Meet Terry Collins Applesauce - Collins is intense, Isringhausen has shot at Met pen, Heyman hates Luis

by Joe Budd on Feb 22, 2011 8:28 AM EST in Applesauce

Meet the Mets

Looks like today is Terry Collins' day in the Spring Training media carousel and there is one word that the PR machine would like to leave you with: fiery. SNY has a post about how intense this guy is. Mike Vaccarro writes that Terry Collins really is the same thing as having Wally Backman as manager, minus that whole World Series ring. Both articles have quotes from players saying he's a great change of pace and a shot in the arm. I wonder who is next on the player profile list.

Apparently, Jason Isringhausen is throwing pretty hard and may have a legit shot at making this team.

Carlos Beltran says he's fully healthy, but just to be sure, the Mets will keep him out for the first week of Spring Training games.

I think Luis Castillo ran over Jon Heyman's dog.

Around MLB

Some good stuff out of Royals camp so far. Jason Kendall overreacts to a softball interview question AND a rookie's truck is stolen out of a restaurant parking lot.

Hank Steinbrenner says that his team was too busy "building mansions" to actually care about winning last season.

Todd Zeile, Brian Wilson, Eddie Murray, and Kenny Lofton walk into Charlie Sheen's house one night...

The Indians have hired the first ever female batting practice pitcher, Justine Siegal.

Jeff Kent was REALLY bad at defense.

And, finally, the Mariners have invited rapper Macklemore to perform his Dave Niehaus rap at Seattle's home opener.

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Comments

Aside from the usual advertising spam

there are some amazing comments on that Justine Siegal story. Nice succinct quanta of idiocy.

by deadspy3 on Feb 22, 2011 8:38 AM EST reply actions

I just hope

nobody has told Keith about this.

What's the score, boys?
What did Bugs Bunny do?
What's with the Carrot League baseball today?

by StorkFan on Feb 22, 2011 11:12 AM EST up reply actions

Collins

On Saturday, I was driving through parts of PA where I can actually pick up the FAN. I forget who was talking, but someone was discussing a quote Collins had made about the dirty slide by Utley into Tejada last year. I guess Collins said something along the lines that, if he were managing at the time, there would have been a fight that day. Now, I do not want baseball turning into hockey, but I like that Collins is the type of manager who would fire his guys up. I do think that the Mets have shown a complete lack of competitive drive the past 3 years and I hope that Collins brings that out a bit in these fellas. You cannot blow 7 game leads in two consecutive years when you are playing with fire in your gut. Or what is the term, grission?

by CCE718 on Feb 22, 2011 8:49 AM EST reply actions

Patton

I hear Collins gave a Patton speech. Maybe it went something like this:

“Fortunately for our fame as [players] our enemy is worthy of us. The [Phillie] is a war-trained veteran, confident, brave and ruthless. We are brave. We are better-equipped, better fed, and, in place of his blood-glutted Woten, we have with us the God of our fathers known of old [R.A. Dickey].

But we are not ruthless, not vicous, and therein lies our weakness. Children of a free and sheltered people who have led a generous life [Jeff Wilpon], we have not the pugnacious disposition of our enemies, who must fight or starve. Our bravery is too negative. We talk too much of sacrifice [in the first inning], of the glory of dying that freedom may live. Of course we are willing to die, but that is not enough. We must be eager to kill, to inflict on the hated enemy wounds, death and destruction. If we die killing, well and good. But if we fight hard enough, viciously enough, we will kill and live. Live to return as conquering heroes. Men of Mars."

I figure y’all know the movie speech. This one was before Operation Torch I believe.

by wobatus on Feb 22, 2011 11:37 AM EST up reply actions

Why do I have this feeling

that the Mets are less Men of Mars and more Army of Mars.

What's the score, boys?
What did Bugs Bunny do?
What's with the Carrot League baseball today?

by StorkFan on Feb 22, 2011 1:17 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah

Of course that Patton stuff, while maybe good to get the blood-stirring before the men have a sense of what really is going to be facing them, likely doesn’t ring true after reality slaps you in the face.

As Paul Fussell (himself a veteran of Batogne) wrote, the 3 stages of a soldier’s feelings go something like:

1. I’m too clever, well-trained, well-equiped, well-loved to be killed.

2. I may get killed, but if I take cover, avoid unncessary fights, camouflage myself well, and am lucky, I might survive.

3. I’m going to be killed, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

This latter feeling seems to envelope the Mets around mid-July.

by wobatus on Feb 22, 2011 1:27 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

R.A. Dickey and the Spiders from Mars

or something…

by TheBigStapler on Feb 22, 2011 2:30 PM EST up reply actions

Heyman

is such a douche. I don’t care for Castillo mostly due to the fact that he’s just not good at playing baseball anymore, but no one deserves that shit.

