Marty Boryczewski
Marty Boryczewski
August 17, 1972 – September 11, 2001
Teammate, friend
You will always be remembered
** UPDATE **
Loyal MetsToday reader gsparber has provided this gallery of photos from a 9/11 ceremony on Long Island. Thanks, Gary.
Remembering Thurman Munson
Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Thurman Munson.
Yes, I know this is a Mets blog but it’s also my blog, and “Thurm” was, hands-down, my favorite baseball player of all time — and the reason I chose to don the “tools of ignorance”. (John Stearns and Jerry Grote are also high on the list — all three were cut from a similar mold.) But enough about me, this is about Munson. If you did not have the opportunity to see Thurman Munson attack, absorb, and often dominate a baseball game, I urge you to seek out old Yankees videos from the 1970s and consider getting Marty Appel’s recent biography Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain
In the meantime, you can read John Delcos’ recent blog entry about Thurman to get an inkling of the kind of man and player he was (see, I’m not the only Mets blogger recognizing the former Yankee captain!)
Mets Lead MLB
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Mets now lead MLB in press conferences since the All-Star Break.
Elias also announced that today’s conference held by Minaya broke the all-time record for most apologies in a 48-hour period.
Well done, men!
Deep Throat Speaks Again
In a remarkable turn of events that may change the course of American history, it has been discovered that journalists Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein spilled the beans on Watergate as part of a devious plan to become President of the United States and/or gain Presidential Cabinet positions.
According to recently found notes from an old file box that once belonged to W. Mark Felt, Sr. ,
“Woodward wrote all that Watergate stuff not to sell papers, or win a Pulitzer, but to force an impeachment of Richard Nixon and have lobby as Nixon’s most logical replacement.”
Further,
” … Bernstein was tired of the newspaper industry — his eyes were on becoming a Presidential speech writer … he had lobby — he lobby to Nixon to be Press Secretary on many occasions.”
One of Woodward’s relatives — and a person familiar with the situation — corraborated Felt’s posthumous remarks:
“As a child, Bobby wasn’t like the other boys … when all the other boys talked about becoming firemen, policemen, or centerfielders for the New York Yankees, Bobby would say he wanted to be President. It was an obsession.”
G. Gordon Liddy could not be reached for comment.
In related news, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams admitted that they broke the BALCO story in the San Francisco Chronicle in part to replace Barry Bonds in left field.
Said Fainaru-Wada:
“We wanted the Giants to consider us as a platoon — me from the right side and Lance from the left. We thought it was a good plan to tear down Barry and then lobby them for a tryout.”
For those of you looking for something else after seeing this headline, my apologies, and, shame on you!
Mets Game 98: Win Over Rockies
Mets 7 Rockies 3
And for a followup routine, the Mets played a baseball game …
The excitement in Flushing began with the firing of Tony Bernazard, an event that closed with a squabble between Omar Minaya and Adam Rubin. For an encore, the Mets held another press conference to speak about the first (but unfortunately, did not announce a steel cage match between Minaya and Rubin). But the crowd at Citi Field clamored for more, so nine men were dressed up and sent out on the field to engage the Colorado Rockies in a battle royale.
The encore for the evening began as a much more benign affair compared to the day’s earlier activities, but finished with a bang. With the score tied 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth, Rockies reliever Juan Rincon couldn’t find the plate and walked the first two batters he faced, and after a Dan Murphy sac bunt, Jeff Francoeur was intentionally walked to load the bases. With LH hitter Cory Sullivan coming to the plate, Colorado Rockies manager Jim Tracy called for LOOGY Franklin Morales, and Jerry Manuel countered with Fernando Tatis. Tatis fell behind 0-2, then laced a low changeup into the seats to give the Mets their first lead of the ballgame.
Pedro Feliciano was credited with the victory and K-Rod pitched a perfect ninth in a non-save situation.
Notes
Oliver Perez allowed three runs on four walks and five hits in five innings of work. Remarkably, most people associated with the Mets will look at it as a “positive step”. The rest of us will refer to it for what it is: garbage.
Not to be lost in the excitement was Brian Stokes’ two perfect innings in relief of Ollie to keep the Mets in the ballgame.
