{"id":463,"date":"2004-12-24T20:20:47","date_gmt":"2004-12-24T20:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=463"},"modified":"2013-11-29T20:31:41","modified_gmt":"2013-11-29T20:31:41","slug":"youre-invited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=463","title":{"rendered":"You&#8217;re Invited"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/images\/robertsdw.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" \/><\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Mets yesterday announced that nine players had been signed to minor league contracts and been invited to Spring Training. They include ancient slugger\u00a0<strong>Andres Galarraga,<\/strong>\u00a0who will turn 44 this summer &#8212; younger than\u00a0<strong>The Francos<\/strong>\u00a0at least (thanks Paul). It&#8217;s possible that the Big Cat makes the team, perhaps as the righthanded swinging half of a first base platoon, but he won&#8217;t be wearing his familiar\u00a0<strong>No. 14<\/strong>\u00a0here. That&#8217;s retired.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Rehabbing Met bullpen veterans\u00a0<strong>Grant Roberts 36<\/strong>\u00a0(photo at right by David Whitham)<strong>; Scott Strickland 28 and Orber Moreno 49<\/strong>\u00a0were also retained with minor league contracts, as was outfielder\u00a0<strong>Gerald Williams 21.<\/strong>\u00a0Bringing back Williams would seem more pointless than usual, but for the news that\u00a0<strong>Mike Cameron 44<\/strong>\u00a0is having surgery and will likely miss the first month of the year.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span>Also joining the mix to spell Cameron will be speedy backup\u00a0<strong>Kerry Robinson,<\/strong>\u00a0notable here for the fact he used to wear\u00a0<strong>No. 0<\/strong>\u00a0while with the Cardinals. (Former Expo\u00a0<strong>Ron Calloway,<\/strong>signed to a Major League deal earlier this week, will also be in the outfield mix.Calloway wore<strong>No. 22\u00a0<\/strong>in Montreal\/San Juan).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span>Other signees include pitcher\u00a0<strong>Juan Padilla,<\/strong>\u00a0a minor league vet who&#8217;s had coffee with the Yankees and Reds;\u00a0<strong>Luis Garcia,<\/strong>\u00a0a first baseman-outfielder who hit 32 HRs last year in the rare air of the PCL with the Dodgers&#8217; organization; catchers\u00a0<strong>Andy Dominique,\u00a0<\/strong>a chunky minor league vet who made his debut last year with the Red Sox while Varitek served a suspension for getting in A-Rod&#8217;s girlish grill; and\u00a0<strong>Ramon Castro,<\/strong>\u00a0the former Marlins backup fighting a rape charge. Along with the news the Mets had re-signed veteran catcher\u00a0<strong>Vance Wilson 3\u00a0<\/strong>to a 2005 contract, it appears a deal or two involving\u00a0<strong>Jason Phillips 23<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0<strong>That Piazza Guy<\/strong>\u00a0may happen sooner or later.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span>Finally, there&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Marlon Anderson, No. 8<\/strong>\u00a0on your old Cardinal and Phillie rosters, a utility backup in the mold of\u00a0<strong>Desi Relaford.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span>These guys will all report when\u00a0<strong>Spring Training<\/strong>\u00a0begins in six long weeks or so. Till then,<strong>Happy Holidays!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Mets yesterday announced that nine players had been signed to minor league contracts and been invited to Spring Training. They include ancient slugger\u00a0Andres Galarraga,\u00a0who will turn 44 this summer &#8212; younger than\u00a0The Francos\u00a0at least (thanks Paul). It&#8217;s possible that the Big Cat makes the team, perhaps as the righthanded swinging half of a first &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=463\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;You&#8217;re Invited&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[153,175,168,173,174,28],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gerald-williams","tag-juan-padilla","tag-julio-franco","tag-marlon-anderson","tag-ramon-castro","tag-vance-wilson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":474,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}