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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 2008 10:40 am “I have to go home.”
“You are home.”
—William Miller and Penny Lane on tour with Stillwater in Almost Famous
You going to a game? You go to the game — then you go home. Not Sunday. Not the day-night doubleheader. The first rule of day-night doubleheader is it is not a doubleheader. A doubleheader is two for the price of one; Sunday was two for the price of two. Also, in a doubleheader, you stay in one place for one price. Not here. Here you took your sorry self down the ramps and vamoosed. Then you boomeranged.
It's like you were never there. And like you never left.
In a sense, this is an ideal arrangement. Somewhere deep into your adventure, it no longer feels bizarre to come and go and come again through Gate E. It feels normal. It feels like you've just stepped out to run an errand, grab a bite, get some air. Then you're in for the evening. You live at the ballpark!
It's not really home, but Shea Stadium is indeed the place where, when you have to go there twice in the same day, they have to take you in.
What an epochal episode in the late life of Shea, in the life of a Shea denizen who is spending almost as much time there this month as any three feral cats. It's not so much that it was two games in one day. That's precedented. It's not even that it was eighteen innings. During the last weekend of July, I followed up a 14-inning midnight marathon with nine innings the next afternoon, 23 innings spread over 21 hours. But then there was separation, a changing of the calendar, a bit of shuteye even.
Sunday, no sleep 'til nightcap. Between the last out of the afternoon game and the first pitch of the night game, I didn't have to go home but I couldn't stay there. That's the second rule of day-night doubleheader: You buy one ticket for one game, you remove yourself after that game. You have another ticket? It makes little logic to you that you have to make like a banana and — as you were aching for the Mets to do — split. But that's the rule.
The afternoon game was the afternoon game and the night game was the night game and never did the twain meet. They were different tickets. They were different seats. They were different uniforms. They were different promotions (afternoon: Clicky the Corporate Icon warned your children away from bloggers and other unsavory characters; night: a well-meaning Greek-American with a mandolin wrecked “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”). They were, with the exception of the differently prioritied types like myself, different crowds. It's just that it was the same day.
Was it really that weird?
Yes! Yes, it was! Weird but, having averted disaster, wonderful. You have no idea unless you've done it how strange it is to walk out on Shea knowing you're gonna go back, Jack, and do it again 120 minutes hence. It is downright bizarre to know you will reprise a portion of your inbound journey. It is puzzling to think someone's empowered to rummage through your belongings again. It is challenging to rev up your baseball energies a second time when your instinct is to put them away for the evening, especially after such a discouraging afternoon.
The weirdest part, however, wasn't in the coming back the second time. It was in the leaving the first time. The simple process of exiting Shea Stadium only to return to it two hours later was probably worth the price of admission(s). With a whole new guest list expected at 8:00, our hosts threw themselves into tasks they presumably perform when no one's around. Winding toward the right field ramp in the Upper Deck, I saw cleaning crews diligently readying row after row of section after section for the series finale. My first thought was Shea Stadium has cleaning crews? It never occurs to you anybody bothers to meaningfully spruce Shea Stadium, permanently disheveled as it is. But if you think about it, usually there is no detritus at your feet when you ascend to your seat. It just sort of mounts up when you're not paying attention…like Marlon Anderson's pinch-hitting appearances.
Job well done for everybody who punched in after five. Those were some sweet sounds comin' down on the night shift, primarily echoing off the bat of Carlos Delgado, but also among those taking in their second game of the day or — pikers — first. Befitting an overall pattern I've followed for the local 2008 season, I've gone from detesting to tolerating to embracing the Mets' participation in Sunday Night Baseball. It's still a dumb idea (especially when it's rescheduled), it's still superfluous programming (especially when it provides an outlet for Messrs. Morgan and Miller) and it's still a whopper of an inconvenience to most normal people (if not especially me), but if ever a matinee left the Mets and their minions in dire need of an immediate rewrite, Sunday's was it.
I hail my fellow Mets fans even more than I salute the cleaning crew. The enthusiasm was unsurpassed, the surliness was limited, the spirits were, like my spot in Row Q, high. A surfeit of “LET'S GO METS!” (as if there could be too much). Love for Delgado. Love for Santana. Crazy love for a canned feature on Latino great Edgardo Alfonzo. Mad adoration for Endy Chavez's embarrassment-evading catch in the ninth. Plus the northern climes of Section 3 knew how to take care of the Phillie interlopers in our midst…not with booze, not with brawls, but with the best chant I've heard all this decade:
NO ONE
LIKES YOU!
clap clap
clap-clap-clap
NO ONE
LIKES YOU!
clap clap
clap-clap-clap
I also hail the eight-year-old behind me who was a nonstop fount of baseball questions for his pop:
Dad, why are those seats down the line by the orange seats different from all the other seats?
Dad, why does Johan Santana have four doubles?
Dad, can Carlos Delgado hit a home run into the Upper Deck?
Dad, can I say “Phillies suck”?
The answers were they're sponsored by some company; because he can hit; maybe; and “yes, because we're at Shea Stadium, but not at home and not at school.”
