Reply With QuoteThere is no hope until next spring.
Hope springs eternal.
There is no hope until next spring.
This afternoon at Citifield:
Jose Reyes, in maybe his last game as a Met, dropped a bunt single in his first at bat, and took himself out of the game. He finished the season batting .3371, at the moment leading Milwaukee's Ryan Braun for the batting title. Braun enters the game tonight at .3345, and needs to go 3-4 tonight to overtake Reyes.
The Milwaukee-Pittsburgh game is meaningless. If I'm on the mound for the Pirates, I call the catcher out, and tell him to let Braun know that he's getting all fastballs tonight.
Sept 28th 1941 (70 years ago today):
Boston Red Sox were playing the last two games of the season, a doubleheader at the Philadelphia Athletics. Boston was 17 out, so the games were meaningless. Ted Williams was in a mini-slump. For the previous five games, he went 4-22, and his BA dropped from .406 to .400.
He could have sat out the last day, but he played in both games of the doubleheader, went 6-8, and finished at .406.
That last day is the part of the season that people remember.
Politi: Mets' Jose Reyes doesn't need to apologize for sitting on batting-title lead
Published: Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 11:30 PM Updated: Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 11:54 PM[/h]
By Steve Politi/Star-Ledger Columnist The Star-Ledger
David Pokress/MCT
The Mets' Jose Reyes leaves today's game in the first inning after a bunt single. He went on to win the NL batting crown with a .337 average.
The speedy leadoff hitter had a tenuous lead in the race for his first batting title, so with the blessing of his manager, he decided to take a seat in the 162nd game of the season.
This is Jose Reyes, of course. But this is also Willie Wilson. This is 2011, of course, and it led to a firestorm that ruined what should have been a celebration of a wonderful season.
But this is also 1982, a year before Reyes was born. This was in Kansas City, where a former three-sport star at Summit High saw a chance to become the first switch hitter in 26 years to win the American League batting title.
So, on the final day of the season, Wilson took himself out of the lineup and finished the season at .3316. He sweated out a big night from Robin Yount, the future Hall of Famer who went 4-for-5 to end the year at .3307.
“My pride told me to play, but my common sense told me not to,” Wilson said that day 29 years ago. “Robin has probably won everything else this season, so why couldn’t he let me win this? I’d like to have played, but I wanted to win the batting title more.”
There is no asterisk next to Wilson’s name in the record book. There is no disclaimer necessary or apology required. He is the 1982 AL batting champ, and he will be forever.
Read the rest:
http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/201...tml#incart_hbx
Baloney.
Willie Wilson played for the KC Royals most of his career (1976-1990). They were a powerhouse team then, with players like George Brett and Hal McRae. They won the WS in 1985. Fans didn't go to Royals games just to see Wilson win a batting title. And he wasn't leaving the team the following year.But this is also 1982, a year before Reyes was born. This was in Kansas City, where a former three-sport star at Summit High saw a chance to become the first switch hitter in 26 years to win the American League batting title.
So, on the final day of the season, Wilson took himself out of the lineup and finished the season at .3316. He sweated out a big night from Robin Yount, the future Hall of Famer who went 4-for-5 to end the year at .3307.
Why did Mets fans go to Citifield on the last game of the season?
Yeah but was that KC game a must win game? If so then I can understand him being there. As far as Reyes, who would it have benefitted if he played? I remember in '86 after they clinched the division, half the regular players didn't even play. Maybe not half, but a considerable amount of the regular lineup didn't play.
Die hards who bleed blue & orange.Why did Mets fans go to Citifield on the last game of the season?
I don't see the relevance of the question. The KC last game wasn't important, or of course Wilson would have played.Originally Posted by mariab
The author drew a similarity between Wilson and Reyes sitting out the last game to win batting titles. But it's different.
1. It was not Wilson's last game as a Royal.
2. Wilson was a good player, but not the star of the team. 1982 was a career year for him. The star of the team was George Brett. Who's the star of the Mets?
How about the people who bought tickets to see him play maybe his last game as a Met.As far as Reyes, who would it have benefitted if he played?
Today, the Mets are playing golf; in 1986, they were getting ready for postseason.I remember in '86 after they clinched the division, half the regular players didn't even play. Maybe not half, but a considerable amount of the regular lineup didn't play.
Buying a tik for the last game just to see him play is a hell of a risk. Playoffs or not, there's always a chance he wouldn't have played.
