Hey, a trade: Brian Bannister for Ambiorix Burgos.

You know, Ambiorix Burgos. Yes, that Ambiorix Burgos. From the Royals.

What? Not up to speed on Kansas City's erstwhile closer? Me neither. Closer for the Royals is the baseball equivalent of Maytag repairman. And no, I can't pronounce it either — hard to believe he couldn't fit in on a team with Grudzielanek and Mientkiewicz.

Let's see…he's young, he throws hard, he's prone to wildness…in a bullpen that could use a little boost, he'll do. We'll see what Ambiorix Burgos does under the jacketed wing of Rick Peterson, away from the pressure of ninth innings and removed from the serenity of western Missouri. Until he lets in a run, couldn't hurt.

As for the other tradee, fate wasn't Brian Bannister's friend, at least not a dependable one. The Mets were just short enough on starting last spring so that he could emerge from the pack and win a slot. They scored (and he battled) just enough for him to keep him from losing. And he hit just enough to screw up his season. He never made it to May. The way he squirmed in and out of trouble, it's hard to imagine he would have made it to June unscathed.

Alas, he got hurt and, except for a couple of cameos late, fell out of the team picture by the time we clinched. When future triviots ask each other to name the 13 starting pitchers employed by the Mets in their division championship season of 2006, Brian Bannister will be a name you remember because you remember it or you completely forget after coming up with “Lima…Gonzalez…and, oh, whatshisname, that other one, the one who doubled and pulled his hamstring in San Francisco, he flirted with a no-hitter his first start, walked a lot of guys…yeah that's it! How many is that? Only twelve? Who am I forgetting?”

With Pelfrey, Humber and Perez loosening up, Bannister is the starter we could afford to trade for a 22-year-old, 98 miles-per-hour reliever, even if it's sad to lose a Cyclone. May an unexpected thrill ride await him in K.C.

Last year, according to the company Web site, Citigroup, its subsidiaries and its foundation gave more than $126 million to philanthropic causes worldwide. Even though a corporate name on the Mets ballpark strikes some of us as not quite kosher, I thought it was worth pointing that out.

There are also a few things worth mentioning about another name attached to another Mets ballpark.

Bill Shea liked to laugh and tell the story of how he overheard two guys wondering who this Shea fellow was and why they named a stadium for him. One has no idea. The other suddenly remembers.

“Shea? I think he died in the first world war.”

Given his relatively low profile among the public at large, the Shea presence in the Shea spotlight boiled down to an annual appearance. From 1964 through 1991, Bill Shea greeted every home opener by presenting a good-luck horseshoe of flowers to the Mets’ manager. After his passing, members of his family maintained the floral tradition. There’s always been a Shea at home plate to start the season. One hopes there always will be…and, as previously suggested, that Citi Field sit at the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Bill Shea Way.

(Incidentally, June 21, 2007 will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of William Alfred Shea. Renaming a slice of 126th Street for him wouldn’t be a bad way to mark the occasion.)

We usually get only the shorthand version of why the old ballpark was named for him: He was the lawyer who helped New York get a team after it lost two; next thing you know, Shea Stadium.

There’s a little more to it and him than that. Peter Golenbock’s Amazin’ (admittedly a rather weak attempt at an oral history of the franchise’s first four decades in most respects) contains several excellent interviews with people who knew Bill Shea. I wanted to share a bit of what I learned there.

• Shea was a protégé of George McLaughlin, the banker whose Brooklyn Trust Company long ran the Brooklyn Dodgers. McLaughlin had installed Walter O’Malley to oversee business operations in 1933 and, Dodger fan that he was, ultimately felt personally betrayed by O’Malley moving the club to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

• Shea was a friend and informal advisor to politicians from both parties, including New York City Mayor Robert Wagner. Wagner tasked Shea with leading a committee that would find a replacement for the Dodgers and Giants. After putting out unsuccessful relocation feelers to existing National League teams, Shea turned his energies to expansion.

