Four for four: the Mets went 4-for-4 today. They resumed baseball activities with a bang.
The long-rumored, long-postponed, long-hidden Mets Hall of Fame announced its class for 2010, its first class in eight years, and it’s a doozy. It’s so good I have this feeling I’m writing one of those “wouldn’t it be nice?” fictional blog posts, except it really happened.
They’re inducting four Mets icons into the Hall come August 1…August 1, not April 1. No foolin’. To be enshrined are:
• Dwight Gooden
• Darryl Strawberry
• Davey Johnson
• Frank Cashen
I told ya 4-for-4. These are the four I would have put on my ballot had anybody asked me. These were the four I was planning on suggesting in the next righteous-fan piece that I’m happy to report I do not have to write. The Mets actually convened their Hall of Fame committee as promised and the committee did the exact right thing. They tabbed their two most overdue players and two most overdue guiding lights. They burnished the legend of 1986 perfectly.
The pitcher and the rightfielder who symbolized the journey from last place to first place. The manager who steered the ship in the right direction. The general manager who rebuilt the ship. Eight years since the Mets last paid proper attention to their past, they get back in the game with a bang.
There was no need to wait. I don’t mean they shouldn’t have put the Hall of Fame aside after 2002 (even though they shouldn’t have); I mean they shouldn’t have schlepped out induction for these four Mets one year longer. It’s a wonderfully crafted quartet, these men’s Mets accomplishments intertwined as they were. You can’t imagine the ’84, ’85 or ’86 Mets without Darryl and Doc. You can’t imagine them having come together without Davey or Cashen. Each of them is among the best the Mets have ever had at their particular jobs. Gooden was as great as any Met has ever been for a significant period of time. Strawberry was as spectacular as any Met has ever been for the length of a Met career. No conversation of Met managers can go more than two paragraphs before Johnson is mentioned. And go find me someone who put an organization together from ruins the way Cashen did.
This is exciting. This is genuinely exciting for a Mets fan who’s been waiting for the team to recognize itself. We recognize them far too often for the train wreck they’ve become in the moment. I love this chance to recognize them for the glory they achieved and the idea that they might achieve more of it.
Let’s Go Mets!
Wow! A Step in the right direction. Now they need to retire 17, 8, 16, 18
This IS exciting, but I’ve learned my lesson in taking the Mets at their word. These good feelings could go away quite quickly is our HOF turns out to be nothing more than an expensive section of our Team Store. For all we know, each Hall of Fame member will be represented by a stack of $45 t-shirts.
The Mets have proved me wrong in the past, I sincerely hope they do it again.
Bad vibes aside, congratulations to this Fab 4. It’s long overdue, and we’ll be proud to have a shrine to them–even if it ends up being gimmicky and we all shout how it should be better.
a 1:10 start against arizona. maybe not the worst game to buy tix to.
Jeff Wilpon will find a way to take credit for this, unless it somehow backfires. In that case, he’ll end up suing the inductees.
I approve. Absoultely. I really didn’t give this any thought, but I absolutely love the combination of the 4 of them together. They, along with existing Mets HOFers Carter and Hernandez, area the most irreplaceable of the 1986 Worlds Championship.
I say 3 for 4…Cashen built the team up, then when they didn’t all behave the way he wanted them to, ignoring the fact that they could win 100+ games a year, he dismantled the team in search of unmotivated good citizens like Kevin McReynolds and the inexplicable Juan Samuel and Jeff Musselman. How much better would the Mets have been going into the 90′s had they kept Mitchell, Dykstra, Aguilera, etc? What started off as what could’ve been a great legacy got very tarnished.
Gee Dave, I can’t understand why you are not a “Baseball Man” in MLB ! My father has three WS rings and you are what …. ?
I’ll give Frank the benefit of the good part and not deduct the bad part — but yeah.
And the Mets got the future right today too, by not giving Benjie Molina and his Francoeur-like OBP and Staub-like speed (we’re talking the 2010 Staub model, no less) a big contract.
Oh happy day!
anything that keeps a molina off the mets is, by definition, a good thing.
BUT…what does it say that the guy stayed clear of a team reportedly offering more than the giants did? maybe the mets, with how they handled beltran, have slid back in terms of reputation with free agents generally.
meanwhile, i guess we have to get ready for yorvit. feh.
“These are the four I would have put on my ballot had anybody asked me.”
Hey, you were totally asked!
http://www.cranepoolforum.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12908
Maybe next year for Rube and Jane.