THE 2006 METS THREAD

The Soriano Hunt has allegedly resumed; I'm afraid.

The Mets are excited to announce that former Mets player
Ron Darling will join Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez
in the broadcast booth on SportsNet New York for the
Mets 2006 season.

Do you have a question for the newest member of the
Mets broadcast team? You will have your chance to chat
with the pitching ace of the 1986 World Championship team
on Friday, from 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET.

"In my mind, I'm not really done playing. I love playing the game, but right now I haven't had the opportunity to go out and play. I feel that I have a lot to give back to the game. I'm willing to do whatever I can if I can't go out and do the things that I was capable of."
--Rickey Henderson, on his status in baseball

Breakfast at Julio's
By BEN SHPIGEL

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., Feb. 28 — A few minutes before 7 a.m. Tuesday, Julio Franco greeted a visitor to his apartment with the news that he had eaten 14 egg whites for breakfast.

But he was still hungry. A plate loaded with oatmeal awaited him, as did a banana and a glass of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, and still Franco wanted more egg whites. Franco's wife, Rosa, normally cooks him breakfast, but she wasn't there; so, in Spanish, he asked a friend to cook him six egg whites.

"It's O.K., six more's not going to hurt," Franco said. "It's good protein."

Franco's day always begins like this. He eats the first of five, sometimes six, meals before the sun has finished blazing over the horizon. Sometimes he adds vegetables, like bell peppers or spinach, to his egg whites or he substitutes a scooped-out bagel (he prefers cinnamon raisin) for the oatmeal.

Franco has known no other way for the last 15 or so years. He is this way not only because he plays baseball for a living. He also wants to stay alive as long as possible. In December, the 47-year-old Franco, who began his professional career in 1978 as a Phillies minor leaguer, signed a two-year contract with the Mets that will expire after his 49th birthday.

Part Methuselah, part Incredible Hulk, Franco is, by 4 years 2 months 26 days, the oldest player in the major leagues. But he has the sculpted muscle definition and trim waist of an athlete half his age.

If, as Franco wishes, he plays until he is 50, he will not diverge from a regimen that includes ingesting about 5,000 calories daily; lifting weights six days a week; and attending weekly sessions with his chiropractor and massage therapists to align his spine and restore his balance.

A religious man, Franco obeys the Ten Commandments, and he also has three personal rules, in increasing order of importance: eat well, work hard and get proper rest.

"There are no magic pills," Franco said.

Franco is a walking anachronism and he knows it. He belongs in another era, when fast food, soda, preservatives and additives did not exist. Why else, he said, would he drink a liquid concoction made from beets, cauliflower, celery, broccoli, garlic, onions and an apple (to mask the unsavory tang)?

"It tastes nasty, but it's so good for you and 100 percent natural," Franco said. "That's all that I care about."

He would have reveled in the diet of a few centuries ago, he said, when people ate what they caught and relied on nature for their next meal. He says he would have thrived in biblical times, when, as he said the story goes, people lived 400, 500 years. Spending time with Franco, listening to him describe his philosophies on health and happiness, it almost becomes possible to believe he'll be around in a few hundred years.

On willpower, Franco said: "All the time people tell me that they shouldn't eat something but they do anyway. They don't need cake. They don't have to have it. I walk by bakeries, see things that look good, smell good, but I know I don't need that cheesecake. It's not worth it for me."

On his easygoing nature: "If it's hot outside, great. If it's cold, great. If it rains or it's windy, I don't care. They're out of my control. The things in my life that I can control — my diet, baseball, my interaction with friends, family, teammates — that's what I can control, and that's what enriches my life."

On his predecessors: "The smart ones were the old ones," he said, between forkfuls of egg whites.

Franco has learned this particular lesson the hard way. In his younger days, he drank and caroused and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning.

"Julio needed some guidance," said the Mets' special assistant to the general manager, Tony Bernazard, who formed a double-play combination with Franco from 1984 to 1987 with the Cleveland Indians. "I'll leave it at that."

To bulk up, Franco read bodybuilding magazines, picking up tips from professionals, following diets found in the back pages. He swore off alcohol and other vices, and underwent a religious transformation after winning the American League batting title in 1991 (.341 average).

His workout routine is an amalgam of exercises recommended by the Mets' training staff and those assigned by his personal trainer, Michael Ashley, who also created a diet exclusively for him.

"When I got acquainted with him, I learned quickly that you can't associate him with people of his age," Ashley said. "His discipline is unlike anything I've ever seen."

In his native Dominican Republic, Franco says he can pick his produce off trees and visit a butcher at 7 a.m. to receive a filet mignon from a cow that was killed two hours earlier. Here, he shops at natural foods stores and is at the mercy of the supermarkets' produce sections. Franco eats foods for their nutritional benefits, not for their taste.

The big breakfast fortified Franco for a long day, which included the Mets' first intrasquad game of the spring. He navigated his Hummer through heavy traffic on St. Lucie West Boulevard and arrived about 7:50 a.m., 20 minutes later than normal. He hit soft-toss pitches for 15 minutes, then returned to the clubhouse to hold court. He sat on the floor, legs spread at a right angle, surrounded by five Hispanic players, and told jokes with Jose Lima.

After stretching in the training room and riding the exercise bike for 30 minutes — to burn off the extra calories from those last six egg whites, Franco said — he jogged out to Tradition Field to take batting practice. There, he watched José Reyes sock home run after home run beyond the right-field wall, then congratulated him for his power.

