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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Greg Prince on 23 April 2011 11:06 pm Who can identify the last time or place anyone took a gold eagle or sovereign from his purse and slapped it on the table to pay for dinner? Who can identify the last company of archers sent into battle by a captain who still believed a well-drawn flight of arrows could overmatch a volley of bullets? Who can identify the last time a two-dollar bill was folded into a matchbox and passed to buy a vote?
—Theodore White, America in Search of Itself: The Making of the Presidents 1956-1980
Pass me that bottle and mind your own business.
—Harry Truman, as imagined by the Rainmakers, “Downstream”
You know what you don’t really see much anymore? Guy sneaking a flask into a ballgame. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually seen it. Maybe it happens all the time, but I’m thinking that’s a football thing. Or an alcoholic thing. Might have seemed like an excellent plan as recently as Wednesday night when the Mets were dropping their twelfth decision in fourteen appointments and everybody who wasn’t tethered to cough syrup (like myself) needed to be seeking relief in something stronger than free samples of Pepsi Max.
But we were so much older then. We’re younger than that now. We’re where we were in the heady period that spanned April 2 to April 5, those halcyon days of the first three-game winning streak of 2011. I can say first because — wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles — we have another, and it’s going on RIGHT NOW! It’s true. I’ve done the math, and by winning Thursday, Friday and Saturday without losing on any days that were added to the calendar when they were reworking the zodiac, it adds up to three consecutive wins.
That’s eight off the team record and four from being what a more confident fan base might consider a noteworthy winning streak, but let us not killjoy this thing with logic. We’ve won three in a row. I’m not well-versed as regards illicit alcohol, but I would think that’s a reason to hoist your pints out in the open, not drown your sorrows via snuck-in containers.
A flask? Who sneaks in a flask?
The guy in front of me out in right field was who. Maybe there was a touch of irony intended. Dude was pretty young — legal certainly, but not of the flask demographic, which I would tab as someone pulling a fast one in 1954. He was part of a birthday group of about fifteen guys and gals who weren’t much trouble yet I would have consigned to a different section altogether had I had my druthers (which I rarely do in a public situation). Two guys took turns giving each other the finger all day, and not out of empathy for Bobby Parnell. It was that kind of birthday party. Not a 1-800-FLOWERS cake in sight.
Vodka was in the flask, I learned. I can see how it might have slipped by the battery of anti-flask barriers set up by management. This group brought their own food, and lots of it, and somewhere amid the capicola and deviled eggs, a flask could just get “lost”. Lotsa food, these people had. I always admire the people who err on the side of too much when they make their pregame deli trips. This guy, for example, was bearing several heroic sandwiches. One of the finger-givers worked on a big bag of Lay’s while one of his non-finger companions unfurled a budget-size sack of Rold Gold. That’s a movable ballpark feast. Best I could do was a turkey wrap from the King Kullen that I had the presence of mind to pick up Friday and save for Saturday, consuming it while waiting out the rain delay in a dark corner of the Promenade Club — or the Braniff Airlines departure lounge, as the regulars at LaGuardia know it by sight.
Not that Citi Field lacks for the culinary, but the economy inherent in the big bag of sandwiches, snacks and sealed containers is unbeatable. Perhaps that’s where the flask of vodka came in. How much is a beer at the ballpark? Haven’t partaken of my occasional Blue Point Toasted Lager as of yet this season, but the price of anything can get hefty by the cup. Flask of vodka? I didn’t have to fail microeconomics more than once to infer that’s a relative bargain.
The flask was passed around a bit, so its impact on the flask guy was diluted. Plus he alternated sips with a bottle of cranberry juice cocktail and a bottle of water. He may be a problem drinker in some facet of his life — I mean he brought a flask of vodka to a baseball game — but he wasn’t a problem today. A little annoying when he shouted “FIRE ’EM ALL!” after Frankie Rodriguez surrendered a single to Juan Miranda (who had the right to remain hitless), but not major Drunk in the Next Row type of hassle. Many were worse at Shea. Shea was Kelcy’s Bar compared to Citi Field. Must have been less expensive to get soused there, or perhaps all those Designated Driver golf shirt signup sheets really have proved a boon to safety and civility.
Now why, beyond your own demons for which you should seek counseling, would somebody feel it necessary to sneak a flask of vodka into a Saturday afternoon ballgame? I’m not using economy as a motive; that’s just a benefit. Two reasons as best as I can figure would go into taking this action:
1) Terrible weather.
2) Terrible baseball.
Granted, the day did not lurch to a promising start with all that rain, but it turned quite pleasant. My winter coat was the right outerwear before first pitch, excessive by the ninth inning. If the flask was brought along as protection against the elements, then it outlived its usefulness. On the other hand, you’ve brought the flask, what’s the point of not opening and draining it regardless of climate? Remember having your lunch packed in the fridge the night before, then waking up too sick to go to school? Didn’t you love eating your school lunch out of its brown bag at home?
The baseball, like the weather, improved as the day went along, too. The reasons not to drink…
• Dillon Gee’s six crackling innings of adequacy
• back-to-back bombs from Bay and Ike so powerful that Harry Truman would have thought long and hard before ordering them deployed;
• Josh Thole’s sincerely doofy grin when Tillman the Skateboarding Bulldog delivered the ceremonial first pitch to kick off Bark in the Park Day;
• Pedro “What Idiots Rule 5’d Him?” Beato and Jason Isringhausen rendering at least temporarily obsolete the dependence on high-leverage no-shows like Byrdak, Buchholz and Carrasco;
• and the all-important but oft-missing tack-on run, as delivered by Daniel “Bonehead” Murphy in the eighth
…surely outweighed the reasons why a Mets fan would want to drown multiple sorrows in smuggled vodka…
• Murphy earning the Bonehead sobriquet with characteristic defense that makes me hope very much that any bonehead can play second base;
• Miguel Montero’s demonstrated ability to wipe out half the planet’s population three times over with just one swing;
• the fact that Mets fans with dogs are welcome to parade around the Citi Field warning track but no similar invitation has been issued to Mets fans with banners;
• and a sense that too many Mets were left on base for eight innings and that K-Rod was putting too many Diamondbacks on base in the ninth inning and that ohmigod, let me get a hit off that flask.
But we won. We won our third in a row. We won our third game of the year when I was either in a bar near Citi Field, in a bar at Citi Field or fascinated by the actions of those I just as soon would have preferred spent their afternoon in a bar far away from Citi Field.
I guess I can drink to that.
by Greg Prince on 23 April 2011 10:26 am I’ve traded Mike Pelfrey in my mind after every previous start in 2011. Not sure what we’ve gotten for him, but I’ve fantasized that some scout somewhere recommended acquiring Pelf to his employer. “I know he totally sucks, but there’s something there.” As Pelf became marginally less awful against Colorado and Atlanta — not escaping ultimate trouble but not unleashing a torrent of Brent Hinchliffe — I was thinking, “Oh, surely his trade value is going up!”
Friday night against the Diamondbacks, he finally looked like a pitcher worth trading for, or in the Mets’ case, somebody who could get something solid in return. Got in a hometown jam early, untangled himself from it impressively, adjusted to the reality of his ballpark by generating fly ball outs aplenty and went seven strong so the Mets could win their second in a row.
