Transplanted ex-Met Carlos Gomez hurt while making catch

Carlos Gomez sustained a lower back injury when he crashed into the padded wall while making a catch in yesterdays Twins game against the Indians. Making a long chase after a Ben Francisco fly ball, Gomez jumped, caught the ball, and slammed into the outfield wall. He crumpled on the warning track and spent several minutes writhing in pain before he was immobilized on a backboard, loaded on a cart and transported to a Cleveland hospital. Gomez returned to the ballpark about 10 minutes after the end of the game, saying he "never had so much pain in my life," An MRI came back negative.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8379808/Twins%27-Gomez-hurt-while-making-catch

Sign Ollie!!

The friggin Junkees traded for Transplanted X-Met Xavier Nady, the right-handed bat the Mets have been missing ever since they traded him for Oliver Perez and Bert Hernandez a few seasons ago.

After a mind-wrenching, several-seasons-long stretch of alternating brilliant/horrible starts, O'Perez finally has found his groove, mere months away from free agency.  In April and May we were wondering if the Mets should try to sign him to a contract.  Even though lefthanders with his stuff aren't easy to come by, his inconsistency drove us to agita so often that we were just about ready to be done with him.  Well, the time has come to grit our teeth and overpay for the Scott Boras client.  He's a lefty, he can dominate the Phillies (and Junkees), and he's young.  And yesterday sealed the deal:  signing O'Perez is the only way we can stomach seeing our boy Nady (whose jersey was hung up in the Mets dugout during the 2006 playoff run to honor the player who had to be traded because Duaner Sanchez's favorite restaurant didn't deliver) play right field for the friggin Junkees every day.

You hear me, Omar????!!!  Sign Oliver Perez! 

I'm headed to Shea tonight to see the FIRST PLACE METS take on the Cardinals.  The Brandon Knight era begins.  I think this guy is technically a rookie, since he's only been in 11 games in his career, even though he's closing in on his 33rd birthday.  Hope the bullpen is rested.  Yes, they are.  Thank you Mike Pelfrey!

David Wright News

I started stuffing the ballot for David Wright to be named to the all-star game, but then I remembered how much his performance tailed off after last year's appearance and thought that maybe he's better off taking the three days off.  If he makes it in by 4 votes, blame me.

Biggest Game of The Year

My boss is a big Phillies fan, and yesterday morning I walked into his office and proclaimed last night's game as the biggest game of the year for the Mets.  A chance to have  a winning road trip, take 3 of 4 from the Phils, move to withing 2 1/2 games of first, and find out what Pedro has left in the tank.  Howie Rose must have heard me, because he said the same thing about 50 times during the radio broadcast last night.  My boss said the Phillies were due for an offensive breakout.  He was right.  But, too little too late....  Mets Win!

Mets Fast Forward

Mets Fast Forward is a great program on SNY, especially the morning after a west coast night game.  They show the highlights of the previous game, in a one-hour period.  This is a great way to watch a game...  except when SNY runs the results of last night's game in the crawl at the bottom of the screen!!!  Brilliant, just brilliant.

Not To Worry Ed McMahon...

..you may already be a winner in the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

Link: Ed McMahon: It's The Economy

 

Schneider Still Sidelined

Brian Schneider remains in the hospital with a staph infection in his left thumb, unsure when he'll be able to return to the team.

Says my brother in law Len:

"I just wanna know how many times Schneider took the old saying 'rub some dirt on it' literally over the past few weeks.  Obviously, the old adage needs to be changed to, "just rub some alcohol in it so you're not hospitalized and intraveneously fed for a week'.  "

Re: Confusion

This is a controversy.  In some places I'm reading Wright tried to convince him to go out... in other places I read Wright told him NOT to go.  Delgado was asked about it after the game and he claimed he's only given two curtain calls his whole career... after his 4 homerun game, and when he hit his 400th.  He says he has too much respect for the game to give a curtain call after a solo homer in the seventh.  I don't know what to think.

Mets Beat Braves, Fashion Beats Smoltz, Delgado Beats Ball But Won't Beat Fans

The Mets beat the Braves today at Shea, taking two of three from Atlanta.

 

John Smoltz looked really bad today.  I don't mean his lousy pitching performance.  I mean the schmuck buttoned his jersey wrong and pitched six innings with the ATLANTA across his chest all askew.

Apparently Delgado thought he was Beltran of 2006 today and refused to take a curtain call.  Unlike Julio Franco, David Wright couldn't convice him to go out there.  As Ron Darling noted in the broadcast, the fans are undefeated in this town.  So now Delgado can go play first base in wherever Rey Ordonez is playing, along with the rest of the idiots who tried to take on Mets fans.

Mets Retired Numbers: Mike Piazza vs. Gary Carter

At Opening Day, the Mets announced that Shea would go up as an official "retired" entity, along with the #s 41, 14, 37, and 42.  To date, Tom Seaver is the only Mets player to get his number retired.  We speculated on who else might get the honor.  I felt confident that Gary Carter was the next to be bestowed the honor, because he's now a Hall Of Famer, like Seaver, led the Mets to a World Series, like Seaver, and his number has not been used by the Mets since he was elected.  My friend said that Mike Piazza deserved to have his number retired much more than Gary Carter, because he felt that Piazza spent more of the best years of his career with the Mets than did The Kid.  Additionally, he felt Piazza was more of a "Franchise Player" like Seaver, as compared to Carter, who was more of a cast of stars on the 1986 squad.  My friend went so far as to say that Strawberry, Hernandez or Gooden deserved to have their number retired than Carter.  So, he challenged me to take a look at it.  

