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.)
If it’s the final Friday of the month, then it’s the first installment of the special Top 10 Songs of All-Time edition of Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing.
Bud Harrelson was breaking his hand. George Theodore was colliding with Don Hahn. Jon Matlack was not avoiding a line drive.
In the spring of 1973, the Mets were a bruised and budding calamity. Reasons to believe in them would not reveal themselves for several months. But on WGBB 1240-AM Freeport, I found a more immediate repository for my faith when I heard “One Of A Kind (Love Affair)” by the Spinners. I liked it so much that it stands today as the No. 10 Song of All-Time.
I had to believe in the Spinners. They were showing me the time of my musical life.
They weren’t the only ones. In those final months of fourth grade, I bought fewer baseball cards than I had in any of the three preceding springs. Taking the time to think about “One Of A Kind (Love Affair)” has reminded me why. It’s because I was buying 45s like I never had before and never would again.
In April, May and June of 1973, I collected 26 different 45s. I bought them at Delman’s, at TSS, at Alexander’s and, in the case of “One of a Kind (Love Affair),” Tilben’s, Long Beach’s premier retailer of records, cameras and prehistoric electronics. The day I had to have the Spinners’ latest release was during the Memorial Day weekend visit of my mother’s older relatives from Florida, Cousin Lee and her husband Victor. He was talked about as not the loosest soul with a dime. It was literally true. Vic and I were walking by Tilben’s when I insisted on going in and finding three 45s I’d been wanting, one of which was, as advertised, one of a kind. The bill came to $2.40. I was carrying exactly $2.30. I asked Vic if I could borrow a dime. He relented slowly, making it clear that I’d have to pay him back. I could tell he was kidding but wasn’t kidding. I tried to give him the dime when we got home. He didn’t take it. Probably wanted to.
I never saw Lee or Victor after 1981. In the meantime I still have that 45. As the years and the media have progressed I have multiple recordings of the song on LP and tape and compact disc and anthology and box set and MP3. But the 45 is the 45. It is, because of the format in which I originally bought it and because of those magical months when I bought it, a record in a way that none of my other Top 10 songs are. I hear “One Of A Kind (Love Affair)” and I can see the black circle spin on what we used to call a record player. It’s a pleasing sensation.
In defending his licensing of “Our Country” to Chevrolet, John Mellencamp — once a virulent opponent of such sellouts — says Chevy is a better record company than Columbia ever was for him, that these days it’s the best way to get his music heard. Record company? It occurred to me I have no idea who puts out the music today. When I was collecting 45s, the round colorful label with the oversized hole in the middle was half the fun of owning the record. Bell, Epic, MAM, Fantasy, Kama Sutra, Tamla, Chelsea, Vibration…they’re still mixed in there with the presumably better known Columbias and Capitols, Apples and Elektras, Deccas and A&Ms. I can see them all, too, and not just because I still have every last one of them sitting in a box at my feet as I type.
Each label was like the back of a baseball card. The Spinners, I learned, recorded for Atlantic. “One Of A Kind (Love Affair)” was 3:31 long, written by Joseph B. Jefferson (the songwriter’s credit, like the last two-thirds of the title, appeared in parentheses) and produced, arranged & conducted by Thom Bell. I saw his name a lot on records. Turns out he was the genius behind Philly Soul, a genre I’d discover and rediscover over the ensuing decades until I decided it was my favorite music in the whole world.
My relationship with the Spinners worked pretty much the same way. If you asked me in 1973 to name my favorite song of the year, it probably wouldn’t have been “One Of A Kind (Love Affair)”. In those early days of my making list after list of song after song, the Spinners were so omnipresent in the atmosphere that I didn’t realize just how much I loved them. I was living in a golden age without understanding it until years later.
There isn’t a Spinners’ radio hit from their halcyon and gorgeous period between 1972 and 1976 that doesn’t flat out make me happy. None makes me happier than “One Of A Kind (Love Affair)”. I was ten. I didn’t know from love affairs. I didn’t always know from happy. But I could tell when other people did, and so could the Spinners. Upbeat…hopeful…spring. From the bass drum that opens the affair to the Wynne-ing vamping that ends it, this is indeed a singular trip into matters of the heart.
