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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 2 December 2009 11:22 pm 
SNY’s excellent Mets Yearbook series returns Thursday night, December 3, at 7:30 with the 1975 highlight film. Find out if Tom Seaver strikes out 200 batters for an eighth consecutive year.
And speaking of seeing Tom Seaver, if you haven’t seen the Alaska Goldpanners’ fabulous footage from the future Franchise’s first major league start, 4/13/67 at minty-green Shea Stadium, you gotta check it out right now. Thanks to Kerel Cooper of On The Black at bringing this archival gem to the Metsosphere’s attention.
Image courtesy of kcmets.com.
by Greg Prince on 1 December 2009 10:24 pm As the Mets go about their alphabetical roster restocking — Alex Cora…Chris Coste…Chuck Cottier? — they'll have to do it without five of their longtime ticketholders. A Mets fan and FAFIF reader sent us the note below the other day explaining why he and his friends will not be renewing their seats.
I don't know whether this group, whose letter was signed “Amazings NY,” has reconsidered its decision based on the subsequent securing of clubhouse wise man Cora or eternal Phillie Coste (or, for that matter, the definitive deletion of Brian Schneider), but I kind of doubt it. Since we ran a letter like this a little while back, I thought it was fair to run this one, too. That said, if anybody wants to send us a “I just bought season tickets for the first time, it will be worth every penny” missive, we'll be happy to consider it for publication.
In the meantime, edited only for clarity, here is the story of Amazings NY and why you won't see them regularly at Citi Field in 2010.
***
First off, I never blogged or used the Internet to voice my opinion before. Maybe you can run this on your blog if you see fit.
We are a syndicate of five lifetime Met fans related through blood, marriage or friendship who have been season ticket holders since the early nineties when our paychecks finally allowed us some disposable income. Our full season 4 seats steadily improved over the years. In the past decade we added 2 more seats for half a season. Over the years we had a few additions and subtractions to the group, [but] the core never changed. We went together, we went with our own families. If no one went we gave the tickets away. Sold a few. There were no worries.
It was a sweet setup. For a couple of grand a year, we went when we wanted and had a blast. There were good years and bad years, but we were certainly part of the “Flushing Faithful”.
This year [2009] everything changed; to keep our seats, the prices quadrupled. The seats were so expensive that we could no longer treat them as whimsically as we had in the past. We had to commit to games well in advance, we would sell the seats we weren't using. We could not afford to give them away as we always had (apologies to friends and coworkers who had benefited). Then the season went south; OK I understand a team can have injuries, but look at the Yankees and Phillies, they finished the season with essentially the same teams as they started the season (losing Chien-Ming Wang was more likely a blessing than a curse). Were these Met injuries a freak of nature or did this uncover a team of poor design? Probably both. But this is a discussion for another day.
It was a hard team to watch. Not because the team was losing. We're Met fans, we have agonized over losing seasons before. Sloppy play at every level (Ryan Church missing third base, Luis Castillo dropping the last out against the dreaded Yankees). This time was different. There were no prospects to root for. They put Daniel Murphy in a position to fail, as opposed to most teams which take care to place rookies in a position to succeed. Watching washed up mercenaries are hardly a draw. Remind me how Sheffield fits into our future? Fernando Tatis? Livan Hernandez? Where were the players to root for? Luis Castillo makes me ill. He is the only non-Yankee in the 2009 Yankee highlight reel.
Was it incompetence or was the team disingenuous as they communicated the injuries to the fans? Either way it was pathetic and another example of ownership and management's disregard for their fan base. The new stadium is beautiful, and a great tribute to the Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field. Another slap in the face to the lifetime Met fan.
So our season ticket renewals came in two weeks ago. They are offering our seats to us at a 6.5% discount to last year. The same seats we could not sell for half their face value for the last three months of the season. The Mets have put their fans in a position to carry all the risk. There is little upside to the seats with their nosebleed prices. Did they offer a credit for last years dismal showing? Of course not. Where is the goodwill? The Mets have left their season ticket holders out to dry.
The Mets will have to wake up to some cold facts: This is no longer the maiden season in Citi Field, that the Mets lost 92 games last year, they are not a likeable team, and the Met fans endured the team choking in September the two preceding seasons. Any young New York baseball fans are going to naturally gravitate to the world champion Yankees. We are living through the worst recession of our lives and Bernie Madoff and his buddies will not be there to keep demand up for high-priced tickets.
