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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Greg Prince on 22 September 2013 3:17 am The Mets won a truncated game in Philadelphia Saturday night. Though earlier this year we were subject to a plethora of unnecessarily lengthened contests, this version of baseball aberration — six innings and change before the rain made itself unstoppably intrusive — seems more fitting for the 2013 Mets, given that almost every 2013 Met has played a shortened season.
Wilfredo Tovar is set to become the 53rd Met to see action this year, a year on the verge of finishing behind only 1967 (54) for most Mets used. That’ll happen when your players don’t make it from one end of the season to another.
As was first divined and reported here and widely disseminated without attribution since, the only Mets to start 2013 and (presumably) end 2013 without wandering off to other organizations, lesser leagues or disabled lists have been Saturday night’s winner Dillon Gee, dependable Daniel Murphy and officially ageless LaTroy Hawkins. Everybody else has been a comer, a goer or, when things went reasonably well, a returnee.
Things went reasonably well for August hamstring victim David Wright. He’s returned. During the seven weeks he was out…
• the Met seasons of Matt Harvey, Ike Davis, Jeremy Hefner, Jenrry Mejia, Robert Carson, Scott Rice, Ruben Tejada and Zack Wheeler came to a definitive end;
• the Met careers of John Buck and Marlon Byrd definitively concluded.
• the Met careers of Wilmer Flores, Travis d’Arnaud, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Matt den Dekker, Vic Black, Sean Henn, Aaron Harang and Juan Centeno definitively began;
• the dormant Met careers of Tim Byrdak, Frank Francisco, Mike Baxter and Zach Lutz each resumed;
• and somewhere in there, Jon Niese was routinely reactivated, Lucas Duda was reluctantly recalled and Bobby Parnell subjected himself to surgery.
With so many Mets who have been lost or perhaps just misplaced, it has been reassuring to rediscover David Wright in the middle of the Met lineup these past two nights. He produced a homer Friday and another homer Saturday. He’s provided a pedigreed major league presence that had been missing since he came up lame against the Royals on August 2. And he’s manned third base like he was born there.
Which he wasn’t, though that fact was hard to remember until we were forced to by circumstance.
In the 45 games Wright missed, four different Mets started at third base and a fifth filled in for a couple of innings. The ol’ notorious Mets Third Base Count had to be dusted off to accommodate the additions of Wilmer Flores (No. 151) on August 6 and Omar Quintanilla (No. 152) on September 15. True, Wright’s injury triggered a boom for obsessive Met listmakers, but it wasn’t worth the shortfall it created on offense, defense or special teams. Mind you, it’s not that anybody who played in the Captain’s absence — including Zach Lutz (No. 150), Josh Satin (No. 147) and Justin Turner (No. 141) — was irredemably bad from August 3 through September 19.
It’s just that they weren’t David Wright (No. 129).
David Wright has played 1,359 games at third base for the New York Mets. Is that a lot? It really is. Never mind that he now outdistances his mentor and runner-up Howard Johnson (No. 78) by more than 500 games. Never mind that Wright’s 1,359 is more games at third than the combination of the third basemen in third and fourth place — Wayne Garrett (No. 40) and Hubie Brooks (No. 68). Instead, keep in mind Wright’s grip on third relative to other Mets in other spots.
MOST METS GAMES PLAYED BY DEFENSIVE POSITION
3B David Wright 1,359
1B Ed Kranepool 1,302
SS Bud Harrelson 1,280
C Jerry Grote 1,176
RF Darryl Strawberry 1,062
CF Mookie Wilson 907
LF Cleon Jones 800
2B Wally Backman 680
Source: Ultimate Mets Database
Wally Backman (No. 69), incidentally, played 8 games at third base between 1981 and 1983, while Jerry Grote (No. 28) logged 18 games at third, with 2 as early as 1966 and 11 as late as 1977. One of the hallmarks of Mets third base when the counting was frequent and furious, you see, was the out-of-position planting of players you wouldn’t normally associate with third base at third base.
Backman? He wasn’t yet established as a starting second baseman, so in a utility role it wasn’t crazy to see what he could do at third. But Grote? The greatest defensive catcher the Mets ever had shuffled off to third?
Why not? It was the Metropolitan way to take fellas better known for playing other positions and trying them at third when all else failed or the bench was disturbingly bare. It explains, to various extents, how outfielders Frank Thomas (No. 6), Jim Hickman (No. 15), Amos Otis (No. 36) and Elliott Maddox (No. 59) were trotted over to third and put through some less than ideal paces. Alleged “versatility” is what made Dave Kingman (No. 51) a third baseman for a dozen games in 1975. A marathon punctuated by a brawl is responsible for Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter (No. 80) landing on third. Talents better suited to DH indicate why Gregg Jefferies (No. 84) was given ample opportunity where he was decidedly unsuited.
The tradition of anybody and everybody being given a whirl on the far left side began early and often in Mets lore. Don Zimmer (No. 1) was given less than a month to prove he couldn’t hack it. Zim’s ostensible replacement, Cliff Cook (No. 5), stopped being a Met after two months. During a two-day period in 1963, the Mets tried four new third basemen: Chico Fernandez (No. 11), Larry Burright (No. 12), Al Moran (No. 13) and Ron Hunt (No. 14). Hunt retained a bright future at second — presaging by three decades the career trajectory of Jeff Kent (No. 94). The rest would be gone from the Mets before 1964 was over…by which time Sammy Samuel (No. 19), Wayne Graham (No. 20) and Bobby Klaus (No. 21) would solidify third base’s reputation as hard to solve.
