Thank you Bengi Molina for NOT signing with the NY Mets and thank you Brian Sabean for bailing out the Mets with your offer to Bengi Molina.

Now that the Mets have $5 mil lying around they can either put that money towards giving Ben Sheets and incentive filled deal and strike before some other team grabs him or they could put that money towards a buyout of Rogers (Hornsby) Castillo or keep Castillo and use the money towards giving Orlando Hudson a deal and left Castillo be a part time player/groundskeeper. I know it’s a pipe dream that the Mets would buyout Castillo and sign O-Dog so please Jeffey Baby, let’s give the cast to Sheets!!!!!!

More good news, Jeff Francouer signed for just 1 year. Rumor is that Freddy Skill Sets and Uncle Saul Katz made a deal Richard Heene for one of his balloons and Jeffey and Omar are now orbiting around the skies of Corona.

Metsgrrl just received a framed picture from opening day at $iti field for being a loyal season ticket subscriber. The note that came with it wished her a HAPPY HOLIDAY. Obviously the Skill Sets waited until all holiday items were at 90 % off to buy the frames the pics came with.

As much as I feel the Mets need to go full force for at least 2 starting pitchers, they still need a catcher. I like Omir Santos but his presences behind the plate has been questioned within the organization. I’m fine with Henry Blanco as a one half of a catching tandem as he is strong defensively. I can’t see going after Yorvit Torrealba with a lawsuit against the Mets still awaiting trial so the guy who makes the most sense would be Rod Barajas. Barajas is nothing at the plate but he’s very good behind it and the Mets need a very good defensive catcher.

Yes it is outstanding that the Mets have announced that Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Davey Johnson and Frank Cashen will be inducted into the NY Mets Hall of Fame this summer. But isn’t it remarkable that all four of these gentlemen are not in there already. In fact the last player to be inducted into the Mets HOF was Tommie Agee in 2002.  Induction day will be August 1^st,  so far that’s the first “must game to be at” for 2010.

Sad news from the NY Rangers. John Haligan the teams long time PR man and top Rangers and NHL historian passed away today at age of 68. For years I sat in Section 432 of Madison Square Garden watching the Rangers and Halligan and his wife Janet were the two of the great people at MSG. John always had time to talk to us between periods and he would bring us the score sheets and any news on injuries. He respected us as people and as Ranger fans. This is a very sad day indeed.

I’ve told my kids, if I start to get crotchety and nasty when I get old they have permission to dump me at the Port Authority and never worry about me again. I don’t think Murray Chass made that deal with his kids.

As you see on the right hand side of this site, I am a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance and I should say a proud member. I am also honored to be a member from the beginning when Daniel Shoptaw, writer of C70 At The Bat (a St Louis Cardinals blog) sent me an e-mail about his idea. I could not write back to him faster to say “thanks for asking me and yes, I’m all in”. It was one of the best moves I’ve made since I started blogging.

The BBA has grown so much between writing, podcasting and having our own SABR chapter that I guess with success comes the slings and arrows of jealousy. That’s where Murray Chass comes in.

Even though he wrote with a pro-Highlander slant, due to being the Highlander beat man for the Times until 1985 when he was bumped up to the National baseball beat. His baseball columns in the NY Times were always must reads. When labor strafe hit baseball, no one had the access and the coverage of the negogation like Chass. He is also in the Baseball Hall of Fame by way of wining the J.G.Taylor Spinks Award in 2003. Chass “retired” from the NY Times in 2008. I put quotation marks on retired because it was more a buy out that a voluntary decision on Chass’ part. Chass was in poor health for awhile and I can sincerely say I am glad he is back to full strength and healthy once again.

But I do have a problem with Chass and that is because he has a problem with me. Well, not just me, but baseball bloggers in particular. The BBA sent out a press release which had a few spelling, math an grammar errors on them. Instead of just hitting the delete button, Chass thought this would an excellent time to prove his point that bloggers are an embarrassment to the written word. He pointed out every grammatical mistake and ridiculed the spelling errors. He laughed  at the BBA because we felt that with Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven getting 74.468 % of our votes in the BBA Hall Of Fame, because we rouned the number off to 75 %. Chass berated us for not having basic math skills.

Now, when Daniel sent out the response he received in a e-mail from Chass that made the bloggers of the BBA seem to uneducated buffoons, my first response was to act like an uneducated buffoon. I was ready with a post filled with F-bombs, and disparaging remarks about his employer showing him the door, but one of the best reasons to be a member of the BBA is I was the only uneducated buffoon to act this way.

