Hinchliffe Stadium is a stadium built in 1931 in Paterson, NJ.  It is one of the few remaining buildings built for Negro League baseball, although it’s not in very good condition.  The New York Black Yankees and the New York Cubans played home games here at one time.  Players such as “Cool Papa” Bell, Josh Gibson, Monte Irvin, and Oscar Charleston played here and there have been boxing events and barnstorming tours and even Abbott and Costello acts.

It’s certainly a historic place, and while Wikipedia suggests fixes are incoming and there is a website dedicated to getting the stadium renovating, it remains in pretty poor condition.  I actually work in the next town over so one day this week I drove over and took some pictures.  I peeked through windows, leaned over fences and squeezed through a couple of gates.  It’s an interesting place.  Take a look.

Supposedly the Mets have a difficult schedule coming up.  To think this is some make or break period though is a little silly.  All games count, but there is still so much time left after these games that they don’t quite mean that much in the grand course of the schedule, unless they did something crazy like win 25, or 75, percent of them.  I suspect what people are really saying when they tell you about the difficult schedule is that if the Mets can get through another stretch of games and stay in the playoff picture, they’ll start believing.

I say you believe now.  It’s more fun.  Still, let’s take a look at this so-called difficult schedule. (The New York Football Giants laugh at your strength of schedule arguments btw)  Carlos Beltran and the St. Louis Cardinal are next.  They’re pretty good, although one game worse than the Mets so far.  Nationals up after that, who are leading the division right now but merely 1.5 games up.  This is the biggest series of the bunch, for obvious reason.

Then it’s interleague play, which always matters less because the opposing team is not competing for the same playoff spot.  The Yankees are currently 1.5 games worse than the Mets and the Rays are only one better. The Reds have one less loss than the Mets and the Mets have already split two with them, and the Orioles are a team picked to finish last like the Mets. (that should be a fun one if they’re both in first)

Not to say this isn’t a tough stretch, but these teams are not teams that are playing better than the Mets, they’re teams playing much like the Mets. Equal competition, not better, unless you’re a non-believer.  The only teams truly dominating right now are the Rangers in the AL West, and the Dodgers who the Mets will play at the end of June.

The Mets have actually played well against good teams.  In fact they lead the league with 18 wins against teams above .500.  Their worst showing of the year was against the hapless Houston Astros.  Clearly the Mets have proved they can pretty much play with anyone.  Anything could happen going forward but to expect the Mets to falter based on opponent is to have not been paying attention to the first 50 games.

50 seems like a fairly substantial sample size and the Mets have the third most wins in the National League.  They have two top flight pitchers at the top of their rotation, one of the best players in baseball at third base, and an offense that seemingly manages to have good at-bat after good at-bat, even when dealing with slumping players and injuries.  The bullpen is streaky, but Bobby Parnell and Ramon Ramirez are pretty good, and Jon Rauch and Frank Francisco get the job done more often that not.  That’s more than you can say about most bullpens.  They’ve been in the money for a playoff berth for most of season and there is no reason to think that’s going to change in the immediate future.

I missed Banner Day, but every thing I saw about the event sounded amazing.   Check out posts from Mets Police and Faith and Fear in Flushing for the specifics.

I have no idea why they originally stopped having Banner Day but you could tell that people were excited to have it back.  300 or more banners were made.  All the announcers were talking it about it at different points throughout the day and the promotion got coverage in the papers the next day too.  What’s better than a promotion that not only gets covered but has the fans doing the actual promotion?

The fans did not embarrass either.  There weren’t a score of “Sell the Team!” banners or “So and so sucks!” proclamations.  I sense there was a certain reluctance to bring it back by the Mets assuming that Banner Day’s day had come and gone, and I admit I thought that might be the case as well.  The world today provides so many possible outlets for fans, that it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that the desire to scribble some logos onto a bed sheet and parade around with it had been left in the previous millennium.  I was wrong.  The excitement I saw on Twitter and recapped by my fellow bloggers proves to me that Banner Day is the perfect promotion for Mets fandom. The winning banner was of an event and time period after Banner Day ended and the creators of the banner were what I call New Age Mets Fans.  Some common trait has been passed down from Mets fan to Mets fan that instills within us the desire to talk about and parade our favorite players and moments.

