I was flipping stations here in the Bay Area the other night, and I heard a name that rang familiar: F.P. Santangelo.

Yes, the former Hurricanes 2B who spent some years with the Montreal Expos and the SF Giants is now subbing for the fired Larry "brain-dead Caribbean players" Krueger with a show called "Balls Out with F.P. Santangelo."

He didn't do too badly. When does the Jorge Fabregas show premiere?

Question from my friend Dice:

I'm trying to find out what % of all major league baseball players who ever played the game have hit at least one home run.  This would include, of course, pitchers and players who played just one game, or even had just one at bat (say he was called up from AAA just for the day and sucked and went back).

Someone quoted 28%, but, had no evidence to back it
up.

So, does anybody know where to get this info?

It was a hell of an afternoon, and not just because the Fish won.

First of all, there's the weather. The climate in San Francisco is the strangest in America. The city and a few neighbors to the immediate south (like Pacifica and Daly City) are easily the coldest spots in the lower 48 during the summer months, with a near-constant wind coming off the chilly Pacific. My neighborhood, the Inner Sunset, is shrouded in fog pretty much constantly from June-August. Trust me, it's not as bad as it sounds.

SBC Park happens to be in the sunniest part of the city, the eastern shore of the peninsula, which is protected from the fog by the mountains that run through the middle of the city. But day games still typically run just 65-74 degrees on average, and night games never, ever stay above 70 when dark falls.

On this day, it was easily 85. Advantage: Florida.

The seats, "view box" section -- the very bottom of the second deck -- were the best I've had at SBC. Here's Carlos Delgado looking for another Bondsian splash hit, and those are the East Bay hills off in the distance.

A.J. Burnett was spectacular, staying ahead in the count for hitter after hitter, and forcing grounders when the Giants got runners on. He only got into trouble all day when his teammates' defense failed him. Here A.J. is hurling to Moises Alou, one of the only credible members of the Giants' current lineup.

Of course, A.J. was super-rad with his bat. I remember looking at his profile on the scoreboard and noting, "Funny, he has three hits this season, and they're all for extra bases. And two of them are triples!" And then, CRACK, Burnett launches one to left field. Moises barely gave chase. A.J. rounded the bases, and tagged home.

What amazed me most was how nonchalant A.J. was about the whole thing. He kind of jogged the bases, and then moped into the dugout, giving a few high-fists, but nothing too celebratory. It's like he got a transfusion of Kevin McReynold's anemic blood.

Miggy launched one, too, but also botched a simple play in the outfield, not too rare an occurence for him. Here he is, enjoying the ribbing from the bleachers.

Of course, the Marlins didn't win just because A.J., Miggy, and Encarnacion launched dingers. You may notice a certain mysterious presence up in the rafters, and you'll be excused if it smells a little fishy around here.

Okay, my first diary on Fishstripes. I already write for two blogs (my own for fun stuff and a group one for business and politics), but I'm not worried about spreading myself too thin.

Anyway, I'd like to recommend a sports book. No, not the type where I lose $200 every time I visit Vegas, but the type with words and photographs. It's The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearlman, a chronicle of the 1986 New York Mets.

I grew up in Miami when pro baseball meant spring training with the Orioles and Miami Marlins (later Miami Miracle) games at Bobby Maduro Stadium, before that facility was used to house Nicaraguan refugees. Then the O's left, the Marlins/Miracle shut down, and baseball meant U of Miami games at "the Light." So in the early '80s, I adopted the Mets in honor of my birthplace in NYC. (I was actually born in the Bronx, but the Yankees seemed really boring to root for.)

In '84, the Mets showed a lot of promise. Dwight Gooden won a bunch of games at age 19, and Darryl Strawberry made his first appearances. In '85, they picked up Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling, Wally Backman, Roger McDowell and Sid Fernandez emerged, and the Mets put on a strong challenge to the powerful Cardinals.

1986 was amazin'. Gary Carter joined the team, Lenny Dykstra exploded onto the team, and Bobby Ojeda contributed 18 wins to a staring rotation of Gooden, Darling, Fernandez and Aguilera. I watched at least 100 games that year, plus the most exciting post-season the world would see until 2003.

I was 12 going on 13 in '86, and the Mets were my sports idols (along with my beloved Dolphins). They had some incidents that year -- some fights, some legal troubles here and there -- but I just assumed it was par for the course.

As an adult, it's incredible to read The Bad Guys Won. The members of that team, most of whom Pearlman interviewed, were really a bunch of boozing, amphetamine-popping, skirt-chasing, violent bastards who were hated by every other team, manager, and owner in the National League. To read about how they trashed charter planes, how they fought with each other and brawled with other teams, how they came up with unspeakable names for each other and their wives, is utterly fascinating.

Pearlman's main point to this book is that the '86 Mets were also one of baseball's last interesting teams. Drunken fights on planes are in baseball's past; now you get 25 guys quietly listening to 25 IPods en route to wherever. Players go home to their mansions or hotels instead of romping around clubs and honkytonks. In many ways, the '86 Mets took things so far, that the whole sport had to dial things back.

As we approach -- yikes! -- the 20th anniversary of that incredible season, the most enduring memory of which is a ball dribbling underneath Bill Buckner's golden glove, it's important to recognize how the game has changed, for better or for worse.

Go Fish.