See, even though Chass has a strong dislike to the folks who make up the BBA because we don’t have a college degree in English or Journalism, or some of the membership write and analyze baseball via Sabermetrics, or the fact that some of us are just fans who have played, coached, or watched baseball our whole lives and have now found a new way to express our love for the game, just like Ol’ Murr. In fact, while old thinkers like Murray Chass are sent to the showers, the NEW kids on the block are getting hired for jobs at websites to show their graphs with pitch f/x, UZR, VOPR BABIP and all the other facts and figures that not only give insight to fans but to front offices all around baseball as well, to that the old fedora, cigar smokin’ writers react to like Dracula to a cross.

The other thing that set the BBA apart is they know how to respond to such slights. As I said, I was ready to go jihad on old Murray, but Daniel Shoptaw said “no” and so did a bunch of other members. What Shoptaw did was send Chass a reply e-mail, thanking him for pointing out the errors in the press release and for making him send out future releases for proof reading by other members of the BBA before the are published. Clear, rational, ADULT behavior but Daniel Shoptaw proved that he is twice the man that Murray Chass is.

Oh by the way Murry, I see you have a website now and I really shouldn’t link to it since you can’t stand me or what I do but I link to your site as a public service to my readers to show what you wrote about the BBA and to hopefully show my readership it’s best to grow old with gracefully.

I apologize for any grammatical mistakes or spelling error in this post. I’m not a writer, I just play one in cyberspace.

Tonight, tonight, tonight it’s PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL, our first show for the new year. Joe myself and Joe McDonald tonight at 9pmET on Blog Talk Radio as we discuss the Jason Bay signing, the Hall of Fame voting and what will be the next move made by the Mets front office. Our call in line will be open for business so call in and join in the conversation at (646) 595-4462. If you can’t join us live, you can listen to the podcast right  here at Kranepool Society, at our Pro Baseball Central site or at Blog talk Radio   

I guess congratulations are in order to Andre Dawson for his election into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hawk was a solid baseball player and from what you read, was a very nice guy and it seems as long as you’re a very nice guy to the media, you eventually get in the Hall. That would explain why Albert Belle is no longer on the ballot. Belle was an unbelievable offensive player putting up big numbers and one of the great run producers of his time, but the guy made Ron Artest look stable. It’s not just that Belle was a nasty sumnabitch, I honestly think the reporters covering the teams he played for and the out of town media we’re scared shit of him. The only way for payback is to not just keep in out of the HOF but knock him off the ballot altogether.

The only segment of baseball fans that doesn’t have bad feeling for Robbie Alomar not getting in the HOF, are Mets fans. During the reign of the Alomar disaster in Queens, I was dining in one of my favorite spots, the RF food pavilion at Shea Stadum, when I encounter a guy wearing an ALOMAR 12 uni top. When I mentioned that he was one brave Mets fan to wear that jersey, he told me his was a cousin of Alomar’s. We spoke for while and I ask Robbie’s cuz, “what’s the problem with your cousin” he told me the whole family was stumped. He said Alomar was so happy to be in NYC as there was a lot of family there to keep him happy but the cuz then said “he feels like he can’t do it anymore”  The problem that Mets fan had with Alomar was he was coming here off a strong year in Cleveland .336/.415/.541/.956 20HR 100 RBI 30SB so when the deal was made to come to the Mets, we were farting through silk WHAT AN ACQUISTION!!! But what followed was one of the classic crash and burns of a player in baseball history. All said in done, Alomar should have gone in as a first ballot HOF’er his Mets years aside, he is one of the greatest 2^nd basemen of all time.

Supposedly 5 voters sent back blank ballots, two of which are Jay Mariotti and Lisa Olson of AOL. Mind-boggling!.  I know it’s in vogue to call Mariotti a douche bag but a few years ago, Mariotti did a radio show on the defunct One On One Radio Network (620 AM here in NYC) along with Jim Lytke of the AP. It was one of the better sports radio shows I’ve listened to. Mariotti was not the dickhead he has evolved into today. As for Olson, she has always sent in a blank ballot since becoming eligible to vote. I don’t know what to say about that but why even be a member of the BBWA?   The Hall of Fame would be better off letting bloggers pick the Hall members; at least we’d take it seriously.

