Mets All Time Roster

For the last 58 years, the New York Mets have been the team in New York for the National League. During those 58 season, this one would have been the 59th, there have been a total of 1,091 men that have suited up and played in at least one game in the Blue and Orange of the Mets. It will be a tough debate, but it a debate worth having. So with that being said, we are going to try and put together the ultimate lineup for the Mets. We are putting together a starting eight position players, along with one backup player for each position. As for pitching, we will put together a starting five rotation, six relief pitchers and a closer. We also selecting manager and bench coaches.

So what goes into requirements for making this list? For coaches, that's easy. Winning record and win percentages will play a factor. For the position players, it was number of plate appearances (which we will put at 1,400) as well as defensive play. For pitchers, you had to appear in at least 75 games in a Mets Jersey.

With that being said, here's the all time Mets lineup.

Manager: Davey Johnson
Bench Coach: terry Collins
Bench Coach: Bobby Valentine

Starting Position Players
Catcher: Mike Piazza
1st Base: Keith Hernandez
2nd Base: Edgardo Alfonso
3rd Base: David Wright
Shortstop: Jose Reyes
Left Field: Cleon Jones
Center Field: Carlos Beltran
Right Field: Daryl Strawberry

Reserve Position Players:
Catcher: Gary Carter (HM Todd Hundley)
1st Base: John Olerud (HM Carlos Delgado)
2nd Base: Daniel Murphy (HM Jeff Kent)
3rd Base: Howard Johnson
Shortstop: Bud Harrelson
Outfield: Mookie Wilson
Outfield: Kevin McReynolds
Outfield: Lenny Dykstra
Pitch Hitter: Rusty Staub

Starting Pitchers:
Tom Seaver
Jacob deGrom
Doc Gooden
Jerry Koosman
Al Leiter

Relief Pitchers:
Tug McGraw
Armando Bemitez
Jesse Orasco
Roger McDowell
Sid Fernandez (long man)
Jon Matlack (long man)

Closer:
John Franco

Batting Order
1: Reyes
2. Alfonzo
3: Hernandez
4: Piazza
5: Strawberry
6: Beltran
7: Wright
8: Jones
9: Pitcher

Starting Rotation
Seaver
Gooden
Koosman
deGrom
Leiter

What say you fellow Mets fans? What do you think of this lineup?

Down Goes Thor

Sports in 2020 is really weird. Not only is the sports world on hold, but injuries to their prime athletes are starting to build up[. Thee latest to join that list is New York Mets right hander Noah Syndergaard. The team announced on Tuesday that Thor will have to undergo Tommy John Surgery to repair a torn UCL in his right elbow. When the surgery is done, Thor will be out until at least early next season.

Now this begs two questions. What does this mean for Thor's future? What does this mean for the Mets rotation?

Noah was supposed to be the number two man in the Mets rotation right behind ace Jacob deGrom. Now he can't do that. He's coming off a career high 197 and 2/3 innings last year. Noah has never pitched more than 200 innings in a season. He does throw hard, no argument there, but it has taken a toll on him. Clearly. As much of a fan as I am of Noah's, you knew at some point this was going to catch up to him. Plus he has had trouble with that right arm in the past. He hasn't really changed his pitching style, which to a degree really works. But sometimes you got to adapt to be able to sustain a long career.

We won't see Thor pitch again till next year, whether we actually have baseball this year or not. So it'll be interesting to see what actually happens with Noah when he does return. We saw with Matt Harvey that he had a good year his first year back after surgery, but was never the same. Difference between Syndergaard and Harvey is, Harvey had a solid career and was living up to the hype. Noah hasn't quite done that yet. Noah was brought over in the RD Dickey trade with Toronto and was projected to be a solid pitcher with huge upside. He been solid, no doubt there. But he never really proven to be the set in stone number two behind Jake. He's shown flashes but hasn't been able to sustain it.

