"SMOKE AND CHEW "YUM YUM" TOBACCO."

Ted Berg has a great blog post about Roger Conner, the player whose career home run record Babe Ruth broke to take over first place.

The whole read is a good one (as are most of Ted's pieces) but the part that stood out for me was the advertising at the bottom of the baseball card itself that reads: SMOKE AND CHEW "YUM YUM" TOBACCO.

It really was a different time when Roger Conner made his major league debut 132 years ago tomorrow.

Reese Havens returns for the Binghamton Mets!

Guess who homered on the first pitch he saw and went 3 for 4 overall?

I asked Mets.com beat writer Anthony DiComo about Havens' status, which he answered in his mailbag column a few weeks ago. I hope Havens' (and the new Mets management) has finally figured him out because he is too great a talent to be wasted as a minor league retiree.

Dan Capwell of Mets Today makes a great point that makes me feel optimistic about Havens:

"Comparisons to Fernando Martinez abound, but Havens’ injury history reminds me more of the Jay Payton saga. Like Havens, Payton was taken as a compensation pick for losing a lefty free agent pitcher (Payton: Sid Fernandez, Havens: Tom Glavine). Drafted in 1994 and highly-touted, Payton had four surgeries, three on his elbows and one on his left shoulder. After spending the better part of his first several professional baseball years on the DL rehabbing, he finally made his debut late in 1998 season, only commit to a major base running gaffe in a key loss to Atlanta. The good news is that he later rebounded to help the Mets to a World Series berth as the starting CF in 2000. Hopefully Reese’s story has a similar outcome."

Considering Havens plays 2B and not CF, and hits much better than Payton ever did, I'm getting more and more hopeful about Reese.

Mets dress western for flight to Houston; hockey theme planned for Toronto

You have to like this idea for building team chemistry.

I'm curious to see pictures of the hockey theme for the upcoming interleague series in Toronto.

Checking In On The Mets 2011 Draft Class | Mets Merized Online

Mets Merized Online checks in on the Mets top six picks in the 2011 MLB draft. Aside from Brandon Nimmo still playing in Extended Spring Training awaiting the start of the Brooklyn Cyclones season, the pitchers have looked very good.

Add in Domingo Tapia's performance at Lo-A Savannah on Friday (5.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 9 K) and the Mets could one day find themselves with more pitching prospects than they know what to do with.

It would be a nice problem to have. Hopefully this time they'll keep the one that would go on to pitch a perfect game and instead include the inconsistent one in a trade for a superstar.

Are the Mets good or lucky? (Or both?)

Ted Berg has an interesting way of looking at things. I think this line sums it all up nicely:

"What once seemed very unlikely now seems just unlikely."

In the Wall Street Journal, Brian Costa writes that the Mets may actually be this good.

Both are great reads to help you come up with your own opinion.

Q&A: Matt Harvey, Mets Ace in the Making | FanGraphs

The title of the article says it all. A great read into the mindset of Matt Harvey and what a competitor and his manager have to say about him. Also, a great general post on how a pitcher pitches and thinks about his arsenal of pitches. It almost sounds like he's a craftsman talking about a tool belt.

New York Mets' David Wright is looking to fix what was wrong | Tom Verducci - SI.com

Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci has a great profile of New York Mets third baseman David Wright. He also mentions this important point:

"If you watched Tiger Woods hack and shank his way around Augusta National last weekend, his mind cluttered with swing thoughts, you understand what can happen when an emphasis on mechanics passes a tipping point and becomes destructive. Wright might not have been baseball's Woods, but in 2008 noted baseball writer and stats guru Bill James told 60 Minutes that if he could pick one player to start his dream team, it would be Wright, who was then embarking on his age-25 season. "He does everything I like. And he's very young," James said."

Let's hope Verducci is right about Wright beginning the third act of his career.