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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Jason Fry on 11 April 2009 3:27 am We play at least two of these every year, the template as familiar as those sacks of fertilizer in the dugout:
1a. Up by a couple early, Marlins yank us back come the middle innings.
1b. Down by a couple early, yank Marlins back come the middle innings.
2. Long slow grind, possibly interrupted by a rain delay.
2b. Bad feeling breaks out. (Optional.)
3. Miscellaneous tomfoolery/strangeness puts one team or the other ahead.
4. Heroics make things even once again.
5. Extra innings loom, or begin in apparent innocence.
6. A seemingly unlikely Marlin rally results in them dogpiling while dispirited Mets leave field and I say terrible things.
Two different new Met relievers got rough initiations into the primal suck that is Soilmaster Stadium and the Florida Marlins, favorite team of around 8,000 souls provided the weather is perfect, which it never is. Both Bobby Parnell and Darren O'Day looked stunned; I was not. No, I was numb, waiting with the dull, sour expectation I imagine (though this is unconfirmable) is shared by veteran skydivers when the reserve chute doesn't open either. A two-out bunt, a bloop and a sharp single that went against the defense for starters; an infield single, walk and another sharp single for enders. Utterly and hideously familiar.
When Hanley Ramirez hit the home run for the early Marlin lead, I was possessed by a terrible thought and scooted over to the fridge to look at the schedule, where I exhaled in relief to find we finish up the 2009 regular season against our expansion brethren, the Houston Astros. But then I thought better of that: Like there isn't some way Hanley Ramirez will engineer a trade to the Stros for the final week, even if it means asking for his release and paying his own salary, or disguising himself as a Round Rock Expressman. And with our luck he'll bring Jorge Cantu with him — the oddly smash-faced Marlin first baseman was all that stood between Matt Lindstrom and ruin in the top of the ninth, as Cantu speared a Carlos Delgado ball that nearly went through him and smothered Alex Cora's bid for the go-ahead RBI. And then, of course, he finished us in the bottom of the frame.
John Maine had an encouraging start and Jeremy Reed a heroic moment consigned to a lower-case h by the outcome, but I can barely remember that now, because I'm seeing teal.
I'm normally an advocate of cities doing whatever shady deals are required for new baseball stadiums, in part because I assume governments will otherwise do something even stupider with all those civic dimes. But I was rooting hard against the Marlins ever getting a new park, for the exceedingly simple reason that I loathe the Marlins' very existence, from their ghastly colors to their claiming the state name for their own despite sharing that territory with another team to their succession of wretched owners to their vapid, no-show fans. (And they gave Jeff Torborg money to do something other than disappear.)
For years I've devoutly hoped that this hideous franchise would soon be forced to leave this awful city and its apathetic residents in their natural, thoroughly deserved state of baseball-lessness. Now, it looks like it's not to be, and oh how it steams me to think the Mets will now never escape. They'll forever be slogging down to a Miami stadium whose seats will be sprinkled with 15,000 fans, 7,000 of them New York expats who don't realize that they're putting their hand back on what we all know will wind up being a very hot stove.
It's not that I think we'd never have soul-killing displays of futility against the San Antonio Last Stand or the Portland Yoga or whatever the Marlins might have pulled up stakes to become. But somehow I always imagined those would bother me far less — if only because maybe they'd have a room somewhere reserved for the bags of fertilizer.
by Greg Prince on 10 April 2009 5:14 am 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.
The greatest moment in the history of Citi Field is yet to come. When the first pitch is thrown, that will be No. 1. When something of a substantive Met nature occurs, that will take its place. And then we’ll be off to the races.
You’ll recall there was a vote to determine the greatest moment in the history of Shea Stadium last year. Ten legitimately great moments were chosen from a flawed ballot of 75 and from there they were ranked ten to one, announced to relatively light fanfare the last week of last season. From No. 10 to No. 6, I thought the fans (I was one of them) did a fine job:
10. Todd Pratt’s homer to beat the Diamondbacks, 10/9/99
9. Tom Seaver’s Imperfect Game, 7/9/69
8. The Ten-Run Inning, 6/30/00
7. Beatles’ first concert, 8/15/65
6. Robin Ventura’s Grand Slam Single, 10/17/99
You could have tossed them into an empty coffee can, shaken them up and spilled them out and, in whatever order they fell, that would have been fine, too. It was from No. 5 to No. 2 where I was left a little stunned.
