Headlining tonight’s podcast is Jim Hirsch, author of the book Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend. Hear me delve into the career of one of the most private players in the history of baseball. We talk about Mays and civil rights, “the catch” and his time playing for the Mets. Hirsch also goes into detail [...]

Apparently the price that Joe Beimel ($2 million dollars) is too prohibitive for the Mets. If they don’t want to add a second lefty, why not take a flier on Edwar Ramirez who the Yankees removed from the 40 man roster today? As Rob Neyer points out Ramirez averaged just under 11 strikeouts a game [...]

This from our good friend Bill Chuck of Billy-Ball.com Marcus Thames has hit 101 career homers. No batter ever reached the 100 homer plateau in fewer at bats than Thames’ 1,549. That’s one Thames homer every 15.3 at bats. In comparison Barry Bonds didn’t hit his 100th homer until his fifth season where he had [...]

During the summer I had author Larry Tye on the show. This year he wrote a book about legendary pitcher Satchel Paige called Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend. We discussed the great career of Satchel Paige who was estimated to have won 2,000 games and pitch 50 no hitters. In 1948 [...]

Earlier this week I was talking about Shin-Soo Choo and the possibility of him missing time to serve in the Korean Military. Since NYBD makes friends all over the world, we received an email from someone in Korea who gave us an update on some former Mets still playing there. Jae Seo has kind of [...]

Some random Mets thoughts: – I wrote earlier in the week the temptation to use Jenrry Mejia might be too much for Jerry Manuel. I compared Mejia to another local prospect, Joba Chamberlain, who was brought in to save the Yankees bullpen in 2007. Yesterday, Jerry Manuel was talking about Mejia’s cutter being the key [...]

The Yankees weren’t always patient with young pitchers like they are today. During the eighties they traded away quality arms like Doug Drabek, Bob Tewksbury, and Dennis Rasmussen. Last spring I caught up with Rasmussen who participates in the Yankee Fantasy Camps. The big lefty talked about his career in New York, which nearly was [...]

I am not against tattoos, especially since I have three of my own, but Eric Hinske may regret his that cost $5,000 and two offseasons to complete. The most surprising part of the story is that his wife didn’t object. Hinske, of course, is now with the Atlanta Braves after winning a title with the [...]

So Jerry Manuel revealed that his possible opening day lineup will look like this: Angel Pagan, Luis Castillo, Reyes, Jason Bay and David Wright – or Wright then Bay – then Daniel Murphy, Jeff Francoeur and Rod Barajas. Back on February 16th I talked about Mets lineup possibilities and came up with my personal lineup: [...]

Before there was Marcus Thames and Randy Winn, the Yankees drafted Jamie Hoffmann from the Dodgers during the Rule V draft. This was in exchange for volatile righty Brian Bruney, but also lefty Zach Kroenke, who the Yankees left off the 40 man roster There were reports the Yankees were going to draft Kroenke with [...]

Ben Shpigel of the Times talks to Ramiro Pena today about being blocked by a Hall of Fame shortstop. Pena has the right attitude saying that “he gets to learn from one of the very best,” but there are other young players in both Port St. Lucie and Tampa that very well may need to [...]

I was not shocked about some of the grief I received over the Steve Phillips column. As I said, Phillips has been polarizing as a general manager, broadcaster, and now while talking about his personal life. The main premise of the article was to comment on the two hours of radio, which I thought was [...]

A contrite Steve Phillips, one we rarely saw during his days as a GM and broadcaster, appeared with WFAN’s Mike Francesa today. Phillips spent a couple of hours talking about his sex addiction that has left him on the outside of the baseball world. To Phillips credit he answered tough questions, took calls and showed [...]

Troy E. Renk (assist to our buddy Joe Demayo for the find) had this nugget from his column footnotes: Former Rockies reliever Joe Beimel said he’s weighing an offer from the Mets: “We’ve been talking to them for a good part of the offseason. I am still just being patient, waiting for the right deal.” [...]

I am not much of a gambler, but I found it interesting to see some of the Over/Under numbers for the 30 MLB teams. Here are five that stood out to me: Seattle 83 Over: I would take the over, this seems like a lock Mets 81 Over: For all their issues the Mets, if [...]