Theoldmole

No love for Robin?

I would have gone for Jane, but she's not a wild card. She was on one of the other lists, wasn't she? I remember voting for her. I went with Ray Knight, but would have liked a shot at Jim, the Enormous Batboy. And why can't we vote for Joe Pignatano's tomato patch?

I can't believe that Karl Ehrhardt has gotten more votes than Al Jackson or Tim McCarver. He was colorful, but not that colorful. My #4 vote was between those two, and I went for little Al.

This was the hardest -- first time I would have wanted to vote for more than four. I gave a deserved but little-supported vote to Ron Hunt.

And a second vote for Ron Swoboda.

I'm Neal Allen? Will I get traded for Mex17?

Two pitchers named Maine?

Lincecum's the kinda guy you wanna have.

Reading their picks for the hot rookies of 1951. Barely mentioned as also-rans: Gil McDougald and shortstop Mickey Mantle. Not mentioned at all: Willie Mays.

Found it.

I can't find browse all issues.

Due diligence about a war?

And it's near Houston in case he needs a heart transplant.

I don't think they're locked in a catcher, I don't think Francouer is a bad solution -- he could be very good -- and Murphy's at heart a disciplined hitter -- I think he can work on hitting for power. Also, we seem to be playing in a first-to-third ballbark and developing a first-to-third team may not be the worst thing in the world.

A - they're not the Yankees. B - I lived in Minnesota during the Harmon Killebrew - Camilo Pascual era, and remain a Twins fan. C - The Twins have an ex-Met as manager.

Maybe a little premature to give up on him?

They might sign a type A personality.

Ed Hearn for David Cone wasn't bad.

First name looks like "George" to me -- "Geo" followed by a middle initial. I realize this is no help.

Loved it.

I'd move the Mets AA team from Binghamton to Albany.

One of the networks -- I think NBC -- did this several years ago at an NFL game -- let the pictures and ambient sound tell the story. It wasn't a huge success.

I'd like to see Mets honored at Citi - Tom, Lindsay, Ralph and Bob, yeah. But the last post did remind me of the pre-and post-game team from my Dodger-loving youth -- Marty Glickman, Ward Wilson, Burt Lee Jr. and Gorgeous Gussie Moran.

91, "upbeat" as he fights an incurable cancer. A man who gave so much to baseball.

This is my new all-time favorite non-Met. From Poetry Magazine: Para Rumbiar Robert Creeley in the outfield. by Fernando Perez I write from Caracas, the murder capital of the world, where I�ve been employed by the Leones to score runs and prevent balls from falling in the outfield. At the ankles of the �vila Mountain amongst a patch of dusky high-rises, the downtown grounds of el Estadio Universitario packed beyond capacity are ripe for a full-bodied poem. A mere pitching change is an occasion �para rumbiar,� and the purse-lipped riot squad is always on the move with their spanking machetes swinging from their hips. The game isn�t paced necessarily by innings or score. It�s marked by the pulsating bass drums of the samba band that trail bright, scantily-clad, head-dressed goddesses strutting about the mezzanine. The young fireworks crew stand mere feet from flares that don�t always set out vertically, sometimes landing in the outfield still aflame. �The wave� includes heaving drinks into the sky. In earning my stripes as a professional baseball player I�ve been through many cities and have stared out of hotel windows all over the Americas. Ball players are mercenaries, taking assignments indiscriminately. Throughout the minor leagues you�ll find yourself slouched on a bus, watching small towns roll by matter-of-factly like stock market tickers, on your back in a new nondescript room, or �shopping for images� (Allen Ginsberg) in a Wal-Mart, hunched over a cart in no rush. Like poetry, baseball is a kind of counter culture. The (optional) isolation from the outside world (which I often opt for); the idleness about which�and out of which�so many poems are written or sung: I see this state of mind as a blessing. Sometimes, in fact, when I haven�t turned on a television or touched a newspaper for months, freed from the corporate bombast, poetry is the only dialect I recognize. Long ago Robert Creeley confirmed my suspicion that words strung even sparingly together can be as aurally powerful as anything else we have. He has been my most important poet, because I can take him anywhere, like oranges�even reduced to nothing in both physical and mental exhaustion, nauseous and half asleep bussing from a red-eye. One of my first managers always preached separation from the game for the sake of our own health, and for the sake of our performance. The game can be maddening, and we ought to corner ourselves in this trade only so far. I�m in love with baseball, but eventually my prime will end, and she�ll slowly break my heart. Baseball has remained remarkably impervious to modernity, but is, like any modern industry, highly alienating. I turn to poetry because it is less susceptible to circumstance. I�m not especially touched when a poet deals with a ball game; I�m not especially interested in having one world endear itself to the other. Right now I need them apart, right now I�m after displacement, contrast. The thick wilderness of, say, late Ashbery can wrangle with the narrowness of competition.