Looking at the Mets rotation, if we ever do play baseball this year, it took a bit of a hit. Had they kept Thor all eyar, I would have put them into strong contention to compete for both the Wild Card spot and the Eastern Division title. Jake is a given as the ace at the top of the rotation. Not changing there. Behind him, it now sits Marcus Stroman, Steven Matz, Michael Wacha and Rick Porcello. Solid on paper, but come on. Outside of Jake and Maybe Stroman, this staff doesn't really scare me. It might be able to hold up on paper, but looking at the staff in Washington, Atlanta and maybe even Philly stack up just a little bit better. Thor wasn't perfect, but he did make a difference. He can be frustrating at times, but Noah does have the ability at times to live up to the potential and make Mets fans happy.

Here's hoping the surgery goes well and Thor can come back a better pitcher.

Islanders By The Numbers

There an old saying in sports, that whats on the front of your jersey is a hell of a lot more important then the name on the back. Its a true statement and there's no debating it. In this case, we are going to take a look at the back. The names and numbers that are on the back of the sweater can be big deals. In the 47 year history of the New York Islanders, they've had a lot of players come through the organization. Some good and some bad. All in their own way have had an impact on this hockey team. With that being said, we are going to look at the Islanders by the numbers. Its going to be the best players to wear every jersey number in the history of the franchise.

Some numbers have just one wearer, while others have had multiple wearers. This is where the debates and discussions will come in. I'm basing it, at least for the numbers with multiple guys wearing it, who had the best career in an Isles sweater wearing that number. Its based on point production and overall play that each player was chosen at that number. With that being said, here are the Islanders by the number.

1: Glenn Resch (157 wins 2nd most in team history 25 shutouts most in team history)
2: Nick Leddy (213 points in 462 games played)
3: Travis Haomnic (146 points in 444 games)
4: Roman Hamerlik (153 points in 300 games)
5: Denis Potvin (1,052 points in 1,060 games)
6: Ken Morrow (105 points in 550 games)
7: Stefan Persson (369 points in 622 games)
8: Garry Howatt (213 points and 1,466 PIM in 596 games)
9: Clark Gillies (663 points in 872 games)
10: Lorne Henning (184 points in 543 games)
11: Wayne Merrick (197 points in 411 games)
12: Josh Bailey (476 points in 865 games)
13: Mathew Barzal (207 points in 234 games)
14: Bob Bourne (5421 points in 814 games)
15: Billy Harris (443 points in 615 games)
16: Pat LaFontaine (566 points in 530 games)
17: Matt Martin (110 points in 560 games)
18: Ed Wesfall (286 points in 493 games)
19: Brian Trottier (1,353 points in 1,123 games)
20: Sean Bergenheim (80 points in 246 games)
21: Brent Sutter (610 points in 694 games)
22: Mike Bossy (1,126 points in 576 games)
23: Bob Nystrom 513 points in 900 games)
24: Mikko Makela (219 points in 307 games)
25: David Volek (249 points in 396 games)
26: Pat Flatley (488 points in 712 games)
27: John Tonelli (544 points in 594 games)
28: Anders Kallur (211 points in 383 games)
29: Kenny Jonsson (232 points in 597 games)
30: Kelly Hrudey (106 wins in 241 games)
31: Billy Smith (304 wins in 674 games)
32: Steve Thomas (258 points in 275 games)
33: Benoit Hogue (229 points in 258 games)
34: Bryan Berard (131 points in 242 games)
35: Glenn Healy (66 wins in 176 games)
36: Gary Nylund (63 points in 211 games)
37: Mark Parrish (214 points in 335 games)
38: Dave Scatchard (168 points in 347 points)
39: Rick DiPietro (108 wins in 318 games)
40: Michael Grabner 144 points in 297 games)
41: Jaroslav Halak (88 wins in 177 games)
42: Scott Mayfield (54 points in 219 games)
44: Todd Bertuzzi (80 points in 192 games)
45: Aaron Asham (105 points in 300 games)
47: Andrew MacDonald 89 points in 295 games)
49: Eric Godard (5 points in 107 games)
50: Adam Pelach (61 points in 247 games)
51: Frans Nielsen (349 points in 606 games)
53: Casey Cizikas (171 points in 534 games)
55:  Jason Blake (258 points in 426 games)
57: Blake Comeau (121 points in 261 games)
60: Kevin Poulin (18 wins in 44 starts)
72: Anthony Beauvillier (127 points in 286 games)
77: Pierre Turgeon 340 points in 255 games)
79: Alexei Yashin (290 points in 340 games)
81: Miroslav Satan (166 points in 234 games)
86: Nikolai Kulemin (79 points in 248 games)
91: John Tavares (621 points in 669 games)
92: Vladimir Malakhov (125 points in 166 games)
93: Doug Weight (64 points in 107 games)

