213 Miles From Shea

2010 and 2011 will be a new year for the legendary Favre.

A day after starting a rumor about his own retirement, Brett Favre has decided to come out of retirement as he has signed a 3 year, 36 million dollar contract to join the New York Mets Bullpen. Omar Minaya and the Wilpons have been under some serious pressure from the New York fanbase to spend some serious money on a serious player while making some history while they could. When asked why Favre, Omar replied, “Well Favre is a real stand up type guy and we really like his veteran presence. We think he will be a key guy in the pen to keep Ollie company. As you know we care deeply about the psychological needs of our players and Ollie needed another bad contract, worse than Castillo's to keep him company out there. We are really glad to bring one of the best in Sports to Citi. He's like Sheffield but better, right?”

Favre later released a statement saying it was a hard choice. He had a one year contract offer from the Vikings, the Jets, and the Miami Heat. “I woke up this morning and I finally made up my mind,” a decisive Favre stated, “I called up my close family and I said, look, I made my decision and while I would want a shot at history in South Beach, I'm gonna take a page from Ron Artest and realize that Success is a Nuisance so I'm going with mediocrity, overpaid veterans, and the New York Mets.”

We tried to call up some Mets fans about this, but they were still too busy booing Castillo, Manuel and Ollie to notice.

In a game where the Mets needed to win, they were able to “Put It In The Books!”

The Mets beat the Braves tonight by the score of 3-2. It was a night of come backs as first the Braves scored, then the Mets tied it, then the Braves scored, and then the Mets tied it. Acosta had to come on in the 7th inning in a tight situation with the game tied runners on first and second and only one out, and he was able to get the double play ball to end the inning. He then pitched a scoreless 8th which led to the top of the 9th.

On the mound for the Braves, former enemy, then friend, now I guess frenemy – Billy Wagner. At the plate, the beat down Francoeur where websites everywhere, including this one, have been talking about the need to get rid of him. Well he takes a Wagner pitch the other way and deposits it several rows back in right field as the Mets get that crucial go ahead run before K-rod pitches a, get this, clean 1-2-3 inning for the save.

It was actually a really nice moment tonight when Francoeur hit the winning homer as when he got back to the dugout, the team basically treated it like a walk off. For a team that has looked dead for the last couple of weeks, it was nice to see this life in them, and their support for their teamate. Francoeur, the former Brave was the hero tonight as the winning pitcher and other hero, Acosta, is also a former Brave.

Dickey also performed well tongiht goign 6 innings and allowing only 2 ER. Carter also deserves some recognition with his pinch hit, RBI, which tied the game at 2.

Next up for the Amazins is another game agianst the Braves as Pelfrey tries to win the rubber game. Lets Go Mets!

The Mets try to put last night behind them as they play game two of this crucial road series. Last night the Braves took advantage of the Mets early, and the bats could never climb back. Tonight R.A. Dickey looks to continue to be the hero of this team while the Mets try to figure out their bat problems while they face Lowe.

Dickey has been fantastic this season as he boasts a 7-4 record with a 2.32 ERA. He made six starts in July pitching 41.2 innings with a 1-5 record, however he had a 1.51 ERA (in other words he was a victim of the Mets quiet bats). His only “bad” start was one against the Braves where he allowed 4 runs, 3 earned in 6.2 innings of work. The Braves have these numbers on Robert Allen:

Earlier today I posted the video of the Ron Artest Mets raps, this is my attempt to try to jot down the lyrics:

MetropoliTONS of FUN – Ron Artest

Intro
You already know what it is man
We the Mets from Queens
We Lose a Lot
But right now we gonna try to win
See what happens
Just Go

Song
I'm Ron Artest
Getting Crazy As it Gets
Flying around in jets
Rappin about the Mets
Born in Queens
Raised In Shea
Grab A Shake Shack
With my man Jason Bay
Win some lose some
The Mets aren't done
We just tell ourselves
Success in a nuisance
I got a ring
No need to be cranky
The Mets need 25 more
To tie the los los yankees
Loungin in the Pepsi porch
Sippin moets
Lookin to my left
Its my man Mr. Met
We – the metropolitans of fun
We – the metropolitans of fun
No matter how many games we won
We we the metropolitans of fun

Outro
Big ups to Keith Hernandez, Kevin Alster
Affordable bleacher seats
World series champs 2087
Ice cream in little helmets son
Mike Piazza bobbleheads
I gotta go call jason bay we supposed to meet for ice cream at 1:30
1986, 1969, dot dot dot, come on yall lets step it up

If I made any mistakes please let me know.

