Good morning, Mets fans!

Cleon Jones‘ lifelong impact on his hometown — Africatown, Alabama — was profiled by NorthJersey.com‘s Justin Toscano. Ken Davidoff also wrote about Jones and Africiatown back in December.

Jones has been living in Africatown ever since he retired in 1976, and he’s made strides to keep the community alive as it’s fallen on hard times over the last couple decades. Toscano writes that the town that used to have over 10,000 residents now has less than 2,000. It’s also classified as a “food desert,” meaning there isn’t a supermarket within one mile despite its proximity to a big city in Mobile. Jones says in the profile the closest place to get fresh food and groceries is six miles away.

Africatown was founded by West African slaves who were brought on what is known to be the last ship to bring slaves to the Americas in 1860, even though slave trade was banned decades before that. A recent 60 Minutes profile detailed the town’s history and the drive to help it thrive once again. Jones was born to this community in 1942 and has been a part of that push since he returned to Africatown decades ago.

Jones is currently “helping restore Africatown by completing various home improvement projects” like painting homes and replacing roofs through his non-profit, the Cleon Jones Last Out Community Foundation, according to the profile. Former Met teammate and friend Tommie Agee‘s daughter, J’nelle Agee, made sure to note while most people dedicate retirement to golf and relaxation, Jones is dedicating it to the people who really need it. (Agee grew up a couple miles from Jones in Mobile.) Toscano says that Jones estimates he’s helped fix at least 20 roofs “and painted at least that many houses” over the last half-decade.

If you’d like to donate to the Cleon Jones Last Out Community Foundation, you can do so here.

Now let’s get into the morning briefing.

Latest Mets News

The Mets beat the Cardinals 5-3 Tuesday afternoon. Read my recap of the game here.

Young prospects like Ronny Mauricio, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Brett Baty were trimmed from the spring training roster Monday evening. The Mets’ spring training roster sits at 53–down from the max of 75–as the team tries to hone in on who may make the Opening Day roster.

Latest MLB News

The Yankees announced reliever Zack Britton will undergo surgery to remove a bone chip from his left pitching elbow. They said the surgery will happen “in the upcoming days” and didn’t give a recovery timetable. Seth Lugo had a similar surgery at the beginning of the spring and was shut down from throwing after the surgery for six weeks, so the Yankees are probably looking at a similar timetable for Britton.

Latest on MMO

Rich Sparago writes about Luis Rojas‘ admission the Mets need to tighten up defensively even though it’s still early in the spring.

Trevor Hildenberger could make the Mets’ bullpen out of spring, writes John Flanigan, though the reliever was cut off the big league spring roster during cuts this evening.

MMO Digital

During spring training, Wednesday’s are ‘Division Day’ on the Locked On Podcast Network, where rival shows get together for crossover specials. On today’s episode of Locked On Mets, host Ryan Finkelstein is joined by Dylan Short, host of Locked On Braves to talk about how these two teams stack up atop the NL East.

In part one of this two-part conversation, Ryan and Dylan discuss each team’s offseason additions and how these pitching staffs stack up. Also in the battle of first basemen, who is going to have a bigger year in 2021? Pete Alonso or Freddie Freeman.

On This Date in Mets History

Former Mets players John Cangelosi (1963), Mike Birkbeck (1961), Wayne Twitchell (1948) and inaugural Met Ken MacKenzie (1934) were born on March 10. They combined to play in less than a season’s worth of games for the Mets, but we love ’em nonetheless.

Let’s go Mets!