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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 11 September 2006 1:04 am “If we’d had 5 decent starters, his ass would have been out of here 4 years ago!”
Thus spake a disgusted Joe in the midst of Sunday afternoon’s Trachselization. When Joe has the clearest vision among 45,000 disgruntled Mets fans (and probably 3,000 jerks who haven’t heard the Dodgers don’t play one borough over anymore), surely it’s time for action.
Stevie Shoelaces untied my 5-game winning streak and slapped me right back under .500 for the year, 24 hours after I climbed back to break-even for the first time since 0-0; Joe and I are 0-4 together…and outscored, he looked up, 38-10 on our weekend ventures. But I’ll happily — ecstatically — accept a lackluster 8-9 mark for myself for now if it means this day was not in vain. It is my fondest hope that Steve Trachsel’s 3rd-inning exit, down 0-4 with loaded bases bequeathed to Royce Ring, punched his ticket out of the rotation for the playoffs. If I can legitimately claim I witnessed the final start of Steve Trachsel’s Mets career, I’ll chalk that milestone to my record proudly.
The last time a perpetually berated Mets starter took the ball in the postseason, it was Bobby Jones. But Jones, fairly useless from the middle of 1997 to the middle of 2000, was on an upswing for a couple of months leading to October 2000. He was downright hot down the stretch. His pitching, not his since-’93 longevity, earned him his starts. We were rewarded.
Any ball handed Trachsel next month should be signed by the entire team and melded to a plaque that says, “Good Luck Steve! Fondly, Your Former Teammates.”
Loyalty’s a marvelous quality and if you’ve been on a team that has been playoffless since the moment you showed up and you’ve been with the team the longest of anybody, it would be heartwarming to see you get your chance in the spotlight. But not if it’s at the expense of success in those playoffs. Willie’s a loyal guy, but to his guys (which is probably why Ricky Ledee is here and Fonzie isn’t, though Fonzie’s .241 BA at Norfolk might have been a factor). Trachsel’s not one of Willie’s guys. Just about everybody else is. It will take guts to drop a veteran at this stage of the season. Willie’s got guts. Let’s see if he has the stomach or judgment to make the move. (Note: Willie and Omar are professionals at evaluating baseball players and what they can do for the team. I’m just cranky and kvetchy, but I do pay attention.)
If Steve is incapable of starting effectively when they need him most, then maybe this was the beginning of the end or the end of the end for Trachsel’s 6 years as a Met. He’s shown no sign that he could ever adapt to a relief role. I don’t want him out there in a Game 4 over Maine or Williams or Perez or George Stone. The 5.17 ERA he left with after 67 pitches and 8 outs wasn’t built on just a bad week. If the Tigers can release Dmitri Young in September, perhaps Trachsel can become his batting practice pitcher.
The Dodgers seem to like his stuff well enough.
Of course, Trachsel could have pitched to his earned run average against L.A. and the Mets still would have laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown lefty. If we face the Dodgers and Little pitches Penny over Stults, he’s as big a dope as they believe he was in Boston.
The only intriguing note of a positive nature from this 9-1 throttling was a Julio Franco sighting at 3rd base in the 8th and 9th. He made 2 nifty slings to 2nd. Julio Franco hadn’t played 3rd base since 1982. Julio Franco is the Ralph Malph of infielders. He’s still got it.
By then, though, most of the patrons had left. When plenty of good seats are suddenly available with a game in progress, it can only mean Steve Trachsel in on his 2nd bottle of pinot.
Marlins beat the Phillies. Through all this yeech, comes a yay. Yay, the magic number is 4.
4.01: Is Acta Practicing the Stop Sign? It was pleasant to see Jose Reyes hit a meaningless 4-bagger in the 6th. It is shocking to realize he has more homers (19) than triples (16). He will need 4 very specific extra-base hits, 1 homer and 3 triples, to get to 20 in the 4 categories that only the greats have reached at once. He’s already doubled 28 times and stolen 57 bases. If he has 20 homers and 19 triples on the last day and he hits 1 out, would it be real bad form to trot into the dugout after he touches 3rd?
4.02: Sweep! Sweep! The Mets won the 1969 World Series in 4 straight. Game 1 was practice.
4.03: He’s in My Face. In light of the historical theme running through our countdown, it would be proper to salute No. 4 Ron Swoboda or No. 4 Lenny Dykstra or maybe even No. 4 Bob Bailor, but the No. 4 Met who’s hard for me to ignore at the moment is the current bearer, Chris Woodward. He’s half of the September page on my Banco Popular Calendar Weekend calendar hanging behind my computer. They made him share a picture with Aaron Heilman. Coulda been worse for Woody. Xavier Nady was August.
4.04: B-R-L-F-Q Spells Mom and Dad. In 2002, Steve Trachsel posted a sparkling 3.37 ERA for a last-place team. While he has seemingly regressed, we have, in 4 short years, gone from rags to riches. Bobby Goldsboro said he did the same in “Watching Scotty Grow”. Nearly 14 years ago, I was writing a sub-headline for the cover of the magazine I worked for that played off another lyric from the same song. It said that three particular executives “are Watching Snapple Grow”. I was asked if we needed the “are” in the sentence. I explained it was meant to recall the line, “Me and God are watching Scotty grow.” Another staff member, who would reveal himself over the remainder of my tenure at that publication to be the biggest horse’s ass in the rear-end genre, said that’s not it, it’s “Me and Dottie watching Scotty grow.” Dottie? Who the hell is Dottie? This guy insisted Bobby Goldsboro, like him, was from Alabama, and in Alabama, “we don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.” He was extraordinarily adamant about this, adamant to the edge of argumentive. I drove to Tower Records, bought a cassette of Bobby Goldsboro’s greatest hits and found the proof. It was “Me and God,” not “Me and Dottie”. I brought it to work, played the song and pointed out, “See? See? ‘Me and God’.” The horse’s ass’ reply? “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this.” Also, the song was written by Mac Davis of Lubbock, Texas.