Once the Mets had put six seasons in the books — in that Grand Central Terminal year of 1967 — they had tried 38 different third basemen, or more than six wholly new faces per year. The sole survivor from that band of hot cornerers, at least from a still-at-third standpoint, was Ed Charles (No. 32). The Glider glided into 1969 where he shared primary tertiary-base responsibilities with Garrett and Bobby Pfeil (No. 41). It was good enough to add up to a world championship.
Alas, Charles and Pfeil didn’t see 1970, Metwise, while Joe Foy (No. 42), Bob Aspromonte (No. 44), Jim Fregosi (No. 46) and Joe Torre (No. 48) were all hailed as veteran answers as the decade proceeded. Inevitably, though the question reverted to “why not Garrett?” At this momentous moment in 1973, Wayne was all the third baseman the Mets would ever need. Yet within two years, the reliable redhead was being shunted aside in favor of prospective wunderkind Roy Staiger (No. 50).
But Staiger didn’t last. Nor did one-year whiz Lenny Randle (No. 54) or bright-eyed utility guy Bobby Valentine (No. 57), never mind sourpuss extraordinaire Richie Hebner (No. 62). You could be a catcher like John Stearns (No. 60) or Alex Treviño (No. 61) or Mackey Sasser (No. 82) and get a shot at third. You could be iron-gloved like Phil Mankowski (No. 64) or easing to the end of the line like Mike Cubbage (No. 70) or potentially able but obstinately unwilling like Joel Youngblood (No. 56).
Or you could simply be Rich Puig (No. 47), no discernible relation to Yasiel.
You could go on like this, but you get the idea. A lot of Mets dross at third base for seasons on end. A little gold here and there, but with luster of a limited nature or tenure. There’d be a Hubie or a HoJo getting the job done admirably until another assignment beckoned. There’d be a Ray Knight (No. 76) winning a World Series MVP award (but then being shown the door), an Edgardo Alfonzo (No. 100) establishing himself as a pro’s pro (but then accepting a request to focus on second) and a Robin Ventura (No. 114) doing everything you could ask for a while (but then rapidly aging).
Yet across a maturing franchise’s middle age of sifting through what was left of Garry Templeton (No. 89) and Carlos Baerga (No. 103) and John Valentin (No. 123) and Jay Bell (No. 126) while deciphering if there was anything at all to Craig Shipley (No. 86) and Junior Noboa (No. 91) and Aaron Ledesma (No. 101) and Alvaro Espinoza (No. 104) and Kevin Morgan (No. 106) and Shawn Gilbert (No. 110) and Jim Tatum (No. 112) and David Lamb (No. 120), all the way up to whatever it was the Mets saw in Ricky Gutierrez (No. 128), we waited for the count to slow not just chronologically but conceptually. We waited for the third baseman who would so impress for so long that after many a summer we would have to explain that believe it or not, third base wasn’t always a Met strength.
We waited 42½ seasons for No. 129 to arrive and endure. An unfortunate seven-week hiatus that separated us from him just reminded us why.
by Greg Prince on 21 September 2013 11:25 am Forty years ago tonight, the Mets were hosting Pittsburgh, sitting in second place, a half-game behind the front-running Pirates in the N.L. East with a record of 76-77…and they were about to post one of the 500 most Amazin’ wins of their first 50 years.
From The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973)…
***
The Mets commenced to grabbing. As of September 12, they had won nine of thirteen. They’d take an additional three of four as they headed into Pittsburgh to begin their two-city, five-game showdown against the Bucs. They’d lose one, then win the next three. And finally, on the evening of September 21, they ascended to where nobody in his right mind would have predicted the morning of August 31.
Tom Seaver threw a Friday night five-hitter while his teammates pounded luckless Steve Blass and five Pirate relievers to beat the Bucs at Shea, 10-2. In a four-day span in September, an unprecedented Metamorphosis occurred. The Mets not only picked up one game per day in the standings, they picked up one place per day. From fourth and 3½ out after Monday, they climbed to first and a half-game up on Friday. It had been barely three weeks since they were in last place. Now they were in first place. And for good measure, they brought their record to 77-77, .500 for the first time since they were 21-21 on May 29.
Everybody else was under .500, but only the Phillies could be written off as out of it. The Pirates trailed by that half-game, the Cards by one, the Expos by one-and-a-half and the lately undead Cubs by two-and-a-half. The National League East was still up for grabs, but there was no mistaking that it was the first-place Mets — on a four-game winning streak and a 16-6 roll — who had chosen the ideal moment to make their play.
They’d grabbed hold of a lead. With eight games left, the challenge would now turn to holding on to it.
***
What happened next?
You’ll find out when you read The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973).
Print edition available here.
Kindle version available here.
Personally inscribed copy available here.
Pick up The Happiest Recap and get the whole Amazin’ story of the Mets’ most unbelievable stretch drive ever…and everything else.
by Jason Fry on 20 September 2013 11:33 pm Imagine if the men who rule baseball reduced each team’s schedule to its most elemental struggle. The Yankees and Red Sox would play each other 162 times — 81 in New York and 81 in Fenway — with at least 130 of those games shown on ESPN or FOX. (This would lead to only a slight uptick in media coverage.)
