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.
Got something to say? Leave a comment, or email us at faithandfear@gmail.com. (Sorry, but we have no interest in ads, sponsored content or guest posts.)
Have I got a book for you. Four of them, actually — one now, three later. And make no mistake: they’re all for you, my fellow Mets fan who likes to read. They’re for us.
I’m proud to introduce to you the Banner Day Press book series The Happiest Recap: 50 Years of the New York Mets as Told in 500 Amazin’ Wins, written by Greg Prince (that’s me), beautifully designed by Jim Haines and informed by the spirit of Bob Murphy, whose signature phrase and inextricable optimism we celebrate in the title and concept. The books are based on the string of blog posts I offered here in 2011 under the same name. The project has evolved since then, but my underlying goal of exploring Mets history through the prism of the greatest games the franchise has ever won remains its heart.
The initial volume of The Happiest Recap — First Base(1962-1973) — is available on Amazon right now in paperback; it covers 127 Mets wins, runs 224 pages and sells for $16.95. We’ll have information regarding Kindle and other eBook availability shortly. The three succeeding volumes — Second Base (1974-1986); Third Base (1987-1999) and Home (2000 & Beyond) — are planned to follow in 2013.
I’m preternaturally reluctant to promote myself personally, but I have no such compunction against promoting my work if I believe in it, so I’ll tell you right now, at the risk of unnecessary self-aggrandizement, that you’ll never enjoy reading about your favorite baseball team’s first half-century more than you will when you read The Happiest Recap. I’ve never seen a team’s history captured quite this way. I’ve certainly never read the Mets’ history in this type of format. Taken one at a time, the games I’ve chosen to chronicle serve almost as 500 bedtime stories for Mets fans. Taken across the sweep of four volumes and five decades, it coalesces into nothing less than an American sporting saga.
(OK, so maybe I’m not that reluctant to self-promote.)
We usually get our histories presented to us via familiar narratives or consensus storylines or through the “Great Man” theory. Yet when it comes to baseball, we have this rich source material known as baseball games that tend to be utterly underappreciated in the long view. But The Game’s the thing…y’know? The Game’s what we look forward to all day and that game’s what we talk about the next day while waiting for the next game. While it’s still fresh, The Game is the biggest thing to which we fans devote our conscious thoughts.
We love our games when they’re good. We love our games when they’re bad but something good happens in them. Statistics can be fascinating, trade speculation can be intriguing (if occasionally unnerving) and biography can be compelling, but when you get right down to it, we want to watch or listen to or go to The Game, and we inevitably dwell on The Game — until we have to make an unconscious decision that we can only keep so many games where we dwell.
The problem, if we can call it that, is that when baseball is in season, games come at us in a relentless bounty: more or less one a day, six or seven per week, approximately 27 every month, 162 every year, a couple of handfuls more in October if we’re really fortunate. Call it a blessing overload. As a result, some games we frame as classics and hang prominently above the fireplace forever, but too many games we loved in the moment can’t help but slip behind the dressers and between the sofa cushions of our minds.
The Happiest Recap aims to reach deep into those shadowy spaces, dust off the heretofore “neato!” stuff you’d all but forgotten about, or perhaps never knew was back there, and arrange it not just chronologically but contextually in the family album. To what end? When The Happiest Recap concludes, you will have the richest, most textured accounting available of what it was like to live as a Mets fan during the first fifty years there were Mets — what those 500 wins were about: not just what happened in them, but what they represented; who came to light; who faded away; what was transpiring around them. If I’m doing my job as Mets fan and Mets author, then you will be living games you haven’t seen in years, hopefully feeling games you never knew existed.
And let me reiterate: Every game lovingly lingered over in The Happiest Recap, even when extracted from years when the team loss total reached triple-digits, is a WIN. Where else ya gonna get the Mets to go 500-0 for ya?
I’m sure I’ll be coming back to this subject plenty as I find my self-promotion comfort zone, but for now, I’ll remind you the first volume of the Happiest Recap series is available on Amazon, it makes a seriously great gift for the Mets fan in your life and an equally great read for you. If you’re on Facebook, please swing by The Happiest Recap page and give us a Like if you like.
Also, if you’re in the New York Metropolitan Area on Saturday afternoon, December 15, there’ll be a graciously organized (by Friend of FAFIF Sharon Chapman) Happiest Recap launch party at Foley’s, 18 W. 33rd St., between Fifth and Sixth Avenues — two blocks east of Penn Station — from 1 to 4 PM. Copies will be for sale that day, a drink special will be in effect and the author will be happy to sign books and talk about anything Mets-related, which doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend a few hours in the middle of December. Hope you can join us.
Thanks to all who entered the Fifty Sheas of Krane contest. The winning entry, along with the answers, will be announced Tuesday.
Will have a fuller and richer pitch for you on Monday, but I need to let you know that my new book, The Happiest Recap: First Base (1962-1973), is available for purchase on Amazon RIGHT NOW. And damned if I’m not going to advise you to purchase it as soon as you can.
It’s only gotten bigger and better in the seven weeks since Dickey essentially clinched the prize the Baseball Writers Association of America announced was his Wednesday night. R.A. Dickey has been in nonstop ascent in our esteem from the Wednesday night he first fully appeared in our midst, high socks and all, in Nationals Park, May 19, 2010. He took over a spot in the Mets’ starting rotation from John Maine and surprised us then with six innings of two-run ball.
