Joe Dimaggio

I once stated accurately that I prefer my baseball players dead. Sure, I love that movement that Tim Lincecum puts on his pitches. To go from a hanging arm to whipping a nasty pitch over the plate in a way that deceives the batter into a state of utter stupidity is a fantastic thing to watch. Now, I'm not a fan of the ponytail, and I'm definiteliy not a fan of his bong, but the man is one of the better players in the modern game.

Nevertheless, I prefer the mystique of the eras that I never truly got to see except on documentaries and the images that I see in my head while I daydream about what it must have been like back in the day. That said, I don't imagine life before baseball gloves and catcher's masks, but yeah... tobacco card era baseball and beyond (up until the players that began their careers in the late 70s / early 80s); those were the days.

A prime example of what they don't have any more in baseball is a Joe Dimaggio. We could ask where he's gone, but like Paul Simon (who Dimaggio initially wasn't impressed by due to an incorrect perception that "Mrs. Robinson" was an insult), we have no clue. In 1999, he shuffled off this mortal coil and left many fans sad and lost with only their memories to share. Fortunately, there's HBO's Where Have You Gone, Joe Dimaggio to help us remember the Yankee Clipper / #5 / Mr. Coffee as something more than a couple of pages in a best players ever baseball book.

I don't know if it's safe to say that he's that much better than what an Albert Pujols type player is, but there was something about him... a war era player that lost the best years of his career (43-45, 2 years after the 56-game hitting streak - 1 more would have got him some Heinz 57 money) to World War 2.

He lost Marilyn Monroe to the American people and a drug overdose (not to mention the Kennedys), but he kept a vigil to her for the rest of his life with the red rose he placed by her gravesite.

In 13 seasons, he batted .325 with 369 strikeouts TOTAL! In comparison, that's about 2 years of Mark Reynolds' career (not even). To top it off, he hit 361 home runs for his career.

He was so popular in New York, he could make Mickey Mantle feel like a schlub for daring to replace him.

When it came time to go, he didn't seem to know despite the fact that Casey Stengel was trying to make it easy on him. In the end, Life Magainze, Andy High, and Gene Woodling combined to show just how pedestrian that the "Greatest Living Player" had become. Like Lou Gehrig before him, a superstar being shown as being mortal knew that something was wrong. Where Lou Gehrig's finale came with being congratulated for doing the routine, Dimaggio was taken down to size for not being able to run, field, or hit in the way that he did when he electrified the 1941 spring and early summer.

For even with a bat stolen, he didn't complain. Sure, he wanted to bang heads to get it back, but he went right on hitting until it came back.

He tried his hand at TV, but he quit when he wasn't successful. As Ric Flair said, "to be the best, you have to beat the best," and to Joltin' Joe, if he couldn't be the best, he didn't want to play, so he did what he was good at - running restaurants, making appearances, signing bats, and adding his name to a children's hospital.

Sadly, the band who became a Les Brown record will never be seen at a Dinky Donuts again, but he will always be an example of what's right with baseball and the world.

Choo Choo Coleman

The Mets really sucked when they first started out.
This isn't being mean. This is a fact.
If Marvelous Marv Throneberry was the symbol of futility, then Choo Choo Coleman was the symbol or purely terrible.
In 1963, he batted 178 in 277 at bats. He did hit 3 home runs, but he did little else. This was pretty much his track record with the Phillies before the the Mets picked him up, and then despite a spike in limited at bats in 1962, he went back to "nicht so gut," and well, that was it.
Throneberry wasn't much better. He hit .244 in his first Mets season and in the space of 2 hits and 1 RBI in 14 at bats, the Mets and the major leagues had seen enough of Marv, and he went on his way.
Ken Burns summed up Marv by saying that nothing he did was marvelous.
That said, we can't all be Pete Rose and Ted Williams at the plate, but we should be able to touch first and second when we actually hit a triple.
In the beginning, there was Casey Stengel to lead the team, and while that might have been for familiarity for New Yorkers who loved him as a Yankee, he really was "too old" and it just didn't play out well.
Nevertheless, there was the Miracle Mets with Seaver and Ryan and Koosman. There was the 86 Mets that benefited more from Roger Clemens, cocaine, and Dan Shaughnessey, and there was a few other good teams along the way, but the Mets of today... "nicht so gut."
It's not the fact that they're also rans since the days of 2006 and Endy Chavez saving the day only to pull defeat out in a game that they seemed fated to win. And that was it.
High priced free agents named Carlos (Beltran and Delgado) who don't do anything well (including staying healthy).
David Wright can't save the day with all those strikeouts.
Pitchers who can't stay healthy.
Jose Reyes who is REALLY over-rated.
Yeah... that's the Mets.
Lastings Milledge who didn't know his place.
And then there's this year...
Charlie Samuels being watched like a hawk eyes a mouse because he just might have profited too much on memorabilia sales.
Francisco Rodriguez and his desire and actions to smack the tar out of his main squeeze's dad.
Oliver Perez no longer a consideration for the starting rotation.
CITI Field not bringing cash in that was hoped for (guess, they should have stayed at Shea).
Bernie Madoff's victims and their lawsuit to get their $1BILLION worth of money back (can't fault them for that).
Fans that don't want to see games even with cut ticket prices (down 20% from $500 in some cases).
A $25 MILLION loan from MLB to keep the team up and running (time to cut out some unprofitable teams, eh?!!).
And perhaps New York needs 2 teams.
Perhaps there is hope in Manhattan yet.
Maybe we can return to the glory days when men on the moon coincided with great teams with dominant pitching.
Just not this year.