DocTee

That contract is one huge bullet Omar dodged.

wow! Amazing play!

Excellent Start. And yes, I'll take one of those jerseys, thank you very much.

Off to work...boo hoo. LGM! Have fun those in attendance and watching from the comforts of home.

Having said that, I was bummed to find out that ESPN2's feed was being blacked out in favor of the stellar (read: shitacular) YES broadcast of the game. These guys' Yankee love gushing (shame on you, Al Leiter, for even hanging out with these hacks) makes a guy want to find a torso, dress it in MFY apparel and then fuck it with an ax handle. Pining for Jon and Joe? Trust me, you ain't missing much (though I like--always have--Orel Hershisher, who joins them for this season)

They have plaques of all the inductees, which includes info about WHY said person is in the Mets Hall of Fame (something I hated about the old Diamond Club Lobby setup). Do they really have any need for those old busts to be on display now? So first the complaint was the Mets didn't do enough to honor their heritage, and now they're going overboard? Some people.

I'll actually be at that Giants game!

1. First hit: Bay 2. First double: Bay 3. First triple : Cora 4. First home run: Barajas 5. First stolen base: Wright 6. First baserunner caught stealing/picked off : Castillo 7. First guy to hit into a double-play : Francouer 8. First batter to strike out : Jacobs 9. First fielder to commit an error : Wright 10. First guy to score a run : Barajas 11. First guy to drive in a run : Barajas 12. First Met player to field a batted ball : Wright 13. First Met to draw a walk : Wright 14. First Met relief pitcher to make an appearance : Figueroa 15. First Met to reach base on an error : Cora 16. First winning Met pitcher : Santana 17. First losing Met pitcher : Maine 18. First Met to throw a wild pitch : Santana 19. First Met to be hit by a pitch: Francouer 20. First Met pitcher to plunk an opposing batter : Niese Tiebreaker bonus (if necessary): Date of Jerry Manuel's first ejection : May 2

Can't believe some of the names in this one!: http://www.sporcle.com/games/deej/pitching2000

Spring training has changed a lot over the years: nicer facilities for the players and fantasy camps and package tours for the fans. Things were simpler in the old days, so simple that rookies had trouble getting into the batting cage. �When I first went to spring training, in 1941, when I was with the Pirates, I wanted to take batting practice but couldn�t,� Ralph Kiner, the Mets� longtime announcer said before a game here last week. �A manager wouldn�t go out and put you in there. You had to figure out some way to get in there.� Eventually, Kiner said, Bob Elliott, a veteran teammate and future National League most valuable player, got him some swings in the batting cage. Kiner said it wasn�t a hazing ritual, it was just the way it was. Teams had very few coaches and hundreds of rookies and minor leaguers in camp. �It was an entirely different atmosphere,� Kiner said. Kiner survived his first year in camp and went on to become one of baseball�s most productive home run hitters over his injury-shortened career in the 1940s and 1950s. As Mets fans know, he became a legendary announcer, a walking encyclopedia of baseball history. So it took me no time to get him talking about his other memories of spring training. The Brooklyn Dodgers, he said, had the biggest training camps in Vero Beach, Fla., with hundreds of prospects paid salaries of about $50 a month. If you didn�t make the club, you had to pay your way home, something other clubs also did. �Most guys had to hitchhike home because they didn�t have any money,� Kiner said. �Fortunately, I made the club.� Kiner�s first spring training was in San Bernardino, Calif. He later trained in Miami with the Pirates and Arizona with the Cubs and Indians. In 1953 he and the Pirates also went to Havana for a month. (The Dodgers trained there in the 1940s.) Fidel Castro and his band of rebels were lurking in the hills around the capital, he said, so the Batista government stationed soldiers with machine guns along the highways in case Havana was invaded. Kiner, known as a bon vivant in his day, said that the city �had some of the greatest night clubs that I had ever seen.� Kiner, of course, was present at the Mets� first spring training, in 1962. On the first day that year, Manager Casey Stengel gathered his players at home plate at Huggins Stengel Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. Stengel told that team that home plate is where you stand when you hit the ball. He then marched the players to first base and told them this was the place they would try to get to a lot during the season. And so on to second base, third base and home again. Because the Mets had some older stars on that team, including Richie Ashburn and Gil Hodges, Kiner had no inkling that the team would lose a record 120 games, shattering the mark set by the Pirates when Kiner was on the club. But the Mets ended up providing Kiner with a great punch line. �I�ve always said that the reason the Mets hired me was because I had losing experience because of that year with the Pirates,� Kiner said.

http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/kiner-recalls-spring-training-in-the-40s/ The image of Ralph at Havana nightclubs while guerillas circled the city is quite the contrast to today's norm.

I'll take the first Giants series

Armitron was later. there was a small one on the RF mezzanine (where number of pitches, speed, etc would be displayed), plus a larger one in CF

I always thought it odd that ARMITRON (official timepiece of the NY Mets), and not Timex, was the sponsor of the clocks at Shea. Don't recall ever seeing an ad elsewhere, but the local Queens connection must've accounted for the placement.

You know, at what point do the Wilpons wake up and realize there is a difference between a smart big market team and making dumb big splashes Another reason why he should have been jettisoned is that it would have been a sign that the Mets are committed to once again changing the culture of the clubhouse So the Mets should jettison Castillo not in the name of improving the club's performance but to make a statement? When will they learn!

I, too, would have liked to see the Mets address their rotation, but it is what it is. 2009 was a perfect storm of injuries and bad play. A healthy team this year (with last year's roster) gets 80 wins...adding Bay and the other pieces should up that a few too. I doubt if the Mets will be in the playoffs, but not as mush as I doubt SJR's prognostication of 70 wins.

Gotta love the peanut gallery in the Bay Area press: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/athletics/detail?entry_id=55846&o=2&gta=commentslistpos#commentslistpos

Scott Podsednik and his uber-hot wife to KC.

Jack Cust returns to Oakland: 1 year, $2.65 million

Mark DeRosa to SF: 2 years/$12 million.

MFY send Melky Cabrera to ATL for Javy Vazquez, as per ESPN.

Misch and Nieve could be brothers.

Jayson Stark reporting talks of a three-way: Milon Bradley to TB, Pat Burrell to the Mets, and Luis Castillo to the Cubs, with the Mets then inking Orlando Hudson. Me likey

Prepare to be ill: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=giuliani/091110&sportCat=mlb

Looks like the injury bug that hit the big-league squad made an appearance throughout the Mets minor-leagues as well.