The blog for Mets fans
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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 27 July 2013 10:35 pm Saturday was just mild disgust, the kind that’s been de rigueur in Metsopotamia since 2009. You know how it goes: our starting pitcher is taken early and often into distant seating sections, our lineup falls easy prey to his opposite number and it rains before it can end. The Mets indeed played one of their patented period stinkers, which haven’t been abundant the past couple of months but certainly are familiar to anybody who’s spent recent seasons in the company of this team.
Friday, however…Friday was interesting. Friday provided, if you faithful readers will pardon the expression, something of a flashback. On Friday, the Mets won one resoundingly and lost one excruciatingly. Yeah, that part was interesting, but what really got me was that I didn’t shrug at either result. I took them both to heart. The win ignited my imagination. The loss dampened my reality.
That may sound obvious, but this was different from what I’d become accustomed to in this era of diminished expectations. I actually expected the Mets to sweep that split doubleheader. I actually reveled after the first game. I actually rode a wave of adrenaline into the second game. I was actually let down when it didn’t work out.
I’ve been happy from isolated positive results since the last time the Mets were in a pennant race but I haven’t been much hot or bothered by things going wrong on a given night. They’re the Mets, I reasoned. What did I expect — for them to win?
On Friday, July 26, 2013, yes. Yes I did. The stakes struck me as not quite enormous but significant. How significant? When Ross Ohlendorf popped David Wright to short to end the fifth inning, thus leaving Daniel Murphy on base with the run that would have increased Matt Harvey’s 1-0 lead, I thought, “Great, just like Cone getting Piazza to pop out in the fifth inning of Game Four.”
That’s Game Four of the 2000 World Series, the contest that’s held to determine the champions of the baseball world. That’s where my head was racing in the wake of Jenrry Mejia elbowing his way into a rotation dripping with talent during the opener. That’s what I was thinking as the Mets strove to pull within six games of .500. Not within six games of first-place Atlanta, just a scooch closer to statistical respectability.
Following that turn of events, I should find myself reporting that I was crushed in the same fashion LaTroy Hawkins’s final fastball was by Ryan Zimmerman to conclude Friday eighteenth inning and, woe is me, why did I fall for this again? But y’know what? Letdown didn’t equal crushed. The sensation of taking these Mets ultraseriously only lasted for a few hours, but I liked the feeling that these games mattered. I liked calculating the likelihood of leaving our nation’s capital in second place. I liked looking at our schedule for September and weighing it against the Braves’ schedule (yes, I did this between games Friday). I liked elevating the outcomes of Mets games to a whole new level of mattering.
Or a whole old level. This was how I was when every pitch was crucial, every swing held possibility, every flicker from the out-of-town scoreboard dispatched vital information that held the fate of our world in its bulbs. We haven’t had that for real since the end of 2008, since the end of Shea Stadium. We’ve only had a handful of pennant races and playoff pushes pay off in our favor, but gosh, what fun it is just to take part in one. I mean really take part in one. Not early only to fade as in 2012. Not on spec only to discover pennant fever was hypochondriacal as in 2011 and 2010. But deep and lasting and absorbing to the point where little to nothing else penetrates your consciousness. How could anything else measure up to the Mets driving hard to late September with a legitimate eye toward early October?
When a team is good enough, that team’s fan is not satisfied by anything less than a world championship. When a team isn’t quite that good, that team’s fan still wants the ultimate prize but can be bought off by a pennant or a division title or a Wild Card berth. When our team is where it’s been for five long seasons, all we can ask for is the first step: get better. Improve. Win in encouraging proportion to how often you lose. Then win as much as you lose. Then win more than you lose. Then win more than most or all of your divisional competitors. Contend for something beyond promise. Then make the playoffs and climb the ladder it offers to the stars.
I’m not delusional enough to think we and our team are taking all those steps at once. But for a few hours one Friday in late July, during a year when we had yet to definitively exit the road leading to a fifth consecutive losing record, it really felt like we were in the midst of honest-to-Metness progress. The feeling wore off when the night was over. Saturday did nothing to rekindle it. What Sunday brings is unknown. But I swear I tasted it. Or I dreamt I tasted it. And I believe another, more substantial sample is en route — maybe not soon, but for the first time in ages, sooner than later. Too many things have looked too good for two months to believe otherwise.
We’re movin’ on up. A piece of the pie can’t be far away.
