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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 24 September 2008 3:00 pm I’m a Wild Card waiting
In the middle of the deck
You’d better get a bigger gun
I’m not dead yet
—Ralph Covert and the Bad Examples
Your 2008 Mets: By no means dead yet.
That was the win the Wild Card-leading Mets needed Tuesday night. We need more of ’em, but that one was the prerequisite. We can’t take Advanced Pennant Race until we pass the remedial course in Winning When Your Ace Is Pitching — extra credit for doing it while your divisional foe is losing, your consolation prize foe is struggling and your psychic foe is statistically disappearing from view.
I needed that, too. I needed it no more than any other Mets fan did from a competitive perspective — we all needed a win — but I needed it from a tenth consecutive game with five to go at Shea in September standpoint. I needed something to remind me why I keep showing up not just every night but so damn early, too.
The highlights of my sojourn to the end of the road have come more often than not this year from the six o’clock hour, before the game starts, before any announcements are made, before most anyone is seated. I wouldn’t want Shea to be empty in the 1979 sense, but I’m discovering I like it better before the seats are filled. I like it when nothing’s on the line, when Shea is in the final stages of coming together for its 7:10 curtain, when nobody is getting on anybody’s nerves about where they’re sitting or where they’re standing or where they’re supposed to be. I get the sense that although Gate C opens 2½ hours before first pitch that they’re not really expecting you for quite a while. It’s almost like you’re sneaking in at six o’clock.
I prefer taking Shea by surprise. For such a big place, it feels cozy when you get to know its nooks. I’ll find something to eat (the cuisine is fresher at six) and temporarily camp out in some unoccupied row deep in Loge and just gaze about. My last Loge game got September off on a really flat foot in terms of both baseball and the quest for deeper meaning, so I’ve needed to revisit Shea’s best vantage point when it’s just me and a knish and maybe a Bubba Burger. Or perhaps I’ll skip Loge and cruise the left field edge of the Mezzanine concourse. Mezzanine equals Shea in my mind. If I wind up on another level, it was probably a fluke. If I’m in Mezzanine, it’s kinda normal. I’ll meander to the end of Mezz in left, where I can stare out at the Picnic Area and marvel how well kept a secret it was to me for almost thirty years. I’ll give Citi Field a reluctant once over and then I’ll turn around for an inspection of the tapestry of highways to the west and watch the sun linger over the Manhattan skyline. At that hour, if I proceed to my Mezzanine seat, I’ll see that same sun glint through the ramps and onto the hind end of the Upper Deck above me. That’s my six o’clock sun.
None of this helps the Mets beat the Cubs or gain ground on the Phillies and Brewers. None of this shows up in or even approaches the boxscore. But that’s the Shea I’m fondest of now, Six O’Clock Shea. Sometimes I have no choice regarding entrance time and it’s Seven O’Clock Shea or nothing. That isn’t the best Shea. That’s trip over people Shea, “excuse me” Shea, sorry I’m running late Shea. Somewhere between the first welcome from Alex Anthony at 6:30 and the final strains of “Let’s See How Far We’ve Come” around 7:05 Shea gets its snarl on. When I arrive at six, I don’t notice it developing. When I arrive at seven, I head straight into the teeth of the snarl and it’s like giving up three in the first.
Six O’Clock Shea, unfortunately, doesn’t last. You go from the tranquility of almost nobody else in the park to being vaguely offended by how relatively few have shown up for an important game, to suddenly noticing tens of thousands were nice enough to join you. You want them here — an actual game is better with more people than less — but you kind of miss the solitude from six. By then, however, you’re more concerned with the scoreboard than any other fragment of Shea.
Before the Mets put together the ten-game July winning streak that vaulted them into legitimate contention, I was resigned to their finishing well out of the money and figured I could make the best of it by lavishing my attention on the final month of Shea Stadium on its own merit. Then they had to go out and be good, which meant I could forget about turning Shea Stadium into the Flushing Meadows Garden of Meditation. It’s better that they’re playing for something. The fortunes of the Mets and the spirit of Shea have not existed independently of one another for any of its 45 years; this would be no time to try it. Keeping Shea going into October is way more important than sealing it with closure in September.
But that’s made the hours after 7:00 most difficult on me, because when we move from contemplative to competitive, I need a lot more than I’ve been getting from the tens of thousands keeping me company. Quite frankly, they’ve been doing a lousy job. And that’s taking into account the Mets not being up to snuff in the verve department themselves until midgame Tuesday.
