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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 2 June 2007 5:24 am Brandon Webb was real good Friday night. The players who played for the Mets were less so. Guess what happens when you plug that formula into an actual game.
Bingo.
A lineup chock full of future obscurities and curiosities was perfect for me and my companion for the evening, the one and only Mark from Mets Walkoffs and Other Minutiae. Bloggers like us, we thrive on obscurities and curiosities — except when they predominate on the immediate bill of fare.
Because David Wright had back spasms and Carlos Beltran's knee is healing from a bruise and several other featured performers have been long lost track of, Damion Easley batted third. There it was on the scoreboard: 3 2B. Though he's still tied for second on the club in homers with seven, I haven't been as startled by such a non-September notation since another Friday night in the same ballpark a quarter-century ago when 10 RF was batting third. That was Rusty Staub, far past the point when right was his thing. Hitting third, however, always was. Rusty went 2-for-3 with two ribbies in an 8-4 win over the Phillies.
See what I'm doing? I'm talking about the Mets but not the Mets who lost Friday night's game. That's what Mark and I did as Webb mowed down Met after Met and Maine couldn't quite keep up. We would have been happier to have drilled deep into the likes of Gary Kroll and Gary Nolan with Beltran and Wright keeping Reyes and Delgado and Lo Duca company, without Easley batting third, without the unlikely corner outfielders of David Newhan and Ben Johnson and without surprise third baseman Julio Franco taking on the defending National League Cy Young winner. But that — like success — was not an option.
Brandon Webb: eight innings. Brandon Lyons: the ninth inning. I'm thinking it's the first time the Mets have been beaten by two Brandons. I'm thinking that way because I've made a habit of reading Mets Walkoffs.
Two of the three previous games I'd attended prior to Friday were supercharged walkoff wins, the kinds of affairs that bring Mark and his sensational site to mind. When the Mets came back with five in the ninth two weeks ago to beat Chicago, I called Mark's voice mail and told him “I have a new No. 1 for my Cubs list,” code for “I'm hopeless, as are you.” When the Mets fell behind the Giants in the twelfth on Tuesday night, I took solace in something Mark had written about games against teams led by Barry Bonds, a pattern he detected, a pattern that proved out in the bottom of the inning. All of this is to say I really enjoy this man's work and it was a pleasure to swap stories and stats with him last night even if it was a pain to consider the Mets of Newhan and Johnson and third baseman Julio Franco trying to solve the Diamondbacks of Brandon Webb.
Sometimes you don't get a walkoff win. Sometimes you just settle for reveling in the minutiae.
by Greg Prince on 1 June 2007 7:01 pm 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 Mets edition of Flashback Friday.
Ten years, seven Fridays. This is one of them.
The first Subway Series had ended. Interleague baseball among neighbors, despite the affront it represented to all purist instincts, was riveting. The Mets won the first game on the wing of Dave Mlicki. The Mighty and Vaunted Yankees took the second. The third game should have been ruled a tie. David Cone had a perfect game going against us until the seventh, but Steve Bieser, a scrub’s scrub and a Bobby Valentine creation if ever one existed, got on, got to third and coaxed a balk out of Cone (formerly known as Coney) to tie it. The Mets — hanging with ’em even with Luis Lopez filling in for the injured Shawn Gilbert filling in for the injured Manny Alexander filling in for the injured Rey Ordoñez at short — lost in the tenth, but the game and the series felt like a draw. We met the enemy and the enemy met us on equal terms. We were peers with the defending world champions.
Now what? It is true that that in the middle of the second game, I called my best friend Chuck from a pay phone at Penn Station and blurted out “I’ll trade every game for the rest of the season to win these three!” Like the foxhole-bound soldier who swears that if he gets out of this, he’ll become a priest, I didn’t mean it. I wanted to win some more games in 1997.
The Mets had already exceeded expectations by mid-June. Not only did they beat the Mighty and Vaunted Yankees one out of three in the Bronx (as lame as that sounds, that was considered in some circles impossible), they were five games above .500. They sat in fourth place, 6-1/2 games behind the Braves, but only four in back of the moneyed Marlins for the Wild Card. They had beaten Pedro Martinez twice, Curt Schilling once and showed every sign of being a team that would win more often than it lost. After six straight seasons of sub-mediocrity, that was a dream come true.
Having more wins than losses meant everything. It meant you weren’t a joke. It meant you could have expectations. There was a game in Cincinnati when the putrid Reds beat the Mets and I was disappointed. Not disappointed merely at losing but disappointed that we’d been beaten by an inferior team. I hadn’t had that feeling in an awful long time. My disappointment validated us.
I took the newfound pride of being not bad everywhere. At the end of May, Stephanie accompanied me to Waco on vital beverage business. As long as we were in the state (granted, it’s a big state), we swung by her cousin’s family in Arlington who were kind enough to take us to The Ballpark in their town to see the Rangers and Royals. The highlight for me was the out-of-town scoreboard which reported the Mets had shut out the Phillies. One set of eyes in Texas was surely upon it — mine. I saw the result and clapped a lot. Cousin Lisa’s husband Todd good-naturedly advised, “Hey, this might be your year.”
In Texas they got us. In New York, the battle for understanding would continue.
Though we had dueled the Mighty and Vaunted Yankees to an almost-stalemate, and though our records were only two games apart when the Subway Series rolled to a halt, expectations were the Mets would just go back to being the Mets of 1991-1996 now that their moment in the reflected sun was over. “The thing you’ve gotta watch for from the Mets, Dog,” overbearing Yankees fan/afternoon drive-time WFAN host Mike Francesa told his chronically illogical partner, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, “is a letdown.” He pedantically explained that the Mets had probably spent themselves by taking the same field as the Mighty and Vaunted Yankees — Mighty and Vaunted Yankee Stadium, no less. Don’t count on the Mets playing particularly well at Shea against the Pirates this weekend, let alone the Braves next week.