My impulse in my private fantasy league is Sell High. I can never quite get behind Mike Pelfrey in real or other life, no matter that I want to, no matter that I like him (because there’s nothing unlikable about him), no matter what everybody tells me that he’s a much more talented pitcher than I can be convinced. But y’know, if Big Pelf can keep pitching like this, I might pull my GM shingle in from the porch and just hope he can do it again for the Mets.
by Greg Prince on 22 April 2011 11:52 am Welcome to The Happiest Recap, a solid gold slate of New York Mets games culled from every schedule the Mets have ever played en route to this, their fiftieth year in baseball. We’ve created a dream season consisting of the “best” 16th game in any Mets season, the “best” 17th game in any Mets season, the “best” 18th game in any Mets season…and we keep going from there until we have a completed schedule worthy of Bob Murphy coming back with the Happy Recap after this word from our sponsor on the WFAN Mets Radio Network.
GAME 016: April 23, 1992 — METS 1 Cardinals 0 (13)
(Mets All-Time Game 016 Record: 29-22; Mets 1992 Record: 9-7)
Although monochromatic grandstand wardrobes are long a thing of the past, announcers are still wont to talk about players losing balls in all those white shirts. When they go to that old saw, they generally mean the fielders not getting a good read on a fly against the backdrop of the crowd. Yet their description of the havoc shirts can play with balls could easily apply to what happened one thirteenth inning between Juan Agosto and Daryl Boston.
The Mets and Cardinals dueled in the April sunshine at Shea to a zero-zero deadlock. Bret Saberhagen gave the Mets the kind of Cy Young start they had hoped for when they acquired him the previous December from Kansas City: 5 hits, no walks and 7 strikeouts over 9 innings. Donovan Osborne’s start for St. Louis was close enough to Saberhagen’s to keep the Mets from scoring. Their best chance on this Thursday matinee came in a bases-loaded threat in the bottom of the third, but it was short-circuited when Saberhagen’s fellow new Met savior, Bobby Bonilla, fouled out to catcher Rich Gedman.
The Redbirds took dead aim at going ahead in the eleventh when they loaded the bases off reliever Jeff Innis. Two handy plays by Dave Magadan, sandwiched around a strikeout of Pedro Guerrero, prevented Met calamity and the game wore on. Good thing, then, that Boston wore the jersey he chose.
Bottom of the thirteenth, Agosto starting his second inning of relief. A Dave Magadan infield single, an event akin to a solar eclipse, raised Met hopes with one out. Rodney McCray, who would literally run through an outfield wall to make a catch, came on to pinch-run for Mags. Junior Noboa singled McCrae to second. From there, with Charlie O’Brien at bat, Rodney stole third. St. Louis manager responded by intentionally walking O’Brien and setting up outs at every base.
Boston came up, fell behind 1-2 to Agosto and then gently absorbed the lefty’s fourth pitch. Anybody hollering from the Mezzanine that Daryl should take one for the team had to be thrilled, for Daryl Boston received that pitch with little fuss. It almost fluttered inside uniform No. 6. No need to stick yer elbow out! as somebody is always prone to suggest in those situations. Agosto’s delivery couldn’t have been any more cooperative.
Daryl, too, was unfailingly polite. Discovering that the ball landed between his jersey and his undershirt, he pulled out the white sphere from behind his white shirt, handed it to home plate ump Mike Winters and proceeded to first as McCray trotted home with the only run of the game. Mets won, thanks to the shirt on one of their backs, 1-0.
ALSO QUITE HAPPY: On April 30, 1986, the Mets methodically pounded the Atlanta Braves at Fulton County Stadium for two runs in four of the first six innings, giving Dwight Gooden all the support he needed for an easy 8-1 win, the team’s eleventh consecutive. It marked the third time in Mets history they had won that many in a row, and they had surely put the streak to good use. The Mets raised their season mark to 13-3, took a 5-game lead on Montreal and looked as unbeatable as any first-place team could look at the end of April. The N.L. East was already shouting, “MAY DAY!” and it wasn’t even May 1.
GAME 017: April 28, 1985 — METS 5 Pirates 4 (18)
(Mets All-Time Game 017 Record: 22-29; Mets 1985 Record: 11-6)
Forty-three players appeared in this game’s box score, yet one in particular stands out. Actually, he does more than stand out. He shifts — 11 separate times between positions. He hits, sure, for that’s what he always does, but what blows the mind is he runs and he lunges…successfully, catching that which all the shifting was intended to keep him from getting anywhere near.
Rusty Staub doesn’t do it all in this eighteen-inning exploration of the bizarre, but he does the bulk of what stands out. And “bulk” is not intended as a crack about the figure Rusty cut as a 41-year-old emergency outfielder making his last stand, lunge and catch in the pasture that used to be his stomping grounds.
Rusty is the climax of this story, but plenty happened before he stumbled into it. Plenty of nothing also occurred. You don’t play all day without a lot of both.
The plenty from a Met point of view this Super Sundae Sunday — a Carvel promotion — occurred right away, with Darryl Strawberry (honored with Strawberry Sundae fame a year earlier) launching his first career grand slam, with one out in the bottom of the first. With a 4-0 lead, all figured to be ice cream and syrup, but, lack of rain notwithstanding, Shea Stadium was more like MacArthur Park, the sweet, green icing of an easy win flowing down and the Mets never having that recipe to score at will again.
After Straw’s slam the Mets stopped hitting. They really stopped hitting. There would be walks and there would be errors and there’d even be a bases-loaded situation in the bottom of the eighth, but the Mets went from the bottom of the first with one out through the bottom of the eleventh without registering a single base hit — a virtual no-hitter. In the meantime, the Pirates hung three runs on rookie starter Roger McDowell and another on reliever Calvin Schiraldi. Pittsburgh did a ton of hitting, but not nearly enough of it from their perspective with men on base. They had their own sacks-full situation go by the board in the top of the ninth.
Gary Carter shone defensively as his first month in a Met uniform neared an end. He engineered a 2-1 putout when his retrieval and return of a wild pitch to Jesse Orosco nailed Rafael Belliard at the plate to end the Pittsburgh ninth. In the tenth, he blocked George Hendrick’s path to scoring, and come the 14th, in what would become a Camera Carter highlight reel favorite, he knocked an onrushing Doug Frobel somewhere toward Astoria, keeping him from scoring, too.
Keith Hernandez, meanwhile, was tagged by first base umpire Harry Wendlestedt with a balk call. No, Mex wasn’t one of the six pitchers Davey Johnson used that Sunday; rather, he charged a prospective bunt and then doubled back to first to receive a pickoff attempt on Belliard from Doug Sisk in the ninth. Wendlestedt ruled that a first baseman’s balk and award the Pirate shortstop second base. Neither Hernandez nor Johnson had heard of such a rule, and the Mets played the remainder of the game under protest.
In terms of sheer volume, there was a mass quantity of baseball left to protest, let alone consume. Extras commenced, the score stayed tied and, by the bottom of the twelfth, the eventual star did what he usually starred at. After Rafael Santana led off with the Mets’ first hit since Strawberry’s four-bagger eleven innings earlier, Rusty Staub — who came on to play his first outfield since June 1983 in the top of the inning, when Tom Gorman replaced Orosco on the mound — doubled. Santana went to third, and Wally Backman walked. With victory tantalizingly close (and every Pirate outfielder playing alongside their infield brethren), the Mets resisted temptation. Ray Knight grounded into a 6-2-3 double play to cut down Santana at home. Hernandez was then issued a free pass and Carter flied out.
The Mets played on. And Staub got a move on. The Pirates were already exposed to Davey’s core strategy, which was keep Rusty as far from fly balls as possible. When inserted for not exactly defense in the twelfth, Staub went to right because Bill Madlock was a righthanded hitter. When lefty Jason Thompson came up as the next batter, Staub trotted to left field and Clint Hurdle took over right.
