Broken News: And Then There Were None (The Hall of Fame Edition)

Welcome to the latest edition of Broken News, where someone else breaks a news story, then we break it some more.  In today's special edition, we're going to look at the Hall of Fame vote, which surprisingly enough yielded no new Hall of Famers.

Seven ex-Mets were on the Hall of Fame ballot.  Roberto Hernandez (no votes), Mike Stanton (no votes), Jeff Conine (no votes), Aaron Sele (one vote - not a typo), Shawn Green (two votes) and Omar Minaya's bosom buddy, Julio Franco (six votes) did not generate enough support to remain on the ballot in 2014.  The seventh former Met who received votes should have received a lot more support than he did, as Mike Piazza was named on 329 ballots (57.8% of the 569 ballots cast), which was 98 votes short of the 427 needed for election into the Hall of Fame.  Clearly, those 240 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) who chose not to scribble Piazza's name on their ballot either:

a) remembered Piazza's back acne story and proceeded to have wicked flashbacks to when they were pimply kids who were beat up regularly by the jocks in high school.

2) were afraid his Hall of Fame plaque would have him wearing a Marlins cap and wanted to spare the baseball-loving world of that potential atrocity, or

iii) saw the following picture of Piazza & Pals and naturally assumed that steroids can be passed from person to person through the air like the flu.

Oh, Mike.  Why did you allow yourself to be photographed with Jose Canseco and Jason Giambi?

Whatever their reason was to not include Piazza on their ballots, he has officially (and more than likely undeservedly) been lumped into the group of players that include Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro.

Bonds and Clemens faced criminal charges because of their alleged links to steroid use.  McGwire didn't want to hop into his andro-fueled DeLorean to revisit the past.  Sammy Sosa left his English For Dummies book at home next to his cork collection.  And Rafael Palmeiro was caught with his finger in the steroid jar ... period.

Now Piazza, who is widely considered to be the best-hitting catcher of all-time, has been kept out of the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

Another former Mets catcher, Gary Carter, received 42.3% of the Hall of Fame votes in his first year of eligibility, dropped to 33.8% in his second year (being on the ballot with first-timers Nolan Ryan, George Brett and Robin Yount will tend to get you overlooked), then climbed steadily year after year before he was finally inducted in his sixth year of eligibility in 2003.

Carter was an 11-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove winner and five-time Silver Slugger recipient.  He also hit only .262 over his 19-year career, failed to score 100 runs in any of those seasons and never hit more than 32 home runs or drove in more than 106 runs.  Piazza, meanwhile, was a 12-time All-Star and 10-time Silver Slugger recipient (no Gold Gloves - nobody's perfect).  Piazza hit .308 over his 16-year career, crossed the plate 100+ runs twice and reached or surpassed Carter's career-high in homers nine times while steamrolling past the Kid's career-high RBI total five times (and had another season in which he drove in 105 runs).

Gary Carter's numbers might have been dwarfed by Piazza, but Carter did have Piazza beat in one shiny category.

Suffice it to say, as good as Carter was, he would've been Piazza's backup had they been teammates.  But that wasn't good enough for Piazza to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013.  And it may not be good enough for him to go in next year as well.

Whatever reason the writers had for keeping the best-hitting catcher of all-time out of Cooperstown this year won't be acceptable to me.  Mike Piazza deserved to enter the hallowed Hall that is reserved for the all-time greats of the sport in his first year of eligibility.

The BBWAA might have been afraid a few blemishes on Piazza's back.  But in my opinion, keeping him out of the Hall of Fame in 2013 was a far greater blemish.     

Joey's Soapbox: Derek Jeter, Six Years Ago & If At Second You Don't Succeed

Greetings, fellow Mets fans! Winter will be officially over in a few days, which means two things.

First, I'll finally be able to finally put away my annoying poofball hat after a long, cold winter. But more importantly, it'll be time to hear the sweet sounds of Mets baseball at Citi Field, after what seemed like an interminable off-season.

Although my thoughts have turned to baseball bats, alternate caps and Shake Shack, there are still some things happening in the baseball world that I have to get off my hoodie.

I'm Joey Beartran and it's time for me to get on my soapbox.


Derek Jeter

Earlier this week, a recent poll conducted by the Siena College Research Institute named Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter the greatest New York athlete of all-time. Let me repeat that. In a town that seen Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath and several outstanding thoroughbred race horses, Derek Jeter was the one who was named best New York athlete.

Who were the people voting in this poll, 14-year-old girls? I guess the same people who cast their votes in this poor excuse for a poll also voted for Kurt Rambis as the best Los Angeles athlete, Cliff Clavin as Boston's finest athletic star and Lazy Smurf as the top athlete of Smurf Village? Give me a break, people!




Six Years Ago

On this date in 2005, 'roids were all the rage in Washington, as Congress called for a special hearing featuring past and present baseball players to discuss the presence of steroids in baseball. It was during these hearings that Mark McGwire realized that he didn't want to dwell on the past, Sammy Sosa forgot how to speak English and Rafael Palmeiro gave the finger to Congress.

