The blog for Mets fans
who like to read
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.
Got something to say? Leave a comment, or email us at faithandfear@gmail.com. (Sorry, but we have no interest in ads, sponsored content or guest posts.)
Need our RSS feed? It's here.
Visit our Facebook page, or drop by the personal pages for Greg and Jason.
Or follow us on Twitter: Here's Greg, and here's Jason.
|
by Greg Prince on 30 August 2008 7:55 am Never mind the parenthetical nature of Mets offense, the way its tallies appear only at the beginning and end of games (wrapping between them a row of 0's). Never mind that our chain gang of a bullpen would do more service to the community by donning orange jumpsuits, grabbing sharp sticks and picking up litter along either side of the Grand Central. Never mind the nagging undependability of the entire operation, the sense that at any minute one of the neighbors will knock on our door to ask if we've been receiving their first-place mail by mistake.
Never mind all that. You don't need to mind it when Carlos Beltran comes around.
The last time we saw him, the man was alive, well and shattering what little remained of Kevin Gregg's inner peace. Carlos Beltran is up and at 'em as of the ninth inning Friday night, rising to the occasion and soaring to heights he's been bypassing most of 2008.
Come on up for Carlos Beltran's rising. Come on up for a bolt unleashed, a game saved, a loss reversed, a lead extended, a weight off his and our upper torsos. Come on up for the dream we all dream of, us beating them in a final swing of love.
Two out, nobody on and one run down and you hope that somehow somebody gets something started and then something done. But nothing's been getting done all night, not since the first, especially not in the LOB-heavy seventh and eighth. All you want is a baserunner (Castillo…hit…check), another baserunner (Wright hit…check) and, at the very least, a third baserunner (Delgado hit…below the knee…ouch…and check).
Then all you want is for Carlos Beltran to come through like the Best Player The Mets Have Ever Had, the one you're constantly telling people — including yourself — that he is, like he was for virtually all of 2006 and for key segments of 2007. Carlos Beltran, despite numbers that were resembling reasonably attractive in certain departments, wasn't that player in 2008. You'd been constantly telling people — especially yourself — that he was on the verge of catching fire, that he was the one ingredient that hadn't been added to tasty Manuel Stew, that when he did…hoo-boy watch out. When Carlos Beltran had the kind of tear his middle-of-the-order teammates had already contributed to the greater good, even you would finally bring yourself to fully believe that the club receiving its mail in first place wasn't merely tolerating the missteps of an addled letter-carrier.
Dribs, drabs, dribblers, 86 RBI entering Friday and the weekly Web Gem notwithstanding, this had not been Carlos Beltran's year. As long as he's vital, you assume he'll never have another annus horribilis along the lines of 2005 when he shouldered a lucrative burden that nearly crushed him. But you'd been assuming since April that 2006 and 2007 were the norm, not the aberration. You'd been waiting for sustained evidence that 2008 to date wasn't Carlos Beltran's true identity.
Since his most recent swing, we have a better handle on who the man is. And how the man comes around.
The first pitch to Carlos Beltran from Kevin Gregg with the bases loaded and two out and the Mets down by one in the ninth was up in the man's happy zone. And the man who doesn't smile all that much knew how to turn on it, and turn us on, and turn our frowns upside down. Carlos Beltran in the top of the ninth was a grand slamming ecstasy factory after depositing that Kevin-sent delivery onto whichever moon of Jupiter is farthest from the sun. Luis Ayala may have taken a bit of the edge off in the bottom of the frame, but not even a Met reliever — not even a Met “closer” — could bring us down after Beltran had us floating so dreamily high.
by Greg Prince on 29 August 2008 6:01 pm 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.
5/1/79 Tu San Diego 0-1 Twitchell 1 3-5 L 10-5
The first time I went to a Mets game with no advance planning, on a school night no less, was a pretty lame night in the history of Mets baseball, let alone The Log. The Mets were terrible, they were beaten badly, I can’t say I had a particularly good time and I felt all alone despite attending as a part of a large group. You’d be entitled to call it, as people tend to do when discussing their less-than-favorite things, forgettable.
Yet, perhaps because I don’t forget much, it stays with me. It stays with me nearly 30 years later, as much as do most of the 400 games that have followed. I’ve had better times with better people watching better Mets teams, but I remember the night in 1979 — parts of it — better, probably, than I will remember more recent games 30 years from now if I am, in fact, in a position to remember anything.
