Report: Chris Coste signs with the Mets

The Forum newspaper of Fargo, N.D., is reporting on its website that former Phillies catcher Chris Coste has signed with the New York Mets.

According to the report, Coste's contract "guarantees him a spot on the 40-man roster," but the report also states that Coste "said it isn't a given that he'll be on the opening-day roster."

A Fargo native, Coste was claimed off waivers by the Houston Astros on July 10 of this year. You can check out his career stats here.

Elsewhere in the Hot Stove league, Chip Caray is done calling games for TBS. The Associated Press and a number of other news outlets have reported that Caray and the cable network "have decided to part ways."

The grandson of legendary Cubs play-by-play voice Harry Caray, Chip first hit the national stage calling Cubs games for WGN. He moved to TBS to call Braves games in 2004, then became TBS' lead national announcer when the network got the rights to the playoffs and Sunday regular-season games games in 2007.

Caray made quite a few gaffes this past October. The most notable of them came during the Tigers-Twins AL Central tiebreaker. As New York Times media columnist Richard Sandomir described it at the time:

No one in the production truck could rescue him from his 10th-inning classic faux pas during the Twins-Tigers tie breaker Tuesday night. Caray called the Twins' Nick Punto's sharply hit liner to left field this way: "Line drive. Base hit. Caught out there. The runner tags. Throw to the plate. On target. And in time! A double play."

Caray's talkative style also didn't go over very well with some fans. As New York Daily News baseball blogger Jesse Spector wrote today, Caray "infuriated a lot of baseball fans this October on TBS, sparking jokes as he described seemingly every hit as 'fisted.' "

As far as I can tell, Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver have not made any public comments about today's news.

(Okay, that was a bit harsh. But Caray is certainly not alone when it comes to being slammed by baseball bloggers and Tweeters.)

The Punto play is still up on YouTube. A hat tip to the sports media blog Awful Announcing, which was at the top of the search results when I tried to find the clip.