ICYMI: The Week In Review

Ronny Cedeno was activated from the disabled list. Elvin Ramirez was demoted.

Tim Byrdak is looking for a home...for his chicken. Byrdak bought a chicken before Friday's game against the Yankees after Frank Francisco called the team, "chickens."

Tony LaRussa told Fox Sports that he is definitely considering R.A. Dickey to start next months' All-Star game.

Johan Santana received a key to the city from Mayor Bloomberg on Friday for throwing the Mets first no-hitter.

The Mets announced the top Mets players in franchise history Thursday night, and it wasn't without drama. In response to Darryl Strawberry saying he would love to have a chance to hit off Tom Seaver, Seaver responded with, "You don't have any handcuffs on your hands, do you?" Whatever Seaver was trying to say there, it made for an awkward moment.

Here is the complete list of the top Mets:
Mike Piazza, C
Keith Hernandez, 1b
Edgardo Alfonzo, 2b
David Wright, 3b
Jose Reyes, SS
Cleon Jones, LF
Carlos Beltran, CF
Darryl Strawberry, RF
Tom Seaver, RHS
Jerry Koosman, LHS
Roger McDowell, RHR
Tug McGraw, LHR
Davey Johnson, Manager 

Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores were picked to participate in the Futures Game as part of the All-Star festivities in Kansas City.

After striking out a career-high 13 batters and beating the Orioles 5-0 on Monday, R.A. Dickey became the first major league player in 24 years to throw back-to-back no-hitters.   

On the injury front...

Frank Francisco had to sit out of Friday night's game against the Yankees with stiffness in his left oblique.

Sandy Alderson told reporters he expects Ruben Tejada to return from the disabled list next week.

Jason Bay claims to be symptom free a little over a week after suffering a concussion. He has yet to begin any physical activity.

Was Seaver's Remark Really Offensive?

I don't know, and neither do you.

Let's go to the video tape...



Host, Kevin Burkhardt, asked Darryl Strawberry who would win a game between the 1986 Mets or the 1969 Mets.

Stawberry states the '86 team would have won.

This eventually leads to Tom Terrific making the following comment:

"You don't have handcuffs on your wrists, do you?"

As you can imagine, that went over well.

For those unaware, Strawberry has had his run-ins with the law in the past.

I have to admit that I winced a little after the comment was made.

For those willing to give Seaver the benefit of the doubt, handcuffed is a baseball term as well, defined as:

A pitch thrown high and inside may handcuff a batter because he can't get his hands far enough away from his body to swing the bat.

Maybe Seaver used the word handcuffs in that context??? If he's smart, that's the excuse he'll use.

In all likelihood, we'll never know Tom Seaver's true intentions when he made his remark to Darryl Strawberry.

I highly doubt Seaver would ever come out and say, "Yeah, I was making reference to his law-breaking days."

I've never found Seaver to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I don't see him being dumb enough to admit making such a remark.

Strawberry was on WFAN this morning and denied that he was offended by Seaver's comment and said that he didn't think Seaver meant anything by it.

"No, he was not. No," he told WFAN’s Boomer & Carton. “Tom is great, I’ve got a great relationship with him. He wasn’t making (a joke), he was talking about, ‘Nothing stopping us. You know, there’s an opportunity, let’s go.' 

"We don’t fight, what are we fighting about?" said Strawberry. "He’s talking about, 'What’s holding you back right now? What, you got handcuffs tying you down, you can’t pick up a bat?'"

At the end of the day, if Strawberry isn't even offended by the comments, then the fans and media need to let it go.  

Gavin Cecchini and Kevin Plawecki Meet the Media

Baseball is now underway for everyone in the Mets organization; from New York to Kingsport.

Two of the Mets top draft picks of 2012 were at Citi Field last week and talked to the Media about how it feels to be on the same field as David Wright, why they picked their jersey number and their expectations as they begin their professional career.

Q & A With Cleon Jones

Cleon Jones enjoying a slice of pizza named after him.
The Cleon(patra) Jones.

