Weekly Spring Training Roundup

Hey all, Glass Man back at you after another busy week. Have we slowed down in recent weeks? Yes. Will it become a trend? No. Unique circumstances at work and in my search for future employment have eaten up a lot of my free time, but both should slow down again in the coming weeks.

The Mets are back in the headlines with the boys of summer having reported for spring. News out of camp so far has been mostly positive. Here are my takes on some of the ongoing stories (including a spoiler-full response to the Top Chef finale):

1. Luis leading off, Mr. Glass batting third

Hate it but respect it. Let's start with respect. This team needs to position its players in whatever way will enable them to best realize their potential. And I'm willing to believe that Luis Castillo's potential could best be tapped with him in the leadoff spot.

I'm also willing to believe that Reyes can be a productive three hitter, but here's where it starts to get messy. On a team with three potential three hitters (Wright, Beltran, Delgado), why would you add in a fourth?

Meanwhile, I have no doubt that Reyes can be a great job in the three-hole, but it's also possible it would be a rough transition. Would he revert to the all-hack, no-eye vintage Reyes we remember from 2005 (and still see flashes of in more recent seasons)?

On a more personal note, while I want Reyes to take the next step in his career, there's a part of me that will always idealize the young and fiery Mr. Glass who finally announced his arrival with a thrilling 2006. In a sense, his youth was my youth.

Reyes at the top of the order was part of what made that 2006 team special, and I guess I'd been holding out hope that he would play the same role on another special Mets team. It could still happen. From the sounds of it this move to the top of the order is just an idea, and unlikely to become the norm.

But still, someday it likely will be the norm. And when that day comes, well, we'll none of us be as young as we used to be.

2. Ryan Church, forgotten man

Lost amid all the talk of Manny Ramirez and Dan Murphy/Fernando Tatis out in left was the returning right fielder for the Mets, Ryan Church. Ryan completely shat the bed after returning from his second concussion of last season, but if he can return to form, he can be a major unexpected asset for this team.

He'll never be Manny Ramirez at the plate, but he showed flashes at the beginning of last season of being a truly productive corner outfielder, and his arm is nothing to eff with. Besides, he now seems to have a post-homer celebration with Jose Reyes (yep, they do 'em in spring training too). All in all, consider me pulling for Church.

3. Johan Santana, post-op

The panic amid the Mets faithful is Johan's elbow trouble, which caused him to scratch his first spring training start. Calm down people. It's February. If he misses a start now, well, that's the luxury of games that don't count.

Now if he misses his next start... hold on to your fucking hat.

4. Top Chef... what?!

Hosea... seriously? Come on, this was Stefan's competition, he basically ran the table from the start. Meanwhile, Hosea, he who cannot cook dessert, hardly did anything exceptional all season, besides whispering sweet nothings in Leah's ear.

Sweetest Carla, for all her infectious personality, simply didn't bring it in the finale, so that's that.

It really bugs me that that herb Hosea won. Maybe it's because the Mets never win that I take things like this very personally. Perhaps I should calm down.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Checking In... Again

Hey everyone, sorry again for the lack of posts. Between work and The Wire, my free time has really been at a low point recently.

We'll be back with regular posts next week, but in the meantime, here are some quick hits on topics of the day:

1. The last corner of Shea Stadium came crumbling down yesterday, and so it is that the only ballpark many of us have ever known is no more. You knew the day was coming, but still, it was sad to see her go. I remember they had plans to mark the bases of the old stadium in the new parking lot, and I really hope the execute on that idea. Really, the more they do to memorialize the old stadium the better.

2. We've known it for years, but Jose Reyes is the man. Three kids? The man is 25! Then he turns around and says what needs to be said about the Phillies and their chirping. Good for him.

3. Didn't watch the A-Rod press conference. As I said the other day, I just don't care about him or about this issue much anymore.

The only good thing to come out about it was David Ortiz's suggestion that PED offenders receive a year-long ban. At Y2K, we've been suggesting a heavy-handed approach to positive steroid tests for years. You clearly cannot shame people into not using steroids, but if a positive test meant losing an entire year of their careers (or better yet, two) that could really scare people straight.

That's all for now, more next week.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Slumdog Gagillionaire

OK, quick one for you all today on a non-baseball topic. Me and the wife saw "Slumdog Millionaire" last night. Great flick, not going to take that away from it.

BUT... best picture of the year, really? In my opinion, "Milk" was a far superior film, and yet the movie hardly gets mentioned as a realistic contender.

I'd put "Frost/Nixon" in the same category. I've speculated, however, that "Frost/Nixon" may be subject to the same reservations people have about giving Rookie of the Year honors to Japanese players who have lengthy resumes in their homelands.