Can’t do anything about the Cubs fans (too many of ’em, but I’ve seen worse ratios). It’s not the Cubs fans or the Phillies fans who have been wet blankets in September at Shea. It’s the ostensible Mets fans, specifically the ones who don’t seem to realize what a special interval in history they’ve alighted on when they come to Shea this month. This is the last of Shea and this is the Mets in a fight for first or something comparable. And these people simply don’t get it. A lot of us do, I’m sure, but the overwhelming sense I get is that of an ordinary night at the ballpark, as if either phenomenon — the end of an era, a team in a race — is commonplace.
It’s not. Lousy relief pitching and all, the Mets are lunging toward a playoff spot in reasonably effective fashion. Plenty of Septembers have come and gone without that little bonus. The Shea closing part, whatever your opinion of Shea’s contribution to the stadium aesthetic, is undeniably unprecedented for every single one of us. The Dodgers didn’t close Ebbets Field — they abandoned it. Same for the Giants and the Polo Grounds. The Mets were just borrowing the latter for a couple of years. We are witnessing a stadium that has served its occupants loyally for almost half-a-century being given a finite farewell, and too many of my compatriots are only interested in getting up and getting a beer and not paying attention to what’s on the field and not shutting up for two seconds when somebody’s making an announcement that has anything to do with what isn’t his or her personal petty concern.
Whad’ya do last night?
Went to the Mets game.
Wow, you were at one of the last games ever at Shea Stadium? What was it like?
I talked vapidly, moved around a lot, used my phone and drank.
I try not to project, but I do anyway. I realize not everybody goes to a ballgame the way I go to a ballgame. I laugh at the idea that going to a ballgame — or, in my case this month, every ballgame — is “fun”. It is many positive things, but I do not view it as “fun,” or the idea of fun as mindless entertainment. My whole thing, even without the Shea countdown to destruction in effect, is commitment. I commit to things. I commit to every game I go to, I commit to every trip I make to a ballpark, I commit to the outcome, to the process, to my companion(s), to taking in all of the details. That is my idea of fun, as opposed to “fun,” which I equate with running around in circles until the teacher calls out to you that recess is over.
Fun is to be had in whatever way one chooses to have it, I guess. Fun can be yammering away and paying little mind to the featured attraction and ignoring the overtones of your setting. I can’t imagine that’s any fun at all, but go ahead, knock yourself out. Just don’t do it in my space. When the mets.com fates have forged proximity between us, I request you watch the game, cheer for the Mets, limit your conversation to that which is pertinent and intelligent should I be forced to overhear it and sit and think for a few seconds between innings about what’s here and what won’t be pretty soon. How you can enjoy yourself without doing that escapes my comprehension.
But that’s me. I’m fun that way.
I eventually had the kind of fun I seek Tuesday night. I had it at Six O’Clock Shea when the kid working the Topps stand was kind enough to indulge my 100th anniversary Fred Merkle symposium (he made the mistake of admiring my Giants jacket). I had it in the fifth and sixth when the Mets did their freakish-style scoring and captured most everybody’s imagination, even those who think a seat at the ballpark exists for texting. I had it in the ninth when the out-of-town scoreboard worked its magic, revealing the Phillies’ loss to the Braves (a little chopping was in order) and the Red Sox’ elimination of the Yankees (a burst of GOODBYE YANKEES! followed by the more pedestrian but ultimately liberating YANKEES SUCK!). And of course I had big fun after Luis Ayala kept Johan Santana’s masterwork intact. I had fun en route when my friend and fellow Giants obsessive Rich — a son of Flushing — picked me up for my final car ride to Shea and enhanced, as he always does, my understanding of the neighborhood, such as showing me where Mike Jorgensen played high school ball. (Rich and I may have been the only two fans in attendance who dedicated this particular Met win to the memory of Merkle.) We had fun watching a throwback run-on-the-field moron evade two security tackles like he was Freeman McNeil before the full wrath of the New York Sack Exchange dragged him to points unknown. I even had a quiet fit of fun during tense at-bats when I noticed a fluorescent bulb in our section flickering off while the commemorative Shea logo on the left field auxiliary board flashed spastically as if a prop from Field of Dreams. I was hoping Shea and the Mets weren’t going to short-circuit in one massive heap, but I was having my kind of fun, the kind of fun I craved when I committed to this All In ethic for September 2008.
