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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Greg Prince on 12 November 2007 12:22 am You have seven weeks to get done what Stephanie and I hadn't gotten around to until yesterday. You have seven weeks to make your way uptown to the Museum of the City of New York and take in the glories of Glory Days: New York Baseball 1947-1957. You will not be disappointed.
While I can't say I learned a whole lot new Saturday on a broad subject whose many facets I've been studying for 35 years, it was fantastic to see so much of it on display. Lots of mementoes, lots of memories, lots of context, lots of Giants, lots of Dodgers, not too suffocating an amount of Yankees and, for completion's sake, a legitimate dollop of Metsies at the end. This exhibition held old men who lived it and little kids who hadn't the vaguest in its thrall. Us too. MCNY always puts on a great show. This one runs to the end of the year. If you like baseball enough to read this blog, you'll will want to make it to this museum.
And goodness knows you will want to drop 20 bucks in the gift shop or online for a book called Shea Stadium: Images of Baseball by Jason D. Antos. This is not a coffee table book and it's not a factually flawless history, but it's awesome to look at and Amazin' fun to read. It's loaded with black & white pictures from across the decades, particularly the building of Shea and what was there before there was a Shea.
Shea, too, is a subject I've been studying for an awfully long time yet I learned things that I never knew before. I didn't know from Ned's Diner or the coal plant or what the concession stands looked like under construction and I hadn't seen a WAPP-FM backstage pass for the Who or Louis Armstrong in a Mets cap or what everybody was wearing to the Flushing Boys Club Luncheon in 1975. Antos, a chronicler of Queens history, pulls in the underdiscovered wonders of the Corona-Flushing neighborhood and Shea's multiple purposes and arranges his own enthralling exhibition…probably the best exhibition involving the Mets since the first Mayor's Trophy Game.
by Greg Prince on 12 November 2007 12:12 am 
This is the Shea Stadium lauded as “the most beautiful ballpark ever built”. Granted, the lauding was done in December 1964 by the Building Awards Committee of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, but early returns and home-field advantage notwithstanding, who would have argued?
This is one chestnut among dozens you will inhale from Shea Stadium: Images of Baseball by Jason D. Antos, availableonline or in the gift shop of the Museum of the City of New York…which also happens to be home until December 31 toGlory Days: New York Baseball 1947-1957. Both the book and the exhibition are recommended heartily.
by Greg Prince on 9 November 2007 9:31 am There have been some pretty convincing articles on the breathless subject of A-Rod and the Mets of late, even if they contradict each other. The ever-popular Tim Marchman came out against on Wednesday; the ubiquitous and solid Howard Megdal weighed in for on Thursday. They both made compelling points. There has also been a Harper's share of immensely inane takes on the subject, ones that swear you easily distracted lemminglike Mets fans must have Alex Rodriguez right now if you know what's good for you.
I'd prefer to A-Void A-Rod. I don't mean not sign him, but not write about him. What am I going to tell you that you haven't already considered for yourself? That he hits really well? That he plays two positions that we have well covered into the next decade? That's he's going to be six-star hotel expensive? That he's kinda creepy? That he's one of the all-time offensive machines? That he's Alex Rodriguez and all that implies?
We don't need A-Rod, but we could always use a bat like his. If he could catch, I'd say give him the new stadium, the rotunda and every darn brick on the Fanwalk. But he's a shortstop/third baseman and I do believe we're set there. His presence might have accounted for those couple extra wins we required last season, but there's no guarantee (though John Harper would have you believe otherwise) that he would lift us over the top on an annual, dynastic basis. One man, even if he's one of the greatest of the greats, is still one man, especially if he can't pitch into the eighth inning. Plus, given the franchise's general well-being — collapse notwithstanding — we don't need a map-putter-onner for 2008. Call off the cartographers; we're on the map. We're not all waiting for ownership to trade for George Foster or the GM to lead us out of the woods by way of Pedro Martinez. We're more secure than that. If local columnists are worried we don't get enough back pages, they should talk to their editors.
Then there's the money. While I don't doubt books get cooked to a crisp in baseball, I nevertheless prefer my team not commit hundreds of millions of dollars to a single player who a) is guaranteed only to get older at this stage of his career and b) has shown a predilection for wanting out of every situation he's been in. It's not our money except when our club demurs on bidding for the next pitcher or player it really needs…and digging deep for tickets and concessions at Citi Field figures to be an onerous enough task as is.
