Archive for the ‘Julio Franco’ Category
OK, i’m not sure thats entirely accurate but I figure he’s broken every other oldest man record at this point, why stop now.
Deadspin reports, via a story on the official site of the Mexican League, that Julio Franco has announced his retirement.
Godspeed Julio, we enjoyed having you spend some time with us, telling us how many miles you used to have to walk in the snow to get to school, etc. My favorite Julio Franco moment was when Hot Foot Jr. met him in camp and made fun of a Braves fan. Check out the clip below.
Dave Lennon at Newday has an article today on Julio Franco, who apparantly is better than most think. Franco is currently hitting .286 with 6 RBI's in pinch hitting situations. He ranks fourth amongst pinch hitters, with Atlanta's Matt Diaz leading the pack at .350.
How does Julio feel about the criticism that he's too old and done from the fans:
lot of guys don't know about baseball. They don't know. They not only don't pay
attention, they don't know. If any of those guys put themselves in my shoes,
they wouldn't last. It's easy to criticize, but how many guys are doing what
I'm doing? How many?”
I won't lie, I was one of those who said maybe Franco shouldn't be the first off the bench so much. Call it only seeing the bad. Call it, being too lazy to go and luck up his pinch hitting stats. I recognized that he had a place on the bench, and liked his other skills as a mentor and such, but didn't realize he actually is doing well as a pinch hitter. Sorry Julio.
After the close of todays game, Julio Franco has made three plate appearances, but has yet to have an official at bat, leaving him with no batting average, though he does have a .666 OBP. He's walked twice, and sacrificed in his sole other appearance. Both his walks have led to a run scored.
Julio Franco helped Carlos Beltran turn the corner with fans, coaxing him to receive their adulation at a time when he did not yet fell comfortable in his new environment. Well it seems like thats not the only thing Julio has helped Carlos with. Beltran tells Kevin Kernan in The New York Post that Franco found a way to get Carlos more comfortable with his swing as well.
about your hands, you worry about your legs, you worry about your
timing,'” Beltran explains. “When you are thinking about all those
things, you can't react to the ball. You are thinking and that is why
you swing at bad pitches. You don't even see the ball.'”
Head on over to read Kernan's article to find out exactly what Julio taught Beltran to do to help his concentration at the plate.
Marty Noble on Mets.com reveals the Mets considered bringing in Frank Robinson, whom Lastings Milledge admires, to come in to mentor Lastings.
surround Lastings Milledge with a special support group. The Mets have,
however briefly, considered bringing in one person to counsel Milledge
– Frank Robinson. The Hall of Famer and former Expos/Nationals manager
has a close relationship with Omar Minaya from their days with the
Expos, and Minaya is aware of Milledge's admiration for Robinson.
“We talked about it a little,” Minaya said on Monday. “But we have other people coming in — not just for Lastings Milledge.”
He referred to Rickey Henderson, who again is to serve as a Spring
Training instructor. And the club is trying to arrange another Spring
Traning appearance by Darryl Strawberry.
Milledge sought out Julio Franco when he arrived at Spring Training, reports John Delcos on his Lower Hudson blog.
“He said, 'Let’s pick up where we left off,” Franco said. “It’s a great
sign. He’s willing to learn and he’s willing to work hard.”
Check out a great Q&A session in the New York Post with the big poppa of the New York Mets, Julio Franco.
Can I call you dad?
The Mets, speaking from a position of power, take a different approach to the Braves series.
Julio Franco…
“After all that winning they believe in themselves. … I think we believe in ourselves too, though.”
Aaron Heilman…
“Every game counts, but the ones against the teams in your division
have a way of feeling different or more important, Maybe it has to do with how well the teams know each other. … I
think we all know plenty about the Braves.”
Tom Glavine…
Willie Randolph…
“Those are the guys we have to go through to be where we want to be, We're looking forward to that challenge.”
“I know the struggles we've had with the Braves in the past, but this
is a whole new team. We have a lot of new faces, We don't have too many guys who were around for the struggles. We're
going into this with a fresh outlook.”
“We've gotten off to the start we wanted. Now it gets down to this: We
have an understanding that the NL East championship is going to have to
go through Atlanta. To be the best, you have to beat the best. They've
been on top for a while. We have all the right tools. If we play good
baseball, we're going to win.”
Sounds like we've got a real battle on our hands, and the Mets seem ready to take on the challenge. Should be an interesting couple of days to say the least.
The chance for Brian Bannister to show he can be a major league starting pitcher in New York begins at tomorrow night in Queens. When spring began, he was an interesting prospect in the Mets organization. Among Yusmeiro Petit, Gaby Hernandez, and Philip Humber, Bannister was rated the lowest among them by Baseball America. By now you know the story, 
when spring training was over, Bannister had put together a dazzling 0.95 ERA in 19 innings and stolen a job that was all but assumed to be given to Aaron Heilman with Kris Benson and Jae Seo shipped elsewhere. Great performances in spring don't always lead to similar results in the regular season, but Bannister showed he had the mental toughness to grit his way through trouble. That is part of what led the Mets to believe he had what it takes to deal with the stress of a more pressurized situation in a packed major league ballpark.
Bannister recently added a change up to his repitoire of fastball, cutter, and curve. He began trying to learn from the master, Pedro Martinez, but after finding for him the two seam change didn't take enough speed off he settled upon using a four seam grip taught to him by Duaner Sanchez, the “other” guy in the Mets pen.
Who is Brian Bannister? Bannister is 25 years old. He is the son of former major-league pitcher Floyd Bannister. He was something of a phenom in high school. He was All-Region and All-City in 1997, 1998 and 1999.
He went on to play for USC where he posted ERA's
of 4.35 in ten games out of the bullpen in his freshman year and 2.80
in thirty-five relief appearances as a sophomore. He sat out 2002, due to elbow surgery. However, he returned in 2003 to play his
junior year which was also his first year as a starter. In eighteen
games (fourteen starts), Bannister compiled a 6-5 record with an ERA of
4.53.
He was a seventh round pick in 2003 by the Mets and assigned to the Mets single A Brooklyn Cyclones. He posted a 4-1 record with an ERA of 2.15 in twelve games (nine starts) with the Cyclones. In 2004, he was assigned to play for High-A St Lucie, and had a bit of a sophmore slump, earning a 5-7 record with a 4.24 ERA in twenty starts. Bannister was promoted to AA Binghamton despite his poor showing, where he had a 3-3 record and an ERA of 4.08 in eight starts. He began turning it around again in 2005 in Binghamton, where he posted a 9-4 record
with a 2.56 ERA in eighteen starts. This earned Bannister a promotion to AAA Norfolk, where he compiled a 4-1 with an ERA of 3.18 in eight starts.
Bannister is also a talented photographer. His work can be seen at Beauty and Sport He runs a photography studio, Loft 19, in Phoenix. Bannister graduated from USC with a degree in fine arts.
Quick Hit : Six degrees of separation connecting Franco to Deacon White, recorder of major league baseball's first-ever hit. That's right: Franco played with Tug McGraw, who played with Yogi Berra, who played with Bob Newsom, who played with Charley O'Leary, who played with Sam Thompson, who played with White — who, in 1871, inaugurated this league.
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