Saturday afternoon at Citi Field served as the site several notable transformations. Christian Scott, previously 0-for-15 in his attempts to gain a desirable decision, became a major league winner. Hayden Senger, who bats ninth only because there’s no lower slot listed on a standard lineup card, reintroduced himself as a major league slugger. Bobby Valentine and Lee Mazzilli had spent decades as de facto New York Mets legends. Now they are certified New York Mets Hall of Famers. I couldn’t say I’d been to a game this year. That situation received an update, too.
It was a good day to find oneself inside this particular ballpark. It was a good day for the Mets to find themselves. They’ve pinged quite a bit between lost and found since snapping their dozen-game losing streak, usually settling into a state of lost, occasionally after it appeared they’d found some footing. No evidence exists that their current three-game winning streak portends genuine traction. There was a 5-1 homestand two weeks ago that led into a 2-5 road trip, with two more losses awaiting them when they returned to Flushing. If there’s a reason to infer maybe this time will be different, perhaps it can be divined from the definitiveness of the 6-1 victory over the Marlins. It wasn’t a laugher. It couldn’t be termed never in doubt. Yet for a refreshing change, you didn’t leave it thinking it could have easily gotten away.
You started it not knowing what to make of it. Scott’s dominance in the early innings was exhilarating. The offense was exasperating. Too many bunts and not a few boos. Yet the bats broke through in the bottom of the fourth, staking the heretofore deprived Christian (with already 8 Ks) to a 3-0 lead. His mission immediately became one of perseverance: get three outs without giving up three runs. Get yourself in a position to finally win yourself a game. Don’t give your manager an excuse to pull you back into ND or Worse Land.
It took 22 pitches on top of the 74 he’d already thrown. It meant bending just enough to allow one Marlin to cross the plate. It meant the bullpen heating up, because the bullpen is always set to simmer when Christian Scott gets as far as the fifth inning. But son of a gun, the kid did it. He got out of the fifth with his edge largely intact. If Christian Scott wasn’t Mike Scott at his Astro apex, he was at least reminiscent of Mike Scott from his Met apprenticeship. Mike Scott won fourteen games as a Met between 1979 and 1982. Christian Scott has now won one.
The latter-day Scott won because he had, among other assets, a 21st-century aggregation of Lee Mazzilli on his side. They don’t make ’em like Mazz anymore, but Mark Vientos — “Swaggy V” to some — at the bat drove home the first two runs on a double to deep left, while A.J. Ewing in center ran down the long fly ball that resulted from Scott’s final pitch. It was the kind of catch Mazzilli made with regularity, the kind of catch that had Mets fans in Mazz’s day certain of Lee’s impending superstardom. That and his Vientos-like flair.
When asked before the Hall of Fame ceremonies for his observations on the 2026 Mets, Mazz singled out Ewing and Carson Benge as his reasons for optimism, adding pitching is a must. Benge, like Ewing, made a very nice play on Saturday. The pitching during Scott’s start and following his departure couldn’t have been more effective. Cionel Perez, the lefty reliever getting warm behind Christian, brought his hirsute best to the mound in the sixth as he made his Met bow. Perez is the 23rd new Met of a season that’s barely a third over. You keep rolling out players, maybe you’ll get the optimal combination. Cionel was succeeded by better known quantities Huascar Brazobán, Austin Warren, and Devin Williams. The Marlins never meaningfully touched any of them.
Catching all of them was Senger, the fence-busting backstop who made a mockery of his placement in the nine-hole (Vidal Bruján batted eighth) when he lifted a fly ball in the seventh to left, a real Ralph Kiner special. Going…going…it just kept going until it was gone. Hayden’s was the second Met home run of the day. An inning earlier, Jared Young bopped his first of the season. Senger and Young thus joined Eric Wagaman and MJ Melendez in the sudden power surge club. The Roosevelt Avenue Irregulars are having quite a week.
I was delighted to take in the exploits of the current Mets, regardless of the thinness of their portfolios, but I was at Citi Field on Saturday mainly to celebrate the inductions of Mazz and Bobby V into the team Hall. My idea of a celebration is securing a press credential and asking a question at the inductees’ press conference. I did both. I asked Lee for his reflections on the Magic is Back summer of 1980, when for a few months a Mets fan could believe his perpetually cloud-shrouded ballclub had emerged into the sunshine of genuine contention. Mazz with responded thoughtfully and generously. Valentine chimed in with some revealing and entertaining anecdotes as well. Neither came close to answering the specific question I asked (Bobby V wasn’t a Met in 1980), but it was their day. I’ll take down whatever they say and be appreciative they said it.
