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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 19 May 2007 1:43 am Did I just watch a Met-Yankee game that lasted only 138 minutes? No wonder the Yankees lost. That's the fourth inning in the American League.
Oliver Perez may be demonstrative to the edge of flamboyant, but he doesn't screw around. Ollie proved the slightly more substantial 46 versus National League veteran Andy Pettitte. Pettitte was good. Perez was better. Endy was awesome. Smith and Wagner were tidy.
And that's basically all that happened. What, you expected more from a Subway Series showdown at Shea?
This is all I needed.
by Greg Prince on 19 May 2007 12:57 am 
| This is Willie Mays of the New York Mets as captured by Topps for 1973. I still can’t believe he played for us. Based on content, I think this is my favorite card ever. |
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by Greg Prince on 19 May 2007 12:52 am If you’re taking care of old business every week, then it must be Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing.
Monday marked the 35th anniversary of Willie Mays’ debut as a New York Met. And the 35th anniversary of Willie Mays’ homecoming as a New York baseball immortal.
The two events were not coincidental.
The Mets weren’t picking up any old part-time OF/1B on May 11, 1972 and inserting him into the lineup against the San Francisco Giants to see what he had left — a home run to beat his former team right off the bat — three days hence. This wasn’t Julio Franco deeded a roster spot on egg whites, intangibles and the occasional pinch-hit. And by the same token, these weren’t the Houston Astros or Chicago White Sox or any random might-be contender making a potentially shrewd move to shore up its bench.
This was Willie Freaking Mays. This was the best player who ever played baseball maybe. Certainly in the discussion. They’ve been playing professional baseball since 1869. Think about that.
Willie Mays is one of the best players, possibly the best player, in a sport for which records and recollections have been kept and studied and obsessed upon for about 140 years. More than 16,000 men have been classified as major leaguers. If you were conducting a countdown of the greatest of the greatest, you’d discard all but a few fingers’ worth before attempting to properly appraise Willie Mays.
Willie Mays played in the National League because there wasn’t a higher league available. Willie Mays is in the Baseball Hall of Fame because there isn’t a more hallowed place to commemorate him. There is nobody alive, save perhaps for Henry Aaron, who has a plaque in Cooperstown who would accurately tell you he belongs on the same level as Willie Mays. Nobody.
Willie Mays played in two cities for two franchises. One franchise that represents one city chooses to acknowledge its history with Willie Mays by according him its highest honor, the retirement of his uniform number. One franchise that represents one city chooses not to.
The New York Mets…repeat…the NEW YORK Mets have abandoned a sacred civic responsibility. They have treated Willie Mays’ tenure as a New York Met and, just as importantly, the greatest baseball player to wear a New York uniform in National League play as a footnote for most of the past 35 years.
This treatment should end immediately. Willie Mays’ number should be retired by the New York Mets.
What’s that? He wasn’t the Willie Mays when he was a Met? I beg to differ. I am moved to this conclusion not only by my sterling memories of what it meant to watch Willie take Don Carrithers deep upon his return but also by a passage from a mid-’80s history of NBC’s Saturday Night, written by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad. They explain that one of the least internally loved programs of SNL‘s glory days was the episode hosted by Milton Berle, long a comedy icon, by 1979 something of a has-been who had not received the memo he was no longer the Texaco star of stars:
Berle’s chief defender during the week was John Belushi, no mean mugger himself. Belushi worshipped Berle and repeatedly berated the writers for letting his idol down. “What a great man he is,” Belushi said, “and you guys are writing shit for this great man!”
I am John Belushi where Willie Mays the New York Met is concerned.
Go ahead. Tell me he hit .238 in 135 games in 1972 and 1973. Tell me that his 44 Met runs batted in place him four behind Keith Miller and nobody’s pumping for the retirement of 25, so why should we retire 24?
Tell me more. Tell me he fell down in centerfield in the World Series. Tell me he was a pet of Mrs. Payson’s, that he put Yogi Berra in an uncomfortable position, that his presence all but ended Tommie Agee’s career.
Tell me he was only a Met for two years.
I’ll tell you on most of that that I don’t care. Except for the last part. That I care about a great deal. Willie Mays was a Met for two years. Only two years? How about only two years more than he was anything else except a Giant? And that before he was packed up and off to San Francisco by a bumbling, probably inebriated Horace Stoneham that he was a New York Giant. That he was a New York treasure. That the reason he was back in New York for presumably good on May 14, 1972 was because it was universally recognized that nobody had ever touched the New York National League fan or graced a New York National League diamond like Willie Mays did between 1951 and 1957.
