Oh hi.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to take a whole season off, it’s just that the whole process of moving 14 years of stuff to a new configuration took a while.
I sort of got stuck halfway. As I mentioned before, the architecture supporting the MBTN database (that is, the gears generating the who-wore-what-when lists; and how they were set up to display) was in such need of renovation I felt the best thing to do was outsource its placement: So a year ago I donated all of my uni-number data to the Ultimate Mets Database and I have been updating the information there as it comes as always. I think it looks and works great. My friend at the UMDB helped set that up and all I do anymore is plug in the data, which given my level of tech expertise, is the perfect task for me.
Moving the remainder of the content to a more appropriate format was the next hurdle, but the sheer volume of it was intimidating and had the effect of chilling investment in the “old” site: Why contribute to a site that you know is doomed for eventual destruction?
At the same time I was also struggling a bit with defining the purpose of a web site about uni numbers when the “news” aspect of it has been slaughtered by the 24-hour news cycle and the data resides elsewhere. When I started doing this 15 years ago, there wasn’t a reliable source for this kind of information. Today, anyone who needs to know what number the latest Met is wearing knows it hours before I can update, and the context — who was the last guy to have worn this number for the Mets etc etc — is picked clean by Twitterers with gigantic followings, almost always without credit. I’m not mad about this so much: Just feeling a bit less relevant in the grand scheme.
Add to that the Mets’ own irrelevancy, demands of being a dad and having a job, and well, before you knew it I’d missed a whole season. I’m sorry about that, and I’m especially sorry if the abrupt lack of activity led anyone to worry about me or my family: We’re totally OK other than the fact we’re still Mets fans. Thanks for your concern!
So now what? Well, I’d begun having the urge to write about the Mets again and with a few days off around Thanksgiving began the process of transferring old posts to a WordPress format. I did all this manually, which took forever, and I tried to preserve all the comments since that’s where so much action took place. I re-imagined the tags and categories. There’s still some work to be done. It doesn’t look great all the time and some of the links you’ll find no doubt are dodgy, but I left the spam behind and you’re welcome to add to the conversation again.
How’d you guys like 2013? I’m sad that the injuries piled up and served to undo so much of the progress we otherwise made; and disappointed of course that our team’s two biggest problems (first base and shortstop) were things we hadn’t anticipated. That’s baseball.
More to come…
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 
Let’s start with a few good guesses. Shawn Marcum wore 18 last year with Milwaukee. That gives me an uncomfortable 10-year flashback to Jeff D’Amico, like Marcum a veteran junkball pitcher via Milwaukee, recovering from an injury, wearing 18. But that would require Tim Teufel changes his shirt (could Ruben Tejada surrender 11 in a chain reaction?) Marcum also has some equity in 28, although that belongs to Daniel Murphy. 38 would work as long as they don’t issue it to Lyon should he come aboard.
John Buck, acquired in the Dickey deal, wears 14 most frequently but with that retired here could wear 4 or if he dares, 44. Travis D’Arnaud appears to prefer 16. Zach Wheeler, as per his Twitter handle, appears to prefer 45, which is available. Omar Quintanila is back on a minor league deal and could reacquire No. 6, and Josh Satin could take back No. 3, but no guarantees for either. Finally there’s the complicated case of Pedro Feliciano, who’s worn 55, 39 and 25 in his Met stints. Who knows what they give him this time. His coming back to the Mets without having appeared at all for the Yankees and their arrogant general manager is about the greatest thing ever. I’m less certain he’s got anything left, but that’s what the invite is for.