dinosaur jesus

Roger Craig

Frank Taveras

The key Met of 1973 is actually a pretty easy call. It's either Wayne Garrett or George Stone. Everybody else did what you'd reasonably expect them to do. This year? Davis or Duda. If one of them is any good at all, we've got a decent team out there.

That's just begging for some Photoshopping.

Edgy MD wrote: Indeed. The Met-lovin' online world puts a lot of stock in Mitchell's 24 games at shortstop, 20 starting, 17 complete, over a quarter century ago. It's all cool but we'll see. First, the guy's got to show he can hit. Oh, I'm pretty sure Mitchell can hit. They need to put him out there every day and let him find his rhythm. Then maybe they can trade that Elster kid for a left fielder.

"Since I stopped wearing a jockstrap, it's really freed up my swing."

G-Fafif wrote: Don't know the answer, and maybe it's not yet resolved, but who was the last American League Milwaukee Brewer? Which Brewers?

metirish wrote: Ceetar wrote: 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. oh god no. Besides not wishing ill on people, can you imagine the ridiculous coverage? the Yankees would try to impose a 2 minute long moment of silence for every game and demand that #2 be cut into the outfield grass for every national game, including the playoffs. Yes , there is that, they would fly his body around the country like they did with Reagan, it would be insufferable....NBC would draft in Brokaw give us context.... And they'd put him in a glass coffin in a special room in Yankee Stadium. And bring him out, with strings attached, for holiday specials, where he'd reenact his trademark leap through the magic of puppetry. At least if they inducted the two of them together, it would get a lot of gushing over with at once.

TheOldMole wrote: What's the worst thing we can wish on Jeter? A .143 season batting average? A groin pull on the first day of the season that turns gangrenous? Paternity suits in every city he visits? Only this. That on the last day of the season, when he takes the field alone in the top of the first while his teammates wait in the dugout, their hands over their hearts, and a roar of applause rises above the stadium, and the leaders of the nations of the world, come to pay tribute, wave their colorful home-made banners, saying "WE LOVE YOU DEREK!" in every script known to man, and the press box flows with writers' tears, and the ghosts of the great ballplayers of the past gather in a pale ring around the infield, bringing an even deeper chill to the October night--that Derek, in the midst of all this, feels suddenly an immense hollowness within, a crushing realization that he is not the man they're cheering for, that he is only a blank screen on which humanity projects its dreams, and that the show is almost over. After the game, he has nothing to say to the cameras, nothing to say to anyone. There's nothing left to say. Only a weak smile as he presses through the throng, a last wave as he climbs into his limousine, and he's gone into the darkness. Exuding quiet class to the end, say the stories the next day. Will we ever see his like again? That, or he hits into five double plays on the day the Yankees miss the playoffs.

Edgy MD wrote: I remember someone, maybe even George Brett, being asked in the locker room right after the improbable championship of the 1984 Royals if this was the beginning of a dynasty. He had the good sense to laugh. Not so Randy Johnson, who was asked something similar on the field after the 2001 Diamondbacks championship. With the simulcast feeding the crowd through the scoreboard, he promised, "This will not be the last championship the Diamondbacks win." I imagine it won't say "Foolish liar" on his Hall of Fame plaque, but still, but the whole notion that the first order of business of a championship is to throw down the gauntlet for next season and brashly call for a new dynasty is silly to the last. The first order of business is to act like a champ, visit the hospitals, help build/restore civic pride, and then to report to camp in shape. History will judge you soon enough, and despite your best efforts, the moment may never come again. "Nineteen eighty-six, the year of the Mets. Nineteen eighty-seven, the year of the Mets. Nineteen eighty-eight, the year of the Mets." Mookie Wilson, foolish liar.

How about three league championships in five years, winning the World Series at least twice? That lets in, for instance, the 1906-1910 Cubs, the 1929-1931 Athletics, and the 1964-1968 Cardinals (and it's a near-miss for the 1926-1931 Cardinals).

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.