• When rebuffed by baseball — “we don’t need New York,” huffed N.L. president Warren Giles — Shea concocted the Continental League, a third major league that would conceivably compete with the National and American for players and profits. It would play in New York as well as markets left out of big-time baseball to date.

• McLaughlin, who remained an upper-echelon power broker in New York, brought Shea together with Branch Rickey (another of his old Dodger hires) to give the Continental League scheme some oomph among baseball men. It was the threat of this new league and all its implications for baseball’s antitrust exemption that shoved the sport’s recalcitrant establishment to agree to expand.

• Shea’s trump card was attracting serious investors in markets like Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth for the Continental. Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth are in Texas, home to Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and House Speaker Samuel Rayburn. They absolutely ran Congress and would not look kindly on a sport/business that arbitrarily blocked Texas from making the majors.

It was an intricate plan, but it worked essentially as Shea wanted it to. Baseball caved. You know we don’t play in the Continental League and you know we entered the National League — along with Houston — in 1962, less than five years after millions of New Yorkers were left baseball-barren presumably forever.

We take it for granted today, but it was the first miracle in Mets history. In executing this catch of an expansion franchise for a city whose National League roots stretched back to the circuit’s founding in 1876 yet were unconscionably severed in 1957, Bill Shea played the role of Endy Chavez, Tommie Agee and Ron Swoboda combined. It was one of the best plays anybody had ever seen.

As for the stadium and what it’s been called since the day its gates opened, Kevin McGrath, an associate of Bill Shea’s, told Golenbock the idea can be traced publicly to Tom Deegan, publicity man for the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. He floated the then-irreverent idea of naming the structure for a living person; undertook a postcard campaign to demonstrate widespread enthusiasm; and brought Mayor Wagner on board. Shea Stadium gained momentum and Shea Stadium it would be.

Except, according to McGrath, it wasn’t Deegan’s doing, not at heart. There was another man behind the scenes, a cloutful commissioner on the Triborough who appreciated more than anybody else what Bill Shea did to reverse the curse laid on New York baseball by Walter O’Malley. It was the same man who felt responsible for placing O’Malley in a position to take away his favorite team in the first place.

It was Bill Shea’s mentor from the 1930s, George McLaughlin.

With the honor of having his name attached to a brand new ballpark came a responsibility. Though he didn’t advertise it, Bill Shea was known in certain circles as an extraordinarily charitable man. Those who relied on his generosity — including many religious, educational and residential institutions — called on him for donations of tickets to see the Mets at Shea Stadium. They automatically assumed he owned the joint. Never correcting their misconceptions, he enthusiastically agreed to purchase thousands upon thousands of Mets tickets for underprivileged kids over the years.

Shea attached a non-negotiable condition: Each boy and girl would have to be handed not just a ticket, but an envelope with a few bucks — the amount rose as prices did — so he or she could buy food and drink at the game. Though he had become an immensely successful attorney with friends at every precinct of power in the city, the state and the nation’s capital, he never forgot what it felt like to sneak into Ebbets Field as a child but have no money for peanuts, Cracker Jack or anything. Bill Shea never wanted another kid to feel like he or she wasn’t experiencing everything there was to experience about going to a baseball game. The groups asked for tickets. Shea sent them tickets and checks. Never put out a press release about it either.

Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning a few things about that name.

I know of a guy who’s got a lovely wife and a couple of fine kids. He was supposed to be on his way home to them, but he was in a pickle of a limbo of a quandary: Should I get on back to the missus and my children or should I go live with Heidi Klum? His family needed him and he needed his family, but Heidi Klum greatly appealed to him on a certain level.

Somewhere along the way, the guy noticed one little hitch. Heidi Klum hadn’t made him an offer. So he stuck with the wife and kids.

Not to insinuate the Atlanta Braves are the supermodel of the National League East (not anymore they’re not), but geez that’s what Tom Glavine reminded me of the last few weeks. “Mets or Braves? Braves or Mets? With whom should I sign?”