Shea would be a better place the next five days if more people would act like me. But so would the world, I think to myself as I chew my knish in Loge solitude at a quarter after six.
***Kudos to a friend who dropped by for a one-batter cameo Tuesday night. He was in the midst of dedicating the evening to a gamelong tour of Shea, every level, from the highest perches of Upper Deck 48 and 47 (“something romantic about those seats”) to a quick sit right behind home plate. He even managed 20 minutes on the press level without credentials (“saw an opening, guard looking wrong way, after that just act like you belong and hope for the best”). The thrill of sipping complimentary Pepsi with Marty Noble and Jon Heyman, however, was trumped by learning that “no cheering in the press box” applies even when Johan is mowin’ down Cubs.
“Took some time during quiet moments to remember where my eyes saw various things,” he relates, “be them Ventura-related, Piazza-related, Endy-related or lesser-scale Shea moments, like David Wright jumping into the stands, Rick Reed’s near perfecto or various walkoff home runs, pitching gems and amazing plays. I needed a night like this. Now I’m ready to Shea goodbye.”
by Jason Fry on 24 September 2008 3:01 am God bless Johan Santana.
In the beginning he didn't look particularly on his game — the Cubs were getting pretty fair swings against him, and I was more than a little sick to my stomach thinking of finding Johan on the wrong end of a 3-1 or 4-2 score, the recipient of stoic attaboys and brave shrugs. Even Seaver couldn't shut the other guy down every night. Can't kill the guy for losing once every three months. But Santana seemed to gather himself in the fifth, disarming the pointy part of the Cubs order with just six pitches. And then the nuttiness began. After Sean Marshall erased Ryan Church on three pitches, Nick Evans got hit by a riding fastball and Santana launched a little roller and half of a baseball bat in the general direction of Mark DeRosa. The bat overtook the ball and tapped it once again, shades of Mike Sharperson scoring Stan Javier a million years ago for the Dodgers against the Giants, and all hands were safe. (If you click through that link, don't miss the stated reason for Tommy Lasorda's ejection. I love Retrosheet.) Marshall spread his arms in disbelief and dismay, and a wild hope sprang into being in orange-and-blue hearts everywhere. Jose Reyes struck out, but Luis Castillo managed a walk (I still blame him for everything, so don't even start) and up came David Wright. David Wright who, for all his heroics and all our adoration, tends to squeeze bats into sawdust with the bases loaded, feeling it's his solemn duty to hit five-run homers. Not this time — Wright shortened up his swing and poked one over the infield to get us even.
Santana survived his personal Tommy Hutton, the otherwise-not-particularly-immortal Reed Johnson (now 12 for 22 against His Johanness), and next inning the Mets jumped all over Chad Gaudin, with Jose Jose Jose Jose's 200th hit the triple-in-the-corner exclamation point, complete with Jose all but turning a celebratory cartwheel at third. If Miguel Oliva felt a twinge of annoyance somewhere, fuck him — that was one of those baseball moments where all the accumulated disappointment and doubt of a team's struggles explode and dissipate in a second of release, transmuting agony into joy. (I'll always think of John Olerud blasting a grand slam off Greg Maddux after the Mets' near-death experience back in 1999 — I have the vertical jump of a box turtle, but that night I leapt into the air as the ball sizzled over the infielders' heads and I didn't come down until an inning later.)
Santana, Wright and Reyes. Not a bad blueprint.
The rest? Well, I'm now on a first-name basis with Phil Cuzzi, whose strike zone was apparently determined by some permutation of the Zodiac, a mood ring and whatever he divined from pawing through the entrails of a spring lamb. (“PHIL!” I bayed at Cuzzi in the eighth, after his determined refusal to ring up Mark DeRosa ran Johan's pitch count higher and higher. Mild to the point of invisibility for me, but I was too frightened for a decent show of profanity.) Pedro Feliciano provided the usual Met-reliever nausea, but Luis Ayala looked better than he has in some time (possibly helped, it must be admitted, by Lou Piniella sticking with the JV) and we were home.
