It’s that time of the year again. Seven weeks into the season and we are being asked to vote for the 2013 All-Stars. This week Cincinnati came to town. Now, imagine for a moment, if as you walked into Citi Field you were handed a ballot where you could choose which Reds you would want playing that day. Safe to say, we Mets fans would probably decide that Brandon Phillips, Joey Votto and Jay Bruce [...]

There are many adjectives that are used in conjunction with the 86 Mets. Confidence. Arrogance. Swagger. Obnoxious. But they were good, damn good. And they knew it. That’s a far cry from the 2013 Mets. However, it’s not just wins that count. It’s playing as a cohesive unit. It’s playing as, no pun intended, a TEAM. And that is something this club does not do. You don’t have to get along off the field. You don’t [...]

Marc Raimondi of the NY Post writes about Dwight Gooden who has a soon to be released biography entitled, “Doc: A Memoir.” The bio reveals some shocking and even sad details about his life in baseball and the toll that drug addiction took on his career and his life. Gooden believes if he had died the moment the Mets won the World Series in 1986, he would have saved many people a great deal of [...]

A member of the SABR once said, “There are 499 ballplayers. And then there’s Willie Mays.” It was way back in the summer of 1973. Camera Day. I was a few months shy of turning 8 years old. My dad nudged me closer to the railing along the third base line so no grown-ups would block my view. Mets players walked around the warning track, stopping every few feet to smile for the cameras. My [...]

The Chicago Tribune discussed Tuesday’s homecoming of sorts for Chicago White Sox manager Robin Ventura and his coach Joe McEwing. Both were teammates for two seasons with the Mets including the 2000 team that won the National League, but lost to Yankees in the World Series. “It was a great time,” said Ventura, who played for the Mets from 1999-2001. “We enjoyed it as a family just being there. The Mets were very good to me. [...]

The street I live on is a fairly quiet residential one lane road. Three miles to the south it meanders up into the foothills that look down on the valley. It gives way to an expansive residence, the proverbial mansion on the hill. At night, the home is illuminated in a sea of blackness. There’s nothing close by and the property seems big enough to warrant its own zip code. On many Saturday nights, I [...]

Anyone out there remember Ray Sadecki? He was a starter/reliever for the Mets from 1970-1974 and was the kind of pitcher the Mets could actually use right now because of his effectiveness in that role. They could have also used Sadecki in 2007 or 2008, which is when I chose his name on the LoHud blog when John Delcos was running the site before Howard Megdal. Those two seasons will always be remembered for how [...]

About two weekends ago my church had a men’s breakfast meeting, and the guest speaker was none other than Dwight Evans, the very productive right fielder for the Boston Red Sox from 1972-1990. Listening to Evans speak about his life in baseball and the many things that affected his game, brought me back to the only game that mattered in my life when I was a kid. Dewey didn’t mention the 1986 World Series, but he didn’t [...]

Something struck me as odd earlier this spring as I watched SNY’s first broadcast of the season from Tradition Field. Our splendid announcers were interviewing Collin Cowgill and at one point I believe it was Ron Darling asked whether Collin was getting a lot of ribbing about something or other in his background (I think it was about an underperforming college team he was affiliated with – I can’t remember exactly). The thing I found [...]

A couple of weeks ago, the great Mets historian and author Matt Silverman, was nice enough to give me a sneak preview into his newest publication, Swinging ’73: Baseball’s Wildest Season. The verdict is in, and Matt has done it again – delivering another Amazin’ Book that should be a part of every Met fan’s library. This isn’t your regular everyday telling of the “Ya Gotta Believe” season, and in fact it was not what [...]