Eras. Auras.
I am appreciative that Bobby Valentine and Lee Mazzilli are Mets Hall of Famers. They constitute a Mets Hall of Fame class like it oughta be. Twenty-nine other franchises are not inducting Lee Mazzilli into anything. Maybe the Texas Rangers would give Bobby a bit of a nod for the boost he briefly gave them, but he, like Lee, is a Met all the way. His greatest successes were for us. And if you needed further proof that Bobby Valentine was a born Met, go listen to his speech. He spoke fluent Stengelese, albeit in his own dialect. My theory is Bobby knows exactly what he’s talking about and he’s gonna go from first to home to get to make his point whether or not a third base coach as skilled as he was in that role puts up the stop sign or not. Stray details might get called out on further review, but you’re not of a mind to challenge a thing he’s saying. It’s too much fun to listen to him.
I’m not much for interpreting body language, but I thought it incredibly telling that when Carlos Mendoza was doing his daily Q&A with the media and Mendy was thoughtful enough to acknowledge the Hall of Famers, who were already in the room, Bobby V rushed forth to the edge of the stage. It was all pretty informal, but a touch awkward, because, well, nobody had asked him to come to the front of the room. “Am I supposed to be up here yet?” He was told, politely, no. It was good for a laugh. It was also good for a reminder of how Bobby Valentine attracted the derisive nickname of Top Step from rival managers who didn’t care for his…let’s call it Bobbyness. Like I said, first to home without hesitation. The Bobby V ethos pushed us further than appeared possible in 1997 and kept us going clear to the final days of 2001. Bobby V can stand anywhere he wants. I doubt a Bobby V would get hired to manage by a modern baseball executive, but it’s a moot point. They don’t make managers like Bobby Valentine anymore.
Lee Mazzilli was demure only by comparison to his old roommate. Otherwise, Sheepshead Bay was very much in the house when he declared he might not be the best player in the Mets Hall of Fame, but he is the proudest. Like Valentine, Mazzilli’s leading qualification for induction into this august body might be his having been the avatar for his era. “The Lee Mazzilli Mets” evoke a place and time that nobody else could as easily front. Use any other Met’s name, and even if you don’t mean to, you come off as a little too ironic or even cruel. Remember the Lee Mazzilli Mets, and you remember the best days of some less than great years. Hell, I saw Lee and wanted to talk only about three splendid months from 46 years ago. Think I cared if that particular edition of the Lee Mazzilli Mets went 67-95 overall? They went 47-39 in the middle of the 1980 season. They stayed in the race until August. Tell me more! Tell me more! Oh, those summer nights…
“The Bobby Valentine Mets” also has a Budweiser quality to its shorthand. When you say Bobby V, you’d said it all as regards those teams that competed like mad, made the playoffs twice in a row, and went to the World Series the second of those golden seasons. You wouldn’t run the risk of being misunderstood if you referred to the Mike Piazza Mets regarding 1999 and 2000, but Mike was a celebrity before he got here. Bobby Valentine’s baseball career was colorful and intermittently accomplished before he took over for Dallas Green in August of 1996, but he really became Bobby V for the ages once he commenced managing the Mets. The Mets were certainly never the same, at least until he was dismissed, and the Mets reverted to a little too much the same as they’d been pre-Valentine. More than any individual player who straddled the millennia, Bobby V was the Chemical X that explained our Mojo’s rise.
On my way out of Citi Field, I paused at the top of the Rotunda for an up-close look at the two newly installed HOF plaques. One for Lee Mazzilli. One for Bobby Valentine. That’s not what every Hall of Fame should have, yet it’s exactly what a Mets Hall of Fame needed to feel like it’s unmistakably ours.
Lee Mazzilli conducted himself with admirable humility and gratitude during the ceremony.
Steve and Alex and Carlos were on the field (taking their boos), but where oh where was David Stearns? The whole world knew he’d get booed the worst. Any metrics could have told you that.
I got Maz’ autograph in the Summer of 1977 when the Mets had a Bowling Night at Gil Hodges Lanes in Canarsie, Brooklyn, and Jerry Grote outbowled the great Mark Roth.
Me an my friends were too young to go into the bar, so one of my friend’s older sisters went into the bar and came out with 3 Maz autographs, one for each of us.
Good Times.