Ceetar

hell, might as well keep this as the Beer at the Ballpark thread. I thought it was a mistake on the beer list. The Mets listed "Blue Point White IPA" as a beer, and I'd never heard of it. it's not on blue point's website. I assumed it was just the hoptical illusion. I was wrong. It's a new beer that just came out today.

Edgy DC wrote: Pelf: looking good or looking like he's pitching to the Astros? It's Spring Training. but he kept the ball down in the zone, which is pretty much what's going to swing him from closer to 5 to closer to 4 in the ERA dept.

3-2 count, 2 outs. just smooth and wonderful. Bay up as the 11th batter in this inning. walks.

Tejada ground sinto the FC. But they throw home and CAstro isn't pulled off the bag (called safe though) could we maybe get more than a single here? Murphy.

RBI error by the SS for Pelfrey. still loaded. 3-1. Tejada.

that wasn't Thole. Hairston singles for Thole up with the bases juiced and 1 out.

and a single by Bay after Ike has two on with no out and our friend Thole up.

Lots of groundballs from Pelfrey, 50pitches through 4. He should throw a couple more so other guys can get some work in at this rate..

was at the vet, missed the beginning of the game and didn't post the lineups. 1-1 Mets Astros right now, Pelf with ~40ish pitches through 3. Catcher's interference but Ron excuses Thole because the batter swung so late it was basically by him. Thole guns him down stealing next pitch anyway, with a nice cover and tag by Murphy. (he may have actually beaten it, but the throw and swipe must've made it look close enough)

Pre-Opening Day buzz, locally produced, here. Sounds interesting, the odds of me making it to the seaport by 6:30 on a Wedneday though, slim. I miss working in Manhattan.

Edgy DC wrote: And Rottino and Batista. Shikey. That's interesting. They seemed like they wanted Batista as the long man (and he's one of those opt out guys right?)

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: They weren;t released but reassigned to minors. I suppose there'd be a chance that both could make this Mets squad. Bah, that's what I get for regurgitating idiots.

Evans and Igarashi released by the Pirates. so expect the Phillies to pick them up?

Forgot where we were talking about this, so i'll just post it here.

I was reading where the new planes Boeing is building can reduce jetlag by making the cabin more humid, or something. interesting. I googled: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/travel/news/our-sneak-peek-at-the-dreamliner-plane-of-the-future/story-e6frezi0-1226196606099 They pressurize the cabin for 1800m instead of 2400m and apparently that makes all the difference. Also, you simply press a button and the windows dim. no manual shades. ooooh, aaah. futuristic. sounds cool though.

Edgy DC wrote: $$ Mega Million's half a billion!

jet lag hits everyone differently though I do agree that it's not a big enough deal to do or not do something because of it. Some people barely notice, some people need days to recover. Farthest I've flown is Hawaii, 6 hours. It's the only time I've felt seriously jetlagged, and it lasted 2-3 days. Of course, there was an emotional aspect to that as well. But we're not athletes. Feeling just a tick off in your internal body clock could mean a big different in a swing or reading a ball off a bat. Ultimately though, it's probably the player union/teams perception of the effect that actually matters. Yeah, in Japan it's mostly about spreading MLB brand. Maybe they should be opening in the Carribean (where they love baseball AND there are so many locals in MLB already.) Hell, why don't a couple of teams hop over there and do Spring Training _there_?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Or really go back to the old way. Pick a spring training site wherever you please: Tulsa, Oklahoma; Mobile, Alabama, or wherever. Play college teams and intrasquad games and then when spring training is over, barnstorm your way back north. If it was good enough for John McGraw, then it's good enough for me. I don't think that's work, just due to level of competition issues with trying to get guys used to hitting major league quality pitching. Although.. I guess if you make barnstorming long enough with another ML team. (pick an interleague opponent you don't play that year. Mets and the Orioles, etc. ) It doesn't even have to be a straight trip anymore, which they were doing to break up what was probably a reallllly long train ride back to NY. You could probably zig-zag your way north stopping at minor league stadiums and playing the Orioles every time. Would be nice for the minor league fans too.

