213 Miles From Shea

After seeing some images leaked around the interwebs and slowly through
promotions, the majority of the Postseason logos are now in plain view
on the MLB website since you can now order your postseason tickets now.
Actually lets look into that for a second. I've never tried to get
postseason tickets, before, is this normal? I always felt like
reseverations started in September but apparently you can now request
to have the opportunity to buy them now (limit 2 per person). Strange
(or not, like I said before I don't know if this is a new thing or
not). Here are your 2010 MLB Post Season Logos (these are just a few of
them, over the last few years they started introducing multiple logos
for each event, but at least you get the main set here). All images are
from MLB.com:

(From Wii Ware)

There's something beautiful about the Hot Dog Eating Contest. America as a land of freedom and a place to share opinions allows people to become divided over their opinions on what is right and what is wrong. It allows us to debate about controversial issues in an arena where (hopefully) we all can be heard. One of the polarizing issues in this country is actually eating contests. As there are many Americans who love Major League Eating (seriously, that is the name) there are a lot of opponents to the league as well (for fairly obvious reasons including gluttony and boasting wasting food where others even this country starve).

Yesterday is the main day for MLE. It was their Superbowl, World Series, Daytona 500, etc because the July 4th Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest is the main contest that everyone knows about (the other ones are not nearly as well known). Mainly MLE has had a story line for the last 10 years or so as Kobayashi demolished the competition for 6 years in a row but has recently over the last 4 years been upstaged by Joey Chestnut.

This year Chestnut ate 54 hot dogs, a far cry from previous years, but still enough to beat the other eaters as second place was 9 dogs back. Joey's main rival wasn't there this year because he is fighting with MLE over a contract that will prevent him from eating in events that are not sponsored by the MLE (and I feel that Kobayashi is right in this regard). However Hot Dog fans, don't fret, as Kobayashi did make an apparence at this year's event as he stormed the stage after the show before being arrested.

It's a day later now and I'm assuming the news about this will stop today (unless something else major happens) as MLE takes its seat behind the MLS but in front of the NHL (I kid, I kid) as the least known major sports league in this nation. (Fun Fact though, MLE does have a video game).

Macfarlane Toys is a well known company for making incredibly detailed figures of sports players, movie characters and video game characters. Every year for baseball, they release a series of MLB figurines that feature some of the best (and most marketable) players in the game. Usually the figures come extremely pristine, like this David Wright figure from June 2007:

(Spawn.com)

Well this year they released a completely new product line called MLB Playmakers. Essentially, its a combination of their impressive eye for detail, and an action figure. The problem is that this makes for a pretty strange combination on the final product. The goal is to create a very poseable figure that has over 20 moving parts. However, when you want parts to move, you have to give up some degree of appearence so the final product looks like this:

(Spawn.com)

The above looks a little odd, but itx not that bad. However there is another version for David Wright, his batting version, and it has a more odd look:

(Spawn.com)

Some quick hits to go with your Monday morning Plain Bagel:

(NY Times)

The 2010 MLB All Star rosters were announced today and two Mets will be heading over to the West Coast to represent the National League team. The first one is no surprise, David Wright. The question about Wright would be if he would make the team as the starter. It was a little over a week ago that he was 130,000 votes down. However, he rallied and he will start at the hot corner. This of course makes sense because how can a player be in the MVP conversation and not be starting his position during the All-Star game. For Wright this will be his 5th trip the game in his 7th season in the bigs. All 5 selections have been consecutive.

The second Met was a surprise. Jose Reyes was selected thanks to the injury to Troy Tulo. At the beginning of the season it didn't look like Jose would deserve a trip to the game but he really turned it around in May and started to flash some power. It will be nice to see Reyes and Wright back in the game together since they really are linked together in their history with the Mets. This will be Reyes' 3rd trip the game.

The only “snub” on the Mets will be Mike Pelfrey. For a while it looked like Barajas really deserved it but he cooled off enough to sort of exit the conversation. Pelfrey is a victim of two things. The first that this is the year for pitchers in the National League and there are a lot of really good starters. Second, every team needs one representative. This combination keeps Pelfrey, sadly, on the other side of the All-Star door. If Strasburg made the team though, I would have been livid about this.

Trying to not talk too much about last night, the Mets dropped another game in the ninth inning or later which as we all know is extremely frustrating. Anyway, the Mets will attempt to put that behind them today as they go for a win on a National Holiday (Happy 4th Everyone!). The Mets will be sending out Takahashi who will go toe to toe with Stammen.