This current incarnation of the Mets would be best shown crawling in and out of MRI tubes and nervously eyeing debtholders, with the media tut-tutting about the former and ignoring the existence of the latter. But failing that, we could play the Phillies 162 times — all of them at Citizens Bank.
Hear me out: It would work. Citi Field would become a combination Brooklyn Dodgers museum and Shake Shack, with lots of seats and the occasional concert by some has-been band. Now that Ruben Amaro Jr. has lost his mind, Phillies fans are beginning to return to the sour apathy they’ve displayed for most of their 130 seasons. A couple more bad seasons and their park will be half-empty, leaving plenty of room for what’s left of our tattered fan base. So we’ll bring our road grays, Mr. Met and play 162 down there.
The games we play at Citizens Bank generally aren’t superb displays of baseball. They’re more like pro wrestling — you’re basically guaranteed a ludicrous reversal of fortune or two, a conspicuous display of boneheadedness, a controversial call, and some grousing and woofing before it’s all over. Sometimes they beat the crap out of us, sometimes we beat the crap out of them, and sometimes we beat the crap out of each other until eventually one guy crawls away. It’s high drama and low comedy at the same time, and generally pretty fun.
Take tonight. No, there wasn’t much juice in the meeting. Both teams are trudging to the finish line of sub-.500 seasons (in a division where only one team will want to remember 2013) and the lineups were not exactly marquee matchups. Surveying the lineup, I thought to myself, “Well, I see Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley, but who are the rest of these idiots?” I’m sure I could have rung up a Phillie pal or 10 who’d ask about the seven dwarfs following around Daniel Murphy and David Wright.
But, again, Mets-Phils in Citizens Bank Park. Even with the JV out there, it worked.
It worked because David Wright is awesome in Philadelphia, no matter the state of his legs. (Remember, he’s awesome everywhere.) He stepped off the disabled list, took one pitch for old time’s sake, and then smacked the second one into the right-field seats to give the Mets a 3-0 lead and Wright second place on the club list for career homers, taking over from Mike Piazza. (I’d like to say Wright will overhaul Darryl Strawberry next September, but his recent injury history suggests May 2015.) Eric Young Jr. stole his 40th base (32nd in blue and orange), Daniel Murphy stole his 20th (20th in blue and orange) to go along with three hits, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched decently enough despite some dopey defense behind him, and Juan Lagares looked lost at the plate but made one of his usual graceful, quietly awesome Beltranesque grabs. Most importantly, the Mets won.
Meanwhile, Cole Hamels hasn’t pitched well against us since running his mouth in late 2008, and his failings are always wonderful to watch. Hamels was down 3-0 before he recorded an out, did his best to annoy umpires and was his usual gawkily truculent self. He pitched poorly but the Mets couldn’t knock him out, got a new lease on life when the Mets commenced to play stupid, and then wound up the loser anyway. Baseball like it oughta be, in other words.
Mets 6, Phils 4. Not much to play for — in fact, given the reverse race for protected draft picks, you can debate whether it’s worth winning at all — but who doesn’t walk with a lighter step and an easier smile after beating the Phillies in their own house? Let’s do it again tomorrow. Hell, next year let’s play 162.
by Greg Prince on 20 September 2013 2:08 pm Forty years ago tonight, the Mets were hosting Pittsburgh, tied for third place, 1½ games behind the front-running Pirates in the N.L. East with a record of 75-77…and they were about to post one of the 500 most Amazin’ wins of their first 50 years.
From The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973)…
***
It was time to carefully remove the m-word from the ark in which it had been kept undisturbed for nearly four years, for the Mets were about to perform the most sacred act the faith of their fans permitted.
It was time for a miracle.
But first, the relatively mundane from this about-to-be extraordinary Thursday night at Shea Stadium:
• Jerry Koosman pitched eight innings, struck out eight Pirates and allowed only one unearned run, which unfortunately put him behind, 1-0, because Jim Rooker had held the Mets scoreless through seven.
• Jim Beauchamp, making the final regular-season appearance of his ten-year career, pinch-hit for Koosman to lead off the bottom of the eighth and singled. After he was pinch-run for by Teddy Martinez, and Martinez was bunted to second by Wayne Garrett, Felix Millan singled home the tying run.
• Harry Parker, usually a rookie revelation in Yogi Berra’s bullpen, came on to preserve the tie in the top of the ninth but couldn’t quite do the job. Two runners were on when Dave Cash doubled one of them in to return the Pirates to their lead, 2-1.
• Bob Johnson, who pitched two games for the 1969 Mets, was tabbed by Danny Murtaugh to finish off his old team. A win here would erase the Mets’ recent momentum, leaving them 2½ back with a scheduled nine to play. It wouldn’t clinch anything for the Pirates, because others were still alive and contending, but it would put a crimp in the Mets’ plans, no matter much they Believed. But Johnson allowed a leadoff pinch-single to Ken Boswell and a sacrifice bunt to Don Hahn before exiting for Ramon Hernandez.
• Hernandez struck out pinch-hitter George Theodore for the second out of the ninth, but another pinch-hitter, Duffy Dyer, delivered a double, scoring Boswell to tie the game at two.
