 
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. |
“What happened?” “Who got the win?” “Perez. Seven solid. Two hits, three walks, eight K's.” “Bullpen problems?” “None. Heilman, two-inning save.” “Really?” “Yup. Six up, six down.” “Homers?” “Wright, two-run job. Delgado, solo.” “Phillies?” “Lost in twelve.” “So we're…?” “In second, one out.” “Anybody get hurt?” “Nope. Church is getting closer, they say.” “Good news.” “Sure is.” “For now.” “G'night.” “G'night.” 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 382 regular-season and 13 postseason games to date. The Log records the numbers. The Tales tell the stories. 8/29/79 W Atlanta 0-1 Burris 1 4-7 L 5-4 8/7/08 Th San Diego 9-10 Santana 6 208-174 W 5-3 The strangest part is the familiarity. It should be surprising that you look up and find the people who have been physically out of your routine and only tangentially on your radar for years. It should be a jolt to find yourself in the company of those whose only appearances in your life for more than a decade have been virtual or cameo. The strangest part is it is not. It seems the norm. It seems nothing out of the ordinary to look up and see coming at you your constant companions from three-fifths of a lifetime ago. It should be more of a rush. It should send shockwaves through your system, give you a chill on a hot August morning. But it doesn’t, not really. You’ve known these people since you were somebody else. No, scratch that — you’ve never been anybody else. You might like to think you were. You might like to think you’ve grown and matured and changed. But you haven’t. You’re the same old you. And so are they. And so is this. You’ve known these people all along. These people and this place and this thing. You won’t always see them. But you’ll always know them. *** I wonder how many of the record 3,863,542 tickets sold thus far to Mets home games in 2008 have been purchased as admission to a reunion. Quite a few, I imagine. I’ve been hearing about it all year, even bearing up-close witness to the phenomenon now and then. Classmates reuniting with classmates. Cousins reuniting with cousins. Sons with father and father with sons. Everybody with a ballpark one more time. That record of 3,863,542 tickets sold, or whatever it winds up totaling by September 28, will stand forever. The structure to which those tickets have been sold will not. There is a connection. People want in to Shea Stadium one more time, and they want in with those whom they’ve been in with before. A long time before. Is 29 years a long time? It probably is. It probably was a long time ago that Joel, Larry and I decided to go to a day game at the end of August in 1979, the Mets versus the Braves. The Mets were terrible. The Braves were, if a professional baseball team could be, worse. Together they had plummeted a combined 51 games under .500 and it was only because they had to play each other one more time that their net deficit wouldn’t enlarge that Wednesday. I’d been told you could call Shea Stadium and reserve your tickets in advance. That seemed like a swell idea, so I did. But you couldn’t, at least not the morning of an afternoon game. Or maybe you couldn’t do it without a credit card. You’ll have to come and buy them like everybody else, they said. Two nights before, the Mets and Braves had drawn 5,474. The next night, they attracted 6,586. Shea Stadium seated approximately 55,300. I guess plenty of good seats were still available. We took our train and got our tickets, Field Level. First base side. The upper part of Field Level, but Field Level nonetheless. Pretty much aligned with first base. Field Level was not uncrowded. Everything else was. Paid attendance was 6,602. It was Joel, Larry and I who pushed it over 6,600. The player closest to us was Ed Kranepool. He started at first and went 2-for-4. It would be the last time in what had literally been a lifetime of unlimited opportunity that I would see Ed Kranepool ply his trade. Ed Kranepool had been a Met since 1962, the year I was born, the year the Mets were born. Ed Kranepool would be a Met for another month after that. Then Ed Kranepool, a Met for all seasons, would retire. Ed Kranepool was 34. John Stearns started in left field that day. I have no recollection of it happening, but with Alex Treviño catching, Stearns’ versatility allowed Joe Torre to insert both catchers’ bats into the lineup, even if each man left his bat at home. The two backstops went 1-for-9 and played three positions; Dude finished the day behind the plate while Alex moved to second base. I don’t remember that either. Examining the boxscore, I must confess that I don’t remember much about the action. I know Ray Burris started ’cause I wrote it down. Burris was betrayed by his defense, particularly in the second. The supremely reliable Doug Flynn, an actual second baseman, made an error to start the inning; Bob Murphy probably said that Flynn usually looks that ball into his glove. Dougie’s muff of a grounder put Rowland Office on first. He took off for second. Treviño, the catcher who was playing his natural position, threw the ball into center. Office was on third. He scored when ex-Met Joe Nolan singled. Nolan moved up when Stearns, the catcher playing left, mishandled some aspect of the base hit. That’s two batters, three errors, one run. That’s 1979 for ya. The fourth error belonged to Richie Hebner. That I remember. With two on and two out in the third, Jeff Burroughs grounded to the general vicinity of third. Hebner didn’t corral it and a run scored. It was surely for lack of trying. Richie Hebner couldn’t be bothered. Richie Hebner was the most reluctant Met there was, 1979 or anytime. Richie Hebner had made it abundantly clear he considered himself above being a Met (and, apparently, above fielding a ground ball). Richie Hebner received what he deserved when the inning ended. He was booed. Hebner saluted the fans with two arms. Two more than he’d used to go after Burroughs’ grounder. Yeah, I remember some unpleasantness with Richie Hebner. I remember, too, Dale Murray coming into the game. Murray relieved Ed Glynn who relieved Ray Burris in a quadruple-switch that shifted Treviño from catcher to second, Stearns from left to catcher and Elliot Maddox, nearly as reluctant a Met as Hebner, into left once the Braves had built a 5-1 lead off Burris. I don’t remember all that but I do remember declaring in that summer of Rocky II, “Dale Murray is the Master of Disaster.” That got a big laugh from Joel and Larry. I also got a big laugh out of them when a stray shower pulled in overhead and sprinkled us lightly. “No Mom,” I said, recalling an A.M. conversation, “I don’t need to take a jacket.” It was just a passing shower, actually. I was fine without the jacket. But it got a laugh. I remember, of course, being disappointed that the Mets rallied to make it 5-4 in the ninth but rallied no further. I remember being let down that Ed Kranepool, in the last Ed Kranepool at-bat I’d ever see outside of an Old Timers game, popped to Jerry Royster at second to seal the deal. I remember my dismay that Bobby Cox outmanaged Joe Torre, bringing in Larry Bradford to replace Rick Matula and then Joey McLaughlin to replace Larry Bradford, all in the bottom of the ninth, and all three of them kept the Mets from tying the score. I remember taking the slightest solace that even after losing 5-4 we didn’t have the worst record in the National League. The Mets were 25 games under .500, but the Braves were 26. By season’s end, we wouldn’t have even that anymore. The Braves finished 66-94, the Mets 63-99. it took a six-game winning streak in the final week of September for the Mets not to lose 100. Shea didn’t take long to empty out, not with 6,602 souls. It looked the way it did for the final time in my memory. This was the last year that would finish out with the field level seats