The blog for Mets fans
who like to read
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.
Got something to say? Leave a comment, or email us at faithandfear@gmail.com. (Sorry, but we have no interest in ads, sponsored content or guest posts.)
Need our RSS feed? It's here.
Visit our Facebook page, or drop by the personal pages for Greg and Jason.
Or follow us on Twitter: Here's Greg, and here's Jason.
|
by Greg Prince on 12 May 2007 11:47 pm I had the uncommon pleasure of watching today's game from an orange seat a mere eight rows from the field and behind a net. Practically on top of home plate I was. I've only sat in seats whose number begins with an “X” a handful of times previously and not in a long while, so this was, result aside, quite a treat.
When everybody playing ball is so close to you, it doesn't feel Major League. It's more like wandering down to the schoolyard, leaning up against the chain link fence and peering out as the neighborhood kids put together a game.
There was the forlorn, tall kid who couldn't pitch and looked like he'd be happier taking violin lessons.
There was the virtually unknown kid who just moved here, playing second, barely managing to catch a lazy fly and then not knowing how to throw it home.
There was the big, goofy kid at first who forgot how many runners were on base.
There were the big kids on the other team, some of whose fathers obviously used their influence with the league office to get them in the game (if indeed this was organized ball, which it barely seemed to be).
There was the quiet kid with the weird haircut who never gets to play getting a chance and finally hitting the ball real far, but because his team lost, it didn't matter so nobody will remember by the time school starts on Monday.
Actually there were a lot of kids with weird haircuts.
And there were me and my friends. We were either filling the roles of overbearing Little League parents shouting instructions to our kids or found ourselves reborn as wide-eyed youngsters from the neighborhood quite surprised that they let us get so close to the diamond. Either way, we could yell all we wanted, but nobody was going to pay any attention to us.
Bottom line, of course, was the big kids from Milwaukee made our boys — save for David Newhan — appear very unskilled and all of us rather sad. Mr. Fielder's son and Mr. Gwynn's son and Mr. Hardy's son (whatever it is J.J. Sr. does for a living) bullied the Mets from the first to the ninth. Ruben Gotay and Carlos Delgado played like their minds were on their Xbox (two runs on a pop fly that was caught in short right?) and Mike Pelfrey may have punched his ticket for the City of New Orleans. The Brewers played like baseball's best team and the Mets showed no evidence that they are even close, even if they are. If ever there were cause for an “oh well,” this was it.
Oh well, the Mets got stomped. But I got to sit eight rows from the field and behind a net, which doesn't happen every day. In fact, it hasn't happened since 1999 and, given the inexorable Armitron ticking down on the life of the ballpark, it may be the last time I ever do. I'm keenly aware that everything I see or do may be The Last Time I Ever See/Do it at Shea, so I particularly appreciated this up-close-and-personal view, everything from the pronounced crack of the bat (except maybe Hardy's), to the break of the ball (which wasn't working for Pelf) to the generosity of the first baseman (less Delgado's decision to give Milwaukee an extra run in the fourth than the way he tossed three balls into the stands while standing on deck).
For this rare pleasure, I thank FAFIF commenter extraordinaire KingmanFan for a) being in a job that gained him access to this shining spot on the seating chart; b) having a wife and daughter who chose to get their hair done this glorious Saturday; c) thinking of this blog when looking to fill his suddenly empty chairs. I also tip my blolleague cap to the one and only Metstradamus, whose original invite to today's game was the only reason I was within 500 feet (SkyKing distance) of the field level offer. KF was gracious to absorb MD's generosity and treat us both to the primo perspective. I, on the other hand, technically sponged off the both of them. Great guys, great fans, great seats, great time.
Lousy game, but you can't have everything.
by Greg Prince on 12 May 2007 12:46 pm Let’s be clear on one thing: It’s never too late to hang Jeff Suppan on the wall.
It would have been nice — nicer — if the Mets had gotten into the swing of things against their old nemesis before he became their old nemesis, but better 204 days and 4 innings later than never…not that anybody here’s still counting forward from October 19 or has that date seared on his skull. Life didn’t stop with the conclusion of the National League Championship Series. Those who won it will always have it in their permanent collection but those who won it, for the most part, are having a Next Year problem as concerns their old nemeses, the New York Mets.
Those who were World Champion Cardinals in 2006 now stand a meager 2-7 against those who are high-flying Mets in 2007. St. Louis itself was swept three if not necessarily avenged at season’s start; Suppan couldn’t lift the otherwise soaring Brewers last night; and Ronnie Belliard’s new team is 2-3 to date in Metly matters. When it is left to a pesky Nat to carry your flag for you (Washington being the only team in N.L. demonstrably worse than St. Loo to this point), you know it’s Next Year.