Back and forth they would go for the rest of the game. At first it was kind of amusing, particularly when Hurdle advised Staub as they crossed paths in center, “Now be alert. This guy hits the other way.” It was funny because Thompson had a reputation as a dead pull hitter, but the ball has a way of finding the pinch-hitting specialists who don’t, as a rule, do a lot of running. Thompson lined a Gorman pitch in front of Staub. He had no chance to catch it, but he did handle it like he handled a rack of ribs at his Manhattan restaurant — cleanly and with zest. After firing the ball into second to hold Thompson to a single, the Shea fans gave Rusty a standing ovation.
Staub and Hurdle would trade positions eleven times in all. It grew progressively less lighthearted as Staub grew more and more leadfooted. Then it became downright dangerous to the Mets’ well-being when, in the top of the 18th, as pitcher Rick Rhoden pinch-hit for left fielder Frobel (it was that kind of game). Rhoden, a righty, flared a fly to right, where Staub was supposedly hidden. Rusty’s red hair, however, was in ample evidence as was all of his frame as he took off, tracked down and nabbed the ball in a half-dive, ending Gorman’s seventh scoreless inning of relief and stranding the 14th Pirate baserunner of the day.
“I knew I could catch the ball all the way,” Staub said. “That was as fast as I could run.” Nobody doubted the second part of that statement.
At last, something gave, and it wasn’t Rusty’s constitution. Lee Tunnell walked Gary Carter to lead off the bottom of the 18th. Mookie Wilson ran for the Kid and zipped to third on Strawberry’s single. Hurdle, Staub’s dance partner, enjoyed his moment in the fading sun when he poked a ground ball through Thompson’s legs at first base, and the Mets — on six hits, beat the Pirates — who had accumulated 18 hits — 5-4 in the longest home win in team history.
“A wicked game,” Chuck Tanner summed it when the five hours and twenty-one minutes of baseball reached their conclusion. As for the signature spell of Le Grand Orange magic, the Pirate skipper was properly appreciative: “I thought it was going to be a hit. It was a great catch. If this was a World Series, they’d be talking about it for 30 years.”
ALSO QUITE HAPPY: On April 27, 1976, the cult of Bruce Boisclair was born in earnest. Boisclair, a fourth outfielder and lefty pinch-hitter, was popular all out of proportion to his playing time during his late ’70s Shea stay, thanks in part to a memorably alliterative name but also because of clutch performances like the one that beat the Braves on a late Tuesday afternoon when the Mets took early possession of first place in the N.L. East. Atlanta led 5-3 going to the bottom of the ninth at a scarcely populated Shea (4,002 on hand for a 4:05 start) when Brave reliever Pablo Torrealba allowed singles to Dave Kingman and Bud Harrelson. With two out, John Milner produced a pinch-RBI to bring home pinch-runner John Stearns. Then up stepped Boisclair, who lashed a double to right, scoring Grote and Milner for the 6-5 win.
GAME 018: April 27, 1969 (2nd) — METS 3 Cubs 0
(Mets All-Time Game 018 Record: 24-27; Mets 1969 Record: 7-11)
Nobody in his right mind would have figured this was a sign of things to come. The Cubs were loaded, and the Mets were still, to most eyes, the Mets. Still, even if this were to be regarded as an aberration, it was a pretty sweet one.
Chicago came into the second game of this Sunday doubleheader at Shea with the best record in baseball, a sizzling 14-6, which included three straight wins over the traditionally hapless Mets. The Mets were expected to pack a little more “hap” in 1969, but their 6-11 mark didn’t even exceed that of the expansion Expos. If they weren’t the same old Mets, they were close enough to not inspire any immediate confidence on the part of the 37,000+ on hand.
The Mets, however, hung in with the Cubs in this nightcap, no easy task given Chicago’s stacked lineup — featuring Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks at its heart — and the dismay attached to losing the opener 8-6 on four unearned runs in the top of the ninth. Starter Jim McAndrew matched zeroes with Cub counterpart Rich Nye, taking a nothing-nothing game into the fifth. But McAndrew allowed a pair of baserunners (one on an errant Ken Boswell throw), so Gil Hodges removed McAndrew and brought in McGraw — Tug McGraw, to that point of 1969 a lightly used reliever thought of more commonly as a failed starter.
But Tug cottoned to his new role that Sunday, squirming out of McAndrew’s jam and keeping the Cubs off the scoreboard every bit as much as Nye was shutting down the Mets. The game stayed scoreless to the bottom of the ninth, when Rod Gaspar’s fly ball to left eluded the great Williams, allowing Gaspar hustle to second. Leo Durocher ordered an intentional walk to Boswell. One out later, up stepped Cleon Jones, who was as hot as the dickens as 1969 gained traction. The Mets’ left fielder kept sizzling, belting Nye’s 1-0 pitch over the fence for a 3-0 Mets win, their first walkoff triumph of the year.
The shot brought Jones’s batting average up to a cool .443, while McGraw’s four scoreless innings gave him his second relief win of the season. A three-game losing streak was snapped, and the Mets avoided tumbling into solitary occupation of last place. They ended the day tied for fourth with St. Louis and Montreal, six behind the still front-running Cubs.
Not that there was yet any reason to believe the Mets’ position relative to the Cubs was going to matter much in the long term.
ALSO QUITE HAPPY: On May 7, 1972, the Mets spotted Fred Norman and the Padres a 6-0 lead at Shea and then, in the bottom of the eighth, woke up from their Sunday afternoon nap. Three doubles, two singles and a Norman error resulted in five runs to close the gap to one. In the bottom of the ninth, Teddy Martinez led off a second consecutive inning with a single and took second on a Leron Lee error. Tommie Agee, who had doubled behind Martinez in the eighth, drove in the second baseman to tie the game. The teams went to a tenth inning, when — after Tug McGraw’s second inning of spotless relief — Bud Harrelson reached on the Padres’ sixth error of the day. with two out, Agee delivered his third big hit in as many innings, this one a two-run homer off Ed Acosta to cap a furious comeback for the Mets 8-6.
by Greg Prince on 22 April 2011 2:21 am I’m going to the tavern, Johnny. If there’s anything I can do for y’there, let me know.
—Stephen Hopkins, Delegate to the Continental Congress from Rhode Island (1776)
Guy walks into a bar. Says, “give me something special — something you don’t usually have.” Bartender says, “how about a Mets win?” Guy says, “you give me that, I’ll never leave.”
I suppose the punchline is I went to McFadden’s at Citi Field Thursday night and I got more or less exactly what I ordered. I showed up there because Sharon Chapman and I had organized our little Buy Tug a Beer pregame fundraising event — thanks to all who attended, contributed and spread the word in advance — but didn’t bother to obtain tickets for the Mets game to take place on the other side of the wall. It was very cold, I have a stubborn cold and the Mets of late have been making everybody sick. Therefore, my plan was to enjoy the happy hour with our visitors, maybe take in an inning on one of the many McScreens and bolt for the 7, the LIRR and two tablespoons of Robitussin.
But the same Mets who couldn’t drag me into their ballpark just steps away from where I sat wouldn’t let me completely out of their gravitational pull. Terry Collins came out to argue balls and strikes. Well, I’ll stay and watch this — he got himself thrown out! Chris Capuano looked pretty good. Let’s see if he can keep it going. Mets were, per usual, not scoring. Hold on, Nickeas homered! His first! Capuano still sharp. I guess I can still make the…HEY WRIGHT FINALLY CONNECTED!
Resistance was futile. My friends Jim and George, actual ticketholders who were among those who dropped in to support the Tug McGraw Foundation, never rushed to their actual seats, so I never rushed for my train. We ordered food, the Mets and I took turns taking our hacks (they used bats; mine were from chest congestion) and I felt much better as the night wore on and the runs piled up.