Roger Angell, in his brilliant brief history of the New York Giants for Holiday magazine in 1958:
Baseball writing is a language of superlatives, but the word “exciting” should be reserved for Mays alone. He is the most exciting player I have ever seen, even when he is only running down to first on an infield grounder…He is only twenty-six, and so far in the big leagues he has won titles for hitting, for homers, for slugging, for triples, and for stolen bases. I only hope they cherish him in California, even when he pops up in the eighth inning with a teammate on base. That happens, they should understand, because the Giants are almost always two runs behind in the eighth, so Willie has to try to put one into the seats. We’re going to miss him back here.
It’s not hindsight to suggest Willie Mays was the antenna atop the Empire State Building in his first go-round in New York. It was the Willie of the ’50s that established Willie Mays then and forever. He certainly burnished his immortality in San Francisco before Stoneham accepted cash and Charlie Williams to let him go, but he was a done deal as an immortal here, in New York, in a National League uniform from which the Mets co-opted half their team colors.
You can’t say that about Richie Ashburn or Warren Spahn, other Hall of Famers who stopped by to say hi as Mets. It’s not the same. The Mets don’t have to retire 33 for Eddie Murray just because he’s in Cooperstown. This is not about Cooperstown. It’s about something more. It’s about Willie Freaking Mays.
What a sensation it was in 1972 to have him here. To see the greatest ballplayer in the game in a Mets uniform…at nine years old I was stunned. I didn’t know about the New York background except what I learned on the fly. That this was considered the right thing to do made his appearance in orange and blue that much sweeter. That he uncorked a flair for the dramatics on the occasion of our reacquaintance, hitting the home run that made the difference in a 5-4 win over San Francisco made him a Met in my eyes and sealed his New York birthright.
Y’know, if the Mets, amid handing him several going-away prizes on the night of September 25, 1973, had favored him with a uniform top and said “no New York Met will ever wear Number 24 again,” nobody would have blinked. Nobody would have argued against it based on his relatively brief stint with the club. Nobody would have brought up his batting average. He was Willie Mays. He was New York. He was the New York Mets as much as any player was those two years to those of us who watched in awe as we became schooled in the Giants-Mets connection. Nobody blinked after 1976 when the Brewers honored Henry Aaron that way, retiring 44, not because he’d been much of a Milwaukee Brewer in the 1970s but because he’d been so much a Milwaukee Brave in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Henry came home after his detour to Atlanta. Henry is still at home in Milwaukee in a manner of speaking. He works for the Braves and the new owners there are going to increase his role but they make a fuss over him in Wisconsin. As they should. As should the Mets of New York over Willie Mays. But they don’t.
I don’t know why, not really. Is it the famous Wilponian Dodger obsession? Is it Willie’s occasional quirkiness that some have called surliness? His departure under idiotic circumstances (he was a greeter for Bally’s and was suspended from baseball while he was a come-and-go Mets coach)? His recapture by Peter Magowan and the Giants? I’m not asking the new stadium be named for him, just that he have a bit of acknowledgement inside it.
Besides, who wears 24 for us? Nobody. Nobody could without a really compelling backstory. Two Mets have been issued the digits since 1973: Kelvin Torve in 1990 (accidentally, it was admitted, and he was switched out of them quickly) and Rickey Henderson in 1999 and 2000. Henderson will go to the HOF in a couple of years if he doesn’t unretire his body as he’s reportedly seriously considering, but it’s only the same Hall that Mays is in in name. Rickey was a great. Willie is an immortal. Besides, Rickey, his Wild Card contributions notwithstanding, did not establish himself in New York. If Rickey wants to come back as a Spring Training instructor, let him wear a windbreaker (or let Willie sign off on a Cooperstown exemption). Notice that except for Rickey’s St. Lucie cameos, nobody’s worn 24 these past seven seasons.
Corey Ragsdale of Binghamton, Greg Mullens of Savannah and Geofrank Parra of Venezuela are all Mets minor leaguers listed as 24 on their respective rosters. They can not wear 24 any longer. That’s absurd. No Met minor leaguer wears 37, 14, 41 or 42. None should wear 24. Unless he’s Willie Mays.
Nobody is, but he remains the standard. Willie hasn’t played for 34 years but when you want to describe a megatool outfielder, who do you invoke? Not long ago, an unnamed scout quoted in the Post compared young Carlos Gomez to Willie Mays. Carlos Gomez plays now, just got here. Willie Mays played long ago. He’s still here, in the baseball mindset. It should be made official that he was here, in New York, with us.
Does Keith Hernandez deserve the honor of having his number retired? I think so. Does Gary Carter? Maybe. Darryl Strawberry? Dwight Gooden? Mike Piazza? Tug McGraw? And if Tug’s 45 is taken out of circulation, what of the 45 worn by John Franco? And if Piazza’s 31 goes, does it go for Franco, too? And wait a sec, how about Pedro Martinez? What does he wear? And Gary’s 8 was Yogi’s. What do you do there? And what about Davey Johnson?