So happy the Mets aren’t dwelling on or living in the past. That’s for me to do. I do that a lot. Friday afternoon, I did it to the extreme. Culture Week continued as Stephanie and I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of our 20th-anniversary festivities (if it’s important to her, it’s important to me). The draw was Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudí to Dalí, an exhibition with several pleasant surprises, including the work of the following artists who caught my eye:
• Ramon Casas…he played behind Picasso but everybody said he was a great guy to have in the clubhouse.
• Gaspar Homar…noted as a valuable utility painter with exceptionally fast brush strokes when most needed, even if Gaspar managed but one Homar during his orange and blue period.
• Josep Puig…only the hardcore patrons of the arts remember him.
I guess that’s why they call this joint The Met.
We moved from Modernity to Ancientness, ambling through the New Greek and Roman Galleries. The piece that stood out for me was Marble Head of an Athlete. It seems to have inspired the Heilman Movement of 2007 A.D., specifically the failure to adequately grasp a Rickie Weeks ground ball in the eighth inning last night prior to surrendering a far longer ball to J.J. Hardy. No harm, no foul in the end, but talk about a rockhead play.
Don’t know when we’ll be back at The Met, but there is much to recommend another visit. For example, they’ll be reopening The Wrightsman Galleries come late October. It’s mid-May and Wright’s The Man already. If he keeps it up, there’s no telling what else we might see on display this fall.
by Greg Prince on 11 May 2007 4:37 am If it’s exactly 20 years since the night your life changed forever for the better, then it’s Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing.
On that May 11 as on this May 11, the Mets were of paramount importance to me. But on that May 11 as on this May 11, some things were more important to me than the Mets.
Correction: One thing…one person.
The Mets of 1987 were off to a shambling start. How could that be? How could the defending World Champions be anything but triumphant? 1987 was the first year we could look forward to a season with not just expectations of dominance (like in ’86) but certainty. It was a lock.
But there are no guarantees in this life, not in baseball, not in any endeavor.
So my team was 13-15 through the contests of May 10. And I was 0-0 in love.
On May 11, 1987, the Mets lost to the Reds 12-2. It was their fourth consecutive defeat, their seventh in eight games. Failure was becoming the 1987 Mets and the 1987 Mets were becoming failures. Usually when they hit, they couldn’t pitch (evidence included recent losses of 11-7 and 8-7) and when they pitched, they couldn’t hit (2-0, 2-0, 4-3 and 5-4, all gone to L the previous week). In Cincinnati, there was nothing to recommend the Mets on either side of the ledger.
But there was something better that Monday night. Better than baseball. Better than Mets baseball. Better than defending World Champion Mets baseball.
On Monday night May 11, 1987, I quite unexpectedly — no guarantees doesn’t always mean bad news — met the woman I would marry. Suddenly, 13-15 didn’t matter. Dwight Gooden’s rehab from cocaine didn’t matter. The pigeon Rafael Santana had to collect after Dion James killed it with a fly ball didn’t matter. Bobby Ojeda’s bum left elbow didn’t matter. Ron Darling’s ERA of 6.31 through seven outings didn’t matter. Tim Raines emerging from collusion without a minute of spring training and socking a grand slam off Jesse Orosco in the tenth didn’t matter. The Mets wallowing four back in fourth place five weeks into the season didn’t matter. The Mets didn’t mat…
No, let’s not go that far. The Mets still mattered. My head wasn’t so far in the clouds that Monday night that I couldn’t tune in WINS on a late train home to get the final score from Riverfront. I wasn’t so far gone that I accepted 12-2 as the little rain that must fall into each suddenly sunny life. I wasn’t figuratively whistling (I can’t whistle) so joyful a tune that it drowned out a brief and predictable curse word directed at Aguilera, Myers, Sisk and the enormously useless Gene Walter for surrendering a dozen runs.
The Mets, 13-16 through the contests of May 11, 1987, mattered. But now they had company. And I was 1-0 in love.
Twenty years later, I still am.
I know I’ve told the story of how Stephanie and I met at least once, probably a couple of times on this blog. I know I’ve mentioned our first official date was four nights later in Flushing, Queens, an 8-3 beating of the Giants, memorable on its own terms for Sid Fernandez leaving his mound assignment despite carrying a no-hitter through five (I’ve just been reminded El Sid tripled in the fourth despite carrying some extra weight, thus spurring his early departure). And I will repeat, because it gives me great pleasure, this anecdote from June 10, 1987:
[W]e spoke on the phone. She asked me how my day had been.
