[FatJack]

There were a couple of excellent Junior Ortiz Mets images in Thursdays Vault release, so I'd guess this a bit superfluous, but the Mets won that endless extra inning game last night with a homer from d"Arnaud in the 16th (which was doubly sweet as he's on my fantasy team) so I'm feeling a tad euphoric.

This is from a Mets lot I purchased a few years back. The more scarce players were posted to Baseball-Birthdays, but I did not post the Junior. Ready for the rim-shots?

Junior Ortiz was a colorful guy...probably born to be a Met. I mean, he was no Choo Choo Coleman, but he could be pretty funny. For example, Junior spoke little English so he'd do crossword puzzles to help learn the language. In the clubhouse, one day, he looks up and asks Tom Seaver for a 4-letter word for "clenched hand". Seaver holds up his fist. "Junior, think about this." Junior looks at the fist with a bit of a quizzical expression. "Pitchout?"

Junior, while with the Twins, once changed his name to "Joe" for a couple of weeks, then changed it back. In his first game back as Junior, he scored 3 runs on 2 hits and a walk. He says, "Joe is gone, now. He stinks. He couldn't hit a foul ball. Junior's a jerk, but at least he can play."

Rickey Henderson broke the career stolen base record when Junior was catching. He was asked if it bothered him to be the catcher who gave up the record breaking stolen base. "No, he's stolen lots of bases on good catchers, too."

Last one. Junior named his son Junior Ortiz, Jr. They call him "Junior, Jr."