Author: Jon Springer

Jon Springer is a writer in Brooklyn. Mets by the Numbers began as a goof in 1998, later became a book, then went back to being a goof.

Voice of Unreason

You may have seen the Village Voice this week featuring Jose Reyes on its cover and a provocative “Stealing Mickey’s Mantle” headline. Inside, Allen Barra’s article draws parallels between Reyes and Mantle, noting they shared a city, switch-hitting and stealing ability, a reputation as their era’s most exciting players, and of course, a uniform number (7).

If we going down that path though (and clearly Barra is) I’d sooner associate a pair of 5s in David Wright and Joe DiMaggio. And though he raises some interesting points, Barra ultimately bungles the story by getting the Met psyche all wrong:

If José Reyes is being overrated, it may be in large part because Mets fans want to will him into being the first truly great everyday player in team history.

This notion, central to the piece — the subhed says as much — would come off more believable had Barra bothered to include any points of view from an actual Met fan as part of the piece. (Had he asked a year ago, he’d have caught many of us hoping only that Reyes approach adequateness). But having built a case for Met fans being tortured and unrealistic, Barra then gets a guy who draws paychecks from the YES network (Goldman) to poke holes in his own trumped-up theory. (Oh, you poor delusional Met fans. Someone must show you tough love). Finally the entire thing is wrapped way too tightly in Yankee perspective: The Mantle comparison is one thing, but the nauseating Jeter showdown at the end is barely even honest (we get a “similar points in their career” comparison strongly favoring Jeter when comparing like-ages would tell a very different story). Bring back Billy Altman!

Roster Shaping Up

The Mets following a rare spring training victory today said Aaron Sele and ‘Bazooka’ Joe Smithwould be added to the big-league roster, a development that threw the Metly future of Chan Ho Park 61 into question. As things shake out it’s come down to Park, Ambiorix Burgos 40and optionless/hapless acquiree Jon Adkins 39 for the seventh and final bullpen slot; The Mets will go with four starters the first few times around before recalling Mike Pelfrey 34 to become the 5th starter. That may prove to reward precocious prospect Lastings Milledge 44 for a strong showing this spring seeing as outfielder Ben Johnson 4 was cut today (along with lesser hopefuls Mike Carp 64, Lino Urdaneta 68, Anderson Hernandez 1, Ruben Gotay 6, Mike DiFelice 30 and Sandy Alomar Jr. 90).

Spring leaders of the Ring-Bell for Adkins-Johnson trade are the Padres, who’ve gotten a 0.90 ERA out of Heath Bell thus far.

Word from the Daily News is the Mets will commemorate Smith’s promotion by slashing his uniform number in half, from 70 to 35. Ironically, that’s the same number they tried to assign to last year’s righthanded submariner, Chad Bradford, before Bradford fled for the quirkier 53.Troublingly, that’s also the number rosters list Sele as wearing, unless Sele switched while I wasn’t looking (entirely possible). Any help? Thanks.

Half A Joe

Adam Rubin at the Daily News this morning hints that ‘Bazooka’ Joe Smith “in a couple of days” will share something in common with Mike DeJean, Jose Offerman and David Weathers. That answers our question below about what number we’ll likely see the rookie in when he sheds the No. 70 he’d been wearing in camp and comes North with the big club.

Ditching the Black

A note in the latest UniWatch column by Paul Lukas suggests inside knowledge that the Mets willdial back the black this season and noted evidence of such exists already in some of the team’s marketing materials (pocket schedules and the mets.com homepage banner; not to mention Subway and bus-mounted advertisements I happened to notice something different about myself). This is certainly a welcome piece of news and portends, we suspect, to a return to more traditional jersey to coincide with the 2009 Citifield opening. For reasons we’re not entirely sure of, baseball authorities require especially early advance notice of plans to change the official uniform so if a change is in the offing we should be able to smell it now.

Speaking of new looks, a “soft” opening for this here new mbtn page was met with yawns from some of its intended audience. Ideally, the finished product would retain the distinct look and feel of the old site, just with additional functionality and ease of use. Work in progress.

MBTN is Dead. Long Live MBTN

Just like the Mets, we’re replacing a gigantic orange monstrosity from another era with sleek new digs, only we’re not getting the city to pay us for it.

This is the “new” mbtn.net, only, it’s not at that address but at metsbythenumbers.com. This new addy will allow us to stay in touch and up to date while we rebuild the old numbers database and other parts of the site to be more user friendly and engaging. The new logo to the right is the work of Scott Turner and Superba Graphics. His firm did more cool stuff we will reveal in time.

The “old” mbtn.net still works; over the coming months, this platform (or a similar successor) will settle back in at that address, while all the stuff currently at that address will eventually move to this platform. Things will likely be in transition for a time, but there’s no need to change bookmarks is what I’m saying. Oh, but if you rip off photos and other graphics from mbtn, move them to your own host soon because they’re eventually going to be moved.

