RealityChuck

Frayed Knot wrote: WFUV's Don McGee, disc jockey and noted NYM fan, noted the Jethro Tull references/jokes Gary Cohen got out of Ian Anderson's start for the Braves last week. And so in tribute to that and to Keith following up by offering that BENEFIT was his favorite JT album, McGee played WITH YOU THERE TO HELP ME and TO CRY YOU A SONG off that album on his Saturday 'Mixed Bag' show. Now I feel even more sorry for this Ian%20Andersonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_A._Anderson

It's shorter.

They expect a very long career for Chance Sisko.

Mason Williams: also a fine guitarist [media=youtube]3NE6X4IQNA4[/media]

Harry Mathewson https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mathehe01.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mathehe01.shtml For decades, he shared the record for the most wins by two brothers. Dutch Zwilling https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/z/zwilldu01.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/players/z/zwilldu01.shtml Played his entire ML career in one city, and played for every major league team that called that city home* *Not counting Negro league teams, nor cities which only had one team.

The SNY postgame brought us Lindor as the first Met to face the press. First question: What happened in the tunnel? Lindor says, it was my first time seeing a rat in the stadium. "Jeff said that it was a raccoon. We were going back and forth debating." The reporters asked, like, five follow-ups, all at least partially about the tunnel dust-up. The answer remained the same. Let's just say that we've found one thing Lindor doesn't do very well. Or extremely well.

A better ERA than most of the team's BAs. He also struck out over half the batters he faced.

My high school math teacher, Hal "Goldie" Goldsmith: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/goldsha01.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/goldsha01.shtml School legend had it he struck out Babe Ruth, but it couldn't have happened in the regular season.

I remember him well. I was working nights at Schenectady OTB and we had a UPI sports ticker in the office. One night, it gave off a warning bell and when I went to look, it announced that Tate had gone six innings without giving up a hit (SOP at the time). Then seven, and I was thinking, "The first Met to throw a no hitter may be Randy Tate?" Alas, he gave up four runs in the eighth inning and lost the game (driven in by Gary Carter and a Mike Jorgensen HR). Here's the box: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN197508040.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN197508040.shtml Sorry to hear he's gone. The scary part now is that we're the same age.

Hunt -- Catsup maker Leiter -- ignites cigarettes Franco -- American spaghetti Darling -- Wendy's dad Carter -- Little liver pills

The pitcher can toss as many balls as he can conveniently throw. If he throws two and you swing, it's two strikes. If he does it again, you're out, with one strike left over for the next batter. No fences in the outfield. If you hit a home run, you can circle the bases as many times as you want until they get the ball back or you get tired of it. Oh, and if you hit the two baseballs, the runs count double.

Someone on a Bulletin Board I hang out on wanted to know about a new trainer where he worked out at who claimed to be a member of the Mets for ten years. He didn't recognize the name and was skeptical. Turned out it was Dave Magadan.

What I find a big step up in this offseason is that the team is doing things. In the past, it was one or two second-tier free agents and then a bunch of castoffs and reclamation projection. This year you get the impression that Sandy is trying to build a much better club, and even when they fail to get a target, the go all out.

Not sure where you got that. They both are about someone who wants to play music, but whose family disapproves. The protagonist ends up going into the land of the dead and has to make his way back. In addition, The Book of Life actually has something important to say about life. Not to mention that Book of Life is far more imaginative in all respects, avoiding the cookie-cutter plotting of most Disney films, and has far more distinctive animation.

Probably best he signed elsewhere. Now they can talk about extending Conforto and Syndergaard.

OK, but pales in comparison to the much superior Book of Life, which used the same themes.

I've seen nearly all of them, so I'd say Gil Hodges Davy Johnson Bobby Valentine Willie Randolph Yogi Berra Terry Collins Jerry Manuel Joe Torre Wes Westrum Joe Frazier George Bamberger Mickey Callaway Art "We battled" Howe Dallas "Pitcher destroyer" Green Others I didn't see enough to form an impression.

I can't see how Cohen did anything wrong by shorting the stock. It's a perfectly legal strategy and has no effect on on Gamestock. People are shorting Gamestock because the company is losing money. The way for Gamestock to prevent this is to make a profit. They aren't: the company would be in serious trouble if it's shorted or not, and if you see it's about the fail, there's nothing wrong with betting against it. People who are worried about Gamestock going under should be purchasing things from them to help the bottom line. Driving up the stock prices does nothing to help them. Shorting their stock does no damage to the company. It merely recognizes the company is in trouble and finds a way to make money from that. It's no different from someone last April deciding to buy Zoom stock anticipating it would do well.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0d/a2/ef/0da2efd234125eee3f99eedb35993ad2.jpg> Oh. Darren O'Day. Never mind.

=MFS62 post_id=54796 time=1611675536 user_id=60] Just heard on WFAN that the Mets have put a short term deal on the table for Bauer. It has a higher annual amount than Cole (his is around $33 million per year), but the number of years was not announced. Later

Losing Springer isn't the end of the world. The Mets need to resign Lindor and Conforto -- and they automatically get a $20 million hit next year when Cano's suspension ends. Now they have the money to go after both. Springer would be nice to have, but this isn't Rotisserie -- there are other options.

=smg58 post_id=54231 time=1611017371 user_id=62] Lucchesi makes Matz redundant, which make you wonder why he was tendered a contract in the first place.

