Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Ok...today marks my 3rd attempt at starting a blog (my first one lasted approximately 4 hours before I realized that I wasn't motivated enough to do this, the second made it through 10 months and 200 posts before I realized I'd run out of material). I don't profess to be an expert in this by any means, but I thought it would be worthwhile. About 10 months ago, I came across a blog that was very unique- PlunkBiggio , which is devoted to recording Craig Biggio's hit-by-pitch count. It is rare to find such a cleverly done "niche blog" and in thinking about it, I decided that it is time to create my own. To make a long story short, I have decided to create a blog that chronicles Mets walks. In watching games for the last quarter century, it has become clear that the most interesting type of Mets play to watch/write about/talk about is a walk. This is a franchise that is well-known for making its fans suffer through torturous games, and torturous plate appearances.

I know that historically my weekend traffic is low, but please re-visit on Saturday and Sunday, for details of a new project on which I've been working. The major league career of George Mason University baseball alumnus Mike Draper encompassed 29 rather unimpressive games, but 29 is a lot better than none and hopefully if Draper's watching the Final Four this weekend, that thought will come to mind Draper, a transfer from both the Division III (Western Maryland) and JUCO (Hagerstown JC) ranks, toiled for a total of one year for a collegiate program that didn't have any previous history of major leaguers, and was respectable to the point that he still holds the single-season records for innings pitched and starts, and ranks second in strikeouts. He was a 26th round Yankees draft pick in 1988 and labored through five seasons in the minors. His numbers weren't too shabby. In 1989, he led the Carolina League in wins. In 1990 he tossed a no-hitter and won nine games for the

I am rooting for George Mason in the Final Four this weekend because I like pulling for the Cinderella story in a situation where I really have no rooting interest whatsoever. It pleases me to know that, after reading a note in USA Today, that George Mason was a good person back in his day and a Cinderella story in his own right, though I doubt he would have liked the business that Division I college basketball has become. He probably would have liked walk-offs though, something he became familiar with when he "walked-off" politically, so to speak, and refused to sign the Constitution because of its failure to contain a "declaration of rights." (his Wikipedia bio states that it cost him a friendship with George Washington). Eventually, Mason turned out to be a walk-off winner when the Bill of Rights, based on Virginia's Declaration of Rights was ratified in 1791. I realize that this is a horrendous segue, but I'm going to pursue it anyway, to tell you the st

Those of you that have been regular readers of this blog may recall the mini-obsession that I had with Rodney McCray last season. McCray is forever immortalized with the likes of Ray Searage, Gary Bennett and Dave Liddell as ballplayers whose Mets careers concluded with them sporting batting averages of 1.000. I refer to this rather select group as "Perfect" Mets, and were I ever to create a Mets Minutiae Hall of Fame (a tempting thought), they would be among the first immortalized and McCray, who got a walk-off hit in his only Mets AB would get a personal shrine. I wanted to look at this from a different perspective, so I thought about other types of Mets perfection. This resulted in using my Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia to find the "Perfect" Mets pitchers. The definition of a "Perfect" Mets pitcher is one whose Mets win-loss percentage is an unblemished 1.000. There are 19 Mets who fit that criteria, including one who could pitch for them this seaso

I just installed a piece of software on my laptop that I've particularly enjoyed in the past, the 2006 edition of the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia . This computer program is an extraordinarily useful tool for people who do what I do. It is a statistical repository for baseball information dating back to the earliest days of the sport. It allows us to learn about the game and share that knowledge through forums such as these. It allows the dyingest diehard and the casualist follower to unite in breaking down the game in the most minute detail. I tend to cater to that first group and shall do so again in this space. One of the great functions of the SBE is that it allows you to run customizable searches regarding past seasons and thus caters to the trivia buffs of the baseball world. I used to write something for my college newspaper that a wise editor titled "Since you asked." Basically, it was a summary of silly trivia that I found particularly interesting that week.