34 photos of Padres Petco Field

 

One day I woke up in San Diego.  The weather was of course beautiful, but the Padres were not home.

When I travel I like to play “if I lived here would I root for the xxx’s” game.  The Giants, yes.  The Diamonbacks no.  The Padres..well I could see myself getting bleachers and sitting near the area with the sand.  (In all these scenarios I am rooting for the Mets as well and only rooting for my adopted team when irrelevant to the Mets.)

Seemed like a nice park.  I have heard it has the same obstructed view plexiglass issues as Citi Field does (and the Giants have).

The Padres are presently using a too-complicated font (especially on the road jerseys).  They had it right with the previous design…a dark blue and orange mixture.

Anyways…here’s some random photos.  Next year I think I am going to book a west coast swing…hopefully MLB will schedule an old style SF-LA-SD stretch.

The gallery is after the jump, click on any image for a bigger version. Continue reading “34 photos of Padres Petco Field”

Miracle Mets record

Chris turned me on to a place called Fleetwood Sounds that has some interesting items we’ll be taking a look at in the next few days.

Audio CD
· Number Of Discs: 1
· Packaging: Jewel Case with Booklet and Tray Card

Narrated by Lindsay Nelson

A dream season for the 1969 Mets as the one time ragamuffins capture their first World Championship. Listen to all the memorable moments of glory from that 1969 campaign and recount the history which led to the New York Mets date with destiny.

The Miracle Mets – From Marvelous Marv to a Miracle. One hour of fun, fans, interviews and play by play action.

Catching Tom Seaver

Osh41 sent this to me and I was blown away.  I am always fascinated by the almost return of Seaver in 1987, so this post is gold.  With permission of the author Gus Ramsey here’s a reprint of his Catching Tom Seaver article, and be sure to check out his cool site.  Here’s Gus…

THE BACKGROUND:
Tom Seaver. John Elway. Julius Erving. Those are my sports idols. Those are the three guys I grew up adoring; oohing, aahing and genuflecting over every athletic maneuver they made. Seaver was first. Baseball was the sport that first captured my attention. In 1973, when I was 6, my friend’s grandfather was a minority owner of the Mets, so we went to a lot games. One day, my friend and I went to a game in our Mets “uniforms” and had our picture taken with a bunch of the players and their manager, the one and only, Yogi Berra. It was first class all the way, so my love of the Mets was deep at a very early age. Seaver, of course, was the primary object of that love. He was The Franchise, everyone’s favorite player. When the Mets traded him in 1977, it broke my heart. I was 10. There was no Internet, no Baseball Tonight, no talk radio, hence, no warning signs that this was coming. At least in today’s world even neophyte Mets fans have an inkling that their favorite players may soon be gone. When news of the Seaver trade broke, it hurt more than any pain I had experienced. When he returned to the team in ’83, it was a joy unlike any I had experienced. And I was a 16 year old boy. That’s a lot of joy! And then, the following season, poof!, he was gone again. Off to the White Sox for two seasons and his 300th victory.
It was easier that time because he was getting older and I was older. I understood the dreaded “business side of baseball” much better. We avoided the emotionally apocalyptic Seaver vs The Mets World Series in ’86 when Tom injured his knee and was unable to pitch for Boston. He retired at the end of that season. 311 wins and a ticket punched for Cooperstown.

THE SETUP:
In May of 1987 I was 20 years old. I was home from college, working during the day and hanging out with friends at night. The typical college kid summer. Well, except for the part where Tom Seaver was coming to my house once a week. During his time with the Mets in the ’70s, Seaver lived right down the road from us and would would stay in shape during the off-season by playing hoops with his buddies and some of the faculty members, at the school where my dad taught. My dad was the athletic director, so Seaver would always have to go through my dad to get into the gym.

Jump back to ’87. My dad is into baseball memorabilia. He reaches out to Seaver about doing a deal where my dad advertises access to Seaver, people mail in items for Seaver to sign, Seaver comes to the house and signs them, they split the money. So once a week Seaver is coming over to sit down for an hour or so and sign all the stuff that has been sent in.

In 1987 the Mets pitching staff was a mess. Doc Gooden began the year in rehab. Bob Ojeda was lost for the season. Sid Fernandez was erratic. So the Mets picked up the phone and called Tom Seaver. They wanted to know how his knee was and if he was interested in pitching for them. As I would soon learn, he was interested.