Optimism was present in many of the banners.  One of my favorites read, “The Mets are going all the way, Duda, Duda!” which I thought was clever and that I think I’m going to co-opt occasionally this year.   There were tributes to announcers, and players of the recent past as well as the distant past.  Current players got some love too, including a mock-up of a newspaper cover featuring R.A. Dickey’s exploits.

I wonder if the Mets were impressed by the enthusiasm and fun that went on that Sunday afternoon.   It did seem like they were enjoying the banners as well, so many they truly will bring this back as a yearly tradition.  It’s a fan-friendly event that really resonates with Mets fans and is the perfect event that was born of a fan movement way back at the Polo Grounds and not in a corporate meeting room somewhere.  It would be cool if it could be done while fans are already in the park.  There are rumors of scheduled doubleheaders being added to the schedule for 2013 to help facilitate the interleague everyday format, so perhaps they could again do it between games one Sunday afternoon.  Either way, I know I’m going to make a point to be there for it next year.

Banner day is Sunday before the game against the Padres.  You should head to the game and help convince the Mets you want them to do Banner Day every year.  Seriously.  Make a banner, go to the game, take pictures, tweet pictures, talk about the banners.

I’ve mocked up a little design that I think would make a cool banner, or at least part of a banner.  Or even a t-shirt.   So, celebrate the Mets 50th anniversary with a banner and have some fun on Sunday!

Mets Today asks: “Is this the soft spot in the schedule?”

Three games against the Pirates followed by four games with the lowly Padres — a seven-game span of less than mediocre opponents. What makes it all the more intriguing is that this stretch is “the calm before the storm” in that it comes right before perhaps the toughest section of their season — the next 8 series include facing the Phillies, Cardinals (for four), first-place Nationals, Yankees, Rays, Reds, first-place Orioles, and Yankees again. Whew!

 

I think strength of schedule is an argument that doesn’t mean much in baseball.  It’s more suited for the short season that the NFL plays, although many people had the New York Giants buried based on the schedule difficulty and they ended up winning the Super Bowl.   There are so many hot and cold streaks in baseball that you can get a good team that’s slumping and beat them, and get a bad team that turns in three good pitching performances in a row and sweeps you.  Sometimes the timing is that you face the top three pitchers in a rotation, and other times you get the soft underbelly.  Losing to a bad team doesn’t eliminate you from contention and more than beating a good team clinches a competitive season. This is part of the reason I don’t care about a balanced schedule.

So no, I’m not concerned that the Mets have a difficult stretch coming up.   I think it’s more important to concentrate on how the Mets themselves are playing since certainly the Mets can beat any team if some guys are hitting and Johan Santana and R.A. Dickey are dazzling.  It’s also worth noting that although the Yankees and Phillies may project as tough teams, they aren’t that right now.  The opposite might be said about the Nationals and the Orioles.

Still, the Padres should be a very beatable team, and you’d like the see the Mets get their act together and do so.  Winning the series against the Padres would put them at their high water mark for the season and that’s a great place to start when you’re facing the defending division and world champs back to back.

Many Mets fans wanted Bobby Valentine hired to manage the Mets again at Citi Field.  Well, there is still a chance he could manage here; The Boston Red Sox just need to make it to the World Series this year and he’ll be in the dugout managing the American League Club at next year’s All-Star Game.

It requires rooting for the Red Sox of course, which isn’t something I’ve ever had trouble doing.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend after all.

The perfect scenario is Valentine manages the All-Star Game as the losing manager from this year’s World Series, and that Terry Collins manages the other team.  An interesting twist would be if somehow the Nationals make the World Series and we get a Valentine vs. Davey Johnson matchup at Citi Field.

Memorable series in Toronto?  Perhaps not.  The Mets flirted more with last place than with first this weekend, but they got out of the country with a win and perhaps that’s a step forward.