Soon enough, it stopped being surprising that he pitched well. The interesting part about him was what happened when he spoke after pitching. A few had come along out of what we on the sidelines consider nowhere to succeed on the ballfield. And a few had opened their mouths to reveal multisyllabic words forming complex thoughts in the unlikely forum of the postgame media scrum. It doesn’t reflect badly on the players who couldn’t pull it off. The required skill set is baseball, not eloquence. But R.A. could do the first and he possessed the second. He wowed us so completely that in an otherwise dreary year he was our runaway choice for Most Valuable Met of 2010.
We hadn’t — we would learn in grammar R.A. Dickey himself would likely reject— seen nothin’ yet.
The BBWAA celebrated R.A. last night. We do it every five days for six months out of every year. And we’re doing it again like we did it in ’10, as we ape Jack O’Connell and declare a bit of history. For the first time in the eight-season history of this blog, Faith and Fear in Flushing awards Most Valuable Met status to somebody for the second time.
Of course R.A. Dickey is our MVM for 2012. That’s an “of course” in the face of competition conceivably as compelling as Clayton Kershaw within the context of what we tend to think about here. Conceivably, we could have tabbed David Wright (who won it in 2007) for rewriting the uppermost lines of the Mets record book while carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Or we could have chosen Johan Santana (2008’s winner) for a reason that will never have to be explained to anyone who lived it. Or we could have instituted a no-repeat rule on the fly and cleverly saluted somebody who symbolized something or other among the valiant if overmatched vast second tier of New York Mets players.
But that would be crazy, because of course it’s R.A. Dickey. R.A. Dickey is the Cy Young winner. R.A. Dickey is our winner. R.A. Dickey is our heroic figure whose stature within the borders of Metsopotamia isn’t so much larger than life as it is otherworldly…accessibly otherworldly, somehow.
We’ve never had anybody like this guy. We pretty much knew that before. We know it for certain now.
It seems superfluous in the shadow of 20 victories, the most strikeouts in the National League, the second-lowest ERA, two consecutive one-hitters, the redefinition of the knuckleball as a quasi-power pitch and the All-Star start that wasn’t his but clearly should have been to recount what makes R.A. Dickey extraordinary besides all that.
Like the best-selling, emotionally searing memoir. Like his advocacy on film and in real life of the pitch that transformed his career and the pitchers who blazed his trail. Like his literally breathtaking climb up Kilimanjaro, both for the immense physical feat and the cause for which it was undertaken. Like the gleefully geeky hobbies he doesn’t mind sharing with his fans. Like the bond he has forged with us overall, a two-way appreciation street between the man who gets how overwhelming the support on his behalf was as it crested in September of 2012 and the supporters who were so grateful to have a Met so worthy of sincere boosterism in yet another otherwise dreary year.
He’s still that articulate clubhouse voice from 2010, but we almost don’t notice the use of language anymore. We take R.A.’s participation in his dialogues with reporters as kind of a baked-in value-added asset to his total package by now. And we’d known for two years prior to 2012 that he could pitch (if not necessarily pitch like this). Perhaps what’s grown, aside from the depth of his baseball accomplishments, is our understanding of his singularity.
There’s never been another Met like R.A. Dickey.
There will never be another Met like R.A. Dickey.
As fans, we often lean on precedent to express ourselves. In the early R.A. days, we might have pointed to Terry Leach’s 1987 or Rick Reed’s 1997 and said this is what Dickey reminds us of, another journeyman who zipped from low-risk to high-reward. As we made a habit of listening to his actualities or reading his quotes, we might have harked back to Keith Hernandez or Todd Zeile or Cliff Floyd to remember what it was like to want to hear what a person who wore a Mets uniform was thinking as he peeled off his jersey. This year, as the numbers piled up with most pleasing constancy, we were invoking the likes of Al Leiter (17 wins), Bobby Ojeda (18), eventually Frank Viola (last Met to 20). And now, as R.A. Dickey makes room between his pair of Faith and Fear MVMs for his Cy Young — though, to be honest, our award will look best on his mental mantel — we are moved to accurately mention Met royalty. Tom Seaver won three Cy Youngs. Dwight Gooden won one. So has R.A. Dickey.
R.A., though, I believe is going to transcend that kind of reflexive listing, even as “Seaver, Gooden and Dickey” will be very valid (and a helluva trinity of which to be part) and “Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Dwight Gooden, David Cone, Frank Viola and R.A. Dickey” are very much the only six Mets to have been 20-game winners as Mets. Yet Dickey’s in his own dimension as a Met. There’s not much use grouping him with anybody else because, assorted statistical accomplishments and surface characteristics aside, who else has been R.A. Dickey?
Nobody. And maybe that’s why we love him so much. He’s singular and he’s ours (contractual/transactional status pending, but let’s not think about that right now). We discovered the R.A. Dickey who became a Cy Young. Not some other team or some other team’s fans, but we did. Technically, R.A. Dickey came up with himself and the Mets were smart enough to cloak him in their regalia when they (or anybody) probably had no true idea what they had, but it all comes out in the laundry and on the bottom line of the back of the baseball card:
R.A. Dickey, New York Met.