made of wood and painted yellow. The next time I’d be there, next July with Larry, they’d be plastic and orange. The first hint that things would change in the future was over the left field wall. There was a new “message board,” a proto-DiamondVision without the video portion. Like a mini-scoreboard. It was adorned with a Marlboro sign and featured dot races in the middle of some unlucky inning. We were urged to cheer for either “top” or “bottom”. Marketing was a ways away from Shea Stadium in August of 1979. It was my last game of that year, the year I went to a record-setting four games. The Mets had gone 1-3 in my presence. They’d won in late July to break a personal five-game losing streak that dated back to 1976. Now they’d started me on a seven-game losing streak that would extend to late summer 1981. *** That was the Shea and those were the Mets I went to see with Joel and Larry 29 Augusts ago. Those Mets and that Shea would change here and there in the intervening seasons. We’d change, some, in the time ahead. The three of us friends became four by spring when Fred joined the Tide, our high school paper and all-purpose hangout. Throughout the ’80s and into the early ’90s, Joel, Larry, Fred and I did lots together. First everything, then most things, then a few things. But we were always a phone call from each other and there was usually a Mets game at Shea on the horizon. We never managed to go together, all four of us, at the same time. Every other plausible combination, however did. Me with Joel. Me with Joel and Fred. Me with Joel and Larry. Me with Larry and Fred. Me with Fred. Me with Larry. I guess I was the common Met denominator in our quartet. Yesterday, the four of us went, at last, to Shea Stadium as one four-man group. Joel flew in from California to visit family and figured he could make a side trip to Shea (or maybe it was the other way around). I was last with Joel at Shea Stadium in 2003. Fred drove up from Baltimore. I was last with Fred at Shea Stadium in 1998. Larry cleared his schedule. I was last with Larry at Shea Stadium in 1993. He bought a hot dog from a vendor then and, taken aback by how expensive everything was for 1993, muttered, “how much is that — six bucks?” Someone did me a solid and secured me for yesterday four very nice field box seats, orange and plastic, on the Hebner side. We convened around 11:30 by Gate E. First I saw Joel. He was wearing a home Mets jersey and looked like Joel as he could have in 1979 or any other year. We then looked up and saw Fred and Larry. They, like us, were older than we’d been but essentially undated. Greetings commenced, followed by the handing out of fancy Field Level ducats. “Diamond Club,” Fred, not steeped in Metsiana, observed. “Is that where we go to get the lap dances?” *** As much as I love Billy Joel, I never took much out of “New York State Of Mind” being played in the background as exit music from Shea Stadium. They Mets started doing it, I think, around 2000, maybe 2001 pre-9/11. I assumed it was because the Yankees had co-opted “New York New York” as their good night music and the Mets, well, they had to have something like that. But yesterday… after Joel’s and Larry’s and Fred’s and my first and last game at Shea as a foursome… after we sat underneath an aggressive sun for three hours… after we effortlessly eased back into our teenaged, twenty- and thirtysomething selves (as if we’d ever stopped being those people)… after Larry carefully split three six-dollar footlongs four ways because he’d dropped one on the ground and there is no five-second rule where Shea’s floor is concerned… after Joel recounted the verbal thrashing he was administered by a seven-year-old Phillies fan down the Jersey Shore earlier this week when he wore his other Mets jersey… after we clinked commemorative Bud Light bottles over somebody’s piece of potentially good news… after hardhatted David Wright, as unreluctant a Met third baseman as Richie Hebner was reluctant, endorsed world-class Citi Field on DiamondVision with all 32 of his teeth showing and I posited that, if asked, David Wright would endorse a virus… after noticing the Citi Field construction crew was, like the 49,352 of us on our side of the blue fence, taking a mighty long lunch break… after thinking on this Camp Day at Shea Stadium that — given how I instinctively jump to my feet to stretch and responsively dive right into singalongs and know exactly when to applaud and when to boo — I’ve become a much better camper since my very first Mets game at Shea Stadium which was also a Camp Day… after wondering, with Daniel Murphy at third, Robinson Cancel at first and Nick Evans at the plate, what we were doing three games out of first place… after Santana more or less mowed down the Padres while going largely unsupported by his offense… after Larry asked, in so many words, why Jerry Manuel was so frequently bringing in the spiritual heirs of Larry Bradford and Rick Matula and Ed Glynn and Dale Murray… after a generous first base call allowed us a lead-preserving double play in the top of the eighth… after Scott Schoeneweis gave it back in the top of the ninth… after Wright, smiling live and in person, turned on Heath Bell’s last delivery and turned the final result right around to how it had to be for a day like this… after I realized I wouldn’t have to live with the narrative of “…even though we lost, it was a fun day”… after I shouted over and over “that’s the first walkoff home run of his career!” because I’m a religious reader of Mets Walkoffs… after we high-fived and high-fived some more… after we moseyed down the steps of our section to pose for some pictures… after we gazed about the sunbaked grass one final time… after Joel told us he was supposed to meet his father and brother outside Gate A, thus reminding me he’d ditched his own family to spend the game with his friends… after I knew this was almost certainly it for me and midweek day games at Shea and me and Field Level seating at Shea and that this was definitely it for me and every conceivable combination of Joel and Larry and Fred with me at Shea… after appreciating how unlikely it was that the four of us would converge upon Shea Stadium in 2008 and how I’d quietly hoped it might happen but never expected it would… after all that, “New York State of Mind” playing in the background as exit music from Shea Stadium was right in tune with how I felt. It sent shockwaves through my system and gave me chills on a hot August afternoon. It's probably harsh and unfeeling to suggest that for the rest of the year, Johan Santana be given carte blanche to pistol-whip any Met reliever whenever he wishes. (“Coach! Schoeneweis fell down the stairs again! Yeah, just like Heilman!”) But maybe he should at least be allowed to give them a vigorous shaking. What is it about this man that Horflitz and Przyblr must constantly mess up his work? Are Met relievers reluctant to toe the same rubber made holy by the touch of his foot? Do they feel so diminished by his aura that they perform down to their deepest fears of being mere fallible flesh and blood? At least today's eventual win does damp to embers what otherwise would have been a typical Gotham sports brushfire — His Johanness was clearly Not Pleased to be taken out after a couple of bleeders at the beginning of the 8th, stalking off the mound without adhering to the new Met protocol of waiting for the reliever and plunking himself down on the bench with little exclamation points and cartoon lightning zig-zags visible over his head. (Can you blame him? I was pissed. I'm willing to predict Greg was pissed. Everyone in attendance at the matinee was pissed, including the campers. It was like watching the co-ed in the nightgown go back into the sorority-house basement.) If my eyes didn't deceive me, Duaner Sanchez then pulled the same immediate stalk-off, but seeing how he