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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 January 2007 10:41 am 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.
by Greg Prince on 16 January 2007 10:39 am The way things have always been aren’t far from changing. It will be strange, but in the long run, we will benefit.
I’m talking about the at-any-given-moment consensus all-time Mets team. You know, best Met at every position over the history of the franchise. We’ve never done one up here because it’s like ranking an all-Solar System lineup of planets. Mercury bats first, Venus bunts him over, Earth gets the ribby opportunities and you can’t pitch around Mars because Jupiter is very dangerous in the fifth hole. Every now and then somebody screws around and the nine-hitter is demoted to another galaxy, but you more or less know how it’s going to turn out.
I’ve seen Mets experts, Mets fans, Mets writers, Mets polls and Mets propaganda proffer all-time Mets teams intermittently for more than a quarter of a century. I’m not here to argue with anything that’s been said before; for the most part, they all conform to a certain conventional wisdom, one for which I bear no great iconoclasm. What I’d like to do is consider which elements of the all-time Mets team are due for revision and how soon we can anticipate changings of the respective guards.
CATCHER
Incumbent All-Timer: Mike Piazza
Since: No later than 2000
Prior: Your traditionalists would argue for Jerry Grote’s defense and longevity from 1969 until Piazza. Your modernists might nod toward Gary Carter given the offensive impact he brought to bear in 1985 and ’86. Todd Hundley made an impressive run for a season or two, but pre-Piazza, consensus formed around Grote or Carter.
After: Piazza’s only gone one year.
Current Catcher: Paul Lo Duca
His Prospects: This is a position that has enjoyed some serious starpower, so even though Lo Duca put in a heckuva season in 2006, it’s unlikely he’ll break into the top three given his advanced age.
Anybody’s Prospects: Eight seasons, fortune-changer, great numbers, legend…it will take a homegrown Mike Piazza to top the one for whom we traded. Mike has a lock on this spot for at least a decade, likely longer.
FIRST BASE
Incumbent All-Timer: Keith Hernandez
Since: No later than 1986
Prior: Ed Kranepool was the default candidate by the mid-’60s. As more productive first basemen — Clendenon, Milner, Montañez — came along, Eddie (albeit from a pinch-hitting perch) had them beat on longevity. He always will. It took Hernandez’s all-around excellence and obvious impact on the state of things to dislodge Krane.
After: John Olerud squeezed himself between Mex and Kranepool with three fabulous seasons. Perhaps a few more would have made him a serious contender for the top spot.
Current First Baseman: Carlos Delgado
His Prospects: Not unlike Lo Duca, his first year as a Met could not have gone much better. He ingrained himself into club lore by making a difference on a team that jumped from also-ran to division champ. But also like Lo Duca, Delgado joined the Mets late in his career. Two more slam-bang offensive seasons might get him mentioned in the same breath with Olerud and Kranepool as best of the rest, but he’s no threat to Keith.
Anybody’s Prospects: Though they were far from the same player, the Met trajectories of Piazza and Hernandez were fairly similar. Hernandez is every bit the legend for his tenure that Piazza was for his, so it is hard to imagine first base gets a new leading man. Caveat, though: Keith’s brilliance came without dominating power stats, traditionally the province of corner infielders. Get a Delgado-type in his prime and it could become competitive. But then again, there’s only one Keith Hernandez.
SECOND BASE
Incumbent All-Timer: Edgardo Alfonzo
Since: No later than 2000
Prior: For Fonzie, there’s a bit of lifetime achievement award to this designation as he shifted between third and second for six seasons as a starter. He gained notice at third but really made jaws drop at second. His two best years were in the middle of the diamond. They were so good it’s hard to remember who came before, but there is a lineage: Ron Hunt from ’63 to as late as ’75 when Felix Millan took over for good (depending on how highly you valued Ken Boswell’s relative longevity in between). Millan played every day, so he could be your all-timer until the late ’90s unless you didn’t mind Wally Backman’s platoon status. Backman was such a force on those mid-’80s Mets that he made a strong case for himself. Jeff Kent’s numbers in ’93 and ’94 were promising but they dipped dramatically in ’95 and he was at third then gone by ’96, thus only partially breaching the conversation. Fonzie’s ’99 and ’00 made the whole lot of his predecessors rather moot.
After: Roberto Alomar was the exact opposite of Lo Duca and Delgado and his breakdown left a sizable hole at second that nobody since Alfonzo has filled.
Current Second Baseman: Jose Valentin
His Prospects: In relatively limited duty, Valentin had one of the better power years by any Met second baseman in 2006 and he acquitted himself fine defensively. But at this late stage of his career (a hauntingly familiar refrain when discussing the current Mets thus far), it’s hard to imagine he’ll a) duplicate 2006 in 2007 and b) triplicate it in 2008 which is what it would take to catapult him into the upper echelon of all-time Mets second basemen.
Anybody’s Prospects: If you judge the position by defense (and defense usually lags in all-time team talk, otherwise Doug Flynn would be a major topic of conversation here), Anderson Hernandez could conceivably make a run if he starts to hit and sticks around. In the more generic sense, it would take about five very good seasons to unseat Alfonzo. It doesn’t sound impossible, but in the 45-year history of the Mets, how many players have put up five very good seasons at any position?
SHORTSTOP
Incumbent All-Timer: Bud Harrelson
Since: No later than 1969
Prior: Roy McMillan got high marks for his uncommon professionalism as the Mets were wearing out their training wheels, but the shortstop story on this team really begins with Buddy Harrelson.
After: For a quarter-century it ended with Harrelson, too. There were pretenders, those who could flash speed (Taveras), show steadiness (Santana), offer promise (Elster), spread leather (Schofield) and hit surprisingly well (Vizcaino), but none was a keeper in the long-term. Though time has not burnished his credentials, Rey Ordoñez’s glove was a magical entity and, given his role on a winning team, made him the de facto runnerup at short through the end of his stormy stay. If he had hit a little and shut up a little more, he might have taken a serious run at Harrelson, but Buddy’s longevity and presence were hard to beat.
Current Shortstop: Jose Reyes
His Prospects: Jose Reyes, as Bob Murphy might have said, is why they put erasers on pencils. It takes all the restraint one can muster to not change for the first time since the late 1960s the identity of the all-time Mets shortstop. He followed an encouraging 2005 with a stellar 2006. Not stellar for a Met, but stellar as in one of the brightest stars in the game at any position. His four seasons — two partial, two complete — are not quite enough to bump Buddy’s thirteen, but Buddy would be the first to tell you Jose’s ’06 was the offensive equal of any three he put up in his prime.
Anybody’s Prospects: Even if he never has another season quite on the level of 2006, it will take no more than three years in the general vicinity of what he did last season to cement Jose Reyes’ spot as the all-time Mets shortstop. Barring injury, look for the change to be indisputable by 2009, 2010 at the latest.
THIRD BASE
Incumbent All-Timer: Howard Johnson
Since: No later than 1991
Prior: The steaming baked potato of all Mets positions, it would be reasonable to term it vacant on an all-time team for the first decade of Met existence. By the end of the ’70s, Wayne Garrett had earned it through dutiful service. The first impressive all-around Met third baseman was Hubie Brooks, 1980-1984. It took three astounding offensive seasons from HoJo to nail down his claim to the hot corner…just in time for him to be shifted to the outfield.