Kind of strange to go to Citi Field without actually going to Citi Field while a Mets game was in progress inside Citi Field. Call it a changeup, like the Mets resorting to their two-tone caps or Jason Bay returning to left field. Whatever it was, it worked. For the second time this season, I spent the balance of a Mets game inside a bar within hitting distance of Citi Field, and for the second time this season, the Mets won going away.
So why would I want to go away from such a scene?
McFadden’s was pretty well-attended from innings one through nine. Maybe it had something to do with the weather. Would never occur to me to journey to Zip Code 11368 and not make the extra effort to gain entry to its ballpark, but boy was it windy out there. And boy was it not at all bad where we were. Lots of television screens (though, strangely, not all) tuned to SNY; Gary and Keith piped in over the PA; sound effects cleverly mixmastered here and there (a little “William Tell Overture” for a Met rally…well done); commercials drowned out by C+C Music Factory and other upbeat acts; fine fried calamari materializing on the table; friendly service from one of those nice young ladies…I couldn’t blame anybody for coming to the game without actually going to the game as long as McFadden’s was being so accommodating.
The highlight of the evening was the dropped fly ball that Hunter Pence and Jason Bay teamed to turn into a four-base error/Little League home run in the eighth. Everybody looked up from their chicken wings as the long-absent Bay tested his rib cage. We weren’t sure how it was going to be scored when Jason crossed the plate, thus Jim briefly thought he missed witnessing his first live inside-the-park home run and lamented his decision to stay exclusively indoors.
Come now, I said to Jim: on an Arctic night, by the eighth inning, “you would’ve been in McFadden’s already.” He didn’t argue the point. When you win 9-1 and you can leave the frozen ballpark environs still feeling your fingers, what’s to debate?
by Greg Prince on 21 April 2011 12:25 pm Reminder to anybody attending tonight’s game between the Mets and the Astros: Stop by McFadden’s Citi Field between 6 and 7 and come say “hi” to noted marathon runner/fundraiser Sharon Chapman and me and, if you can, please make a donation to the Tug McGraw Foundation. We’ll be there to raise funds for a great organization dedicated to fighting brain cancer, the disease that took Tug’s life far too soon.
You can help us out one of three ways:
1) Buy an all-you-can drink (responsibly) wristband for $20, which covers beer and well drinks between 6 and 7 PM tonight; $5 of that goes directly to Sharon’s Tug McGraw Foundation fundraising kitty. (Thanks to McFadden’s for its cooperation on the offer.) All those who buy the wristband will be automatically entered into a drawing for great Skyhorse Publishing Mets books, like Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets. I’m pretty sure I can get the author to sign that one.
2) When you come over to say hi, buy Tug a beer. That is, we will gratefully accept the approximate price of a beer — any beer you have in mind — in our special Mets collector’s cup, the proceeds from which, again, go directly to Sharon’s fundraising efforts for the Foundation.
3) If for some strange reason you’re not rushing to Flushing tonight (plenty of good seats are still available!), please considering contributing here. Every little bit helps and every little bit is truly appreciated.
Hope to see you at McFadden’s tonight. Hope to see the Mets win immediately thereafter. 5-13 doesn’t look so hot and it feels even worse, but like the man said long ago…You Gotta Believe.
by Jason Fry on 20 April 2011 11:54 pm Well, at least the Mets showed me something tonight.
After Tuesday night’s slow-motion slide down the avalanche, I could barely work up indignation over the actual game — that was saved for my fears about what might be behind some curiously hasty decision-making. The Mets were bland and bad and I was uncomfortably close to numb about it — something that also happened to me down the stretch in ’09 and ’10, but at least those years had reasonably OK early stretches. Having the pain hardly register a couple of days after Tax Day was something far worse.
So tonight it’s progress that the Mets managed to anger me. First there was Angel Pagan scrambling home on a trickler of a wild pitch and getting tagged out on a blind lunge by a young reliever for a double play to end the eighth. Then Jose Reyes somehow managed to top that an inning later, short-circuiting an otherwise good night by falling asleep getting back to first on a horrible bunt by Josh Thole and getting himself doubled off. And why in God’s name was Terry surrendering one of our three precious remaining outs by having Thole bunt anyway? At least it was an inventive way to self-destruct.
I was mad, but I wasn’t enraged — the last 10 days or so have beaten the rage out of me. But I sure was astonished. Sitting there in the dark with the remote on my lap, I realized I was holding perfectly still, my mouth hanging open.
I realized I was making the Dallas Green face.
Those of you whose suffering extends back three famine cycles will remember Green’s voluble fury at umpires was often loud enough to be clearly and painfully audible at home — I found it entertaining that the announcers would have to generate desperate chatter to drown out Dallas’s metronomic profanity. But what was even better (in the misery-loves-company sense) was when the Mets did something so amazingly stupid that Dallas was dumbstruck and left staring out at the field with his jaw dangling. He’d be pretty mad in a few seconds, and someone out there on the field or the basepaths was wishing he could figure out a way to tunnel back into the dugout, but right now all he could do was try to force his brain to accept what his eyes were telling him.
As Greg noted earlier today, we’ve now chronicled 1,000 Mets games more or less as they happened. I know there will be ones that hurt a lot worse than this one, ones whose tragedy comes without so generous a helping of farce. But if I could ask a small favor of the baseball gods, could we at least go another 100 or so without one so thoroughly hapless?
Aw, who am I kidding? We’ll be lucky to get through the week before finding the new lowest point.
by Greg Prince on 20 April 2011 3:01 pm From the Department of Milestones You Didn’t Realize Existed: tonight — barring calamity (or rain) — will be the 1,000th consecutive Mets game recapped by Faith and Fear in Flushing.
I don’t know that you can call them recaps in the traditional sense. That’s why somewhere amid our text we link you to the ESPN.com Mets site where the AP game story is published. Of course you don’t need to come to a fan blog for a recap in the traditional sense. If everything you needed…if everything we needed was being provided by those accredited to cover Mets games, then maybe this blog wouldn’t have begun. Not that we started FAFIF to fill a market void. Jason and I just liked talking about the Mets. E-mailing about the Mets is more accurate, I suppose. Anyway, we’d write about them to each other even though print journalists and radio reporters and TV crews brought us all the details. The Mets may for long and perilous stretches be nothing to write home about, but we were overcome by the urge nonetheless. E-mails became blog and here we are.
Day after day after day, starting with the first game of the 2005 season and continuing every day through that campaign. Same for 2006, which came with ten bonus games tacked on at the star-crossed end. The ups of 2007, the downs of 2007, the downs of 2008 (along with its mostly forgotten ups), the total pits of 2009, the near total pits of 2010 and whatever we’ve been exposed to thus far in 2011…we’ve written something reflecting every single Mets game in that time period, 999 to date, across 517 Mets wins and 482 Mets losses.
It may not be Cal Ripken territory, but it has continued uninterrupted. With four digits at hand, it seemed worth noting.
Sometimes we’ll be very analytical abut what we all just saw; sometimes the games serve as backdrops for prevailing Mets storylines that transcend a given night’s result; sometimes we focus on something that in no way appears in the box score; and sometimes our link to the AP story on ESPN.com serves as our obligation to say “a game just took place but I want to tell you about something else altogether.” The viewpoints of two fans who are not contracted by a media outlet to Who, What, Where & When you means you’ll be offered a little How and a lot of Why.