turned in one incompetent pitch instead of Johan's 104 mostly masterful ones, he can shut it. The Mets escaped Duaner's disaster on a smart play by Argenis Reyes, a dumb play by Scott Hairston to not go home with the tying run, and a Reyes-to-Reyes-to-Evans double play, with Evans turning in a contortionist save on a wild heave by Jose. In the top of the ninth I got called into an office for a brief chat, came out, and would like to say I was surprised by what awaited me on the TV. Stupid [Insert Name of Reliever Here] — in this case, Schoeneweis. To dwell on the pen's misdeeds would be justified, but it would also be no fun. Because it would ignore a lot of stuff that made for a pretty enjoyable afternoon. (And after all, it all came out OK.) The Junior Mets' flair and foibles made for a faintly sickening but ultimately entertaining turn on the see-saw. Take Argenis, who popped up with Jose Reyes on third with one out, got tangled up with Fernando Tatis and then nearly with Jose, yet turned a nifty, instinctive 4-4-3 double play in the sixth and then wisely came home for a key out in the eighth. Take potential Met cult hero Daniel Murphy, who made an ill-advised dive to let Hairston take an extra base, but went 2-for-4 and drove in the Mets' first run. Or Evans, who was sprung from left field to play his more-natural position, immediately turned a successful pickoff into a Padre steal, but then drove in the (first) lead run against a tough pitcher in Cla Meredith and, of course, made that amazing, disaster-deferring stretch in the dust. (Does Cla Meredith now lose another letter off his first name, so he's Cl? I would support that.) And, amazingly, we somehow got to Heath Bell. Bell became a blog cause celebre in the spring of '05 (including bringing our little blog its first boost in traffic based on this post), but then seemed to shut the bloggers up by posting ERAs of 5.59 and 5.11, which got him and Royce Ring sent to San Diego for the useless Ben Johnson and Jon Adkins. After putting on West Kamchatka taupe and blue and camo, he promptly became an extremely valuable member of the pen. How'd he manage that transformation? Gary and Ron were discussing Bell last night, and noted that he was continuously yo-yo'ed between AAA and the bigs before finally deciding he was a guy who just needed a change of scenery. Thing is (warning: Jace math ahead), Bell didn't need a change of scenery so much as he just needed his luck to even out. His Met career covered 108 innings pitched, during which he struck out 105 guys and walked just 30, which is pretty damn good. Meanwhile, his BABIP (batting average on balls in play, one of the cooler stats out there) was .374 in 2005 and .394 in 2006. This is not pretty damn good — the big-league average is around .300. To call Bell snakebit is like comparing the cowboy who got his ankle nipped by a rattler and limped 10 feet into the apothecary with the cowboy who fell into a nest, became a pincushion amid a crescendo of rattling and never came out. And if you don't think Bell's reputation wasn't hurt by the way he looked — big belly, big thighs, teeny feet — you're not cynical enough about baseball. The guy looked vaguely like a cartoon hippo doing ballet, pitched like Joe Btfsplk, and that was more than enough to get him sent to the other end of the continent. So in West Kamchatka Bell turned in a lucky BABIP of .260, and hey presto! He was immediately a star. (Look here.) This year, he's up in the .290s again — with a little help from Endy Chavez, David Wright and that cruel mistress, Dame Regression to the Mean. Maybe it was just the chance to really watch a game after days of personal distractions, but somehow I wasn't that bothered by tonight's loss. Perturbed, sure. But undone? Nope. I like the Mets' new kiddie corps. I like Daniel Murphy's ability to pull a ball when needed, the way he makes adjustments at the plate and his general air of fearlessness. I like Argenis Reyes's goofy smile and hustle. I like that Nick Evans is a remarkably patient hitter for one so young, even if he does always look like his dog just died. I'm prepared to find something to like about Jon Niese when he gets here. I like that Eddie Kunz is gigantic and induces ground balls. Well, except when Eddie Kunz is giving up the first home run of his professional career. And that gives the Padres insurance enough to put the Mets in bloop-and-a-blast territory, from which wouldn't emerge alive. I've always liked the kids — if anything, I'm too ready to shove aside underperforming veterans for youngsters who've yet to fail and so obviously never will. Last year Greg endured many nights of me booing Shawn Green for everything from hesitating just long enough so balls fell in front of him to, oh, standing in a way that I didn't like. Where was Carlos Gomez? I'd demand. At any point between last summer and mid-July I would have thrown Carlos Delgado over in a heartbeat for, say, Mike Carp. (And then where would we be?) I like to collect significant Met debuts, from Bobby Jones's (in Philadelphia) to David Wright's. The kids are, by their nature, new and different — they're change, and I'm usually all for change. Even when it might be change for change's sake. In my calmer moments, I remember that young players also come with growing pains. They give up dingers that let them know they're not in Oregon anymore. They follow gusherous debuts in Colorado with long dry spells everywhere else. They muff pop-ups and double plays. I'm sure the aforementioned Mr. Murphy will screw something up one day soon. It won't really be his fault — it'll be Rookie's Law. And even those who have bid kiddom adieu can have nights that remind them of harsh lessons learned in their younger days. When David Wright forgets how many outs there are and then gets eaten alive by a grounder at the worst possible time, you know you're going to be fighting uphill. When Brian Giles's bounder spun its way out into left field, I felt for Pedro, sitting in the dugout after a pretty encouraging outing only to watch an L get hung on him. But not as much as I did for Wright. After his error, David turned and watched Giles's ball for a moment — helplessly, for it may as well have been on the moon for all he could do about it. Then turned back toward home plate. He looked stoic, but his eyes told another story. Giles said later that he'd thought he'd fouled the ball off, that he had no idea he'd somehow hit it with the kind of wicked English that will get you thrown off the pool table if you try it in a bar. Maybe it didn't rip the felt, but David had no chance. And neither did we — youthful energy notwithstanding. As you've probably heard or read, the Mets and the City of New York are teaming to give you (especially if you're a season-ticket holder) a chance to buy a pair of Shea seats for the low, low bargain price of $869. A portion of the proceeds will be directed to worthy charities, the market will bear what the market will bear and at this point nobody can feign shock that stadium relics carry a high tag. It's galling and insane and all that, but I wasn't expecting those of us who've spent the rough (and I do mean rough) equivalent of 50 full days sitting in such seats to receive a diehard discount. If you've toured what one wag referred to as the FEMA trailer they've set up between the old and new ballparks to sell Final Season merchandise, you've been reminded that you can put a price on sentiment. I don't know that I'd dig way deep for a pair of Shea seats. My lovely wife, partly being characteristically indulgent and partly as a hedge against the inevitable psychiatric bills I'd run up when it would fully dawn on me that Shea seats were available and I didn't grab two, has encouraged us to go for it (as if we have a go-for-it fund). That's an awfully thoughtful blessing on her part but it's an awfully steep bill. I just