Your 2008 New York Mets' potential/likely Opening Day roster:

CATCHERS (2)

Brian Schneider, Ramon Castro.

• Givens.

INFIELDERS (5)

Carlos Delgado, Luis Castillo, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Ruben Gotay.

• Gotay's switch-hitting and youth give him a leg up on Jose Valentin for utility infield purposes.

OUTFIELDERS (6)

Moises Alou, Carlos Beltran, Ryan Church, Endy Chavez, Marlon Anderson, Damion Easley.

• Anderson and Easley […]

If you've seen Mathematically Alive, the wonderful documentary on the condition known as Mets fandom, you will remember a cat in a hat straight out of Dr. Seuss. That cat, Matt Hoey, is the fellow who made it his business to camp out at Shea days in advance of the first tickets going on sale […]

“It’s like walking across the desert step by step and today he finally got to the oasis.”

That's Rick Peterson on Duaner Sanchez getting to pitch today in an intrasquad game, and with all due respect to the Jacket and bridge-potentially-too-far similes, both of which I approve of highly, throwing 25 pitches to teammates wearing hideous […]

Shea Stadium is as different from the average ball park as a jet plane is from the contraption the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.

So reported a very early Mets yearbook, which also said Shea would be opening in the summer of '63 and that it would be “the greatest ball […]

Well, at least you boys'll get to see the old manse, the home where I spent so many happy days in the bosom of my family, a refugium, if you will — with a mighty oak tree out front and a happy little tire swing.

—Ulysses Everett McGill

Right now, our favorite ballpark is the former Thomas […]

Upon arriving in camp, Carlos Delgado was asked by reporters to explain himself, his lousy last season and his team's horrific nosedive. In the course of offering his take on 2007 (not as if we didn't see or couldn't figure it out for ourselves), he gave a shoutout to its predecessor:

“I think 2006 was a […]

If you wanted an early indication that 2008 will be psychologically different (and who among us doesn't want that?), you can't get more of an early indicator than Carlos Beltran, of all people, giving the Philadelphia Phillies bulletin-board material.

After a fairly typical, mild-mannered give-and-take with reporters, one taken from the G-rated part of the hymnal […]