Lefty Specialist

Did that when I bought my current house. It worked.

Word.

I'd be happy with 3/$90 or even 4/$120. Longer than that and I start to hesitate, especially the way the first base market seems to be crashing. But Alex Bregman is repped by Boras, too, so you can't play one off against the other.

Conforto turned down a QO from the Mets then hurt himself. Not left out in the cold but rather stepping into a walk-in fridge and then locking the door.

That wouldn't be terrible, and the threat of Bregman might also entice Pete into something a little more team-friendly both in length and $.

Only one of these is a first-timer, and yes it's Ichiro.

That incredible home run notwithstanding, I would not be heartbroken if Pete signed with a team outside the division. I think he (and Boras) will be looking for too many years at too much money. JMO, YMMV.

Oh my. The absolute pinnacle of Tom Jones' acting career. A deliberately silly movie and I loved it. I've been afraid to listen to Slim Whitman ever since, though.

I've thought about that too. Pete's going to want an awfully long contract, and Stearns may not want to give it to him.

Yes, if only I could figure out how to post pics from my phone....

Cool. Have noticed some Mets fans but even more Phillies fans here the past few days..... The weather has been sparkling and it looks like it'll be okay for the games, too.

If the Mets are still bumping along below .500 at the end of July, I'd expect Pete and a bunch of others will be gone. Remember Cohen is OK with paying off contracts to get something better back in the deal, so I'd expect Alonso will fetch more than he otherwise might have.

Yeah, soccer stadiums don't really work. Cricket grounds would work better but I think they're in use this time of year. Anyway, we shall see. They're also doing a big MLB hoo-hah in Trafalgar Square featuring Daniel Murphy and Chase Utley (boo). Maybe I'll take a whack at his leg. This seems to be less of a 'let's introduce the Brits to baseball' thing and more of a 'let's get die-hard fans of their teams to travel thousands of miles to a foreign country' thing. I think the Brits could care less.

So we're off shortly to Old Blighty. We'll be in Scotland first and then taking a train down to London, sightseeing all the way and winding up in London Stadium on June 8 & 9 to see the Mets play (and hopefully not embarrass themselves in the process) the Philadelphia Phillies. London Stadium is where West Ham United normally plays soccer and was a location for the 2012 London Olympics track & field events. Soccer stadiums generally make for poor baseball fields. This one was a little more flexible, but not much. It'll be 385 to center, compensated for by a 16-foot mini-Green Monster. 335 down the lines and shallow alleys. There's a good chance there'll be a lot of long balls. Look at all that foul territory. Makes Oakland look positively cozy. Also an incredible amount of room for the Phanatic to ride his ATV, alas. Looking forward to seeing the Mets suck on two continents. You can't miss me, I'll be the one in the Alvarez jersey. Even my jerseys get injured. Apparently still tickets available for the Bravehearts among you.

His .234 OBP will fit right in. Unless he's Worlds Away in Syracuse.

Problem is, it very often takes a detour into prison time.

Liked it, didn't LOVE it. It was surprisingly sad which I wasn't prepared for based on the trailer.

Streamed it at home, and it was okay. Not really sure what the fuss was about. Ryan Gosling looked like he was having the time of his life, and it's always good to see Rhea Perlman. But I couldn't look at the color pink for a week.

However much you wind up paying him, you'd probably pay more than that to replace his offense. And yes, you'll have to go longer than you want, which means some down years at the end of the deal. Ryan Howard and the Fielders were FAT. Pete Alonso is not fat. Big, but not fat. I'm betting he can keep himself in shape well into his 30's. Show him the money. This is certainly an adjustment year, but it should be the only one. To 2025 and beyond!!!!

Watched it the other night with Mrs Lefty and Lefty Jr. We were....underwhelmed. I don't know if that's a product of the hype or not, but we're glad we didn't pay to see it in the theater.

It was okay. I actually met Phil Knight in the '90's and he's a bit of a weird dude. Great cast, and not actually showing Michael was a good thing. Everyone knows what he looks like and seeing someone else play him would have been distracting. Fine for streaming, but I'd never pay to watch it in a theater.

Saw this at a drive-in deep in the swamps of Jersey a long time ago in a universe far, far away. Since my priorities that evening were 1) making out and 2) drinking, little of the movie was actually seen. The experience got 5 stars, however. I believe this was the film he made BEFORE that little space flick, and it was released afterwards to capitalize on his sudden name recognition.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: I'm the only one who dug it. No, you're not. I loved it; my wife hated it.

Sign him for 8 years after the 2023 season. He'll be 36 when it's done. Give him lots of money. Hope he doesn't get injured like Howard did, which made the end of his career very ugly. You'll also have the DH spot to park him in, something Howard didn't have.

There aren't many things in life that you get really really excited for, and then the reality exceeds those expectations. This is one of those times. We got to the field in late morning on a crisp, sunny day in Iowa. It's a Thursday in late September, so it's no kids, just adults, empty nesters all. Spoke with people who came from Texas, Washington state, Minnesota, Virginia. Lots of 'Can you take our picture' going on. They only want you going 5 feet into the corn, but that's okay because you don't really want to go much farther than that anyway. Had a catch and someone videoed it for us. Brought a wooden bat and got a few swings in. Random people with gloves would field for us and we did the same for them. Mrs Lefty hit a line drive back through the box that narrowly missed me and declared herself done. Went into Dyersville for lunch at the Textile Brewery where we had a giant Bacon cheese and maple syrup pretzel that may have been the best thing I've ever eaten in like forever. Back to the field for our house tour with half a dozen others, and then they turned the keys over to us for the night. The house Has been returned to the way it looked in the movie as much as possible and it's pretty close. I'm looking right now at the steps Annie sat on as she told Ray about her dream of Fenway Park. I'm sitting at their dining room table right now typing this. The house is crammed with baseball memorabilia and F.O.D. stuff. The master bedroom looks over the field just like in the movie. The two of us could wander through everything to our hearts content. We ordered a pizza for delivery and watched the sun set beyond the left field foul pole as we sat in the porch swing. Just a perfect day. After 8 PM, we had the field TO OURSELVES. Everyone was gone including the staff. We got to turn off the field lights ourselves when we were done! (it's not the one switch that Annie throws in the move, it's 6 breakers that are in a box next to the gift shop) Now for the bad news. This is probably the end of this bucolic existence. Field of Dreams and 300 surrounding acres were bought by a company fronted by Frank Thomas in 2017. They built that other field where MLB had games the last two years and they are going to destroy this place. They're building a complex that will have NINE baseball fields, a training center and a 110-room hotel. The renderings of it are just awful, and it'll all be done by 2025, meaning constant construction going on. They're taking something good and pure and they're strip-mining it. But for now, it's totally quiet and the sun is just starting to come up. Took a thousand pictures which I'll need to figure out how to post. But this was flippin' awesome. And the Braves even lost, so that was the capper.