Good God.
by Jason Fry on 10 September 2006 3:43 pm Yesterday I drove back to NYC from Long Beach Island, so it was another day of catch-as-catch-can baseball. But it was an adventurous one: Emily and Joshua got dropped at Sesame Place outside Philadelphia for an outing with his grandparents, so our friend Eddie and I heard the intriguing Maddux/Duque duel on FAN as we planned an outing of our own. What better way to cap the calorie-fest that was vacation at the beach than taste-testing cheesesteaks (whiz, wit) in South Philly? So off we went to Pat's and Geno's. I drew the Geno's assignment and totally muffed order etiquette, but was treated mercifully enough. (I ordered in English, by the way.) If anyone's curious, my vote was for Pat's, whose onions I thought had more bite. But it was the thinnest of margins. You can't really go wrong.
As previously chronicled, the game was a perfect, modest little affair: good pitching, one big hit, two lead changes. Now that Greg Maddux isn't a Brave he can be appreciated far more — the story of Maddux intentionally grooving a slider to Butch Huskey in a spring-training game as preparation for the regular season is a classic, for example.
But while I'm not going to vilify him, I do have a question: Why just 72 pitches? I can't believe Grady Little pulled him (insert Pedro/Yankees joke here), so I assume it was Maddux's decision. I know Maddux had just run the bases. I know he's in his twilight and his margin for error, location-wise, is down to nothing. But with a game on the line that the Dodgers have to win, isn't it better for them to have a tiring Maddux on the mound than Tim Hamulack or Brett Tomko?
You were happy to see him depart in favor of those two decidedly mere mortals, and rightly so. Maddux has an aura about him that he earned by being a perennial Cy Young winner, by being a sure-fire Hall of Famer, by being Greg Fricking Maddux. Brett Tomko? If he has any kind of aura, he needs to do a better job in the shower. And yet there Maddux went, presumably on his own or without much resistance, after which Hamulack nearly gave up a home run to Delgado and Tomko gave up the fatal single to Wright. Assuming it was Maddux's decision, I'm not saying it was selfish or arrogant — the L wound up on Maddux's ledger, after all. If anything, it seems excessively unselfish and modest — believing too much in a supporting cast you far outshine. Whatever it is, I don't get it.
Regardless, the game turned out right and was over around Trenton. But my baseball day wasn't over. On Thursday night, after the Brooklyn Cyclones earned a trip to the New York-Penn League playoffs in unlikely fashion, I grabbed a couple of playoff tickets online. Last night was the first of a best-two-of-three series with the Staten Island Yankees, and my Internet order landed me seats 10 rows back, behind home plate.
Sounded great late Thursday night, but as I lugged various possessions out of the rental car late Saturday afternoon, I had at least a moderate case of buyer's remorse. Everybody I invited to the game was busy, I was bone tired, I would have to find a place to park the rental car and then either return it to Manhattan after the game or get billed for an extra day, and I would be late getting to Keyspan (after a long haul on the F train) no matter what I did. Frankly, getting rid of the rental car and then taking a cheesesteak-induced nap seemed like the smart plan.
But man, I had an awfully good ticket. I had a chance to end summer with an unexpected Coney Island visit. And the Cyclones were in the playoffs.
Oh, what the hell.
So it was that I strolled up to Keyspan, print-at-home tickets in hand, around 6:15. The game was on, and I saw something drop from the concourse above, land on the pavement with a dull, meaty sound, and roll toward me.
What idiot would drop a baseball out of the concourse? I thought.
I've been going to baseball games for 30 years. I've never left with a foul ball. Never. Eventually, the years of anticipation yielding nothing and reflexes dulled by overthinking everything combined to leave me almost unaware that one could get a foul ball, and all but helpless when one did come my way. At Shea, I've been caught by my wife cringing away from one that wasn't all that close. I've had one come within a couple of feet while I goggled at it stupidly (and did nothing to protect my kid). At a Bowie Baysox game years ago a foul ball skipped up the aisle to where I was ordering a hot dog and hit me in the foot. It spun at my feet for a moment; I stared at it like the ape with the thigh bone in 2001 before a passing kid gave me a strange look and picked it up. (An outfielder did toss a ball in my general direction after an inning at Keyspan, but that doesn't count. Besides, I dropped it.)
Anyway, all of this is to explain why I would actually think someone had dropped a ball out of the Keyspan Park concourse before realizing that was a foul ball rolling along the pavement in front of me. (Hit, it turned out, by recent callup D.J. Wabick.)
After all those years, it wasn't even hard: The ball rolled right to me, like a dog offered a treat. I stopped, put my hand down, the ball rolled into it, I read OFFICIAL BALL NEW YORK-PENN LEAGUE on it, thought “Cool!” and walked on into the stadium.
As if there aren't thousands of reasons already, let that be a lesson. You're tired? You've got a lot to do? You won't get there for first pitch? Whatever. Go to the game.
by Greg Prince on 10 September 2006 6:56 am It’s been a great week for the connective tissue of the Metsosphere. Faith and Fear gets to hang with Mike’s Mets on Tuesday and then dines al fresco with Mets Guy in Michigan in Manhattan on Saturday.
The world hasn’t witnessed this great a concentration of creative Mets energy since Metstradamus blogged alone.
Dave Murray and I have been baseball soulmates all our lives even if we never met until last evening. The beauty of blogging strikes again. We were born within 16 months of one another and grew up within maybe 12 miles of one another and rooted for the same team and discovered we once attended the same Rangers-White Sox game, but who would have known all that without this thing of ours? It’s a beautiful thing. That plus the education conference his paper sent him to cover at Columbia.