It took adulthood and a closer listen to realize the protagonist (given voice by the awesome Phillipé Soul Wynne) is having a terrible time in love. Yes, the title implies heavenly activity, “the kind of love that you read about in a fairy tale”. The first verse lays out the reward: a “sun that shines on a rainy day — it’s a cloud of love”. What could be better than that?
But guess what…he doesn’t have that! His love has taken a hike. How does he find out? She wrote a line or two upon the wall: “Said I’m leaving you, know I love you too, I can’t stay with you.” (This actually happened to the songwriter Mr. Jefferson.) He never saw it coming, never “thought about today would come.” Nevertheless, to this very day he could never say “a discouraging word ’cause I love you.”
Things are quite unrequited now. Yet the song is never sad. To be honest, I never exactly get to the end of the three minutes and thirty-one seconds in full concentration. I’m so enamored with the blend of musical happiness and willful stubbornness in the lyric (you’re not discouraged by that kissoff?) that the Wynne coda, devoted to how this kind of love affair makes a blind man talk about seein’ again, almost takes me by surprise every time. I’m high, I’m thrown, I’m lost in thought and then I’m back. All in about 211 seconds.
The Spinners outlasted all their 1973 classmates in my box of 45s even if it took another dozen years for me to fully appreciate how amazin’, amazin’, amazin their pop output was when I was a kid: “I’ll Be Around”; “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love”; “Ghetto Child”; “Mighty Love”; “Then Came You”; “They Just Can’t Stop It The (Games People Play”): “Rubberband Man”; along with “One Of A Kind (Love Affair)”. Others may have had more hits but I can’t think of any artist, any vocalist, any band, any group that just brought the goods so regularly. Every one of those 1970s hits is in my Top 500 and there is no contest when it comes to identifying my favorite act of all-time.
That decision began to get made in 1985. There was an autumn day (not long after the Cardinals eliminated the Mets) when I was hit with my first big automotive repair bill. I needed a pick-me-up and decided it was worth dropping an additional five bucks on The Best Of The Spinners (a Carvel ice cream cone may also have been involved). Wow. Every one of those babies came roaring back from their release date and every one of them just washed over me. Sure, some of it was a matter of bringing me back to fourth grade and the Magnolia School playground and all that, but this wasn’t pure nostalgia. The Spinners were a living organism. The more I played them through my twenties and into my thirties and now in my forties, the better they got and continued to get.
They’re the group that millions love yet are too often left out of the conversation when talk turns to the greats. Did you know that before they blossomed on Atlantic they were on Motown? They were bench players there in the ’60s. They were treated like Chris Woodward — Berry Gordy sent them on errands, for crissake. Stevie Wonder wrote them a hit, 1970’s “It’s A Shame,” but by then they were spinning out the door and over to Atlantic, praise be. Bell came in and Wynne took many of the lead vocals and, in the company of Bobbie Smith, Purvis Short, Billy Henderson and Henry Fambrough, indelible magic was made.
“One Of A Kind (Love Affair)” peaked at No. 11 in June of 1973 on Billboard‘s Hot 100. It went all the way to No. 1 on the R&B chart where it enjoyed a four-week run. The Spinners’ only pop No. 1 was “Then Came You,” recorded with Dionne Warwicke in ’74. Wynne left the group three years later. The Spinners soldiered on with John Edwards fronting. They laid down some shimmering tracks in the late ’70s, including the underheard “Heaven On Earth (So Fine),” but their last big score was in 1980 with two post-Bell, discofied remakes: “Working My Way Back To You/Forgive Me Girl” and “Cupid/I’ve Loved You For A Long Time”. Those are all right, but they’ve never sounded like the Spinners I knew and adored.
Got one up close and personal listen to the Spinners, at Westbury in 1997. Stephanie and I were in the third row for an evening with them and the three surviving Four Tops. A disc jockey from Long Island oldies station B-103 introduced the show by announcing we’d hear first from the Spinners and then from some real “rock ‘n’ roll royalty.” The Four Tops, he shilled, were in the Hall of Fame!
