Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Let's hope the most exciting news of the rest of the year isn't that the Mets just signed a catcher whose most similar players stat-wise include Charlie O'Brien and Kelly Stinnett. I was in favor of pursuing Jose (not Bengie) Molina, so I actually like the signing of Henry Blanco, for the purposes of walk-off prevention. There are few better than Blanco on the defensive end, and throwing out would be basestealers is his strength. In his career, Blanco has thrown out 43 percent of those attempting to steal on him, and for those who fear he's getting old, he threw out 18 of 45 (40 percent) for the Padres in 2009. And after reading a little bit on Wikipedia and MLB.com, I'm feeling a little (albeit not much) better about the prospect of Blanco batting late in a close game. Turns out Blanco has a walk-off hit that is viewed as a big deal. In the final game of the 2006 Carribean World Series, Blanco's popup hit the head of Dominican shortstop Erick Aybar and caromed

"Why Coste ???" IM received at 9:29 PM Monday I have a theory. Omar has decided that his strategy for the winter is to accumulate a collection of free agents who have had walk-off RBI against the Mets over the last two years. That nets Coste to compete with Josh Thole and Omir Santos in a 3-for-2 battle at catcher. It lands Aubrey Huff and Troy Glaus as the first base platoon, meaning Daniel Murphy can be used as trade bait. It yields Darin Erstad to bring veteran leadership and a bat off the bench. And oh yes, it brings along a left fielder too. Someone named Holliday. Mets fans who beat the high Coste of living know... Chris Coste's walk-off RBI against the Mets is the only walk-off RBI in his major-league career.

Bill Buckner is in the Hall of Fame. For that matter, so is Bill Buckner, the pitcher, with whom the research librarians in the Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, made sure I wasn't looking for when I asked for the Buckner file. Every major league player has a file in the Hall of Fame Library, filled with newspaper/magazine clippings, photos, correspondence, signature samples, and all sorts of other goodies. These are of great value to folks such as myself. You have to wear white gloves when handling the contents. When I went to Cooperstown about a week or so ago, near the end of my visit, I stopped in the library. There was only one file I wanted to see, and it took me an hour to sift through everything in the folder. Its contents were fascinating to me. And two nuggets in particular stood out. On April 4, 1981, the New York Daily News headline read "Mets may acquire Cubs' Buckner." Jack Lang quoted a source that the Mets were talking to the Cubs about trading Joe