Relive a couple of pennant races that worked out very nicely and some of the seasons that set the stage for them: The Happiest Recap: First Base (1962-1973). It’s Amazin’ reading for all Mets fans and great practice for when we really are blessed with games full of extraordinary meaning one of these Septembers.
by Jason Fry on 27 July 2013 1:08 am Some Met — I can’t remember whom and it’s resisting my Googling skills, so let’s just say it was Ron Swoboda — once noted that fans have it tougher than the players, because the players can do something, while the fans have to sit there and watch. Is it so? I’ve seen the photo of Ralph Branca supine on the stairs, watched Freddie Patek and Wade Boggs cry on TV, and sighed at Andy Van Slyke sitting in stunned amazement in Fulton-County Stadium’s center field. Those guys looked pretty devastated. But it’s true — they at least got to run around, to dig into the box, size up the pitcher and take their hacks. We’re stuck trying to outguess the cosmos.
My partner warned you about this, but for several hours there last night it looked like we had the cosmos figured out. The Mets and Jenrry Mejia had just unleashed a tanker truck of whoop-ass on the Nationals, who looked like they wanted to do anything except play baseball. Now we and they would sit around for a couple of hours before sending Matt Harvey out against the rather pedestrian Ross Ohlendorf. It looked like a sweep. And it was hard not to get carried away from there, what with the Nats shell-shocked and the Phillies in freefall and the Braves playing tallest midget and the memory that 40 years ago a highly imperfect Mets team got off the deck as summer ebbed and blasted past a similarly weak National League East, with only the Oakland A’s and their own manager keeping them from another World Series title.
Yeah, that’s what happens when you get giddy: Matt Harvey’s on the mound tonight, ergo we should be printing playoff tickets.
Still, for the majority of the actual game it looked like the universe would be cooperative too. Harvey didn’t have his best stuff, with his thunderbolts a bit wayward and the secondary pitches iffy. But it was good enough to keep the Nats essentially helpless, and meanwhile the Mets had scratched Ohlendorf — he of the old-timey windup that looks like a Ken Burns outtake — for a run, which seemed like it might be enough.
But then Justin Turner screwed up everything by making a spectacular play.
No really. That’s what happened.
In the fifth the Nats had men on first and second and one out when Wilton Ramos hit a troublesome bouncer up the middle. Turner raced over and flipped it with his glove into Daniel Murphy’s bare hand at second. Before you could even oooh, Murph spun and flung the ball a good 10 feet to Josh Satin’s left, actually managing to hit Ramos in his stately advance on first. While Mets scrambled for the ball and equilibrium, the loathsome Jayson Werth scampered home from second, and we had to sort out that yes, a great play had turned awful in a split-second.
I mean, my God. Ramos moves with the approximate velocity of India burrowing under Asia — Murph probably could have pushed the ball over to first with his nose while smacking his feet together and making seal noises. So what the hell happened? “I just got caught up in [Turner’s] great play,” Murph admitted later. “He fed it to me and I had all day, and I just got caught up in his play and I threw it in the crapper. It cost us the ballgame.”
That’s what I figured had happened — in the aftermath of Werth coming home, the cameras cut to Murph standing near second with his hands on top of his head in deep distress, a sort of baseball Guernica that I was imitating on my couch. He got caught up in the moment, did something heroic when dull and steady would have done the trick, and yes, it cost us the ballgame.
That wasn’t apparent for a while, though. Because surely Ohlendorf would crack … nope, he didn’t, despite gasping in exhaustion as he flung balls up to home plate with the Nationals trying not to look at what they were doing to their teammate. But then the Mets ambushed Rafael Soriano in the ninth and had Andrew Brown at third with one out and a 1-0 count on Ike Davis, and surely Ike would get something done, setting up another round of hopeful discussions about his being fixed and (most importantly) saving the blameless Harvey from another no-decision.
Ike walked.
Not the end of the world, because Juan Lagares was coming to the plate and we’ve learned to trust Lagares, loving his supercharged first step on balls in the gap, his rifle arm, silky glove and emerging skills as a hitter.
Lagares fouled out.
Which was bad, but here came Murph, and since we all know baseball is a game of redempt —
Murph flied out.
And then, all of a sudden, I knew we were licked. To steal a line from that noted baseball prognosticator Boromir, one does not simply walk into extra innings at Nationals Park. Sooner or later, something very bad will happen.
This time it was sooner — regulation, even. Ryan Zimmerman can’t throw, but he can still hit, as LaTroy Hawkins and we found out almost instantly.
And then it was time for Murph mea culpas, and for us to remember something that we shouldn’t have forgotten in the first place: For all their good play of late, the Mets are still eight games under .500. Frankly, Murph’s boner was a reminder why. As miscues go it was forgiveable, even weirdly endearing — our second baseman lost a game because he saw his teammate do something SportsCenter-worthy and got too excited. It’s the kind of mistake one of us might have made, if we’d struck a Joe Hardy bargain and found ourselves out in the middle of the diamond with everything going on all at once.