• The two teams went to extra innings, as Yogi Berra went to veteran swingman Ray Sadecki. Sadecki gave Yogi three perfect innings. The Mets, meanwhile, failed to score against Jim McKee and Luke Walker. The game would go to a thirteenth inning, when Sadecki, with one out, would allow his first hit, a single to Richie Zisk. After he retired Manny Sanguillen for the second out of the inning, he faced September callup Dave Augustine.
This is where The Miracle occurs.
This is where it’s best left to Bob Murphy to deliver The Word:
“The two-one pitch…
“Hit in the air to left field, it’s deep…
“Back goes Jones, BY THE FENCE…
“It hits the TOP of the fence, comes back in play…
“Jones grabs it!
“The relay throw to the plate, they may get him…
“…HE’S OUT!
“He’s out at the plate!
“An INCREDIBLE play!”
If you’re scoring at home, the interpretation would be 7-6-2, Cleon Jones to Wayne Garrett to Ron Hodges, the rookie catcher who ascended to the Mets’ starting lineup for much of the summer from Double-A Memphis because of injuries. Zisk, the runner from first, tied a piano to his back when he took off around the bases. The man was slow. But The Man Upstairs was quick-thinking. He (or Something) prevented what looked like, on Channel 9, a certain goner for Augustine from landing in the left field bullpen for what would have been his first — and only — major league home run. Had the ball made it past the wall, the Mets would have been down, 5-3.
But it didn’t go quite far enough, at least from a Pirate perspective. It bounced off the very top of the fence and caromed right back into Cleon’s glove. He made a strong throw to Garrett, who made a strong throw to Hodges, who made a strong stand in front of the plate, bringing down an emphatic tag on Zisk.
“The ball hit the corner and it just popped up to me,” Jones recounted. “I didn’t think he hit it high enough to go over. I knew the ball was gonna hit the fence, but it could’ve gone anywhere.”
Garrett, who had moved to shortstop from his usual third base in the tenth after Bud Harrelson had been pinch-hit for, aimed low when he made his relay throw to Hodges. “I wanted it to hit the ground,” Wayne said, and he got his wish. The ball arrived in Hodges’s mitt the same time Zisk was charging into Hodges’s body. The kid catcher held the ball, and home plate ump John McSherry held his right arm upwards, signaling the lumbering Pirate runner out.
“It has to be one of the most remarkable plays I ever saw,” Garrett swore.
***
What happened next?
You’ll find out when you read The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973).
Print edition available here.
Kindle version available here.
Personally inscribed copy available here.
Pick up The Happiest Recap and get the whole Amazin’ story of the Mets’ most unbelievable stretch drive ever…and everything else.
by Greg Prince on 20 September 2013 1:34 pm I wonder what Mets ownership thought as it looked out the windows from its counting house Thursday afternoon and observed a Citi Field whose live gate was probably 70% (at least) Giants fans. I’m guessing there were two competing thoughts besides, “Hey, look — people!”
1) “What a disgrace that our team has fallen so far by so many measures that the only way we can place posteriors in seats is to be fortunate enough to play an opponent with an unusually rabid following.”
2) “First thing tomorrow morning, let’s call Bud Selig and petition to be realigned into the N.L. West so we can get two more visits a year from these guys. The Giants are gold!”
Maybe I don’t want to know the answer.
Tuesday night there was a vocal and visible Giants fan presence. Wednesday it grew louder and larger, even if it was subdued at the last minute. Thursday, the Mets might as well have dressed in road grays.
I’ve sat outshouted and close to outnumbered in Flushing from time to time by Yankees fans, Phillies fans, Cubs fans and McGwire fans. I felt a bit inundated by the latter-day Giant hordes on the heels of their 2010 world championship early in the 2011 and 2012 seasons. But I swear, never in my 567 regular-season and postseason home Met games, had I found myself so relegated to de facto visitor status in my own park.
There was no fighting it, not without a replay of Zach Lutz and Josh Satin rising to Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda levels of performance,…and we didn’t get that during Thursday’s more typically deflating ninth inning. We tried. As Matt den Dekker actually reached second base, I was joined in ginning up a representative “LET’S GO METS!” by my companions for the day, prolific Met author Matt Silverman and ace WFAN update anchor Bob Heussler (the fella Mike Francesa affectionately/condescendingly refers to as “Mr. Met”; head-size differences notwithstanding, the moniker is well-earned), but we and whatever other hardy souls who rose to orally defend the homeland were no match for that which was black and orange and heard all over. The noise meter, intended to rouse the Flushing faithful, only brought out richer and deeper chants of “LET’S GO GI-ANTS!” which is not how it’s supposed to work.
Matt, Bob and I were none too happy with the proportion of Giants fans to Mets fans, particularly the gaudy dimensions of their accoutrement. (What Bob suggested he’d do to the Giants flag waving nearby if he could have gotten his hands on it is something that could only be aired on seven-second delay.) Of course we didn’t approve. It’s bad enough when your team is concluding a 4-7 homestand and packing a 68-84 record for its final road trip of the year. But to have to wonder where the hell this alleged home game was transpiring was just too large an insult to add atop the overflowing hamper of injuries.
