25 years ago today, on May 6th, 1983, Darryl Strawberry made his major league debut at Shea Stadium. On MLB.com, Marty Noble describes how Darryl’s debut was bigger than any Met in history. Bigger than Piazza, bigger than Doc, bigger than Wright or Reyes, even bigger than Seaver.

Straw recalls the reception he received on the historic day.

“I remember a lot of that, especially the strikeouts,” Strawberry said on Monday morning from his home outside St. Louis. “Mario Soto got me all three times. And they cheered anyway. [Soto] had the best changeup in the game. And I didn’t want to see changeups that night. I wanted fastballs.”

Head over to MLB.com for Noble’s fantastic piece on the day Strawberry came to Shea.

After yesterday’s ugly loss to the Bucs the story had to be the worrisome performance of Oliver Perez. Even though Willie Randolph did criticize Perez after the game on WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog, he was mostly tempered.

But according to Adam Rubin from the Daily News Billy Wagner was not gonna let Ollie’s poor effort go by without making his opinion heard. Billy came out swinging putting the blame on Perez for not having more “willpower” and “desire”. He felt that Perez should have realized that the bullpen had been overworked and to take it upon himself to log some innings. Here’s what Wagner said:

“You’ve got to have that willpower and that desire to go back out there and fight,”. “This guy (Pirates starter Tom Gorzelanny), he wasn’t throwing the ball that well to shut down our offense. Perez has honestly got to step up and know that we’ve just used every guy in our bullpen the night before. He can’t come out there and decide that gee, he hasn’t got it today, and so be it.”

Also, in Bart Hubbach’s game story for the NY Post when Wagner was asked if talking to Perez about his notoriously short attention span was like trying to talk to a wall, Wagner pointed his finger and said: “Pretty much.”

For more notes and quotes about Wagner, Reyes, and Figgy, go to Adam’s Daily News Blog Surfing The Mets.

According to Ed Ryan’s blog Mets Fever the Mets have signed 29 year old 1B/OF Valentino Pascucci who was recently released by the Phillies.

Pascucci will join the Mets triple A affiliate New Orlean Zephyrs along with Brady Clark who was sent down when Gustavo Molina was promoted.

In his column at Newsday Kevin Davidoff writes that only time will tell if the Yankees made a mistake by not giving up Phil Hughes in a deal that could have landed them Johan Santana. Davidoff goes on to write:

Omar Minaya performed an excellent job in waiting for the Twins to settle for what still looks like an uninspiring package of players. Have you seen Carlos Gomez’s numbers? Yeesh. As you can see here, Kevin Mulvey is pitching decently for Triple-A Rochester, while Phil Humber is not. Deolis Guerra is pitching all right at Class A Fort Myers.

But you can bet that Minaya, who is set to ignore baseball’s slotting system for the amateur draft after adhering to it the last couple of years, wants to build his organization to a point where it doesn’t have to invest nine figures in a pitcher from another team in order to pick up an ace.

Davidoff went on to write that that the Santana trade will allow the Mets to close Shea Stadium with their first World Series title since 1986.

Over at my favorite Mets blog name Church of the Fonz they decided to look “On the Bright Side” of yesterday and focus on Aaron Heilman’s two perfect innings and this quote from former Met Doug Mientkiewicz on Johan Santana:

“Let’s put it this way: When that team needs him the most, he’s going to be there. Come August and September, he’s going to be dominant.”

The NY Post’s Joel Sherman from his HardBall blog thinks Willie might be overusing the bullpen and he has some pretty startling numbers to back up his assertions. Sherman also has some thoughts on Oliver Perez and his probable free agency problems.

Former Met and now SNY studio analyst Darryl Strawberry is writing a book about his life. According to this AP report Strawberry will collaborate with John Strausbaugh on his memoir.

In an article about how rainouts are handled in MLB I saw this interesting tid-bit that may come in handy to Mets fans who may not know about it, I know I didn’t. At CNBC.com referring to the Monday’s rain out vs the Pirates:

The Mets have an extremely generous policy. If you really wanted to see the Pirates and can’t make this homestand, you can use this exact ticket for the makeup game on Aug. 11. If you want, you can also exchange your ticket for a seat of a similar value or use the money towards a credit towards a seat for this year (the final season in Shea Stadium) or next year (in the new facility).

Lastly, back to the Willie Randolph interview with Mike and the Mad Dog. Willie was asked about Carlos Beltran’s sluggish start at the plate and Willie said that he doesn’t think that Carlos is 100% yet, coming off surgery on both knees. He’s still having problems with strength, pushing off his back leg in the batter’s box. But he’s working hard with Howard Johnson and he will be fine.