Six years later, all of these players are out of baseball and none of them has reached the Hall of Fame, as McGwire received less than 25% of the vote in each of his five eligible years for enshrinement, Palmeiro garnered the support of 11% of the voters in 2011 and Sammy Sosa has to wait until 2013 to see if he'll be able to pop the cork (no pun intended) on his Cooperstown Champagne.

So where are these players now?

Mark McGwire is now the hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. That means a man who never hit 30 doubles in a single season and only finished with 265 more career hits than Ed Kranepool is now coaching Albert Pujols on how to hit. To have McGwire impart his hitting "wisdom" on Pujols is like having Kate Moss teach me how to eat chicken nachos. That's all I have to say about that.

After playing his last game as a member of the Texas Rangers in 2007, Sammy Sosa has done his best to stay out of the spotlight, disappearing from the public eye. The last time he was spotted in public, he was overheard humming Michael Jackson's "Black or White" as he was shopping for, as he called it, one of the most important works in American literature (see photo, right). His interpreter then corrected him by saying that a CD-ROM isn't technically a piece of literature.

When not complaining about his low Hall of Fame vote, Rafael Palmeiro has quietly become one of the country's premier hand models. The former Mets' eighth round draft pick's work can now be seen wherever hand sanitizers are sold.


If At Second You Don't Succeed

We've been getting conflicting reports from the Mets on who the starting second baseman will be in 2011. Terry Collins wants Luis Hernandez. Sandy Alderson wants an offensive-minded second baseman. That would probably eliminate Hernandez, who has eight extra-base hits in 265 major league at-bats, to go with a .286 OBP in the majors and a .302 OBP in the minors.

Brad Emaus and Daniel Murphy are still candidates for the position, but their defensive "skills" make former Marlins' second baseman Dan Uggla look like a Gold Glover at the position.

There is no truth to the rumor that Uggla traded in his old No. 6 uniform number with the Marlins for a No. E-4 jersey with the Braves.

Here's what I think. Wally Backman was promoted from Brooklyn to AA-Binghamton. Tim Teufel made the jump from Binghamton to AAA-Buffalo. I think they're just going to manage their respective minor league ballclubs until Labor Day weekend (the traditional end of the minor league season). Once their managerial duties are done, they will be promoted to the Mets, where they will compete for the second baseman's job. Terry Collins will be happy with the feisty Backman, while Sandy Alderson will take comfort that he has the bat of Tim Teufel. Is it a bad thing that I think a Backman/Teufel platoon would still be better than anything the Mets could throw out there right now?

I think I've worn out my welcome on the soapbox. It's time to get into mid-season form, which means I'll be sitting in front of the TV with a bunch of chicken nachos. Who knows what will happen before Opening Day? Will Carlos Beltran start the season on the disabled list? Will Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo be on the unemployment line? Will I get a tryout to play second base? Hey, if no else wants it, I'll take it (see photo below). Enjoy the last two weeks of Spring Training!

Remember This Catch From 19 Years Ago? A Current Mets Coach Does

Nineteen years ago today, an outfielder for the Vancouver Canadians of the Pacific Coast League made this catch against the Portland Beavers to permanently etch his name onto the list of phenomenal baseball catches:



The outfielder was Rodney McCray, who later on played for the Mets, collecting one hit in his only at-bat dressed in the orange and blue during the 1992 season.

This catch was replayed ad nauseum on ESPN and other outlets, and deservedly so, as it is amazing that McCray held on to the ball after running through the poorly constructed (and non-padded) outfield wall.

However, have you ever wondered which Portland Beavers batter connected on the long drive that immortalized the hard-headed McCray?

It was none other than current Mets third base coach Chip Hale!

What, you didn't think the only connection this catch had to the Mets was that the player who caught it had one career at-bat for the Mets, did you? If you did, then you must not be a regular Studious Metsimus reader.

Walter William Hale (more commonly known as Chip) was an infielder for Minnesota's Triple-A team in Portland when he became the answer to a trivia question that people still can't answer.

It became the one thing he was known for before becoming the Mets third base coach this year, as he had an uneventful major league career (652 career at-bats, 7 HR, 78 RBI over seven years spent with the Twins and Dodgers).

So now when someone asks you about the Rodney McCray catch, you can shock that person with your baseball knowledge by telling him that the man currently waving in Luis Castillo to limp home from second base on a single is the same man who hit that famous ball in 1991.

You can shock him some more by mentioning that Rodney McCray's teammates on the Canadians included a little weakling named Sammy Sosa, former Mets Danny Heep and John Cangelosi, and current Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu.

Nineteen years have gone by since current Met Chip Hale sent former Met Rodney McCray through a wall. Now he's sending Mets players through opposing catchers. Good to see some things never change.