Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Former Met broadcaster passes away

From BallparkDigest.com comes the news of the passing of former Met broadcaster Lorn Brown. The Chicago Tribune covers his career the best. Click the links above to read more on his career.

Lorn Brown called Mets games on television in 1982, sharing Mets broadcasting duties with Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner (of course) and radio broadcaster Steve LaMar. He was first hired into MLB by Bill Veeck in 1976 to work alongside Harry Caray on White Sox broadcasts.


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Monday, June 28, 2010

The Big Mid-Season Test

We're almost at MLB's mid-season point. A few more games to officially reach 81 played. And the Mets are facing their latest big test. 7 games on the road for a team that's 15-20 on the road, and that includes 6 straight wins on the last road trip against the 2 worst teams in the American League. Are the Mets a changed team, after the removal of both John Maine and Oliver Perez from the rotation last month, or are the Mets still the same team that wins a lot at home and loses a lot on the road?

These next 7 games, against 2 teams within their division that are also below them in the standings will show me what the 2010 Mets are all about. The Mets are 0-4 on the road against Florida (I know these 3 games are in San Juan, not the normal Florida road-trip the Mets usually enjoy with their Florida fan base) and 1-1 in Washington this year. These are teams they should beat (though the matchup against Strasburg should be interesting).

Personally, I think the trip to Baltimore and Cleveland was an anomaly. Had they played their normal .333 winning percentage on that part of the trip, the Mets would be .314 on the road (11-24 record) and 39-36 overall (.520 winning percentage), 4.5 games behind Atlanta in 3rd place.

But maybe they take 2 in San Juan and 3 in Washington and prove me wrong going into the half-way mark (Saturday's game is game #81). Then it could be a fun summer in New York. If not, we'll be hearing cries to overpay for Cliff Lee, fire Jerry Manuel, and rush Carlos Beltran back to the lineup.

2010 New York Mets, it's your pitch!


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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Beer Money

Thursday night, I was at the Mets game against Detroit. Thanks to the tickets I had, I had access to the Caesars Club on the fancy-named Excelsior level at Citi Field. During Batting Practice, I decided to wander the entire Excelsior level since it's not something I have access to all the time (don't get me started on that). Within a minute of entering through the glass doors into the secure area of the concourse, I was approached by a producer for SNY's Beer Money and asked if I wanted to play the game and possibly appear in the upcoming season. I decided 'what the heck' and agreed to play.

After a bit of paperwork and choosing to play the standard game (3 questions) instead of the 'Beer Run' game (name 10 people who...), and choosing Mets questions over others, they had to setup to tape me. Now, I'm thinking during this time "don't have (co-host) Chris Carlin be the one to interview me". Ya, that's bad to think, but I'd rather have the female co-host. I learned a little while later that there were 2 new co-hosts (the Beer Money facebook page mentions 2 new co-hosts for this season. But I got the female co-host...Amber Wilson (on the Beer Money page, you can see photos of her with other contestants from Thursday night's game, but not me). I decided to take a few photos of the crew (these are the only ones that weren't blurry) to prove that I played the game in case I don't make it to air. The two guys at the concession stand in the photo on the left were part of the 4 person crew.

Anyway, on to the game. After a few attempts and finding good light for video on the Excelsior concourse, we moved down to the bottom of the steps next to the camera well on the 1B side, on the last aisle (going towards home plate) before the start of the press box (I think the video control room was next to us). Plenty of light there and we got started.

For the sake of suspense, I won't give the answers to the questions which I was asked, but only to say that (after an amount of thought unintentionally proportional to the monetary value of the answer) I got them all correct. I'll have to paraphrase the questions because I don't remember the exact wording...
for $10: What 1986 Mets reliever retired after the 2003 season (she may have said "1986 Mets lefty reliever")?
for $20: Who was the Mets Opening Day catcher in 2007 and 2008?
for $100: Who was the Mets Opening Day third baseman in 1962?

You can try to answer the questions in the comments, but I promise you that no more money will be transferred.

After it was done, and I signed to say that I received money, they told me that these shoots (and they did others at Citi Field and elsewhere in the city the night before, according to facebook) would air in late July or August, and that there was not a guarantee that my turn would air. I think the producer said that they shoot 12 people and air 7, or something like that. So we shall see. I'll post updates here and on facebook as I find out more about the show airing.


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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Not the Worst Mets team ever

It's still (or it's only) June. And we've learned one thing already. This Mets team will be no worse than the worst Mets team ever. Good going guys!


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Sunday, June 20, 2010

Pardon the dust

Pardon me while I test and change a few things on the blog's layout. Blogger.com, the host for blogs at "blogspot.com" (a Google product) has implemented a new template designer that has easily allowed me to redesign the blog in a way that I was trying to do by hand.

Let me know what you think. The biggest thing I need to work on is the right sidebar.


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Friday, June 18, 2010

One quick note

it's very possible that I launch a redesign of my site this weekend. in the meantime, you can hit Remembering Shea's wall on facebook and join the group heckling me over my 75 win predicition.


