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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 Jason Fry on 13 September 2012 12:33 am I’m at my low point as a Mets fan.
It seems crazy to say it, but I really think it might be true.
There have been disasters before, of course.
I became a Mets fan in 1976, not knowing the team was about 14 months from becoming the baseball equivalent of North Korea. But I was a child in the late 1970s. I had hope, even if it was a child’s irrational hope. I thought the Joel Youngbloods and Lenny Randles and Craig Swans of the world were the basis of a championship team. I thought we would win the NL East until the math said we could not. I’m glad I thought such things at the time, because my fandom might never have taken root if I’d known better.
I was a Mets fan in the early 1990s, when sour free agent signees threw quarter-sticks of dynamite at children and Dallas Green watched the horrors on the field with his mouth hanging open. But that team had money. The horrible free agents got traded and money was spent more wisely and by 1995 there were reasons to hope.
I was a Mets fan in the early 2000s, when Mike Piazza was asked to play first base and Jason Phillips was allowed to play baseball. But that team had money. It eventually was able to escape its own mistakes, and by the mid-2000s there was hope.
I’m a Mets fan now. The team is horrible. It’s astonishingly horrible night after night after night. The stat’s being repeated ad nauseum, but it deserves to be: Since the break the Nationals and Braves both have more wins at Citi Field than the Mets do. No one can catch, no one can play the outfield, and no one can hit. The team is an embarrassment off the field too, so craven and corporate that it won’t even stand up to MLB suits in defense of its own admirable homegrown tradition about honoring local heroes by wearing their caps during one game a year.
None of this is any fun, but how is this disaster different than previous disasters? Because this time there is no money.
For Exhibit A, consider David Wright. What we’re hearing right now through the media is an almost note-by-note re-enactment of the Jose Reyes drama, in which the Mets said blandly hopeful things and then let their star shortstop go to another team. I said then and I maintain now that letting Reyes go was the right thing to do — the Marlins’ contract was insane, and a pretend offer from the Mets wouldn’t have made me feel any better. But Wright is different — not just a more valuable player but also the face of the franchise, or at least the only bit of star wattage left. And the Mets are making the same noises, forcing poor Sandy Alderson to mouth reassurances while others offer evasions and non-answers to rudimentary questions about payroll.
Losing Reyes was sad but understandable; losing Wright would be both symbolic and symptomatic.
The Mets’ ownership escaped a death sentence in the Madoff affair, but they seem to have crawled away from it bleeding out instead of decapitated. At least that’s how I now read the state of affairs — that Howard Megdal has been right all along, even while saying things I didn’t want to believe. Really, the tipoff should have been the team’s typically amateur-hour effort to smear and disenfranchise Megdal: The Mets are never more shrill and self-righteous than when someone has revealed a truth they wanted to keep hidden.
In the absence of even vague candor from ownership, the Mets’ strategy seems to be to tread water next year while they clear the Omarpalooza contracts of Jason Bay and Johan Santana, sign Wright and R.A. Dickey to 2014 deals, and build around those two players and pitching prospects such as Matt Harvey, Zach Wheeler and Jeurys Familia. But even that relatively meager plan depends on a whole lot going right. And I don’t think enough of it will.
Harvey certainly looks very impressive, but prospects have a way of turning into suspects. Go check the price of a Paul Wilson rookie card if you don’t know what I mean. And even if the Mets do get good results from their young arms, what about the rest of the team? What about the spaghetti-against-a-wall bullpen? What about the pathetic inability to field a major-league outfield? Harvey was terrific tonight, but it didn’t matter — his feckless teammates did nothing to support him, he lost, and the fans who bothered showing up at all trudged home in misery or apathy. It’s a familiar outcome and sight: These days SNY’s broadcasts are a showcase for not only horrific baseball but also acres and acres of unoccupied green seats. The Mets are touting increasingly desperate ticket plans — you can get into Citi Field for a steep discount by bringing a child, a Pepsi can, enthusiasm for R.A. Dickey or, quite possibly, a white flag. None of this matters, because StubHub is cheaper if you actually want to go. And why would you? Harvey has one more start before he’s shut down. Dickey is two wins away from 20, which suddenly seems like an iffy proposition. Those things aside, what possible reason is there to watch this team lose? I’ve often said baseball’s beautiful no matter what, but the baseball played by the Mets for the last nine weeks has been anything but: The team is inept and listless, sometimes aggravating but mostly profoundly boring and unwatchable.
It’s not a new pattern, and it’s killing this team and its fanbase. The Mets’ 2011 second-half collapse and silent offseason hurt their attendance and bottom line this year; the disaster of this year’s second half and another do-nothing winter will hurt 2013’s attendance and bottom line; a season of watching Harvey and Wheeler lose 3-1 and 2-0 games will hurt 2014’s attendance, and in the middle of that year a mountain of debt comes due. (Here’s Howard Megdal again.) If you’re David Wright, why on earth would you sign up for that even if an offer were forthcoming? Why would you choose to grow old unprotected in a lineup of minimally paid has-beens and never-will-bes? If you’re R.A. Dickey, why would you agree to throw to interchangeable terrible catchers and lose 2-0 games when you could win somewhere else?