The Phillies have lost. While I've been writing this, the Pirates have given up a lead against the Brewers, taken it back (against Guillermo Mota, no less), and allowed the Brewers to tie. Final score to be determined. Whatever happens there, even Santana's arm can't be reloaded until this weekend at the earliest — Carlos Zambrano and Rich Harden await against the enigmatic Oliver Perez and the faded Pedro Martinez. So be it. We'll worry about tomorrow when it becomes today. Even when the news is the happiest, there's only so much a Met fan's heart can take.
P.S. Happy Yankee Elimination Day, everybody!
by Greg Prince on 23 September 2008 4:00 pm “I have tickets for the Mets tonight. Great seats for probably a terrible game. I'll be by at five.”
—Ken Cosgrove, Sterling Cooper, 1962
Yeah, it was pretty terrible at Shea Monday night. Lifetime game 409, regular and postseason combined, might have a hard time cracking my personal top 400 had August 2002 never occurred. Enduring Marquis' grand slam, the festival of futile relievers, wave upon wave of Cubbiephile inanity, the standing/sitting/standing/sitting Mets fan in front of me who bumped his head into mine as I bent down to retrieve my radio to monitor Beltran's well-being (ouch for all of us) and, yes, the Amazin' Luis Castillo — he's actually batting .249, or 249 points higher than I would have guessed — mixed to make the remainder of my planned septupleheader at Shea look about as sure a thing resultswise as AIG.
Speaking of which, Endy's fence has changed for the last week, and I don't think it was voluntary. Since October 19, 2006, we've all recognized the AIG slogan as iconic even if many of us didn't know anything else about the company until last week. Well, given that they needed a government bailout to avoid utter calamity, I suppose it wasn't surprising that when I peeked at left field as the first inning began, I noticed an alteration to the adscape. There are now two AIG logos where there was only one. The second one replaced the previously emblazoned, now inoperative motto:
THE STRENGTH TO BE THERE
One supposes that with all their other problems, AIG didn't need to be brought up on charges of untruth in advertising. (I wonder if the Feds will repossess our Endy bobbleheads.)
The Mets are still running first for the Wild Card. Do they have the strength to be there? Only because they are one length ahead of the Brewers, you'd have to say technically, yeah. You'd also have to ponder if the Brewers could possibly be any worse than they've already been of late, because we are going to need them to drown in their own suds if Monday's and Sunday's and Saturday's games are leading indicators of the Mets' abilities to avoid choking on their own final six-pack.
The National League has been mostly about streaks in 2008. There was a time when the Diamondbacks looked unbeatable. There was a time when the Dodgers looked as if they'd buried the Diamondbacks. Suddenly Arizona trails Los Angeles by only two games. The Phillies were 3½ behind us less than two weeks ago. We're 2½ behind them now. Neither the Mets nor Phillies figured as Wild Card possibilities in late August because there was no way Milwaukee could be caught. Now Milwaukee is trying to catch us. The Cubs have been the only block of granite in the N.L. this year — and, hey, what a great time to invite them over for a four-game set.
This could all be very bad news for the Mets or it could all be slightly less terrible than it looks now…which is about as optimistic as I'm willing to get after Monday night. Beltran lived, Johan's going and New York owes Chicago one where the date 9/23/08 is concerned. Clearly, signing Luis Castillo to a four-year deal should go down as Minaya's Boner, but we need to get past that. Just as the jobbed Giants hung in there a hundred years ago, the Mets will keep playing and all of us who bought tickets to every inch of Shea Stadium's final week will find, somehow, the strength to be there.
by Jason Fry on 23 September 2008 4:58 am I've had the good fortune to be on hand for a remarkable run of classic games at Shea Stadium — I was in green or red seats for the Grand Slam single, for the 10-run inning, for Agbayani's home run, for Bobby Jones's one-hitter, for the NLCS clincher in '00, for the first home game after 9/11, for Pratt hitting one over the fence.
I've also been to some horrible, gut-wrenching nightmares at Shea. I saw Brian Jordan kill our unlikely 2001 pennant drive, saw Glavine beat Leiter by a 1-0 score in the playoffs, and I've seen Yankee fans woofing and displaying the Vertical Swastika more times than I care to count. Heck, just eight days ago I watched Greg Norton take Luis Ayala deep. But considering the circumstances, I may not ever have seen a game more grindingly awful than the opener of this, the last-ever regular-season Shea homestand. (And the jury's out on whether we'll need that second qualifier.)
