Vic Sage

Centerfield wrote: I'm wiling to meet them halfway. If Jeter dies this year, I'm ok to reduce the waiting period to 3 years. maybe he can take a swim in Mariano's electrified pool! I'd be ok with Jeter going in with Mariano then, with Rivera at the podium, sobbing, wracked with guilt, and finally needing to be put down with a trank dart and carried off the stage. Now THAT'S a HOF ceremony i'd pay to see.

i was 12 in 1973, and that was very much my team (more so than even `69, when i was not quite so absorbed by my Metdom). But the 73 team was a mediocre .500 team that overachieved by beating the big red machine in the playoffs. I had no expectation of winning against the As in the series, and have no great need to right that "wrong", where the better team won. any of you who lived through 2000 and yet are still willing to pick any other year to change the result of, are dead to me... dead to me, i tell you. That's 10 of you so far... i'm keeping track. oh wait, Gweck said he meant to vote 2000 but accidentally voted 2006. So he's alive again. But the other 9 of you... dead to me.

It all depends how high you want to make the bar to qualify. My impulse is to make it lower, so more teams than the MFYs will qualify, and so the term itself (so associated with that franchise) is watered down nearly to the point of meaninglessness.

His career numbers are really very good, and as recently as 2011 he lead the AL in saves and came in 5th in the CY voting. He started striking out alot fewer batters in 2012 and became much more hittable, and last year he threw less than 20 innings. He's mid-30s, so either he's had injuries over the last few years, or he's lost his out pitch. I definitely think he's worth a flyer on a minor-league deal to find out, and if he grabs a spot in the pen during ST and pushes Black, German, Familia or Reid back to the minors for another year, that's ok, too.

i don't think you can have hard and fast criteria, like x number of WS in y Years. I think its a multi-faceted analysis in which you consider everything, even though some points may be weighed more than others. So sure, multiple championships are important, but a team that wins 1 WS but then loses some of its core players to FAgency, trades and/or injuries (or sold off by Jeff Loria), but somehow manages to pull off a 2nd WS a few years later, while being a 2nd division team before and after, is not necessarily a dynasty, or more of a dynasty than a team that is at or near the top of its league for nearly a decade, with the same foundational core, even if it fails to win more than 1 WS, or even ANY WS, necessarily. Of course the fewer championships a team wins, the more dominant they need to be in the other factors: domination in their division/league (division titles, pennants), duration of their era of domination, the consistency of their core roster over that time, as well as the degree of public perception of the team as one of the dominant teams of the era, are all factors to consider, along with WS victories. for example, I think the Mets of 1984-1990 (7 years), which was the winningest team of the time, with 90+ wins 6 of those 7 years (100+ wins twice), never finishing lower than 2nd, with 2 division titles, 1 pennant and 1 WS championship (all achieved with the same basic core of players and management), is closer to a "dynasty" than the Twins of that era (6 years, from 87-92), which won 2 WS, but also had 2 sub-.500 teams in that period, finishing 5th/7 and 7th/7 in those seasons, never winning more than 95 games in that period (with only 3 of 6 years with 90+ wins); not to mention that their `87 title team had an entirely different pitching staff (from top to bottom) than the `91 championship team (albeit they still had the same Hrbek/Gagne/Puckett/Gladden hitting core).

it looks like Shinjo has bigger breasts than Ms. Hilton. I, in fact, do have bigger breasts than Ms. Hilton.

FAFIF: "...if you were around in 2000, would erasing the loss and replacing it with a win have meant everything? Would it have continued to mean everything? Would your life as a Mets fan be substantially better if you could point back to the 2000 world champion Mets?..." Answer: Yes. Next question. The pain you knew and have carried around with you from coming so close would be, now and forever, unadulterated pleasure. see, you already knew the answer, so the question is moot.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Because if it happens in 1999, the same thing happens, only the Braves are upended as well. The same thing does NOT happen. In `99, you're only overturning a theoretical loss to the MFYs that never happened (and so has left no scar), not wiping away the emotional pain we actually had to endure in `00. i don't get you people sometimes.

