The Red Sox tried to keep him, offering him a four-year, $60 million deal during the season. But when he hit free agency, he said no one pushed as hard as the Mets ? who he said never went 48 hours without talking to him. He said a deal was essentially in place before Christmas, but with the principals scattered around the globe (Minaya on vacation in Costa Rica, Wilpon in Israel, Bay in Canada and his agent, Joe Urbon, in Mexico) it didn?t get ironed out until last week.
Bay said his time in Boston convinced him that he wanted to play for a winner ? something he considers the Mets despite their troubles of 2009. - link
We remember Mays for his years with the New York Giants and the San Francisco Giants (and repress our memories of his coda with the New York Mets), but his career began with the Fairfield Gray Sox, the Chattanooga Choo Choos, and the Birmingham Black Barons.
It was with the Barons that he realized the game was performance art, and in their ethos of speed and daring he found a playing style that suited his skills. He had natural ability, to be sure, but he also had the gift of performing seemingly unnatural feats of dexterity.
Just as Mays’s experience in the Negro leagues would shape his playing style, his life in black baseball - the long bus rides, the hanging of wet laundry in rooming houses and segregated hotels - would shape his outlook. All this, Hirsch writes, “contributed to his sense that baseball was really one big traveling family, quarrelsome at times, but beholden to the greater good of the clan.’’ - link
RHP, UCLA, #93 Overall: Rustich was the Mets’ second second-round pick of the 2007 draft. Another college reliever, Rustich was much less successful than Kunz, mainly due to minus command. He had plus to plus-plus stuff and he was expected to go in the second to fourth round. Following players selected: Austin Romine, Nick Barnese, Danny Duffy. Signing bonus: $373,500. - link
Can David Wright regain his power stroke?
Nobody has more misty water-colored memories of Shea Stadium than Wright, after last season's Citi Field power outage.
Wright went from 33 homers and 124 RBIs in 2008 to 10 homers and 72 RBIs last year. So a lineup that missed Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes for most of the year was essentially without a fourth All-Star.
The Mets are expecting the old Wright this season, but you can only wonder how he'll respond if he goes a few weeks without a homer at Citi Field. Maybe the best the Mets can hope for is Wright at least remembers how to clear the fences on the road without striking out 140 times, as he did in 2009. - link
Seven seasons after the Mets debuted with the most losses in modern baseball history the franchise was still seen as a laughingstock and was given 100-to-1 odds to win the World Series when 1969 began. The first year of divisional play started out as the Cubs' year, while most onlookers figured the Mets would be happy if they could play .500 ball. Tom Seaver's Imperfect Game against Chicago showed that the Mets could play with the big boys, but the Cubs still had a double-digit lead on the Mets in the middle of August. The Cubs stumbled, plagued by worn-out players, black cats, and bad luck, but magnificent Mets pitching turned the tide. On February 14th Mark and AJ pay tribute to the Amazing Mets - link
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