Monday Morning — May 5th, 2003
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
This week the Mets return home to face the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. This will be the first regular season meeting of the year between Mike Piazza and the Dodgers, and MLB discipline czar Bob Watson will be on hand and alert to try to prevent any further flare-ups of the Piazza/Guillermo Mota feud (for a recap of that incident, see my column of March 17, 2003).
Roster Notes - Last Wednesday, Jaime Cerda was sent to Norfolk to make room for Jason Middlebrook on the roster.
On Saturday, Mo Vaughn was placed on the 15-day disabled list due to inflammation of his right knee. An MRI of the knee will be done in New York on Tuesday. Jason Phillips was recalled from Norfolk for the third time this season.
Health Notes - Grant Roberts suffered a setback last week during a rehab assignment in Florida. The reliever has a strained muscle in his right arm pit, and will be shut down for a week.
In the Community - David Weathers, Tom Glavine, Scott Strickland, Vance Wilson and Jeromy Burnitz are teaming up with the Garth Brooks' Teammates for Kids Foundation to raise funds for children's nonprofit charities. The players will make donations based on their strikeouts, walks, hits and home runs. Brooks, you will recall, played third base for the Mets during Spring Training 2000, and won that year's John J. Murphy Award for being the top Met rookie in spring training.
See The Mets On The Road And Help a Good Cause - Come see the Mets play in Philadelphia on Monday, July 21 and help out a good cause at the same time. I am coordinating a Cub Scouts fundraiser - my sons' Pack is selling third base side 500 level tickets at face value ($22), and the Phillies will issue a rebate to the Scouts based on the number of tickets sold. Additionally, all fans attending the July 21 game will receive a visor commemorating the final season of Veterans Stadium. For more information, contact me at s.chapman@kcmets.com.
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.