I like the Four Tops a lot but I was livid. Royalty? The royalty opened the show. The group, the bulk of which had been together since 1961, was beautiful. Stephanie liked the canary yellow suits more than I did, but otherwise it was a transcendent performance. It was frigging royal. (And you can take that from the Princes.)
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame holds no particular sway over the tagging of immortality the way baseball’s does, but come on. Who’s been more influential, more constant, more better for more years?
Stevie Wonder wrote for them. Marvin Gaye admired them. David Bowie called seeing them at the Apollo “the best night ever” in his experiences at that particular venue. Hall and Oates covered them generously not long ago. Barry Manilow is considering doing the same soon. Monie Love reinvented “It’s A Shame”. R. Kelly paid homage with “Sadie”. Rappin’ FoTay sampled “I’ll Be Around”. AT&T borrowed it to sell long-distance service. “Rubberband Man” found a new life with Office Max some twenty years after it was featured in Stripes. Elton John teamed with them on “Are You Ready For Love”. They were all over the radio in the heart of the ’70s and the core of their canon has stayed evergreen on various Jammin’s, Mixes and Lites up and down the dial into this century.
They haunt. They soothe. They cajole. They revive. They romance. They reflect. They get a move on. They make lots and lots and lots of us as happy as three-and-a-half minutes will allow. The Spinners will always be my one of a kind love.
The No. 9 record will be played at the end of February.
Next Friday: Proof that the Mets have been around a very long time.
As expected, Cliff Floyd has signed with the Cubs (at Shea May 14-17), making him officially an ex-Met. It’s not like we didn’t know his going wasn’t coming. And now he’s truly gone.
Cliff became a Met when the team didn’t know whether it was coming or going. The 2002 season was a calamity and the 2003 version would be a disaster, yet there was Cliff, jumping on board our sinking ship after one and before the other. He wouldn’t make much of a difference to Met fortunes his first two years, the second of which he framed with one of the most honest Met quotes since “can’t anybody here play this game?”
Things aren’t looking bright. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
It was the best traffic report ever given on the long and winding Mets expressway. Cliff knew from what he spoke as the 2004 season crumbled to bits. I suppose it was a coincidence that it was practically moments later that Art Howe was fired, Jim Duquette was replaced and the Leiter-Franco regime was changed. Perhaps it was chance as well that in his eagerness to clean house Omar Minaya shopped Cliff around in the winter of ’04-’05. “The New Mets” promotional literature of that offseason spotlighted Beltran and Martinez, Reyes and Wright, Kris Benson even. No mention of their intermittently hobbled teller of truths and incumbent leftfielder.
Cliff stayed. Willie Randolph arrived (and will remain, hallelujah). Maybe it was one more case of the coincidental that this manager teased more health and more hits out of his default cleanup hitter than his predecessor did. Every third quote in 2005 from Randolph was of the “I challenged Cliff” variety and Cliff met every challenge. He was the best everyday player we had two seasons ago. While Carlos settled in and old Mike felt around for a comfort zone and David and Jose learned their craft, Cliff Floyd was the first all-around star of the Willie Randolph era — and, to be blog-indulgent about it, the Faith and Fear era. We liked to refer to him as our Monsta, but he was more like our light. Thirty-four homers, 98 ribbies, serious athleticism in left…the days of the Mets being stuck in the tunnel were over.
Cliff Floyd in 2006 wasn’t Cliff Floyd of 2005. The Mets didn’t need that much from him. If he couldn’t deliver a reasonable facsimile for longer than a spurt here and there, then we’d win with approximately half a Floyd. His ’05 protégés grew up around him and the more recently imported talent carried its load. We could afford an off year from Cliff in ’06 and still succeed. I guess we couldn’t take that chance for ’07.
