213 Miles From Shea

I have been trying to think of words to describe this idea and I think the only thing I was able to come up with is Bizarre. Below is the actual Topps 2010 Basic Card of David Wright:

(Image From The Beckett Blog)

Now this card is normal featuring the Topps 2010 design. Now basic baseball card sets due special sets called Insert Sets (I do not know when this started, I know it has been at least a decade, I think). Insert sets are basically another set of cards within the master set that all have a common theme. Other Insert Sets in the Past for Topps have been Trading Places (featuring Players who changed Teams) or The History of Game.

Well Topps is doing a set now and its Bizarre. Its called When they were young. Thats right, it shows famous players from the Little League days including our very own David Wright:

(From DA Card World).

Like I said, this just seems like a Bizarre set to collect.

Every baseball season I am blown away by the marketing department of the Brooklyn Cyclones. They routinely think of things that are either unique or extremely awesome (or both). There was a link featured on uniwatcblog today that showcases another great move by the Cyclones. If you are unaware, the Cyclones (the Mets Class A short season team if you are really that unaware) are celebrating their 10th anniversary. In celebration this summer, on 7 Thursday Nights this summer they will feature a new Jersey.

Here is the list of the Jersey's:

1) Home Replica
2) Boardwalk Blues
3) Cyclones '86 Backman
4) Italian Hertiage
5) Irish Hertiage
6) Pitch Black
7) Original Road Replica

(Image from the Brooklyn Cyclones Official Page)

The above picture is the '86 Backman style. Notice how it looks like a 1986 Mets Jersey. Really these are all beautiful designs and will be available for the first 2500 fans on the nights that they are be given out. The actual article on the Brooklyn Cyclones website can be found here, and on that site are the pictures for the other 6 jerseyes. Really check it out. If you like uniform aesthics or if you like Brooklyn you will really like that page. I think my favorite is probably the Italian Jersey.

Over at Fan Huddle yesterday I wrote this article about the whole JJ Putz revelation that came out last week. I know this isn't news anymore, but I wanted to put my two cents in.

So check it out.

To start off my gut answer is a “no” in quotation marks (due to my cynical nature sometimes with the Mets) but of course there is a story that will lead to this conclusion.

Thursday night I was watching the Maryland Basketball game with a few of my fraternity brothers (Alpha Phi Omega- Coed Community Service Fraternity, any other APO Mets fans out there?) and it was a slow night, mainly because the campus was already closing for the major snowstorm that was really 18 hours away at that point, but its DC so thats expected.

Anyway one of my brothers is also a Mets fan and we were talking about the state of the Mets and he was very strongly for trading Fernando Martinez because as he sees it, he's a player with no potential. After I explained in detail why he was wrong, I figured this article was necessary to write.

One of the struggling points with Fmart is ability to stay healthy. He has shown at a few levels in the minors that he can hit and that he has a fantastic swing when he is healthy. He is also very young as well, which can be linked to his lack of power and ability so far to hit at the major league level. I would say that up until last week, he was not being considered at all for the Centerfield job at all next season. We have Pagan and GMJ and Fmart still was not ready at all.

However he released a statement last week via an interview saying that he was expecting to get playing time (before the GMJ trade). Since that statement, he has really been turning it on in the winter leagues. During the actual season in the winter league, he was hitting below .200 but since the playoffs, he has been hitting above .330 and this week alone he has 2 homeruns. If he can continue to play strong into Spring he could potentially make things interesting.

Overall though, even if he comes out of spring with 15 homers, he will ultimately start off in the minors. The Mets already have 2 CF on the roster without Beltran, and Fmart really needs to be playing every day to not only get rythem but to also get stronger for future season. However, I am hoping that he really succeeds in Spring, because we will need him down the road.

Hey Readers,

Today marks the third anniversary for this blog. It was back on January 31st, 2007 that I started this blog as a Mets fan in Baltimore looking to reach out and interact with the Mets community. Since then I have written nearly 1100 articles (a total that should be surpassed this week), contributed to two more Mets blogs and have changed my personal location to outside of DC.

I know this past year has been a rough year for the Mets, but we have gone through rough seasons before and made it back on top. Its easy to say that now as well since Spring is right around the corner, where optimisim is rising to its peak.

Personally, if you have been reading this site, you probably realize there has been a drop off in my writing over the last 6 months or so. I am hoping with this upcoming season to return to my familiar high volume of quality writing for the following season. I normally don't talk on this site too much about what I do outside of the Mets writing world, but I would like to digress for a little bit. I am an undergraduate Astronomy and Physics double major at the University of Maryland College Park. The last several months has been an extremely busy time as I had two labs (including an observation lab at night) which cut a lot into the time I usually try to get some writing done. Hopefully my next semester isn't as busy, which is why I see my writing returning to normal.

This is an exciting time to be a Mets fan, believe it or not. We are either desitined for big things right now, or we are on the cusp or a new generation of players and talent of for the amazin's and possibly (or more hopefully) a more competent front office if needed. Lets Go Mets! Lets get ready for the optimism of Spring and the most optmistic day of the year, Openning Day.