Over the last month or so watching the Mets has become a chore. For the first time in my life, I find myself thinking that I have other things to do — things that won’t leave me angry or sad. My kid, raised in a rabidly blue and orange household, increasingly doesn’t watch at all. He’d rather read, or play with Legos, or do anything else. I don’t bother arguing — watching Andres Torres once again forget how many outs there are isn’t exactly going to make him back into a fan. Joshua goes to sleep under a framed picture featuring shots of Reyes and Wright. We haven’t replaced the Reyes picture, because who would the replacement be? When Wright is also an anachronism, I suspect the picture will just come down, with no replacement at all.
I know, I know: The end of the 1982 and 1993 and 2003 seasons were just as bleak. But, again: This time there is no money. The plan, to the extent there is one, appears to be more about survival than resurrection. I doubt even that will work. Eventually the math will finally catch up with the Wilpons, Bud Selig will be finally unwilling to extend them another lifeline, and they will sell. But when will that be? 2014, maybe. But what if it’s 2015 or 2016, or later than that? How much more damage will have been done to the franchise? How long will it take to fix it? And will the new owner even care to do so? What’s going to bring my kid back to the fold, to reignite his guttering fandom? And what about me — probably the second-biggest Mets fan you know?
The Mets are caught in something that looks very much like a death spiral, and for the first time in 36 years I find myself wondering whether it would be better not to go down with them.
by Greg Prince on 12 September 2012 1:07 pm In 2003, when Roger Clemens was riding high as a power pitcher throwing hard well beyond his years (somehow), he let it be known when the Hall of Fame came calling for his inevitable membership, he’d insist on going in as a Yankee. If Cooperstown dared portray him as a Red Sock, well, he just wouldn’t show up. He’d have his own party in Texas, screw you Abner Doubleday.
Something happened on the way to guaranteed immortality and now, nine years later, Clemens is trying to pitch in the majors again. He’s been working out his kinks, so to speak, in the Atlantic League, and the current Sugar Land Skeeter may be a Houston Astro by the time this season ends. Nobody’s watching the Astros in their final N.L. weeks (literally), so their new owner figures, what the hell, let’s throw the ol’ Rocket out there and see if anybody will bust down the doors to have a gander at this fifty-year-old freak of nature/chemistry.
But not so fast there, says the fastballer of yore. You can’t start me against just any team, for I am Roger Clemens, delusional sonofabitch who hasn’t thrown a Major League inning in five years, and you must pitch me against a contender, or I won’t play, just as I wasn’t going to come to my own Hall of Fame ceremony in 2009, which it turned out wasn’t the year of my induction because I kept retiring and unretiring and so forth until the Mitchell Report came out.
This is one of the most distasteful men to ever excel in baseball. Still.
Don’t ever give this man a painting of Shea Stadium. Not even a crappy one.
by Greg Prince on 11 September 2012 11:55 pm If R.A. Dickey had counted on the Met offense to act as his Sherpas when he set out to climb Kilimanjaro, he’d still be at base camp.
Tuesday night’s foiled attempt at scaling Win No. 19 goes down instead as Loss No. 5 for Dickey, which isn’t out of line with the reality of the game he threw. He pitched well enough to win until Tyler Moore associate-produced the pinch-homer that turned a 2-1 lead into a 3-2 deficit, at which point it could be said he pitched well enough to need a little help. Dickey was not his sharpest self for segments of seven innings, but he bore down when he could’ve cracked up, and he definitely could’ve been bailed out by a few more supportive swings of Met bats.
Fat chance. It was all the Mets could do to muster two runs (in one inning, no less!), then leave their knuckleballer twisting in the National wind. And that’s no sea breeze. The Nats are a frighteningly good team. R.A. called their lineup highly “functional” and the margin for error against them “minute,” both accurate assessments. Also, I think it’s safe to project that the bloggers of 2030 or thereabouts will spend some September weekend debating whether the Mets should really be presenting a crappy interpretive painting of Citi Field to Bryce Harper considering how he’s been killing us since 2012. No, a win versus these Nationals is not as automatically attainable as a win against these Mets. Yet for the second night in a row, Washington’s starter struggled enough so our fellas could be in position to kick the Nats’ door down.
But the Mets only tap lightly twice.
Jordan Zimmermann lasted five innings and permitted nine baserunners. Though one imagined Justin Turner was arranging his whipped cream pies to celebrate the Mets breaking their month-old one-run-or-less skid in the fifth (I truly hate this club’s “let’s pat each other on the head for doing anything well” culture), the two runs knitted together by Ruben Tejada, Daniel Murphy and David Wright were all they had to show from six hits and three walks . And of course the bottom of the seventh, the Mets’ last chance to give their starter a boost, was like something out of The Sopranos — a big no-show job, that is; there was certainly no National pitching whacked.
The Mets don’t exist to serve R.A. Dickey’s quest for 19 or more wins, let alone his Cy Young candidacy, but geez, what else is there to strive toward with four handfuls of games left? The night had extra bite to it. Every face R.A. made had purpose. Every runner the Mets left stranded had sting. Every chance the Mets let blow by had consequences, even if it was for just one man out of however many guys are on the roster currently. When Moore’s home run took off for distant precincts, I actually heard myself caterwaul as I might have in other, more pressing Septembers. For a couple of hours I forgot the Mets had nothing to play for, perhaps because for a couple of hours the Mets had something to play for.
by Greg Prince on 10 September 2012 11:55 pm I thought it was swell that the Mets told those of us who held rain checks from Saturday’s soggy yet official game against the Braves that we could come back to Citi Field and trade them in for shiny new tickets to Monday night’s game against the Nationals. And I had a half a mind — to use too obvious a straight line to pass up — to take advantage of their goodwill. I wasn’t exactly planning to go see them for a third day in a row but I just kind of assumed my momentum would carry me there. The Mets play, I seem to materialize.