Though the light-and-tunnel remark was briefly his calling card and cross to bear, I prefer to remember another exchange as quintessential Cliff Floyd: smart man, smart player, veteran player, player’s player, our player. It was from the NLDS — one of those mostly pointless pregame press gaggles during the postseason, the first one the Mets had been in six years, the first one Cliff Floyd played in since he was a young Marlin.
Q: Little off topic, you guys had such a great season, finished first. Is it enough of an advantage for a team to have that extra game at home? Should there be more of an advantage for a team that had such a good season?
As expected, Cliff Floyd has signed with the Cubs (at Shea May 14-17), making him officially an ex-Met. It’s not like we didn’t know his going wasn’t coming. And now he’s truly gone.
Cliff became a Met when the team didn’t know whether it was coming or going. The 2002 season was a calamity and the 2003 version would be a disaster, yet there was Cliff, jumping on board our sinking ship after one and before the other. He wouldn’t make much of a difference to Met fortunes his first two years, the second of which he framed with one of the most honest Met quotes since “can’t anybody here play this game?”
Things aren’t looking bright. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
It was the best traffic report ever given on the long and winding Mets expressway. Cliff knew from what he spoke as the 2004 season crumbled to bits. I suppose it was a coincidence that it was practically moments later that Art Howe was fired, Jim Duquette was replaced and the Leiter-Franco regime was changed. Perhaps it was chance as well that in his eagerness to clean house Omar Minaya shopped Cliff around in the winter of ’04-’05. “The New Mets” promotional literature of that offseason spotlighted Beltran and Martinez, Reyes and Wright, Kris Benson even. No mention of their intermittently hobbled teller of truths and incumbent leftfielder.
Cliff stayed. Willie Randolph arrived (and will remain, hallelujah). Maybe it was one more case of the coincidental that this manager teased more health and more hits out of his default cleanup hitter than his predecessor did. Every third quote in 2005 from Randolph was of the “I challenged Cliff” variety and Cliff met every challenge. He was the best everyday player we had two seasons ago. While Carlos settled in and old Mike felt around for a comfort zone and David and Jose learned their craft, Cliff Floyd was the first all-around star of the Willie Randolph era — and, to be blog-indulgent about it, the Faith and Fear era. We liked to refer to him as our Monsta, but he was more like our light. Thirty-four homers, 98 ribbies, serious athleticism in left…the days of the Mets being stuck in the tunnel were over.
Cliff Floyd in 2006 wasn’t Cliff Floyd of 2005. The Mets didn’t need that much from him. If he couldn’t deliver a reasonable facsimile for longer than a spurt here and there, then we’d win with approximately half a Floyd. His ’05 protégés grew up around him and the more recently imported talent carried its load. We could afford an off year from Cliff in ’06 and still succeed. I guess we couldn’t take that chance for ’07.
Though the light-and-tunnel remark was briefly his calling card and cross to bear, I prefer to remember another exchange as quintessential Cliff Floyd: smart man, smart player, veteran player, player’s player, our player. It was from the NLDS — one of those mostly pointless pregame press gaggles during the postseason, the first one the Mets had been in six years, the first one Cliff Floyd played in since he was a young Marlin.
Q: Little off topic, you guys had such a great season, finished first. Is it enough of an advantage for a team to have that extra game at home? Should there be more of an advantage for a team that had such a good season?
FLUSHING, N.Y. (FAF) — The New York Mets have formed an exploratory committee to “gauge our desire to compete for the National League Eastern Division title in 2008.” While a formal declaration of candidacy is expected to follow the 2007 campaign, this decision by the Mets anoints them the frontrunners for the season that is slated to start in a little more than 14 months.
“We’re in it to win,” says a senior Mets adviser.
The Mets’ announcement, made without fanfare on mets.com, both confirms long-held certainties that they would indeed enter the race and confounds experts who predicted they would wait until at least after this year’s spring training to make their intentions explicit.
One baseball insider appraised the Mets’ timing as necessary, noting “if you’re not playing for 2008 by February 2007, then you might as well forget it and start focusing on 2010.”
