(Bumped from FanPosts. -- James)

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I have been a Mets fan for many years--as it is, most of my natural life. During this time I have witnessed many highs and many lows. Many fantastic players and games, and many times that would have tested the mettle of any fan. Through all of this, it has become clear that being a Mets fan requires a certain joy in the game no matter what happens, a certain humility about the inevitable loss, and a certain appreciation of fleeting victory. Baseball is not a sport that lends itself to screaming, but rather to watching, to learning, and to laughing at the foibles of what becomes your adopted family. And through the many years that I have followed this team in this town, Ralph Kiner has been an omnipresent and subtle, and much-appreciated, reminder that at the end of the day it's only a game, but during that day it's still something you ought to love and you ought to be knowledgeable and passionate about.

This is why the New York Mets ought to designate an area of Citi Field "Kiner's Korner", in recognition of what he has contributed to the idea of being a Mets fan, and the education he has given fans both about the game and about being a class act when pondering something that whatever happens, is, and always should be, enjoyable.

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Until tonight, I wanted to write a clever poem or something like that to get a lot of recs and thus show my appreciation for the community here. But thinking about it tonight I decided just to write a heartfelt thanks to Eric and the rest of the team for giving me a place to share in both my love of a baseball squadron and the folks who have collectively helped me to both support that love and deal with the disappointment that such squadron inevitably deals. 

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I kinda wanted a place to watch the Green Bay-Philly game, so here it is. If Ed or someone sets up an official one we can all move over. 

And this FanPost needs to be at least 75 words long so I'm writing this paragraph about nothing in particular and you know what my dogs like cheese. A lot. Any kind of cheese you can think of because cheese is good and pure and delicious and nutritious and doesn't poop on your head. 

So here's the second AA Informal January Meetup Poll. From responses to the last poll, I sense that there are two camps so far as time and date are concerned: those who would like the meetup on a Saturday afternoon/evening and those who would like it after work on a weekday. For the weekday I chose Thursday because it's a Thursday and more of a standard happy hour day than others. For location there were a number of good options thrown out there that are clustered in Midtown East/Murray Hill and in the West Village. I took a look at the websites for each, and have been to a few of them, and they all seem like good choices.  Once we all get a better sense of how many people to expect I might give the winner a call to give the manager a head's up if the group will be large, to see whether they usually have enough room to accommodate such a group, and to make a table reservation if it seems like a good idea. Also, if you're under 21 and really want to go let me know and I'll see if you can get in without drinking if and when I call the manager. 

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I'm just trying to get a sense of how many people would be interested in coming to a meetup, and how many of those are under legal drinking age. Considerations of time and location will be based on the answers to this, primarily regarding bar size and whether it should be at a restaurant/bar or just a bar, so let me know what you think. The poll should be open until at least Monday so those who only check the site at work have a chance to be heard. Thank you for your participation. 

Yeah I know that this is not a good FanPost, but there's no way that I know of to attach a poll to a FanShot, so I'm just working with what I got here. If anyone knows a way to attach multiple polls to a FanPost or some other thing, please let me know. 

With all the talk about who should make it into the Hall of Fame this year, I decided to test an impression that I've had for years: that it was perhaps easier in past eras to make it into the Hall of Fame than more recently. I think the genesis of this thought arose while I was reading baseball books when I was a kid and saw some of the huge inductee classes of the 1930s and 1940s. Sadly, this is another time where the eyes did not get it right, but I found some of the trends that revealed themselves interesting. There are a few observations from that data, and from the history of Hall of Fame voting, that I thought I'd share. With Joe Pos, whose writing I generally think is up there among the best, stating that perhaps the Hall of Fame is too big nowadays, I think that what I've found might explain a few things about the manner of elections over the past few decades (ignoring for the moment that his article was likely satire). There are a couple of weaknesses in his argument, as are distilled below: the first being that modern standards for a 90% or 95% threshold would exclude every player inducted before the 1960s or 1980s, depending on which threshold is used, with the exception of Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, and maybe Christy Mathewson. It appears that in at least one sense when comparing Hall of Fame voting nowadays and in the distant past we are comparing apples and oranges.

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