Tonight, tonight, tonight it’s PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL, our first show for the new year. Joe myself and Joe McDonald tonight at 9pmET on Blog Talk Radio as we discuss the Jason Bay signing, the Hall of Fame voting and what will be the next move made by the Mets front office. Our call in line will be open for business so call in and join in the conversation at (646) 595-4462. If you can’t join us live, you can listen to the podcast right  here at Kranepool Society, at our Pro Baseball Central site or at Blog talk Radio   

I’m in the middle of reading a terrific book about the careers of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson called ‘When The Game Was Ours” that was written with Jackie Mac Mullan, the book chronicles the careers of Magic and Bird as they rejuvenated the game of basketball as both collegiate  and pro players.

The book explores just how similar both players were not just in talent but in mindset, that the team comes first.   One of my favorite parts of the book is the great Celtics-Lakers rivalry that Bird and Magic revived from the days of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. As with Russell and Chamberlain, Bird and Magic both held each other in high regard as men and as basketball players. But when it was game time, the friendship was put on hold and it was all about winning and about the team. A couple of quotes in the book really stood out to me. The first one was from Kevin McHale, the Hall of Fame forward who when asked about his days as a Celtic in the 80’s he said:

“It was the best time of my life”.

“Of all the things we did, what stands out is how naturally we gave of ourselves to the team. No person was bigger than the rest of us”

What struck me about that quote was, here was a team that not only had All-Stars in its lineup, but three Hall of Famers as well. What they all had in common was they bought in to the Celtic way and played for the front of the jersey not the back. All three had the talent to go off and do their own thing but Bird was the leader and lead by example.

Magic Johnson was the same way with the Lakers. His mission was to make everyone around him better and to put up championship banners. He also had the motivation of Larry Bird and vice versa as both men thrived off each others performance.

The other quote that got me thinking was this one by Mychal Thompson who was traded from the San Antonio Spurs to the Lakers and was taken aback by the intensity of the Lakers locker room before a Celtic-Lakers regular season game:

“You couldn’t cut the tension with a chain saw”, Thompson said. The jovial big man, who hammed it up with Magic many time before, was surprised to see that even Johnson was grimfaced. Thompson asked Byron Scott, “So why is everyone so serious around here”? “Because we hate the Celtics”, Scott replied.

I bring all this up as a long segue into what the Mets really need to do this off season, beside getting some decent pitching and a big bat, they need to find out who gives a shit and who doesn’t. Not just players but front office people the manage, coaches fans broadcasters everyone associated with this team. Do you think anyone in the Mets clubhouse when asked about playing the Phillies would say they’d want to beat them because they hate them? Are you kidding most players on this Mets team need double doses of Imodium AD when they hit Philly.

The Mets are in dire need of a guy whether he be a front office type, or manager, who just doesn’t give a fuck who gets mad at him to work at getting this team to play not only good smart fundamental baseball but to be a team. The best place for it to come would be from the players side but who on this roster right now has that ability to step up and lead?

The only name that pops into my head is Johan Santana, he has that Magic-Bird mentality but he is not an everyday player and that hinders his ability a bit to be “the guy”. Guys like Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes like to talk the talk but they don’t back it up. They are like me when I say I’m going to drop 10 pounds then I go and eat a half of Entermanns Crumb Cake and wash it down worth a couple of Yoo-Hoo’s.  Its one thing to say what you’re going to do it’s another to go out and do it.

David Wright should be “the guy” and the Mets should have made it know by now the he “is the guy” but the problem with Wright is he is not a Type –A personality guy. I’m not mad at Wright for the season he had, it was good by most standards except for his low HR total, what I’m sad about is that Wright quit on the team. Yes that play where he failed to score before Jeff Francouer was thrown out at 2^nd base for the third out in a game against the Marlins in September. Wright is the face of the franchise he is the guy on all the adds and who makes all the appearances he is the METS. So here it is two months after that blunder and I’m still steaming from that. Sure, Jerry Manuel called him out and benched him the next day but what does that say when the guy who is your franchise player quits? What message does that send to the other 24 players? We saw it with Fernando Martinez when he failed to run out a pop up, not to mention the awful baseball judgment by Angel Pagan, there is a reason why not only the major league team are a bunch of losers but the top two farm teams are losers as well.

Here it is the hot stove season and a lot of the talk is about who will take over for Jerry Manuel when this team hits the skids again. The Mets are run worse than the Knicks, or Nets in fact they’re more like the Fucking LA Clippers.

