Mets Police Flashback: The A’s Police

I’m seeing a common thread during this flashbacks..most of my best stuff is actually aced by Randy from the Blog of the Year: The Apple. Once again, a half-baked premise gets sold by Randy’s superior technology.

This one is from August. None of you showed up to honor the 1986 Mets so I changed the site over to the A’s Police for a few hours and wrote about my favorite A’s including Mike Piazza, jason Isringhausen and the time “we” beat Tom Seaver in the 1973 World Series.

Let’s take a look back at another great Athletics pitcher, and one of my favorites, Ron Darling.

Ronnie spent 5 seasons with the A’s, posting a 37-44 record. He spent the earlier part of his career pitching for some long forgotten team that only 35,014 people care about – but for me, I will never forget his start for us in the 1992 ALCS.

The series shifted to Oakland for Game 3, as Juan Guzman took the hill for the Jays while Ron Darling toed the rubber for the A’s. Toronto struck in the second, when Winfield reached on an error by Athletics’ third baseman Carney Lansford, moved to third on a wild pitch by Darling, and scored on a single by Candy MaldonadoRoberto Alomar hit a solo home run in the fourth to give the Jays a 2-0 lead, but in the bottom half of the inning the A’s tied the game with RBI base hits by Baines and Steinbach.

However, the very next inning, Maldonado hit a solo homer of his own, and after Oakland manager Tony La Russa gave Darling the hook in the seventh, the Jays added two unearned runs due to an error by Lance Blankenship and a triple by Lee, making it a 5-2 game. Although the A’s cut Toronto’s lead down to a run, the Jays tacked on single runs in the eighth and ninth. Henke retired the Athletics in order in the ninth, giving Toronto a 7-5 victory and a 2-1 edge in the series.

2 earned runs in 6 innings, a tough loss for Ronnie.  He always seemed to have tough luck, didn’t he?  I’m not sure what happened to #17 (why would he choose that number? Odd.  Wherever he is, I hope he is well and surrounded by old friends.

62+50 = 12

Thanks to Steve for Clouseau-ing this one together:

Dana Brand has been working on a conference in 2012…

On April 26, 27, and 28, 2012, Hofstra University, with the cooperation of the New York Mets, is going to host a conference, open to the public, to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the team. The conference is being organized by me, Dana Brand, and a colleague of mine at Hofstra, Richard Puerzer. In the next few months, we expect to be sending out a Save the Dates announcement and a Call for Papers Announcement. Other correspondence will follow in the course of 2011.

We are currently assembling mailing lists for the conference. If you would like to receive our announcements, please e-mail me at [email protected]. If you’d like to receive the announcements only by snail mail, please give me your name and address. If you’d only like to receive our announcements by e-mail, please give me your name and e-mail address. If you’d like to receive our announcements by snail mail and by e-mail, please give me both your snail mail and your e-mail addresses.

This is going to be a terrific conference, the first ever to explore ALL ASPECTS of the existence of a major league baseball team. Get on the mailing list, or get the latest information by following the announcements that will appear on my blog.

That I have heard about before and have been excited about for some time.   Steve noticed that Dana posted the following in the same message board thread.

The thing is that the Mets, over the years, are not being consistent about when their anniversaries are. The 1986 season was the big deal, as the 25th season. And 2010 will be the 50th season. But right now they prefer to celebrate the 50th anniversary in 2012. At least, that’s what they said to us as we began to initiate the conference.

Old guys like me remember that they celebrated the 25th in 1986….and if you count on your fingers you will find that 1986 was the 25th season much like 2011 will be the 50th season (go ahead and try it 62, 63, 64…)

Cynical guys like me realize that they can celebrate the 25th anniversary of 1986 this season and get some old guys like me to show up (but inly about 35,000 of us based upon 8/1/10) and then celebrate the 50th in 2012 (and then the 30th of the Tuggies in 2013).

Anyways, here’s to hoping that when 50 does happen they TAKE THE EXCUSE to look like this.

..

A few folks have sent in cool things to [email protected]

Keep ’em coming!  I will be rolling them out as the days go by.  Today I’m trying to not be on the computer all day.

Who is gonna tell K-Rod he ain’t pitching?

Interesting discussion on Mets Blog about signing Fuentes in an attempt to prevent K-Rod from reaching his vesting option.

It’s very interesting…but what happens to K-Rod when you bring in another closer type and start using that guy to finish games.  Does K-Rod just smile and say gee whiz, I love the team, it’s great that we’re winning and I am happy to not make $17 million next year?

Even if you don’t bring in Fuentes, what is Colactus to do when the Mets are 10 back on September 1 and K-Rod has pitched in 45 games?

Fortunately, K-Rod is a level headed person with no signs of aggression, and the Mets clubhouse has been free of selfish pitchers.