Let's get A-Rod at this time seven years ago. Or let's be a little worse in 1992 so we can draft him No. 1 overall in 1993* as the Mariners did. The A-Rod we've intermittently watched out our side windows since 2004? The one who waltzed into an allegedly ideal landing spot yet leaves it richer but no better off? Give him fill-in-the-blank million over too many years? So somebody who deserves better can play out of position? While the best-compensated team-sport athlete in the history of civilization inevitably presses too hard to live up to his deal, elicits boos instead of buzz and scans his contract for another brilliantly crafted opt-out clause?
This is a twist on “if you have to ask, you can't afford it.” This is “if you have to think about it, do you really want to think about it?” Alex Rodriguez practically produces by himself in a year what the Met lineups of my youth produced en masse. That should be all a fan needs to know: We can get the best hitter in the game? DO IT! But there is too much to think about it and too much to pay if you have to think that hard.
*Actually, it occurs to me that the A.L. and N.L. switch off in drafting first, with the odd years belonging to the American League's worst team from the season before, so no, we could not have drafted Alex Rodriguez in 1993 no matter how bad we might have been in 1992. Then again, we didn't have to use the eighth pick in the nation in 1993 to select Kirk Presley, did we?
by Greg Prince on 7 November 2007 10:14 am I have two questions regarding the Gold Glove awards:
1) How is it that Keith Hernandez won so many of them (11) yet refers to them on broadcasts as “Golden Gloves”? They're Gold Gloves, not Golden Gloves. Golden Gloves is boxing. But Keith is Keith.
I guess I just answered that question.
2) How did David Wright win a Gold Glove as the best defensive third baseman in the National League in 2007?
Damned if I know.
I'm all for Mets winning awards, starting with the Commissioner's Trophy and working down from there. Short of the big prize, I'll take all the middling trinkets available. Better in Met hands than other hands. Putting a Gold Glove in David Wright's hands is a far safer bet than giving Marv Throneberry a piece of birthday cake (“we wuz gonna give you one,” Casey Stengel is alleged to have told his buttercream-fingered first baseman, “but we wuz afraid you'd drop it”), but it's not the first thing you'd think to do.
Carlos Beltran won a Gold Glove, too. Of course he did. He's a terrific centerfielder. His instincts are nearly flawless, his execution remarkable, his grace amazing, his catches often spectacular. I could watch Carlos Beltran track fly balls all day.
David Wright brings to mind none of those qualities at third base. He tries hard and that occasionally translates to the Web Gem reel. His barehanded grab at Petco Park in 2005 was an instant classic. He made the reflex stab of the year in 2006 when he turned a potential ninth-inning game-ruiner in Philadelphia into a 5-4-3 double play. He made some big-time dives this past season as well and no, he didn't throw the ball away every time he got his hands on it. He's not bad. He's no butcher. He's pretty good, actually.
But a Gold Glove? For 2007? When bracing and cringing were automatic when it came to watching him fire to first? When his throws sailed? When too many balls to his left found holes when David didn't or couldn't react? When he made some of the plays but not nearly all of them?
Are they sure these weren't the Silver Sluggers in the wrong envelope?
Scott Rolen was injured much of the year and Robin Ventura — my and six times Rawlings' ideal of a Gold Glove third baseman — is retired, so maybe David was as good as it got in the N.L. I've looked at the fielding stats for hot cornermen but I never know what to make of them. Fielding percentage, which David didn't come close to leading, can be misleading. Should he be penalized for 21 errors, only two fewer than lazy lunkhead Miguel Cabrera, or rewarded for encountering 452 chances, second only to his highly regarded buddy Ryan Zimmerman? I've looked into zone ratings and range factors but they, too, are inconclusive.
Am I, as usual, being way too hard on a player I watch every day? Maybe, but I watched Ventura just as closely in '99 and never doubted he should win his Glove. He was simply awesome at every facet of his position. I occasionally read and hear references to what a wonderful defensive third baseman David Wright is. I don't see it. I just don't. And believe me, I do pay attention.
If it's just a popularity contest, well, fine. David deserves to be popular. He's the one Met who's been making the rounds in the wake of total team disaster. He carried himself with grace on The Daily Show and The Big Idea when the question of The Worst Collapse Ever comes up. He looks like he wants to kill himself (and probably several teammates), but he answers the Jon Stewarts and Donny Deutsches like a pro with a heart. While most of his teammates have scurried back to wherever collapsed Mets go once they've blown their lead, David's promoting his foundation so he can help others. Gosh, he remembered to thank Sandy Alomar, Sr. for hitting him so many ground balls and thus improving his defense.