After: Johnson’s supremacy was seriously challenged in the late ’90s, first by Alfonzo then Robin Ventura. Neither lasted long enough at the position to knock off HoJo, though Ventura’s 1999 was as spectacular as anything as Johnson accomplished in ’87, ’89 or ’91.
Current Third Baseman: David Wright
His Prospects: HoJo’s elevation to the big-league coaching staff in 2007 will give him a front-row seat from which to watch his place in Mets history pushed back a notch. David Wright’s brief career has been possibly the best out of the gate by any homegrown Met. Power, average, defense (the throwing yips notwithstanding)…it’s David’s world.
Anybody’s Prospects: For karma’s sake, let’s use the “barring injury” qualifier. Barring injury, David Wright should arrive on the all-time team by the time Shea Stadium gives way to Citi Field. It’s only in deference to HoJo’s longevity (not quite as imposing as Harrelson’s) that we don’t make the switch now. Like Reyes, Wright demonstrates every indication that he will own his spot in this lineup well into the future.
LEFT FIELD
Incumbent All-Timer: Cleon Jones
Since: 1968
Prior: Frank Thomas did hit 34 homers in 1962, but Cleon was the best player the Mets developed in their first two decades. His .340 average coming when it did sealed his spot in left for generations to come. His wonderful 1969 highlighted a 12-year run unmatched to date in left.
After: Truth is nobody’s come close to Cleon Jones over the long haul even if there have been seasons. Dave Kingman’s best power years were in left in ’75 and ’76 but he hit his later homers at first and didn’t do a whole lot else as a player. Steve Henderson looked like the real thing from ’77 to ’80 but never put up Cleon stats. George Foster’s Met career was a trainwreck despite a couple of good slugging seasons. Kevin McReynolds was more the rubbernecker during his stay. A good ’87 and a very, very good ’88 were followed only by deterioration from ’89 through ’91. One-year wonders Bernard Gilkey (’96), Rickey Henderson (’99) and Benny Agbayani (’00) didn’t last either. Cliff Floyd’s 2005 was classic, but the rest of his Met days were undercut by injury.
Current Leftfielder: Moises Alou.
His Prospects: If he gives us an ’07 like Lo Duca’s, Delgado’s or even Valentin’s ’06, he etches his name into our consciousness for the good. But at 40 on Opening Day, he won’t touch Cleon Jones.
Anybody’s Prospects: This was supposed to be Lastings Milledge’s job by now and Lastings Milledge was highly touted. Left doesn’t look like his bag, baby. It’s either too early or too late to figure out what we’ll get from him. As for somebody coming along and topping Jones, it’s conceivable. If McReynolds hadn’t declined or Floyd hadn’t gotten hurt (or Kingman hadn’t been traded), it could have been done by now. Outfielders, however, aren’t the Mets’ stock in trade, so until an unknown quantity puts up at least three straight power seasons worthy of a corner outfielder, there’s nobody remotely on Cleon’s heels.
CENTER FIELD
Incumbent All-Timer: Mookie Wilson
Since: No later than 1986
Prior: Center used to be the Met doppelgänger of third, except further from home. The Mets couldn’t find a dependable occupant, save for the first year with Richie Ashburn, until Tommie Agee sewed it up in ’68 (a miserable season) and excelled at it in ’69. Agee probably owned it, even in the face of a stiff challenge from Lee Mazzilli in the late ’70s, into the Mookie Wilson era. Mookie’s speed and dominance of the steals and triples categories (despite not being the most awesome of flycatchers or leadoff batters) earned him CF honors for twenty-year keeps. His role in the 1986 World Series didn’t hurt either.
After: Mookie withstood a real-time ambush by Lenny Dykstra between ’85 and ’89. By August ’86, a centerfield platoon was tweaked to a rotation of sorts, getting Mookie into the lineup in left when Dykstra manned center. But Lenny never took center away from Mookie. After they were both ingeniously dispatched, it was Juan Samuel time, first literally, then figuratively. A slew of comers and goers made the exploits of Mookie, Lenny, Tommie and Mazz stand taller than they actually measured.
Current Centerfielder: Carlos Beltran
His Prospects: If we are to believe 2005 was the aberration and 2006 the genuine article, Carlos Beltran is already the best centerfielder in Mets history. Not the same as being the all-time CF, however. Carlos needs two or three more Beltranesque years to own the position beyond debate.
Anybody’s Prospects: Isn’t that what he’s being paid for? Carlos Beltran reminded us in 2006 that he’s one of the best all-around players in the game, the kind of player we’ve almost never had, certainly not in center. Assuming there isn’t some horrible hangover from that called strike three (and those nagging injuries of his are kept to a minimum), we can look forward to a Citi Field lineup by 2010 that includes three all-time Mets: Reyes, Wright and Beltran.
RIGHT FIELD
Incumbent All-Timer: Darryl Strawberry
Since: No later than 1986
Prior Ron Swoboda’s Game Four catch in ’69 gave him the upper hand for a while, based mostly on the stuff of legend. Rusty Staub’s four seasons after his trade from Montreal earned him right field outright. There was no better stick when it came to driving in runs, clutch or otherwise, for the first two decades of Mets history. Then Darryl showed up in ’83. Growing pains notwithstanding, he was instantly the most extraordinary talent to rise from the Mets’ system. If he wasn’t exactly Joel Youngblood with the glove, he was an authentic superstar.
After: Get serious.
Current Right Fielder: Shawn Green.
His Prospects: A nice rebound full season would be plenty to welcome from Green. Should Milledge find himself with a few more at-bats than expected in right (where he looked decidedly more comfortable than he did in left), it could be intriguing. But Darryl’s safe for now.
Anybody’s Prospects: Even taking into account that Darryl’s eight Mets seasons did not launch him toward Cooperstown, nobody has touched what he compiled or accomplished. Sixteen seasons have not yielded any kind of challenge to the incumbent’s primacy. Right remains Strawberry’s field prohibitively to 2015 and probably then some.
STARTING RIGHTHANDED PITCHER
Incumbent All-Timer: Tom Seaver
Since: 1967
Prior: Does it matter?
After: One name. Dwight Gooden. If he couldn’t do it (and for a while it looked he would), nobody could.
Current Starting Righthanded Pitcher: Pedro Martinez
His Prospects: Well, it would help if he were healthy. For argument’s sake, let’s say Pedro makes it back midsummer and pitches at the level he did in 2005 and early 2006 for the length of his contract. It would mark his Met tenure as a significant one, but it would leave him way short of not only Seaver but Gooden. And that’s best-case. Still, if we’re mentioning him in the same breath as Tom and Doc, then it was Pedro well spent. Heck, it was anyway.
Anybody’s Prospects: It would be unfair to the Met pitching prospects of today to invoke Tom Seaver as their ceiling. In a world in which one shouldn’t forecast too far into the future, I’m willing to say nobody besides Tom Seaver will ever be the Mets’ all-time starting RHP.
STARTING LEFTHANDED PITCHER
Incumbent All-Timer: Jerry Koosman
Since: 1968
Prior: Al Jackson was a gutty lefthander who deserved a better fate. Wins were hard to come by on those early Mets teams yet Jackson had more than anybody in those first dark days. Kooz, however, blew all southpaws away with a 19-12 rookie season. He was ensconced from there.
After: Jon Matlack outdid Koosman for a few years in the early ’70s and Al Leiter was counted on as titular ace more than either of them, but no LHP hung in as long as Kooz did and no pitcher of either arm could be counted on quite as confidently in big game starts.