End Of An Era

Twenty years is a hell of a run to have. For the New England Patriots and Tom Brady, they had that. Six Super Bowl wins in nine big game appearances is a pretty good run, for any sport. After a long, successful run together, Brady and the Patriots are no longer a thing. Brady announced this morning that he will be leaving New England and hitting the free agency market.

Here is Brady's goodbye to New England, from his Twitter page:

A class act from a class act. It was a classy way to say goodbye to New England, as it has been clear for a while now that Brady wasn't going to be coming back to the Patriots.

But look at all he's done as a starting QB for the Patriots. 219 wins in 238 starts in the regular season. Won six Super Bowls, and was MVP of four of those games. He's won three regular season MVP's and been to 14 pro bowls in New England. While donning a Patriots jersey he threw for 74,571 yards, 541 touchdowns and 179 interceptions. There's little doubt to anybody who'/s ever watched football that Brady is the greatest player of this, or maybe even any, generation.

Now there's two questions that come to mind. Who takes over under center in New England? And where does Brady go?

Lets start with the Patriots. I've heard three names really thrown around. Andy Dalton, Philip Rivers and Teddy Bridgewater as a possible replacement. Not too crazy about trading for Dalton because he's a turnover machine. Rivers I think is the same age as Brady so why give up one guy for another of the same age. Best bet, and probably best fit, would be Bridgewater. He's the youngest of the bunch and look what he did with the Saints last year when Drew Brees went down with injury. Bridgewater kept the Saints in the race and right where they needed to be all year.

As far as where Brady ends up, it all depends on what he wants to do. He could go home to the West Coast, play for the Chargers and just play out the last couple of years he's got left, if that. But if he wants another shot at a title, the best bet would be Tampa Bay. Lets face it, he's probably not going to get another shot if he stays in the AFC, not with how good both the Ravens are and with how up and coming the West is in the AFC. At least if he goes to Tampa, the only major threat is the 49ers. And with the weapons of Mike Evans and Chris Goodwin in Tampa, who knows how far they could possibly go with Brady under center.

Again this is all speculation and there's know way of really knowing what the Patriots and Brady are going to do now that they're apart from eachother. Only time will tell.

Good In Sports

It's been the hot topic over the last few days. The sports world has basically shut down because of the Coronavirus. Teams and leagues have shut down operations for the time being, until it is safe to resume play. Makes total sense, we don't want to run the risk of players, officials, media. fans or anybody else for that matter getting sick. There are some who are really effected by the cancellation of games, and that's the part time workers in the arena.

You know the ones I mean. The event night staff at the concession stands, the ticket tackers, the security people. All of them are losing that source of income, for who knows how long, because of this. Now not everybody has done this, but there are some teams and players in the NBA that have stepped up to help out. It all started in Dallas, as shortly after the NBA suspended play on Wednesday, Mavericks owner Marc Cuban said that he would set up a payment plan for his stadium's hourly workers.

And he's not the only one. Per CBS Sports, others have joined in as well:
-Atlanta Hawks Team owner Tony Ressler told Hawks CEO Steve Koonin two weeks before the league decided to go on a hiatus that "if we shut down, we have to take care of our part-time employees," as reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Sarah K. Spencer

-Brooklyn Nets, in response to guard Spencer Dinwiddie tweeting about taking care of non-salaried arena workers, team owner Joe Tsai responded by saying the franchise is putting a plan in place to help out Barclays Center staff

-Cleveland Cavaliers: Kevin Love became the first player in the league to donate money to event staff at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse when he announced on social media that he would give $100,000 to those workers. The Cavaliers followed their star forward and announced on Twitter that they would be taking care of all hourly staff.