I can see the argument. In some sense, "Frost/Nixon" the movie is a cinematic representation of a theater production (which I never saw, and my girlfriend regularly informs me was terrific). Every camera trick (or most anyway) is some adaptation of the theater production. I don't know if this is really a discredit to the film, but it's a question.

I haven't seen "The Reader", but I found myself slightly disappointed by "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". To me the love story was a bit of a non-starter; Benjamin pined for a woman who hardly seemed to give a damn about him, then all of a sudden she's in love with him.

The movie it's most compared to, "Forrest Gump", had a similar love story narrative, but you could always see the underlying tenderness between Jenny and the Gump Man. In "Button" I didn't quite see it.

That all said, I'd say it like this. If you can only see one of the best picture nominees before the Oscars, see "Milk". If you love American history, see "Frost/Nixon". If you want to see a bunch of Indian people doing a sweet dance at the end, see "Slumdog". If you have three hours to burn, see "Button". And if you want to be more worldly than the Glass Man, see "The Reader".

But hey, I'm no movie critic.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Shea Stadium Arcanium, and Other Topics

Hey team, sorry for the lack of posts this week, but the Glass Man came down with something fierce over the weekend and I've been out of commission the past few days.

Sick days are usually ripe opportunities for blog posts. You don't have work so there's plenty of time to find inspiration, and there's all the time in the world to write. That's usually how it works.

This time it was something else entirely. The flu that's been ravaging my group finally came calling, and I've been reeling ever since.

As I write this on Wednesday afternoon, my condition is much improved. In the preceding days I haven't written, but it's not been for want of good material. Here are quick hits on some of hte major recent stories.

They called Shea Stadium the ballpark of dreams... and it was.

Watching that video of the two people inside the cadaver that is Shea Stadium was like watching the first 30 minutes of "Titanic", when the deep sea diving crew is explored the crumbled, rotting old hallways and rooms of the once proud ship.

Its stairways, seats, and caverns now all but a heaping mass of gray rubble, its Mets logos reduced to competing for attention with spray painted tags, Shea is a ghostly shadow of its former self.

In those first 30 minutes of the movie, as the camera zooms through the sunken ship, the scenes are interspersed with footage from those same areas in their vibrant heyday. I half expected such a juxtaposition in the video the other day, but in the end my mind's eye had to suffice.

They said Shea was at best outdated, at worst a flat-out dump. The appeal of the place was always a bit arcane; the more conversations you had with non-Mets fans, the more it became clear that Shea-bashing wasn't just a media conspiracy.

Either way, as someone who loved the old place, it was sad to see its gutted remains. Lot of happy memories in that place. Hell, even the not-so-happy memories are happy. Game 7 in 2006? Game 162 in 2008? Game [insert number here] in 2002-2004? As depressing as those games were, there's nowhere else I'd have rather been.

The good news, if I'm realistic about it, is that the same thing that made those games great at Shea -- the team on the field, the family, the friends -- all that will carry over across the street.

A-Roid

It would be very Y2K of me to bash the shit out of A-Rod, but you know what, when it comes to steroids, I'm spent.

Steroids were a fact of baseball for a really long time, and chances are that any of the big money, big number guys in that era used steroids. We now know the list of names includes Alex Rodriguez, but he's not going to be the last big star we hear about.

Someday when he's the home run king or RBI leader or whatever else he might achieve, we will need to look at his numbers through the prism of steroids. But for now, what does this revelation mean for us? We were booing the shit out of the guy to begin with. Did any of us really need another reason to hate A-Rod?

I sure didn't. To me, A-Rod's single greatest baseball sanctity-defying decision wasn't when he chose to use steroids. To me it was when he decided not to play for the team he rooted for growing up because they wouldn't give him a private jet or another ivory back scratcher.

That's right, all these years later I'm still taking Steve Phillips' word for it.

Roberto Alomar... hello!

Dude... what!?! Full blown AIDS? Raped by two Mexican men? Sandy Alomar doesn't know shit about it? Is this life or a Larry Clark movie?

Curiouser and curiouser.

- A.F.O.M.G.

70: Lost in Translation

(This is the latest installment in an ongoing series at Y2K focusing on topics raised in Matthew Silverman's "100 Things Mets Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die". Today's installment? Number 70: Lost in Translation.)

Why 70? Because of the sweet pic of Kazuo.

On a scale of 1-to-10, necessity of knowing or doing before you die? 3.

Ah, Japan. Land of the Rising Sun. Visitors of misery upon millions in the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere days. Makers of sweet TV shows and videogames.