Current Starting Lefthanded Pitcher: Tom Glavine
His Prospects: Glavine, health and run support willing, will reach an exciting milestone in a Met uniform, and that will be lovely. But even a 300th win along with two very good seasons to finish up his career as a Met (with hopefully two more postseason trips and performances up to his October 2006 standard) would vault Glavine no higher than also-ran to Kooz. Jerry, after all, was here for twelve seasons, several of them historic.
Anybody’s Prospects: Like we said, Jerry was here a long time and with good reason. He is third lifetime in Met wins. He was a star who pitched behind an immortal. Despite the best efforts of Leiter, Matlack, Ojeda and Fernandez, his premier southpaw status hasn’t been approached. A Met lefty reaching Kooz territory may happen, but it will take some doing.
CLOSER
Incumbent All-Timer: John Franco
Since: No later than 2000
Prior: With apologies to Ron Taylor, Tug McGraw invented the modern fireman’s role on the Mets and he filled it indelibly. Jesse Orosco surpassed his saves total and was on the mound twice when it absolutely mattered in 1986. It was a matter of taste before 1990 as to who you wanted as your all-time closer. John Franco then arrived from Cincinnati and compiled saves in record numbers. It probably took the latter stages of his career to make him universally lovable like Tug and definitely required his postseason setup appearances to match his accomplishments to Jesse’s.
After: Armando Benitez is a two-word Rorschach Test to most Mets fans. Some see the most successful regular-season closer in Mets history. Others see mushroom clouds. The fact is he did unseat Franco and was at the heart of some of the most compelling baseball the franchise ever saw. The fact is he also lasted fewer than five seasons, well short of Franco’s fifteen.
Current Closer: Billy Wagner.
His Prospects: Yet another 2006 Met who alighted from elsewhere and inscribed his name into the family album with a memorable year in service to a postseason campaign. He certainly had his moments. Though he will have ample opportunity to add to his Met résumé, he too has started down the orange & blue path rather late in life.
Anybody’s Prospects: John Franco embedded himself into Met culture as few others have. His status with the front office (combined with his general record of success…not that it was unsullied or without detractors) shielded him from the several regime changes that shook Shea between Cashen and Minaya. Since longevity was intrinsic to the Franco oeuvre, and because one-team longevity among closers is almost anathema in team-building today, it will be difficult for anybody to match Franco. On the other hand, the next closer who drops to his knees and flings his glove skyward will be granted sainthood by millions of Mets fans and that might be enough.
by Greg Prince on 15 January 2007 1:47 pm In 2005, Todd Pratt completed yet another year as a Philadelphia Phillie.
In 2006, Todd Pratt filled in behind the plate as an Atlanta Brave.
In 2007, Todd Pratt has accepted an invitation to Spring Training with the New York Yankees.
Who will need a backup catcher in 2008? Al-Qaeda?
Tank isn't the first 2000 National League Champion Met to wander over the wrong end of the Triborough Bridge and into the arms of the erstwhile enemy. Robin Ventura and Todd Zeile, to name two Tankmates, did it a few years ago; it is to their everlasting Met credit that they never seemed to fully enjoy it. Al Leiter enjoyed it a bit too much but that doesn't count since he was one of them to begin with. Armando Benitez passed through there only long enough to cause angst and be booed. We're all hypocrites if we rush to anybody's aid or comfort in that transaction.
But Todd Pratt a Yankee? In this century, even aware that nobody stays in one place anymore — and that he hasn't played for us since the summer of 2001 — the thought of Todd Pratt as a Yankee is surprisingly jarring. Tank was such a Met in his day. Per capita, he was as much a Met as anyone in the Valentine Epoch. Tank seemed madder about Mike Piazza being beaned by Roger Clemens in the Twiborough disaster of July 8, 2000 than Mike did. Now Tank, about to turn 40, could conceivably catch Clemens, provided Tank makes the team and Clemens misses Andy Pettitte's regular regimen of atta boys and foot rubs enough to come out of retirement or suspended animation or whatever it is the Rocket is in presently.
We already spent a season trying to avert our eyes whenever Todd Pratt showed up in a Braves uniform. That followed four-plus years of not staring too closely when Tank rolled into Shea with Philadelphia. Never mind that he started his career with them. He became a Met to stay in 1997. He still elicited a warm round of applause almost every time up for five years because he was Tank the Met, the 51st Greatest Met of the First Forty Years, never to be forgotten for what he did to Matt Mantei one October 1999 weekend and what he did in concert with Ventura the October 1999 weekend after. Mostly he caddied and waved a towel and held down the bench, but after Game Four against Arizona and Game Five against Atlanta, did he have to do much more?
A Phillie. Then a Brave. Now, perhaps, a Yankee. Is this, Tank, really necessary?
by Greg Prince on 13 January 2007 12:51 am If Metsian memories are building from a trickle to a flood, then it must be Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing.
I’m unreasonably loyal to inanimate objects. Got this bright, shiny new computer recently that I refused to plug in for several days after delivery because it seemed unfair to the old, slightly rickety machine that was opening fewer and fewer Web pages every week. Got new shoes in September but wouldn’t wear them until after the playoffs because the incumbent pair had gotten the Mets this far and it wouldn’t seem right to abandon them prior to October. Don’t even get me started on the night the tape function on my stereo — my stereo on which I recorded so many beloved cassettes — went on the fritz and needed immediate replacement.
Then there are cars. Men and cars. That’s allowed, right? We’re supposed to be in love with our vehicles, referring to each one as a she as we exult in listening to her purr. But my car doesn’t really drive me.
I’ve had two. Fifteen years ago this week, I got my second. I’ve always been grateful for its utility, that it’s started and carried me from point A to point B without breaking down at point A and a half. I don’t blame it for the aversion to driving that struck me in the mid-’90s and has stayed with me ever since. It’s not for not liking it that I’ve put not quite 67,000 miles on it since taking ownership on January 11, 1992. Since 1996, I’ve either commuted to my job by train or worked from home. I don’t really have anywhere to drive.
On the other hand, maybe I’ve never forgiven my dependable powder blue 1992 Toyota Corolla for not being a trendy teal green.
My car sometimes feels like a bastard child to me, conceived as it was in a very unpleasant transaction at Five Towns Toyota of Lawrence. I needed a car, I went there and I had a horrible experience. Despite reading one of those “how to buy a car without getting ripped off” books before entering the fray, I went to buy a car and felt like I was getting ripped off.
Everything about it still gives me hives, from the salesman who told me he needed a deposit from me right now to save this special price that’s only in effect today to the loan arranger who made up a monthly payment that had nothing to do with the interest rate that was quoted. I knew I was being rolled all around.
T-Day, as it were, was Thursday, January 9. I wasn’t sleeping. I knew this was all wrong. I didn’t want to deal with them anymore. So I started talking to lawyers. Everybody I knew who knew a lawyer got their attorney relatives or friends on the phone for me. They all said I could get out of the deal. I called the dealership and was told, oh no, you’re stuck with this car — the powder blue model because it will cost you extra for the teal green number — and we’re going to sue you if you don’t follow through. I was going nuts. I went to Radio Shack and bought one of those calculators that figures out interest rates and realized they were trying to take me for what amounted to thousands more over the life of the loan.
