FanHouse JeffConine

What are you doing tonight? Working? Writing? Intermittently sleeping? Watching seminal Martin Scorcese documentary No Direction Home? Sitting around on your butt watching baseball? Having a few beers? Enjoying the playoffs?

Good for you. Jeff Conine will be celebrating his effing Ironman:

With his wife Cindy, three kids, parents and in-laws waiting for him at the finish line, former Florida Marlin Jeff Conine, 42, of Weston completed his first Ironman late Saturday in 14 hours, 43 minutes and 45 seconds. He is the first finisher to also have played in the major leagues.

For the record, an Ironman competition comprises the following:

-- A 2.4-mile swim
-- A 112-mile bike ride
-- A 26.2 mile footrace

For any of the rest of us, it would be an accomplishment to do any of those three things singularly. Conine did them all in one day. I watched, like, the last few miles of a marathon -- merely one component of the Ironman -- on Sunday, and I felt physically tired just from observing.

I really need to stop drinking so much Fat Tire.

Ah, retirement. Beaches, golf, reading books on the back porch with the old lady as you sip on some chilled Bourbon. Sounds like a charmed existence. Or you could also train for the Ironman. A race that after an ungodly amount of swimming and biking you run a freaking marathon. That's what recently retired Jeff Conine is up to these days.

From the New York Times:

Conine, a 17-year veteran of six big-league teams, has spent long hours swimming, cycling and running in preparation for an ambitious triathlon schedule that will culminate in the Ironman world championship in Kona, Hawaii, in October. Several former teammates, accustomed to the less rigorous conditioning of baseball, have questioned his sanity.

"Guys in my position are supposed to sit back and relax, not do something ridiculous like this," said Conine, who lives in South Florida and will make his triathlon debut here Sunday at the St. Anthony's Triathlon.

This is pretty wild. I salute Conine for his post-baseball pursuits. At 41 and being a former professional baseball player, he certainly still has some spring left to him. I just hope he realizes the race doesn't culminate with him taking over for Cal Ripken, Jr. in baseball's Hall of Fame.

Different Ironman, Jeff.

Sometimes it feels worse to see a horrible thing happen to your friend's team than it does to see something horrible happen to your own. What's worse than that is seeing the very same horrible thing that happened to your team happening to your friend's team. That's what happened today. Jon Bois, one of the guys who does The Dugout with me, is a Braves fan. I'm an Orioles fan.

A few years ago we got General Manager Frank Wren. We'll refer to him as "a rhino that got loose in my house." When he was smashing up my house I could just go, "oh, my house!" Now the rhino has burst through my living room door and trampled everything he could trample on the way to my friend's house down the street. I can go "DUDE LOOK OUT, RHINO" as much as I want, but apparently everyone else on the street (Major League Baseball and those that comprise it) chuckles to themselves and asks, "what rhino?" THE RHINO, YOU GOONS, THAT ONE, RIGHT THERE

After losing Damion Easley for most likely the rest of the season, the Mets are in need for a new utility man. Wait, scratch that -- the Mets were in need for a new utility man. From Ken Rosenthal, whom I strongly suspect never sleeps and has a Blackberry electronically tethered to his brain:

The New York Mets are on the verge of acquiring utility player Jeff Conine from the Cincinnati Reds for two Class-A position players, according to Major League sources.

Conine will serve as a right-handed hitter off the bench, filling in at first base and possibly the outfield.

It's not the most exciting move, but it's certainly fitting -- I think the annual "Jeff Conine to a contender" trade has kicked off every single stretch run of the past 12 years. Conine isn't quite as versatile as Easley -- at least when it comes to playing the middle infield -- but even at 41 years old he's still a solid bat off the bench. The Mets could have done much worse.

Jeff Conine told the press in Cincy today that he's consider retiring at the end of the 2007 season. This news won't get nearly the same coverage as Craig Biggio's retirement announcement will, but it took me aback just as much, maybe more. I'm not exactly sure why that is, probably because Conine is just the type of guy that has seemingly always been there. Anyways, from the Cincy Enquirer:

"Physically, I feel great," he said. "There's no issues I'm battling right now. It's just mentally and with the family, it's getting tougher every year."

Conine has three children, ages 11, 10 and 7.

"I'm missing a lot of stuff," he said. "You miss things that you're never going to get back."

Conine is now 41 years old (amazing, I know) and has played parts of 17 years in the big leagues. He's never been a great player, but if you check his Baseball-Reference page, you can see a sprinkling of appearances on the leaderboards over his career. He was there when the Marlins started, he was there when they won the World Series in 1997, he was there again in 2003, and he's still going at it. He's one of those never great but always good enough to have a job type guys. You know guys like Biggio will retire because you watch them decline in the spotlight. Guys like Conine melt into the background and you never realize you're going to miss them until they're almost gone.

"Hmm, that's odd," I thought to myself as I checked out the major league scoreboard, "Reds beat the Cubs 1-0? At Wrigley? Who pitched for the Reds? Arroyo? No. He pitched yesterday. And if he pitched yesterday, Harang pitched the day before. So then who did pitch?" I clicked the box score, "Kyle Lohse? Eight shutout innings? Four hits? TWELVE strikeouts? Damn."

Okay, maybe I should be a bit easier on Lohse. He's actually been pretty good this year through three starts. Still, the actual truth is that he was probably only the second best pitcher at Wrigley Field today. Ted Lily struck out ten Reds in his six innings of two hit ball. He only walked one batter, but unfortunately for him his walk of Brandon Phillips coupled with Phillips stolen base and Jeff Conine's single lead to a run scoring and that provided the margin of victory for the Reds, making Lily the hard luck loser.

Lost in the shuffle of this one will be Ryan Theriot's big day for the Cubs. He stroked three of their four hits off of Lohse (all singles) but never even advanced past second base as the heart of the Cubs lineup, Jacque Jones, Derek Lee, and Michael Barrett, went 0-for-10 with five strikeouts. The absence of Aramis Ramirez, who sat out his second straight game with lingering wrist problems, was a little more than conspicuous. Of course, had Ramirez been playing Theriot would have been on the bench, so maybe I'm a bit off base here.