One day in May, I had just made it home from work when Seaver walked in the house with a baseball glove in his hand.

“Hmmmm. What’s up with that?” I wondered.

Tom didn’t waste any time. He said to my father the words I will never forget, “The Mets called. They want me to try to come back. I need someone to throw to. Can you catch me?”

My dad was 55 at the time and probably still capable of handling Tom’s stuff, but my dad has always been one to put others, especially his kids, first. “That may not be a good idea. How about Gus?”
Tom looked at me, “How about it?”

“Gee, Tom, I’m not sure. Let me check my very busy 20-year-old-kid-home-from-college schedule.” Well, that’s what I wanted to say. It came out either “hghkadfbkanfafnlph” or “uhhhhhhh, OK, yes, sure, um, now? like right now? I’m ready. I’m ready!”

Tom said he wanted to sign the memorabilia first and then would be ready to go. That was good because it gave me time to do three things. 1) regain consciousness 2) find my first baseman’s glove, which was the closest thing to a catchers glove I had. 3) call my friend, Bill, and say “In about 30 minutes I’m going to be catching Tom Seaver in my front yard. Feel free to come over.”

I think Bill pulled into the driveway before I hung up the phone.

THE MOMENT:
I’m standing in my front yard, playing soft toss with Tom Seaver. After a few minutes, Tom paces off 60 feet 6 inches, marks where the rubber would be and gets ready. I take a towel and make a home plate out of it. As I lower into my squat I am more nervous than at any point in my life. I’ve played in high school hoops championship games. I’ve done some public speaking in front of large crowds. I’ve taken my drivers test. I’ve lost my virginity. But nope, never more nervous than right now. I’m about to catch the person I grew up idolizing. Surreal doesn’t begin to describe it. Tom starts firing fastballs in my direction with his classic “drop and drive” delivery. The sound is unmistakeable, “pssssst-POP, pssssst-POP!”

24 years later the dichotomy of the moment is not lost on me. With each pitch, 20 year old me is thinking “I’m catching Tom Seaver! I’m catching Tom Seaver!” 60 feet, 6 inches away the 41-year old legend is thinking, well, I’m not sure what he’s thinking but it wasn’t “I’m pitching to Gus Ramsey! I’m pitching to Gus Ramsey!”

I do know this, Tom is giving my father a dissertation on pitching. My dad is standing right next to him and Seaver is going through all the finer points of his delivery; what he’s looking to accomplish, what his mental approach is, showing him his grips. The moment is as great for my dad as it is for me. “He spoke about dividing the strike zone into quadrants, ” my dad recently recalled. “and how he knew from experience which quadrant was best to pitch to based on his knowledge of the hitter.”

“I’m going to throw some sliders now,” Seaver says to me.

“OK…. what does that mean?” I ask.

“The ball will break from your left to your right,” Seaver says matter of factly. And so it did. The pitch would come in directly at my left knee and I would catch it in front of my right ankle. If Tom had not told me what the pitch was going to do, he would have broke every toe on my right foot because there is no way I would have reacted in time to catch it.

THE LEVITY:
Bill is standing off to the side. He’s taking it all in. He’s trying hard not to interfere.

“Hey Tom, how about if Bill stands in here like a batter and gives you a strike zone?” I ask.

Tom takes a second to towel off his face and waves Bill in. After a few more fastballs, Tom starts to throw his lollipop curve ball. He had begun throwing it with the Red Sox. It was a big, looping pitch that was probably no harder than 65 miles per hour.

After a few of them, Bill pipes up, “I think I could hit that pitch.”

Tom pauses, looks up from his thoughts and says, “Really? OK. You dig in and look for that pitch.”
Tom rocks back and fires a fastball. For Bill, it either seemed like 110 mph or it was moving in slow motion. Either way, it was coming in the general vicinity of his head. I jumped and reached for the ball but couldn’t grab it. It was a good 15 feet behind or over Bill’s head. As I ran off chasing the ball, laughing all the way, Bill took time to consider the 18 years of his life that had just passed before his eyes.

THE CONTINUATION:

Shortly there after Tom proclaimed himself good and we were done. The palm on my left hand looked like I had held it against a stove top for 20 minutes, but I wasn’t feeling anything but giddy.
“Do you think you’ll be free to do this a few more times?” Tom asked me.