This was typical sportstalk in New York, particularly where my team was concerned. By not being the Mighty and Vaunted Yankees, the Mets could not be taken seriously. They’d played 66 games before the Subway Series. They’d won 36 of them. If John Franco hadn’t given up that game-losing single to Tino Martinez in the tenth inning on Wednesday, they’d have the same exact record as the Mighty and Vaunteds, who lagged further in the standings from Baltimore in their division than we did from Atlanta. Didn’t matter. The Mets had to keep proving themselves, keep proving they were for real.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T would not come easy. But it would come. I swore it would come.
Bring on the Pirates!
Bad idea. Almost. The Pirates, who were a contender themselves for once by dint of playing in what the ESPN wags were calling the National League Comedy Central, seemed to be rolling over. The Mets, behind Mark Clark, built a 6-1 lead after six. It was 6-3 in the ninth. Franco, yesterday’s losing pitcher, could protect a three-run lead against the laughable Pirates, couldn’t he?
He couldn’t. Somebody named Dale Sveum hit a three-run homer. Franco was booed as Franco invariably was. Were we really going to lose this and prove blowhards like Mike Francesa right?
No! Infielder Jason Hardtke, a regular on the Norfolk shuttle, came up in the ninth and drove in the winning run! Mets 7 Pirates 6.
Phew!
That was Thursday night. Friday night I was going to the game with Joe, my frequent Mets companion. We worked together for five minutes in 1990 and one conversation that revealed our shared interest in the same baseball team made us friends for apparently life. Joe liked to call me to talk about everything — his elusive job hunts, his current soap actress crush, his latest British Invasion vinyl finds (he wore his hair as if he were awaiting a callback from the Kinks in 1965), his secret scorebook statistics. Joe was whom Howie Rose addressed when he said “that’s an E-5 for those of you scoring at home.” Joe was scoring at home, and he didn’t need any announcer to tell him that was an E-5. Besides, if he thought it was a hit, it would go in his scorebook that way.
“Tim Bogar is batting .383 for me,” was a standard nonsequitur.
“Yeah,” I’d counter, “but he’s batting .195 for the rest of us.”
Joe only scores some games on TV (if he decides he wants a particular starting pitcher to accumulate at-bats, he’ll score only that pitcher’s starts, because Joe’s obsessed with pitchers’ hitting stats) but he scores every game he goes to at Shea. That gives him something to do while I watch the game and make what I perceive to be witty, insightful comments to, ultimately, myself.
On this Friday night, there wasn’t a whole lot of nuance to Joe’s scoring and I didn’t have much opportunity to be glib. Mets baseball in 1997 was serious business. It was scoreless until the bottom of the sixth when last night’s hero, Hardtke, drove in Butch Huskey.
Bobby Jones did the rest. Bobby Jones had been doing the rest all season long. A soft-tossing No. 3 type starter since coming up in 1993, Jones was blossoming. He was 11-3 entering the night. When we were in Texas, driving between Waco and Arlington, Stephanie asked that we stop at an outlet mall she spied from the highway. Strolling through, I saw one of the stores was called Jones New York. I lit up immediately.
Bobby Jones kept the Pirates at bay. He got out of a jam in the seventh. I got up to go to the men’s room during the stretch, and I was met by somebody who was lit up even more. The guy slapped me high-five after high-five, sputtering with joy, “Bobby JONES! Bobby JONES! Bobby JONES!”
The only one who didn’t completely believe in Bobby Jones was Bobby Valentine. He pulled his starter after 8-2/3. Here came Franco. But there didn’t go the lead. Mets 1 Pirates 0.
Saturday was another nailbiter. Mlicki, his invincibility evaporated since Monday night, gave up the go-ahead run in the eighth and trailed 2-1. In the bottom of the inning, Edgardo Alfonzo hit one out with a man on. Fonzie had been doing things like this lately. Clutch hitting. Great fielding. With Ordoñez (until he went on the DL at the beginning of June), he formed The Great Wall of Flushing. With runners on first and second, their specialty was the 6-5 forceout. It seems simple enough, but it was rare, and in their hands, beautiful. Now Fonzie put us up. Greg McMichael (how often could you call on Franco?) got the save. We won again. Mets 3 Pirates 2.
It was back to Shea on Sunday. My accompaniment this time was provided by Chuck, the guy I called on Tuesday night when I was ready to sacrifice the rest of the season for the sake of defeating David Wells. Hot day in Queens, which made Chuck happy since he likes baseball, but loves sunshine even more. It must not have made the pitchers happy because balls were flying out of the notorious pitchers’ park.
Our starter was Cory Lidle, a reliever. With Armando Reynoso having been taken out on a line drive to the body against the Yankees, the rotation was coming apart. Bobby V figured he’d get by with Lidle for as long as he could.
That lasted four innings. The Mets took a 3-0 lead until Lidle gave it back. Behind 4-3, Lance Johnson homered and evened things up. Juan Acevedo came in and let the Pirates retake the lead. In the bottom of the sixth, after a brief rain delay (it was hot enough for a sudden thunderstorm), the Mets scored four runs to make it 9-6 for the home side.
This was fun. Finally, we could relax. Chuck and I figured we were home free. Except Ricardo Jordan gave up one in the seventh and Franco — Franco! — two more in the ninth and once again we were tied. The Bucs wouldn’t go away.
Takashi Kashiwada, the first Japanese professional to play for the Mets, held Pittsburgh scoreless in the tenth and then Carl Everett, having the game of his life, slammed a three-run shot, his fourth hit, to end it. Mets 12 Pirates 9.
We swept a four-game series. Fans waved brooms. People thought enough to bring brooms from home on the 50-50 chance that they’d be able to brandish them. I thought that was cute if ill-advised, tempting-fatewise. Chuck who likes baseball but seems baffled by fans’ reactions to it, labeled it “queer”.