Another Met rolls out two one-hitters in two straight starts, chances are we’d high-five twice and move on. Another Met works the kinks out of a heretofore novelty pitch, we’d dwell on where the knuckleballer fits in among the fireballer, split-fingerer and change-of-pacer. Another Met takes 12-1 to the All-Star break and it’s not necessarily a slap in the face to all for which we stand that a non-Met National Leaguer takes the ball first in the All-Star Game. Another Met, we should live so long, edges up on 20 wins, maybe we remember to tune in on a Thursday afternoon to see how he’s doing.
R.A. Dickey, New York Met, we treat much more affectionately, carefully and with a great deal more proprietary handling.
When R.A. Dickey went for No. 20, it was Feast Day for the Metropolitan Soul. It amounted to, as few things have in the Met era that’s more or less dripped along since before Dickey got here, nine incandescent innings. We weren’t Mets fans on September 27. We were Team R.A. We weren’t rooting for a pitcher. We were pitching. We were striking out 13 Pirates until we had nothing left. We all spoke volumes that required an Oxford English Dictionary app stay open. We all gripped the seams in an unorthodox manner. We had all broken through at age 35 and we were all emerging as the best in our business at age 37 in an arena where that simply doesn’t happen.
We all held on for dear life when Alex Presley took Jon Rauch deep and we all exhaled into a roar when Mike Baxter nabbed a tricky liner off the bat of Jose Tabata and we were all a 20-game winner and a Cy Young recipient-to-be. Then we came out and tipped our cap at ourselves as we chanted our name because we’d grown ever fonder of it the more we got to know it.
We set a precedent, R.A. Dickey and us, in 2012. Good luck matching it, future.
If you’ve been with us a while, you’ve probably noticed that I hate the Marlins. As in, I really, really, really hate the Marlins. Every three months or so, I have a frothing-at-the-mouth tantrum about them. Since this will be the third of 2012, I’ll keep it fairly short.
To review, though: Back in April I anointed the Marlins the tackiest franchise in the history of sports, taking aim at everything from their horrible owners to their cynical fire sales to their nonexistent fans to their ghastly rodeo-clown uniforms.
Then, at the beginning of September, I’d once again had enough, ripping Jeffrey Loria and his little friend Bud Selig, who collaborated on the shameful destruction of the Montreal Expos and then held Miami at gunpoint for a new stadium, which might be the worst thing ever made by human hands. Amazingly, Loria couldn’t make it through the new park’s inaugural season before having a fire sale; more amazingly, he’s now doubled down, sending Jose Reyes and Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle and Emilio Bonfiacio to Toronto for a bundle of kinda-sorta-maybe prospects. It doesn’t matter what the Marlins got, because anyone good will get sold before he matters.
Incredibly enough, the problem with my earlier freakouts about the Marlins weren’t that they were overly cynical and built from sentiments generally suitable for the interior of a blast furnace — it’s that I wasn’t nearly cynical or vicious enough.
So let’s make this plain.
Jeffrey Loria? I used to think Loria was a dead-eyed grave robber, a fit replacement for that scabrous garbageman Wayne Huizenga. But it’s much worse. Loria is a shambling colony of amoral excrescence disguising itself with the skin of a human being. It no longer eats, as it gains all the sustenance to perpetuate itself from the ruined dreams of children.
Bud Selig? He will inspire arguments for a generation about his tenure as a commissioner, with every pro being met with a con and vice versa, until you get to contraction and the shameful starving and execution of the Expos and how he rewarded Loria’s dirty work by giving him a new franchise to despoil. At which point it’s game, set, match to the Selig haters. If Selig had an iota of shame, he’d contract the Marlins on the spot; ban Loria, David Samson and the next five generations of their descendants from any major-league stadium; and forbid anyone from ever mentioning the Marlins again in any context. But ask anyone in Montreal if Selig has an iota of shame.
The Marlins? They are the worst collective entity ever. They are flesh-eating mosquitoes surrounding an orphanage in some ruined part of the world, bred by cannibals laying land mines. Not only that, they are the worst collective entity the world will ever see.
In fact, the Marlins are…
…worse than the New York Yankees.
Yes. It’s true. They are.
The Yankees have values, and a code built from those values that they live by. To be sure, they’re twisted and evil values, ones that teach their fans that the appropriate soundtrack for the death of decency and fair play is laughter echoing throughout the icy halls of an empty palace. But, well, they’re values. The Yankees stand for something, however reprehensible that something is to good-hearted people.
The Marlins? They stand for nothing. They embody the void — nihilism given terrible shape as a franchise, devouring everything touched. The Marlins are the entropic cackle that greets the death of everything.
Filtered through the prism of an era when Generation K was other people’s nickname for IPP (a.k.a. Izzy, Pulse and Paul), Rey Ordoñez was clearly the keeper among young New York shortstops and a dial-up modem ushered a Mets fan into a virtual Mezzanine you had no idea existed, comes an interview between James Preller and me at 2 Guys Talking Mets Baseball. As noted on this site recently, 2 Guys is a conversational blog between James and Michael Geus, two fellow AOL travelers from Jason’s and my time getting our Internet feet wet in the mid-1990s. I’m honored to have been asked to share some thoughts with James on those seminal days and many other days as a Mets fan (including some exciting days ahead as regards the imminent availability of a new book series whose first volume I will elaborate on in short order in this space). You can read our dialogue here.
The longest-serving Met ever is all that stands between you and the greatest Mets DVD collection ever.
Ed Kranepool celebrated his birthday last Thursday. Maybe you’ll be celebrating soon, too.
