Edgy MD

Sotomayor, 58, came to the game and sat with �Bald Vinny� Milano in Section 203, where he leads the traditional �Roll Call� during the top of the first inning of every home game. She later moved to other seats... I'll bet she did.

There's another way of looking at it though. The Olympics are best in sports where the Olympics is that sport's biggest international moment. In that, the likes of basketball still qualifies, and baseball could also. Tennis, golf, and soccer regularly compete on an international platform. (I'd be more interested in introducing those sports, and track especially, into a city-vs.-city domestic league format similar to MLB/NFL/NBA/NHL.) Basketball and baseball, not so much. I have no problem with MLB shutting down for two weeks for an Olympic tournament, if the athletes entered in earnest. If it's as half-hearted as the WBC, then no.

Top OPS + by a Met in a Season 1. David Wright, 2012: 170 2. Howard Johnson, 1989: 169 3. Mike Piazza , 1998*: 167 4. Darryl Strawberry, 1988: 165 5. Darryl Strawberry, 1985: 164 6. John Olerud: 1998: 163 7. Darryl Strawberry, 1987: 162 8. Bobby Bonilla, 1995: 160 T9. Bernard Gilkey, 1996: 155 T9. Mike Piazza , 2000: 155 *Included only 109 games. Combined OPS+ for Mets, Florida, and Los Angeles was 152.

First sports dropped since 1936. Rarely a good year to invoke. THEY'RRRE OUT! OLYMPICS DROP BASEBALL SOFTBALL Sports eliminated for 2012 Games, but could win way back in 2016 updated 12:41 a.m. ET July 9, 2005 SINGAPORE - The International Olympic Committee delivered a shocking message to baseball and softball on Friday: Yer out! The two sports were kicked out of the Olympics, unwanted by international sports officials who felt they were too American for the world sports stage. The decision, made during a secret vote in Singapore, is effective for the 2012 London Games, meaning the two sports will have a final fling at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The sports, the first eliminated since polo in 1936, are eligible to reapply for the 2016 Games. U.S. women won all three gold medals since softball joined the Olympics, at the 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Games. American pitcher Lisa Fernandez, a three-time gold medalist, blamed the decision on IOC president Jacques Rogge. �Rogge has basically conspired against the sports to get them removed. We had done our job as a sport world wide to show we belong,� she said. �I feel one person, the president of the IOC, a person from Europe, has taken it upon himself to ruin the lives of millions, actually billions of women.� (Ed: "ruin the lives"? "billions"?) Crystl Bustos, who hit a record five homers during the 2004 Olympics, said the one-sidedness of the softball tournament should not have been used as a factor. The Americans outscored opponents 51-1. �If that did play a role in the decision, then that�s pretty pathetic,� she said. �I don�t mean to cut anybody down, but it�s supposed to be the best of the best, and if you get knocked for your excellence, then that�s just not right.� Two-time gold medal-winning infielder Dot Richardson said the Olympic dream �was ripped away from the 126 countries that play the sport of softball, that just vanished.� �I�ve always seen in athletics an anti-American sentiment throughout the world. Most of it is through jealousy or envy,� she said. �I just don�t know if this had anything to do with that.� Jennie Finch, the U.S. team�s star who pitched two shutouts in Athens, was shocked by the news. �It�s devastating and heartbreaking, all combined,� she said. �Especially because the sport�s at an all-time high right now. I know it�s devastating for the young girls. �We�re going to do all we can to get the sport back for 2016.� Baseball was a demonstration sport at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and 1988 Seoul Games and became a medal sport in 1992 at Barcelona, where Cuba won the gold. The Cubans beat Japan in the 1996 final at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, where the 32 games had an average attendance of 28,749. While professionals were first allowed to participate in 2000, major league baseball didn�t allow players on 40-man major league rosters to go. The U.S. team won the gold, led by former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda and current Milwaukee pitcher Ben Sheets, but the Americans didn�t even qualify for the Athens Games, eliminated with a 2-1 loss to Mexico in a qualifier. �I think they�ve made a big, big mistake,� Lasorda said. �Baseball is played by all countries now, and softball, too. I think that�s really going to hurt the Olympics.� Cuba won in Athens for its third gold medal in four tries. �That�s like the World Series for people here,� Chicago White Sox pitcher Jose Contreras, who played for Cuba in the 2000 Olympics, said through a translator. �Not having the Olympics will be a big hit in Cuba and for the fans in Cuba.� But for U.S. baseball players, the Olympics were less important. �There isn�t any player growing up thinking they want to play in the Olympics,� said Sheets, who won a gold medal in 2000. �That was one of my greatest moments, but it has nothing to do with the big leagues. Each of the 28 existing sports was put to a secret vote by the IOC, and baseball and softball were the only two that failed to receive a majority. The IOC then rejected adding squash and karate, which failed to get the necessary two-thirds approval. IOC officials were unhappy about the absence of major leaguers. The NBA has sent its best players since 1992 and the NHL stopped its season for 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics. �The lack of the MLB players � I think people have looked and said, �Well, all right, if there�s to be a change, that seems to be the logic of it,�� British IOC member Craig Reedie said. Cuban Baseball Federation president Carlos Rodriguez took a similar view. �Those who bear most of the blame are the owners of the professional leagues who refuse to free up their ballplayers to compete,� he said. The drug-testing provisions of major league baseball�s collective bargaining agreement, which are more lax than World Anti-Doping Agency rules, were cited as a factor by Australian IOC member John Coates. �Problems with doping in U.S. baseball probably cost the sport dearly,� Coates said. Donald Fehr, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players� Association, said the IOC�s decision �won�t affect baseball very much one way or another.� �You can�t shut down major league baseball, you just can�t do it and nobody can reasonably expect us to,� he said. �Baseball will go on just fine. It�s never depended in any way, shape or form even slightly on the Olympics.� San Diego Padres chief executive officer Sandy =#FF8000]Alderson, until April an executive vice president in the major league commissioner�s officer, traveled to Singapore this week and was surprised by the decision. Major league baseball and the players� association plan to start their own 16-nation tournament, the World Baseball Classic, next March and have a launch announcement scheduled for Monday in suburban Detroit. �Since 1990, the number of national baseball federations has grown from 60 to 122,� said Bob DuPuy, major league baseball�s chief operating officer. �By deleting baseball from its Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee has made a mistake that will adversely affect millions of sports fans worldwide.� San Francisco Giants outfielder Michael =#FF8000]Tucker, a 1992 Olympian, thought the IOC might restore the sports for 2016. �It�s just a matter of what�s popular right now,� he said. �You might see poker on there.� (ed: Holy shit! I was joking!) Dominican Baseball Federation president Hector Pereyra and Mexican Olympic Committee president Felipe Munoz intend to work toward baseball�s restoration. �This is the moment to start the race to return to the Olympic stage in 2016,� Pereyra said.