I called back Five Towns Toyota and yelled at them. They yelled at me. More threats were exchanged. In another office where I worked (this was going on in the middle of the day), my editor ran interference for me with a PR rep who was trying to set up an interview for me. This isn’t a good day for Greg, he said. He’ll call you tomorrow.
My calculator gave me some moral fiber to trust. I’d spent my life caving into salesmen and professionals and anybody who had what I wanted. No, I wasn’t going to budge. You’re not going to rip me off. I cared less about blue versus teal than I did that somebody saw me coming and decided he could take advantage. This, I demanded, is all I will pay in terms of financing. More haggling ensued. Emotions crested. Then things calmed down. I said something about not wanting to be dissatisfied.
Damned if I know why this was the magic word, but all at once the salesman was all “we don’t want you to be dissatisfied.” All at once, he was a reasonable human being. The financing was settled to my satisfaction. The price was brought down to my satisfaction. The color, well, we just don’t have it in teal green right now and you’ll have to wait and we will have to charge you a delivery fee to get it from another dealership.
Screw it, I thought. I want to get this over with. I don’t care about color. Just give me the blue one. I still have it.
Few have been the days since 1992 that I’ve thought about the teal. That was back when almost every expansion team in every sport was trying on teal: the San Jose Sharks, the Charlotte Hornets, the unborn Florida Marlins. I had a sense this was a fad. Teal green was pretty, though, but I settled for the powder blue.
I arranged to pick up the car, my second car, on the eleventh, two days later. Punchy, groggy, irritable, vulnerable, I left the office and went down to the office parking lot to get in my car.
My first car.
It was a Toyota Corolla. That’s why I was so set on having another one. The first one had been very good to me. It was bought used from Avis. My dad had them as a client and they gave him a professional discount. He bought it when I started college after my mother decided if I rode a bicycle around Tampa that I’d get run over. I didn’t argue. The first Corolla, an ’81, burnt orange, came with 14,000 or so miles and I proceeded to add another 95,000 over ten years. I drove from Florida to New York or New York to Florida seven different times. I drove to Montreal and Philadelphia and Boston and St. Petersburg to see baseball games. I drove it from age 18 to age 29.
Man, I loved that car. She/he/it had given me a marvelous decade. The end of the road was at hand by the end of 1991. I replaced the brakes not two months before understanding she/he/it couldn’t go on forever. That’s why I was shopping for a new Corolla in late ’91, early ’92. That’s why on this Thursday night I was driving her/him/it home from work for what would be the second-to-last time.
And ya know what else was going on that week? Tom Seaver was voted into the Hall of Fame. First ballot, 98.8% of the vote. Only five voters didn’t check him off. They were either infirm or stubborn. Everybody else who didn’t have an excuse validated Tom Seaver as the best. Nobody got more of the vote than Tom Seaver, not before then, not since then. My favorite player was, in a tangible way, the favorite of the ages.
It was good news in a stressful week. The election was announced Tuesday. Thursday, that awful Thursday, had more than painful automotive negotiations to them, it turned out.
It had Tom Seaver on the Howie Rose show on the way home.
Tom didn’t do all that many interviews after he retired from playing. When he did, he didn’t do it under any kind of Mets auspices. The last we saw him as ours was when his number 41 was retired in 1988. A year later he was broadcasting for NBC and WPIX. By ’92 he was still affiliated with the Yankees, of all teams, keeping Phil Rizzuto company now and then. His relationship with the Mets was nonexistent.
But on WFAN that Thursday night, he was home. It was Tom and Howie — still my favorite talk show host ever — recalling Tom’s career. It was supposed to last 20 minutes at most, but Tom stayed and talked for more than an hour. Howie wasn’t about to remind him his time was up and Tom didn’t seem to mind sticking around.
I drove the same route home I’d been taking for almost two years: Northern State to the Meadowbrook to Merrick Road to our first apartment in Baldwin. I was riveted as I drove. I don’t think there were any commercials. Just Tom and Howie. Gil Hodges came up. Rube Walker. Jerry Grote. ’69. The trade. The trade back. The last time he was allowed to walk. Just Tom Seaver and Howie Rose talking at length about Tom Seaver.
What more could I want?
When I pulled in in front of the house where we rented, they were still at it. I could have gotten out, run inside and turned on the radio, but it felt inappropriate to take a break. If the FAN could hold off on interruptions, so could I. It was worth it.
Tom, Howie said, we have a little surprise for you, put together by our producer (don’t know if it was the immortal Chris Majkowski or who back then). It was a musical montage, a tribute to Tom’s career. The music was Rod Stewart’s “Forever Young,” the punctuation was one highlight after another of Tom’s pitching. Bob Murphy, Ralph Kiner, Lindsey Nelson on the air telling us once again that Seaver had a perfect game going with one out in the ninth, that Seaver had just struck out his tenth in a row, that Seaver had won a 20th or 25th or World Series game. I don’t remember all the highlights. They were plentiful and the excerpts were rare. I do remember the music very well.
And may you never love in vain
And in my heart you will remain
Forever young
With that, the remains of the day came crashing down on me. This morning, I was being pushed around by a car dealer. This afternoon I stood up for myself. It may sound trifling to those of you who are more self-assured consumers taking up two spaces in your SUVs, but I swear it was like I had changed amid those angry phone calls to Five Towns Toyota. I felt like I had finally, finally, finally…
…grown up.
It was pretty late in the game for such a realization. But I’d been slow about tackling adulthood. There was a night when I was 19 when it occurred to me I was no longer a kid. There was an ensuing decade when I had to keep reminding myself of that chronological fact. And now, at 29, that was it. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was a full-fledged adult. I just bought a new car on — color notwithstanding — my own terms.
And? And I was about to give up the last car anybody was ever likely to buy for me, the car that, in essence, I had grown up in. And who should be floating about the tinny speakers in that first, never-to-be-topped Toyota? Tom Seaver, the first, never-to-be-topped hero of my youth. His career was flashing in front of my ears. His deeds were forever young, but it was now as official as it would ever be: my favorite player from when I was a kid was never going to play baseball again. I would get older, he would get older and everything about him as a Met would be a memory. We’d both find other things on which to dwell as going concerns, but neither Tom Seaver nor I would ever have Tom Seaver quite the same way again.
Him in the Hall of Fame. Me in a new blue 1992 Toyota. Him on the mound. Me in my burnt orange 1981 Corolla.
I can see us in the rearview mirror.
Next Friday: My earliest influence.
by Greg Prince on 13 January 2007 12:51 am If Metsian memories are building from a trickle to a flood, then it must be Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing.
I’m unreasonably loyal to inanimate objects. Got this bright, shiny new computer recently that I refused to plug in for several days after delivery because it seemed unfair to the old, slightly rickety machine that was opening fewer and fewer Web pages every week. Got new shoes in September but wouldn’t wear them until after the playoffs because the incumbent pair had gotten the Mets this far and it wouldn’t seem right to abandon them prior to October. Don’t even get me started on the night the tape function on my stereo — my stereo on which I recorded so many beloved cassettes — went on the fritz and needed immediate replacement.
Then there are cars. Men and cars. That’s allowed, right? We’re supposed to be in love with our vehicles, referring to each one as a she as we exult in listening to her purr. But my car doesn’t really drive me.
