Posted on by Shannon Shark @metspolice

Reader suggestions from Mets fans

This morning, I turn it over to the readers:

Here’s Tom.

Shannon,

After looking at the pictures on the link you alerted me to on your site, I am going to make a point of dropping by Citi Field this weekend, to see the new bricks and the large history blocks amongst them.  I think they are doing a good job of fixing their mistakes and anyone who continues to whine things like “about time” or make any reference to the fact that the Mets didn’t do it from the first season (we all know that – old news), instead of acknowledging that they are now doing a good job should just shut the Hell up, already.

I agree.  I know I’m the leader of the crankypantsers but I’m with you.   It’s a new season, let’s focus on the new.

Again, neither the Wilpons, nor Omar are even close to being the worst owners and GM, respectively, in team history, and if you don’t know that, you don’t know your team history.  Period.  On an unfortunate note, though, did you read the ’86 World Series plate?  It has a bad mistake, saying at the end of the text that “Sid Fernandez earned the win with exceptional relief work,”  As we all know, though Sid was the unsung hero of that Game 7, and properly cited on the plate, he did not get the win, Roger McDowell did, after throwing a 1-2-3 seventh, before Ray Knight’s lead-off homer in the home half spurred a three-run rally (Then McDowell gave up 2 ruins on 3 hits, before Orosco came on to get the final six outs for a well earned save.)  I’m sure they will have to change that one after a number of other people point out the mistake, but they still are doing a good job here.  I have seen bad factual mistakes in books by good writers, so what can you do?  Where are the proofreaders and the fact checkers coming from?

I haven’t looked into it at all.  That would be what I call a good use of the blog.  Hopefully they read your comment  (which they do) and then fix it.   Maybe some other blogs can pick up on it.  I’ll try to flesh out to a separate post later today.   Is that being negative?  I mean, we all want things correct, no?  Even as I’m typing this I’m assuming you are correct about the error.  I’ll look…

UPDATE: oh yeah I’m a dope and went and looked at the one picture I posted.  Yes, it seems to be factually incorrect.   Will spin to another post.

I know Media  Goon might head out there to take some pictures…look for this one please.

Two other quickies:

1)       As to Dan’s query the other day about wearing your own name on the back of a Met shirt, where I grew up in Astoria, that was as lame as it could be. I see his last name is not exactly Smith, but my name is McDonald and the only shirts I ever got with my name on them were a Toronto Maple Leafs #7 and a Calgary Flames #9, both for Hockey Hall of Famer Lanny McDonald.  I still laugh when I see a shirt, especially on an adult, with their own name on their back.  To me, its as foolish as the Yankee fan who wears a pinstripe shirt with the player’s name on it, since they’ve never had names on shirts (Ruth – 3, Gehrig – 4, please).  Its all luck of the draw, you just need to wait for a player with your name, which is easier for me to say, I guess.  I did recently (for my birthday) get a McDonald #6 Blue Jays batting practice shirt for 35-year old John McDonald, a man so good at fielding the ball that he still can keep a Major League job at his age, despite being a poor hitter.

I enjoy this debate.  I get my name.  I like to pretend I’m a Met.  I struggle wearing the name of someone who could be my kid.  You can make fun of me, it’s fine.  As for the Yankee thing – yeah that’s lame.  Nothing lamer than a Ruth 3 shirt.

2)       You should really hammer Selig and ESPN for their idiotic Sunday night Opening Day games, which makes it more about the self-serving network and not about tradition.  The Reds, as the oldest team, should always play the first game of the year, as they used to for decades.  Is this really something that needed to change?  This year the Sunday night game is Yankees-Sox, on Easter Sunday – in Boston.  Where do I begin to point out the lunacy of this?

I’m not a fan of Sunday Night Baseball ever.  I don’t care about A’s-Jays and when the Mets or even the Yankees play at night I find I miss their presence on Sunday afternoon.  I know they want the game to have the bigness of Monday Night Football (and in my opinion, that has slipped since the move off ABC) but it just doesn’t.

There’s nothing enjoyable about an 8:05 start on a Sunday night.  Even watching at home it’s not enjoyable.

As for the religious aspect, I think the leagues just have to do what they do.   Sure they could juggle around Christian holidays and Jewish holidays, but at what point does a religion become “important” enough to consider?  I’m sorry if Cap Day falls on a day when you need to stand near the tree of life or sing the praises of The Great Bird of the Galaxy or your mean boss makes you work – there’s no realistic solution to it.   I am Christian, and I would have an easier time explaining an Easter night game than one in the afternoon.

Tom thanks – good discussion.  Next, here’s Joe:

Shannon,

This needs to be on your blog! No more Sweet Caroline and other junk!

