Spreading Subway Series Happiness

Who could or would be happy that the Mets beat the Yankees in the Bronx on Saturday? Us, obviously. The Mets beating the Yankees is a thing for us. We’re Mets fans. We like when the Mets beat anybody. We especially like the Mets beating the Yankees.

We like Griffin Canning, he of the 2.47 ERA, continuing to start games the Mets win; it’s probably not a coincidence that that happens. Griffin gave up only two solo home runs (one that could have been featured in one of those SNY salutes to local little leagues) over five-and-a-third.

We like Huascar Brazoban bailing out Canning from his spot of trouble in the sixth and then taking care of that inning and the next one. Brazoban’s in that splendid middle relief zone where his praises are sung after each effective outing, yet because of the nature of his role, we tell each other he’s unsung.

We like Juan Soto, baserunner, a character we didn’t know Steve Cohen was paying for. When the opposition isn’t paying attention — turning their back to him, you might say — Juan swipes a bag. It’s like something out of Daniel Murphy’s sack of invisible tricks. Saturday, as he stood on second following Pete Alonso’s RBI single in the fourth, Juan thought it would be better to stand on third. He was right, for soon, after he stole third, he was able to run home on Mark Vientos’s sac fly to left.

We like Reed Garrett, the Met whose face-camouflaging beard complemented that otherwise atonal Armed Forces Weekend cap, squirming from a jam like he holds a grudge against Smucker’s. Walk the leadoff hitter in the eighth? Get a double play grounder. Load the bases by sandwiching a double around two more walks? End the inning by eliciting a lineout from DJ LeMaheieu (who hit that fly ball earlier that cleared the backyard fence in shortest right).

We like the good eye from Luis Torrens, who knew enough to take ball four in the top of the ninth, and the good sense from Carlos Mendoza to pinch-run Luisangel Acuña. After Acuña makes his way to third, he scores on a not terribly deep fly ball Francisco Lindor lifts to left field, giving the Mets a 3-2 lead. Luisangel’s baserunning isn’t stealth à la Soto’s. It’s understood he’s to be noticed on the basepaths, yet his ability still carries the potential for delightful surprise. We like that, too.

Oh, and we really like Edwin Diaz when he’s not in hang on, Sloopy! mode. Charged with protecting a one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, there was little sense of screwing around. A strikeout on a full count to Austin Wells. A lineout of Ben Rice. And then, just that Aaron Judge fella. The Mets-inclined viewer would be grateful for anything that wasn’t a tying home runs Edwin works Aaron to three-and-two before blowing a fastball by the swinging superstar.

We like Mets 3 Yankees 2 on a Saturday afternoon. A lot.

Who else might like it?

I’d like to think Jim Marshall might like the Mets having beaten the Yankees on Saturday afternoon. Jim Marshall is the oldest-living Met. On May 25, Jim is scheduled to celebrate his 94th birthday. Something about being born in May seems to agree with Met longevity. Yogi Berra, who made his birth necessary on May 12, 1925, lived to 90. Willie Mays, who first said “hey” on May 6, 1931, made it to 93. Marshall didn’t have their careers, but he was in the lineup for the very first New York Mets game, on April 11, 1962, and he is the sole survivor from the night the franchise came kicking and screaming into the National League (Cards 11 Mets 4). When the Mets were in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago, the Diamondbacks facilitated an on-field celebration of Jim’s status as the Oldest Living Met. As Marshall, who has lived a helluva baseball life, said to Bob Nightengale in an engaging USA Today profile, he always dreamed of “being No. 1. Well, I finally made it.”

I’d like to think Ralph Kiner might have liked the Mets beating the Yankees on Saturday afternoon. Of course he would have. Ralph was in the booth for that very first Mets game and so many more. He was in the Channel 9 booth alongside Tim McCarver and Gary Thorne for the first regular-season Mets-Yankees game in 1997, and he sounded pretty stoked at the way Dave Mlicki was shoving that magical Monday night. Ralph’s spirit was in if not on the air this past week when the Pirates were in town, and the Mets arranged a meeting between Ralph’s son Scott and their somewhat distant relation Isiah Kiner-Falefa. It was all too perfect not to happen. Kiner-Falefa, now Pittsburgh’s shortstop, had been to exactly one randomly chosen Mets game as a kid, in 2007. It was Ralph Kiner Night, and the kicker was the youngster had no idea such a ceremony was going to take place when he showed up at Shea that Saturday. Or was the kicker that Kiner-Falefa made like Kiner on Monday and homered for the first time all year, in the same ballpark where Ralph’s name and microphone hangs from the rafters, shortly after his family reunion with Scott, whom he’d never met until it happened in Flushing? The Mets won that game, permitting a Mets fan to gin up enough grace to actually enjoy Kiner-Falefa’s unlikely trip around the bases in retrospect…once that Mets win went final.