First of all, every Cub fan in the New York area was apparently in attendance. That's fine. In fact, good for them: Tonight's game was a decent mathematical bet to be their clincher, and while the Cub faithful missed that, they had a chance to cheer on their victorious team and dream about what might come in October. But not blaming them isn't the same as wanting them there. And they were everywhere, on all sides of me and Greg, whooping for each Cub and waving at each other and taking celebratory pictures and yammering about Northwestern and the Illini while we downtrodden Met fans struggled to breathe with September cinderblocks on our chests. It was seriously just a few notches below a Subway Series game in terms of the percentage of enemy fans.
Oh yeah, and then there was the game, with Jon Niese unfortunately unable to locate his pitches and Luis Castillo unfortunately able to locate his bat. Niese's youth gets him a pass, but why does Jerry Manuel continue to let Castillo near a baseball field? He may actually be the worst position player in the major leagues — a player so stupendously useless that he deserves a plaque in some kind of Anti-Hall of Fame, a Bizarro World Cooperstown in which embarrassed baseball officials pay you to numbly view exhibits about how a beautiful sport can be played so lifelessly. Castillo has little speed left and subpar range, but his skills in the field and on the basepaths shine compared to what he can do at the plate. This is a man closing in on 6,000 major-league at-bats and 20 sacrifice flies, and tonight was a showcase for his unique talents: In the third, with a runner on third and one out, he only escaped grounding into a double play because he tapped the ball so feebly. In the sixth, with runners on first and second and none out, he put enough wood behind a grounder to earn his GIDP, short-circuiting a Met rally. And he really shone in the ninth as the Mets' last hope, looking at two strikes from Kerry Wood and then offering the vaguest of waves at strike three, like a hospice patient shooing a fly. I'd already shredded my throat booing Luis, but I managed to croak in agony at Manuel in the ninth, pleading brokenly for him to send anybody else up to the plate. And I do mean anybody: The list of people I'd rather have seen begins with Argenis Reyes (who isn't any better and might actually be worse, but at least creates outs with some enthusiasm), includes all the Met pitchers, then expands to include Greg, myself, and the option of picking a member of the Pepsi Party Patrol at random and sending him or her up to the plate blindfolded with a rolled-up t-shirt for a bat.
Best of all? Luis Castillo is Met property for 1,102 more days. Thank you, Omar Minaya.
For much of the middle innings Greg and I could barely speak — we sat slumped in our chairs, watching terrible things happen on the field and the scoreboard. Wow, Aramis Ramirez almost hit one out. Look, the Braves are lifting their skirts for the Phillies again. Jeez, can't the Red Sox at least eliminate the Yankees? Nope, we couldn't even seek refuge in Schadenfreude. I would occasionally grunt or mutter a curse; now and then Greg would mumble unhappily or emit a low moan of vague torment.
There are six games left at Shea, and the Mets somehow still are in the lead for a playoff spot. But my goodness, it feels like there are 60 to go and the team's so hopelessly out of it that it's already held the fire sale. Despite what the papers tell you, this isn't a collapse, just a desperately flawed team trying to limp across the finish line with a suspect rotation and a truly ghastly bullpen. (After he was taken out, Luis Ayala trudged off the mound not to boos but to the ambient noise of utter indifference.) There's no shame in this September swoon — the Mets redeemed a dreadful year that looked lost with a summer revival. But that was a while ago now. I can imagine them bellyflopping into the playoffs ahead of the equally suspect, just as psychologically shot Brewers. (And then who knows?) But I find it easier — a lot easier — to imagine them coming up short again.
It won't hurt like last year did — with any luck, nothing in Met fandom will hurt quite like that for years and years. But it sure won't be much fun.
by Greg Prince on 22 September 2008 7:12 pm If you'd like to emulate a ball hit by Carlos Delgado and land over the fence at Shea Stadium, Matt Silverman's got your final chance. The co-author of Mets By The Numbers and author of 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die has organized a get-together of Mets fans in the Picnic Area for this Wednesday's evening's game against the Cubs. Its one final chance to see a game from where relatively few ever get to see one. Buffet and nonalcoholic beverages are included. A handful of tickets remain for this unique vantage point to one of the last games in Shea Stadium history, to say nothing of one of this season's most crucial. Plus I'll be there, but don't let that stop you. Ticket price is $70, which covers the game, all you can eat, all you can drink (beer is extra), the Picnic Area experience (heartily endorsed here) and a serious helping of committed, devoted Mets fans.
