Vic Sage

CF is, as almost always, entirely correct. Except the salary should be donated to the Vic Sage offspring college fund. IN addition, A-Rod should get a 2nd opinion on his injury. When it's demonstrated that the injury has already healed and the Yankees are just jerking him around because they don't want to see his pretty face anymore, A-Rod should be immediately reinstated to the active roster by MLB, forcing the MFYs to release him outright, owing him the balance of his contract. Then, he should go play for the Red Sox and hit a 7th game/9th inning HR that wins the WS for the Sox...while the Yanks are still paying him.

he's not even a .200 hitter. On the crowd�s response to his bunt attempt: �The crowd gets on me no matter what. If I take a pitch [for a] strike, it�s a boo. So it doesn�t really matter. It was a smart attempt, I just didn�t execute the bunt. And it�s fun for them.� What does he mean "it's fun for them"?" Fun? FUN? FUN?FUN? Yeah, there's no part of watching Ike Davis play baseball this year that could even generously be considered "fun".

i bet he was defensive about it.

Eric Young was not a total failure in Colorado. He never got more than 198 ABs in a season, and the following year he hit .315. He had a career BA there of over .260, which is about where he is now overall. I'm not saying he's a great hitter, or even a very good one, but no one has bothered to really find out yet. And with his speed and positional flexibility, i think it's worth finding out. So I'd rather take a chance on Young's future than that of Marlon "blaze o glory" Byrd, who'll be 36 coming off a career year. His return to the mean will seem like an asteroid falling from orbit.

i'm at a lost to understand why Terry thinks Tyrna can play SS on the major-league level, for more than an inning here or there. He's got, at most, 1-step range. Although Jeter became a legend that way, so never mind.

Ashie- That's a deal. -God

As John Sickels said in a recent column about our catcher of the future, d'Arnaud: "Staying healthy is a tool (or a skill); either way it is a factor, especially for a player in a demanding defensive position." So yes, of course Beltran gets credit for the half seasons, but he also shares the responsibility (with god, the fates, his parents, and/or medical science) for all the games he missed, too. As for those 1/2 seasons, 1 of them sucked, the other 2 were excellent, although the last one was in RF, not CF, since he had no knees left. In any event, we went nowhere with or without him, except in his near-MVP year of 06. Was our lack of post-season success his fault? Were the collapses of `07 and `08 his fault? Of course not. But he was an integral part of those heartbreaking teams that faded twice in late and close races with the Phils after falling to the Cards in 06. That's not a career you write songs about. That's not Paul Bunyan type stuff. That's a great player passing thru town on his way to Cooperstown, putting up some noteworthy numbers for a few years, and yet his signature moment was watching a curve ball for strike 3, and his lasting contribution to the franchise may be that he netted us Zach Wheeler. And i should get all choked up about this guy, so much that i want his number emblazoned on the stadium wall? Yeah, no thanks.

He played with that easy effortlessness that smacks of disinterest and a lack of passion. It's the same odor i used to get from Kevin McReynolds, another excellent OFer who i wouldn't piss on if he burst into flame. but that's my own personal aesthetic judgement. as long as we're clearing things up, i've taken a bit of shit for this statement which none of you seem to have understood. I didn't say, assert or even imply that Beltran was disinterested or didn't give maximum effort, as a factual matter. I said that MY OWN PERSONAL AESTHETIC JUDGMENT of his easy effortless style of play was that it "smacked of (i.e., appeared to be, seemed like) disinterest and lack of passion", and projected an overall sense of passivity to his game which didn't APPEAL to me on an aesthetic basis. And that is not "retrofitted analysis", its an emotional reaction to his style of play that i came to at the time. I simply use the Called Strike 3 as metaphor for his irritating passivity, not as specific causation of anything. It's just a symbol, at least for me. You all want to point to specific reasons why you think my emotional response to his game is "wrong", so go right ahead. I haven't disputed it or debated it, since I was making no factual assertions, just expressing my feelings about the aesthetics i prefer to see in baseball, and so are not a subject of debate anymore than anyone else's feelings are. That i don't appreciate a player with the same fervor as you doesn't make my feelings "wrong". But returning to the issue at hand... Yes, Beltran played hurt and played very well in NY -- HOF well -- for 3 years (after a fairly crappy 1st year), until the injuries cost him 1/2 of each of the next 2 seasons, and we traded him in the middle of the following one. So we're talking about putting a guy on our wall who played 3. Great. Seasons. I'd add that he only led us to one (unsuccessful) post season during his 7-year Mets career, but that would be misleading. He never led that team at all, which was well noted at the time. Look, if he gets to go to the HOF, it won't be a controversial decision, and good for him. And if his plaque portrays him with a Mets cap, i could care less one way or the other. But if i have to stare at #15 on the wall every time i go to the park, or watch on tv, I will have to close my eyes, lay back and think of Grote.