Why? Because we like that baseball happens every day. Even 2011 Mets baseball. It never fails to amaze me how daily this thing gets over a six-month span. It doesn’t go away for the longest time, so you have to stay on top of it. You want to stay on top of it. Have there been late-season, lost-season games I wasn’t dying to write about when they went final? I won’t say there weren’t, but man, does a lousy baseball game beat the ultimate alternative.
So every year, from whenever the Mets start playing to whenever the Mets stop playing, Jason and I do our recapping. Sometimes we each do one for the same game. Once in a while, particularly for a doubleheader, we’ll fold two games into one piece, but every game has been present and accounted for in FAFIF fashion since the first on April 4, 2005, through the most recent, on April 19, 2011, and it will continue, weather and respective personal existences permitting, after the action scheduled to commence tonight, April 20, 2011. Once we hit that milestone of 1,000 games, we will go for 1,001 and whatever comes next.
Thank you a thousand times over for coming here to read them.
Please join us at McFadden’s Citi Field, Thursday, April 21, at 6 P.M., prior to tomorrow night’s Mets-Astros game when Faith and Fear invites you to Buy Tug a Beer. It’s all part of our ongoing efforts to help Sharon Chapman raise funds for the Tug McGraw Foundation’s battle against brain cancer and other insidious diseases. Details here.
by Jason Fry on 19 April 2011 11:45 pm And like the song said, what it is ain’t exactly clear. But whatever it is, I know I don’t like it.
I’m not referring to the Mets stumbling around the field, approaching at-bats like puppies lunging for a chew toy, and otherwise making the Astros look like world-beaters in every way possible. Though I didn’t like that either.
Rather, I’m referring to a disturbing potential trend in how this club is being run — one that’s baffling, and that leaves you choosing between potential scenarios that are both awful.
Brad Emaus got DFA’ed and now heads for waivers — assuming he clears, he’ll be offered back to the Jays for $25,000 or the Mets can try to work out a trade for him, which folks closer to the team than I am say they don’t appear inclined to do. In other words, Emaus got pink-slipped and will now be stuffed down the memory hole. Discussing the move, Terry Collins said this was a tough league to learn how to play the game, while Sandy Alderson talked of an evolving situation at second.
Me, I just kind of gaped.
Emaus got exactly 42 plate appearances before he was declared a washout. Emaus who was a Rule 5 guy, meaning everyone knew he’d start off playing a bit above his head, and whose spring-training time was fitful because Luis Castillo was given the chance for a graceful descent into inevitable and merciful unemployment.
Did Emaus do well in those 42 plate appearances? No — he hit .162. But if that’s the criterion, he’s not lacking for company on the Mets. I’m no scout, but he looked like he knew how to work a count and was OK at second base. He looked like he might be worth hanging on to — or, more accurately, I didn’t see enough to conclude he wasn’t. Because, to emphasize, 42 plate appearances aren’t enough to tell much of anything about anything.
The saving grace of this season, I’ve told person after person after person, is that the Mets are being intelligently run, ensuring that while this may be a year of financial and roster retrenchment, the future should be brighter. I’d like to think that’s still true. But for smart guys, the new braintrust sure seems awfully impatient.
Why is that? I don’t like any of the answers I can think of.
Let’s boil this down to the central, awful question that inevitably comes up with the Mets: Are Alderson & Co. operating with full autonomy?
If they do have full autonomy, then they’re doing a bang-up job of undermining whatever confidence we’ve placed in them. If Emaus was obviously so hopeless that 42 plate appearances were sufficient to pass judgment on him, shouldn’t that have been equally obvious in December or March? I could ask the same question about Blaine Boyer. For smart baseball guys, Alderson & Co. sure look like they lack the courage of their own convictions and are panicking with 90% of the season still in front of them.
If they don’t have full autonomy, well, then the winter was a mirage and the Mets are right back to resuming their dismal transformation into the Baltimore Orioles. In this case, our best hope is that the Madoff disaster proves fatal to the Wilpons as owners. I don’t want to be a fan who thinks that way, for reasons that begin with common decency, but it’s preferable to being Angelos North. I was a fan when the Mets were the North Korea of baseball, and it was pathetic and awful. I never want to live through that again.
If there’s a third alternative, I’d love to hear what it is. I’m not being snarky in the least — someone please make the case. Tell me why these itchy trigger fingers are a good thing, are part of a coherent overall plan, and are leading us somewhere better. Because that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
Back in spring training, I made the case that Alderson & Co. had done right in not placating the fans by speedily excising Castillo and Oliver Perez. I noted that by giving those two players every chance to succeed, they’d dealt with the fans like adults, covered for ownership and perhaps most importantly they’d sent a message to the rest of the clubhouse that guys would be treated with respect and given real opportunities. Except now guys haven’t been. You think Bobby Parnell sleeps easier knowing that Boyer got all of 119 pitches with which to prove himself? You think Scott Hairston is relaxing at the plate thinking that at least he’ll get the 10 or so more PA that the braintrust needed to make a decision on Emaus?
Maybe Parnell would be better off in the minors — he’s certainly been terrible. Maybe Hairston would be better off as someone else’s property — he’s swinging at everything and playing the outfield like a blind man. But maybe the braintrust hasn’t seen enough of either guy — or any guy — to make that kind of judgment. Maybe they ought to be patient. Because they have full autonomy, right?
Right?
by Greg Prince on 19 April 2011 11:30 am Welcome to The Happiest Recap, a solid gold slate of New York Mets games culled from every schedule the Mets have ever played en route to this, their fiftieth year in baseball. We’ve created a dream season consisting of the “best” 13th game in any Mets season, the “best” 14th game in any Mets season, the “best” 15th game in any Mets season…and we keep going from there until we have a completed schedule worthy of Bob Murphy coming back with the Happy Recap after this word from our sponsor on the WFAN Mets Radio Network.
GAME 013: April 22, 1970 — METS 2 Padres 1
(Mets All-Time Game 013 Record: 27-24; Mets 1970 Record: 7-6)
It was Earth Day, the very first one. Yet it was otherworldly. The stuff Tom Seaver had as he faced the San Diego Padres at Shea Stadium had to have come from another planet. Seaver had already given Mets fans every reason to believe he was not of this realm, in no way to be compared to mere mortals let alone other pitchers. He hadn’t lost a regular-season decision since the previous August 5. Though he did absorb a defeat to open the 1969 World Series, so what? He was still Tom Seaver: Cy Young, near-MVP, Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year and Hickcock Belt winner, signifying his status as Professional Athlete of the Year.
Year? Tom Seaver had lifted the Mets from laughingstocks to contenders to champions in three years’ time. In the eyes of those idolized him, he was Athlete of the Decade and in early 1970 was en route to making it two in a row.
Before Earth Day was out, Seaver would be doing a lot in a row.
Tom Terrific, who was presented with his National League Cy Young award before the game, didn’t flirt with perfection as he had the previous summer. Staked to a 1-0 lead by a first-inning Ken Boswell double, he gave it right back when Padre left fielder Al Ferrara homered to tie the score leading off the second. A Bud Harrelson triple regained the lead for the Mets at 2-1 in the bottom of the third. By then, Seaver had punched out five Padres on strikes, an impressive partial total, but nothing noticeably out of the ordinary for the Mets ace.
Earth Day began to spin in historic proportions soon enough. Two more San Diego K’s in the fourth; another pair in the fifth; and then, Ferrara was out looking to end the sixth. That was 11 strikeouts in six innings, with only two hits allowed. Very Seaveresque, but not unprecedented for the man already known as The Franchise.
Precedent, however, was about to be shattered. In the seventh inning, Nate Colbert swung and missed at strike three. Dave Campbell took strike three. So did Jerry Morales. Now it was 13 strikeouts over seven innings and, for what it was worth, four consecutive.
