The BIG question. The thing that's on all our minds.

Everything revolves around if we retain Yoenis Cespedes.
At least in my mind.

Do I want him to stay a Met? Of course I do. Do I care about the money? No, more so the years. He's no spring chicken. Whatever the cost (within reason, which has very little to do with today's salaries), I feel he will be worth it.

I think we can safely say we know what we have in Cespy. Awesome feats of strength and flash as well as moments of  weak doltishness. I don't think he's ever seen a curve ball he didn't love. But he hits a lot of 'em. Some that you would think were unreachable. Some go very, very far.

He has lapses of judgement and laziness in the field and sometimes on the bases (usually the running to first base part, which many players don't seem to consider important these days). He picks and chooses his spots to go full steam, which I have no problem with. 

When he decides to give the game his all, which to be fair is a good 90+% of the time, he does amasticazeing things.

At the end of August I was starting to worry that the Mets were going to fall off. Their offense  went through one of those sluggish phases. And then Cespedes hit this walk-off and it totally revitalized my season from a fans standpoint. It renewed my confidence in the team. It may have had the same effect on the team itself, which was floundering. New York was 15-14 during the dog days. After the night Yoenis banged that sudden death bomb the Mets went 20-10 to close the season.

You could call this one above a lack of judgement but it showed me how he is willing to go beyond any and all expectations at times. Also that he's kinda insane and that doesn't hurt.

We need Cespedes.
If not him, someone like him in the thick of the line-up. There are other players out there who could possibly fill the void should he not re-up. But let's not even go there yet.

Yo's here and we know he can thrive under the hot lights of NYC. So Mr. Alderson, try your best to make the deal. Get it over with so we Mets fans can start thinking about other problems we can bug you about.
Right now we all wish for one thing...

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(Disclaimer: I realize that some out there might not wish this but it sounds so much more dramatic that way.)

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Oh, I almost forgot.
GO CUBS!
This goes out to Bam, Bill, & Bob.

>>>>Happy Birthday To Rocky Ron Swoboda!

 Lets make a collection of mfc Ron Swoboda cards for his 72nd birthday.

Happy birthday Rocky!

Ronald Alan Swoboda  

played for the New York Mets (1965-1970), Montreal Expos (1971), and New York Yankees (1971-1973). 

Swoboda at the Sadecki Spot in 1965, looking for that all elusive fly ball.

With the Mets for his first five years in the bigs, he is known for a number of things he accomplished in orange and blue. Some pretty amazin' things too.

>Hit 4 HRs in his first 16 ABs.

>Hit 10 HRs in his first 90 ABs.

 >First rookie player to lead the team in HRs (1965-19)

>In a game against the Mets in 1969, St. Louis Cardinal ace Steve Carlton K'd 17 Mets. The Cards lost because Swoboda cracked two 2 strike, 2 run HRs to snatch the victory from the hall of fame pitchers clutches.

> Used sparingly in the 1969 post season due to platoon situations (he didn't play even one inning or get one at bat in the '69 NLCS) Ron made the most of his playing time in the big show with a game saving catch in game 4 of the World Series, and a huge RBI double during a game 5 rally that secured the Mets the World Championship.

> Played in the last game ever at the old Yankee Stadium in 1973.

The image used in the 1969 World Series card above ^ is not an actual photograph. This was used as a post header for the game four 1969 World Series page. This un-captioned version is not a considered an mfc card. 

That was assembled from two separate photos. One was Neil Leifler's classic photo of Tom Seaver pitching in the ninth inning of that game.  

 That was the only way I could get the scoreboard in there, and I felt that was imperative. 

What a dramatic time to make the impossible catch. Sure, the Birds tied it but we won it behind one of Toms best performances.

 That is most definitely a top 5 World Series catch of all time.

 #1 in my list, which only includes Mets players. Post season wise, overall, Chavez gives him a run for his money.

^Swoboda's mfc 1965 rookie card. 