Now that I’m 24 hours removed from exposure to Giants Fever, I’m not quite as riled about it, but I’m convinced it wasn’t a good sign for the long-term health of Mets baseball. I could decide I truly hate the San Francisco Giants, but once Santiago Casilla struck out Anthony Recker (with physically unable to play Justin Turner no doubt spooking Bruce Bochy from the on-deck circle), they went back to essentially harmless and perhaps helpful. I instructed one clump of self-satisfied San Francisco fans to “make yourselves useful this weekend in the Bronx.” They promised, “We’ll kick the Yankees’ ass like it’s the 1962 World Series!” (Great, they’re gonna lose in seven heartbreaking, rain-soaked games.)
I can’t blame Giants fans for materializing in droves when their team comes to town. Their record is nearly as bad as ours, but it didn’t diminish their enthusiasm one iota. From whence did this invasion emanate? Who composes this mob? My guess is Northern California expatriates; front-runners who don’t check the standings too often; kitschy-culty types who latch on to Timmy and Panda and Angel; old-time New York baseball Tories and/or their descendants; and perhaps San Franciscans splurging on a six-day big city holiday. However they came to converge, busloads of Giants fans saw fit to descend on Citi Field on a Thursday afternoon, and Citi Field had no legal means of turning them away.
If the thousands and thousands of Giants fans weren’t there yesterday, that would leave the hundreds and…no just the hundreds of Mets fans who attended. The theoretical cause of filling Citi Field with nothing but the cream of Metsopotamia, thereby precluding the admission of enemy ass, is a noble one, but it’s not mandatory in our free-market system. It may not have been convenient let alone desirable for a critical mass of Mets fans to have shown up on this particular weekday afternoon. Besides, around here, folks tend to check the standings on the reg.
The larger issue isn’t that the secondary ticket market or Internet-enabled travel makes a nominal Mets home game an ideal destination for a visiting fan. It’s that the Mets have lost with disturbing frequency in 2013 much as they lost in 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009. Nuance aside, every year has felt pretty much the same by the time September is groggily getting itself over with. There is no winning tradition attached to Citi Field, which has established itself five seasons in as — to borrow a phrase from Stephen Colbert — a haunted house of loss and regret.
It’s never more evident than it is in September, a month that has yet to do more than technically exist in a Metsian vein since the current ballpark replaced the former ballpark. These recent anticlimactic endings might have unfolded just as sadly at Shea as they have at Citi (lord knows Shea wasn’t always rocking in September, no matter what Fran Healy excitedly reported), but at Citi, we have no precedent to know what a September with people and possibility feels like. Unless those people are Giants fans and that possibility is a protected draft pick.
Fred Wilpon is ruefully reminded of his unintentionally classic “meaningful games in September” line every year that the Mets’ chances to contend expire well short of the pocket schedule’s final boxes. What’s missed in that easy shot is every September game the Mets have ever played at Citi Field has been meaningful. Most days and nights have meant the Mets are a miserable product and Mets fans would prefer not to invest another scintilla of their valuable time and limited money in it. The Giants series, on the other hand, meant that no matter how numb you think you are to the indignities inherent in remaining loyal to this mud-stuck enterprise, you can still be taken aback by how much the continual losing and the echoing loneliness stings.
by Jason Fry on 19 September 2013 10:44 pm After last night’s thriller, today’s game was almost certain to be a letdown — but unfortunately it was worse than that. It was the inverse of last night, with the key plays going minutely but decisively the Giants’ way. Omar Quintanilla and Daniel Murphy were just a bit slow trying to turn the double play with runners on the corners and one out in the fourth, giving San Francisco what would be a decisive second run. With the tying run on third and two out in the sixth, Wilmer Flores cracked a hard grounder off Madison Bumgarner’s foot that took a funhouse bounce to Buster Posey at first. And with two out in the ninth and Matt den Dekker at second, Anthony Recker’s bit for Satinesque glory was denied — the hard shot he hit down the third-base line was foul by a couple of inches.
So it goes sometimes, in good years and bad. And now we’re down to the Mets’ pursuit of being bad enough to sign free agents without surrendering a first-round pick (because we’re of course going to sign notable free agents), and to awaiting the arrival of Wilfredo Tovar, slated to be Met No. 968 in The Holy Books. (Call off your vigils — he had a 2012 Bowman Chrome card I’d missed.)
Oh — and we’ll get David Wright back, probably tomorrow night in Philadelphia. Wright’s apparently still sore, but determined to give the few remaining fans some chunk of their money’s worth. (He’d also like to hit in Philadelphia — David Wright is no fool.)
If that seems like thin gruel as the fire burns down and winter begins to growl at the door, don’t mutter. You’ll tell your grandchildren how David Wright was one of the few things that kept us going through these lean years, and how awesome it was to see his faith and ours repaid with those three consecutive titles. Well, at least the first part.
Earlier this summer a little moment reminded me of why I should never take Wright for granted. The Mets were in D.C., and Wright wound up near the stands, in possession of a ball that had landed foul. He looked into the seats and found himself a few feet from three fans — a pretty young woman wearing a Nats top and two dudes in Mets gear who could charitably be described as nondescript.
The woman in the Nats top beamed at Wright. The dudes kind of stood there. Wright looked at her, hesitated — and handed the ball to one of the Mets fans.