The Mets are the third team to indicate their interest in the ’08 N.L. East title, joining the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies as contenders for next year’s championship. Each of those clubs formed an exploratory committee earlier this month. Observers anticipate the Florida Marlins and Washington Nationals will also throw their caps into the ring soon, though neither is given much of a chance of keeping up with “the big three” when the ’08 derby begins in earnest.
“The Marlins,” says one prominent baseball forecaster, “are really positioning themselves for the Wild Card in ’09.”
Recent polling shows the Mets far ahead of the 2008 East field, though conventional wisdom dictates their lead owes as much to strong name recognition as it does potential for performance. “At this stage of the ’08 contest,” one pundit offers, “it’s hard to look at anything as written in stone. But at the same time, the Mets have to be considered the team to beat.”
A high-ranking National League East official indicates the division would like to have a champion in place by the first week of May in order to focus on whatever playoff opponent emerges from the pack in the N.L. Central or West. “Whoever comes out of the first three series of the year in first place,” says one well-connected baseball analyst, “probably has a hammerlock on the division crown. That will give them plenty of time to prepare for the fall.”
Intense behind-the-scenes maneuvering is already underway. 2008’s traditional April opener at Shea Stadium has been moved to mid-March in an effort to “frontload” the schedule and take advantage of the Mets’ early advantage in organization and resources. The Phillies, however, have held what one senior aide terms “serious discussions” about moving up their opener to late February, while a counselor to the Braves campaign says Atlanta “does not want to be bypassed” at such a critical juncture in the process. “There is a real likelihood,” he says, “that the first game at Turner Field in 2008 could come as soon as December 2007.”
The Mets insist they will proceed with “business as usual,” with one group of pitchers and catchers reporting to this year’s spring training in three weeks and another group to next year’s spring training in two weeks.
FLUSHING, N.Y. (FAF) — The New York Mets have formed an exploratory committee to “gauge our desire to compete for the National League Eastern Division title in 2008.” While a formal declaration of candidacy is expected to follow the 2007 campaign, this decision by the Mets anoints them the frontrunners for the season that is slated to start in a little more than 14 months.
“We're in it to win,” says a senior Mets adviser.
The Mets' announcement, made without fanfare on mets.com, both confirms long-held certainties that they would indeed enter the race and confounds experts who predicted they would wait until at least after this year's spring training to make their intentions explicit.
One baseball insider appraised the Mets' timing as necessary, noting “if you're not playing for 2008 by February 2007, then you might as well forget it and start focusing on 2010.”
The Mets are the third team to indicate their interest in the '08 N.L. East title, joining the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies as contenders for next year's championship. Each of those clubs formed an exploratory committee earlier this month. Observers anticipate the Florida Marlins and Washington Nationals will also throw their caps into the ring soon, though neither is given much of a chance of keeping up with “the big three” when the '08 derby begins in earnest.
“The Marlins,” says one prominent baseball forecaster, “are really positioning themselves for the Wild Card in '09.”
Recent polling shows the Mets far ahead of the 2008 East field, though conventional wisdom dictates their lead owes as much to strong name recognition as it does potential for performance. “At this stage of the '08 contest,” one pundit offers, “it's hard to look at anything as written in stone. But at the same time, the Mets have to be considered the team to beat.”
A high-ranking National League East official indicates the division would like to have a champion in place by the first week of May in order to focus on whatever playoff opponent emerges from the pack in the N.L. Central or West. “Whoever comes out of the first three series of the year in first place,” says one well-connected baseball analyst, “probably has a hammerlock on the division crown. That will give them plenty of time to prepare for the fall.”
Intense behind-the-scenes maneuvering is already underway. 2008's traditional April opener at Shea Stadium has been moved to mid-March in an effort to “frontload” the schedule and take advantage of the Mets' early advantage in organization and resources. The Phillies, however, have held what one senior aide terms “serious discussions” about moving up their opener to late February, while a counselor to the Braves campaign says Atlanta “does not want to be bypassed” at such a critical juncture in the process. “There is a real likelihood,” he says, “that the first game at Turner Field in 2008 could come as soon as December 2007.”
