Are Major League Baseball teams in minor league cities preventing baseball? And what about my 2009 idea of a Super League?

Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark Oklahoma City, OK. May 27, 2012 by Ensign beedrill wikimedia.org

MLB lockout: Who’s at fault? Yankees’ Michael Kay has strong opinion that exonerates Rob Manfred
Published: Mar. 04, 2022, 7:00 a.m. by By Randy Miller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

... he’s the television voice of the Yankees and his radio show is simulcast on YES, which is owned by the Yankees ...

Kay never is shy about speaking his mind on his radio show, as he’s criticized Yankees GM Brian Cashman, managers and star players many times...

Kay blames small-market owners, the ones who run the likes of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Rays. His hunch is that the latest CBA proposal made by the MLBPA last Sunday only was rejected because there were enough nays from small-market franchises to prevent the needed 75% approval...

"those small-market teams run baseball. Think about that. The poorest group out of the 30, they run the sport. How ridiculous that is. They run the sport. The richest people don’t." ...

"“You get the haves against the have nots. You think the Mets, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Cubs and the Astros want a work stoppage? Absolutely not. They do well... The real problem is you probably have too many teams. If teams can’t compete with their revenue stream, then they should get out.”

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Sources: Angels, Diamondbacks, Reds and Tigers owners opposed MLB luxury tax increase by By Evan Drellich Mar 4, 2022 theathletic.com

NEW YORK — Four Major League Baseball owners — Bob Castellini of the Reds, Chris Ilitch of the Tigers, Ken Kendrick of the Diamondbacks and Arte Moreno of the Angels — objected to raising the competitive balance tax to the levels the league ultimately proposed most recently, three people briefed on an owner-wide call held this week told The Athletic. MLB moved forward with the proposal anyway, moving its offer on the first threshold to $220 million — up $10 million from where it was in 2021, and $6 million from its previous offer, but still far below the players’ ask of $238 million.

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Two quick points the players are upset about:

1. MLB proposed increasing the minimum salary from $570,000 to $700,000. The players want $725,000.

2. MLB proposed increasing the "cap" "to $220 million — up $10 million ... still far below the players’ ask of $238 million".

Really? Neither seems very far apart.

2021 Major League Baseball Attendance & Team Age

Click the above link for the 30 MLB teams and play with the data yourself but sorting on some fields ...

Six teams drew over two million fans in this order: Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Diego, Texas (Dallas), St. Louis, Houston.

Six teams drew fewer than one million fans in this order to the bottom: Pittsburgh, Toronto, Baltimore, Tampa, Oakland, Miami (dead last after five years of Derek Jeter running it; Jeter quit a couple of days ago; Jeter is a former player).

The four teams mentioned above:

15. Los Angeles Angels 1,515,689
17. Cincinnati Reds 1,505,024
23. Detroit Tigers 1,102,621
24. Arizona Diamondbacks 1,043,010

Also:

7. Chicago Cubs 1,978,934
8. New York Yankees 1,959,854
9. Boston Red Sox 1,725,323
16. New York Mets 1,511,926

Sorted by estimated payroll:

Tm	Est. Payroll ▼	Attendance	Attend/G
Los Angeles Dodgers	$256,875,001	2,804,693	34,626
New York Yankees	$208,549,047	1,959,854	24,196
Houston Astros	$190,500,000	2,068,509	25,537
Los Angeles Angels	$186,888,095	1,515,689	18,484
New York Mets	$182,054,667	1,511,926	18,666
Philadelphia Phillies	$180,616,462	1,515,890	18,715
Washington Nationals	$170,570,147	1,465,543	18,093
St. Louis Cardinals	$155,329,667	2,102,530	25,957
Boston Red Sox	$154,445,000	1,725,323	21,300
San Francisco Giants	$149,922,778	1,679,484	20,734
Chicago Cubs	$141,493,000	1,978,934	24,431
Atlanta Braves	$127,230,000	2,300,247	28,753
San Diego Padres	$121,717,619	2,191,950	27,061
Minnesota Twins	$120,158,333	1,310,199	16,175
Toronto Blue Jays	$118,573,571	805,901	10,074
Cincinnati Reds	$115,634,881	1,505,024	18,581
Chicago White Sox	$114,396,333	1,596,385	19,708
Milwaukee Brewers	$97,676,626	1,824,282	22,522
Oakland Athletics	$92,685,334	701,430	8,660
Colorado Rockies	$90,775,000	1,938,645	23,934
Kansas City Royals	$85,670,000	1,159,613	14,316
Arizona Diamondbacks	$77,691,667	1,043,010	12,877
Detroit Tigers	$72,295,000	1,102,621	13,613
Seattle Mariners	$64,135,000	1,215,985	15,012
Tampa Bay Rays	$63,566,666	761,072	9,396
Texas Rangers	$55,249,999	2,110,258	26,053
Cleveland Indians	$49,055,000	1,114,368	13,758
Pittsburgh Pirates	$48,955,000	859,498	10,611
Baltimore Orioles	$42,075,000	793,229	9,793
Miami Marlins	$32,000,000	642,617	7,934