I feel like such a Grinch with this kid. I should be waving banners for him but all I can do is think of the Gold Gove Mets of the past and how every single one of them back to Agee and Harrelson and Flynn and Mex and Darling through the Ordoñez/Ventura epoch of excellence right up to Carlos B. really and truly rated this honor. And that David Wright's a fine young man with an explosive bat and a winning smile.
by Jason Fry on 6 November 2007 1:13 pm Welcome to the third annual rundown of players who made their Met debuts in the now-completed season, brought to you by baseball cards and obsessiveness.
A brief review, that the initiated can skip (provided they haven’t skedaddled already): I have a pair of binders, dubbed The Holy Books (THB) by Greg, that contain a baseball card for every Met on the all-time roster. They’re ordered by year, with a card for each player who made his Met debut that year: Tom Seaver is Class of ’67, Mike Piazza is Class of ’98, Jose Reyes is Class of ’03, etc. There are extra pages for the rosters of the two World Series winners, including managers, and for the 1961 Expansion Draft, with the latter including the infamous Lee Walls, the only THB resident who neither played for nor managed the Mets.
When a player has a Topps card as a Met, I use that unless it’s truly horrible — Topps has been around a decade longer than the Mets, so they get to be the card of record. No Met Topps card? Then I look for a Tides card, a non-Topps Met card (Upper Deck has a soft spot for roster-fillers, which is good for THB), a Topps non-Met card, or anything.
Topps had a baseball-card monopoly until 1981, and minor-league cards only really began in the mid-1970s, so cup-of-coffee guys from before ’75 or so are a problem. Companies like TCMA and Renata Galasso made odd sets with players from the 1960s — the likes of Jim Bethke, Bob Moorhead and Dave Eilers are immortalized through their efforts. And a card dealer named Larry Fritsch put out sets of “One Year Winners” spotlighting blink-and-you-missed-them guys such as Ted Schreiber and Joe Moock.
Then there are the legendary Lost Nine — guys who never got a regulation-sized, acceptable card from anybody. (Brian Ostrosser got a 1975 minor-league card that looks like a bad Xerox. Leon Brown has a terrible 1975 minor-league card and an oversized Omaha Royals card put out as a promotional set by the police department. Tommy Moore got a 1990 Senior League card as a 42-year-old with the Bradenton Explorers.Then there are Al Schmelz, Francisco Estrada, Lute Barnes, Bob Rauch, Greg Harts and Rich Puig, who have no cards whatsoever — the oddball 1991 Nobody Beats the Wiz set is too undersized to work. Best as I can tell, Al Schmelz never even had a decent color photograph taken while wearing his Met uniform. (I’ve stopped writing him to ask about it, for fear he’ll have a restraining order slapped on me.) Anyway, the Lost Nine are represented in THB by fake cards Photoshopped together out of scrounged yearbook photos.
I’m not too worried about a 10th Lost Met — today it’s rare to sign a pro contract and not wind up on a card somewhere. In fact, the THB Class of 2007 has only one player not pictured in the uniform of the Mets or a minor-league affiliate. During the season I scrutinize new card sets in hopes of finding a) better cards of established Mets; b) cards to stockpile for prospects who might make the Show; and most importantly c) a card for each new big-league Met. At season’s end, the new guys get added to the binders, to be studied now and then until February. When it’s time to pull old Topps cards of the spring-training invitees and start the cycle again.
The Topps Updates and Highlights set arrived today, so it’s time to unveil the Class of 2007, in order of matriculation (follow along with the giant photo if you wish)….
Moises Alou — With Alou a free-agent signee, Topps had plenty of time to Photoshop him into Met togs. The Topps 2007 cards are black, resembling upside-down 1986s, which in turn looked like 1971s, which led me to recall just how horrific cards of new acquisitions were before desktop publishing. A 1971 Felipe Alou Met card would have either featured a hatless head shot or an A’s cap painted over in semi-Met colors, vaguely atop Felipe’s head. Moises’ 2007 card has his Giants uniform transformed into a very good likeness of a Mets away uni, with convincing angles and color tweaks and everything. I’d predict Moises’ 2008 Topps card will feature a real shot of him in a Met uniform, but that presupposes Topps’ photography schedule coincided with one of Moises’ escapes from the DL. (No, I’m not optimistic about Moises staying on the field in ’08. Why do you ask?)
