As a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, I‘ve been asked to make my All-Star selections. The All-Star Game used to be a real big deal a long time ago but now unless it’s played in your city and you are involved in the FanFest and stuff like that, it’s a rather ho-hum three days with out Major League Baseball. I’ve always felt instead of an All Star Game, baseball should make it a 3 Day Festival of Baseball.

You could have a day of an Old Timers Day celebrations at all the ball parks, with each team honoring its history and players of the past by bringing as many former players in  for autograph and picture sessions with the fans. Another day could be a triple header of baseball where the organizations top three farm teams could compete in the big league ball parks. Here in NYC we could have Buffalo-Scranton/Wilkes Barre, Binghamton-Trenton, St. Lucie-Tampa play. Start the first game at 10AM and go from there. It would be a big baseball Block Party. On the third day bring the big league team for a Fan Appreciation Day to let the fans and players mingle together.

I’d much rather have a three day event like that than to see some superstar get one at bat, then climb in his limo for a ride to the airport to get out of town as fast as possible.

Oh well, here are my All-Star sections:

1^st base

NL Albert Pujols

AL Kevin Youkilis

2^nd base

NL Chase Utley

AL Robinson Cano

3^rd base

NL David Wight

AL Evan Longoria

SS

NL Hanley Ramirez

AL Marco Scutaro

LF

NL Ryan Braun

AL Josh Hamilton

CF

NL Angel Pagan

AL Torri Hunter

RF

NL Andre Eithier

AL Jose Bautista

C

NL Miguel Olivo

AL Joe Mauer

P

NL Ubaldo Jimenez

AL David Price

 

So the Skill Sets have sent out invoices to their loyal season ticket holders and some of these customers it seemed got bigger decreases in the invoice than others. If you’re a fat cat who buys tickets in the Metropolitan section you get a bigger break than the guy who buys tickets in the Promenade. It seems the less you know or care about the Mets, the better the Mets organization takes care of you.  Oh yeah, the Skill Sets need a partial payment by December 4^th so they can pay Bobby Bonillia’ his yearly stipend from his buyout.

 

 

I’m a fan of Carlos Beltran as he is a great player and is a very charitable man, but as a GM he leaves a lot to be desired. Beltran stated yesterday he’d love for the Mets to bring back Carlos Delgado for next season. I’m glad Beltran is so fond of Delgado, but the next time I see Delgado at a Mets game it should be for Old Timers Day.

 

Who wouldn’t want a stud pitcher like Roy Halladay? But does it make sense for the Mets to get involved in a trade for the Blue Jay ace? Word is the Highlanders and BOSOX are ready to talk turkey with the Jay-Birds but who knows how much of this is fact or bullshit and if the Mets were to get involved do the Mets have the pieces to make it happen? It seems the Jay want quality over quantity so if you’re the Mets do you have anything that the Jays would want? If you take Vernon Wells of their hands you could get Halladay for nothing but do who wants to saddle themselves with $98.5 mil in contract? As you can see I have a lot of questions but no answers.

 

I saw this last night on via Twitter on the Tirico Suave site and like I said there, this is Gold PURE GOLD. Mike Francesa never looked so hip!

 

I saw a bunch of guys stand around Port Richmond Ave on Staten Island this morning looking for day labor work and I swear one of them was Lou Dobbs.

 

Seems that Chuckie Gruden could be the next head football coach at Norte Dame. I think it’s a foregone conclusion that Charlie Weis is the lamest of ducks at ND and the list of names will be filled with names like Chuckie, Urban Myer, and Skip Holtz to name three but the bottom line is Weis has not only been a coaching disaster but a prick as well. The funny thing about Weis and Eric Manasshole in Cleveland is they want to be like Billy B up in Foxboro but they forget if you want to be a first class asshole you better be a successful first class asshole.

