Mets sign Scott Hairston

According to the Daily News, the Mets have signed Scott Hairston to a Major League contract, pending a physical.

Good. This move has been unanimously endorsed on the Mostly Mets Podcast a couple of times. Hairston plays all three outfield positions pretty well, hits for power off the bench, doesn’t seem to mind a part-time role, and saw Michael Jackson in concert when he was young.

Hairston’s a good defensive replacement for Lucas Duda in right, he can spell Andres Torres in center if necessary, and he’s really not much of a drop-off from 2010-11 Jason Bay in left. This obviously isn’t the move that puts the Mets over the top in 2012, but it’s a fine one regardless.

 

The Marlins are going to be hilarious

Carlos Zambrano + Ozzie Guillen = Inevitable explosive awesomeness.

That alone would be worth the price of admission, but throw in the hype and hoopla around the Jose Reyes addition and the opening of the new stadium, the meddling art-dealer owner and his art installation of a home-run display, the notorious (and mostly hilarious) fecal-Tweeter of a left-fielder, the moody third baseman who’d rather play shortstop poorly, uniforms forging new territory in ugliness, and the fish tanks being installed behind home plate and you’ve got a recipe for a sports spectacle most thrilling.

Oh, and they’ve still got Josh Johnson and Mike Stanton, who both seem content to contain their explosive awesomeness to baseball fields.

It’s going to be something, even if it amounts to nothing.

Hoyas distracting me from all the suck

You’ll have to indulge me for a second:

OHHHHHHHHHH!

Not sure if any of y’all saw the ninth-ranked Georgetown Hoyas come back from a 17-point deficit midway through the second half against No. 20 Marquette last night at the Verizon Center, but it ranks among the most awesome things that have ever awesomed.

The Hoyas, my alma mater’s basketball squad, are the only team I follow for which I currently maintain any legitimate short-term hope, what with the Jets embroiled in some Beltranian postseason locker-room turmoil and the Mets banking their offseason on Andres Torres, Corey Wimberley and a bunch of relievers that’ll probably be dealt in July if they meet with any success.

And being a Georgetown fan these past couple of years has been not unlike cheering the Mets in 2008, full of promise despite a clearly flawed team — but unencumbered the off-field fuss that has plagued the Mets since — and ultimately ending in heartbreak and disappointment. So when the Hoyas are winning as they have been winning since an early-season loss to Kansas in Hawaii — inspiring all sorts of fawning post-hoc analysis from around the Internet — I watch with some trepidation, knowing as I do that there are dozens of other college hoops teams off to awesome starts and hundreds of others vying for the ultimate prize, that fans of all but one will end up disappointed, that the Big East conference schedule is a bloodthirsty 1,500-pound grizzly of a bear and that all this dizzying post-holiday Hoya-fan exuberance can and likely will be destroyed at some point by a single injury to a key player or a prolonged shooting slump or one of those games where Seton Hall randomly refuses to miss three-pointers.

So though a loss to the nation’s 20-ranked team would hardly spell doom for my Hoyas in January, at some point in the second half I could hear the delusion train leaving the station last night with me still fumbling with my credit card at the ticket machine. I even took to my iPad for some NBA Jam, turning my attention briefly away from the chatter on ESPNU about the undersized Marquette team’s spirited play that somehow neglected to mention the obnoxious way those players seemed more dedicated to drawing fouls than making baskets.

Then, when all seemed bleak — and with Chris Paul heating up, no less — something… something just happened. After about 20 minutes of the Hoya freshmen playing like overwhelmed underclassmen, they yielded to the team’s few veterans.

