Mets Merized Online

A little over 50-something years ago, “I Like Ike” buttons were as popular as MTV was in the Eighties and grunge was in the Nineties.

With the ever-growing popularity of Mets prospect Ike Davis, a resurgence of those “I Like Ike” buttons have made their way across the Mets blogosphere. And while they’re kind of interesting and somewhat nostalgic, they don’t scream METSMERIZED like these do!

Away with those old relics and cast your eyes on these beauties courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Metsmerized!

They are FREE for all you of to use on your sites, home pages, Twitter, Myspace or whatever your heart desires. Knock yourself out and plaster your walls with them if you so desire…

You can get the codes to these and many more of our Amazin’ Buttons by heading over to our “one-of-a-kind” Exclusive Graphics Pages and selecting “Buttons”.

Or for those of you strapped for time, just click here.

We love you guys and please keep those graphics requests coming in!

Great news Mets Merizers!

We now have custom designed Mets backgrounds for your pleasure. Check out our newest selections and we will be adding to them frequently so keep checking back often.

Without further ado here are some of the designs we’ve created:

For the full collection of our newest backgrounds, simply navigate to our graphics section and select “backgrounds” or you can click here.

One sign that its time for baseball once again is the annual photo day for the players who have shown up to camp down in Florida. Its also a great opportunity to create some new graphics for our collection.

There are many new faces and some familiar as well. Unfortunately a couple of my personal favorite players were missing from the photo shoot. Hopefully they will report soon and get into the swing of things.

As baseball goes some of these players may not even make it past Spring Training.

Nevertheless, you can check out the 25 new current player graphics here.

Coming soon: Backgrounds – for your desktop wallpaper, twitter page, myspace layout, etc.

Hi MetsMerizers!

This is the first in a series of posts detailing what we have in store for you this season, our fifth since we went online, and our sixth overall.  

To begin, our incredible graphics designer and senior editor Kelly Horn, just finished a major re-design of our MMO Graphics. And what an Amazin’ job she did!

As soon as we start getting in some new spring training pics from our photo services company, we’ll be loading each graphics section with dozens of new images featuring all the new players!

We should be getting in a ton of new photos in the next two days, as many players have already arrived in St. Lucie.

This year, we will also be introducing an all new Backgrounds section which you can use for your computer desktops, personal sites and social pages like Twitter, Myspace and Facebook.. Stay on the lookout as we expect to launch those backgrounds by next weekend.

In the meantime, enjoy these cool Mets Buttons!

In addition to our photo services company, we now have our very own staff photographer. Tom Gitto, who has his own press credentials, will now provide us with many of our own original photos as he will be covering many exclusive off the field events including the celebrity and charity dinners, golf and bowling tournaments, and awards dinners.

Here are just a couple of shots from the BBWAA Dinner he attended last month, unfortunately Carlos Beltran didn’t make it though. The first one is Joe Mauer posing with his MVP Award, followed by Zach Grienke signing an autograph, and the last one which was taken from the farthest dinner table in the room, is Tim Lincecum accepting his Cy Young. Luckily there were plenty of huge plasma screens for those in the nose bleeds. Later this week I’ll post some pics from the Thurman Munson Dinner as well as the BAT Dinner.

We also re-designed the Mets Merized Online Chat Room last week, and gave it more of home-field advantage. Here is a screen shot of our new digs, the home of one of the best and liveliest Mets game chats. A great big hat tip to Kelly for all her hard work

In 2009, our chat room averaged 321 comments per day, and during the period between April 1st and September 30th, the chat room averaged over 700 comments per day! The purpose of our flash chat was to reduce the load and bandwidth on our server that our original game threads were creating, and in that regard it has been a huge success. I am indebted to the good people at Shoutmix for helping us get everything running so smoothly and allowing us the ability to customize and recode their standard design.

Our Chat Room now has 402 registered members. That’s up from 49 at the end of 2007 and 218 at the end of 2008. Since we went live with our Chat Room in 2007, we have banned 22 different IP’s. (What do you think, should I give them another chance?)