-Joe

Joe included a link to The Curly Shuffle.  The urban legend, maybe true, was that the Curly Shuffle guys wanted to be paid – I don’t know how any of that works.  As a fat guy in the uppers, I mean Promenade, yes absolutely Curly Shuffle is the right move.  They dropped Caroline around May 1st, I don’t recall hearing it later in the season.

I’m not a fan of whatever that Lazy Mary thing but I understand others like it so that’s fine.  I love the raggaeton (?) that K-Rod enters with.  I’m not a fan of much of the walk-up music, and I think Citi is more enjoyable when the visitors are up and the noise patrol goes to the bathroom.

Finally, this next one is sure to set people over the edge.   Jimmy the Met fan sent this a week ago, and I have been discussing on the side.  he thinks this is Jeff Wilpon on the cover of the ticket brochure.  The guy looking at his nails.    I don’t think it is.  Click on the image to make it larger.

Jimmy writes:

shannon

why don’t you post it and ask the readers?
it might make for some lively conversation

jim

I suspect it will Jimmy.  Jimmy has great street-cred with me and has sent in all sorts of cool things (oh by the way thanks to Peter for sending me some stuff yesterday) so that’s the only reason I am entertaining this.  Yell at him not me please.

I’m happy to email on the side at [email protected]   Feel encouraged to send things in.  I’m also @metspolice on twitter.

25 Replies to “Reader suggestions from Mets fans”

  1. If nobody bitched and moaned the Mets would have never fixed a damn thing. The Wilpons couln’t care less about the fan base.

  2. Ummm…they guy “looking at his nails” appears (to me) to be raising a child’s hand (his son?) in what might seem to be an effort to have him participate in the cheer, and possibly implanting in his earliest memories a positive “Mets moment”. thus giving the world one more Mets faithful

    plus, how the hell do you do it Shannon? I click on the photo and it opens side-ways (rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees). I think you are close to losing your photo privileges.

    1. FormerDirtDart, I do suck at photos. Jimmy nagged me for a week and he sends me pictures of Citi so I’m rolling with this one even though I will get called stupidface.

      Media Goon is heading out to Citi Field for me, he’s good at photos.

  3. I’m sure the Wilpons priority wasn’t Mets history, but I don’t think they flat out were ignoring it either. Just in no hurry.

    Notice Tom, rightly so, says Wilpon and Minaya aren’t the worst the Mets have ever had, but doesn’t mention the manager?

    The mistake is unfortunate, and yes, they should’ve fact checked that. But you don’t make that mistake if you don’t have an emotional connection to the game. If the guy that wrote/read it didn’t remember the game in his own mind, he would’ve had to look it up, and would’ve realized his error. It’s always good to know there are Mets fans working on this stuff.

    I didn’t care about Sweet Caroline. It’s not a Boston thing, despite that they also played it. They’ve come out and said they copied it from someone else. It does have a NY connection too. I care about which song they choose to sing about as much as I care who wins the between innings races.

    I like Sunday Night Baseball..sorta. I kinda like the idea of the World Series team getting the a fun matchup to start the season. They should do it at 6pm though.

    1. I’m more pro-Curly than I am anti-Caroline. Curly just seems more random/organic (and for all I know the Mets ripped off Curly from another team) whereas Caroline seems like someone took a class about stadium operations and write down “Sweet Caroline” as something to do.

      While we’re on such things – I didn’t enjoy the construction race last year. I prefer there to be three categories, and I enjoyed subway and planes racing more than trucks. I don’t plan to picket the team. Just chatting.

  4. The paranoia and conspiracies are INSANE. That is not Wilpon and he’s looking and his infant (who looks to be standing on a railing), not his nails. The guy is being a good parent. Geez.

  5. i never really had a problem with the sweet caroline thing. I wanted them to stop playing it simply because it was getting annoying to hear people bitch about it.

    I think this is right around the time when people get tired of the mundane spring training schedule and start bitching because they just want real baseball to start. Whether they are going to stink or be the best team in the league I want to watch my team night in and night out. Less than 2 weeks

    1. Bpalm you are correct that spring training is boring around now. If you’re on twitter (this is when I plug @metspolice) there’s some fascinating “whine at the beat reporters” happening today. The Metsiverse was very snarky this morning – although it’s all sunshine and roses now that Jose is back. I am very happy to hear the news – I guess the 2 to 8 weeks was actually two – I’m psyched for the opener.