This is classic Wagner here, I love it. Some tough love for Ollie, hopefully it helps. I get the the feeling he’s the type of guy who wants to be liked so maybe this will be the push he needs… My only concern regarding Beltran is playing on weak knees. I hope he can continue to play and strengthen his knees simultaneously. He has hit a ton a shots right at guys and he has played a flawless centerfield.

Head on over to MLB.com to read Marty Noble’s latest mailbag where he answers questions on whether or not Keith Hernandez’s and Darryl Strawberry’s jersey numbers should be retired, Willie Randolph, and how he thinks Paul Lo Duca will be received in his return to Shea.

David Wright hit his 100th home run in the loss to the Brewers on Sunday, giving him sole posession of 9th place in the all time Mets home run leaderboard.

1. Darryl Strawberry - 252
2. Mike Piazza - 220
3. Howard Johnson - 192
4. Dave Kingman - 154
5. Todd Hundley - 124
6. Kevin McReynolds - 122
7. Edgardo Alfonzo - 120
8. Ed Kranepool - 118
9. David Wright - 100
10. George Foster - 99

Keep it up D-Dubs. He should wind up around 5th by the end of the year, and its not unreasonable to see him on top of the list in five to six years. Its sort of incredible how many home runs Strawberry was able to smack in what was a career cut short. I can only imagine what Straw could have done if he went down a different path.

In addition to being an outfield coach and special ambassador to the Mets, Darryl Strawberry can add SNY contributor to his list of responsibilities.

The Mets have added Strawberry to broadcasts on SNY starting April 28th, Bart Hubbuch reports on his blog for the New York Post.

Strawberry will work primarily with Matt Yallof on SNY’s pre- and post-game shows.

The AP is reporting that former Met Daryl Strawberry is facing charges (again) from his failure to pay taxes in 1994. The government claims that the back taxes he owes from the early 90s, plus interest, equal almost a half million.

For those who forgot, since it was over a ten years ago, Strawberry was originally indicted for failing to report income he made off of memorabilia.

Now, Daryl Strawberry might be one of those guys who never really lived up to his potential. A gifted athlete who made quite a few mistakes and as a result didn't quite end up with the Hall of Fame career he could have. But aren't there more pressing issues in baseball right now that the government can be dealing with? Like steroids. I hear thats a problem. Did they forget about this whole Daryl Strawberry owing a half mill in taxes? Cause I get nasty letters from the government if I don't timely pay my speeding tickets. There's two cities in the state that if I park in my old tickets will get me towed. And these are for like $20 tickets. They remember that, but someone lost track of a half mill in back taxes from a well known athlete?

The good news is once this is solved, they can move on and start investigating that whole late 90s homerun surge. By this time in 2012, we'll know the truth about McGwuire.

A few quick links to a few of the more lighter sided peices floating out there today.

The guy's over at Deadspin have a glimpse at the inner party animal that is Mr Met, with pictures.

Mr Met clearly learned a lot from the 80s Mets. 

And Jerry Krasnick's starting 9 this week takes a look at baseball players turned actors.  Is there even a doubt in your mind towards the #1? Of course not, its Keith Hernandez, for his role in Seinfeld.  Strawberry gets a nod as well, for his appearance in Seinfeld as a ringer for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball team

Lets face it, the episode that gave us the infamous second spitter will probably go down in history as the greatest episode of any tv show ever. That alone is probably enough for the veteran's commitee to right the greatest wrong in baseball history, and put Keith in the hall.  Though where is the honarable mention for Piazza's guest appearance on Married…With Children as himself, as a striking baseball player forced to be a tv news camera man.

Darryl Strawberry now plans to attend the Saturday night reunion of the 1986 World Series championship team, reports Marty Noble on MLB.com

The Bergan Record reports that Darryl Strawberry and the Mets are no longer on speaking terms, because
of a dispute over payment of his deferred salaries, according to a
person familiar with the situation. A recent break-off in negotiations
led to Strawberry's decision to boycott the 1986 reunion at Shea
Stadium on Aug. 19.

Strawberry has 1.4 million in deferred money due to him, he asked as a favor, that the Mets pay it as a lump sum now but the present day value is $800,000.

The Mets response was this

Howard Johnson's return is in jeopardy too as he was recently suspended as batting coach for Mets minor league affiliate Triple-A Norfolk Tides for leaving the team for a family affair without permission.