you be in a ballpark and not know if Casey Stengel was there?� I know it's all about you, Reggie, but Casey being in on the decision doesn't mean he scouted you. Bob Scheffing, before he joined the Klan with the Mets, managed the 1961 Tigers to 101 games.

Oh, yeah, certainly recycled. Big part of my point. Sorry to be part of the cycle.

�I think about that sometimes. I would�ve been coming up just as that team was finally improving. They had all those great arms: Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Jon Matlack, Nolan Ryan, Tug McGraw. Oh boy!� Because, somehow, trying to get money out of the Mets would have somehow worked out better than it did with the A's? Dude won five World Series in seven years and wonders wistfully what would have happened if he got a better break and became a Met? I'm thinking it's got to be his third memoir.

Tabloid fodder out there seems to have Reggie Jackson releasing a new "tell all" memoir in which he repeats his tired saw that the Mets didn't draft him because they couldn't handle his blackness (or his dating a Mexican woman). Bobby Winkles, who I cited in the Doc Ellis thread and is apparently alive at the current time, is his source. Maybe a good idea to track down Winkles and get to the bottom of it. History demands more, Reg.

Vic Sage wrote: I think our views overlap more than they don't How do you feel about Sears?

Harris also got to wear a pressure suit of a different sort in The Abyss (his inner space movie). But really, this is an Ed Harris film only in the most literal sense.

I didn't mean to say this character was oily, only that some may find him generally so. And "doesn't hit as deep as it could" does not mean to suggest that it's "an empty thrill ride of a movie."

He wasn't the only one. I don't think he was there for most of the changes (I don't have time to research), but Dave Kingman in 1977 played for the Mets (two managers), the Padres (three managers), the Angels (two managers), and the Yankees (again, only one).

Extensive Ham-Bone interview. No Melissa Dickson references. He's moved on.

Yeah, I just meant if.

That's some tan on Salty.

Frayed Knot wrote: I agree that the number of pitches per game is probably higher today than it was back then, although without data it's hard to know that. No, but runs-per-game are certainly known data. And if that's higher, and walks-per-game are higher, and strikeouts-per-game are higher, it would take a colorful statistical miracle for pitches-per-game to not be higher.

It's never a good day without some thought given to Doc Ellis.

Oh, and I went shopping at Sears afterwards. It had been a while, but I bought a coffee maker and a hair clipper and I can't say enough loving things about that place. I was thinking it might actually go out of business while we were in the store.

Doc Ellis, in 1977: Started season with the Yankees under Billy Martin. Was traded April 27 to the Oakland A's where he played under Jack McKeon. Saw McKeon fired on June 9 and he continued to play under new manager under Bobby Winkles. Was purchased at the June 15 trading deadline by the Texas Rangers who were competing under Frank Lucchesi. Saw Lucchesi fired after a June 21 game and replaced by Eddie Stanky. Enjoyed it as Stanky won his first game, June 22, and decided he didn't like the job anyhow, and resigned, with Connie Ryan taking over the Rangers. Pitched well under Ryan, but saw that Ryan's was just an emergency interim appointment, and after six games, saw Ryan replaced on June 27 by Billy Hunter. Played on under Hunter as Billy brought the team --- which had been two games under .500 to that point --- thundering home at 60-33, finishing at a more-than-respectable 94-68 for second place. That's three teams and seven big league managers in one season for Doc Ellis, who I imagine must have just taken to calling his manager "Skip." Amazingly, none of those changes involved a Yankee manager getting fired. He ended up throwing 213 innings in the crazy season for a perfectly respectable 3.63 ERA, back when you could do that sort of thing while striking out only 106 guys. He ended up being traded at the June 15 deadline in 1979 also, as the Mets muscled up for their pennant drive by sending Bobby Myrick and Mike Bruhert to Texas for him. Bruhert is the only surviving member of that trade.

Well, this was really a visually arresting movie, with all the action taking place while the rivers, forests, painted deserts and civilizations of the world rotate beneath you in the corner of the screen. It's almost 100% a two-character film, with everyone besides Bullock and Clooney being mere radio voices or figures in the distance who exit the show pretty early on, as the same disaster that sets the film in motion also takes out communications satellites. In other words, the skills of Ed Harris (as the voice of Ground Control), such as they are, are totally not needed, so he's there pretty much entirely to draw a parallel between this film and Apollo 13, but he's not getting them home this time. These two are totally on their own. Except for the whole world passing silently below. As beautiful as it is, it's totally a thriller, and reminded me of Aliens in how it doesn't bother building tension toward a climactic peak, but rather threw one tense sequence upon another bam-bam-bam through most of the movie. This is it's grace (among it's many graces really), as a character is frequently left with one chance to grab onto another or onto the hull of a ship, or be thrown off into the horror of drifting forever into space, waiting for their oxygen to run out and to die utterly alone, and I imagine carbon dioxide poisoning is a shitty way to die. But it's also a failing, as it doesn't hit as deep as it could, or wrestle much with the big questions that hovering over the planet with one's existence on the line might raise, such as 2001 or Solyaris did. (Interestingly, Clooney's last space vehicle was Solaris, an English-language remake of Solyaris.) Bullock becomes sort of a female version of a Jack London-type protagonist, a mission specialist (and therefore not a career astronaut) who starts the film overwhelmed by the challenges of space work even on a run-of-the-mill mission, but when everything goes haywire and the mission turns to survival, somehow finds a way to go on even though she has every reason to quit, and somehow finds just enough of her training stuck with her so that when calms the heck down and stops hyperventilating and gulps all her oxygen away (if you watch in 3D, you'll want to slap her), she's able, maybe, to figure out a way home. The science in it is both great the realities of pressure bursts and Newtonian momentum in space, the magic of weightlessness as she swims from chamber to chamber on the space station, or when she starts sobbing and her tears detach from her face and float out toward you in beautiful glycerin globules. and not so great All the space stations and vehicles that they hop across trying to find a way home --- their shuttle, the Hubble telescope, the international space station with a docked Russian capsule, the Chinese space station with a capsule of their own --- are not only in reasonably close proximity, but in more or less the same orbit as each other They are also in the same orbit as communications satellites, which I would imagine orbit at much higher altitudes than the International Space Station. But, while Clooney may strike some as a little oily in general and over-ingratiating in this role, if you don't root for Sandra Bullock, then you're not particularly American. (I'm not saying that this is a jingoist movie, I'm just sayin' what I'm sayin'.) This movie's a heckuva thing, even if not quite a helluva thing.

He's certainly helmed successful teams. But whether that makes him a good manager is debatable. One pennant and no championships in 20 seasons --- that's the column folks tend to look at after a few years (or six) with the guy.