  6. Oh I am on twitter @BPALMTHEGREAT I have been enjoying the bitching and back and forth with the beat writers…i for one thought a bunch of them do do a good job

    1. Bpalm I just followed you. As I tweeted earlier I will feel bad for the beat writers when they can’t keep up with comments. They do a great job. The problem with following all of them is when you get 16 tweets telling you Jerry Seinfeld is at a game.

  7. Shannon – Didnt I mention about being back Curly Shuffle in my long letter to Dave Howard that you guys posted here? 🙂

    And I will say something on a subject I have posted a lot on, I want blue walls at citifield, but will say the true Mets blue might not look right. (but black does not either) So what they should (or should of) used that real dark blue that is like the color of the beams at Citi Field. I could live with that with the orange lines. Look the Yanks dont used there uniform blue (almost black) on outfield walls and Dodgers have light blue. Mets should use that dark steel blue. Its blue would fit with Citi Field.

    1. Jesse: Curly would be great. I’m all in favor of that. I would imagine that whatever money (if any) is spent on playing Caroline could be paid to the Shuffle guys.

      I support the blue walls because it is consistent with the kind of thing I preach, however the black walls don’t bother me. I just imagine Dave Howard telling me it’s a tribute to the Giants and I live the lie. Ceetar sent over a mock of orange walls but I’m saving that one for tomorrow because I like two that are up now and I have nothing for tomorrow (yet).

      I’m surprised nobody picked up on the Sid Fernandez thing. Cerrone probably hasn’t checked MP today yet.

  8. I know we have to tilt our heads, but I think everyone is looking at the guy with the hat in the foreground holding the kid. Obviously, that is not Jeff. Look to the left. Or down if your head is tilted. THAT is Jeff. One arm in the air. One examining his nails. Putting himself on the cover of the ticket book instead of Mr Met. Or David Wright.

  11. Shannon, man I need to help you get your picture scanning groove on (or back). I pulled out my own ticket plan book so I didn’t have to move the photo onto my PC and rotate it or get vertigo trying to look at it sideways. It does take a minute even looking at the actual booklet to figure out that the guy who’s looking at his hand has his kid’s hand in his and is looking down at the child / child’s hand. For the first 5 minutes I still thought he was looking at his nails, too.

    Sorry, don’t know if that’s Wilpon or not.

    1. I always stunk at pictures. When we close this thing down y’all will say it was a nice enough blog but man he stunk at pictures. Plus I stink at WordPress. I have no idea why it is right side up when small and at 90 degrees when rotated – but I posted at work and can’t spend my entire day fixing. I stink. Everyone buy a couple hundred of bucks on stubhub clicks every day and I can sit home and make the site perfect 😉 I try, but I stink.

      I think I stole the “nails” line from an email with Jimmy. Jim was that yours or did I imagine that?

      I don’t think it’s Jeff, but it fit with this morning’s theme.

  12. Shannon: I agree, I prefer plane races due to the LaGuardia angle. Although I like my borough race idea.

    And people would get more acceptance of the anti-caroline angle if they were upset because it was default “stadium operations” idea rather than trying to tie it to Boston in some way. (although taht doesn’t stop us from “Everybody clap your hands” or K-corners, or clapping for the strikeout, all things that caught on elsewhere (or here) and then were sent everywhere. (I’d prefer the Curly Shuffle as well) But people do need to remember that bloggers are the minority. vocal minority, sure, but still the minority of money spending Mets-fans.

    I mean, the clapping thing was a Ron Guidry thing, but you don’t see people up in arms about copying a Yankees thing, which is way worse than copying the Red Sox.

    Loving the fan interaction on Twitter with Lennon and Popper and whoever else. Great stuff, even if I disagree with plenty of what they’re saying.

    1. Didn’t the K corner actually start with Gooden? I think that is an actual Mets tradition.

      Everybody clap your hands makes me cringe. Might be my least favorite thing in the universe. I actually prefer black uniforms over that.

      Isn’t it awesome that scientists developed the internet so a bunch of grown men could discuss stadium noises, what athletes wear and what’s typed on a brick?

      If I run out of post ideas I’ll play the “bring back the plane races” card and let Corey yell at me.

  14. It was my line, but thanks to Adam and BPALM, I see he’s not examining his nails, but supporting his kids. Too bad. It made for a better story the other way.

  16. I have to say I enjoy posting here more then any other site I have ever posted on which includes MetsBlog. You do a great job Shannon and it is great that nobody cries and whines when there are disagreements.

    It is amazing about the internet because if it wasn’t for it I would be so much more productive at work and would hate my job that much more.

    1. Thanks Bpalm. The last week has been feisty but we’ve managed to all stay civil and in the spirit of loving the Mets. I’ve enjoyed the new commenting system since the move to WordPress.

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