David Rubin: Make No Mets-takes About it: SPRING IS HERE!

Hello Mets fans, it's a beautiful day in Port St. Lucie today. The sky's a beautiful shade of blue...the grass is a brilliant shade of green and it's a beautiful day for a baseball game!!!! 

Okay, I'm channeling the ghost of Bob Murphy here, but we've all lived another year, and with that, another Spring Training will become official tomorrow, Saturday, as the Mets play their first games of the spring against other teams. When you've been rooting for this team for as many years as I have, or most of my fellow writers here at the blog have, you don't take it for granted that we're going to get another shot at "meaningful games in October" once more. 

For me personally, after dealing with a cancer diagnosis a few months ago, I can assure you that I haven't yet, but now NEVER will, take another Opening Day for granted!! ESPECIALLY when your returning team features both the previous season's Cy Young Award winner, Rookie of The Year AND Home Run Champion- and that's only TWO of our boys!!! 

The other thing that this time of the year does is plant you firmly between past and present, speculating about what was, praying for what is to come. With that in mind, let's look at some interesting numbers from the past and discuss some of the interesting things about our present; or, at least, baseball's present.

Interesting Stats From The Past:

We tend to romanticize players from past teams' who really weren't as great in actuality as our memories try to convince us they were. In fact, not only are so many players not as good as we thought they were in childhood, but there seem to be some numbers that are remarkably similar.  

These numbers coincidences are not ALL pertaining to mediocre players; for instance, some of the very best players to ever put on our pinstripes have numbers that are at times shockingly similar. Take a look:

Lucas Duda and John Milner both hit .246

Jay Bruce and Jeromy Burnitz both hit .237

Doug Flynn and Bud Harrelson both hit .234

Mike Piazza hit .296; so did David Wright

Jon Matlack had 82 Mets victories; David Cone had 81

Jerry Koosman had 26 shut-outs; Jon Matlack did, too...

Cleon Jones knocked in 521 runners; Jose Reyes? Same!

Lenny Dykstra (no surprise) stole 116 bases, while Buddy Harrelson stole 115

Pretty crazy, no? There are more, but I'll leave you to stroll down memory lane and take a gander for yourself at some of the great and not-so-great numbers of the past.

Notes:
And speaking of not so great, it's an embarrassment that players can be more angry at Mike Fiers for coming clean about the Astros cheating then they are at the actual cheating!!!! And speaking of the Astros, I thought it was interesting that ex-Mets hitting coach, Dave Hudgens, formerly in the same position with the cheating 'Stros, allegedly (according to him, at least) knew nothing about the sign-stealing...yeah, and about that Brooklyn Bridge you were going to buy...

Let's hope that by coming to camp in great shape, with a chip on his shoulder, not speaking with the media and having neither a wild boar to chase nor a horse to ride into camp on means that Yoenis Cespedes is going to become the NL Comeback Player of The Year!!! Or at LEAST play in 50 games!!! I'm not picky...(apparently...)

Sending condolences to the family of  former big league shortstop (and short-term Met), Tony Fernandez. In his prime, he was one smooth-fielding SS and he could hit a nice bit, too. Many folks remember him from the Joe Carter, Indians-Padres blockbuster engineered by ex-Met exec Joe McIlvaine, but I will always remember him because I needed his card in 1987 to finish my set and got it accidentally when I received a bag of cards from my dad that he had confiscated from a kid in one of his classes (he was a teacher). One man's loss...

For all those who think the Mets should trade for Kris Bryant to play third, take a deep look at his stats and tell me you think he'd be a either a better value OR a better player than our own Jeff McNeil...

I highly advise against buying the new book about to come out about former pitcher/author, Jim Bouton. His own son has come out and said that the author is looking to make a buck by tarnishing his dad's memory...shades of Albert Goldman and John Lennon...

Speaking of authors, a moment of silence for Roger Kahn, author of the classic "Boys of Summer" - the first great baseball book I ever read, until I got to "Ball Four" a few weeks later.

Finally, I assured a number of people that, just because Steve Cohen was already a minority owner of the Mets that it was no assurance that MLB would simply let him into their rarefied air, also known as baseball team ownership. 

There's more to the story, and with SNY finally in play, mostly due to the long-term diminishing value of regional sports' networks, this story is going to keep getting more and more interesting. Especially as one Saul Katz and family get more anxious to move past the boys of Flushing...

So once again, we can say "Let's Go Mets" and enjoy the wonderful sounds of Gary, Keith & Ron... enjoy and "meet" ya real soon!