Baseball

It is not that often that the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays and the Indy Atlantic League are mentioned in the same sentence.

However, within a two-week span, fans have been entertained to record-breaking numbers!

The Fisher Cats hit a milestone by welcoming in their two millionth fan.

According to Webster's Dictionary, the word leader is someone who leads, guides, or is the first and/or principal performer of a group. In other words, it is someone who takes charge. When scanning through the pages of history, we see countless examples of people who have qualified under this definition and have achieved great success.

If you listened closely enough this past Wednesday, you could hear the collective groan of a city when we were all informed that Brad Lidge would be leaving Denver in the middle of a series with the Rockies to head back to Philadelphia for an MRI on his surgically-repaired elbow.

Ryan Madson is already out for a couple months and the bullpen probably wasn't up to snuff to begin with, so losing Lidge would be an absolute catastrophe.

Baseball is a 162-game season, but not 40 games in David Ortiz appeared to be a lost cause. Despite hitting near the Mendoza Line, Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona remained confident in his aging slugger, not ready to bench the player that had carried the team for so many years.

According to Phil Hoops at Always Amazin’ , the Mets have signed minor league first baseman/outfielder Val Pascucci to a minor league deal to play for their Triple-A Buffalo affiliate.

There has been a lot made of the Mets lineup since Jerry Manuel dropped the "Jose Reyes to hit third in the order" bomb on us this spring. Well, he’s been there for a couple of weeks and the results have not exactly been thrilling.

The Mets designated outfielder/pinch-hitter Frank Catalanotto for assignment earlier this week, and instead of trying to hook on with another team, the 36-year-old is likely to call it a career, according to the NY Daily News.

Mat Latos stole the show.  Troy Tulowitzki returned to action.  Zack Greinke finally got a W.  Let’s look at these stories and all the rest from yesterday’s games:

Hitters

• Ryan Zimmerman (3-for-5, 2 HR, 6 RBI, 3 R)

In my rant about Dallas Braden ’s

All of this talk seems extremely preliminary, but perhaps there is something to it. There have been rumors over the past couple of days involving either the Mets buying the Islanders, or simply the Mets building an arena next to Citi Field that would house the Islanders and perhaps a Major League Soccer team as well.