But I couldn’t do it. Could not pull the trigger. Could not bring myself to subject myself to another live and in-person look at them, even though as a Mets fan my default mode is to avail myself of every live and in-person look at them I can get. I mean, c’mon, it’s the Mets game…and it’s free.
Ultimately, it wasn’t free enough. I don’t want to say they would’ve had to have paid me to spend three more hours with the 2012 Mets, but even at a ticket price of $0.00, this wasn’t going to be a cost-effective visit.
Not unless the Mets were going to comp my transportation. And food. And beverage. And mental health coverage.
Yes, I had a half a mind to go see the Mets again Monday night. Thank goodness the other half of my mind stuck up for sanity.
What did I miss by not paying what the Mets of September 2012 are worth when R.A. Dickey isn’t pitching?
• R.A.’s Cy Young rival Gio Gonzalez looking not remotely Dickeyish yet winning handily. He gave the Mets five walks in six innings, and the opportunistic Mets made him pay by…no, actually, Gio, like the Saturday set, didn’t have to pay. The Mets cashed in no opportunities. Scott Hairston hit a solo home run, but by then, Collin McHugh had spotted the Nats five runs, and the score was what it was going to be for the rest of the night, 5-1.
• Kelly Shoppach dropped a foul pop that extended a Kurt Suzuki at-bat long enough to turn it into a home run, which reminded me of an observation I made while sentenced to ten innings of Mets baseball at Citi Field on Sunday: if there is one modern-day player who seems likely to get caught up in a Black Sox-like scandal, my nominee would be Kelly Shoppach. That’s not to say I think he was throwing the game. I don’t think any of our catchers is capable of throwing a game, let alone a baserunner out at second.
• The Ramirii, Elvin and Ramon, were effective, as was Jeurys Familia. I don’t know if their combined four innings of no-hit ball means anything in the scheme of 2013, but good for them. It didn’t do the Mets any good since their batters did nothing to three Nationals relievers for three blankety-blank innings, but the Mets, per Terry Collins’s delusional postgame comments on “positives,” would like us to believe what good we see is good, and the rest can essentially be ignored.
• The Mets tied their mark for uninterrupted home-game offensive futility by not scoring three runs in an eleventh consecutive Queens contest and they came up with something I didn’t even know existed besides: they’ve now gone 106 innings in a row without scoring more than one run in any given Citi Field inning. That’s the worst for any team since 1909, back when catchers probably did drop foul pops per arrangements with the gambling community. What’s the 2012 Mets’ excuse?
• Official attendance was a shade less than 22,000, presumably including the tens and tens of Saturday tickets exchanged for Monday. Based on the photos I saw online and the wide shots from the center field camera on SNY, I wish to congratulate the Mets’ official attendance counter on submitting the winning entry for this year’s Pulitzer Prize for distinguished fiction by an American author. If R.A. doesn’t win the Cy Young, at least we’ll have that.
by Greg Prince on 9 September 2012 8:55 pm The first predictable part was the Mets scoring no more than three runs Sunday, a total they haven’t exceeded in their own ballpark since Robert Moses wore short pants, a span covering their three most recent Citi Field series (and, presumably, the late Robert Moses’s legs). They scored two, extending the frayed string in question to ten games, or one shy of the record for such things. Twice in their history, the Mets have scored no more than three runs in eleven consecutive home games. I could note the years those streaks occurred, but really, when you start invoking these sorts of anti-achievements, it all kind of speaks for itself.
The other predictable part was the Mets scoring one fewer run than their opponents Sunday, in this case the Braves. The Mets lost to the Braves. It took ten innings, but they stayed consistent. They lost all weekend to the Braves. They lost before and after frightful weather on Saturday and they lost in beautiful weather Sunday. They lost Friday, too. They’ve been losing to the Braves like crazy since opening the season by sweeping them and getting us giddy with a 3-0 start. Perhaps they lulled us into a premature state of euphoria. Bastards!
The unpredictable part was Chipper Jones got himself a pretty decent hand for his cameo appearances Sunday from a fan base conditioned to detest him. Fredi Gonzalez, killjoy extraordinaire, kept Chipper from the starting lineup because he (Gonzalez, that is) is a tightass with zero sense of occasion, but did deign to send No. 10 out with the lineup card, which rewarded the observant fan with the chance to reward The Enemy with a ripple of recognition. It was all very sweet, two No. 10s (Chipper joined by Terry Collins) shaking hands heartily at home plate — that’s where the runs score, in case the Mets have forgotten — and the two of them posing for pictures with the four umpires. Later, Chipper pinch-walked and was greeted kindly just for coming to the plate and then warmly for getting his ass the hell off first base when Gonzalez inserted the currently far more villainous Reed Johnson in his place. True to my plan, I stood, I applauded appreciatively, I booed instinctively, I sat and I LAR-RY’d throughout Chipper’s final moments with us and felt perfectly clean for the effort. Johnson didn’t score, thus I judge my acknowledgement of a Metsian-tinged legend and Hall of Famer to be worth it.