5. Mets win World Series, 10/27/86
4. Endy Chavez’s catch, 10/19/06
3. Mets win World Series, 10/16/69
2. Mike Piazza’s post-9/11 homer, 9/21/01
No. 1 was Mookie and Buckner, which was my choice, so I’ll just say I believe it was the right call. I’d rank it behind only The Shot Heard ‘Round the World in all of baseball history, actually.
But those other four make me wonder what kind of moment junkies Mets fans are.
Even as I rationalize away modernity, chronology, technology, demography and what have you to explain why more recent events that have been shown repeatedly in recent years get voted higher via online mechanisms that inevitably skew younger, I think it says something about how the Mets fan would opt for an unforgettable snapshot over a more rewarding big picture.
Endy over winning the 1986 World Series? Really? You do realize we lost that game in which the Chavez grab was made, don’t you? That that catch saved two runs in the sixth inning, two runs given back three innings later (the latter moment appearing on the cover of a book you might have seen lately)? The Endy Catch was two outs. Jesse Orosco striking out Marty Barrett was the championship of the world, the only one we’ve had since the end of the Age of Aquarius. The clinching wasn’t as seismic as the thing with Mookie and Buckner two nights earlier, but it did make the whole thing official. You’re good with that order, Endy over the championship of the world attained by the flat-out best team this franchise ever produced?
Just checking.
And Nos. 3 and 2…the first world championship, the most fabled world championship, the world championship used routinely by people outside the Met orbit as a touchstone for unlikely world championships, the world championship that represents the dot over the “i” of the signature season in the history of Shea Stadium and the New York Mets — not as great as that home run Piazza hit? That home run that was hit in the eighth inning of a regular-season game?
I don’t want to give up the Easter Bunny at this time of year, but really? Piazza’s homer, all its emotion and power notwithstanding, greater than the 1969 Mets completing their rise from the absolute depths of baseball to its pinnacle? Like I said, I voted for the ball going through Buckner’s legs, yet I did so feeling almost guilty about passing on 1969, because 1969 was the year of the Mets in every spiritual sense. The ’86 team was better all-around but ’69 should be considered the undisputed face of this franchise, what we stand for at our best. Other franchises have had 1986es. Nobody else has ever had a 1969.
One supposes Piazza’s home run, for which I was present in the Mezzanine, is without exact precedent and peer (and let’s be steadfast in our hope that its context will never befall any other people ever again), and one wishes to not detract from the dual rush of relief and adrenaline it gave an entire stadium and parts of its city…but the 1969 Mets are the 1969 Mets. They were kings of a world no one gave them any kind of shot in. They are the stuff of legend for forty years and I will bet that their broad strokes will live on another forty years at least.
But only the third-greatest moment in the just-departed stadium’s history? Really? If you say so. Just wanted to confirm that choice before pushing forward.
As for what lies ahead, may moments great, small and largely victorious bless this next home of ours starting Monday. No need to wait until my first game Thursday. Start winning and being memorable as soon as you can.
A fan’s lifetime of baseball moments add up to 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 9 April 2009 8:36 pm And to think I began the afternoon worried about jinxing a no-hitter.
Ollie wasn’t making history Thursday, at least not the kind you want. For a couple of innings there, I thought maybe. When he had four consecutive K’s, I thought back to another April afternoon, a mere 39 years ago. Tom Seaver struck out ten Padres in a row that once upon a time. Could Ollie incorporate himself as Franchise II? Could he make us all feel silly for doubting him based on his exhibition of abysmal control last Saturday? Could “Ollie being Ollie” come to be understood as a synonym for excellence?
No. No. No. None of that happened. It was just two good innings of Oliver Perez before “Ollie being Ollie” became “hello, I must be going in favor of Darren O’Day.”
Damn, that was quick.