The Mets insist they will proceed with “business as usual,” with one group of pitchers and catchers reporting to this year's spring training in three weeks and another group to next year's spring training in two weeks.
From the seminal team history The Amazing Mets by Jerry Mitchell:
In November of 1961, when the Mets were still more or less in the blueprint stage, they had a little office in the basement of the Martinique Hotel with Bill Gibson in charge. A sign over the door read:
“Mets’ Ticket Office”
Bill said that every once in a while people would show up and ask for a couple of good seats for La Boheme or some other opera, and he’d have to direct them seven blocks north on Broadway. “I did my level best for the Metropolitan Opera Company,” says Gibson. “I hope they had a reciprocal arrangement for me.”
More than 45 years later they have. Kristin Chenoweth, star of song, stage and small screen (very small — at 4′ 11″, she looks up to Harry Chappas) performed at the Metropolitan Opera the other night. Her choice of outfit was perfect for any place called the Met.
As I told the players the day before the season ended, “I want you to make up your minds we’re going to win it next year, that nothing is going to stop us.” — Davey Johnson on the last days of 1985, in Bats.
At 8:05 p.m. on April 1, baseball will return. The 2007 New York Mets will take the field, and a new campaign will begin. We’ll begin the second-to-last season at Shea as the defending champions of the National League East.
That last little syllable on the end there makes all the difference, doesn’t it? Those four little letters. That final little sound, the hissing one. East. It’s a geographical term — a cardinal direction.
Speaking of which, the National League champions, no compass point required, will be standing across us on the field when the introductions are made. The St. Louis Cardinals will be at home, at the center of a cauldron of noise, amidst a sea of red shirts. And why shouldn’t their fans be excited? They’ll be greeting a team that’s not only the National League champs, but the World Champs. They’ll watch the Cardinals hoist their 10th World Series banner. They’ll watch the Cardinals get their World Series rings. And before they can begin their season, the 2007 Mets will have to watch it, too — the celebration of a title that, had things just broken a little differently, might have been theirs.
And I want them to watch it.
I say that without rancor or vindictiveness or bitterness. I loved the 2006 squad, loved its heart and grit and pluck and all those other great baseball words. I loved watching Wright and Reyes blossom and Beltran win over Shea Stadium and Lo Duca tag Dodgers and howl at umpires and Valentin (“Jo-se, Jo-se Jo-se Jo-se! Other Jose! Other Jose!”) find grace in age and Pelfrey and Humber and Milledge give us flashes of promise in youth. I loved it all, from our April romp to those final two heart-stopping October nights, even if the last game had to wind down to that knee-buckling, heart-breaking, season-ending strike.
By now Lo Duca and Delgado and Glavine don’t need any more tempering in the fire of defeat. But for the young guys, this is a crucial part of the maturation process: seeing the pennant and the rings and the hearing the cheers and thinking, Mine, mine, this could have been mine. This should have been ours. It reminds me of the 1-0 Cardinals win at Busch in May, the one where Wright couldn’t make contact off Jason Isringhausen with one out and Reyes on third. After that game I had to remind myself that Wright was just 23, and one of the ingredients necessary for turning 23-year-olds who can’t relax in big spots into 33-year-olds who can is failure. Failure that eats at you and leaves you determined to do anything to keep from feeling those teeth in you again.
This is the next step. Remember it when you watch Cardinal Nation exultant, when you moan that ESPN’s shown the Wainwright coup de grace 40 times and they haven’t even announced the lineups, when you grouse to yourself that Opening Night is sure starting out on a sour note. Look at the players and see if you can see Lo Duca’s neck turning red, or Wright narrowing his eyes, or Reyes shuttering his million-watt smile. It’ll taste terrible, but medicine often does. And then we’ll have the whole season in front of us. Right, Davey?
After the meeting, I went back to my office to be alone for a while. I swore to myself: Next year, by God, nothing is going to stop us.
As I told the players the day before the season ended, “I want you to make up your minds we're going to win it next year, that nothing is going to stop us.” — Davey Johnson on the last days of 1985, in Bats.