What do I remember?
I remember the unforeseen circumstance that brought me to Shea that Tuesday night. I was in journalism class in the morning when our teacher asked if anybody wanted to go to the Mets-Padres game tonight. No, he wasn’t buying, but the Mets were sponsoring a high school newspaper night. Our paper had been invited and was told we could bring eight staff members. Seven slots had been spoken for by various juniors and seniors on the paper. I was a sophomore, still getting my feet wet (evidenced by my taking the introductory class that semester). Who wants to go? our teacher asked. Whose hand do you think shot up first?
I remember the trip in, me and seven guys I barely knew. Most of them I didn’t like because they had been very cold to me in my early weeks on the paper. At their core was a clique and their clique wasn’t into me. (Right backatcha.) I remember that none of them was really a Mets fan. One liked the Red Sox, the rest were Yankees fans, probably the fair weather kind. Mostly there was hockey talk. The Rangers and Islanders were facing off in the Stanley Cup semifinals. It was a big deal, but we were en route to a Mets game. Where was the baseball talk? Who were these people? What was i doing with them? I sat quietly mostly.
I remember after transferring to the subway at Woodside, somebody said we should get off at 82nd Street in Jackson Heights. I was 99% sure that sounded wrong but these were the older guys, they must have known better. They knew enough to get me to take one step off the train until, after a ripple of laughter, I was told, no, don’t get off here. I wish I could frame it as good-natured hazing. It was not. And it took about twenty years for me to completely shake off the idea that maybe I am supposed to transfer at 82nd.
I remember the official aspect of the evening, being led up to the press level. We were handed press kits and clipboards with the Dairylea and Mets logos on them and the game notes included in them. I saved mine for years until I was no longer overwhelmed by the novelty of owning a press release. Nowadays I save everything. I wish I’d saved that. I’d love to see how the press notes explained the 1979 Mets without expletives.
I remember thinking we’d get to see the Diamond Club, but they herded us into a different room and handed us box lunches for dinner while somebody from the pre-Horwitz PR department spoke. I remarked to a couple of my colleagues that the roast beef sandwich may have come from that mule who had been mentioned as the new team mascot. It actually drew a laugh from those not otherwise predisposed to enjoy my company. I wasn’t trying to impress them, I just wanted the night to feel a little more normal, like I was with people I could share a chuckle with.
I remember little about the actual presentation the Mets made. Somebody else who was there says on Ultimate Mets that Pete Falcone spoke to us, but I don’t remember that. I’m pretty sure somebody else who posted there a few years ago said that Bob Murphy spoke to us, but I can’t find the post and I don’t remember that happening. I do remember my mule joke.
I remember my one and only up-close look at the Shea Stadium press box. It was the part that wasn’t in great demand on a Tuesday night in early May for a showdown between the 8-10 Mets and the 9-14 Padres. It was empty. It was early, but it wasn’t that early. It was mostly empty.
I remember another place that was empty: Shea Stadium. The room where we had dinner was crowded, but the ballpark otherwise welcomed 5,614 paying spectators. The third game of that Rangers-Isles series at the Garden drew nearly 3½ times as many fans. Our seats were in right field. I’m going to say Mezzanine. I wasn’t all that clear on levels then, but I know we didn’t sit in the press box.
I remember there was much excitement that one of our photographers talked his way down to the box seats behind the Met dugout and set up his tripod on top of it. It had never occurred to me you could just put your stuff on a Major League dugout.
I remember the photographer eventually returning from his box seat, explaining he gave an usher five bucks. He was so excited about shooting what he did that he talked directly to me as opposed to one of the guys he knew.
I remember Doug Flynn lifting a fly ball down the left field line in the bottom of the second, that it headed for the 338 sign, that it barely cleared the wall. Shea’s dimensions were altered ever so slightly before 1979. It used to say 341 out there. Whenever my attention is drawn to the 338 sign, I think of Doug Flynn. And whenever a Met lifts a fly ball toward any part of the outfield wall, I think of a gesture I picked up from the guy in our group who told me not to get off at 82nd Street. Even though none of them was a Mets fan, they all rooted for Flynn’s ball to go out. This one guy, the 82nd Street guy, gestured with both arms, waving it forward. I picked up on it and have been doing that at Shea ever since. I’m sure he didn’t invent that move, but that’s where I got it from. It may also be where I got yelling “GET OUT!” from, too, but I probably would have figured that one for myself after a fashion.