The birth of the '69 Mets right there.  

Kranepool was grandfathered in.

And we don't win nothing in 1973 without Cleon & Tugger.

What a great fantasy card.

 

 ^Rocky's 1966 mfc card.

I should probably change that to read "mfc 1965 ALL-Star ROOKIE", not Topps, but that was early in the project before I fleshed out the concept (translation: I didn't know what I was doing).

 Yep, Swoboda led the team in homers in 1965 with an embarrassing total of 19! But for us Mets fans in those days, that was a lot. Historically speaking from a teams standpoint, 19 dingers was the most a Mets rookie had ever hit up until then and that record stood until Darryl Strawberry launched 26 in 1983.

 

 

Ron became a fan favorite first donning the uniform number 14. He switched to #4 when Ken Boyer came aboard in 1966.

A frustrated Swoboda looking for the infamous Sadecki Spot.

Ron's 1968 mfc is a horizontal. 

All card collectors know there were no horizontal cards in the '68Topps set. But in mfc fantasyland we go out of our way to do that kinda stuff. We want to see what things might have looked like.

 Once again Swoboda was among the team leaders, and once again our numbers,...well, that's not that bad, a .281 average. And the Mets leader, Tommy Davis, batting over .300!

 *Grabs chest*

 Kranepool's look ^ says: "Do I really belong on a team leader card?" 

Yes Ed, unfortunately, at .269,  you do. 

This stuff is all carved in stone now. 

Stand proud.

Swoboda finds the infamous Sadecki Spot.

I was able to get to my borders and 60's Mets player pictures so we will be able to debut Ron's 1969 mfc card for his birthday. Yay!

That card will be added to the 1969 mfc cards page.

                           
                                ^ A digital 2 dimensional mfc 3-D card :)

This catch you see below was during the regular season, and as amazing as any catch Rocky has ever made. I added the WOR logo and gave it the split screen look.

 Swoboda was most definitely not known for making great catches. His nickname Rocky was due to exactly the opposite, his bumpy fielding. But every once in a while he did stuff like that^. Amazin'.

 ^1970 mfc regular issue Ron Swoboda. Once again taking liberties as the 1970 Topps set did not use game action shots.

 Before Swoboda made the best World Series catch known to man and the universe, he almost made this play ^, which would have robbed Don Buford of a home run leading off in game one of the 1969 World Series. Everything was working against him. The sun was blinding. That section of outfield wall in Memorial Stadium was shaky and when Ron went back against it to snag the long fly, the ball missed his glove by inches. Rocky ended up on his ass and Baltimore had a 1-0 lead. That looked to be an incredibly bad omen at the time. It wasn't.

And then there's "The Impossible Catch". Swoboda's fielding history is what made this catch all the more fantastical.

 

Once again, not an actual photograph for this card.This was put together from two different photographs to try and give us a ground eye view of the amazing grab. Using actual filmed frames as a reference this is totally accurate. He caught the ball that close off the grass, getting the thumb of his glove under it just in the nick of time.

These photographs were used:

The background was built off of this photo.

 I did up game four of the 1969 World Series in 2013 and here's an excerpt:

"All the Mets were making the plays out in the field. People today still talk about Tommie Agee's two catches in game three. Tommie's catches were so crucial, both rally killers, making the third out each time. They were incredible. But this catch....this was the impossible catch."

You can read all about game four of the 1969 World Series right here:

 Tom Seaver's masterful pitching! 

RELIVE ROCKY'S GAME SAVING CATCH!

J.C. Martins wonderful walk off bunt!

 Swoboda was involved in the game five rally that gave 

the Mets the World Championship. 

He roped an RBI double and scored the game winning run!

I liked the concept of the INSTANT REPLAY/TV card. I thought that was something Topps should have done. They did do the T.V. look with a couple of early World Series card designs. But this wouldn't have been a World Series card. Just an INSTANT REPLAY card. Instant replay was a relatively new thing in 1969. Kids would have loved it, like we did the action shots introduced in 1971 Topps regular issue cards and the silly superkool IN ACTION cards of the '72 set.