“Phillies suck”… this pennant race is so hot that for the only intraleague instance I can recall, Shea Stadium's mass-identification of suckage was assigned to a unit that was actually inside Shea Stadium. Isn't it ironic, don't ya think, that at last the fourth-place Yankees really do fit the general parameters of chant-eligibility, yet pointing it out is no longer top priority?
But we haven't gone soft, at least not one of us. Wrapping up the interregnum in Woodside, Laurie (my day shift partner only, but she was heading back for more baseball, too) and I were asked for the fourth time in an hour how the Mets did today. Lost, I said, but there's another game tonight. Our interlocutor commiserated as if we were all in this together. “The Yankees just lost in the ninth,” he grumbled. Before I could work up a passably polite sympathy-feign, Laurie was almost doubled over in laughter at the guy's team's misfortune.
“Hey!” he snapped. “I saw that!”
All I saw Sunday was the Mets — the Mets and Phillies and the path leading to them, from them and to them again. A long, long day. A long, long night. Perhaps it all got to me toward the end, in the eighteenth inning, in the eleventh hour, counting back to when I left for the very first train of my adventure. The first-place Mets were about to be neither swept nor tied. This September was about to be not last September. That, obviously, was awesome. But I was an out or two from having to get off the tour. Even when I was gone between 5ish and 7ish, even when I was in Woodside chowing down on fish cakes and a mountain of spaghetti, I was sure there was literally no place but Shea. I had no idea what was going on anywhere else. If I hadn't seen a crawl on a monitor, I wouldn't have known the Jets had won. If I hadn't overheard a men's room line conversation, I wouldn't have known Tom Brady was done.
The Mets, since Friday a mid-level band struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom, were about to beat the Phillies and extend their lead to two games. I was with a friend of mine on his last Shea visit, somebody I've known nearly two decades, somebody with whom I've spent far more face time inside Shea than out. As has occurred to me several times this season in similar circumstances, this was a confluence of events I never imagined. Emotions from an impending 6-3 win in September used to be simple. Sunday night, after Sunday afternoon, after 2007, after 36 seasons, they were more complex than a high-five and a yeah! could suitably express.
I'm surprised my Dippin' Dots, the alleged ice cream of the future, didn't warn me in advance.
by Jason Fry on 9 September 2008 12:00 am Well, as Greg already told you, now it's official: Billy Wagner is facing Tommy John surgery.
This sad news doesn't change much about how I feel about this unlikely September and potential October: I never thought we'd get this far, and finding ourselves in a pennant race is happy surprise enough that anything else will be gravy. And kudos to Jerry Manuel for managing a dicey bullpen in ways Willie Randolph never could have. Willie would have immediately installed a new closer, stuck guys in roles where they might or might not have fit, and stuck to that plan through thin and thin, grimly insisting he had faith in his guys and things would turn around. Jerry has been open with the media, the fans and (by every indication) the players themselves: He's making things up as he goes, at this point in the season winning ballgames is everything, and anybody who wears his uniform will have to be ready to do whatever's asked. We've been without Billy Wagner for more than a month, with Luis Ayala the closer by default rather than declaration and the entire supporting cast on hand as understudies. For the most part, it's worked. Can it work for another seven-odd weeks? Heck if I know. We'll find out soon enough.
But before we plunge back into the terrors and joys of a pennant race, a moment for Billy Wagner. He's never gotten his due in New York, which is partly the nature of the town and partly life as a closer. It's by no means uncommon for pitchers to spin out of control for 10 to 15 hideous innings before regaining their equilibrium, but such a stretch is very different for starters and relievers. If you're in the rotation, that's two or three bad outings; if you're a closer, it can be five or six wins converted into losses, attended by the same number of vitriolic back pages and hours of talk-radio screaming.
The cliche of closers is that to survive they develop very short memories. But I always had the feeling Wagner didn't do it that way — that he actually had a long memory, one that preserved every failure and slight, and that he survived by being tougher than most any of us could imagine having to be.
Wagner's story sounds like fiction, but it isn't: He was born to teenage parents in dirt-poor Appalachian Virginia, and passed among relatives throughout his childhood, attending 11 schools in 10 years as caretakers came and went, struggling with hunger and the shame of food stamps. (He co-founded the Second Chance Learning Center, which offers academic and emotional counseling for at-risk kids in southwestern Virginia, and you better believe his work there means far more to him than some athletes' tax shelters do to them.) In school Wagner poured his rage and hurt into sports, firing balls at targets and firing himself at enemy football players. He became a lefty after he broke his right arm — for the second time — and grew into a schoolboy legend, at one point fanning 19 batters out of 21 faced. But nobody in pro ball cared: Sure, he was a lefty who already threw 85, but he was 5-3, weighed 130 pounds and lived in an American backwater where you were derided on the rare occasions you were noticed at all. No scout even came to see him until he went to college and shattered NCAA strikeout records — and had filled out enough to escape baseball prejudices.