Sunday afternoon was awesome, but it left open the question of Monday night. The Mets had the Braves coming in, the first time the two had played anything like a mutually meaningful game since the first National League Championship Series in 1969. It probably wasn’t all that meaningful to the Braves, who owned a lifetime pass to the playoffs, but it meant something to us. We were actually known, with a touch of exaggeration among the faithful, as a team that played the Braves tough. But the Braves never had anything to play for until October. The Mets never did.
They did now but had no bullpen. Everybody threw Sunday. Monday’s starter was Rick Reed, the former replacement player. That was his name as far as the broadcasters were concerned. It was sometimes pronounced former replacement player Rick Reed. In the best tradition of Steve Bieser, Bobby Valentine rescued Reed from minor league oblivion. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say Reed rescued himself and Bobby noticed. Either way, Reed was the surprise pitcher on baseball’s surprise team.
We couldn’t have been more surprised by what he did Monday night. We had no ’pen; not even game-blowing, union loyalist Franco was readily available. We were going up against John Smoltz, who had a 2-0 lead with which to work. But we scratched out a run in the fifth and yesterday’s main man, Everett, stroked a two-run homer in the sixth. Reed hung on and hung in, pitching that rarity known as a complete game win. Mets 3 Braves 2.
On Tuesday night, I had to get my car. I dropped it off at my mechanics in Baldwin that morning. I had an oil-and-filter change and palpitations. Walking to their Mobil station from the LIRR station, I listened on our flagship station to a back-and-forth contest that the Mets tied at three in the bottom of the sixth about the time I was driving home to East Rockaway. Once inside the house, I watched the Braves take the lead back, 5-3, the way they tended to when it mattered. Damn.
Damn became HOT DAMN! Carlos Baerga stepped up in the bottom of the eighth with one on and hit one out against Mike Bielecki. Shea exploded. East Rockaway exploded. My phone blew up. It was Joel, my friend since junior high, calling from Phoenix. He was watching on TBS. He couldn’t believe it either. The Mets’ transition from pretender to contender was news from one coast to almost the other.
It was still tied in the bottom of the ninth when Baerga came up again. Carlos Baerga was a good idea in 1996. Seemed like a good idea. He was considered on the level of the Orioles’ Roberto Alomar among American League second basemen, a key cog in the powerful Cleveland Indian machine. While we weren’t paying attention, Baerga’s stock fell dramatically. The Tribe couldn’t wait to unload him and we were happy to scoop him up for the scant price of middling infielders Jose Vizcaino and Jeff Kent. We thought this was Keith Hernandez all over again, an all-star dumped in his prime.
Carlos Baerga was not Keith Hernandez. He wasn’t even Keith Miller. Nor much of an idea when all was said and done. He was injured, not in shape and mostly ineffective. He was getting the ol’ George Foster treatment from the fans. Until tonight. That homer in the eighth was huge. And now, with Mark Wohlers, the Braves’ struggling closer on the mound, he had a chance to be, if for a moment, the Carlos Baerga we imagined.
Baerga singled in Todd Hundley with the winning run. Mets 6 Braves 5.
Pandemonium everywhere. Long Island. Arizona. Flushing. My buddy Jason was at the game. He told me via e-mail the next day that he stood on his seat for the winning hit, high-fiving the stranger standing on the seat next to his. He didn’t tell me if his stranger shouted “Carlos BAERGA!” et al in his face.
That made it six in a row. On June 24, the Mets stood eleven games over .500, 1-1/2 behind the Marlins for the Wild Card, just four out of first. Nobody was talking about letdowns. Instead we bought into a playoff race as a certainty and a division title as a you-never-know possibility. And in case nobody else noticed, the Mets’ record at this point was a half-game better than the Mighty and Vaunted Yankees’.
Bring ’em back!
Nobody who’d paid attention to the Mets this last week could reasonably question their viability. Nobody could look askance at the likes of me or any of us who had been taking the Mets so delightfully seriously after seasons of watching them lose, lose, lose. We weren’t nuts, at least not where this was concerned. If you couldn’t give the Mets respect, it was you who was nuts.
We had a good team. A real good team. Over the last six games, Carlos Baerga batted .333, Edgardo Alfonzo hit .409 and Carl Everett put up a cool .500. Guys named Hardtke, Lidle, Kashiwada, Jones and Reed came through. Squeakers, slugfests, fantastic finishes…for six straight games, the Mets won either by one run or during their last time up or in extra innings. Sometimes they won in various combinations of the aforementioned. They won them all.
A month after alighting in Texas, Stephanie and I finished June in Detroit: more vital beverage business that conveniently coincided with a visit to another ballpark we hadn’t yet seen, this time Tiger Stadium, this time to see the Mets in an Interleague matchup. The Mets and the Tigers? How strange, but there it was on the schedule and there we were, parking a rental car on Michigan Avenue and meeting in the lot two other Mets fans even giddier than me about the unexpected turn for the better 1997 had taken. One of them grabbed my right hand, shook it fiercely and declared, “The Mets aren’t going to lose another game all year!”
His assessment was a little off (Tigers 14 Mets 0 awaited us across the street), but the sentiment was right on. The Mets were for real. In every sense that mattered, this already was our year.
Next Friday: Second spitters and other countries.
by Greg Prince on 1 June 2007 8:18 am Don't Root For Injuries. In Game Five of the 1988 NLCS at Shea, Kirk Gibson slid into second and came up in obvious pain. Mets fans cheered. There, I thought, that's it, we're screwed. Be a human being about these things. Wish no pain on anyone. Wish they enjoy a pain-free three-month stay on the DL instead.
—The Greg Commandments, handed down unto Mets fans, July 14, 2005
I blame myself, but I was provoked.
You put a Molina in front of me, it's bound to set something off. Something very, very dark.