i tend not to give a shit about color schemes in ballparks, or interior design generally. Is there a difference with Fenway? Yeah, Fenway is an iconic piece of design that became part of the cultural landscape of the 20th century. That its advertising is more consistent in its design is like 12th on the list of reasons why Fenway is better than CitiField. Is the circus-like explosion of color and fonts that is CitiField distracting? yeah, a bit, but that too is 12th on the list of reasons i don't like the park. Yes, it may be symptomatic, or a signifier, of the Wilpons nakedly crass approach to their ownership of the team, but thats more about the Wilpons than Citi as a ballpark.

the draft is a form of well-paying indentured servitude. It is archaic, paternalistic, and illegal (if not for their politically garnered anti-trust waiver), and simply serves to depress wages to employees. STOP THE DRAFT NOW! That used to mean something different when i was a kid...

i've hated Citi from day 1, and we all went around and around on that topic as the stadium was being built and afterwards,too, and i have nothing new to add to that discussion. But to criticize a for-profit commercial enterprise for being commercial... well, as my daughter sometimes says when i say something stupidly obvious, "DUH". It IS a palace for commerce, not for people, but so was Shea in its day, and every other ballpark in America, for that matter. And compared to Shea, this palace has better amenities, if equally bad sight lines, so it offers a better experience for me, generally, than Shea ever did, albeit a more expensive one. But CitiField certainly represents a missed opportunity in oh so many ways.

Frayed Knot wrote: None. Talk to me in another decade about #5 And, while we're at it, put the unofficially retired 8 & 24 back into circulation. This... exactly this.

Beltran had 3 great years for the Mets, and 1 crappy one, and 3 partial seasons (2 interrupted by injury, 1 by trade). By that standard lets retire Olerud's number too. He had 3 great years, too. How about McReynolds? Cliff Floyd? Robin Ventura? Rusty Staub? There have been many good players who passed thru NY and put up 3,4,5 good-to-excellent seasons. That didn't make them Mets you paint on a wall forever. Yes, in the end, Beltran will have been a better player than all of those, but he played for 2 teams before us, and 2 teams after, and he's not done yet. He is an excellent ballplayer who broke down on his way through town. That he's probably the best CFer we ever had says more about the history of Met CFers than it does about Beltran. Yes, maybe he's a HOFer... i hope that for him -- but he holds absolutely no place in my heart, except as the avatar of a team that didn't make it over the hump. He played with that easy effortlessness that smacks of disinterest and a lack of passion. It's the same odor i used to get from Kevin McReynolds, another excellent OFer who i wouldn't piss on if he burst into flame. but that's my own personal aesthetic judgement. In the end, I don't hate him for the strikeout. I don't hate him at all, actually. But watching him watch strike 3 was an exemplar of his Mets career and his passivity as a player. It just crystalized my feelings about him, it didn't cause those feelings. And, personally, i don't want to have to be reminded of him every god damn time i look at the outfield wall. But hey, i guess that's just me.

he's young, handsome, and a superstar-on-the-rise. Hell, i'd want to have Jeter's life too, if that was me. i don't begrudge him. As Max Byalystock said: "if ya got it baby, flaunt it, flaunt it!" Bang all the models you want Harvey. As long as your throwing 98 MPH strikes at the knees, you and i have got no problem.

yeah, he just sort of dropped that little chestnut on us and rolled away.

Sorry to let you down, DG. To be fair, I didn't write a long, boring exegesis on this movie (as i would normally do for movies i either love or hate or i find interesting for some reason). I just said "Loved it". And I did acknowledge the film's senselessness (above). But that i enjoyed it nonetheless must be put into context...I love EVERY Star Trek movie, even the awful ones, like ST 1 (and the other odd-numbered ones). I have no excuse for that, but i make no apologies either. I yam whadiyam. But next time i'll put a warning label on my upturned thumb. "Caution: Nerd alert! Unwarranted Appreciation Ahead!" ... or something. My readers deserve the heads up.

well of course its all bullshit, but some bullshit i want to hear and some i don't.

