LEAP YEAR!!

Today is February 29th, 2008. It's a leap year. With the expectations for the Mets being a World Series championship, it begs the question: How have the Mets performed in leap years?

1964: 53-109 (10th place out of 10)

1968: 73-89 (9th place out of 10)

1972: 83-73 (3rd place out of 6)

1976: 86-76 (3rd place out of 6)

1980: 67-95 (5th place out of 6)

1984: 90-72 (2nd place - 6.5 GB)

1988: 100-60 (lost NLCS in 7 games)

1992: 72-90 (5th place out of 6)

1996: 71-91 (4th place out of 5)

2000: 94-68 (lost World Series in 5 games)

2004: 71-91 (4th place out of 5)

2 out of 11 leap years were pretty good (although when you consider that 1988 was a huge disappointment, maybe not).

The Mets started out in 1962, so let's throw 1964 out the window - and if you do that, you're left with 10 years. Half of those were 65-70 wins, so those would be bad years. 2 more were just mediocre - 3rd place finishes, a little above .500. 1984 was a good year, but the Mets still finished behind the Cubs.

The other two are 1988 and 2000, and you have to hope these 2008 Mets surpass both of those performances. And here's a little insight into my predictions for the year (which will be passed along sometime in the next couple of weeks) - I think it will take about 100 wins to win the National League East this year. This could be a very intense race.

SNY: This space here was supposed to be filled with my quick first reaction to the Mets first televised spring training game against the Cardinals. Unfortunately, I forgot to set the TiVo. (How far we've come in the four years of this blog - where originally there were VCR problems in situations like this.) Well, I just watched the introduction of the late replay, and I have two reactions - number one: Keith Hernandez does not look good. His new hairstyle (or lack thereof - it doesn't look like he's balding at all, but he shaved his head) does not suit him. The second thing is that it's exciting just to have baseball on TV.

Tomorrow's March....and the season will be here before you know it.