One must always suck up the first loss of the year with the understanding that it was going to arrive sooner, not later. The Mets have never escaped the gate with more than five consecutive wins (1985). The first loss is always illusion-destroying painful. Will the Mets ever lose? No way! They never have, not this year. Now they have. Not many minutes have passed since it took place, but I think we’re all still upright and breathing, so the world goes on, all 159 games of it.
There was some fight in these Mets today until they ran into the better bullpen (did we and the Reds combine to set a series record for most games saved by different Franciscos?). They never seemed out of it, just not enough into it. That, I seem to recall from 2008 and before, happens in the course of a season. Sometimes it happens as early as the third game. It’s reality. And, as a dopey movie once clarified, reality tends to bite.
Still, damn that was quick.
One nugget from our last victory (most recent victory, not necessarily our final ever) still nettles me. It was that forceout not made on Edwin Encarnacion in the ninth when Carlos Delgado’s foot came off the bag at first as Brandon Phillips ran wild, free and rather senselessly to third. Our buddy Keith Hernandez practically choked on his Tootsie Pop when Bill Welke called Encarnacion safe. The replay clearly showed Delgado’s foot was not on the base as he caught the ball. I believe the rule says there’s a connection between the two vis-à-vis recording an out. It was a goof by Delgado. Unfortunate, but human.
Keith wasn’t having it — the call, that is. You get “leeway” there, Mex said. And he wasn’t being a homer, he swore. I didn’t think he was, at least not being a Mets homer. He was surely being a first baseman homer, however. Delgado not getting one of those lazy outs — Encarnacion was pointing up a storm and calling himself safe about 80% down the line — seemed to impinge on Keith’s sense of thieves’ honor. We (first basemen) always get that call, don’t we? Not last night, you didn’t. Thank the soul of Fred Merkle that Welke’s letter-of-the-lawfulness didn’t do undue harm our modern-day New York Nine, but, you know, next time step on the bag, Carlos. And Keith…you’re not a first baseman during these games. Get real.
The reality is you step on the bag with the ball in your mitt and Delgado didn’t properly multitask. The reality is Oliver Perez is 0-1. The reality is the Mets are 2-1. The reality is we get to try it again Friday night in Miami.
Sometimes reality is just fine.
Salve your wounds, such as they are, 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 Jason Fry on 9 April 2009 4:07 am Closers blow saves.
It's what they do, all of them. (Even you, Lidge — regression to the mean is going to be a bitch.) They have bad games, bad luck, miserable stretches in which they lose their feel for their pitches and get pounded for the equivalent of a start or two, only for the closer “a start or two” means three or four wins gagged up over an agonizing week to 10 days. This information ought to be affixed to the closer's picture on the Diamondvision, like the label on a pack of cigarettes: WARNING THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT WATCHING CLOSERS LEADS TO PERIODIC DISAPPOINTMENT AND DESPAIR AND HAS BEEN SHOWN TO CAUSE SECONDHAND DISAPPOINTMENT AND DESPAIR IN CHILDREN.
Everything came out all right, thank goodness, despite Frankie Rodriguez throwing ball after ball and slipping on the mound and repeatedly going to the curve on 2-0 and doing something to antagonize Bill Welke, who wasn't wrong but was sure awful picky, particularly since Brandon Phillips was doing the kind of assheaded thing that doesn't usually inspire umpires to check for dotted i's and crossed t's in the rulebook. (When baseball is played this stupidly this consistently by a team, you just know you'll find Dusty Baker somewhere on the premises.)
Stupid or not, it was all terrifying, down to Laynce Nix's cloudscraper (add the stray “y” for “yikes”) turning Ryan Church around and sending Carlos Beltran drifting slowly back to and then into the warning track, you weren't sure whether in confidence or dismay. Don't say I didn't warn you when one of those doesn't stay in, and K-Rod is ridden by the ghosts of Billy Wagner and Braden Looper and Armando Benitez and John Franco and everyone else initiated into the Brotherhood of Boo at one point or another, which is to say all of them.
Though perhaps there were other ghosts afoot. Certainly the mound was haunted. Mike Pelfrey was awful, Edinson Volquez wasn't much better, Mike Lincoln and Pedro Feliciano took aim at their own feet in a rather pathetic shootout at the Oy Vey Corral, J.J. Putz got cuffed about a bit, and then it was time for Frankie's drama. (Arthur Rhodes, of course, was serenely untouchable as usual. Please keep him out of the NL East come summertime.)