I’ve had two. Fifteen years ago this week, I got my second. I’ve always been grateful for its utility, that it’s started and carried me from point A to point B without breaking down at point A and a half. I don’t blame it for the aversion to driving that struck me in the mid-’90s and has stayed with me ever since. It’s not for not liking it that I’ve put not quite 67,000 miles on it since taking ownership on January 11, 1992. Since 1996, I’ve either commuted to my job by train or worked from home. I don’t really have anywhere to drive.
On the other hand, maybe I’ve never forgiven my dependable powder blue 1992 Toyota Corolla for not being a trendy teal green.
My car sometimes feels like a bastard child to me, conceived as it was in a very unpleasant transaction at Five Towns Toyota of Lawrence. I needed a car, I went there and I had a horrible experience. Despite reading one of those “how to buy a car without getting ripped off” books before entering the fray, I went to buy a car and felt like I was getting ripped off.
Everything about it still gives me hives, from the salesman who told me he needed a deposit from me right now to save this special price that’s only in effect today to the loan arranger who made up a monthly payment that had nothing to do with the interest rate that was quoted. I knew I was being rolled all around.
T-Day, as it were, was Thursday, January 9. I wasn’t sleeping. I knew this was all wrong. I didn’t want to deal with them anymore. So I started talking to lawyers. Everybody I knew who knew a lawyer got their attorney relatives or friends on the phone for me. They all said I could get out of the deal. I called the dealership and was told, oh no, you’re stuck with this car — the powder blue model because it will cost you extra for the teal green number — and we’re going to sue you if you don’t follow through. I was going nuts. I went to Radio Shack and bought one of those calculators that figures out interest rates and realized they were trying to take me for what amounted to thousands more over the life of the loan.
I called back Five Towns Toyota and yelled at them. They yelled at me. More threats were exchanged. In another office where I worked (this was going on in the middle of the day), my editor ran interference for me with a PR rep who was trying to set up an interview for me. This isn’t a good day for Greg, he said. He’ll call you tomorrow.
My calculator gave me some moral fiber to trust. I’d spent my life caving into salesmen and professionals and anybody who had what I wanted. No, I wasn’t going to budge. You’re not going to rip me off. I cared less about blue versus teal than I did that somebody saw me coming and decided he could take advantage. This, I demanded, is all I will pay in terms of financing. More haggling ensued. Emotions crested. Then things calmed down. I said something about not wanting to be dissatisfied.
Damned if I know why this was the magic word, but all at once the salesman was all “we don’t want you to be dissatisfied.” All at once, he was a reasonable human being. The financing was settled to my satisfaction. The price was brought down to my satisfaction. The color, well, we just don’t have it in teal green right now and you’ll have to wait and we will have to charge you a delivery fee to get it from another dealership.
Screw it, I thought. I want to get this over with. I don’t care about color. Just give me the blue one. I still have it.
Few have been the days since 1992 that I’ve thought about the teal. That was back when almost every expansion team in every sport was trying on teal: the San Jose Sharks, the Charlotte Hornets, the unborn Florida Marlins. I had a sense this was a fad. Teal green was pretty, though, but I settled for the powder blue.
I arranged to pick up the car, my second car, on the eleventh, two days later. Punchy, groggy, irritable, vulnerable, I left the office and went down to the office parking lot to get in my car.
My first car.
It was a Toyota Corolla. That’s why I was so set on having another one. The first one had been very good to me. It was bought used from Avis. My dad had them as a client and they gave him a professional discount. He bought it when I started college after my mother decided if I rode a bicycle around Tampa that I’d get run over. I didn’t argue. The first Corolla, an ’81, burnt orange, came with 14,000 or so miles and I proceeded to add another 95,000 over ten years. I drove from Florida to New York or New York to Florida seven different times. I drove to Montreal and Philadelphia and Boston and St. Petersburg to see baseball games. I drove it from age 18 to age 29.
Man, I loved that car. She/he/it had given me a marvelous decade. The end of the road was at hand by the end of 1991. I replaced the brakes not two months before understanding she/he/it couldn’t go on forever. That’s why I was shopping for a new Corolla in late ’91, early ’92. That’s why on this Thursday night I was driving her/him/it home from work for what would be the second-to-last time.
And ya know what else was going on that week? Tom Seaver was voted into the Hall of Fame. First ballot, 98.8% of the vote. Only five voters didn’t check him off. They were either infirm or stubborn. Everybody else who didn’t have an excuse validated Tom Seaver as the best. Nobody got more of the vote than Tom Seaver, not before then, not since then. My favorite player was, in a tangible way, the favorite of the ages.
It was good news in a stressful week. The election was announced Tuesday. Thursday, that awful Thursday, had more than painful automotive negotiations to them, it turned out.
It had Tom Seaver on the Howie Rose show on the way home.
Tom didn’t do all that many interviews after he retired from playing. When he did, he didn’t do it under any kind of Mets auspices. The last we saw him as ours was when his number 41 was retired in 1988. A year later he was broadcasting for NBC and WPIX. By ’92 he was still affiliated with the Yankees, of all teams, keeping Phil Rizzuto company now and then. His relationship with the Mets was nonexistent.
But on WFAN that Thursday night, he was home. It was Tom and Howie — still my favorite talk show host ever — recalling Tom’s career. It was supposed to last 20 minutes at most, but Tom stayed and talked for more than an hour. Howie wasn’t about to remind him his time was up and Tom didn’t seem to mind sticking around.
I drove the same route home I’d been taking for almost two years: Northern State to the Meadowbrook to Merrick Road to our first apartment in Baldwin. I was riveted as I drove. I don’t think there were any commercials. Just Tom and Howie. Gil Hodges came up. Rube Walker. Jerry Grote. ’69. The trade. The trade back. The last time he was allowed to walk. Just Tom Seaver and Howie Rose talking at length about Tom Seaver.
What more could I want?
When I pulled in in front of the house where we rented, they were still at it. I could have gotten out, run inside and turned on the radio, but it felt inappropriate to take a break. If the FAN could hold off on interruptions, so could I. It was worth it.
Tom, Howie said, we have a little surprise for you, put together by our producer (don’t know if it was the immortal Chris Majkowski or who back then). It was a musical montage, a tribute to Tom’s career. The music was Rod Stewart’s “Forever Young,” the punctuation was one highlight after another of Tom’s pitching. Bob Murphy, Ralph Kiner, Lindsey Nelson on the air telling us once again that Seaver had a perfect game going with one out in the ninth, that Seaver had just struck out his tenth in a row, that Seaver had won a 20th or 25th or World Series game. I don’t remember all the highlights. They were plentiful and the excerpts were rare. I do remember the music very well.
And may you never love in vain
And in my heart you will remain
Forever young
With that, the remains of the day came crashing down on me. This morning, I was being pushed around by a car dealer. This afternoon I stood up for myself. It may sound trifling to those of you who are more self-assured consumers taking up two spaces in your SUVs, but I swear it was like I had changed amid those angry phone calls to Five Towns Toyota. I felt like I had finally, finally, finally…
…grown up.
It was pretty late in the game for such a realization. But I’d been slow about tackling adulthood. There was a night when I was 19 when it occurred to me I was no longer a kid. There was an ensuing decade when I had to keep reminding myself of that chronological fact. And now, at 29, that was it. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was a full-fledged adult. I just bought a new car on — color notwithstanding — my own terms.
