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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 9 September 2009 1:32 pm There’s a lot of talk going around about all-time franchise records for hits. I assume this has something to do with the eternal appreciation fans and media have for true legends of the game. Given that the subject is in the air, I thought it would be fun (my kind of fun, at any rate) to explore how the vaunted Met record for most hits in a career came to be.
The first Met to hold the all-time franchise record for hits was Gus Bell. He produced the first Met hit ever, a one-out single to center off Cardinal starter Larry Jackson in the top of the second inning on April 11, 1962. Never mind that the Mets were already down 2-0 in the first game they’d ever play. We had a record-holder, and his name was Gus Bell.
In short order, Bell would be joined by Don Zimmer, Richie Ashburn, Charlie Neal and finally, via the first home run in Met history, Gil Hodges. Five men had one hit apiece. We had our first Top Five.
Such a tie could not stand. When Neal homered in the fifth to pull the Mets to within 5-3, he became the all-time hit record holder in Met history. When he singled in the seventh, Charlie had accumulated three times as many hits as any other player the Mets had ever had.
If Charlie Neal had kept it up, he would have set quite the standard. But he didn’t. By the fifth game of the 1962 season, Neal ceded the hit record to Felix Mantilla, the first man to gather 5 hits as a Met. By the seventh game, Frank Thomas took sole possession of the team record with 7 hits. Mantilla would retake leadership in the tenth game when he notched his 11th hit. Thomas took it right back in the thirteenth game when he surged to 15 hits. Come the 14th game the 2-12 Mets ever played, your franchise hit leaders were:
1. Frank Thomas – 18
2. Charlie Neal – 14
3. Felix Mantilla – 13
4. Richie Ashburn – 9
When that first exciting season of 40-120 Mets baseball ended, your franchise hit leaders were exactly the same:
1. Frank Thomas – 152
2. Charlie Neal – 132
3. Felix Mantilla – 128
4. Richie Ashburn – 119
Fifth place belonged to a slow starter from ’62, Jim Hickman, who had 96. His future was brighter than that of Mantilla (traded to Boston in the offseason for Pumpsie Green, Tracy Stallard and Al Moran) and Ashburn (retired after completing a Hall of Fame career). With Neal cooling off, Hickman surged into second place on the Mets’ all-time hit list in 1963, standing behind only Thomas, who ruled the chart by a fair margin. Neal, in third, was being pushed by rookie sensation Ron Hunt and supersub Rod Kanehl. Here were your Top Five Hit Men in Mets history after two seasons:
1. Frank Thomas – 261
2. Jim Hickman – 209
3. Charlie Neal – 189
4. Ron Hunt – 145
5. Rod Kanehl – 133
Change permeated 1964, evidenced not just by the franchise’s shift to Shea Stadium, but with its August trade of Thomas to the pennant-contending Phillies (for Wayne Graham, Gary Kroll and cash). When the Big Donkey left New York, he was the franchise hit king at 311. His record was ripe for shattering, and on October 1, in Milwaukee, Hickman took a bat to the damn thing and broke it in 312 pieces when he doubled off Denny Lemaster to ignite a two-out third-inning rally. When the season ended a few days later, here’s how the Top Five Hit Collectors in Mets history stacked up:
1. Jim Hickman – 314
2. Frank Thomas – 311
3. Ron Hunt – 289
4. Joe Christopher – 196
5. Rod Kanehl – 192
Hickman pressed his advantage and held off Hunt to maintain leadership through 1965. Joe Christopher solidified his place as ell. But the real news was unfolding at the bottom of the Top Five Hit Makers countdown:
1. Jim Hickman – 401
2. Ron Hunt – 336
3. Frank Thomas – 311
4. Joe Christopher – 305
5. Ed Kranepool – 299
No question about it, Kranepool — whose first hit was an eighth-inning double off the Cubs’ Don Elston at the Polo Grounds on September 23, 1962 — was moving up the ranks. And to examine the Top Five Hit Masters after 1966 was to infer the not-quite 22-year-old first baseman/outfielder was a young man on the rise.
1. Jim Hickman – 439
2. Ron Hunt – 427
3. Ed Kranepool – 417
4. Frank Thomas – 311
5. Joe Christopher – 305
The inevitable became a reality on May 16, 1967 when Eddie singled off the Braves’ Wade Blasingame in the fourth inning in Atlanta, giving him the 440th hit of his career. His lead over the rest of the Top Five Hitting Magicians in Mets history (none of them still with the club after ’66) would only grow as the season wound on:
1. Ed Kranepool – 543
2. Jim Hickman – 439
3. Ron Hunt – 427
4. Frank Thomas – 311
5. Joe Christopher – 305
Knowing what you probably know about Ed Kranepool, you probably figure the rest of the story is all denouement, merely maintenance en route to a lengthy proprietorship of posterity. But to observe the action among the Top Five Met Hit Creators following the 1968 season was to note something was bubbling up under the Krane.
1. Ed Kranepool – 629
2. Jim Hickman – 439
3. Ron Hunt – 427
4. Ron Swoboda – 402
5. Cleon Jones – 401
New blood! Keeping pace with Kranepool would be at least two other homegrown Mets: 23-year-old Ron Swoboda and 24-year-old Cleon Jones. Swoboda made his debut off an impressive Spring Training in 1965. Jones grabbed sips of coffee in ’63 and ’65 before planting himself at the major league lunch counter for good in ’66. Like Ed, Ron and Cleon had room to run. They weren’t the only rapidly maturing Mets who would be stretching their legs in 1969. Check out the post-miracle edition of the Top Five Hit Champs:
1. Ed Kranepool – 713
2. Cleon Jones – 565
3. Ron Swoboda – 479
4. Bud Harrelson – 349
5. Jerry Grote – 348
As the Mets entered the ’70s, every member of their Top Five was returning from the previous season for the first time since 1963. More significantly, every one of them was reaching the prime of his career as a World Champion Met. Well, maybe one of them was slowing up a bit despite ending 1970 shy of his 27th birthday. As the confetti completely faded from view, here were the Top Five Hit Celebrants in Met history:
1. Ed Kranepool – 721
2. Cleon Jones – 705
3. Ron Swoboda – 536
4. Bud Harrelson – 486
5. Jerry Grote – 454
Hey, it’s getting pretty close there at the upper echelons, ain’t it? Indeed, Ed Kranepool fell out of official favor at Shea in 1970 and was sent down to Tidewater to relearn his craft. Come 1971, it was fair to wonder whether he was already over the hill (as the banners liked to query all along). Cleon, meanwhile, went about posting his third excellent season in the last four. It all led to a changing of the guard on May 25, 1971, when Jones doubled off Ken Reynolds of the Phillies at Shea, for the 750th hit of his career, all as a Met, surpassing Kranepool’s total of 749.