I remember Wayne Twitchell, the first Met to be assigned 36 after Jerry Koosman, was making his first Met start. I had no expectations for him and the old Phillie did not meet them. Given a most unlikely 3-0 lead by Flynn, Wayne gave it right back. Eighth-place hitter Fernando Gonzalez tripled to lead off the third. Ninth-place hitter Gaylord Perry — the pitcher — doubled to drive him in. One out later, Twitch hit Ozzie Smith with a pitch. After another out, he walked Dave Winfield, then Mike Hargrove with the bases loaded. Then he left. Kevin Kobel entered and surrendered a single to Gene Tenace, Ozzie and Winnie scoring.
I remember Frank Taveras striking out five times and learning it was a Met record. It still is.
I remember Gaylord Perry, 40, pitched a lot younger than Twitchell, Kobel, Dale Murray or Dwight Bernard. The only Mets pitcher who didn’t give up any runs or allow any inherited runners to score was 21-year-old Jesse Orosco, the player to be named later from the Twins after we traded Jerry Koosman home to Minnesota.
I remember Kooz raised his record to 5-0 against the Blue Jays that very night. He pitched until 1985, with teams other than the Twins. But Jesse pitched a long time as well.
I remember a lot more reaction to the Rangers beating the Islanders when that score was announced than there was for anything the Mets did in what became a rather routine 1979-style 10-5 loss.
I remember Perry got the win and Rollie Fingers got the save. Throw in Smith and Winfield, and I can take solace that it took four future Hall of Famers to subdue the 1979 Mets.
I remember that enough empty seats in the farthest sections of the left field Upper Deck had been flipped down to spell ELMONT. A nearby usher explained some guys had spent all of Sunday’s doubleheader against the Dodgers doing that. He thought it was supposed to say ELMO. To this day, if you say Elmont, I think seats.
I remember my father being kind enough to pick me up at the train station and give a couple of the other guys who lived in our direction, including one fellow I truly despised, rides home. It didn’t win me any goodwill at school the next day, but it was sure nice of my dad.
I remember telling my teacher there was nothing worth putting in the paper, even a high school paper, from the night before. METS SERVE UP DINNER, GIVE UP RUNS wasn’t news. We never ran any of those dugout tripod pictures either. I never saw them.
I remember it irked my sophomore rival in the budding battle for eventual editorship that I got to claim the eighth ticket, that it was just bad luck for him that he wasn’t in class that Tuesday morning, that I didn’t necessarily deserve to get chosen. He was a Yankees fan and kind of obnoxious besides that, so he definitely would have fit in better with the group. He would go on and provide a great deal of motivation for me to outwrite and outwork him over the next year to claim the editorship every bit as definitively as I did that eighth ticket. He died just before starting college, which was awful, but I never felt a twinge of remorse that I won the editor’s job over him. Or that I got to go to that game, as lousy as it was.
I remember a year later, after I had become editor-in-chief of the paper. Everybody from that Mets-Padres game was gone, either graduated or ready to be; once the seniors gave way to the juniors in late spring, they generally didn’t stick around. I had brought in my own friends, my own clique, you might say. Enjoying running the new regime, I magnanimously welcomed in one of the less offensive guys from that night at Shea when he dropped by the paper one May afternoon in 1980. He had just finished his first year of college and came by to look for his friends (including the fellow I truly despised) in the newspaper office. He was the Red Sox/Islanders fan in the bunch from May ’79, not a bad sort from what I could tell; at least he didn’t like the Yankees or the Rangers. The Isles were on their first successful Stanley Cup run by then and I asked him how he was enjoying it and we chatted about this and that and it was all very amicable, but he seemed surprised I knew who he rooted for and, for that matter, what his name was. He asked who the new editor was. I said me. He seemed even more surprised. My finely honed reporter’s instinct told me that this guy didn’t remember me at all.
Apparently I’m not always memorable, but when it comes to the Mets, I’m likely the last to forget what others deem forgettable.
by Greg Prince on 29 August 2008 4:24 am Red state? Blue state? Forget that stuff.
It's Cubs Nation!
As long as they keep on beating the Phillies, they're my favorite team that isn't my favorite team.
One game up, 28 games to go…Yes We Can!
FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: Cubs come from behind for a second day in a row and beat the Phillies 3-2, extending the Mets' lead, albeit temporarily, to 1½ games. Philly was ahead before they were behind…now that's change we can all believe in!
by Greg Prince on 28 August 2008 3:00 pm Yes We Can!
Win the National League East, I mean.
Yes We Can! was the rallying cry of the long-dormant Phillies in 1974, popularized by second baseman Dave Cash. Cash apparently co-opted it from Chavez (Cesar, not Endy). I always assumed he co-opted it from the Pointer Sisters, whose “Yes We Can Can” reached No. 11 on Billboard's Hot 100 around the time the Mets were rallying behind “You Gotta Believe!”
The Mets won a pennant in 1973. The Phillies finished third in 1974. Then they co-opted the guy who came up with “You Gotta Believe!” Co-opted Dykstra, Brogna and at least one division title from us, too. Once a decade, it's Phillie co-op time.
Turnabout is fair play then. I'm co-opting Yes We Can! regarding the Mets' divisional chances — as long as nobody else is using it in a stadium setting at any point in the next several hours.
After watching last night, I know we can make it work, I know we can make it if we try.
Besides, “Win With Willie!” or whatever our last slogan was didn't really have legs.
Meanwhile, all sincere White Sox sympathies aside, we encourage the Chicago Cubs to be extraordinarily serious over these next four days.
I'm a Mets fan and I approve this message…and I rarely approve of anything the Cubs do.
by Jason Fry on 28 August 2008 3:26 am I haven't broken it to Joshua yet (or Emily), but an hour or so ago I decided the boy is being renamed. From now on he's Daniel Fry. Daniel Murphy Fry. Actually, he's Daniel Murphy Johan Brian Carlos David Luis Fry, but Daniel will cover it.
Murphy — the otherwise inevitable “Murph” doesn't seem to fit a kid who insists he's Daniel, not Dan — started his Met life as a cult hero: He went 10 for his first 20, a streak that was clearly unsustainable. But he also showed us that he could work a count and make contact, and demonstrated a welcome seriousness of purpose (there's that “Daniel,” again), all of which suggested it might sustain him when he inevitably regressed to the mean.
Regress to the mean? He regressed to the cruel, to the vicious, to the pitiless, riding an 0-for-13 streak into tonight's game, which only meant more than any other game in his young professional life. Struck out looking in the second on a tough 3-2 pitch, failing to move Ryan Church along from second with nobody out. (Church would of course be marooned at third.) Lined out in the fourth, the inning in which no hit would fall. Hit into a double play in the sixth. Played a Pat Burrell liner into a double to start off the Phils' sixth, the inning that would show Johan Santana at his hold-the-line finest. And then, stuck on 0-for-16, he walked to the plate in the eighth inning of a tie game. On the mound? Just Brad Lidge, he of the lethal fastball and slider, he who was somehow invulnerable this year despite his home park being the size of a Pinto.
Was Daniel Murphy scared? When you know the strike zone and can make contact and have made a specialty of meaning business with a bat in your hands, you're not scared. And this was the night — finally! — for the Phils' bullpen to regress to the mean. Lidge unleashed a slider that flattened out instead of biting, and was redirected at high velocity down the right-field line. It meant the go-ahead run. It meant the continuing heroics of Carlos Delgado wouldn't go to waste. It meant we could all forget (as best we can) about seven-run leads that turned into nothing. It meant I let out a war whoop in the New Jersey night. And tomorrow it'll mean I go to breakfast here on LBI on a sunny day with my Met shirt on and a big smile for the Phillie fans who had big smiles this morning. Because, of course, it meant first place.
by Greg Prince on 27 August 2008 5:45 am Tuesday night's was the kind of game that's worthy of intricate dissection. But if you attempted to dissect it, you'd just take the scalpel to your eyes in an effort to forget what you just saw.
You wouldn't forget a thing, however. You wouldn't forget how a 7-0 lead became an 8-7 loss across thirteen of the unluckiest innings in inhuman history. You wouldn't forget an offense that operated on bankers' hours, closing after four. You wouldn't forget that Damion Easley had the game of his life and that it was absorbed in a hostile takeover by the game of Chris Coste's life. You wouldn't forget a Hall of Fame starter undone by the schoolyard dimensions of the playground to which he was assigned for the evening. You wouldn't forget the double plays or the lefts-on-base or how three steely innings of Aaron Heilman dissloved into a long single to center off Scott Schoeneweis seconds after the world's first intentional strikeout by Brett Myers.