Nice to see Tatis tie into one and deliver such a dramatic victory. We know he’s not the guy who hit like Roy Hobbs last July, and his DPs have been maddening, but his approach to the game makes him someone who is easy to root for. After making contact on the grand slam swing, Tatis was sprinting out of the box, taking nothing for granted. Nice to see.
Dan Murphy hit fourth again and went 1-for-3 with an RBI and a sacrifice bunt. How many MLB cleanup hitters are called on to bunt?
Luis Castillo and David Wright combined to go 4-for-4 with 2 walks and 4 runs scored. The red-hot Castillo is now hitting .305.
Jeff Francoeur blasted his third homerun as a Met, a solo shot in the fourth. In seven games, Francoeur has three homeruns; the rest of the Mets combined have seven taters in the entire month (three of them by Tatis).
This win marks the Mets’ third in a row — their longest winning streak since 1986.
Next Mets Game
The rising Mets take on the Rockies again at 7:10 PM on Tuesday night. Mike Pelfrey goes to the mound against Tottenville HS graduate Jason Marquis.
The More Things Change
… the more they stay the same. That’s the saying, right?
If you saw this printed somewhere today, I bet following snippet would not be surprising:
This ship has been off course for three seasons, not because of a lack of resources, but because of a lack of judgment. The Mets began the year with a payroll … which is second only to the Yankees’ … They have nothing to show for it but a clubhouse of aging stars with big names, big contracts and big injuries.
(the GM) sold Wilpon on the notion that you had to win with big names in New York, that the fans weren’t patient enough to wait for rebuilding, that you had to do it now. Forget the farm system.
But Wilpon apparently came to the conclusion that the Mets’ salvation was not exclusively found in high-priced stars. Yesterday, he made an intriguing observation. He said he knows now that a hefty payroll does not ensure success. ”We’ve learned that painfully.”
More than once yesterday he said, ”We’re going to get younger and more athletic.”
But you might be mildly surprised to find out that the above was published on June 13, 2003 in The New York Times.
If you don’t remember, these were the words printed when GM Steve Phillips was fired. Jim Duquette replaced him on an interim, and then “permanent” basis, and within a year Scott Kazmir was traded for Victor Zambrano and Ty Wigginton for Kris Benson so that the Mets could “play meaningful games in September”. Not long after that meaningless September, Omar Minaya was hired to right the ship.
Speaking of, does this sound familiar? (from the September 29, 2004 edition of The New York Times):
It is difficult to determine the impact of any Mets general manager because the team’s power structure so often appears split. Although major league executives generally believe the best way to run a team is to let the general manager make the most important decisions and then receive clearance from ownership, the Mets rely on committees to hash out strategy, usually soliciting a wide range of opinions.
Jeff Wilpon directs the day-to-day operation of the club, the superscouts Al Goldis and Bill Livesey have input, and veteran players and coaches sometimes offer opinions, too. Minaya knows from experience what he is getting into. Having emigrated with his family from the Dominican Republic to Queens as a child, he became an assistant general manager for the Mets in 1997 and became a senior assistant general manager one year later.
I.e.: the “collegial organization” that Steve Phillips referred to recently.
Minaya hired manager Willie Randolph in part because of Randolph’s excellent reputation for working with youngsters such as Alfonso Soriano. You see, the Mets were going to build a pennant contender through their farm system and around their youth — David Wright and Jose Reyes. That idea went out the window a year later, when Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran were signed to obnoxious contracts.
Today, Joel Sherman touched on this subject as well — and interestingly, holds “conspiracy theories” similar to the ones we’ve been drumming up here for a while:
In the past week, Minaya proclaimed the Mets “buyers” in the trade market at a moment when they were six games under .500, fourth in the NL East, and tied for eighth in the wild card, 7 ½ back. Good tickets still available at Citi Field in case you are interested.
and …
The Wilpons’ 1-2 strategy was to make sure the criticism was deflected away from them — because ownership can talk accountability, but it really is not great at accepting it — while beginning the process of convincing fans that the following season would be different. Translation: What do we have to do to begin motivating you to start buying tickets again? So Art Howe was fired as manager and Jim Duquette was demoted from general manager to go sit in the corner. A good leaking campaign ensued blaming that duo for everything short of the Hindenburg going down. You were supposed to be distracted from remembering that the Wilpons hired the people who messed up.
