Mets New Batting Helmets

How cool do the new Mets batting helmets look? Usually I am more of a traditionalist, but these are futuristic in a very cool way:








Delgado Franco

I don't know if they will use them in the regular season, but I guess it depends on if the players feel the vents or other features are helpful or not. I think they're cool looking though!

Photos from Newsday.com

Mr. Wendell Lyrics

Here, have a dollar, in fact no brother, man here have two. Two dollars means a snack to me, but it means a big deal to you...

Remember Turk Wendell, that crazy pitcher who wore bones around his neck and used to slam down the rosin bag between pitches? That same Turk Wendell was in the news this week as he asserted that "it's physically impossible" for Sammy Sosa to have put on thirty pounds in one offseason and become the prolific hitter he became in the late nineties. Some quotes:

"Here's a guy [Sosa] who goes from 30 homers to 60 homers every year, and just as fast he's out of baseball. Can't get a job. How's that work?"

"Everybody in Chicago knew what was going on, just like everybody in baseball knows about Bonds," Wendell told the Herald. "The coaches knew. So did the managers and owners. How could they not know?"

"Then, Jose Canseco comes out and says it and everybody rips him, and now everything he said was true. A lot more will come out about guys who nobody's talking about yet, too."

Then he makes an even more dire prediction:

"You still see Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto and Johnny Pesky around, but this era of players is going to be dying early," Wendell told the Herald. "The stats don't lie. The stuff will kill you."

Oh, Turk. Ya gotta love him.

Metsui Down

As if Kaz Matsui hasn't played poorly enough this Spring (.184 BA, and too many errors), he got hurt yesterday, spraining his knee while sliding into second. He and Willie expect that the injury will only sideline him for a day or two, but every injury he's suffered in the past has seemed to linger endlessly. In any case, all things being equal, Kaz has played the worst of all the second basemen who were competing for the allegedly open job.

My pick for the position was Jeff Keppinger, and he has played the best, but recent reports have said that Willie considered him a longshot at best and Keppinger's apparently headed to Norfolk to start the season regardless.

If Matsui's injury lingers though, this may open up a spot for the kid. We'll see... Of course I wouldn't mind if the job went to Anderson Hernandez either, but it just seems unacceptable to me to allow Matsui to continue his mediocre ways with the big club.

My NCAA Tournament Bracket

I don't know a darn thing about college sports. Somehow, however, it's inevitable that every March I will get involved in the tournament that determines the national champion. Every year, the one guy at work who actually watches college hoops will rope everyone else into participating in the bracket.

Now that I've moved to North Carolina, it's even worse. They LOVE the college basketball down here. It doesn't hurt that there are four teams (Duke, UNC, NC State, UNCW) from this state in the tournament this year, but these people follow the sport THE WHOLE SEASON.

So I have picked my teams for the bracket, despite the fact that I have never seen one team out any of the sixty four play in my entire life. I picked Villanova to win the whole thing, partially because I actually know the name of their coach, Jay Wrifght, because he was the coach at Hofstra while I attended.

I was almost starting to care who won the tournament, until while I was reviewing my highly-educated picks, when I saw that the championship game is played on April 3rd. April 3rd! Frickin' Opening Day! Do these people have no shame???

Bobby Valentine's Blog

My favorite Mets manager of all time is Bobby V. I love how much he wants to win, and how much he doesn't mind talking about how much he knows about baseball. Like Muhammed Ali said, "it ain't bragging if it's true,"

After Bobby V was fired and replaced with Art Howe, and the Mets stunk just as badly, I showed up at Shea with a sign that read "See? It Wasn't Bobby V's Fault!" We had second row seats beside the visitors dugout so my sign was very visible. A security guard made me take it down, even though he didn't understand what the sign meant.

"Is that a negative sign?"

"Bobby Valentine wouldn't think so," I replied.

He made me take it down anyway.

Please check out Bobby Valentines blog at www.bobbysway.jp

I Despise Tom Glavine

I don't hate Tom Glavine just because he's stunk for the Mets. There are plenty of players who fit that description., and I don't have enough energy to despise all of them the way I despise Tom Glavine.

Tom Glavine has only done one thing consistently since he arrived in New York: whine.

Whine, complain, and make excuses. Questec computers, Roger Cedeno and Armando Benitez are all the scapegoats blamed for the fact that Tom Glavine's chase for 300 wins has stalled since joining the Mets. He talks about that 300 wins all the damn time. He comes off like such a selfish ass every times he mentions his goal to reach 300 wins. The only wins he should care about are team wins. I don't want to hear him talk about his personal win-loss record until he's retired.