don't know. But I do know of an added embellishment that would make the final Shea seats that come attached to a regular-season ballgame that much more valuable. Sign Edgardo Alfonzo in September. We were talking a post ago about Aaron Heilman starting September 28 or Jesse Orosco finishing. Neither seems likely to happen (though if I had to bet, I'd lean toward Jesse). As I mentioned, Mike Flanagan threw the final Oriole pitch at Memorial Stadium and it was a sweet deal. On the occasion of the final Giants home game at the Polo Grounds, manager Bill Rigney fielded a lineup that included recently reacquired Bobby Thomson and Whitey Lockman, 1954 Series pinch-hitting hero Dusty Rhodes, stalwart championship catcher Wes Westrum, Willie Mays (of course) and, to pitch, '54 ace Johnny Antonelli. That, too, was sweet. What could be sweeter on September 28, 2008 than looking up at the right side of the scoreboard and seeing this notation in the two-hole? Yes, Edgardo Alfonzo (Billy Wagner, grab a couple of sixes). This isn't in the fanciful realm of “wouldn't it be great if some retired Met icon could be activated for one day?” Fonzie is a Met icon who is not retired. Fonzie is playing for the Long Island Ducks. Fonzie, for that matter, is tearing it up for the Long Island Ducks. This was in Newsday Monday: Alfonzo returned to the Ducks for the second half and is hitting .324 with 11 runs, 12 RBIs, two doubles and three home runs. He hit .266 with five home runs and 56 RBIs in 105 games with the Ducks in 2007. The former Met spent the first few months of 2008 with Quintana Roo of the Mexican League, hitting .280 with 12 doubles and 17 RBIs in 55 games. This wouldn't be Minnie Minoso. This wouldn't be a gimmick. OK, it would be a gimmick, but not an implausible one. It would be an appropriate one. Granted, if the Mets are fighting for a playoff spot in Game 162, you might take a different tack (though if Fonzie's batting .324, maybe he should be called in from Islip sooner). But if it's devoid of implications beyond the one implication we've had circled on the schedule for months, then why not? Surely the 40-man roster can stand some juggling for one September day. Surely Luis Castillo will need to keep flexing that hip to make certain it's strong for 2009. Surely the Mets organization for once in their stupid lives can do something beautiful and relatively inexpensive. I'd make the offer to Mike Piazza, too, except Mike did retire and I can't see Mike going for it. Besides, Mike had his last day in a Mets uniform duly noted. It was beautiful, actually, more beautiful than anticipated because the scoreboard carried this notation in the cleanup slot that Sunday: That was one of Willie Randolph's best moments, penciling in Mike Piazza to bat fourth on his final day as a Met. Removing Mike Piazza before the game was over was not his shiningest hour, but let's stay positive. If Mike called Jay Horwitz (all Hall of Fame-caliber former Mets catchers call Jay Horwitz when they want something) and said “I've been working out, I'd like to come back,” I'd say sure, make it Mike and Fonzie. I'd throw Brian Schneider, Ramon Castro and Robinson Cancel under the bus so fast, it would make Gary Carter's head spin. But that's not gonna happen. Mike stopped playing. Fonzie, however, hasn't. Fonzie was hitting .324 through Sunday in a reasonably competitive league. Fonzie was auditioned in Norfolk in 2006 and it was only, if I followed the dots correctly, because Castro went on the DL and the Mets had to sign Kelly Stinnett out of nowhere as a precaution for October, that he didn't get a Lee Mazzilli recall that jubilant September. Make amends Omar. Make it up to us. Make it up to me, the fan who's spent the rough equivalent of 50 days, about three hours per game over almost 400 games, sitting in a Shea Stadium seat that you're going to sell to someone more well off financially and mentally than me. Give us one fantastic Shea throwback for one fantastic final Shea experience. Give one authentic Shea icon who deserved a legitimate sendoff but never received one a last afternoon in the sun. Give us our Mike Flanagan, our Bobby Thomson. Give us this one and make some diehards happy. So I'm working on a computer I haven't used in years, one that dates back to Aaron Heilman's rookie year. Back then, this computer seemed very promising. Now it's outdated and clunky and the only reason I'm using it is because until my usual computer is pronounced fit, it's all I've got. Hit you over the head much? No more than the Jody Gerut did to Aaron Heilman. We won, so bygones can be bygones for a night, but ninth innings are obviously not Aaron's bag, baby. Until he becomes a free agent and signs with the Cardinals and Tony La Russa converts him to a starter (or a shortstop; it is La Russa), he's stuck in the bullpen with the rest of the well-meaning schlubs who couldn't close a jar of Taster's Choice, let alone a baseball game. But I like Aaron. He gives me no reason to, but he seems not unlikable. Forlorn, actually, is what he seems. He struggled his first couple of years, was turned to amid desperate straits in early 2005 and threw a complete game one-hitter. There is not a single Mets starter in our pretty good rotation who has thrown a nine-inning one-hitter for us. Yet they're all still in the rotation. Aaron was asked to leave the rotation not two months after his one-hitter and was never invited back. He got pretty good at pitching a given inning, whether it was the seventh, the eighth or, on occasion in '05, the ninth. As with this computer (which I schlepped home as part of a severance package because I once read an article that said if you're laid off, demand your computer), I thought that was only the beginning, that this thing is going to keep unveiling marvels and wonders for us all to enjoy. Instead, Aaron, like this 2003 iMac, peaked quite a while ago. Now and then he gives it his all and it's a big, big help. Other times he gives it his all, and a four-run lead grows lonely quickly. Aaron Heilman has been a Met pitcher longer on a consecutive basis than any other Met pitcher (Pedro Feliciano, up in 2002, never pitched for another big league team but he did wander outside the organization a couple of times). That puts Aaron in Jose/David territory as far as homegrown pitchers who never pitched anywhere else go. But that's about as far as that analogy will fly. Aaron Heilman, No. 1 draft status and all, has never been a golden boy on this team. He's never had a role that quite suited him. He may still produce wonders and marvels in his career, but it won't be as a Met. But I have a consolation prize for him. I've been rereading one of my all-time favorite baseball books, Ballpark by Peter Richmond. It's about how Oriole Park at Camden Yards came to be, about what a unique idea it was, how all involved took great pains to create (not imitate) the retro ballpark style, why it replaced locally beloved Memorial Stadium. Columnist John Steadman wrote during the period when not every Baltimorean was sold on the Camden charm, “If it's being built to look old and rundown, we already have one of those.” As the Memorial finale approached, it became a sentimental mission in Baltimore to have Mike Flanagan throw the final Oriole pitch. Flanagan, a 23-game winner for the A.L. champion Birds of '79, came up in 1975. He was the next in a long line of great Oriole pitching products. He lasted a dozen years before being traded to Toronto in a classic deadline deal in which a veteran is sent from a lousy team to a contending team. The Oriole Way by then, 1987, was just a memory. In 1991, at age 39, he came home to Baltimore to relieve and, by his own admission, maybe throw that ultimate Memorial Stadium pitch. On that Sunday afternoon, the fans clamored to have him come in from the bullpen and finish off an era. He did, and it