But he also advised Reyes to use his hips more in his swing and reminded him of a wager they had made Monday: For every ball that Reyes pulled, he owed Franco a dollar.

"He's helped me so much," Reyes said. "I try not to pay him, but it's a little bit of payment for him helping me."

Franco, who is envisioned as a backup first baseman and pinch-hitter, batted ninth and served as designated hitter for his side.

Despite going 0 for 2 in a game that included players named Wright, Beltran and Delgado, Franco received the loudest cheers. The crowd gasped during Franco's second at-bat, when he ripped an opposite-field shot that was caught at the wall in right-center. Afterward, as he was stepping into his car, Franco said he thought he had hit a home run.

"The wind brought it back in," Franco said.

And then he smiled, took a bite out of a protein bar, pulled the gearshift into reverse and sped out of the players' parking lot, heading toward his next stop on the 29-year journey of a budding folk hero.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

I couldn't agree more: NO SECOND COMING OF JUAN SAMUEL, pleez!

http://www.metsgeek.com/articles/2006/03/21/soria-oh-hell-no/

http://www.metsgeek.com/articles/2006/03/24/weekend-thoughts/

And is Nady over Diaz in RF the way to go?

re SNY: Anyone's better than Healy, but Keith & Ronnie are making appreciate how much Howie Rose let Gary Cohen shine. Fuckin' ex-jocks.

I don't have any OBP numbers... Rickey only got to camp about 4 days ago tho. One game I saw this week had Reyes leading off with a single, getting easily caught at 2nd a couple pitches later. O, THE POWER OF THE STOLEN BASE.

I cannot pick the Mets higher than the wildcard as long as this foolishness continues.

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/company/marrymealittle.htm

Alas, Pedro is currently set to pitch on the 6th. Both of those games are Value, i.e. sit upstairs for$5.

He sat on the floor, legs spread at a right angle, surrounded by five Hispanic players, and told jokes about Jose Lima.

The Mets were my pick a couple of weeks ago, even with their dysfunctional lineup. I look at the decisions over the past two weeks, however, and I just can’t see how they’ll win. Jose Reyes and Paul Lo Duca 1-2? Endy Chavez on the roster? Bannister over Heilman? A bunch of pitchers over Bell? David Wright batting sixth sometimes? (Lo Duca #2/Wright #6 may be the worst lineup idea since Fox elected to anchor its Monday nights with “Skin.”)

And I haven’t even used the words “Martinez” and “toe.”

http://www.angelfire.com/pq/philgee/images/jonlovitz.gif

Lo Duca, I kiss you. Now that Piazza's gone I can finally be a Mets fan.

I think Ted Barrett should be referred to as "crew bouncer."

http://rndng3rd.com/NYMHall/players/B/Bruboi.jpg

I think Dusty's been oudustied.

SPOT THE OUTLIER

Are you being perversely ahistorical?

Look, them's the breaks. At least Ramon Castro is back. :p

Momentum is only as good as tomorrow's pitcher's BABIP.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/features/cy

My BOLD prediction: the Mets don't make it to the NLCS.

-- Steve Shasta (steveshast...) (webmail), September 10th, 2006 4:00 PM. (Steve Shasta) (link)

SAGELIKE

that wild card teams have made it to five of the last six world series, and won three of 'em can't be a coincidence.

No, just luck, randomness, whatever you wanna call it.

bye bye pedro, pennant chances

no Pedro, no credibility

Mets' pitchers by VORP, regular season 2006:

1. Tom Glavine 34.4
2. Billy Wagner 25.7
3. Pedro Feliciano 24.2
4. Aaron Heilman 21.6
5. Darren Oliver 20.9
6. Orlando Hernandez 20.3
7. John Maine 19.1
8. Chad Bradford 18.9
9. Duaner Sanchez 18.1
10. Steve Trachsel 16.2
11. Pedro Martinez 16.2

ie, this doesn't diminish the talent they've used in '06 by as much as Duaner's taxi ride.

Sure it'd be nice to have Grade A Pedro in the rotation. It'd be nice to have Grade A Tom Seaver in the rotation too. The Mets had the former for exactly one month longer this year.

I'm really worried about those ILB Awards now (maybe Kenny Rogers and Bronson Arroyo have a shot at Cy Young).

No wonder Neyer laughs off its credibility.

-- mr. brojangles (mikeoptin...), Today 5:51 AM. (sanskrit)

I actually called out the Mets and the pre-collapse Cards not being there, take that for what its worth.

Even with the dicey rotation, the Mets are clearly still the best team in the NL and should laugh their way into the WS as long as their starters don't completely disintegrate (= they fall behind 7-0 every night and their great bullpen is relegated to mop-up duty).

Rob Neyer: (1:26 PM ET ) You're absolutely right . . . and that's the problem. The Mets' third-order winning percentage is .534, which is almost exactly the same as those of the Padres (.537) and Dodgers (.536). The Mets are okay, but their record is goosed by a 30-16 record in one-run games.

Hilarious, except for the beef/swine confusion.

Pedro now has one more working limb than Lon Chaney in The Unknown.

Given Wags' disposition, I think saying "hi" is enough to earn The Edge the cold shoulder.

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/nym/fan_forum/postseason_rally.jsp

Ultra Records recording artist Lucas Prata will perform live at the Rally, singing the Mets version of his hit song "And She Said…".

gimme some more VORP.

could it really be lima time again?