So our syndicate after 17 years is not going to renew any of our 6 season tickets. The lack of goodwill on the part of the Mets has morphed into ill will on the part of these season ticket holders. Interestingly, I have a handful of season ticket holding friends, all of whom came to the same conclusion.
My fear is that there will be a Knick-ization of the Mets. My dislike for the Knicks' ownership, management and players has led me to attend a total of one Knick game in the last ten years. I am someone who at one time watched every Knick game. So the precedent is there and it scares me.
I probably don't speak for everyone, but I would rather root for Mets who came up through the organization, than the high-priced mercenaries who never live up to expectations. Yes I'm talking to you Pedro, Oliver, Luis…let's rebuild a farm system. Trade high priced players at the trading deadline for prospects when we're not contending. Have you seen the Atlanta organization? They have 5 legitimate top starters: Jair Jurrjens, Derek Lowe, Tim Hudson, Tommy Hanson and Javier Vazquez. The Florida Marlins have an exciting young core with Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla, Chris Coghlan (NL Rookie of the Year), Jorge Cantu (100 RBIs). Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco both had more than 190 strikeouts and Chris Volstad has looked spectacular at times. The Phillies have gone to the World Series the last two years. Are we looking at fourth place in the NL East?
I urge the fans: Do not renew, do not buy tickets. Let the Mets carry some risk, let the Mets show some goodwill to their fans. Trust me, you will be able to buy the tickets on the secondary market at half the price. Once you renew, if prices drop, you won't see it.
by Greg Prince on 30 November 2009 8:57 pm 
What Shea Stadium was to the 1969 World Champion New York Mets as they were becoming the 1969 World Champion New York Mets,The Miracle Has Landed is for all of eternity. It is their home. You will not find a more thorough nor definitive collection of perspectives on and passions for this team of teams. Your friends from Faith and Fear contributed words and images, as did dozens of talented and devoted baseball chroniclers. In the parlance of Mets yearbooks, consider this the ultimate Revised Edition for 1969.
The Miracle Has Landed makes a beautiful addition to your baseball library or the baseball library of any Mets fan you care about. Honestly, this baby is a baseball library unto itself. Secure your copy today.
by Greg Prince on 30 November 2009 12:21 pm The Mets were meandering through their most arid major award season since 1993 — the last time no Met scored a single vote for MVP, Cy Young, Manager of the Year or Rookie of the Year nor nabbed a Silver Slugger or Gold Glove — when it appeared we’d have nothing more to sate our perilously low self-esteem than Luis Castillo’s fantastic seventh-place finish in voting for mlb.com’s National League Comeback Player of the Year balloting (six points behind the decreasingly heartwarming return of Philadelphia Phillie Pedro Martinez). Presumably impartial observers observed the Mets and decided they were as undistinguished individually as they were collectively.
But then, at last acknowledgement: Omir Santos snuck onto the 2009 Topps All-Rookie Team last week as its catcher, ahead of the Orioles’ Matt Wieters (who hit his first home run off Tim Redding in June). I’d all but forgotten the Topps All-Rookie Team existed, yet suddenly, it was like we existed again. A Met’s name appeared on something other than a DECLARED FREE AGENCY list.
It isn’t much. It really isn’t. You’d have to be staring at a baseball card in 2010 to remember it happened. I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’d seen evidence of the Topps All-Rookie Team other than by staring at one of its members’ cards. And the last time I can remember noticing a Met earning a little trophy next to his picture is Jon Matlack’s 1973 edition.
Santos, in a light year for freshman catchers, became the nineteenth Met* ever so honored; the first since Ty Wigginton made the squad as the 2003 third baseman; and only the third Met catcher so named. Todd Hundley in 1992 and Jesse Gonder in 1963 were the other receivers in what were also, one can quickly infer, light years for freshman catchers (Hundley was designated by Topps despite generating less offense than Dwight Gooden that season).
Making the Topps team, which covers both leagues, sounds sweet, but it doesn’t necessarily portend a damn thing for Omir or anybody. Hundley built on his fledgling credentials (.207 BA/.256 OBP/.316 SLG) and eventually became a record-setting home run hitter of sorts. Gonder eventually became a Milwaukee Brave. Wiggy was ousted from his position in ’04 by rookie David Wright, whose sparkling half-season at third was passed over by Topps in favor of a full year of Chad Tracy, yet David Wright was soon en route to blossoming while Ty Wigginton was clearly never going to be more than Ty Wigginton.