was, Richmond recounts, beautiful. When I reread that passage, it got me thinking about who should start the final game at Shea. I mean really should. If we leave out fantasy picks like Seaver and Gooden (who's only 43, y'know), I concluded, sadly, there's no obvious choice. None of our current starters has that kind of Met tenure that demands the ball. Yeah, I thought, Pedro, kind of, but…ah, not really. I'm more concerned that Pedro has a next start, not a last start. Santana, as much as we're relying on him for now and beyond, doesn't speak to Shea's history. Pelfrey is mildly appealing in this context as potentially the next righty flamethrower to dominate the National League, an extension (we hope) of the Tom & Doc lineage. It's not a great fit, but it would do by default. (And unless you're yearning for time to almost literally stand still on September 28, I don't think there's enough of an emotional connection to sign Steve Trachsel to a one-day contract.) Tuesday night, however, it hit me. It hit me like Gerut hit Heilman. Let Aaron do it. Let Aaron have that final start at Shea Stadium. Let Aaron, who was a batterymate of Piazza, who was on the same staff as Leiter and Franco, who was drafted by the defending National League champions, who threw a complete game one-hitter, take the ball. Let Aaron Heilman have one final moment he can enjoy at Shea Stadium. Aaron's sucked up a lot of thankless innings (and, yes, given up a lot of long home runs), but he's likable enough. Give him the ball. Besides, if we're gonna rely on him to close anymore this season, it's not like that final game is going to have implications beyond the sentimental. Funny thing about the Apple Store: it doesn't feature a gigantic top hat and has nothing to do with home runs. My Mac is on the fritz. Might be MIA for a bit. You can all go about your lives in the interim. Let's Go Mets. Two things are wrong with the 75 Greatest Moments at Shea Presented by Nikon ballot. 1) The non-baseball stuff. 2) The baseball stuff. Otherwise, it’s perfect. Only kidding. There’s lots wrong with this vote — or “multimedia platform” as the press release refers to it — to determine the greatest moment at Shea Stadium, starting with the definition of a “moment”. According to the Mets and Nikon, a moment could be one blink in time or it could span days, even months. It is also burdened by hindsight. Much of what is listed is of the “ya don’t say!” variety. Shea had the Ice Capades? A title fight? Jethro Tull? Ya don’t say! Even the baseball choices are flecked with after-the-fact trivia, items that didn’t strike the contemporary observer as great but are wedged in now to show somebody did his homework. The Mets announced this promotion on July 22. They waited more than a half-season to get it going and are giving fans all of 24 days (through August 15) to vote to determine the Top Ten; from there a second vote will determine the order of those ten. I don’t understand why they didn’t get on this earlier. I also don’t understand why they limited themselves to 75 moments as opposed to 100 or why it’s not a baseball-only ballot. I get that Shea has hosted other very notable events but this is a ballot directed at Mets fans. Why not, on the off chance that this is supposed to be taken seriously, have a blue & orange-ribbon panel present the ten biggest non-Mets things and leave the baseball voting to the fans? Why send out a fleet of car dealers to count down Shea’s final days? But we’ve been down that road. Non-Baseball Twenty-six of seventy-five spots on this ballot were given over to events that had nothing to do with the Mets. That’s more than a third. That’s excessive bordering on disgraceful. That leaves 49 slots for the Mets: 49 slots to cover 45 years. Here’s how the non-baseball stuff breaks down. • Jets: 4 The four Jets “moments” chosen were the first Jets game at Shea; the AFL championship game that sent the Jets to Super Bowl III; the first Monday Night Football telecast from Shea; and the final Jets game in Queens. Can’t argue with the win over the Raiders. Without it, there’s no guarantee in Miami. As you’ll see, many of the firsts on the ballot are overblown, but the first Jets game in the gleaming new stadium in New York (after four years of struggling in the Polo Grounds) was a milestone for both the franchise and the American Football League. I’ll give them that. First MNF game? Trivial. Final game? Sad. Sad doesn’t keep it from being historic, but they could have done better. Much better. How about December 20, 1981 when the Jets earned their first NFL playoff berth by sacking the Packers and in the process dragging the Giants into the playoffs for their first playoff appearance in 18 years? Or November 22, 1981, the thriller for the ages when Richard Todd, wearing a flak jacket to protect his cracked ribs, led the Jets downfield in the final three minutes — hitting six different receivers — to eclipse the hated Dolphins 16-15? Or Broadway Joe’s New York debut on September 18, 1965? Or October 1, 1967 when Joe Willie Namath threw for 415 yards en route to a milestone 4,000-yard passing season? Or, though you wouldn’t really want him back as a guest, December 16, 1973, the day O.J. Simpson passed the 2,000-yard rushing mark? I’m not that big a Jets fan and I could figure out there was more to their Shea stay than what the ballot lists. • Other Sports: 8 Two college football games, two soccer matches, two title fights, the Ice Capades and the first Giants home game in 1975. Throw out the two college football games, the two soccer matches, the two title fights, the Ice Capades and the first Giants home game in 1975. It’s all worth noting in some context (we gave a college QB, a boxer, a goalkeeper and a Giant cameos in our Countdown Like It Oughta Be), but none of it comes close to constituting one of the 75 great moments at Shea. It’s amusing that the Ice Capades brought its show to an outdoor facility in June, but so what? This hodgepodge, even the Giants’ Flushing cameo, has been lost to the mists of time. A Greatest Moments ballot with a finite number of spaces is the not the venue for rescuing them. I appreciate the impulse to nod toward the mutipurposeness of our longtime home, but this smacks of someone having flipped through the neat Shea history inserts that have appeared in a couple of Mets yearbooks this decade and thinking it would be cute to include these episodes. It’s not. But if you are going down this road, why no professional rasslin’? Andre The Giant took on boxing’s Bayonne Bleeder, Chuck Wepner, at Shea in 1976, the same night Muhammad Ali threw down against Antnio Inoki — boxer vs. wrestler — in Tokyo, which itself was shown closed-circuit at Shea. Now that was an event. None of these, save for a Rickrolling, will be chosen as one of the final ten. But being considered, being on the ballot at all, should signify something beyond “look what we found in the attic!” • Spiritual: 2 Billy Graham brought his crusade to Shea in 1970. Pope John Paul II rallied the youth there in 1979. That’s some name-brand religion right there. I can see why they’re on the ballot. The Jehovah’s Witnesses (’78) and the Promise Keepers (’96) also brought in the masses, but they go unmentioned. Everybody seems to remember the Papal visit. The others, rightly or wrongly, are ya don’t say! But I can see John Paul and the Rev. Graham as legitimate entrants; they’re religious rock stars. Speaking of which… • Concerts: 12 This is a tough category because if you saw Jethro Tull in 1976 or Elton John with Eric Clapton in 1992 or looked in vain for Jimi Hendrix at the Festival for Peace in 1970 (he wasn’t there, every eyewitness swears, but Janis Joplin sure was), then I’ll bet it was a great moment at Shea (well, maybe not Tull). But does every big concert rate the same treatment? I’ve heard over the years how awesome the Who and Clash