MLB could easily drop Miami, Baltimore, Pittsburgh. But what about Tampa? Tampa is way down in both attendance and payroll yet was first in its division with 100 wins, lost the World Series to the Dodgers in the short 2020 season and won 96 games in 2019.

Ten teams paid its players at least $149,000,000. Ten teams paid less than $90,000,000.

Some teams with high attendance but low payroll: Texas (has a new ballpark), Colorado, Milwaukee.

A teams with high payroll but low attendance: Toronto.

Washington has the lowest attendance for the top 13 teams in payroll: #7 in payroll.

The Chicago White Sox seem to be the bottom of the "big" payroll teams at $114 million. Next is Milwaukee at $97 million. That's a pretty big gap. Even sharing it with the Cubs, Chicago is a bigger media city than Milwaukee.

Why does Florida have teams and other comments on attendance. Saturday, September 28, 2013

Super League Sunday, March 29, 2009

I really don't care whether Kansas City has a MLB team. Nor Toronto. Nor Pittsburgh. I'm tired of junk like small market teams and revenue sharing. There's a reason it's called MAJOR league. It does not mean that Kansas City cannot have a baseball team. It means that Kansas City is not entitled to a MAJOR league team, subsidized by fans of the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers, etc.

Why don't those teams drop out of MLB and form a super league of their own? ...

Let the remaining teams go their own way. Who would care? Not SL fans.

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Woke madness: 2021 All Star game moved out of Atlanta, Georgia. Coward commissioner capitulates almost immediately.

MLB moving 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta over Georgia voting law

Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer https://www.espn.com/mlb

Major League Baseball announced Friday that it is moving the 2021 All-Star Game and 2021 draft out of Atlanta in protest of a new Georgia law that has raised concerns about its potential to disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters...

(March 26, 2021) MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said he "would look forward" to discussions around moving the Midsummer Classic -- slated for Tuesday, July 13 -- out of Truist Park, home of the Atlanta Braves. Five days after that, President Joe Biden, appearing on SportsCenter the night before Opening Day, said he would "strongly support" such a decision because of a law he described as "Jim Crow on steroids."

________________________________

Who the heck even knew that Biden had said anything about this?

Coward MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, the A-Rod Slayer, couldn't fold fast enough to the woke mob. I'm disgusted. I didn't watch sports in 2020 when the three major professional team leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA) fell all over themselves involving their sports in NON-sports stuff. One of the primary reasons people follow sports is to get away from NON-sports stuff. The leagues cut way back on that in 2021 only to have MLB escalate again because the MLB union leader chose to inject this into the regular season. Get woke, go broke.

Tony Clark is a former MLB player (1995-2009) who got completely out negotiated by Manfred in the previous collective bargaining agreement and has now doubled down on his incompetence.

How do the 30% of his union members who are foreign born feel about this? They are getting dragged into NON-sports stuff for no good reason.

And how about the MLB team in Atlanta?

Atlanta Braves are not Cowards. Won't change their team name. Wednesday, December 16, 2020

I purposely don't get into this crap unless it's pushed right into my face as this has been.

Major League Wokeness by Ben Shapiro: kneeling for Black Lives Matter (BLM). Saturday, July 25, 2020

Great, now I have to decide whether to dump baseball for another year because Rob Manfred is a damn coward? Damn. Nobody gives a rat's ass what Rob Manfred or Tony Clark think about anything. NOBODY. Rob Manfred should stick to his job of negotiating better than Tony Clark.