Instead, it happened to one of our players. Which makes it very Mets, I suppose. Which kind of makes me feel better, but mostly doesn’t.
by Greg Prince on 26 July 2013 5:12 pm I will not read too much into this afternoon’s Mets’ 11-0 thrashing of the Nationals.
I will not read too much into Jenrry Mejia’s stunning seven shutout innings.
I will not read too much into Juan Lagares’s Cesar Cedeño impression.
I will not read too much into Daniel Murphy demonstrating enough clout in Washington to end sequestration.
I will not read too much into Ike Davis hitting a ball over a fence fair.
I will not read too much into the Mets now having fewer losses than the Nationals.
I will not read too much into the Mets making a serious move on second place.
I will not read too much into the Mets continuing to hold the division’s best record since mid-June.
I will not read too much into the parallels between the first-place Braves losing Tim Hudson to a terrible injury in a win over the Mets in the summer of 2013 and the first-place Cardinals losing Bob Gibson to a terrible injury in a win over the Mets in the summer of 1973.
I will not read too much into 2013 being the 40th anniversary of 1973.
I will not read too much into Matt Harvey starting the nightcap.
I will not read too much into this afternoon’s Mets’ 11-0 thrashing of the Nationals.
I will not read too much into Jenrry Mejia’s stunning seven shutout innings.
I will not read too much into Juan Lagares’s Cesar Cedeño impression.
I will not read too much into Daniel Murphy demonstrating enough clout in Washington to end sequestration.
I will not read too much into Ike Davis hitting a ball over a fence fair.
I will not read too much into the Mets having fewer losses than the Nationals.
I will not read too much into the Mets making a serious move on second place.
I will not read too much into the Mets continuing to hold the division’s best record since mid-June.
I will not read too much into the parallels between the first-place Braves losing Tim Hudson to a terrible injury in a win over the Mets in the summer of 2013 and the first-place Cardinals losing Bob Gibson to a terrible injury in a win over the Mets in the summer of 1973.
I will not read too much into 2013 being the 40th anniversary of 1973.
I will not read too much into Matt Harvey starting the nightcap.
I will not read too much into this afternoon’s Mets’ 11-0 thrashing of the Nationals.
I will not read too much into Jenrry Mejia’s stunning seven shutout innings.
I will not read too much into Juan Lagares’s Cesar Cedeño impression.
I will not read too much into Daniel Murphy demonstrating enough clout in Washington to end sequestration.
I will not read too much into Ike Davis hitting a ball over a fence fair.
I will not read too much into the Mets having fewer losses than the Nationals.
I will not read too much into the Mets making a serious move on second place.
I will not read too much into the Mets continuing to hold the division’s best record since mid-June.
I will not read too much into the parallels between the first-place Braves losing Tim Hudson to a terrible injury in a win over the Mets in the summer of 2013 and the first-place Cardinals losing Bob Gibson to a terrible injury in a win over the Mets in the summer of 1973.
I will not read too much into 2013 being the 40th anniversary of 1973.
I will not read too much into Matt Harvey starting the nightcap.
[497 times to go…]
by Greg Prince on 25 July 2013 9:41 pm It was Camp Day at Citi Field Thursday, where I don’t know how many thousands of kids were getting their first live exposure to Mets baseball the way I did 40 years ago this month on my Camp Day. Given that these outings cast a dragnet over the lot of a camp’s participants and not just the Mets fans or baseball fans, any of the boys or girls who were unfamiliar with the sport until this afternoon might be confused.
They might think the object of a baseball game is simply to get as many of your players on base as possible. That’s certainly how the Mets operated, putting runners on all kinds of bases in almost every inning that occurred. There were 14 Met hits, 5 Met walks, 1 Met hit by a pitch, and 1 error that resulted in a Met reaching base. That’s 21 Met baserunners, which — along with another Brave error plus a Brave wild pitch and an additional base provided by a horrific if friendly call on what became, essentially, David Wright’s ground-rule triple — might indicate to the youthful baseball neophyte that the Mets were absolutely creaming their competition.
Well, they did win, so it would be difficult to counter that impression. But of the 21 Met baserunners, only a third scored. The limited follow-through was good for 7 runs, which the arithmetically inclined campers who haven’t forgotten everything they learned since school let out could have immediately recognized as three more than the amount the Braves scored. That’s how you win a baseball game, kids: runs, not runners.
But the Mets literally seemed to have more runners than they knew what to do with. Of the eight innings that had Mets batting, seven of them landed Mets on some combination of first, second and third. All that base-occupying pumped up the ballpark volume, partly because the Mets have more meters for measuring (and thus eliciting) noise than the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has for measuring earthquakes, partly because day campers out on their version of work-release are capable of making plenty of noise without a ton of electronic prodding. Mets get a guy on? Fire up a noise meter. Brave pitcher needs a consultation? Fire up a noise meter. Child spotted murmuring rather than shouting? Fire up a noise meter. (I wonder if the Citi Field Sleepover will make the same generous use of those not at all obnoxious prompts.)