We don’t deserve him, I thought — not for the first time, and not for the last.
by Greg Prince on 19 September 2013 10:14 am Forty years ago tonight, the Mets were hosting Pittsburgh, sitting in fourth place, 2½ games behind the front-running Pirates in the N.L. East with a record of 74-77…and they were about to post one of the 500 most Amazin’ wins of their first 50 years.
From The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973)…
***
These two contenders go back and forth in the early innings. The Pirates strike first on a leadoff home run by Rennie Stennett off George Stone. Cleon Jones one-ups Stennett by smacking a two-run homer off Nelson Briles in the second. Advantage Mets. Stennett returns with a vengeance in the third by tripling and scoring on Dave Cash’s single to left. Advantage Pirates? Felix Millan grabs back the momentum on behalf of the Mets when he singles home the .271-batting Stone, who had led off the inning by helping his own cause (something decent-hitting Mets pitchers were known to do for much of the first half-century of Mets baseball).
The Mets’ 3-2 lead grew by a run in the fifth when Jerry Grote doubled, Bud Harrelson singled and Stone grounded to second. That insurance policy became a smart buy when Stone was befallen by an act of Pops: Willie Stargell, who hit more home runs against the Mets than any opponent in the team’s history, delivered per usual. Luckily, Stargell’s sixth-inning blast was a solo job, so the Mets still held a 4-3 lead when George left after six.
Stone’s successor was Tug McGraw, Yogi Berra’s favorite reliever in September — everybody’s favorite reliever in September, but it was Berra who wouldn’t or couldn’t wait to use him. Firemen, as closers were known then, weren’t kept on ice for the ninth. McGraw came bounding onto the mound in the seventh and wasn’t particularly sharp. He walked pinch-hitter Gene Clines and surrendered a pinch-single to Fernando Gonzalez. The runners wound up on second and third with one out, but Tug stiffened as he almost always did in September 1973, popping up Stennett and grounding out Cash.
***
What happened next?
You’ll find out when you read The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973).
Print edition available here.
Kindle version available here.
Personally inscribed copy available here.
Pick up The Happiest Recap and get the whole Amazin’ story of the Mets’ most unbelievable stretch drive ever…and everything else.
by Jason Fry on 19 September 2013 12:09 am After eight and a half innings, I had a little roadmap of tonight’s post scrawled on a bit of scratch paper:
- Another chapter of Mets payroll football, starring Sandy Alderson as Charlie Brown
- Criticism of/sympathy for Matt Harvey, with Qualcomm jokes
- Tip of the cap to Gary Cohen, memories of his jubilant calls from 1999
- Oh yeah, the game was could-break-spies horrible
- Except for Juan Centeno
- 1999 sure was more fun than 2013
Does that sound fun to read? It didn’t sound fun to write, either. As Andrew Brown stepped in against Santiago Casilla, with Brown’s resume for the evening showing two Ks, a flyout, a horrible error and (though not yet revealed) breaking Ruben Tejada’s leg, I gave a little sigh and tried not to regard the soon-to-be-written recap like a lunchtime trip to the DMV. I love baseball and I love to write. It stinks dreading both.
Well, GET ME BLOG REWRITE!!!!
I don’t like writing about depressing stuff. I hate unwinnable arguments about incomplete front-office plans, and typing M-A-D-O-F-F, and saying mean stuff about Bud Selig, and feeling disconsolate about tomato-can placeholders like Aaron Harang.
What do I like writing about?
I like writing about baseball’s milestones and rituals, even when times are bad. Centeno’s debut made the mini-catcher No. 967 965 in The Holy Books and the last of 2013 barring something truly strange (Edit: see comments for the truly strange). We also got his first hit, complete with the inevitable need to alert the opposing team and watching the now-anointed young big leaguer trying to be cool at first base instead of flopping down and making dirt angels. Nice stuff, but noting that rocket off Sergio Romo was Josh Satin’s first walkoff hit is even nicer.
I like writing about the sight and sound of the hardy faithful, that shrunken band of brothers and sisters, who went from defiant wishing to desperate imploring to a full-throated happy roar as the Giants fans slunk away with their smugness shredded.
I like writing about Brown and Zach Lutz and Juan Lagares and Matt den Dekker and Omar Quintanilla and Josh Satin working good counts and zeroing in on good pitches to hit. Brown, Lagares and Lutz each saw seven pitches, den Dekker and Quintanilla each saw six, Satin saw five. Brown took his hacks on 2-1 and 3-2; Lagares on 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2; Lutz on 2-2 and 3-2; Satin on 2-2. Casilla had to throw 17 pitches; Sergio Romo had to throw 25. The only truly bad AB in the frame was Lucas Duda’s — Quintanilla didn’t get it done, but he did battle back nicely against Romo and put the ball in play.
I like writing about how the tiniest things separate glory from misery in baseball. Consider that bottom of the ninth. Lutz and den Dekker both took fateful pitches that were just off the plate, and correctly called as such. Lutz’s double down the line was just out of the reach of Joaquin Arias’s dive at third. Brandon Belt just missed grabbing a little roller by den Dekker before it went foul, turning a sure out into another chance. After a late stop sign from Tim Teufel, Lagares just got back into third base ahead of the tag. On Centeno’s little paddle shot to deep short, Lutz just reached third ahead of Brandon Crawford’s throw. Change any of those things slightly in the Giants’ favor and the Mets lose. A game of inches? Sometimes the margin’s a lot smaller than that.