Several Mets Rookie of the Year candidates — guys who actually earned votes from the Baseball Writers when they were pups — were stiffed by Topps, including Ron Hunt (second place in ’63), John Milner (third in ’72), Steve Henderson (second in ’77) and Kevin Mitchell (third in ’86). Jose Reyes and Kaz Matsui each secured a single BBWAA third-place vote in ’03 and ’04, respectively, but won no love from Topps. Ron Hunt had the bad Topps luck to emerge the same year as another then-second baseman, Pete Rose. Reyes’s limited duty in 2003 didn’t stack up to the one standout year ever produced by recent Met Angel Berroa. With Topps, timing and competition are everything.
Congratulations to our very own Papel-popper for winning us something, anything. And best of luck to Omir Santos on building on his sorely adequate 2009. But to tell you the truth, I want more out of life than a default Topps All-Rookie catcher. I want more out of a Met rookie than hindsight and a pat on the back. I want to look forward to a Met rookie in the way I haven’t since the days of Reyes and Wright, maybe since the days of Strawberry and Gooden.
I’ve decided want to look forward to Ike Davis.
Oh, Mets prospects. You never seem to arrive, do you? The Mets used to send a few up here now and then. I don’t mean the stopgaps and the might-bes. I mean the can’t-miss and didn’t-miss. I mean the kind we sat around truly anticipating for a couple of years. We monitored his progress, we anticipated his arrival and we contacted one another immediately when his time came. They called up Darryl! They brought up Jefferies! Reyes is up!
Notice the word “up” in all that? That was what it felt like to have delivered unto us our can’t-miss kid. He raised our hopes, he heightened our confidence, he got us peeking above the horizon.
I miss can’t-miss. We haven’t had that since Wright. We’ve had the well-regarded and the promising, but they’re not the same. They didn’t burst onto the scene. They weren’t meant to stay…or they didn’t force the issue. In the five seasons since we’ve been doing Faith and Fear, we’ve been modestly to seriously tantalized by the promotions of:
• Lastings Milledge
• Mike Pelfrey
• Philip Humber
• Carlos Gomez
• Eddie Kunz
• Jonathon Niese
• Fernando Martinez
These aren’t all the rookies the Mets have recalled since 2005, but they’re the ones who were particularly hyped in advance. Not nice players, but potentially very nice players. Prospects all the way. Some came up and showed flashes. Some flickered more than flashed. Some stalled. Others were packaged and sent away to address immediate needs. The last couple, natch, have gotten hurt.
But none of them — not even Martinez, on whom the jury has to be considered out given his youth — carried that glittering seal of advance approval. Nobody was a sure thing, not the way we’d been all but guaranteed in the cases of Reyes and Wright and, long before them, Strawberry and Gooden. Sure, there’s folly in banking on anybody as a certainty — Gregg Jefferies required lots of maturing after his initial blast onto the scene faded…and let’s not get into Alex Ochoa — but you could have faith. More faith than fear, y’know? You read the reports on Reyes going into 2003 and you couldn’t wait. You heard the talk surrounding Strawberry twenty years before that and you drooled. Barring injuries (goodbye Payton, goodbye Pulsipher, goodbye Paul Wilson), you kept the faith.
I haven’t done that in ages where a Met prospect is concerned. I’ve kept marginal faith in guys I sensed were medium prospects. I don’t expect much out of Mike Pelfrey, so I avert disappointment that way. I was let down some by Lastings Milledge, but save for a little lightning his first couple of dizzying weeks, I didn’t expect a ton either. The others…if they were promoted by the Mets, I took them in stride.
I want to expect. I want to have a Met on the way up whom I look forward to penciling in a) to the everyday lineup and b) for substantial amounts of easily interpreted positive statistics. I want somebody to come up here and, after nearly a half-century of waiting, be a Met approximation of Albert Pujols.
A Met approximation of Albert Pujols (did you know we drafted a dozen players before the Cardinals picked Pujols in 1999? So did 28 other teams, I suppose, but still…) would be Darryl Strawberry or David Wright. Not the best player in the game, but still up there most years. I’d take another Straw, another David if I can’t have the best player in the game. I’d take expecting that and not being disappointed by what happens. It would beat expecting modestly and being let down gently.