were, how captivating the Police were, how seismic the Stones were, how breathtaking Bruce Springsteen was and I experienced for myself the incredible spectacle Billy Joel produced. Grand Funk fortified Shea’s rock legacy and having Simon & Garfunkel homeward bound in Queens after all their years apart was pretty special. But can we agree there’s the Beatles’ first show in 1965 and there’s everything else? And if we’re talking about Greatness, there’s the Beatles’ first show and nothing else — not even the Beatles’ followup in ’66 — could possibly match it? Seems to devalue the concept of Great Moments when everything is granted equivalency. Beatles ’65 in a class of its own. Everybody else, from Janis to Billy? Maybe not the Ice Capades, but not the Beatles ’65. Baseball Now the fun starts. And if you remember that was the 1983 marketing slogan, you’ll be stunned to find out what’s been omitted by your New York Mets. We’ll get to that in, as they say at Nikon, a moment. There are 49 baseball-related moments on the ballot. One is tangentially Mets and it is also the most unwieldy entry of them all: “1975 Sports Season,” alluding to the Mets, Yankees, Jets and Giants sharing Shea for a season while construction projects proceeded apace in the Bronx and East Rutherford. Beyond “1975 Sports Season” making for a clumsily defined moment, this is, again, trivia in context. The all-hands-on-deckery is a groovy footnote to a comprehensive history of Shea, but there was nothing great about either football team that year; something tells me if the Giants hadn’t won the Super Bowl in 2008, they wouldn’t show up twice on the ballot. This entry also seems to be a backhanded way of acknowledging that the Yankees called Shea home for two seasons. It’s a little more than ya don’t say!, a little less than Great Moments material. I’d prefer to make the ballot Mets-exclusive, but if you’re doing it this way, then let’s be menschen about this and offer an actual Yankee moment at Shea (and no, not the time a cannon in a pregame military ceremony took out the centerfield fence). You could choose from Catfish Hunter’s Yankee debut on April 11, 1975 (a huge harbinger of things to come regarding free agentry and the power of the pinstriped checkbook); Billy Martin’s first managerial homecoming (Old Timers Day, August 2, 1975) or even April 6, 1974, their first home game in our park. I know, it’s strange that I’m being magnanimous toward them, but as long as we’re doing this aspect of Shea history, let’s do it right. That leaves 48 Mets Moments on the ballot. One of them is the 1964 All-Star Game, technically not a Mets game, but with Ron Hunt starting and Shea receiving its first national audience (and Johnny Callison slugging a walkoff winner for the N.L.), it absolutely belongs. So really that leaves us 47. Here’s how the rest of it breaks down. • Postseason: 18 Need more, not less. You can’t go wrong with playoff and World Series highlights. The only one that surprised me a little was the inclusion of Game Five of the ’73 World Series. It was a perfectly neat 2-0 victory over Oakland and it put the Mets up 3-2 (with a promise on the scoreboard that Miracle No. 2 was 3,000 miles away), but Games Three and Four were livelier and, in their way, more Shealike. But we lost Game Three in eleven innings — you might faint if reminded in this process that the Mets aren’t perfect — and Game Four, which featured a Rusty Staub homer and the Mike Andrews ovation, was overlooked. All four 1969 games are in. The two wins over the Reds from 1973 are in. The two heartstoppers against Houston, Games Three and Five, are in. Buckner and the almost incidental Game Seven from ’86 are in, of course. The überclassics from the Valentine era (Pratt, Robin, Benny, Bobby Jones) are in. And the unforgettable fire of Lo Duca’s Double Tag and Endy’s Catch (from a loss!) make it as well. Not in? Besides an additional A’s game? Nothing from the ’88 NLCS, which is semi-understandable. Game Three in the muck was an exciting win, but maybe it’s just too much of a reminder of what followed in Games Four and Five. Nothing from the 2000 World Series, which I find childish. Game Three? Benny delivering in the clutch? C’mon. I know the rest didn’t turn out well, but to ignore the Subway Series is revisionist nonsense. I also wonder where Game Four against the Braves from ’99 went; rallying off John Rocker to avoid the sweep and force the Grand Slam Single game was monumental. • Clinchings & Such: 5 The “such” refers to October 3, 1999, the Melvin Mora Game, whose presence on this list utterly delights and kind of shocks me. It clinched only (only) a tie for the Wild Card, but those of who attended knew it as deliverance. It’s clinching enough to be mentioned alongside the securing of division titles in ’69, ’86, ’88 and ’06. I can see leaving out the 2000 Wild Card clinching as it was a tad anticlimactic, but if you weren’t wasting our time with ice follies, there’d be room for it. • Retirement Ceremonies: 5 Tricky terrain. Jackie Robinson Night? Absolutely; the President of the United States was on hand, on the field. Tom Seaver Day? Absolutely. Still the only player to get the treatment and Tom made it all the more memorable by jogging to the mound and bowing in every direction toward the fans. But Gil Hodges and Casey Stengel is equivalency in action. They retired No. 14 during Old Timers Day in ’73. It was a great gesture, but not one that seems to have been remembered down the corridors of time. Everybody knows 14 was retired — I’d be willing to bet few had any idea when exactly it was retired. And Casey? Casey’s number was retired on a Thursday afternoon in front of almost nobody. It was hours before gametime. The photo of him limping off the field with thousands of empty seats behind him may evoke melancholy but not so much a great moment at Shea. I wouldn’t begrudge Mr. Hodges or Mr. Stengel their numbers, but as “Great Moments,” each of these feels like a well-meaning reach. (Wrote Robert Creamer in Stengel: His Life and Times, “His uniform shirt was put on display in a glass case in the stadium’s Diamond Club, although Casey said before leaving the ballpark, ‘I’d like to see them give that number 37 to some young player so it can go on and do some good for the Mets. I hope they don’t put a mummy in the glass case.'”) You want to honor Gil as part of this? Try July 30, 1969, the day he ambled out to left field and pulled Cleon Jones for not hustling. It was stern, it was definitive, it was professional, it’s what everybody pointed to, even then, as a turning point for the young Mets. Casey? His 74th birthday party, when he received a rousing on-field chorus of “Happy Birthday To You” from the Dodgers seems more festive than the solemn episode that was selected. Though the number 24 wasn’t taken out of circulation, Willie Mays’ Say Goodbye to America farewell was quite possibly the most moving ceremony in Shea Stadium history. If you watched it as it happened and then went out for a 35-year smoke, you’d be shocked to find out 24 wasn’t retired. Good call getting this on the list. • Records: 7 Interesting company here. Seaver’s ten consecutive strikeouts still boggle the mind. Of course that belongs. The 23-inning game (7:23) that was the second game of a doubleheader is still, I’m pretty sure, the longest National League game ever by time. No arguments with its inclusion (even if it was a Mets loss). Since it was a big deal in its day and it set a team record (albeit since tied), Todd Hundley’s 41st homer in 1996 can stay, even if Javy Lopez later broke the catchers’ single-season mark and Hundley was implicated in the Mitchell Report. The Mets have since scored more than ten runs in one inning, but little in Shea’s 45 years was as electric as the ten-run inning the Mets hung up in the eighth against the Braves on June 30, 2000, especially