Wagner finally found a father figure in college — the father of the woman he'd marry. The day after the Astros put him on the 40-man roster, his father-in-law and his wife's stepmother were shot to death in front of the stepmother's six-year-old boy. That winter, with the trial looming, the Astros tried to strong-arm him into going to winter ball in Venezuela, hinting that his roster spot could be in danger. Wagner replied that he needed to be with his family, and there were 20-odd teams who'd be interested in him if the Astros weren't. Compared to that, what's Pat Burrell thinking you're a rat or Met teammates angry that you called them out for being away from their lockers?
As we all know, Wagner became the Astros' closer, entering games to “Enter Sandman” long before the closer of a certain fourth-place team farther east became identified with the song. That was a long way from southwestern Virginia, but it wasn't exactly easy. In '98 Kelly Stinnett rocketed a line drive off Wagner's skull that left him lying on the mound, legs twitching and blood coming out of one ear. He was back in less than three weeks. In the summer of 2000 he had surgery for a partially torn elbow tendon and was soft-tossing in September.
Wagner's 37 now, and at that age the kind of surgery he's about to have is inevitably and correctly called “career-threatening.” It's possible he'll never pitch again. But I wouldn't dare bet against him. If Wagner doesn't return, it'll be because his body couldn't take it, and not because of any lack of courage or determination. If you doubt that, just go up and read those last few paragraphs again.
by Greg Prince on 8 September 2008 6:58 pm Billy Wagner used to be the closer for the New York Mets. He's going in for surgery on his left flexor pronator and MCL. I don't know what a flexor pronator is exactly, but MCL stands for Mets Closer Lost for this season and next. Wagner's contract is up at the end of '09, by which time the last meaningful pitch to have come out of his left hand will have been whacked for a two-RBI single by Geoff Blum (the play on which Mark Loretta and Hunter Pence formed a human pyramid atop Ramon Castro). That was in the ninth inning, August 2.
The Mets are 22-11 since.
The Luis Ayala Era, however interim in nature, is surely in effect. The Billy Wagner Era, pending medical marvels, appears over. He'll work hard to get back and pitch somewhere, and I'll root like hell for him personally because, as prickly as he can come off, I admire how much he cares, how well he means and how much he did to close games that for too long had gone uncloseable in these parts. But this is a real page-turner where the Mets are concerned. No way in hell does his $10 million option for 2010 get picked up. No way in hell can the Mets now not think about Francisco Rodriguez if the Angels don't lock him down. No way in hell can the Mets jump on K-Rod without qualification because we've seen, first with Pedro and now with Billy, how short-term benefits and long-term risks unfold where free agent pitchers carrying significant mileage are concerned. But that's for later. For now, it's Ayala and staff and a two-game lead with nineteen to play.
Sleep with one eye open. Good luck Mr. Sandman.
(I was at both games of yesterday's doubleheader. Will be back to tell you about the last longest day in the history of Shea Stadium when I'm fully recovered from it.)
by Jason Fry on 8 September 2008 4:03 am That sudden blast of hot wind you may have felt in the New York City area about an hour ago wasn't Tropical Storm Hanna coming back around in the batting order — it was millions of Met fans exhaling.
The math of pennant races is cruel: The Phillies got two stellar pitching performances, put the Mets back on their heels, couldn't complete the sweep and so leave having gained just a game in the standings. Let the record show that in this case, I'm all for cruelty.
The cruelty would have been on us, of course, if Johan Santana and Carlos Delgado hadn't been kind. Those two contributed 116 pretty good pitches and about 870 feet of home runs to the cause, erasing two and a half days of grinding frustration. Now we can forget about Friday night, with Brett Myers throttling us and ball after ball bouncing the Phils' way and Brad Lidge dancing through a hard rain of solid Met at-bats and somehow not getting wet. We can forget about the anxious thumb-twiddling of a soaked Saturday, with pennant races reserved for drier climes. And we can forget about Sunday's first game, where the weather was gorgeous and everything else was hideous.
If you're feeling magnanimous, you can admit a game like yesterday's matinee was lurking in the cards somewhere. Smacking Jamie Moyer around a couple of weeks ago was the exception to the usual rule (and didn't get us anything), so it made sense that for a long time the only thing standing between us and the potential humiliation of being no-hit was a bunt single from a rhinoceros-sized catcher. (Comparison animal not chosen idly: As with rhinos, Robinson Cancel is faster than you think. By the way, has anyone ever won 243 games more quietly than Moyer?) Meanwhile, the Mets had been remarkably lucky this spring and summer in escaping the logical outcome of bracketing Carlos Beltran with guys who have no particular business playing the outfield. Sunday they weren't so lucky: Fernando Tatis misplayed a fly ball into a double, Jose Reyes neglected the extra duties that the presence of Nick Evans (or Daniel Murphy) put on his plate for a tack-on run, and even Beltran misjudged a ball that should have been caught.