There was Bengie Molina, batting cleanup for the Giants on Tuesday night. A Molina…not the loathsome one, but close enough for bile. Bengie Molina homered off Ollie Perez in the top of the first. After an eventful evening that would wind twelve innings and nearly four hours, culminating in jubilation, I more or less forgot about him.
But I remembered his brother Yadier. He's never altogether far from my thoughts.
The prick.
Yadier Fucking Molina.
Fucking Yadier Molina.
However you say it, it's appropriate. But my behavior wasn't.
Wednesday night, I'm watching the beginning of the telecast, the part where Gary gives us the news and notes from around baseball. His first newsy note arrives by way of St. Louis, word that Yadier Fuckface Molina will be out four to six weeks with a fractured left wrist.
“HA! YES! FUCK HIM! FUCK YADIER MOLINA! GOOD! GOOD! HA!”
It just burst out of me, y'know? It happens. “Don't Root For Injuries” is among the hardest Commandments to keep because the easiest route to Mets success, intuitively, is for a Higher Power to smite all our enemies. For example, John Smoltz has been allegedly injured about twenty times this year. I say “allegedly” because for all the pinkies he is reported to aggravate, he's always right back out there on the mound, pitching seven scoreless innings, particularly against us. When I hear that Smoltz or one his teammates is hurting, my initial reaction is to call a caterer and plan a party. But then I catch myself, reminding myself that we don't do that. Not even for Braves do we root for injuries. If I take it back quickly enough, I feel I have violated no Commandment.
But I didn't take it back on Yadier Fuckall Molina. Yadfuckier Molina ruined everything last October. So did Jeff Suppan and So Taguchi and Scott Spiezio and take your pick, but nobody held and plunged the dagger through our hearts like Yadier Mofuckinglina. Maybe, I thought fleetingly, that I shouldn't be happy over a player's injury, not even a Cardinal's injury, not even this Cardinal's injury, but it was a very fleeting thought.
So what happens the next night? In the very first inning? One of our most irreplaceable players, Carlos Beltran, runs into Rich Aurilia and suffers a contusion to his right knee. Contusion…bruise…unholy mark…whatever you call it, it was enough to chase him from the game after he toughed it out long enough to score on David Wright's double.
Carlos Beltran is always doing something to himself racing toward first base, usually disturbing his quads. He's like a graceful Mike Piazza in his ability to hurt himself doing something so routine. Can't we just build him a transporter for those ninety feet?
I tried not to think about life without Beltran even as our powerhouse outfield of Alou-Beltran-Green became Johnson-Gomez-Chavez. One guy goes down, we can live with it. Two guys go down, we can live with it because Endy Chavez is the equivalent of any two mortal men. But all three starting outfielders out, including the one who's actually athletic and strong and capable of doing everything?
El Duque took my mind off Carlos B for the balance of Thursday night (how does he ever lose?), but going online and reading the ESPN recap reminded me of what I may have wrought. Carlos will have an MRI and maybe need do no more than rest a day or two. A bruise doesn't sound so bad. But how many injuries have you witnessed that don't sound so bad, that will only require a day or two off, become DL stays of indeterminate length? Do you really want to find out?
Why Carlos? Could it be because I was so gleeful upon hearing of Yadifuck Molina's misfortune? Was it the Irony Dept. of Baseball Gods Inc. messing with me? I cheer pain sustained by he who took Aaron Heilman deep in Game Seven, I am reprimanded with pain for he who was caught looking by Adam Wainwright minutes later.
I'm just thankful it never occurred to me to stick pins in that David Eckstein voodoo doll I keep under the bed. Let's leave the shortstops out of this.
Long before My Name Is Earl made it fashionable, I took great care to Abide By Karma. It's the Commandment right after the one about the injuries. I wouldn't even lick my chops over ex-Giant Armando Benitez entering Tuesday night's trap door so conscious am I of not getting greedy with the gods. Well, my name is mud at least in my book if Beltran is out more than a weekend and change. Things were going so well — still are going so well by the light of the standings — but that killer June schedule has arrived and we need every top cat we've got under contract to be on the prowl. What have we gained by the presumed near-returns of Moises and Valentin if we're down a superstud? CB hasn't been ripping the cover off the ball of late, but he's still Carlos Beltran. He's our No. 3 hitter and the league's leading All-Star vote-getter for a reason. He's very great. We'd miss him very much.
So here goes…
Gosh, I'm sorry that Yadier Fu…I mean Yadier Molina is hurt. I sure wish him a pain-free recovery. He's quite the competitor and the game is better off with all its players intact. And while we're at it, much happiness to Armando Benitez upon his return to the Marlins whom we play ten more times in 2007.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to say three Hail Endys and scream into my pillow.
by Greg Prince on 31 May 2007 4:46 pm “It was nice to be back,” Guillermo Mota said after last night’s Zito-induced somnambufest, a 2:29 sleepwalk that featured no Mets runs and an hourlong nap in the middle of it by your correspondent. I woke up in time to see Mota’s return. Like everything else in this game, it barely stirred me.
Amplitude Modulation radio hosts whose insights are not ample and whose modulation is completely lacking — so what are they doing on AM? — were on their soaringly high horses earlier in the week instructing Mets fans (a breed so unsophisticated we need etiquette instruction from these enlightened professionals at every turn) that if we want to hate on Barry Bonds, we need to express venom toward Guillermo Mota. For the record, I did neither.
From the loge Tuesday, I didn’t boo the second-greatest slugger by total in the history of baseball. I didn’t cheer him either. I wished him out, a conclusion Scott Schoeneweis couldn’t provide. But I did stand during his at-bat, partly out of tension, instinctively out of respect…for the numbers, not for the man. It actually saddened me, this response he’s plainly earned. Someone on the brink of ascending Mount Aaron should be greeted enthusiastically on principle. You don’t need to root for him to homer against your team (a result nimrods who flourished amid the McGwire-Sosa hysteria always seemed to crave) but you should be able to acknowledge the inherent greatness of the protagonist. With Bonds, for reasons that are depressingly familiar, it’s impossible.
