Author: Shannon Shark @metspolice

Here’s the official press release related to the Mets “Teammates in the Community Week”

Continue reading “Mets Teammates in the Community Week”

Long time readers to Mets Police will recognize me and may have noticed that I haven’t been around much the last few months.  Truth of the matter is I took a leave of absence from the force for a while because – and it pains me to say this – my wife and I moved out of Queens and down to the Philadelphia area.

Yes, I am now living behind enemy lines in Phillies country.

I’m surrounded by Phillie red – almost makes me miss the black drop shadow (Sorry Shannon).

But thankfully this is the 21st century and even though I may be trapped like a POW, with all the tools and information available I prefer to think of myself as a Col. Hogan down here (too old a reference for some?).  So every now and then I’ll try and pass along observations from behind the Red Curtain.

Now where’s my Red Cross care package?

According to the Dallas Business Journal the Mets “completed a refinance” earlier this month and “required the owners to put up more personal collateral than they wanted.”

There’s some financial stuff mentioned that I am not smart enough to understand.

Before we all go running into the hills screaming about Madoff and the free agent market and making up crazy theories I will point out that I personally have refinanced my mortgage twice to avail myself of more favorable rates.

As I said earlier, it’s Amazin’ the amount of content out there about this team.  All I did was check my email.   Thanks to Dan for sending this one in from exile.

One thing I realized while I was away is that there sure is an awful lot of content about this team.

I rarely find myself struggling to find things to talk about, and that’s even more Amazin’ when you figure that for the most part I leave things like “What will happen to Maine?” or “Oliver Perez Anything” to other sites that do a great job and a better job than I’d ever do.

Around these parts I’m interested in the fan aspect of things…the view from behind the plexiglass….and the bad and good of the actual team and organization.  I liked posting that communuty servive stuff this morning.   In the old days that would be maybe one line in the bullet-points stuff in the newspaper.   Maybe an off-day story.   So I’m happy to give voice to the good, and plan to share more as the week heads forward (I’m guessing and anticipating that the Mets will take photographs of these events).

I have several ways I track the popularity of the blog – and one of the counters I use shows over 1 million page views for the year….over 1.1 actually, and technically since the site redesign in January or February whenever that was.

Now it’s the counter I find the least accurate and I don’t really believe the number but holy cow just to see a 7 digit number associated with this stuff is really really cool.

Back to the content – it’s almost too much.   Not in a work-load way, I enjoy it thoroughly…but in a “is it too much that nobody sees it?” way.  That’s one of the reasons I push the free email subscriptions and the free Google reader subscriptions. That way I know the stuff is getting read (and will give me a hard number in case Dunkin’ Donuts ever takes the hint – by the way the Yankees promotion is over.   I did some first-hand research this morning).

Man that was a really really long-winded way to say that so much of the content comes from you and to set up this email from Chris:

Hey Shannon,

As much as I loathe Mushnick and rarely agree with him, he is right in his story about Mets’ players ignoring the Mets fans in Baltimore last weekend. It was one of those things that you notice but doesn’t really register right away. I was standing in the 10^th row behind the dugout screaming and cheering with everyone and I too was a bit annoyed at the time but was too happy with the 5-1 win to really care. But as you can see in the attached picture I took at the end of the game, there is a large group of fans waiting at the dugout and almost all of the players’ heads are down – out of 11 coaches/players in the picture, only 3 are even looking up – they walked off the field looking dejected, almost as if they lost the game. It is wrong and disrespectful to ignore fans who were so dedicated that they traveled 200+ miles to watch them play. I’m not asking for them to throw us the jerseys off their backs, but a simple smile or wave would have been nice. Poor job by a bunch of millionaires to forget that a likely whopping .35 cents of their salary comes from each of those fans!

1.  I love Mushnick.   He’s been ripping black uniforms since before even the Mets had black uniforms.   Between Mushnick and Paul Lukas at Uni Watch I’m just some black uniform complainer wanna-be.   I’m the Black Crowes to their Rolling Stones.   My music ain’t bad, but I know my place in the pantheon of complaining about black uniforms.

2.  I’d love to hear another side to the Baltimore story.   Are there any ex-players out there?   Is it “dude, three hours in the heat, all I am thinking of is that I want a shower and a glass of water.”  Is it “I’m so excited we won I just wanna high-five the guys?”  Is it “Jerry told us to be in front of our lockers in three minutes?”   I can’t believe there is a conscious thought to ignore the dude in the blue hat.   Maybe you guys were wearing black caps and the Mets thought you were Orioles fans?  Wear blue next time.

Seriously, there’s gotta be a reason.

However, Player X how about you look a kid in the eye and give a thumbs up while you trot down the stairs for that glass of water and Jerry’s hypothetical meeting.

B-Palm sent the below in as a comment:

I was at the game on Friday night in Baltimore, got there early during BP. Shouted Happy Birthday to Jose Reyes and got a big smile on his face and pointed at me to kind of say thank you. Made my freaking night.

After the game the team seemed to acknowledge the crowd with Barajas conversing with fans in the stands for a minute or 2.

One fans perspective sent in….and the Mets get a bad rap

Anyone got any theories or alternate versions of the post-game story?

It looks like the Mets are planning to have a big community service week….all good stuff and deserves to be mentioned.

On Tuesday, Mets players will be working alongside 50 volunteers to help beautify a community garden in Harlem. They’ll be planting trees and flowers, installing grills and a water irrigation system.

On Wednesday, the Mets will paint a YMCA roof in Brooklyn white as part of the NYC Cool Roofs program to paint hot black roofs with a cool reflective white paint to help reflect the sun’s rays back into the atmosphere.  The green initiative reduces greenhouse gas emissions, local temperatures and energy costs.

Thursday, The Mets will help take care of dogs and cats up for adoption at a midtown Manhattan animal shelter in support of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, a coalition of more than 160 animal rescue groups and shelters to end the killing of healthy and treatable cats and dogs.

On Friday, The Mets will visit a park in Corona, Queens to paint a playground and hold a baseball clinic for local Little Leaguers who have devoted their time to improving their park.  The project is organized by the City Parks Foundation, which operates in more than 750 parks around the city to present a broad range of free arts, sports and educational programs and empowers citizens to support their parks on a local level.

In the afternoon, the Mets Alumni Association Presented by Citi will participate in Teammates Week by joining Mets front-office staff and Citi volunteers on an apple repack organized by Citi Harvest.  More than 25,000 pounds of apples will be placed into bags to be delivered to food pantries across the city. City Harvest helps feed the hungry by collecting excess food and delivering it to more than 600 community food programs across New York City.  Mets alumni will present a volunteer from City Harvest with the “Teammates in the Community” award during an on-field, pre-game ceremony.

That’s great stuff.  I’ll pass along pictures as I get them.  Lets seem some comments on this post!