-Detroit Pistons Blake Griffin will be donating $100,000 to the workers inside Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, per The Detroit News' Rod Beard

Golden State Warriors ownership, players and coaches will contribute $1 million to a disaster relief fund for Chase Center employees, the team announced. "The men and women who work our games at Chase Center are critical in providing an incredible game-night experience for our fans," Warriors guard Steph Curry said. "As players, we wanted to do something along with our ownership and coaches to help ease the pain during this time."

-Indiana Pacers: Pacers owner Herb Simon has given financial aid to the the part-time workers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, per Bob Kravitz of The Athletic.

-Houston Rockets team CEO Tad Brown said that the franchise is getting a plan together to take care of all hourly workers at Toyota Center, per The Houston Chronicle's Johnathan Feigen

-Los Angeles Clippers and Lakers, both tenants of the Staples Center, along with the Kings of the NHL, are finalizing a deal that will work to compensate the hundreds of part-time and contract workers that typically staff Staples Center for NBA and NHL games, per Kyle Goon of the O.C. Register. The Lakers and Clippers have also told game-night employees that they will continue to compensate them through the NBA hiatus. This includes employees such as team statisticians, announcers and dance teams

-Miami Heat: The Heat are among the NBA teams in the process of figuring out how to financially assist the arena workers who will lose income because of the league's coronavirus shutdown, according to Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press

-Milwaukee Bucks MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo took to Twitter to announce that he will be donating $100,000 to workers at Fiserv Forum, saying "it's bigger than basketball." Memphis Grizzlies: The Grizzlies will be compensating all game night employees for any games missed through the end of the year, according to Geoff Calkins of The Daily Memphian

-New Orleans Pelicans top overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, Zion Williamson, announced on his Instagram that he's pledging to cover the salaries of all workers at Smoothie King Center for the next 30 days. In the post, Williamson said, "this is a small way for me to express my support and appreciation for these wonderful people who have been so great to me and my teammates."

-Philadelphia 76ers hourly workers at Wells Fargo Center will be compensated during the NBA's hiatus, per NBC Sports Philadelphia's John Clark

That is beyond awesome that teams and players are going out of their way like that to help out. Nobody in any of this wanted to step away and shut down operations the way things have. But this is a situation that is beyond anybodies control. Teams and players saw this as a way to step up and help out in any way they could with what they have. This was an awesome move and hats off to everybody involved for doing this.

-Washington Wizards team owner Ted Leonsis reportedly told Capital One Arena workers that they will be paid through March 31 for any Wizards or Capitals games they were scheduled to work, per The Athletic's Tarik El-Bashir

-Former NBA player Jeremy Lin announced that he was donating $150,000 to UNICEF to help fight the coronavirus. Lin also donated the same amount to the China Foundation.

Mika's Magic

When the 2019-20 NHL regular season started, there wasn't much hope for the New York Rangers. A lot of people, myself included, had them on the outside looking in as a playoff team. The team even said so itself, that they were going to be in a rebuilding mode. But, here we sit on March 11th (the day of this writing), with the Rangers sitting just three points out of a playoff spot. A big reason for that? Mika Zibanejad

Don't get me wrong, Artemi Panarin has been a huge reason for the success of the Broadway Blueshirts this season. He leads the team in assists and points and could be a possible contender for the Hart Trophy as league MVP at seasons end. At the same time, Mika Zibanejad has quietly carved himself out an outstanding season. Last night in Dallas, he reached the 40 goal mark, becoming the 20th player in Rangers history to score 40 goals in a season, and the first one to do it since Rick Nash in 2015. He also became the fastest player to hit the 40 goal mark in a Rangers sweater, breaking Jean Ratelle's 48-year-old record with one game in hand,. Mika has a real shot to break Jaromir Jagr's team record of 53 goals, which was set back in 2006.

