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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. |
Eleven days ago, the Mets arrived in Philadelphia for a four-game series, six games up in the NL East — and (in case any of us forgot) promptly got swept. Today, we're six games up in the NL East. And there are just 22 games to play. Reading my co-blogger's memories of 1997 reminded me of something that Phillies fans are no doubt stewing about tonight — that in September, time is an even more implacable foe than your division rivals. Losing is bad. Seeing the team you're chasing win is bad. Seeing a precious day disappear from the calendar compounds whatever measure of bad you've had to suffer. In April, in July and even in August, a loss or the failure to take advantage of another team's loss can't be treated like life and death — rooting that way (or playing or managing that way) will leave you wrung out and ruined by September. But come September, the marathon turns into a sprint — and if you're still being philosophical, you're whistling among headstones. It's not over, but 11 days have gone by and the Phillies have accomplished exactly nothing. (And are 3.5 back in the wild card.) Our magic number, meanwhile — and given the above, we can talk about it without expecting a crack of thunder from baseball-god heaven — is 17. How'd we get to this latest pass? By beating the crap out of the Astros. There was plenty to like here, from Mike Pelfrey's continuing maturation (10 hits in 5.1 ain't great, but his slider looked superb, and there wasn't a wheels-come-off inning like the ones that have doomed so many Pelfrey starts) to Lastings Milledge's great game (a home run that might have gone through the left-field fence and a catch that must have had Ron Swoboda grinning in the stands) to Endy Chavez reminding us that he can too outrun baseballs to the welcome sight of Carlos Gomez back on the field. Meanwhile, the Astros missed cutoff men, dawdled after balls in the gap, auditioned horrible relievers and forgot how many outs there were. Maybe it's a kindness showing Cecil Cooper why that “interim” tag might be a good thing. Carlos Beltran's phantom catch in the top of the first reminded me of something. The trigger was the moment where the crowd was cheering, Lance Berkman had slowed between first and second, and Beltran was possibly the only person of the 50,000-odd in attendance who knew the ball was irretrievably over the fence. He did the only thing he could do — he showed Berkman the empty glove and shook his head. Every time I see a play like that, I think of Steve Finley and Todd Pratt's blast just over the fence. And I feel a little twinge of sympathy for the devil. Next time you see the replay, watch Finley — he comes down from the top of the wall, where he'd stolen many a home-run ball in better days for him, and there's a moment where he's just standing there, peering kind of quizzically in at the infield, before his chin drops like there's a magnet on his chest. It's probably just a fan's overactive imagination, but I've always thought Finley realized — as Beltran did tonight — that he was the only one who knew he'd come up empty and the drive he'd failed to corral was a home run. Can you imagine that? His teammates are on tenterhooks staring out at center field. All those fans are staring down at him. There's Pratt, about to come out of his shoes near second base, and the Mets halfway out of their dugout. And Finley alone knows the terrible truth — the ball is gone and the Diamondbacks' season is over. And in a moment it will be his terrible duty to make that plain. But until he does, nobody will know — and it must be tempting to prolong that moment, to try to make what's just happened not have happened by not revealing it. But that's not an option, is it? And so Finley's chin drops, his shoulders slump, and it's winter. When their season began, they were nobody. When it ended, they were somebody. If it’s the first Friday of the month, then we’re remembering them in this special 1997 edition of Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing.
Ten years, seven Fridays. This is one of them. My beloved 1997 season, the one few besides me seem able or willing to remember or acknowledge as one of the most uplifting in franchise history, was a team effort on the part of the Mets. It involved a gaggle of uniformed personnel, fronted at its most desperate moment by probably the most unlikely participant imaginable given his circumstances and the time of the season. You could get that from the boxscores. What you couldn’t get was the presence of one other figure, someone whose role in framing the narrative of this unforgettable epic of a year for me had taken place primarily offstage. This person had one line to deliver, but that line was key. It unlocked the best moment of 1997, almost but not quite at the end. Of course I was the only one to hear it. Maybe it’s small wonder I’m pretty much the only one who gets so enthused about that year. The Mets entered September still within hailing distance of the Wild Card. They had picked up all their spares on the back end of Interleague play, taking their last two in Baltimore and then sweeping three from Toronto at Shea (highlight: Rey Ordoñez’s first and only home run of the year, nailing tight a victory in Roger Clemens’ first Flushing appearance in eleven years). The five-game winning streak erased to a certain extent the sting of their shaky — 13-16 — August, but it would still be a daunting task to overhaul the Marlins. We were seven games back with 24 to go. Maybe the distance was more Hail Mary than hailing, but I hadn’t given up hope. All around me, it was apparent I was mostly alone on this count. ESPN ran these clever ads touting their LDS coverage. It featured batboys for all the contenders…all the contenders except one. No kid wearing a Mets jersey with 97 on the back appeared. And when USA Today Baseball Weekly started running possible playoff previews, the Mets somehow failed to be mentioned. Come to think of it, it wasn’t just a media conspiracy that was ignoring the Mets. Not one date in the Blue Jay series drew as many as 20,000. Was seven games really that unfathomable a margin? A three-day trip to Chicago didn’t help. The Cubs were going nowhere and they took the Mets down with them. Our bullpen collapsed on consecutive days. Only the Marlins’ own problems kept us within seven. A