Sherman goes on to predict that the Mets will “…try to recruit a big-name general manager with the idea of convincing fans that different leadership would know properly how to surround a talented base of Santana, K-Rod, Beltran, David Wright and Jose Reyes with better supplementary players” and, failing at that, hire Tony LaRussa as manager, who “… would bring along his trusted pitching coach Dave Duncan, with the idea being that they always seem to get the most out of whatever talent is put in front of them”.
It’s not that far-fetched a theory, and it fits the pattern that the Wilpons have been following for over a decade. The names may change, but the story remains the same.
Bernazard Reminds Us of Another Assistant GM
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the Tony Bernazard “situation” is not Bernazard’s actions, but the Mets’ feeble, wishy-washy, inactive response. They have neither stood behind their VP of Player Development, nor have they fired him, nor have they even put him on some kind of a suspension. Their response to the multiple allegations toward Bernazard is to “investigate” — as Omar Minaya told us about twenty times.
Investigate? Really? That’s it?
The Mets seem to have forgotten that they operate out of New York City — the media capital of the world. The spotlight is on, and it’s white and hot. There is no time to “investigate” in a New York Minute. You ACT — swiftly and decisively.
This recent turn of events reminds me of the “Bill Singer Incident”, which was handled (bumbled?) similarly. For those who don’t remember, that debacle occurred in November of 2003, at MLB’s “general manager meetings” in Phoenix, AZ. Ironically, Bill Singer had just been hired as “assistant to the General Manager”. During one evening at the bar, Singer got a little too drunk and made some racially insensitive remarks to Kim Ng (who at the time held a similar position in the Dodgers’ organization). The immediate response was very much like the one we heard yesterday:
“He’s still employed by us at the moment, but the matter is under organizational review,” Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said Sunday night. “No decision has been made.”
This statement came after Singer apologized to his boss Jim Duquette, and released simultaneously with this statement from Singer:
“I am embarrassed by what I said when I met with Ng on Tuesday evening. My comments were truly inappropriate and I’m truly sorry. I have apologized to her and hope she will forgive me.”
According to the Daily News:
“That didn’t wash with Jim and it sure as hell won’t wash with [owner] Fred [Wilpon],” a Mets source told the Daily News. “Plain and simple, there’s no excuse for that kind of behavior, and there’s no saving this guy.”
The Daily News was right — all the apologies in the world weren’t going to save Bill Singer from the words uttered in a drunken stupor. He he was fired within a week.
The day Singer was relieved of his duties, the Mets released this announcement:
“As a matter of policy our organization cannot and will not tolerate any comment or conduct by an employee that suggests insensitivity or intolerance to any racial, ethnic or religious group. Any deviation from this standard is not acceptable.”
Is there really much difference between Singer’s fateful conversation with Kim Ng and the myriad activities of Tony Bernazard? Yes, in Singer’s case, the main issue was one of racial insensitivity. But it was similar to the current situation because it was also a glaring embarrassment for the entire organization. And now that the story is out there, it doesn’t matter what the Mets find out as a result of their “investigation” — the court of public opinion has already made their decision, and the rest of baseball is laughing at the three-ring circus that is the New York Mets.
In many ways, in fact, this situation is worse. Singer’s act was isolated. It was incredibly stupid and insensitive, but it didn’t really affect the team directly. And it didn’t necessarily reflect the attitude or activities of the organization. The response to Singer’s case was more, “wow, how could the Mets hire this guy? He’s an idiot”. Whereas today, there are many questionable acts linked to Bernazard. It’s not an isolated incident, but the way he regularly conducts himself. The mocking now is “wow, how could the Mets let this guy inflitrate their organization? how could they give a guy like this so much power? what has he done that we haven’t heard about? maybe this is the reason the Mets are in a shambles.”
In the end, Singer had very little impact on the Mets, and the incident in Arizona was forgotten quickly enough. Bernazard, though, has been a major factor in the organization for several years. The sooner the Mets act, the sooner they can get on the road away from mockery and disrespect. And it’s gonna take a while.
(Side note to the Singer story — one of the candidates to replace him at the time was Theo Epstein. How might that move have changed Mets history?)