Cleon Jones was on hand Friday night for a Mets alumni event and to be honored by Two Boots, a Cajun-Italian inspired restaurant, who named one of their famous pizzas after the former Met. Jones was nice enough to take a few minutes to talk about the 1969 team and share some good stories.


On the 1969 team and Gil Hodges:
We were just having fun. From Seaver, Koosman, Agee, and Harrison...we were the worst team in baseball the year before, and we thought we were getting better. We never thought that we were good enough to win a world series, or even get there in the playoffs. But Gil Hodges kept telling us that we were good enough, and that's why I maintain the fact that sometimes the manager makes a difference. This particular year, he made all the difference in the world, because if not for Gil Hodges, it could have been Davey Johnson, it could have been Casey Stengel, it could have been any manager, if not for Gil  Hodges we would not be talking about the '69 Mets. That's how good he made us.

Finding out the team got Donn Clendenon:
We knew about a month before he came over. We thought he was probably going to be with the ball club, and we knew at that time that we were weak against left-handed pitching. We were pretty good against right-handed pitching ,and we thought by getting Donn, he would make us stronger against left-handed pitching. Never in my life did I think that he would make that much of a difference. He made a difference on the field and in the clubhouse. He became one of my leaders. He called himself a lawyer, and he was a clubhouse lawyer. He got on everybody....it made for a close-knit type atmosphere because we were always competing against one another...and even pulling our families together. We did a lot of family things with our entire family. We were family long before the Pittsburgh Pirates became a family, and that's because of Gil Hodges and Clendenon.

Comparing to the 2012 Mets:  
I just came out of the clubhouse, and these guys are having fun in the clubhouse. Therefore, they like one another, and when you like one another, you're going to do a better job as a team. I would put this group in the same level as the '69 Mets. As a matter of fact, they're probably more talented than we were. I won't say anything about the manager because I've never dealt with the manager. I don't know who he is, I know his name, but I don't know what his philosophy is, or how he's in control of the team. [Jerry] Koosman saw Gil Hodges smile in a photo and said, 'He never smiled like that around us!'

Competing for a batting title:
I was having fun, and we were better than we were the year before. That meant we were winning somewhere. Gil Hodges was callous man. I was hitting around .360, leading everybody by about 20 points, and I came in for a fly ball, and cracked a rib, but I didn't know it was cracked. I contained the play and it got worse and worse. Finally I had to come sit down for about two weeks. When I came back I wasn't the same the entire year. '69 was a miracle year for the Mets. It was a miracle year for me. No doubt in my mind I would have lead the league in hitting that year had I been free of injury, because I was in a zone like I've never been before of since then. It didn't matter who was pitching. I knew I was going to get my hit because we were playing that kind of ball, and we were winning. It's easy to contribute to your stats when you're winning. That's what was taking place at that particular time.

Hodges taking him out of the outfield:
It wasn't what everybody thought it was. Gil Hodges was a just individual, he would never embarrass anyone. We had just had a talk in Montreal, I had sprained my ankle, and we had a talk in his office. I said, 'I don't want to come out of the lineup unless I'm hurting the team. If I get to the point where I'm hurting the team, then take me out of the lineup.' We were playing Houston here, and it rained all day, all night. The field was soaked. They were taking the tar to us. They were hitting everything we threw up there. They were just beating us pretty good. We come into the dugout and we acted like we were liking it, I guess. Everybody was still doing their same, normal things, and we weren't concentrating one what we should do, or how we are going to get out of this. He got tired of that.

When he came out of the dugout, I was totally surprised. I thought he was coming to take the pitcher out. Then he passed the pitchers mound, so I'm like 'What the hell did Buddy do?' Buddy was our shortstop. He passed Buddy. When he passed Buddy, I'm looking around. He came up to me and said, 'I don't like the way you ran at that last ball.' I said, 'What?' He said, 'I don't like the way you ran at the last ball.' I said, 'A left-handed batter hit a ball down the line. That's a double, Gil.' I said, 'Look down.' He looked down and my feet was on the wall and his feet was on the wall. I said, 'You can't ever get out here.' He said, 'You have a bad ankle, so you probably need to come out of the game anyway.' I said okay. Everybody got all excited about he was reprimanding me, I wasn't hustling, but that never happened. He wasn't that kind of a person.                       