getaway win at Wrigley was quickly negated by two more losses back at Shea against the atrocious Phillies, including a 1-0 heartbreaker engineered by erstwhile heartthrob Rico Brogna’s solo homer off an otherwise brilliant Dave Mlicki. Again, the Marlins were matching our lack of progress, so we stayed seven back. Not impossible, I thought, but September was melting away. With Brian Bohanon pitching into the seventh and both Butch Huskey and Alex Ochoa driving in three apiece, we salvaged the final game versus Philly (all three of which drew in the sad 13,000s) and at last picked up a length on Florida. We were six back with 18 to play, four of them head-to-head matchups in Miami. Barely alive beat dead. First order of business in the resuscitation of this playoff bid: a weekend quartet at home versus Montreal. Just over one year later, the 1998 Mets would play four games in the Houston Astrodome. They were each mindblowing in their closeness and their drama. With the Mets far more into the thick of a Wild Card hunt, it was instantly dubbed the greatest four-game series in memory. Except by me. I’ll take the four we played against the Expos between September 11 and September 14, 1997. Nothing can quite hold a candle to it, not as long as I’m the one carrying the torch. *** First game: Thursday The John Olerud Show. A double in the first. A single in the third. A homer in the seventh. That meant all Oly needed was another at-bat and a triple. He got another at-bat. But a triple? John Olerud? As Gary Cohen pointed out, he was one of the slowest men in baseball. In the eighth, Olerud got his big chance. He hit the ball toward rookie Vladimir Guerrero, just inserted in center. Guerrero was nursing a bad knee. He had to be. He not only didn’t catch what Olerud hit, he didn’t get anywhere near it. John motored, if the word can be used, into third with a triple. That indeed made it a cycle, or, as I squealed with delight into the East Rockaway night as I walked home from the station with the action ringing in my ear, CYCLE! Five ribbies for Oly, three for Fonzie (who lacked only a triple himself to make double-CYCLE! history). Mets take the opener 9-5, move to within 5-1/2 of the idle Marlins. Second game: Friday I had a train to catch. The 8:something. But this is a good game. Maybe I’ll get the 9:something. Hey, the Mets tied it in the eighth! No point in leaving the office — the Mets could win it in the ninth. No? Well, there’s always the 10:something. Hmmm…it’s getting close to eleven o’clock. I really should get out of here. On it went in Queens on, of all things, Paul McCartney Night (he was promoting his long-released CD Flaming Pie via recorded messages on DiamondVision, though I was sure he knew the way to good old Shea). As I listened in Manhattan and relented to make the LIRR finally, the Mets couldn’t buy themselves a run. Into the eleventh, the twelfth, the thirteenth…maybe I’m amazed, with Lidle, McMichael and Rojas throwing seven shutout innings, it’s still 2-2 in the fourteenth. But in the fifteenth, Rondell White explodes with a mighty crash: a home run off Joe Crawford. Montreal leads 3-2. On the walk from the train, I can’t let it be: Baerga singles off Uggie Urbina. Huskey strikes out but Pratt singles. First and second. We’re coming up — like the flowers! Don’t say good night tonight! Alas, Carl Everett flies out and Luis Lopez strikes out. You’d think this Mets fan had had enough of silly ballgames. But the Marlins are shut out in Miami. We still have hope of deliverance at 5-1/2 back. But losing 3-2 in fifteen…ooh baby, you couldn’t have done a worse thing to me if you had taken an arrow and run it right through me. Third game: Saturday This is the 147th game of the season. It might as well be the last one ever. In the middle of the sixth inning, not only are we losing 5-0, we are being no-hit by Dustin Hermanson. Callup Carlos Mendoza leads off the home half with a ball that falls in in left, off Brad Fullmer’s glove. Maybe it should have been caught. Maybe not. It’s ruled a hit. For the balance of the sixth, the seventh and eighth, Fran Healy mulls whether it should be ruled an error. The Mets haven’t gotten any more hits. Healy suggests Red Foley could change the scoring after the fact. Howie Rose scoffs that what are you gonna do, have Dustin Hermanson come out of the clubhouse and run on the field and celebrate? That’s what this almost miraculous 1997 season has come down to: Dustin Hermanson trying to complete a one-hitter. After a Montreal tack-on run, the Mets are behind 6-0 with three outs left in the competitive portion of their year. The Mets lost 91 games last year. Now they have won 79 with two weeks to go. It’s been a remarkable turnaround. It’s nothing to feel ashamed of. It was really over last night when they couldn’t score one lousy run between the ninth and the fifteenth. What do you want from them…an actual miracle? Hermanson retires pinch-hitter Jason Hartdke on a fly to right for the first out. Goddamn it. So close. So goddamn close. Why did the start in April have to be so ragged? Why couldn’t we get going before we were almost buried at 8-14? Huskey manages an infield single. I swear. I swear I could feel it beginning to happen in May, that Saturday afternoon with Laurie in the almost completely empty orange seats when we beat the Cardinals and everything just felt different about this year as opposed to all the years before this one. That Sunday when the Rockies walked everybody in sight. That Monday right after when Olerud rescued a blown lead. It was so much more than I could have imagined. Baerga singles to right. And that Subway Series? Did anybody see that coming? Boy Mlicki could be maddening, yet did he ever get the job done that night. What a waste that we couldn’t win that third game in the Bronx. McRae flies to center for the second out, Huskey tags and moves to third. How about when they swept the Pirates after that? Four crazy games, four crazy wins. With Roberto Petagine up, Baerga takes second on defensive indifference. Then the Braves come in and Reed beats Smoltz one night and Baerga skewers Wohlers the next. I honestly thought we had a shot at the division, not just the Wild Card. So close, yet so far. Petagine singles home Huskey and Baerga. 