Great questions. We debate them endlessly. I truly believe that if I wanted to generate oodles of comments on a slow day, I’d just run this headline…
Retire Numbers? My Cable Company Sucks More Than the Yankees
…because those are the three topics that always get Metsopotamians going. At this moment, though, I’m not interested in retiring 17 (though they should have done that long ago) or any of the others. I’m interested in taking care of 24. I can’t get Willie’s homecoming out of my head. It’s 35 years later and it’s still breathtaking. The greatest New Yorker, albeit by way of Alabama, comes home and plays the hero. The greatest New Yorker says goodbye to America as a Met because he was a Giant and thus forever links two glorious chapters of National League history. Willie’s on deck for the Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff. Willie’s speaking to a crowd that’s Gotta Believe.
There have been 812 Mets in 46 seasons. There have been two who deserve to be called baseball immortals. One is Tom Seaver. One is Willie Mays. There is no defensible way either of their numbers could be worn again by New York Mets. There is nobody like them. We can only hope we have one or two right now who will join them under that umbrella, but right now the umbrella covers just Seaver and Mays. Seaver’s 41 is retired. Mays’ 24, for all it means to baseball and meant in this city, deserves to be.
I wish somebody who makes these decisions would understand that which is self-evident.
Next Friday: Way on the other side of the Hudson to the No. 6 song of all-time.
by Jason Fry on 18 May 2007 6:11 am What an appetizer for the feast that is interleague baseball in New York: one of those back-from-the-dead games that keep you in your seat or in front of the TV for years.
Eight years, in fact — we last overcame a four-run deficit in the ninth on May 23, 1999 off Curt Schilling and the Phillies. I remember it well, because I was at Dodger Stadium, watching the Cardinals and the Dodgers duke it out. (Literally — there was a brawl, which the Dodger Stadium powers-that-be reacted to by playing “Bad Boys,” that reggae song from “Cops,” instead of pretending nothing was happening, as they do at Shea.) I was scoreboard-watching, and couldn't help noticing that the ninth inning in New York seemed to be taking a long time — until somehow, the Mets had won. I'll admit I didn't quite believe it — scoreboard operators could make mistakes about games three time zones away, after all — so I raced back to my hotel and impatiently waited for Headline News to confirm the amazing details, ending with Roger Cedeno drumming his heels merrily in the dirt as Schilling stared in amazement, stuck with a screeched-to-a-halt 8.2 innings pitched and an unlikely loss.
Ruben Gotay didn't drum his heels, but he seemed happy enough. As was I, needless to say. I'd been paying fitful attention to the TV at work, amused by Willie's ad hoc lineup, mildly impressed by a not-bad start from Jason Vargas, relieved to see Jose Jose Jose being manic in the dugout, a bit sad to see us undone by former Cyclones heartthrob Angel Pagan, but ultimately accepting of what certainly looked like a loss in which bullets would be saved for later in the season.
As the ninth built, I admired Willie for sticking with the JV — after today, Gotay would storm a machine-gun nest if Randolph told him to. It was a surprise to see Shawn Green called back (let the record show I've cast aside my flirtation with scapegoating him — too nice a guy), but then I jumped over to ESPN.com to check Batter vs. Pitcher stats and found he was 2 for 22 off Scott Eyre with 10 Ks. Never let it be said that Willie doesn't occasionally look up a stat. Wright may never have pinch-hit before, but he grasped that Eyre desperately needed to throw strike one lest Piniella exile two relievers to the cargo hold on the plane back to Chicago. Mindful of all this, he didn't let that first fastball go by, though it came perilously close to being a diving stab by Izturis and a bang-bang play to double Endy off second and end the game. Then it was time for Delgado to somehow find a hole with Ryan Theriot playing halfway, and he did. Bedlam!
A work pal and I, meanwhile, were carrying on this IM conversation, preserved for posterity. I'm proud of my cheerful confidence, not so proud of my initial lack of faith in Delgado. (Though hey, tell me you didn't think GIDP when that roller came off the bat.)
Brian: who the hell is at bat?
Me: ruben gotay, baby!
Brian: are you kidding?
Me: he's gonna be ruben GODEEP!
Brian: he's hacking away on a guy who cant throw strikes
Me: no worries, it'll happen
Me: see
Brian: i take it all back
Me: lou is going to beat dempster to death on the mound
Me: WHEEEEEEE!!!!!
Me: that was the sound of steam shooting out of lou's ears
Me: delgado will ground into a dp
Brian: youve got DP Delgado up
Me: see above
Brian: he doesnt even look confident anymore
Me: he'll get it done
Brian: omg
Me: my god i love baseball
And now, the Yankees. Should they somehow sweep us, they'll be all the way back to … .500. Quite an accomplishment. Should we sweep them and some other things go right, we could send them off to the Boston executioner in last place. We'll see how much the morning papers make of our current disparity in fortunes: I could see the army of Yankee media propagandists wallowing in the woes of the Order of the Vertical Swastika, but I could also see the usual hyperventilating about mystique and aura and how the Mets are trying to make this their town but Captain Overrated and his band of hearties will dig deep, blah blah blah.