Look at the ground Ron's glove had to cover in the next split second.

  Topps painted Ron a cap on his 1971 Topps card.

 mfc squeezes one more card out of Rocky Ron Swoboda like he's a wet rag. ^Ron's  1971 mfc card.

Swoboda spent a few months in Montreal and then moved in across town, playing for the Yankees. As a matter of fact if the Yankees were facing a left handed pitcher in the April 6th opening day game of the 1973 season Ron would have been the first ever Designated Hitter to take an at bat in major league history. But as fate would have it the Red Sox pitched a righty, and Swoboda's DH platoon partner Ron Bloomberg received the distinction.

After retiring after the 1973 Swoboda was a TV Sportscaster covering baseball from NYC to New Orleans.

Happy Birthday Mr. Swoboda, and many many more :)

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Sorry this is a day late but better late than never.
I started this during the game last night and left off when things got interesting. What an excellent win vs. the Cubbies! We really, really, needed that. 
I see a Cespedes record breaker in the works. How far was that triple decker?

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 Batmagadanleadoff please check in if you should read this.

E-mail, CPF, here, wherever. 

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mfc Poster-The Dark Knight Rises/ Loney/ Flores/ OPERATION WRIGHT!

We've had 2 solo mfc Matt Harvey Pocket Posters so far.

Below was the first Harvey Pocket Poster  that commemorated opening day. This was posted at the end of March.

The Dark Knight Opens

A few alterations turned this one above into the one below, which was created to show Metropolitan fans support of Matt Harvey through his most recent rough patch. This was posted and shared through facebook 

just last week.

Again I took the same layered save and reworked it. I'm not only a custom card maker, I'm also a scavenger artist. That's because I take stuff and turn it into something else. Sometimes it's stuff off the internet, and sometimes it's stuff that I originally created.

So taking the same works from above and making some more radical changes we now have The Dark Knight Rises Pocket Poster. Hey, I know you'll be reading that phrase all over today, but it has to be "rises". Just too perfect.

The Dark Knight that I scavenged from the new Batman vs. Superman flick was replaced by the great Frank Miller's Batman from The Dark Knight Returns. Not only is Miller's TDK my favorite comic book series of all time, it also solidified the nickname Dark Knight.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES mfc POCKET POSTER

Harvey pitched like good ol' Harvey yesterday. He got past the 5th & 6th inning blues and went 7, allowing only 2 hits while striking out 6. He only walked one while securing the 1-0 win. Has The Dark Knight returned? Too soon to say. But he did rise and show us that he still has it in yesterday's game.

We all know the tale of how Harvey picked up the nickname Dark Knight. Sports Illustrated christened him TDK in 2013 issue in which he graced the cover. How about Batman himself?

Batman was called The Dark Knight 

in the very first BATMAN No.1 as written by Bill Fingers.

Cinematic Sociology: Social Life in Film 

theorizes why Batman is also known as "The Dark Knight":

" Screening the Face says Batman wears an upper-face mask similar to a knight's visor. The book writes that the mask justifies Batman's "status as a Dark Knight, the paradoxical (both dark and knight) lynchpin of the recurring, and hence mythical, Batman narrative".

Miller's "TDK Returns" spoilers below

In his 1986 graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns",  Frank Miller chose the name for a reason, 

"In this case, 'dark' is not so much referring to the fact that he works at night or that he wears a black suit. Instead, the 'dark' here refers to the soul of the Caped Crusader which may or may not be every bit as tainted as those he captures."

This scene with the Joker from TDKR is one of the most powerful ever contained within the pages of a comic book, or as they soon came to be known after the release of this groundbreaking series, graphic novels.