6-2 Montreal. We went into the break hot, taking three from the Marlins. Then we came out of it hot, taking three of four at Turner Field. Shutout gone, Hermanson’s day is over. Shayne Bennett comes on to preserve the victory. At the end of July, our refrigerator stopped working on a Monday night, but I didn’t care because the Marlins lost and that meant we were all alone in first place for the Wild Card. Who needs cold milk when you’ve got your hands on a playoff position? Lopez singles. Then we were so good there on the West Coast for a while before that trip really kicked in. Still, Hundley and that extra-inning win in Houston…such good stuff. I thought we’d build on it. I really did. Urbina, the untouchable closer, replaces Bennett. Why couldn’t have we taken two of three from the Cubs and the Phillies instead of losing two of three to both of them? Matt Franco singles to load the bases. And that whole business with Carl Everett didn’t help. Carl Everett’s up. Hey! Carl Everett’s up! And the bases are loaded! We’re down 6-2! If he…yeah, right. There were many contributors to the dream that was the 1997 season. Alfonzo and Olerud and Huskey were knights with shining lumber. Though he’s often dismissed for having just one big season, the year before, Todd Hundley in the cleanup slot kept hitting homers until he physically couldn’t play anymore. He had 30 of them, including a dramatic three-run job with two out off Trevor Hoffman in August to tie a game in the ninth that the Mets would win in eleven. Bobby Jones tailed off in the second half but had one of the best first halves any Met pitcher ever put together. Rick Reed was a godsend. Though John Franco drove the masses to distraction, he was still John Franco, collecting 36 saves. Bobby Valentine stitched together a roster of never-weres — Luis Lopez, Matt Franco, Jason Hartdke, the ridiculously improbable Steve Bieser — and made this team a contender. They and their teammates were guys you just couldn’t help rooting for. Yet somehow, here on the thirteenth of September, the 1997 Mets came down to Carl Everett, the least lovable man in town. Everett had been having a relatively excellent year through July. His role was that of fourth outfielder, but with Lance Johnson and Bernard Gilkey not what they had been in ’96 and Brian McRae fairly limited once he came over from the Cubs and Butch Huskey no sure thing with the glove and Alex Ochoa never cashing in on his five-tool promise, Carl Everett may have been the MVO on this club. He was certainly the top defender — and though his numbers dropped throughout August, it seemed almost all of his homers and RBI were delivered in clutch situations. But nobody cared about that by September. Carl Everett was no longer identified by his statistics. He was known as the Met whose kids were allegedly abused in the family room at Shea. Abused by his wife. Unpleasant stories floated up that she was not a great mom or stepmom. What kind of dad was Carl? I honestly don’t remember how far the allegations against him personally went in 1997, but the kids were taken away for a pretty long time by the authorities. It was tough to root for Carl Everett anymore. Yet, because we are fans of the team first and the individuals later, it was easy to root for Carl Everett at this moment because there he was, at bat, three on, Mets down by four, two out, last chance. Season on the line. Mets lose and the Mets trail by six pending the night’s Marlin result from San Francisco. It was admittedly a long shot, but it was the only one we had. But suddenly there was another one. Carl Everett got into an Urbina pitch and ripped it to right… Could it be? Was it possible? …foul. Foul ball. A long shot. A long strike. Carl Everett almost did it. Carl Everett, whatever his personal shortcomings, almost delivered the Mets from their date with demise. But he couldn’t do it. The count was two-and-two. We had one strike left. And everybody knows you don’t get two long shots in the same at-bat when the first one is foul. Well, one person watching the game didn’t know that. And while I moped and prepared to surrender to the obvious oblivion at hand, that one person delivered her key line with innocence and sincerity and heart. “You gotta believe!” Out of the shadows of the 1997 season stepped up my MVP, my wife, my love. Since the first of April when she came home from work to find me fretting on the couch at how we were getting whacked in San Diego on Opening Day to that moment on September 13 when I was all but waving the white flag, she had stood by me in this, the first truly meaningful Mets year of our marriage. We had been married since 1991, mind you. She was used to the grumbling that accompanied the losing and was happy for me that I was again experiencing the winning that was the backdrop of our courtship and our engagement and our initial cohabitation. She accompanied me to Detroit on ostensible business to see the Mets get blown out at Tiger Stadium. She agreed our vacation should be in no town but Cooperstown. She didn’t disturb the beauty of that short-lived Wild Card lead in late July by making too big a deal about the fridge not working. She didn’t mind that I kept one ear on WFAN during her grad school commencement ceremony because the Mets were playing… …or that I shook off spending any additional time with her visiting college friends because the Mets were playing… …or that I decreed we couldn’t attend a Liberty game if the Mets were playing… …or that I broke away from our visit to her grandma in Wichita because the La Quinta had WGN and as luck would have it, the Mets were playing the Cubs… You get the point. She didn’t just indulge me and the Mets. She didn’t just “put up” with it. She honored it. And here, in the last gasp of the season she knew I had been waiting seven years to live through, she breathed into it once last burst of magic. “You gotta believe!” Stephanie had never said that before. Carl Everett took a pitch in the dirt for ball three. Then he drove the next one from Urbina over the right-centerfield wall. It was a grand slam. It was 6-6. It wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. I believed the Mets would win after that. Bernard Gilkey made it so in the eleventh with a three-run jack. The Marlins won at Candlestick. So what? I still believed. I believed we weren’t dead. I believed we’d win the Wild Card. I believed we’d win everything there was to win. You heard my wife. You gotta believe! Fourth game: Sunday There is nothing in the universe that wouldn’t have been anticlimactic after the six-run ninth and the