MY OWN PERSONAL BASEBALL PREVIEW

Unlike last year, when I made an impulse buy of a terrible baseball preview magazine the night of our fantasy baseball draft, this year I bought my trusty old "Sporting News" Baseball Preview well in advance. It has lots of editing errors, which always drives me nuts, and also doesn't have any baseball move made after mid-January at the latest, which has always bothered me, but I like its layout and I find it the best of the selection...especially with our fantasy draft always waaaay earlier than normal fantasy drafts.

But - I have mentioned this in the past - I take a different approach to reading a baseball preview. Usually I save the Mets until last, but since we draft only from the AL and NL East, I now read those two sections first. And I spend a lot of time looking at players' birthdays.

This year, it struck me that there are a lot of players with my birthday. And Gary Carter's birthday - those are two specific dates that jumped out at me. And there are also a lot of baseball players with some pretty cool birthday numbers that made me want to write about them. So here they are:

COOL BIRTHDAYS

(Inspired mostly by Grady Sizemore, who has an 8/2/82 birthday, which I discovered on my souvenir cup on my trip to Cleveland a couple of years ago)

Mark Reynolds, Arizona - 8/3/83

Jamie Walker, Baltimore - 7/1/71

Jacob McGee, Tampa Bay - 8/6/86

Huston Street, Colorado - 8/2/83 (hmm, now that I've typed that one it looks less cool to me)

Craig Breslow, Minnesota - 8/8/80

Mark Worrell, San Diego - 3/8/83

Travis Denker, San Diego - 8/5/85

Mark Ellis, Oakland - 6/6/77

Angel Salamone, Milwaukee - 6/8/86

And the Mets have a pretty strong contingent in this department:

Sean Green and J.J. Putz share a 2/22/77 birthday

Brian Stokes has a nice palindrome - 9/7/79 (Justin in NYC's birthday, incidentally, which is quite popular among major leaguers, I noticed)

And Jon Niese, potential number 5 starter -10/27/86 - I don't remember when he was up last year that he was born on the day the Mets won the 1986 World Series. That should grant him total immunity from ever being sent down or traded - Met for life. And it should definitely not go as unmentioned this year.

PLAYERS WHO SHARE MY BIRTHDAY (JULY 7)

John Buck, Kansas City, 1980

Alfredo Figaro, Detroit, 1984

Brandon McCarthy, Texas, 1983

Luke Montz, Washington, 1983

R.J. Swindle, Milwaukee, 1983

Leyson Septimo, Arizona, 1985

PLAYERS WHO SHARE GARY CARTER'S (and Dave in Brighton's) BIRTHDAY (APRIL 8)

I can't believe how popular this birthday is. It must be a day for athletes to be born, as well as creative types who excel at sedentary sports:

Carlos Santana, Cleveland, 1986

Jeremy Guthrie, Baltimore, 1979

Bobby Wilson, L.A. Angels, 1983

Eric Patterson, Oakland, 1983

Kason Gabbard, Texas, 1982

Eddie Kunz, N.Y. Mets, 1986

Diory Hernandez, Atlanta, 1984

Yonder Alonso (great first name - he's a first baseman - it'd be awesome if he went to make a tag and the runner beat him by jumping over the tag - "He's safe, because he jumped over Yonder!"), Cincinnati, 1987

Chris Iannetta, Colorado, 1983

Matt Antonelli, San Diego, 1985

ANALYSIS THROUGH FOURTEEN WEEKS

MOST IMPRESSIVE: Brace yourself - I'm about to sing the praises of Jose Reyes. I mentioned this the other day - statistically speaking, he's the most important player on this team. I'll break it down further next week (SNY showed a stat about Reyes' numbers in Mets' wins and in losses, which I'll try to re-create), but for now I'll say this: Reyes got his average up over .300 in Monday night's game. He was hitting around .250 in mid-May. It's no coincidence that the Mets have gotten hot again as he has turned things around.