That’s all for this post, I hope you enjoy the new look, and please feel free to email me with any problems, questions, and suggestions. Thanks for your support.

Our next 2010 site update will reveal some very cool stuff that was suggested by some of our writers and regular readers last season. We plan to introduce some great new features for the first time ever, and I know you’re going to love them.

Thanks again everybody, you guys are the best!

I wanted to revive a post featuring a graphic that we designed last fall along with my take on why I believe the Mets have got what it takes to create some magic this season.

It was only a year ago that many sports journalists picked the Mets as favorites to win the World Series.

The same ones who lauded Pelfrey, Maine and Perez now rail against them.

The same ones who gushed over an outfield of Murphy, Beltran and Church, now mocks them despite the obvious upgrades.

The only thing that went wrong last season was the loss of the games top leadoff hitter, the games top center fielder, one of the league’s most feared sluggers, three-fifths of the starting rotation, and our setup man who would have been a closer for more than half of the teams in the league.

Did we have problems with fundamentals? We sure did, but they only became more magnified because over 50% of our payroll was sitting on the disabled list. In 2006 we had those same problems and yet we came within one strike of the World Series. And that was before we added Johan Santana, Frankie Rodriguez, Jeff Francoeur and now Jason Bay.

If we stay healthy, and I know that’s a big if… we can do this season, what everyone thought we would do last season.

The more I hear the phrase “We Believe In Comebacks”, the more it begins to make sense.    

Last season may not have worked out the way that we all imagined it would, but this year will be different. We’ll be back healthier and faster and stronger and more focused and determined than ever.

Ya still gotta believe!

Psssst… Have you checked out our newly designed Graphics Section yet?

On behalf of everyone at Mets Merized Online we would like to take some time to remember and honor all of our brave servicemen and women that have served and continue to serve our country.

Each Veteran’s day we have an opportunity to recognize the amazing people who make up the greatest military in the world.

We would also like to extend our condolences to the families of all the victims of the recent tragedy at Ft. Hood. The sadness of that day serves as a reminder of just how fragile life truly is both at home as well as overseas where we continue to defend democracy.

God Bless all of you for your unwavering loyalty, patriotism, integrity and courage.

Happy Veteran’s Day!

The Mets lost the second game of the doubleheader tonight. The Rockies broke their own 27 inning drought winning the game 4-2. Jon Niese didn’t bring his best stuff to Citi Field tonight. He barely survived 6.1 innings, giving up 8 hits, 4 walks, and 4 runs including a two run homer. The damage could have been a lot worse but Niese executed some big pitches when he absolutely needed an out.

David Wright continued his hitting streak going 2-4 with a stolen base and run scored. Jeff Francoeur went hitless but his sacrifice fly in the 4th inning brought Wright home, earning his 17th RBI in 16 games since becoming a Met.

Fernando Tatis wowed the crowd once again with a powering homer that nearly landed in the second deck. Keep the power Tatis! He also made an outstanding rolling catch in left field that’s sure to be a web gem.

Clint Barmes’ 2-run homer in the seventh inning broke up the tie game and Todd Helton’s single marked the end of the night for Niese. Brian Stokes come out to face Troy Tulowitzki, who tripled and drove in Helton.

Sean Green and Bobby Parnell finished off the game with an inning a piece of scoreless relief.

The Mets took the series against the Rockies winning three out of four.  

Next up: Another four game series against the Diamondbacks.

Mets Merized Online is currently looking for a part-time game recapper to cover 2 games a week.

If interested, contact us today!

The Big Pelf kept the Mets winning streak alive tonight as they won their fourth game in a row. Pelfrey pitched 6.1 shutout innings working himself out of bases loaded jams several times.

Daniel Murphy has really stepped up for the team and scored the first run off of a Jeff Francoeur single in the second inning.

In the bottom of the third, Luis Castillo singled and drove in Alex Cora for the second run of the night.

