Monday Morning — April 28st, 2003
Sorry about the delay in this week's column. Our server was going through some upgrades over the past few days. Hopefully the improvements will have made the column worth the wait.
After Monday's off day, the Mets hit the road with series in St. Louis and Milwaukee this week.
Roster News - Jeromy Burnitz, who has been coming into his hitting stride, suffered a non-displaced fracture of the fifth metacarpal bone when he was hit in the hand by Houston's Billy Wagner last Tuesday. Burnitz missed 33 days during the 1999 season with the exact injury, which is consistent with the estimate that he will be out 4-6 weeks with this current injury.
Earlier that same night, David Cone left the game after two innings with a sore hip.
This led to a series of roster moves on Wednesday - the injured Burnitz and Cone were placed on the 15-day disabled list, and catcher Jason Phillips was optioned to Norfolk. Taking their places on the 25-man roster were Joe McEwing, Pat Strange and Raul Gonzalez. Strange's stay with the big club was short lived, however -- the following day he was sent back to Norfolk so that Pedro Astacio could be activated from the disabled list.
In the Community - Last week Tom Glavine visited the Rusk Institute as part of the Mets "Going Home" project. This is the third year of the program, which gives Mets tickets and gifts to patients who are discharged from the NYU Medical Center and the Hospital for Joint Diseases.
Working with the Twin Towers Fund and Tuesday's Children, the Mets began their second season of hosting families of 9-11 victims to games at Shea. The Mets will welcome such families to every Wednesday home game this season.
Al Leiter announced that for every one of his victories this season, his Leiter's Landing charity will donate $1,000 for each of his victories this season to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, Inc., an organization which finances scholarship bonds for children of servicemen and federal agents killed in the line of duty. Anyone wishing to participate in the program should contact Gary Schweikert at 212-546-5201 or visit their website at mc-lef.org. Similarly, Armando Benitez will donate $250 per save this season to the Food Bank of New York City.
Remembering Lost Heroes - Astronauts Mike Massimino and Mark Polansky were at Shea on Thursday to kick off their multi-city tour to honor their fallen Space Shuttle Columbia comrades. In addition to that, the astronauts are educating people about the importance of space research, development and exploration, and they threw out the ceremonial first pitch before that night's game. John Franco and Astro Craig Biggio also partook in the memorial.
Rainy Day Weekend Notes - Fans holding tickets to last Saturday's rained out game may exchange them for any game this season or next year!
If the rain cloud does have a silver lining, it's that it helped to salvage Sunday's promotional snafu. The kids batting practice jerseys that were supposed to have been given away that day were not delivered to Shea Stadium in time for the game! Children arriving at the game were given a coupon good for one jersey when they do come in, and they were also given a blue batting practice cap that was leftover from Saturday's Cap Day washout.
On the Newsstand - But perhaps in the adults only section, is something of special interest to Mike Piazza fans -- the June issue of Playboy has a fascinating interview with the All Star catcher. Just don't let Mike's younger fans look at the other pictures in the magazine, OK?
Special Feature: Baseball as America
Special Feature: Talkin' Baseball with Terry Cashman
Unless otherwise stated, these stories have been extracted from reports on www.nydailynews.com, www.nypost.com, www.nytimes.com, www.njo.com, www.newsday.com, www.bergenrecord.com, AP , and www.mets.com reports.