Yes, the Japanese are an industrious bunch, but as the old Japanese proverb dictates, we must all know our limits. And so it is for the Japanese, who, for all their admirable attributes, are completely inept when donning a Mets uniform.

As specified above, "Lost in Translation" does not shine a light on an especially essential piece of Mets history, but it's a fun one in its way. Indeed, the Japanese imports we've brought in over the years are kind of a fitting analogue to much of Mets history -- high priced, highly anticipated, massively disappointing.

None were more disappointing, of course, than our old friend Kaz Matsui. "Kaz Matsui's travails in New York are well documented--just typing his name makes one's ears ring with boos--and his two-plus years at Shea provided no hint of the glory his bat and glove would provide for the 2007 Rockies" (Silverman, 175).

Perhaps Kaz's greatest sin was his inability to get down with the "Our Team, Our Time" vibe of the 2006 Mets. In an otherwise idyllic early season, Kaz was his usual, ineffective Mets-self, and the boo birds had a field day. The team could hardly lose, but sure enough every time No. 25 would step to the plate, the crowd would let him hear it.

There's no losing boos in translation, either for the player on the field or the fan in the stands. Kaz was the single greatest oppressor of that team's feel-good spirit, and ultimately he was traded for a bag of balls and Eli Marrero.

* * * * *

Now, there's an entire segment of of Silverman's chapter devoted to Mets greats who have gone to play in Japan, but I'm far less interested in them. To close out this recap, let's do a word/phrase/story association exercise with the 8 native Japanese who have played for the Mets (with years on the team noted).

Kaz Ishii (2005): Infuriating; 2005 was The Year!

Takashi Kashiwada (1997): Loved this name. Like if mine were AFOMG OMGada

Satoru Komiyama (2002): Pass.

Kaz Matsui (2004-2006): Say what you want about him, dude could rake on Opening Day.

Hideo Nomo (1998): Dude, we got Nomo! This is The Year!

Tsuyoshi Shinjo (2001, 2003): His 20-foot bat toss after launching a dinger in the Mets' Home Opener against the Braves (a blowout, mind you) is perhaps the most amusing moment in recent on-field Mets history. His orange wristbands belong in the Mets' memorabilia hall at Citi Field (in the small corner of the Dodgers' memorabilia hall).

Shingo Takatsu (2005): Takatswho?

Masato Yoshii (1998-1999): If I ever start another blog, I'm going to name it "Put in Yoshii!!" Scanning the internets for this timeless quote, I see someone had the idea first. That's bullshit man!

Anyway, I'll let that blog, which died in 2007, tell it: "Late in the 1999 baseball season, Mets fifth starter Masato Yoshii was asked what he would do if he was left off of the Mets' postseason roster, to which he responded, 'I'll be in the stands, eating a hot dog, drinking a beer, and yelling 'Put in Yoshii!!'"

You know, I wouldn't trade all the misbegotten Japanese Mets if it meant never having that one quote.

- A.F.O.M.G.

The First Sign of Spring

When it comes to sports, nothing compares to baseball for the Glass Man. Once upon a time, when the Knicks were relevant and Sisqo was a chart topper, basketball helped pass the time in the offseason.

More recently, football has become a more reliable diversion. I still don't understand those people, and there are a lot of them, who can sit down on Sunday and watch any two teams in football play a game. But the Giants have been great entertainment in recent years, and I've even gotten in to college football in the last year.

No matter how much progress I've made on the football front, however, it remains, in a sense, just a way to pass the time.

Yesterday's Super Bowl was a great game. Not as good as last year's when the Giants overcame everything to beat the Patriots, but a great game nonetheless.

But then, as soon as it was over, for me it was time again to think of baseball. Time to think of David Wright, Johan, and Jose-Jose-Jose.

Regrettably, I'm still not there entirely with this team. The bullpen moves were great, but I still think we're counting on too many best case scenarios. We're counting on improvement, or at least sustained performance from Mike Pelfrey. We're counting on Carlos Delgado to duplicate his 2008. We're counting on Luis Castillo to bounce back. The list goes on and on.

But last night after the Super Bowl was no time to worry about the question marks. The end of football season is, in a sense, the unofficial start of baseball season. It's the moment when the sports pages go back to being all baseball all the time; when sports talk radio and Sports Nite do the same.

The next couple days they'll dissect the Super Bowl and tell us about the parade. The Knicks and Rangers will get some ink. But mostly it'll be about baseball, and not just the depressing stuff about Shea coming down or the Mets refusing to make a run at Manny Ramirez.

And that's a welcome change.

Now if only we could sign Manny and Ollie, then we'd really be in business.

- A.F.O.M.G.