At 8:05 p.m. on April 1, baseball will return. The 2007 New York Mets will take the field, and a new campaign will begin. We'll begin the second-to-last season at Shea as the defending champions of the National League East.
That last little syllable on the end there makes all the difference, doesn't it? Those four little letters. That final little sound, the hissing one. East. It's a geographical term — a cardinal direction.
Speaking of which, the National League champions, no compass point required, will be standing across us on the field when the introductions are made. The St. Louis Cardinals will be at home, at the center of a cauldron of noise, amidst a sea of red shirts. And why shouldn't their fans be excited? They'll be greeting a team that's not only the National League champs, but the World Champs. They'll watch the Cardinals hoist their 10th World Series banner. They'll watch the Cardinals get their World Series rings. And before they can begin their season, the 2007 Mets will have to watch it, too — the celebration of a title that, had things just broken a little differently, might have been theirs.
And I want them to watch it.
I say that without rancor or vindictiveness or bitterness. I loved the 2006 squad, loved its heart and grit and pluck and all those other great baseball words. I loved watching Wright and Reyes blossom and Beltran win over Shea Stadium and Lo Duca tag Dodgers and howl at umpires and Valentin (“Jo-se, Jo-se Jo-se Jo-se! Other Jose! Other Jose!”) find grace in age and Pelfrey and Humber and Milledge give us flashes of promise in youth. I loved it all, from our April romp to those final two heart-stopping October nights, even if the last game had to wind down to that knee-buckling, heart-breaking, season-ending strike.
By now Lo Duca and Delgado and Glavine don't need any more tempering in the fire of defeat. But for the young guys, this is a crucial part of the maturation process: seeing the pennant and the rings and the hearing the cheers and thinking, Mine, mine, this could have been mine. This should have been ours. It reminds me of the 1-0 Cardinals win at Busch in May, the one where Wright couldn't make contact off Jason Isringhausen with one out and Reyes on third. After that game I had to remind myself that Wright was just 23, and one of the ingredients necessary for turning 23-year-olds who can't relax in big spots into 33-year-olds who can is failure. Failure that eats at you and leaves you determined to do anything to keep from feeling those teeth in you again.
This is the next step. Remember it when you watch Cardinal Nation exultant, when you moan that ESPN's shown the Wainwright coup de grace 40 times and they haven't even announced the lineups, when you grouse to yourself that Opening Night is sure starting out on a sour note. Look at the players and see if you can see Lo Duca's neck turning red, or Wright narrowing his eyes, or Reyes shuttering his million-watt smile. It'll taste terrible, but medicine often does. And then we'll have the whole season in front of us. Right, Davey?
After the meeting, I went back to my office to be alone for a while. I swore to myself: Next year, by God, nothing is going to stop us.
Is anything going swimmingly at this stagnant stage of winter? For one Mets fan, the answer is yes.
Eric Brown has gone to St. Lucie. And he's got it going on.
If any of you have channeled your workday boredom down the contents of our sidebar, you may have clicked on a Mets Extra in the Picnic Area called Met Camp. Until recently, it linked you to Eric's diary of his 2005 trip to Mets fantasy camp, an experience he likened to “the Make-A-Wish Foundation for the middle-aged set.” He had a ball — such a big one, in fact, that clicking on Met Camp now takes you to his in-progress 2007 journey “back to Mecca”.
This time around, Eric has received a transfusion of sorts from Ed Charles, learned to watch what all-time records to not mention to Anthony Young and discovered what exactly is in a jar of Boudreau's Butt Paste. Discover Eric's blog for yourself and find out why he refutes his own assertion that “only a fool climbs Mount Fuji twice.” Keep climbing, sir. You're taking one for the team there.
Unless half of us has changed his mind, I think I speak for the entire staff of Faith and Fear in Flushing when I tell you this is a hill neither Jason nor I would ever attempt to scale though we are chronologically eligible. Jason long ago granted me power of attorney to lead the intervention against his ever going over the Tradition Field wall. No such action is necessary to prevent me from doing the same. Suit up like a real Major Leaguer? I can't even keep my insole supports from curling up uncomfortably under my toes.
