The swings Darryl Strawberry and David Palmer took at each other last night during a bench-clearing brawl in the first inning were sissy swipes compared to the real punch Gary Carter displayed.

Sissy swipes? Did somebody actually use the phrase “sissy swipes” in a baseball game story at some point in the past quarter-century? Without irony?
Yup. That’s how Jack Lang of the Daily News led his report on the Mets-Braves game of July 11, 1986, one in which Palmer “plunked Strawberry in the butt” after surrendering a three-run homer to Carter. Though “Darryl dropped his bat, threw his helmet and started for the mound,” Lang reassured his readers that “no one got hurt and it was all over in a matter of minutes.”
Kind of describes the game story as we knew it when newspapers were our primary conduit to baseball information.

Jack Lang, you’ve probably heard, passed away last week at 85. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have thought Lang was still writing for the News. Or the Long Island Press even.

Without looking it up, I couldn’t remember any particular piece Jack Lang wrote in his more than 25 years on the Mets beat. That’s not a knock on Jack. He had a job to do: sum up the game and, if deadline permitted, gather a few quotes. Rereading his story on the 11-0 drubbing the Mets put on the Braves in their championship season, there are no quotes (Friday night game, late start for NBC, Saturday paper) but I got the flavor of what happened all over again.

By 1986 the reader almost certainly knew the score by the next morning. Lang could sum up the feel of the game in the first paragraph and then get to the meat of the matter in the second and third:
Carter hit a three-run homer and a grand slam his first two trips as the Mets treated Sid Fernandez to a fun festival in walloping the Braves, 11-0.

Carter drove in the Mets’ first seven runs and that was much more than El Sid needed as he rolled to his 12th win — the most by any NL pitcher this season. Fernandez had three hits, two doubles and a single, and Len Dykstra had another three-hit game.

There. The game in a nutshell. Colorful and concise. We know about the fight, we know about the offense, we know about the pitching. Just lay a bed of we’ve got the teamwork/to make the dream work underneath it and it’s 1986 again.

Not having others’ game stories from the July 12 papers with which to compare it, I couldn’t tell you if the reporters from Newsday, the Post or the Times covered it better or worse or if they, unlike Lang, plumbed the depths of David Palmer’s psyche. I don’t recall knowing until I read The Bad Guys Won! that Palmer was nursing a grudge against Carter that dated to their Expo battery days. Wrote Jeff Pearlman many years after the fact:

With bodies piling on top of them, Hernandez turned to Palmer and in a calm tone asked a simple question: “Dave, why would you do that?”

Palmer yelled back: “Carter and all that bullshit! I hate that guy!”

Amid the mayhem Hernandez was unmoved. “Look, if you hate Gary, why hit Darryl?” he said, bodies flying left and right. “It’s not right.”

Palmer had to admit, the man had a point.

The point about Jack Lang is he was a constant for us as Mets fans. Lang started covering the game when television was a novelty and stayed at it until sports talk radio was proliferating, easing up for good a bit shy of the Internet age. He was there when “sissy swipe” was considered neither patently offensive nor wholly outdated and he remained until you could print “butt” in a family paper. He bridged more than a couple of eras and by late in his career could still tell you what you needed to know about last night’s game particularly if you didn’t see it or hear it.

It’s different now. Results seem to get buried in all but wire service game stories, not without cause. Does anybody still wait for the News to get a score? For any paper? If you missed the game you can get the score without really trying. You can get an instant AP writeup on any number of sites minutes after the game is over. You get the likes of us picking it apart and putting it back together. Lang’s paper and its competitors are online like everybody else.

It’s not just sportswriting that assumes you know what you actually need to know and figures it’s role is to tell you something you didn’t know. Political coverage, especially when there’s no election in sight, chooses to dwell on mood and attitude before informing you what the guy or gal running for office actually said. In Sunday’s Times there was an interesting interview with Garry Shandling in which the most newsworthy tidbit — that a collection of The Larry Sanders Show DVDs will be released in April — wasn’t to be found until the reader got well down into the jump page.

No, it’s not just sports that’s written with more latitude than it used to be. But it is sports that we care about here. I wonder if we are truly better served in today’s marketplace than we were when Jack Lang was on duty.

On the face of it we are. The speed and accessibility and range of voices is not to be underestimated. 1986 wasn’t exactly prehistoric times but back then there was no discussion of the game to take you through the night on the radio. There was no ticker flashing scores and details on your cable television. There was no computer connecting you to anything that would help you fill in the blanks on those three hits by Lenny Dykstra. You could catch the score on WINS or WCBS, you could get a few highlights on one of the 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock newscasts or you could call Sportsphone if you were really desperate. WFAN and ESPNews and every dot com we count on did not exist.

We are better off for that. More is very much better in terms of delivery. More is often better in terms of insight and perspective. More is sometimes better in that all these vehicles that weren’t around when Lang was on the beat mean we get baseball news and opinion all year round.

Then again, it can also be inane as all get out.

Wally Matthews in Newsday last Wednesday:

Perhaps if Willie Randolph were still a player, and not the manager who led them to within a victory of the World Series, the Mets would show him a little more respect and a lot more money.

The rest of his column (a column, not a news story it should be noted) excoriated the Mets for cheaping out on their manager, for not getting a deal done during the winter, for blaming him for the Mets losing to the Cardinals in the NLCS.

There can be no other explanation for why this is not getting done.