With all this talk about free agents and all, the best money the Mets could have spent this off season would have been paying off Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel and revamp the whole philosophy of how this franchise does business.  The Mets are said to be going abck to the old style Mets uniform with the cream color and thin pinstripe, they need to go back to the no name on the back of the jersey as well. Nothing will change in Flushing until someone in that clubhouse steps up and challeges his teammates or a manager is brought in to hold players accountable. Hopefully Jerry Manuel will look a this spring training as a way to get that message across. What has J-Man got to lose? He is on the tissue thin ice so if it were me I’d make it known to the players don’t be making to many plans to socialize this spring as they will be working until exhaustion hits.  Let the players know now that this is the policy and if you don’t like or feel you’re up to let us know and we will send you some place else, no matter who you are or how much you make” Time for some tough love.

I don’t know about you but I’m tired of supporting a team that doesn’t give a shit. I know the players don’t take the losses as hard as the fans but Jesus H Christ can’t you act like you actually give a shit? I’ve said the difference between Mets fans and Highlander fans is we root for the team they root for the Championships. But what we also root for is hustle and desire as well.

Maybe Larry Bird and Magic Johnson would like to run a MLB team?

The book explores just how similar both players were not just in talent but in mindset, that the team comes first.   One of my favorite parts of the book is the great Celtics-Lakers rivalry that Bird and Magic revived from the days of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. As with Russell and Chamberlain, Bird and Magic both held each other in high regard as men and as basketball players. But when it was game time, the friendship was put on hold and it was all about winning and about the team. A couple of quotes in the book really stood out to me. The first one was from Kevin McHale, the Hall of Fame forward who when asked about his days as a Celtic in the 80’s he said:

“It was the best time of my life”.

“Of all the things we did, what stands out is how naturally we gave of ourselves to the team. No person was bigger than the rest of us”

What struck me about that quote was, here was a team that not only had All-Stars in its lineup, but three Hall of Famers as well. What they all had in common was they bought in to the Celtic way and played for the front of the jersey not the back. All three had the talent to go off and do their own thing but Bird was the leader and lead by example.

Magic Johnson was the same way with the Lakers. His mission was to make everyone around him better and to put up championship banners. He also had the motivation of Larry Bird and vice versa as both men thrived off each others performance.

The other quote that got me thinking was this one by Mychal Thompson who was traded from the San Antonio Spurs to the Lakers and was taken aback by the intensity of the Lakers locker room before a Celtic-Lakers regular season game:

“You couldn’t cut the tension with a chain saw”, Thompson said. The jovial big man, who hammed it up with Magic many time before, was surprised to see that even Johnson was grimfaced. Thompson asked Byron Scott, “So why is everyone so serious around here”? “Because we hate the Celtics”, Scott replied.

I bring all this up as a long segue into what the Mets really need to do this off season, beside getting some decent pitching and a big bat, they need to find out who gives a shit and who doesn’t. Not just players but front office people the manage, coaches fans broadcasters everyone associated with this team. Do you think anyone in the Mets clubhouse when asked about playing the Phillies would say they’d want to beat them because they hate them? Are you kidding most players on this Mets team need double doses of Imodium AD when they hit Philly.

The Mets are in dire need of a guy whether he be a front office type, or manager, who just doesn’t give a fuck who gets mad at him to work at getting this team to play not only good smart fundamental baseball but to be a team. The best place for it to come would be from the players side but who on this roster right now has that ability to step up and lead?

The only name that pops into my head is Johan Santana, he has that Magic-Bird mentality but he is not an everyday player and that hinders his ability a bit to be “the guy”. Guys like Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes like to talk the talk but they don’t back it up. They are like me when I say I’m going to drop 10 pounds then I go and eat a half of Entermanns Crumb Cake and wash it down worth a couple of Yoo-Hoo’s.  Its one thing to say what you’re going to do it’s another to go out and do it.

David Wright should be “the guy” and the Mets should have made it know by now the he “is the guy” but the problem with Wright is he is not a Type –A personality guy. I’m not mad at Wright for the season he had, it was good by most standards except for his low HR total, what I’m sad about is that Wright quit on the team. Yes that play where he failed to score before Jeff Francouer was thrown out at 2^nd base for the third out in a game against the Marlins in September. Wright is the face of the franchise he is the guy on all the adds and who makes all the appearances he is the METS. So here it is two months after that blunder and I’m still steaming from that. Sure, Jerry Manuel called him out and benched him the next day but what does that say when the guy who is your franchise player quits? What message does that send to the other 24 players? We saw it with Fernando Martinez when he failed to run out a pop up, not to mention the awful baseball judgment by Angel Pagan, there is a reason why not only the major league team are a bunch of losers but the top two farm teams are losers as well.

Here it is the hot stove season and a lot of the talk is about who will take over for Jerry Manuel when this team hits the skids again. The Mets are run worse than the Knicks, or Nets in fact they’re more like the Fucking LA Clippers.