And all of a sudden Jason Clark, a 6-2 senior guard with Inspector Gadget arms like a 7-footer, is grabbing loose balls and driving to the basket and the Hoyas are trimming the lead. Then Henry Sims, a 6-10 senior center and former top recruit who played laughable basketball until a stern talking-to from his mother refocused him this offseason, is blocking shots at one end of the court and hitting a beautiful fadeaway at the other, and the refs seem on to Marquette’s flop jig and now the difference is down to five. And now Hollis Thompson, a 6-8 junior forward who has never missed a big shot in his life, is nailing them down from all over the floor and the Eagles can’t get out of their own way, and the once-lost game is tied, and I’m punching the arms of my La-Z-Boy and making such a racket in my living room that my wife gets a little freaked out and leaves for a walk because it’s been a long time since she has seen me act this way.

By the time she comes back with cookies — cookies! — the Hoyas have won, 73-70.

Which is to say: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

That type of night. Let me enjoy this while it lasts, huh?

 

Sober Hall of Fame stance from drunk Jays fan

In their quest to erase their own involvement, if not illicit participation, in the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs from the history books, while simultaneously imagining an obviously non-existent moral code for members of the club that they act as gate keepers for, baseball writers will render themselves irrelevant in a little over a year’s time when they refuse to allow Barry Bonds, the greatest baseball player many of my generation, and quite possibly any generation, have ever seen play the game, into its no longer hallowed Hall.

Dustin Parkes, TheScore.com.

Parkes, one of the aforementioned Drunk Jays Fans, takes the same stance I’ve had on the Hall of Fame for a while now: If Barry Bonds — the best player of his generation — doesn’t make the Hall of Fame, then the Hall of Fame is dumb.

I’m not sure I even blame the baseball writers anymore: I’m certain they would endure as much animosity for electing Bonds from fans certain Bonds does not deserve to be enshrined as they will from people like me when they exclude Bonds, and it’s on the Hall of Fame itself to eliminate the morals clause and let everyone know it’s a place to honor great baseball players for great baseball playing, righteousness be damned.

Even the only vaguely conscious voters must recognize by now that the Hall of Fame is riddled with racists, drunks, cheaters and wife-beaters of the vilest ilk, but as long as today’s voters are charged with considering “integrity, sportsmanship and character” they are forced to subject the players on their ballots to their own nebulous and innately biased standards of decency. And that’s frustrating to fans because it’s so utterly murky, and because we have our own standards and our own guys we want voted in to the Hall of Fame and nothing we can damn do about it.

That’s all I really want to say on the matter until next year when Bonds does or doesn’t get elected, and then… well, we’ll see how I feel then, if I still feel feelings. It’ll be sad to me if I have to stop caring about the Hall of Fame entirely then, because I think Cooperstown is an awesome baseball Mecca, and because it’d be sweet to someday take my kids there (assuming they like baseball [and they better]) and tell them about the ridiculous things I saw Bonds do on baseball fields before they were born.

And, you know, that Piazza guy.

More-a Melvin

Since Melvin Mora retired last week and I’m pretty busy with meetings and such today, I figured I’d repost this interview I did with the man last year. He remains one of my favorite Baseball Show guests of all time. It was pouring rain, which is why my hair was so wet.


Stephen Colbert still awesome

I don’t think you ever say ‘never.’ That’s a discussion I’ll have to have with my family. I’ll need to pray on it.

Stephen Colbert, on the possibility of running for President.

If you’ve got 20 minutes and you appreciate Colbert as much as I do, read Charles McGrath’s entire N.Y. Times Magazine feature on Colbert’s real and on-camera personas.

Canada disowns Jason Bay

The Toronto Sun published its list of the 100 most influential Canadians in baseball, which includes, among others, noted man-about-the-Internet Jonah Keri, true SABR Tom Tango, former Mets pitching coach Dave Wallace, and Ben Nicholson-Smith of MLBTradeRumors.com.

Not on the list or even in the honorable mentions? You guessed it: Jason Bay, the active Canadian home-run leader. Recent retiree and total hero Matt Stairs was also slighted, perhaps because Matt Stairs belongs to the world now.

The Drunk Jays Fans were also excluded, calling into question the validity of the entire endeavor.

Hat tip to Amazin’ Avenue fanposter Bobby Baseball.