And that was basically Sunday’s game. While waiting in vain for Mets runs and inevitably for Braves runs and curiously for Chipper sightings, Kevin from Flushing and I (each wearing our 1999 playoff shirts in honor of the impending deChipperization of the vicinity) passed the time wondering, among myriad other things, which current Mets player was most likely to fall for the hidden ball trick. Then we switched our focus to which current Mets player was most likely to not fall for the hidden ball trick because we decided that basically every current Mets player is quite capable of falling for the hidden ball trick. We eventually exempted Ruben Tejada from our consensus that we’re not generally blessed with fundamentally sound players.
Sunday’s player of the game? Not adieu-bidding Chipper Jones, not homer/sac fly practitioner Brian McCann (bastard!), not freakishly effective Johnny Venters (three strikes to Ike to end the sixth, four pitches to Duda, Turner and Torres to eviscerate the seventh, and that was with Duda singling), but the guy in the Jets jersey who defied LIRR illogic and held the door to the Babylon train open at Jamaica long enough so those of us who were transferring could board. See, there’s a Long Beach train from Woodside that gets to Jamaica in time to allow you on the Babylon train that’s right freaking there across the platform, but the LIRR pretends the connection doesn’t exist and lets that Babylon train pull away from you so it can make you stand around and wait for the next Babylon train. And while you wait, you can stew over how the Mets never score more than three runs at home and how your 2012 record has plunged from 8-2 as of June 3 to 10-12 as of September 9…though that sounds about right, considering the Mets have lost 19 of their last 23 home games and it’s highly unlikely any loyal spectator’s 2012 Mets record is any good of late.
But the Jets guy held the door to the Babylon train and I slipped in and got home around 5:30 instead of around 6 o’clock…which may not sound like much, but neither is a three-run maximum. So ya take what can ya get on losing Sundays like these.
by Greg Prince on 8 September 2012 11:35 pm 1) It appears impossible to all but give away tickets to a Mets game in September, and that includes trying to all but give away tickets to people outside Citi Field who seem determined to go to the Mets game about to be played. Saturday afternoon was my annual Mets game with Jeff from Washington who, as a result of a communications snafu with another member of our game-going group, got stuck with two extras. First he just wanted face value for his trouble. Then he was willing to settle for two-for-one. Some guy on the gameday ticket line thought what Jeff was asking was too much, even though he was in line for tickets that would plainly cost more. Somebody else thought Jeff was trying to pull a fast one by making the same offer, leading to one of the great unintentional setups of all time from my friend the lawyer who works comedy clubs in his off hours:
“I’m not some sleazy guy — I’m an attorney!”
He got stuck with the extras.
2) How sad is it that every September since Citi Field opened reminds you how alone you are as a Mets fan who is excited to attend a Mets game at Citi Field? I still can’t get over how something that’s such a headline attraction on Opening Day devolves into a surefire punchline by September, and that’s with taking into account how perennially bad the Mets are by September. Yes, the Mets lost to the Braves, 11-3. Yes, they appear destined for a fourth consecutive sub-.500 finish and yes, it will likely be only the incompetence of the Marlins that clinches them a fourth consecutive fourth-place finish, but it’s still the Mets and it’s still the game of baseball and it’s still summer technically and the Mets offer deals and non-sleazy attorneys are practically giving away tickets…yet it seems laughable that anyone would actually want to go.
What also seemed laughable was how on Friday night, when Stephanie and I joined Jeff and a couple of friends for dinner after Jeff killed at his New York club date (that is to say he was very funny, not that he committed a felony), we had to go to extreme lengths in order to get a waiter to find a remote control for the restaurant’s TV and change the channel to SNY after repeated requests. Jeff thought our diehard attempts to watch the Mets swing and miss against Atlanta would make for a good story. I’ll bet the waiter had a better story:
“You’ll never guess what some customers kept asking for Friday night!”
3) In his killer act, Jeff tells jokes about being a dad. What he doesn’t mention is what a good dad he is…what a good Mets dad he is. We’re in the team store on his one and only trip to Citi Field this year, and we’re inspecting the player-number t-shirts. Jeff whips out one of his phones (he’s like Walter White carrying multiple cells) and calls his youngest son at college.
“You want a Matt Harvey t-shirt? No? OK, bye.”
After hanging up, I’m told he was told, “He has ‘enough Mets shirts.’” Then he grabs HARVEY 33 by the hanger. “I’m getting it for him anyway.”
Inspired — by both Jeff and HARVEY — I get off the fence and ante up for the very same shirt I’d been putting off purchasing for three homestands, deciding I wanted to have some skin (or fabric) in the game where future Mets success is concerned…though as soon as I brought it to the counter, I could feel myself investing in WILSON 32 in 1996 and not knowing what to do with it by 1998.
Except player-number Met t-shirts weren’t so readily available back then. But if I’d seen a WILSON 32, trust me, I would’ve gone for it.