And? And I was about to give up the last car anybody was ever likely to buy for me, the car that, in essence, I had grown up in. And who should be floating about the tinny speakers in that first, never-to-be-topped Toyota? Tom Seaver, the first, never-to-be-topped hero of my youth. His career was flashing in front of my ears. His deeds were forever young, but it was now as official as it would ever be: my favorite player from when I was a kid was never going to play baseball again. I would get older, he would get older and everything about him as a Met would be a memory. We’d both find other things on which to dwell as going concerns, but neither Tom Seaver nor I would ever have Tom Seaver quite the same way again.
Him in the Hall of Fame. Me in a new blue 1992 Toyota. Him on the mound. Me in my burnt orange 1981 Corolla.
I can see us in the rearview mirror.
Next Friday: My earliest influence.
by Greg Prince on 11 January 2007 9:01 am Pitchers and presumably some catchers are in Port St. Lucie, but it’s not Pitchers & Catchers. It’s Mets Mini-Camp!
One hand is clapping.
The Mets have apparently been doing this in January for six years though I don’t remember anything about it before 2005. I only noticed it then because newly signed Carlos Beltran stopped by and stood next to Joe McEwing for a beat on his way to deposit his very large check at his presumably very grateful bank. Super Joe never did get to play with Carlos for keeps, did he?
Ah, mini-camp memories…that’s the only one I can conjure, and that only because Jason sent me the picture and suggested about ten different captions. My favorite was “why, yes, you can get me a Pepsi.”
What goes on at mini-camp? Mets caps and t-shirts, occupied by minor leaguers mostly, sprint by in anonymity. The GM mouths platitudes that are both reassuring and unprovable at this stage of winter. David Wright finds something to do with himself (I was worried he might sit still for thirty seconds). Otherwise, I don’t get baseball mini-camp. It seems almost insulting to Spring Training.
Oh, Pedro Martinez was on hand. He says he’s doing well and I’d like to believe him. I was about to espouse a theory that while the rest of the free world will be contorting itself in fantasies of peeling away Johan Santana or Carlos Zambrano at the deadline, we’ll have a tanned, rested and ready Hall of Famer healthily ready to lead us over the hump in August, September and October. But then I remembered I spent much of 2006 in denial every time Pedro hit the DL. I think he’s still on it.
Of course believing every veteran pitcher will recover from every rotator cuff is what Spring Training is all about. What precisely mini-camp is for I have little clue.
by Greg Prince on 11 January 2007 9:01 am Pitchers and presumably some catchers are in Port St. Lucie, but it's not Pitchers & Catchers. It's Mets Mini-Camp!
One hand is clapping.
The Mets have apparently been doing this in January for six years though I don't remember anything about it before 2005. I only noticed it then because newly signed Carlos Beltran stopped by and stood next to Joe McEwing for a beat on his way to deposit his very large check at his presumably very grateful bank. Super Joe never did get to play with Carlos for keeps, did he?
Ah, mini-camp memories…that's the only one I can conjure, and that only because Jason sent me the picture and suggested about ten different captions. My favorite was “why, yes, you can get me a Pepsi.”
What goes on at mini-camp? Mets caps and t-shirts, occupied by minor leaguers mostly, sprint by in anonymity. The GM mouths platitudes that are both reassuring and unprovable at this stage of winter. David Wright finds something to do with himself (I was worried he might sit still for thirty seconds). Otherwise, I don't get baseball mini-camp. It seems almost insulting to Spring Training.
Oh, Pedro Martinez was on hand. He says he's doing well and I'd like to believe him. I was about to espouse a theory that while the rest of the free world will be contorting itself in fantasies of peeling away Johan Santana or Carlos Zambrano at the deadline, we'll have a tanned, rested and ready Hall of Famer healthily ready to lead us over the hump in August, September and October. But then I remembered I spent much of 2006 in denial every time Pedro hit the DL. I think he's still on it.
Of course believing every veteran pitcher will recover from every rotator cuff is what Spring Training is all about. What precisely mini-camp is for I have little clue.
by Jason Fry on 10 January 2007 5:06 pm Since there’s no law against him driving there, or buying a ticket afterwards, I imagine that’s what some overly friendly local might say this summer, seeing a certain former New York Mets slugger waddling through the parking lot of baseball’s Hall of Fame.
At least that’s the only way Bobby Bonilla is going to Cooperstown. No, he was not elected to the Hall of Fame yesterday, meaning I’m not entering Day Two of my killing spree. (Or, more likely, just Day Two of ranting and raving a lot.) You probably guessed as much yesterday, when New York City didn’t see the rising of a sackcloth moon, the eruption of active volcanoes, or suffer visions of devils skating around in Hell. (The real one, not Met Hell — the Seventh Circle of which is forever occupied by Bobby Bonilla and his slightly older, fatter self.)
But you might have noticed a whiff of brimstone yesterday, and assumed it was just a continuation of whatever the heck was going on the day before, with the talk of natural gas and the mercaptan and what-not.
It wasn’t. I have it on good authority that the brief Tuesday stink was a smidgen of sulphur released from Hades to acknowledge the fact that Bobby Bonilla, that surly, despicable, card-playing embodiment of Met horrors past, somehow got two Hall of Fame votes. Two!
Just stare at this next sentence and turn it over in your mind for a moment.
Two sportswriters voted to enshrine Bobby Bonilla in the Hall of Fame.
Bobby Bonilla. Who swore New York could never wipe the smile off his face, and then proceeded to wipe the smile off Met fans’ faces. Oh, how I hated him then. Oh, how I hate him now. Oh, how I shall hate him with some portion of my final breath.
I was in the stands along with my old pal Chris, aka the Human Fight, when that suety gasbag returned to Shea as a Marlin. There were maybe 20,000 there. Half were the diehards who’d come to Shea in a blizzard; the other half were there to boo Bobby Bo. When the moment finally came, the noise was astonishing — not for its volume (John Rocker, among others, heard far greater) but for the per capita effort. As well as for the utter chaos of it — each person had his or her own idea of what Bobby Bo deserved, and had decided in advance whether to jeer or boo or hiss or howl or scream obscenities, and so all of the above erupted from all points of the stadium at once. It was impressive, but that level of venom isn’t sustainable, and when it died down, Bonilla was still there, at the plate, more or less unperturbed.
He hit a long foul ball down the line, where nobody was sitting, and a fan ran several sections to pick it up — then hurled it onto the field. That was good. But better was what happened after the booing and hissing and insults died away. The crowd lapsed into a surly silence for a bit, found that unsatisfying, and finally got together on a hooting chant.
you SUCK you SUCK you SUCK you SUCK you SUCK you SUCK
It wasn’t particularly loud. In fact, it was a bit resigned as all involved accepted that Bonilla would not be driven from the stadium by malice alone. But it kept going for an impressively long time, until Bonilla’s at-bat finally ended, and the Human Fight turned to me, shook his head, and said, “That was the purest expression of hatred I’ve ever seen.”
Two votes. Amazing. Two more than I expected, or than he deserved. The only way I’d ever vote for Bobby Bonilla for anything would be if we were on the same plane (a horrifying enough thought), it crashed in the mountains, and we had to decide which of the survivors to eat first.
by Jason Fry on 10 January 2007 5:06 pm Since there's no law against him driving there, or buying a ticket afterwards, I imagine that's what some overly friendly local might say this summer, seeing a certain former New York Mets slugger waddling through the parking lot of baseball's Hall of Fame.
