Shannon Shark

May 15, 2008

Newsday on "45,000"

The Mets Police brought this up about a month ago. You can announce 45,000 all you want (yeah yeah paid attendance) but the fact of the matter is the stadium is half empty. How many of you have season plans where you “eat” tickets?

“We trimmed the attendance again,” the Old Perfessor used to say, which was 1962-speak for ripping off the fans. But back then, tickets cost a buck or two, games were over in a merciful two hours and nothing was expected of those Mets teams anyway.Forty-something years later, fans expect a bang or two for their 40 bucks a ticket and the three-plus hours spent shivering in a rusting junkheap of a ballpark. Mets fans have become notorious for their big mouths and short fuses, but last night, they booed loud, long and with plenty of justification.

Last night, more than 45,000 paid for their tickets and no more than half bothered to use them. The ones that did left disappointed, angered and in the idiom of Casey, trimmed.

Wallace Watthews in Newsday here

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/ny-spwally155686517may15,0,2898637.column

May 15, 2008

Pedro Being Pedro

Just wanted to remind everyone that in the unlikely event Pedro feels like pitching, he is 7-5 since June 2006.

He threw 55 pitches yesterday. That’s about 10 fewer than he’ll throw when he goes 4 innings on Jue 1st.

May 14, 2008

Uniform Numbers – Real and Rented Part 3

Continuing our series of what players are (or should be) associated with each number. (Inspired by the Shea game countdown on the outfield fence). So far we’ve covered numbers 1 through 10. With thanks again to Mets By The Numbers, here now are 11 through 15:

Rightful Owner(s): Wayne Garret & Tim Tuefel

Rent-A-Met: None

Comment: Yes Tuefel was a Twin first, but he became a Met and has managed and coached in the system for several years now.

Rightful Owner(s): John Stearns & Ron Darling

Rent-A-Met: Willie Randolph

Comment: Randolph was and always will be a Yankee. Stearns was robbed of an opportunity to manage this team.

Rightful Owner(s): Edgardo Alfonzo

Rent-A-Met: Billy Wagner

Comment: Fonzie was perhaps the one true Met on the 1999-2000 playoff teams.

Rightful Owner(s): Gil Hodges

Rent-A-Met: None

Comment: Gil was a Dodger first, but will always be remembered as a Met as well. You know the Mets will trot out his widow Joan to take down the Game #14 sign.

Rightful Owner(s): Jerry Grote

Rent-A-Met: Carlos Beltran

Comment: When he’s not rustling cattle, Grote was a helluva defensive catcher. Beltran on the other hand has many years to go before being considered a Met.

May 14, 2008

Rays Day

Wow. As part of Rays Day I totally forgot about Scott Kazmir.

If you have read anything on this blog you don’t have to guess what I think about the Kazmir trade, it’s the same as everyone else.

The Apple isn’t coming to Citi Field

More Apple distraction. They are getting us mentally ready for a new Apple. We want this Apple. Note the wag-the-dog in this article from mlb.com. Like the Apple is going to dissolve if someone sticks it on a flat-bed truck. Can someone come up with a picture of the Apple being used at Ebbett’s field? Maybe that will work. Also interesting is that’s it’s OK if someone buries a Yankees jersey.

NEW YORK — Citi Field may have a something-less-than-new component.

The Mets’ new home next season may have a piece of their current home — the Apple. No matter what, a home run apple will be installed just beyond the outfield wall — as it is at Shea Stadium — but this one will be left of center. And according to Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, it hasn’t yet been determined whether the old one can handle the move or whether a replacement will be necessary.

Ah, apple turnover.

Wilpon said the Mets haven’t guarded against some unscrupulous soul placing a piece of opponents’ paraphernalia at Citi Field as someone supposedly did with the new Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees, knowing precisely where to dig, removed a David Ortiz T-shirt from under a block of cement at their construction site in April.

“And as soon as they did, what happened?” Wilpon said. “Ortiz started hitting, right? He’d been in a slump, and then boom, as soon as they dug it up.

“We’ll just let it stay there.”