“Great,” I said. “Dwight Gooden beat the Cubs. But you probably don’t care.”
“If it’s important to you,” she said. “It’s important to me.”
Doc’s victory pushed the fourth-place Mets a game over .500, keeping them within 6-1/2 of the front-running Cardinals. But in the only terms that mattered, they and my new girlfriend were tied for first.
Twenty years later, they still are…though the girlfriend-turned-wife definitely leads in the winning percentage column. 1-0, after all, equals a perfect 1.000.
Stephanie and I were in close geographic proximity for only five weeks in the spring of 1987. She was a college freshman visiting New York for a summer arts program. It was dumb luck and kind fate that had us cross paths in the same hotel lobby on the Upper West Side that Monday night when Aguilera got rocked. By the time she had to head back to Florida, we were set. Long distance would be a hassle but not an obstacle. The three years she needed to complete her degree would loom as an eternity, but eternities have a funny way of eventually clocking out. Come 1989, we would be engaged. In 1990, we would move in together. On November 10, 1991, we would wed. It’s been 15-1/2 years of matrimonial bliss since and exactly 20 years that I’ve been blessed with two loves of a lifetime.
May 11, 1987. The Mets lost by 10 runs. What a great night.
Next Friday: The debut and proposed finale of 24.
by Jason Fry on 10 May 2007 3:32 pm
…seems like a perfect time to unveil this photo. That’s Steve Reynolds — Zisk Online impresario, rock god, Faith and Fear commentor and all-around good people — flying our colors flanked by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush. Steve was kind enough to let us have this snap ahead of his interview with Lee in the next issue of Zisk, due June 1. Thanks man!
by Greg Prince on 10 May 2007 9:13 am 
The Buzz Capra tribute (in a manner of speaking) of recent days left me longing for Tug McGraw in his Met prime. He lost his hair to the Marines and later to radiation therapy, but in between he went long when it was considered out of line for ballplayers to do so. Hair’s to individuality, tradition and the immortal lefty fireman and part-time Bowery barber who will always embody both for us.
by Jason Fry on 10 May 2007 4:08 am Scribbled on the back of a piece of paper at work for consultation later:
* Klesko not touching the bag, Beltran not going back. HOJO??!!!
* Maine's been Samson'ed!
* What a weird 1st inning. Mets + Giants conspiring to get nothing out of a lot. This has the look of a weird one.
* That sun's gonna play a role at some point. Carlos, get the glasses off your fucking bill!
* Eliezer Alfonzo — that's the guy who killed us.
* Spashdown! Get Elias on the phone — haven't we had tons of those? [editor's note — see below]
* The Reyes/Delgado dance is a wonderful thing.
* Catcher's interference. Tole ya.
* Gotay! Maine! Maine is really fucked up. And he looks stupid.
* Shawn Green looks ridiculous.
* Delgado! How did he do that?
* Bonds is back. I'm terrified.
* Heilman 1.0 is back. I'm terrified [editor's note — harsh and unjustified]
* Ha! Take that, Armando! And you too, Vizquel!
* I don't hate the Giants. I don't even dislike them. It's just such a long way from here and thus automatically taxing.
* Hmm. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Gotay is bunting.
And then I left work. This should not have been a big deal — my plan was to walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge, listening to (I hoped) a go-ahead run or two and Wagner locking it down. Only I didn't have my radio — it was in my bag at home. OK, not fatal — it so happens I have two or three other portable radios at work due to prior bouts of disorganization. So I grabbed one backup radio and a pair of headphones, checked that I had battery power, and was on my way.
And the goddamn radio didn't work. I got the Mets for a moment, long enough to ascertain that Chavez was on, Reyes was up, Armando was wild and then that something good had happened. But that was it. It wasn't so much that the radio wouldn't get WFAN as it was that it got every conceivable station all at once — and some political douchebag's ranting was drowning out Howie and Tom. I looked at the radio in fury, trying to remember where I'd bought it. Canal Street, I thought, though judging from the way it was working, perhaps I'd bought it off an upside-down cardboard box from a vagrant whose other inventory consisted of loosies and stray buttons.
And of course the streets were suddenly choked with people moving at the speed of continental drift, blind as cave fish to the desperation of a Met fan who couldn't witness the wonderful, improbable fact that his team was finally giving both barrels to Armando Benitez — that infuriating, bloated prodigal man-child of so many Shea disappointments who'd somehow become invulnerable against us. When I hurled the radio into a trash can it snapped free of the headphones and its outside speaker crackled mockingly to life — over in lower Manhattan the batteries are probably running out about now.