As far as batting star: Reyes for avg, runs, & stolen bases. Wright for home runs & rbi.
But if Reyes knew it was his last game, wouldn't he worry about bringing down his avg anyway?1. It was not Wilson's last game as a Royal.
Non sequitur. He did play. Got a hit in his first AB, and took himself out. The manager was uncomfortable talking about it post-game.
Wright's season:As far as batting star: Reyes for avg, runs, & stolen bases. Wright for home runs & rbi.
14 HR
61 RBI
.254 BA
Nothing starry about it.
This completely misses the point. See my last post.But if Reyes knew it was his last game, wouldn't he worry about bringing down his avg anyway?
The first Met to win a batting title, and the entire SNY broadcast crew rips him for how he did it. Just another reason the Mets are the way they are.
Reyes Says Mets Never Made Him an Offer
I guess the Mets did'n't want him after all. He is an injury waiting to happen.
Reyes Says Mets Never Made Him an Offer
By DAVID WALDSTEIN
Lm Otero/Associated PressJose Reyes, now of the Miami Marlins, at a news conference on Wednesday at the baseball winter meetings in Dallas.
DALLAS – Wearing the new uniform jersey and hat of the Miami Marlins, Jose Reyes was introduced at a news conference for the first time Wednesday as anything other than a Met.
It was a jarring image, but Reyes wore a huge smile and talked about his new home and his new family after agreeing to a six-year, $106 million contract with the Marlins on Sunday.
Reyes noted that the Mets, who signed him in 1999 as a 16-year-old from the Dominican Republic, never made an offer and never demonstrated any real interest in re-signing him as a free agent.
He said no one from the Mets organization contacted him directly during the process, which confused him based on General Manager Sandy Alderson’s public assertions that signing Reyes was a priority.
“No doubt,” he said. “They didn’t do that. They waited for when we were close to making a deal with the Marlins, and that’s when they called. But they called for nothing because they didn’t offer anything, so it’s kind of weird.”
Several times Reyes noted that the Mets never produced an offer, but he said he was not sad about it.
“Right now, it’s over,” he said. “I can’t be crying about that because they didn’t show me anything. They didn’t push anything to have me there. Why should I worry about it if they didn’t want me? But I appreciate they gave me the opportunity to play professional baseball and play in the big leagues.”
KC Royals East?
Seems like yesterday, you used to rock at Shea.
You score a run; we'd yell Jose.
So much for giving my seats away.
Yo Jose, they got to know that
Life ain't easy for a batting champ,
On the DL for every freakin' cramp.
Mets owners take $40M loan
The owners of the cash-strapped New York Mets have taken a $40 million bank loan while they try to sell minority stakes in the team.
A Mets spokesman confirmed today that a single major bank extended it the “bridge” loan in the last month or two. In November 2010, the club borrowed $25 million from Major League Baseball to tide it over.
...
A source close to the baseball commissioner’s office recently told the Post that the league is finally had enough of enabling the Wilpons.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...EyFRV3jIheL2MO
Carter’s Poignant Turns, Chronicled by a Daughter
Really, a heart-wrencing story.
January 23, 2012
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Like her father, Gary Carter, Kimmy Bloemers was a catcher. She played at Florida State. He spent most of his Hall of Fame career with the Montreal Expos and the Mets.
The two extended their sports bond in 2009 when Carter was named the baseball coach at Palm Beach Atlantic University, where Bloemers has coached the women’s softball team since 2007.
But the joy of coaching on the same campus has given way to the somber reality of Carter’s inoperable brain cancer, a diagnosis he received last May. Since then, Bloemers has been writing an intimate family journal on CaringBridge.org about her father’s illness and how the Carters are being sustained by their Christian faith and his competitive fire.
The diary’s 55 entries, spread over 121 pages, create a continuing narrative of heartbreak and spiritual uplift.
In the postings, Bloemers writes with the exuberance of her famously upbeat father — a devoted younger daughter who says she copes with the grimness of her father’s decline with Biblical quotations, music, family meals and the generosity of friends and neighbors.
Late last May, she described her wish that the next day’s biopsy on her father’s tumors could be performed in a crowded baseball stadium, rather than in Duke University Medical Center’s Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center.
“Dad loves to hear clapping, cheering and lots of enthusiasm,” she wrote, “so let’s get rowdy for ‘The Kid.’ ”
Several days later, after Carter, who is 57, was found to have glioblastoma, an aggressive, fast-moving cancer, Bloemers’s sadness at the physical changes visible in her father was tempered with the hope of a miracle.