BIGGEST SURPRISE: New Life. I can't believe that the Mets aren't buried and gone...and I think neither can they. There's a different attitude around the team this weekend, as they're on the verge of taking three out of four from the Phillies - it's like some children's storybook. The Mets lost their confidence at some point in the past couple of years in Philadelphia. Well, the first weekend of July, 2008, they went back to Philadelphia, and lo and behold there it was - the Mets are back!

LEAST IMPRESSIVE: Well, up until today I was going to comment on Pedro Martinez*'s efforts, but he might have turned a corner with Monday's start. Maybe all he needed was some run support. I could have predicted he'd find his stuff tonight, though - because I chose not to start him in fantasy baseball.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: I guess when all is said and done, I really wanted the Mets to have some representation in the All Star Game (read: more than just Billy Wagner). But like I wrote last week - they really didn't deserve it. And Wagner showed on Sunday why his selection is dicey. I find myself, though, voting like crazy for David Wright to make the team - I like to think that at the end of his career he will have a really long string of continuous All Star appearances. (Help him out - click here to vote for David Wright!)

MOST IMPRESSIVE: Just because I happened to catch it live on Sunday, Justin Upton hit a 484-foot bomb at Chase Field against the Padres. It landed in the seating area for the restaurant out behind left field. It deserves mention as "impressive".

BIGGEST SURPRISE: A step up for the Tampa Bay Rays. Instead of just being "impressive" this time around, they get the "surprise" label because they don't just lead their division anymore, they have the best record in all of baseball.

LEAST IMPRESSIVE: The Baltimore Orioles on Sunday. Have you seen this stat? The Orioles won the first Sunday of the season, and haven't won since, dropping thirteen straight on Sunday. I love that type of stuff, unless the Mets are involved.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: I guess this merits mentioning here. Jeff Francoeur was recalled today, after being sent down to Double-A for three days. It was supposed to be a three-week stint. He complained, and was recalled, after tearing it up at the lower level. I think the Braves did the absolute right thing, and I think Francoeur should have dealt with it and come back after the All Star break ready to play if he was upset about it. I became a big believer in the 'sending the ineffective player' back down thing after the Blue Jays did it with Roy Halladay five or six years ago - he went all the way down to Single-A. I know it's different situations, because Halladay had less major league experience at that point than Francoeur, but he's been dominant since that send-down. Think it lit a fire under him? I do. (I think it was the right thing for the Tigers to do with Dontrelle Willis too.) Maybe the same thing will happen with Francoeur - but his whining might have messed up the process.

WRIGHT WATCH: It's been a while since I did an update while the Mets were actually playing, which means it's been a while since we've updated you on David Wright's march on the all-time doubles record (he had an RBI double tonight, along with a homer):

ALL-TIME LEADER: 792
WRIGHT'S SEASON TOTAL: 22
WRIGHT'S CAREER TOTAL: 163

(22 doubles? That man should be an All Star! Vote here.)

BIRTHDAY WISHES TO ME: Not to toot my own horn, but I turned 30 today. And the only reason I bring that up is because you may or may not remember, but I designed an MLB-type sleeve patch to celebrate the occasion. This is probably the last opportunity I'll have to show it, so I'm showing it again.

ANOTHER CELEBRATION

Yesterday I wrote about how a lot of teams are celebrating a lot of different milestones in 2008. It just dawned on me that if I was a baseball team, I would also be wearing a patch on my sleeve this year "Celebrating 30 Years". I kind of keep forgetting this is the big 3-0...perhaps because I made such a big deal out of last year's birthday on 7/7/07. It was the best 29th birthday anyone has ever had.

But I think 30 is going to be quite good.

Here's what's going down:

There's the "Last Play at Shea", Billy Joel's concert at Shea Stadium, the last concert that will be held there before the new stadium is opened up. I still don't have tickets (I don't know if I updated my lack of success on that front) - but they did add a second show, and I'm hoping something will come up. That will be in July - shortly after I turn 30.