I like writing about Gary Cohen getting to be excited at least one more time in 2013, with this voice rising but not cracking and his words coming fast but not crashing into each other: “2-2 to Satin … and he LINES ONE, A BASE HIT!!! LUTZ SCORES! HERE COMES RECKER! Recker coming home … HE SCORES AND THE METS WIN IT! … Josh Satin with a two-run walkoff hit in the bottom of the ninth, the Mets score FOUR and BEAT the Giants’ bullpen, FIVE to FOUR!” (Watch it here. I’m on my fifth time.)
Yeah, I like writing about that stuff better.
by Greg Prince on 18 September 2013 2:18 pm Forty years ago tonight, the Mets were visiting Pittsburgh, sitting in fourth place, 3½ games behind the front-running Pirates in the N.L. East with a record of 73-77…and they were about to post one of the 500 most Amazin’ wins of their first 50 years.
From The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973)…
***
Game two of their five-game series loomed as a turning point either way. For eight innings this Tuesday night, it appeared to be turning clearly in the direction of where the Allegheny and the Monongahela met to form the mighty Ohio. Pittsburgh took a 4-1 lead off Jon Matlack in the third inning, knocking out the talented lefty one night after having their way with Tom Seaver, and the score remained unchanged through the eighth. Ray Sadecki and Tug McGraw had pitched well to keep the Mets in the game, but New York hadn’t done anything with Pirate starter Bob Moose or his successor Ramon Hernandez, who stood two outs from saving a victory when he fouled out Bud Harrelson to start the Met ninth.
Ed Kranepool was due up next, but Yogi Berra pinch-hit with Jim Beauchamp, a righty batter versus lefty pitcher decision. It worked, as Jim singled. Then Wayne Garrett, in the midst of a career month (OPS 1.015) doubled. Felix Millan, who would establish a new franchise record for hits in 1973 with 185, got his most important hit to date: a two-run triple that cut the Mets’ deficit to 4-3. After Hernandez walked Rusty Staub, Danny Murtaugh pulled Hernandez in favor of his fireman, Dave Giusti.
But Giusti only inflamed the Mets’ rally, giving up a pinch-single to Ron Hodges to tie the game at four. Teddy Martinez ran for Hodges. Cleon Jones followed with a walk. And Don Hahn, who played more center field than any Met in 1973 despite never being fully entrusted with the full-time job by Berra, singled in Martinez and Jones.
The Mets led the Pirates, 6-4, heading to the bottom of the ninth. Clearly, the tide had turned away from the Three Rivers and toward Flushing Bay. But first, a little business would have to be taken care of. Three outs had to be nailed down, and this was where Tug and his Belief would come into play.
Except Berra had to pinch-hit for Tug in the eighth. So he went to as untested an arm as he had: 23-year-old Bob Apodaca, a righty being asked to make his major league debut in the makest-or-breakest situation imaginable.
***
What happened next?
You’ll find out when you read The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973).
Print edition available here.
Kindle version available here.
Personally inscribed copy available here.
Pick up The Happiest Recap and get the whole Amazin’ story of the Mets’ most unbelievable stretch drive ever…and everything else.
by Greg Prince on 18 September 2013 1:02 pm And you remember
The jingles used to go
—The Buggles
Sunday afternoon September 29 should be earmarked for nostalgia, a state our 52-year-old franchise embraces sporadically and reluctantly. The Mets resist embracing their past as if they don’t have enough of it or they doubt a substantial proportion of their loyalists treasure it. In this month when we’re exactly 40 Septembers removed from perhaps the most dizzying rush any team has ever put on toward achieving a league title, the organization charged with tending its legacy has mostly ignored it.
But September 29 has potential, no matter how little 1973 gets mentioned at Citi Field these nights. It will be Closing Day and all that implies. It will be Mike Piazza Hall of Fame Day, rightly honoring the signature star of the last certifiably sensational epoch of Mets baseball. And it will be the final day when a game is brought to you on the WFAN Mets Radio Network.
That last one is both a milestone and something of a technicality. In one sense, all that’s happening when Mets baseball stops airing on WFAN is a contract expiring and not being renewed. Mets baseball will air somewhere in 2014, it is universally agreed, and the chances are as rock-solid as can be that the game broadcast itself will sound 99.99% similar on a frequency to be named later. Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner changed stations more often than the Mets changed pitching coaches during Rube Walker’s long reign as arms chief (1968-1981), but come the top of the first, it was still Lindsey, Bob and Ralph telling us who threw what. Likewise, there will still be books and Howie Rose will still command positive results be put in them after a successful last pitch is thrown.
Yet it is a milestone, one someone as historically inclined as I am may not have completely appreciated upon the announcement that 660 and 101.9 won’t add up to Mets baseball anymore. For me and my 45 years of fandom, WFAN represented the longest pause I ever took tuning up and down the dial in search of the game, yet for others somewhat less tenured (but certainly fully vested) in the ways of Metsdom, WFAN has been it. If you took up the Mets as your cause 26 or fewer years ago, you poor bastard, you’ve never known a world championship and you’ve never known anything radiowise but WFAN.
I have to confess I was surprised by how many people I’ve heard from who tell me they’ll miss this: “LET’S GO METS! F-A-N!” It’s been aural wallpaper to me, a signal that I have a couple of minutes to think about something else while Remax is trying to sell me a house or somebody else wants me to donate my K-A-R to KIDS, but radio is so deceptively personal a mass medium that its most inconsequential elements worm their way into your bloodstream before you can receive inoculation against their effects.