dinosaur jesus wrote: Vic Sage wrote: how can anyone not vote for the Mets to retroactively beat the MFYs in '00? That Series filled me with such overwhelming dread that I couldn't even watch after game 1. I would almost have preferred it if the Mets weren't there. That's why I can't vote for 2000. but that's exactly why YOU HAVE TO vote for that 2000 team... to purge yourself forever of that dread by blinking that series away and replacing it with a ride down the canyon of heroes, while Jeter holds up in penthouse somewhere, watching the parade on his bigass flatscreen while he smokes crack and runs whores to wash away the pain and gets his pal A-Rod to shoot steroids into his ass to make sure it doesn't happen again.

how can anyone not vote for the Mets to retroactively beat the MFYs in '00? I don't know how any other year is even a consideration. Even the `99 season didn't end with us actually losing a WS to the MFYs, so it doesn't present us with the opportunity to reverse that very real loss, just a theoretical loss that never happened, because we never made it the series to begin with.

I used to love "Rocky & Friends", and Peabody and his boy Sherman were 2 of the reasons why. But for the sake of Mr. Burrell's mortgage payments, the new MR. PEABODY will need to be more successful than the other Jay Ward movie spinoffs, Boris and Natasha (1992), Dudley Do-Right (1999), and The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000), all of which were disasters.

Harry Lime is the VILLAIN of "The 3rd Man", and isn't on screen very much, and is charming (even if amoral) when he is. Blanchette is the protagonist of JASMINE, a shrill, pathetic self-deluded creature occupying the center of nearly every frame of the film, and we are presumably supposed to care about how things turn out for her? Yeah, not so much.

metfairy = Ty Burrell's press rep

didn't Richie Ashburn retire after that 1 year with the 62 Mets? He was the starting CFer for that team.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Vic Sage wrote: foster-wilson-strawberry? I'll need a season. Um, 1983 or 84, something like that, before Dykstra came along, reducing Foster and Wilson's ABs. single season? Lance Johnson?

foster-wilson-strawberry?

i watched it -- yeah, i didn't get Burrell's viewpoint. Other than Ceeter, "optimistic Mets fan" is an oxymoron. Stewart much better embodied our eternal angst.

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: I want to see it but my wife is still punishing me for Wreck-It Ralph 2 years ago. The hell? What was wrong with Wreck-It Ralph? That's what I said. She clearly didn't play enough of those games as a kid to get the nostalgia involved. Come to think of it, she didn't like Scott Pilgrim either. bah, I'll just watch it myself at home when I get a chance. i had no particular nostalgia for those games either (other than Pong and Pac Man and Space Invaders), but its a charming movie and a fun concept regardless. I'm looking forward to LEGO as well.

i didn't include it only because he didn't actually direct the movie (except for framing sequence and voiceovers). But i would give it an honorable mention, because it is indeed hilarious, even if a little wearing after a while.

Projected opening day 25-man roster (lineup, bench, rotation and bullpen): SP 1.Niese [L] 2.Colon 3.Gee 4.Wheeler 5.Mejia RP 1.Parnell 2.Black 3.Rice [L] 4.Torres 5.Edgin [L] 6.Reid 7.Famiglia Lineup: 1.C.Young (lf) 2.Murphy (2b) [L] 3.Wright (3b) 4.Granderson (rf) [L] 5.Davis [L] / Satin (1b) 6.Legares (cf) 7.Drew (ss) [L] 8.D'Anaud © bench: 1.Recker © 2.Satin (if/of) 3.Seratelli (if) 4.Duda (1b/of) [L] 5.E.Young (2b/of) on the bubble: OF- Brown, Nieuhenheis, dDekker IF- Flores, Lutz, Tovar, Quintanilla, Tejada C- Centeno, Teagarden SP- Matsuzaka, Lannan, deGrom RP- German, J.Walters, Farnsworth, Sokolovich so based on this projection: 1. Who opens the season as the Mets main firstbaseman? Davis - Satin will get some ABs at 1b, too, but Davis will win the job in ST. 2. Who opens the season as the Mets main shortstop? Drew - I think they'll sign him and send Tejada to AAA and give Seratelli a shot as the backup. 3. What will the regular outfield alignment be come April 1? C.Young - Lagares - Granderson - with E.Young as a 4th OFer behind C.Young and Legares (Granderson will play every day, with Duda and Satin mostly serving as IF/PHers, but filling in the OF on occasion) 4. Mets 5th starter? Mejia - unless he's still not back from injury, in which case it's wide open, with DiceK getting 1st crack. 5. Backup catcher? Recker - Teagarden is no better, and Recker is already here.

