roger_that

Billy Beane sort of makes the cut. Conforto (and a lot of others whose names end in "O") fershure. De Aza. I was thinking that "Beane" is the part that sort of qualifies, but I guess if you break his first name (and a zillion others' names) into "Bill E" than he qualifies as an "E" as well.

Actually, you remind me that one of my favorite squads back in the day had a ton of players whose names ended in the syllable "Key" (Gilkey, Mlicki, etc.) which isn't a letter of the alphabet, but there must be some names that contain the syllable "Kay" I don't see how R. A. Dickey qualifies, except I guess because he went by his initials. J.C. Martin would qualify, too, by this standard but, like the baserunner who loses contact with the base, I consider that kinda cheating.

How many other Mets can you think of whose name contains a phonetically spelled-out letter of the alphabet? In Endy's case, actually, TWO syllables (N.D., get it?) I'm a few Mets shy of a complete alphabet (and a few beers shy of a six-pack) but maybe you can think of some others. There's Floyd Youmans (U), Jay Bruce, Tom Seaver, of course. Any more come to mind?

Frayed Knot wrote: =roger_that post_id=66087 time=1622512752 user_id=128]Also where did the photo of some unknown person come from in my avatar? Unknown??!?!?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: . http://phpbb3.leaptoad.com/mets/archives/2300/f1_t2382.shtmlNickname Methodology! Where did you find that stuff? You guys used to have some colorful disputes here. Also where did the photo of some unknown person come from in my avatar? I thought I was "Mr. Met" for some reason. Who is that guy in the new photo?

....to Villar? Whenever I hear his name, I always think "V.R."

Oh, forgot to add: "you cheating SOB"

dinosaur jesus wrote: . You going to make a rule against human nature? . Exactly. I want a law against human nature that wastes my time and everyone else's while you bitch and whine and pout that you screwed up but it's someone else's fault WAHWAHWAHWAH!!! Shaddup you mouth and GTFO the field! Precisely.

But you could argue (and I think you are) that every player always has "a good faith" belief that it's possible he's misremembering losing contact with the base. In reality we know that most runners arguing they were safe know perfectly well they were out, and are lying about what they know to be true, which I call cheating. You don't. In any case, I give it no credence at all. They're out, I'm glad they were called out correctly, let's get on with the game. Get your ass off the field, crybaby.

Obvious typo in your post, kcmets. You must have meant 1.80, probably 2.80 for deGrom's ERA. Did you hear ESPN's crew last night opine that deGrom cannot possibly break Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA mark? Seemed pretty lame to me--of course, it's unlikely that Jake won't Brake at some point during the season, but they were talking very disrespectfully of his abilities, seems to me. And you know that if he pulls it off, they're going to be all "I knew it all along!"

It's not cheating to get tagged out for losing contact. You're right about that. That's just baseball. It is cheating to insist that you were safe when the umpire calls you out for what he saw with his own eyes, whether on replay or in real time. The correct move there is to say "Damn, I thought I might've gotten away with breaking contact, wasn't even sure I had, but you got me. Good call."

I'm sure that a guy who drops a pop fly had no intent to drop it either. Still an error, still a runner on base. This is a very silly argument. Play the game right.

dinosaur jesus wrote: This is a very silly argument, amounting to "Runners have cheated since time immemorial, so now that we have the technology to tell definitively when they've cheated, we should make cheating legal." The solution is obvious: instruct runners to maintain better contact with the bases when the ball is anywhere near them. If this means a slower jump on tag-up plays, or more runners called out trying to steal, then that's what it means. End of discussion, no? I didn't say they were cheating. Villar wasn't cheating on that slide. I'm saying that if you slide straight into a base and right over it, and only a close examination with a high-speed camera can show that his upper body came off the ground a millisecond before his lower body reached the bag, then maybe it's not worth making that examination. Maybe if the umpire had been lying flat on the ground with a good view of Villar's belly he might have caught it. But he was in perfect position and he didn't. A tag-up play is a completely different situation. It's hard to call, because you have to assess two things happening hundreds of feet apart. But it's not impossible. And umpires almost always get them right. We've gotten into the territory of trying to judge whether a horse's feet are all on the ground at the same time, or whether urine flows in a continuous stream or a collection of droplets. Interesting questions, but nothing to do with how the game is played. No, that was me calling all loss-of-contact-while-being-tagged "cheating." It plainly is cheating, pure and simple and indisputable. The only difference was that for 150 years there was no way on God's green earth to tell, and less way to confirm, that the runner had been tagged while he briefly lost contact with the base. So runners cheated and they got away with it. Think about it for two seconds. If a runner STEPS off the base, so that everyone can see he's lost contact, and he gets tagged, he's ALWAYS been called out. His manager doesn't even come out on the field, and his teammates avoid him in the dugout like he stinks of rotten cheese. And if he's standing on the base with two feet firmly planted, and the fielder tags him, no one pays the slightest attention. He's plainly safe. The fielder is treated like a stupid douchebag for wasting our time tagging someone standing on the base. Them's the rules, simple rules. Contact = Safe, Loss of contact = out. But now we have the technology to tell for sure whether contact has been lost. The old fogie position is "You can't call that because for years and years that used to be ump's judgment. I don't WANNA have him called out in that situation." Problem is, it doesn't matter if you WANNA. If he's out, he's out. The solution is to retrain baserunners. "Now, when you slide into a base you have to be careful you don't overslide. They're calling you out now if you break contact, so DO NOT BREAK CONTACT." Very simple.

Crap. Good for deGrom, bad for selfish me.

Crap. I get the Mets on TV only rarely, and was looking forward to seeing deGrom 2nite.

=G-Fafif post_id=62551 time=1619808856 user_id=55] The Jays are removing Alomar from their Level of Excellence as well.

This is a very silly argument, amounting to "Runners have cheated since time immemorial, so now that we have the technology to tell definitively when they've cheated, we should make cheating legal." The solution is obvious: instruct runners to maintain better contact with the bases when the ball is anywhere near them. If this means a slower jump on tag-up plays, or more runners called out trying to steal, then that's what it means. End of discussion, no?

You all don't know how to spell "Death" apparently.

Frayed Knot wrote: I disagree, that game didn't even rise to the level of tedium. YABUT what else rhymes with stadium? Almost-rhymes. Now if they played baseball in a "Zmucked" or something, I'd have a better rhyme.

Just got back from the stadium. An afternoon of tedium.

Say your regular starter (not your #1 guy, but not your #5 or 6 guy, just an average starter) can't buy an out one day. Hit after hit after hit. When do you decide to take him out? 7 hits? 5 runs? 25 pitches? Current thinking concerns the number of pitches, or potential long-term damage to his arm, rather than results. In other words, if he's thrown 30 pitches but so far somehow has given up no runs, you take him out anyway, but in the past he might come out after 3 pitches if they're all HRs. What's your thinking on this vital question?

Well, that certainly bit! Anderson Cooper, my royal Irish ass. Off to the Sunday game!

I'm a few innings behind you guys, on DVR-delay. Some weird deliveries--I hadn't seen these guys before. Lucchesi looks like he gets a hell of a workout on every pitch, touching the ground practically and doing a Rockettes kick, while this Reid-Foley dude looks like the Illustrated Man taking a dump between pitches.

H'worth and Severino interviewing Cookie Rojas now. Did he ever manage the Mets or just coach for them? Jeez he must be past 80 years old now.

The Broadcast team down here just praised Lindor for taking a wide turn off first on his single to left field, but I wonder why more runners don't seem to draw a throw from the outfielder. Where's the harm in forcing him to throw quickly to second base?