Faith and Fear in Flushing

The Last Welcome Intrusion

Midweek afternoons were not made for watching baseball, which is why when the two get together, their appeal is so undeniable. Today was the final time in 2010 you needed several hours in the middle of your weekday to fully enjoy your Mets. Twenty-two games remain, some of them in weekend daylight, the rest commencing [...]

Aw Gee

Maybe you thought this was the night.

And why not? The baseball gods enjoy a good laugh as much as any other cosmic entities, so why wouldn’t Dillon Gee — he of the Triple-A ERA near 5.00 and the penchant for gopher balls — do what Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan and Jerry Koosman and Jon [...]

Quick In-Game Thought

Any way we can get Nyjer Morgan to turn his wrath on Willie Harris?

The Three Mikes

I missed all of yesterday’s outburst against the Cubs, monitoring it in dribs and drabs while saying farewell to summer at Coney Island and watching the Brooklyn Cyclones win their season finale, which they used as a tuneup for the playoffs. (If you’re near New York City, instead of enduring horrible baseball, go see the [...]

Hessmania, Now Featuring Ruben Tejada

Amid an eighteen-run Met explosion, how could there not be a few bangs, pops and whiffs off the bat of the object of my offensive obsession, Mike Hessman?

The best news where Hessmania was concerned Sunday is the admission into Club Hessman — One Met Home Run and One Met Home Run Only — of a [...]

We’re Gonna Get Chai, Chai, Chai in the Late Day Sun

Eighteen — as represented by chai — is considered good luck in Judaism. And when you get as lucky as the Mets did by scoring eighteen runs the Sunday before Labor Day at Wrigley Field, then there’s no need to belabor the point by saying much beyond mazel tov!

So sit back and enjoy, knowing that there [...]

Metamorphosis

In my last job I shared an office with Steve, an Englishman who was a passionate fan of Liverpool. Liverpool, Steve explained, was the football equivalent of the Mets — badly run, generally luckless and often an object of derision for other football fans. Steve loved them as much as I love the Mets, and [...]

Toast and Marmol Ade for We

In this new post-realization era of 2010 Mets baseball — in which we fully realize we’re toast — 7-6 losses of games which we once led 3-0 should seem, as R.A. Dickey might eloquently put it, inconsequential. For the big picture, sure, but in terms of leading by three and losing by one, it’s pretty [...]

The Night I Believed We Were Done

Thursday night, the Mets won a baseball game, which is a result any Mets fan welcomes. And I indeed welcome it. (“Hi win, good to see you. I’d almost forgotten what one of you looks like.”) But I have to admit, in one of those “bad fan” episodes to which Jason occasionally cops, I’m not [...]

Rosters Expand, Mets Contract

The Braves shoved nine runs down the Mets’ throats Monday. They shoved nine more there Tuesday. They were en route to dishing up their usual nightly serving on Wednesday when they realized it was hardly worth the trouble. Why bother scoring nine runs when no more than two would be necessary? Mighty thoughtful of Bobby [...]