I'm fine with all of it except: Didn't sound like he was about to trade Byrd, does place a value on winning the year out for the momentum it can bring to 2014. Momentum from 1 game to another is bullshit; from 1 SEASON to another is bullshit of a rarified sort. And i think Sandy knows this. So he seems to just be covering for his bosses who probably want him to win as many games as possible in the 2nd half so they can sell more product. The notion of trading a single win by trading guys like Byrd and Buck, even if just for A-ball talent with some upside, is clearly anethema to this organization. no point in getting bent out of shape about it, though, since its entirely speculative. But its speculation that fits the evidence.

For every advertisement you see on a baseball field, that's a $1 your ticket prices didn't go up. Are we just going to take this fat one down the middle? really? Just the Rock raising an eyebrow, and that's it? I"m deeply disappointed in the lot of you.

blah blah blah buy tickets blah blah blah

that's what happens when a big pussy is having its period.

"clutch" is a perfectly good adjective when looking at a player's past production in certain games or situations ("wow, that was a clutch hit Steve Sax just got!"), but it just sucks for projecting his future production (eg. "that guy has the mental toughness of a clutch hitter, so we should sign him to a big long-term contract"). as for the Perez/Sax examples, that they hit better OVERALL in late-close situations is great for their teams, but its also possible that they still fluctuated wildly from season to season in those situations, yet put up some years with huge numbers in those situations (perhaps because they put up huge numbers in ALL situations that year, or years?), thus skewing their career stats. I'm not saying that's what happened; i haven't looked at the numbers. It just seems possible. Anyway, i would sooner accept a possibility of statistical noise and random occurrence than a scenario in which players who have played in "pressure-filled" situations and games since they were 8 years old (pressure being relative), and have succeeded in those situations their whole lives, from little league to travel team to high school to college to various minor league levels, but when they went from AAA to the majors, suddenly their stool went soft. Barry Bonds wasn't a clutch hitter until he was. A-Rod, the same. Once those guys hit well in a few post-season short series, their characters were enhanced (until they were exposed as cheats). good hitters hit good. on edit: it concerns me that my view coincides with Ceetar... perhaps i should reconsider.

At the start, there was a buzz of hostility in the stands due to the recent trade of Seaver and Kingman, as well as the terrible play we'd endured that season, but Koosman was blowing them away that night, and we were winning (on edit: no, we were losing 2-1 to the Cubs in the bottom of the 6th), and Randle was up and things were looking good. Then the stadium lights went out, and the emergency lights were on. Everybody sort of laughed, figuring it was another team screwup and thinking it was just a stadium issue. But i had a transistor radio (i liked to listen to Murphy call the game while i watched it live), and they were saying "city wide blackout". There was no announcement about that in the stadium (remember, 1977 - no cellphones, no ipods, no wireless communication other than a radio), but i told my parents. As most fans were busily engaged in group singalongs, waiting for the lights to come back on, we quietly and casually headed out, figuring there'd be a stampede once it was announced. We got out to the parking lot alot quicker than most, and got out easily, but the city looked pretty eerie from the highway. My dad was driving his beat up Chrysler Newport (a huge boat of car -- it was the 70s), and we're relieved to be heading home, dreading what might happen in the city during a blackout. That's when steam starts pouring out from under the hood. My dad has to pull off the highway somewhere in a crappy part of Brooklyn (Williamsburg? Bed-Stuy?). He opens the hood and stares at the radiator, while scanning the periphery for potential threats. People are milling about on the street, and its almost like a block party feeling. A guy comes up, offers to help, temporarily fixes something, puts some water in our radiator and sends us on our way. Did this event redeem our faith in our fellow man? Yeah, until we got home and realized our hubcaps were gone. Nah, just kidding. I just always remember the blackout as being a metaphor for 1977 -- the year of the Mets midnight massacre, as well as "son of sam", fiscal crises ("Ford to City: Drop Dead"), "You light up my life"... it was a really shitty year, folks. But that guy on the side of the road was a little ray of light in a dark time.

if you look at that stadium shot really closely, and look at the Mezzanine behind 1st base, you'd see me and my parents...if you knew what my parents and I looked like.

trade whichever brings the most; if it's the same return, trade both of them and play Satin until some of the other kids are ready. If you can only trade one, trade Davis because i just can't stand watching him play anymore.