Third baseman on the ’86 World Series team, Hojo was hired as hitting coach midway through the 2007 season. Although the Mets finished fifth in the National League with a .270 team batting average and a sixth in the Majors with a .276 average with runners in scoring position that season, they have faltered extremely in both these areas over time. Following tonight’s loss in Houston, they are now batting a paltry .248 as a team with a 1-46 record when trailing after 7 innings. They have not scored five runs or more in their past 18 games and have not scored more than three in their past five games. They could not get more than three runs against a team 15 games back from the Wild Card!

The Wilpon’s need to forget about the fact that Johnson was the best third baseman in franchise history before David Wright began his career and recognize the hideous job he has done as hitting coach for a team going nowhere fast.

Year after year, X games athletes continue to raise the bar at the Olympics for action sports. Bigger tricks and combinations give rise to new events that force athletes to get more air, create the need for longer half pipes and verts, and have fewer repeat gold medalists. While the 16th annual X Games showcased some young talent in skateboarding and Moto X, there were also some more subtle innovations that may have flown under the radar to first time viewers.

With the Staples Center and Los Angeles Coliseum being heavily used for the X Games each of the past seven years, the Skateboarding and BMX Vert events were held on stage at the nearby Nokia Theater, marking the first time an event was held in a theater. It appeared on television that sight lines were more limited and fewer people were able to attend, but seeing the half pipe under stage lights rather than in the center of an arena showed just how innovative action sports have become.

In his pursuit of a second straight gold medal in Moto X Step Up, an event in which dirt bike riders try to clear a bar at various elevations, Ronnie Renner looked to some unorthodox training methods. In a session with Pac-10 pole vaulting champion Chelsea Johnson, Renner did everything from walking on his hands to his own version of the worm before hitting the pole vault pit. Johnson, who won a silver medal herself in the 2009 World Athletic Championships, also hit the dirt hills to get a glimpse of Renner flying up to 20 feet in the air on his bike. The training paid off, as Renner walked away with a silver medal in the event falling only to veteran rider Matt Buyten.

I’d be remiss in my post if I didn’t mention the stories of Moto X rider Ashley Fiolek and Cam Sinclair. Fiolek has two obstacles facing her as a Moto X rider. Besides being a woman in a patriarchal sport she was born deaf. Riding since the tender age of 7, she said feeling the vibrations of the bike helped her concentrate better. In 12 years of riding, she broke her collar bone and wrist twice before competing in her first X Games this year. Her mechanic Cody Wolf said her handicap doesn’t inhibit her riding.

“You don’t see the motorcycle riding her you see her riding the motorcycle,” he said in an ESPN feature. “She makes the motorcycle do what she wants it to do.”

Taking the gold medal in Women’s Super X this year, Fiolek established herself as a hard nosed competitor among all Moto X riders.

Moto X riders are no stranger to injury, but the comeback story of Australian Cam Sinclair has to be one of the most inspiring. One year after a fatal crash at the Red Bull X Fighters competition in Madrid in which he attempted a double backflip, it’s amazing that this man can walk nonetheless ride a bike. The fall left him in a coma for a few days, scaring his family and his new fiancee.

A week before the X Games and a year short of his predicted full recovery, Sinclair competed in the best trick event in the same Spanish competition and placed 10th. Thousands of fans at the Staples Center collectively held their breath as Sinclair hovered at over 50 feet in the air in Moto X Best Trick, but when the daredevil pulled off one of the most dangerous tricks in the sport it was sheer pandemonium.

1) Shaun White will win Vert Best Trick, although Pierre Luc Gagnon will give him a run for his money.

2) Rune Glifberg medals in Men’s Skate Park

3) Chad Kagy wins BMX Big Air and BMX Vert

4) Beau Bamberg beats out Jeremy Stenberg for Moto X Best Whip

Florida had the worst stadiums and arenas in terms of violations averaging 85 percent of vendors cited for at least one. 100 percent of vendors at Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, had one or more violations. The investigation also found mouse droppings on top of a metal box underneath the cash registers and on top of a beverage fountain at Madison Square Garden. The World’s Most Famous Arena had 61 percent of its vendors cited for at least one critical health violation. The full report includes a list of individual stadiums and arenas by state and full stadium inspection summaries.

But in life, as in the long baseball season, every day is different. Every week brings a new set of challenges and change can occur faster than a Mariano Rivera fastball. Two and a half weeks after this feel good win, the Yankees and their fans are more solemn as they mourn the loss of three fixtures in the long history of the franchise.

The 64th annual Old Timer’s Day is marked with a hint of sadness, as longtime public address announcer Bob Sheppard and owner George Steinbrenner have both died. Sheppard and Steinbrenner spent a combined 93 years with the franchise, and have died only two days apart.

Under “The Boss” the Yankees won seven championships and constructed a new stadium. He recruited big name free agents such as Catfish Hunter, Wade Boggs, Alex Rodriguez and C.C. Sabathia to play in New York. The controversial billionaire received a lifetime ban from the game after hiring a paid gambler to dig up dirt on former Yankee Dave Winfield as part of a contract dispute. Steinbrenner was eventually reinstated in 1993 by commissioner Bud Selig.

Out of all the public address announcers in sports no clear, resounding vibrato is more recognized than Bob Sheppard, former voice of the New York Yankees and New York Giants. The Baldwin native was behind the mic for over 4,500 Yankee games and officially retired following the 2009 season.