For more information, check out Met Silverman and, like the Mets this week, act now. E-mail Matt with any and all questions.
by Greg Prince on 22 September 2008 6:01 am As late afternoon became early evening Sunday, I was bucking myself up for the challenge ahead, both the Mets' and mine. Theirs is the one that matters, winning enough games without losing so that they return to the playoffs and try to win a world championship. Mine is simply to show up and try not to be an impediment to their success.
Wow was it familiar. It's just about what I was doing at this time a year ago. A year ago there was some slight relief (pun not intended, though it should have been) with the Mets winning three straight in Miami. It didn't fool many of us who were fast gaining our degrees in collapsology. Trouble was surely lurking and it hopped right out from behind the bushes the second the Mets' charter landed at LaGuardia for their final seven games. Me, I rendezvoused with the team for the final five, four of which were abysmal and we know how that ended.
So here I am and here we are and, a few key differentiating details aside, it's basically the same thing all over again. Sunday was fifty-one weeks since the worst day in the history of Shea Stadium settled in our hair and rushed up our nostrils. We went through all of that anguish and all of that angst and all of our recovery efforts and all the rationalization we could muster just so we could get right back where we started from: trying to make the playoffs, trying to not miss the playoffs, trying our darndest to be there as much and as best we can.
What's that saying about doing the same thing, expecting different results and the definition of insanity? Never mind that now. It's too late. It's been too late as long as I can remember. If I could just slip the bonds of fanhood without a second thought, don't you think I would have long ago? No, this is the life I, like you, have chosen. I have chosen a life that inflicted upon me insane amounts of unhappiness fifty-one weeks ago and I've gone through every motion possible just to arrive back at potentially the exact same precipice.
Except this time I'm determined to go the final seven games of the year, not just five (having already been to the previous eight which, virally speaking, literally sickened me). And if things go as wrong as they possibly can, it will turn a sweet-sorrow parting into the most bitter ballpark funeral I can imagine.
Hence, I'd appreciate it from my friends in Mets uniforms if they could build leads and hold them this week, if they could find a way to win far more than they lose and for their counterparts in management to not make me sorry I've been looking so forward for so long to so much.
Is it really so much to ask for?
As for the ancillary issues connected to the final seven regular-season lines of The Log:
1 win in the next 4 games clinches a winning record against the Cubs. (Current: 10-7)
2 wins in the final 3 games clinch a winning record against the Marlins. (Current: 16-16)
3 wins over the Marlins would make them the second-most oft-beaten opponent in Log history. (Braves: 20)
2 losses to the Marlins (shudder) would mean a losing record against every current divisional opponent. (Braves: 20-23; Phillies: 18-21; Nationals: 6-8)
4 wins are needed for the most in one season. (2001: 23)
6 wins in the final 7 games would put the final Log record at 40 above .500. (Currently: +35; Highest previously: +38 on 6/21/02 and 7/26/02)
2 Santana starts and 1 Pelfrey start would put 10 in The Log for 2008 for each of them, tying for the most by any one starter in any one year. (Leiter in 2001)
2 more games attended will bring the 2008 total to an all-time high of 39. (2001: 38)
4 more games attended will mean I've attended a majority of the home schedule in 2008.
5 more games attended will bring The Log's regular season total to 400 lifetime.
4 games attended against the Cubs will signify the only complete four-game series ever attended.
2 wins will clinch a .500 season. The Mets need more than that for their own survival, but if I were to finish 22-22, it would be quite familiar. My record was .500 in '83, '84, '86, '91, '92, '94, '95, '96, '03 and '04.
A win Friday would snap a Friday losing streak of five consecutive games dating back to 9/14/07, the first night of The Collapse. Friday is the only day of the week without a win recorded in The Log in 2008.
If I don't focus on the minutiae, the big picture might strangle me alive.
It occurs to me that with the last two losses in Atlanta, our record fell to 86-69, which was either intentional so as to inspire great championship luck or a subliminal way to sell remaining $869 seat inventory.
by Greg Prince on 21 September 2008 9:49 pm 
The one and only Home Run Apple approaches its last week of regular-season active duty. That danged piece of fruit better be overripe from Mets batters successfully bobbing for dingers by the time Sunday evening rolls around.