bmfc1 wrote: If NBC wanted farting to be an Olympic sport, the IOC would make it happen. Then why isn't American football in there or other popular US sports which they know how to sell to a US audience.

I find it hard to believe that NBC has so much juice with the IOC that it could impose their choices of sports and kill others. If NBC had its way, I imagine they'd see to it that American Football, stock car racing, and UFC fighting were medal sports. Celebrity Texas hold 'em poker also. And they'd make sure that all the most watched medal sports took place at the time of day in whatever country they occurred in so as to make them prime-time action in the eastern US.

Back at the MoFo, the former Big Ralph listed Eraserhead as an all-time favorite film, to which Doc G replied by likening watchign the film to watching paint dry. Now Vic plays the paint card against Ozu. What can I take away? I don't know. Maybe that boring films tend to make lists.

My answer was Met pitchers who were during their careers two-time top-ten MVP finishers. My answer was wrong.

Checking and... nope. Orel only finished once in the top ten and Nomo not at all.

They all got MVP support --- multiple-time top-ten MVP finishers or something like that.

Ryan Braun played for the US in 2010. I think FIFA has it right. If you want to oppose the nation of your birth to play for a nation to which you have a connection of heritage, go ahead, but don't go jumping flags mid-career.

I think as many nations can field a team as can field, say, a badminton team. I think the real issue is the European domination of the IOC.

I think way too much of the legitimate criticism of Jeter-ism is dulled by that sort of playground bully gay-baiting. It's the kind of ugly that nobody has mastered so well as the bleacher denizens of Yankee Stadium.

More interestingly, the Twitter hacks supposedly weren't actually hacks at all, but an inside job.

It's like a picture of Hank Aaron, with John Milner's face underneath it!

Well, you could really go off the deep end and conclude that a .330 hitting Jeter has been deemed to be good for baseball and American League infielders have been ordered to play him impossibly deep --- give him the cheapies to pump the stats and polish his image, but not tilt the outcomes of games so much as letting flares drop into the outfield for doubles would.

Young 2.67 Cedeno 2.59 Murphy 1.33 Wright 0.99 Hairston 0.69 Bay 0.57 Torres 0.42 Valdespin 0.26 ERamirez 0.25 RRamirez 0.23

Seoey, come back and stay for good this time.

'Cuz they haven't faced us in a while. Young is done. Great game. That's why he's still on the team.

Five RBIs for CeCe --- 29% of the total he'd had to that point. This is a first-place team we're beating the heck out of.

Philly's been beating up on the Nats and Miami took Atlanta down a peg last night. We have a chance to pull within ten games tonight.

Scary skyscraper hit to Bay who keeps fighting the sun. Melky, meanwhile, a homer short of the cycle.

McCutcheon wins NL PotM for the second straight month.

And of course, their army of [crossout:1v08h1gi]dittohead attention whores[/crossout:1v08h1gi] citizen journalists follow that up by hacking in to a bunch of other MLB twitter accounts and posting juvenile shit.