The scoreboard was another matter. The “H” column worked fine. The “R” column was a little pokey. Good thing they don’t post LOB, lest all other pertinent info be squeezed out of the picture. The Mets left 14 of their 21 runners to rot. Four Mets produced a hit with runners in scoring position, meaning nearly four times as many (15) produced no such thing.
Yet the Mets triumphed, 7-4, which is, in fact, the object of a Mets baseball game on Camp Day or any day. The final score provided a fun souvenir for the campers to take back to the bus, perhaps something even a son or daughter would excitedly tell a parent about at dinner tonight, paving the way for more trips to the ballpark and a lifetime of Mets fandom. More likely, the cotton candy and noise meters did a Men In Black on their memories and by evening they were all, “What baseball game? I am so jittery. Mom, did you refill my Valium Junior prescription?”
A game in which many scoring opportunities are bypassed yet enough of them are cashed in — plus enough pitching to make the whole goop mélange stand up to scrutiny — beats the spit out of what transpired Monday when it was Dillon Gee, a wing and a prayer somehow proving inadequate in the face of a late Brave pounce. Still, from my graciously procured cushy seat not much beyond home plate (where I paused to contemplate that it took me only four decades worth of Camp Days to work my way down from the Upper Deck to the Delta Club), it seemed a shame to waste so many baserunners. Why put 21 on if you’re only gonna score 7? Why not score 21?
Then I remembered: doubleheader in D.C. Friday. The Mets were literally saving some for tomorrow.
That is how it works…right?
by Greg Prince on 25 July 2013 1:06 am Strange how one minute Wednesday night’s game was all about Tim Hudson and the next minute Wednesday night’s game was all about Tim Hudson, yet in a totally different realm come that critical second minute. First Hudson’s impenetrable to every orange-jerseyed Mets batter. Then he’s vulnerable to one Mets runner, and the next thing you know, the pitcher who figuratively couldn’t be touched literally can’t get up. His night is over, his season is over, his career is in limbo. His team won a ballgame, but quite obviously lost a lot more.
“Strange” is putting it mildly. “Unfortunate” is placing it in a rather sterile context. Let’s just say it was very tough for Hudson, who gruesomely suffered a broken ankle when Eric Young stepped on his right leg as Hudson awkwardly fielded a toss from Freddie Freeman at first base. Young was doing his job, Hudson his. Hudson went down hard. Young — on whose behalf you don’t mind using clichés like “he’s a real ballplayer” — turned distraught, contrite and empathetic all in plain sight. Young’s not just a real ballplayer but a real person.
No, I don’t know what means exactly, but you get the idea.
As Mets fans, we’re not exactly crazy about the Braves nor are we predisposed to worry about their collective fortunes let alone their starting rotation. Still, we’d like to believe we’re real people, too, at least in our off hours. So heal up, Tim Hudson, pitcher against whom we’ve rooted diligently since 2005. Heal up thoroughly and heal up quickly. We look forward to your standing tall on a mound again somewhere soon.
by Greg Prince on 24 July 2013 3:42 pm Answers already? Yup. Sharp-eyed readers Chris D’Orso of Sound Beach and Walter Harvey of Highland Mills are our winners of the 1986 World Series Game Six DVD quiz, brought to us by MLB Productions. They knew:
1) The three former Mets who became All-Stars with the Red Sox were Felix Mantilla (1965), Jeff Reardon (1991) and Carl Everett (2000).
2) The three future Mets who had been All-Stars with the Red Sox were Jimmy Piersall (1954 & 1956), Eddie Bressoud (1964), Mo Vaughn (1995-1996 & 1998), Pedro Martinez (1998-2000 & 2002), Jose Offerman (1999) and Jason Bay (2009). Pedro was named to the National League All-Stars as a Met in 2005 and 2006. (Jerry Moses, a Red Sox All-Star in 1970, was promoted to the Mets’ active roster in 1975 but never got into a game as a Met.)
Congratulations to Chris and Walter. Thanks to all who played. Stay tuned, as we’ll have one more quiz with another Amazin’ prize from MLB Productions early next week.
by Greg Prince on 24 July 2013 2:24 pm ***WE HAVE OUR WINNERS. THANKS FOR PLAYING.***
One of the defining moments of the 1986 World Series occurred almost a year before the Fall Classic to end all Fall Classics was played. On November 13, 1985, the Mets sent John Christnesen, Calvin Schiraldi, Wes Gardner and LaSchelle Tarver to the Red Sox in exchange for Bobby Ojeda, John Mitchell, Chris Bayer and Tom McCarthy. The principals in this deal were Ojeda and Schiraldi, each of whom went on to play pivotal roles on the night of October 25, 1986.