It was thrilling when Aaron passed Ruth. It should be thrilling when Bonds passes Aaron. It won’t be.
Mota? He committed a misdeed against Metsdom when he came in exceedingly high and tight on Mike Piazza. Twice. I assumed I’d never forgive him for that heinous crime, that there would never be any reason to contemplate forgiveness. Then he mysteriously appeared on the 2006 New York Mets, a division leader that was all about good feelings. Mota slipped into the bullpen and onto the mound rather anonymously and pitched well and, with Mike in San Diego and the Mets running toward the playoffs, Guillermo Mota was OK with me. He remained so until he gave into Scott Spiezio in chilling Game Two of the NLCS.
Then he was caught ingesting whatever it was he was ingesting and he was suspended by baseball and I assumed, again, that I wouldn’t have much reason to concern myself with Guillermo Mota any longer. I assumed wrong again. Omar re-signed him because Omar knows more about the sport and my team than I do. Last night, after serving his sentence and saying he was sorry, Mota made his 2007 debut and looked very sharp in two scoreless innings. He was greeted more warmly as he departed than he was when he entered. It was nice that he was back, not because I feel any great simpatico with the guy, but because he’s a better bet than Ambiorix Burgos (or Scott Schoeneweis) to retire opposing batters at dire junctures of ballgames.
Hold a grudge against Guillermo Mota if you like. Boo Barry Bonds if it makes you happy. I’ve stayed mad at lesser lights for reasons far more obscure. But such tired exercises in indignation aren’t why I watch baseball. Really, it’s why once in a great while I nod off in the middle of it.
by Jason Fry on 31 May 2007 1:32 am Before this game goes into the books for good or ill (ill's tucked in by the rail and riding hard), a word about the improbable events of last night — perhaps the only time in Mets history a walkoff home run will leave me and Emily blinking in puzzlement instead of leaping about. (I mean, we were happy, but in a pinch-me startled way. And we agreed, to our horror, that we felt mildly sympathetic towards Armando Benitez!)
Joshua and I now have a morning ritual — at some point during the getting dressed, the wrangling of school items and the walking to school, he'll ask if the Mets won last night, since he rarely gets to see anything beyond about the fourth. The kid is working on his math, so he particularly likes the score — not the final score, but what the score was each time it changed.
I always happily indulge him as far as my poor memory will allow — I mean, my goodness, my kid wants to know exact details about the Mets game. This morning, as you might imagine, I was particularly happy to do so.
Daddy: Well, Joshua, in the first inning two Giants hit solo home runs, so it was Giants 2, Mets 0.
Joshua: That's not good.
Daddy: Then Carlos Delgado hit a home run with Carlos Beltran on base….
Joshua: That's A DOUBLE-DECKER HOME RUN!
Daddy: Yep, a two-run home run.
Joshua (very fierce): No, it's a double-decker home run!
[Daddy backs down hastily. Yes, it was a double-decker home run. Hell, that's more fun to say anyway.]
Joshua: And it was Mets 2, Giants 2. And that's good!
Daddy: Yep. And then Carlos Beltran drove in a run, so it was Mets 3, Giants 2. But then ANOTHER Giant hit a home run, so it was —
Joshua: Mets 3, Giants 3. That's NOT good.
Daddy: No, it wasn't. And then Joe Smith allowed a walk and hit a batter —
Joshua (confused): He hit the batter?
Daddy: He threw the ball and it hit the batter. That's the same as a walk.
Joshua: He shouldn't do that. That's not nice.
Daddy: He didn't do it on purpose. It was an accident. He didn't want to do it because then the Giants had runners on first and second. And then [we'll skip the long explanation of bunting, which is a lot harder to explain to a child than you may think, if you've never tried it]. And then a Giant hit a ground ball to Carlos Delgado, who got the batter out at first and threw home but he was JUST TOO LATE to get the runner at the plate.
Joshua: So it was … Mets 3, Giants 4.
Daddy: Right. So [reminder of extra innings and how they work]. And Armando Benitez — who used to be a Met — was pitching for the Giants. And he walked Jose Reyes.
Joshua: I LOVE when Jose gets a walk! Or hits a home run!
[We pause to sing the Jose Jose Jose song. Because.]
Daddy: And then Armando committed a balk, so Jose got to go to second.
Joshua: What's a balk?
Oh boy. How to handle that one? Well, son, a balk is when … what the hell is a balk, exactly? It's when the pitcher tries to deceive the runner, but of course the pitcher does that all the time. It's … gee. I settled for saying it's when the pitcher doesn't throw smoothly to the base or to the batter, when he flinches or stops and starts. (Right? Kinda?) And when Joshua pressed me, I couldn't resist saying that a balk is the word that comes out of Bob Davidson's mouth when a neutrino unsettles a neuron in his brain. Because that first balk, wow. Sometimes Davidson is like a small-town cop a ticket shy of his quota at 4:35 p.m. on the 31st. There's a violation out somewhere, and Bob's gonna find it.
Anyway, eventually we got the balk sorted out and moved on to Endy's bunt, which happily we'd already covered, and then the disappointment of Beltran not getting the job done, which led to a revisiting of the sacrifice fly, which is also harder to explain than you might think. And then the second balk. Joshua thought this was fairly amazing. I told him he didn't know the thousandth of it.
The second Delgado home run? We were united in the opinion that it was very, very good.
* Trivia question for the adults: There is ONE situation where a baseball team may “decline a penalty” and choose the outcome of a play. What is it?
by Greg Prince on 30 May 2007 5:48 pm Dear Citi Field,
Hello. We don't know each other yet, but I will be one of the fans who, if nothing terrible happens to either one of us, will be keeping you company during the first years, hopefully decades, of your life. I've been looking at pictures of you since you were conceived and even grabbed a few glimpses of you developing from a distance. Last night, because my friend parked in his car on a street that may not even exist by the time you're up and running (it barely exists now), I came as close as I have yet to seeing what you look like inside.