Uh, Tom? Choose the Mets…they’re the only ones who are choosing you.

So it’s come to pass that Tom Glavine weighed the offers between the Mets — a ton of money and every detail, save geography, the way he wanted it — and the Braves — no contract whatsoever — and figured out he should remain a Met.

Everybody says Tom Glavine’s a real smart cookie. I have to agree. He signed with the only team that showed any inclination to sign him. Way to go, professor.

No hard feelings for the delay. Seriously. I never understand why fans and media get sore at players for taking their time. If I was sorting out offers (or in Tom’s case, offer), I wouldn’t want to be rushed to a decision just to rescue a bored public from another day of Michael Strahan vs. Plaxico Burress vs. ESPN. Glavine said he’d let the Mets know before the Winter Meetings and he did. Good. Glad to know we have at least one future Hall of Famer’s services to bank on from the start in ’07.

And that the Glavines won’t go hungry, wherever they live.

***

The next move is toward Barry Zito. Not a bad idea, I suppose. The enthusiasm is a bit lacking here partly because there will be an inevitable breaking-in period (there always is) and a staff of Glavine, Duque and Zito means fewer starts for the young’uns. Of course Zito’s not so old and Duque’s not impervious to overall body soreness or whatever it was that befell him last August. I know it is assumed American League pitchers transfer to the National League and throw three shutouts a week — because with Pujols, Howard, Berkman, Soriano, et al batting, there is no offense of which to speak in these parts. But has Zito been setting the A.L. on fire since his ’02 Cy Young? Not really. He’s better than what we had for much of last year, but I wouldn’t be totally opposed to seeing Perez and Maine and Pelfrey, to name three, get the ball a lot next year and watch the chips pile up or fall where they may.

I place the current Zito bakeoff in the same box as the pursuit of Wagner last winter. If we get the prize pitcher, great. If we don’t bag him, we do have options. Maybe I’m just cushioning myself for the potential blow of not winning him. I’m almost curious to see what Omar will whip up in case the Trib (or whoever owns the Cubs next) decides to write more and bigger checks.

***

I love a splashy free agent signing as much as the next Mets fan, but in the spirit of milestone anniversaries, I’m more than a little bit haunted by Decembers past, particularly those of five and fifteen years ago. You remember December 2001, don’t you? We signed everybody who was signable and traded for everybody who wasn’t tradeable to anybody else. In this, the era of good feeling, I shudder to mention the names (Alomar, Vaughn…) that we all thought were going to turn 2002 into chicken salad. Likewise, there was a stretch back there in December 1991 when we were on top of the world. More eventual unmentionables (Bonilla, Saberhagen…) were stalked and savored by our front office. It all seemed so promising.

Yeah, December isn’t the kindest month in Mets history. Staying on the milestone-anniversary track, twenty years ago this month, we traded Kevin Mitchell and showed the door to Ray Knight. Thirty-five years ago, we traded Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi.

We traded Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi.

It hasn’t been all bad. The Mets’ very first December, 1961, yielded the Mets’ very first All-Star, Richie Ashburn. Future world champion Don Cardwell arrived in December 1966. Ten years ago, quiet transactions yielded mum John Olerud and loud Todd Pratt.

We traded Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi.

***

Past isn’t necessarily prologue, but December is my most ambivalent month. I was born in December. It’s my look-back-in-reflection time. It’s also when I’ve found myself as often as not wishing to run out the clock and get this year, whatever the year, behind me because of whatever disappointments arose between January and November. Next year…next year.

Given our prevailing baseball winds, I’m reluctant to turn the page, let alone replace one Bill Goff calendar with another. I love the 2006 Mets even if they don’t quite exist anymore, not without Chad Bradford (three years?). After having luxuriated in the way we built a 97-65 record, we’ll be 0-0 in four months, which kind of sucks when you got used to being way ahead of four other teams for six months. 2006 was the first year when I could and would spout snide about the Atlanta Braves again and again without repercussion. I don’t want to not be able to do that, y’know?