oh, what the hell. one more time, here's a recent update: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Woody Allen: Filmography Woody Allen's career has had high peaks and deep valleys, with occasional bursts of brilliance that still shone during any given low period. He's had a pretty unusual career by modern Hollywood standards. He's averaged almost 1 film a year now into his 5th decade, with very little studio involvement or interference. That is pretty remarkable, especially since the end of the Hollywood's "studio system", where directors were under contract, and made movies all the time. Looking at his films by decade (and I only include the features he both wrote and directed): 1969-79: Take the Money and Run Bananas Everything... Sex Sleeper Love & death Annie Hall Interiors Manhattan The films are still crude, finding their form until he breaks through with ANNIE HALL, but these are the "early funny ones" he would mock in his very next film, STARDUST MEMORIES. His Bergman-esque INTERIORS is an unfortunately recurring leitmotif he returns to twice more in the next decade. MANHATTAN is lovely but creepily foreshadows his subsequent obsession with much younger women. Also, the decade introduced his first 2 "leading ladies", Louise Strasser and Diane Keaton. 1980-89: Stardust Memories Midsummer Night Sex Comedy Zelig Broadway Danny Rose Purple Rose of Cairo Hannah and her Sisters Radio Days September Another Woman Crimes & Misdemeanors This period had some very high highs and very low lows. His Fellini-esque STARDUST is a fascinating film, though not everybody's cup of tea. His 2 Bergman films, SEPTEMBER and ANOTHER WOMAN, are interminable stabs at seriousness, while MIDSUMMER is his failed attempt at a Bergman comedy, though not totally without its charms. It�s cute, but forgettable. ZELIG is his ROPE, a cinematic experiment more interesting in concept than execution. But RADIO DAYS, DANNY ROSE and PURPLE ROSE show Woody in fine form, while HANNAH was a huge hit and a fitting final chapter to his ANNIE HALL / MANHATTAN / HANNAH �NYC� trilogy". These films show his transition from Diane Keaton to new lady-friend and leading lady Mia Farrow. Ending the decade, CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS is Chekhovian in its rueful balance of comedy and tragedy. Probably his most fully formed, layered, interesting movie, of this or any other period. 1990-1999: Alice Shadows & Fog Husbands & Wives Manhattan Murder Mystery Bullets Over Broadway Mighty Aphrodite Everyone Says I love you Deconstructing Harry Celebrity Sweet & Lowdown Mostly an artist in decline, but there are still some nuggets of worth. You can watch the painful transition from Farrow to nobody in particular (though Judy Davis continues to pop up for a while). His breakup with Farrow is unendurably scrutinized in HUSBANDS & WIVES. His cinematic experiments continue, with his Kafka parody SHADOWS, the magical realism of ALICE, and his godawful musical, EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU. MYSTERY is just Woody marking time with another slight comedy. Still, just when you think you can dismiss him, BULLETS OVER BROADWAY and MIGHTY APHRODITE are vintage quality works; hilarious, daring, and filled with style, ideas, fascinating characters and genuine laughs. But when his Fellini worship finally overtakes his earlier Bergman fixation with the 3-some of HARRY, CELEBRITY and SWEET & LOWDOWN (which is basically a remake of La Strada), Allen seems to be sliding into a parody of himself� the artist as an old man, wishing he had been a better filmmaker and so emulating one. These last 3 are interesting, at least, and Samantha Morton in LOWDOWN gives one of the best performances by a woman in any of Allen film. 2000-2009 Small Time Crooks Curse of the Jade Scorpion Hollywood Ending Anything Else Melinda and Melinda Matchpoint Scoop Cassandra�s Dream Vicky Cristina Barcelona Whatever Works After turning out a trio of flawed but interesting Fellini-esque films, Allen marks the new millennium by churning out another pair of slight, wan, minor-key comedies in CROOKS and CURSE. However, he�s able to turn out a decent comedic effort with HOLLYWOOD ENDING, satirizing the movie industry in a more lighthearted way than he�d shown in ages. Unfortunately, ANYTHING ELSE shows Allen trying to return to his neurotic relationship comedies from days of yore, but Jason Biggs is no Allen protagonist and the movie falls utterly flat. You can�t go home again, Woody. He then tries to take on the �big question� once again; (�is life a comedy or a tragedy?