Or as you know it, the Buckner Game.
Game Six of the 1986 World Series was no doubt one of baseball’s greatest games, certified as such a million different ways, most notably by MLB Productions’ DVD Baseball’s Greatest Games: 1986 World Series Game 6, an Amazin’ disc that not only brings you the NBC telecast of the night that (like Schiraldi for Ojeda) changed Mets history, but contains the WHN radio track, which allows you to listen to Bob Murphy and Gary Thorne describe what happens when a two-out fair ball begins to trickle toward its tenth-inning destiny.
 You can win this DVD, courtesy of the folks at MLB Productions, who are thrilled to let you know a torrent of titles from the Major League Baseball Productions Film & Video Archive are now available digitally on iTunes, if you can properly answer our Mets-Red Sox quiz, which asks:
1) Who were the THREE former Mets who eventually became Red Sox and made the American League All-Star team AS Red Sox? (None was ever a National League All-Star AS a Met.)
2) Who were the SIX future Mets who became Mets after earlier in their careers being named American League All-Stars AS Red Sox? (One would make the National League All-Stars AS a Met.)
For the record, to be considered a “future Met” or a “former Met,” a player had to have played at least one game in a Mets uniform in his career. Also for the record, nobody in the Ojeda-Schiraldi trade is part of either answer. And — in the interest of facilitating your research — know your helpful resources.
We have two copies of Game Six to give away, so the first two sets of correct answers e-mailed to faithandfear@gmail.com will earn the prizes. If you don’t win this one, there’s one more quiz slated for the beginning of next week.
And since these DVDs are being provided to us in the interest of promoting MLB on iTunes, here is the informational copy the nice MLB Productions folks asked us to run:
Aside from MLB Bloopers and Prime 9: MLB Heroics, available programming includes The Best of the Home Run Derby and Prime 9: All-Star Moments; Official World Series Films dating back to 1947, including the 1969 and 1986 films; the first season of This Week In Baseball, which originally aired in 1977; a documentary offering a fresh perspective on Jackie Robinson’s life and career; recent productions, including a comprehensive film chronicling every era of World Series play and documentaries created to celebrate notable anniversaries for the Mets, Astros and Red Sox; bloopers titles highlighting the funniest MLB moments; and many other titles. Any of these films can now be downloaded from the iTunes store. Prices range from $1.99 for individual episodes of Prime 9 and This Week in Baseball to $19.99 for the Official 2012 World Series Film in HD.
Good luck!
***WE HAVE OUR WINNERS. THANKS FOR PLAYING.***
by Jason Fry on 24 July 2013 1:27 am First off, no, I wasn’t at Star Wars Night — to the shock of people belonging to two fanbases for which I am a rare Venn diagram overlap. Why not? I don’t really have a good reason beyond being busy and tired. Besides, I have the memory of being a stormtrooper for an evening at Citi Field to sustain me. That was a very fun night, but also not the kind of experience one necessarily feels the need to replicate.
So instead I sat at home, annoying all of my Twitter followers instead of just some of them by merrily mixing Mets and Star Wars references, and hoped that the Mets would be able to defeat the forces of the dark side for once.
Which, happily, they did.
It didn’t look like it in the beginning, not with Carlos Torres giving up a home run to Andrelton Simmons on the second pitch of the game and hanging curveball after curveball in the early going — the fourth was particularly terrifying, with Simmons hitting a long fly that banged off the outfield wall in foul territory, followed by Jason Heyward smoking a ball in the direction of Utleyville that stayed narrowly but blissfully foul. But Torres got a little help from Juan Lagares’s arm and his own gumption, holding the Braves to just a lone run over six innings that were not bad at all.
Which was when the Met rebels launched their attack against Kris Medlen, an unprepossessing pitcher who’d never had much trouble beating them. Daniel Murphy and David Wright singled to start the bottom of the sixth, and with Marlon Byrd looking at a 3-0 count, there was reason to be hopeful … just not in the way we expected. Byrd banged into a fielder’s choice to leave us in the same situation but an out worse, sending Ike Davis trudging to the plate — the same Ike Davis who’s become the Jar Jar Binks of the Mets galaxy, with fans unamused by his pratfalls and ready for him to be written out of the saga.
But even Jar Jar had his day; Ike Ike smashed a Medlen offering off the fence in right-center for a 2-1 Mets lead. Which was followed, in equally unlikely fashion, by a John Buck RBI single and then a Lagares sac fly. David Aardsma, Scott Rice and LaTroy Hawkins kept Atlanta at bay, allowing Bobby Parnell to climb back on the hill he had not occupied with particular distinction on Monday.
