Edgy MD

The first Mets uniformed personnel member to die was Red Kress, who passed away from a heart attack after coaching the team during the 1962 season. Despite sharing a staff with old timers like Casey Stengel and Rogers Hornsby, the younger Kress was the first to go --- only 57, like Gary Carter. Red's remains lie under this marker in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. If you can read that monument a stone's throw away, it says DAVIS. That's the Sammy Davis, Jr. family plot. Fancy neighbors, Red. Coaches weren't officially associated with their assignments back then (not typically, anyhow) but I would guess he instructed the infielders.

Pius IX --- only guy to serve longer than John Paul II (but still not as long as Connie Mack). Not a popular figure these days. Meantime:

Empire State Building to go blue and orange tonight in honor of Gary Carter.

No Mets were involved in the making of this story.

Yankees PR Dept. @YankeesPR sneak peak at the new Yankees fragrances in @womensweardaily today

And I'm thinking that the guy on the prison beat must've got that quote.

Valentine or Pennington or the Times editor or I (as reader) seem to have blown it in the next-to-last paragraph, saying "Padres" when he seems to mean "Dodgers."

Yeah, and Keith didn't claim to be bigger than Jesus and Davey Johnson wasn't a closeted homosexual. It's a just a passing analogy, Esteban. Let it work for you as far as it'll work for you.

Jeff Gardner, misrepresented twice on baseball cards. For a guy with a 186-game career, that's a monumental screwing of his legacy.

Not massive, but there certainly was a snipe or two.

The lefty-righty thing would be backwards but there's something there.

My shorts are still stained from his pitching in game five of the comeback against the Yankees, when for three innings Varitek was desperately trying to keep the pitches in front of him --- with the Yankees on at least one occasion a single wild pitch or passed ball from going ahead. Francona refused to make the move to knuckler-catching specialist Doug Mirabelli, even as his predecessor got axed and humiliated over a non-move with regard to Pedro Martinez. Very steely of Francona. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200410180.shtml

I've in the past compared Paul McCartney to Tom Seaver. But there's a thread between Paul and Gary Carter. Both lost their mothers as pre-teens and were raised by doting single fathers, who sought to replace the lost maternal nurturing but delivered it with a grave manly ruggedness. The future John Paul II is another of this ilk. All were formed in part by this tragedy. And though they expressed and spread great amounts of exuberant joy, they did it with a deadly sober seriousness. While they were perhaps surrounded with teammates who took fun in more reckless behavior, they knew how short life was, and how powerful the opportunity presented was, and how huge the stage. All elicited eyerolls from their colleagues in response to the simple pieties they seemingly represented, but all nonetheless had the game to get accepted into the coolest of clubs --- though none of them were cool. And when systems and circumstances collided and there was nobody else in room willing to be a grownup when the time called for it, they all had the... whatever --- courage, arrogance, the gravity of their fathers --- to step up and lead those clubs.

Seriously, it's hardly the conclusion.

I don't care how cheap, I don't want to pay to sit in the parking lot.

It was all suddenly different It was still high school And I was still me But now my clothes weren�t so wrong My hair not as greasy My friends weren�t as cruel My mother didn�t drink so much Adulthood wasn�t so terrifying I stopped apologizing for myself and got on with it Let them shudder, not me Gary Carter was on my team And suddenly anything was possible

Looks like he has some sort of Mr. Met toy.

My get is that the Mets changed their minds under pressure and chose not to make a statement which would have been dissected and caused them more embarrassment no matter how carefully worded. Megdal and LoHud, whether out of thanks or graciousness, chose not to make a big deal out of pressing them for an explanation.

The thread that covers the folks who cover the Mets. New Bergen Record guy Mike Kerwick is a 4:32 miler. Kerwick also writes a lot about music and co-authored Chico Resch's memoir (which, if only in title, seems to have disturbingly kicked his Islander legacy to the curb). Kerwick's blog also does us the service of answering the burning question of what The E-Street Band will do to fill the void in their first tour after the death of Clarence Clemons. Will they bring in an interloper? A legacy? A full horn section? Turns out, all three.

Monk knows. He's just acting the maggot.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: With the Braves, Phillies, Marlins, and even Nationals fielding better teams in the offseason, the jokes were likely to be plentiful this year. Seth, you don't field a team in the offseason.

I just love this thread right up here on top as a monument to the chilling nature of my presence in a tournament. I start throwing down and everybody's all, "You know, I'm kinda busy."