I'm going to try to ignore it, because that crap's annoying. But it won't work: By first pitch I'll of course have turned myself into an emotional pretzel and be engaged in screaming at the TV, just like every other year. Because what's not annoying about the Subway Series is the jet-engine roar of the stadium completely full and pumping adrenaline, or the way every partisan on either side treats every pitch like life or death for three innings or so until everybody's so tired that they're forced to pace themselves. It'll be a revelation for Joe Smith and Damion Easley and some of the other newcomers; it'll be a reminder for me that underneath all the manufactured nonsense you get three fever-pitch games that an entire city will spend the weekend buzzing about. And that's pretty cool.
Like all good-hearted Mets fans, I wish the Yankees ill — it pisses me off when they win a spring-training game. I daydream about a generation of lean years, about the V.S. headgear dwindling until it's worn furtively by old men and dim thugs and a few misguided children. (Not so different than now, but we're talking smaller numbers.) I imagine a world in which everything the Yankees did would be automatically compared to a Mets standard, even if that would just be a mirror image of our current daily exhibits of stupidity by lazy sportswriters.
But recently I've begun to wonder if such dreams are really good for us.
The Human Fight once brought me up short by noting, in a discussion of the increasing obnoxiousness of post-2004 Red Sox Nation, that once you're somewhere north of 2 million fans, you're going to attract your share of jerks. It's a very good point, though we shouldn't let it lead us to reflexively scorn newcomers — each and every one of us had his or her first day as a Met fan, after all. As our renaissance continues, some of those new fans will be true to the orange and blue for life. But some of them — maybe a lot of them — will be soulless front runners.
I love New York City, but it's home to a ridiculously large number of such people. Now, soulless front runners are slow on the uptake, the Yankees have been good for a long time, and we've only been good for a short time — because of all that, most soulless front runners currently fancy themselves Yankee fans. (I guarantee this annoys real Yankee fans, too.) If the Yankees get bad and we stay good, the soulless front runners will indeed take off their Yankee caps. But their next move won't be to hide in their apartments and shut the fuck the up for the rest of their lives, unfortunately — they'll go out, buy our caps without an ounce of shame, and start woofing about the Mets. This pool of New York asshole semi-fans' sole loyalty is to fashion and the standings. If you're wishing statistical famine on the Yankees, you're accepting that this tide would start washing up on our shores.
Put another way, some of my friends bemoan the march of crappy chain restaurants and touristy bars into New York City. I like to counter with a fervent plea for more such places — if there were a Planet Hollywood on every corner, it would be like a drain to suck down the clueless, leaving more room for the rest of us at more-interesting locales. The Yankees are the Planet Hollywood of baseball — a glitzy, soulless, overheated brand name for dolts and louts to gawk at. Close down Planet Hollywood, and those dolts and louts might crowd you out of your local spot. So peace of a sort be on you, Yankees. From now on, I wish you just enough success to keep the mooks hypnotized by your various three-ring circuses.
But not this weekend, of course.
by Greg Prince on 17 May 2007 11:26 pm I’d like to thank Robert Moses for remaking New York for better and for worse. I’d like to thank Robert Caro for chronicling his vision and his megalomania so perfectly in The Power Broker, my favorite book ever. Without Caro’s epic, I don’t carry around a lifelong fascination with Moses. Without the fascination, I don’t go see an exhibition reconsidering his work at the Museum of the City of New York last week. And without the MCNY trip, I don’t feel compelled to see its companion program at the Queens Museum of Art.
Today. In Moses’ jewel Flushing Meadows Corona Park, right across from one of his side projects, Shea Stadium. And as long as I’m rushing to Flushing to catch Moses before he closes, gee, it would almost be wasteful to not check in on the Mets and Cubs as long as they, too, are on display this Thursday afternoon.
Yup. Would have been a shame to have not gone to this game.
So thank you Roberts Moses and Caro for making me care so much about municipal planning and thank you to the museums in question for telling such a fine story (they like Moses more than Caro did) and thank you Long Island Rail Road for including May 17 as one of your discount-date specials and thank you, in no particular order, Jason Vargas, Ambiorix Burgos, Lou Piniella, Ryan Dempster, Scott Eyre, David Newhan, Carlos Gomez, Carlos Beltran, Endy Chavez, Ruben Gotay, David Wright, Carlos Delgado and Willie Randolph for giving me, à la Dido, the best day of my life.