That’s because you have a chance to win the best prize we’ve ever given away here, The New York Mets 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition DVD Set, a TEN-DISC bonanza from A+E Networks Home Entertainment/MLB Productions chock full of Mets highlights, Mets history and Mets hysteria (the good kind). In this handsome package, you’ll find the World Series films, World Series games, big-deal clinchings, home runs you’ve never forgotten and a slew of seasons captured for posterity.
(And on the bonus material disc, you’ll even get a little something I had a hand in scripting, a short video describing the Mets’ “Origins” that runs regularly inside the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum at Citi Field; I had zero idea it would be included here.)
This is a great set, one you, the diehard Mets fan, won’t want to be without, one you, the diehard Mets fan, will want to give to another diehard Mets fan if you already own it. It includes the 50 Greatest Players DVD. It includes the updated (through 1988) An Amazin’ Era. It includes the final game of the 2000 NLCS, which I mention because I’ve never seen it aired anywhere since October 16, 2000 — and I didn’t see it that night ’cause I was at Shea for it.
It’s got a lot. And to win it, you’re going to need to give me a lot…a lot of Ed Kranepool.
The theme of our contest is Fifty Sheas of Krane, in honor of the man who held the all-time Mets career hit record for 26 years and still holds the densest longevity records in the Met annals. Nobody was a Met longer than Ed Kranepool, nobody (probably) will ever be a Met and nothing but a Met longer than Ed Kranepool and few have cut quite so Metsian a figure as Ed Kranepool.
As Ed Kranepool was the longest-serving Met, this examination (quiz doesn’t seem quite right to describe it) will be the longest we’ve ever run to award an item. But as mentioned, it’s not just any item. It’s an outstanding item. Sure, you can skip the challenge we’re about to put forward and purchase The New York Mets 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition DVD Setdirectly from A+E Networks Home Entertainment/MLB Productions — and it will be well worth the investment — but c’mon…have some fun with us.
Make use of the Internet, especially (but not exclusively) the indispensable Baseball-Reference.com, and, if nothing else, get lost in some box scores for a while. And if you win, you gain not just a truly deluxe collection, but an Amazin’ sense of accomplishment.
The deadline for answers to be submitted to faithandfear@gmail.com is Sunday night, November 18 at 11:59 PM EST. First one to 50 correct answers wins the prize. If we don’t get someone with all 50, we’ll take whoever gets the most right soonest.
Time to get ready like Eddie. Good luck!
***
1. Who was the first player to pinch-run for Ed Kranepool?
2. How many future Met coaches played in the last Polo Grounds game in which Ed Kranepool collected a base hit — and who were they?
3. What was Ed Kranepool’s postseason batting average against future Hall of Fame pitchers?
4. What future Detroit Tigers pitcher attended the same high school as Ed Kranepool?
5. In which year’s Mets highlight film — as featured on SNY’s Mets Yearbook — does Ed Kranepool discuss his second-place finish in the team bubble gum-blowing contest?
6. How many hits did Mets wearing No. 7 collect before Ed Kranepool wore it?
7. How many home runs did Ed Kranepool have to hit to set the all-time career Mets home run record (which he held for more than a decade) and whose mark did he surpass?
8. Chronologically, what future Met was born closest to Ed Kranepool without being born after Ed Kranepool?
9. How many players who played in Ed Kranepool’s final big league game had already been part of losing American League World Series teams and who were they?
10. The Eddie Kranepool Society, unofficially the longest-running blog in all of Metsdom, regularly refers to the current chairman and chief executive officer of the Mets by what nickname?
11. What percentage of his major league hit total did Ed Kranepool accumulate before the first presidential election in which he was eligible to vote?
12. Ed Kranepool once shared a Topps baseball card with his manager. Who was the manager and what was the headline over the image on the card?
13. Who were the two future Hall of Fame pitchers against whom Ed Kranepool hit three home runs apiece?
14. How many Mets played their final game as Mets before Ed Kranepool played his first game as a Met?
15. How many Ed Kranepool teammates managed the Mets and who were they?
16. The last time the Mets sent Ed Kranepool to the minors, what prospect did they bring up to take his spot on the roster?
17. In which year’s Mets highlight film — as featured on SNY’s Mets Yearbook — does Ed Kranepool visit his old high school?
18. How many hits did future teammates of Ed Kranepool get against the Mets in the first full big league game Ed Kranepool played — and who got them?
19. What is the “first” that connects 1938 Reds pitcher Johnny Vander Meer to 1964 Mets center fielder Ed Kranepool?
20. What Met made the first pinch-hitting appearance wearing No. 21 after Ed Kranepool stopped wearing it?
21. Ed Kranepool collected 1,252 hits while wearing No. 7, including 85 as a pinch-hitter. It took more than a quarter-century, but eventually the sum total of Mets who wore No. 7 after Ed Kranepool exceeded that total of 1,252. In the game in which the 1,253rd hit collected by the sum total off all Mets who wore No. 7 after Ed Kranepool was recorded, what extraordinary feat did a Mets pinch-hitter (a lefty batter like Kranepool, but not someone who wore No. 7 as a Met) accomplish that no Mets pinch-hitter had done before? And what was the date of the game in question?
22. How many men were inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame before Ed Kranepool?
23. How many hits did future teammates of Ed Kranepool get against the Mets in the first big league game in which Ed Kranepool collected a pinch-hit — and who got them?
24. For what political candidate did Ed Kranepool appear in a television commercial wearing his old Mets jersey after he was retired as a player?
