What Mets fans talk about when not talking about the actual games.
The7Line wants us to sing Happy Birthday to Murph on Monday. Our instructions are to “Download (the PDF), save it and print one out. Then mass produce some copies! The file is already set to 8.5 x 11, it will fill one sheet of paper perfectly.”
So head on over to T7L and get a PDF. I will lead the upper deck non-t-shirt brigade.
Still, the team says it is closer to a sellout this year than at the same time last year. The Mets reached a 42,080-ticket sellout last season in part because they benefited from “a tremendous walk-up,” according to David Newman, the Mets’ senior vice president of marketing and communications.
via Mets’ streak of sellouts on Opening Day is in jeopardy.
I am confident they will find a way to avoid having to say that they didn’t sell out. Expect amazin’ deals over the weekend.
Also, seems David Newman has taken over Old Dave’s role of talking to the media. Newman has been known to throw me a beer at Secret Blogger Events so that’s cool.
Three Days Until Opening Day!
Today’s flashback – Opening Day 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012 vs. Atlanta Braves
Win, by score of 1-0
April 5, 2012 was the club’s 51st Opening Day. It’s hard to say what this Opening Day was really about. Was it about the kickoff to the season-long 50th Anniversary celebration? Was it about the first Mets season in the post-Jose Reyes era, and in which the club was picked by most to finish in last place? Was it about the tribute to Gary Carter, who had passed away during the offseason? Or was it about the return of Johan Santana, who hadn’t pitched in 573 days, attempting to come back from his 2010 surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate capsule in his left shoulder? For me, I’ll always remember it as the game at which my wife and I broke the news that we were expecting our second child.
It was a beautiful blue-skied afternoon for baseball, with 42,080 fans officially in attendance. The magnetic calendar given out wasn’t too bad looking either. It was the return of the die-cut schedule, even if it was still mostly rectangular, designed to resemble a flatscreen TV. A much bigger redesign was in CitiField itself. The outfield walls had been reconfigured, with new walls erected in centerfield and right field. The idea was to make the park slightly less pitcher-friendly, and a bit more David Wright-friendly. Our Mets looked better too, with blue and orange and nary a drop of black on the primary home unis, other than the “Kid 8” patches worn in memory of Gary Carter.
Johan Santana pitched five strong innings for the Mets faithful, allowing just two hits and two walks, with 5 strikeouts. At one point Santana retired 12 straight Braves. David Wright drove in the only run of the game with a single to drive in Andres Torres. It took four Mets relievers from the new-look bullpen to complete the shutout: Ramon Ramirez (who earned the win), Tim Byrdak, John Rauch, and Frank Francisco. The Mets improved to a record of 33-18 on opening day (the best in baseball), a record the team will take to Monday’s home opener against the San Diego Padres.
Asked if there was any concern about ethnic tensions arising from the incident, DePodesta said: “From our perspective, we treated it as any parent might treat a dispute between two of their kids. You don’t take sides.
The byline on this article attributes it to Andy Martino.
I was not there.
The Daily News is commonly referred to as a “tabloid.”
The article uses “ethnic tensions” five times including the headline.
Make your own conclusions.
“You don’t want to ruin the organization,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, but saying it all.
I don’t know if we will ever know what caused this new shoulder injury but I can’t help but think of that night, that June 1st night, when everyone got a little too hopped up about the 0 under the H.
Maybe things would be better had Baxter let that ball drop. Or if the umpires made a better call of the ball down the line.
Maybe this only just happened recently, this spring, when Santana did an “I’ll show them” bullpen session.
The two games Santana will be remembered for are the no-hitter, and the penultimate game of 2008 when he also went deep in an effort to keep the Mets in a pennant race. For both, he will forever be remembered as an all-time Met.
But tonight I keep thinking back to June 1st. A career high pitch count, for a few days of fan buzz. Some think it was worth it. I never did. Anyone who knows me knows I have been debating this for months.
Maybe it wasn’t those 134 pitches. It sure isn’t his foot/ankle/whatever else excuse people gave me all winter.
You don’t want to ruin the organization.
“Not tonight Johan, don’t even think about it.”
Alt-Terry, after the 5th inning, June 1, 2012, Mirror Universe.