Hence “LET’S GO METS! F-A-N!”…I get it.
More tangibly, the Mets in the WFAN era have been about a handful of voices describing moments great and small. Bob Murphy’s voice led the way when, on July 1, 1987, 1050 AM stopped taking listener requests to hear Reba McIntire and began taking listener calls demanding to see Randy Milligan. Murph was just doing what Murph had always done; he was simply doing it under new call letters, and he’d do it full- and part-time clear to the end of 2003.
Murph is obviously no longer on the air, but his two greatest acolytes remain vocal and vibrant. They are — with nods of appreciation to Gary Thorne, Ed Coleman, Josh Lewin, Jim Duquette and, what the hell, Todd Kalas, Ted Robinson, Tom McCarthy and Wayne Hagin — the living voices most associated with 27 seasons of Mets baseball on the FAN. Howie Rose still anchors the radio broadcasts. Gary Cohen, who was slowly but surely handed the microphonic baton from Murphy, has slid over a few feet to handle the same responsibilities on television.
What I’m wishing for on September 29 is that the two thriving flagship voices of Mets baseball, each connected by deep roots to the flagship station of Mets baseball, are paired once more on WFAN.
And SNY.
Let’s get a simulcast going on Closing Day. Let us, for one hopefully sunny Sunday afternoon, make at least part of experiencing a Mets broadcast listening to Howie Rose and Gary Cohen together, the way we did regularly for a couple of golden years in the mid-’00s (Piazza’s last ones as a Met, as it happens), the way I assumed we would for decades to come before the invention of SNY in 2006.
It is the understatement of the 21st century to declare Gary, Keith and Ron (with a helping of Kevin and a dash of Jerry) have been a boon to the TV side. Their telecasts are the best show on television most nights, no matter how full of holes the plot down on the field can be. It was for the best that SNY as we came to know it between 7 and 10:30 every evening emerged as it did, even if it broke asunder the perfect Mets radio team. Meanwhile, starting in 2012, a beautiful radio rapport blossomed between Howie and Josh. I’m very glad Mr. Lewin came aboard to join Mr. Rose when he did.
But if a nostalgic Mets fan had his druthers, if not a time machine, Howie and Gary…well, you can’t exceed perfect synergy. Not on September 29 you can’t.
Status quo would suffice on Closing Day, FAN contract expiration or not, but the status quo will not be in effect. Josh Lewin, I’m assuming, will be off to San Diego to take care of his autumnal business as he does every Sunday this time of year. So that opens up nine innings alongside Howie, space which I assume will be filled, as it was this past Charger Sunday, by Ed Coleman. Eddie C has been an intrinsic part of the Mets radio experience, too. He’s hosted the pregame and the postgame, he’s reported trades and injuries and he’s filled in for everybody dutifully as needed. His FAN-employed voice is the one that I suppose is in a bit of limbo as the FANless future encroaches.
Fine. Let Eddie do most of the game with Howie. And let Gary do his usual TV with Keith and Ron (assuming they’ll both be on hand for the finale). But for let’s say two innings — one to get used to the idea, one more so we don’t spend the whole thing caught up in the novelty — let’s simulcast. Let’s have Gary come on over to the Bob Murphy Radio Booth and sit next to Howie. Let’s plug in SNY’s transmitter. Let the TV audience — the people who watch every Mets game as if it’s the last Mets game they’ll ever see— in on a chunk of the final WFAN broadcast. Read the commercials that need being read, let the billboards and the bumpers take their course, service the advertisers and promotional considerations as needed. At the top or bottom of the hour, tell us we’re listening to the WFAN Mets Radio Network even as we’re watching SportsNet New York.
But mostly give us, the fans, a couple of innings of Howie and Gary.
While the Mets and Brewers wind down their 2013s, let Rose and Cohen reflect on what it meant for the Mets to be on America’s first all-sports radio station for 27 years and what the connection might have meant to their listeners. Let them reminisce a bit about Murph; about Piazza; about Coney and Fonzie and Endy and Dickey; about working with Eddie and the immortal Chris Majkowski and filling rain delays with the Schmoozer Steve Somers and each other. Let them each call some balls and strikes and invoke their childhoods with transistor radios under the pillow and their later loathing of Richie Hebner.
Then Gary can return to the Ralph Kiner Television Booth and finish out the proceedings with Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling, and Howie and Ed can put a button on the Met days of 660 AM.
And then, when it’s over, we can, in the immortal advice of Larry Sanders, flip. At the close of baseball on September 29, I imagine many of us will channel Laraine Day from 1948 when it comes to our personal relationship with the FAN. When she was informed by reporters that her husband Leo Durocher was transferring his managerial abilities from Brooklyn to Manhattan, Mrs. D considered her radio, which was at that moment airing the Dodger game, and asked, “Then why am I listening to this?”
At which point Laraine turned off the damn thing.
But we can be Laraine Day when Closing Day concludes. When it commences, give us a wisp of well-earned nostalgia. Give us Howie and Gary on radio and TV for a couple of innings. If the Mets and affiliated parties can’t untangle a couple of details and get something like this done on Closing Day, then somebody’s just not trying.
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