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!

Johan Santana has passed his physical and there will be some sort of announcement at 4:30 EST today.  John Delcos describes it as a conference call.

This is not to be confused with the official introductory press conference which should take place some time next week.

To watch a video of a few Mets and their Super Bowl predictions, click here.

It seems like they don't want to piss off any Mets fans with their predictions, so it seems a little biased but there you have it.

Here is a list of other celeb picks.

Check out Anthony De Rosa's new Giants blog for SNY as well.  There's an awesome video of Chris Berman freaking out on it.

Hey Mets fans, I know we already pay too much to enjoy our team, but let's all throw in a few bucks to get this Santana business over with already. Get 'er done!

In his blog for Newsday, Ken Davidoff says that Mets fans over-reacted to the Yankees' continued media attention regarding their "assist" to the Mets in the trade of Johan Santana.  It was not some big, evil plot by the Bronx babys to take away from the Mets' success in the matter.

I always viewed this as a three horse race between the Red Sox, Yanks, and Mets, as did everyone else. Anything could have happened up to the last minute so the Yankees being mentioned never bothered me. Much of what Davidoff describes was just bloggers, and a sample of Mets fans venting about how Yankees fans are never satisfied and always need attention (which is pretty much true, actually).

PS, everyone needs to relax about the signing, the deal wouldn't get this far without closure in sight.  The contract will be agreed to soon enough.