Ken Davidoff in Newsday last Thursday:

A winter of discomfort will not carry over into the Mets’ spring. Willie Randolph will not be a lame-duck manager this season.

Randolph and the Mets agreed in principle yesterday to a three-year, $5.65-million extension, three people familiar with the situation confirmed. The extension will kick in immediately — Randolph’s $700,000 contract for 2007 was torn up — and run through 2009, with a team option for 2010.

Oh.

Without knowing who was whispering into whose ear in the course of November, December and January, I couldn’t say how serious any “discomfort” became between Randolph and ownership. They apparently entered into something called a negotiation. The negotiation ensued and a resolution, Willie’s contract, was agreed upon.

Willie Randolph got his millions. The Mets got their manager. Wally Matthews got his word quota filled even if it read very shakily before the Randolph deal was announced and as a total waste of space afterwards.

Seriously, read it. There’s nothing in there that any blogger or commenter or poster on any Mets board couldn’t have dreamt up if he or she were so inclined. There is nothing professional about Matthews’ accusations and assessments (“there can be no other explanation…”). There is nothing from sources, even unnamed sources, to suggest the organization and its skipper were heading for the meltdown the columnist implies. It was all just insipid speculation whose shelf life was mercifully short even by the standards of today’s reduced newscycles.

Columns that grasp at any passing breeze weren’t invented with the connection of the first T1 line.

Across the breadth of Lang’s long day on the beat there was bad sportswriting as well as good sportswriting. Yet it’s discouraging to realize that in an era when we the fans are superserved — regularly serving ourselves — we are often badly served by the credentialed media in whom we’re supposed to invest our trust. In Matthews’ case, it wasn’t just an opinion that you could take or leave. He was presenting as fact an impending crisis based exclusively on his innuendo about the Mets’ supposedly unreasonable stance toward Randolph. And if you read or listen enough to the pros, Matthews’ methodology is hardly isolated.

Somehow, especially since I like to believe we become more enlightened the more we progress as a society, I find this more offensive than the most vicious Dick Young broadside against the integrity of a player we loved but he didn’t particularly like. Dick Young died in 1987. Everybody in his profession should know better by now.

Before Opening Day, before Spring Training, before Pitchers & Catchers, there has been revealed the first physical evidence that we will indeed be granted another baseball season.
There is light in the late afternoon.

It’s a surprise every winter. Light takes an extended holiday in December and half of January, long enough so that you think it will be in short supply forever. But maybe a week ago, the darkness began to noticeably yield. Come 4 o’clock every day, the sky suddenly showed signs of generosity. Come 4:30 there was still something to see. Come five, streetlights and headlights were cooling their heels until we absolutely needed them. Keep an eye out the window: it’s going to stay a little lighter a littler longer every day for a while now. And where there is light, surely there will be our game.

Light is the gift we receive from above. It is our signal that everything will eventually turn out fine. If you could do anything to spread the light, I’m guessing you would.

A loyal Faith and Fear reader has alerted us to a fundraising drive going on for the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, an organization devoted to improving the lives of seriously ill children and their parents as they persevere together through unimaginably tough times. The impetus for this particular initiative was the devastating loss suffered by a Mets fan family of good standing in the online community. Their daughter Miranda was born fighting. She gave it her all for 36 hours. The fight ended far too quickly.

Our loyal reader and other terrific Mets fans in the acquaintance of this family are determined there be light spread in the wake of this terrible darkness. They have established the Baby Miranda Memorial with the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation. It’s a way of remembering one child while trying to make things better for another.

You can read more about Starlight Starbright here. You can find out about the Mets’ involvement with the foundation here. And if you choose to, you are invited to join in the tribute to Baby Miranda here.

Your contribution, however slight, will do one of the best things possible. Where there would otherwise be darkness, you will help spread the light.

Before Opening Day, before Spring Training, before Pitchers & Catchers, there has been revealed the first physical evidence that we will indeed be granted another baseball season.

There is light in the late afternoon.

It's a surprise every winter. Light takes an extended holiday in December and half of January, long enough so that you think it will be in short supply forever. But maybe a week ago, the darkness began to noticeably yield. Come 4 o'clock every day, the sky suddenly showed signs of generosity. Come 4:30 there was still something to see. Come five, streetlights and headlights were cooling their heels until we absolutely needed them. Keep an eye out the window: it's going to stay a little lighter a littler longer every day for a while now. And where there is light, surely there will be our game.

Light is the gift we receive from above. It is our signal that everything will eventually turn out fine. If you could do anything to spread the light, I'm guessing you would.

A loyal Faith and Fear reader has alerted us to a fundraising drive going on for the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation, an organization devoted to improving the lives of seriously ill children and their parents as they persevere together through unimaginably tough times. The impetus for this particular initiative was the devastating loss suffered by a Mets fan family of good standing in the online community. Their daughter Miranda was born fighting. She gave it her all for 36 hours. The fight ended far too quickly.

Our loyal reader and other terrific Mets fans in the acquaintance of this family are determined there be light spread in the wake of this terrible darkness. They have established the Baby Miranda Memorial with the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation. It's a way of remembering one child while trying to make things better for another.

You can read more about Starlight Starbright here. You can find out about the Mets' involvement with the foundation here. And if you choose to, you are invited to join in the tribute to Baby Miranda here. Your contribution, however slight, will do one of the best things possible. Where there would otherwise be darkness, you will help spread the light.

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?

CLIFF FLOYD: That’s way over my head, boss.

I have a hunch it wasn’t.

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.