the three-run shot Mike Piazza blasted to put the Mets ahead. (It was the Mets’ second ten-run frame; the first, in ’79, goes missing.) Piazza setting the all-time catchers’ career mark in homers strikes me as only borderline Mets-historic. At least Hundley’s 41st established a Mets record. I recall being far more excited when Mike hit a walkoff shot the next night in the eleventh. I was also more excited when Mike was traded to the Mets and made his debut at Shea in 1998, which I bring up because that was one of the Ten Greatest Moments in team history as determined by fan balloting in 2000, yet it’s not listed here at all. Yet Ice Capades is. Tommie Agee’s longest-ever home run? This was a lost classic — urban myth almost — for a quarter-century until Howie Rose’s campaign to have it marked in the Upper Deck reached fruition on July 15, 1994 as part of that weekend’s 25th-anniversary celebration of 1969. It’s nice to have it in here, but if Howie hadn’t succeeded, no way, in light of the lack of film, does it resurface as a Greatest Moment. Finally, there are Robin Ventura’s two grand slams in the doubleheader of May 20, 1999. I was at that doubleheader. It was a notch on my fan belt to say I saw the second grand slam (twinbill began at 4:40 on a Thursday). We all wondered if it was a first and we were impressed when it was announced that it was a singular feat. Swell. But three days later, John Olerud capped a five-run bottom of the ninth by singling home the winning runs off Curt Schilling. The Mets came back from 0-4 to win 5-0. That was a way bigger moment than either of Ventura’s May 20 grand slams. And it’s not listed. I’d substitute at once. • Iconography: 10 First game at Shea (albeit the first Mets loss at Shea); first win at Shea (though not as well known as the first loss because it was the third game); Seaver’s near-perfecto; the black cat; Willie’s Say Hey homer to beat the Giants in his first game since 1957 playing for New York; the Ball Off The Wall play that sank the Pirates; the blackout of ’77 interrupting Lenny Randle’s at-bat; Gary Carter’s Opening Day walkoff home run to beat Neil Allen; Piazza post-9/11. Of course to all nine of the above. The tenth is a misfire: 1981 Season — The Home Run Apple Hat “arrives” before the 1981 campaign Please. You’re joking. This isn’t about disliking the Apple. I like the Apple. I would take it rather than leave it. But “1981 season” as its moment? While I credit whoever did this for finally getting the season right (it’s often referred to as arriving in 1980), the Apple, like the Agee Upper Deck blast, picked up steam after the fact. The Apple’s a bit of a cause célèbre these days, but when it and its hat were plopped down beyond right-center, it was a silly little gimmick. It remained so until kitsch became king in this decade. The Apple’s planting was no more a story in the spring of ’81 than the erecting of Kingman Fallout Zone signs in the parking lot (management not responsible for flying baseballs). The Apple was an offshoot of The Magic Is Back ad campaign of 1980. That resonated because, as I’m fond of pointing out, the 1980 Mets played with a little otherworldly spirit for a few months that summer. The Magic was symbolized by Steve Henderson’s two-out three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth on June 14, 1980, the one that capped a five-run rally which brought the Mets all the way back from down 6-0 to win 7-6. It was, as I’m also fond of pointing out, a night like no other in that era. The curtain call may have been invented that evening. That’s your Magic moment. But it’s not on the ballot. If you’re going to honor the Apple, add “Mets hire Joe Pignatano as bullpen coach” because Piggy planted tomatoes in the pen and those tomatoes were the signature produce of Shea long before (and even after) the Apple came along. Inconsequential Trivia: 2 The April ’98 emergency doubleheader that placed the Yankees at Shea in the afternoon when the Mets were scheduled to play at night: marginal at best. If you’re going to play it up, mention at least that Darryl Strawberry hit a homer for the other “home” team and that the Apple operator, as if by habit, raised the Mets’ Apple in homage (halfway before realizing it was probably bad form). The first Interleague game at Shea against the Red Sox in 1997 is the single worst Mets choice on the ballot. I was there. There was indeed an air of significance in the ballpark, I’ll give them that. But you use this as your representative Interleague moment and you ignore the Matt Franco Game? Never mind the Marlon Anderson Game or the 14-inning comeback against the Blue Jays. YOU IGNORE THE MATT FRANCO GAME but make eligible a game no one ever talks about, a game whose result, I would venture, isn’t automatically known to Mets fans. (We lost.) I don’t know how this slipped onto the list or how the glorious MATT FRANCO GAME, a staple of Mets Classics on SNY of all channels, failed to make the cut. But as long as the Ice Capades made it. Incidentally, as with Piazza’s Met debut, the Matt Franco Game was on the Ten Greatest Moments ballot in 2000 but isn’t here. A few other Shea moments seem to have been disappeared in the intervening eight years as well: • Tug McGraw coining “You Gotta Believe,” pegged then as July 9, 1973 (I’ve seen various dates, but all agree it was at Shea) • Doc’s one-hitter against the Cubs in ’84 • Doc striking out 16 Pirates one start later to set a rookie record (that K Korner was far more iconic than the Apple in the ’80s) • HoJo reaching the 30-30 milestone in 1989 (it wasn’t the first time he’d done it and it was the day Willie Randolph Pendletoned Don Aase, so I wonder why it was on the ballot last time) • John Franco’s 400th save (I didn’t care then, I don’t care now, but this organization used to hold John Franco Day every three years) Though not specifically a Shea moment, the 2000 ballot also included “Terrific Debut,” for Tom Seaver’s rookie season. For our 2008 purposes, we could — though it would require a touch of hindsight — include April 13, 1967, Tom Seaver’s first-ever game, a Mets win. It indeed occurred at Shea Stadium. He’s only The Franchise. Which brings me to Now The Fun Starts. Like I said, that was the ’83 slogan, hilarious in retrospect given the 6-15 stumble that sent that season into the pits immediately. But the very first game of 1983 you could not argue with as fun…as momentous…as historic…as emotional…as a milestone…as one of the Greatest Moments at Shea by any objective or sentient accounting. Except by the Mets’ or Nikon’s. April 5, 1983 — Nearly six years after the trade that sent him to Cincinnati, Tom Seaver returns to the mound for the New York Mets on Opening Day in a 2-0 win over the Phillies. There are many, many, many great Mets moments at Shea that have gotten the shaft in this process. If I start listing those I haven’t mentioned already, I’ll be here all week. But Tom Seaver’s return was as Shea a moment as you could hope for. The king no longer in exile; his subjects overjoyed; the world righted. Steve Wulf captured the energy of the afternoon for the cover story in April 18, 1983’s Sports Illustrated, starting with the banners that fans flew to salute George Thomas Seaver: WELCOME BACK, TOMMY TERRIFIC WELCOME HOME, TOM GT CAME HOME Then the first official acknowledgement of what was at hand: The introduction of the starting lineup was made at 1:20. After the eighth batter, Catcher Ron Hodges, was introduced, Public Address Announcer Jack Franchetti said simply, “Batting ninth and pitching, now warming up in the bullpen, Number 41.” No name, just the number. The cheering began. At 1:29 No. 41 finished his warmups. His catcher, rookie Ronn Reynolds, asked him if he kept his warmup ball or took it to the mound with him. When Seaver asked why, Reynolds explained that there was a handicapped boy near the railing