Ike Davis is…how the hell would I know what he is? I didn’t spend a lot of time watching the St. Lucie or Binghamton Mets last season and I don’t spend a lot of time analyzing the ol’ farm system. I don’t believe in the ol’ farm system. The ol’ farm system produces very few Mets as a rule. The ones they produce…they get here when they get here. Or they don’t get here. I can’t get attached to anybody when they’re not yet a Met, unless someone’s giving me sensational motivation.
That’s where 22-year-old Ike Davis is suddenly coming in. I knew his father was a Yankee I particularly disliked (some quote in the paper circa 1981 honked me off, though I couldn’t tell you what it was anymore). I knew he was a first baseman. I knew he was a first-round draft pick in ’08, but so what? Ryan Jaroncyk was a first-round draft pick in ’95. Robert Stratton was a first-round draft pick in ’96. Geoff Goetz was a first-round draft pick in ’97. I’ve grown immune to the charms of Mets first-round draft picks. I’m experienced at doubting their lack of experience let alone development. But then, for some reason, Ike Davis’s name kept getting repeated as if he were a serious prospect. In 2009, he hit twenty homers and drove in 71 runs in 114 games. His OPS was .906. That was in Single-A and Double-A combined. Maybe this wasn’t just the Mets hyping and touting per usual. Maybe we had a genuine prospect on our hands worth the trouble of anticipating.
Next thing I know, he’s batting .341 in the Arizona Fall League. Again, Arizona Fall League is one of those things that doesn’t penetrate my see-it/believe-it ethos for youngsters. But more talk, more buzz. Ike Davis seems to be elevating into that prospect realm where few Mets get…where I’m anticipating their arrival.
Would Marty Noble be seeking Darryl Strawberry’s wisdom for Ike Davis if Ike Davis were not worth the trouble? Did they do this for Fernando Martinez? Or Jay Payton?
Mind you, I’m vulnerable. I’m vulnerable to suggestion these days, specifically the suggestion that a minor league Met could become a major league star…as a Met. I may have blithely dismissed the likelihood of the most recent spate of Milledges and Gomezes because we appeared to have a good ballclub whether they made it or not. It would have been nice to have had reinforcements, but we were contending without them contributing, so it was no biggie when they flamed out or fell short. But now we need something to believe in. We need to have faith. There’s not much that we know about that gives us that rock-solid feeling of “It’s gonna be fine.” There’s mostly nothing in that category.
Just like there wasn’t when Strawberry was about to blossom. Just like there wasn’t when Reyes was lacing up his spikes. It’s times like these that demand an Ike Davis. It’s times like these that have me casting away my doubt and craving an Ike Davis. It’s times like these when I can imagine a 2012 Topps Mets card with a little gold trophy signifying the best 2011 rookie first baseman in the game was — not by default but on merit — Ike Davis.
These times cry out for an Ike Davis. Whoever he is.
*Your Topps All-Rookie Mets: Al Jackson (LHP, 1962); Jesse Gonder (C, 1963); Ron Swoboda (OF, 1965); Cleon Jones (OF, 1966); Tom Seaver (RHP, 1967); Jerry Koosman (LHP, 1968); Ken Boswell (2B, 1968); Jon Matlack (LHP, 1972); Hubie Brooks (3B, 1981); Mookie Wilson (OF, 1981); Darryl Strawberry (OF, 1983); Dwight Gooden (RHP, 1984); Roger McDowell (RHP, 1985); Gregg Jefferies (2B, 1989); Todd Hundley (C, 1992); Jeff Kent (2B, 1992…though most of that, presumably, was based on his work with the Blue Jays); Jay Payton (OF, 2000); Ty Wigginton (3B, 2003); Omir Santos (C, 2009).
by Greg Prince on 30 November 2009 1:16 am In 2008, you’ll recall, the Mets let Willie Randolph dangle on the precipice of removal, take a flight to the West Coast, manage one game in Anaheim and then fired him (announcing it, infamously, after 3:00 AM Eastern time). It all seemed pretty shabby.