It's been especially tough living in the South, with plenty of Braves fans around to remind me of the pitcher Glavine used to be.

And that's what makes his whole demeanor even rougher to swallow. The worst thing about it is that he's already a Hall of Famer based on his career stats. He doesn't need to hit that number to reach the Hall.

Even this year, when Freddy W and Omar have compiled a team that gives him the best chance of reaching the World Series since signing with the Mets, he is still a whining, selfish, pain in the ass.

From David Lennon's column in Newsday, on June 10th:

Tom Glavine is a stickler for routine, so when the Mets shuffled his schedule to make him their contingency plan for Opening Day, he didn't seem overly thrilled about it.

Opening Day is the only game I know for sure I'll be watching from the seats at Shea, so I want to know that the guy who's on the hill for the Mets that day is thrilled to get the honor to pitching on Day One.

And now his old GM in Atlanta writes a book and exposes that Tom Glavine had serious second thoughts after agreeing to come to the Mets.

This guy is a real bastard. I honestly hope that teh Mets win every game he starts, but I hope he doesn't get credit for any of them. I'm begging for a bunch of late-inning, come from behind victories for the Mets when Glavine starts.

And here's my latest prediction: no matter how well or poorly he does this season, this off-season he'll sign with the Baltimore Orioles and rejoin his old pitching coach Leo Mazzone.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (and Kidneys)

Some ailment notes:

The most famous toe in baseball is still an issue. So much so that when Pedro said the bullpen mounds in Port Saint Elsewhere were too hard, Freddy Wilpon had bulldozers come in and level them. No kidding! Someone should tell Pedro to pass along the word to Mr. Wilpon that the "hot" pretzels at Shea are cold and slimy. What Petey wants, Petey gets!

Today we also learned that Clifford Floyd has kidney issues. Oh, boy. Apparently his father passed away at a young age from kidney failure, and our leftfielder's kidneys are only operating at 48% efficiency right now. He's peeing blood, and he's been ordered to cease and desist with the fast food, soda, and salt. Get this man a salad! Seriously, this is not good, baseball aside. Hopefully Cliff will be all right. Even professional baseball players have to watch their diets.

World Baseball Classic

Sometimes I feel like the only guy who thinks the world Baseball Classic is cool. I'm real happy to be able to see real games played in March, instead of half-hearted exhibition match-ups with only one or two starters that last through the game more than a few innings. I hope I'll be able to watch a couple games. I think this thing is gonna be big. Don't forget, nobody thought the Superbowl was a big deal it's first year, either.

While I was away in San Francisco, my TiVo recorded a couple Mets spirng training matchups, one against Puerto Rico. I have a lot of TV to catch up to!

One thing that made my cross-country flights more enjoyable was listening to MLB Radio's daily podcast on my iPod. Everyday is a half hour show that is essentially a "best of" from that day's MLBRadio's broadcast. Yesterday I listened to Tommy Lasorda preach about how great the WBC was, and I also heard Darryl Strawberry report from Mets Spring Training. I highly recommend the podcast!

I Was (Sort Of) Right

On February 22nd I predicted that Bret Boone would be traded before Opening Day. Well, I was correct in predicting that Boone would never play for the Mets. In fact, he won't play at all. Boone retired yesterday, saying he just wasn't up to the job, physically.

My actual prediction was that Boone would play so well that he'd be enticing as trade bait and be traded before playing a regular season game for the Mets. The polar opposite actually happened, but the end result of my prediction was sort of right. Except we didn't get anything in return for him...

Well, I'm still predicting Jeff Keppinger will win the 2nd base job. Stay tuned...

I'm Goin' To Opening Day!

So, I was in Utah this weekend to attend to some family matters. This would have been okay except for the fact that Mets tickets went on sale yesterday, and my in-laws only have diap-up internet access at home so my efforts to snag Opening Day tickets online would have been crippled! Luckily my wife's mom, hereafter known simply as 'mom,' is a saint and agreed to get up at 6:30 Utah time to take me to her office where broadband access was available.

So from 6:55 AM to 9:30 AM I hit redial again and again on the two cell phones I was armed with and waited not-so-patiently in the Mets online ticket waiting room, as teh counter went from 60 down to zero, supposedly attempted to connect to the ticket window, and reset back to sixty. This went on for two and a half hours.