There is nothing more repulsive then football mediots who so smugly think Football is the only sport worth caring about trying to 'fix' baseball. yeah, Jet Lag would be a killer I guess. Although Verducci's trying to say that it kills them now anyway. There good facilities out there? Maybe an interesting solution would be to have 6 teams, 1 from each division, just do a full Spring Training out there.

bmfc1 wrote: I could care less about the night life at PSL. Good line Ceetar: "PSL might as well be NYC compared to those places in terms of stuff to do." It's not supposed to be Vegas. They need to have a greater variety of opponents, especially more non-NL East opponents, and shorter travel times. I guess part of the question (and this applies to the Arizona thought as well) is how much do you factor in ticket sales and your customers? How much of Spring Training is getting ready, and how much is providing for fans? Part of the reason the Yankees do so much better than the Mets in terms of attendance down there is because of the relative populations of the area. PSL has beaches and restaurants and bars and bowling alleys. who's vacationing in Bradenton florida? Even if you go down for Spring Training, the games over by 4 and then you have all evening. It's probably just because it's so much NL-east though. Wouldn't really care if they played 10 games against the Twins. or the Blue Jays.

There are no teams in Miami for Spring Training. Florida is just so much closer than Arizona, and there are just so many retired New Yorkers in Florida that I don't think it makes sense from a team stand point. Supposedly the experience in Arizona is better because there's so much less travel (for fans as well. Supposedly you can hit a day and a night game in the same day if you want. constant baseball). Florida is probably my 50th favorite state (and lower than that if you want to mess around with things like DC and PR) so I'd much rather be in Arizona as well. Fort Myers is worse. The whole 'south'west coast of Florida there seemed pretty slummy in my experiences. I saw the Red Sox there last year and we stayed nearby. in 2009 we stayed in/near Bradenton for the Pirates and that wasn't much better. PSL might as well be NYC compared to those places in terms of stuff to do. I've only flown in to Tampa and promptly left so I don't really know how it is up there where the Phillies/etc play. Lakeland just off to the east is pretty nice. is very nice actually, and Tiger Town is awesome. What about north of Tampa a little? there anything going on up there?

duan wrote: well the play by play guys being on a monitor says more about the lack of a desire of the mariners television partner to pay then anything else. It definitely did seem a relatively flat atmosphere. they cheered Ichiro, and really aren't that invested in the other teams. It seems very star driven over there, at least as it pertains to USA sports. They should at least time these things so the market can watch them. If they'd played an afternoon game, say noon, that's 8pm Pacific time. too small sample size for Verducci's theory to work, not that that every stops him. and this won't disprove him, since the A's and Mariner's are projected to suck so losing games when they get back would be expected. I'm mostly indifferent to the idea. I like spreading baseball, but the execution seems suspect. I was thinking, I wonder how this would fly during the All-Star Break? Fly the team out Thursday morning, play a 3-game series S-M-W or hell, S-M-T with air times at US day time (you know, before the All-Star Game and the HR Derby) Schedule west coast games around the trip to minimize the travel time and make it part of the All-Star Celebration. There's enough players at the game that missing the reps from two teams wouldn't really be a big deal. Make it an Interleague game if you're really concerned, so it's 14-14 in the ASG.

And for all the black hole comments and the digs at PSL...take your typical LI or NJ or upstate suburb and its' really not that much different. Strip malls all over the place, and a few 'popular' places. Yeah, it's not NY..but..

bmfc1 wrote: The Nationals maybe moving to the old Red Sox camp in Ft. Meyers. That would be another team leaving the east coast of Florida. The Wilpons went "all in" for PSL but nobody followed, the Orioles and Dodgers left, and now they are part of a lonely group of teams (Astros, Marlins, Cardinals). "Guys!" said that the Mets are trying to get an AL team to share their facility but with so few teams in the area, I wonder if this will happen. The Mets have an out if the Nats leave I think, so I'm torn. Maybe that starts an exodus to the gulf side. The Mets did just redo Digital Domain Field, but it wasn't a huge job really. The Jupiter places is nice enough, but it's nothing real special. And That's it. Astros/Braves are in Orlando/Kissimmee, closer to Tampa anyway.

yeah, I imagine something could be worked out if they really tried. Especially near the end once minor leagues games have started. Hell, the minor leaguers ONLY play the Nats and the Fish I think. Bring some of them along (second bus) and play some minor leaguers against the Red Sox too. When I saw down there in 2009 we stayed in Jupiter at the Marriott and we're pretty sure we saw some Brave players in the elevator. They'd played the Cardinals the day before and were playing the Marlins the next day or something, so they stayed.