That was difficult to watch, but not wholly unexpected — if one can possibly find perspective when we're playing the Phillies in September. Harder to shrug off was the fact that Pedro Martinez apparently had no problems getting loose, had decent velocity, and it didn't matter. While some of the day's runs should be taken off his ledger due to outfield shenanigans, Pedro looked old and ordinary, and his aura alone is no longer enough to mesmerize an opponent. (Oh by the way, I hate Greg Dobbs even more than he hates us. His swing is apparently perfectly tailored for hitting balls a foot over Shea Stadium fences.)
And so the waiting for the nightcap, with football and anxiety equally unwelcome visitors in the Fry household — and the added burden of hearing that Billy Wagner had walked off the mound after just a dozen or so pitches, the last of which hit poor Gustavo Molina in the ankle and did something worse to Billy's balky forearm. (Oh, and did you hear Tom Brady hurt his knee? Seriously, I think ESPN hollered town criers to spread the word. I'm always bemused that the first true day of football season invariably includes several marquee players sustaining injuries that end their season. Can you imagine if our Opening Day was like this?)
And then the nightcap didn't get off to a great start either, not with Johan's location way off and the Phillies smelling blood in the water. Ugliness seemed imminent. I thought of the possibility of Greg spending 10 hours in Queens in which he'd discover little more than that first place was gone and witnessing six hours of humiliating baseball isn't good for your health.
But the fucking worm was turning, if you'll forgive paraphrasing Joe Torre. Cole Hamels didn't look so good either, and unlike Johan he wouldn't gather himself. And suddenly it was the Mets getting breaks and the Phillies getting unlucky. (Catcher's interference and being out at third but called safe — quite a bottom of the first for David Wright.) Beltran got us even and Delgado began his assault on Hamels, punching a single up the middle. By the time Delgado came up in the third, Santana could direct his change-up properly and I was willing to watch the game from the couch instead of peeking out from under it. (Hey, I said I wasn't scared — I never said I wasn't one anxious sonofabitch.) Delgado helped push that anxiety further away with a moonshot, prompting me to wonder out loud what he had written in his famous composition book afterwards. I imagine it was something like this:
9/7/08 HAMELS, PHI. BOT 3. 0-2 CURVEBALL, CENTER OF PLATE. I HIT IT TO FUCKING MARS.
Which was soon followed by this:
9/7/08 HAMELS, PHI. BOT 5. 0-0 CHANGEUP, HIGH. I HIT IT TO FUCKING JUPITER.
From then on I kept begging for the Mets to score, oh, about five more runs to make me feel vaguely safe. Pedro Feliciano and Brian Stokes did stalwart work after Santana departed, but tell me you weren't freaking out after Luis Ayala singled not one but two ludicrous little worm-killing singles to Shane Victorino and Matt Stairs. Ayala, who'd already disposed of the evil Dobbs, got Andy Tracy (who somehow never played left field for us in the pre-Evans/Murphy farce) to fly out, trading a run for a much-needed out. Up stepped Jimmy Rollins, the count went to 1-2, and I told Emily that whatever was gonna happen, you knew Rollins' at-bat was going to take at least seven pitches, each of them possibly meaning a week off my life.
Ayala promptly fanned Jimmy to end it. Sometimes it's great to be wrong.
by Greg Prince on 7 September 2008 11:36 am How very strange to endure a Saturday in the middle of a pennant race with no pennant race, at least not the only pennant race that matters. It turns out, however, the baseball season continued elsewhere. Who knew there even was an elsewhere?
Elsewhere…
The Diamondbacks have ceded first place to the Dodgers.
The Rockies are not performing an encore.
The Cubs' monster lead has been downgraded to healthy.
The Brewers have recovered.
The Marlins and Cardinals have ceased to contend.
The Nationals have surged past the Padres.
The old gray Braves, they ain't what they used to be, ain't what they used to be, ain't what they used to be.
The Rays are reeling, but from a position of strength.
The Red Sox roll as the Red Sox do.
The White Sox have persevered while the Twins have been forced to travel.
The Angels are about to clinch.
The Blue Jays are tied for third place in the loss column with whoever.
In an even less relevant development, your USF Bulls are off to a 2-0 start after a not-so-thrilling overtime win against would-be archrival Central Florida. I also hear the Jets have a new quarterback.
Now, after an unsolicited respite, back to our main event.
The winds have stopped howling. The rains have stopped sheeting. Mike Schmidt has stopped e-mailing. The darkest of September Saturdays is over. The brightest of September Sundays is potentially here.
Let's play two!
Let's win the first one!
Let's kill time for an indeterminate period afterwards in order to satisfy television commitments!
Let's then play our best in the other one with the result hopefully speaking for itself!
Sorry for the qualified rallying cry, but I'm congenitally incapable of looking ahead more than nine innings. I will enthusiastically take my chances with Johan Santana in the nightcap, but in the parlance of the Shea Stadium split doubleheader, one game at a time…and in the parlance of the Shea Stadium usher working a split doubleheader, youse gotta go wait elsewhere even if youse got tickets for both games; what, no tip?