25. When he made his major league debut, Ed Kranepool became the 45th player in Mets history. Who was the 44th?
26. Ed Kranepool pinch-ran three times in his 18-season big league career. Who were the three Mets for whom he pinch-ran?
27. What part of the baseball field inspired the name of the Amityville restaurant co-owned by Ed Kranepool and Ron Swoboda in the early 1970s?
28. What unlucky distinction do Ricky Romero, Edinson Volquez and Kent Tekulve share when it comes to a Met hitting milestone Ed Kranepool was the first to reach?
29. What Met stranded Ed Kranepool on base after Ed’s first pinch-hit?
30. In what feature film, released after he played his final Mets game, did Ed Kranepool appear as himself?
31. Who was the last Ed Kranepool teammate to play for the Mets?
32. Ed Kranepool appeared on one National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, alongside five former Met teammates. Who were those teammates?
33. Who is the only Met to have shared a birthday with Ed Kranepool?
34. Who gave up the home run that knocked Ed Kranepool from the all-time career Mets home run lead?
35. In the last game he played in the big leagues as a 17-year-old, who did Ed Kranepool replace on defense?
36. Who else scored on the same Jim Hickman two-run single that produced Ed Kranepool’s first Shea Stadium run?
37. What future major league manager attended the same high school as Ed Kranepool?
38. For what brand of shaving cream did Ed Kranepool appear in a television commercial late in his career?
39. In which year’s Mets highlight film — as featured on SNY’s Mets Yearbook — does Ed Kranepool sit down and reflect on his Mets career?
40. What future Met gave up a hit to Ed Kranepool in an official game that ended in a tie?
41. How many future Hall of Famers played in the first big league game in which Ed Kranepool played two defensive positions — and who were they?
42. Who scored the winning run in the first game Ed Kranepool started?
43. Ed Kranepool once shared a Topps baseball card with a teammate. Who was the teammate and how were they described on the front of that card?
44. How many other Mets played their final game as Mets in Ed Kranepool’s last game and who were they?
45. In the book, Bad Stuff ’Bout The Mets, what does author Chico Escuela claim Ed Kranepool borrowed “and never give back”
46. In his very first big league game, Ed Kranepool was a defensive replacement for who?
47. Rufus King was the last Federalist Party nominee for president. What does this have to do with Ed Kranepool?
48. Who is the only Met to have played as a Met with a teammate of Eddie Kranepool and a teammate of Eddie Kunz?
49. How many players who played in Ed Kranepool’s final big league game had already been part of winning National League World Series teams and who were they?
50. Who pinch-ran for Ed Kranepool following Ed’s final big league hit?
Greg is inputting even more data into the FAFIF Contest-a-Tron 2012 — you should see the smoke coming out of that poor machine. Contest coming soon — in the meantime, here’s the eighth go-round for a Faith & Fear tradition….
Jason Bay is gone, but R.A. Dickey still might be going. That’s how it goes these days in Met-land. It’s possible — you might even say likely — that David Wright will be at his position come Opening Day 2013 with a big new contract and what’s essentially a lifetime lease on being a Met. But it’s possible — you might even say likely — that Dickey might be toeing the rubber somewhere else, Cy Young Award notwithstanding, a victim of uncertain finances and mileage and track record.
And as for whom Wright will turn and see in the outfield, well, I have no earthly idea. It’ll be Someone Else, but when your general manager makes jokes about getting someone out of a cardboard box, the heart does not leap in anticipation. (Besides, in these days of Wilpon austerity cardboard is expensive. Your next right fielder may arrive in a paper bag kept shielded from hurricanes and Nor’easters in hopes that it will last.)
But on to happier things, or at least more diverting ones: It’s time to welcome the THB Class of 2012.
Background: I have a trio of binders, long ago dubbed The Holy Books (THB) by Greg, that contain a baseball card for every Met on the all-time roster. They’re ordered by year, with a card for each player who made his Met debut: Tom Seaver is Class of ’67, Mike Piazza is Class of ’98, Jose Reyes is Class of ’03, etc. There are extra pages for the rosters of the two World Series winners, including managers, and one for the 1961 Expansion Draft. That includes the infamous Lee Walls, the only THB resident who neither played for nor managed the Mets.
If a player gets a Topps card as a Met, I use that unless it’s truly horrible — Topps was here a decade before there were Mets, so they get to be the card of record. No Mets card by Topps? Then I look for a minor-league card, a non-Topps Mets card, a Topps non-Mets card, or anything else. Topps had a baseball-card monopoly until 1981, and minor-league cards only really began in the mid-1970s, so cup-of-coffee guys from before ’75 or so are tough. Companies such as TCMA and Renata Galasso made odd sets with players from the 1960s — the likes of Jim Bethke, Bob Moorhead and Dave Eilers are immortalized through their efforts. And a card dealer named Larry Fritsch put out sets of “One Year Winners” spotlighting blink-and-you-missed-them guys such as Ted Schreiber and Joe Moock.
Welcome to the basement floor, new guys!