4) The Mets’ second-half MVP of 2012 is clearly Pat LaFrieda. Just about every game I’ve gone to in the past five weeks has involved somebody asking, “Is the steak sandwich really that good?” Try for yourself is all I can advise. Jeff joined the club Saturday. He feared a long line. But this is September at Citi Field; the only lines in evidence are adjacent to first and third bases. No line for Pat. Too many onions for Jeff. Oh well.
5) It was Sterling Awards day, a good chance to get our eyes checked…oh wait, that’s Sterling Optical. Well, it was a good day to get our hopes unchecked as Howie Rose boomed with enthusiasm as the Future Stars of the Mets jumped from the back pages of the official yearbook to be recognized in a pregame ceremony that drew the riveted attention of absolutely nobody. Again, a paradox. Your hardcore Mets fan (and who the bleep else is at one of these September games?) salivates over “prospects” like they’re Pat LaFrieda steak sandwiches, but when a fistful are paraded before us for our perusal, nobody really looks. Granted, Zack Wheeler in a suit is less interesting than Zack Wheeler on a mound, but there he is, getting his award for being the best Binghamton Met of 2012 and it doesn’t cost any extra to pay him a little mind.
Yet the crowd went mild. Jeff and I clapped for our future. Few others did. They could have been handing Pat Cawley the State Farm Agent of the Day award for all the buzz that was being generated. No way a Wheeler could look at a stadium about one-tenth filled and one one-hundredth engaged and think, “Wow, this is the big leagues!” He said something to that effect in an interview, but how could their reception not be underwhelming to him or to overall Sterling Player of the Year Wilmer Flores or to whomever else they selected either on merit or out of a desire to pump up trade value.
In the minutes before a September Mets game at Citi Field, Flushing is little more than a big Binghamton.
6) Add to those things that seem larger in theory than September Citi Field reality the reception accorded Chipper Jones amid the second part of his final Sheatropolitan Area visit. First AB: light applause, playful booing, one Laaarrryyy!!! (mine). Second AB: same, except less so and I didn’t bother with the Laaarrryyy!!! And so on. Nobody cares about anything when your team is losing and you’re struck by the sensation of being an oddball at a Mets game versus being a “normal person” anywhere else.
Of course when I overheard two guys on the inbound 7 train mention they were going to the U.S. Open and, implicitly, not the Mets game, I grumbled what I always grumble to myself whenever I learn somebody could be at a Mets game but isn’t:
“WHO CARES ABOUT TENNIS/FOOTBALL/LIFE? THE METS ARE PLAYING!”
True, I’m reaching the point where I don’t believe I’m grumbling such things, but I still do it anyway.
7) One of the incessant, bleating, between-innings announcements that finally drove me to comment after hearing it 20 times previously this season was that we should come to McFadden’s later for the “legendary” postgame party.
The postgame party at McFadden’s qualifies as “legendary”? You mean the stuff of legend? Like generations gathered around campfires recalling in trembling voices the time that dude ordered that Coors Light? How cut-rate have our legends become?
1969 is a legend. 1986 is a legend. McFadden’s is a bar from which you can’t re-enter the ballpark.
8) Inevitably, it rained. Common sense came pouring down in buckets over Section 526 (where there had been plenty of good seats available). The annual game dissolved. Our party of eight — including two children who seem to understand the Mets aren’t very good but, bless their adorable souls, aren’t much moved by that unpleasant fact — scattered. After a round of goodbyes to Jeff and everybody else, I actually lingered at Citi Field for the first 15 or 20 minutes of the rain delay. At first it was to time my escape optimally between the briefly torrential precipitation and my train at Woodside, but then, as the rain slackened, it was to wonder whether I should stick around and soak up the final three innings by myself, whenever they were to be presented.
I walked the perimeter of the covered portion of Field Level, stepped around small knots of Tomahawking Braves fans (dopes, obviously, but oh to be fired up about something besides steak sandwiches), ruminated on how there aren’t many innings left, how I’d yearn to be here in winter, how it’s the Mets and baseball and all that…and I made an executive decision to get the fudge out of Dodge. Losing 8-2, about to be 19-35 between July 8 and September 8, carrying no hint of a promising immediate future except for the HARVEY 33 in my bag, that sentimental crap wasn’t going to cut it.
I left through the Rotunda, checked Twitter and saw an approximate (if ultimately overly optimistic) restart time listed. “Damn,” I thought. “Did I do the right thing?”
Yeah. Sometimes ya just gotta accept it’s not quite your day at the ballpark. Just ask the team that’s lost 35 of 54.
9) What should appear on the TV at the Jamaica station Air Bar (an oasis of civility designed to serve Air Train customers yet they let mere LIRR types like me loiter) but a resumption of the game I left? It was the top of the seventh and there was Jeurys Familia and I was ever so slightly kicking myself for missing his Citi Field debut despite the ticket in my pocket that indicated I was there. The satellite feed delivered a jumpy picture and Familia surrendered three straight hits, but I — and nobody else — watched him just about get out of his mess. I was so immersed in Familia meeting his challenge that I almost forgot I had a train to catch.
By the time I was on the train, with my earbuds plugged into my trusty, low-tech pocket radio, I learned Familia gave up a key hit and now it was 10-2. I stopped kicking myself.