Tuesday was different; Parnell struck out a pair of Johnsons and got Simmons to ground out for the finale, a no-muss no-fuss appearance that was thoroughly welcome.
The 2013 Mets, as we’ve said many times in many ways, are an odd bunch. They’ve frequently found a way to rip out our hearts … but for all that they have a knack of making amends, showing up at your door the next day with flowers and apologies and behavior that makes you want to forgive them. And now, after all this, they’re two games behind the Nats and three games behind the Phillies in the Calvacade of Meh that is the National League East, with the merely decent Braves atop the division by default.
Dare to dream? That’s a bit much, even during the 40th anniversary of the Ya Gotta Believers. But perhaps you can dare to dream of daring to dream.
* * *
By now you’ve heard that Ryan Braun has fessed up to Biogenesis malfeasance in a way that’s simultaneously clear and thoroughly nonspecific, and been suspended for the rest of the year. That semi-confession has served as a tacit admission that he was lying a year ago, when he waxed eloquent about fair play and integrity after escaping a drug suspension when a panel of arbitrators ruled that the man who’d collected his urine sample hadn’t followed the proper procedures in keeping it sealed, secure and refrigerated for the weekend before taking it to FedEx for shipment and analysis. (Sample Braun speechifying back then: “I’ve tried to handle the entire situation with honor, with integrity, with class, with dignity and with professionalism because that’s who I am.”)
Braun skated on a technicality, but what left a bad taste in people’s mouths then and has sparked outrage now is that he insinuated that the collector had been at best negligent and at worst malign, saying that “there were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, about the collection process, about the way that the entire thing worked that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened … We spoke to biochemists and scientists, and asked them how difficult it would be for someone to taint the sample. They said, if they were motivated, it would be extremely easy.”
In the last couple of days some folks have explained those comments not as veiled accusations about the collector, Dino Laurenzi Jr., but as a ballplayer’s translation of lawyerly parsing of chain-of-custody issues. Which I find utterly unconvincing: You can’t read Braun’s comments about the collector or the process without the context of his pious, flag-wrapped paeans to his own rectitude, or without the open character attacks made anonymously by members of his entourage to reporters at the time. (For instance, this was emailed to reporters then: “Laurenzi would have unfettered access to lab equipment and, if he was so inclined, would provide him the necessary resources and opportunity to tamper with the test.”) When you look at all of that together, of course Braun was insinuating misconduct by Laurenzi — it would take a determinedly blind lawyer or a besotted Brewers fan to think otherwise.
I no longer get too worked up about PEDs. This is for a number of reasons: mostly weariness, but also the knowledge that ballplayers have always looked for an edge and not particularly cared where they found it, as well as the strong suspicion that omniscience would leave us unhappy about what some beloved Mets were up to during the steroid age. Confronted with all this, I’ve steeled myself never to be surprised by who might get caught injecting what, or by how they might try to weasel out of it.
What angers me about Braun doesn’t really have anything to do with PEDs, or even sports. Rather, it’s that it’s indecent and appalling when someone with power, wealth and fame uses those advantages to smear people who lack them. That’s what Braun did, and that’s what he should answer for — not what went into his body, but what came out of his mouth.
by Jason Fry on 23 July 2013 12:34 am When my son was four years old, we went to Shea one horrifically hot day, watched the Mets fall behind, watched them try to catch up in the ninth, watched Carlos Delgado hit a long drive that was headed out of the park … and saw Willie Harris, that bringer of Metsian misery, leap impossibly high above the fence and turn it into an out. A cruel, crushing, crucifying out.
Willie Harris moved on to the Nats, where he continued taking balls away from Mets trying to win games. Then he became a Met himself, and of course his dives and leaps were suddenly a few inches short. Now he isn’t anything — he was last seen as a Red in June 2012.
But he lives on. Because damned if that wasn’t Willie Harris in center field when it really truly mattered last night, when Justin Turner arrived from the disabled list to face Craig Kimbrel and rain and pressure and seemed to get the better of all three, whacking a pitch to left-center that seemed destined to plop down a couple of steps from a despondent Jason Heyward as Andrew Brown scored. And then maybe since things are wet out there and Heyward is a newcomer to center field with a cranky leg Omar Quintanilla comes around third behind Brown, and something goes awry between the outfield and home plate and Q scores and the Mets have won and Turner, to borrow Ron Darling’s idea, is so giddy with happiness that he pies himself.
None of that happened. Because the spirit of Willie Harris animated Jason Heyward, propelling his limbs out and down and sending him sprawling across the grass Swoboda-like, with Turner’s ball vanishing into his mitt just before it and Heyward and the Harrisness he had riding shotgun hit the ground.