second-shot grand slam that tied it and the eleventh-inning homer that won it. But the finale did its best to stand on its own. Two years before anyone ever heard of the Mercury Mets, it was Saturn Day at Shea. No, you didn’t have to be from Saturn, you just had to have bought one recently, which my friend Joe did. He got two free tickets and a handful of tchotchkes that he was kind enough to share with me. Thanks to the car company buying up an enormous block of tickets, 43,000 were on hand for the induction of Keith Hernandez into the Mets Hall of Fame. They played a load of Seinfeld clips on DiamondVision, but the best tribute he got was from Lopez, wearing No. 17 and homering (his first of the year) in the fifth off Carlos Perez. Mlicki carried that 1-0 lead into the ninth. With one out, former Met David Segui slid home probably safe but was called out by Larry Vanover after Todd Pratt did some pretty fancy handiwork with or without the ball. The Expos were furious. Even their trainer was ejected for arguing. But their lengthy protest sputtered, and Greg McMichael — John Franco got the win the day before but ached too much to appear again the rest of the year — to nail down the final out. The Mets had taken three of the four greatest games I’d ever heard or seen them play against one opponent in one series. Florida? They won again. We were still 5-1/2 out. But I could overlook that. I mean what a series! A shocking cycle…a valiant marathon…a certifiable miracle courtesy of Carl Everett and the person in the world least like Carl Everett…and the sneakiest of squeakers. We got knocked down. But we got up again. *** The Mets record was 81-67. Monday night in Philadelphia brought with it a doubleheader. With a win in the first game (thanks to a five-run surge in the top of the tenth), the Mets increased their record to 82-67. Take a close look at that: 82 wins. That’s a winning season. That was unimaginable in March. It was reality in September. I was so moved that I took out my copy of Total Mets and made a list of the 102 Mets who had played with the Mets since their last winning season in 1990 but had left before 1997. They were the Mets who sustained me through the bad times until I could taste these, the better times. Then, almost by instinct, I turned them into a poem, a verse of which follows: Bob MacDonald had no break in his day Brent, in the Mayne, was soon on his way Schourek sure didn’t have much fun And no one pitched older than Anthony Young Meanwhile, at Joe Robbie turned Pro Player, the Rockies were spanking the Fish. We were suddenly if temporarily 4-1/2 back, actual striking distance considering the four that awaited us in Miami over the weekend. And if we beat the Phillies in the nightcap… It wasn’t to be. We were put down by someone named Darrin Winston in the second game. The margin for the Wild Card was five. The next night we were put down by someone named Curt Schilling while Bobby Fucking Bonilla of all people hit a ten-pitch, two-out walkoff grand slam off Jerry Fucking DiPoto of all people. The margin for the Wild Card was six. From Philly, it was off to Atlanta where the legendary curse of Turner Field materialized for the very first time: Staked to a 1-0 lead against Greg Maddux, Bobby Jones faced eight Braves batters in the first. He retired none of them. Later he said the ball was too dry. Or perhaps his hands were too moist. Either way he couldn’t get a grip. Neither could we. Braves scored nine in the first and won 10-2. Laurie told me she missed the bulk of the first inning while taking a shower. When she came out and saw it was 9-1, she said it reminded her of Victoria Principal finding Patrick Duffy in the shower at the end of that season of Dallas that was supposedly only a dream. But this — and Florida winning — was really happening. The margin for the Wild Card was seven. No soap the next night either. Jason Isringhausen lasted three and gave up seven. We lost 11-4. Florida won. The margin for the Wild Card was eight. I felt a sense of peace coming on. Still, there remained a last stop on this road trip, Florida itself. My thinnest strand of a hair of a hope was we go into whatever their stadium was called and we sweep four games. If we did that, we’d be four back with a week to go. We’d be on an unstoppable roll and would finish 91-71. The reeling Fish would be depressed, flop into freefall and go no better than 90-72. The Dodgers or Giants, whoever didn’t win the West yet was unhelpfully hanging around on the fringes of this “race” every bit as much as us, would cooperate and just go away. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all I had. My plan was flawed. Behind Dave Mlicki and with help from Cory Lidle, the Mets fell five in arrears after eight. In the ninth, they managed to score two runs and bring up Hundley as the tying run with two out. But at this point, even my ability to conjure belief was strained. Todd popped up. The margin for the Wild Card was nine. With our fifth consecutive loss, I found peace. To my surprise, it obliterated my disappointment. The Mets had made, like Ed Wynn’s weary pitchman in The Twilight Zone, their pitch for the angels. They had staved off the inevitable as long as they could. Now it was time to go. We wouldn’t win the Wild Card. It would have to be enough that we had stayed in contention until the final week; that we would finish up with more wins than losses for the first time since 1990; and that Carl Everett hit a season-saving grand slam two pitches after Stephanie channeled Tug McGraw. It would be enough. It would be plenty. The magic number for the Marlins to clinch was one. With three more against the Mets, all they had to do was win a single game and Florida could celebrate at home against us, the team that chased and chased and chased but couldn’t catch them. Small solace yet solace nonetheless that it didn’t happen that way. The Mets won on Saturday and Sunday (Mel Rojas retiring Moises Alou as the potential winning run for the last out) and Monday. For what it was worth, Florida was forced to clinch in Montreal on Tuesday night. It wasn’t worth much in the scheme of things, but it was worth something to me. Statistically eliminated from playoff consideration, the Mets came home, split two with the Pirates and split two more with the Braves, the second of them in typical 1997 style: tied at one in the bottom of the ninth, Luis Lopez singled and stole second and Alberto Castillo doubled him home. With that, the Mets had played 161 games and their record was a handsome 87-74 heading into their season finale versus Atlanta on September 28. That final Sunday? That’s the seventh Friday of this series, the first Friday of next month. The only thing 1997 couldn’t give me ten years ago was October. This year it will. Next Friday: Missed opportunities everywhere you looked.  