“Team Carter believes that dad will hit one out of the park,” she wrote. “We are pouring the ‘unknown’ and fearful thoughts to Jesus and not allowing Satan to get the best of us.”
Then, last Thursday afternoon, Bloemers wrote “with tears” about the appearance of “several new spots/tumors on my dad’s brain” on a magnetic resonance imaging exam.
One of his doctors was to visit the family that night, but she has not provided an update since that day.
“The Lord is my strength and shield,” she wrote at the end of her posting. “I trust him with my heart.”
Despite her father’s condition, Bloemers, her sister, Christy, and her brother, D. J., were able to accept the “You Gotta Have Heart” Award for him from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Saturday night at the New York Hilton.
In serving as her family’s health-news emissary, Bloemers is following others who, through traditional methods or social media, have found a means to communicate the details of life-threatening illnesses.
The British-born essayist and atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote as vigorously about his cancer as he did about the myriad subjects that engaged him with a fury before his death last month.
During the 19 months he lived with the same type of brain cancer that Carter has, the former Yankees outfielder and announcer Bobby Murcer spoke regularly about his sickness, returned to work on a limited basis for the YES Network and wrote an autobiography that described his faith and his devotion to his wife, Kay.
“God has blessed us so much since I was diagnosed with this brain tumor, and so many blessings have come my way,” he said during an interview shortly before he died. “It’s changed our life for the better.” He died in July 2008.
Michael Douglas has used talk shows and other public forums to discuss his treatment for throat cancer.
And after Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie-Mellon, learned he had pancreatic cancer, he delivered what was called his “Last Lecture,” a direct talk about how to live. It became an Internet sensation and was expanded into a best-selling book before his death in 2008.
Although Carter has made some remarks about his illness, Bloemers’s account has provided a vivid, almost daily picture of a close, Christian family — Carter and his wife, Sandy; their children; three grandchildren; and two sons-in-law — coping with Carter’s debilitating treatments, physical therapy, hair loss, bloating mouth wounds, exercise, headaches, back pain, kidney stones, pneumonia, falls that tore his rotator cuff, blood clots and emergency room visits.
There have been exhilarating moments, as when Carter was healthy enough to make a two-mile nighttime walk with Sandy, when he was able to swim for exercise, when he took notes during a church sermon, or when his white blood cell count rose high enough for chemotherapy. One day last August, Bloemers wrote, “Dad’s tumors are 80 percent better!”
One night, the Carters watched all of his old commercials (Ivory, Pringles and 7Up — with Christy, a toddler, pitching to him). “He looked so good and happy,” Bloemers wrote.
Hank Aaron and Mike Krzyzewski have called, according to Bloemers. His friend and former Expos teammate Tommy Hutton has taken him for physical therapy. There have been disappointments that must have pierced Carter’s athletic pride as he has continued to coach his team. Last September, he threw batting practice, but not to his satisfaction.
“He tried a couple of times, and in his eyes, he had failed,” Bloemers wrote. “He talked with my mom and was saddened/disappointed that things are starting to be ‘taken away from me’ ... golf, throwing b.p.”
But when he coached a game a month later, she wrote that “he enjoyed calling the plays.”
“Dad absolutely loves to be the skipper,” she added.
Last month, Carter wanted to buy a Christmas gift for his wife. Bloemers drove him to a mall, but he was weak, fatigued and shaky and had to sit in a chair. As they left, Bloemers wrote, “the lady who sold me mom’s gift, pulled me aside and said she is adding my dad to her prayer list and hugged me. She saw the tears in my eyes and realized that it meant so much to hear that.”
Then, on Christmas Eve, with D. J. Carter dressed as Santa Claus, Carter stumbled and fell hard into a glass window, then onto the floor, injuring his shoulder. An M.R.I. later revealed a complete tear of his rotator cuff that will require surgery.
“Tough night for Dad, “ Bloemers wrote. “Thankfully, the pain subsided as time went on.”
In the entry that preceded news that more tumors had been found in her father’s brain, Bloemers described his joy at this year’s first practice for his team.
“Now that baseball season has begun, his spirits have lifted a bit and I believe he is excited to see his team,” she wrote. “His weak body limits his physical involvement, but the fact that he wants to go and still teach his players is beyond amazing.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/sp...gewanted=print
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