BILLY, BARRY, AND BOONE....AND MUCH MORE

Leading off, good news leading up to the World Baseball Classic - Billy Wagner is not participating. Wagner withdrew from the WBC on Wednesday, saying he didn't think he'd be effective enough this early on. He says he's not a good pitcher in March, and didn't want to bring down the U.S. team. I'm glad he won't be suffering a season-ending injury during the WBC, but part of me was hoping Wagner got that "bad pitching early on" out of the way in the tournament, and was ready to go by the time the Mets' season started.

Secondly, 2B Bret Boone retired Wednesday, saying he just didn't have the motivation to play anymore. Boone's numbers have fallen off dramatically the past couple of seasons...just saying....I don't think he was going to give the Mets those types of huge numbers this year. Actually, I'm willing to bet he wouldn't produce anything close to those numbers. And he was probably thinking the same thing.

Lastly (in my opening remarks, anyway), one day of Barry Bonds dressed like a woman for 'Giants Idol' was amusing. Day Two, on Wednesday, was borderling disturbing. Also, take note, ESPN - Pedro Gomez isn't suited to doing anything that isn't remotely serious. He looked pained trying to smile in his stand-up (on-camera piece) in his 'Giants Idol' report from Arizona.

IN OTHER 'BALLPLAYERS I DISLIKE' NEWS: Roger Clemens is pitching for Team USA in the WBC. With the Astros the past couple of years, and now with the U.S., I've decided I am tired of rooting for the team Clemens plays for, while rooting against him. I don't want to root for him to pitch poorly, get knocked out in the second inning, and then root for the Astros/Americans to come back and win. So despite my like of the Astros (in other words, they're a team I usually don't mind rooting for), I will root for no further Astros success until Roger Clemens is no longer on that team....unless they call up his son Koby. And speaking of Koby....are you kidding me that he homered off his dad the other day? And then Clemens brushes him back? Yeah, how long have they been planning that media coup? For 18 years, probably.

AND NOW TO 'BALLPLAYERS I LIKE': Al Leiter is entering the rotation of Team USA - replacing C.C. Sabathia, who withdrew from the team along with Wagner. That'll be fun to watch - I like rooting for Leiter still.

HE'S NUMBER ONE: The talk out of the Atlanta Braves' camp on Tuesday was that Tim Hudson will be the team's Opening Day starter, taking over the number one role from John Smoltz. Smoltz said he's fine with it - he's just happy to be starting and healthy entering the year. You may remember Smoltz' arm almost fell off at the end of last year's playoffs. (Hopefully the Mets will give Smoltz plenty of time to rest this year, with a nice October off.) Meanwhile, I was surprised to read that Hudson will be the Braves' sixth Opening Day starting pitcher in the past six years. I thought there'd been more stability there recently.

COMMENTS ON THE 'COMMENTS': It's only fitting that Kevin would be the first to comment - he's done so much for this site out of the Southern Bureau (also, the publicity he has given the site is unmatched - both on the web and over the airwaves). More on him later. As for The Wife, I'm anticipating many a comment from her, and yes, I do feel very bad for Mrs. Wilk. But this is a Mets site, darn it, not a 'Scrubs' blog.

AS PROMISED, MORE FROM KEVIN/MAILBAG/'86 METS ROUNDUP: Three topics in one shot here - first, the e-mail:

"Johnny...

You going to see this movie??

http://www.game6film.com

Before you get all excited - watch the trailer. I think its a Red Sox love story. Ugh.

kevin
JMDBSDC Southern Chief."

Well, I watched the trailer. If you're going to do the same, I recommend you treat yourself to the "Large Trailer". Why would you choose the small one, that's what I want to know. Go ahead - check it out....I'll wait.........

As you might expect, I have lots of thoughts on this movie. First of all, it's a brilliant concept. I love the idea - "What were you doing that night?" It's great. But I think it's all wrong here. First of all, the game seems to serve as something of a backdrop (I have no basis for this, but that's what it seems like to me), and I feel like it would be torture for me to see the movie (which, of course, I'm probably going to do anyway). I think I'll be sitting there with my antennae up looking for any clues as to what it was really like to be a Red Sox fan at that moment - or looking for factual errors....or trying to re-live that night. It's an obsession for me. So I think I will be disappointed. But I have to check it out anyway.

Next, if you explore that site (how long did it take you to even figure out where the links were? I dragged my mouse across the screen about ten times before I realized those words on the newspaper were the links...but that's just me. I thought it was a big screen that was just promoting the "Where Were You?" contest.), you'll see that you can read other people's submissions about where they were. This is another obsession of mine - I like hearing about the champagne and T-shirts being hurried away from the Red Sox clubhouse after the Mets tied it up....Keith Hernandez in the clubhouse after making the second out....Ron Darling's yet-to-be-told on johnnymets.blogspot.com story about that night.

I skimmed through the stories about where people were, and I came across one that particularly struck my fancy - a guy who was a freshman at BU, from New York, living in Warren Towers (a dorm at Boston University where I and every one of my readers has lived...unless my readership increases dramatically soon), surrounded by Red Sox fans (both true blue and wannabe). He has a good story going, and answers my question about what it would be like had the Mets been any good when I was in college in Boston...but he loses me when he insists that Ray Knight was on third base after the wild pitch to Mookie Wilson. The wild pitch advanced Knight to second, not third, and he scored when the ball went through Buckner's legs. Now, the other fact that disappoints me about this guy is that he insists that Wilson would have beaten Buckner to the bag (which I agree with) had Buckner caught the ball. But he says that would have won the game for the Mets. All that ensures is that Knight would have gone to third, and Wilson would have been at first for, I think, Howard Johnson. So at best HoJo wins the game - at worst it's extra innings. I hope that guy doesn't win the contest - because he needs to get his facts straight.

Speaking of getting facts straight - I have a very poor long-term memory, unfortunately. I know people who can remember things from when they were 2 or 3 years old. I have trouble remembering much about when I was younger. So, sadly, I'm not sure where I was the night of Game 6. Chances are, I was at home, or at my friend Steven's house. I know we watched some of the World Series at Steven's. I feel like those were Games 1 and 2, though. Either way, I need to talk to my dad and try to remember about the night of Game 6. I can't believe this hasn't come up before - but I DON'T know where I was. I sure do remember the game, though - perhaps all of my future watchings of Game 6, on ESPN Classic and on tape, etc. - have diminished my original memory of the event. But that's probably a topic for the day I appear on Dr. Phil, with my wife and future child - as to why my obsession with the '86 Mets makes me an awful husband/father.

Oh - one more thing about that movie - seeing Bebe Neuwirth in the movie would probably also confuse me, because while the guy Michael Keaton plays is cheating on his wife with Neuwirth, I'm going to be thinking that Neuwirth is cheating on Frasier. Because if that movie is taking place in '86, she's Lilith, darn it.

I need to go to bed - it's too late for a school night - but coming tomorrow, I'm going to try to touch on Wednesday's Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio, on which I heard Dan talk to Darren Daulton for a little bit. And callers came to Daulton's defense!