4 comments - (Comments closed) | |  Print This Post |  1997 Mets, Carl Everett, Expos, Flashback Friday A while back, I found myself musing about a time machine, one that would let this Met fan engineer a place in the Holy Books for Terrell Hansen and Billy Cotton. Inevitably, this got me thinking of other, more substantial ways the Mets might have been nudged into a better course of action. Specifically, I got to thinking of things that should have been said in some front-office meeting or at a quiet moment in the manager's office, the clubhouse or the dugout. Because contrary to my original post, a time machine wouldn't be enough to lift Jose Reyes's drive in Game 7 of the NLCS over Jim Edmonds' glove. (Throw in a guywire and an invisibility potion and perhaps you've got something.) But maybe, just maybe, someone claiming to be from the future and explaining the doom that lay ahead might get a GM or manager or player to reconsider, and create a better future. If you've read us for a while, you won't be surprised to find out even imagining time travel comes with some arbitrary, fussed-over restrictions. Therefore, the ground rules: 1. No trying to escape physical accidents and ill luck. You can't tell Kong and Straw not to break their thumbs, urge Cleon to play in against Qualls, or send in Dotel instead of Kenny Rogers. 2. Some bad fortune led to better fortune, so this power must be used sparingly. We needed to trade Kazmir to reach a moment of dramatic clarity, and I'd rather have Oliver than Duaner. 3. Some things just were never gonna work. Nolan Ryan, for example. So, here we go. Funny and not, big and small, bitter and wistful. Clip and save in case a time machine ever does materialize in your garage. Because you never know when those things will go on the fritz. “Chilcott looks good and all, but I really like this kid Jackson's bat.” “Gil, don't take this the wrong way, but we want you to go see the cardiologist. He'll check you out, maybe ask you for some changes in your life. It may be tough, but please do it — you're vital to the New York Mets, and we want you around for a long, long time.” “Shouldn't Whitey get a chance as GM? He could hold a grudge and come back to haunt us.” 'Get in there, Cotton!” “I really think Stone should get a start in the series.” “Tug? He's still got plenty in the tank. And he's the soul of this franchise. Let's table this one.” “That's bullshit. Cleon deserves better. Anyone deserves better.” “Let's add a little something to Vail's contract. No basketball. Oh, call him to make sure he abides by that.” “We're sending a free agent a telegraph? Isn't this kind of a new world? Maybe we should pick up the phone.” “Mickey Lolich? But he makes Rusty look thin!” “Whoever's been calling Dick Young needs to stop right now. Tom Seaver is this franchise. Period. You don't understand that, clean out your desk.” “No, M. Donald, you are not the face of the Mets. In fact, you're not the face of anything any more. Take a hike.” “I'm not sure Hebner's gonna like it here. And isn't he kind of a dick?” “A MULE? Let's not.” “I think we might have something with this Reardon kid, actually.” “Maybe we ought to protect Seaver from the draft. He could be valuable with these young arms we've got coming up.” “I know Doc and Darryl have had some issues, but I'm not sure Mitch is the problem. He can really hit.” “I know he's like No. 9 on the depth chart, but tell that kid Cone to get his pinkies back when bunting. Because you never know.” “Ojeda, we hired a guy to help you with the gardening. At least through October.” “I don't care how well you get along with Klapisch, we're reviewing what that column's gonna say first.” “Yeah, the guys are a little out of control. But it's not like they're throwing explosives at children. And they win.” “But what if Juan Samuel is washed up and hates New York?” “Torve! Get back here! That's the wrong uniform number.” “Do we really want to start Julio Valera in this game?” “Vince Coleman? Isn't he kind of a dick?” “Jeez, maybe we should stop asking infielders to play center.” “You know what, Bobby? On second thought, the New York media probably will be able to wipe the smile from your face.” “Get in there, Hansen!” “I don't care if it was on the original uniform design — that tail looks fricking stupid.” “I don't care what marketing wants — these white hats look fricking stupid.” “Avery just crippled Vizcaino, Bobby. I expect you to fuckin' hit him right in the fuckin' knee.” “Mel Rojas? But he sucks!” “Jason Bay? We're sure he doesn't have a higher ceiling than that?” “I don't care what the commissioner's office says — these Mercury Mets uniforms look fricking stupid.” “Is renting Mike Bordick really worth giving up Mora?” “When I tell you to run, Timo, you fucking run. Don't look at the ball. Don't clap your hands. You fucking run.” “If that douchetard so much as looks at you funny, Mike, you go out there and beat his ass.” “Robbie Alomar? Isn't he kind of a dick?” “Rey Sanchez? Isn't he kind of a dick?” “I know you think it's just pot, Bobby, but let's take this press conference seriously. Because we already look like idiots.” “Wait, didn't A-Rod grow up as a Met fan? Is the 24+1 thing really fair?” “You wanna chase skirts, Skill Set? You can do it on somebody else's dime.” “Pratt doesn't look finished to me, actually.” “Yes, I do think Olerud's worth some extra dough.” “I dunno, Fred. He didn't light up the room for me.” “You know, Kaz, maybe New York's not the right place for you.” “Maybe we should stop picking on Reyes and just let the kid play shortstop.” “Is it really Lima Time?” “Tell Pedro to be careful — it's slippery back there.” “Let's emphasize one thing to the fellas — Spiezio can't hit a changeup with an oar, no matter how many times he sees one.” “Remind Beltran to look for the hook.” In Birmingham, I once heard tell, they love the governor, while in the South in general, they love their college football. So in deference to Atlanta's most popular team, the Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech, I'm