10) I was home in time for the ninth inning, which was about as discouraging as the previous eight. Terry Collins used six relievers behind the spectacularly ineffective Jeremy Hefner. With Chris Young pitching Sunday, I worried for three seconds that the bullpen wouldn’t be well-rested enough to pick up for Young when he bails after five. Then I stopped worrying and began laughing internally as much I laughed externally at Jeff’s act Friday night, because with the Mets nine games under .500 and 21 games out of first place, WHO CARES who pitches after Chris Young tomorrow?!?!?!?
Still, I watched down to the final out on Fox and then flipped to SNY for the postgame show because I so hoped Terry would tear his team a new a-hole — or any hole, really. But Terry did no such thing. He just sat with his arms folded and fielded softballs about how not terrible Lucas Duda looks lately. I guess the manager figures his team has enough holes as is.
11) I’m going to Sunday’s game to acknowledge Chipper from Atlanta and to hang with Kevin from Flushing and to be the creature of habit that four consecutive hollow Septembers haven’t prevented me from remaining. And I could turn my rain-soaked ticket from Saturday in for a complimentary admission for Monday because the Mets are just that gracious and, one presumes, Citi Field looms as just that empty. The sick, sad part is I’m kind of thinking about it.
I mean if the Mets can’t give away a Mets ticket to me, what’s the point of there being Mets games the rest of this year?
by Jason Fry on 7 September 2012 11:55 pm The interesting part of the first game of Chipper Jones’s farewell to Citi Field and Mets fans? It was over long before the teams took the field. The Mets lost, 3-0, doing absolutely nothing with bats in their hands. The pitching was good — Jon Niese and Jenrry Mejia made a bad pitch each, and Bobby Parnell got betrayed by his defense — but they had nothing to work with. It was a dull, grinding, boring game. Forget kids going free to Mets games in September — by rights the team should have paid any Mets fan who stuck this one out for nine innings instead of opting for any of about 50 million better ways to spend a Friday night in New York City.
As for Chipper, he was candid and interesting (for an athlete) in his press conference, as he generally is. The Wilpons gave him a painting of Shea that wasn’t really my thing (not that anyone cares, or should), but was a nice gesture and no doubt will brighten up a few square feet of wall somewhere in one of the Jones manses.
I don’t get the hue and cry about the Mets doing something for Chipper as part of his farewell tour. Lots of other teams have given him gifts, acknowledging a generation’s worth of fine baseball from a remarkable player. The fact that Chipper’s exploits did the Mets a fair amount of harm shouldn’t exclude them from this ritual.
Look, Chipper put together a Hall of Fame career playing for one team. Such players have traditionally been accorded accolades as they visit cities for the last time — Carl Yastrzemski and Robin Yount and Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken got such tours, to name a few. Other teams would never do that for a Met? Sure they would — if a Met put together a Cooperstown career wearing nothing but blue and orange, which has never happened. I don’t mind Chipper getting a painting. I wouldn’t mind recognition beyond that from the Mets.
Yes, the sight of Chipper’s Joker grin will burn forever in the minds of those who were Mets fans in the late 1990s. (How did he get the corners of his mouth to go completely vertical, anyway?) Sure, he said that thing about Mets fans going home for the World Series and putting their Yankees gear on. Yep, he made our lives a living hell tons of times. And OK, he did name his kid Shea.
But Chipper was never a boorish thug and a flash-in-the-pan talent like John Rocker. When he said or did something provocative, he was at least clever. And on the field he did what he was supposed to do, as a guy wearing the other team’s uniform. If you’re any kind of baseball fan, years ago you probably started admiring the player while still hating what he did to us.
Unfortunately, I can’t be there Sunday, for what presumably will be Chipper’s last at-bat before a Mets crowd. But I wish I could be. If I were there for that final AB, I’d give Chipper a standing ovation — for his Cooperstown career, for his long run of service to one and only one team, for being a worthy adversary, and because in a weird way I’ll miss not having him around to boo and dread.
With Chipper gone, the great era of the Mets-Braves rivalry will be finally, officially over. That era was mostly marked by glory for them and dismay for us, it’s true. But goodness, what a time to be a Mets fan. Those were electric days, and some of my greatest memories of Mets fandom came from them — Mike Piazza’s exclamation point in the 10-run inning, Olerud ending the Mets agony against Maddux, the Grand Slam single, the first home game after 9/11. Today, in these diminished days of meager payrolls and meek surrenders to MLB bureaucrats, such memories burn brightly. Chipper’s departure will only reinforce that those days are gone.
And if I could be there, having applauded with all that going through my head I’d then take my seat and cheer desperately for whatever Met was standing on the mound to get Chipper Jones out.
by Greg Prince on 7 September 2012 2:37 pm  Larry Jones has been hard to miss, but we’ll manage. First responder caps…Bobby Valentine embroiled in controversy…wondering how the Mets are going to handle Chipper Jones…
What decade is this anyway?
I’m not in the mood to be overly outraged at the moment, so I’ll just say I agree with Jason’s assertion that the Mets are not doing the right thing by not fully honoring a tradition they started in 2001 when they looked outside themselves and honored the true heroes of their community with a small but significant gesture. It’s a demerit against a franchise that does so much right in the realm of active September 11 remembrance when it comes to working with Tuesday’s Children, to name just one worthwhile example. It’s a total mark of shame against MLB, but what else is new there?