And that was that…until June 11, 1971, when — with Cleon sidelined — Eddie went on a tear that included a fifth-inning single off Steve Stone of the Giants at Shea. That was the 763rd hit of Kranepool’s career, allowing him to retake the franchise record from the idle Jones.
And that was that…until…well, it was quite a horse race, actually.
• On July 7, 1971, Ed Kranepool and Cleon Jones entered the Mets’ home game against the Expos with 782 hits apiece. In the bottom of the seventh, Cleon singled off Carl Morton for the 783rd hit of his career. We have a leader!
• In the very next inning, Eddie doubled off Mike Marshall, driving in two runs (Cleon’s best friend Tommie Agee was out at the plate) to give him the 783rd hit of his career. We have a tie!
• Leading off the inning after that, Cleon singled off Marshall, making it Jones 784, Kranepool 783.
• Three days later, June 10, Kranepool would single off the Reds’ Wayne Simpson in Cincinnati to make it Jones 784, Kranepool 784.
• The day after, however, in the opener of a Sunday doubleheader at Riverfront, Cleon reached Gary Nolan for a fourth-inning single, and followed it up with two more hits to put the internal competition at Jones 787, Kranepool 784.
Then baseball took itself an All-Star break, presumably because it needed a breather from all this gripping tension. When the sport resumed, Cleon Jones continued to put distance between himself and Ed Kranepool, so much so that by the end of 1971, the Top Five Mets Manufacturers of Hits were assembled as such:
1. Cleon Jones – 866
2. Ed Kranepool – 839
3. Bud Harrelson – 624
4. Jerry Grote – 563
5. Ron Swoboda – 536
5. Tommie Agee – 536
1972 would be a strange year in the annals of Met hitting. A few games shy of a full loaf thanks to an early-season players’ strike, no Met would manage as many as 100 hits across the 156 contests played. There was general offensive ineptitude along with a lot of injuries (if you can imagine something like that would stifle a team’s offense). The Met who came closest to the century mark, Agee (who compiled 96 hits in ’72), moved up the all-time Top Five Safety Squadron:
1. Cleon Jones – 958
2. Ed Kranepool – 927
3. Bud Harrelson – 714
4. Tommie Agee – 632
5. Jerry Grote – 606
Agee would be gone before 1973 began (traded to Houston for Rich Chiles and Buddy Harris; nice move), allowing a relatively healthy Jerry Grote to retake fourth place as another miracle was generated by four of the Top Five Hit Producers:
1. Cleon Jones – 1,046
2. Ed Kranepool – 995
3. Bud Harrelson – 846
4. Jerry Grote – 673
5. Tommie Agee – 632
No changes on the list in 1974, the year Ed Kranepool remade himself as one of baseball’s premier pinch-hitters. Here are the Top Five Hit Achievers the year after believing went pretty far:
1. Cleon Jones – 1,176
2. Ed Kranepool – 1,060
3. Bud Harrelson – 891
4. Jerry Grote – 755
5. Tommie Agee – 632
Just when you think you detect a trend, something happens — namely the end of Cleon Jones’ Mets career. It wasn’t pretty, involving as it did the acquisition of Dave Kingman; a lengthy stay in St. Petersburg to rehabilitate a surgically repaired knee; an arrest in a van in the company of a woman not his wife; a forced apology courtesy of the magnanimous M. Donald Grant; and a deteriorated relationship with manager Yogi Berra. On July 4, 1975, Cleon Jones pinch-hit a ninth-inning single off Tug McGraw of all people in Philadelphia. It was the 1,188th and final hit of his Met career. After refusing to enter a game as a defensive replacement a couple of weeks later, Jones would be released. At the time of his final hit, he led Ed Kranepool — hitting better in ’75 than at any time since he was the pride of James Monroe High School — by 75 hits. Here’s how the Top Five Hit Parade came to attention at year’s end:
1. Cleon Jones – 1,188
2. Ed Kranepool – 1,165
3. Bud Harrelson – 907
4. Jerry Grote – 869
5. Tommie Agee – 632
With Cleon taking one last shot at baseball with Bill Veeck’s shorts-sporting White Sox, Eddie had the Met field to himself in 1976. Thus it came to pass on May 4 — one year to the day Jones was hauled in by the St. Pete cops — Ed Kranepool, a Met in every season they had ever played, doubled off Pat Zachry in the bottom of the fifth (Zachry was on in relief; Tom Seaver was pitching for the Mets) for career hit No. 1,188 to tie Cleon Jones’ club mark. In the bottom of the seventh, Eddie singled home Felix Millan for career hit No. 1,189 to own the record once and, as the past 33 years have indicated, for all. Through 1976, the Top Five Mets as ranked by career hits as Mets:
1. Ed Kranepool – 1,286
2. Cleon Jones – 1,188
3. Bud Harrelson – 991
4. Jerry Grote – 957
5. Wayne Garrett – 667
We know the topline result here, but let’s follow this through to the end of Eddie Kranepool’s career, because a certain poignancy develops in the Top Five as it appears after 1977:
1. Ed Kranepool – 1,382
2. Cleon Jones – 1,188
3. Bud Harrelson – 1,029
4. Jerry Grote – 994
5. Felix Millan – 743
Multiple generations know 1977 was the end of Tom Seaver’s first term as a Met. Dave Kingman’s concomitant passing from our scene is inextricably linked to Seaver’s since they occurred on the same horrible night. What is probably not much remembered is that was also, sadly, the season that three stalwarts of the Mets’ first two pennant-winners ended their stays in Flushing. It was the end of Buddy Harrelson, Jerry Grote and Felix Millan almost all at once (with Garrett having gone the previous July). That makes the Top Five hit chart for 1978 a little staid except for Steady Eddie’s ever-increasing total:
1. Ed Kranepool – 1,382
2. Cleon Jones – 1,188
3. Bud Harrelson – 1,029
4. Jerry Grote – 994
5. Felix Millan – 743
The first of the champion Mets to arrive would be the last to depart (at least in terms of uninterrupted service to the organization). On September 30, 1979, seventeen years and a week since his first hit, Ed Kranepool, batting for John Pacella, doubled to right field off the Cardinals’ Bob Forsch at Busch Stadium to lead off the seventh inning. Manager Joe Torre replaced him with pinch-runner Gil Flores. And that was all she wrote for the all-time Met franchise leader in base hits, Edward Emil Kranepool:
1. Ed Kranepool – 1,418
2. Cleon Jones – 1,188
3. Bud Harrelson – 1,029
4. Jerry Grote – 994
5. Felix Millan – 743
That number, 1,418, is legendary in Met circles for several reasons: It is our hit record; it has been our hit record for three decades as of this month; and it is one of the lowest franchise hit records in baseball (only the Diamondbacks, the Rays and the Marlins — held by Luis Castillo! — have lower career bests, and they’ve been around far few years than the Mets). The Mets have sent some objectively much better players out there since the days of Ed Kranepool, but nobody’s hung around long enough to top him. Endurance isn’t as easy as it looks. Ed Kranepool, who had the most hits of any Met in an individual season exactly once, in 1965, sure as hell endured.
You didn’t think they called him Steady Eddie only because it rhymed, didja?
It’s also worth noting that the four guys behind him hung in there as well. Perhaps it’s indicative of what little talent was around to succeed them, but nobody touched the hit totals of Jones, Harrelson, Grote or Millan either for a very long time. That Top Five established at the end of 1979 remained the very same Top Five for the Mets through 1985. Mookie Wilson edged past Millan in ’86 and would eventually hit his way past Harrelson and Grote, leaving for Toronto in 1989 in third place, with 1,112 hits to his credit. Jerry Grote would give way to Darryl Strawberry in 1990, as Straw passed both the best defensive catcher the Mets ever had and a thousand hits. Before Darryl decided he loved L.A., he saw to it that for the first time, the New York Mets would be able to claim five players with hit totals in four digits:
1. Ed Kranepool – 1,418
2. Cleon Jones – 1,188
3. Mookie Wilson – 1,061
4. Bud Harrelson – 1,029
5. Darryl Strawberry – 1,025
And that would be the Top Five Hit Leaders in Mets history from the end of 1990 clear into 2002 when Edgardo Alfonzo swung his way toward a whole new level of Met immortality:
1. Ed Kranepool – 1,418
2. Cleon Jones – 1,188
3. Edgardo Alfonzo – 1,136
4. Mookie Wilson – 1,061
5. Bud Harrelson – 1,029
Fonzie’s last Met hit came September 27, 2002. Nothing about the Top Five has changed since. Mike Piazza (1,028) finished up just ahead of Darryl Strawberry, one Met hit shy of Buddy Harrelson. Harrelson was a Met many more seasons than Piazza, but there’s something both beautiful and disturbing about their juxtaposition on this particular hit list. Poor Mike. If only he had tried a little harder, he could have been as good as Buddy. Jerry Grote is still in ninth place; Howard Johnson beat him out for eighth by a mere three safeties (997) — and they both came achingly close to a thousand. The smart money surely would have said both of them, along with Straw, Mike and Buddy — plus Mookie had all gone to plan — would have been taken down by Jose Reyes this season. Reyes entered 2009 in eleventh place, passed Keith Hernandez (939) early and seemed headed well up the chart. At age 26, how could he not be the odds-on favorite to finally overtake Eddie?
Sometimes money isn’t as smart as you’d think. Who knew Jose’s last hit would come on May 19 and that he’d be stuck on 960 for months on end? Who would have guessed he wouldn’t even be in the Top Ten by now? David Wright passed his disabled teammate last Thursday in Colorado. A hellacious closing kick could send Wright, now with 963 career hits, hurtling past Grote before this season ends. Then there’s always next year and hopefully good health for both of our former wunderkinder, with concussions curbed and hamstrings healed and David and Jose conducting a long-term tango for Met hit leadership that would make The Eddie and Cleon Show from 1971 look like a passing fancy.
Which I suppose it was.
***
If the genesis of the Met hit record is the kind of thing that fascinates you — or you just like baseball, baseball talk, pizza and beer — join Mets By The Numbers‘ Jon Springer and me for the final AMAZIN’ TUESDAY of the season, 7:00 P.M., September 15 at Two Boots Tavern on the Lower East Side. Our guests will include The Bad Guys Won author Jeff Pearlman, Metstradamus mastermind John Coppinger and, live from Atlanta, however many guys the Mets can suit up to play the Braves. Come on down and hang with us for what may very well be the last good night you’ll enjoy in the 2009 baseball season.
by Jason Fry on 9 September 2009 5:15 am There are worse things than realizing your baseball team is bad.
For instance, there's realizing you long ago stopped noticing your baseball team is bad.