Well, one of them. It’s way up there. You go to Mets games not dreaming you’ll meander through eight listless innings, wondering what it is you’re doing with your time, sitting among strangers, talking to nobody, only to float out of Shea on a puffy cumulus cloud of unlikely victory, slapping every palm that hovers in conjunction with yours. This wasn’t a walkoff win. It was a floatoff triumph. I’m still not touching the ground.
A few lessons from my day of Moseying:
1) Play the full nine, stay the full nine. I changed seats after eight to get closer to a right field ramp and gain a step on the murderous 7-bound foot traffic (and get away from some annoying neighbors). But I didn’t leave. I’ve stayed this long, let me at least hang in there for the final three outs — two of which Sweet Lou is still waiting on. I found a seat and mostly stayed glued to it, my ass on plastic, my ears with Howie and Tom, my hands over my earbuds to drown out all distractions and, more importantly, any doubts.
2) Never doubt Willie Randolph. He knows more about baseball than you. Than me. Than everybody. He knows when not to pinch-hit for Ruben Gotay with David Wright and when to pinch-hit for Shawn Green with David Wright. Genius! Did I say genius? Nobel Prize Winner! Nobel Prize Laureate! Whichever is brainier!
3) Don’t give up on Rando’s Commandoes, the bench corps that will never be mistaken for Reyes (pleasebeallright…), Wright, Beltran and the rest of the A Team. Guys behind me kept repeating (because it was so funny the first time) that we should have been charged minor league prices with this lineup, but hey! Fellas! This is a team! They’re all here for a reason. Blend the Commandos with the Resting Battalion, two of whose members joined the fight in the ninth, and magic can ensue. Sends a good message, too: Yo Cubs! We can beat you with four All-Stars tied behind our back!
4) Never stop hating the team you’ve hated since you were six years old. I know the Cubs are a shaky proposition. I know they’re not in the N.L. East. I know that other than an overpaid ex-Yankee and a third baseman who doesn’t bother running out of the box, there is nothing particularly repugnant about the contents of their dugout. Until today (with his whining about every little thing to the umps) I didn’t even mind Piniella. But I will never be able to look at those Cubs caps — on the field and in the stands — and not take extra relish in knowing that the Mets have been making their lives miserable on an intermittent basis since Nineteen Blessed Sixty Nine. Believe me, they don’t like us. Don Young…Victor Diaz…now today and the first four-run deficit turned into a one-run, ninth-inning win since we did it to Curt Schilling and the Phillies eight years ago this month. Cubs fans are a horde of Curt Schillings minus the success. It might have been sweeter to do this to, say, the Braves, but tell me it could have felt as great to have pulled it off against the Rockies. It’s awesome to beat the Cubs anytime, but especially in the ninth. Speaking of that fateful, faithful inning, I spied on the other side of the stadium some Cubs fans gamely holding aloft a banner. More like a flag. It had a blue W as in Win on it, a replica of the one that flies every now and then over Wrigley. They were declaring their mission accomplished. They had this game won. They held it right up to Carlos Delgado’s final at-bat. After Carlos swung, I got a little distracted and didn’t see if they had decided to burn their flag.
5) Do not boo Carlos Delgado. He actually heard it from the otherwise disengaged masses when his average dialed Manhattan prior to the ninth. Look, I’m not happy he’s hitting .212 or thereabouts, but he’s Carlos Delgado. Patience, amigos. Consider his game-winner a down payment on what he’s bound to do to pitching staffs in the National and American Leagues over the next several weeks.
6) Go it alone when you’re overtaken by the impulse. When I saw this museum-ballpark daily double jelling, I wondered who I could get to go with me on a Thursday afternoon. Nobody, I decided. Maybe I could scrounge and beg, but I hate doing that. I feel so pathetic. Oh, I’d love to but I have real responsibilities like an adult…aren’t you a little old to be wearing a baseball cap? Nobody ever says that to me but that’s what I hear. I cherish others’ company at Shea Stadium but once in a grand while, I can stand to be with myself.
7) Touch all souls when you score five in the ninth to win. I wanted to hug every man and every woman I saw. I settled for high-fives. I screamed “OH MY GOD!” and “CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?” over and over. I flitted back and forth in my adopted row in the right field mezzanine just looking for more Mets fans with whom to indulge my overflowing emotions. I hit things and yelled things clear to the bottom of the last ramp. I wanted to cry, I really did. But I just kept smiling. Couldn’t stop. My mouth hung open to Woodside; hope nothing flew in. Damn, nothing makes me happier than a win like that except maybe for following through on a whim and witnessing such a win in person. Years from now, I won’t remember whatever deadline I turned elastic to be there today, but I will remember “OH MY GOD!” and “CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?” and that silly W flag, never to be flown over Shea Stadium by opposing armies.