Of course I was. The next three sessions were at Tom’s house. Among the highlights: seeing his 3 Cy Young awards hanging in his office and him getting mad that Frank Taveras, not Bud Harrelson, was the shortstop on my all-time Mets Microleague team. That summer I was playing Bill in a 162-game season against his all-time Red Sox team on his computer baseball game, and I had told Tom that my starting lineup did not include Harrelson.

“Why?”

“It’s an offensive game, Tom. It doesn’t take defense into consideration. Taveras hit .279 in ’80,” I explained.

“Doesn’t matter. Harrelson has to be your shortstop. Change it.”

“But Tom, I…”

“Change it,” he demanded.

I changed it.

THE AFTERMATH:

Even though Tom wanted to keep our throwing sessions under wraps, I couldn’t help but tell a few friends. (Can you imagine if Twitter was around back then??!) So, after a few meetings, a friend asked, “How’s he throwing?”

“Well,” I said with all sincerity, “He’s the best I’ve ever caught.”

On June first, the story broke. The back page of the Daily News blared, “Mets Give Tom the Call!” I read the article breathlessly, wondering if Tom would mention the outstanding job a young Gus Ramsey was doing in helping him get ready for his triumphant return. Nope. Oh, well. That’s OK. My reward is the experience.

During our first session, my mom had been smart enough to take out her camera and snap some pictures of me catching Tom. I took that photo, and a full page picture of Tom from one of my Mets yearbooks, had him sign both and framed them together. “To Gus- hope I didn’t hurt your hand. Tom Seaver” is what he wrote.

Eventually Tom started going into Shea Stadium and throwing there, in front of the Mets brass. They sent him to Port St. Lucie to pitch a simulated game. As a Mets fan I was emotionally and personally invested in this, so when news came that a less-than-accomplished backup catcher, Barry Lyons, had gone 6-for-6 off Tom and the comeback was over, it stung. The June 14th edition of the Daily News had a picture of Seaver walking away from the cameras, team jacket over his shoulder, with a caption of “It’s over!”

The next summer, Tom was nice enough to send me two tickets for Tom Seaver Day at Shea Stadium.
I’ve had the good fortune of running into him over the years, including a handful of times in Cooperstown when I was up there for the annual inductions. Even though Tom always called Jerry Grote “his catcher,” I like to think that I was his first choice for Grote’s backup.

THE PERSPECTIVE:
Recently, on SNY’s Mets Weekly, Seaver gave an interview and was asked “other than the World Series, what was your favorite moment of your career?”You can see it here at the 1:15 mark.

http://www.metsblog.com/2011/05/23/video-tom-seaver-talks-mets-301-and-jose-reyes/

His answer caught me off guard but when thinking about it, it made perfect sense. Seaver always referred to the pitcher’s mound as his “office.” When he attempted to make his comeback, he was working. My small part in it was a dream come true. A bizarro reality moment that I could never have imagined. For him, it was a step in trying to get back on that mound, the beginning of the process of trying to get back to work in his office. He took great pride in the time and effort it required to accomplish all that he had, to build a Hall of Fame career. So it doesn’t surprise me now that he buzzed Bill’s tower a bit when Bill proclaimed he could hit Tom’s curveball. Pride. It doesn’t surprise me that he fought for “his shortstop”, the guy who had made countless plays behind him, to be the shortstop in some silly computer game. Pride. And it doesn’t surprise me that he looks back at win #301, a complete game effort, and tears up. Pride. It’s a powerful emotion.

24 years later, I look at the experience and am still amazed that the baseball gods altered the stars in a way that resulted in Tom Seaver pitching to ME in my front yard. While my amazement of that occurrence never wanes, my appreciation of it grows by the day.

Wow.  Awesome.  Gus, thanks for letting me share this with the crew over here.  What a great story.  And thanks to Osh41 who tells me that “Bill” is Bill Simmons.

Things like this make me glad I started my dopey blog. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did.

Power Outage?

Power outage?
by Tom Borowski

As any thought of a wildcard race has been extinguished as the Mets fall to 4 games below .500, I keep watching every day in hopes of seeing something that can make me feel good about the Mets lineup moving forward into next season.

