The Mets Police

January 5, 2010

Bay Mets press conference recap

I really can’t get over the Rod Gilbert thing.

In case you missed it, the Mets went out of their way to have Rod Gilbert get up and present Jason Bay with a Rangers jersey. You know, because Bay is Canadian and Canadians like hockey. Y’all might not want to do that sort of geographical gift with other free agent signings/acquisitions, might not come across as innocuous.

I’ll post a picture when I find one. Unreal.

As Mets press conferences go, it was nice to see David Howard (hey Dave, how about a game?), Omar didn’t mess up, and Jeff Wilpon is decent at what he does although right now he’s on SNY telling me they in essence traded for Reyes and Beltran. The Mets are also insistent about reminding us that there were plenty of home runs at Citi last year.

Bay wore the pinless whites, now the primary uniform, with a blue cap. I guess Charlie Samuels was off today.

I’m sure I’ll have more. Stand by.

January 5, 2010

Mets Police Decade In Review: Howie Rose rips black Mets uniforms on the air

In 2008 I took a lot of shots at Howie Rose because he was citing attendance figures as if there were actually 45,000 people in Shea, when there clearly weren’t (yes I understand the “paid” thing but Howie is better than that.) In 2009, Howie came back strong and I hereby anoint him a general in the Blue Cap Army. From April 19th 2009.

Today I welcome back the real Howie Rose to the Mets Police.

This time last year I was quite frustrated with Mr. Rose as he would tell me every night that there were 40,000 people at Shea when there clearly weren’t (and no he wasn’t talking paid attendance.)

Yesterday, the real Howie Rose was back on the air. The Howie Rose of my youth. The Howie Rose that was such a thorn in the side of the Mets that they once had a rule where he couldn’t be on WFAN until a half hour after the game.

Yesterday Howie opened up the radio cast with a rip into the Mets. I’m paraphrasing but it was something along the lines of “the Mets are actually wearing blue! (sarcastically) Because when your official colors are blue and orange why would you wear blue? It’s the fifth home game and they finally got around to wearing their primary colors, although it’s with the snow whites, maybe one of these days they’ll wear their primary uniforms with the pinstripes.” (That’s pretty close, I wish I had a transcript.)

Look at the two pictures on the left. One looks like a baseball team, the other a softball team. If they want to have Black Uniform Sundays, fine – I’ll eat crow – but would it kill them to look like a baseball team the other six days? Lots of fans this week have sent notes agreeing.

Later in the game Howie took a preemptive strike about moving the fences in for 2010. If you’ve been to a game at Citi you’ll notice the ball doesn’t carry all that well. That’s fine with me, the Mets have always been about pitching. It’s fine with Howie too, and he chided the Mets in advance for even considering moving in the fences. This is our new home, let’s figure out how to play in it and use it to our advantage. We don’t need games decided by luck and winds like the Yankees will at Sammy Hagar Stadium in the Bronx. Pitching and defense.

Hopefully, the real Howie is back. If we can have the uncensored Howie Rose in the booth it will be a great listen.

Howie, I hereby appoint you leader of the No-Black Crusade. Please mention it every single day.

For you kids that know nothing about the Mets prior to Mike Piazza…read this, Howie used to be quite annoying to the Mets back in the day.

Howie would rip the black uniforms again a few days later.

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January 5, 2010

Share your Mets pictures: Mike Piazza

Mike sent this over titled simply “Mike and Mike.”

Share your shots at [email protected]

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January 5, 2010

Now that you’re back at work: cool Mets stuff you missed

Now that everyone is back at work, I thought I’d give you some links to surf while we all kill time until (a) Jason Bay and (b) 5 o’clock. Over the holidays there was some good stuff…here’s some links.

Photos of a dying Shea

Photos from the 1982 Yearbook

Some really great looking Mets uniforms

Some 1986 Mets pennants

The Mets are using “Orange, Blue and You” on the marketing yet we have hideous black uniforms.

Right before the break it seems Albert was told he’s a “bad fan” by the ticket office. The Mets responded quickly.

For Metsivus we had the airing of the grievances.

Rub some dirt on it? As a mets t-shirt?

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January 5, 2010

Idea for Mets: Saturday Seven Ticket Packs

Good morning, should be an active day in Flushing as we wait for Jason Bay to tell us how much he wants to be here. In the meantime, as always I’m here to help the Mets, today I bring another wacky idea for consideration. I floated this one on twitter last week (@metspolice)

Mets, I suspect you are disappointed in the advance sales, and you’ve lost lots of folks from the 15 game pack. Today is a day when people will be excited about your team and you will have the media’s attention. Hopefully one of the first things you do when you get to the office is read Mets Police, so I’m posting this one at the crack of dawn to help you. Someone should figure out between now and 11 how to do this.

Here’s my suggestion…I’m trying to be realistic based upon that it’s easier to sell mid-summer games, and that Craig Marino said discounts don’t make sense.

I propose the Mets announce the following. Saturday Seven Packs. Sell the seats in Promenade Left and make it a “thing” – make that area where the diehards sit, even if we’re cheap.

Package the following:

April 10th vs Washington
May 8th vs SF
June 5th vs Florida
July 10th vs Atlanta
August 28th vs Arizona
September 18th vs Atlanta
October 2nd vs Washington

One game a month. Keep the fans coming out. Honestly I can’t be bothered to compute the ticket prices because I’ll have to look up all seven games instead of just multiplying 7 by $15. Let’s say it’s about a $100-150ish package.

7 Saturdays, one hundred(ish) bucks.

However, we’re not dopes…why should we lock in our money without something extra? Here’s why. Throw in a t-shirt, a cap, whatever is inexpensive for you to make. If it has a corporate sponsor logo on the premium, fine whatever I get it.

Heck you might want to even steal the Blue Cap Army idea….take it, it’s yours.

Blue Cap Army Seven Pack. 7 Saturday games and a blue Mets cap (with a corporate sponsor on the side). $100-150ish.

Promenade Left. Hang a Blue Cap Army sign to designate the section. Make it a “thing.” Engage the fans. Start a tradition.

Have Mr. Met join us for the top of the first…we could start our own version of roll-call, but in our version we’ll leave out the left fielder because we can’t see him (sorry Jason). Quirky but fun for fun’s sake. Sure theYankee fans will say we stole it but we stole Casey and pinstripes too so who cares.

Maybe your sponsor is Pepsi and they put blue caps on the bottles. (Then I make fun of you when the vendors keep the cap, but we’ll do that later on, right now let;’s just get 7 plans). Maybe if I show up on a Tuesday with 10 bottlecaps I get in for free or for fuve bucks or whatever…like the old Shea picnic area when Dallas Green was the manager and an empty can of soda got me in for free.

Seven game packs make a ton of sense to me, but I’m just a dopey blogger. Let’s ask some fans…would y’all buy this?