Gonna go spend day and night in and around Flushing. When the Mets are keeping the Phillies at arm's length, there is no elsewhere I'd rather be.
by Jason Fry on 6 September 2008 2:00 pm A loss to the Phillies in September. The knowledge that they're hot on our heels and just got a little closer. Bah. I'm not scared.
These are not the 2007 Mets, Willie Randolph's Mets, the Mets who admitted that sometimes they got bored out there. Nobody gets bored on Jerry Manuel's watch. To be sure, this difference is no guarantee of a postseason spot, or anything at all … well, actually that's not quite true. It's as close as you're going to get to a guarantee that these Mets will go down biting and clawing, if defeat is to be their destiny. (And it might not be. You never know.)
Friday night's showdown was a tense, sweaty mess — in October's cooler weather it might have been described as taut and gripping, but a blanket of sticky summer heat made it more leaden and aggravating, with the weather compounding the frustration for the Mets and all of us as inning after inning slipped by with Brett Myers still out there untouched.
Yet this game was deathly close. Yes, Myers was absolutely terrific, but Mike Pelfrey was awfully good too. Take out uncharacteristically sterling defense by Ryan Howard, a shoddy play by Jose Reyes on Shane Victorino's first-inning stolen base, and raise Ryan Church's glove half an inch and this one could have been 0-0 after nine. And even that 3-0 lead was built on sand: Brad Lidge spent the entire ninth on the edge of disaster, recording his outs on rockets by Daniel Murphy (with an at-bat that was superb even by his precocious standards) and Ryan Church, sandwiched around a Beltran blooper that almost eluded Eric Bruntlett.
It wasn't to be, of course: Myers was better and the Phillies got all the breaks, which is perfectly fair even if it wasn't much fun. But it wasn't the kind of loss to leave us shaking in our shoes. They drew first blood, which isn't ideal. But we'll get our chance, when the weather allows, and you get the feeling things will be different. And both the standings and our Met-fan souls should be a reminder that we'd rather be us than them.
by Greg Prince on 6 September 2008 5:27 am There was this bizarre humming sound that popped up a couple of times from behind Loge on the first base side Friday night. Maybe it was audio feedback. Maybe it was the Martians homing in on Grovers Mill again. Or it could have been a monitor indicating a case of flatlining.
The Mets, the crowd, all of Shea Stadium went brain dead in their opener against the Phillies. No real sign of life from the bats, no sustained pulse from the fans, no evidence that the plug hadn't been pulled on the flight from Milwaukee.
Strange they and we would come into the final showdown series of the season this way. Mike Pelfrey pitched wonderfully, but Brett Myers pitched better. Ryan Church leapt and almost made a great catch; the result was a two-run homer for Greg Dobbs. Ryan Howard leapt and did make a great catch; the result was an out on Jose Reyes. Eight innings of ineffectual offensive behavior gave way to a ten-minute tease that amounted to a big fat zero.
The whole night just didn't work. The trip in on the train was slow and my car was overtaken by the vocally robust cream of Massapequa youth who apparently looked just old enough to be sold suitcases of Coors Light and Busch (in my perfect world, everybody soberly and quietly reads scouting reports and the Baseball Prospectus on the LIRR). We straggled out of Jamaica and crawled to Woodside. The Port Washington connection whooshed by a minute or so before we pulled in. I headed for the 7 Express only to learn signal failure would consign us to the local track. Once at Shea, my electronic ticket did not compute with the scanner because somebody I otherwise hold in high esteem did not follow fairly explicit “you take Seat 7” instructions (but I kind of figured he might not, so I brought a copy of what was supposed to be his ticket as well and got through the gate).
Finally, I arrive in the bottom of the first, Mets down 1-0, and some jerkoff chatting on the phone at the head of the row doesn't want to get up to let me through. I sit down and I'm treated to listless baseball in front of me, some genius loudly and repeatedly calling out JOBU! to Carlos Delgado one row in back of me and that weird humming from who knows where meaning who knows what.
On the plus side, Ricardo Rincon looked pretty good and there was almost a fight between one Phillies fan and a men's room full of Mets fans.
Almost.
I'd like to think the Xcel Center in St. Paul is the only place that had an elephant in the room this week, but this was the first September date at Shea since the last spate of September dates at Shea. Sure, certain events and certain series from the recent past tend to cross your mind, and yeah, some Schmidthead in a Phillies jersey waved a small banner from Modell's that said 2007 at the start of the bottom of the ninth and the gods did not punish him for his obnoxious presumptuousness (presumably the oversized hanky was a Pennsylvania promotion, but boycott Modell's anyway), so you begin to worry if not exactly panic.
But it's a different year now. This was just a lousy game. As Tony Soprano said to Patsy Parisi — after the death of his brother Philly — “you're with us now, so why don'tcha, uh, leave the morbid shit back at Junior's crew and have a happy birthday?”
We're with the 2008 Mets this September. We're alive and well.
by Greg Prince on 5 September 2008 8:04 am Welcome to Flashback Friday: Tales From The Log, a final-season tribute to Shea Stadium as viewed primarily through the prism of what I have seen there for myself, namely 387 regular-season and 13 postseason games to date. The Log records the numbers. The Tales tell the stories.
