Edgy MD

Ceetar wrote: Could it really cost that much more than the other advertisements the Mets do? They already advertise in thet MTA stations, so they already have a relationship. the MTA is desperate.. Or is it too much "preaching to the choir" to advertise trains already going to the game? (and I don't know how easy it is to plan which 7-trains are going to be on the gameday express service though.) Well, I really don't want to hijack the thread with these notions (maybe in another thread), which were really meant to express that expanding the Mets brand doesn't have to be done by destroying and rebuilding the thematic foundations of it.

A Dozen ways for the Mets to Creatively Express Their Brand Restore the tradition of city agency hats on September 11. Announce defiantly that you intend to do it in perpetuity, and whatever fine MLB gives the team, they will gladly pay it plus an equal amount to a September 11-related orphan scholarship fund. It's personal, MLB. Have one-time only uniform variations, that are more about complementing the brand history rather than destroying it. Make these variations for noble purposes, like saluting a city institution, rather than goofy ones, like suggesting the Mets are going to relocate Mercury. Move the unisphere (and other World's Fair attractions) to the stadium grounds and incorporate it them into the complex. Heck, have an army of architects and engineeers figure out how to mount it on the concourse behind the Pepsi Porch. You have to move the Pepsi sign somewhere, but let the army figure that out. in a similar vein, move the magic hat (first you would have to place the magic apple back into a magic hat) to a perch behind section 339 to the left of the scoreboard. In it's place, carve out a rectangular void to reference to centerfield well at Polo Grounds. It wouldn't be anywhere near as big as that well, but the statement would be there. it would complete the theme of Citifield, referencing Ebbets on the outside fa�ade, and PG on the inside fa�ade. Remove the excusivity of access at the stadium clubs. Pay the city shocking amounts of money to trick 7-line subway cars out in team colors when running during the ballgame. Have a promotions team member stop random people on the street who are wearing New York Mets colors. Thank them for their fealty, offer them tickets and shwag, and show the ambush and exchange on the scoreboard that night. Ramones night. "All in the Family Night." Jonathan Lethem Night. Celebrate the outer boroughs. Trick out the left sleeves of players uniforms with regalia denoting their career accomplishments, a la my suggestion near the bottom of page one of this thread. (See below, also.) In half inch embroidery on the right sleeve, sew in the number a man ranks on the all-time Mets roster. This will generate buzz about who will have the honor of being Met Number 1,000, and you can have him pose with Met Number One. The flat finish on the helmets idea that Bucket came up with. It may be an idea whose time has come and gone, but it certainly spreads the idea that glamour is what the other team is about. We get the job done and that's hard work. Additionally, it makes the helmet more of just a harder extension of the cap, which it should be. In that spirit, replace the painted insignia on the hat with an adhesively attached sewn insignia. Publish a Mets Literature Reveiw every year, featuring original articles plus highlights of what has been published about the team that year. Recruit excellent writers for the task. Let kids grow up dreaming not just of being in uniform, not just of being in the broadcast booth, but of being the "The Review." Let them feverishly antiicpate the December pub date every year. Let them top their Christmas and Chanuka lists with it. (Are there Chanukah lists?) Most of thse ideas are unworkable, stupid, shortsighted, garishly vainglorious, or some combination thereof. But they are all represent the energetic creativity you burn for. But creative opportinities are everywhere. But some things have been done and have been done well enough. More than well enough. The uniform, the skyline logo, the lyrics to "Meet the Mets." And well enough, if not left alone, whould be tampered with very carefully, very reluctantly, and very respectfullly. I say undoing on the work of our predecessors represents not a wealth of creativity, but a poverty of it. Certainly following a league-wide trend does, and that's what solid-color jerseys are. A lame jump on a lame bandwagon rolling through the league, picking up franchises far more desperate for a mroe meaningful identity than the Mets are. It's a bandwagon we should be embarassed to find ourselves sitting on.

I don't think an embrace of excellent uniforms is a rejection of creativity. I can think of hundreds of ways for the team to build creatively on it's past without painting over it. (I will type a dozen into the next post.) One-time variations are also not the same as an addition to the rotation, which triggers a brand change --- a brand that a lot of people have an investment in.

I don't believe there's anything bland about a two-uniform rotation, and I don't believe there's anything bland about the American flag. I don't believe there's anything bland about the cover of Meet the Beatles, the lyrics to "Meet the Mets," or the content of Huckleberry Finn. I don't think there's anything bland about Shakespeare's sonnets or Vermeer's paintings, or James Brown on the T.A.M.I. show. You want to pimp out the uniform, do it on your own back. Make your own statement. Don't water down somebody else's genius. The result is inevitably a regrettable weaker parody.