At least that's the only way Bobby Bonilla is going to Cooperstown. No, he was not elected to the Hall of Fame yesterday, meaning I'm not entering Day Two of my killing spree. (Or, more likely, just Day Two of ranting and raving a lot.) You probably guessed as much yesterday, when New York City didn't see the rising of a sackcloth moon, the eruption of active volcanoes, or suffer visions of devils skating around in Hell. (The real one, not Met Hell — the Seventh Circle of which is forever occupied by Bobby Bonilla and his slightly older, fatter self.)
But you might have noticed a whiff of brimstone yesterday, and assumed it was just a continuation of whatever the heck was going on the day before, with the talk of natural gas and the mercaptan and what-not.
It wasn't. I have it on good authority that the brief Tuesday stink was a smidgen of sulphur released from Hades to acknowledge the fact that Bobby Bonilla, that surly, despicable, card-playing embodiment of Met horrors past, somehow got two Hall of Fame votes. Two!
Just stare at this next sentence and turn it over in your mind for a moment.
Two sportswriters voted to enshrine Bobby Bonilla in the Hall of Fame.
Bobby Bonilla. Who swore New York could never wipe the smile off his face, and then proceeded to wipe the smile off Met fans' faces. Oh, how I hated him then. Oh, how I hate him now. Oh, how I shall hate him with some portion of my final breath.
I was in the stands along with my old pal Chris, aka the Human Fight, when that suety gasbag returned to Shea as a Marlin. There were maybe 20,000 there. Half were the diehards who'd come to Shea in a blizzard; the other half were there to boo Bobby Bo. When the moment finally came, the noise was astonishing — not for its volume (John Rocker, among others, heard far greater) but for the per capita effort. As well as for the utter chaos of it — each person had his or her own idea of what Bobby Bo deserved, and had decided in advance whether to jeer or boo or hiss or howl or scream obscenities, and so all of the above erupted from all points of the stadium at once. It was impressive, but that level of venom isn't sustainable, and when it died down, Bonilla was still there, at the plate, more or less unperturbed.
He hit a long foul ball down the line, where nobody was sitting, and a fan ran several sections to pick it up — then hurled it onto the field. That was good. But better was what happened after the booing and hissing and insults died away. The crowd lapsed into a surly silence for a bit, found that unsatisfying, and finally got together on a hooting chant.
you SUCK you SUCK you SUCK you SUCK you SUCK you SUCK
It wasn't particularly loud. In fact, it was a bit resigned as all involved accepted that Bonilla would not be driven from the stadium by malice alone. But it kept going for an impressively long time, until Bonilla's at-bat finally ended, and the Human Fight turned to me, shook his head, and said, “That was the purest expression of hatred I've ever seen.”
Two votes. Amazing. Two more than I expected, or than he deserved. The only way I'd ever vote for Bobby Bonilla for anything would be if we were on the same plane (a horrifying enough thought), it crashed in the mountains, and we had to decide which of the survivors to eat first.
by Greg Prince on 9 January 2007 10:19 pm Ripken in. Gwynn in. Gossage close. McGwire nowhere in sight.
Those are the headlines from the 2007 Hall of Fame election. The parochial nuggets are neither Ripken at 98.5% of the vote nor Gwynn at 97.6% matched Tom Seaver’s 98.84% from 1992 (yay!) and that Bobby Bonilla, due presumably to a shaking hand and a pair of misplaced specs, was accidentally checked off on two ballots (wha…?). He trailed former Mets Bret Saberhagen (7) and
Tony Fernandez (4) to say nothing of good sense. None of our new representatives will be on next year’s list, but Bobby Bo will continue to get paid by the Mets into perpetuity, so he can commission his own plaque.
The subtext of the big story is where Ripken and Gwynn played their entire careers: one place. It’s rare enough a situation that no report of their election today, tonight or tomorrow or their induction this summer will go three paragraphs without mentioning each man played for one team and one team only. By implication, this makes them morally superior to cretins like Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield and Bruce Sutter.
I’m as big a sucker for a consistent baseball-card back as anyone. It’s aesthetically pleasing to eyeball one long column of Baltimore (A.L.) or San Diego (N.L.), and it sure cuts down on hours of inane “which cap?” debate. One’s an Oriole. One’s a Padre. That’s that.
But also, so what? Ripken and Gwynn played in an era when they could have moved around had they chosen. They chose not to and/or their teams chose to make it worth their while to stay put. Who’s to say Stan Musial or Joe DiMaggio would have remained with their one and only club had the reserve clause not tethered them to the Cardinals and Yankees? For the right price, DiMaggio could have been the Cleveland Clipper had he been granted the opportunity. Likewise, the winding professional paths of Hank Greenberg, Ralph Kiner, even Babe Ruth demonstrate no immortal is necessarily immune from a management hissyfit.
Or have you forgotten June 15, 1977?
Ripken and Gwynn were one-teamers because it worked for them. Rickey Henderson played for everybody because that’s where the market took Rickey. Before he was deemed damaged goods, Mark McGwire was an Athletic icon. In the midst of his first potentially history-changing season, 1997 (58 homers), he was swapped to St. Louis for T.J. Mathews, Blake Stein and ex-Met farmhand Eric Ludwick. Nobody ever talks about it as one of the world’s worst trades because everybody understood it wasn’t a baseball trade. The A’s couldn’t or wouldn’t afford him in 1998 and beyond, so nobody blinked all that much when a guy who was chasing Roger Maris was dispatched at the end of July.
Player movement works for the players. It’s always worked for the owners. Does it work for the fans?
Didn’t work for us amid the Wednesday Night Massacre when we watched the Franchise get traded for four non-Franchise players. Wasn’t terrific when the best position player the Mets ever produced split for L.A. in November 1990. Never feels right to lose a Seaver or a Strawberry when they’ve always been yours.
On the other hand, was anybody here worried about uniformity of uniform when Pedro Martinez or Carlos Beltran or Billy Wagner took the money to fulfill their lifetime dreams of becoming Mets? As 2006 demonstrated, player movement can add up to very helpful action for any given fan base. It was our turn to benefit last year.
But romanticism for free agentry and its accompanying financial maneuvers will never amount to a hill of Beane. Ripken the Bird and Gwynn the Friar are comforting notions, not just for the Baltimoreans and San Diegans out there. We could count on Gwynn lacerating the Mets (.356) as many as 13 times a year from 1982 through 2001. Because we knew he was dependable, we could rely on Ripken showing up for work all seven games the Mets faced the Orioles in 1997 and 1998, including a spectacularly annoying Friday night result at Camden Yards the first time the two tangled in regular-season play. That feeling was a throwback to the way my New York Giants pals can recite the 65-year-old starting rotations that alighted at the Polo Grounds season after season. I couldn’t tell you who pitched for the Padres in 2003 without really thinking about it.
There hasn’t been a lot of that sort of thing below the superstar level of late. Bagwell just retired, but Biggio’s still an Astro. Smoltz and two guys named Jones are Braves. Elsewhere in the National League? It gets thin from there if you’re looking for diehards, especially within the N.L. East.
How about Marcus Giles? It only seems like he’s been tormenting us from Atlanta forever. He actually came up in April 2001 and had only one disgustingly good season (1.059 OPS in ’04) against us. This offseason he became a Padre. I’m not sorry.
How about Mike Lieberthal? He joined the defending National League champion Phillies in 1994 and was positively Burrellesque versus the Mets in 2000 (1.302 OPS). This offseason he became a Dodger. I’m not sorry.