Get woke, go broke.

"WHY ARE YALL STILL KNEELING?" by The Officer Tatum: kneeling for Black Lives Matter (BLM).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BZ8O_FXYdg&feature=youtu.be

Major League Wokeness by Ben Shapiro: kneeling for Black Lives Matter (BLM).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpIXftPmIYg&feature=youtu.be

Players kneel before the national anthem to protest “systemic racism” on Major League Baseball’s opening night

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When did it become OK to call someone a racist? Sunday, January 26, 2014

Racist Friday, May 2, 2014

"Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty". New book challenges view of Cobb as racist. Monday, May 25, 2015

Ty Cobb played five Negro League games. Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Commissioner Rob Manfred, are Adam Jones walk up "nigga" lyrics acceptable? Monday, May 8, 2017

Dead time returns in a month. Say it ain't so.

MLB will have a 60 game schedule in 2020, year of the plague, with a few inconsequential rule changes but nothing that addresses the mind numbing essence of baseball: the constant stopping and starting made impossible to enjoy by the ever increasing amount of totally pointless DEAD TIME after each pitch not put into play.

A commissioner could simply instruct the umpires to enforce existing rules but no commissioner has the basic common sense to do that because they fear the player's union and even the umpire's union.

Yes, the NFL and NBA have issues too but this blog is Radical Baseball, not Radical Sports. Plus, problems in those two leagues are minor compared to MLB.

The pitcher is supposed to deliver the pitch within twelve seconds with no base runners. TWELVE, not twenty.

Batters are supposed to ask for time, not step out of the box and essentially get an implicit time out while the pitcher stands there and does not deliver the pitch and demand a called strike because the plate umpire never called time.

Ban coaches (and the manager) from the playing field. They don't have a union.

Baseball lacks flow. Exacerbating this with DEAD TIME is dumb. At some point, "fans" will simply disappear. Maybe 2020 will be when that happens except we may not notice if the games are played in empty ball parks because of the plague. Then when that is finally gone we'll see ball parks abandoned like Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds, ...

Techie viewing alternatives: Virtual Reality, director's choice channels, Knicks in 60, hologram, ...

Some thoughts on alternative ways of experiencing team sports using technology without attending the event.

NYU Tisch institute Chalk Talk #8: The Virtual Season Ticket May 28, 2020 by Vince Gennaro

NYU SPS Tisch Institute for Global Sport

This Chalk Talk discusses the Virtual Season Ticket (VST), as a new product for sports organizations and events and a new viewing experience for fans. The VST allows fans to experience a courtside NBA game, or a 50-yard line seat at an NFL game, from the comfort of their home. The use of a virtual reality headset and other emergent technologies can transport fans to an entirely new gameday experience

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For several years I've maintained that the only way to watch MLB on TV was to fast forward or otherwise skip the DEAD time between each pitch. Supposedly there is only 15 minutes of action in an NFL game, which operates within a 60 minute clock but takes four hours of real time. A 48 minute NBA game takes less real time, maybe 2.5 hours, but is impacted the most by all the time outs that are allowed to accumulate for use at the end of a close game.

The virtual reality approach has obvious merits that I'll now investigate, but it has the drawback that it's happening in real time, which includes inevitable DEAD time.

For a few years MSG Network has had a replay version of the previous day's NBA Knick game called Knicks in 60. It's just what the title implies: the 2.5 hour real time 48 minute game has been condensed to a 60 minute TV event, including commercials and pre/post game commentary.

In addition to its real time presentation, a game on TV could also, for an additional fee, be transmitted on a spare channel with a one hour delay but sped up somewhat like Knicks in 60 but without commercials. In other words, do for us what we're already doing ourselves but relieve us of the tedium of fast forward, opps back up a little, FF, oops, ... I'll stop watching a Yankee tournament game at 10:00 PM and record the rest to avoid the inevitable sucking the life out of it by the parade of pitching changes. The next morning I then FF a lot and watch what now seems like a baseball game. The players can jerk around on their own time.