Not quite eighteen months later, the New Jersey Nets, off to a potentially historic bad start, have fired their head coach, Lawrence Frank, with one game remaining on a punishing West Coast trip. They are 0-16. If they go 0-17, they will tie the NBA record for worst start ever. Without knowing very much about the internal machinations of the Nets, other than they can’t be too terribly effective, I can’t tell whether this is merciful or overkill. Frank was once a successful coach, just as the Nets were once a leading franchise in the NBA Eastern Conference. He seems like the kind of guy who’d want one more chance to lead his team away from eternal notoriety. Tonight they play the Lakers in Los Angeles. Frank could have at least gone down fighting, going out as the guy who tried to halt history before it ate up whatever’s left of the Nets’ 2009-10 season.
On the other hand, at least now his name won’t be attached to the record loss if it occurs. He presumably gets to fly home on his own, apart from the players who have failed him…or the players who failed in concert with him…or the players who failed because of him. I have to confess that although I list the Nets as my favorite NBA team, that’s like choosing my favorite opera singer most of the time. I don’t really follow the league anymore, and my fealty to the Nets is mostly a matter of sentiment dating back to the ABA. Still, as the Nets have edged closer to 0-17, I’ve actually been watching them a little (even though that requires tuning in YES). I understand they’ve been saddled with injuries and lost a couple of close ones early on. But as I’ve watched them, they’ve just looked beaten. Frank has looked beaten. Hard to argue the dismissal of a coach with an 0-16 record isn’t justified.
But they had to off their coach of more than five years before he could maybe, just maybe go 1-16 as long as the Nets were ending their road trip anyway? Is his interim successor, Tom Barrise, that much of a sparkplug? Will the Nets players be so happy to be rid of Frank that they’ll be fired up and ready to go against the 12-3 Lakers? Then again, if this was inevitable (which it reportedly was), why not get it over with and put Frank out of his misery and on a plane home?
You can’t quantify taste, but this doesn’t taste right.
In 2008, the right thing to do would have been to have told Willie Randolph not to board that westbound flight, to not make him go through the motions of one more game as skipper if he was going to be done 24 hours later regardless. Omar Minaya claimed he had to sleep on it before definitively issuing Willie a return ticket to New York. There was also the issue of the Mets not wanting to fire their manager on Father’s Day. No matter how they did it, it would have stung. It stung that much more because how clumsily the Mets handled the matter.
The Nets, somehow, look even clumsier.
FOR THE RECORD: The Nets have indeed become the co-losingest team out of the gate in NBA history, going down haplessly to the Lakers Sunday night and joining the 1988-89 Miami Heat and the lockout-year 1999 L.A. Clippers in 0-17 infamy. The temp coach did not fire them up. On the bright side, you can be a lousy 3-14 team like the Knicks and show yourself as nothing special or you can be a landmark lousy team like the Nets and be really nothing special. Either way, they both make the Mets look downright semi-competent.
by Greg Prince on 27 November 2009 7:22 pm If I’ve learned anything from the returning Keith Hernandez these past few years that he has analyzed Mets games. it’s that ballplayers like to come up with new names for old things, particularly if they save the players some syllables. Thus, it was no surprise to me when I started hearing Keith make occasional reference to “fundies”…as in fundamentals.
Fundamentals: four syllables. Fundies: two syllables. Look how much effort a ballplayer saves in the shortening.
Keith gives me the idea that a ballplayer is more than happy to cut out syllables as well as steps. So much of their life is repetition repeated ad infinitum, from February to, if you’re lucky, November. It’s only human nature to now and then want to find shortcuts.
Unless you’re intent on playing ’til November.
The Mets, you may have noticed in 2009, were neither masters of the shortcut nor the fundamental. They couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t execute the little things and, as a result, fundie got broken up in to two even small words:
• Fun
• Die
Two small words describe what happened pretty aptly because the Mets wouldn’t commit to doing the little things that win ballgames. And the littlest thing of all erupted into the biggest play of the year in terms of encapsulating all that went wrong for them.
Faith and Fear in Flushing announces, with no joy whatsoever, that the Nikon Camera Player of the Year — the award bestowed to the entity or concept that best symbolizes the Met season gone by — is Two Hands.
As in “TWO HANDS!!” the aggrieved cry of Mets fans everywhere following the gaffe of all 2009 gaffes, Luis Castillo’s failed one-handed non-grab of Alex Rodriguez’s ninth-inning, two-out popup on June 12 at Yankee Stadium. It turned an 8-7 win into a 9-8 loss; it turned an assumption into an imperative; it turned us all into bench coaches.
