213 Miles From Shea

Generally bizarre baseball uniforms have one key ingredient: Pop Culture.

Alas, nothing makes a baseball jersey pop like the marriage between the American Icon of Baseball and Iconic Pop Culture References. One of the most iconic game shows of all time, especially in the mid afternoon, is the Price is Right. Bob Parker would be proud of these jerseys which are very busy (in a good way) and contain a ton of detail pertaining to the show:

(via Fan IQ)

(via Today's ACC Headlines)

Just like the show, the players are wearing the basically famous yellow name tags on their fronts. They have prices around their sleeves, similar to spinning price wheel. The Name On Back, isn't really a name on back its a plea for Bob to pick them to come on down. Essentially what this jersey gets perfectly is the font of the TV show with that up beat feel of the TV show (which I think is really shown in the front script – The Fresno Grizzlies, instead of being just Fresno Grizzlies). 

Major League Baseball and Australia (via the Australian Baseball Federation) announced that there will be, starting in November 2010, the reinstatement of the ABL – Australian Baseball League. The original league ran between 1989 thru 1999 when the costs of running such a league took a toll, and the league had to be broken up. Part of it surived as the Internationa Baseball League of Austrailia, but that fell apart by 2002. Anyway this new league features six teams in six cities, as shown by the logo sheet below (via MLB.com):

Side Note: I feel like I have seen the Bandits logo before. I think its somewhat common for colleges/high schools or something. Anyway the league will run from November through January where the playoffs will start (top four teams moving on into the playoffs). In other words this is sort of a farm league for MLB to have some of their talent, especially minor leaguers, play there in the winter as opposed to the winter leagues. If you remember the Hawaii winter league was recently shut down, so this is a slight replacement, except unlike the Hawaii winter league, these teams (I believe) are not owned by the MLB in the way were the players need to be connected to a big league club.

I'm all for this. I love seeing the sport of baseball travels across the world and it is in a country that hais had baseball before, so hopefully making a fan base will not be too difficult.

If losing 4 of 6 to division rivals didn't get you.

If several key Mets slumping didn't get you.

If the season falling from reach didn't get you.

Well, Adam Rubin has you covered. Rubin isn't trying to depress us, but only warn us about getting our hopes up for the next offseason. It looks like the Mets will get the worst from both worlds. The problem with a team of homegrown talent is that it isn't the best talent, but comes at a fantastic price. The problem that comes along with a high talent team, is that it comes with a really big price. Next season the Mets are looking at a mostly homegrown team (which is exciting in its own right) but the bad investments over the last few years creep up and now the Mets are saddled witha huge payroll, so they can't improve that home grown team.

Essentially, Rubin finds that between Santana, Beltran, Bay, Wright, Perez, Krod, Reyes, Castillo and Iggy, the team is already committed to about 114 million. Then if the other 16 players were at the leag mininum, then that makes a total of 120 million. Then you have to figure we want to sign Reyes to an extension, and want to keep Feliciano and and the end of the day there is very little money to work with.

Trading Perez, Castillo and Beltran will probably not soften the financial crunch on the team, because to move them, the Mets will need to keep the money. In other words, the best way to improve this team will be to trade for prospects and players to make an impact, and in doing these trades, add a more managable amount to the payroll.

It is worth noting that things should get a little better after 2011 with a few players coming off the payroll…hopefully.

As stated about a thousand times last week, the last six games were of critical importance for the Mets to make a serious playoff run this year. Well the Mets were the 2010 Mets and they didn't take either of the National League Road Series and now the Amazin's find themselves in a very awkward position.

Going 2-4 on the road trip, basically left the Mets exactly where they were from the start of the trip. Yes they have a losing record now, but they still have a slight window for making the post season. The key is though, that window is just slightly open. In other words, let's compare to last season. At this point last season we weren't mathamatically eliminated yet, but we knew there was no chance of making the playoffs. That meant at this point, we really had the freedom to start explore options for 2010.

The Mets this year are just awkward. They really should now start trying things out for 2011 (ie Fmart playing all the time) but that means they also will be shutting the window for the post season. This is essentially the direction the Mets are heading in right now, and its probably the right decision, it is just hard to admit that because that means we have to admit defeat….

Or does it? The Mets played their best this year when they were using players like Tejada and were just trying to play .500 until we got Beltran back. Instead they ended up playing a fantastic June. Well since we have had Beltran back we have gone the opposite way.

This just all further complicates the feelings about the end of the 2010 season. It would have been really nice last week for the Mets to win, that would show that we really are in the pennant race.. It also would have been nice, in a strange way, for last week to kill the 2010 season, because that way we would really know what to concentrate on. Rather we got purgatory. We hurt our chances, but we haven't killed them.

So Lets Go Mets! Let's try to have our cake and eat it too while we prepare for 2011 and still try to make the playoffs in 2010.