Joe Smith — At various points in the year Smith looked determined, cocky, coolly reliable, frightened and exhausted. His ’07 card — a Port St. Lucie shot where he’s wearing No. 70 — captures him in one of his cocky phases. Here’s hoping for more of those.
David Newhan — When the Mets shaved their heads in San Francisco Newhan protested mightily, wailing that “I’ve got the best hair in the National League.” He might have been right — and his Upper Deck card shows off some stylish eyeblack application as well. Let the record show that I waited all year for Newhan to have a moment where he was mobbed at one base or another for being the hero. Shucks.
Scott Schoeneweis — Annoyingly, his lone card is a horizontal from Upper Deck. Horizontal cards suck, and they really suck when they’re the best-available THB option. (See also: Pat Mahomes, Tony Phillips, Manny Alexander and too many others.) You could argue this makes a twisted kind of sense, since Willie didn’t deploy Schoeneweis correctly either. The good news is that since Schoeneweis is signed until the sun goes dark, he might get a better card. The bad news is that Schoeneweis is signed until the sun goes dark.
Ambiorix Burgos — Got a good Mets card out of a 55-card “gift set” Topps released last month. (A Met Gift Set! Everyone will want this come October! I mean, what could go wrong?) He looks heavy and like he’d rather be somewhere else, though that somewhere else probably didn’t include recovering from Tommy John surgery. I feel compelled to state at this juncture that I never thought Brian Bannister would amount to anything.
Aaron Sele — Anonymous Met gets anonymous Upper Deck card in spring-training motley. Those orange armpit accents have really got to go.
Damion Easley — A Topps card for a Met who was a nice surprise until he broke an ankle. The Jose Valentin of 2007. Glad to know he’ll be back; hope he’ll be platooning at second with Ruben Gotay.
Chan Ho Park — Somehow got a Series 2 Topps card. Emily and I had the distinct pleasure of seeing all four innings of Chan Ho’s lone game for the 2007 Mets. Emily and I also recently had the pleasure of cleaning up broken glass from our kitchen floor. At least there isn’t a baseball card that will remind me of cleaning up broken glass for the rest of my life. (Except now that I’ve written this, there is such a card. This is also Chan Ho Park’s fault.)
Ruben Gotay — Brought admirable energy, impressive pop and better-than-expected defense to second base before getting shoved aside by Luis Castillo, who has negligible power and whose defense is overrated. A not-bad card from Topps Updates. Hope he gets a shot at another one, but I’m not optimistic.
Jorge Sosa — Showed enough to keep you hoping. Wore No. 29 and removed some of the stink of Trachselness from it with an up-and-down campaign. Pretty good Topps Gift Set card showing him in full stretch on the mound, about to release the ball. Stupid Trachsel.
Lino Urdaneta — Famously recorded an ERA of infinity with the 2004 Tigers. Less famously recorded an ERA of 9.00 with the 2007 Mets. Progress can depend on one’s baseline, I suppose. Represented by a Zephyr card.
Carlos Gomez — Plucky young outfielder was a Rorschach test for Met fans in 2007, with your opinion of Gomez clearly indicating where you stand on the Youthful Potential vs. Veteran Experience meter. Missed a good chunk of the season with a broken hamate bone, a badly designed part of the hand whose sole purpose is to sideline athletes. Offers a million-watt smile in the Topps Gift Set.
Jason Vargas — Pitched indifferently in brief audition, but might still be worth a look. Zephyr card.
Ben Johnson — Injured for big chunks of the year at New Orleans, did next to nothing at Shea except be muttered about by Met fans claiming they had too seen something in Royce Ring and Heath Bell. Poorly lit Zephyr card, not that that’s much of an injustice.
Sandy Alomar Jr. — Not a vile, excuse-making quitter, which is how you can tell him apart from his brother. Retired after a sometimes spectacular, ultimately admirable career. Zephyr card on which he looks old, a bit perturbed but ultimately philosophical.
Chip Ambres — One magic moment against the Dodgers. Doubtful he’ll see another, but years from now his name will make Met fans furrow their brows before saying “Oh yeah!” and smile. And you know what? That’s pretty cool. Zephyr card.
Jon Adkins — I have no idea who this is. Pitched one inning for the Mets, which I guess I missed. Needless to say, a Zephyr.