in the right field corner who’d asked him for a ball earlier, and maybe Seaver could give the kid the ball. “I thought it might make his day,” said Reynolds. “Heck, maybe it’ll make his life.” The fans were already on their feet and cheering when Seaver walked over to the stands to give the ball away. “That showed me so much,” said Reynolds. “I had a tear in my eye.” Seaver then began his procession to the dugout. In the crowd were his wife, children, three sisters, mother and father. He tipped his hat, placed it back on his head, tipped it again, waved it twice, put it back on, tipped it once more, this time thrusting it skyward, and disappeared into the dugout. “I knew it would be emotional,” Seaver said later, “but I didn’t think it would be that emotional. I had to block out a lot of it because I was pitching, but if I wasn’t, I would have cried. I know my mother lost it.” Seaver then “went the length of the Mets dugout,” Wulf wrote, “shaking hands with everybody on the bench, wishing each of them luck, pumping them up.” One club employee said the gesture of the Hall of Famer to be reaching out to each of his teammates is “what really gave me chills.” And that was all before a single pitch was fired. Tom threw six shutout innings. The Mets beat Steve Carlton 2-0. A stadium long moribund was unquestionably reignited. That, according to the Mets-Nikon ballot, is NOT one of the 75 Greatest Moments at Shea. But how about them Ice Capades? Next Monday: A chance to get Essential. Evans! Murphy! Kunz! The future is now! Some of it anyway. It may not have been planned this way, it may not have been conceived as a winning strategy for 2008, but three Mets prospects, if such entities exist, walk, talk, hit, catch, run and throw among us. In the last two days, Nick Evans has gained big-time seniority within the kiddie corps. In the last two days, a kiddie corps has formed: Evans and Murphy and Kunz. Evans, 22, and Daniel Murphy, 23, are the co-starting leftfielders. Eddie Kunz, 22, is the closer. These arrangements may be temporary or they may be a harbinger of what is to come. Either way, it's going on right now in the midst of what is still, despite recent evidence to the contrary, a pennant race. It could be short-term disastrous because kids have to learn the ropes and rope-learning can be a lengthy process. It can start, as it did for Murphy Saturday night, with a base hit and an Endylicious catch at the left field wall. It can start, as it did for Kunz this afternoon, with a bunt tossed high of Delgado's head. It will probably continue for both of them as it has for Evans, whose unforeseen Rocky Mountain High debut in May was more aberration than indicator where his immediate 2008 fortunes were concerned. But this may not be about 2008 anymore. We're at the Elmer's Glue-and-stamp hinges stage with this team. Maine's on the DL. Wagner's in for an MRI. The Mets admirably burrowed through July without more than (by Jerry Manuel's admission) two authentic outfielders and perpetually short a starting pitcher. The bullpen gave us their all and it appears they have little left to give. Luck — illustrated by Saturday's bizarre anti-Double Tag play in which Mark Loretta and Hunter Pence came out winners in a three-legged race whose finish line was Ramon Castro's ankle — seems to have been placed on irrevocable waivers. The Mets have lost six of eight. First they were losing heartbreakers. Now they're losing every way and everybody. So it's pre-2009 a little. It's Evans and Murphy platooning in left because Manuel can't keep rotating old infielders out there. It's Kunz en route to closing because Billy's left forearm's feeling the strain of all the innings it's thrown and all the saves it's blown. It's potentially Jonathon Niese, 21, come Friday if the Zephyrs don't overwhelm his pitch count Monday. It's Fernando Martinez, 19, you've gotta figure, sooner rather than later if he stays out of harm's way. It's the real Citi Field Preview Center at Shea in August and September should there be a protracted shortage of Maine and Wagner and Church. It's not impossible to win some games that way if the veterans who are still standing don't fall apart. It's not utterly implausible that the Mets — 2½ out pending the ESPN action tonight — can ride the Youth of America to continued contention. But recalling past Augusts when injuries mounted and neophytes were inserted, I wouldn't rush to get my hopes up. For 2008, that is. For 2009 and beyond, with Kunz and Murphy and Evans and maybe Niese and Martinez on display, getting our hopes up early might be the wise move to make. For ten Marvelous Exciting Tremendous Spectacular games, everything went the Marvelous Exciting Tremendous Spectacular way. Pitchers' duels. Slugfests. Late and close. Early and often. Go-ahead runs. Tack-on runs. Baserunners stranded. Dominant starting. Sterling relief. Almost everything going right. Lately, it's been Miserable Enervating Torpid Slack Not sure exactly where it started. Since the ten Marvelous Exciting Tremendous Spectacular games, the Miserable Enervating Torpid Slack ledger amounts to 6-8. That's fourteen games. That, by any calculation, is longer than ten games. Of more immediate concern, over the past seven games, the Miserable Enervating Torpid Slack record is 2-5, with every one of the Miserable Enervating Torpid Slack losses turning on plays that have gone against the Miserable Enervating Torpid Slack Pitchers' duels. Slugfests. Late and close. Early and often. Go-ahead runs. Tack-on runs. Baserunners stranded. Dominant starting. Sterling relief. Several things not going right. Numbers are numbers. The Marvelous Exciting Tremendous Spectacular margin was one game ahead of the pack a week ago. Now, suddenly, the Miserable Enervating Torpid Slack can be found in third place, two games out. Numbers are numbers. What is quantifiable can shift quickly in baseball. Numbers comprise the bottom line yet may not necessarily signify much for the long haul. Yesterday's 10-0 is today's 6-8 or 2-5. But there's something more alarming about the empirical turn the season has taken. For one night, maybe two, you can chalk it up to the balls not falling in where they fell in last week, the call not being made where it was being made. You don't have to infer the be-all and end-all from the bottom line of the moment. But you string it together over enough time, and you can feel the season very slowly getting away. It's not so much the lagging that brings you down from 10-0 to 6-8 — or its subset of 2-5. It's not just a matter of having been one up in first to being, a week later, two out in third. It's something in the course of events that is hinting to you what was Marvelous Exciting Tremendous Spectacular has morphed as if via time-lapse photography to Miserable Enervating Torpid Slack Pitchers' duels. Slugfests. Late and close. Early and often. Go-ahead runs. Tack-on runs. Baserunners stranded. Dominant starting. Sterling relief. Almost nothing going right. Almost; but what goes wrong…hoo boy, does it ever. It's a little chilly for this early in August. But it's still early August. Plenty of time left to return to Marvelous Exciting Tremendous Spectacular Really there is. |
Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star by Greg Prince is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. 
Amazin' Again: How the 2015 New York Mets Brought the Magic Back to Queens by Greg Prince is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. 
Volume I of The Happiest Recap: 50+ Years of the New York Mets As Told in 500+ Amazin' Wins by Greg Prince is available in print and for Kindle on Amazon. 
Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History by Greg Prince (foreword by Jason Fry), is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. |
|
Copyright © 2026 Faith and Fear in Flushing - All Rights Reserved |
||
