I am pressed for time this morning as I have to leave work early and next week is a very short work week for me (just two days!!!!!) so I have ton of work to finish.

 But last night we had a great show on PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL that lasted 2 hours. The first part of the show we talked Mets and the moves to be made and more importantly who is going to make the moves. Listen to Joe McDonald us in on who will be making the important moves and who could be making the future moves for the Mets. Also Eric Simon of Amazin’ Avenue joined us.

The big question of the night on the show was will the Mets go the way of JACKS 99 CENT  or Bergdorf -Goodman.

The second part of the show dealt with the recent Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto Prize Fight from last Saturday night as we were joined by Rich Mancuso of NY SPORTSDAY who was in Vegas to cover the fight. If you are a Boxing fan you will love listening to Rich give his Sweet Science insight. Just click on the link on the upper right hand side of this site to listen in.

Check out my Week 11 NFL BEST BETS on NY FOOTBALL BLOG.

Tonight at 9PM ET we are back with a Hot Stove Edition of PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL on Blogtalk Radio.

Joe McDonald and I will be joined by Rich Coutinho of ESPN1050, Rich Mancuso of NY SPORTSDAY and Eric Simon of Amazin’ Avenue.

We will discuss what has transpired so far this off season for the NY Mets and look ahead on what moves the team needs to make to get back into contention in the NL.

You can join in as well by calling in at (646) 595-4462.

So join us live at 9PM ET on Blogtalk Radio or via podcast on our PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL site or right here at Kranepool Society for 90 minutes of  Mets Hot Stove talk.

I was an 11 year old 6th grader at P.S. 105 in Boro Park Brooklyn. Our teacher, Mrs. McGuire, brought in the big ass city issued black and white TV so we could watch part of Game 5 of the World Series with the New York Mets one win away from completing one of the greatest seasons in baseball history. 

Last night on PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL, Lenny Nesslin of LenNYs Yankee blog and Rich Mancuso of NY SPORTSDAY were our guests as we discussed the Highlander-Angles ALCS. At one point during our discussions Myself, Joe Mc Donald and Rich, three big time Mets fans, wondered if the worst day of our baseball life, a Highlanders-Phuck Phaces World Series comes to fruition, who would we’d root for or in other words what is the best case scenario for Mets fans?

Between the three of us, it was unanimous; there is no way in world that we could ever root for the Phuck Phaces. Now it’s not like we are going to be donning “SWISH-O-LICIOUS t shirts or lighting votive candles in Monument Park but the consensus was the Highlanders were the lesser of two evils. Now if it’s Highlanders-Hollywood Bums, then there is no question that we will join our owner in rooting for the former tenants of Mc Keever Pl, in fact we are hoping if the Brooklyn Dodgers of Los Angeles win the World Series we can get a good seat at $iti Field for the raising of Dodgers World Series flag on opening day and the unveiling of the George “Shotgun” Shuba statue outside the RF gate.

Back to this date in 1969. It’s times like these that I feel bad for the younger generation of Mets fan. Believe it or not kids, the Mets were THE TEAM in town once upon a time. As a young gutter snipe growing up in Brooklyn, Highlander fans were mocked and ridiculed. It was all Mets all the time in the papers, the NY Daily News ran COLOR front pages just for the Mets. COLOR FRONT PAGES!!!! The moon landing didn’t get a COLOR FRONT PAGE!!!! ( I guess you realize that COLOR FRONT PAGES in the Daily News were a HUGE event)

I remember hearing Curt Gowdy calling Game 5 and hearing the fans screaming in that last inning. But the images that stick with me as I watched on TV was Cleon Jones making the catch in LF and dropping to one knee and the fans pouring out of the stands and covering the field. The next day the stories were of fans tearing up the sod and digging up home plate and the pitching rubber. Where are those artifacts today?

The post game celebration was legendary not just for the new World Series champs but for me as well. The site of Seaver, Kossman, McGraw and my man Kranepool pouring beer and champagne on each other led me to the kitchen where my mother was making dinner. (Mom was never a big sports fan but with three sons the woman washed more uniforms than most clubhouse personnel in fact she excelled in getting grass and blood stains out of white uni tops) and to the fridge to grab one of the old man’s Rheingolds. My mother then screaming at me “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and me telling her, “Relax Ma, I’m not going to drink it, I’m just going to pour it on my head like the Mets. They won the World Series Ma! They’re World Champs!!!!!

I was very lucky as I went to a ton of games as a little kid and many were during the season of ‘69. My brothers being 20 years older than me, took me to games and most of the time we sat in box seats in the field level. Whenever I’m asked about my fondest memories of Shea Stadium the memory that always sticks with me are the Friday night games I went to when the Dodgers or Giants came to town. There was a Madi Gras atmosphere at Shea. Mrs. Payson was always stationed at here seat next to Mets dugout. There was a Dixieland Band that would roam the stands, fans would yell LET’S GO METS thru their Mr. Met megaphone, and in between innings Jane Jarvis would entertain us with melodies on her Thomas organ. No awful teenybopper music screeching from the sound system, no one talking on their phone or checking their CrackBerry during a second and third no out jam, no racing garbage trucks. None of that, just baseball and baseball fans enjoying both their new found love, the Amazin’ Mets and lamenting the love their loss, the Bums and ‘Jints.

I can’t let go so off I went to $iti Field last night. It was like a “Let’s remember the 70’s” kind of night at $iti. Parking was plentiful, concession stands were closed, the stands that were open and manned by incompetent “hospitality” staff and the stands half full. It brings a tear to my eye, when I think about the way we were.

You might have seen me on TV as we were sitting right above the Mo’ Zone where Garrett Anderson took Big Plef deep for a long double. Anderson ball was coming right at us and hit right at the orange line across the padded wall and bounce back to Jeff Francouer. In section 102 where I sat they have TV’s hanging off the over hang and as I looked up I could see on the replay a bunch of us in the section on the screen, and no I did not whip out my cell phone to call home.

I guess it’s time to send Big Pelf home for the winter. The guy is spent, done, kaput. Although I like that J-Man left him out there to get out of a jam in the 6^th with the bags juiced and 2 out, but his pitch count I believe was about 235 so maybe that’s not so good.

Just reading the quotes from Big Pelf kind of sums up the feeling of all of his teammates who I don’t think would be heartbroken if the organization forfeited the rest of the games. It’s pretty sad to watch a team with no hope or direction play out the string but when it’s the team you root for it hurts even more plus the fact knowing the bulk of the management team that put us in this mess is coming back and with limited financial resources makes me think next September will look a lot like this September at $iti Field.

Join us tonight at 9PM EDT for PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL on Blog Talk Radio. Our guests tonight will be Dana Brand, author of the book “The Last Days of Shea” and Rich Mancuso of NY Sportsday. If you can’t listen live you can hear it on out podcast on iTunes, our PBC site or right here at the Kranepool Society.

I see where J-Man has declared Omir Santos as one of his catchers for 2010. I’m ok with that as Santos has shown he can handle the catching part well and he hits….well he’s ok but the biggest part of the catcher position is defense and handling pitchers and even though we are all in love with Josh Thole the D and pitch handling part is still a work in progress. The best scenario would be to match Santos with a Molina brother in a catching tag team but knowing the Mets they would sign Fredo Molina.