Yes, once upon a time this looked like a thoroughly encouraging Met performance, Pelfrey aside, what with Red fielders crumpling in the vague vicinity of balls, Luis Castillo and Brian Schneider saving Big Pelf's bacon with an awfully nice play by two generally derided players and Carlos Delgado launching a ball that might actually have landed in Kentucky. But by the time the four-hour mark loomed, this was one to close your eyes and endure, like the banshee shrieks of the Lady Fan from Hell. (Thanks for pointing her out, Keith — once you did that I would tense up every five seconds waiting for her to do it again.) Would it be a wipe-your-brow game that you could excuse as a win with some extra dramatic tension? Would it be a killer loss to cast an early-season pall over 2009? Turned out to be the former, but we all know in a lot of alternate universes it was the latter.
by Greg Prince on 8 April 2009 9:38 pm Why is this night different from all other nights? Well, for the first time in a while, I won't pass over mention of five worthy baseball books that have come to my attention while I've been busy reminding you about my own.
Given that Passover begins at sundown, it's imperative to present the perfect complement to your Seder experience in The Baseball Talmud by Howard Megadal. Howard, whose byline you see in the Observer and a lot of places, wrote the book I always thought would be neat to read: all about Jewish ballplayers. And it is neat, so there ya go. A lot of research and a lot of heart (if not a lot of schmaltz) went into this examination of these not quite 160 people chosen for the majors by managers to take the field. For every Hank Greenberg, there are quite a few Greg Goossens, but you could say the same for any baseball people you choose to examine in-depth.
Goossen is one of nine Jewish Mets to date (Ginsberg, Sherry, Shamsky, Maddox, Roberts, Schoeneweis, Newhan and Green are the others), best known as the secular target of one of Casey Stengel's final active barbs, one of my all-time favorite lines about anything anywhere. Though it is as oft-told as the story of Passover itself, I will repeat the essence of it in the spirit of the season in which Moses led his people toward the Promised Land (or in the case of our ballclub, the Mets leading their fans this season to a promised land just east of what was built at the behest of Robert Moses).
Ed Kranepool was twenty years old in 1965, and Casey said in ten years Ed had a chance to be a star. Greg Goossen was (not quite) twenty years old in 1965, and Casey said in ten years Greg had a chance to be (not quite) thirty.
Ten years later, Goossen fulfilled Stengel's prophecy, reaching the age projected with no sign of baseball stardom. But he did eventually become a stand-in for a star, going to Hollywood and working on a lot of Gene Hackman movies. Howard Megdal, with the wisdom of Solomon, offers up not just Greg's .597 slugging percentage as a Seattle Pilot, but a list of the five best Gene Hackman movies with Greg Goossen and the five best without him. You can decide whether either fork of his career path ranks him as the seventh-best Jewish first baseman ever as Megdal rates him.
This book is statistically fortified, but it never stops being fun. If you're going to offer a reward for finding the afikomen, you could do worse than The Baseball Talmud.
But we're not done covering the bases, of which there are four, counting the plate (on which there need be no charoset tonight at Great American). So let's ask four questions and find four answers.
What about a baseball book for kids?
Not having kids and never having been particularly childlike until I was too old for my own good, I'd still recommend James Preller's Six Innings, a riveting account of a fictional youth league championship game, made ever more tense by the author's blending in details of two very special half-innings from Mets history as part of the climax: the top of the ninth and the bottom of the sixteenth from Game Six of the 1986 NLCS. Kids who read it won't get the reference points, but they will transport some parents back to a great day turned evening. It won't surprise you Preller is a Mets fan.
What about something in verse?
You may not have been looking for the Mets Poet, but when you find him, you're better off for it. I had the pleasure of sharing the Varsity Letters stage last week with Frank Messina, who renders an authentic Mets vibe in a way I've never heard or read. Full Count: The Book of Mets Poetry is a revelation on every page. Regarding 1986: Reagan was president/and Keith Hernandez was God. Jesse Orosco: Autumn joy explodes. His and our own obsession: Where the poet sees beauty, others see shame. Context is everything, and when you read these lines in the context of their poems, they mean even more. I tip my cap to the Mets Poet.