No NL East team swept this weekend, providing the Mets some solace.  The Mets also have managed to squeak out some wins while they’ve been struggling, perhaps doing some good towards minimizing the damage.  Avoiding long losing streaks is a good way to avoid undoing all the progress you’ve made during winning streaks, and simply being 4-6 over the last 10 instead of 2-8 has done that.   A good way to have a winning record is to win more games when you’re playing well than you lose when you’re playing poorly, since all teams do both for at least some portion of the season.

It’s important to minimize the length of said losing streaks as well, and for the last couple of decades the National League’s favorite way to do that has been to face the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The Mets will travel to Pittsburgh for a three game set, and while it’s true that they’re not a good team, it’s important to note that they rank 3rd in the NL in team ERA and the Mets will be facing their two best pitchers in Bedard and McDonald.  The counter argument is of course that the Pirates can’t hit a lick and the Mets will be tossing the top of their rotation as well, with Johan Santana, R.A. Dickey and Jon Niese getting the starts.

It’s worth noting that the Mets are three games over .500 more than a quarter of the way through the season and haven’t been a losing team even for one game all season long despite being almost universally picked to finish last.  It isn’t because everything has clicked either.  The starters have probably been better than expected overall, but they’ve been prone to absolute disaster starts as well.  The bullpen is incredibly streaky, and it almost seems that as Frank Francisco goes, so go the Mets.  The offense that should’ve been the Mets best feature has been spotty, although David Wright is hitting for two.  Ike Davis has been pretty much a disaster and the two positions that the Mets really didn’t have any depth, shortstop and catcher, are two positions the Mets faced injuries at .  Both Ruben Tejada and Josh Thole went down while putting up strong offensive numbers, and their backups certainly aren’t up to par.

And still the Mets roll on.  Time to take care of some Pirates.

We know David Wright is already the captain, if only unofficially, but it’d be nice to get him the official title.  I thought of a fun way to possibly do it.

There is a 50% chance that one of the local hockey teams is going to win the Stanley Cup.  So if this comes to pass, have that team bring the Cup to Citi Field for the Mets to see and have the captain, either Zach Parise of the Devils or Ryan Callahan of the Rangers, present David Wright with a Mets jersey with a ‘C’ on it.

Clearly as an Islanders fan I’m rooting against the Rangers and am not sure I really want the Devils to continue on and win it all either, but from a New York City standpoint I think this would be a fun way to do it.  It wouldn’t have the same impact without the Cup, but you could probably have one of them do it anyway if you wanted to make pomp and circumstance out of it.

I know it’s popular to knock the All-Star Game and it all represents, but the truth of it is that it’s basically a party to celebrate baseball, and who doesn’t love baseball?  And like most parties, it’s much much better in person.

I was there for the 2006 All-Star Game and had an absolute blast in Pittsburgh despite driving back after the game to New York and going to work Wednesday morning.   Click the link to read my take on the experience, including the Home Run Derby.  It was really a lot of fun, and I’m truly looking forward to getting to experience it at home.

So expect a lot of thoughts and reactions about the game, particularly as the more exciting details come out about All-Star Villages, first pitches, and potential celebrations.   Now a note to the 2012 Mets: Get to the World Series so Terry Collins can manage and the proper (too many) amount of Mets get represented in the game.

Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times recounts some odd and interesting Mets games over the years in what he calls “50 years from the Mets junk drawer”

Check them out, some random oddities in there that are entertaining.  Here’s a couple of random games I can think of.   What have you got?

6/14/2008 against the Texas Rangers. I don’t know if this counts since it ended up being a rain-out, not a game.  It did lead to the second-to-last true Mets doubleheader played at Shea Stadium though, on Father’s Day. Nathan’s did a hot dog eating contest before the game, and then the Texas Rangers used the Shea tarp as a slip-n-slide.

Another fun one was a game against the Orioles in which David Wright hit a Grand Slam into the Shea visitor’s bullpen off of Adam Loewen and the Orioles left-fielder mis-played a ball that ended up bouncing up his sleeve and getting caught in his jersey.