Ceetar wrote: Why is there no love for all orange jerseys? *mutters* Because a secondary color is secondary color. It's meant to be complementary. I'd hope this is a replacement for black. But I doubt black is going away. The team wore blue pullovers for a few years there in the Bamberger era. It seemed they wore them only in April and May and shed them once the weather got warm. It doesn't kill me. But I tell you, when the Mets roll into, say, Arliington, and the Rangers take the field in solid color home tops, I instantly think, "Of course the Mets are going to beat these chumps ---- they can't even be bothered to get rid of their warmup clothes before taking the field. The Mets are playing a softball team and we're going to win 17-3. Even if Pelfrey is pitching." And you know, we pretty much did. And that was a good team. So there's that. But what really does bother me is that this is supposedly the result of all this research and fan polling and what we end up with just the Mets version of what everybody else is doing. What a waste of time, staffpower, and the unparallelled creative resources that New York has to offer. I don't claim to know the answer to our national economic malaise, but I do know the courage to innovate is part of that answer. Why is my team such a bunch of cautious trend followers, Mr. Howard? Get your finger out of the wind and act like a man.

I knew that shirt was a trojan horse A trojan horse and it was, of course! I knew that shirt was trojan horse For more abomination I knew that shirt was Pandora's box Pandora's box with no stirrup sox! I knew that shirt was Pandora's box A fumbled cacluation And "Los Mets" isn't Spanish! Like "Les Mets" isn't French How can I enjoy my Met games With such nonsense on the bench? That top portended things to come Things to come both crude and dumb! That top portended things to come That'll last a generation

Those are good items for a new fact/opinion thread.

That breaking pitch seems like a hybrid. It's slider speed, but has something of a curve's drop.

I missed it too. Vic Sage wrote: did you like it? It was no Judge Dredd.

Hard. To. Tell. Hey, I thought that was a generous observation.

Hard to tell much from that photo.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: She doesn't look like she's less than three. She is. Look at her shirt.

It's a shame the title of the movie is a whine. I mean, "There but for fortune..." It's true of all of us, to different extents. In "I Ain't Marching Anymore," he sings "I was there at Little Big Horn." I call bullshit on that one.

Last week, the Jupiter Hammerheads shut out the St. Lucies over a doubleheader. Showing the resilient spirit of the parent club, the St. Mets paid the Jupes back in kind yesterday, sweeping two, 9-2 and 9-1 Getting the start in game two was Goodman John Church, who gave up a run in the first inning and shut them down the rest of the way. Seven innings pitched, one earnie, five hits, one walk, and no strikeouts. How do you like them app... Hey, wait... no strikeouts? As in none? Just what are you teaching these kids, Mets?

Liked it better than Thor and Green Lantern. They're hard films to make --- needing to satisfy invested constituencies from several generations of the character, as well as people who've never read a comic in their lives.

DC was a folk hub, with the scene thriving after the war until fading about the time the Beatles hit (and played their first concert in DC) --- situated at an odd crossroads between the Appalachian sources of the music and the northern sophisticates popularizing and consuming it. They also had this Jewish population of families established well before the war, who acted as dedicated sponsors for the movement. Before becoming America's favorite crooning yokel, John Denver was a DC coffeehouse folkie:

dgwphotography wrote: and to reiterate, Hayley Atwell alone was worth the price of admission... Could just be the quality of the projection I got, but there was some strange doings in her makeup: a mustardy yellow in her foundation that was offputting.

Big day for Jordanny Valespin, first getting big love from Paul DePodesta, and then getting a promo to Buffalo, to go antagonize an older set of players. Go with my love, young JV.

Can you imagine what it was like, if you had any ambition, to be a contemporary of Dylan? He was good enough to set an impossibly high standard. He was prolific enough to set a pace nobody could keep up with. He was prankster enough to push his goofiest songs so hard they came out as profound and outdid your best. And he was mean enough that if you briefly were able to reach his air, he'd cut you dead for the transgression.

It's Bronson Arroyo, I think. The corn rows. The Goo Goo Dolls covers. That stuff can rub off.

Thank you for reading.

Everybody's talking about how nobody's talking about Jesus Guzman.