One week ago the Yankees lost another great catcher and manager in Ralph Houk. Houk managed the club to back to back World Series Championships in 1961-62 an AL pennant the following year. Over half of his 20 major league seasons as a manager were spent with the Yankees as well as his entire eight year playing career. He won a total of eight MLB championships.

The Yankees are playing the second half of the season with heavy hearts, paying tribute to their greats by wearing commemorative patches for Steinbrenner on the chest and Sheppard on the sleeve. The club has recently added an armband for Houk to the uniform.

The more I follow the Florida Marlins year after year, the more I realize that ownership has no desire for them to win consistently.

Somewhat like their American League counterparts in the Bronx, (the New York Yankees) the Marlins have unrealistic expectations for their players and coaches, trading them and firing them because they’re not performing or winning enough for greedy, impatient ownership. The franchise made Edwin Rodriguez their 10th manager Tuesday after firing Fredi Gonzalez, who had a winning percentage just over .500 in  2 1/2 seasons with sub par players. Prior to the Gonzalez era, Joe Girardi was fired after a solid season where Florida narrowly missed the playoffs despite starting six rookies on opening day. Three years later, Girardi won a championship in just his third year managing in the big leagues.

These managerial moves have carried over to the players and have impeded a franchise searching for a large fan base in a state known more for Grapefruit League baseball than National League baseball. Look at Florida’s two championship teams in their short 17-year existence. Coming off the team’s first World Series at the start of the 1998 season, owner Wayne Huizenga gave new meaning to the term fire sale when he traded two of the organization’s championship pieces in Moises Alou and Kevin Brown. By May, Charles Johnson, Bobby Bonilla and Gary Sheffield were shipped out west to play for the Dodgers.

It was no different under Jeffrey Loria, as catcher Paul Lo Duca and leadoff man Juan Pierre were gone two years after the 2003 championship. Josh Beckett and Dontrelle Willis, the aces of the pitching staff, went to the American League during the 2005-06 offseason, while budding super star Miguel Cabrera played for the Tigers beginning in 2008 and developed into one of the most feared hitters in the game.

Hopefully the new ballpark set to open in 2012 will cause ownership to keep all-star players that the Marlins can build around so that they can fulfill their potential to be a contending dynasty and win more championships.

As I listened to coverage of this year’s NHL Draft and awaited the New York Islanders first round selection, I did some reflecting on the past three seasons and decided that the team is headed in the right direction, but has one obstacle remaining in their quest for a playoff birth and one giant mishap in their past to get over before they move on.

It was a little over one year ago that the Islanders drafted John Tavares in a move to change the moribund hockey culture on Long Island. Looking at prior drafts, I relived all the inconsistent, nonproductive picks made prior to 2006. All the players like Shane Sims and Stefan Blaho, not to mention the mediocrity of 15-year goalie Rick DiPietro and under performing Sean Bergenheim. The loss of key free agents such as Jason Blake and Ryan Smyth left an anemic offense. But the most unforgiveable mistake the franchise made was replacing the man behind the bench after the 2002-03 season.

When Peter Laviolette arrived on Long Island for his first head coaching job, the Islanders hadn’t made the post season in seven years. They were in a similar position they’re in now, losing long-time fans, displaying decaying championship banners from their golden years in the early 1980s and being known only for their infamously horrendous fish sticks jerseys. In Laviolette’s first season, the Islanders finished with 96 points and played a hard fought, seven game series with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The following year, they earned the final playoff spot in the Eastern conference and lost to the Ottawa Senators. That was when Mike Milbury, General Manager at the time, decided he had enough. He made his seventh coaching change in seven and a half years, saying that the team “came up short” during Laviolette’s era.

Since Laviolette’s departure from Long Island, he has coached two different teams to the Stanley Cup Finals, winning it all with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006 and finishing with a losing record only once. This past season his Philadelphia Flyers made playoff history when they rebounded from a 3-0 series deficit against the Boston Bruins and overcame a 3-0 deficit in Game 7 to send them to the Stanley Cup Finals. Although the Flyers fell one game short of winning their first championship in 35 years, even the harsh Philly fans can’t deny that Laviolette played a pivotal role in resurrecting the franchise.

Newcomers Nino Niederreiter, Brock Nelson, Kirill Kabanov and Jason Clark will be coached by Scott Gordon, a lame duck with a casual attitude. Laviolette, on the other hand, has a stronger, more disciplined leadership style that young players like this need. I hope the players and the front office realize there will be only more heartbreaking losses and last place finishes in the Atlantic Division to come until another coach like Laviolette is brought in.

Baseball is more than balls and strikes, hits and outs, wins and losses. It’s about life through relationships between players and coaches – fathers and sons – that is only found between the lines.
Between the Lines is also the title of a manuscript that has recently received literary representation.

Shrode has posted excerpts of the book worthy of a look. Especially on this third Sunday in June we call Father’s Day.

My father was a Little League coach before I was born and continued to be an assistant on teams I played on during my childhood. As dreadful as my experience was toward the end of Little League (I was a Mets fan on the Yankees and the biggest Mike Piazza fan wearing Roger Clemens’s #22), I always knew that my dad enjoyed watching me play baseball. Regardless of how I performed on the field, he was happy that he passed down his love of the game and passion for the New York Mets to his only son.