Now, the other exciting part about this whole thing, and I don't think I've mentioned this before (but if I have, please forgive me), but the Mets would be dumb to not play up the Billy Joel thing the entire season. I would love it if they adopted a Billy Joel theme song, a la the Knicks in 1993-1994 with "All About Soul". My suggestions:

-"Angry Young Man" when the Mets come out to take the field.
-"Pressure" every time the opposing team has to make a mound visit. (They usually do this already, I think.)
-"New York State of Mind" right before "Angry Young Man", almost like the build-up to a concert.
-After "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" if the Mets are behind or tied, and if they're ahead, "Big Man On Mulberry Street" or "Everybody Loves You Now".

Just a few thoughts. But I think the Mets have to play at least two Billy Joel songs in between innings during games this season. It has to be their theme all year.

More good news for my 1978-2008 celebration: If I don't get to see the "Last Play at Shea" concert, I will see Billy Joel in my 30th year. He's playing Mohegan Sun on June 15th (the last of six scheduled shows there). I kind of stumbled onto the tickets - I saw that there were some left, so I scooped a couple up for me and the Wife. It's like the perfect storm of events for me - Billy Joel, a casino, and it's Father's Day. So I think it's a match made in heaven.

There's also the fact that I will become a father for the second time towards the end of this 30th anniversary celebration.

All told, 2008 will be an exciting year for johnnymets....but it would certainly make for an odd-looking sleeve patch:

BIRTHDAY NEWS

Saturday was a big day for me. Not only was it my birthday, but it was pretty much THE birthday I've been looking forward to since I was little. 7/7/07. It's a small consolation for being born a year too late, in my opinion, which would have had me born on 7/7/77. I'm jealous of those people who have that birthday. But we celebrated during the day Saturday (Justin from NYC tells me he threw a huge, worldwide concert in my honor of my 29th birthday - and the codeword was to substitute "John" for "Earth". I had just read in the paper all about this "Concert for the John". He's a great guy.), and then on Saturday night, watched most of the Mets' big 17-inning win against the Astros (and watched Carlos Delgado homer at 7:07 [Central time] on 7/7/07...I love it!). And it got me thinking...how often did the Mets do well on my birthday? How often have they even played on my birthday?

As a kid, my birthday parties usually revolved around the Mets - we'd have cake at my house, then pile into a car and my dad (God bless him) would take a bunch of little boys to a baseball game at Shea. But this rarely happened on my birthday - either it was the All Star break, when no one played, or the Mets were not playing at home. So I decided to actually look up the information, and found out some great stuff (this is only since 1978, on the day that I was born):

• The Mets are 13-11 all-time on my birthday ...2-9 at home, 11-2 on the road.
• Including Saturday night, there have been 3 extra innings games, with the Mets winning all three.
• The Mets have had 3 3-game losing streaks on July 7th's, and have never won more than two consecutive years, which they've done six separate times.
• Gary Carter went 1-for-8 in two games on my birthday (1985, 1986).
• Todd Hundley homered three consecutive years on my birthday (1994, 1995, 1996).
• Andy Benes pitched a one-hitter against the Mets on my birthday in 1993, and the Mets' loss that day was one of the hard-luck Anthony Young losses that year- it dropped him to 0-12.
• In 2000, I remember watching the Yankees beat the Mets 2-1, on what I believe was a Friday night. El Duque outdueled Al Leiter. The next day, Roger Clemens beaned Mike Piazza. That was the angriest July 8th I've ever had.
• How about Sid Fernandez, the official pitcher of my birthday - he pitched in 1985, 1989, 1990, and 1992! In the 1992 game, El Sid got the win, Anthony Young came in for the save.
• And then there's Saturday, which I couldn't make all the way through - I conked out in about the 12th inning. But it'd be tough to beat as an all-time July 7th (into the 8th) classic. David Wright and Carlos Delgado homered in the first nine innings, then it was scoreless for the next 8, until Carlos Beltran drove home the winning (go-ahead) run. Beltran also saved the game defensively with a Mays-esque over-the-shoulder catch going up the hill in center field with two men on and two out in the extra innings.

ALL STAR BREAK: Not sure what I'll be posting this week - I'll try to do an All Star recap, since there are some Mets implications...but I do have some work this week, Monday through Thursday. So there's definitely not going to be a radio show this week.

BEAT THE STREAK: An update - I'm taking a 9-gamer into the break. That's fun.