Markers could be inserted so that we could hit a special FF button that skips predefined (hopefully user defined) DEAD spots, like between pitches.

We've all seen video of a TV truck outside a sports arena in which many monitors show the director various live views of a game from many cameras. The director then manically decides which goes out live. Give us that option, including multiples on our home screen concurrently. I'd have multiple TVs in my viewing room and pick different feeds for each, switching on the fly. I'd love the option of watching pitches from the old behind the plate view and not be trapped into nothing but the view from a center field camera.

 We have access to hundreds of channels and probably watch only a small percentage of them. That wasted bandwidth could be used as described above. I think the Olympics has had a limited version.

The bandwidth could also carry special stuff, like three a dimensional hologram. Imagine a special table on which a game is presented. We could move around and see the game from different angles. Unfortunately, moving holographic images are still primitive, so this is the one thing mentioned here that could not be implemented now.

Baseball is really dumb. My submission to "NINE, A Journal of Baseball History and Culture".

This post is a reaction to a call for papers by "NINE, A Journal of Baseball History and Culture", presumably to fill the void of no baseball season because of the plague.

https://nebraskapressjournals.unl.edu/nine-cfp/

... we invite you to contribute to an upcoming special issue of NINE...

Submissions should be between 1500 and 5000 words, double-spaced, in a Word document. Please send submissions to NINE editor Willie Steele at willie.steele@lipscomb.edu by July 19, 2020. Authors will be notified in August of their inclusion into this special issue.
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You can't make up stuff like this. Double spaced, mind you.

I thought of showing my disdain by writing something I knew would be rejected anyway and sending them a link to the file. I guess this is it.

Now to the subject matter. The call is obviously expecting yet another sappy stream of stuff with titles of baseball is ... this is where you fill in your sappy metaphor.

But baseball is nothing if not dumb. So are baseball fans, which prompts the question: Are we baseball fans because we are dumb or does being baseball fans make us dumb?

The current expression of near universal dumbness is the cheating scandal, which is based on the inalienable right of grown men to communicate by wiggling their fingers in secret about something that's hardly a secret. This because a team stole signs when playing at home. Since there are 30 teams, this might have an impact on one sixtieth of games. Less if you actually look at the home/road hitting splits of the cheaters. Or check the anecdotal examples. One pitcher's career ends, except the cheaters are on the road. Another shows an opposing pitcher getting suspicious, except he's the seventh of eight pitchers who held the cheaters to one run and beat them.

Freddie Freeman, your friend pitched in Arizona against the Astros, not in Houston where they stole signs. Monday, January 27, 2020

Astros lost 2017 game featured as example of cheating. Monday, January 13, 2020

Showing posts with label Signs.

Ignored is the much more fundamental challenge to the basic integrity of the game: tanking (trading their best players). In recent years one third of teams tank with one third of the season remaining. Maybe if the trades were made by general managers wiggling their fingers, people would be outraged.

I'll rattle off a few fixes to dumb things:
- no "free substitution", i.e., players may not return; let them
- catching position should never have been created; eliminate it; obviously, no stealing; base runners may not leave until the ball is hit, like slow pitch softball
- pitchers should stand on flat ground and throw from behind the middle of the diamond: about 63.5 feet to the back of home plate
- the strike zone in imaginary and therefor ridiculous; eliminate it
- call strikes based on whether the pitch hits a fixed round target (think archery) behind home plate, yes, the same same size for all batters, who may ask for it to be raised or lowered to be between their knees at the bottom or shoulders at the top; in other words, the batter may choose a low or high strike "zone", as was done for a while in the 1800s
- eliminate the lefty hitters batter's box so that all batters run the same distance to the bases
- make outfield distances, i.e., home run distances, the same in all directions in all parks with walls the same height all around
- eliminate dead time, especially between each pitch:
   - you step out, you're out
   - pitch right away or it's a ball
   - stuff like that; maybe start the count at 3-2
- replace designated hitter with designated fielder: 8 men bat.

Geographic realignment, of course. And eliminate five team divisions. Nothing less than eight teams, which means adding two teams. Each team in a division must play the same schedule as each other team in that division.

That's enough for something that won't be published. It's not between 1500 and 5000 words, double-spaced, in a Word document.

