So the Hall of Fame ballot was announced yesterday and there are four players on the list that spent some time in a Mets uniform, 2 who were “real Mets”(Jesse Orosco & David Cone), and 2 who were rented players (Ricky Henderson & Mo Vaughn).
Now of course each team likes to promote their own players, be they deserving or not. So it came as no surprise yesterday when I saw an article on the Mets website doing just that. Except the title mentioned “A Trio of Mets” on the ballot, and who’s picture is included – Mo Vaughn!
Mo had some good years – in Boston
He even had 2 ok years – in Anaheim
But the man played only 166 games with the Mets.
I love that the Mets seemingly want to embrace history – but come on, embrace your own history, not someone else’s.
Excuse Me, Pardon Me, Excuse Me…(Yankee Stadium)
I was checking out some pics on Zell’s and noticed the below.
I guess that’s the bleachers we’re looking at. Notice the blue seats. I don’t see any breaks. Is the person in the middle going to have to ask 25 people to move when he wants to get a hot dog? Seems really uncomfortable in there to me.
More Jeff Wilpon Doublecitispeak
“If they stop marketing, all the other companies that are competing against them will zoom right past them and they’ll never have a chance to catch up again,” Wilpon said Tuesday
So let me get this right. People choose their bank not based upon location or interest rates but because of a stadium name. If the stadium becomes New Shea then suddenly people will stop using Citibank. That would be the reason. It would have nothing to do with (irrational) fear of losing their money or that a new bank opened that has better hours – it’s because of a stadium name. Yeah OK.
“They’re a going business – a going concern. We’re a going business and a going concern. And we have to help each other.”
I agree. Therefore you should decline to accept the $20M right now (taxpayer money remind you) and take it on the back end when and if they are still a going concern.
Also in the Daily News:
Eric Eve, Citigroup’s senior VP for global community relations, played up civic aspects of the arrangement, including bringing area children to ballgames. The company receives a suite among other perks. The 49 suites at Citi Field have price tags ranging from $250,000 to $500,000.
Ok Mr. Eve, I look forward to keeping track of how many “area children” are brought to games. You’re on.
Mumbai & The Mets
I doubt many of you read The Guardian but I thought this was kind of cool perspective. (Excerpts below). Personally I feel the whole Piazza as hero thing has been way overblown (the dude hit a home run, big deal) – but I respect the writer below who just wants his sport to pick up the pieces and get back to normal.
That 2001 Mets team was another of Bobby V’s poorly prepared teams. His Mets had a habit of digging huge holes in April. This team was 10 games under on June 1st so it didn’t matter how “heroic” Piazza was or how many games they won after 9/11…sometimes the math catches up to you.
Miracle Mets show Mumbai why cricket matters more than ever
It’s a shame that cricket’s response to the Mumbai attacks will be nothing like as eloquent as baseball’s was to 9/11
Six days after 9/11 the Americans started to play Major League Baseball again. The League Commissioner, Bud Selig, explained the decision by saying: “I’ll be grateful if we played a small role with other social institutions in bringing this country back.” That very day the New York Mets played their first game since the attack, away at Pittsburgh. The team took to the field wearing Fire Defence of New York caps. Their home park, Shea Stadium, had been turned into a recovery centre for relief workers. The night before the Pittsburgh game, the Mets manager Bobby Valentine had stayed up till 3am directing the loading of relief supplies by volunteers.
The Mets won that match, 4-1. Four days later, on September 21, Valentine would return to Shea to oversee his side’s first home game back at the stadium. The Mets had decided they would play that game without pay, donating their combined wages for the night, $450,000, to the New York Police and Fire Widows and Children Benefit fund.
The Mets won that night as well. They won, in fact, each of their first six games after 9/11, thrilling their fans and delighting the city as they did so. Back pages were again filled with headlines about the ‘Miracle Mets’. Their hitter Mike Piazza commented: “we expect to win every game right now … because we’re playing completely relaxed, even during what should be the most tense of circumstances.”
Sport, which is normally taken disproportionately seriously, was just a gloriously trivial distraction from the grief of the city. Mumbai will not be given that opportunity. The attacks may have represented a 9/11 moment for the city but, much as we may want it to be, cricket’s response will be nothing like as eloquent as baseball’s. The ripples have spread too far across the sport. The decisions that have to be made by those governing cricket are harder still than the ones that Selig faced. The matter of England’s imminent return is only the first of many issues cricket will have to tackle.
For instance it looks increasingly unlikely that the Indian government will permit the team’s January tour of Pakistan to take place, despite the many pleas for a show of solidarity from across the border. Pakistan have not played a home Test match since October 2007. Since then the only teams to tour the country have been Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, though India and Sri Lanka did briefly visit for the Asia Cup. The Pakistan Cricket Board is understandably desperate for India’s January tour to go ahead. With Indian investigators attributing the attacks to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri extremist group based in Pakistan, the tour seems improbable.
More Citi Field Taxpayer Rage
As Citigroup grovels for a bailout from public funds, the Mets insist the name of their new ballpark, Citi Field, will not change.
For several years, I have been insisting that the Mets should name their new stadium — partly paid for by the owners, the Wilpon family, with infrastructure mostly subsidized by the city — after a legitimate New York sports hero who would not embarrass everybody down the line.
The most obvious name would have been Jackie Robinson Stadium, but if the standard were somebody who wore the Mets uniform, then what about Gil Hodges Stadium?
Meantime, I persist in calling it New Shea, in honor of the lawyer who helped bring the National League back to New York, whose name was proudly affixed to the old dump that is being torn down.
Mets Police support “New Shea” or a more proper “Shea Stadium.” Let us not forget the man who got us this team. “Jackie Robinson Stadium” – enough already. Let the Dodgers honor the Dodger.