You would think that even with going to the National Sports Collectors Convention, I would use one of those items for this weeks Memorabilia Monday, but I'm still working on that so check out this hat:

(Strictly Fitted)

Essentially this hat is the basic home hat, blue hat, blue bring with an orange insignia and orange button but with a twist. On side of the hat, there is a blue scale picture of Citi while on the other side their is a blue scale image of Shea. The hat can be found here. It's a really interesting idea for a hat.

Tejada. Castillo. Cora. Which one has a winning record in appearing in Mets games? Well, as you are probably not surprised, the winner is…..Tejada! The player with the least amount of veteran experience is the one that brings the winning sensation (which is really funny that two of the players that are supposed to bring the veteran knowledge are Cora and Castillo). Anyway, the numbers:

The problem with looking through those numbers is that they are all over different amounts of AB's. The one area though that Tejada clearly stands out on is the amount of wins he has vs losses. It is a lot better than the other two, we'll get into that later but first lets even the field and assume that each player had 200 AB so far this season:

Interestingly, Tejada is hitting doubles at a better rate than the other options, Cora and Castillo. Tejada may lack in RBI's but check out how many times in 200 games he would cross home plate, vs his other options. This has to have something to do with why he has the best winning record vs the other two.

There are also things Tejada brings that the numbers don't show. His youth brings energy to the team while his defense is starting to improve greatly. However that topic branches away from the numbers so it won't be discussed here. What can be said is that he is the defensive upgrade to Cora and Castillo, and I believe the above numbers show he is or is nearly the offensive upgrade.

This afternoon was the end of a 5 day journey through the heart of sports collecting world. Baltimore was the lucky home this year of the National Sports Collectors Convention, the 31st annual, and it was a sight to behold. I have attended one sports collectors convention in the past (Baseball's Best in Baltimore) but nothing was close to this convention. There were 600+ dealers ranging from huge corporate sources (Topps, Upperdeck), mega-internet dealers (DA Card World), online auctions, small dealers, and people who were just trying to sell stuff from their den.

Over the next several days I will posting more about my time at this convention, the problems this sector in sports has with the FBI, and all of the photos I took (over 50). While I'm working on that, here are some quick points:

Anyway, like I said before, as soon as I can I will upload a photo essay here.

Up and Down Day For the Amazin's Today.

Stop Me If You Heard That Before.

Actually, don't stop me, because it is what you have heard before. Anyway the Mets started the day off good getting two quick runs off of Roy in the first inning. In the bottom of the second they let one back, making the score 2-1. In the bottom of the third though, the flood gates opened as Dickey showed that he was human. He got lit up, allowed 5 runs, making the score 6-2. The Mets would later scrap together three more runs to finish the game in a 6-5 loss.

The two heroes of the game are easily Reyes and Pagan who between the two of them went 4-8, 3 R (Reyes 2), 2 SB (Pagan both), 2 RBI (Pagan both) and 2 2B (Reyes both). The problem is that Beltran, Wright and Davis behind them went 1-12 with one RBI (Davis). In other words the Mets main problem continues, that once they get runners on, they are not getting them in.

I'm not too concerned with Dickey's start because he has to be human at some point. The key for the pitching staff is that they were able to come in and pitche 6 shut-out innings of bullpen ball.

The Mets try to take a step in the right direction as they play Jimenez and the Rockies on Tuesday.

The Mets try to make it two in a row and try to take a road series today as they take on the Phillies this afternoon. Today's contest features the pitchers with the best ERA's on their staff. For the Mets it will be R.A. Dickey who is 7-4 on the season with a 2.36 ERA. In his last three starts he has pitched 20 innings with a 1-0 record and an ERA of 0.90. He goes up their fighting and that is what the Mets will need today. He picked up his first win of the season against the Phillies as he threw 6 shutout innings against the Phils, striking out 7 of them. The Phillies have these numbers on Robert Allen:

Halladay is having a Halladay season as he is 13-8 with a 2.17 ERA. He has pitched 24 innings in his last three starts with a 3-0 record and 0.75 ERA. His only start against the Mets this year was fantastic as he threw a complete game shutout in Philly where the Mets were only able to scrap 3 hits off of him. The Mets will look to end their slump and reverse the fortunes as they sport these numbers against Roy:

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets won a very important game tonight as they beat the Phillies 1-0.

The main story of the night was Johan Santana who was fantastic. He had a no hitter going through 5.2 innings and that was mainly due to his change-up keeping the Phillies off balance (and being thrown for strikes). Santana got into some trouble in the 8th inning, and Manuel didn't waste anytime with the rest of the pen, bringing in Krod for the 5 out save. So, altogether, the pitching was fantastic as the Mets notched another shut-out win.

The offense tonight struggled again. They were able to knock in 7 hits, but the only run came from a solo homer from Francoeur that just cleared the fence (probably a Fernando who? shot). Several times during the game the Mets had runners in scoring position, but they weren't pushed in as the Mets bats still fell cold. Since the outcome of the game was a win, this will mostly be ignored, but it is becoming a real issue.

Next up for the Mets is Roy Halladay as the Mets try to take a key road series.