Once I escaped the commuter jam I got home smoothly and easily, walked in and turned on the TV. Commercial. Then postgame. That was fast. Tell me there wasn't a walkoff against Wagner. Nope. Woo-hoo, We won! Damn, I missed it. Woo-hoo, there's Mets Encore!
And then I dozed off in the ninth inning of Mets Encore. Some nights it just ain't happening.
* Editor's note re splashdowns: I was right. There have been 42 splash hits into McCovey Cove by the Giants (34 by Bonds) and 14 by opposing players. Of those 14, four have been hit by Mets — two each for Delgado (4/26/06 and today, with one as a Marlin for lagniappe) and Cliff Floyd (8/21/04 and 4/25/06). Four of 14? Considering how few trips we make to San Francisco, what are the odds of that?
Next-day addendum: Given our record, this photo is perfectly timed. (Yes, I am a big geek.)
by Greg Prince on 9 May 2007 10:48 pm Run, Jose! Run!
No, not around the bases. Away from your teammates. They're nuts.
I'd willingly endure the ostracism of 23 or 24 co-workers to retain my locks. I have very little going for me of a physical nature but at 44, I've got my hair and I'm keeping it until nature or something worse takes it. But nobody's coming for my head as far as I know (helps to be self-employed and in a profession that nobody tunes in to watch every night), so I'll get out of my own hair.
I don't mean to project my values onto those of a baseball team, especially one that just combed over Armando Benitez and took the rubber game in a ballpark where they used to take nothing but grief. I'm sure the Mets live a very different lifestyle from civilians like me and it entails a very different series of ethical decisions — and, as long as it's legal, I endorse whatever works to ensure the greater good.
That said, they're nuts with this head-shaving. What are they, twelve? Did they get tired of snapping towels at one another? Do they have any idea how they look? How Shawn Green looks? Poor guy, I want to lift him up by the ears and pour a drink from his head.
So my cap is off to you for saying no way, Jose. You don't need this tonsorial tsuris. You don't even need your cap. Don't let those bald bastards get your curls. They're yours. You're money.
Mets win! Mets win! I'm still thrilled, but they're still nuts.
by Jason Fry on 9 May 2007 5:12 am That was nice of the Mets to shave their heads in solidarity with a bald, newly 38-year-old fan of theirs — a couple of hours before tonight's game I was in the barber's chair getting my biweekly buzz, unaware that 20 Mets were doing the same. Wright got buzzed the night before. Sele begged off for the moment because he was taking family pictures. Glavine said he'd do it after tonight's game. Reyes and Heilman were supposedly holdouts, though after tonight's game Lo Duca was claiming (or perhaps threatening) they were getting buzzed as well.
If you can, spare a moment of pity for the wives and significant others of major league baseball players. You're already dealing with the man in your life's job turning your own life into a Swiss cheese of road trips and homestands, and then you turn on the TV when sensible people are getting ready for bed and see he's — oh good Christ, what has he done? And then, when you ask why he'll be coming home looking like a member of a chain gang, the answer is: Because everybody else on the team did it, honey. I'm guessing here, but I bet that explanation works about as well for ballplayers as it does for the rest of us. And they actually have teammates, instead of just bros and pals and what-not.
Lots of dopey baseball hairstyles — bleach jobs, chin pubes, soul patches, underjaw beards, dagger sideburns — are proof of the theory that putting a bunch of bored young men together in hotels and clubhouses for hours leads to preposterous grooming. At least the Mets opted for a group buzzing instead of a bleaching, which would have led to them getting out the Clairol and the plastic gloves and the little caps with the holes in them. (Against my better judgment I did that for my high-school roommate once. Not the manliest moment of my life. And he looked ridiculous.)
Though, to quote Todd Zeile, the opener against the Giants was the kind of game that sends you straight to the hair salon. Remember Mike Piazza's platinum locks? My favorite part of that bizarre adventure was the Wrigley Field crowd cheering madly when Piazza's helmet came off on a foul pop.
Oh yeah, the game. Well, it was nice too — nothing like a bunch of doubles early to chase the memory of the previous horror, and then a slow cruise to the finish, with Bonds' home run merely cosmetic.