He couldn’t make it to Shea so I brought a little Shea to where he was staying on the Upper West Side. We found a bar with a few outdoor tables and attracted a stream of well-wishers drawn to my DELGADO 21 t-shirt and — here’s a scoop — my brand new, custom-made replica 1976 Mets Bicentennial cap. One patron asked if the Mets were home next week, he wanted to exchange some tickets. A passerby who’s retiring from the Transit Authority wanted to tell us he’s from the same town — Aguadilla, Puerto Rico — as Carlos D. Another pedestrian gave us a little song and dance about the Mets…literally. I gave him a buck for his troubles. (Eating outdoors? Bring singles.) Dave told me he was having trouble finding suitable Mets knickknacks to bring home to Michigan. I sense his next trip here will find a more firmly grounded Mets town.
Check local retailers late next month, if you know what I mean.
Another night, another blogger reveals himself as a first-rate human being, another Phillies loss lops magic matters to 5. How lucky can a Met fan get?
5.01: The State That’s Shaped Like a Mitt. In honor of the Mets Guy From Michigan, how about 5 Michiganders who became Mets? 1) Rick Down: Somebody thank him for whatever it is he’s done this year. 2) Mickey Weston: Dave’s his virtual biographer. 3) Rodney McCray: Even walls fall down. 4) Jim Gosger: ’69…’73…23 Skidoo!; 5) Keith Miller: His best position turned out to be agent.
5.02: It Shouldn’t Have Gotten This Far. David Wright’s No. 5 will be retired if there is justice in this world (didn’t say there was). Diamond Dave should be wearing any one of dozens of fabulous numbers right now, however, because 5 should have been retired for the David who didn’t mind being known as Davey. Other than winning half the franchise’s world championships, guiding them from nothing to everything and attaining more victories than anybody in the same job, Johnson wasn’t much of a manager.
5.03: Star Watch. Back to the current and ultimate No. 5. According to the übercomprehensive Ultimate Mets Database, David Wright is No. 41 on the all-time Met hit list. He is also the No. 41 of everyday Met players.
5.04: As Long as We’re Blogging Great Met Bloggers. You have to dig anybody who claims No. 5, Mike Phillips, as his favorite childhood Met. And I do.
5.05: He’s Not Great at Math Either. Paul Simon promised to share 50 ways to leave your lover. I count only 5 specific options to get yourself free: 1) Just slip out the back (Jack). 2) Make a new plan (Stan). 3) You don’t need to be coy (Roy). 4) Just hop on the bus (Gus). 5) Drop off the key (Lee). To be honest, I think Roy got shortchanged on advice.
by Greg Prince on 10 September 2006 5:53 am You can to go a game in which the Mets are facing Greg Maddux and feel clean. You can watch a surefire Hall of Famer at the tail end of an honorable career and come away feeling good. You can say, hey, I saw a 300-game winner pitch, a guy who knows how to work fast and hit the corners and make another generation of hitters guess wrong.
This is not Roger Clemens. I’d have croup from screaming at him for hours on end. Roger Clemens is one of the best pitchers ever but you can’t look at him for a second without hoping a light stanchion falls on him. Maddux isn’t that. He was a bedeviling intradivisional opponent and it was always sweet to defeat him when we could and there was little shame (if a lot of frustration) in not getting to him. In a jumpy, antsy sports culture where we are quick to vilify anyone who wears the wrong uniform or throws to the wrong base in the right uniform, it’s reassuring to see a Greg Maddux take to the mound and give his best effort.
It’s even better when his manager pulls him after 72 pitches on a day when Maddux is doing fine. I don’t know if it was Maddux, rarely a hurler to extend himself beyond his limit, or Grady Little, still trying to figure out when and when not to yank immortals, but as glad as I was to see Greg Maddux pitch at Shea, I was way happier to see him removed. I’ll take my chances with Carlos Delgado and David Wright vs. Tim Hamulack and Brett Tomko.
And Orlando Hernandez, Aaron Heilman and Billy Wagner against everybody in a gray, nameless uniform.
Props to my friend of a decade Laurie for treating me to this treat of a pitchers’ duel. I admire Maddux. She deifies him. Her day was both soiled by Maddux’s loss and enhanced by the Mets’ win (whereas I took my fifth straight victory with no ambivalence). Beyond a general preference for Met success, there’s no formula to Laurie’s cheering impulses. They are lavished upon Cy Young stalwarts, but also directed toward long relievers teetering on the scrap heap. Laurie’s loyal to who Laurie’s loyal to. It’s like she’s running a fantasy team in a league of her own. I can’t figure out whether she’s tied for first or last.
As if whittling the magic number to 6 wasn’t fun enough Saturday afternoon.
6.01: I’m Almost Stumped. In honor of Laurie’s ability to love the Mets and Met opponents in comparable amounts, here, strictly off the top of my head, are 6 players I like who never played for the Mets presented in no order except that in which they are typed and not counting guys from history who played before I was paying attention…and also they had to have played against the Mets at some point in their careers: 1) Dale Murphy. 2) Chone Figgins. 3) Hank Aaron. 4) Tim Raines. 5) Vladimir Guerrero. 6) Albert Pujols, though that’s conditional through the first three weeks of this October.
6.02: The Worst Trade Nobody Brings Up. Wally Backman, the pre-eminent No. 6 in Mets history, for three nonentity Minnesota Twin minor leaguers in 1988. The idea was to clear out second base for Gregg Jefferies. The Mets stopped being the Mets without Wally, who hung around and contributed to a few more teams for a few more years and never stopped being Wally, though I don’t think it ever meant as much to him again. It was great to applaud him on Old Timers Night. Wally Backman’s the kind of player you wish you could see play tomorrow.
6.03: The Worst Trade Not Brought Up Nearly Enough. Melvin Mora, the best No. 6 since Backman, for Mike Bordick, the starchiest stiff who ever played short for a pennant-winner. Melvin was Timo with brains, Jose with experience, Joel Youngblood without minding his versatility. Bordick was Kurt Abbott with a rep.