Once you're truly born, I won't be able to see any of that because you'll be covered with grass and bricks and everything else that is supposed to make you special. You're a long way from being with us in full but you're also obviously and clearly on your way. I could see that as I walked around you before and after Tuesday night's game. You and I are going to be spending a lot of time together starting in April 2009 so I'd like us to commence getting acquainted.
You don't have a lot to show or tell me yet, so I figure it's up to someone like me — an actual Mets fan — to get you up to speed on what we're all about. Last night is a terrific jumping-off point.
I went to the Mets game last night. I do that a lot. It's folks like me who are the reason you are being born. The people who gave you your name (which I'm dreadfully sorry about) might tell you different, that you're also there to be the flagship of a “multifaceted strategic marketing and business partnership,” but no, you're there solely for us, the Mets fans. Those who will fawn over you at first you may not see that much as time goes along, but we will be there with you and for you long after the novelty of your birth has passed. And you will be there for us. That's how it works between baseball fans and their ballpark.
I know your older brother very, very well. I've known him a very, very long time. I will only know him for a short time longer but after last night, I learned something about him: I learned that there's always more to discover in a ballpark. That's going to be great news for you and me when we're together.
Just so you know, your older brother and I go back 35 seasons now. I've visited with him on about 350 occasions. So you'd think I would know all there is to know by now, right? But no, your brother keeps surprising me.
For example, last night I went to the game with three gentlemen who have known your older brother even longer than I have. You'd think that as Mets fans of such standing, we'd get some sort of royal treatment, but we're just like anybody else who makes the trip to see him. We sit where our tickets tell us to sit. That's how it works at ballgames. I hope it still does when we're coming to see you. In this case, we sat deep in the right field loge. Do you know what a loge is? Goodness, I don't even know if you're going to be born with one of those. Since I haven't come across any other loges anywhere else, I'm guessing you won't.
Don't feel bad, Citi. You'll have levels all your own, but a loge can be a special place. It was last night. We were just inside the foul pole and far back enough so seeing the scoreboard was kind of an adventure. Me and my three companions each took turns trundling down the steps of our section to peek at the out-of-town scores. We were like couriers on a mountain expedition, each bringing back progressively better news from far-away lands like Toronto and Milwaukee.
Doesn't sound ideal, does it? But, actually, it added to the fun we were having, and make no mistake, we were having lots of fun. I don't think I had ever sat precisely where we were last night, but I enjoyed a whole new angle on the Mets game from there. Fancy that — 35 seasons of coming to see your older brother and he showed me views I hadn't seen.
There were moments when fly balls were mostly rumor and we had to hold our breath to divine whether they were caught or landed over the fence or what exactly, but that just added to the suspense. In the meantime, I could peer over at the side of the scoreboard and notice holes I had never noticed before, get a sideways glance at the Home Run Apple (I didn't know it stood on a platform) and when I got ambitious, I could walk a couple of sections over and stare directly down at the Mets' bullpen. I had more legroom than I ever had before and I think the end of Row H, Section 29 in loge is the only spot your older brother offers where I haven't had anybody block my view (particularly of the third base line, which came in very handy in the twelfth inning) or nudge me to get up to let them pass through. I felt we were in our own little village out there.
Plus, the seat itself came in very handy when, as has become my custom amid winning rallies, I glued myself into it as bedlam began to unfold. I have a lot of almost-involuntary rituals and superstitions, Citi, and I trust you'll grow familiar with them just as your older brother has.
It wasn't just me and my three friends. There were nearly 48,000 of us on hand to see the Mets and the Giants. I guess that's a number that will be out of your reach even once you start to grow up. It doesn't necessarily make you a lesser ballpark, just different. Right now with your older brother hosting crowds like that every weekend and most weeknights, it seems a little offputting to think they've limited you to 45,000 of us. Weird angles that don't let you see all the scoreboard or field and seats that make you squeeze your legs in with one or two exceptions are supposed to be a thing of the past with you and that should be nice. But you should know that on a night like last night, none of those inconveniences mattered with your older brother. They never do.
You and your older brother will have one thing in common, the most important thing. You will have Mets games just like he has. Well, I hope you have a Mets game like the one he had last night. I have to be honest, Citi, I think it will take you a long time to grow that certain something that makes a ballpark and a ballclub mesh the way your older brother and our team do with us. Then again, they've had it for a long time, so maybe not. Still, it's hard to fathom that what I saw last night could take place in any other ballpark in the world.
Hey, I've prattled on so much that I haven't really told you about the game itself. I tend to do that. You'll hold so many ballgames that you'll tend to forget a lot of the details as you grow older, but there are always going to be a few when you remember the feeling more than anything. Last night's was one of those games. And last night felt great, especially at the end, maybe even more especially in the moments leading up to the end.
You're eventually going to be soaked in the legend of the Mets (if the people who tend to you are doing their jobs correctly) and you'll learn all the names and the dates and what they mean, but there's one man in particular, a relief pitcher, who had a very shall we say spotty history with your older brother. He did some good things when he was a Met, but they always seemed secondary to the absolutely abominable things he did to the Mets. When he went to play for other teams, he was not remembered kindly. And when he came back to visit your older brother wearing the wrong uniform…hoo-boy! Let's just say that last night he showed up and did everything we wanted. That's probably the key reason last night felt so great.
I'll bet you're going to laugh when I tell you this, Citi, but I read something yesterday that said New Yorkers were “in a funk” over how another team was doing. What I experienced last night was the total opposite. Most of the 48,000 people who were with your older brother at the end of the evening were positively euphoric over what they had just seen — a pitcher's duel between two young and mostly untouchable guns; two near-winning rallies squelched in a fashion that made us nearly give up; two shortstops with Hall of Fame potential doing what's made them famous; that relief pitcher I mentioned doing what's made him infamous (when you're old enough, I'll attempt to explain the balk rule to you if I can ever figure it out myself); and, finally, a walkoff blast that sailed somewhere in the vicinity of our obstructed view to snatch victory from defeat — and they've seen a lot of late to be euphoric about!