With all this talk about free agents and all, the best money the Mets could have spent this off season would have been paying off Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel and revamp the whole philosophy of how this franchise does business.  The Mets are said to be going abck to the old style Mets uniform with the cream color and thin pinstripe, they need to go back to the no name on the back of the jersey as well. Nothing will change in Flushing until someone in that clubhouse steps up and challeges his teammates or a manager is brought in to hold players accountable. Hopefully Jerry Manuel will look a this spring training as a way to get that message across. What has J-Man got to lose? He is on the tissue thin ice so if it were me I’d make it known to the players don’t be making to many plans to socialize this spring as they will be working until exhaustion hits.  Let the players know now that this is the policy and if you don’t like or feel you’re up to let us know and we will send you some place else, no matter who you are or how much you make” Time for some tough love.

I don’t know about you but I’m tired of supporting a team that doesn’t give a shit. I know the players don’t take the losses as hard as the fans but Jesus H Christ can’t you act like you actually give a shit? I’ve said the difference between Mets fans and Highlander fans is we root for the team they root for the Championships. But what we also root for is hustle and desire as well.

Maybe Larry Bird and Magic Johnson would like to run a MLB team?

Join us tonight  at 9PM EDST for PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL and our guest Bert Sugar as we talk about his new book Bert Sugar’s Baseball Hall of Fame: A Living History of America’s Greatest Game (Running Press) We will also talk about the Mets-Pirates mantinee at PNC and the injury epidemic hitting the Mets. Listen live at Blog Talk Radio or listen to the podcast here or at the Eddie Kranepool Society.

 Bert Randolph Sugar is THE sports historian of our time and he has a new book out that is a comprehensive look at the Baseball Hall of Fame called Bert Sugars Baseball Hall of Fame, A Living History of America’s Greatest Game (published by Running Press) I have been to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY four times and each time I’ve been there I’ve seen an exhibit or artifact I’ve missed in my previous trip and now with this outstanding book that is full of great pictures and of course the writing of Bert Sugar  it puts it all the awe and beauty of the HOF in your hands.

There is a section on the great concessions and give aways by teams throughout the history of baseball. One of my favorite pictures is of the fans of the White Sox during the Bill Veck era where he gave the fans in the grandstand cue cards to decide managerial decisions.  There are of course stories and pictures of all the great players enshrined in the Hall that leaves you wanting to make a trip upstate.

This book is a must for the baseball fan that loves the games history and loves the photographs of players and teams from the beginning of the game to the present  Give it a spot  of honor on your coffee table.

Sure it’s a big series but I think it’s to the Mets benefit that they are playing in Philly since they are so concerned about fan reaction. Remember the words of Bobby Knight, “when you start listening to the people in the stands, you end up joining them”. It seems that it’s not a lack of focus with the Mets but misplaced focus that is doing them in.

On that subject a must listen is Mike Silva’s interview with Kevin Kernan of the NY Post  that connects the paranoia of the owner and front office rubbing off on the uniform personnel. Silva’s comment says it all:

   The Mets have a reputation for trying to control the news around their club. It never works and often makes things even worse in the long run. How can you expect your players to toughen up when management has an equally, if not worse, thin skin? What’s next? You’re going to throw the fans out and play in an empty stadium so you don’t hear any boos? Keep playing like this and you might not need to worry about that.

HOME RUN  Mike!!!!

David Lennon calls out the lack of intestinal fortitude of the Mets:

Often, it’s hard to pin down the intangibles with numbers, but not in this case. With Wednesday’s loss to the Marlins, the Mets (9-12) stumbled to 1-10 when trailing after six innings. After seven, they are 0-11.

The newest member of the Douche Bag Hall of Fame is Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Gonzalez. Its guys like Gonzalez that makes the demise of newspapers easier to take. If a blogger ever wrote a poorly put together piece like this Buzz Bissinger would go to his mother’s basement and kick his ass. I’d call Gonzalez a rank amateur but the fact that he lives and worked in Philadelphia is punishment enough. For a fan base that for vast majority of its existence has been apathetic towards it’s baseball team, they really need a good strong glass of shut the fuck up. Phillies fans are starting to make Highlander fans tolerable.

Shrek and Johnny Bench Santos are safe for a while longer and Brian Schneider is still feeling the effects of a sore calf. Take your time Bri.

Enjoy your weekend and while your snug in your bed think of me sleeping in the woods and don’t smirk.

LET’S  GO METS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!