6.04: Can’t Listen to It, Can’t Live Without It. In its 20th year, the 6 best things about WFAN, Sportsradio 66 (previously 1050): 1) The Mets are on it. 2) When Howie Rose hosted Mets Extra. 3) When Howie Rose did a 5-hour talk show every weeknight. 4) Steve Somers when he was Captain Midnight. 5) Joe Benigno when he did overnights. 6) Scores every 20 minutes.
6.05: Be Grateful We’re The Pitchers’ League. Imagine the Phillies with their No. 6, Ryan Howard, at first and Jim Thome still around to DH. You shudder to think what their magic number might be. Then again, they had them both and Abreu and Utley and Wagner and a cast of thousands in recent years and where did it get them?
6.06: Movin’ On Up. There was a Jeffersons in which a therapist asked George to play free association. You know, “black…white; rich…poor”. The doctor said “sex” and George said “seven”. The doctor was shocked. George asked, “Didn’t you say ‘6’?”
by Greg Prince on 9 September 2006 6:18 am If there really is a derby underway between Steve Trachsel and John Maine for the fourth starter's role in the playoffs, let's just say Dave Williams is well out in front.
Trachsel was his really old self four nights ago, inept and unlucky. Maine was his moderately old self versus L.A., the kid called up earlier this year who veered to the spectacularly unimpressive before straightening himself out post-break. Maine's entitled to a tepid outing, though having it against whom he had it when he had it wasn't encouraging.
True that John on Friday, like Steve on Monday, got zero help from his fielders and hitters. But Trachsel's tuneup/audition against the Braves was at least uncharacteristic…since when does he walk seven in fewer than five innings? Maine, on the other hand, for all the swinging and missing he induces, is frequently victimized by the gopher. When he gives up earned runs, they have been earned with a big stick. He was almost in Trachsel 2001 territory with two homers in the fifth to Furcal (Schuerholz's revenge) and Garciaparra. Three were hit out of the park, but J.D. Drew's ball was reeled back in by fearless Carlos Beltran. By then Hong-Chih Kuo was untouchable and untouched. All of these are people we may see again in a few weeks.
I don't mean to be unnecessarily harsh toward Maine, who's been an unremittingly pleasant surprise to a point where it's not really surprising when he goes out and wins. But that tendency to give up home runs scares me. As things stand now, we would play the Padres in the first round and if Maine started Game Four in Petco, there is a disturbingly short porch where things could go wrong. To look ahead — a luxury we can indulge — if part of the NLCS takes place in Citizens Bank Park and we face the Howards…yeesh.
Trachsel's name popping up in the probables has never been an invitation to sit back and relax; he only lulls you to sleep between pitches. Goodness knows he can be touched up. There should be a “But…” coming here. I don't have a good one. Trachsel pitches and the Mets usually win. Maine pitches and the Mets usually win. So what's the difference? I want to fall back on experience, but that sounds cheap. It may mean Trachsel knows more about pitching, or it may mean he's been maddeningly inconsistent for ages and hasn't learned nearly enough to be counted upon.
I've been waiting all season for our Bob Walk or Marty Bystrom to emerge, two pitchers brought up in-season long ago (with the Phillies in '80) to reshape a rotation on the fly and hurl it toward the World Series. I thought it would be Pelfrey. I hoped it would be Maine. Maybe it's Williams, if not Perez. Rosters were designed to be rejiggered and everybody will be eligible.
Who's to say it's not going to be all of them plus Trachsel determining our fate? Pedro's going to come back in search of his fourth life this season. We're all taking it on faith that he will be out there on October 3 or 4 getting this thing started. He represents a great case for faith but sooner or later you gotta wonder. Glavine? Had his best start in ages Thursday. Is that the precedent of record or do we look at Tom from June to August and question the long-term efficacy of baby aspirin. El Duque's never been more than a crapshoot, albeit one undertaken with dice weighted in the house's favor.
Even if everybody is back and healthy and ready to go in slots one, two and three, what can we expect? Five innings? Six innings? If we go to our stellar relief corps in the first game, how many arms will be taxed for how many pitches? Who will be available for the second game? Care to figure out Game Three? Obviously the fifth starter will become a long man. Can he, whoever he is, adjust? If it's Maine and he gives up one or two homers in one inning, it will be a lot more impactful than the one or two homers he gives up in six or seven. Trachsel…in the bullpen?
The good news is none of these guys — none of them — are incapable of effectiveness. They've all been good more often than bad this year. I'd start tomorrow with who we've got, with or without Pedro…though I'd way prefer to start with Pedro. All of this dithering is worst-casing it.
Worst-case scenarios don't usually materialize. But once in a while, they do.
by Greg Prince on 8 September 2006 8:32 am Welcome to Flashback Friday, a weekly feature devoted to the 20th anniversary of the 1986 World Champion New York Mets.
Twenty years. Forty-three Fridays. This is one of them.
I’m lazing about the upper deck. Left field. Far left, far up. Many have called it a day, so there is room to stretch out. The Mets have lost the first game of a doubleheader to the St. Louis Cardinals, but they’re cruising to a win in the nightcap. I’m with my college buddy Rob Costa who attends these things essentially to chat and drink warm Bud. By the late stages of a twinbill, we’re both pretty mellow. Rob keeps his own counsel. I flip on my Walkman to hear what Bob Murphy and Gary Thorne have to say about things.
It’s August 17. The subject of the most foregone conclusion in baseball comes up: When are the Mets going to clinch?
One of them picks September 16. The other picks September 19. I’m shocked. With this victory (9-2; Randy Niemann picks up the win in his only start of 1986), the Mets will increase their lead in the N.L. East to 16-1/2 over the Expos. Forty-four games remain in the season. The magic number is 30. We are playing at a .653 clip. Montreal is barely over .500. Bob, Gary, I have one question for you?
Are you kidding?
The Mets won’t need a month. They’re gonna clinch this thing in early September.
The Mets hadn’t had a magic number watch of any length since 1969. It was one of the first statistics I ever learned, the number of Mets wins combined with Cubs losses that would clinch us the division. 1973 didn’t allow much time for figuring. On the night the Mets moved into first, their magic number was 10. It would take them 10 days to clinch.