***

You’re smart and you’re funny, you have a great attitude. You do everything on your own terms. You’re, like, from a cooler world.

—Tom breaking up with Jane on Daria

One item that makes this December different from others in recent memory is a change to the arbitration rules. In past Decembers, those Mets not offered arbitration by midnight last night were good as gone. The governing clauses have grown arcane but the newly printed bottom line is you can still negotiate with your free agents to whom you don’t offer arbitration. Doesn’t mean you’re going to sign them. It just means you can.

If you haven’t, though, it’s presumably a kissoff for the immediate future. The Mets have opted to offer arbitration to Guillermo Mota (curious — won’t be back for 50 games plus not likely to be welcomed warmly…unless he’s really good) and Roberto Hernandez (futile — he’s allegedly all but gone to the Indians, but at least we receive a draft pick). The Mets did not offer arbitration to Chris Woodward or Darren Oliver or Steve Trachsel, three players whose past contributions and liabilities will probably be approximated by similar 2007 models to be named.

To no one’s surprise, Cliff Floyd also went wanting for an arbitration offer. His contributions have been immeasurable, and when he signs elsewhere as is universally expected, we will miss him more than we can possibly realize.

Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.

—Jules Winnfield, citing Ezekiel 25:17 in Pulp Fiction

In a warmer world, Cliff Floyd remains a Met because he should. He doesn’t start in front of Moises Alou, but something is figured out. He’s a latter-day Joe Orsulak as a fourth outfielder or some variation of Rusty Staub as a pinch-hitter deluxe. He reacquaints himself with first base. He takes fly balls in right just in case. He signs an incentive-packed pact. He heals like he did two years ago when Willie Randolph famously “challenged” him to stay in the lineup. Less pressure, less money, some room to grow into the role of elder statesman slugger with portfolio.

We’ve got elders and statesmen to burn and we have sluggers, too, but if you don’t have Cliff Floyd on the Mets, you don’t have Cliff Floyd on the Mets. It’s hard to imagine a very good team gets better by subtracting him. But a very good team will attempt to do just that.

This sort of thing happens all the time. Guys who are a great fit on a team don’t fit into that team’s plans. Cliff may or may not get healthy. He may find a spot somewhere that will allow him some flexibility to recover to everyday status. He may happily revert to the 2005 Monsta version of himself and make the Mets look shortsighted in letting him go. He may nurture some one-slugger-short squad right past the Mets. Or Floyd ’07 resembles Floyd ’06 and our Alou-enhanced lineup won’t miss a beat without him.

Either way, it’s neither a warm enough world or a cool enough world, certainly not in the cool-as-Cliff sense.

Cliff Floyd shepherded several of our Mets through the valley of darkness.

Cliff Floyd has been his brother’s keeper.

Cliff Floyd’s wallet is the one that says Bad Motherfucker on it.

Cliff Floyd won’t be a Met next year.

It’s December.

It’s a damn cold night.