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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Perfect Games

Looking over the record book on Wikipedia a few weeks ago after the near Perfect Game in Detroit, I noticed that yesterday, June 12, was the 130th anniversary of the first ever Perfect Game in Major League Baseball history, involving 2 teams that haven't existed in over 125 years. There have only been 2 occurrences in which 2 or more perfect games were thrown within a calendar year - the first two 5 days apart 130 year ago, and 3 going back to last July 23.

Someday Mets fans...Someday...


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Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Baltimore and Washington

Last weekend, as noted on this site's facebook page, I took a baseball road trip to Baltimore and Washington to see each stadium for the first time in person. I had my father with me, and we met my cousin and his 6 year old son in Washington on Sunday.

click to read on...

Friday, June 4, 2010

The two-sixth report

The Mets have played 54 games in this 2010 baseball season. That is exactly 2/6ths of a regulation season.

The Mets are 27-27, 5 games back of Atlanta for first place in the NL East, currently in 4th place. They're also 4 full games back of San Diego for the Wild Card lead.

Going back to the 1/6th report, they had a semi-bad 27 game stretch, going 12-15 to balance out the 15-12 that came before it. The Mets are 19-9 at home, and 8-18 on the road. That's quite a difference. They're home for 6 games before going back on the road. I won't count over the entire schedule, but I think they play 81 games at home and 81 games away from it (unless you're the Phillies and Blue Jays). A month ago, I looked at who the Mets had played, thinking that they beat bad teams and lost to teams better than they are. 9 teams in the NL are better than the Mets, and 6 aren't. I don't know how much all that means.

It strikes me that this team does not have what it would take to realistically contend with other teams in their division. The pitching staff has been erratic. Guys in the bullpen who got off to great starts aren't pitching as well, and they're also getting overworked. The starting staff became better by subtraction when Oliver Perez was demoted to count his money in solitude and John Maine came up with an injury to get out of the rotation. The starting rotation as it stands now is enough to get by, but the way Jerry Manuel uses his bullpen leads me to think that we'll see flashbacks to the end of the 2008 season (also managed by Jerry Manuel) with the bullpen failing to hold leads, etc. It was that way in the Mets' 57th game, even after a stellar 8 innings from our first ace.

There isn't much of a bench. We have a good backup catcher (who expected me to say that 2 months ago). But beyond that, it doesn't seem very useful. Alex Cora is a rock stepping in on the infield, I don't think I've noticed Chris Carter lately, and there's a few guys just keeping the physical dugout bench from flying away. The starting 8 finally seems consistent. Some days they can't do squat, but they're all in it together, and other days they can all hit the ball.

If that part of the team can get back to its 2008 level, and Jerry Manuel can stop his over-reliance on the bullpen and push his starters more, then maybe, just maybe, we'll have some interest come September.

As far as cutting ties with anyone mid-season, I just don't see Jeff Wilpon paying anyone off to go away. That includes Oliver Perez, Jerry Manuel, Dan Warthen, and Omar Minaya. And that type of mindset in the higher up reaches of the team is going to ultimately hurt the club in both the short and long term.


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Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Perfect Game

looking over some stats related to Perfect Games, since we almost had one last night...this is an unprecedented time in MLB modern day history regarding perfect games. had Galarraga gotten the call, it would have been the 3rd perfect game this year (when only 365 days ago, the standard was to go years between prefect games), and the 3rd consecutive Perfect Game to (relatively) smash the record for shortest time between Perfect Games.

With all that, this may be the time...there may be hope for a Mets no hitter after all.


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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Not Quite Perfect

Weird. Nice effort of what someone called a 28 out Perfect Game. But it also evoked memories of memories of Don Denkinger in the 1985 World Series.

From the Cleveland Indians TV broadcast tonight on SportsTime Ohio
...And now he is facing Jason Donald. The only man who stands between Galarraga and Major League Baseball history...
oh if they only knew what would happen 3 pitches later.

The Detroit broadcaster on Fox Sports Detroit actually said "he's out" before having to correct himself (and having to correct himself many times over).

Jim Joyce blew the call. I've heard for many years that umpires listen for the ball in the glove at first while looking for the runner's foot on the bag. The last play was a soft toss to first, and maybe there wasn't any sound to go by. It was caught (by the pitcher covering) in the top webbing of his glove. That's no excuse. Maybe it's something for Major League Baseball and the umpires to consider fixing how umpires make calls like this. Too many blown calls in MLB this year. But I don't think replay should be in the future.

Both teams' broadcasters were in agreement that Jim Joyce blew the call, had replays, and were just down. You could hear it in the Tigers broadcasters. The Cleveland broadcasters did correctly predict the scene after the game. For me, I've never seen a bench-clearing argument with an umpire like what happened after the Tigers game with the near perfect game. Detroit's broadcasters were getting on the Tigers for the scene. I can't blame them. Jim Leyland should have argued until he got tossed defending his pitcher after the play.

Just imagine if this had been a Mets pitcher...


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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Jerry or Ollie?




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