Luis Castillo — Punchless hitter with diminishing range and bad knees. The epitome of a No. 2 hitter — if it were still 1975. Probably returning to a falling-apart stadium near you to do the same. Nothing personal, Luis, but no, I do not approve. Topps Update card.
Brian Lawrence — Shouldn’t have been out there in September, so not really fair to blame him for it. Represented in THB by a Zephyr card in which he is hatless and quizzical during the national anthem. (So make that hatless, quizzical and patriotic.) By the way, at the beginning of last year I took Mike Pelfrey for my fantasy team. I knew he was raw but figured what the heck, he was the No. 5 starter on the best team in the National League, so he’d get some wins just by showing up. He didn’t. Soon after that I picked up Brian Lawrence, because … well, you know. Ow, this stove is hot! Ow, this stove is hot! Ow, this stove is hot!
Jeff Conine — He sure looked like the final piece, what with his leathery-gunslinger aspect, the pinch-hitting resume and all those rings. Hit .195 as a Met and retired. 2007 Topps card in which he’s a Phillie Photoshopped into a Red.
Willie Collazo — Vaguely heralded reliever got the call-up when it became apparent the bullpen was suffering a collective nervous breakdown. He’s 28, but he’s also a lefty who strikes people out. Might escape his Zephyr card yet. Might also never be heard from again.
Carlos Muniz — Surprise call-up from Double-A in the last week of the season, forcing me to go out and buy a Binghamton Mets team set. (Price of being OCD: $8 plus shipping. In this case.)
by Jason Fry on 6 November 2007 1:12 pm 
Here they are, in all their cardboard glory. Comments here. Sorry about the slippers — needed something to prop up Gomez and Sele.
by Greg Prince on 6 November 2007 1:42 am 
I watched the games on TV, but I never could quite put Shea and football together. Even with photographic evidence, I can’t picture the Jets in Flushing, even if they don’t belong in Jersey.
Our autumn expatriates ought to come back next November for a scrimmage or something, get some intended use out of the old Jets locker room. I think I’ve heard more references to “the old Jets locker room” (for overflow press conferences and such) with the Jets in absentia than I did when it was just “the Jets locker room”.
by Jason Fry on 5 November 2007 3:04 am I don’t honestly have much use for football — I generally tune in in late December, when I’m desperate for the sight of grass, and then whatever bandwagon team I pick gets bounced in the first round. But tonight was different: The Colts and the Patriots in a game that might as well be this year’s Super Bowl, a showdown made even livelier by Bill Belichick’s jihad against Roger Goodell and the entire NFL.
This battle didn’t disappoint — it was just a phenomenal game from the outset. Emily and our friend Eddie and I caught the game at Toad Hall, a Soho bar with a fondness for the Mets — and the place where 13 months ago we celebrated one of the happiest days in Met history. (Here’s to victory! And to Schadenfreude!) The crowd — big and boisterous, and given a boost in both respects by tired, celebrating marathoners and a mild night — had naturally segregated itself. The Colts rooters (more properly, the hordes on the Anti-Pats bandwagon) were in the front at one end of the bar, while the handful of Pats fans were in the back by the waitress station. So the noise level see-sawed along with the momentum of the game, with one end of the bar quiet or groaning while the other roared and vice versa.
This is a wonderful time for New England. The Red Sox are World Champs again, and this time it’s as a normal team, instead of as a collective saddled with a region’s tragedies and dreary myths. The Patriots are a juggernaut. Heck, the Celtics should be pretty good. Right now, if you want to locate the center of excellence in North American sports, it’s Boston.
I’ve got lots of Red Sox friends. I know Pats rooters who grew up in the fan equivalent of total darkness, and for whom learning to cheer was like cave fish learning to see. I’m happy for them. I really am. But here’s the thing; As the tide turned for good, with the Colts sputtering and Manning fumbling, I started hearing this sound in Toad Hall. It was an unwelcome sound, one I don’t usually hear in November. A familiar, very New York sound — a cocksure bray, the kind of self-congratulatory noise I imagine a billionaire makes checking his balance. It was the sound of smug certainty and entitlement.
Heed my warning, New England friends: I heard your brethren tonight in Toad Hall. Maybe I even heard you. And you sounded exactly like Yankee fans.
by Greg Prince on 2 November 2007 12:48 pm One of my favorite Faith and Fear comments of 2007 included this line directed at me by the ever-popular Anonymous in disagreement with my insistence that the Mets retire 24 in honor Willie Mays’ achievements as a New York National League legend:
Stop drinking the cool aid [sic] with those old guys up in Riverdale.