1986 was different. The Daily News began tracking the magic number in June. Just about every day there was a cartoon version of Davey Johnson pulling a rabbit out of a top hat. It was very exciting watching that number fall.
By mid-August, the inevitability of the Mets was daily old news. There had been a perfunctory warning around the All-Star break that the ’51 Dodgers and ’78 Red Sox looked like locks, too, but the ’86 Mets never felt a glove in the second half. Running 34 over and 13-1/2 up when play resumed, they actually stood in place for more than a month. After dropping the opener of the doubleheader Rob and I attended, they were a mere 35 over, but still managed to increase their lead in the preceding five weeks. The Expos were the only other team with a winning record in the East. The Phillies and Cardinals had to get hot and stay hot just to break even.
That doubleheader and brief homestand over, the Mets flew to the West Coast and got serious. Swept the Dodgers, took two of three from the Giants, swept the Padres. A 10-1 swing. It ended on the signature defensive play of the season, the improbable 8-2-5 twin killing, Dykstra to Gibbons to HoJo, that doomed the Padres in extra innings. Tim McCarver’s call — Out at home!…Out at third!…Just your routine double play! — summed up the feeling surrounding these Mets in late summer. They could no wrong.
On August 27, the Mets stood 43 games over .500. They held a 20-game lead over the now-second-place Phillies. And their magic number, with 35 left to play, was 20. I kept thinking about Bob and Gary and their pessimistic prediction from 10 days earlier. September 16? September 19? Come now. This thing was going to be over in a couple of weeks.
The Mets were already celebrating. No champagne yet, but there was dancing on the field. When they came home to face the same California teams they just pounded into the Pacific, the fans (at Shea and at home, courtesy of Channel 9) were treated to the cinematic event of 1986. Not Platoon, not Hannah and Her Sisters, not even Reform School Girls, a film Fred and I wanted to see but Larry, who was driving, steered us instead to Stand By Me, of which Fred observed, “Great — young boys coming of age.”
The night of August 29, 1986 unleashed upon the land the world premiere of Let’s Go Mets!.
The video.
I don’t mind telling you I thought it was the greatest thing I ever saw. Kids flipping baseball cards on a Shea Stadium ramp and the Mets fan kids losing until their special pals Dwight Gooden, Gary Carter and Kevin Mitchell, who just happen to be strolling by on the very same Shea Stadium ramp, hand them special cards — Mets cards. The Mets fan kids start winning like crazy, just like the Mets. And then the beat builds. And, finally, the lyrics the universe (because the world was too small for these Mets) had been waiting an eternity to hear…
We’ve got the teamwork
To make the dream work
Let’s Go
LET’S GO METS!
This video presented life as I always thought it should be: completely and utterly about the Mets. The Mets playing. The Mets practicing. The Mets goofing around. The Mets beating the crap out of Joe Piscopo. The Mets putting the cheesy, low-budget Super Bowl Shuffle to shame.
The years would not be kind to this video. Everybody in it, from the players to the fans to the celebrities (half of them local DJs, including the notoriously sports-illiterate Howard Stern) to the cutesy background chorus — pizza guys, ballgirls, hansom cab driver with horse — set new standards for tacky. It is no wonder, in retrospect, that Jon Bon Jovi and his foofy mop would surge to superstardom a few months later in the wake of this particular cultural watershed. Maybe it’s my bias toward my 1970s childhood speaking, but Americans never looked sillier than they did in the late 1980s.
That said, I loved this thing. I love it today. When SNY showed it about a dozen times during and around the ’86 reunion, I dropped everything I was doing and watched it a dozen times. The video was like totally awesome. And the song, by New York’s Dream Team, took off as a radio hit in the city. You could not turn on Z-100 or Power 95 or any station and not hear it. Every spin was like a municipal pep rally. They put out a 12-inch single which included some actual WHN highlights plus a few contrived Bob Murphy calls. I know that because I bought it. They put out a Making Of video, replete with what it was like to hang around with the Mets. I bought that, too.
Later on, in October, Friday Night Videos aired a special showdown between Let’s Go Mets! and Red Sox Rock, less an amateur clip than the result of somebody turning on a camera and forgetting to turn it off until three minutes later. Sung to the tune of “Jailhouse Rock,” it was catchy enough (“everybody in the whole ballpark/is dancing to the Red Sox rock”), but the video consisted primarily of Bostonians entering a bar and being given the high sign by a juiced-up bouncer. Then some dude shows up in a Yankees cap and everybody takes great pleasure in grinding it with their heels.
By comparison, Roger McDowell with a bat in his pocket (or was he just happy to see us?) was the work of Oliver Stone. And the FNV audience agreed, spending 50 cents a call to choose the Mets video over the Red Sox’ by about a 70-30 margin.
Video stardom obviously agreed with our boys. After it debuted, the Mets won seven of nine. After sweeping the Padres a Sunday doubleheader on September 7, the Mets were an intergalactic 92-44, 21 ahead of the Phillies. Twenty-six games were left. The magic number was 6.
The next night was my final game at Shea in 1986, only my sixth all season. It was my delayed-gratification birthday present to my mother in July. It would be the third year in a row I went to a Mets game with my parents. It would also turn out to be the last one we went to together. I’m sorry it didn’t turn out better. From out in the rightfield loge, we could see Bobby O didn’t have it for one of the few times all year. First he was outpitched by Bob Sebra then outhit by his Expo mates. The Mets were mysteriously behind 7-0 in the seventh.
Not great, but not a problem in the scheme of things. So obvious was the impending clinch, that the Mets had printed the phrase A SEPTEMBER TO REMEMBER in white block letters at the base of the left and rightfield walls. They also handed out at every single game that month a pennant with a fuzzy team picture and a clear team message: PENNANT FEVER! The only accoutrement missing from the newly presumptuous décor was a gigantic MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner over the scoreboard.