While Eric Brown's two camp outings make for warm reading on a frigid night, hobnobbing with Doug Flynn, John Stearns and the “indecipherable but energetic Willie Montañez” in a setting whose professionalism likely exceeds that which the 1978 Mets encountered in those post-Mrs. Payson years isn't quite my baseball fantasy. I don't fantasize about playing. I like to watch.
Which doesn't mean I wouldn't pay a premium to live out a certain scenario that has inhabited my wishful thoughts for the past 95 days.
Fantasy camp? Try this:
Turn the heat on outside.
Open Gates A through E, not at some Spring Training satellite but at the home office in Queens.
Let 56,000 of us elbow our way in.
Bring back a certain team from the Midwest to take on the artists in residence.
Blast “Time of the Season” and “The Curly Shuffle” and, yes, “Sweet Caroline” over the very loud speakers.
Make it 1-1 in the top of the ninth…or 3-1 in the bottom of the ninth if absolutely necessary. Hell, I'd take bases loaded, two out and sign for an oh-and-two count if that's all that was available.
But this time — and it's non-negotiable — the last tune we hear must be “Takin' Care of Business,” delivered with feeling.
This time we get to be happy campers.
Give me that field and that dream and I'd pass over the money without even thinking about it.
If it’s one of those dates in Mets history that won’t show up in any “This Date in Mets History,” it must be Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing.
Here’s to the first person to open my eyes to baseball, however inadvertently.
Here’s to the first person to share Peanuts with me, the comic strip in which Charlie Brown played baseball badly but constantly. Since Peanuts was popular enough for this person to have several books of it, I figured baseball must be a pretty normal thing to like.
Here’s to the first person to share baseball cards with me. They were printed in 1967 and 1968. They had a catcher from the Braves named Joe Torre and a manager from the Reds named Dave Bristol and an outfielder from the Indians named Leon Wagner. They also had a first baseman named Ed Kranepool from the Mets. The Mets. The New York Mets. Hmmm…we live in New York.
Here’s to the first person to share a portable television — a Sony — with me so I could watch the final game of the 1969 World Series and games throughout the summers of 1970 and ’71 even if this person preferred Marcus Welby M.D. and once asked why I bothered watching the games when they’ll tell you the score on the news and isn’t the score all you need to know anyway?
Here’s to the first person to take me to my second-ever game at Shea Stadium, my third-ever game at Shea Stadium and my fifth-ever game at Shea Stadium — each of them an Old Timers Day yet — despite a complete lack of interest in every game ever played at Shea Stadium.
Here’s to the first person to introduce me to a person who had recently given up working at Shea Stadium, recently enough to use his residual pull to gain me access inside the room where they kept all the souvenirs they sold to regular people but he was telling me to go ahead, take what you want (I choked and plucked one measly cap from the trove, but this same other person filled a tote bag with goodies for me which got him in good with that first person enough so that these persons have been married quite a while now).
Here’s to the first person I ever knew who was a writer, and because this person was a writer, it’s not a stretch to say I wanted to be a writer.
Here’s to the first person I ever really knew at all, the one person I’ve known longer than any other, the only person I know whose ongoing obliviousness to our national and my personal pastime doesn’t bother me one bit. She did so much to hook me up with baseball without realizing it, who could ask for anything more?
Here’s to my big sister Suzan, who was more mature at 14 than I am at 44. Suzan was born January 21, 1957, but in deference to her sudden distaste for simple arithmetic, I won’t mention how many years ago since then it will be come Sunday. But I will say happy birthday. Whichever one it is.
Next Friday: A line or two upon the wall regarding the No. 10 song of all-time.
Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star by Greg Prince is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.
Amazin' Again: How the 2015 New York Mets Brought the Magic Back to Queens by Greg Prince is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.
Volume I of The Happiest Recap: 50+ Years of the New York Mets As Told in 500+ Amazin' Wins by Greg Prince is available in print and for Kindle on Amazon.
Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History by Greg Prince (foreword by Jason Fry), is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.