 

On Pro Baseball Central tonight at 9PM EDST on Blog Talk Radio we will discuss the surging Mets and Johan Santana’s performance in Game 1 of the day/nighter plus we’ll keep an eye on Jon Niese in Game 2. We will tie up the loose ends on the Omar/Tony B fiasco and we will have as our guest Shannon Shark from The Mets Police. We’ ll cover those topics plus Mets uniforms, Old Timers Day and a day at $iti Field and you can join in the conversation as well at (646) 595-4462  

If you can’t join us live you can listen to the podcast at our Pro Central Baseball site or right here at TEKS.

 

With the New York Highlanders celebrating their annual Old Timers Day today, many Mets are wondering “where’s ours”? And of course managements response is “Yesh, too much work, not interested” Dave the Lawyer who has moved up the organizational ladder from Head Shyster to Minister of Bullshit, claims lack of fan interest, lack of sponsors and it cost too much as reasons for no celebration of the Bruce Boisclair’, Johnny Lewis’ and Roy McMillan ’of our past. So what the Minster of Bullshit in the Court of Skill is telling the fans is the organization is lazy, unimaginative and really couldn’t give a shit about the teams past as we have seen with our new state of the art park that not until there were embarrassed (yet again) Mets management will address (like moving the retires numbers and the old Home Run Apple from the back of the visitors bullpen to maybe a more heavily trafficked area). It seems ownership is in denial about the teams past and as is the case most times have no grip on the feelings of their fan base. If any group of people deserve to be embarrassed it’s Mets fans for having clueless owners in control of our beloved franchise.

It will be great to see Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan at the 1969 World Championship celebration but the best reunion will be of Nancy Seaver and Ruth Ryan

Man is still taking heat for his crack on the Mets quacks but as we see Gary Sheffield has gone from cramps in the leg to a tweaked hammy. I getting to the point where I think Manuel really doesn’t like being here anymore as that remark tells me he is fed up with the overall ineptitude with the organization.

As much as I think Tim Redding sucks, it’s really not fair what the Mets are doing to the guy just put him out of his misery and stop leaking new to the press then back track but then again what am I thinking only an organization with strong leadership would do that.

By the way why is Tony B the “high ranking official” on this road trip? Where is Omar? Getting his nursing degree?

My 13 yr olds have do or die game today at 2PM it’s win or go home and I’m not ready to end this season. I will be pulling out all stops before the game. I’ve instructed the kids to be at the field by 1PM. I have not shaved in two days so I have a good scruff going. I have a big bag of sunflower seeds that I’ll eat while giving my pep talk and my trusty fungo bat will be in hand and whoever drifts off during my talk will get a shower of shells and the barrel of the fungo pointed at them. The theme will be THE SEASON WILL END TODAY!!!!! I better make sue I do this all the way out in centerfield, it won’t be pretty

I have had the pleasure of meeting both Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry and both are delightful guys. Even with all the troubles they have had in their personnel lives, they are still embraced by Mets fans and they have both found renewed love for the franchise and it’s fans. A Doc Gooden start at Shea was a happening, a festival a celebration of Mets baseball that has not been matched since. The sight of Darryl Strawberry whipping that bat and hitting tape measure home runs reminds us of when the Mets were the toast of the town and I am so happy that both guys have come home again and have nuzzled in the Mets family bosoms but with all that I’m not ready to retire their numbers.

 

I agree 100 % that management needs to embrace its past more and the one knock I’ve heard about $iti Field is the lack of a presence of Mets history. I’m still waiting to here what the plans are the 40^th Anniversary of one of the most famous teams in baseball history winning the World Series (and why no patch on the uni top sleeve for this anniversary?) . Not just that, in this the first season of $iti why couldn’t management bring back the old fan favorites like Banner Day or an Old Timers Day (I still like my idea of brining back every player who ever played for the Mets for the opening day ceremony to start a new era in Mets history and passing of the torch if you will)

 

Maybe someday the Skill Sets will re-connect with its fan base a fan base that is true Orange and Blue and gives way more to the organization than it ever gets in return.