I don't care how much they're paying us or how much icier the easily imagined alternatives are. Citi Field will be born from original sin. Spell it with a space, pronounce it with a pause, cite all the precedent you can and rationalize all the benefits you like. The fact is we'll be playing in a ballpark bearing the mark of corporate sellout. It's a sin to the sensibilities of every true blue and orange baseball fan.
To every Metsopotamian who says, “I don't care what it's called, just give me a winner,” you've got to be kidding. You will care. That's your new home. To every Metsopotamian who says, “I'll just keep calling it Shea,” you've got to be kidding. There's only one Shea Stadium. To pretend you can transfer identities between two very different buildings the way you transfer a payment from your money market to your Visa is delusional. Shea is Shea. Citi will be Citi. Let's not confuse them.
As these are done deals all around, our next task is not to throw ourselves in front of the bulldozers or preach against the sin of corporate namesmanship, but rather to offer the unborn park near-immediate absolution.
No Sheadenfreude here, old-guarders. We need this Citi thing to work for us.
Right now, as planned, Citi Field is essentially a nice pile of bricks. It's got to have more than bricks. It's got to have a soul. Twenty million bucks does not buy you a soul. But there is, I believe, a soul-ution.
Homecoming Weekend 2009.
You can't have a future without a past…your own past. So let's link what's come before with what will come later. Citi Field does not get a clean slate or a blank check. It has to reflect where the Mets came from, spiritually and geographically. That's why we have Homecoming Weekend in 2009.
This is a high school and college conceit, one I picked off from my new favorite prime time drama, Friday Night Lights. It is when your alumni come home and your heroes reappear and your tradition springs to life. It's more than an Old Timers Day. It's a vital nod to who you've been and who you are and who you hope to be.
Citi Field requires an injection of soul right off the bat. Any new park would, but one whose only clear references are to somebody else's favorite childhood team and a financial conglomerate really needs the help.
Wider concourses, increased leg room, pretzels baked the same day they're sold…that's all great, but going to a Mets game is more than that. It's looking around and knowing somethin' Amazin' happened right over there. It's saying I was here when that happened. It's passing it on and paying it forward.
Performance is, as ever, an unknown variable (though a no-hitter on Opening Day would be nice). Hence, it will be a long time before there's much beyond the novelty of the new to associate with Citi Field. Until there is, we've got to imbue it with as much Mets, the Mets we've known, as we can. And it's up to the Mets to make the first, second and third moves. Management must thread the present of 2009 and whatever future it holds to the glorious, yes I said glorious, past from next door. I don't mean flooding the bathrooms and creating wind tunnels. I mean you make damn sure that when you pack up all the history in 2008 that you don't just leave it in crates and forget about it.
The Mets do that too much already.
Some of us who haven't kissed the Citi stone with gusto (reportedly some have) owe our reticence not to Citi sponsorship or Shea nostalgia or retro recycling. Many Mets fans simply find themselves overDodgered by what they've seen to date. You won't find a single human being of any value who doesn't revere Jackie Robinson. I doubt too many people have a problem with him getting the rotunda. I sure don't. And if you're going to crib a classic design, you could do worse than Ebbets. But by the time this baby is delivered, the New York Mets will have put up a pretty impressive history of their own. 2009 will be the 48th season of Metropolitan operation. The Brooklyn Dodgers' 48th season was 1937. Do you think those Dodgers felt the need to genuflect daily and broadly before their 19th-century American Association ancestors by then?
While a nod to the Dodgers (and Giants…hello?) is not out of line, Citi Field needs to be Met territory. It needs to be Met territory as soon as it can be. That's where Homecoming Weekend 2009 — a three-day series of celebrations commemorating a trio of conveniently occurring Met milestones — sets things right. Some of what needs to be done will be due. Some of it is already overdue. All of it will be utterly Amazin', which is not a bad thing to be if you're planning on being home to the Amazin', Amazin', Amazin' Mets.
Homecoming Weekend 2009.
Clear eyes.
Full hearts.
Can't lose.