The nickname had been used before, sparingly. But ever since Frank Miller's TDK books Batman and his dark nickname have always traveled together. That's a pretty extreme change that Miller made to the Batman universe.

Here are some Dark Knight graphics from the past. These were done in 2013 (right before I started this blog) when Matt first came up. He had already acquired the nickname and being a big '66 Batman fan, that was how I first approached it. And calling him Mattman fit the whole deal nicely.

I'm posting these especially for @Gus the Donut Man, although I do not know if he views this blog. Don't matter, he's a '66 Batman fan too. Maybe he'll google Batman someday.

I might not have ever posted this one above from when we were playing the Diamondbacks in '13. I can see I have the upper left Mattman chest symbol wrong. That was from an earlier version of the work, before I came up with the Matt signal. In a rough draft of the very first poster at the top of this page I went with a '66 Batman, but I felt it didn't pack the punch I needed. I wanted that to be a serious Batman.

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METS GET JAMES LONEY!
Let's get Loney an mfc card!
Jame's acquisition was a no brainer. He cost a bag of balls and some such considerations. Always liked Loney on the Dodgers but lost track of him when he left L.A..
He will be an asset.

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I was all for Wilmer Flores taking first base until Duda returns. Well, not enthusiastically all for it, but over the years he has grown on me and I felt he could rise to the occasion. Looks like with Loney arriving he won't have to. I think Flores best position is third base, and he might see a bit of time there as David Wright recovers (more on The Captain's injury at bottom of page). 

I was not a fan of Wilmer. Early on I nicknamed him "Flatfeets". I ridiculed him for his slobbering gait. His shortstop play was erratic as was his hitting. He'd pop one from time to time so I didn't ride him too hard. But I just thought of him as "the guy" playing short until we got a real shortstop.

Here's what I said about him on the mfc Celebrates New Years post:

Wilmer, ankle weights!

Flores was improving in the field and swatting more four baggers and this helped me not dislike him, but I still thought we needed a better player for that position.

"The Crying Game" didn't change that much. Sure, I felt for him and what he went through there, but I still wasn't all in on Flores. I did like him a lot more as a person after that pretty bazaar night because I felt we had something in common. If I was a Mets player and they traded me, I'd have cried too.

But little by little, as it usually happens when a player stays in orange and blue,  I began to become a fan of Flores. Sometimes he did amazing things.

Not long after "The Crying Game" came "The Walkoff Game".

And I became a full time fan of Flores. And it wasn't the walkoff itself that won me over.

It was the way he grabbed his jersey as he approached his teammates waiting for him at home plate, pulling at the scripted Mets insignia across his chest. He was saying to them, as well as to us fans, that he was still a Metropolitan. That clinched it. Because we both have yet another thing in common. We both love the Mets.

 I was waiting on making a 2016 mfc Wilmer Flores regular issue card but I didn't know what for. And then I ran into this photo yesterday and realized why I waited. His gets a blue orange inner border because he is a true Met. If your card flipping that card gets you credit for orange or blue.

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Crap. 

Unfortunately we will have to update David Wright's injury chart as The Captain is suffering from a herniated disc in his neck. I hope we don't lose Wright like last season. And if we do I hope he can return before the seasons end (saying postseason would be a jinx), and if not, even next season. When Davids on the field he is still a vital asset and if he has to hang 'em up early I will be bummed.

The David Wright Injury Chart circa 2015

First inkling of a back injury in 2011.

2015

2016

I will wait a few days to compile more info before I post the updated Wright injury chart

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Last year while waiting for Wright to return I put out some funnies trying to keep it light. Unfortunately this back problem is serious business.

I can't wait until I can post the above graphic again, and I hope David Wright's return is more sooner than later.

So I haven't added the herniated disc to the Wright Injury Chart yet  yet. These .gifs take a bit of doing. When will Wright be back? There's talk of the D.L. but nothing solid yet. Hopefully Wright is back and healthy ASAP.

Let's go Mets!