Pennant literally and figuratively in hand, my mother seemed to enjoy blurting out “Let’s Go Mets Go!” now and then. Bandwagon jumper (back in ’84) that she was, she actually thought that was the chant of choice at Shea Stadium, having picked it up from the video. She also kept asking who would backing up Ojeda. I always had to explain that there is no designated second pitcher to come into a game, that it depends on the situation who relieves. But let the record show that Rick Anderson backed up Bobby Ojeda, and John Mitchell made his Major League debut backing up Anderson, who was worse than Ojeda.
Given the score and the hour — Monday night, pushing past 9 o’clock — my dad asked if I wouldn’t mind if we could maybe leave early since the Giants and Cowboys were kicking off the first Monday Night Football game of the year. I couldn’t really argue. As we got up after the eighth, I felt compelled to tell our row that things weren’t so bad, we were going to have a division title by the end of the week. My mother gave it one more “Let’s Go Mets Go!”
By the time we got to the car in the lot across Roosevelt Avenue, we could hear a mighty cheer. Darryl had launched a cosmetic shot to make it 9-1. Dad turned on the Giants on WNEW. They eventually lost a heartbreaker 31-28. But Ed Lynch had defeated Mike Maddux that afternoon in Chicago, so the magic number dipped to 5. And we stopped at Lenny’s Clam Bar in Rockville Centre for a late supper. Not a total loss by any means.
The next night, the Mets lost one of the few games they genuinely blew in 1986. Orosco gave up a two-run homer to Andre Dawson in the ninth and another run besides. The 9-7 loss unleashed the hounds of hell in the stands. If there had been a WFAN then, callers would have pierced the predawn stillness insisting there was no way Jesse Orosco can be trusted to close tight games for the Mets in the postseason. The scornful booing occurred hours after Leon Durham went deep off of Steve Bedrosian in extras. For all of the angst, the magic number was 4.
Thankfully, Ron Darling righted the ship and stopped the suicide epidemic the next night after the Cubs beat the Phillies again. On September 10, the magic number to clinch a division that would technically still be playing through October 5 was 2. Any combination of Mets wins and Phillies losses adding to 2 would make the Mets the champions of the National League East for 1986.
No game for either team on Thursday, September 11, but that morning on K-Rock, following Howard Stern, Maria Milito announced a great giveaway. Be the 92nd caller and you will win tickets and accommodations for the Mets’ weekend trip to Philadelphia — see the Mets clinch at the Vet. Milito, who wasn’t even in the Let’s Go Mets! video, made it sound like a sure thing. All it will take is one win, she said, so you know it’s going to happen.
I pushed all the requisite buttons on my phone to no avail. But Maria was right. You knew the Mets, leading by 22 with 23 to play, would come through as soon as mathematically possible. All it was going to take was one lousy win. For a team that already had 93 in its pocket, there was no way it wasn’t going to happen Friday. Saturday and Sunday were only there to pitch backup.
by Greg Prince on 8 September 2006 3:43 am And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there’s no obligations now
Maybe I’ve a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland
—Queens’ own Paul Simon
Jose Reyes bounces on his belly across home plate with no throw on him, calls himself safe and he’s fine.
Jose Reyes allows a pop fly to bounce off his glove, Matt Kemp doesn’t advance to second and the crowd applauds the shortstop from the inside-the-park job the inning before.
Tom Glavine leaves the game, is congratulated during the seventh inning by Chris Cotter on his 288th win and he gets it within half-an-hour of that particular protocol breach.
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2006 New York Mets are so good they go out for shooters with the baseball gods after trampling opponents. They reside on that high a plane right now.
We don’t bring home every runner in scoring position. We get thrown out at third for the first out. We hold up unnecessarily to see if balls are going to be caught. We parade in short men with large leads. Yet we win 7-0 against decent competition. All those things that should anger The Higher Powers merely tickle Them. It’s September, and the Mets, instead of watching their step, leap and bound from one plateau to the next.
First-place Dodgers in town? They’re not in first place in this place. Here, let us validate your parking so you can go back to wherever you came from. Next time use mass transit (you obviously don’t live in these parts anymore). We dispatched a passel of Padres and a cocoon of Cardinals last month. A dollop of Dodgers doesn’t scare us. Any one of ya, come back in October. We’ll respect you and then we’ll beat your brains in, just like we do everybody’s.
I’ve been at this thing long enough to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to shut the eff up. This isn’t then. This is now. This is September 2006. We are as many as 35 games over .500 for the first time since October 2, 1988. We have a magic number of 7 for clinching our division and it would be less except the two teams that were tied for second place when the night started played each other and they couldn’t both lose.
Unless they were playing the Mets.
7.01: Watch That ‘yes Car Go. Holy Leon Brown, I’ve never seen anybody in a Mets uniform run as fast as No. 7 Jose Reyes did when he approached second and realized, “Home run? OK!”
7.02: ‘Scuse Me While I Quote Myself. This season I’ve had the privilege of writing a feature called Profile in Orange and Blue for the SNY show Mets Weekly, which you should all be watching weekly because, never mind me, it truly is a show by Mets fans for Mets fans. The first profile I wrote was of my favorite player (talk about a dream job!) Jose Reyes. And this, in part, is what it said: In 2003, a new version of the 7 rolled off the line and roared into Shea. It was sleek. It was smooth. It came and went in a blur. This model of the 7 wasn’t without its kinks. It had to go into the shop more than once for repairs. But once it was fixed, it ran like a dream…like the train whose number he wears on his back, Jose Reyes always runs on an elevated track.
7.03: Just Spell My Number Right. And John Rocker thought he was giving the 7 train a bad name? What was before his foot-in-mouth interview a mere conveyance became a cause in 2000. One night that year, DiamondVision was urging patrons they could get to Shea any number of ways that didn’t include driving. And when Roger Luce mentioned “the 7 train,” it drew a huge ovation.