Then there are the legendary Lost Nine — guys who never got a regulation-sized, acceptable card from anybody. Brian Ostrosser got a 1975 minor-league card that looks like a bad Xerox. Leon Brown has a terrible 1975 minor-league card and an oversized Omaha Royals card put out as a promotional set by the police department. Tommy Moore got a 1990 Senior League card as a 42-year-old with the Bradenton Explorers. Then we have Al Schmelz, Francisco Estrada, Lute Barnes, Bob Rauch, Greg Harts and Rich Puig. They have no cards whatsoever — the oddball 1991 Nobody Beats the Wiz cards are too undersized to work. The Lost Nine are represented in THB by DIY cards I Photoshopped and had printed on cardstock, because I am insane.
During the season I scrutinize new card sets in hopes of finding a) better cards of established Mets; b) cards to stockpile for prospects who might make the Show; and most importantly c) a card for each new big-league Met. At season’s end, the new guys get added to the binders, to be studied now and then until February. When it’s time to pull old Topps cards of the spring-training invitees and start the cycle again.
Anyway, previous annals of the THB roll calls are here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Goodness. We’ve been at this for a while, haven’t we?
Robert Carson: Soft-bodied, hard-throwing lefty won accolades for having a good arm, along with warnings that he was way too young for the duties he was being asked to shoulder. That scouting report proved more or less accurate, though the sample size was awfully small. Am I way too pessimistic for noting that guys who arrive being talked about in this way generally wind up with careers that last a year or two at most? No, I’m just a Mets fan. But seriously: Somewhere Joe Vitko and Juan Castillo and Jerrod Riggan are nodding. Carson goes into The Holy Books with a 2010 St. Lucie Mets card that I sought out and bought in a fit of overenthusiasm when it looked like he might be a 2011 callup.
Ronny Cedeno: Decent backup infielder who wore goofy shoes. He arrived and was praised for having changed his approach at the plate from something best summarized as OHMYGODIGOTTASWINGATTHAT to hunting for strikes as preached by Dave Hudgens. Which is praiseworthy, as most big leaguers are incapable of such change by the time they’re veterans, if not before. That said, Cedeno probably won’t be back, as there are a lot of players who can do what he does without costing more money or requiring a long-term commitment. That sounds faintly insulting, but it isn’t meant to be — it’s the reality of backup infielders. And it’s progress that the Alderson regime seems to understand this: Alex Cora got Omarpalooza contract options and became a dead spot on a dead roster; Ronny Cedeno probably gets a new address. 2011 Topps card in which Ronny is a Pirate, and somehow not wearing black shoes with yellow laces. Disappointing of him.
Josh Edgin: Was having a wonderful rookie year until Ryan Howard showed up at the end there and made it numerically less wonderful. Still a pretty good first campaign that bodes well for the future. Edgin’s an interesting story — on the day he was drafted in 2010 he was drilling sewage pipes under South Carolina wetlands and expecting to do the same for a long time, possibly forever. With a little luck Edgin will never again have to consider that as a career — seriously, it sounds awful — but will remember that it was a near thing, and so be less likely to have gobs of money turn him into a jerk and/or idiot. 2012 Topps Update card in which he’s wearing the now all-but-obsolete black Mets top. Hey, that’s also further than he expected to get.
Jack Egbert: I wrote down that he was a 2012 Met. Beyond that, ya got me. I’d say this happens more and more quickly as I slide into old age, but I do remember Dale Thayer. 2012 Bisons card.
Jeurys Familia: Long-awaited prospect finally arrived, demonstrated a live arm and a definite need for another pitch, and sparked a mild panic about how to pronounce his name. Best I could tell it was “Hey-yoor-EES,” but no one ever seemed to provide a definitive answer. (Seriously, this bothered me.) Hopefully we have reason to find out in the future. 2012 Topps Prospects card on which he looks determined underneath a B-Mets cap.
Frank Francisco: Well, he was a stand-up guy in post-debacle interviews. And though he did throw a chair at fans a long time ago, he didn’t slug anyone under the stands or otherwise embarrass himself. Off the field, I mean. On the field, he was a disaster. How this even possible? Did Sandy Alderson once throw his arms heavenward and mock the idea of bullpens while signing the deed to an Indian burial ground over to someone who wanted to build a porno theater on the site? 2012 Topps card.
Justin Hampson: Pitched decently enough as the Mets tried to find a reliable left-handed reliever to use as an alternative to having Tim Byrdak’s arm fall off, a quest that ended with Tim Byrdak’s arm falling off. Opted for free agency after the season. He’ll show up on the mound for a third of inning in 2014 as a Giant or Royal and someone will remind you he was once a Met. 2012 Bisons card.
Matt Harvey: Arrived and was immediately superb, reminding us that while we all love smart pitchers who change speeds and hit spots, there’s something extra-special about a power pitcher with natural swing-and-miss stuff. Harvey was better than advertised, and brought a welcome Seaveresque pissiness to his craft, fuming about things that went wrong instead of accepting praise for things that went right. It’s tremendously exciting to think about getting to watch him for a full year. 2012 Topps Update card.
Jeremy Hefner: The opposite of Harvey, almost literally — the Mets switched Hefner in for Harvey on a storm-plagued night where the game was iffy, which made me wonder if they were going to make him stand atop a metal mast in the parking lot to warn Harvey if he saw lightning. On the mound, Hefner was your basic everything-needs-to-go-right ham-and-egger; off the mound, he was a quiet, religious guy who was terribly nervous about being interviewed by Kevin Burkhardt. Still, he supplied one of the year’s nicer morals about perseverance: He was visibly shaken after retiring no one in a 16-1 shellacking by the Phillies, then went out five days later to limit the Pirates to three hits and no runs over seven innings. That’s worth remembering, and rooting for. 2012 Topps Update card.