Hit Mets. Hit. Even when you’ve got a two-run lead, hit some more. When the Apple goes up, so do our chances.
Attention Carlos Beltran: The only bunting we need to see is along the railings a week from Wednesday. You and your buddies can make it so if you hit. And hit some more.
Apple image courtesy of the sublime Loge 13.
by Jason Fry on 21 September 2008 4:00 pm It's that time of year when baseball moves to the head of the line, shoving aside personal commitments and anything job-related that isn't truly extraordinary. (I've got one of those next week, which is hard to do when you don't actually have a job.) Eight games to go, every one of them freighted with potentially enormous significance. Are we in first place? Second? Is the margin small enough that the one could become the other again tonight? Did Coolstandings just add or subtract 30-odd percent to or from our postseason chances? What did the Brewers do? Are the Marlins close enough to worry about yet? What's our magic number, anyway? What's our other magic number? OK, what's their magic number?
Last night was the final regular-season Saturday-night game to come at the same time as our regular Saturday-night babysitter, so Emily and I didn't even discuss what the plan was — we didn't need to. We decided to walk over the bridge and go to Mark Joseph Steakhouse, where back in July we'd found good eats, bar seats right by the TV and a companionable bartender whose public loyalties were whatever his customers espoused (only sensible) but whose semi-private loyalties were orange and blue. Second verse, same as the first — we even got our same seats, and Jared remembered us and tended to our food-and-drink needs and our worries over Pedro, the bullpen and the lineup with equal aplomb.
The only problem? Well, as with last time, it was that pesky score. 3-0 when we arrived a bit late, prompting a round of Pedro-related angst. Greg's covered the gist of that, and at Mark Joseph we traced much the same trajectory, from melancholy declarations that it's Jon Niese's turn (and discussions of whether Brandon Knight would be a better choice) to stubborn urging to slow hope to jubilation over Pedro's Mister Koo-like double to grumbling over the blown call at second. The saving grace was that it was largely a private war — a White Sox fan would stop by for updates on his own postseason quest, but other than that the bar was Mets country. The ultimate proof of that? In the middle innings the inevitable Yankee fan made an unasked-for appearance, woofing his support for the Braves. That ruffled not a feather on any of the rest of us — if anything, it brought mild, amused disbelief. You're a Yankee fan rooting against the Mets in enemy-of-my-enemy fashion? Has your season really dwindled to notions of such little consequence? Oh, that's right — it has. The unwelcome noise went quiet and then went away entirely, as the Yankees themselves soon will.
The Mets are trying to avoid the same fate, and so what they did against the Braves mattered quite a bit, and ended poorly, with Nick Evans striking out as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. Before that, seeing our bartender friend and the dour score, Emily joked that we'd been a bit worried about coming, given what happened last time. Which prompted Jared to smile but also to raise an eyebrow — perhaps thinking that his record is pretty damn good, except when these two idiots from Brooklyn plop down at his bar.
“You should come when Santana's pitching,” he said.
Addendum: A friend of Faith and Fear is looking to sell tickets for Tuesday's and Thursday's games. Two for each game, field boxes (117F), $59 each. Can be fetched in Brooklyn or Times Square. If you're interested, drop us a line and we'll broker a meeting. First come first served and all that.
by Greg Prince on 21 September 2008 6:05 am The occasional Quadruple-A desperation callup notwithstanding, no Met starter is more difficult to watch than Pedro Martinez. That's less a reflection of his mediocre output in 2008 than it is how much emotion he elicits from me every time I see him.
His first innings have been killers. If Pelfrey or Ollie were having them, you'd figure it was just one of those nights and the guy would have to work out of it. If it were Johan, you'd adjust your set because not since the weirdo Seattle game with the Felix Hernandez grand slam has he had any significant early problems of which to speak. If it were Maine, you'd be thrilled he was back. But it's been Pedro stepping on the mound and stepping into trouble as almost a matter of course this season. And it breaks my heart every time out.
It breaks my heart because it no longer surprises me that Pedro's in deep almost immediately, if not sooner. Saturday night's three-run first in Atlanta was numbingly normal for he who was an ace among aces for most of his career, some of it here. Other pitchers have bad first innings and I worry about the game. Pedro has a bad first inning and I worry about the game, the rotation, the season, his career and the common mortality we are all leasing on this planet.