7.04: I Didn’t Know He Had an Aunt in Long Island City. My most memorable 7 experience came at the Queensboro Plaza stop in 2001 when a craggy woman hurled every imaginable ethnic slur at virtually every passenger who attempted to board or exit the train. She had particularly unkind things to say about those who enjoy eating rice, which could describe most of the world’s population. About a quarter of the crowd told her what a schmuck she was, nearly three-quarters moved far away and Leo Mazzone told her to save it for the game.
7.05: With All Those Letters, Who Had Time to Catch Their Train? Last fall, I had cause to look up some information about the 7 train and began to wonder when it started being called the 7 train. After all, you always see those faded signs for the IRT and the IND and the BMT, alphabet soup that was still in fairly common use when I was a kid. I came across The Joe Koerner, a roaring repository of subway info maintained by Joseph Korman. Joe kindly told me this about the only New York City subway line that stops at Shea Stadium: The IRT never used numbers or letters until the R-12 cars were delivered in 1948. When the IRT opened and expanded, the branches were called by their names. The earliest name given to the Flushing line was Corona, since the line terminated at 103rd St. It was extended one stop at a time between 1917 and 1928 to Main St. Remember that until 1948, the IRT operated to Astoria also. As the post-WWII cars were introduced to the IRT, the 1-7 (plus the original 8 and 9) were displayed on the ends of the cars, but not on the sides, maps and station signs. After 1959, the R-27 and later BMT cars were delivered with letters replacing the BMT numbers…with J replacing the BMT #15. It wasn’t until 1966, just before the BMT and IND completely merged, that numbers were used for the IRT and the BMT Coney Island lines got letters. In 1967, the Chrystie St. map formally added letters to the combined BMT/IND lines and numbers to the IRT. Along with the maps and cars, a new standard in station graphics was introduced to try to identify each line consistently. This was met with varied success. I know some visitors refer to the IRT 7th Ave. as the red line, etc. I hope that will never catch on for native New Yorkers.
7.06: Speaking of Native New Yorkers. Jose Reyes will forever be No. 7 to Mets fans who came along after the franchise turned 40, but No. 7 will otherwise always be reserved for Ed Kranepool from James Monroe High School. He didn’t hit a home run to win a playoff, he didn’t play 7 positions for a team that would go onto win the World Series and he doesn’t still hold the team record for longest hitting streak after 22 years, but with proper deference to Todd Pratt, Kevin Mitchell and Hubie Brooks, they weren’t Steady Eddie Kranepool. No shame in that — only one man can be.
7.07: Steady and Spectacular. Even with those two injury-riddled seasons that slowed his departure, Jose Reyes has already surpassed 500 career hits at the age of 23. I think this No. 7 will catch the reigning No. 7’s Met career standard of 1,418 hits in the time it takes the rest of us to schlep up the steps across Roosevelt Avenue and fight our way home.
by Jason Fry on 8 September 2006 3:22 am You know what? There's something perfectly apt about the Marlins and Phillies having gone into tonight tied for second, making a hash of magic-number calculations for the moment. Because, really, who cares which team is 16.5 or 165 or 16,500 games behind us in second place? It's easier to just count down our own wins, and that'll get us to October soon enough.
Arrogant, I know, but it's hard to resist feeling that way after watching the Mets dismantle the Dodgers tonight. The Dodgers were much improved, nothing like the team in disarray we saw earlier this year, possibly a better team than the Cardinals now, and Brad Penny had won 15 games. Um, yeah, whatever. Penny got waxed, with the biggest blow a Jose Reyes inside-the-parker that left anyone watching it with a Reyes-sized smile on their faces. 15 seconds home to home, first inside-the-parker I've ever seen where the hitter not only never slowed down but could have scored standing up.
So, another supposedly frightening NL team come to town, another supposedly frightening NL team spat out in chunks. It doesn't guarantee anything come October, but we had our likely playoff lineup on the field and they looked awfully formidable.
After watching the highlights, it was time to check the New York-Penn League scores. This was the final day of the Brooklyn Cyclones' season, which has been marked by insanely hot and ridiculously cold streaks. The Cyclones had a shot at the playoffs, if everything broke just so: For Brooklyn to claim the wild card, the Aberdeen Ironbirds had to lose and the Cyclones had to beat the Vermont Lake Monsters.
I don't get worked up about the Cyclones — I only have so much karma to spend on baseball teams, and each year's Cyclones spring brand-new from the high-school and college ranks, making this truly rooting for laundry. But hey, who can resist a final day of the season like that? I hunted up the scores and found that the Lowell Spinners had beat Aberdeen — and the Cyclones and Vermont were tied at 3-3 in the 10th. Win or go home.
Some quick Web-surfing revealed that the Cyclones stream their broadcasts online — a moment later there was Warner Fuselle booming out from the laptop, competing with a Keyspan Park crowd and the Cyclones' sound effects (Brick screaming “Loud noises!” from “Anchorman” is startling on the radio). And whaddya know? In the bottom of the 12th Vermont's second baseman threw a ball away, giving the Cyclones a 4-3 win. They'll play the Staten Island Yankees Saturday night.
Baseball on a warm summer night, by TV and radio (via the laptop), leisurely and frenetic, routine and crucial. And it all came out OK. I could grow to like this game.
by Greg Prince on 7 September 2006 3:41 am Every few hours, I like to check and see if our magic number has decreased…
…it has.
All day it’s been like this. We keep reducing our number every 3 hours and we have 8 left, therefore, at this rate, we’ll clinch by this time tomorrow.
Not really.
An alert to our affiliates along the Faith and Fear network: We cannot clinch this weekend. Repeat, we cannot clinch this weekend. Even an optimal quartet with the Dodgers, by no means a given, combined with a Phillies’ 4-game drop on top of what they lost tonight wouldn’t do it because, while you were flinging rocks and garbage at the Braves’ team bus, the Marlins were winning and pulling into a tie for second.
Boy were they ever.