London scores: 17-13, 12-8. Why not all the time?

Pitching duel or slugfest? Sunday, July 28, 2013

In order to show their baseball knowledge many baseball fans will say: pitching duel, pretending that a game with little action is preferable to a game with lots of action.
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The Yankees have returned to New York from the Isle of Britain only to play two more road games on the Isle of Long in the borough of Queens against the expansion New York Mets. The Yankees just vanquished the Boston Red Sox in London 17-13, 12-8.

The British fans in attendance have a completely distorted view of American baseball. They think it's lots of action. OK, there was the interminable jerking around between pitches by both batters and pitchers but when the plate appearance finally concluded there was often lots of action.

The British fans have not experienced the pleasure of a pitching duel, in which 90% of what passes for action is two guys (pitcher and catcher) playing catch.

There were various explanations for the very high scores, all missing the point. Why not have double digit scores all the time?

Who says that 2-1 is interesting? Sure it's close but where's the action? Baseball is a game of hitting, fielding, base running. It's devolved into a sort of arms race, literally. Pitchers muscle up so much that they can no longer pitch an entire 9 innings even with four days rest between attempts. Batters are so pumped up that they cannot prevent their muscles from popping.

100 miles per hour pitches are met with 105 miles per hour exit velocity. Both are done with baseballs so juiced that pretty much every batter can hit home runs.

Titleist baseballs for exceptional exit velocity and 1,000 foot Home Runs. Friday, June 23, 2017

Sometimes the batters dominate. Sometimes the pitchers dominate. When it's the pitchers, we have a pitching duel. Except the pitchers dominate by striking out batters. So we have two guys playing catch.

The natural instinct among fans and MLB officials alike is to find ways to suppress the scoring and thus the action. Fight against that and against your basic baseball instinct that leads you to believe that games should be low scoring.

Action is interesting and entertaining. It usually leads to scoring. But even if it does not, it is interesting and entertaining. So, why not all the time?

Home Run Derby confirms that batters do not need to leave the box between swings.

Bryce Harper won the 2018 Home Run Derby last night. The format in recent years has been to give batters periods of time to swing as often as they can. Previously, batters were given a certain number of swings.

MLB News: Round-by-round recap of HR Derby
By Andrew Simon and David Adler MLB.com Jul. 16th, 2018

(Harper) demolished nine homers in the final 50 seconds of regulation to pull even with Schwarber.
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I wasn't paying much attention when it was live on TV last night but this is one example in the article of just how quickly the batters were hitting balls. This suggests at least 9 swings in 50 seconds, about one swing every five seconds.

Yes, of course, the "pitching" is from a very short distance for some reason and the person throwing is grooving it. Harper had his father throwing as did a previous winner, Robinson Cano.

But the activity of swinging obviously confirmed common sense: there is no physical reason for batters to step out of the box and otherwise delay being ready to swing during real games.

So why do these morons jerk around before every pitch?

1. Part of it is a reaction to the preening jackass pitchers, whose self importance is augmented by they're being the arbiters of batter behavior and dispensers of physical punishment.

2. What has been passing for coaching both batters and pitchers is to have their charges make the other wait. This is especially ludicrous for batters since pretty much all they need to do is swing using twitch muscle reaction and hand eye coordination. See ball, hit ball. Pitchers, have to pretend that the weight of the world is on their shoulders on every pitch.

So, have the batters been exposed? Not for traditional baseball people and other apologists. They want a slow rhythm to the game even if means being bored out of their minds.

Home Run Derby 1960: a different perspective. Wednesday, February 5, 2014

I'd like to thank the good lord for making me a Yankee fan.

Noah Syndergaard started for the Mets in their home opener Thursday. He appeared as I expected, looking like Bozo the Clown, a guy with long hair wearing a baseball cap. It's impossible for a guy to not look ridiculous wearing a baseball cap over long hair. The guy looks like Bozo.

See what I mean. In recent years multiple Met pitchers have taken that appearance, led by starting pitcher Jacob DeGrom.

Today I turned on the Met game and DeGrom was pitching and he looked like a baseball player. deGrom had cut his hair and looked normal. Eventually he was replaced by a ridiculous looking guy with long hair under his cap, deGrom's former look.