Notice was gathering. Gil Hodges could tell Seaver was firing on all cylinders, but needed pitching coach Rube Walker to bring him up to speed on just how many K’s were in Seaver’s corner. Johnny Podres, who won the Dodgers’ only World Series clincher when the Bums were in Brooklyn, was now working for San Diego as a pitching guru and watched from the stands. He once struck out a record eight in a row, so he knew a great performance when it was unfurling before him. “Fantastic,” he said to a companion. “As hard as he’s throwing, he’s still hitting the spots. If you don’t swing at it, it’s still a strike.”
The last Padre to do Seaver damage, Ferrara, could see it as well. “He can’t wait to throw the ball,” this ex-Dodger told a teammate. Seaver would confirm later that, “I was working fast, I guess, but I had my rhythm and my momentum. I didn’t want to lose it.”
He didn’t. In the top of the eighth, Bob Barton took called strike three. Ramon Webster, pinch-hitting for opposing pitcher Mike Corkins (who’d had a pretty good day himself, limiting the Mets to two runs in seven innings), struck out swinging. Another pinch-hitter, Ivan Murrell, did the same. The total was now 16 strikeouts, the most any Met had ever accumulated in a single game.
Seaver said he didn’t know he was that high until he saw it on the scoreboard. Realizing, with two out in the eighth, that he was one K away from the club record (set days earlier by Nolan Ryan), he made a conscious decision to go for it.
And so he went. Seaver’s sweet sixteenth left him in position to tie the record for most strikeouts in a single nine-inning game, set by Steve Carlton against the Mets in September 1969. It was already legend that Carlton, pitching into the teeth of an onrushing miracle, lost that game when Ron Swoboda reached him for two two-run homers. Seaver similarly had reason to be concerned that all the strikeouts he was notching didn’t guarantee victory. It was still only 2-1 and waiting for him as the third batter of the ninth inning was Al Ferrara.
But first, Van Kelly struck out swinging. Then Cito Gaston struck out looking. That made it 18 strikeouts total, one shy of Carlton, and nine in a row — more than Podres, more than any pitcher had ever struck out. All that was left was Ferrara and the bat that homered off Tom in the second inning.
That was in the second. This was in the ninth. This was a time for more history: strike three, swinging. Al Ferrara went down on a low fastball on a 1-2 count. The Mets won 2-1, with Seaver striking out 19 batters. It was the most any pitcher had fanned in a day game. And the consecutive strikeout feat of 10 straight…never before touched, never again — not for forty years, at any rate — seriously challenged. That Earth Day afternoon made a prophet out of coach Walker, who declared after the game, “I’ll stake a lot on this prediction: I don’t think anyone’s going to come along for a long, long time and match those 10 strikeouts in a row.”
ALSO QUITE HAPPY: On April 15, 1997, fans attending the Mets-Dodgers game at Shea Stadium knew they were in for a night to remember, but couldn’t have known just how much they would have to recall when it was over. It was the 50th anniversary of the day Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line, and it was a monumental enough milestone to attract President Bill Clinton to Shea, making him the first sitting president to attend a Mets game. Clinton (on crutches) stood alongside Rachel Robinson, widow of the trailblazing Robinson, when Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig surprised the packed house with an electrifying announcement: Jackie’s uniform number, 42, would be retired throughout baseball, never to be issued again. It would be taken completely out of circulation, save for the backs of players who already wore it, like the Mets’ own Butch Huskey. In the left field corner, a red 42 inside a blue circle took its place among retired Met numbers 37, 14 and 41. This all took place as the game went on hold for Selig’s announcement in the middle of the fifth inning of a thus-far scoreless pitchers’ duel between Armando Reynoso and Ismael Valdez. Perhaps inspired by the actions of the commissioner and the presence of the president — or maybe because Tommy Lasorda sent Valdez back out to pitch on a wintry night — the Mets took a 2-0 lead on Lance Johnson’s two-run single and, with Toby Borland pitching four shutout innings of relief, marked the first Jackie Robinson Night with a 5-0 win. Huskey, incidentally, sparked the fifth-inning rally with a leadoff single.
GAME 014: April 28, 1962 — METS 8 Phillies 6
(Mets All-Time Game 014 Record: 28-23; Mets 1962 Record: 2-12)
Ten-thousand four-hundred ninety-two souls won the lottery. Those lucky stiffs weren’t stiffed. They became the first Mets crowd to experience the satisfaction and perhaps bliss of going to a Mets home game and leaving it having seen a Mets home win.
This new baseball team had previously tried its hand at homestanding, and they could barely maintain their balance. Six games at the Polo Grounds led to six losses between April 13 and April 19. One of those went extra innings, which could be interpreted as Casey Stengel’s crew hanging in there as long as they could, but also meant it just took longer for them to lose. Perhaps the spirit of those first home games was best captured by Leonard Shecter in Once Upon The Polo Grounds, when he found a fan in right field begging for the Mets, trailing the Cardinals 15-5 with two out in the bottom of the ninth, begging for “one more run, just one more run.”
When asked why one more run was so important given that the Mets trailed by ten, the fan explained that instead of five runs, the Mets would have six, and “then you could say if they got any pitching, they woulda won.”
The same, one supposes, could have been said as the Mets set out on their second-ever homestand. Fortified by their first win of any kind, at Forbes Field, the 1-11 Mets scored four runs off the Phillies’ Cal McLish — given name Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish, as Bob Murphy was fond of reminding listeners — and another five against Frank Sullivan. Problem was, they didn’t get any pitching, and they didn’t win. The law firm of Craig, Anderson, Moford & Moorhead was roughed up for 11 hits and 15 runs (Ken MacKenzie did, however, pitch a 1-2-3 ninth) and the result was an already familiar 11-9 defeat.
Seven home contests, seven home defeats. Hard to attract fans with that kind of advertising, but just as the Mets were bound to win one somewhere eventually, so too were they on a collision course with probability at the Polo Grounds. Their day to cash in was a Saturday that started out more or less like every day in the Mets’ infancy. The Phillies hung an immediate four-spot on starter Jay Hook by way of Tony Gonzalez’s three-run blast and Don Demeter’s solo shot. Stengel saw enough and gave Jay the hook. In came Bob Miller (Bob L. Miller, for you sticklers) and he calmed down Phillie bats, holding them to only one more run through the fifth.
It would take until the bottom of the sixth, with the Mets trailing 6-1 — Charlie Neal had homered to lead off the home second but Demeter returned the favor against Dave Hillman to start the top of the sixth — to say they got enough hitting to match their relief pitching. When it came, in came in a barrage. After Phillie starter Jim Owens walked Gus Bell, Frank Thomas homered. Then Neal homered again. Jack Hamilton immediately replaced Owens, but he couldn’t put a plug in the Mets’ power surge; Gil Hodges greeted him with a homer of his own.
Bam! Bam! BAM! Just like that, the Mets were back in the game, 6-5. Once back, they decided not to leave. After recording an out and allowing a walk to Chris Cannizzaro, Hamilton exited in favor of Sullivan. But the Mets were beginning to like being on base. Sammy Taylor hit for Hillman and walked. Rod Kanehl ran for Taylor while John DeMerit pinch-ran for catcher Cannizzaro. Richie Asbhurn’s grounder to the right side pushed both runners up a base. Gene Mauch replaced Sullivan with Chris Short — it was taking four Phillie hurlers to quell one Met uprising — and Short rewarded his skipper’s confidence by unleashing a corker of a wild pitch, wild enough to score DeMerit from third and Hot Rod from second.