8.01: Halfway There. In Miami, Anibal Sanchez threw the 4th no-hitter in Marlins’ history. He joins Al Leiter, Kevin Brown and A.J. Burnett in having turned the trick in the past decade and change. Keep it up and they’ll have 8 no-hitters by early 2017. And of course we’ll never have any.
8.02: Why Couldn’t Have McCovey Just Hit the Ball Two Feet Lower? On October 8, 2000, a line-drive double off the bat of Jeff Kent eluded Robin Ventura’s leap. Bobby Jones had to settle for a 1-hitter to clinch the National League Division Series for the Mets. Not a bad little consolation prize.
8.03: Do You Have a Nephew Named Anthony? On July 8, 1969, Cub centerfielder Don Young misplayed two balls at Shea, turning a 3-1 Chicago lead into a 4-3 Met win on the afternoon many point to as the day the home team became a legitimate contender. If it wasn’t that day, it was the next night when Tom Seaver no-hit Young’s teammates but not his replacement, Jimmy Qualls.
8.04: Eric Byrnes Looked Safe to Me. NBC chose to televise the Mets-Cubs game of September 7, 1984 and Doc Gooden did not disappoint. He no-hit the Cubs, with his biggest scare coming when Ray Knight couldn’t handle a fairly routine ball off the bat of Keith Moreland. What? They ruled that a HIT? YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS! The next day, September 8, Flushing Meadow hosted a dramatic day and night of U.S. Open action, none of which mattered to me except that I called the Copper Top pub on Fowler Avenue and asked if they were showing the big Mets-Cubs game via satellite. “No,” the woman who answered the phone told me. “We’re watching tennis.” So was Walt Terrell: Rick Sutcliffe beat him 6-love and the Mets dropped 7 back. The next day, the Mets took the rubber game and native Chicagoan Brent Musberger smirkily played “Cubsbusters” during The NFL Today, because all our win got us was 6 back with 3 weeks to go.
8.05: Of Course He Would Debut in Spring. Preternaturally sunny Gary Carter, our greatest No. 8, was born on April 8, 1954. He would grow up to catch no no-hitters for the Mets.
8.06: Daddy, What’s an Expo? Montreal joined the league of Major cities on April 8, 1969, defeating the Mets in New York 11-10. The Montreal Expos would gain their 1st no-hitter a mere 8 games later when Bill Stoneman tossed one at Connie Mack Stadium. Their 2nd no-hitter came against the Mets on October 2, 1972 at Parc Jarry, also Stoneman’s. The Expos, Connie Mack Stadium and Parc Jarry no longer exist. But the defunct franchise has 2 additional no-hitters to tits credit, by Charlie Lea in 1981 (caught by Gary Carter) and Dennis Martinez (a perfecto against L.A. in which 5 past or future Mets — none of them then-Dodger Carter — accounted for 15 outs) in 1991. The Expos and Marlins, connected mainly by hellbound Jeffrey Loria, have combined for 8 no-hitters.
8.07: An Exclusive Club. When Sanchez retired Byrnes, the entire Marlins’ dugout emptied to congratulate him. So did the Dolphin Stadium stands. My bad — the Dolphin Stadium stands were empty. Paid attendance for the 4th no-hitter in Florida Marlin history on a night when the team was fiercely and miraculously competing for a playoff spot: 8. Check the highlights; I’m exaggerating only slightly.
8.08: It’s Complete. Growing up, I saw Yogi Berra wear No. 8 for the Mets. I saw him coach for the Mets. I saw him manage the Mets. I saw him withstand a torrent of criticism as he guided the Mets in the last-place summer of 1973. And I read all his allegedly nonsensical statements about when it’s over and when it’s not after he made them, as a Met in prelude to the magnificent pennant-winning autumn of 1973. Imagine my surprise to learn we were just a detour for him and that the most famous thing he ever did was jump into Don Larsen’s arms on October 8, 1956, wearing somebody else’s No. 8. No Met catcher embraced any Met pitcher for any similar reason during Yogi’s 11-season rest stop with us.
by Jason Fry on 7 September 2006 2:16 am What a difference a day makes.
The weather forecast for LBI today: rain. But around mid-morning, Emily and I realized there were shadows outside. The sun was out. And a couple of hours after that, the Mets started playing baseball. A whole lotta baseball.
Yes, a rainout is a gloomy thing, perfectly designed to make children (and some 37-year-olds) rail at the hostility of the cosmos. But lots of rainouts are followed by a decidedly ungloomy thing: a doubleheader. A whole day of ballgames. (OK, yeah, it's probably harder to win both ends of a doubleheader than it is to win two games in a row, making them a mixed blessing. Dude, don't be a bringdown.)
If you live at least vaguely near your team's hometown (or even far off, thanks to Extra Innings, MLB.com and XM), a doubleheader can become a pleasant companion for an entire day, following you from TV to portable radio to car radio to XM radio to laptop video to whatever you have. We caught the first few innings of Game 1 on the beach (portable radio that cost like $5 before some years-ago vacation), in the house (SNY) and then in the car (WFAN) on the way to pick up our friend Eddie in Long Branch. Game 2 tagged along with us on the car radio, on three overhead TVs at Barnicle Bill's in Rumson (some biiiiiiig houses in that town), and on the car radio again. With glad tidings all around.
Of course it's easy to enjoy having a doubleheader riding shotgun when the sun's shining, you win both games and your magic number drops into the single digits (with 8 a possibility pending the outcome of Houston/Philadelphia). But I'd like to imagine that it would have been a nice day even if we'd split or (perish the thought) dropped both games. Because this is the time of year when I start realizing that there's a lot more baseball behind us than there is ahead of us, and I begin to cling to what's left. I thought this year would be an exception, what with October back on the calendar and all, but it doesn't feel that way.
Ah well. The Nationals are eliminated. We cut the Braves' tragic number from 8 to 4. We've got pitching depth. Beltran is fine. Shawn Green looks like he's settling in. And the forecast? It's most definitely for sunny days.
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