Come to think of it, we were all just like the Mets: jumping up and down and slapping each other on the back and hugging and cheering when the game was over. There was so much utter happiness at Shea Stadium last night, just like there's been so many times in the 35 seasons I've known him. That's one reason nights like last night are extremely special, because one incredible game touches off memories of other incredible games and even some mundane games we've lived through with your older brother. It's all part of that ballclub-ballpark-ballfan relationship I mentioned.
As we walked by you on our way out, I told the guys I came with, “Citi Field is going to have a lot going for it, but it won't have the game we just saw.” Someday, maybe you will. I can't wait for that day. But then again, I can't wait to see what else your older brother has in store for me.
Your day will come. Until then, I remain,
Eventually Faithfullly Yours
by Greg Prince on 30 May 2007 2:33 pm Ladies and gentlemen, the blog is not burning.
I was sitting in my office shortly after 8 AM preparing just the right words to describe the thrill of being at last night's glorious victory when I happened to notice the smell of smoke and the sound of an alarm and, wiz that I am, eventually put the two together. In short, there was a fire in another apartment in our building. So, in honor of the man whose name is on the shirt I'm still wearing after having fallen asleep in it, I ran like Jose Reyes…or as much as I can run like Jose Reyes. After a lot of standing around in the parking lot and witnessing some everyday heroics from our local FD, everything is essentially fine. Nobody was hurt, the cats have been accounted for and we're able to close and lock our door (those rescue guys wield a heavy axe).
The air is a little crispy, but that 12-inning balkoff/blastoff still rates a few “hot damn!”s. They'll be en route soon enough.
When you smell and hear something, don't think it's something else. Just get moving. A public service announcement from the only Mets blog endorsed by Smoky Burgess.
by Greg Prince on 29 May 2007 2:01 pm Somebody call Bernie Mac, D.L. Hughley, Steve Harvey and Cedric the Entertainer and tell them to find a new line of work. They may be The Original Kings of Comedy, but today comedy has new kings.
Meet the hysterical duo of Noah Fowle and Dave Goldiner. These comic geniuses have penned perhaps the funniest article ever written. It appears — where else? — in that noted comedy bible known as the Daily News.
The headline tells you that the story is going to be a scream:
City's in funk as Bombers bombing
I don't want to give away all the punchlines (you can check the American League standings for those), but I can't let this opportunity pass without — spoiler alert! — sharing this one joke they tell about all the damage the Yankees' recent losing is apt to do to New York's collective psyche:
“It might not be a coincidence that the Bombers' bad runs in the '60s and late '80s and early '90s coincided with eras of rising crime and economic stagnation.”
Several hallmarks of a great joke are present here.
1) It is preposterous. “It might not be a coincidence…” It also might not be a coincidence that I sat on my ass and watched TV yesterday and then it rained. But since I sit on my ass and watch a lot of TV and that doesn't necessarily lead to rain, I'm going to say it was indeed a coincidence. Their assertion is preposterous, therefore it is funny.
2) It is nonsensical. “It might not be a coincidence…coincided with…” Actually, when things coincide, it is generally indicative of a coincidence. Nonsense can be very funny.
3) It is illogical. “…the Bombers' bad runs in the '60s and late '80s and early '90s coincided with eras of rising crime and economic stagnation.” How did that work exactly? Every time Tom Tresh went 0-for-4, a liquor store was robbed? Andy Stankiewicz got a start and an investment bank moved to the suburbs? High-larious conclusions by the writers! Next time someone's driving while handling a cell phone, somebody arrest Jason Giambi (though I hear he can't get arrested…no matter how hard he tries).
This is one of those gags where you don't just laugh, but you applaud, so bravo fellas! And bravo to the editors who put stuff like this on page 2 of their newspaper and continue to devote almost all of their space to the floundering Yankees while practically ignoring the humdrum achievements of the first-place Mets (whose New York-based fans may not join their neighbors on this inevitable Yankee-related crime spree since our collective psyche is hanging in there OK). The Daily News' overwhelmingly Yankeecentric coverage of baseball in the Big Apple continues to be the sports-journalism equivalent of open mic night at Caroline's.
Some things are just funny because they're funny. In Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, cantankerous Willy Clark explained words with the “k”-sound in them are funny. By his reasoning, the “Yankees” are funny. The idea that the “Yankees” are sending New “Yorkers” into a “funk” should have us doubled over in laughter.
And it does!
by Greg Prince on 28 May 2007 9:26 am If anyone feared a 2007 letdown following the success of 2006 (and who didn't?), it hasn't happened. I suppose you could just look at the standings and figure that out for yourself, but out of curiosity, I did some checking to determine how historic the Mets' fine start is coming as it has on the heels of a very good season.
It's pretty historic.
Here is how 2006 + 49 games of 2007 ranks in terms of winning percentage among the best Full Mets Season + 49-Game samples.
Note: There's nothing magical about the 49-game mark, it just happens to be where we are after a delightful weekend and it's close enough to one-third of a season to form impressions considering there's no game today.
1) 1986-87: 133-78 (.630)
2) 1985-86: 132-79 (.626)
3) 2006-07: 129-82 (.611)
4) 1988-89: 125-84 (.598)
5) 1987-88: 126-85 (.597)
6) 1969-70: 125-86 (.592)
7) 1999-2000: 124-88 (.585)
8) 1984-85: 120-91 (.569)
9) 1990-91: 118-93 (.559)
10) 1997-98: 117-94 (.555)
What, if anything, does this portend for the rest of 2007? I'm not sure, of course, but '07 — nagging dings and vexing slumps notwithstanding — is one of only four successor years listed above that, after 49 games, has resulted in a winning percentage at least 50 points (.050) better than its predecessor's already excellent full season.