9/5/98 Sa Atlanta 5-7 Jones 14 70-69 W 5-4
Before there was Melvin Mora scoring on a wild pitch, before there was Todd Pratt outlasting Steve Finley, before there was Benny Agbayani letting the dogs out, before there was Bobby Jones flirting with two helpings of history, before there was a pennant clinched on my watch, there was hope and there were dreams. Hope that I would be at Shea for a great and important game. Dreams that it would resonate across a lifetime of rooting and caring.
In 1999 and 2000, I cashed in that hope and those dreams and witnessed some of the greatest baseball drama that could be scripted if only someone had dared. I experienced highs that time will never diminish. I can still feel the air, smell the breeze, taste the intensity from those moments. When I think of Shea Stadium in the inevitable past tense, I will remember those years and those Octobers and those who gave me a boxed set of genuine thrills with unsurpassed depth and fondness.
While I was waiting for all that, I got by with Tony Phillips. Tony Phillips was a here today, gone tomorrow Met outfielder of mostly last resort. I barely remember Tony Phillips, to be honest. But he did give me the kind of moment — if not exactly the moment — I’d been waiting forever for.
For these purposes, I define forever as 139 games across 26 seasons. Until September 5, 1998, I’d experienced nothing like it. In the years that followed, much, much bigger and indisputably better moments would unfold and the work of Tony Phillips on one sunny Saturday would be overshadowed. But you can’t know what’s coming later. You can only appreciate what you’ve got once you get it for the first time.
This was the first time I received the opportunity to partake of the ideal Met scenario.
• The Mets play some blood foe of theirs in a showdown in September with a lot on the line.
• The Mets win, of course.
• Barring it being the first no-hitter in Mets history, it should be a tight game and hinge on some great, dramatic swing by a Met in the late innings. A home run would be nice.
• It takes place at Shea, the weather is wonderful, the crowd is big and, of course, I’m there, preferably in good seats with somebody I’m close to.
• And the Mets win, of course. Did I mention that?
It took me 139 games across 26 seasons to execute this scenario. But it did happen. I got a game that meant something and I got to be there to witness it. Winning may be everything, but the window dressing fell into place as well. That’s what it made it fit the parameters of ideal.
The blue-skied, Saturday afternoon opponent was Atlanta, rapidly becoming our archrival. Unfortunately, they were surrogates in this battle. The Braves were en route to their umpteenth consecutive division title, the last eleventy-twelve of which were won in the National League East, where they clearly had no business. This left us fighting for a Wild Card against other ambitious second-place teams, mostly at this point, the Cubs. We had no more games against the Cubs, so every game against everybody counted. Games against the Braves tended to count even more.
This was a Stephanie game, her third of 1998. She always did better at the beginning of them than at the end. She’d kind of hit a wall once the novelty would wear off and the baseball would set in. But I always considered bringing the two loves of my life together an accomplishment. Before I figured out she does better in the shade than in the sun, we basked in what I called the brother-in-law seats, first row of mezzanine boxes aligned with third base. My brother-in-law’s brother bought them on the heels of the unexpected excitement of 1997. He and their parents were the ones who wanted them and used most of them, but they insisted on sticking my non-fan brother-in-law’s company on the box’s identifying nameplate.
Shea’s print shop, it shouldn’t surprise you, spelled the company name wrong.
Occasionally two of the four seats fell into my hands. This was one of those occasions. The other half of the box went to one of my sister’s husband’s business associates, Michael, considered a “crazy” Mets fan like me (as if that’s a bad thing), and his friend. Michael and I had shared the box enough to have developed a nodding acquaintance through 1998. Nice enough guy, though not so nice when a freebie was up for grabs. A Pepsi Party Patrol cannon, then a new feature, shot a t-shirt to the approximate location of my neck. Everybody around me lunged. Michael brought his left elbow down hard on my right shoulder. He’s competing. I’m groaning.
Shirt happens.
I could live with the bruise. I wasn’t too sure we could survive Bobby Jones, who had been in a shame spiral since the ’97 All-Star Game. Hadn’t been the same since somebody noticed he was good. But Bobby matched Kevin Millwood zero for zero for four innings. This was a duel. This was September baseball. This was also the September of Mark McGwire. In the middle of the first inning, our attention was directed to DiamondVision. Big Mac had a moment earlier swatted No. 60. Forty-three thousand cheered. Nice moment in context.
Not nice: The Braves took a lead in the fifth, 1-0. The Mets got two in the bottom of the frame on a John Olerud home run. Then Bobby Jones did whatever it is Bobby Jones didn’t used to do and the Braves took a 4-2 lead in the top of the sixth. He was aided and abetted by Tony Phillips, our stopgap left fielder who couldn’t handle a fly ball that allowed two runs to score. Damn. In the bottom of the sixth, Phillips left the bases loaded by flying out. Damn more!