Monday: RHP Mike Pelfrey (6-10, 4.48) vs. RHP Tim Stauffer (7-8, 2.96), 7:10 p.m. ET Stauffer wears number 46, a sure sign of quality. But no matter what you wear on your back, it's hard to win when you have "padres" on your front He's 21-27 career, but he will pitch the first no-hitter for the Padres someday. Bank it. Tuesday: LHP Chris Capuano (9-10, 4.44) vs. LHP Wade LeBlanc (0-2, 4.98), 7:10 p.m. ET Wade LeBlanc, when not a corrupt Lousiana sheriff, is a lefthander that should excite Jerry Hairston and Ronny Paulino if we haven't traded them in a waiver deal by tomorrow. Nicke Evans, I'll be looking at you also. Wednesday: RHP R.A. Dickey (5-10, 3.72) vs. RHP Aaron Harang (10-3, 3.91), 7:10 p.m. ET Harang is the ace of the staff, on a one year deal with a mutual option for 2012. But I don't think he's coming back, considering Bud F. Black pulled him with a no-hitter last month, after he walked three and was up to 96 pitches. Jealous, Bud?! Anyhow, I'd suggest we might pursue him in the offseason if I didn't find that I had and irrational antipathy for him. I wondered why and then I remembered all those years with the Reds. I don't like any Reds pitchers. Why is that? Thursday: LHP Jon Niese (11-8, 4.12) vs. LHP Cory Luebke (4-6, 3.06), 12:10 p.m. ET Cory Luebke is LeBlanc's deputy down in the bayous of St. Aloysius Parish. He makes sure your fishing license is up to date. He's been mostly a reliever this year so don't look for him to go deep, but he's had his share of minor league success so don't take him lightly either. He's a (say it with me) 26-year-old rookie. The closer is Heath Bell. You know him and he knows you. He's supported by a bunch of guys who think Major League II is hilarious. One of them is Chad Qualls. For serious. Ex Mets include Bell and only Bell. Ex Pads usually fall away from baseball, but Scott Hairston did his time with them. And former Pad Chris Young still carries the resin bags for the Mets or something. Queens' own Mike Baxter got nine trips to the plate with them last year, and has joined the Mets for sign-stealing duty. It's already 4-1, Mets. Sorry to be so late.

Outliers: In leftfield, you might see Blankety Blanks but when Chris Denorfia went down (Lord, have mercy), they callked up Blake "Excuse Me, Mister" Tekotte. A rare Padre rookie under 27, Tekotte has a good chance to stick as a multi-skilled, master-o'nutin' outfielder. Get on with your Orsuak self. Look for him. You may miss him otherwise. Cameron Maybin, legit big leaguer roams center (and a huge center it is, both at Petco and Citi). His nickname is "Cocoa Diablo" (seriously) and he was the top Tiger prospect before heading to Florida and then San Diego, but if you're like everybody else, you're not seein' it yet. He's a good glover and he wears Willie Mays' number. Why, there outghta be a law! Wil Venable is the rightfielder. He's maybe twice the player his daddy -- longtime reserve Max Venable --- was, which makes him exceedingly average. He's what Tekotte might someday be. Poor Pads, Man. We interrupt this message to tell you about my Padres, the Capuchin Province of St. Augustine. They minister to my community and they're great. Left side, second from the top, is Br. Al Carver, a lovely guy who takes his final vows in 10 days. Why some guy is holding mistletoe over his head, well, you don't need me for a punchline.

OK, thubbase was the province of Chase Headley --- who, like Nick Hundley, has an adverb for a name. He was their best hitter, but he just broke his pinkie and hit the DL and the Padre site improbably lists Jesus Guzman as the starter there as well. Any padre will tell you that Jesus can do anything, but I'm guessing he won't staff two jobs at once. Either look for Logan Forsythe (who has a nice future in geopolitical thrillers), a rookie with bloody awful numbers but pretty good minor league productivity, or Jesus, with Blanks shooting from first. Shortstop: I guess I'll never get over surfer dude Khalil Greene's failure at short --- 'specially since his ascendency helped rive ReyO out of baseball, but Jason Bartlett is offering a good-by-Padre standards (.251 / .318 / .312 // .630) season. Greene totally could have done that, TOTALLY. But now he drives the bus. Bartlett isn't much for power, but he took Ted Lilly deep the other day for the only run and the difference-maker, so I consider him a friend --- when he's not an enemy, which he is. Backing him up is Alberto Gonzalez, who has gotten into 70 games and posted an OPS+ of 50. FIFTY! These are the '79 Mets, we're talking about. We have four games against these sacks, and I swear, if we don't win at least seven of them...