I found that amusing since it was a callback to earlier posts about my involvement with the New York Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society, the current highfalutin name for the Giants Fan Club, a group that, whatever it’s titled this week, is the closest thing to a game at the Polo Grounds I’m ever going to find. Thursday night we were once again called to order, or at least to dinner. And once again, the Long Island chapter — me and my buddy Rich — made our periodic schlep to Riverdale for another helping of pasta, baseball and Kool-Aid, not necessarily in that order.
The Kool-Aid is self-serve because the conversion process that made me a retroactive New York Giants fan took place long before I met the guys, though they certainly add a dimension to what had been a static, book-learned devotion to New York’s original National League stalwart. There is, I’ll confess, a certain cultishness in the air at Josepina on Johnson Avenue when we get together. Lots of reinforced learning. I always overhear variations on several Jintcentric themes:
• The New York Mets derive as much of if not more of their lineage from the New York Giants than from the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• No rivalry, no matter how hyped, measures up to that which burned between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• “Once a Giants fan, always a Giants fan.”
I continually and enthusiastically refill the Kool-Aid pitcher where the first two points are concerned; the orange NY says it all on the first bullet. The last one strikes me as a rationalization by the NY Giants fans who became SF Giants fans, but if that’s what put a big Kool-Aid smile on their face for the past fifty years, well, rationalize away — you’ve earned it.
(One could say the same for the most famous NY Giants fan alive of his new position, even if he is now managing, in the reverse spirit of Leo Durocher, the LA Dodgers.)
These gatherings are incredibly nonjudgmental. It’s not just Giants fans of the past, present and theoretical/Met variety who show up. I’ve met Cubs fans, Phillies fans…even Dodger fans have been welcomed, if warily. Everybody brings something to the table, sometimes literally. Last night, Sid Gordon‘s son joined those who probably wished they had been Sid Gordon’s son. He brought his father’s scrapbook of clippings and scorecards, passed around gingerly and eyed lovingly.
Where else is this gonna happen?
Such eye candy, including the Giants-related newspaper stories our leader Bill Kent copies and distributes like Eddie Stanky sliding into second (“DID EVERBODY GET THE WES WESTRUM ARTICLE?”), is a bonus. I mostly come for the buzz. I love listening in on the old stories and the new spins. Rich is great at tapping the reservoir of baseball memories in the room. Granted, it doesn’t take much more than “you saw the Giants at the Polo Grounds?” but it’s something I’m a little shy about asking. When the talk turns to the baseball of today, I’ll chime in, but otherwise I don’t want to get in the way of what I’m hearing.
Last night, though, I was more taken by something I saw than something I heard. A gentleman whose name I didn’t catch did see the Giants at the Polo Grounds on a rather memorable day: September 29, 1957. It was the final Giants home game under Coogan’s Bluff and this fellow thought to bring a Super 8 movie camera. He got a seat behind first base and filmed everything. Then, a half-century or so later, he transferred it to DVD. He brought a portable DVD player last night and showed us his home movie.
Wow. There it was in all its glory: New York Giants baseball, alive. It was the Polo Grounds the way I’d always tried to imagine it but have never quite succeeded. I’ve watched documentaries, I’ve stared at photographs, I’ve ogled paintings, I’ve made a pilgrimage to the housing project that stands in its place, I’ve read and read and read. But this man’s movie brought it out in living color. There used to be a ballpark there, indeed. This big green edifice with a diamond and bases and seats and players and fans as it existed for decades, as it would cease to exist later that Sunday afternoon. There was Bobby Thomson pointing toward left field for old times’ sake. There was 26-year-old Willie Mays, pudgier than I would have guessed, signing autographs for kids. There were 1957 Giants and Giants from the past lining up to say goodbye. If you didn’t know any better, you’d figure the Polo Grounds was still there, that baseball had never left Manhattan, that next spring it will open up again.
Did I mention wow?
The postscript to my Giants jottings is always they left and the Mets came along and we lived happily ever after. True that, but seeing the Polo Grounds in all its Land of the Giants splendor…for a few seconds it wasn’t nostalgia. It was almost real.
by Greg Prince on 2 November 2007 12:45 pm 
Willard Mullin‘s Jint was the colossus of the baseball world in 1954, a status celebrated on the cover of the New York Giants’ 1955 yearbook.
Gosh, he’s so happy there. How could have he known just three years later…oh, never mind.
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