In a tight spot, the Mets brought in Turk Wendell who was pitching lights out for a month. This was a big moment. Stephanie acknowledged it by deciding this would be a good time for us to go get ice cream. I love ice cream, but not with runners on base. But she was oblivious to Turk and his rosin bag act. She sat there all day and now she wanted and, arguably, deserved dessert. I dragged her there, I couldn’t say very well say No Turking Way to my wife. I grabbed my headphones and followed the action to a short concession line. We got ice cream. Turk got out of it.
After we stretched and I took the elbow to the shoulder (Michael didn’t actually get the shirt, so my pain was really in vain), Brian McRae drove home a run in the bottom of the seventh to make it 4-3. Still, the Braves were a tough mountain to climb. We didn’t touch their rookie reliever John Rocker and we faced Rudy Seanez in the bottom of the eighth.
But there was hope. Matt Franco walked. Ralph Milliard pinch-ran. And up came…Tony Phillips. We were in a playoff race, a Wild Card race, a pennant race if you could call it that. And we had Tony Phillips, he of the misplayed fly and the LOB coming up.
Tony Phillips hit a two-run homer. Tony Phillips! Tony Phillips fulfilled my mini-fantasy. We were up 5-4 in the eighth. We were behind the Braves and now we were ahead of the Braves. Ice cream polished off, Stephanie and I high-fived. Michael the shirt guy joined in as did his friend. Everybody was ecstatic.
John Franco came in and didn’t blow it. The Mets hung on, 5-4. They kept pace with the Cubs in the Wild Card stakes. The Shea P.A. blared “Wild Boys” by Duran Duran. Who knew the Wild Card had a theme? In the parking lot, we noticed North Shore Animal League had set up its adoption van. Who knew you could get a kitten here? Better to settle for ice cream and Tony Phillips.
Big game. Mets win. I’m there. Was that so much to ask for?
by Greg Prince on 4 September 2008 7:00 pm If my ducks are in the row I believe them to be, then I can say something I've never been able to say before. From here on out, the Mets' record at Shea Stadium and my record at Shea Stadium will require no delineation. They will be one and the same for as long as scheduled regular-season games will be played there.
Fifteen games remain. I am going to all fifteen — eight this homestand, seven the next. Like the Mets in this pennant race, I'm all in.
Forward my calls, would ya?
Hung up on The Log as I am, I set out toward what I considered a longshot goal entering 2007: Get to 400 games at Shea lifetime. From 1973 though 2006, my attendance was 336. As mentioned last week, I hit 400: 387 regular-season, 13 postseason. Sure as shootin', those numbers are true and the accomplishment, if I can call it that, is legitimate. But the construct bothered me just a little bit. I wouldn't trade my 13 postseason games at Shea for anything (though I wouldn't mind a few more in a few weeks), but “my record” has always been expressed in regular-season terms. That's how baseball individually and collectively works, with the singular exception of the 1998 Yankees who were lauded for going 125-50 in the only 175-game season ever recorded. It would be more in the spirit of “my record” to hit 400 before taking into account the mostly glorious afternoons and evenings attached to the 1999, 2000 and 2006 NLDS and NLCS rounds.
Once the inclusive 400 became a reality, the regular-season version didn't seem altogether out of reach. Having cobbled together a collection of tickets for 11 of the final 15 games already, I dared myself to ratchet it up. Somebody had an extra for the Nats. That would give me 41 for the year, more than half of the home schedule. Somebody else could make available the Friday Phillies game. That would make it 42 in 2008, 400 forever. That would accomplish the mission.
But what if there were a freaky postponement and no makeup? Not likely given the crowds expected and the competitive contours of the campaign, but who knows? Besides, 13 of 15 is so close to 15 of 15. There were two Saturday games unclaimed. So I went to StubHub and claimed them.
There are exactly 13 lines left on the last regular-season page of The Log. I guess I'll have to write small to fit everything in. When I do, the regular-season Shea Stadium total will be 402 and holding. A number like 410, the deepest part of the park, would have really been a blast, but this is plenty. This is more than plenty. In any season that wasn't Shea's last, this would be borderline excessive.
This is 44 regular-season games in one stadium in one year. This smashes the 2001 standard of 38 that was built on a Tuesday/Friday package and grim resolve. I never thought I'd approach 38 again, but I fanned up the last week of last season and got to 35. After the way that went down (way down), I'd be excused by the arbiters of sanity if I Shea'd goodbye right then and there. Instead, I used my head as a battering ram and charged full speed through Gate E 29 more times in the first five months of 2008.
Now it is my intention to up that hefty total by more than half in one month, as if 29 isn't enough.
The only series I didn't show up for this season was the Arizona set when this franchise and its supporters were sharing in a nervous breakdown (I showed up for Texas but the lightning kept the Rangers from The Log). Just about every milestone I marked a must for the Final Season — final Opening Day, final Subway Series, once more against each division rival past and present, once more with many of those who accompanied me here way and not so way back when, once more (or for once) sitting everywhere where one can sit — I reached. The tickets for the final game were long ago secured. Everything else is gravy.