The Mets played the Marlins, and the Mets lost, with just a few bright flickers amid the gloom. There was Josh Thole, getting his first big-league RBI and continuing to show a good eye and a compact stroke. There was a nifty play at the plate, with Jeff Francoeur's throw from right bouncing up and over Thole's glove, past Elmer Dessens, off the back wall, into the hand Dessens shot desperately skyward, and from there being relayed hastily back to Thole to tag out a rather startled Dan Uggla. Just your routine 9-2-Wall-1-2 putout.
And there was Carlos Beltran, back from exile at long last. With the season thoroughly lost, I was startled by how emotional I was to see Beltran back on the field. Emily and Joshua and I had seen him on Sunday, wearing Cyclones red and white, and he looked awful, striking out three times and popping to second to end the game. (For video-board purposes the Mets somehow upgraded this to the climactic hit in a walk-off win. If only.) But he looked sufficiently like himself tonight to make you wonder what could have been: He made a sliding catch in left-center, and almost put the Mets in the lead with a drive to the right-field fence.
But almost wasn't enough, and almost was about as good as it got at Citi Field, which was empty as I've seen it this year. The silver lining to that, if I peer hard enough, was that my friend Lyle (a Mets fan relocated to L.A., with a Faith and Fear cameo involving a luckless Staten Island trip) was making his first-ever visit to Citi Field and so got to tour the park and get Blue Smoke in relative leisure. Lyle's mini-review: Great park, but feels like a replica. I can see that.
Happily, it was a beautiful night, and baseball is a pleasure even when there's nothing much to cheer about. Lyle and I camped out in the fancy Caesars Club seats (half-price on StubHub) surrounded by family and friends of the girl who sang the National Anthem, most of whom departed about halfway through the game. Lyle caught a shirt; as the game ground on the already-sparse crowd dwindled sufficiently that we seemed like a near-lock to get a birthday flower cake or be summoned for the latest round of combat between those age-old rivals the forklift and the light tower. (I snagged two abandoned t-shirts made to celebrate the anthem singer's big night. No, I'm not sure why.) In the eighth inning Lyle and I realized that we were the only motivated parties left in a two-section stretch of prime foul-ball territory; we spent the ninth standing on either side of a railing, on our toes like the world's oldest ballhawks.
Which was when two interlopers arrived, obviously to steal our about-to-arrive foul balls.
But wait! It was my co-blogger, accompanied by longtime Faith and Fear reader Sharon. They'd wandered into our section randomly.
One of the things I've liked best about Citi Field is that the funneling of traffic from the rotunda along the field-level concourse to the bridge and the eating area and from there to the escalators virtually guarantees that I'll run into someone I know. I'd said as much to Lyle, which of course meant this time I encountered nobody … until Greg and Sharon arrived. I started to note triumphantly that my point had been proven in rather dramatic fashion, then looked around the somnolent, nearly vacant ballpark and reconsidered the odds. The Mets finished losing, with nary a foul ball heading our way, and bloggers and guests said farewell and headed out of the park into an ever-longer night of an ever-shorter season.
As the season gets shorter, curl up with Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.
by Greg Prince on 8 September 2009 9:51 am I'm standing on the LIRR platform Sunday morning, waiting for my train to Woodside. It is obvious from my garb where I'm going. Guy dressed in black, right through to his backpack, comes up to me and asks, “Who's pitching today?”
“Pelfrey,” I say. “Gonna have a nice comeback.”
“Comeback?” he laughs. “Fifteen out of the Wild Card?”
“I don't mean the Mets, just Pelfrey. He's gonna have a good start.”
“Yeah, y'know what? I think he will, too.”
“He's due.”
Nice exchange, right? Just two passersby talking Mets baseball…what more could there be to it?
“Listen,” my new companion says, producing two single dollar bills and changing the subject. “I need to buy a ticket for the train and I'm a few dollars short, and I hate to ask, but…”
Ah, the old Long Island Rail Road ticket scam. How many times have I been the prey for this? For as long as I can remember, whether we're in a recession or an economic boom, there inevitably crops up a would-be commuter who has somehow appeared at whichever station I happen to be, always just a few dollars short of fare into Manhattan or back home. Not a “bum,” just someone who lost his wallet or ran into unforeseen circumstances. His stated predicament can't help but draw out a twinge of empathy — gosh, I'd hate to be in that situation, but if I were, I sure hope somebody would help me out.
I used to believe these stories. I used to believe that somebody could show up for a train bereft of four dollars or six dollars or however much a single off-peak ride cost at that moment. I used to want to believe it, I suppose. I would never ask for this kind of help unless I really needed it. How could anybody else? Eventually, I hardened my shell a bit and just grumbled “no” or wandered away in the middle of the pitch. I don't like being played for a sucker.
But the man in black on Sunday went the extra mile. He talked Mets with me. He acknowledged Mets with me at any rate. He even did it in a manner I could respect — not pretending the Mets were any good just because I was wearing a Mets cap and a Mets shirt, but tamping down my expectations for a miracle playoff run when he misunderstood my “comeback” forecast at first. And he didn't say they're “a million games out” or something disparagingly non-specific. He said they were fifteen games out of the Wild Card.
Which is exactly what they were. He may not have been able to purchase a ticket for the train, but he apparently paid attention to the standings.
A small-time scam artist who knew not just that the Mets sucked, but exactly how much they sucked. I don't respect the scam, but I do respect the research.
So I gave him a buck.
“Hey man, thanks,” he said, accepting the dollar that was still going to leave him quite a bit short of getting anywhere other than the next station (especially if he planned on buying a ticket on the train, which is where they really getcha). I told him, sure, no problem, good luck. As he began walking down the platform to work another mark, he added, “Listen, the Mets are gonna win today. Francoeur's gonna hit TWO home runs!”