calling an audible. See, I was just about to write something to the effect of well, it's too bad we lost and the Phillies won and closed the gap between us to four games, but it's nice that if the Phillies had to beat anyone, it was super that it was the Braves because, well, they're the Braves. Then I checked the ESPN.com scoreboard one more time to see if the Phillies 8 Braves 6 score from the ninth had gone final. It had. Except a Matt Diaz two-out, bases-clearing double off Brett Myers (a lot to choose from there, huh?) made it Braves 9 Phillies 8. Holy Lemke! Braves help Mets yet again! So to sum up: • We took the day off in Cincinnati. Efficient of Willie to get the hung over, post-clinching game out of the way early. • But we maintain our five-game lead and reduce our, dare I say it, magic number by one to 19. • Because the Braves who we sw…sw…swept in Atlanta just took two of three from the phetid Phillies. • And even with the win, the Braves are a hundred miles out. Or, as Aretha Franklin put it, I don't know what we're doin', but we must be livin' right. (Except for Delgado's hip flexor.) I can't totally dismiss Turner's worms because 7-1/2 back with 22 for them to play isn't totally buriable, not when they have three more chances against us (that's not Braves juju talking, just simple math…and maybe a little Met mojo). But they're pretty darn close to done. Magic number to eliminate Atlanta: 16. No, Willie Harris does not bother me. Does Mark Teixeira bother you? Tell the truth. Nothing to do with most of this, but I have to share: College football, of Appellation State: The finest name in college football. The same station ran this title over the bumper or tease for the story that would be coming up after the next commercial: BUMP TITLE GOES HERE WISN, Channel 12, Milwaukee…I don't know what they're doin', but they must not be livin' right. For those of you keeping score at home, the Mets were 5 games ahead of the Phillies after the games of August 27 and they are 5 games ahead of the Phillies after the games of September 4. Both teams went 5-3 in the intervening week and a day. Hence, nothing happened, right? Wow does baseball make every single one of us who loves it look, feel and sound stupid every so often. C'mon everybody, let's all admit it in unison so none of us has to feel ashamed: We know nothing about what's going to happen next. I don't. I'm dumb as a plum when it comes to figuring out this game. I've spent every sentient year of my life focused like a laser on it and I haven't the foggiest. And I'm no dumber about it than any of you. Having officially gone expectation-free since the second weekend of August, I've officially carried no expectations about what the Mets were likely to accomplish across the remainder of their schedule, but unofficially, I've had my thoughts. I thought once they got on a roll against the Pirates and the Nationals, that it would carry over against the Padres. It didn't. I thought once they expanded their lead to seven during the Dodger series that double-digits were just around the corner. They weren't. I thought once they, with the help of their closest pursuers and their closest pursuers' allies in blue, coughed up one…two…three games in Philadelphia that the noose was tightening. It wasn't. I thought a trip to Atlanta…well who the fudge would have guessed Turner Field would be so darn hospitable? Now they've beaten Cincinnati two in a row, which seemed predictable enough. There, finally, something I figured out ten minutes in advance of it happening. Look at me! I'm a baseball genius! Yeah, I rock. I'm so brilliant that I had grown tired of Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca as if they were last year's models. I was becoming convinced that David Wright did not add up to the sum of his hype. I didn't bother to defend Shawn Green's viability any longer. I looked to skip John Maine in the rotation if at all possible. And I'd included Mike Pelfrey in every possible trade I could conjure. Good thing I don't do this for a living…though judging by the constant stream of unprovables and wrongness that flows out of the mouths of everybody paid to assert and predict, I'd fit in as well as anyone. All I need is to preen and make lousy trades for a few seasons in a major media market and I could be a very hot commodity on some network. Mets versus Reds today. You know what's gonna happen? Neither do I. Not an inspiring slogan, perhaps, but it fits tonight's game well enough — a bleary, fuzzy mess of a game, one in which the Mets looked at best mildly interested, but the Reds' parade of horrible pitchers (Todd Coffey came in with a 6.04 ERA and saw it go up) ensured they'd fall up into a rather ragged W. Still, every season's going to bring at least 10 or 20 of these games — a contest that's “less than scintillating,” as Keith Hernandez called it, one of many points at which he seemed amazed that anyone would still be watching. So you may as well win them. As far as I know Elias doesn't keep track of teams' records in “hideous baseball games that would get neither team taken to the Tastee-Freez afterwards,” but maybe it should. Because they all count the same in the end, and being on the wrong end of that 11-7 crapfest could mean the difference between the camera dwelling on Fox flavors of the month bundled up in your stadium and Tommy Lasorda telling a sad man wearing your colors to get out of the tree. Actually, Shawn Green does get to go to the Tastee-Freez, because he quietly had himself a superb game. I'm not Shawn Green's biggest fan — Emily and I were amazed to discover during tonight's game that he actually has a Gold Glove for his work in the outfield — but he was terrific tonight. The three hits were obvious, as was the nice stab made as Delgado's substitute in the ninth, but what stuck out for me was a play that went unremarked: In the sixth, with the score tied, Delgado on second (after some remarkably laxadaisical baserunning, to use the Keith coinage) and Alou on first, Green smashed a double. We all saw that, but as Alou headed home, the camera briefly caught Green venturing far off second, practically windmilling his arms at the outfielders. Knowing Alou is Alou, he was trying to draw the throw, willing to give himself up to ensure the score would be 7-5. Impressive — and then a pitching change later, Green read Lo Duca's little parachute right off the