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Friday, February 29, 2008

Watching the Game

I'm way more excited about grabbing a beer (homebrew), sitting on the couch in 30 minutes, and watching Johan Santana pitch for the Mets in Spring Training. But it's a good way to warm up for the same event in a little over a month.


I'm also way too excited about hearing Keith, Ron, and Gary again. I don't even know if they're all doing this first game.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Headliner Ryan Church

Now that the trade of Milledge for Church and Schneider has become a minor deal behind the acquisition of Johan Santana, I think we need to think back and remember how good the deal was for New York headline writers. Lastings Milledge has a unique name, but nothing can parallel the headlines the papers can write with Church.

If Church has a good day at the plate or a key hit, we could be 'blessed' with headlines like,

“Church is in session!”

“The Savior!”

“Hallelujah!”

“Church Crusading for All-Star Team”

If Church is quoted saying something notable, we could get something more like,

“Church Sermon”

“The Sermon on the Mound”

Or if Ryan makes a play at the wall on a fly ball,

“Thou Shall Not Homer”

Maybe whether the Yankees or Mets get more back cover stories is not dependent on the teams at all, but who can think up the most headlines.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Mike and the Mad Dog

I enjoy listening to Sports Talk Radio. I'm not a big music person, and I don't want to listen to news and politics on the radio. ESPN Radio's personalities are not very good in my opinion, so that leaves me with Mike and the Maddog. But they infuriate me.

They, especially the last couple of years, seem so out of the loop and so elitist. Especially when it comes to the Mets, who it seems like they only follow via second-hand news unless they have to be at Shea. They try to micro-manage every little aspect of the game, the Yankees too, and most of the time they're way off base.

For example, they started their show today with “The Mets are not a great team”. Then they start talking about stars in the line-up and stars in the rotation, but that's not enough for them. They seem to want every position to be an All-Star before they proclaim them 'great'. Hopefully the Mets will prove them wrong, but they'll be parading around Manhattan before they would admit it. Now they've started talking about how Jose Reyes is going to be this year. He's said he's going to tone it down, and whether or not you think that's a good thing, it's certainly not set in stone based on February statements. They couldn't remember the details of that Saturday afternoon fight with Miguel Olivo. They're constantly underrating the Mets and the Mets pitching, while overrating the Phillies. They were shocked that the Phillies weren't listed as the second favorite team to win the National League. Personally I think it's even up in the air whether the Phillies should be second in the division. If it wasn't for the Mets, the Phillies would've spent 2007 fighting for second with the Braves, and I don't think they're a better team this year. This is coupled with them talking about the the Yankees' Joba Chamberlain and Phillip Hughes as can't miss number one prospects.

This entry probably wasn't very positive, but I'm looking forward to the Mets making fools out these two all season.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Good.

Beltran's making statements now? Good. I love it. I'm glad he thinks the Mets are the team to beat. They are. They own this division. This was my favorite part.

"I don't care," Beltran said. "They boo me in Houston. One more city won't make a difference."

Good. Stop worrying about what fans think and just take what belongs to you. Maybe Willie's right when he suggested you becoming a father gave you confidence.

It's still February and I'm starting to feel some strong magic with this team..March 31st can't come soon enough.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

How Many Strike-Outs for Mets Pitching This Year?

Tomorrow is the day. At noon tomorrow the moment we've all been waiting for since Glavine walked off the mound that Sunday afternoon. His upgrade, Johan Santana, will report to Port St. Lucie and officially start the 2008 baseball season. It's not quite the regular season games we're waiting for, but having daily news, even if it isn't much, to look forward to everyday will be a much needed joy.

David Wright will be showing up this weekend, as ready to get started as we are for him to get started. Wright is the player I think we have the most confidence and faith in. He played his heart out last year, all year. He truly cares, truly wants to win, and plays the game the right way both on and off the field. I would rank the players I have the least questions about going into next year like this. David Wright, Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran. I also have few worried about John Maine, or even Pedro Martinez.

I know most people probably think I'm insane for not worrying about Pedro, but I'm not. As the time came for him to return last year, I thought he'd have a good couple of starts, and that he could really contribute in the playoffs. We never got there, but Pedro did pitch well. Now everyone is saying you can't count on Pedro, but I don't think that's true. His pitching in September proves that the injury he recovered from isn't going to inhibit him, and he's only recovered more from it now. He's still an ace pitcher, he still knows how to pitch, he still has that ability. And he's healthy. Sure he's brittle, but he's always been brittle, whatever that means. It's possible anyone can get hurt in 2008, but I don't think Pedro Martinez is more likely, and certainly not a given, to get injured. Plus Pedro is a competitor. I think he'll truly thrive on this come back of his, plus I think he'll thrive on the friendly competition he'll have with Santana. They are going to feed off each other all year. A thriving, strike-out thirsty 1-2 punch of Santana and Martinez is going to have opposing batters at Shea Stadium whiffing so much it'll change the wind patterns.

However, this team did come off a horrible collapse, and we're going to need to see something from them to really regain our confidence in them. One thing that comes to mind would be to see a combined 3-22 stat from Jimmy Rollins and Pat Burrell during the opening series. That would really make us feel good, although we can't forget that Rollins and Burrell had a pathetic showing during the opening series at Shea in 2007 also.

A quick word on the former player Roger Clemens. I listened to some of the hearings today, and I was actually laughing at Clemens. He comes off so badly in my opinion, that I'm absolutely convinced he did steroids. It's no longer a he said, she said situation, it's a he said, THEY said situation. From the little I heard, McNamee, Pettite, Pettite's wife, and Mike Stanton all have said Clemens has taken steroids. Clemens countered most of this with garbage like “I don't remember that.”, or “Pettite must have misheard”. It doesn't look good, and I'm done with all the attention this is getting, it's time to talk about baseball now that spring is finally here.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Fantasy Baseball

I know it's early, but I'm impatient for the season to start. So I created a "Mets Bloggers" fantasy baseball league on Yahoo.

Unfortunately we can't all take Johan.


League ID#: 17569
League Name: Mets Bloggers

Monday, February 04, 2008

Opening Day, Closing Day, Subway Series lottery

I'm sure there will be emails going out and all that, but Registration for the Platinum Game lottery is underway through Feb 18th at http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ticketing/tixop_season08_form.jsp.

Good luck. The same 6 ticket allotment as last year.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

He's Here

He's here...and It's going to be great.

I'm going to buy a Johan shirt at the Bryant Park Mets clubhouse shop on monday afternoon. Look for me. Who cares if I have ~10 other Mets shirts, I can always use another! (Still looking for a Maine jersey too..)

I still have on extra seat in my 13 game Saturday Plan if someone out there is interested.
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