�) and with MELINDA it�s both and neither. But neither is it a good movie. Then comes the much lauded MATCH POINT, a flat, humorless depiction of loathsome people doing loathsome things and getting away with it. Its turn from UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS soap opera to noir-ish thriller is silly, with a script that induces inappropriate laughter. Marketed as his first "thriller", it's a thriller for about 15 minutes. Good ending, though. Allen's CRIME & MISDEMEANORS covers all the same philosophical ground, but with wry humor and melancholy to balance the heavy-handed goings on. The Martin Landau subplot from C & M seems, in fact, lifted whole and turned into MATCH POINT, but unburdened by C & M's humor, texture and Chekhovian �lan. All of that gets replaced by the mechanics of planning and committing a murder, and then covering it up. C & M left that stuff out to focus on the impact of the event on the characters, not plot machinations. SCOOP is another one of his slight and forgettable comic murder mysteries, this time seemingly made out of outtakes from MATCHPOINT, featuring his new muse, Scarlett Johansson (first in MATCHPOINT, then later here and in VICKY CRISTINA), still hanging out in London. CASSANDRA finishes Allen�s �London Trilogy� with a humorless tragedy about which the less said the better. VICKY CRISTINA continued his European sojourn with a well-received romantic sex comedy, featuring Johansson for the 3rd and last time (so far), and winning an Oscar for Penelope Cruz. It's just OK, but overrated, as it�s little more than a meandering travelogue with pretty scenery, bursts of acting excess, and Woody one-liners. WHATEVER WORKS ends the decade on a sour note, with Woody back in NYC, this time using Larry David as his comic surrogate� a ranting boor in a Svengali relationship with a 20-year old girl. Allen is trying too hard to be funny again, and it�s just ugly and sad. 2010-present You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger Midnight In Paris To Rome With Love Blue Jasmine Allen starts the new decade with a serio-comic romantic return to London with STRANGER, but the funny stuff isn�t funny and the tragic stuff is unengaging. However, Woody moves on to PARIS and rediscovers his touch for illuminating the magic of love with his best film in 20 years and his most commercially successful film ever. His last stop in Europe is ROME, an Italian romantic comedy which brings Judy Davis back out of mothballs but is otherwise episodic and dull. Now comes JASMINE, taking us to San Francisco to endure the straight-faced tragedy of a socialite going nuts. This may be one of his most unpleasant films ever, with hateful people doing awful things to themselves and others, ending badly for all, more or less. And this is where we are with Woody Allen now� a misanthrope and accused pedophile in his 70s, telling the same jokes about sex and death he wrote 50 years ago, offering us a parade of awful people who mirror him more than they do any other actual human beings, occasionally indulging his clich�d sense of tragedy and Euro-philia. He had a good run, but I think he should stop now. Proceed at your own risk. My personal top dozen (in chronological order): * BANANAS * SLEEPER * LOVE & DEATH [when they talk about the "early funny ones", these are the 3 they're talking about] * ANNIE HALL [his most critically acclaimed, and most sophisticated of his neurotic romances] * PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM [he didn�t direct it, but it�s his play and his performance; a blend of ANNIE HALL's landmark neurotic romanticism and PURPLE ROSE's magical realism, and as good as he gets] * STARDUST MEMORIES [a personal fave, Woody's "8 1/2" is not for everybody. A Fellini-esque rumination on his filmmaking career is funny, bizarre, a bit whiny, but moving in spots] * BROADWAY DANNY ROSE [flat out funny, with a touch of pathos] * RADIO DAYS [a sad/funny nostalgic rumination on the radio days of his youth] * CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS [perhaps the best crafted and balanced film of his career] * BULLETS OVER BROADWAY [funny insight into Woody's own insecurity about being an "artist"] * MIGHTY APHRODITE [another funny one with real weight] * MIDNIGHT IN PARIS [funny and romantic, with that touch of magic in his best films] 10 more honorable mentions: * TAKE THE MONEY & RUN (primitive, sketchy, but funny) * ZELIG, DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, SWEET AND LOWDOWN, HOLLYWOOD ENDING (these 4 are all flawed but interesting) * VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (sexy) * PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, ALICE (Woody in magical realism mode) * MANHATTAN, HANNAH & HER SISTERS (the rest of the NYC trilogy)