What makes his lousy first innings (21 runs in 19 starts with a .361 batting average against) and his generally dissatisfactory outings particularly painful is that I can see him knowing what's not working. He's too smart for his own good. All pitchers, I suppose, are more clued in than we would guess. They all have an idea of what they want to do but they just can't do it sometimes. Pedro can outthink any batter. He just can't outpitch that many anymore. It's tough to absorb. It doesn't necessarily all go to hell on him at once either. He struggles and he struggles and there's always one too many batters in an inning. By the time he solves in practice what he's figured out in theory, it's 3-0 in the first.
Then, sometimes, somehow he turns it on. Not vintage Pedro, but close enough for 2008. Pedro can keep you in the game. Not as a rule, but he did Saturday. When Jerry sent him up to bat for himself in the fifth, I was a little surprised and moderately annoyed. First and second, two out, no offensive prospects otherwise, and we're not taking our best shot? Then again, one more inning of a settled-in Pedro versus the mysteries of the Met bullpen after a roll of the dice on Marlon Anderson? Either way, I wasn't thrilled. Then Pedro swings and belts a double that scores two runs — even Schneider from first.
Pedro's two-bagger was one of those moments, albeit writ small, along the lines of the Endy catch when you can't believe the Mets won't somehow grab the unlikely momentum onto which they've latched and turn it into something great. Pedro goes out and fuels your hope even more by snagging an Omar Infante liner and turning it into a DP. Damn the Mets for continuing to not touch Campillo. Damn Bill Hohn for a horrible, lazy, out-of-position blown call on what should have been a caught stealing on Brandon Jones in the bottom of the sixth, thereby setting up a Brave insurance run. (Granted, Gary Darling helped the Mets earlier with an out at first they didn't quite deserve, but C.B. Bucknor called out a clearly safe Jorge Cantu in Miami at home; when did Major League umpires turn into the kind of useless bystanders who populate the Shea Stadium Ushers Union?)
There were collateral benefits to Pedro's losing start. By going six after that typically dismal first, he didn't tax the bullpen, admirably effective in its two innings of fort-holding. By throwing 116 pitches, he reminds you that he is, unlike too many on this club, healthy. By not crumbling after Josh Anderson's RBI single made it 4-2 and retiring the dangerous Martin Prado, he left on a modest high note. And by answering everybody thoughtfully and honestly afterwards, he was a professional. Use me any way you want, he said: I'll pitch middle relief, I just want to help this team win. Pedro clearly wasn't kidding himself, so he didn't try to kid anybody else that everything's fine.
It's not. But it's not all for naught, I don't think. Watching the first, on the heels of his last start in Washington and the one before that against Philly, I was bouncing him from Thursday's turn. It's not my decision to make, but now I'd put him out there again. The entire season could be on the line. Unless you've got the Pedro Martinez of nine or six or three years ago warming up under the stands, I don't see any better options.
by Greg Prince on 20 September 2008 1:01 pm You know when I had an inkling the Mets might be all right? When I saw a matter-of-fact reference in a wire-service story somewhere the other day to the “fading” New York Mets. It brought me back to the third week of the 1986 season when I saw the exact same descriptor used for a team that had started 2-3 and wasn't yet on a tear.
Fading? The Mets at their lowest point lately had lost three in a row, four out of five. They had sunk a half-game out of first place, plummeting all the way into the Wild Card lead. It wasn't a positive trend, but it didn't remove them from the picture.
All of us together panicking about precedent and doom? That's fine. We're fans. Objective accounts adjusting the exposure on the Mets' image so we can't see they were still perfectly viable with a dozen games remaining? That was the overreaction.
It's three full days later and the Mets are in first place again. The unbeatable Phillies did lose a game. The Mets have won three in a row. Milwaukee…they've got problems. Florida…they've got clock issues (though that shouldn't stop them from enjoying a big ol' last hurrah today and tomorrow before checking out next weekend). Most importantly, the Mets are clutching their fate in their own two hands, steadyish or not. It wasn't the prettiest of wins in Atlanta Friday night, but all we need to know is it was a win, nobody got hurt as far as we could tell, the bullpen was more help than hindrance and Daniel Murphy is alive, well and hitting.
Lots more baseball to go. A fade is just an out-of-date hairstyle.
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