Rob Johnson: Backup catcher who threw a scoreless inning on a horrible night in Toronto that began with Jon Niese approaching his job with the level of interest normally seen in a DMV clerk. Let the record show that in Niese’s next start, Johnson quarterbacked him through a very good performance against the Pirates, and Niese was mostly pretty good after that. That’s got to count for something, right? Well, that and having struck out Eric Thames. We’re not mentioning Johnson’s hitting, because he couldn’t. 2012 Bisons card.
Fred Lewis: Quadruple-A player who was rewarded for a nice year at Buffalo by being allowed to do absolutely nothing in September as part of a dismal outfield in which not even he has a future. Next! 2011 Topps card on which he’s a Cincinnati Red.
Zach Lutz: His father’s name is Yogi, swear to God. Yogi Lutz. Say it again, because it’s awesome: Yogi Lutz. 2012 Bisons card.
Collin McHugh: Extremely talented blogger whose writings about the joy, pain and anxiety of being a minor-leaguer became required reading even before he got the call to the big club. Made his debut against the Rockies and it was a dandy: McHugh struck out nine while allowing two hits and a walk over seven. (The Mets lost, 1-0.) Unfortunately, McHugh made seven more appearances and they were all awful — he was scored upon in every one. A guy anyone with a heart roots for; hopefully what we saw was a pitcher who’d thrown too many innings and can turn into a Dillon Gee type. 2012 Topps Heritage Minor Leaguers card in which he’s a B-Met.
Kirk Nieuwenhuis: A fleet-footed, capable center fielder with the best mullet seen on a ballfield in years, Nieuwenhuis beat Heath Bell in late April and was immediately elevated to folk-hero status. Unfortunately, he soon started amassing strikeouts in bushels, looking utterly baffled at the plate, and ended the year sidelined with a bad foot. My kid insisted early on that he would become an All-Star, then doubled down and said he could be a Hall of Famer. Obviously I hope he’s right. 2012 card: Well, he didn’t get a regular Topps card, but he did mysteriously get a horizontal Topps Chrome card, which I would have no truck with, and so I paid not very much money for a vertical Topps Chrome alternate card (doubly mysterious) that was autographed. None of you cared enough to read all that, even if you’re also a Nieuwenhuis. Sorry. Let’s move on.
Garrett Olson: Made his Mets debut against the Marlins in August. Threw 20 pitches. Walked one guy, gave up three hits and four runs. Was never seen again and will presumably bear a 108.00 Mets ERA forevermore. But hey, he got Nick Green to pop out to first in foul territory. SUCK IT, NICK GREEN! 2012 Bisons card.
Omar Quintanilla: Pressed into service at shortstop when Ruben Tejada, Ronny Cedeno and Justin Turner all wound up on the disabled list. This was clearly a bad idea, but soon proved not quite as bad an idea as letting Jordany Valdespin near the position. And, as it turned out, Quintanilla did OK. Not OK as in “who was that Reyes guy, anyway?” but OK as in “that wasn’t nearly the disaster I’d penciled in.” The Mets then sold Captain Q to the Orioles because they needed his roster spot for Jason Bay. Ouch. 2012 Bisons card.
Elvin Ramirez: When things aren’t going well bullpen-wise, everybody starts scanning the minor-league stats and appointing obvious saviors. So it was that Elvin Ramirez became the answer for Mets fans in late May and early June: Hey, he was young, had a good fastball, was doing well at Buffalo and most importantly was not one of the relievers whose name inspired swearing and throwing things by then. Once called up, Ramirez was as bad as everybody else — first he walked guys, then he found out that what worked in Triple-A didn’t work in MLB. Off he went, defrocked and unwanted. He showed up again in July, though, and actually pitched pretty decently. He needs better control and another pitch, but you could easily say that about 150 guys at Triple-A. We’ll see. Has a 2008 Bowman Chrome Prospects card I can’t believe I remembered I owned; I think the photo was snapped in Little League.
Ramon Ramirez: Yes, we traded Angel Pagan for Andres Torres and another guy — Ramon Ramirez, who seemed like a pretty decent pitcher, actually. My being happy about him lasted all of zero regular-season appearances — he was shaky on Opening Day, though he got the win, then reliably awful. Middle relief is a funny thing — Ramirez had been pretty good before 2012, and he’ll probably be pretty good after 2012, and if you ask him years from now he won’t have any more idea what the hell happened in 2012 than you do. 2012 Topps Update card in which he looks like he just threw a ball wide of the plate. Safe assumption.
Jon Rauch: Gigantic, profusely tattooed reliever was superb on Twitter, where he administered much-needed public shamings by retweeting the vile tweets people aimed his way after bad performances. Let’s stop for a minute and note that when Greg and I started this blog, that last sentence would have made absolutely no sense. Unfortunately, for agonizing stretches of the year Rauch was better on Twitter than he was on the mound. The more I think about it, the more I think the Alderson Indian Burial Ground hypothesis needs investigation. Rauch goes into The Holy Books with a 2011 Topps Update card in which he’s a Blue Jay photographed from far away in a nearly empty stadium. Manny Acosta, Miguel Batista, Tim Byrdak, Josh Edgin, Jeremy Hefner and Ramon Ramirez were pitchers who got 2012 Topps Update cards, but not Rauch. Weird.
