Former Mets pinch-hitter/3B Matt Franco, who played for Bobby Valentine in Japan following his big league career, has retired. He is 38. Franco last played in the big leagues in 2003, his second season with the Braves.

I saw Franco in the Mets Classics game they played the other night on SNY showcasing Mike Piazza's first game on the Mets. The team has upgraded only slightly at the "hot corner" since then.

If you care, I've been taking a little hiatus from MH these days to focus on a few things, namely work, traveling for work, and oh yeah, work. Happy Spring Training!

Out of respect for first-time visitors to my site, I shrunk the pic below, but you can still see all the horrible details here.

Many have compared David Tyree's miraculous catch against the Patriots in the Super Bowl to Endy Chavez' amazing catch against the Cardinals in the 2006 NLCS.  I don't really get it.

Although both displayed great athletic skill, I think the Tyree catch is way more significant because the team went on to win a championship, while the '06 Mets struck out looking.

Here's a day in the life of Manny Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia, and Kevin Youykilis' offseason workouts.

8 a.m. -- Group 1 (Manny Ramirez, Kevin Youkilis, Nick Punto, Eric Munson) begins stretching. The activity is performed inside the facility’s weight room.

8:15 a.m. -- Plyometrics. The activities are performed on black-top area just outside the weight room, approximately the size of half a basketball court.

One-legged jumps on and off a small platform

Continuous one-legged jumps over foot-high hurdles.

Side jumps on three-lane track, bounding back and forth.

8:45 a.m. -- Pull sled with metal weights affixed to the top. Distance of pull is approximately 50 feet.

Ramirez and Youkilis pull 115 pounds of weight including metal sled

8:55 a.m. -- Sprints, 15 yards each

9 a.m. -- Group 2 (includes Kyle Snyder) and Group 3 (includes Dustin Pedroia) begin their workouts.

Exercises include dumbbell bench press, one-legged squats, lunges, cable chop (simulating baseball swing with weight-attached cable), bench press using ball.

Stretching and abdominal training in between sets.

9:45 a.m. -- Running. Activity is performed on half a football field, shared with the Arizona State University football team.

Two laps

Baserunning starting at 30-yard line, heading toward end zone. Half speed until end zone line, then sprint to far side of goal post

10:30 a.m. -- Cold pool and hot tub

And so on and so forth...it is now 9:15 am and I have drank some coffee and rubbed my eyes alot.  I guess I'm not quite MLB ready.

Thanks to Catherine V. for the link

PS, if you're looking for the cockfight videos, I took 'em down until the buzz wears off a bit.  If you didn't notice, I'm a Mets fan, not a Mets hater and I felt bad about fanning those flames.  If you reaaally want to see it shoot me an email.

I was able to go down to the Giants Ticker-Tape Parade yesterday which was a blast. To view pics (mostly blurry due to the madness), click here.

To see a video of us having fun before the parade, click here.

And finally, here's a video of me on Fox News buying a sweatshirt at Modells. Verrrry exciting....not.

The "eye-candy" of the SNY crew, Julie Donaldson, has departed New York for Boston.


Well, we always have...well...no one.  No other women are on the SNY crew, is this true?

Until Johan and catchers report in a few weeks, expect my Big Blue excitement to spill out onto this blog. I know my 2 readers will really care, right?

I know I'm a blogger but I am speechless!