I thought it's symbolic of how pathetic it is to be a Met fan. In the previous post I had the list of players who have hit two home runs in an inning; five times by Yankees (four since 1962). Also new Yankee manager Aaron Boone. No Met has done it. The Mets started in 1962 and there are very few distinctive achievements by Met players. No Met has hit four homers in a game. The season record for homers is only 41. Yankees with at least 41 home runs since 1962:

Rk	Player	HR	Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	RBI	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Alex Rodriguez	54	2007	31	NYY	AL	158	708	583	143	183	31	0	156	95	11	120	21	0	9	15	24	4	.314	.422	.645	1.067	*5/D
2	Aaron Judge	52	2017	25	NYY	AL	155	678	542	128	154	24	3	114	127	11	208	5	0	4	15	9	4	.284	.422	.627	1.049	*9D/H
3	Alex Rodriguez	48	2005	29	NYY	AL	162	715	605	124	194	29	1	130	91	8	139	16	0	3	8	21	6	.321	.421	.610	1.031	*5/6D
4	Tino Martinez	44	1997	29	NYY	AL	158	685	594	96	176	31	2	141	75	14	75	3	0	13	15	3	1	.296	.371	.577	.948	*3/DH
5	Curtis Granderson	43	2012	31	NYY	AL	160	684	596	102	138	18	4	106	75	4	195	5	1	7	5	10	3	.232	.319	.492	.811	*8/HD
6	Curtis Granderson	41	2011	30	NYY	AL	156	691	583	136	153	26	10	119	85	0	169	12	4	7	12	25	10	.262	.364	.552	.916	*8/HD
7	Jason Giambi	41	2003	32	NYY	AL	156	690	535	97	134	25	0	107	129	9	140	21	0	5	9	2	1	.250	.412	.527	.939	*3D/H
8	Jason Giambi	41	2002	31	NYY	AL	155	689	560	120	176	34	1	122	109	4	112	15	0	5	18	2	2	.314	.435	.598	1.034	*3D
9	Reggie Jackson	41	1980	34	NYY	AL	143	601	514	94	154	22	4	111	83	15	122	2	0	2	7	1	2	.300	.398	.597	.995	*9D/H

No Met has been voted MVP. Yankee MVPs since 1962, the first two could be ignored:
Mickey Mantle 1962
Elston Howard 1963
Thurmon Munson 1976
Don Mattingly 1985
Alex Rodriguez 2005
Alex Rodriguez 2007

Johan Santana (Innings: 1,308 Twins, 717 Mets) finally pitched a Met no-hitter and it ruined his career. Cy Young awards since 1962:
Mets 4:
Tom Seaver 1969
Tom Seaver 1975
Dwight Gooden 1985
R.A. Dickey 2012

Yankees 3:
Sparky Lyle 1977
Ron Guidry 1978
Roger Clemens 2001

Mike Piazza finally became the first Met position player elected to the Hall of Fame; his best seasons were with the Dodgers.

Any all time Met team is unimpressive. It has, of course, Hall of Famer Tom Seaver (won game 300 pitching for the White Sox) as the all time Met pitcher. The Mets sent Seaver away ... twice. I've compared it to an all time Yankee team limiting the Yankees to 1962 forward and not including Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. The only position the Mets win outright is catcher with Piazza. I gave Strawberry a draw with Winfield in right. Seaver wins pitcher.

So I sent an email to a couple of friends who are Met fans, teasing them about deGrom's haircut and paraphrasing the great Yankee Clipper, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio:

I became a Yankee fan before the Mets existed, during the true golden age of New York baseball, 1958-1961, when the Yankees were the only New York team, culminating in the great home run race between Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle in 1961. Then the clown stuff began when Casey Stengel (managed Yankees to ten pennants 1949-1960) became the Mets first manager and clowned around calling his team the Metsies, Metsies.

Today during the Met game color analyst Keith Hernandez (PA: Cardinals 4,724, Mets 3,684) seemed to approve of deGrom's new look but referred to the team as your Metsies. 57 years old and they're still Metsies. Cute or embarrassing? Or just clowns? Like Bozo the clown.

I'd like to thank the good lord for making me a Yankee fan. And not a Met fan.