Thank you all for reading, and I am always open for comments and advice,

Elliot Teichman

eteich@umd.edu

Over at Fan Huddle, I just posted this article, where I describe the Mets as the either the awkward kid at the dance or the kid who talks big game and just does nothing at the dance, because that is what it feels like to be a Mets fan.

On top of that I suggest 4 things they can do  If you go read the article, you will know what I would do if I was the GM of the Mets. So check it out.

I was prepping an article about moves made this week, and how Delgado is still be considered, for some reason, for Fan Huddle recently (article not posted yet, should be later tonight and I will post a link here) and I came across something interesting from the Puerto Rico Winter League wikipedia page (and also on Metsblog).

In the Puerto Rico League, there is a draft held for teams that are still competing where they can pick up players from teams that were eliminated. That means, if you are an all-star player, you could possibly continue with a team through the post season?

Can you even imagine if that existed in the MLB? It would be as if the playoff's would be smaller versions of the All-Star game and then eventually, the World Series could basically be the All-Star game.

That is just bizarre. Now I haven't been able to find too much information on this yet, and I am sure there is some limiting fashion to this draft, and that there is a limited number of drafts (or maybe not) but think about competition. Lets use the 2009 Post Season as an example. In September, there was a back and forth battle between the Tigers and the Twins where they both just fought for the last playoff spot. According this league, it would be possible for the Twins then to draft a player for the playoffs from the Tigers, where that player probably just spent the better part of a month hating the Twins and then has to be teamates. Or lets look at the other side of that. What if the Yankees then picked up someone from the Tigers, who could tell them all of the up to date “secrets” of the Twins. This is just so strange to think about.

At the very end of the AFC title game today, they showed a fan waving a the Chicago “W” (for win) flag which got me thinking, which team does Indianapolis root for?

As a quick side note, to all the Jets fans out there, sorry you didn't win today. I was rooting for you. I don't talk about Football here that much, but many of you who follow this blog know that I am born in North Jersey but I was raised in Baltimore. Through my childhood I had a strong connection the New York Mets, but not to any New York football teams. I was in first grade when Baltimore got the Ravens, thus that Baltimore bond was formed (yet I say Baltimore like I'm from the north, so Ravens fans see me as an imposter as well).

The more I started to think about this, the more I realized how complex of a question this is. My knowledge of sports in that region of the United States is slim. In fact, it really only goes as far as knowing that I have relatives that live in Louisville, KY, which basically borders south Ohio and south Indiana. From what I understand, in at least football terms in that part of KY, fans either root for the Bengals, or the slightly farther Colts. 

When it comes to baseball in Indiana though, because that is where this article focuses on, there are no major league teams in the state, but the state is surrounded by several teams. In neighboring Illinois, there are the Cubs and White Sox. In neighboring Ohio, there are the Indians and the closer Reds. In fact, the Reds seem to be the closest team to Indianapolis. That does not mean that Colt fans root for the Reds.

My understanding of fandom out in most of the country is mostly due to this map. While I take this map with a grain of salt (mainly because it does over exaggerate a lot of places), there is some truth in it. The Cubs are an extremely popular team, an atribute that is helped out by their coverage on WGN. Of course there is also the ever popular Cards as well.  Another team to cosider (oddly) is the Pirates. Conventional thinking would say that the Pirates are too far away however Indianopolis does have a baseball team, and its the AAA affialties of the Pirates.

I think this is just a long explanation to say that I have no idea who Colt fans root for, and if any of you out there know, I would really appreciate it.

Every once in a while I write an article over at Fan Huddle and I forget to tell you fine folks over here about it, and that was the case on Wednesday when I wrote this piece.

It was about how I am glad that the Mets “missed out” on Molina. My opinion was further solidified later in the week when we traded for Matthews (a line up with Matthews and Molina would be way to slow) and then even further solidified when Molina came out with a statement saying that he would have signed with the Mets only if they guranteed two years. So check out the article if you want to.

The title probably is a good explanation of how you feel at this point in the offseason if you still have hope in the front office to make competent decisions. If you are more cynical than your response was probably more like “Oh, that makes sense for the Mets, because it doesn't.”

Alright, so I'm being a little too harsh on the Mets but seriously Gary Matthews Jr? At least it is only for 1.25 million a year. The Mets management made this move as back up for Pagan as a back up for Beltran. The only way this move will make sense for the Mets is if Pagan, and lets hope not, gets injured, which can easily happen. But the part of this move that is puzzling is that it cost the Mets one of their suprisingly more effective pitchers from the pen.

I liked Stokes. The Mets however do not like Stokes. He could go long periods of time without seeing action, and taking that into his account his 3.97 ERA from the pen is better than it actually is. But the part of this move that is really just strange is that we still need pitching, and we have a lot of players that we could have signed to minor league deals that would probably give us the same production in the outfield that Gary Matthews will.

Compounding the disapointment in the Mets making this move is that they still have not been able to accomplish two of their main goals for this offseason. Sign/Trade a Starting pitcher to help out Johan and crew. Trade Castillo away (and sign Hudson). If those two things happen then this move will be able to be over looked, but until then this is just a frustrating move from an offseason of frustrating moves.