What about something with the big picture?
Long Islanders who go back some with Newsday's sports section will instantly recall the puckishness of Stan Isaacs on games, players and TV (he was Mushnick, Raissman and Best before there were Mushnick, Raissman and Best). He also covered the hell out of some mighty big events from the '50s to the '80s, and ten of them get the Full Isaacs in Ten Moments That Shook the Sports World, a book that came out last year but I'm just getting around to reading and appreciating now. The '69 Mets are in there, as is The Shot Heard 'Round the World (Isaacs grew up a Giants fan, Bobby Thomson be praised). He brings a lot of lost details to light from all fields, leading up to a chilling recollection of Munich 1972. If you're looking for Mets and more, these Ten Moments are for you. (And if you're looking for contemporary Isaacs, he's right here.)
What about something that's Miraculous?
As if parting the Red Sea isn't enough for Passover, you can never go wrong with 1969. The company that published my (and Isaac's) book has, at the same time, reissued an absolute classic, A Magic Summer by Stanley Cohen. Cohen traveled about in the late '80s catching up with the Miracle Mets of two decades earlier and told the story of '69 through the events then and their perspective now (the now of 1988, that is). What's always stayed with me is how he explained the Mets fan, and how the fan stays with the team and in many ways transcends the players who make up the team in a given year, even a great year like that Magic one. The fortieth-anniversary reissue has a new introduction, some great pictures and an improved cover, but its Amazin' insight? Same as it ever was.
These are not times when there's a lot of spare change sitting around for discretionary purchases, so I'll reiterate the sentiment from when I first announced my own book to you. I wouldn't be recommending these titles if they weren't potentially worth your time. I think, once you've purchased and read Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets (and given a few copies as Passover, Easter and other-occasion gifts), those I've mentioned above might be worth an investment of your time and resources.
FAFIF: AIPHOTNYM, I can't help but mention, is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook. Also, Mark from Mets Walk-Offs takes me deep — or at least to our new hard-to-reach warning track — here. Finally, thanks to Adam Rubin and the Daily News for giving away five signed copies in a contest that moved so fast yesterday that I never had a chance to let you in on it. Mets fans are quick to answer five questions, let alone four.
by Jason Fry on 8 April 2009 2:23 pm 
New schedule, new workplace, new bullpen, new park, new season. Let’s see what happens. (Snapped with my iPhone, which as a camera is a heck of a phone.)
by Jason Fry on 7 April 2009 3:56 pm The weather-insurance off-day always makes for a cruel start to the season — being confronted with a Metless Game 2 is a little like being a starving dog who’s snoffed down half a can of Alpo only to find himself dragged away from his dish and told to wait for 30 hours. What? You’re kidding me, right? You realize I haven’t had anything to eat since late September, don’t you? I’m dyin’ here, man!
But that’s the way it goes, so we’ll have to tide ourselves over with White Sox-Royals and other vague nourishment until tomorrow night. Still, at least we still have yesterday to bask in, from the fact that the day even existed to its unaccustomed plan-gone-rightness in the final innings.
I suppose it was fitting that the longest and weirdest and boringest spring training in recent memory be followed by an unorthodox Opening Day. I’d taken the day off, it being a national holiday and all, only to rescind that decision when it looked like Cincinnati would be a far better locale for hockey. With Opening Day clearly delayed until today, I went about my salary-related business with relative equanimity, occasionally glancing over at Metsblog or Mets.com for official word that the game was called. Until, finally, I flipped on WFAN and gathered that the game was not only not called but starting in about 15 minutes. Wha? Over to weather.com, where sure enough the blob of pink and purple vectoring in from Indianapolis had degraded into light green blemishes, prompting Jerry Manuel and Dusty Baker to meet with the umpires, chew toothpicks, discuss ladies and gangsters, reminisce that in their day they’d once played in four feet of snow and still hit behind the runner, and say let’s play ball right now.
Fortunately my commute is eight minutes with optimum subway luck — off I dashed, day off turned day on now hastily remade as a day half. And was in my living room just in time to wonder why ESPN HD was a black rectangle, fall back to the FAN and then hunt for the game on SNY. Hello baseball!