I didn't believe for a second he desperately needed to be on the very next train (and indeed when the next one pulled in to the station, he u-turned toward the stairs presumably to gear up for his next group of potential clientele), but he did leave me believing that a) the Mets would win and b) Francoeur would hit two home runs. The Mets did win. Francoeur didn't homer, but still…not “David Wright's gonna hit two homers,” but Jeff Francoeur. Nobody who doesn't keep up with the Mets would have said Jeff Francoeur.
That much, I decided, was worth the buck.
by Greg Prince on 7 September 2009 12:09 am Liván Hernandez is gone from our midst, but the Elton John song they played for him at Citi Field when he did something well resonates slightly this Sunday, specifically the part, “when the New York Times said God is dead…”
I wouldn’t want to get that deep, but what does it say about the state of the modern newspaper when the New York freaking Times doesn’t send a reporter to Queens to cover the only home team playing baseball in its city on this particular weekend?
I know what it says about the Mets. That the Mets aren’t contending and therefore aren’t going to be considered a vital topic. But the Mets have not contended in Septembers before, yet their home games were always covered by the Times. Always, at least as far as I can recall from my many years of dedicated reading.
Whenever I’m reminded of the plight of the newspaper business, of course I get sad. Sports sections have been my Greek chorus for forty years, offering vital commentary and filling in the details of the narrative that has been every Mets season I’ve lived through. There was a time up until a couple of years ago when I didn’t make a move without reading at least three daily papers. Sure I saw the game. Sure I knew the score. But the stories and the quotes and the columns, let alone the standings and the stats and the transactions…that was baseball. I loved that there used to be a newsstand on the 7 extension. I loved that somebody used to sell the Night Owl edition of the next day’s Daily News outside Shea after night games. I loved when Channel 9 used to show newspaper vendors strolling the concourses of Three Rivers Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium because it underlined my sense that the local paper was the tenth man of every game.
Notice the use of the phrase “used to” pervading my relationship with the daily paper. I all but gave up on newspapers in 2007. I still help myself to much of their work, but I stopped paying for it six days a week. I felt too guilty to let go for the longest time; being a writer and all, I felt I should support the craft even once I had a high-speed Internet connection to give me all the information I used to have to make a trip into the outside world to get. The breaking point wasn’t convenience or thriftiness. I got sick of supporting the local media’s love affair with the New York team that wasn’t mine, reasoning that the space they were giving the Yankees came at the expense of ink to the Mets. Screw that, I finally decided.
And screw it I did. I went from a seven-day-a-week newspaper consumer to one. I stuck with Sunday. There’s way too much tradition to give that up, way too much custom and habit. There’s too tactile a feel to the papers on Sunday, dating back to when I was a kid familiarizing myself with the printed word, for me to just read it on my Mac.
It wasn’t just the reading, though. It was the act as it unfolded for me for as long as I could remember. It was my father bringing them home, sometimes on Saturday night, which seemed almost mystical. It was schlepping from candy store to luncheonette to wherever papers were sold because sometimes we/I wouldn’t get out early enough or they didn’t deliver enough to our area. It was that Sunday morning in college when my Tampa Tribune was delivered to my dorm room without the sports and I called to complain and they sent somebody right over — a guy just off the line…literally an ink-stained wretch. He had this big smile when he handed the rest of my Trib to me, happy that some college kid cared enough about the newspaper to want every bit of it. And I had this big smile when I accepted and realized how much a part of the paper he felt even though he didn’t write or edit it.
For as long as I’ve known the Mets, I’ve known Sunday papers, and I’ve built my Sundays around that one particular section called Sports before reading any of the rest. Sometimes I’d slurp it all down. Sometimes I’d sip a story here or a column there, leaving myself some sports to savor later in the day. I used to have nightmares about looking for the Sunday papers and not finding them, or finding the wrong edition or an issue from a week earlier. That’s how ingrained into my life they are.
It’s a hokey cliché but Sunday wouldn’t be Sunday without the Sunday News (nauseating Jeter soul-kissing and all), Sunday Newsday (Wally Matthews’ continued employment and all) and the Sunday Times. Of course the Sunday Times. Local news notwithstanding, I could live without Sunday Newsday. I lived without the Sunday News when it was struck in 1978 and again in 1990-91, and though I still hold great sentiment for it, I resent its Yankee ragness no end. But the Sunday Times is the Sunday Times. Its price goes up, it gets a little thinner, but it’s still the Sunday Times. The New York Times and I live together in the greater New York area. I would be abandoning my responsibility as a New Yorker if I ever stopped reading it.
Yet the New York Times is abandoning its responsibility. On a Sunday. To the Mets. And to me.
Today’s paper had one story about the Mets-Cubs game from Saturday. That’s OK. I understand the Mets aren’t a big deal at this stage of their lost season. With the tennis and the college football and other teams in pennant races, I understand if their game rates just one story.
But I don’t understand how they rate one wire story.
Nevertheless, that’s all the Mets’ activities Saturday got in the sports section of Sunday’s Times. (There was a cheeky column comparing the woes of the Mets and Knicks, but it was from reporting Friday and had very little to do with informing you about anything you don’t know about your ballclub.) Mind you, the Mets played a home game Saturday. They played a day game. I get that papers sometimes save money by not sending reporters on the road in hopeless Septembers. And I get deadlines from night games not always meshing with the paper I see. And I’ll even throw in the realization that the “New York” in New York Times is a bit more of a brand name than a hometown, that this newspaper has a mission that extends way beyond the five boroughs and environs.
But come on. This is a disgrace. Saturday’s game was in Queens, right next door to the Times-staffed U.S. Open. It sold upwards of 38,000 tickets. Even with the Mets down and out in the National League (and the Cubs about the same), it is a subject of continued interest to who knows how many hundreds of thousands of regular Times readers. It is a staple we look forward to regardless of wins and losses. There is still a little part of me that doesn’t think a Mets game has taken place until I see what is written about it in the papers I buy.