Friday Night Lights. In his rookie season, Dwight Gooden lit up Shea Stadium like nobody before or since. If there was one night that was truly his, it was Friday: Five home starts, five earned runs in 41 innings with 51 strikeouts. Dr. K operated at his best at the end of the week, so it's appropriate to kick off Homecoming Weekend with the return home of Dwight Gooden, three years clean and sober, on the 25th anniversary of his debut year to induct the franchise's second-greatest pitcher ever into the William A. Shea New York Mets Hall of Fame and National League Museum — known as Shea for short — an institution that will celebrate the rich heritage of the Mets, the Giants, the Dodgers, the Cubans, the Bushwicks, the Bridegrooms and almost every team that made a mark on Big Apple baseball (almost). “Shea” enjoys its grand opening tonight. It will be open year-round and be easy to find since the mayor has signed a bill that redubs 126th Street between Roosevelt Avenue and Northern Boulevard Bill Shea Way. Doc, after acknowledging the tough road back and thanking the fans for sticking by him after all this time, cuts the ceremonial ribbon with a scalpel. A strikeout tally board is installed in left field and officially dubbed the Doctor K Korner. Joining Doc in the Mets' first induction class since Tommie Agee in 2002 will be his first manager, Davey Johnson, marking his own quarter-century anniversary. He thanks Doc for making his first big managerial decision in 1984 — whether to add “the best pitcher I ever saw” to his rotation despite his tender age — an easy one. Following 1997 inductee Keith Hernandez's presentation of plaques to Doc and Davey, Omar Minaya assures all that the Shea Hall of Fame Induction will be an annual Citi Field tradition. “The Mets have a great history,” he says, “and we're going to make sure we show it off even as we continue to make new history.”
Saturday In The Park. Was there ever a more exciting moment that didn't involve playing than when a certain No. 31 emerged from the home dugout at Shea Stadium on a Saturday afternoon in May 1998? Mike Piazza's debut was so exciting that Mets fans voted it the eighth-greatest moment in team history. It will be an exciting Saturday when Mike Piazza emerges from the home dugout at Citi Field to see No. 31 become the first number since Jackie Robinson's 42 in 1997 — and the first Met number since Tom Seaver's 41 in 1988 — officially retired by the club. The occasion meshes nicely with the 10th anniversary of the most exciting season of Piazza's tenure, 1999, so it's also a good chance to reunite that particular Wild Card edition of Mike's Mets. By now, just about everybody from '99 is also retired, so just about everybody can make it back. And they do. Rickey Henderson takes his time emerging. Al Leiter waves a little longer than everybody else. Bobby V flies in from Japan and dons the mustache and glasses. The greatest defensive infield ever trots out to their positions together, though Todd Pratt tackles Robin Ventura before he can get anywhere near third. Mike himself thanks John Franco for “loaning” him 31 and “borrowing” 45 and returns the favor by calling the crowd's attention to the newly dubbed McGraw-Franco Mets Bullpen in right. It's not far from the spot on the right field wall where five numbers are posted now and forever. (Dozens of fans scattered throughout Citi sport updated Faith and Fear t-shirts while dozens of others opt for their worn 2006 models.)
Beautiful Sunday. The Met everybody flocked to Shea to see on any day he pitched will now be the Met everybody sees when they flock to Citi every day of the week. As part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the 1969 world championship, the CitiVision board takes us live to Stengel-Hodges Plaza, directly outside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, where a parade of celebrants — Koosman, Grote, Kranepool, Jones — pulls the tarp from the first statue ever commissioned by the Mets to honor a Met. It's a larger-than-life likeness of none other than The Franchise himself, Tom Seaver. When we go to games, we can meet by The Knee…the lovingly sculpted joint with the trademark splotch of dirt that Seaver absorbed every time he went into that perfect motion. As his teammates file back into Citi Field, Fred Wilpon presents Seaver with a scaled-down model of the sculpture that will greet every Met fan before every game. Seaver, rarely at a loss for words, is genuinely humbled as he speaks from the mound: “I never pitched here, obviously, but to know I'll be a part of this great new ballpark means a great deal to me.” He only wishes, he says, his teammates Tommie and Tug and Donn and his pitching coach and his manager could see “that awesome statue and this marvelous place,” but as long as he's out there, forever pitching in bronze, “all of us from '69 will be a part of this.”
Tom concludes his remarks and joins every living 1969 champ to ride in a stream of vintage Plymouths around the warning track. An impromptu ticker-tape parade breaks out. The cars depart through the centerfield gate, the grounds crew comes out to clean up the shredded paper and a black cat roams in front of the third base dugout. Way up in the Darryl Deck, somebody pulls out a handkerchief and cries “Goodbye Leo!”
Not everybody gets it, but those who do have a good laugh and share what it means. That's what you do at Citi Field.