How about Jose Vidro? He first grazed the Mets fan consciousness his rookie year of 1997 when he and Vladimir Guerrero represented the next wave of Expo rookies who were going to drive us nuts. From Montreal to San Juan to Washington, he has made like a thorn and stuck it to the Mets repeatedly, particularly in 2003 (1.010 OPS). He wasn’t the last National who played home games at the Big O, but there was a decidedly Exponential air about his continued presence with the only organization he ever knew. He knows a new team now. This offseason he became a Mariner. I’m not sorry.
Giles, Lieberthal and Vidro were not Gwynn, Ripken or Musial. You didn’t tip your cap to them. You didn’t give them an appreciative hand upon their first at-bats. But they were intrinsic to the Met fabric — the underside of the quilt, to be sure, but they were here, too. They were staples of the Braves, the Phillies and the Expos/Nationals. For whatever reason, the forces of baseball nature have acted as staple removers where they’re concerned.
Meanwhile, what of us? What of our Gwynns, our Ripkens? Not talking about a Hall of Famer like Tom Seaver or a what-have-might-have-beener like Darryl Strawberry. Rather, who wore the blue and orange from Day One to Day Last?
Not many.
I don’t think I’m breaking any exclusives here when I tell you the Met who was only a Met longer than anybody else was Ed Kranepool. Ed Kranepool came up a Met in September 1962 and retired — not particularly willingly — a Met in September 1979. That’s 18 seasons or season fragments as nothin’ but Met. It will take uncommon durability and supernatural mutual loyalty for us to see that aspect of the record breached in 2021 or ’22 by the only living Mets we can imagine doing that. (More on them in a sec.)
Ed Kranepool played 1,853 games as a Met and zero as anything else. He’s first forever until further notice. Who’s second? It shouldn’t come as a galloping shock that it’s Ron Hodges, the Woody Allen (“Eighty percent of success is showing up”) of the Mets from 1973 through 1984. Hodges put in 14 seasons and played in 666 games as a careerlong Met. Only once, in 1982, did he make it into more than half his team’s contests. Ron Hodges may not have come to play, but he sure as shootin’ showed up.
Among those deemed the One Hundred Greatest Mets of the First Forty Years, Kranepool (No. 10) and Hodges (No. 79) are the only entries to have avoided the lure of enemy logos. That means 98% of our elite corps were something else altogether for at least a while. Seaver was three other things, Hernandez two; Piazza’s working on his fourth this spring. Even the most emblematic Met of them all, spiritually speaking, Marvelous Marv Throneberry, earned hashmarks as an Oriole, an Athletic and, gasp!, a Yankee.
All told, an even 100 Mets have been only Mets, accounting for 12.5% of the all-time roster. That’s a bit misleading because it includes active Mets who have yet to play for other teams. It includes Heath Bell who has been dealt to San Diego since the end of 2006. It includes Victor Diaz who was sent to Texas last August and finished the year in the minors. It includes Aaron Heilman who is continually mentioned as trade bait.
But Aaron Heilman, who debuted in 2003, has already pitched in more games as a Met than anybody whose career excluded the other 29 other franchises save for two arms: Jeff Innis and Bob Apodaca.
Jeff Innis? Bob Apodaca? Aaron Heilman? No offense to any of them, particularly Heilman given his solid seventh- and eighth-inning work last year, but really? For all the pitching greats cultivated on the mounds of Jacksonville and Tidewater, these have been the most enduring? Jeff Innis’ 288 games between 1987 and 1993 positively dwarf Apodaca’s total of 184 (curtailed by an injury in March of ’78). Heilman at 146 is ahead of — and you’re not going to believe this — Pedro Feliciano in fourth place.
PEDRO FELICIANO IN FOURTH PLACE?
Again, no disrespect. This Pedro was absolutely enduring in 2006. But we traded him to Cincinnati once and he came back. He bounced to Detroit and he came back. He was in Japan and he came back. Somehow Feliciano has missed pitching a single inning at the Major League level for anybody except the Mets.
Go figure.
In case you’re wondering, Heilman’s and Feliciano’s workhorse loads last year vaulted them each past the pitcher who had been in third place among all only-Mets pitchers through 2005, Rick Baldwin.
RICK BALDWIN?
What to make of this? We who grew Seaver, Koosman, Ryan and McGraw in time for 1969 held onto none of them but managed a death grip on Jeff Innis, Bob Apodaca, Rick Baldwin and, for that matter, Bob Myrick. Those are the four leading retired pitchers who were Mets and nothing else…the four horsemen who stared in the face of the apocalypse of unfettered player movement and remained forever unmoved.
Who knew?
As for position players, we’ve already mentioned Kranepool and Hodges. Who trails them? Jose Reyes is third with 436 games. David Wright is fifth with 383 games. Let’s hope they are still on this list in 15 or 20 years and that they have left the esteemed Mr. Kranepool and Mr. Hodges in the dust.
The odds aren’t promising, but let’s try to imagine their current long-term contracts merit renewal and renewal and renewal again.
Meanwhile, who’s in fourth? Who is wedged between Mr. Reyes and Mr. Wright as a Met to the core?
Go ahead. Guess.
Nope.
Not him either.
Give it another shot.
Sorry. The answer…the player who played more games in his definitively completed career as only a Met than any other player in Met history besides Ed Kranepool and Ron Hodges is…
Bruce Boisclair.
After Rick Baldwin and Bob Myrick, this isn’t a stunner. But still. Bruce Boisclair?
Sure. Why not? As Mets By The Numbers nailed it, “For some reason, Bruce Boisclair is one of those bit players whom Met fans remember vividly.” Indeed, Ultimate Mets Database has elicited nearly 70 Bruce Boisclair remembrances — nearly as many recollections of him as career RBI by him. That’s a lot of recall for someone who was never more than a fourth outfielder on a series of lousy teams. Bruce Boisclair apparently stayed with us in more ways than one.
I can envision Bruce in the mind’s eye, too. The hair is flowing. The frame is lean. The number is 4 (drilled into memory by the Mets being so cheap on Old Timers Day 1979 that they lent their ’69 returnees current players’ tops and Swoboda ripped the tape off the back of the one he was issued and wore a uniform that said BOISCLAIR). I remember being a little carried away by Bruce Boisclair flirting with .300 in 1976. I could even summon in my head the walkoff hit I stumbled across on Retrosheet last week when I was looking for an episode of Mets-Gerald Ford synergy. I also remember slowly settling into a morass of disappointment that Bruce Boisclair never blossomed into Al Oliver. But in an era of deep disappointment, who would blame Bruce Boisclair for more than a fraction of the prevailing malaise?
Nevertheless, within a franchise that promoted Darryl Strawberry, Edgardo Alfonzo and Cleon Jones from its minor league ranks, what does it say that the homegrown Mets who stuck around forever the longest for certain are Ed Kranepool, Ron Hodges and Bruce Boisclair?
I’m not sure I want to know.
The entire list of exclusive Mets is available via Baseball Reference‘s Frivolities feature.
And a worthy alternative countdown of the “Top 50 Mets of All-Time” is underway at Eric Simon’s Amazin’ Avenue. He’s up to his No. 44, someone who was No. 22 on our 2005 countdown and, like Boisclair and Swoboda, will always own a piece of No. 4 in Met numerical lore.
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