TWO HANDS!! we would yell starting June 13 and keep yelling for the rest of the blighted season. We would yell it at Castillo and any Met who drifted toward or settled under a pop fly. If we didn’t yell it, we surely muttered it or thought it to ourselves. Castillo’s utter failure under the Subway Series glare — after not catching the ball, he didn’t throw it to the right base either — made us all wary of how the Mets played for the balance of 2009.
We should have been warier earlier. We should have taken to heart as more than just one of those things that no Met fielder consistently looked like he knew what he was doing from the time the season started. Mets baserunners were generally just as clueless. This predates the injury wave. The injuries were severe, to be sure, but I’d take a sound team of substitutes over a cavalier bunch of regulars any day. We’d have less talent, but more skill.
By the end, we were dealing primarily with alternates who didn’t pay attention to details. It was the worst of all worlds. It was the Mets of 2009.
Luis Castillo put up admirable offensive numbers one season after he was completely useless as a Met. He did not wither after June 12. Singling out his disastrous error is not intended as one more jab at him personally. This could be about Daniel Murphy falling down, Carlos Beltran not sliding, Jose Reyes watching a double assuming it was a homer, Fernando Martinez assuming he didn’t have to run at all when he had just been called up; David Wright slowing down between third and home to negate a run, Carlos Delgado not corralling a foul pop, Jeff Francoeur losing a ball in the lights, Jeremy Reed throwing wildly from first, Ryan Church not touching third, Angel Pagan not calling off Beltran, Emil Brown passing Castillo on the basepaths…these were professionals. Some of them were decorated professionals. They all made inexcusable, mindless plays. They all saved themselves the effort of thinking.
Everybody makes mistakes. Vapor lock is the term Keith used in his excellent diary of the 1985 season, If At First, to describe the most inexplicable kinds. One now and then is forgivable. It’s part of the human equation. But on the 2009 Mets, vapor locks just multiplied and spread. Everybody seemed to lock up. They didn’t, as a rule or as a unit, ever seem to unlock. They never seemed to understand just how bad they played. It wasn’t the 70-92 record that stands as galling. It’s how they got there.
The players did not use two hands in the literal or figurative sense. The manager and his coaches did not effectively drill into them the importance of two hands…or a brain, it seems. The Mets made fundamental mistakes early and they made fundamental mistakes often. I got the impression they barely noticed and weren’t bothered that their lack of fundies made the fun die so brutally.
They never grew any more aware, but I sure did and so did you. Every fan became a maven for fundamentals in 2009. If we didn’t full realize coming in to the year, by the end, we all understood the importance of two hands.
TWO HANDS!!
FAITH AND FEAR’S PREVIOUS NIKON CAMERA PLAYERS OF THE YEAR
2005: The WFAN broadcast team of Gary Cohen and Howie Rose
2006: Shea Stadium
2007: Uncertainty
2008: The 162-Game Schedule
by Greg Prince on 25 November 2009 9:02 pm The Mets used to regularly play Memorial Day doubleheaders, Independence Day doubleheaders and Labor Day doubleheaders, yet the holiday that launched them into the public consciousness was the one we celebrate tomorrow.
That’s right: the Mets are as much a part of Thanksgiving as stuffing, pumpkin pie and forced conversation you could do without.
Two months before they started limbering up in St. Petersburg and nearly four months before they began losing in earnest, the New York Mets made their debut at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 23, 1961. There had only been actual Mets for about six weeks, since the expansion draft yielded 22 players of varying talents and primes who were slated to comprise the bulk of the Original Mets. Their real star, of course, was their manager. One year removed from not quite winning an eighth World Series in a dozen seasons for a particularly demanding employer, Casey Stengel had signed on to pilot the expansion Mets. Casey Stengel had been, was and would always be the personification of baseball in New York. He was a Dodger under Wilbert Robinson, a Giant under John McGraw, a Yankee who lorded it over the American League and now the best thing the nascent Mets had going for them.