Ben Shpigel is a terrific reporter and writer. I love to read his work in the Times. If he was granted a few well-earned days off, I’d be content to read what his substitute is writing for a weekend. I’d be interested in reading what a new voice has to say. I’d at least skim a lousy story by some hack. The point is I buy a paper that is the New York whatever it is and I expect my New York team, playing at home the previous afternoon, to be covered by somebody on that New York paper. And it was not. It was not in the print edition and it wasn’t online. There was just an AP story. AP stories are fine if you’re out of town.
I’m right here and so are the Mets. Where’s the story?
I was out at Citi Field today, Sunday. The Mets played a marvelous ballgame, at least a scaled down version of one given the expectations we now have for them. Mike Pelfrey found redemption. Daniel Murphy found his power stroke. Frankie Rodriguez found the ability to not disappoint a crowd of nearly 40,000, many of whom came expressly to take home his bobblehead. Whatever special insight is to be gained from their successes and our presence does not look like it will appear in Monday’s Times. There is an AP story on its Web site right now, more than four hours since the Mets won, and nothing else.
As happens regularly, I was reading one of those sad plight of the newspaper industry stories the other day. This one concerned the Times and its sports section. John Koblin reported in the New York Observer on the near demise of its general column Sports of the Times, long a centerpiece of the sports section. The overriding reason for its fade from view, according to the article, was the business has changed. That’s usually the reason newspapers don’t do what they used to do. One of the ways the Times would make up for the loss of that column, according to NYT sports editor Tom Jolly, would be by asking its beat writers to write more opinion pieces.
Whether that’s a great idea or not can only be divined from the pieces that are written and what it correspondingly does to the regular game coverage that has always been those reporters’ first order of business (former Timesman Murray Chass isn’t for it). But how will the Times offer any kind of perspective on the Mets — first-person, third-person, objective, subjective — if they can’t be bothered to send a reporter to Citi Field for two consecutive days?
As a writer, I want newspapers to succeed and endure. As a reader, I want newspapers to succeed and endure. As somebody who counts some good friends as members of that industry, I want newspapers to succeed and endure. But as a Mets fan who has always relied on the Times to tell me about the Mets, if they’re not going to tell me a blessed thing, why should I give a damn what happens to them?
UPDATE: Times posted Shpigel’s story on Sunday’s game on its site later Sunday evening.
Covering the Mets across four decades, Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.
by Greg Prince on 5 September 2009 10:27 pm Our two-game winning streak didn't become three, but we can take solace in the message inscribed on a sign I saw held aloft beneath the Pepsi Porch Friday night:
AT LEAST WE STILL DON'T HAVE HEILMAN
That's Aaron Heilman, the Mets starter turned reliever whose very sight at Shea Stadium, rightly or wrongly, was an automatic Maalox Moment. That's Aaron Heilman from when the Mets' bullpen was Agita Central. That's Aaron Heilman from…you know, Aaron Heilman.
In the seventh Saturday, with Chicago up 4-2, Aaron entered the game and gave up a single to Fernando Tatis, a wild pitch and a single to Angel Pagan before striking out Luis Castillo and surrendering a sac fly to David Wright to make it 4-3. Then he was removed in favor of John Grabow.
Our former reluctant setup man didn't blow the Cubs' lead and we didn't win the game, but nevertheless, I agree with the sign. At least we still don't have Heilman.
by Greg Prince on 5 September 2009 5:02 am I'm sitting with the Chapmans of recent Bar Mitzvah fame in the very first row of the Big Apple section in center field. It's a few minutes to first pitch. The Mets have taken the field and are tossing balls around to prepare them for the game. They do this all the time but when you're not sitting on top of the outfield as I was with Sharon, Kevin and Ross you don't really notice this ritual. We're not particularly close to Angel Pagan at that moment, but we're closer than we're ever going to be. So Kevin does the logical thing. He stands up, he waves his gloved hand and shouts something to the effect of, “HEY ANGEL! HOW ABOUT A BALL? RIGHT HERE!”
In the time it takes me to think “that's cute, but Angel Pagan is never going to thr…” Angel Pagan throws Kevin a ball. I mean a strike. That's a major league arm, no matter the throws he sometimes balloons into the infield. When Angel Pagan wants to let one loose, I can attest now that he can.
I can also add that Kevin Chapman has soft hands because he caught a major league throw without flinching.
The best part — as if a Met throwing a Mets fan a ball upon request is not a very good part — is upon inspection, it was revealed the ball was a Shea Stadium commemorative ball, one emblazoned with that precious 1964-2008 logo you saw everywhere last year. I guess they have a few gross somewhere in the back and they come in handy for loosening arms and sating fans.
After that, the game started, and Parnell pitched quite well, but the Mets didn't hit enough, and Pagan didn't catch as well as he threw, but then Tatis outhit the mistakes of his team's defense, and the Mets helped nail the Cubbie coffin closed for another year even if we had to do it from inside our own crypt.
Yet that's just the game. The action before the game…Angel firing a ball to Kevin just because Kevin asked — and the ball being from Shea…I know it won't show up in the boxscore.
But it really should.
Mets Weekly begins a three-part countdown of the Top 10 individual statistical seasons in teams history in the episode that debuts today at 10:30 AM on SNY and will be repeated at odd intervals. Look for me affirming the greatness of the players and seasons involved.
by Greg Prince on 4 September 2009 2:55 pm 
Jason returns to his old WSJ stomping grounds for a day to great effect as you’ll see when you click here to play Metssloppily.
by Greg Prince on 4 September 2009 2:30 pm Welcome to Flashback Friday: I Saw The Decade End, a milestone-anniversary salute to the New York Mets of 1969, 1979, 1989 and 1999. Each week, we immerse ourselves in or at least touch upon something that transpired within the Metsian realm 40, 30, 20 or 10 years ago. Amazin’ or not, here it comes.