I just can’t take spring training seriously anymore — I now plop down on the couch with a magazine in the top of the first, if I even remember it’s on — but I snapped nicely back into focus for real baseball, exulting at Johan’s first two punch-outs and groaning through the walks that followed. Until I calmed down around the bottom of the third, every Met hit was a sign of an MVP award and NL East supremacy and every LOB was a sign of deep slumps and a summer scuffling with the Nats. Overheated, but welcome given that a week ago I realized to my shock and horror that I couldn’t fill out the likely 25-man roster.
Even more welcome was seeing familiar players big as life and going about serious business. There was David Wright with his tics and wiggles at the plate and his vaguely amazed expression when he finally gets himself settled and focuses on the pitcher. There was the stock-still ferocity of Carlos Delgado, huge in waiting, the effortless glide of Carlos Beltran, and Johan all taps and swipes on the mound. And there was the first for-real look at the new guys: J.J. Putz was particularly striking, with his vulture-like hunch on the mound, his half-asleep stare, and the slow, uncloserlike metronome of his pitches. (Early warning: Right now Putz seems admirably unhurried and inexorable, but when he goes through his first bad stretch we’ll find him downright Trachselian.)
And baseball itself, of course: There was the outfield bad luck of Darnell McDonald, treated cruelly by his teammates and the baseball gods in his 22nd game of a career that’s taken him to age 30, contrasted with the good luck of Ryan Church, who turned in a 9.0 difficulty sliding juggling routine paired with a quick throw to first for a hugely unlikely double play. (And a piece of evidence to be put before the jury in the forthcoming court case The People for Good Defense vs. Gary Sheffield, Right Fielder.) Give a Reds fan seven inches to reapportion between McDonald’s three misplays and Church’s little miracle and he could have turned a Met nail-biter into a Red rout, but that’s baseball in all its beauty and unfairness.
If there’s a Met fan in this great land who didn’t think of Pedro and Joe Randa and Willie Randolph and Braden Looper in the ninth, they’re either new around here or deliberately amnesiac. (And probably better off either way.) I muttered and fretted and squirmed through the debuts of Sean Green, Putz (who got away with a couple) and K-Rod, all too aware that this game’s dominant theme could still turn out to be David Wright Left Murphy on Third AGAIN, or Johan Still Can’t Trust That Bullpen, or Don’t You Regret Saying All Those Mean Things About Aaron Heilman? Happily, everything turned out just fine. Heck, the only improvement would be hearing that at the very moment Ramon Hernandez struck out, someone in the San Francisco visiting clubhouse startled Braden Looper, who spilled a cup of coffee in his own lap.
For a quality start, effective middle relief and a flawless save, chart pitches along 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 7 April 2009 2:27 pm Queens and Long Island readers, if so inclined, can pick up the Daily News today for a brief story by Nicholas Hirshon on Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, including author comments and photo in the Queens News insert, part of a spread covering the coming of the new ballpark (Stanley Cohen, whose wonderful A Magic Summer has been reissued for the fortieth anniversary of the '69 Mets, is also interviewed). Would love to direct you to a link, but alas it's not online. Link here.
FAFIF: AIPHOTNYM is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.
by Greg Prince on 7 April 2009 1:05 am The Mets enjoyed a statistically familiar Opening Day. Yet I enjoyed a very unusual one. They opened at Great American Ball Park. Yet I watched them at Citi Field. They were led by Johan Santana, Daniel Murphy and Frankie Rodriguez. Yet I was awed by Mookie Wilson, Ed Kranepool and Ed Charles…and Cow-Bell Man. Can’t forget Cow-Bell Man.
Here’s the surreal deal: A friend with the fine folks who sponsor that swell Pepsi Porch invited me to a New Year’s bash on said patio (a rare intermingling of my beverage and baseball lives). We’d eat, drink, mill and cheer the action from Cincinnati on the big screens. And it would be great, unless it rained.
It rained, but it was still great, because Pepsi and the Mets moved the party indoors to Caesars Club. Hence, there I was, eating, drinking, milling, cheering the action from Cincinnati on smaller but very sharp screens and not getting wet. And being surrounded by greatness.
