Art Howe was a fine man with the misfortune to be rather seriously miscast as manager of the New York Mets. But his finest act might have come on Oct. 3, 2004, in his final inning at the helm. (Which also happened to be the final inning in the history of the Montreal Expos, and […]

Moises Alou is 41 years old.

In baseball terms that's old, but age is never the issue with Moises in a couple of different ways. He will always have the bat speed of a 25-year-old and the physical resilience of a 55-year-old — a 55-year-old leper in a minefield. He's out until May, and if you […]

Get the Mets to a New York hospital.

My goodness: If it's not Ryan Church wearing sunglasses indoors because of a concussion, it's Ruben Gotay gimping about on crutches. Read this morning that in order to avoid some chronic problem El Duque is scrapping his leg kick, which is a bit like hearing BMW is taking […]

“It’s like walking across the desert step by step and today he finally got to the oasis.”

That's Rick Peterson on Duaner Sanchez getting to pitch today in an intrasquad game, and with all due respect to the Jacket and bridge-potentially-too-far similes, both of which I approve of highly, throwing 25 pitches to teammates wearing hideous […]

If you wanted an early indication that 2008 will be psychologically different (and who among us doesn't want that?), you can't get more of an early indicator than Carlos Beltran, of all people, giving the Philadelphia Phillies bulletin-board material.

After a fairly typical, mild-mannered give-and-take with reporters, one taken from the G-rated part of the hymnal […]

Some of this conversation actually took place last month while I was in Vegas for a bachelor-party weekend:

Me, approaching cashier: I want to place a wager on the New York Mets winning the 2008 World Series. What are their current odds?

Cashier: 8-to-1.

Me: Huh.

Cashier: How much do you want to wager?

Me: Well, that's a good […]

Johan Santana has a career record of 93-44. He has a career ERA of 3.22, amassed in a league where they ought to have a keg behind second base. He has struck out 1,381 guys in 1308.2 innings. He has two Cy Young awards on his shelf. He led the American League in strikeouts in […]