I'm not sure if you have noticed but Takahashi has two good games and then two bad games (He was good against the Yanks and Phils, then bad against the Padres and the Marlins, then good against the Orioles and theYankees and then bad again against the Tigers and the Marlins). He just finished his second bad game in a row, so I think its time for Takahashi to have a good game again. Takahashi hasn't faced the Nationals as a starter yet but as a reliever he is 0-0 while pitching 4.1 innings of shutout ball. The Nationals have these numbers on him:

Stammen has started 13 games this year for the Nationals and yet he only has 4 decisions to show for it as he is 2-2 with a 5.13 ERA. He missed sometime in June and in his last start back (June 29th) he picked up the win in 7.1 innings of work while allowing 2 ER and only 5 hits. He faced the Mets once this year where he had a no decision while allowing 4 ER in 5 innings on 4 hits and 4 walks. The Mets have these numbers against him:

Lets Go Mets!

The Mets play the 4:00 game today against the Washington Nationals and their star starting pitcher, Stephen Strasburg. Stephen has been dominating since coming up the majors (31.2 IP, 48 K, 2.27 ERA) however he has been plagued with a horrible curse. The Nationals just can't score runs when he pitches. That being said, I am worried about one aspect today when he pitches against us. When you look at the Mets as a team, we have a lot of free swingers at the plate, and lot of players that can easily fall to a strikeout. Strasburg is the type of pitcher that matches favorably against the Mets (for the opposition). The main strategy for Strasburg is to remember that he is a rookie and like all rookies, the Mets need to be patient at the plate. Take those borderline pitches, and force him the second time through the order to have to make those tough pitches.

The Mets will be sending out R.A. Dickey who will look to rebound from his last start. Up until his last time out, he was fantastic, and unbeaten, but we all know that streak had to end eventually and it did in San Juan. Overall on the season, R.A. is 6-1 with a 2.98 ERA over 51.1 innings. His first start was actually against the Nationals where he recieved a no decision while pitching 6 innings, allowing 2 ER, walking 4 and striking out 2. I feel its fair to say that he has become a different pitcher since that start, he has been made better with success. The Nationals have these numbers against Dickey:

Lets Go Mets!

With all of the coverage on politics these days (seriously, you turn on CNN/MSNBC/FOXNEWS and its just information about what politicians are doing, or opinions about them, and not the actual news) you would think an event like this would get more coverage, alas it doesn't (and that's probably a good thing). June 29th came and passed, and probably none of us realized that it was the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Honestly, I never even knew this was such a thing.

Anyway a bit of history. This is the 49th year of the Roll Call game and probably the 49th year of no one caring. Once again, that's not a problem. If you check out this album though, you will probably see the one redeeming aspect of the game, that every politician wears a jersey from their district (or that they are a fan of, I don't know enough about these people). Here's a photo of Representative Anthony Weiner representing the Mets:

(SBN Nation / NBC Washington)

If you are curious, the Democrats beat the Republicans by a score of 13-5. This was mainly due to a 9 run (yes 9) in the 9th inning. Thats a pretty big meltdown. Actually, I'm more impressed that they kept playing through all 9 innings.

*I don't live close to New York, I live outside of DC (thus why I'm even more surprised I didn't hear about this until now) and I'm assuming that this wasn't really covered up in New York. So if it was, my bad.

Some quick hits to go with your Saturday morning Potato Pancake:

The Mets suffered through a tough loss last night as they lost the game 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth. They try to move past that tonight as Niese takes the mound to battle Atilano. The problem last night for the Mets (overall) was that the offense couldn't actually get the ralley going. Hopefully that won't happen tonight.

Niese (5-2, 3.84 ERA) has been great since returning from the DL. Since coming back from injury he is 4-0 over 5 games and 33.2 innings pitched with a 2.67 ERA. He has faced the Nats once this season and the results were not that good. He allowed 6 runs over 4.1 innings however the Mets were still able to pick up the win. The Nats have these numbers against Niese:

On the other side of the mound will be Atilano (6-4, 4.33 ERA). In his last four starts he has pitched 21.2 innings with a 1-2 record and a 4.57 ERA. He has already faced the Mets twice this season with two very different outings. The first time he picked up win in 5.1 innings of work and didn't allow a run. He then faced the Mets pitchign 4.1 innings and allowed 7 runs, 6 earned. The Mets have these numbers against him:

Lets Go Mets!