G-Fafif wrote: I thought about including 1985 in this exercise because, well, it's 1985 and that team was that team. But for the purposes of speculative history, three games behind the Cardinals plus seven more wins in postseason series they never entered is too many to neatly adjust for (if I could work magic, give me a better August and September of 1980 while we're at it and high school's a blast). The playoff teams came within one, five, six, five and three games, respectively, of winning it all. More manageable set of possibilities. True enough, but it's not that big an adjustment. The Mets pull out that third game in St. Louis to tie the Cardinals with three to go, they're still tied after 162 games, Gooden (after Davey gutsily goes with Darling in a must-win game 162) beats Andujar in a one-game playoff, and the exhausted Mets scrape by the Dodgers and Royals. Gooden, at 25-4, is the MVP (none of that Willie McGee bullshit). Otherwise I'll go with 1988, because it's the one that made me the most unhappy. Actually, I guess 1973 did (I was ten, and they sent me to the guidance counselor to find out what the hell was wrong with me. Smart lady, she figured it out.) But that's mitigated by how lucky they were to be there.

I could see how coming up with the 1982 Pirates would give you an aversion to wearing caps.

Bruce Pearson

Frayed Knot wrote: Jon Presser is an interesting handle, wonder if it's real. Presser John (often 'Prester') was a mythical (we assume) figure in Christian Europe during medieval times who was said to live somewhere in the east (variously the middle-east, India, the Orient, sometimes Africa) where he maintained a refuge of Christianity among the 'heathen' hordes of the non-Christian world. I doubt if it's the same guy.

Edgy MD wrote: That's a surprise to this reader, too. Hey, who's the wife in between Buddy and Yvonne? Why is Bun E. Carlos behind Tom? Was he on the flight? [fimg=777]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7304/12064682286_461b73ca46_o.jpg[/fimg] I'm pretty sure that's Roman Polanski, not Buddy. I don't know what he's doing with Yvonne Harrelson, but that's their business.

1964?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Saw this interesting tidbit in an Associated Press article: Maddux and Glavine become the first primarily starting pitchers to enter the Hall whose careers began after Bert Blyleven, who debuted in 1970. Maddux reached the major leagues in 1986 and Glavine a year later. That means that after the generation of starters that included Seaver, Carlton, Palmer, and Sutton, there's a long gap before another Hall of Fame starting pitcher came along. Gooden and Valenzuela are the pitchers that come immediately to mind when I think of the top pitchers from the time period between Blyleven and Maddux. And of course, Jack Morris has been discussed a lot lately. Who else? I'm not sure how you define "between Blyleven and Maddux." Blyleven's last year was 1992, and Maddux's was 1986. Younger than Blyleven and older than Maddux? A lot of the top pitchers from that time seem to fall just short of Hall of Fame numbers. Saberhagen. Cone. Viola. Reuschel. Dennis Martinez. Stieb. Guidry. One or two more big seasons and they'd all be viable candidates. There's also, well, Roger Clemens.

Aaron's 1971 season was a little flukey, but it wasn't completely out of nowhere. He'd been benefitting all along from the move to Atlanta. His home runs on the road were almost identical before and after the move (a little under 20 a year, counting from his first 40-homer season in 1957). But his home runs at home went from about 17 a year to over 25. I think that when you take the parks into account, he was pretty much the same hitter all along. It's true you'd expect him to drop off a bit. But in his age 35 season, 1969, not only were the rules changed to benefit the hitters, but in Atlanta the fences were brought in, especially in left center. Whatever the other guys in Atlanta were taking, I don't see anything suspicious in Aaron's stats.

I only went three times: 1979, 1999, 2008. It was a treat being there, so it didn't matter all that much that the Mets lost. The first was the day after the ten-run inning game, and it was back to Mets normal. The second was against Randy Johnson, a blowout, and the high point was a late, meaningless, and completely out-of-nowhere home run by Roger Cedeno. And the third I have no memory of. Not of the game, anyway. It was part of a bad date, the kind where you don't realize at the time what a disaster it is, but afterwards it's completely obvious. The woman was a monster. A high school teacher. When I told her I'd posted fake reviews on Amazon, she was horrified. "Why would you say something on the Internet that wasn't true?" I didn't have an answer for that. Cow Bell Man was there. And there was mustard on my seat, and I never did get the stain out of my bag. That's all I've got.

Oh god, that's awful. I've been there too, and it really is (was?) a nice place. I got to watch Jose Valentin close up, without his mustache, coaching third for the Fort Wayne TinCaps, who for some reason don't wear tin caps. I hope they can rebuild.

Derek Jeter? DH.

Another factor with Seaver was that he was clearly the best candidate on the ballot; that's probably true of Maddux as well, but not as overwhelmingly. The only other candidate who made it in 1992 was Rollie Fingers, and several others, like Ron Santo and Tony Perez, eventually got in, but it wasn't one of the stronger ballots.