As long as its no more than a 2-3 year deal, i'm ok with him having an "opt out"; i've been hoping they wouldn't sign him for more than 1 year, so why should i be concerned if he opted out after only 1 year? If he has a great year, then great for him and for us. And if he stinks, well... if they are willing to sign him for 2+ years, they're running the risk of him stinking for the duration of the deal anyway, opt out or no, so they just have to sign him at a favorable price that doesn't prohibit them from dumping, dealing or living with it. And even if he sucks, he might opt out anyway just to get away from CitiField, the team and/or NYC. They're not BUILDING around Stephen Drew, so i don't care if he leaves. He's a short-term stopgap we could put in place to help the team not stink quite so much as we continue to develop our future SS options. Maybe a year in AAA or on the bench as a utility guy forces Tejada to grow up and work harder. Maybe one of the other prospects work out. Maybe other FAs or trade options become available.

updating my earlier post: These are the guys I would take from that list, if i had to pay the balance of their contracts (at the average annual price) from this point forward. First, i would eliminate any deal that has me paying big money [15+M] to guys into their late 30s (37+), unless i'm also getting their prime years (27-33); and i eliminate any catcher over 30, or anybody with recent chronic drug or injury problems or already showing a steady decline, unless their avg salary is under $15m and there's only 1-2 years left: YES: ANTHONY RIZZO - Wow. Take this deal in a heartbeat. ADAM JONES - YES! ANDREW McCUTCHEN - Duh. JAY BRUCE - yup. MIGUEL CABRERA - the exception to every rule JUSTIN UPTON - coming into his prime. DAVID WRIGHT - too long, but we got his prime years, too, so i'm happy to keep the captain on board. So that's 6 of the 43 deals (plus Wright, whose deal i would not otherwise take). Not a great percentage. I would now add the Freeman deal to this list, making it 8 out of 49 deals. Of the rest: MAYBE: EVAN LONGORIA - too long, and injuries, but I would still get his prime years BUSTER POSEY - ditto, and good enough bat to switch positions later and extend his career ELVIS ANDRUS - young, right length, maybe a bit pricey. If you think he can play, take him. I'm not sure i do. RYAN ZIMMERMAN - injuries may force him off 3B; i don't know that his bat plays well enough at 1B STARLIN CASTRO - young, right length, right price. If you think he can play, take him. I'm pretty sure i don't, but not positive. ADRIAN GONZALEZ - a little too old, too long and too much, plus injuries, but i've always liked him. JOSE REYES - $20m/yr for 4 more years (even if you don't factor in the back-loaded contract) to end up with a 35-year old speedster who is already declining in SBs is high risk investment... but it's Reyes. CARLOS GONZALEZ - Only question is if he's a Coors Field mirage; he may be. MIGUEL MONTERO - injuries, borderline age for a C; maybe. BRANDON PHILLIPS & IAN KINSLER - 2 middle-aged 2bmen with good bats and gloves; both still cheap enough to consider (Kinsler is a bit younger and a few $ cheaper). NICK MARKAKIS - seems to be declining already, but for 2 years i'd take a shot at his price. ALEX RIOS - Only 1 year left; maybe And i would Abreu to this list. We don't know enough about him yet, but it might end up a very good deal. So there is another 10-15 borderline deals to consider, leaving about half of the total deals as outright NOs unless the other team ate huge parts of the contract and didn't want that much in return. Not a very good ratio, as far as i can tell. Still true, with 8 yes and 14 borderline deals, making 22 out of 49 deals worth considering (27 being an outright NO). I wouldn't touch any of those other recent deals due to their length, player age, and avg salary. However, if i thought my team was one of those players away from winning a championship this year, i would reconsider.

at this point, anywhere he wants to... you go, Captain America, and lead by example as you always have.

Kong76 wrote: Vic for Coney Island Commissioner of Tourism! We should have a forum game this year. I'll look into group sales next week and see what is available. i'm definitely in; i'll bring my family.