Bobby V isn’t our story anymore, but the figurative heat rising from his managerial tenure in Boston feels like the smoke from a distant fire…say, any of the media-stoked conflagrations that sporadically ignited when he summered on Roosevelt Avenue between 1996 and 2002, particularly toward the end of his Met residency. Given the contentious interview he gave to WEEI and taking into account how stories sizzle that much quicker and so much hotter when it’s the Red Sox imploding in Beantown, this may be the end of his residency there, too. For all the bad press he’s brought on himself lately, it’s hard to recall the image of Bobby V wearing the NYPD cap in September 2001 (during games, mind you) or leading the support efforts in the Shea Stadium parking lot before play resumed and wish anything but the best for a man who gave so much of himself to others. Bash Bobby Valentine all you want. He’ll always be my manager, even if he’s not our story anymore.
As for Chipper, he’ll be out of our hair three games hence. He’s been a fixture in our scalp since 1995, causing his most persistent itch right around the turn of the millennium. Chipper Jones and his teammates always seemed to rise head and shoulders above the Mets when it mattered most. They still seem to do that, even though it doesn’t matter all that much to us in September 2012 the way it did circa September 1999. But he’s still Chipper, except now he’s a retiring legend and he’s worked diligently to soften his prickly edges. The man’s done nothing but attempt to ingratiate himself to the Mets fan mindset since around 2008, when the stadium for which he named his son was coming down, and I’ve learned to appreciate him for the rare self-aware superstar he grew into. I also appreciate that he won’t be bothering us anymore after Sunday. I hope the Mets shake off their insecure nature for two minutes and offer up a brief ceremony of some sort before his last game. I hope the Mets fans remember exactly who he is, in every sense of the word, and give him the LARRRRRRYing he so richly deserves. Standing and applauding while indulging the ancient at-bat ritual for the man we called a lot of things but never simply “Jones” would be a nice touch. Sitting and booing would be understood, if a little tacky. Let’s offer up our own recognition, whatever legal form it takes on. Chipper and Larry have both earned that.
Chipper…Bobby V…the caps. All of a piece, in a way. Certainly all of an era, a complex era when the brass ring loomed so tantalizingly close for so long. There are days from the heart of that period I’d like to forget, but there are emotions I am destined to remember for as long as I root. They’re a decade removed from the present yet I’m feeling them all over again.
by Jason Fry on 6 September 2012 10:45 pm Remember that whole mess last year, when the Mets were going to wear first-responder caps on the 9/11 anniversary but then Bud Selig and Joe Torre wouldn’t let them, and the team meekly acquiesced rather than incur a fine from MLB?
Well, this year our team has avoided the problem in a way that’s pretty much the epitome of the modern-day Mets Way: There will be no dispute or ruckus over hats, because this time the Mets didn’t even ask for permission to wear them in the game. They’ll wear them during batting practice and the national anthem, and then go to the regulation hats, and then probably break their own arms patting themselves on the back for getting the prelude right and blowing the main event.
I’m speechless. With a year to work behind the scenes and come to an agreement, the best answer the Mets could come up with was … to surrender.
It’s absolutely indefensible.
I know the Mets have serious financial problems, and I accept that. I know the Mets are trying to rebuild their team the right way, a way that will take patience. And I accept that too. I know that part of that patience is watching young players struggle. And I accept that too, at least some of the time.
But I can’t accept this. It’s shameful and pathetic and frankly it’s fucking embarrassing. This isn’t a payroll figure, or a free-agent signing, or an on-field win. It’s standing up for a tradition that was honorable and moving and that deserves remembrance one day a year — something eminently within the control of an organization with some semblance of a backbone.
This is what I wrote about it last year.
This is what Greg wrote.
And this, a year later, is what the Mets have done.
I don’t even know what to say.
I am a patient fan, perhaps a too patient one. I try to think of myself as a realist in assessing my team’s moves and performance given their unfortunate situation, and perhaps this has led me from realism into rationalization. But c’mon, really — this was so much easier than any of that.
Who cares what Joe Torre and Bud Selig order you to do on this point?
Who cares about MLB authenticators taking hats and policing headgear?
Pay the fine — or better yet, dare MLB to collect it.
This one is easy, ladies and gentlemen. No one would be on MLB’s side — no one. How is this even a question? How could you blow this simple thing so utterly?
I love the Mets, even when they don’t win. I love being a Mets fan, even when the on-field results threaten to plunge me into despair. But when the Mets organization says something of note or decides something that rises above the day-to-day noise, I assume the results will be either embarrassing, mealy-mouthed, disingenuous or all three. And usually I’m proven correct.
I want the Mets to win again. I want the stands to be full and loud and raucous again. But just as much, I’d like the Mets organization to stop being so reliably spineless and embarrassing. The rest will take time, but that last part is in the Mets’ power. And they can start any time they like.
Here’s a good way to kick things off: Wear the fucking hats — for all the obvious reasons no one should have to spell out.
by Greg Prince on 6 September 2012 12:33 pm  “There’s nothing to fear but Faith and Fear itself!” Just as I’m the kind of fan who sticks it out at Citi Field to the ninth inning when the Mets are down by ten, I’m the kind of political junkie who stays tuned to C-Span after the prime time speeches and watches every bit of the alphabetical convention roll call clear through Wyoming, even though it’s to confirm a nomination that’s been a foregone conclusion for nearly four years. I love convention roll calls. I love 56 state/other delegations introducing their votes with the most grandiose homages to their natural resources and elected officials. I love that when Wyoming finishes the process and the gavel comes down from the podium, there are as many people in the convention hall as there are at Citi Field when it’s the ninth inning and the Mets are down by ten.