The Mets had a lead! At home! And it grew bigger when Jim Hickman homered off Ed Keegan in the eighth! The Mets were on top 8-6. Roger Craig — the starter from the night before and the closest thing Stengel had to an ace — had come on in the seventh to attempt to nail this sucker down. The Phillies didn’t score on him in the seventh or the eighth. In the ninth, Johnny Callison fouled out to Hodges at first, Gonzalez grounded to Neal at second and the Phillies’ final hope, Frank Torre, grounded out to Hodges. The Mets won 8-6, for the first time delighting their home fans not just by existing but by excelling. Or their version of it.
Ten-thousand, four-hundred ninety-two souls bought tickets to see the Mets at the Polo Grounds the eighth time a person could do that, but only the first time a person could do that and feel completely rewarded for having done so. Every darn one of those 10,492 hit the jackpot.
ALSO QUITE HAPPY: On April 19, 2005, the same day the College of Cardinals elected Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, the Mets put XVI runs on the Citizens Bank Park scoreboard, producing a trail of white smoke in their midst as they banged out a club record seven home runs. Doug Mientkiewicz and Victor Diaz each made Phillie pitchers think “Holy…” as they homered twice. Jose Reyes (leading off the first), Mike Piazza and David Wright (grand slam in the sixth) contributed one dinger apiece in the 16-4 rout at Philadelphia. The beneficiary in Philly on Benedict’s big day in Vatican City was Met starter and winner Victor Zambrano, whose pitching was adequate but whose hitting was right in step with that of his teammates — to the Victor belonged the spoils of a two-run triple, one of fifteen Met hits (praise be) on the night.
GAME 015: April 22, 1978 — Mets 3 CUBS 2
(Mets All-Time Game 015 Record: 26-25; Mets 1978 Record: 9-6)
April is the month to dream, particularly if you are tethered to a team that seems destined for the second division. You are cognizant that you are only a temporary resident of the Land of Small Sample Size, but if you are given any clue…any hint that things look much better than they appeared when Spring Training ended, you will take it and you will not let it go until you absolutely have to.
The Mets fan of April 1978 practiced that kind of willful self-deception because the Mets offered him just enough reason. The 1977 Mets, conversely, offered him nothing but a post-Seaver void. The 1977-78 offseason offered a mixed bag, at best. A couple of free agents of the bargain variety joined the team: righthanded pitcher Tom Hausman, outfielder Elliott Maddox. There was a big and noisy four-team trade that netted the Mets a recognizable power hitter in Willie Montañez but expelled from their ranks John Milner and Jon Matlack. Tim Foli had returned from extended Expo exile. Bud Harrelson was sent packing to the Phillies. After plummeting to the depths of the National League East in ’77, the best one could hope to infer was that the Mets, they were-a changin’.
For the better, was the idea, but entering 1978, the power of positive thinking seemed inoperable in Metropolitan circles. Yet here were the Mets, not losing more than they were winning, which wasn’t widely anticipated in March. There was a 3-0 start; there were home runs from old faces (Ed Kranepool — a walkoff winner); young faces (Steve Henderson — a grand slam); grizzled faces (ex-Giant Ken Henderson, belting his sole Met shot before succumbing to serious injury). There were Mets up from Tidewater, like unheralded righty starter and Queens native Mike Bruhert and reliever Mardie Cornejo, whose nickname, for some unspecified reason, was The Chief.
There was something going on in early 1978, and whether this cast of characters could make it last to the middle of the season was unknowable. It was also irrelevant. All that mattered was on a Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field, two weeks into the campaign, the Mets were making a bid to lead the N.L. East. If they could beat the Cubs while the Pirates swept the Expos, the Mets could end the day all alone in first place.
Not end the year there. Not end the first half. Not even the first month. End the day.
It would be the kind of day a 1978 Mets fan wouldn’t wish to end. Undeterred by a 2-0 deficit, they came back on Chicago starter Rick Reuschel in the top of the seventh. With one out, Lee Mazzilli tripled and Ron Hodges drove him home with a sacrifice fly. Foli scratched out an infield single and took second on a wild pitch. Tom Grieve, bundled with Montañez and Ken Henderson as part of the ransom to spring Milner and Matlack, pinch-hit for Jerry Koosman and singled Foli home.
Joe Torre, in his first full season as Met manager, entrusted the 2-2 tie to Cornejo. And what Cornejo chiefly did as 1978 got rolling was get batters out. He held the Cubs scoreless in the seventh, setting the stage for a tiebreaking two-out Met rally in the eighth: Montañez singled, Mazzilli walked and Hodges drove home Willie with a single. Skip Lockwood took over for Cornejo and went wild — literally. He walked the bases loaded, but popped up Steve Ontiveros to escape the jam. The bottom of the ninth was less dramatic, as Skip ended the Cubbies’ hopes by grounding Bill Buckner into a 4-6-3 double play.
The Mets’ hopes were just beginning. The Expos indeed lost both games of their twinbill at Olympic Stadium. Their record fell to 7-5. The Cubs were 7-6. And the Mets? By prevailing 3-2, they raised their mark to 9-6 (as Cornejo’s floated upward to 3-0). The Mets, fifteen games into the season — almost 10% done! — were alone in first place. The Sunday News didn’t mess around with this fact. METS TAKE FIRST was their back page headline, and there was no irony to it.
There was no future to it, either. 1978 quickly devolved into another 1977 and served as template for 1979, but the Mets fan didn’t know that then. That, sometimes, is why April is the coolest month.
ALSO QUITE HAPPY: On April 26, 1971, Tom Seaver and the Mets put the hammer down on Bob Gibson and the Cardinals, 12-2 at Busch Stadium. It was a team effort all around as eight of nine Mets in the starting lineup — Seaver included — collected at least one hit and drove in at least one run. The sole zeroes in the box score belonged to second baseman Ken Boswell, who was replaced in the fifth inning by Tim Foli once the Mets went up 7-1. Foli proceeded to join the hit parade with a run-scoring double in the top of the seventh, assuring no position would be offensively unaccounted for.
by Greg Prince on 18 April 2011 8:21 pm  A banner book in which we propose a Banner Day. It’s not too late to order yourself a copy of Amazin’ Avenue Annual 2011. Considering it’s an annual, that makes it good for the entire year. And it really is good…and I’m not just saying that because Jason and I were invited to write an article for it about ways the Mets could take steps to preserve their legacy at Citi Field.
And no, wise guy, not the legacy of losing. The good parts. The fun parts. The proud parts. We spell it out over not a few pages, and you should really make AAA part of your baseball library and soak up every word of it (and every word everybody else contributed — more information here).
But with AAA editor Eric Simon’s blessing, I’d like to call particular attention to one the ideas we are proposing, namely the reinstatement, for 2012, of the Banner Day Doubleheader.
You heard us: Banner Day Doubleheader: two games, one admission, on the schedule, in advance.
Why?
1) TRADITION! TRADITION! TRADITION!
Not tradition for tradition’s sake, but because Banner Day was, from 1963 through 1996, as Metsian as it got. Watch a Mets Yearbook lately? Have you noticed one common denominator (besides “I think I saw this one already”)? It’s that Banner Day was year-in, year-out the signature promotion on the Mets special events calendar. Nothing was more special or more of an event.
2) Gone but by no means forgotten
The Mets quietly folded up their beloved tradition fifteen years ago, yet Banner Day still comes up. It came up before Mets Yearbook began airing. It comes up from those who promenaded and from those who watched and those who’ve only heard about it. It comes up because it remains, even in absentia, as Metsian as it gets. The banner…the placard as Casey Stengel, godfather of all things Amazin’, put it…was the purest expression of the Metsian mind there ever was. Nobody asked Mets fans to spill their hearts out on bedsheets, they just did. Then they just kept coming. Then the Mets had the keen sense to lunge out front and lead the parade: Don’t just bring your banners to the Polo Grounds, management said — bring ’em onto the field. Magic was created and extended to Shea Stadium. Magic doesn’t just vanish because you inadvertently tried to make it disappear.
