I suppose there is little doubt that big fat Bartlolo Colon will show up in Big Fat No. 40 when the Mets open camp this year. The guy after all is 70 years old and worn the same number all his life, or seems to have. That and 40 is available now that Tim Byrdak has flown the coop. He was never the same after that shoulder injury and his presence on the roster in 2013 seemed to border on a favor to him, but now he’s gone. Thanks for all the fish.
Colon, now. This was an acquisition that surprised me somewhat. I guess the front office deserves a tip of the cap for not replacing Matt Harvey with some stiff fighting to reestablish himself with a spring training invite (uh, like Shawn Marcum) when that was exactly what I was expecting them to do. That said, this is a value buy if he pitches like he did for Oakland. But, beyond donning a No. 40 jersey, size 56 short, I haven’t a clue what he’ll do. You?
I was too excited to notice it, but worth mentioning that last May 3, David Wright’s stunning, game-tying solo home run off Atlanta’s Craig Kimbrel did more than spark one of the best wins of the season (the Mets rallied to win 7-5 in 10 innings at Turner Field). It also propelled Mets who wore No. 5 into the all-time lead for home runs-by-a-uni-number.
Aaron Laffey and Anthony Recker are expected to make their Mets debuts this aternoon in the rubber game of the Marlins series. Reports this morning say Laffey will wear No. 47, becoming the first Met to wear that number since Miguel Batista a year ago. Recker will wear No. 20, which last belonged to Jason Pridie in 2011 and hasn’t appeared behind the plate for the Mets since the glory days of Mike Fitzgerald. And, not for nothing, but 1984 was a glorious year for the Mets.
Why now? For one thing, this site was long overdue for a re-engineering (it’s built on a long-outmoded version of the useful but complex and ever-changing CMS Drupal — but I don’t have the time or skill to devote to keeping it up to date. But the best argument for it is that uni number data has always been a natural fit for the UMDB, which until now included just about everything except uni numbers. Moving the info to the UMDB and integrating it with all the other cool data there also allows for new features like scorecards with numbers and truly awesome running tallies of 