Mets Game 87: Win Over Reds
Mets 9 Reds 7
Jeff Francoeur and the Mets are now 2-0.
The Beltranless, Delgadoless, and Reyesless offense exploded for six runs in the third and fourth frames, and later tacked on another pair of much-needed insurance runs as the Mets beat the Reds, won the three-game series, and head into the All-Star Break with their chins up.
Mike Pelfrey tried to give the Reds a chance to get back in the game, but left that gracious gesture to the bullpen. In spite of losing his composure on a few occasions, pitching erratically, and having his usual case of the yips, Big Pelf somehow plowed through 7 full innings and allowed only 3 runs on 5 hits to earn his seventh victory of the season.
Every position player who came to the plate collected at least one hit, as the Mets battered Reds pitching for 16 hits including three doubles and two homeruns. Brian Schneider broke the Mets’ 80-inning dry spell without a dinger by sending a David Weathers pitch over the fence, and Fernando Tatis was so inspired that he followed with another one a few minutes later. Good thing for those two solo blasts, because the Reds scored four runs in the final two innings against Sean Green, Pedro Feliciano, Bobby Parnell, and Francisco Rodriguez.
Though he kept the home crowd in their seats to the final pitch, ultimately, K-Rod nailed down his 23rd heart-stopping save.
Notes
With a 7-run lead, Mike Pelfrey caught the yips in the fifth and nearly gave the game back to the Reds. He walked the first two batters of the inning and committed a balk in between, setting up a three-run inning that could’ve been much worse if Dusty Baker didn’t have an obsession with using pitchers to pinch-hit (yeah, I know Micah Owings is a good-hitting pitcher, but his “good” is only .250 … it’s kind of like using Argenis Reyes as a pinch- … oh, never mind).
Pelf’s sixth balk of the season was so ridiculously inexcusable, I don’t know where to begin. But I’ll try. First of all, he had a seven-zip lead. Secondly, the runner on first was catcher Ramon Hernandez, who is a good athlete but not a stolen base threat (8 SBs total in 11 years in MLB). Third, Dan Murphy had alerted Pelf to the fact that he’d be playing behind the bag, literally seconds before the balk. Fourth, Hernandez was only about three steps off the bag. Yet, inexplicably, Pelfrey looked over at 1B, saw Hernandez’s miniscule lead — and Murphy standing a few feet behind him — and whirled to make a pickoff attempt (but stopped when he realized there was no one at the bag to catch the throw). I shudder to think what is going to happen when Pelfrey pitches in a high-pressure situation — i.e., a postseason contest — if he routinely flakes out on lazy Sunday afternoons with seven-run leads against ordinary competition.
My apologies for the late post and brief notes — I had a doubleheader and watched the game in fast-forward off the DVR so I may have missed some things. Though, I’m kind of glad I missed seeing the game live. Between Pelfrey’s antics in the fifth and the late-game bullpen implosion, I might have thrown something heavy and blunt at the TV.
The Mets and Reds now have identical 42-45 records, and both are in second-to-last place. The Mets, however, are in fourth while the Reds are in fifth. Thank goodness for the Nationals.
Strangely enough, the Mets have the best home record in the NL East, at 25-20.
No, I am not related to Paul Janish, but thank you for asking. And I agree, it’s not a very common name. But yes, I’m sure.
Next Mets Game
The Mets take a break for a few days while MLB puts on the Bud Selig Circus Show in St. Louis. Order is restored on July 16th, when the Mets play the Braves in Atlanta at 7:00 PM.
Window Shopping: Nationals
In our latest edition of Window Shopping, we look at the Washington Nationals. Since they’re on a pace to threaten the ‘62 Mets record for losing — and win the Bryce Harper sweepstakes — they should be sellers. Problem is, you have to actually offer something of value in order to make a sale. And not unexpectedly, the Nats strongly resemble a dollar store. Read more
Window Shopping: Pirates
A team that is sitting in last place, nine games below .500 and in a division headed by the Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers, would presumably be sellers. Indeed, the fire sale began a few weeks ago for the Pirates, who dealt away Nate McLouth, Nyjer Morgan, Sean Burnett, and Eric Hinske over the past few weeks. But there isn’t much left in the cupboard, so the store in Pittsburgh will be closing shortly. Read more
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