There seems to be a bit of a Beatles revival underway thanks to the release of their greatest hits on Rock Band. I confess up front that I know next to nothing of this (or any) video game, but if it’s going to put the Fab Four’s catalogue in wider circulation yet again, then I’m all for it.
Speaking of fab foursomes who made their mark on the Shea Stadium infield, how about we reunite the greatest quartet in Met history? How about a reunion of a supergroup that played together briefly but incandescently? How about we take in another performance by the tightest combo this side of John, Paul, George and Ringo?
Robin, Rey, Fonzie and Oly…I loved them, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was Infieldmania around here in 1999. We screamed at the mere sight of them. We fainted the second we heard them tune their instruments. They were the soundtrack of our generation.
Then they were broken up by the Yoko Ono of general managers, Steve Phillips.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
Say, if I blame Phillips for breaking up the lads, do I have to give him the credit for putting them together, too? Is he Brian Epstein in this story as well as Yoko Ono? Well, even a blind pig finds a third baseman once in a while, and Phillips sniffed out a great one in the offseason following 1998, signing Robin Ventura to play third base. Ventura’s presence meant Edgardo Alfonzo would shift to second base, thus rendering Carlos Baerga eternally into Pete Best status. That one move with two payoffs instantly changed the complexion of the Met infield, the Met lineup, the Met mojo.
Did that make Phillips a brilliant impresario or just lucky?
Did I care in 1999? Did any of us? We were just glad to have the greatest band of infielders ever assembled around one diamond on our diamond. They were unquestionably fabulous.
You know who formed the second-greatest infield in Mets history? Neither do I. That’s how unique the Best Infield Ever was.
Yes, ever. I’ve skipped from Mets to eternity. As each man began to vacuum his position tidily and mightily, the buzz began. None of them make errors. Every one of them makes plays. And three out of four hit like crazy. We knew we were looking at something extraordinary. Ventura was a certified multiple Gold Glove winner in the American League. Ordoñez was a magician from his first Opening Day when he emerged fully grown throwing out baserunners at home plate from his knees. Alfonzo and Olerud…have there ever been two more simply excellent Mets playing alongside one another? That’s the word for them: Excellent. They excelled at everything they did, they did it quietly and they exuded class every step of the way.
Make no mistake: This group rocked. They allowed ground balls no mercy. They made bunters sorry they didn’t swing away. They obliterated those spots that had previously been considered No Man’s Land. Hit ’em where they ain’t? Good luck. Robin, Rey, Fonzie and Oly were everywhere.
We knew it. Pretty soon everyone else noticed. Just about the time I began to campaign (in my mind at least) for The Best Infield Ever to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, they appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I had no idea I had that kind of pull.
It was a beautiful shot. Robin sat surrounded by his bandmates. They all wore their trademark black tops and black hats (black was very chic at Shea in ’99). Oly, his elbow wrapped playfully around Robin’s neck — John Olerud playful? — sported his helmet. I’ll bet he showered in that thing. Four fab players, four fab smiles, one superfluous inquiry:
The Best Infield Ever?
I assume the question mark was a typo. Everybody makes mistakes. Even The Best Infield Ever committed errors once in a while.
Once in a great while.
Once in a very great while.
Y’know what? If this were the summer of ’99 and you were putting your vacations plans on hold waiting for the unthinkable, I’d tell you you could just go ahead and take that cruise. No need to wait around for Robin, Rey, Fonzie or Oly to make an error. By the time it would take you to sail the seven seas, turn around, sail back and disembark on the West Side, you’d still be waiting.
The 1999 Mets infield didn’t make errors. They made history. Technically there might have been a drop or a wide throw. That, I suppose, would account for their combined 27 errors from April to October. Some ball might have gone unpicked in the course of the long season. Some official scorer may have had a cramp in his hand which caused an “H” to appear as an “E”. The record shows they made about one error per month per infielder.
Sounds high.
Don’t kid yourself. They were the Best Infield Ever. They were Governor Tom Kean’s version of New Jersey and You: Perfect together. Any two playing in a contiguous manner would be delightful. You couldn’t ask for a better double play combination than Ordonez and Alfonzo; ESPN The Magazine‘s Jeff Bradley: “Omar Vizquel and Robbie Alomar could probably learn a thing or two from them.” You couldn’t have a more impenetrable let alone acrobatic left side than Ventura and Ordoñez. And I already mentioned the excellence inherent on the right side with Alfonzo and Olerud. I imagine if you could work some alignment that put Robin next to John, that would be just as fab.
And individually? Fonzie and Oly were consummate team men, taking pitches yet putting up hellacious personal offensive stats from their respective two- and three-holes. Rey, while not known for his bat…well, let’s just leave it at that, except to note that as sluggerly challenged as he was, he drove in 60 runs from the eighth spot. But Robin…Robin wore no “C”, but if the Mets ever featured a player worthy of the title “Captain” for a single season, it was Robin Ventura in 1999. As with so much about this infield, you just knew it. He came from the White Sox and very smoothly took over. He was the veteran leader. He was the spokesman. As was the case around third and batting fifth, he was pleasantly ubiquitous.
I love this anecdote from Tom Verducci in SI:
On a hot day in June, for instance, Ventura noticed that the Mets seemed lethargic. At the end of one inning, he walked slowly off the diamond, allowing his teammates to pass him on their way back to the cool shade of the dugout. Suddenly, Ventura burst into a spring and made a hard slide just outside the dugout, showering the bench with dust and dirt. “Wake up!” he yelled. “Let’s go get ’em!”
“I don’t even remember if we won the game,” pinch hitter Matt Franco says, “but I remember it worked. He picked everybody up.”