I’d like to think that if it got his attention, Jim Gosger might have liked the Mets beating the Yankees on Saturday afternoon, though the 83-year-old former outfielder could be forgiven for having another sporting event filling his focus. Gosger, who played bit parts for the 1969 and 1973 Mets, okayed the use of his name for a racehorse that was running in the Preakness. It’s a sweet story, told in detail here, but the bottom line is that Gosger the horse, who went off with long odds, finished in the money at Pimlico, coming in second to Journalism. Journalism tells sweet stories in detail, too. The detail that stays with Mets fans in modern times regarding Gosger the ballplayer is that in 2019, at Citi Field’s fiftieth-anniversary celebration of the Miracle Mets, Gosger was honored in the club’s In Memoriam reel. Jim was quite surprised, given that he was alive and well and living in Michigan. Still is.

I’d like to think one of Gosger’s 1969 teammates liked the Mets beating the Yankees on Saturday afternoon, and based on recent evidence, I’m guessing it totally got his attention. On the podcast called The Terry Collins Show, co-host John Arezzi conducted a blessedly long interview with 80-year-old Ron Swoboda. Ron wasn’t promoting anything except stories of his time playing for Gil Hodges and his time before that playing for Casey Stengel and anything Arezzi asked him about. Swoboda, as ever, was deep and thoughtful and generous with his reflections. The discussion was recorded very early this season, which you can tell, because Rocky offered observations about every Mets game he’d been watching down in New Orleans, which seemed to be all of them. You love knowing a Met (who played a little for the Yankees) is still so attached to the Mets. You love hearing the excitement of a kid from 1966 who grew up rooting for Swoboda getting to talk to him at length. Arezzi with Swoboda is a treat for the ears on your favorite podcast platform, and is available for watching on YouTube.

If he wasn’t preoccupied by ramping up for his umpteenth major league comeback, I’d like to think Rich Hill liked the Mets beating the Yankees on Saturday afternoon. Rich Hill was a Met in 2021, which means he played with a few of the Mets who helped beat the Yankees, which is all well and good for the record, but I hold Hill in esteem for emerging at this late date as the LASPSA: Longest Ago Shea Player Still Active. As noted last September, when he had just pitched in relief for the Red Sox at Citi Field, Rich Hill took the mound at Shea for the Cubs in 2005. Clayton Kershaw is off the IL for the Dodgers; he pitched at Shea in 2008. Max Scherzer is on the IL for the Blue Jays; he pitched at Shea in 2008. But Hill, whose 45-year-old left arm just signed a minor league deal with the Royals, has them both bested in terms of longevity Sheawise and earthwise. Rich was born before either of those future Hall of Famers and not only pitched in our old ballpark before either of them, he did so when there wasn’t as much a stake in the ground for the ballpark that would replace Shea. Judging by Kansas City trusting in his timelessness, there’s no replacing Rich Hill on the major league radar.

If he took a glance at the out-of-town scoreboard, I’d like to think Jacob deGrom like the Mets beating the Yankees on Saturday afternoon. DeGrom, suddenly verging on his 37th birthday, is actually healthy again and pitching like he’s always pitching when physically unencumbered. This past Thursday, he dueled Hunter Brown of the Astros, topping him, 1-0. Jake went eight for the Rangers win in Arlington. Brown also went eight, which gave him a complete game loss, something you hardly see anymore. MLB Network was showing this game, which I didn’t necessarily plan to watch, but I turned it on in the sixth, with the sound down, and found myself absorbed by deGrom being deGrom again. Struck out seven, walked one, scattered five hits, made me think of 2018 through 2021 when Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets was the best pitcher on the planet, and he was lucky if his teammates gave him as much as one run to work with. It suddenly became very important to me on May 15, 2025, that deGrom get this 1-0 win for Texas, a little like on the night of May 14, 1996, when I rooted for the Yankees to prevail for the first and only time in my life, because that was Dwight Gooden on the mound for them throwing a no-hitter. I have nothing against the Texas Rangers, not even them luring deGrom away with a contract not even Steve Cohen was of a mind to match, so this presented no inherent conflict of interests. If anything, it reminded me of what we had when we had deGrom. It seems long ago enough now that I could probably convince myself Jake pitched for us at Shea, maybe against Rich Hill.