Ron Artest has a very interesting public image. There was incident in Indiana a few years back, there is of course him as a world champion and then Artest post championship, talking about his music career and that he has a single in the works. Well apparently, (I had no idea) but Ron Artest is a huge Mets fan being from Queens and with ESPNewYork, he has created a music video for his beloved baseball team:

I'm a fan. I thought it was hilarious. Later today I'll have the lyrics posted so we can start to break down the lyrical mastermind of Ron Artest…but not at 1:30 because he has to get ice cream with Jason Bay.

The players knew this was going to be an important game.

Well, you could have fulled me.

The team overall didn't play with a lot of heart tonight. It wasn't just because they lost, it just looked like they were flat. I can't really cite any specific examples, but generally when I watch a game I get excited or feel pumped in some way. This game was just putting me to sleep. It just seemed sluggish, and it didn't help that it looked like Braves were playing a good clip.

Anyway the dagger of the game came in the bottom of the first where Santana allowed 3 runs in the first inning. He locked it down after that striking out a total of 11 in 7 (while allowing 4 ER) but the Mets bats couldn't really help him. There was that RBI by Beltran, but that wasn't enough as the Mets offense struggled for another game since the All-Star Break. The only positive was the end of the line up got some hits tonight, but not many, as the lineup continues to be full of holes.

This loss places the Mets at .500 for the season. Now I'm not saying the season is done. The Mets can still, very easily, make a serious run at a playoff spot. But they find themselves out a point now where they can really dangerously fall off into oblivion and disappear from hunt for a meaningful September.

The Mets look to put the Diamondbacks and the month of July behind them tonight as they go down to Atlanta for a key series against the Braves. Santana will look to be himself tonight against Atlanta. On the season he is 8-5 with a 3.11 ERA. He had a pretty terrible start last time out as he allowed 7 ER over 5.2 innings of work. Against Atlanta this year he has been very good sporting a 1-0 record allowing only 2 ER in 14 innings of work. The Braves have these numbers against the Mets:

For a second straight day, the Mets will have contend with a pitcher named Hudson. This Hudson is 11-5 with a 2.40 ERA as he is having a terrific season. In his last two starts, he rebounded for a terrible 6.2 inning 6 ER start by pitching 14 innings with only one ER. He had a 7 inning shutout performance against the Amazin's in early July. The Mets have these numbers on Tim:

Lets Go Mets!

This is the most important week this season.

If it goes well for the Mets, then maybe there will be other weeks that are more important.

If it goes poorly for the Mets, then its doubtful that there will be future weeks that are this important.

The Amazins find themselves at a crucial crossroad starting today as they take on the Braves in Atlanta before facing Phillies in Philly. While there has been a lot of criticism of the way the Mets handled the deadline (maybe unjustified) and a lot of criticism for letting players like Perez and Castillo back on the team (justified), all of it means nothing if the Mets play well. Playing well can make this all go away, and playing poorly can make the majority of the Mets probably go away.

In the coming weeks, depending on what happens this week, there will be talks of ownership needing to become less involved, whether it is the GM's fault, can we get a better manager, we need better players OR there will be talks of making that final push, capturing that playoff spot, who is a hero, etc etc etc. All of those conversations, many which will happen here on this site, really will be decided on the Mets performance this week.

In terms of that performance, we sort of know what to expect. On the whole this year, the starting pitching has been very good and the back end of the bullpen has also been very good. The offense though, with the exception of June, has not clicked. Frustratingly, on the nights when the offense clicks, the starting doesn't, and then the middle of the bullpen gets into the game, and things tend to unraval. We'll see what happens this week, and as always Lets Go Mets!

In 1967 Coke launched a really nice, (now) vintage campaign where they challenged consumers to match their favorite team. Consumers would get sheets with spots on them to place bottle caps where on the bottom of the caps would be images of their team players. Most teams have seemed to have a single sheet with players making action poses, etc, with their heads missing where the caps would go. The Mets and the Yankees actually shared the same sheet and were a 35 cap set. I am not sure but I think the prize for collecting all of the caps for a team was a full, color photo set of the team. Anyway after a lot of searching I found an image of the Mets caps:

(via Worth Point)

These things are really neat and very collectible because there are two huge collector markets that target this. First there are sports fans and Mets fans who would want this and then there are Coke collectors and Coke has a lot of great products.

If you have something along these lines, or something you would like to share on this site please let me know by sending me an email (with a picture) and we can talk about your collection. Of course, I will give you credit for the find, the picture, and the information.
– elliotteichman@gmail.com