While most of the fans and the media will sweat out the pursuit of bringing back Jose Reyes, I think there is a deeper flaw in the lineup that Sandy Alderson and company will have to work on. Certainly, I am not minimizing the value of Reyes, I just don’t see how bringing him back will fix all problems with the lineup’s lack of production. There is a serious lack of punch in the middle of the Mets lineup, and bringing in the fences isn’t going to solve the problem. The Mets need to add some real power in the heart of the order, and that’s the bottom line. Where to find it, is the question.

Having a healthy David Wright is a good start. Amid little to no fanfare, David Wright quietly broke the Mets record for career total bases during Thursday’s matinee against the Padres. To put that in perspective, Wright is only 28 years old. It appears he is viewed by the organization as a cornerstone of their future, and rightfully so. Despite criticism for various reasons, Wright has established himself as a middle of the order slugger and a perennial all-star, having a minimum of 26 homers and 102 RBI in 5 of his last 6 seasons. In his off year, the Mets treacherous first season at Citifield, he hit .307 while his 10 homers were good for 2nd on the team. When he’s hot, he’s one of the better hitters in the league, but Wright is not capable of carrying a team on his oiwn. With Carlos Beltran out of town, and that production not being adequately replaced, Wright is the only source of power in the current Mets lineup.

I believe that Ike Davis will be a legitimate cleanup hitter, and if he can remain healthy I’m sure the Mets will be banking on that. But in the context of planning for 2012, we must remember that Davis has yet to play a full season in the big leagues, and has just 26 career homeruns. Though we all hope for a breakout season in 2012, it has to be considered where he is at in his career, and how much the team can rely on him- especially coming off a bizarre injury.

Lucas Duda is currently showcasing himself for the rest of 2011 trying to win his place on the team next year. Despite his 4th homer of the season Sunday, he now has just 8 career major league round trippers in a little over 500 plate appearances. Daniel Murphy as well, for instance, is another player we all hope develops a little more power. Murph has a total of just 20 big league bombs in the parts of 3 seasons that he has played. I’m not quite sure how much the fans would be behind him when he’s not hitting .320.

So again, where are we getting middle of the lineup protection in 2012? It’s becoming more and more unlikely that Jason Bay will ever return to his form as a legitimate 30-100 type, and there’s not going to be any substantial power numbers from the shortstop or catcher positions as well. So who is even available?

Internally, there are few options in the high level minor leagues that seemingly could be a factor next season. With a corner outfield position fitting to be the most likely spot for an upgrade, maybe next year is the year that Fernando Martinez can stay healthy and make the team out of spring training. He’s started to develop power in triple-A, which he flashed against the Yankees early this season. Injured injured triple-A center fielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis has also demonstrated good power over the last 2 seasons, but is not viewed as a high rated prospect.

The outfield free agency class won’t be a major source of upgrade, as aside from Beltran, the best remaining talent pool via free agency includes the likes of Josh Willingham, Michael Cuddyer, Nate McLouth, and I guess you can throw Nick Swisher in there as well.

If you remove Beltran’s 15 homers this season, the Mets would be currently tied for last place in the National League for team homers with San Diego. I may be bending the statistics here a bit, but the point is very relevant. Maybe there’s a creative trade that Team Alderson can come up with, or is the plan to go with the young players we are watching now? Moving Wright in a deal, which by accounts is unlikely, would be a huge mistake by removing the one established dangerous bat in the lineup. Teams that want to win look to keep players like that AND resign their existing players- not liquidate for marginal prospects or lesser players. This is why I believe that unless Reyes gets “Carl Crawford” money from another team, the Mets need Wright, Reyes, a healthy Davis… and some additional help if they are planning on contending next season. You can’t go to war with 3 automatic outs in the lineup every night.

To quote Sandy Alderson from last December in an interview, “Chicks dig the long ball, and so do I.” I’m interested to see where he can find that middle of the order production next season… or are we just bringing the fences in instead?

Who do you want to see the Mets go after in the offseason? Or are you comfortable with letting the youngsters like Duda or Martinez develop? Let us know!

3 hours of 1983 Mets video

Wow, I don’t know when I will get THREE HOURS to watch this but, here’s a three hour video of the 1983 Mets (that team has Seaver, Hernandez and Strawberry).

Go 45 minutes in to see Darryl go deep, in a blue uniform.  If you scroll through you can also find a young(er) Chris Berman and Uncle Floyd