 

I still don't think that the Mets will retire anyone's number who is not in the Hall Of Fame, but after looking at this, I have to agree that Piazza is more deserving of having his number retired by the Mets than Gary Carter is of the honor.   

 

To calculate % of career as a Met I used games played as a Met / Games in players career.

I compared Carter's offensive stats with Piazza, even though I don't think it's fair since they played in different eras.  When you look at their careers side by side keeping that in mind, they are pretty similar,  But after looking at their Mets careers in context of their total careers,  Piazza was more of the franchise player than Carter was, and Piazza played more of his best years with the Mets than Carter did.  And actually, Ed Kranepool arguably deserves the honor more than anyone.

 

What do you think?

Citigroup reports $5.1 billion loss on hefty write-downs

NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc. lost $5.1 billion during the first quarter and will eliminate about 9,000 more jobs, as poor bets on mortgages and leveraged loans lopped billions of dollars from its investment portfolio
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080418/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_citigroup

 

I'm sure the 9,000 people losing their jobs will LOVE to see Citi Field inaugurated next year.  Wonder how many paychecks they could write for the money spent on naming rights?

Opening Day is Just A Day Away!

Wow - Monday kicks off the 2008 Mets season. I am stunned when I look back and think about the last year for me, personally, since the last time the Mets played an Opening Day. A lot of ups and downs, tons of twists and turns, and more change than you could imagine possible in a year. My wife and I did just about everything you could do in a year. We got a second dog, got pregnant, adopted out said second dog after she relentlessly fought with first dog, sold a house, changed jobs, moved to New Jersey, lived in a hotel for a month, bought a house, and gave birth to our little Mets fan. Somehow in that time period we also managed to squeeze in a planned trip to Mexico and an unplanned trip to Iowa.

And now here we are. Somehow this blog survived through it all (barely), and we're staring straight-faced, just hours away from Jose Reyes stepping into the batters box to start the new season, with none other than Johan Santana making the Opening Day start. My first season back in the Northeast, and the Mets' last at Shea. Spectacular.

There's been a lot of dismay expressed by Mets fans lately, over El Duque and Fernando Tatis making the roster over Ruben Gotay and Mike Pelfrey, respectively, and to that I say this: A March where our biggest gripes are the identities of the fifth starter and the sixth infielder is a very fine month indeed. So Gotay is now a Brave? Meh. Could that "come back to bite us," as many fans and reportedly one Met expressed? Perhaps. But not every Met that goes to the Braves is Matt Franco. Some of them are Todd Pratt. And Pelfrey needs to grow a pair before he can pitch every fifth with the big club.

Is the team perfect? No. But perfect is what the New England Patriots were. At least before my son was born during halftime on February 3rd.

Lets Go Mets!

Mets News Heard This Afternoon On ESPN Radio - All Star Game at Citi Field

Schuck and His Lap Dog were doing some Big East basketball thing today, so I swung the tuner over to ESPN Radio.  Just before noon, some crack reporter (can't remember whom) called in with a report after speaking with Jeff Wilpon.  His breaking news update:

 

• Jeff said that an announcement will be made soon about an All Star Game to be played at Citi Field
• When asked about Willie Randolph's job security, Jeff said "he's under contract for the next couple seasons"
• There is some flexibility in the budget to add payroll if the right opportunity comes along
• There is a job waiting for Mike Piazza in the Mets organization, whether in broadcasting or in some capacity, whenever Mike decides to retire.  Jeff said he's waiting for Mike to retire to discuss options with him. 
   

So there you go.

Transplanted Ex-Mets Update: Armando Benitez

Everyone's favorite ex-Mets closer Armando Benitez has signed a minor league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays.  I remember going to Photo Day at Shea one year and seeing Armando pout because he wasn't getting a big enough crowd from the fans for pictures.  I never had so much appreciation for John Franco as when I saw Armando struggle so much as closer, despite a ridiculously fast fastball.  It proved that John Franco's save total wasn't just a matter of pitching in the right innings, but that to be a closer requires a certain special kind of mentality that transcends "stuff."  I rarely agree with Schmuck and His Lap Dog, but they are dead-on when they say the Junkees would be much better served grooming Joba to be the closer of the future than trying to re-invent him as a reliever.  Why Russo keeps bringing up one poor start as a college player is beyond me, but you can't expect them to ever make a point without at least one knucklehead comment.

Know what's hilarious?  Here in Central Jersey, I can get SNY on DirecTV, but not the YES network or the Phillies stations.  Meanwhile, down in the baseball wasteland of North Carolina, I was able to get both the Mets and Yankees stations, as well as the Nationals on MASN, and could get Braves games on the radio. 

There's going to be a hockey game at Yankees Stadium next winter, to close out the building.  How do we push a movement to have the Jets play at Shea in November?  After all, the friggin Jets were named after the planes that flew over their heads as they played in Flushing, for crying out loud!

My 7-Pack tickets showed up in the mail this weekend!  As Carlos Baerga once said, "Show Up At Shea," because Abu Dhabi Field seats are gonna be real hard to come by.

Billy Joel is a Jerk

So, 50,000 people or whatever bought tickets to a Billy Joel concert thinking they were going to see the last concert ever at Shea Stadium, and now they are only going to see the second-to-last concert ever at Shea. Nice. What a jerk.

 

http://mets.lohudblogs.com/2008/02/19/piano-man-encore/