Reed Johnson’s arms shot skyward in exultation.
Craig Kimbrel’s arms shot skyward in grateful disbelief.
Justin Turner’s arms shot skyward in disappointed outrage.
My arms stayed crossed on my chest and I held very still to keep from screaming or throwing things.
Yeah, that kind of game. That kind of game played so often against these Braves since their arrival in our division back in the days of Smoltz and Gl@v!ne and Maddux, all gone now but somehow still looming over us, just like Millwood and Klesko and Rocker and Chipper and Prado and Tucker and a thousand other tomahawk-wielding tormentors.
Of course the game was really lost long before the manifestation of Willie Harris made it official. It was lost in the bottom of the eighth, when David Wright looked at strike three with Eric Young Jr. on third and one out and the Mets clinging to a 1-0 lead. Then, in the top of the ninth, Bobby Parnell came in to try and secure things for Dillon Gee (who was wonderful) and everything went wrong. A hit through the shift. Another hit dropped in front of Marlon Byrd when Parnell threw an 0-2 curve over the heart of the plate. After a welcome fielder’s choice erased the lead runner, Parnell and John Buck couldn’t get together and a passed ball moved the runners up. Then a grounder to short hit too slowly for Quintanilla to get the tying run at home. Then a flat fastball down the middle that Johnson smacked into center for a Braves lead.
Bad pitches + bad defense + bad luck = bad results, and the sneaking suspicion that Parnell is having one of those lousy stretches that afflict nearly all pitchers for a while each season, except for starters it means a couple of stinker outings but for closers it means two weeks of blown saves and fans howling for blood.
Which isn’t exactly what this team needs, particularly since the other guys have Willie Harris playing marionette when it really, truly matters.
by Greg Prince on 21 July 2013 8:40 pm I put in a request for a sitdown with the baseball gods prior to the start of Sunday’s 1:10 game versus the Phillies. I had what I believed were a few reasonable requests.
I asked if I could go the game.
The baseball gods said sure.
I asked for really good seats at a decent price.
The baseball gods countered with pretty decent field level seats, out in right, and a 50% discount tied into my having voted 35 times for the All-Star Game.
I asked what the hell that had to do with anything.
The baseball gods said to take it up with the Mets’ marketing department.
I asked why the Mets have to keep making with the cutesy little ticket deals and just can’t lower prices to begin with.
The baseball gods said they don’t traffic in philosophical questions, just requests.
I asked for an aisle seat.
The baseball gods said they’d do what they could, but warned me idiots would be walking by me all day, especially when I wanted to see what was going on in the game.
I asked why people do that.
The baseball gods said they really didn’t know.
I asked that the stupefying heat wave break.
The baseball gods said “done,” but warned me it’s July, so you’re gonna schvitz some regardless.
I asked for a Mets win.
The baseball gods offered no guarantees.
I told them I really needed a Mets win after starting my year 5-1 and having it crash to 6-11.
The baseball gods said they’d see what they could do.
I reiterated that I sat through a 20-inning loss, a two-hour rain delay that pushed a nine-inning loss past midnight and took the hit on that suspended game that had no business winding up on my record.
The baseball gods said they were sympathetic, but again, no promises.
I asked that Matt Harvey get the win if the Mets won.
The baseball gods said pitcher wins are immaterial.
I countered that here’s Matt Harvey, king of the pitching world, and you’re making him walk around with an absurdly slight 7-2 record.
The baseball gods said I should look at his interior numbers, that they’re very impressive.
I told them I practically roll around in his interior numbers, that they’re off-the-charts ridiculously good, but c’mon, you have Tom Seaver throwing out first pitches on Tuesday and Dwight Gooden overseeing distribution of his bobbleheads on Sunday and they were 25- and 24-game winners, and at this rate, Harvey’s gonna go like 9-4.
The baseball gods didn’t see what I was getting at.
I told them they’re making the heir to Seaver and Gooden look, at best, like Craig Swan.
The baseball gods reminded me Craig Swan was a very good pitcher.
I told them I loved Craig Swan in his time, but c’mon, Matt Harvey isn’t Craig Swan reincarnated. He’s these other guys.
The baseball gods said they got the point and they’d see what they could do.
I asked for a Matt Harvey perfect game.
The baseball gods said, “Get real.”
I asked for a Matt Harvey no-hitter.
The baseball gods said, “Too soon.”
I asked for a Matt Harvey complete game shutout in which all of his outs are recorded via strikeout.
The baseball gods asked me to consider the ramifications of such an outcome on Harvey’s pitch count and innings total.