You'd just be missing your eyes.
So put down the scalpel and by all means protect your vision. You'll need it tonight to see what staff ace Johan Santana does to answer a question that, at Mets 7 Phillies 0, appeared ridiculous: How do we get even in this series and back into first place after probably the worst loss ever etched into the annals of worsts, losses, etchings or annals?
Do what you're supposed to do, Ace. After a Rollinsian debacle of Rogersesque proportions, we require all the help we can afford.
by Greg Prince on 26 August 2008 8:54 pm 
I suppose if I grabbed enough of these and rounded up enough paste I could reconstruct a couple of original 1964-style wooden Shea Stadium seats with their contents. What is being charged for the plastic variety could sure buy a lot of salmon rolls.
This is a wrapper from a pair of chopsticks from the much praised and highly guarded (if you don’t have Field Level tickets) Daruma of Tokyo of Great Neck stand, my all-time Shea concession destination. I’ve heard no word whether Daruma will alight anew in Citi Field but if they do, watch for snarky stories about how this new fancy boutique venue, it deigns to sell…sushi, as if it hadn’t been on the menu at the people’s park for more than a decade.
As with Carlos Delgado’s 2008, toss away your preconceived notions and try it before saying goodbye to Shea. You won’t be sorry.
by Jason Fry on 26 August 2008 5:39 pm Emily and I knew our beach vacation would have to share mental space with the Mets, the Phillies and assorted opponents of the day. But yesterday I found myself pursuing another order of business — one I never thought would move me to action. I found myself on mets.com, ordering a pair of Shea Stadium seats.
If you're a veteran reader of this little blog, you probably know I'm not sentimental about Shea Stadium. I love the team that calls it home, of course, and any wedge of green grass and tan dirt used for the most beautiful game in the world will get a happy sigh from me. (Last fall, coming back from a long trip to Europe, the plane dipped down over Vermont, New Hampshire and upstate New York; looking down, I grinned broadly to once again see baseball diamonds — whether razor-edged and immaculate, vaguely diamond-shaped, or totally overgrown — dotting the landscape.) I have lots of wonderful memories of Shea, but they have to do with games and players and friends — to paraphrase Tom Seaver, the architecture's not part of them. Between its rusting beams, sticky floors, exploding bathrooms, sleeping vendors, bad food, and surly Aramark drones, Shea resembles a North Korean government building that happens to have a baseball game in the middle of it. I respect my friends who feel differently, but so long as the game is still played nearby, I won't exactly be sad to see the building go.
So given all that, what was I doing agreeing to shell out more than $900 for a pair of plastic seats from the old barn? Particularly when I'm in an, um, career transition? (Do you need a vocation to be on vacation?)
Practically speaking, I thought of our backyard deck and how it would be simple to take up a couple of boards of Trex, bolt down two seats and reassemble things. The seats would add a little character to the place, and we were always hauling plastic chairs back there for people to sit on anyway. People would get a kick out of the Shea seats, and run no risk of falling backwards into the vinca after a few too many, as has been known to happen with plastic chairs and the uncharted edge of the deck. As for Emily, she kind of shrugged at the idea — you might describe her as “accepting,” “acquiescent,” “indulgent” or even “resigned,” but she wasn't “opposed.”
But of course “practically speaking” never has much to do with the question of why one is buying expensive surplus baseball-park seats. So what was I doing?
I suppose it's this: While I'm happy about CitiField, I don't pretend that it won't mark a new era in the history of the baseball team I've followed my whole life. Parenthood has cut down on my Shea visits in recent years, and I know that'll be even more true at CitiField, at least until the novelty wears off for the city as a whole. I'm not particularly worried about being shut out: Rightly or wrongly, I figure I'll get by via StubHub and friends with plans and lagniappe, and soon enough I'll know the new place as well as I know Shea, from where the better food is to the quickest escape routes. (And where the Shake Shack outpost is — I'll have that one figured out after Visit No. 1.) But all this will take a while, and even then, with fewer seats, deciding to go to Citi will likely never be as simple as deciding to go to Shea. I'm pretty sure I'll be happy at CitiField, but that's not the same as knowing for sure.