News of Pat Dobson's death Wednesday night reminds us that there was a team 35 years ago that featured four starters who each won 20 games, only the second time such a conglomeration occurred. The 1971 Orioles could call on Dave McNally (21-5), Mike Cuellar (20-9), Jim Palmer (20-9) and Dobson (20-8) and be almost equally pleased every time they did. The way each man won his 20th was like something out of another Baltimore pastime, duckpin bowling. McNally knocked down No. 20 on September 21, Cuellar and Dobson picked up their spares in respective ends of a September 24 doubleheader and Palmer rolled his 20th on the 26th.
The '71 Orioles were the third straight spectacular regular-season Orioles club to dominate the American League: 109 wins in '69, 108 wins in '70, a measly 101 wins thereafter. Each division title was a breeze, each ALCS was a sweep (World Series were something else, heh-heh). Dobson, previously a journeyman with the Tigers and Padres, benefited from the coaching wisdom of Bamberger and the hitting and fielding prowess of Brooks, Boog, Buford, Blair, Belanger and assorted killer Birds. July in particular was quite a month for him. He started eight games, he won eight games, he completed eight games.
Who starts eight games in a month anymore? Who wins eight games in two months anymore? For goodness sake, who completes eight games in two years anymore? The CGs alone bring a “you and what army?” aspect to the mound. In 2006, only two Major League STAFFS (Cleveland and Cincinnati) exceeded for the year what Dobson accomplished in that one magical month vis-à-vis finishing what one starts.
By 1971, Palmer was en route to the Hall of Fame, Cuellar had a Cy Young in the bank and McNally was an established stud. It was Pat Dobson who turned the Orioles into historymakers, matching the 1920 White Sox (Cicotte, Williams, Faber, Kerr) in the category of outstanding quartets. It is why, quite frankly, I remembered him yesterday when I read he had passed.
At the risk of being crass, do we need to write an obituary for the 20-win season as well? Or would we be too late in paying it tribute?
You may have noticed 2006 came and went with no pitcher gaining 20 wins. Johan Santana and Chien-Ming Wang led the American League with 19. Nobody led the National League at all…not really. The most wins here in Pitching & Defense Land was 16, a milestone so pale it seems insulting to the concept of leading the league to specify which six pitchers reached it.
Now and then, 20-game winners are at a premium. In fact the N.L. hasn't had more than four in any one year since 1977. That speaks to the elite nature of winning 20. Is it possible that nobody's even close to elite anymore? Now and then, one league or another misses 20, but the National League is usually good for a 19- or 18-game winner. This year, if you had a pitcher and 17, you lost.
In the Age of Dobson, 20-game winners were everywhere. The four Orioles were joined by six other American Leaguers…TEN 20-game winners in one league TWO years before the DH eliminated the need to take starters out of close contests for offense. Come 1973, a full dozen American League pitchers racked up 20 wins and only a couple of them were Jim Palmer or Catfish Hunter. If you're not a nut about knowing them, I wouldn't be surprised if you told me you've never heard of Joe Coleman or Paul Splittorff or Jim Colborn (or, honestly, Pat Dobson). They were all A.L. 20-game winners back in the day.
On this day, nobody's a 20-game winner. In the three seasons previous to 2006, only four National Leaguers won 20, including Roy Oswalt twice. He's the only N.L. starter in his prime to have multiple 20s on his ledger.
Geez. What happened?
Well, it's not like there's not good pitching somewhere. Santana, for example, is pretty decent. He got to his 19th win on the final Tuesday of the season, putting him in line for a chance at a 20th win on the last Sunday. Ah, but there was a playoff for which to prepare. Why waste a lot of energy getting to 20 when there was something more important at stake?