I asked that Harvey go maybe seven and strike out maybe ten and leave with a shutout intact.
The baseball gods said they could work with that.
I asked that Harvey hit four home runs.
The baseball gods said they don’t entertain unreasonable requests.
I asked that Harvey be supported by a home run barrage reminiscent of what Yoenis Cespedes did the other night.
The baseball gods said the best I could hope for was the Mets’ version of that, which is maybe three home runs.
I asked that one of the home runs be hit by Marlon Byrd.
They said they couldn’t reveal any names in advance, but cautioned me that everything good Marlon Byrd does is going to make me unreasonably fond of him to the point where I won’t want to see him be traded, even though deep down I know there’s no great point in holding on to him.
I asked for three long bombs to be launched by Mets batters.
The baseball gods said Byrd’s could land in the second deck, but the two other homers would barely clear the left field fence and require video replay to confirm they went out.
I asked that the video replay work in the Mets’ favor.
The baseball gods said the video replay would be accurate and quick.
I asked that Terry Collins not overmanage the bullpen and not complicate any lead Harvey left him.
The baseball gods laughed but said they’d pass on the suggestion.
I asked that Phillies fans be very disappointed.
The baseball gods said they thought Phillies fans are very disappointing.
I said they might have misheard me.
The baseball gods said they heard me just fine.
I asked that no loudmouth jerk sit behind me all day.
The baseball gods said it’s a ballgame, you sit in front of who you sit in front of.
I said I put up with a loudmouth jerk on Fireworks Night who cheered for Cody Ross to hit a home run off Matt Harvey, and Cody Ross hit a home run off Matt Harvey, therefore they owed me one.
The baseball gods said I’d still have to put up with someone who spoke loudly and drone on inanely about the obvious but he “probably” wouldn’t be outright vicious.
I asked that whoever sit behind me at least know what he’s talking about.
The baseball gods said the guy would “probably” get enough facts wrong to irk me because that’s just the way I am, but I should try to enjoy the game anyway.
I asked that the conversation behind me at least modulate in tone from time to time and not distract me.
The baseball gods said the inane baseball chatter would now and again be punctuated by stories that involved deeply personal matters and I was going to overhear them whether I wanted to or not.
I asked for a game that wouldn’t take forever.
The baseball gods said games don’t take forever, that all games end eventually.
I asked for a game that wouldn’t figuratively take forever.
The baseball gods said the sport I love is an intricate battle of strategy and tactics and that I should be Zen on the subject of game length.
I told them the last two games the Mets played were intolerably long and a Harvey Day should be an all-around thing of beauty and not devolve into a total drag.
The baseball gods said Cliff Lee would start for the Phillies and I’d have to take my chances.
I asked that anybody wearing a HARVEY 33 shirt or jersey have the good sense to sit down and watch attentively while the man to whom they are paying tribute on their backs is plying his craft.
The baseball gods said this isn’t Phoenix or one of those places where people abide by that bit about being courteous to your fellow fan and not getting up in the middle of an at-bat.
I asked why somebody would go to the expense of securing a HARVEY 33 shirt or jersey and be lucky enough to have the actually HARVEY 33 pitching right in front of them yet ignore him.
The baseball gods invoked the “we don’t do philosophy” line.
I asked if they could fix it so the game would end in time for me to make the 4:02 at Woodside lest my friend and I have to wait around for the 5:02 because for some strange reason, the LIRR doesn’t have a 4:24 like it does a 5:24, go figure.
The baseball gods asked, “What do we look like, the MTA?”
I told them they made that stupid Fireworks Night game last just long enough for me to miss my connection at Woodside, which kept me from getting home until nearly three in the morning, and that on this they definitely owed me one.
The baseball gods stressed this wasn’t their department.
I told them that for all the Mets’ “take the train to the game” PSAs, it damn well is their department.
The baseball gods said they’d talk to the transit people.
I told them that for this to work, I’d need a game that ended in less than 2:35, I’d need the Super Express to not idle interminably on the tracks once my friend and I boarded and that I’d likely need the 4:02 to wait an instant for my friend and me to get down the stairs instead of pulling away in plain sight.
The baseball gods said I was asking for a lot of things to go very precisely and was overlooking that baseball is a glorious jumble of the unpredictable.
I told them to cut the Ken Burns documentary talking head happy horsespit and just get me and Harvey our wins and get me on my train before I strangle the guy sitting behind me for something as innocuous as referring to the Acela Club as the Delta Club because he hasn’t shut up for nine innings and just about anything could set me off by then.
The baseball gods said go to the game. You’ll probably come home happy and only a little annoyed.
I asked if Harvey could hit three inside-the-park home runs and also score on a Jimmy Rollins four-base error.
The baseball gods said our sitdown was over.
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