Vinny Rottino: Did almost nothing for the Mets in an extended stretch of 25th guy duty, then turned up on the Indians’ roster in August. Considering Rottino had 36 big-league at-bats going into 2012, that’s a pretty decent year for him. Perspective, please: I’d kill for the year he had, and probably so would you. 2012 Bisons card.
Kelly Shoppach: Generated early excitement after arriving from the Red Sox for Pedro Beato, which can be attributed to a) a flurry of home runs and b) his not being Josh Thole, Mike Nickeas or Rob Johnson. But mostly was quietly awful, meaning he fit in with his colleagues behind the dish. Might be viable as the lefty half of a platoon. I said that with even less excitement than you imagined while reading it. 2012 Topps Update card on which he’s still a Red Sock.
Andres Torres: There’s usually one player I decide is the Mets’ Jonah, the cursed wearer of the blue and orange upon whom all the team’s faults deserve to be laid. (Previous Jonahs: Jose Vizcaino, Shawn Green, Luis Castillo, Alex Cora, Danny Graves … oh, there are too many to recall.) This year it was Torres, who certainly filled the role ably, not hitting much and periodically doing bafflingly stupid things. In short, he pretty much did what we were tired of watching Angel Pagan do, which is why nobody much minded the Pagan-for-Torres swap when it was made. Except Pagan had a very good 2012, and Torres’s career year was 2010 and so will forever go on the San Francisco Giants’ ledger. Enormous sigh. Let’s just say that I never want to see Andres Torres again, and will brook no argument on this point, because everything was his fault. 2012 Topps Team Set card in which his uniform is Photoshopped into Mets garb. His number should be 666, not 56.
Jordany Valdespin: Rorschach test players are fun. Is Jordany Valdespin an exciting, emotional player with speed and pop who deserves every chance to make the Mets more interesting, or is Jordany Valdespin a head case whose numbnuts episodes will get less and less enchanting as pitchers carve him up and he fails to adjust? I don’t know and neither do you. What I do know is that I will always remember Valdespin’s first career hit, a three-run homer off the loathsome Jonathan Papelbon, and I never want to see him playing shortstop again. Valdespin, to his credit, did draw more walks as the year progressed. (No really, he did.) Maybe there’s something there, or maybe he’ll be the name you mention a beat after your buddy says “Lastings Milledge” with a sad shake of his head.
David Cone, a Met from 1987 through 1992 and again for a spell in 2003 (we don’t know what he did most of the years in between), is lending his celebrity to help to help those still hurting in the aftermath of stupid storm Sandy…which I’m tired of dignifying as “super”. Coney will be guest-bartending at the baseball hub of New York, Foley’s on 33rd St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues in Manhattan, Thursday night, November 15, between 6 PM and midnight. All proceeds the drinks our onetime 20-game winner pours during that period, plus all his tips, will be going to storm relief.
Aside from the nobility of the cause, I might add FAFIF readers will need a drink by November 15, not only to (hopefully) toast the prospective Cy Young fortunes of our most recent 20-game winner, but to recover from the contest we’re about to introduce into the Metsosphere this weekend. We’re giving away a great prize, but we’re gonna make ya earn it.
(With sincere apologies to Gordon Lightfoot, a renowned Canadian talent who, to the best of our knowledge, has never habitually grounded into rally-killing double play after rally-killing double play.)
The legend lives on
From Minaya on down
Of the big waste they called their star signin’
J. Bay, they did say,
Would always come to play
When they had nothin’ kind to describe him
With an average that dropped
Extra-base power stopped
His production was barer than empty
The Mets are teaming with their community partners at City Harvest to help out New Yorkers suffering from the aftereffects of Super Storm Sandy. The Mets are asking for their fans’ help, too, with a food drive on Wednesday, November 14, between 9 AM and 5 PM, at Citi Field’s Hodges entrance on the first base side of the ballpark.
Details, from the club:
Fans donating 10 items or more of nonperishable nutritious food will receive a voucher redeemable for one pair of tickets to a select Mets game in April 2013. Donors will also receive 15% off select merchandise at the Mets Team Store at Citi Field. Season Ticket Holders who donate food can show their ID card to get 20% off select items. The discount will only be honored Wednesday, November 14.
Among the items most needed are: canned fruit and vegetables, plastic jars of peanut butter, packages of hot or cold cereal, and packages of macaroni and cheese. Items that will not be accepted are: unlabeled, expired, or dented cans; any open packaging; products that need to be refrigerated; or homemade products. Fans dropping off food may park in Lot G on 126th Street between the Right Field Gate and Roosevelt Avenue.
If you can help, your team and your neighbors will appreciate it greatly. Thank you.
Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star by Greg Prince is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.
Amazin' Again: How the 2015 New York Mets Brought the Magic Back to Queens by Greg Prince is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.
Volume I of The Happiest Recap: 50+ Years of the New York Mets As Told in 500+ Amazin' Wins by Greg Prince is available in print and for Kindle on Amazon.
Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History by Greg Prince (foreword by Jason Fry), is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.
The initial volume of The Happiest Recap — First Base (1962-1973) — is available on Amazon right now in paperback; it covers 127 Mets wins, runs 224 pages and sells for $16.95. We’ll have information regarding Kindle and other eBook availability shortly. The three succeeding volumes — Second Base (1974-1986); Third Base (1987-1999) and Home (2000 & Beyond) — are planned to follow in 2013.