The greatness on the screens is what we all care about, so let us praise not Caesar or even Mookie for a moment, but Johan. From what I could tell when not helping myself to unlimited fare (standard ballpark stuff but with those Citi kitchens, nothing is substandard), it was colder in Ohio than it was in New York (where it was cold enough) and Johan wasn’t feeling the ball, thus the four walks. That’s the sort of thing that could derail an Ollie Perez — that does derail an Ollie Perez — but this is Johan the Magnificent we’re talking about, so he essentially shook off the cold and picked up where he left off last September 27 and 23, respectively.
The Mets, 31-9 to commence their calendar since 1970 and 4-for-4 since 2006, left too many runners on base, of course, but don’t they always? Daniel Murphy and defense gave Johan enough wiggle room and the bullpen…OH THAT DELICIOUS NEW BULLPEN! The LOB may be the official state bird of Metsopotamia, but can we declare the blown save extinct? Probably a little too soon for that, but wow, what a difference however much they’re paying Green, Putz and Rodriguez makes. They’ll have their bad days, but…no! No! Never again! No more bad days! Not the kind with which we’ve been regularly burdened!
Sorry, just projecting my deepest hope for this season: no more cringing at that bullpen gate or even the thought of it. No matter where you were watching from Monday, you couldn’t help but hark back to the last time the Mets opened in Cincy, in 2005, and Braden Looper sabotaging the New Mets before they could spread their wings and fly. That was the first game this enterprise ever blogged and my partner captured the emotion of that ninth-inning, 7-6 loss perfectly when he wrote one word and one word only after Joe Randa circled the Great American bases. (He did so again today in an e-mail that read, in part, “Fuck Braden Looper.”)
Four years have gone by. Maybe some Mets fans today had forgotten or never even knew about that wasted first start from Pedro Martinez and how (fucking) Braden Looper just dampened everything for days and then, at just the worst instances, all of 2005. More saliently, nobody’s forgotten what last September was like in these parts. Green to Putz to Rodriguez…that’s something to remember and repeat.
I’ll probably never get to repeat my own personal Opening Day celebration from 2009, but I’ll remember it. Credit Pepsi and the Mets’ organization for thinking of everything except a temporary SkyDome to shield us on that Porch of theirs. But Caesars did well by its guests in a pinch. My friend who extended the invitation got stuck at work, so I didn’t know anybody there, but I felt like I knew everybody there. Everybody came dressed in their Opening Day finery and everybody was focused on the Metsiana of the occasion. Yes, of course, to Murph’s home run and two RBI, yes to David Wright and Ryan Church and Jose Reyes playing solid to spectacular defense. Yes to the pitching in its starting and relief flavors (YES!), right up to the impromptu K-ROD! K-ROD! chant that closed the festivities.
And yes to those Mets legends who joined us for the afternoon. I saw a line early and I thought it was for beer. It was for Mookie. Made sense. The presence of Mookie will always be more intoxicating than alcohol. He was signing autographs for children of all ages, including a Pepsi generation’s worth of Mets fans who couldn’t possibly know anything more about him than how could you not want the autograph of a man named Mookie?
I didn’t queue up for Mr. Wilson’s signature. Too long a line, too preoccupied by those images of Mr. Santana (and the sausages). But when it got short, I strode over. Somebody vaguely in charge tried to tell me Mookie was about to be done signing. I don’t want an autograph, I said, I just want to shake his hand and say hello. I was granted my wish.
“Hi Mookie, my name is Greg, and I want to thank you for being such a great Met and giving us such a great Met career, all ten years of it.”
Mookie accepted this completely unoriginal thought graciously before wrapping up his day. I couldn’t have let the opportunity go by without telling him what surely he’s heard before. He’s Mookie Wilson! (I had a copy of my book in my schlep bag and thought about giving it to him, then I remembered that the chapter that focuses on his most famous moment is laced with stream-of-consciousness cursing and that Mookie was the most straight laced of ’86 Mets, so I resisted. Maybe for one of the Scum Bunch I’d be less embarrassed by my working blue.)