8) Get yourself some culture. See what good comes from a trip to the museum?
by Greg Prince on 17 May 2007 7:07 am 
pleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallright pleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallright pleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallright pleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallright pleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallright pleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallright pleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallright pleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallrightpleasebeallright
by Jason Fry on 17 May 2007 5:27 am This was a great win B.H. A lot of fun B.H. Jorge Sosa was again spectacular B.H. Carlos Gomez showed off his speedy young legs, his compact batting stroke and his veteran's eye at the plate B.H. David Wright showed signs that his revival is becoming a renaissance B.H. Carlos Delgado even flashed a little deceptive speed B.H.
B.H., of course, is the abbrevation used to refer to Before Hamstring — before Jose Reyes, the heart, spark, soul and engine of the Big Orange and Blue Machine, came out of the tail end of the game with a “slightly tight” hamstring.
Funny — by which I of course mean “horrifying” — how quickly everything changed. Sosa's win, first place … whatever. Is Reyes OK? Is he 100% OK? Is he 1,000% OK? Can he play tomorrow? Should he play tomorrow? Can he go against the Yankees? Forget the Yankees! Tell me Jose Reyes is OK!
And suddenly all matter of horrible ghosts and goblins came cackling out of the dark closet. Mackey Shilstone. Exile in St. Lucie. That horrible, broken-legged temporary gait. The whispers — now so obviously shameful and unfair — that our phenom was fragile, couldn't handle pain, wouldn't listen. It all came back, along with the crazy thoughts. Why was he still in the game? Why play him when the field's wet? Who let him out of his hyperbaric chamber where virgins rub his hamstrings with nectar and ambrosia heated to within a tenth of degree of body temperature? What was next? Would I wake up to find Emily pinching me, look at the screen and see Art Howe cheering on staring blankly at Kaz Matsui?
I had a whole post planned about how much fun rain-delayed games are when you're at home and your schedule's flexible. When the game finally does arrive, whether it's after Mets Classics or Perfect Strangers or whatever, it always has the loose feel of some neighborhood pickup game. I know we were supposed to play three hours ago, but the Carloses had to help their dad in the garage. Anyway, let's go. And watch left field cause it's like a big puddle.
Maybe tomorrow it will feel that way again. Maybe I'll look at this post and laugh at my up-too-late panic. Maybe I'll feel silly. I would love to feel silly. Please let me feel silly.
by Greg Prince on 16 May 2007 5:00 am Couldn't leave well enough alone, could I? Couldn't sit back and enjoy Monday night's walkoff walk, watch Tuesday's date dissolve to debacle on TV and test out our new remote control by finding something else to stare at after Scott Schoeneweis did his level worst. No, I had to take my buddy Jim up on his last-minute invitation to another Mets-Cubs game.
First I didn't want to go because I was tired. Then I remembered I like to go to Mets games, especially with Jim. Then I decided my initial hesitation was a good thing because so often in my life it's the games I trudge to reluctantly that turn into all-time revelations. Then I decided I was blowing the possibility of that occurring by remembering that it could. Then I decided that since I was conscious that I may have jinxed myself that maybe I had made peace with the jinx and everything would work out for the best.
Then John Maine didn't have a thing (he's entitled) and his offense, save for Shawn Green (whose GREEN 20 I was unironically representing in the right field mezz), had even less and it was Cubs 10 Mets 1, the score no indication of how close this game wasn't.
And to think contests co-starring Floyd and Zambrano used to be good news at Shea Stadium.
Get a blowout, especially the wrong kind of blowout, and your consolation prize is tens of thousands clearing out and providing you an unobstructed path to Woodside. Monday night I barely reached the 10:43. Tuesday night brought me, by a hair, to the 10:18. I'd rather have the hasslesome commute and long schlep necessitated by a win than the relative glide home a loss facilitates, but when the Mets don't cooperate with the big picture, you take what you can get.
The hardy souls who remained with us to the humid conclusion (felt 30 degrees warmer 24 hours later) were in dire need of distraction. I suppose the Cubs fans were satisfied to monitor the tack-on runs that followed Aramis Ramirez's death blow, but this time I barely noticed them. Jim and I were spectators to a Section 25 contretemps among dozens of Mets fans and a small clutch of…yeech, Yankees fans.
Except for the company and the opponent, this was an exact replay of a scenario from pre-Subway Series week nine years ago, the Yankee fan dopes pointing at their caps and shirts, Mets fans reminding them, correctly, how much they Suck, Yankees fans using different fingers, somebody flinging popcorn or something harmless, one reluctant security guard sort of, kind of asking what's going on and lots more PG-13 chanting.
It was more annoying than entertaining. It would have been entertaining if we weren't losing a National League game by a significant margin and dipping back into second place. It's semi-understandable, this desire to repeatedly remind the pointing morons where they can stick their digits given who will be polluting our park this weekend, but better to let the bats downstairs do the talking starting Friday, y'know?
