Last night I had a great time talking to Rob Castellano of Amazin Avenue about the Mets farm system on THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN. Today Rob has a great Q & A with Jim Calis of Baseball America.

Last night, under the steady hand of Dave Jauss, the Mets continued their Home Sweet Home ways with a great 8-2 win over the Cards. Before the game, Jerry Manuel was informed he was to take the night off for banging brims with umpire Doug Endings in LA on Friday. Manuel asked if he could delay his suspension until today so he could name me the Manager for the night, as a nice birthday present, but Bob Watson nixed the idea.

You know it’s your birthday when……..Your family has a smile on their faces when you say you’d like to leave at 2PM for a 7PM game at Citi Field. I just love to see them grit their teeth in a big grin saying “Sure Dad no problem, we love going to games 4 hours before game time”

We all know the Mets have a bad record when it comes to dealing with concussions but it seems hard to kill them over Jason Bay head injury. Bay did not show concussion symptoms after smacking into the left field wall at Chavez Ravine and he was checked out by Dodger team doctors. In fact Bay himself thought he was just dehydrated on the flight home to NY. Hopefully after a couple or three days Bay will be fit to play.

Don’t forget to check out my THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN store at Cafe Press

Kudos to Paul Lukas and the great Uni-Watch site for calling bullshit on these so called retro uni’s the Mets are hawking. As Lukas so eloquently states, these are the same pinstriped uniforms the Mets never wear only in a darker shade of white. Plus they still have the name on the back and of course the ugly ass black shadow. I guess the black is appropriate though as Mets fans we are always in mourning.

If the Blue Jays are dumb enough to trade Roy Halliday to either the Highlanders or Red Sox then Jeffey Skill Sets may have competition for the dopiest executive in baseball. Trading Halliday to their AL East biggest competitors would be like the Mets trading Johan Santana to the Phillies or Braves  Oh shit, I hope I didn’t give Jeffey an idea?

Even though this doesn’t make sense because it’s the right move to make and the Mets the last couple of years haven’t made many right moves, I still feel the Mets will be a major player in the Halladay Sweepstakes.

Mets Lifers are selling some great t-shirts that depict Keith Hernandez’ 17 and Mike Piazza’ 31 as retired numbers and shirts commemorating Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

The Mets made it official naming their new and improved coaching staff for 2010. Razor Shines leaves the third base coaches box after a horrendous season there and will be relegated to first base where we can do limited damage.

Third base will be manned by Chip Hale who worked for the Minnesota Twins during the successful Tom Kelly era. (How great would it be to have Tom Kelly step in as Mets manager? In fact I may post Kelly’s picture and managerial stats once a week to get the drums beating)

Dave Jauss will be Jerry Manuel’ new bench coach but his real claim to fame is he is the son of legendary Chicago sporst writer Bill Jauss. Papa Jauss was a member of one of favorite all time TV shows The Sportswriters on TV which used to play here on the old SportsChannel network.

Back and hopefully better are Old School Dan Warthen and Randy Niemann  and of course HoJo .

The most important and some what puzzling hire was that of Terry Collins as the Minor League Field Coordinator. From reading his resume I can’t figure out what Collins qualifications are to get such an important job? It’s not like he is coming in with and championship pelts on his belt or a list of players that were developed under his rein plus last year he was managing in something called the Northwoods Summer League. When you look at his body of work hw sure has held a lot of jobs in baseball and not too many with success. I guess as long as he doesn’t curse out the bushers and take his shirt off he’ll be ok.

{UPDATE: Mark Harrington of The Buffalo News thinks Collins is not only a great hire but the guy to step in if (when) J-Man gets the ax this season.}