I love convention roll calls so much, that it makes me wonder what they would be like if they took place in other settings.
For example…
***
“Madam Secretary, the great Promenade Section 514, home of Citi Field’s most sweeping vista, a view that provides visual proof of almost the entire outfield … where for a relatively reasonable price a fan can stare down and gaze directly at the backs of catchers like Josh Thole, Mike Nickeas, Rob Johnson and the latest addition to our glorious backstop corps, Kelly Shoppach … home to regulars like the guy who calls attention to himself with his exaggerated ‘STRUCK HIM OUUUUUUT‘ affectation while never, ever cracking a smile and often evincing a surprisingly sour outlook on life.
“Madam Secretary, Promenade Section 514, where the same small but obstinate puddle of water has greeted ticketholders at the apex of its stairs since the beginning of the 2010 season … an area of seats so conveniently located to the Promenade food court that it is possible to purchase a slice of moderately warm Two Boots pizza between the top and bottom of a middle inning and not miss a pitch … with immediate access to not ONE but TWO men’s rooms … and not ONE but TWO ladies’ rooms.
“Madam Secretary, the section where wandering fans from the first and third base sides who paid less for their tickets can join us and feel comfortable in late-season blowout losses because there will almost ALWAYS be rows of empty seats if they are willing to make the inspirational climb upward and there will NEVER be a hint of maroon-shirted security to stop them … where Citi Field’s subtle overhang provides vital protection against steady rains not considered hard enough to delay game action but steady enough to get you wet.
“Madam Secretary, the proud denizens of Promenade Section 514 enthusiastically cast all of their votes for the next Champions of the National League East, the New York Mets!”
***
“Madam Secretary, I proudly represent Field Level Section 101, where the Shea Bridge beckons and Citi Field’s seating chart begins.
“We are the men and women who populate the heart of the right field stands.
“It is we, the stalwart 101’ers, who first coined the phrase ‘Jayson Worthless’ in 2009.
“It is we who noticed Giancarlo Stanton in April and derisively reminded him for the next nine innings that his name used to be MIKE!
“It is we who, when given vocal access to Bryce Harper in July, took great care to inform the 19-year-old phenom that he SUCKS! when fans in every other stadium were telling him otherwise.
“It is we who inhale the intoxicating aroma of the Catch of the Day fried flounder sandwich while its patrons wait and wait for their orders to be prepared.
“Section 101 is where the Mo’s Zone meets the Pepsi Porch, where visiting relievers are routinely heckled, where line drive home runs smashed by opposing players are returned to the field of play in the hope that the tallies they represent will someday be taken off the scoreboard.
“It is Section 101 that proudly hosted a Xerox Business of Baseball segment from SNY’s beloved roving reporter Kevin ‘Guys!’ Burkhardt when he wanted to share a heartwarming anecdote about Rule 5 selection Brad Emaus shortly after his first major league appearance and shortly before he was returned to the Toronto Blue Jays.
“It is that kind of warmth that visitors to Section 101 will find 81 times a year, and we invite all who decide not to buy anything in the ’47 Store or the World’s Fare Market and instead wander aimlessly during a 7-2 drubbing to stop by and share in our hospitality.
“Madam Secretary, Section 101 unanimously casts its votes for the descendants of the Amazin’ Mets of 1969, the dominating Mets of 1986 and all the Mets from the 23 Met seasons when Met wins outnumbered Met losses — the 2012 New York Mets!”
***
“Madam Secretary, hello — or ‘aloha’ — from Promenade 538, Citi Field’s Gateway to the Sky. We who sit in the most distant of the left field Promenade sections may be few in number but we who have put down roots in our wide open spaces make up for what we lack in quantity with irony.
“We could sit most anywhere in the ballpark, Madam Secretary, but we choose to be the fans in the last section you see as you mindlessly look around and start to count how many people just like you and your family have decided to spend an evening at a so-called ‘meaningless’ ballgame in September.
“We of 538 believe there is meaning in every ballgame and there is irony to be mined in our seating location.
“It is we of 538 who are the children and grandchildren of those who sat in Section 48 at Shea Stadium until the ushers kicked them out and told them, ‘the Upper Deck is closed, move your asses somewhere else.’
“It is we of 538 who know more intimately than most the flight paths to LaGuardia Airport of nearly every major carrier in the continental United States.
“It is we of 538 who really should have parked closer, because even though there aren’t many fans in many sections most of the time, and hardly any fans in our section ever, it still seems to take forever to get out of this place from where we sit.
“Madam Secretary, it is mostly without irony that we declare as our fondest hope that someday seats in our section will be in demand more than four times a year and that that time of year is in October, though on the other hand, we really do enjoy the two-dollar seats we are able to acquire on StubHub, which even with the service charges they lay on are quite a deal compared to going through the team’s Web site.
“Madam Secretary, it is almost completely without irony that the sparse delegation from Promenade 538 casts its handful of votes for baseball’s next powerhouse, the New York Mets.
“No, really.”
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