Picking up baseballs, picking up teammates, picking up RBIs…is it any wonder that in his eternal quest for elevation Robin Ventura picked up on something Amazin’ in the Doors’ “L.A. Woman”? What the hell did a thirty-year old rock band number have to do with the Mets? Everything, once Robin installed its most memorable refrain — MIS-ter MO JO RIIII zinnnn… — as the clubhouse battle cry. Of course he did. Bradley in ESPN :
After a Mets win, everyone on the club, from the salsa aficionados and hip-hop fans to the country-western boys and metalheads, becomes an instant Classic Rock devotee, if only for the loud refrain. “The only thing it has to do with is having fun,” says Ventura. “Playing baseball is supposed to be fun.”
Baseball was at its most fun when Robin without a cape, our captain without a “C,” levitated Mojo. Robin, Rey, Fonzie and Oly…they played every day, they made every play, they created beautiful music together.
Then there was silence.
The band was broken up seven weeks after their last gig in Atlanta. Phillips undid his best move ever by engineering maybe his worst move of them all. The man who signed Ventura was content to let Olerud fly (or walk — he wasn’t the fleetest afoot). The Mets had assembled maybe their most ideal batting order, the heart of which was Oly, batting left between Fonzie and Mike Piazza. Piazza preceded Ventura. Alfonzo succeeded Rickey Henderson. They were all on base all the time. It’s no wonder Rey Ordoñez drove in 60 runners. Some Met somewhere was perpetually in scoring position.
But that didn’t mean anything to Phillips (creep). Yeah, John Olerud was from Washington state, and yeah he had an infant, and yeah family was out there…I don’t buy it, I’ve never bought it. Money talks, nobody walks, not even the perfect No. 3 hitter who drew 125 bases on balls in 1999. The Mets made no effort to keep Oly here. None. A little love might have given him and this unmatchable unit a little more life for us all to exult in.
Nope. Instead, it was Todd Zeile playing first and the band never sounding so good again. Ordoñez was off key in 2000. He erred enough to be human. Then he was injured. Before we knew it, we had Todd Zeile at first and Mike Bordick at shortstop. A year after that, Robin Ventura was dispatched (where I can’t remember). The symphony was already well over by then. The Robin of ’00 and ’01 had his moments. The Robin of ’99 had a year of them. And Fonzie? Consummate team man that he was, he deferred to the mistakenly acquired Roberto Alomar in 2002 and shifted back to third, which he played pretty well when he was younger, healthier and arguably more trim. Fonzie at third the second time around wasn’t quite as special as Fonzie at third the first time — and didn’t hold a candle to Fonzie at second.
Alfonzo left after ’02, as did Ordoñez, who was never as magical in the new century as he was in the old. Olerud carved out a nice American League career for himself through 2005. Ventura, after a wayward stint in the junior circuit, resurfaced for a pre-retirement cameo in the N.L., helping the Dodgers make the playoffs in 2004. He returned to Shea with L.A. that August, starting at first base and launching a grand slam.
Did I mention he did that with the Mets pretty regularly?
I was there that Sunday afternoon, a day when the Mets were going to lose regardless of who the opposing team’s first baseman was. So when he took Kris Benson deep, drove in four runs on one swing and conducted his customary trip around the bases, I did what I did daily in 1999.
I stood and I applauded Robin Ventura. I wasn’t the only one either.
Before December 8, 1980, it was continually wondered if the Beatles would ever get back together. Lorne Michaels made great comedic hay offering them $3,200 on the new NBC Saturday Night to reunite on his show (they could split it any way they liked; they could give Ringo less, Lorne suggested). The four gentlemen who had formed the group that changed everything turned down entreaties far more bountiful than that one. They were all off doing their own thing after their breakup. It was never going to happen. Or if it was, Mark David Chapman made certain we’d never see it.
But the Beatles live on, as evidenced by this Rock Band thing, by all the reissues that have been greeted so enthusiastically, by the remasters and the anthologies and the way their music never, ever goes away or completely out of style. They’ll always be the Beatles.
In other words, they’ll always be the 1999 Mets infield of rock ‘n’ roll.
Relive 1999 and lesser Met seasons Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook. Hey, there’s even a new review of it, from Panorama of the Mountains.
Then go play this AT ONCE.
by Greg Prince on 4 September 2009 4:28 am They wear uniform tops with NEW YORK on the front and their unfamiliar last names on the back. They dress in a major league clubhouse. They test their skills against professionals. They generally don't look like they belong on the same field as the pros, yet there they are throwing and catching and running and hitting as if they do. Their families sometimes tag along and cheer relentlessly for them from mostly empty stands. And when their moment in the sun has passed, at least a couple will tell you they had the time of their lives.
It's all part of the fun now that the Mets are holding Fantasy Camp in September.
MISCH 48, VALDEZ 4, THOLE 30…you might not mistake them for actual players, but honestly, if you squinted a little, they didn't look so bad out there Thursday afternoon.
MISCH 48 took time out from what one assumes is his “real life” job to try his stuff as a starting pitcher. He impressed the coaches not only with his stamina but the way he supported his teammates by not going back into the clubhouse when he was done throwing to live batters.
VALDEZ 4, who came to one of these camps earlier in the year, is really getting the hang of baseball. Bunted his way on, scored a run, and didja see that throw he made to the plate the night before?
And THOLE 30 — great hustle, great attitude, great big smile. Two hits, including a long double! Nobody would have known who he was without the uni, but why should he be any different from his teammates?
Some woman who they said was the mother of THOLE 30 screamed her head off in support of her son. MISCH 48 posed for pictures afterwards. VALDEZ 4 and SULLIVAN 19 and HERNANDEZ 11 and even that guy who didn't get to put on a regulation batting helmet until late in camp all appeared thrilled beyond belief. For one stray afternoon in September, I'm sure they were.
The reality of being a Mets fan toes the rubber in Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.
by Greg Prince on 3 September 2009 12:41 pm 
Faith and Fear in Flushing sends its best to rookie catcher Josh Thole on his major league debut this afternoon in Denver. May he not find himself on the horns of a dilemma when deciding which finger to put down for Pat Misch.
Photo by Sharon Chapman. Placement of cow near hot dog stand probably by accident.
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