What better first public relations move than to parade Casey Stengel before the adoring masses? And what better venue than the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade of 1961? It already promised to be a star-studded procession: Connie Francis, Troy Donahue, Annette Funicello; Lionel Hampton; the maiden appearance of the Bullwinkle J. Moose balloon; the title vehicle from Car 54 Where Are You? getting a push from Fred Gwynne and Joe E. Ross; and NBC stretching its coverage of the event to an unprecedented two hours. Amid this great march of history came your 1962 Mets…maybe your 1961 Mets, if you want to be literal about it.
Gil Hodges was a part of it. So was Al Jackson. Billy Loes, the Brooklyn Dodger who once claimed to have lost a ground ball in the sun, was there. He was supposed to be a Met (meaning he was on the roster, not that somebody losing a ground ball in the sun was destined to be one of ours in 1962) but he’d retire before a single pitch would be thrown in futile anger. Monte Irvin joined Casey’s cadre as well. Irvin was never going to be a Met, but he had been a New York Giant, and the Mets were, in a very real sense, getting the band back together — a blue and orange supergroup, if you will. New York’s affection for the National League simmered on the back burner for four desolate years, so the expansion Mets were as welcome a sight in November 1961 as they would be in April 1962.
Thus, there was Casey, just one man in one car in the Macy’s display, but really — apologies to the cast of Bonanza, which technically led the cavalcade — the grand marshal of any parade in which he strutted his stuff. George Weiss thought it would be a sound idea to get Stengel in front of potential customers as soon as possible. Stengel, always happy to give the crowd a wave and a bow, didn’t disagree.
“I may be able to sell tickets with my face,” said the ever aware Ol’ Perfesser.
The first official pilgrimage for Mets fans would come April 13, 1962, uptown to the Polo Grounds. But should you check in on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this Thursday morning, you might want to remember that 48 years ago, the same spectacle served as our Crossing of the Mayflower.
***
The modern-day turkeys who run the Mets want you to run out and buy a brand new 2010 jersey on Black Friday. They’ve even provided a handy, practically decipherable guide to an hourly discount program at the Citi Field team store…and nowhere else, if I’m reading it correctly. Then again, these are the people who load up their Sunday ticket plans with Thursday night games, so caveat Met emptor and all that.
If you want to be among the first to purchase a new “natural color” top, by all means buy it, wear it or give it in good health. But if you’re interested in getting a more satisfying bang for your fan buck, consider one or all of the following.
1) Tonight, Wednesday, at 8 o’clock MLB Network debuts its 1969 edition of the fine Baseball’s Seasons series. 1969 can only mean one thing, and it’s something of which we’ve yet to get enough. Retroactive cap tip to MLBN for airing all five games of the ’69 Fall Classic last Sunday, perhaps the most super Sunday ever. And SNY reairs the same games all Thanksgiving Day starting at noon, albeit with their trademark SpongeTech editing technique that makes almost everything they show slightly less enjoyable than it should be.
2) The Bible of the 1969 Mets, The Miracle Has Landed, has been released at last. It is as nearly as phenomenal as 1969 itself and an absolute must for your baseball library. Sanctioned by SABR, meticulously organized by Matt “Met” Silverman, authored by a gang of impassioned baseball fans, writers and bloggers (yours truly included) and augmented by no better image source than The Holy Books, it is the ’69 reunion to end all ’69 reunions. Every Met, every Met episode and every Met perspective from 1969 is incorporated in one substantial volume. It coincides with the 40th anniversary of that most Amazin’ year, but you’ll be reading it and referring to it as the Miracle turns 41, 42 and continues to age gracefully. On The Black‘s Kerel Cooper offers an insightful interview with Matt here.
3) Should you find yourself browsing an airport newsstand this weekend or happen to be anywhere where current magazines are sold, do yourself a favor and pick up the November 30 issue of The New Yorker and luxuriate in Roger Angell’s treatment of the 2009 season and postseason. No, the Mets aren’t featured players in the article, and yes, the Yankees are, but that’s not important. What is is that Roger Angell is the greatest baseball essayist who ever lived and that every yearly recap he offers is a gift to every baseball fan who loves to read.
Lines like…
Top and bottom, that inning required forty-four minutes, and it felt like a colonoscopy.
Observations like…
This columnar closing posture — he’s not twisted off to one side, like other pitchers, but driving forward, with the back leg still aloft, as his eyes follow the pitch — is classic, and reminded me strongly of some fabled pitcher from my boyhood. He looked a little dusty and work-worn out there, which may have contributed to this impression. I thought about Dizzy Dean or Lon (the Arkansas Hummingbird) Warneke, but they were righties.