The team that will play at CitiField will look more or less the same in terms of uniforms and fan-bestowed myths, and I hope the company will include many of the same people. But while the architecture won't be the focal point of those new memories any more than it is of Shea reminiscences, it will be different, and memories will inevitably be Shea memories and Citi memroies.
Which gets to the heart of the matter.
I saw my first games as a baseball-mad child at Shea, rooting for Mike Phillips and Joel Youngblood and Lee Mazzilli. Years later, having moved back to the area, I met my blog partner and good friend Greg Prince at Shea, no doubt outside Gate E, for Bill Pulsipher's major-league debut. Which kicked off a hell of a run in Queens: I saw Rey Ordonez introduce himself to New York with an unbelievable relay to home plate; John Franco get ejected for fighting and so not be available for a save opportunity on John Franco Day; Todd Hundley's 41st homer; Mike Piazza's first game; John Olerud erase weeks of frustration with a grand slam off Greg Maddux; Brad Clontz uncork a wild pitch that kept 1999 going; Pratt hit one over the fence; Robin Ventura's grand-slam single; the 10-run inning against the hated Braves; Benny Agbayani's extra-inning home run; Bobby Jones send Jeff Kent and the Giants home with a one-hitter; Timo Perez leap into the air to get us to the World Series even faster; and David Wright's major-league debut. (And I've left space for two more months of good things, should the baseball gods provide.)
Did Shea have a lot to do with these memories? Not really, though I did enjoy (with a touch of anxiety) watching the stands flex under 50,000 ecstatic die-hards. But it would be small-minded and mean-spirited to ignore the fact that these things happened at Shea. Those two green seats (because that's where I usually sat) will be an homage to all those times — and, OK, an acknowledgment that I'm a little more sentimental than I thought.
by Greg Prince on 26 August 2008 5:53 am It was a much bigger night for Carlos Delgado and Mike Pelfrey than it was for yours truly, but I'm going to grab third star from Monday's contest for myself.
Delgado: Two homers, six RBI, beautiful first base defense, a drama-free curtain call.
Pelfrey: A second consecutive complete game masterpiece.
Me: My 400th game that counted* at Shea Stadium.
I have to share this bronze with my friend Ben (you know him, perhaps, as Student of the Game) who provided my passage to another Log milestone in 2008. Ben has committed to memory every high and low of the past three seasons, all the way back to Opening Day 2006, so he can appreciate a numerical obsession.
Did I know, Ben asked, that the Mets have started 12 different leftfielders this season? I did not. Could I name them now that I knew there were an even dozen? Alas, I could come up with only 11/12ths of them**.
But I can count to 400.
• No. 100 was May 24, 1996. It was a loss to the Padres. Fernando Valenzuela cruised for San Diego 15 years and a couple of weeks after I saw him cruise for the Dodgers. Fernando cruised Shea a lot in his day.
• No. 200 was October 1, 2000. It was a win over the Expos, the last day of the season. We required 13 innings and three Geoff Blum errors, including a bad throw to score Benny Agbayani to end it. I'd be back six days later for another cup of Benny Bean heroics.
• No. 300 was July 24, 2005, a win over the Dodgers and the first-ever game for young Alex Wolf. I suspect Alex, whom I failed to convert to the church of baseball, is stuck on 1, but I haven't checked lately.
• No. 400 was August 25, 2008. We handily beat the Astros, the same franchise that beat us on July 11, 1973, the Wednesday afternoon I sputtered to an 0-1 start, never daring to dream I could someday grow up to be 221-179 (211-176 regular-season, 10-3 postseason), never imagining anything beyond the hope that someday I'd get to Shea a second time and maybe see my first win.
You'll notice, if I haven't put you to sleep with my salute to numerology, that the time between milestones keeps shortening. I've been to 110 games at Shea since the dawn of Faith and Fear. I was actually fading a bit as a Sheagoer during the Art Howe era, but this blog revived me. The team got better, sure, and the urgency kicked up a notch once Shea had an expiration date affixed to its left field wall, but having somewhere to write about going to Shea, besides a ledger, proved the all-time spur for my personal attendance. And starting in 2005, I really stumbled into a pot of gold in terms of meeting Mets fans, a second wave akin to my early online days when Jason, then Laurie, then other wonderful folks proved themselves friends I hadn't yet met. Since '05, there've been people like Ben; people whose names could fill a few paragraphs right here and now; people who didn't exist for me before this blog took flight. They've become a big part of my baseball life and they're people I'm privileged to know, at Mets games and elsewhere. The pleasure is always mine.
