When you're a basically solid team without a lot of job openings or questions, spring training is, ideally, all about what you're not. News? Bad. Questions? Generally bad. Particularly any that start with formulations like, “Can the Mets survive…” or “What's Plan B now that…” The absence of questions, beyond banalities such as work visas […]

Edward: I think we need some major sucking up.
Hollister: Very well, sir. You’re not only handsome but a powerful man. I could see the second you walked in here you were someone to reckon with.
Edward: Hollister.
Hollister: Yes, sir?
Edward: Not me. Her!
—Richard Gere and sycophantic salesman, Pretty Woman

Peter B. Maglathlin has won me over. He knows […]

One vote for wearing the real uniforms in these games. Mets look sharp, whoever they are. Not that the Delgados of our world require enhancement by haberdashery, but all the No. 62s and higher seem more legit in crisp snow whites with their actual names embroidered on the back than in those drab blue, grab-one-off-the-pile […]

Ah, Day One. As my partner noted, it was a bunch of sweet nothing.
I had the game on at work and so was only paying fitful, vague attention — which was fine because this was, after all, a spring-training game.
By now I'm used to this. About 10 years ago, it was different. I remember one […]