Descriptions like…
…CC Sabathia’s sunny looks and pavilion-sized pants…
Word pictures like…
Damon plants his left foot in the box when he first steps in and swings his right foot away so that he’s facing the pitcher almost directly, with the bat in his right hand also pointing off to right. He’s surveying, you think.
And canny conclusions like…
This time, the Mets’ problems and psyche may require something more than better luck and the customary between-season signings and statements for them to reverse things — some fresh attitudes, and perhaps less conviction of their own wonderfulness.
…remind me, yet again, that sports’ first great proto-blogger still has a fastball worthy of Prince Hal Newhouser — a lefty like Cliff Lee.
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The Mets give us myriad reasons to kvetch in their direction. But they also constitute a fabulous backdrop for the best year-round discussion I know, the one we’re in the middle of here virtually all the time. At the risk of enabling their future foibles, I’m thankful they give us all a reason to talk amongst ourselves as much as we do. Who knows? Maybe by this time next year, we’ll see members of the 2010 Mets riding in the Thanksgiving parade for the same reason they did in 1969, a month or so after they enjoyed an even more famous ride downtown. And maybe we’ll all be exponentially happier because of them. Maybe they’ll give us reason to kvell.
Probably not, but it’s late November 2009 and nothing bad has happened in those 2010 uniforms yet. On the Thursday the 1961-62 Mets rolled into Herald Square, they had yet to lose a game. Sometimes it’s nice to think about the Mets’ next game when they’re both idle and undefeated.
Need any further affirmation as to why you remain a Mets fan in spite of it all? I invite you to have a gander at Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available as a swell holiday gift to yourself or a loved one.
by Greg Prince on 25 November 2009 9:00 pm 
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade of 1961 served as the coming out party for your New York Mets, led by their first and still most prominent face, Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel.
Image borrowed with much appreciation from a great early-’60s Flickr photostream here.
by Jason Fry on 25 November 2009 2:04 pm Some folks will never forgive him for his Piazza-related tantrum, but this Paul Lukas bit nails everything that’s wrong with the current Mets regime (and what’s wrong is pretty much everything) in one succinct blast:
It’s all too much. The Bernazard thing, the vanilla stadium with the corporate name and the 37 price tiers, the GM who thinks it’s a good idea to call out a beat writer at a press conference, the bottomless pit of medical misdiagnoses — and I’m not even counting the on-field performance. I’m just talking about the most basic aspects of team ownership and stewardship. These guys aren’t just bad at it; they’re the definition of dysfunctional. If the Mets were their kid, Child Services would’ve whisked the team into foster care years ago.
Lousy way to say Happy Thanksgiving, but we’re Mets fans. We have to expect that our retro gravy will be lumpy and not really like the gravy we once knew and loved, and will cost more and get cold while we sit through a self-serving speech that’s stupefyingly inaccurate, and then we’ll choke on it and the family doctor will yell that we’re having a heart attack when even a half-blind resident could tell we aren’t and he’ll burn the crap out of us with those electric paddles, and while we’re recuperating and wondering what the hell happened, the guests we were told about will arrive but they won’t be young, interesting guests, they’ll be old, shuffling guests, and Mom will beam while looking a little desperate and say that everything will be great now, because they’ve got a lot of experience at Thanksgiving.
I’ll be in my room hiding. You can have my yams.
by Greg Prince on 24 November 2009 5:55 pm 
I’m with Jason on this, but more so. The Mets had a decent idea to revise their pinstripe uniforms and didn’t execute. This is what it will look like. The proof will be on the players, but it doesn’t match up to the wonderful unis worn on August 22 when Tom and his Terrific teammates took the field to commemorate their fortieth anniversary. It’s just…off. That horrendous drop shadow, which has puked all over Mets jerseys since 1998, is the main culprit.
Vetting Mets press releases has already preoccupied me too much of late, but I find curious the explanation that “the Mets created the retro uniform following research and positive responses to the jerseys the 1969 World Champion Mets wore during their 40th anniversary celebration in August.” This is the same organization that claimed fans don’t care about items like Old Timers Day. Don’t listen to what we said; listen to what we say.
I wonder what irregular they’ll sign to fit these new not-quite-right outfits.
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