ICYMI: The Week In Review

After getting swept by the Yankees last weekend in the Bronx, the Mets moved on to St. Petersburg where they swept the Rays in a three-game series.

Chris Young recorded his first win with the Mets since his return. His last win as a Met? April 5, 2011.

Terry Collins and pitching coach Dan Warthen mixed things up in the bullpen earlier in the week. With the exception of Frank Francisco as closer and Tim Byrdak as the lefty specialist, all other bullpen roles have been done away with. Essentially, if you want to be the eighth inning setup man, you're going to have to earn it.  

R.A. Dickey threw a one-hitter on Wednesday night. The Mets appealed to have that one-hitter changed to a no-hitter, arguing that David Wright should have been charged with an error after attempting to field a hit by B.J. Upton. They lost the appeal.

National League All-Star manager Tony LaRussa selected Terry Collins to join his staff for this year's All-Star game.

Ike Davis is starting to heat up at the plate. He has a seven game hitting streak and his average is now up to .192.

The Mets have signed 15 of this year's draft picks. For the complete list, visit ESPN.

On the injury front...

Jayson Bay was placed on the 7-Day disabled list with a concussion after crashing into the left field wall Friday night.

Justin Turner was activated from the disabled list following Bay's injury.

Ronny Cedeno, who has been on the disabled list since May 27 with a calf strain, is expected to return some time this week. In Triple-A Buffalo Saturday, Cedeno played all nine innings at shortstop and went 0-3.

The Mets are hopeful that Ruben Tejada will begin a rehab assignment on Monday. According to Terry Collins, Tejada ran in a straight line on Friday.

Observations From Friday Night's Game

On Friday night, the Mets were nice enough to allow other bloggers and myself to attend the evening's festivities.

Here are a few things that stood out.

It's a good thing David Wright is not a doctor.

Shake it up a little more, David. 

After crashing, head first, into the left field wall, Jason Bay left the game with what the team described as a possible concussion.

Now, any normal person would say things like, "Feel better, Jason," or, "I hope you're okay." Not David. No, he decides to get in there and shake Bay's head around even more.

I was pretty embarrassed to be a Mets fan when Bay exited the game. If you were listening to the game on the radio or watching it on t.v., you may have noticed that Bay left the field to boos. Yes, an alarmingly large number of Mets fans were booing their own team's player after being injured. Scott Hairston practically got a standing ovation when he entered to take Bay's spot out in left. This isn't Philadelphia. Knock it off.

Finally...

Will anyone ever put a stop to the wave? I don't know if 34,000 people were just extremely bored, but at one point the wave went around the stadium at least 6-7 times in a row. I would be impressed that such a large group of people would be committed to completing the wave that many consecutive times, but I hate the wave.

I'm Sorry For Ever Doubting You, R.A.

Raise your hand if you were excited about the Mets signing R.A. Dickey back in December of 2009? If you raised your hand, you're a liar.

I was scrolling through my Facebook page the other day, and ran across this post.

Silly me. If only I knew then what I know now.

R.A. Dickey is amazing.

Dickey has gone from being the butt of jokes among Mets fans to becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball in 2012 and a large percent of the fanbases' favorite player.

Dickey showed off his brilliance again Wednesday night against the Rays, throwing a one-hitter, and striking out a career high 12 batters.

He also now holds the franchise record for scoreless innings at 32 2/3.

As the lone knuckleballer in baseball, I would have to think, if R.A. keeps this up, there will be kids out there determined to pick up a baseball and try and throw knuckleballs.

He's inspiring.

I even tried to throw a knuckleball last weekend during a game of catch (I failed miserably though).

Consider this my apology to R.A. I'm sorry for doubting you in the beginning, and thanks for proving me wrong.