Category Archives: Amazin Avenue

Amazin Avenue, Baseball

Amazin’ Avenue Annual’s Potent Lineup

AAACover.jpgI’m contributing a few pieces to the Amazin’ Avenue Annual, a Mets-centric stat-friendly companion to the upcoming baseball season which should be out by March 1 (in both print and Kindle-y versions). I was already excited about this, but I got doubly-triply-quadruply excited when the outside contributors were officially announced yesterday, and it’s a fearsome lineup indeed.

Who, you ask? Why, Ken Davidoff from Newsday. Deadspin editor emeritus WIll Leitch. SNY blogger/sandwich enthusiast Ted Berg. Greg Prince and Jason Fry from Faith and Fear in Flushing, my favorite Mets blog I don’t write for.

But best of all, the book will include Joe Posnanski. Yes, that Joe Posnanski, the best baseball writer there is by a country mile. SI.com scribe, author of The Machine, and, again, the best baseball writer there is. His blog posts are always a treat to read, in spite of–actually, because of–their enormous lengths. Kinda like what Bill Simmons would be like if he dialed down the douche from 11 to 0 and excised the Karate Kid references.

Knowing that I’m going to have work in the same book as Joe Posnanski is at once humbling and terrifying. It’s like living on the same street as a famous architect; you feel like you have to keep your house in tip-top shape if Frank Lloyd Wright is just down the block.

So if my prose won’t get you to purchase this tome, I hope some of the aforementioned heavyweights will. And also Joe Posnanski because JOE POSNANSKI. C’MON ALREADY.

In conclusion, Joe Posnanski.

Amazin Avenue

Endeavors Elsewhere: The Mets Killers Team

Thumbnail image for 99_chipper_reed.pngAs I alluded to in my Happy New Year post, I will be contributing to this year’s Amazin Avenue Annual. I enjoyed it as a consumer last year, and I’m really excited to be working on it this year, when it will be a physical book in real, non-imaginary stores. (eBook version will be available as well, or so I’m told; more details will follow as soon as I know what’s what.)

One of the things I’m working on is a piece on a hypothetical team comprised solely of Mets Killers–often (but not always) the kind of players transform from mediocre to Hall-of-Fame level when playing the Mets. I’m polling readers position-by-position* to see who has inflicted the most pain upon the psyche of the fan. The idea is to react to the question in a completely emotional, irrational way, without looking up stats to see if your choice has actually enjoyed great success against the Mets.

* Except for third base, because we all know who’d win that race. Hint: he’s standing to your left right now.

My first poll, for shortstop, is up right now. Early polling indicates Jimmy Rollins is the most Mets murderous man among mshortstops.* Agree? Disagree? If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.**

* The m is silent
** Completely untrue

Amazin Avenue

At Amazin Avenue: 2011 Mets, So Close to Homemade

Did you know the Mets might field an all-home-grown infield in 2011? I did! And I wrote at Amazin Avenue about how crazy that is, in light of team history. How crazy, you ask? Don’t be such a big shot. Click the link and find out.