3) Fiscally prudent
We’ve seen that it’s tough for the Mets under current ownership to maintain a promotional schedule in line with that of recent years. Can’t rustle up sponsors for nicknack giveaways as readily as you used to? Don’t worry, Mets, we’ll bring our own. If you can talk Emerson Radio back in as presenter, great, but the point of Banner Day was never the prize. It was the process. It was the proximity to greatness — fan feet on the actual warning track patrolled by everyone from Jim Hickman to Don Hahn to Mookie Wilson — and it was the moment to say with paint what was on your mind, usually a message of unconditional love and eternal support. A hearty handshake from Mr. Met and whoever replaces Dan Warthen would serve as prize enough for the winning banner in 2012. That and attention. The winning banner on CitiVision! The winning banner on mets.com! The winning banner displayed in the Mets Museum! Fandom for the sake of fandom. Mets fans melt at the proposition.
4) Forget your troubles, c’mon get happy
Watch those film clips from the not-so-sublime years covered in Mets Yearbook. Do the banners say, “The Mets suck and we don’t like the Mets, when are they going to get better and they suck and you suck and everybody sucks”? No, they do not. It is always relentlessly hopeful and ridiculously optimistic. Mets fans, it might surprise Mets management, desire and seek reasons to believe. If they can’t believe in an imminent improvement, they want to believe in themselves. They want to believe there’s a reason they tromp on out to Citi Field when the non-believers around them ask, “Mets game? Why are you going to THAT?” We know why, and we want to show it from the heart. We can buy licensed merchandise (and we will, pending pricing) and some of us can blog up a storm (and we do), but we all want to be reminded that something makes us unique — and Banner Day, a Met creation, is one of those singular sensations that belonged first, last and always to the New York Mets. To the Mets and their fans, technically, but we tend to think they’re one and the same.
5) Brand equity
Current ownership — or new ownership, should it be in place by next season — will (or should) be groping about to make people look at the positives of what it means to be Metsian. They can focus-group this until we’re all asked to bring our own handheld fruit to meetings, but nothing means Mets like Banner Day means Mets. It will let the fan base knows that whoever’s running the show in 2012 gets it the way the Della Femina ads of 1980 were supposed to let the fan base know that Doubleday & Wilpon got it. I don’t mean so much the “The Magic Is Back” tagline but the ads that declared, “This is dedicated to the guys who cried when Thomson connected with Branca’s 0 and 1 pitch.” (Thirty-one years later, I think we should have seen Dodger trouble coming, but it was a reasonably effective come-on at the time.) If a new owner’s broom wants to sweep in some goodwill in its midst, bring back the Banner Day Doubleheader. If WilponCo wants to remind us why we trusted you in the first place, bring back the Banner Day Doubleheader.
And it has to be a doubleheader. It has to be. Forget the instinct to make it a corporate-sanitized Tropicana Pre-Game Banner Parade & Contest as it was when last the bedsheets fluttered in the Flushing breeze. Do it as Mrs. Payson’s minions intended, between games of an honest-to-goodness twinbill that has zero to do with whether it rained yesterday.
What? A doubleheader? An intentional doubleheader? Scheduled on purpose? That’s crazy! The next thing you’ll tell me is you want Jason Isringhausen back on the Mets.
It’s not crazy. I know baseball is generally brought to you by avarice, and that the Players Association is no more a proponent of two games in one day than the owners, but there is precedent here. I don’t refer to 1963 precedent, but rather 2011 precedent, provided by our friendly foes from the 1973 World Series. Check it out — the Oakland A’s have scheduled a single-admission doubleheader for Saturday, July 16.
It is not a typographical error, or even one of those typographical fielder’s choices that doesn’t show up in the box score. It’s an idea that looms as a hit come midsummer in the East Bay. The A’s figured they needed an attendance boost, so instead of putting on four single games against the Angels right after the All-Star break, they received permission from all concerned to skip Thursday and lay in two games on Friday.
How very unusual, this two-for-the-price-of-one gimmick. It used to happen in baseball as a matter of course. It was quite the bargain. I’m not going to tell you this is the start of something big — or double — sportwide (doubleheaders can feel long, especially when they lack a unifying theme or one lousy win) but the A’s are proving it can be done. Once a year, you can host two games on the same day and you can make a big deal out of it. In the Mets’ case (which doesn’t seem to be a case loaded with gate receipts at this juncture), the deal is it gives them a golden opportunity in 2012 — the year when they celebrate their golden anniversary — to revive Banner Day like it oughta be.
Take a cue from the A’s. Pick a spot on the calendar in which you can work in that extra off day so nobody whines too much about upsetting the mediocre pitching. Then figure out the physical logistics. In the old days, fans would be called to line up behind the center field fence at Shea around the seventh inning of the opener. Maybe at Citi Field you need to have folks on the left field ramp, or in the Bullpen Plaza or figure out a way to use 126th Street effectively. You can determine, just as you can give each placard a quick gander to make sure it’s family-friendly (though don’t be total jerks about it and try to exercise obsessive editorial control to the point of censoring any sentiment that isn’t WE LOVE DELTA CLUB AMENITIES; even M. Donald Grant eventually feigned good humor at the Grant’s Tomb cracks.) You can pull people away from the Shake Shack line or grab them mid-wave. I’ll bet it won’t be that difficult. I’ll bet the banner-bearers will be rarin’ to go. (With a lesser capacity than Shea, the banner traffic will potentially flow more smoothly, too.)
Promote the hell out of it, link it to the thrills of the first fifty years, make clear that this is Marvelous, Exciting, Tremendous, Spectacular — METS. You’ll get those of who grew up on this stuff to come out but, more importantly, you’ll get the newer generation of Mets fans that must ask itself, “Why am I a Mets fan? Nothing good ever happens.” Something good will happen. Those kids, teens, twentysomethings…they’ll get to partake in the first Mets Banner Day at Citi Field, the first Mets Banner Day since 1996, the first Mets Banner Day doubleheader since 1988.
They’ll be part of the Mets tradition. That’s world-class in ways that clubs, restaurants and cushioned seats could never be. That fills those seats, I’d be willing to wager. Even those who don’t plan to parade will want to be on hand for the rebirth. If all goes well, then you put in to MLB for an annual exemption to whatever rule has made scheduling doubleheaders obsolete. This becomes our version of the Patriots Day 11 A.M. start Fenway, our Lions/Cowboys Thanksgiving home game. This becomes, again, tradition. The best kind of Mets tradition.
Make it part of your big 50th Anniversary weekend: Casey Stengel Bobblehead Night on Friday; Banner Day twinbill on Saturday; Old Timers Reunion for the Amazin’ Ages on Sunday. Don’t halfway it. Don’t halfass it. Don’t blow it. You only turn 50 once. This is the moment to make your stand, Mets. This is the moment to be the Mets.
You know what you have to do. Do it.
In that same vein of celebrating that which is good and Metsian, join us at McFadden’s Citi Field, Thursday, April 21, at 6 P.M., prior to that night’s Mets-Astros game when Faith and Fear invites you to Buy Tug a Beer. It’s all part of our ongoing efforts to help Sharon Chapman raise funds for the Tug McGraw Foundation’s battle against brain cancer and other insidious diseases. Details here.
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