For that matter, is 20 wins important? As a round number, absolutely. We love that stuff. Always have: Jerry Koosman merited the cover of the 1977 yearbook (first edition) for winning 20. Always will: I considered it marvelous that Willie Randolph sat Jose Reyes to protect his .300 average at the very end in Washington. Yet when the Mets won 97 games, were you picking apart the Ws and bemoaning Glavine's and (if you'll excuse the expression) Trachsel's failure to top 15 victories? Would you rather marvel at the anomaly of Steve Carlton in 1972 (27 wins on the 59-win Phillies) or watch Wright and Reyes exchange funny handshakes 97 times?
You shouldn't have to choose. The '69 Mets won 100 and Seaver won 25, good news all around. In 1971, the same season that Dobson was contributing to an epic accomplishment, Tom Terrific chalked up 20 wins himself, nailing down his final W on the season's final night and putting a bow on his greatest season: 1.76 ERA, 289 K's, a run-starved 20-10. Would have Seaver not had his greatest season had the Mets not bothered to score for him his last start 35 years ago? No, but from here, that 20 looks so much better than a 19.
The '90 Mets won 91, led by Frank Viola's 20, the last time of eight we enjoyed so many victories from one pitcher. That was 16 going on 17 years ago. The Mets haven't had a 19- or 18-game winner since then. Al Leiter won 17 in 1998, the most in the post-20 period. Nobody else has accumulated more than 16.
Why? You probably know why.
• Five-man rotations, foresightfully deployed by Gil Hodges and Rube Walker, became the norm, cutting down on starts per pitcher, cutting back on the opportunity to win 20. Hell, six-man rotations sneak in now and then.
• Pitch counts are part of the boxscore never mind the gameplan. Throw a lot of pitches early, you're not going the requisite five to be in position to win. Throw a lot of pitches early and you're probably not going to be in a position to win regardless, but 35 years ago, who was counting?
• Pitching staffs are routinely 12 men (if not 12 men strong). Relief is not a punishment, it's a specialty, one that is handsomely rewarded at this time of year. If you're paying a setup man exponentially more than you ever paid Mike Cuellar, you're using him, decisions be damned.
• Dude, everybody's handsomely rewarded at this time of year. Except for old goats with their eyes on a transcendent prize, few are seriously counting individual wins. Nobody's going to kill himself to get to 20, playoffs or no playoffs. Anybody who manages 19 wins these days is going to be compensated like a 30-game winner used to be anyhow.
Statlovers that we are, we also realize wins are as much luck as skill, the stuff of right place meeting right time. Maybe W's need to be issued those t-shirts that read PROPERTY OF NEW YORK METS. Tom Glavine driving to 300 helps (helped?) the greater good, but when he's undermined by circumstance and “his” win winds up as Pedro Felicano's, does it matter for more than a minute to us? Now that he's at 290, it would be sweet to see him get there in a Met uniform, but it's sweet to see any Met win anytime. It means our team won.
Quick, what pitcher was the difference between the Mets advancing to the World Series and the Mets going home a tad too soon? No not Trachsel; it was Jeff Suppan. Jeff Suppan beat the Mets in Game Seven but good. Except Jeff Suppan technically did not beat the Mets. Oh, he was the man, no bleeping question about it, but he exited in the eighth for Randy Flores who was the pitcher of record when Yadier Molina…you know.
That said, 16-going-on-17 seasons is a long-ass time. It's not the worst National League stretch going by any means — only eight N.L. teams have had as many as one 20-game winner since 1990. The Dodgers, the hallowed House of Koufax, Drysdale, Valenzuela and Hershiser if you can believe it, have gone just as dry. Hence, there's no real shame in any of this. Still when Reyes triples more often than any single pitcher wins two years in a row, I have a hunch we've got a legitimate drought on our hands.
So what gets here ahead of the other: the first Met no-hitter or the next Met 20-game winner? If current trends prevail, bet on neither.