But gravy is good. And so are the Mets. I don't know if I could commit to this improvised pennant pack if there were no pennant chase, if this were 2003 redux. I imagine I could bring myself to Shea goodbye in far more abbreviated fashion if the Mets had already checked out for the year.
They haven't: no way, no how, no surrender. They have earned the right to be cheered up close and personal by as many voices and as many times as humanly possible.
They are making these Final Fifteen, along with the seven that lie ahead on the road, count like crazy. Twenty-two games from now we will know what it amounts to. We will know if we've fallen for the biggest tease since the close of business on September 12, 2007 or we will know that one year is nothing — nothing — like the last. We will know if we let our hearts go too fast or if we should be ashamed of ourselves for ever doubting our one true love. We will know whether we are first or second; whether Shea lives on for at least a couple more glorious afternoons and evenings; whether finality has come to Flushing for certain.
I will know Shea Stadium about as well as I can know it, as if I don't it by now. I will know it under the lights, I will know it in the rain, I will know it in the shadows, I will know it — if the weather and baseball gods have any sense of decency — in the sun. I will know the four primary levels of Shea Stadium before they are obliterated and their renamed, truncated and unpopularly priced successors are entrenched. I will know those cramped concourses and those winding ramps and that serene exit system. I will know where the concessions are and where the restrooms are and where everything I need to enjoy or endure a Mets game is until I have to learn it all over again somewhere else.
I will know, should my plans proceed as best-laid, the only magic numbers there is any chance in hell you will catch me tracking here: 15, 44, 402, 415. I will know The Log has been completed, save for a little white space on one page reserved for additional postseason action should it come to that, though I presume to know nothing about that.
Just as I presume to know nothing in advance about how this final September at Shea Stadium will feel once I am immersed in it.
In the spirit of the bipartisanship that is so often talked about every four years, I cross party lines to share some thoughts on my New York Baseball Giants fetish at the excellent Bronx Banter. Master Banterer Alex Belth is hosting a veritable Giantspalooza over there today, and has a sweet article on the New York Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society up on the SNY site as well.
by Greg Prince on 4 September 2008 1:00 am Top of the first. After Reyes pops out, Murphy's on first, Wright's up. Howie says Wright has lashed one down the right field line.
ALL RIGHT! GO MURPH! SCORE!
Murph winds up on third, Wright's on first.
WHY DIDN'T MURPHY SCORE? WHY IS WRIGHT ONLY ON FIRST? HOWIE MADE IT SOUND LIKE A DOUBLE!
Delgado up.
TOTAL DOUBLE PLAY COMING UP. I CAN'T BELIEVE WE HAD FIRST AND THIRD, ONE OUT AND WE WON'T SCORE.
Delgado singles, scoring Murphy, Wright going to third. Beltran up.
BELTRAN'S BEEN ON FIRE…WHICH MEANS I'M EXPECTING TOO MUCH FROM HIM HERE. HE'LL STRIKE OUT. AND I'LL BET DELGADO LOAFED TO FIRST.
Beltran walks to load the bases for Church.
CAN WE STOP WITH THE CHURCH REHAB PROGRAM? HE'S SUCKED SINCE HE CAME BACK. WHERE'S TATIS? GEEZ JERRY!
Church launches a grand slam.
YEAH! YEAH! ALL RIGHT RYAN! YEAH! NOW OF COURSE HE'S GOING TO GO BACK TO SLUMPING BECAUSE A HOME RUN DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING FOR THE LONG TERM, IT'S JUST A LUCKY SWING.
Castillo grounds out. Schneider up.
GOD IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO HAVE KEPT A RALLY GOING. THAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH HOME RUNS. THEY STOP EVERYTHING DEAD. OLLIE'S NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO PITCH WITH A LEAD. SCHNEIDER SUCKS. WE ARE SO SCREWED.
Schneider homers.
ALL RIGHT! GUESS IT WOULD BE TOO MUCH TO ASK PEREZ NOT TO MAKE AN OUT, BUT THAT WOULD ONLY BRING UP REYES AND HE NEVER DOES ANYTHING WITH TWO OUT AND RUNNERS ON.
Perez flies out.
SIX-NOTHING…NOT BAD. WHAT A SHAME WE'RE NOT GOING TO SCORE ANY MORE AND AFTER SUCH AN UPLIFTING WIN LAST NIGHT WE'RE GOING TO HEAD INTO THE PHILLY SERIES WITH SUCH AN AWFUL LOSS. THE BULLPEN IS SO DUE TO IMPLODE.
Not quite three hours later, the Mets complete a smooth 9-2 victory over the Brewers.
SWEEP! FANTASTIC! WOO-HOO! BUT I HOPE OUR TACKING ON LATE RUNS DOESN'T FIRE UP THE BREWERS FOR OCTOBER IF WE SEE THEM AGAIN. IT COULD BE AN '88 DODGERS SITUATION COMING BACK TO BITE US. AND WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME FOR EVEN THINKING ABOUT OCTOBER? I HOPE WE DON'T LOSE TOO BADLY TO THE PHILLIES THIS WEEKEND.
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