Thanks to Reader Gretchen, I have more Bob Uecker-iana than some Brewers fans: multiple bobbles, a Uecker Magic 8 Ball, and an old-school alarm clock that ticks so loudly I had to banish it from my office because it was audible on podcasts. I always loved Ueck, going back to the Miller Lite ad days, and I kept listening to him — and Vin Scully — as long as I could via the MLB app, the voices of summer that kept such good company. He loved baseball; he loved talking about it. I hope he knew those things loved him back.

I wasn’t as stricken by the passing of David Lynch, tbh, although I was surprised he was 78? Which of course tracks, but for some reason he seemed like one of those perennially in-his-late-fifties guys, I don’t know. I have traditionally found Lynch product more admirable than enjoyable, but even though by and large it wasn’t for me, the culture did need him — the things he’d try, the dreams he’d try to translate to waking life. And it’s always made me smile that, in my family of origin, my mother was the one riveted by Twin Peaks.

And now, back to baseball, but still on a theme of farewells, because Pete Alonso seems almost certain to leave the Mets. When the postseason ended, my sense was that Polar Bear expected a massive — and lengthy — contract; that David Stearns would not agree he was worth asking price; that nobody close to Alonso would contradict Scott Boras’s delusional concept of his client’s market value; and that the Angels, who have more money than sense and love to prove it by overpaying NL East stars on the downsides of their careers, would step in shortly before spring training with a gaudy offer that would almost immediately blow up in their faces.

That could still happen. It could also still happen that someone communicates to Alonso that he’s worth more in Flushing than anywhere else — that if a homegrown player with a fun nickname and a reel of signature Met moments chooses us, we Met fans in turn will choose to treat him like an elite player, and be okay with an elite-player paycheck for him, and forgive him when his hitting falls off a cliff 18 months into a 10-year contract.

Because it’s probably going to, because Alonso isn’t young anymore — and he isn’t, and wasn’t, elite, not really. He’s a hard worker; he broke his ass improving his defense so he could play every day. And he does play every day, pretty much — he’s durable, so far. He’s had a few at-bats that will live in Met lore forever, and he’s not a choker. I’ve loved watching him. (Especially watching him run full-out. One of the season’s everyday smiles.) He’s beloved to Mets fans, and if we are beloved to him, we will go along with the fiction that he’s a HoF talent, at least for a while. But he’s not. His chief value isn’t as a player, it’s as a Met.

What I don’t know is a lot, but it doesn’t seem like the market disagrees with me here; if Alonso could get the contract he wants, he’d…have it by now. The Soto deal means he’s not number one on the call sheet anymore, so to speak, and that should have realigned his ask accordingly. The organizations that can afford Alonso already have superior iterations of Alonso; someone he respects should tell him that. We’ll see. Good luck to him.

And to us all, and that’s all I have to say about Donald Trump right now. Feel free to post pleasing inauguration counterprogramming ideas in the comments, and stay safe.

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