Finally, I know Brooklyn’s own Mike Lecolant would have liked the Mets beating the Yankees on Saturday afternoon. Mike was a big Mets fan, albeit with the asterisk that he didn’t quite despise the Yankees the way most of us do. I went to one game with Mike, a fabulous night in 2019, when he explained his family had rooting interests that spanned the boroughs, so while he was a Mets fan the way I was a Mets fan, he simply wasn’t the same kind of Yankee-hater. He even cherished a childhood memory connected to his favorite Yankee, Carlos May. Carlos May — why Carlos May? If I remember correctly, he was taken to Bat Day at the Stadium, and that’s whose model bat Mike was handed. He could be a loyal guy that way.

Mike Lecolant, a terrific Mets voice.

Mike was someone I knew from being on a podcast he hosted alongside two other really good guys, Sam Maxwell and Rich Sparago. I was essentially their go-to guest when they couldn’t find anybody else, and we always had a good time. Mike got three of the four of us together on a Saturday night six years ago for a game at Citi Field through a connection I had no idea he had. Mike was related to the Cora brothers, as in Alex and Joey Cora. Alex played for the Mets in 2009 and 2010 and went on to manage the Red Sox to a world championship. Joey, also an experienced MLB player, became a respected third base coach, eventually for the Mets under Buck Showalter. In 2019, this Cora was with the Pirates, and the Pirates were on the schedule for us. Joey offered Mike tickets in the visitors’ family section, and Mike invited me to join him. I said yes.

It was a great night of Mets baseball and Mets baseball talk. I learned about the Cora connection. I learned about the Carlos May connection. I learned Mike was a warm human being beyond the persona he offered as a podcaster. On those pre-Zoom conference calls, he addressed every topic in full paragraphs, with genuine authority. Not a know-it-all, just somebody who would give whatever he was asked real thought, and then express his belief without equivocation. He was always willing to listen to differing opinions and respond respectfully — he shifted seamlessly from monologue to dialogue — but I admired that he had what he was going to say figured out and could express it without any hint of artifice. Mike the podcaster didn’t put on.

On our Saturday night at Citi Field, Mike the Mets fan who didn’t despise the Yankees was plenty easygoing, a pleasure to spend nine innings in the company of. I told him I was sort of in awe of the voice he presented. He was shocked that anybody noticed. He swore he wasn’t aware he was doing anything special. I’m glad I could communicate to him that communicating Mets and baseball thoughts to others with authenticity and élan was a gift in our world, and that I appreciated the way he went about delivering that part of himself. I could say the same for his writing, which he pursued under the guise of the Brooklyn Trolley Blogger. Mike covered the waterfront of New York sports, past and present, and he wrote on the Web like he talked on the pod. Check out his tribute to his youthful idolizing of Tom Seaver. If you thought you’d read everything there was to read about how a Mets fan might miss Tom Terrific nearly five years ago, you’ll find out you still maintain untapped emotions.

As Mike wrote in September of 2020, “Time has no mercy. We know this well. We’re just never ready for news like this. It needs a moment to sink in, then in rushes the heartbreaking sense of loss.” That was Mike Lecolant on Tom Seaver. It also described what it was like for me to learn that Mike Lecolant died earlier this month at age 58. I suppose I knew it was coming. Mike contacted me on the eve of the 2022 season to tell me had been diagnosed with ALS. He wasn’t telling me out of any sense of self-pity, but because now, while he had time and was still able to do some things, he had a few questions about researching a baseball topic close to his heart and maybe putting together a book. I offered a few thoughts, and he thanked me. I’d be on A Metsian Podcast with him a couple more times after that. His literal voice was still strong the first time, not so much the last time.

When Sam let me know of Mike Lecolant’s passing on May 7, it wasn’t surprising, but it still packed a punch. Knowing it was coming didn’t soften the blow. But knowing Mike through his felicity with the spoken word and the written word, not to mention quite a few friendly words between us, was a blessing. I’m happy the Mets beat the Yankees on Saturday afternoon. I’m happy I knew Mike Lecolant. I’m happy Mike Lecolant found room in his heart for both Tom Seaver of the Mets and Carlos May of the Yankees. Any time is a good time to count various blessings.