What he's doing this season is quietly and quickly becoming the stuff of legend on Broadway. That mark of 40 has Mika 5th in the NHL for the race for the Rocket (which is given to the NHL goal scoring leader), sitting eight behind Alex Ovechkin and David Pastranak. He's already tied his career high in 74 points, which he set last year. Oh and he's done all this despite missing the first 13 games of the year.

Getting to play with a guy like Artemi Panarin has been doing wonders for Mika, you can see it in his game. He's getting more scoring chances and looks and has been able to cash in on them. He's just as much of a factor, at least from an offensive point of view, as to why the Rangers are sitting where they are in the standings. He's playing above what fans expected out of him this season and you can't be playing much hotter than Mika is right now.

He can rewrite the Rangers goal record for a single season, and rewrite his career highs in points as well. When your hot, your hot. Mika's been hot most of the year and is a major factor for the boys from Broadway doing what there doing. If this is what they're getting out of him this year, its going to be more intriguing to see how he plays when the Rangers add more pieces down the road. If this is only a taste of things to come, then the Rangers are going to be a major threat for quite some time.

Wrong Time To Skid On Island

When this 2019-20 NHL season started, there was a lot of hope for the New York Islanders. They had won a playoff round and dominated the Penguins last year, and were looking to try to build off that. As the early part of the season wore on, the Islanders ran off an amazing seventeen game point streak heading into thanksgiving, which firmly put them in contention at the top of the Metro division. Then the wheels have come off, putting the Isles in danger of missing the playoffs.

If anybody heard the last episode of the show, you heard my rant about the lack of effort and pure frustration with the product on the ice the last couple of weeks. Yes, as of this writing, the Islanders are still in a Wild Card spot. They're tied with the Blue Jackets at 78 points, both are three up on Carolina, four up on the Rangers and five up on Florida. All this with a little over a month to play. But if you look back around the all star break, the Islanders were 29-15-5. Six wins since then and only two since the middle of February. I'm sorry but what's on the ice right now isn't going to cut it.

Usually, the Islanders hit a rough patch like this in the beginning of the season and fight their way back, if they even hit that patch at all. This couldn't come at a worse time. You can see, just by watching, the impact on not having Casey Cizikas, who's got no timetable on his return from a leg injury. Now the team is also going to miss Johnny Boychuk, who needed 90 stitches to repair getting cut by a skate against Montreal last night. This is limiting a bit of an already banged up defense. There's a lot more to it then that.

Lets start in net. Greiss and Varlamov have played really well at times, and there's also times like last night against Montreal where they looked average at best. To be fair, I can't put all the blame on Greiss because his teammates made some bad mental mistakes in front of him. Bad turnovers, not skating to clear the puck, just stuff you would like to think you'd see a hockey team do. Play in the defensive end is getting lazy.

If you think that's bad, the offensive jump isn't really there. Sure it's showed up twice recently, in wins over San Jose and Detroit and a comeback to get a point out of the Rangers. But since about Valentines day, the offense has, for the most part, been MIA. It's either not skating with any urgency or too many damn  passes. I've lost count how many times over the last couple of weeks I've been yelling at the TV that they've been over passing and not shooting anywhere near what they should. I'm sure there's a level of frustration that has to be getting to the players by now, but it sure as hell isn't showing in any semblence of urgency the last few games. They've been totally shut down since the end of the 1st against the Blues in St Louis last week.

For a team that had so much promise going into this year, and after the winning streak no less, to see what its turning into now is a crying shame. I, like anybody else who roots for a sports team with a passion, wants to see it succeed. Or at the very least be competitive. I haven't seen anything close to that over the last three games and its the wrong time of the year to be hitting the slide. There's 17 games left to go in the regular season. If the Islanders want to have any hope at all of playing spring hockey at Nassau Coliseum this year, they had better wake the hell up and start putting pucks on net. Or this will leave a very bitter taste in their mouth going into next year.