One other y'know on the topic: Y'know, my blood pressure rises more points than are in Carlos Delgado's batting average when I see a Yankees cap at Shea Stadium, but I've worn my Mets cap to ballparks elsewhere on this continent, even if the Mets aren't playing there, so all right. It's obnoxious when it's a Yankees cap at Shea, but it resides on the outer edges of acceptable fan behavior. But what's with the wearing of a Yankee jersey to a Mets-Cubs game at Shea?
Maybe it's my own code of ethics or my finely honed personal fashion sense at work, but I believe uniform tops should be saved for when your team is playing. During the current series, Mets uniform tops are appropriate. Cubs uniform tops, as unappealing as they are in context, are permissible. But WTF's with Yankee uniform tops at a non-Yankees game? That's just asking to be told how much you and your team Suck. That and the pointing and the fact that your team is in Chicago waiting out a rain delay and you should be home or in a bar watching YES or lying in a gutter clutching a transistor radio and believing everything John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman tell you about how wonderful you and your team are.
I thought maybe the Skankophiles were on hand because this was a seven-pack game and seven-packs have been known to attract rabble; that was the case in 1998 when I witnessed a near brawl between Mets fans and Yankees fans during a Mets-Orioles game. But Jim informed me that this particular seven-pack to which he's party was themed to the Home Opener and there is no Subway Series game included. This means somebody who doesn't like the Mets and (presumably) has no interest in the Cubs went to the trouble of a) attending a Mets-Cubs game and b) dressing like a Yankee to do so.
We may obsess on them to an unhealthy degree but tell me there's not something terribly wrong with them.
by Greg Prince on 15 May 2007 7:39 am What you know if you watched, listened or, like me, went to the game Monday night:
A single, a steal, a walk, an eventually intentional walk and a hard-fought walk defined the positive 5-4 result from a practical standpoint. Throw in Tom Glavine bearing down, the bullpen manning up and David Wright going deep and you've got what you need to know in terms of the first-place Mets' second walkoff win of 2007. Take that, Michael Wuertz, whoever you are.
What you get to know because you came here:
I like very much when the forces of Faith and Fear rejoin in Flushing as they did for the first time since October 18. When Jason and I last saw each other in the borough of Queens, it was after Game Six through a pane of glass. I made the 7. He just missed it. Monday night we saw clearly another win and boarded the same train out of town. I found Jason's decision to treat Shawn Green (“you suck!”) like he's Steve Trachsel just because he's not Carlos Gomez curious. He found my enduring disdain for the Cubs (“you suck!”) a little much. Otherwise we found the game just fine.
I really dislike the Cubs. Always have. Always will. Maybe I should pity them, but I can't. Their followers show up in disturbing numbers at Shea, which is all it takes to set me off. Not as many as during the Diaz-Brazell Insurrection of 2004 but too many. It's like they're on tour. “Look at us — we're Cubs fans!” Handfuls of Brewers fans showed up Saturday and they blended in just fine, even in a blowout loss. The only Cub I wanted to see, Cliff Floyd, was held out of the lineup by their manager who couldn't wait to go home and skipper the Devil Rays a couple of years ago. I really dislike Lou Piniella, at least for this week. Surprised DiamondVision didn't air a Cliff tribute or at least a closeup of him sitting on the bench nursing a strain or a grudge.
I really dislike bad manners. No, not “Yankees Suck!” after a win over the Cubs or “clang clang clang” on the cow-bell, man (both are cool by me in small doses). Here's my beef: advance ticket windows around 6 o'clock; I'm behind somebody at one window; a woman is behind somebody at the window to my left; the customer in front of me finishes his business; the woman on the line to my left jumps in front of me; I say “excuse me” in a real huffy tone; she tells me she's been waiting longer; I tell her she's been waiting in a different line; she tells me it doesn't matter; I tell her I think it does; she tells me to relax, this will only take a minute, she has to return some tickets (you can do that?); I make some noises to remind her how impolite she is; I'm borderline self-righteous about it, but really, what the fudge is that? If she had asked, “Would you mind? I'm in kind of a hurry,” I would have said, “No problem.” There was plenty of time before first pitch and I'm not allergic to chivalry, but I don't cotton to doormat treatment either. I wonder if this woman is a doctor or nurse or medical researcher saving lives, because if she is, then there is a reason for her to be on this planet. Otherwise…I tell you what, this is the kind of behavior that pisses me off just thinking about it. Probably runs red lights while chatting away on a cell phone behind the wheel of an oversized SUV.
I don't like at all that the “best available” seats for a fairly random weekend matchup down the line was Section 48, the last section there is if you don't count the marina. The nice lady behind the advance ticket window, once I got to speak to her, told me Saturdays and Sundays are pretty much gone for the rest of the season. StubHub take me away!