This is the same guy that got pissed when people were glad Omar and Jerry got the boot, yet he wants Castillo to lose his job AND for the Mets to sign Eckstein. LOL. What an idiot.

by ritzdeez on Feb 22, 2011 8:53 AM EST reply actions

And the Walter Reed thing. . .

. . . I mean . . . Luis Castillo?!?!?! Likely even Luis Castillo realizes that no one in a hospital bed will be buoyed by a visit from Luis Castillo.

by tmu on Feb 22, 2011 11:20 AM EST up reply actions

There's a good point.

by SuperT on Feb 22, 2011 12:40 PM EST up reply actions

who doesn't detest Castillo?

by ThnkGoodnessforHowieRose on Feb 22, 2011 12:20 PM EST up reply actions

Our point has been that we detest Castillo the baseball player but

not Castillo the person. It’s important to split the two apart because we honestly don’t know what Castillo the human being is like. Too many people are making the assumption that he’s bad at baseball and so he must be a terrible person and that’s just wrong to associate the two without any proof.

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on Feb 22, 2011 3:52 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

the point is that the opinions

are by and large always about the player… and the personal opinions which have very little significance are invariably led by the perception created by the player.

Translation: no one really cares about the player on a personal level.

by ThnkGoodnessforHowieRose on Feb 22, 2011 4:37 PM EST up reply actions

Then why are there so many personal attacks on Luis Castillo the person?

Save Jenrry Mejia!

by Ogre39666 on Feb 22, 2011 8:04 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

well for one thing,

the DROP.

Another reason is that the team’s downhill spiral has just accidentally coincided with Luis’s Met arrival/tenure.

As previously mentioned he often doesn’t run hard to 1B…

but it’s really just about that he sucks.

by ThnkGoodnessforHowieRose on Feb 22, 2011 9:52 PM EST up reply actions

Except for Jon Heyman apparently.

Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!

by Steve Schreiber on Feb 22, 2011 8:11 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

maybe Heyman knows him on a personal level.

by ThnkGoodnessforHowieRose on Feb 22, 2011 9:45 PM EST up reply actions

besides that,

why does anyone care what Heyman says?

by ThnkGoodnessforHowieRose on Feb 22, 2011 9:45 PM EST up reply actions

The people who think RBI's are indicative of talent do.

So yes.

Save Jenrry Mejia!

by Ogre39666 on Feb 22, 2011 9:57 PM EST up reply actions

hey,

that’s clever.

by ThnkGoodnessforHowieRose on Feb 22, 2011 11:35 PM EST up reply actions

I originally read "why does" as "why, does".

Save Jenrry Mejia!

by Ogre39666 on Feb 22, 2011 11:54 PM EST up reply actions

I am sure Castillo is the person

is a decent human being.

by fxcarden on Feb 22, 2011 9:23 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

Was pretty douchey

When I met him, FWIW.

by Joshuah on Feb 25, 2011 7:51 AM EST up reply actions

FWIW

While I have no doubt the Mets’ PR machine wants to portray Collins as fiery, the SNY story linked above is just an AP story in the SNY wrapper (and we appreciate the traffic, no doubt). Fox News is also heralding Collins’ fiery personality.

by TedBerg on Feb 22, 2011 8:53 AM EST reply actions

Ted,
What I was trying to say was that it seems like there’s a coordinated set of news every day from Met camp. I’m completely unfamiliar with the process, but when each day there are two or three newspapers running stories on the same topic, it feels like the Met PR team is behind it. I didn’t mean it to say SNY was behind it or anything, and I didn’t even notice that it was an AP story, so my bad on that. But, I am just a little curious as to the process behind the scenes on this.

by Joe Budd on Feb 22, 2011 9:24 AM EST up reply actions

Yeah I didn't think you were

I just wanted to clarify. I have also noticed that, and I am also curious about the process, though I imagine I’ll be finding out in short order. If I had to guess I’d bet it’s less about some sort of coordinated effort and more about, “hey, Terry’s got 10 minutes before lunch to talk to reporters,” and then Terry Collins goes and spends 10 minutes talking to reporters and happens to give them some good quotes, so he’s the focus of all the stories that day. Then maybe tomorrow Chris Capuano has a light throw day so he’s got 20 extra minutes, and there’ll be a bunch of Chris Capuano features.

by TedBerg on Feb 22, 2011 9:36 AM EST up reply actions

Makes sense

There are pages to fill and deadlines to meet, and not enough legit stories to keep everyone interested. Further reason why bloggers on AA, TedQ, etc. are simply much better at what they do than the old school guys.

"The team is not for sale, in whole or in part. There is no need to sell, there is no reason to sell. There will be no sale."
-Dave Howard

by Dandy Salderson on Feb 22, 2011 9:48 AM EST up reply actions