In other words, we're running at a .653 winning percentage (106-56 if you like to dream) right now, a nifty .054 better than where we finished 2006. History indicates that if the Mets win at least 90 games one year and have a winning percentage 50 points better than they achieved at the end of that first year after 49 games the next year, it's a pretty good sign in terms of things to come.
The newly discovered 90/50/49 Rule in action:
1987 Full Season W%: .568
1988 49 Games W%: .694
Improvement: +.126
1988 Full Season W%: .625
1988 Differential 49G to End '88: -.069
1985 Full Season W%: .604
1986 49 Games W%: .694
Improvement: +.090
1986 Full Season W%: .667
1986 Differential 49G to End '86: -.027
1984 Full Season W%: .556
1985 49 Games W%: .612
Improvement: +.056
1985 Full Season W%: .604
1985 Differential 49G to End '85: -.008
2006 Full Season W%: .599
2007: 49 Games W%: .653
Improvement: +.054
2007: Full Season W%: TK
2007: Differential 49G to End: TK
If precedent presents any kind of clue, we see that an already very good Mets team that improves upon its winning percentage for 49 games — approximately the first third of the next season — by at least 50 points (+.050) is likely on its way to a significantly better overall record than its predecessor.
Full Year 1988: +10 wins versus 1987
Full Year 1986: +10 wins versus 1985
Full Year 1985: +8 wins versus 1984
The '88 and '86 Mets did not maintain their respective .694 winning percentages (they both would have wound up with about 112 wins if they had), but they each put down a pretty effective marker in those first 49 games to launch them toward division titles. 1985 stayed pretty consistent throughout and its 98 wins would be golden in the Wild Card era.
I wouldn't swear to it based on my statistical noodling, but if the Mets can simply not screw up a whole lot over the next 113 games, I think we're in pretty good shape.
65-48 from here on out would get us to where we got last year: 97-65. The track record provided by 1988, 1986 and 1985 (each season building on an already very good record the year before) indicates a dropoff from the 49-game blistering pace of improvement is to be expected, but it shouldn't be so severe that it hampers us in the long run. If we suffered the worst of those three dropoffs, with our winning percentage declining by 1988's .069 over the last 113 games, we'd go 66-47 (.584) the rest of the way and wind up with 98 wins.
98 wins would be just dandy.
Also, for what it's worth, we seem to be in the midst of one of the finest two-year runs in Mets history. So enjoy that if you can stand to.
by Jason Fry on 28 May 2007 12:11 am Mets 6, Marlins 4.
The Mets put up a four-spot in the fourth inning against Scott Olsen, Jorge Sosa held the Marlins at bay, and the relievers hung on despite two late Florida runs and the Mets leaving the bases loaded in the seventh and eighth. Seems pretty straightforward.
Ah, but it wasn't. Depending on which medium you were enjoying, Gary and Keith and Howie and Tom did a great job dissecting two half-innings that could have gone very, very differently but for a mischance here and a play not quite made there.
Marlins third: Abercrombie singled to left. Abercrombie stole second. Olsen sacrificed to pitcher, Abercrombie to third. Amezaga hit sacrifice fly to right, Abercrombie scored. Uggla popped out to second. Marlins 1, Mets 0.
Abercrombie's single went to left, manned by Damion Easley now that Moises Alou, Shawn Green and Carlos Gomez are on the shelf. Easley was playing back, and Abercrombie's single was a parachute that Endy Chavez probably would have caught. (No insult to Easley — he's not an outfielder.) Abercombie's steal of second drew no throw from Ramon Castro, because Scott Olsen practically fell across the plate swinging and getting in Castro's way. If Ed Hickox calls interference, Abercrombie is out. If Chavez is in left the pitcher's hitting with none on and one out. If the umpire makes a call he arguably should have made, same situation.
Mets fourth: Gotay struck out swinging. Beltran walked. Wright singled to right, Beltran to second. Delgado singled to right, Beltran scored, Wright to second. Wright stole third, Delgado stole second. Easley reached on infield single to second, Wright scored, Delgado scored on throwing error by second baseman Uggla. Easley to second on wild pitch by Olsen. Castro struck out swinging. Chavez singled to left, Easley scored. Sosa struck out looking. Mets 4, Marlins 1.
Wright's single to right was a little floater that wound up in no-man's land — not a bad play, but lousy luck for Olsen. On the double-steal, Miguel Olivo threw to third, trying to get a fast runner with the batter blocking him out instead of trying to nail the lead-footed Delgado unobstructed. Easley's two-run infield single was a tough play, but the error on Uggla that let the second run score was first baseman Aaron Boone's fault — an inexperienced first baseman, he wasn't properly positioned for a throw that sailed a bit to the left of the bag. The wild pitch escaped Olivo because he made very little effort to slide his body left to get in front of it. Endy's single? It was past Miguel Cabrera, inexplicably playing in with two outs. If Cabrera's positioned normally, he throws Endy out. Toss out the bad luck for Olsen and plays not made because his teammates were out of position or not thinking, and it's 1-1 or perhaps still 1-0. Olsen probably hasn't thrown 44 pitches and maybe isn't fantasizing about what various teammates would look like if he were to catch them across their snouts with a hurled bag of Soilmaster. But what's done is done, and the game is basically lost.
There are probably several thousand things I love about baseball. But one of the biggest ones is that it rewards wide-eyed fandom, occasional attention and experienced, careful scrutiny alike, but in different ways. To a new fan (my four-year-old, for instance), that Mets fourth was a merry parade of unexpected events ending with a crooked number for the good guys. To a fan paying idle attention (lots of us at various points), the game was good company, with a couple of weird plays thrown in for interest. And to a veteran fan watching closely, it was a reminder that games turn on the littlest things, and the recap sometimes doesn't tell anything close to the whole story.
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