Ed Charles had a line, too, but I caught it when it was winding down, and all I wanted from him was about 15 seconds of his time. I shook his hand and said my piece:
“Hi Ed, my name is Greg, and I just want to thank you for being such a great Met all these years. You gave me so many thrills when I was a kid and I can’t thank you enough.”
“That means a lot to me to hear you say that,” The Glider Ed Charles said to me. And he patted me on the back.
It felt good.
Ed Kranepool I was close to, but said nothing. Three reasons:
1) The Krane was not, when I was in his midst, doing his official Krane stuff;
2) I couldn’t stop thinking about what a friend of mine who once ran into him in a deli said after introducing himself as a fan: “Ed Kranepool looked at me like I owed him money,” though he seemed pretty relaxed today;
3) I was too in awe to say anything. I’m not kidding. This was Ed Kranepool, a Met for the first eighteen seasons that there were Mets. This was Ed Kranepool, king of the Mets record book still. This was ED KRANEPOOL!
As I wandered in Ed’s aura (and believe me, this guy’s got aura), I found myself behind him as he grabbed a cookie off a tray on the bar. I grabbed the cookie right after his before we diverged to our respective seats. I wouldn’t say I ate Ed Kranepool’s dust, but it’s fair to say we shared a few crumbs.
And Cow-Bell Man was there. I wasn’t in awe of Cow-Bell Man, but it was gratifying to see Cow-Bell Man in and out of action. When I walked into Caesars (which puts all airport lounges to shame but could use a few Mets trinkets to make it seem less LaGuardia), I saw somebody who looked like Cow-Bell Man quietly enjoying some lunch. It was him. It was Cow-Bell Man. Cow-Bell Man does Mets parties. Good for him. Now and again, he roamed the room, banging his bell and being Cow-Bell Man, posing for photos, signing t-shirts, making Mets fans a little happier for a few seconds per clank. When the affair was over, I found myself on the same subway platform with Cow-Bell Man. I was going to strike up a conversation, ask how he came to be there today, how he likes Citi Field, what his relationship with the Mets’ organization is, whether the bullpen can keep up the good work. But as I organized my thoughts, he walked over to where he wanted to get on the train and I stayed put at where I wanted to get on the train.
Cow-Bell Man’s only got so much aura.
Final unexpected guest of the day was that parking lot they’re building where Ol’ Blue used to stand. Caesars doesn’t face the current field, only the former one, or what’s left of its dirt. While Jerry made all the right moves in Cincy, while Mookie and the Eds (Cow-Bell Man’s real name, too, come to think of it) were eliciting grins, while Mr. Met and the Pepsi Party Patrol were bringing the Seventh Inning Stretch indoors, the men who work the Breeze machines continued to move earth. That thing will be paved over in no time. I watched now and then, between pitches and good cheer. I watched what used to be Shea Stadium get a little more covered up with every passing minute. Never saw that on Opening Day from Cincinnati before either.
Hope they pave over any remnant that indicated Braden Looper and his arsonous successors ever existed but good.
Two New Year’s gifts on one Opening Day…you guys shouldn’t have! But you did, Ray from Metphistopheles and A.J. from Deadspin (excerpt included in the latter). Read what they’re writing about: 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 6 April 2009 12:09 pm A quick reminder to our boys wrapped in orange and blue layers for when they begin their season in Arctic conditions today or tomorrow or whenever there isn’t a projected 29-degree wind chill with 60% chance of snow showers in Cincinnati:
Play every game. There are 162 on your slate. Play all of them. Play all of them as well as you can. Don’t take days off unless you, as an individual, have been in fact given the day off. Keep playing. Play now, play later, play to the end. Play hard 162 times. Do not let your minds wander after a dozen or so games. Do not spiral into a funk after sixty or so games. Do not mentally wander the desert after 120 games. Consider the season as an in-progress entity even after you’ve reached the black-magical mark of 145 games. At that juncture, institutional memory will tell you to ease up, not compete and lose more often than you win.
Do not listen to it. You are contracted to play all 162. You start, the schedule says, this afternoon. You keep going straight through to October 4 at least.
At least.
Thank you in advance for your efforts on our behalf. Please don’t make us regret our faith in you again.
A great way to wait out rain delays is to read 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.
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