A few weeks ago, I was interviewed for an article to appear in the New York Times about the effort by the NYCEDC to transform Willets Point from chop shops and environmental wasteland to a burgeoning residential and commercial development. The article appeared in today's issue, and includes some quotes by myself and Chris McShane, who runs Develop Willets Point. The article is a good read, and does well to reinforce the immense upside -- both to the city itself as well as its residents -- of making the area around Shea/Citi Field usable, useful, and environmentally sound.

Carlos Beltran looks like he may be going on a hot streak.

Ryan Church has been cleared to play and will head to Port St. Lucie to begin a rehab assignment with the Mets' High-A affiliate. In the same article, Billy Wagner threw a baseball yesterday for the first time since hitting the disabled list. There's no timetable yet for his return, but since he can't come off the DL until 8/18 we're probably looking at a couple of weeks. Also, John Maine threw a 61-pitch simulated game and reported no ill effects.

Luis Castillo could be back this week. Yay?

Maybe the Mets' organizational depth wasn't as bad as everyone thought. Twenty Daniel Murphy at-bats doesn't exactly turn things around, but it's nice to see the kids contribute meaningfully and, perhaps as important, actually get a chance to contribute meaningfully. Were Willie Randolph still running things, you can bet that Murphy would be batting eighth at best, riding the pine at worst.

Nice article about Kelvin Torve, who was called up to the Mets in 1990 and was promptly issued Willie Mays's #24. That lasted about a week, before a flood of calls and e-mails crying sacrilege convinced equipment manager Charlie Samuels to give Torve a new number. Of course, Rickey Henderson was given Mays's number 1999, but Torve will always be a footnote for wearing it in between.

One last note: we're having Geek Day in Pittsburgh next weekend and I have an extra ticket to Saturday's game. If anyone here wants to go, shoot me an e-mail (there's a link at the bottom of the page). If you live in the NYC/NJ area you can even hitch a ride there and back with myself and Alex Nelson. We're leaving Friday morning, so that may be an issue for some. Anyway, I would love to have a die hard AA-er (either kind) along for the fun.