My Lady Friends opened on Broadway on December 3, 1919. It was a hit, running 219 performances (a solid run back then). Ruth wasn't sold until December 26th. And Frazee didn't actually get the check that day -- it was paid in three installments. So the play opened three weeks before the trade, and was successful enough that it was unlikely Frazee needed any more money to finance it. And the Longacre Theater, which he owned, was in the middle of the run of Adam and Eva, so he was making a steady (and lucrative) income from that. Frazee didn't need any money for his Broadway ventures until well after the trade.

After the 1919 World Series, an event happened that nearly shook baseball to its core and which forced some major changes in the way the game was set up. I'm talking about the Insurrectos (The Black Sox didn't come to light until 1920). I had never heard of it before this (well, one passing reference) and find it fascinating. It all started with Ban Johnson. The founder of the American League thought it was his baby, and wanted to approve any owner who was part of the league. And he didn't like it when Harry Frazee bought the Red Sox. Frazee made his money in the theater, which was too disreputable for Johnson. Some sources said antisemitism played a part (Frazee wasn't Jewish, but some people thought he was because he was from NY and worked in the theater). In 1918. the government wanted to shut down baseball as nonessential. Johnson had no luck convincing them otherwise, but Frazee manage to convince officials that it was important for morale. Johnson didn't like being shown up. It became an outright war in 1919. The Red Sox, though they won the World Series the year before, were struggling. Pitcher Carl Mays (best know today for throwing the pitch that killed Ray Chapman) jumped the team and was suspended. Frazee didn't want the bother, and traded Mays to the Yankees for cash. Johnson forbid it. The Yankees took him to court and won. This didn't make Johnson happy and you only got on his bad side at your own risk. The two teams were joined by the White Sox. Charles Comiskey's friendship with Johnson had deteriorated over the years and they didn't like each other very much. Johnson got angry that Comiskey said he should be looking into allegations that the Sox had thrown the 1919 series. The three teams were dubbed the Insurrectos, probably named after the independence movement in the Philippines. Johnson had an edict: none of the other teams (dubbed "The Loyal Five") could have anything to do with them. Frazee, meanwhile, decided to trade away Babe Ruth. It sounds boneheaded now, but the reasons were not that crazy at the time. Ruth had just set the record for 29 home runs. But no one was sure he could duplicate it (It's as as if someone expected Roger Maris to hit 61 home runs again in 1962). Further, Ruth was willful and hard to control and threatened to go barnstorming if he didn't get a big raise. Frazee grew tired of the antics and he needed the money (no, not to finance No, No Nanette -- that opened three years later). The Loyal Five were not going to trade for Ruth. The White Sox offered Shoeless Joe Jackson and cash, but the rumors of the Black Sox were now beginning to come to light, so the Red Sox were wary. The Yankees offered more cash. Red Sox GM Ed Barrow told Frazee that the Yankees didn't have anything to offer, anyway, so Frazee went with the deal. (Barrow later became GM of the Yankees, but that was unlikely to be a factor in his thinking). Things came to a head the next year. With the Black Sox scandal in full bore, the National League wanted new governance of the sport. Johnson opposed it. So the Insurrectos agreed to join the NL and were preparing to switch to the National League. The NL said they'd accept the first additional AL team that wanted to join them, but, barring that, they'd put an expansion team in Detroit (the largest US city that only had a single team) and play as a 12-team league. Detroit owner Frank Navin managed to get the Insurrectos to the negotiating table, making sure Ban Johnson was not at the meeting. The AL agreed to go along with the commissioner system, since the jump of 3-4 teams could have doomed the league. It didn't end there. Frazee only leased Fenway Park, and the park ownership was friendly toward Johnson. There was a very real possibility that they would kick him out, so he bought Fenway. But that left him strapped for cash so he arranged a mortgage with the Yankees. Why did the Yankees do it? Because they leased the Polo Grounds from the Giants. And at the time of the loan, they were outdrawing the Giants. Owner Charles Stoneman didn't like that, so Johnson persuaded him to not renew the Yankees lease. Without a ballpark, Johnson could kick them out of the league. (Yankee Stadium was still in the planning stages). By holding the mortgage on Fenway, the Yankees could set up as the Boston Yankees and continue on (Stoneman changed his mind, afraid of the backlash if he drove Ruth out of town). And in the early 20s, the Red Sox were forced to trade with the Yankees. None of the Loyal Five would trade with them, and the White Sox were too tarnished to have anything to offer. Frazee was cash strapped -- attendance was down and he now had the Fenway Park mortgage to pay -- but he also was trying to improve the team. Many of the deals were perfectly reasonable at the time, but the players flourished with the Yankees (Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock, for instance, were only average pitchers with Boston; they became Hall of Famers once they had the Yankee offense behind them), while those the Red Sox got did worse than expected. Though Johnson was reduced in power (he didn't like being told what to do by the Commissioner), he still harassed Frazee (especially after the anti-semitic newspaper The Dearborn Independent called him one of the Jews who were ruining baseball) until Frazee finally decided to sell the team, which he did for a profit. Frazee did fine in his theatrical enterprises in the 20s, mostly because he owned the Longacre Theater, which was rarely empty throughout the decade. Despite myths to the contrary, he was a millionaire when he died (it was subsequent management that was even more cash strapped until Tom Yawkey came along). Frazee was blamed for the various trades, but he really had little choice. (BTW, the "Curse of the Bambino" was not mentioned anywhere until after their 1986 World Series loss). It's interesting to speculate how baseball could have been different if the Insurrectos had joined the NL.

He was unlikely to get that as a free agent. I thought it made sense for him to accept. $18M in the hand is much better than taking his chances in a year when teams are going to be conservative about money.