bat, ensuring there would be no play at the plate and it would be 8-5. On the other hand, if Keith's heading for a Tastee-Freez anywhere near the Ohio River, I strongly advise the manager to turn the lights off, lock up, and hide behind the counter. What got into our favorite crazy-uncle announcer tonight? Emily and I were fascinated, amused, and slightly fearful. My God, the Reds have cheerleaders, and those cheerleaders are packing a few too many Michelins to be cheerleaders. What the hell will Keith say? And on and on, with Gary Cohen of course goading Keith at every opportunity, whether it was about his encounters with the Met faithful in coffee shops or what he was doing in the bowels of Riverfront Stadium or simply the Reds' stubborn inability to play baseball. All praise Pete Mackanin for not dropping the dangerously named Coutlangus back into the equation tonight. That said, it should be noted that Keith did immediately spot Delgado wincing on a swing in the ninth and drop all goofiness on the spot. The man's entertaining, but he's also really good. Really good, and more than a little crazy, whether it was the spinning in his chair (like a kid in a luncheonette, Gary said in one of many great lines) or fretting about his fading red marker. After tonight's thoroughly entertaining, slightly edge-of-the-seat performance, I'm fascinated to hear what Keith will bring to a 12:45 matinee. Will SNY producers have an intern with a blowgun at the ready? (Marlin Perkins voice: “My assistant Jim will now attempt to take down the crazed color commentator….”) In 12 hours we'll find out. Some of you may remember the mental anguish I and my compatriots in loge experienced at the vocal stylings of the Norris Hopper guy. To refresh your memory, he was… “…a fellow in a white tank top, the kind of garment unfortunately nicknamed for one who would abuse one's spouse. He has many tattoos. He is very hip-hop in his bearing. He is, as the Offspring so memorably phrased it, pretty fly for white tank top guy. As he and his party take their seats one row behind us, I instantly hear his story in full with 30 seconds of his pulling out his cell: “'Yo! I'm in Queens! I'm at the Mets game! I'm here for my boy Norris Hopper! I know Norris from the 'hood! Norris was supposed to leave us tickets! I had to buy tickets! I'm sitting in the blue shit! Like 30 rows back! Norris was supposed to leave us tickets! He's supposed to sign a ball for my son! I wanna get a ball! I'm not even a Mets fan! I'm a Yankees fan! I don't even care though! I'm here for Norris Hopper! That's the only reason I'm here! Norris is my boy! I know him from the hood! He was supposed to leave us tickets! He's gonna leave us tickets tomorrow! He's gonna sign a ball for my son!'” The fellow repeated that tale countless times and made an ass of himself in countless other ways until security evicted him from the building. I came to the reasonable conclusion after that unwelcome Ralph Kiner Night intrusion that the Norris Hopper guy didn't know Norris Hopper at all. I could find no record of Hopper ever living in the New York area nor did I get any sense that the Norris Hopper guy spent any time in Hopper's documented home state of North Carolina. It is only fair to note that I got an e-mail a few weeks later from someone I trust who knows how to get in touch with baseball players. He told me that someone he knows asked for his help in locating a friend of his: He wants to get in touch with a guy on the Reds that he knew from a LONG time ago…Norris Hopper! Turns out that Norris did grow up in the 'hood…North Jersey…moved [back] to North Carolina in middle school. He was getting into a lot of trouble…that's why he moved. No joke! Since we are playing the Reds again, I felt I should publicly point out: 1) So maybe the Norris Hopper guy in loge wasn't making up his association with the actual Norris Hopper. 2) That didn't make the Norris Hopper guy in loge any less of a jerk on July 14. He's been a constant companion to this team even when thousands of miles away, even when the team was in first place and he didn't have a single IP next to his name. What's the latest on Pedro? Is he long-tossing? Making a rehab start? How'd he feel the day after the rehab start? When's he expected back? After the All-Star break? In August? When rosters expand? Accompanying those questions were others — enough other questions to support a cottage industry of Gotham sportswriters. Was Pedro the best trading-deadline addition any team in the league would get? Would he restore the Mets' swagger? What would the Mets do if his rehabilitation went awry? To be honest, sometimes it got kind of annoying, the waiting on Pedro. Not because of the man himself — he was down in St. Lucie or in the Dominican working his ass off to beat the knife, his own accumulated mileage and the doubts that can doom an athlete in twilight. No, what was annoying was the way the constant questioning gave short shrift to all the Mets had become. Few of us are sold on the 2007 Mets the way we were on the 2006 edition, but this is a first-place team without Pedro J. Martinez — just as the 2006 team clawed to within an extra-base hit of the World Series without him. Pedro was always a mournfully empty place on the roster and in the clubhouse, but to suggest the team was just treading water until his return was to insult the work of Wright and Reyes and Beltran and Maine and Perez and Glavine and El Duque and Feliciano and Wagner and all the other players who have brought the Mets to the brink of a second-straight magic-number countdown. And yet yesterday was something special, as my co-blogger recounted. Down here on LBI, each time I looked at a clock in the morning there was a countdown in my head that hadn't been there the day before, even with the Mets trying to send the Braves into winter. 9:15 — four hours till Pedro. 