I published Mets by the Numbers for the first time more than eight years ago. Sometime in the early going, I developed an irritating habit of referring to the site as “we.” I’m going to try and do less of that now. While I operate one of the oldest Met-related sites out there (the brilliant Ultimate Mets Database is just a few weeks older) I’m probably the last Met fan alive without a blog. While this new format ought to make updates easier and more frequent, I’m still going to try to keep focused on my niche: Chronicling and illuminating the history of the team, its fortunes and its players through an examination of the uniform. There is an awful lot more to be said and be discovered on that topic still.

The real “we” are the reader/participants whose interest delivered one email at a time helped this site evolve from a goofy experiment many years ago to a reputable research project capable of withstanding some scrutiny, and who put up with spelling errors and infrequent updates, and at times, an indifferent host along the way. I hope “we” will use the comment field here frequently and learn from one another.

You may also reach me privately at a new address: mbtn01 /at/ gmail / dot / com .

Bazooka Joe and the 800th Met

Unless something really unexpected happens, it appears Moises Alou 18 will become the 800th Met when the season begins a week from today.

Other first-time Mets would appear to be Damion Easley (No. 2), David Newhan (17), Aaron Sele (32), Scott Schoeneweis (60), Chan Ho Park (61) and “Bazooka” Joe Smith, who is, for all we know, still going around in the No. 70 jersey they assign to longshot bullpen wannabees. I made up that “Bazooka” nickname by the way, sort of. Remember Joe Smith, the basketball player? When he was a student at Maryland the school paper held a nickname contest to give him more pizzazz where ‘Bazooka’ was among the choices. I don’t think it ever stuck with that Joe Smith. We can’t let it go this time.

So what number does Bazooka Joe Smith get?

I don’t even have to look it up to tell you this is the first season the Mets began a year with two guys wearing numbers in the 60s.

Doing 90

Thanks to reader effort we’re relatively sure catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. is wearing No. 90 which we also think may be the highest number in camp this spring. Nice job by the Mets to dress longshot catching invitee Jose Reyes in No. 77, which not only recalls his famous namesake but indicates he’s roughly twice his size. In a new number this spring is Steve Schmoll, submarining in the No. 38 jersey belonging most recently to Victor Zambrano.Schmoll last year attended camp wearing 46.

Zambrano, by the way, is non-rostering it with the Blue Jays wearing No. 31. Steve Trachselof the Orioles is wearing No. 18. And in an arrangement we won’t believe till we see, Cliff Floyd wears No. 15 for the Cubs (And Ted Lilly gets 30. Really, now).

Hojo in 52 & Other Notes

Newly named coach Howard Johnson was spied at Spring Training revealing jersey No. 52 and temporarily ending some wild speculation that he’d finagle his old No. 20 from Shawn Green. The rules of the jersey game clearly pointed to this outcome — coaches don’t take jerseys from players, except when the player happens to be someone like Jeff McKnight. Then, all bets are off.

Thanks to readers Gene and Matt for pointing it out.

Also worth noting: Coach Jerry Manuel is back in No. 53, with spring training invitee Aaron Sele in 35. Manuel, you may recall, was assigned 53 last spring but switched jerseys when Chad Bradford — who’d been assigned 35 — preferred the latter. This restores at least some orderliness on the coaching bench: Sandy Alomar Sr. is still waddling around in No. 2, but the rest of the staff are nice and Rube Walkerly in the 50s — Rick Peterson 51; Hojo 52; Manuel 53; Rick Down 54; Tom Nieto 55; and Guy Conti 56.

Other sightings at Spring Training, as reported by various witnesses: Carlos Gomez in 88 and Fernando Martinez in 67. There have been several photos of recently signed ancient catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. floating around the Met but none in a jersey we’ve seen yet. Let us know if find something.

Marty Noble on the Jose Valentin/Moises Alou “controversy” (I use quotes here because I strongly suspect Valentin has more affection for 22, his number for many years, than for 18,his number for just one. But good Nobling here nonetheless:

Sometime this year, Mets left fielder Moises Alou will receive a bill, the amount of which has yet to be established. It will come from his new teammate, Jose Valentin.“I haven’t decided yet,” Valentin said. “It depends on how well he plays.”

The bill will be compensation for the uniform No. 18, which Valentin surrendered to Alou. Valentin has changed to No. 22 — worn previously by Ray Knight, Donn Clendenon, Kevin McReynolds, Al Leiter and Xavier Nady, among others — to accommodate Alou. Except for his first two games with the Pirates in 1990, when he wore No. 52, Alou has worn No. 18 throughout his career.

Alou’s uncle, Jesus, wore No. 23 with the Mets in 1975.

On with the Show

Newsday’s David Lennon on Scott Schoeneweis: as for the No. 60, he’s been stuck with it ever since his rookie year with the Angels in 1999. The Mets tried to finally correct the injustice this spring — issuing him No. 36 — but Schoeneweis chose instead to stay with his old jersey. “My first five minutes as a Met, I was high maintenance,” Schoeneweis joked.