Lots of pleasure for everybody Monday night, for No. 400. How could anyone with a home team-rooting interest not find pleasure in Pelfrey's lightning-quick transition from question mark to exclamation point?! From Delgado shedding his albatross status and picking up the mantle of team MVP? Who couldn't laugh a little, given the nine-run lead, that the primary culprit who kept this from being a complete game shutout was (Christ Almighty) David Newhan? Who would deny after where the Mets were in April and May and June that this has been a helluva summer to spend at Shea, that this has been — as a wonderful book about 1969 was called — a magic summer?
I'm a happy Mets fan these days. The happiness is tempered by who's on the DL (if not by who's finally off it). The happiness could be tapered by Wednesday night should the next August trip to Philadelphia take the course the last August trip to Philadelphia did. It's a tough row to hoe at the Cit and the Dolph and the Mill and I have no idea whether a Maineless rotation and a Castillo-laden infield will maintain the magic this summer has conjured at Shea. I'm far from saying “I don't care,” but…no, I do care. We've gotten too close to September not to. But this Mets club, this Redeem Team II if you will, has given us more than we could have expected amid the swirl of swill we were hopelessly stuck in back in late Randolph. They've given me a helluva ride going back to June 29, the final game of the final Subway Series at Shea Stadium. The Mets are 20-7 at Shea since then, with me on hand for 10-4 of that.
They look like numbers to you. They represent experiences to me. The numbers are etched into The Log for all time, no matter that the binding cracks and the pages start to yellow. The experiences loom as my Tennessee sippin' whiskey. Tonight I caught a buzz because we won 9-1. Someday I'll pour myself a taste of these 400 nights and days and every drop, I'm betting, will go down pretty damn smooth.
Ben and I talked about a lot of Mets matters Monday night, but the one note I think I hit as squarely as Delgado hammered Wesley Wright came after Reyes tripled and Pelfrey scampered home to make it 9-0 and all who remained stood and cheered. This place, I said, is so much better when everyone is happy.
Happy Shea Stadium.
Happy first place.
Happy summer.
Happy 400th.
*There were two exhibitions and one intrasquad affair way back when, but if they're not written down, they didn't “officially” happen.
**I came up with Pagan, Clark, Chavez, Alou, Anderson, Evans, Tatis, Easley, Nixon, Aguila, Murphy; the one I didn't get was one-game starter Andy Phillips. But hey, even Mike Pelfrey can't throw a shutout every turn.
by Greg Prince on 25 August 2008 8:21 pm We certainly had righteous fun tearing apart the 75 Greatest Moments at Shea ballot, but now that fan voting has trimmed the selections to the Top Ten, it's time to get even more serious. You have until September 1 to vote for any one of the following, with the Mets revealing the big winner during the last week of the season.
FYI, these weren't necessarily the Top Ten I voted for, but I can't say any of them are bad choices. Then again, there are no Ice Capades here.
In chronological order:
• August 15, 1965: Beatles' First Concert at Shea
–Well, they did have more hits than the Mets in 1965.
• July 9, 1969: Tom Seaver's Imperfect Game
–I get the feeling the first Mets' no-hitter wouldn't be as good as this.
• October 16, 1969: Mets Win the World Series
–There are no words.
• October 25, 1986: Mets win Game Six of the World Series
–There is, in fact, one word, and it's a proper noun.
• October 27, 1986: Mets are World Champions Again
–Until further notice, that's the last time it happened.
• October 9, 1999: Todd Pratt's homer clinches the NLDS
–Of course Pratt was playing — it was a day game after a night game.
• October 17, 1999: Robin Ventura's Grand Slam Single
–“Siphon votes from me, will ya?” Tank screamed at Robin as he tackled him short of second.
• June 30, 2000: Mike Piazza Caps Ten-Run Inning Against Braves
–It was Fireworks Night; the Grucci Brothers apologized for it being anticlimactic.
• September 21, 2001: Mike Piazza Returns Baseball to New York City
–The only night Chipper Jones wasn't booed at Shea Stadium
• October 19, 2006: Endy Chavez's Catch
–Doubling Jim Edmonds at first should probably be listed as an additional moment.
So…what're you gonna vote for? Remember, you have until Monday, September 1 to make your voice heard.
|
|