I like when people notice what I wish them to notice about me. Monday night I wore a brand new t-shirt that says, in big script letters, Shea Stadium. The guy who scanned my ticket couldn't get over that the shirt had the same name as the place where we stood. Yeah, I said, if I get lost on my way here, I look down and remember where I'm going. We both had a good laugh over that. It's the first time I've ever shared any kind of simpatico with a ticket-taker/scanner at Shea. That only took 35 years. I gotta wear that shirt again. And the cap from last night: my Dave Murray/Steve Springer 1986 Tidewater Tides cap. “Excuse me,” said a fellow with impeccable manners, “is that a Tides cap?” Why yes it is, I said, showing off the autograph under the bill and explaining who wore it and when it was from. I gotta wear the cap again soon.
I really like when total strangers recognize me from blogging. I think I do. It never happened before Monday night. I was roaming field level like a free-range upper deck ticketholder in search of Daruma exotica during BP (when such indiscretions are permitted) when a voice called out. “Greg? Greg?” I didn't know him, but he knew me. Plaster your face under an unusual cap all over your blog and somebody is bound to notice. Nice young man named Tim passed on his compliments regarding the job we do here. I pass back our thanks right now.
I like the sushi stand on the third base side. I'd already had dinner before coming to Shea but didn't let that stop me from purchasing a salmon roll. Heard a guy walking by comment “Sushi at Shea? That's different!” I resisted the temptation to point out Daruma's been selling sushi at Shea for nearly a decade. That would be bad manners. Instead, I suggested to the woman who runs the stand that she set up a concession upstairs, they usually chase me out of this level when I try to buy your excellent product because the house apparatchiks can't fathom that somebody without a field level ticket only wants to come down to buy something that's available only on field level, not to sneak into the orange seats like a second-grade truant. She smiled and gave me my change. Good manners.
I like the upper deck more and more at this late date. I've gone through a Metamorphosis over the years. I used to think field level was the ultimate. Around 1993, I decided loge kicked ass. Around 2001 I got very comfortable in mezzanine. Now I'm beginning to think the high point of Shea is the high point of Shea. Just as well, perhaps, that Shea has only one season after this as I will soon run out of decks. I like the view. If you're not above Row L or not in a section beyond the mid-20s, you can really see some things out in the great wide Flushing.
I don't much like two new things I've noticed at Shea this year. One is the secret Citi Field showroom behind Loge 13. I guess it's not a secret in that it's there in plain sight, but it seems a little nefarious with its locked door and unarmed (I think) guard. I'm told it's something of a dry-run luxury suite for the joint next door, with swatches and cushions (made of materials so comfortable that our unsophisticated asses couldn't possibly comprehend them) being put through their paces. I'm guessing the Trilateral Commission is meeting in there. Or the Stonecutters. The other new addition I could do without is the enormous Dunkin' Donuts cup in the visitors' bullpen. My Shea kitsch tolerance level is extraordinarily high, so high that I wear a t-shirt that says Shea Stadium to Shea Stadium. But that Dunkin' Donuts cup looks like garbage. Literally. It's like somebody bought a Coolata and dumped the remains on Bob Wickman and nobody ever saw fit to mop up.
I don't like or not like so much as I do not care that Baltimore and Toronto were in a tight one when Washington and Atlanta were in a tighter one with a zillion times more significance to us, the Mets fans. MLB Update is a between-innings feature in need of an overhaul. Or an enema.
I do not like at all that it felt 20 degrees cooler on May 14 than it did on April 23. My 1998 blue and gray fleece with orange NY barely did the job. I hope Mr. G and Linda Church explain this phenomenon Thursday.
I like to believe this might happen this weekend: Media hordes collar Darrell Rasner, who is slated to pitch in the Subway Series for the first time, and breathlessly badger him to confess how much awe he feels knowing he's entering Shea Stadium for the first time, how intimidated he is to know he'll be toeing the same rubber that Seaver and Koosman toed, how overwhelmed he is to stand so close to the Home Run Apple and the Keyspan sign and all those landmarks he's only seen on TV. And I really like to imagine the young man will answer that it's always been a dream of his to compete on such hallowed ground and, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get a better look at the Dunkin' Donuts cup.
by Jason Fry on 14 May 2007 7:07 pm So Cliff Floyd is back at Shea and so are we — we'll both be in attendance for the first time in 2007.
Upper deck, Section 5, Row L, seat 4 and adjoining. If you're so motivated, get some oxygen bottles and Sherpas and come say hi. We'll be the guys going on about baseball cards or how that double play reminded us of a 4-6-3 Tom Paciorek grounded into on July 19, 1985.
But you already knew that.
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