Finally, at 9:30 AM (11:30 NY time) I gave mom some mercy. I gave up on the online endeavor, especially after hearing that my buddy Tubby was able to get past the waiting room, only to be shunned from buying tickets.

All the way home from the office I continued to redial the number (TANGENT ALERT). Why do I still say 'redial' even though I am not "dialing" anything? Is this a word that will make me sound old in front of kids who have no concept of how phones used to work before touch tones? Okay, not I am sounding old to myself. Let's get back to the subject at hand...

We got back to the house at about 9:50, and I kept on hitting redial, my wife took her phone and kept hitting redial, and then my sister-in-law, hereafter known simply as "hero" picked up her cell phone and started trying. Lo and behold, eight minutes later, she got through! I heard the words I'd been dying to hear all morning:

"Thank you for calling the New York Mets ticket office, where Mastercard is preferred."

Opening Day tickets were, of course, sold out. But not really sold out. I could still buy tickets to Opening Day, if I bought a six pack of games. I agreed. And now, $690 dollars on my AmEx later, I own six seats for The Pedro Pack, which includes Opening Day, The Friday Night Mets/Yankees game, and 4 other games which I haven't even bothered to check the dates for. Six seats for each game.

My friends and I are all set for Opening Day now. Hopefully Pedro Martinez will be as well. As for attending the other six games? That is going to be a challenge, seeing as I still live in North Carolina...

Anyway, Lets Go Mets!

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Metsui goes deep

In 2004 and 2005, Kaz Metsui hit a home run in his first at bat of the season. He is getting ready to recreate that feat this year. If he can hit a dinger off Mets new fireballer, then he should be capable of a three-peat, no? From Newsday...

"...Matsui, who has fallen so far he needs to win his job back, surprised an overflow crowd of skeptical fans by taking [Billy] Wagner deep during live batting practice."

Kaz had to be jonesed about that, huh?

"Being able to hit well off a good pitcher gives me encouragement," Matsui said through his interpreter. "But I don't want to get all jumpy and happy."

Don't worry Kaz, Willie's around to burst your bubble.

"He's in great shape," Randolph said. "He probably just got lucky and walked into one."


Oofah.

A-Rod The Spineless Phony Shows His Character In My New Home State

From Peter Gammons's ESPN Insider Blog:

On Feb. 3, A-Rod attended North Carolina State's baseball opener, dressed in red, per the Wolfpack. On Feb. 4, he was at Cameron, dressed in a Duke shirt, cheering on the Blue Devils.

After reading this I promptly e-mailed my Duke and NC State loving co-workers to show them why I despise this guy and why they should too.

When many of the people here in the south hear me talk about "Opening Day," they still think I'm talking about the start of hunting season. I'm working on them, slowly but surely...

Mike V's First Prediction Of The Year

Freddy Wilpon made his prediction for the 2006 season yesterday, saying the team is ready to "take off," so in honor of his prognostication, I'll make one of my own. I should note that my predictions are almost wrong, but here goes anyway:

Bret Boone, who is competing for the second base job with Metsui, Keppinger and Hernandez, will have an outstanding spring... and then will be traded for pitching before Opening Day.

I just really can't see the Mets giving the job to Boone. Long term, they have to be rooting for Keppinger or Hernandez to win the job, and they'd probably be happy to see Kaz do better, just to vindicate the "scouts" who wanted to sign him in the first place. But Boone, at the end of his career and with a miniscule contract, is much more valuable as trade bait.

So, we'll see. Don't let me forget to look back at this prediction on April 3rd!

South Of Shea

One thing I didn't anticipate when I moved down south was that Southerners refer to anyone born and raised north of Baltimore as a "yankee." As a true-blue Mets fan, I tried to convince my new co-workers that this was just not acceptable! Please, please call me anything but that! I even offered up suggested replacements for the dreaded "y" word:

• Northern Elitist Scum
• Yellow-Bellied Liberal Bastard
• F*ckin' New Yorker

They just didn't understand. You see, they can't even tell the difference between the Mets' and Yankees' quite distinctive interlocking 'NY' logos! So I tried to explain it to them this way: Let's say you are a huge, huge, Dale Earnhardt fan, okay? You've tattooed his number on your shoulder. You watch every race and curse his opponents. You only buy the products that sponsor his car. You with me? Now, you get into an argument with someone and the guy tells you to quit being so "petty." See how that would burn you up?

I'm here nearly sixteen months now, and I am still battling the label. I even considered getting a vanity license plate that read IH8YANKS. My wife wasn't sure how that'd go over. So, the battle continues...