My favorite moment, though, had nothing to do with Tom Glavine: It was Pedro Feliciano locking up Barry with a deadly curveball with two strikes and two out. That has to be one of my favorite baseball set pieces: The pitcher knows the curve will break over the plate. The catcher knows it too. They both see the batter was looking for the fastball, and isn't going to swing. So when the pitch hits the glove the pitcher's already trotting toward the dugout and the catcher is leaning that way, leaving the batter to straighten up and ponder the cruelty of the universe with nobody but the umpire for company.
by Greg Prince on 8 May 2007 8:50 pm Today is May 8, 2007.
The Mets officially became known as the Mets on May 8, 1961.
Players who made their Met debut on May 8, include Cliff Cook (1962), Mike Phillips (1975), Chico Walker (1992), Cory Lidle (1997) and Alex Escobar (2001).
John Maine made his debut in general on May 8, 1981. I celebrated by watching Fernando Valenzuela edge Mike Scott 1-0.
I'm 0-2 at Shea on May 8. Twelve years after Fernandomania washed over me in Flushing, I saw the Mets record their very first loss versus the Marlins, 4-2, on May 8, 1993.
I'm 1-0 in other ballparks on May 8, having seen the Mets best the Diamondbacks in Arizona, 4-2, on May 8, 1999.
The last time the Mets won on May 8 was, in fact, May 8, 1999.
The Mets are 16-21 overall on May 8 despite winning every day on this date between 1962 and 1966, including a doubleheader split in '66. Since that start, the Mets are 11-20 on May 8.
The Mets played one other doubleheader on May 8, losing two at Candlestick Park on May 8, 1977, the second game of which they were losing 10-0 in the seventh when it was called for rain. The Mets filed a protest regarding the decision to stop playing or play at all; I vaguely recall they had the protest upheld but it still wound up a 10-0 loss.
I received my first replica Mets batting helmet on May 8, 1971.
Jon Matlack should have been wearing protective headgear on May 8, 1973. He was struck by a line drive off the bat of the Braves' Marty Perez and sustained a hairline fracture.
The New York Mets were joined by a second reigning champion in New York when the Knicks won their first world title on May 8, 1970.
The only Mets who have homered on May 8 in this century are Mike Cameron (2005), Desi Relaford (2001) and Edgardo Alfonzo (2001).
The Mets traded Jay Hook for Roy McMillan on May 8, 1964, twenty years before releasing Dick Tidrow on May 8, 1984.
There has been no Mets game on May 8 ten different times.
But there is one tonight, May 8, 2007. So I would kindly ask my co-blogger, born on May 8, 1969, to see if he can get us a birthday gift that we can all enjoy after the clock strikes midnight.
(Fancy way of saying Happy Birthday Jace…now go see if you can do something about this absurd May 8 drought.)
by Greg Prince on 8 May 2007 7:39 am We lost this ballgame!
We lost this ballgame on play piss-poor
Lost this ballgame…
Lost this ballgame by 9 to 4!
Oliver Peh Rez
Was cruising right along
Oliver Peh Rez was
Pitching very strong
He was beating Zito
Who didn't sign with us
Who needs Barry Zito?
Ollie's fine with us
Molinas all play catcher
I hope there's only three!
Don't you remember?
We lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame on play piss-poor
We lost this ballgame!
We lost this ballgame on play piss-poor
Lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame by 9 to 4!
Umpires always blowing
Controversial calls
Who cares when balls are reaching
The tops of outfield walls?
We just want a third out
And to give up nothing more
But a single and two errors
Opened up the door
Grounder eludes Easley
Fly ball turns Shawn green!
Don't you remember?
We lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame on play piss-poor
We lost this ballgame!
We lost this ballgame on play piss-poor
Lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame by 9 to 4!
It's just another Monday
On a tired road trip
I've got to get some sleep soon
Or off to nap I'll drift
Baseball at Pac Bell
Or whatever's now its name
May be scenic in its beauty
But the Mets it does defame
Don't tell us that Vizquel
Is getting old for sport
Looking for a base hit?
Stop hitting it to short!
I'm looking out over McCovey Cove
In the middle of another miserable San Francisco loss
Not seeing any New York runs…
Don't you remember? (remember? remember?)
What's your least favorite West Coast stop?
And your least favorite West Coast opponent?
The Giants of Molina…
The Giants of Aurilia…
The Giants who never stop!
Urdaneta's lifetime Eee Are
Aay's now Sixty-Three!
Don't you remember?
We lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame on play piss-poor
Lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame on play piss-poor
Lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame by 9 to 4!
Lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame on play piss-poor
Lost this ballgame…
We lost this ballgame by 9 to 4!
(We lost, we lost this ballgame)
Lost this ballgame…
(We lost, we lost this ballgame)
Alternate mix here.
|
|