The Rockies had seven hits but the Mets defense was alive tonight with strong plays most notably by Murphy. Did it have anything to do with the pointers from Carlos Delgado before the game, or maybe the fact that Murphy played with Delgado’s glove?

Brian Schneider’s sacrifice fly in the fourth inning brought Murphy home (again) and Murphy drove in Castillo in the eighth. Colorado manager Jim Tracy was ejected for arguing over that last run scored, claiming Castillo was out. 

The Mets had a scare in the sixth inning when Jeff Francoeur was hit on his hand by the pitch. They iced it down and luckily the Mets injury curse didn’t claim him, he will be fine.

Pedro Feliciano relieved Pelfrey in the seventh inning and shined as he struck out five in a row and Sean Green finished the game out.

Great pitching, great defense and great offense - that’s what great baseball is made of!

Thankfully the team doesn’t seem to be distracted by the front office distractions and they have shown up to play winning four in a row, a streak which we haven’t witnessed in over two months.

Next up Johan Santana, who is coming off a horrible start and could use a nice win at home to revive himself.  Let’s go for five!

The New York Mets and the Houston Astros started off the game 1-1 and all was fine until a very depressing fourth inning when pitcher Mike Hampton hit a 2-run homer off of Johan Santana.

The Mets’ ace had a horrible outing at Minute Maid Park allowing 12 hits (tying his career high) and collecting his 8th loss on the season. Santana has now lost three of his last five starts.

In the first inning, David Wright drove in his first RBI since July 12th, and (get this) only his third RBI in all of July. But followed that up with 2 walks.

In the fifth inning Luis Castillo drove in Angel Berroa and Jeff Francoeur followed up with two more RBIs. However, the Astros answered and drove in two runs in the bottom of the fifth to make the score 5-3.

Omir Santos homered in the sixth and that would be the last run of the night.

Francoeur took a beating in the seventh inning after being hit with a pitch and later a collision at the plate, where he ultimately failed to score.

The Astros took the win, 5-4 over the Mets. It’s more than fair to say Houston owns the Mets when we play at Minute Maid Park. The Astros have won seven out of the last nine games played on their home turf.

Nothing pretty here. Does it get any sadder than watching Johan give a home run up to the opposing pitcher? Is it those black jerseys again? What else is there to say…

Yet again, the Mets lose to the Nationals sinking even further with no help in site. Winning their second game in a row against the Mets, Washington held New York to one run and 4 hits.

Obviously it doesn’t matter who we play because our team is so bruised and battered that even the healthy guys have lost hope.

The lonely core player on the team had this to say…

“We’re not going to be able to go out there and score runs at will. We really have to be clicking on all cylinders to score runs and obviously right now we are not.” – David Wright

Jerry Manuel has to be running out of excuses and confidence as well.

“What happens is that when you are in the situation we are in, every team we play, because (we’re) deficient of talent, every team we play is going to be in the game.”

Game Recap

Mike Pelfrey (7-6) and Craig Stammen (3-5) both went scoreless for the first three innings.

Luis Castillo was ejected early after arguing over a close call in the 2nd inning. It was the 33-year old’s first career ejection. Fernando Tatis replaced Castillo at 2nd base.

In the 4th inning Ronnie Belliard’s sacrifice fly scored Nick Johnson. Stammen retired the first 12 batters before David Wright finally singled in the 5th.

The only run scored via a fielding error after Angel Pagan tripled to left center and Cristian Guzman overthrew the ball in the top of the 6th inning.

In the bottom of the inning Josh Willingham hit his 13th home run, driving in Adam Dunn who was on second base because Jeff Francoeur was blinded by the lights and couldn’t get the out.

Stammen pitched into the 8th inning before being relieved by Jason Bergmann. Mike MacDougal earned his 6th save after completing a 1-2-3 inning.

That’s it folks, the short and not so sweet recap. The Mets are now 44-50 and 10 games behind the 1st place Phillies.

I’d like to make a suggestion, maybe they should stop wearing those bad luck black jerseys… I mean, I’m not one to be superstitious but damn, I’d try anything at this point.