The 2013 New York Mets: Baseball’s Animal House – WSJ.com

Very fun read…

The whole animal phenomenon may be inconsequential—but it is remarkable. According to the website Baseball-Reference, there have only been 12 players in baseball history with either Byrd or Bird in their surnames, and now two of them are on the Mets. There have been eight with Hawk (highlighted by the gloriously named Chicken Hawks in the early 1920s) and just four with Cow.

via The 2013 New York Mets: Baseball’s Animal House – WSJ.com.

What was your favorite night at the ballpark?

A little history behind this post.  Here at Mets Police we have what are called “draft” posts.  Those are posts that are either unfinished or just unscheduled.  Sometimes one falls off the table.

Last night I was under time pressure to get a post for this morning and decided to see what was sitting in drafts that I could spin up and I found this unfinished post from 2011!

It’s a link to Dave Howard talking about “the Piazza home run”

“It was probably the most special night I’ve spent at a ballpark, with the Mets,” Mets executive vice president David Howard said. “Piazza’s homer, it was magical.”

via “God Bless America” and baseball, 10 years later.

 

Originally this would have been a post about Dave  with the title “Dave Howard’s most special night at a ballpark was…” WhWbut I have decided to take it in another direction and ask you what your favorite day/night at the ballpark was.

For me it is April 5, 1983 and the return of Seaver.  I will get into my experience on the anniversary – or you can just buy my eBook for $3.99 where I wrote about it.  Others that pop in my brain are Opening Day 1987, Pendleton, Scioscia and the Seaver 41 retirement ceremony…and I happened to be at Yankee Stadium for Game 5 of the 2001 World Series and I must admit that was a wild ride that night.

What’s your favorite night in the ballpark?

 

Less Free TV For Out Of Market Mets Fans

If you’re a transplanted Mets fan (or Yankees fan for that matter) living outside New York, and rely on the weekly Fox and ESPN baseball broadcasts to get your baseball fix, your free-TV options just diminished, thanks to the announced launch of the new Fox Sports 1 networkfox sports 1.

Many of us have accepted today’s realities, forgetting that it wasn’t that long ago when most baseball games were on broadcast (non-cable) television.  Remember when the Mets broadcast 100 games on Channel 9? Then 50, then 25… now imagine you’re an out of market fan who lives outside the SNY coverage area altogether.  What are your options?

Many baseball fans can’t afford or don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on an Extra Innings package, so they can  only see their favorite team when they show up on the game of the week.

Starting in 2014, much of Fox’s baseball coverage will shift to their new Fox Sports 1 network.  According to an article on fangraphs.com:

 

For their Saturday Game of the Week, Fox will air a double-header, with one game on the network and the other one on Fox Sports 1. If you don’t subscribe to cable or satellite, but you do subscribe to MLB.tv, the news here isn’t all bad: Fox agreed to lift its national TV blackouts for the Game of the Week. Starting in 2014, fans will be able to watch any Saturday out-of-market game on MLB.tv (or Extra Innings on cable). For example, if you’re a Red Sox fan living in Los Angeles, and the Fox/Fox Sports 1 Game of the Week in LA is the Dodgers versus the Mets, you’ll be able to watch the Red Sox game on MLB.tv or Extra Innings.

<snip>

The biggest changes will come in the postseason. Fox Sports 1 will broadcast both Divisions Series and the League Championship Series granted to Fox under the new national TV contract. With the other two Division Series and one League Championship Series on TBS, the only postseason baseball games on network TV will be the World Series.

Read more at http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/with-fox-sports-1-launch-baseball-disappears-further-from-network-tv/

As a transplanted Mets fan living in central New Jersey, I get almost all my Mets games through MLB.tv.  I refuse to pay for cable, so I rely exclusively on streaming through ROKU and AppleTV for television. Ironically, the only games I don’t get to see through MLB.tv are the national ESPN and Fox games.  Luckily I live just outside the Mets coverage territory, so I am not subject to blackout of Mets games.  If I were a Yankees fan I’d be screwed.  The one bright spot for me with the new Fox contract is that starting in 2014 they will lift their national blackouts, so since I live outside the Mets territory I will be able to watch Fox Sports 1 Mets games through mlb.tv

 

 

Not @mediagoon’s Mets Bobbleheads #30: K-Rod

MetsPolice KRod BobbleheadSince Shannon, Goon, and I have pretty much cleaned out our closets of Mets jerseys (at least for now, we all know there will be more later), I was thinking where can we go from here.  Easy answer – who doesn’t love bobbleheads?

What does it say about a player when the first thing that comes to mind when I hear his name is “Man Up & Play Better” ?  Here’s to K-Rod, the inspiration for MetsPolice’s first tee-shirt.