11:30 — 90 minutes till Pedro. Charlie Hangley — a.k.a. CharlieH in our comments section — and I spend the same week on LBI, and had looked forward all summer to linking up. The day that worked wound up being Pedro's day, so around 1 Emily and Joshua and I headed up Long Beach Boulevard to their house for food and beer and kind-hearted camaraderie. (Many thanks to Charlie and Sarah for their hospitality — double FAFIF shirts pic coming when I can upload a photo.) The buzz surrounding the game increased exponentially once we got our first look into the Met dugout. Over the years at weddings I've calmed a few nervous groomsmen who've worked themselves into tizzys over where they're supposed to look and what direction they're supposed to face. This is the easiest thing in the world, I've told them. You just look at the bride. Well, Pedro was the bride. Before Aaron Harang took the field, you could find Pedro simply by looking where the rest of the Mets were looking — and laughing and dancing. Whether it was an uncharacteristically animated Moises Alou or a characteriscally animated Lastings Milledge, one by one they waited for him, and once he came near they sprang to life in a way we're not used to seeing from professional athletes in their never-get-too-high, never-get-too-low worlds. All very nice, but none of it would have meant much if Pedro had been hammered by Cincinnati. But he wasn't. No, he didn't have his killer arsenal of years past, but those weapons were decommissioned some years ago. What he had left was more than enough — he touched 90, changed speeds and threw strikes by the bushel. Defense and mischance undid him in the first (a Philliesque roller by Josh Hamilton, a bad break by Alou on a catchable ball, a Beltran heave to the plate that was just to the first-base side), but he shook it off and started simply erasing the Reds. Dunn. Valentin. Hatteberg. Encarnacion. Harang. Hamilton. Gonzalez. Griffey. Phillips. Nine Reds in a row retired before a spot of trouble in the fourth on more shoddy defense. So much for the gloomy talk about the difference between kids in the Florida State League and big leaguers. And then the fifth, Hamilton on second, one out, Griffey at the plate with the deadly Brandon Phillips and slugging Adam Dunn behind him. At Charlie's house I think we all subconsciously leaned closer to the set. Whatever the radar gun showed, however the shoulder is now rebuilt, from the neck up the man on the mound was every bit the old Pedro. Looking in at Griffey, you could see him gather himself and narrow his eyes, his expression not growing cold so much as becoming blank, as if his will had shoved everything else aside. Pedro isn't a particularly big guy — he's got half an inch and a few pounds on me — but seeing that look on his face I would rather do anything than find myself between him and something he was determined to do. He walked Griffey, I doubt with any particular regret, then bore down on Phillips and Dunn, coming back from 2-0 to get Phillips to fly out and getting Dunn to hit his pitch. And you know what? It wasn't particularly a surprise. Mentally, Pedro Martinez can beat anyone in the game. We and he had grown so used to this that it was frankly shocking to him and us alike to realize, in those dark days against Atlanta and Pittsburgh, that his body had failed to the point that that will was unmoored and useless. Red Sox fans had seen him annihilate the Indians with half an arm; we'd really half-believed that with no arm he was more valuable than most pitchers. Of course that wasn't true, but whatever arm surgery and rehab have given him sure look like enough to give that will a vehicle to work through, and to electrify a ballclub and its fans once more. When Joshua is older, I'll tell him about lots of players he's now too young to remember. And when the conversation comes round to Pedro, I'll tell him that 90% of what he'll read about intangibles and “beyond the box score” is claptrap. Then I'll tell him that Pedro Martinez was the other 10%. With Pedro, every legend was absolutely true. I’d had a vague plan to go see the Glory Days exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York today. It’s been on my to-do list since before it opened and it’s right up (or, technically, across town from) my alley. But then I learned Pedro Martinez would be starting in Cincinnati. That’s enough glory for any day. Pedro is back. Pedro is back. Say it again ’cause it feels so good…Pedro Martinez is an active pitcher for the New York Mets once more. It wasn’t just a glory day. It was a spiritual Opening Day II. How is it that Pedro Martinez has only pitched one Opening Day for the New York Mets? He was on a different schedule (he usually is) in ’06 and was busy pounding an unfathomable comeback trail this past spring. But the first Opening Day, Pedro’s Opening Day, will always stay with you if you’re a Mets fan. You can’t look at us in Cincinnati without thinking of the beginning of the Pedro era, the 12 strikeouts in six innings that told us that this Pedro Martinez, late of Boston, Montreal, L.A. and the Dominican, was going to be a fine fit for Nueva York, for Los Nuevos Mets. With hindsight, you can look past Braden Looper’s anagramic meltdown from April 4, 2005 and just remember Pedro being Pedro. We’ve got a new and better Great American Ball Park image where our Great American Ball Club is concerned. The layoff is over. The rehab is over. The spate of reports on what Pedro was doing against batters from Manatee and Jupiter is over. Pedro Martinez is all Metted up again. And we are totally Pedroed. They gave him 75 pitches. He took 76. Five innings, three runs. Not a quality start by definition, only the best one of the year. Command? Yes. Control? Yes. Velocity? Enough. Movement? He’s Pedro. He moves to a rhythm that’s all his own. Pedro recorded his 3,000th strikeout (I’d like to think the Shea scoreboard lit up at last for him; it’s been known to do so even when he’s not in residence). The inevitable if seemingly unreachable milestone reminded me of another Labor Day, another great Labor Day in Mets history: September 1, 1975. Tom Seaver struck out his 200th batter of the season, the record-setting eighth consecutive season he’d done that. There were all kinds of good signs in that game: Bud Harrelson’s return, Mike Vail’s first homer, the Mets pulling within four of the Pirates thanks to Tom shutting them out. The year peaked right then and there for the ’75 Mets, but on this day, with Wright and Alou and Castillo and Delgado all contributing and the Phillies losing and our streak growing and our margin lengthening, it doesn’t feel like the end of summer. It feels like the beginning of something better. It feels like Pedro Martinez was on the hill to open 2007 and that the true glory days of these Mets have just commenced. Pedro Martinez will do that for ya. |
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. |
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