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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 Jason Fry on 6 September 2006 3:41 am Rain at the beach is depressing.
Rain at the beach, followed by a rainout of the night's baseball game, is slightly more depressing.
Being depressed by a rainout in a city just two hours away when you've been watching it rain all day? I have no excuse.
I mean, really. I knew the Phillies were rained out. I'd rejiggered my fantasy-league team to get the non-Mets and non-Phillies into the lineup. I'd flipped over to SNY to see two die-nevers sitting by themselves in the field-level seats surrounded by water. Nonetheless, I felt my stomach sink when they called this one mercifully early. No game? Aw, crap.
Without a game, we could fall back on our newest Metropolitan pastime: fretting. The Phillies have found themselves. The Marlins are hotter than blazes. Those Astros pitchers would be a handful in a short series. The Dodgers are much better than last time we saw them. The Padres' pitching matches up well with ours. The Braves aren't dead yet. First of all, these are October problems. We haven't had those in some time. Second of all, turn it around and things sound different: mediocre to not-bad teams spinning scenarios in which they can somehow beat the one really great team in the NL. (Can they do it? Absolutely. Will they? I'll take my chances.) But that said, perspective doesn't come so easy when the game's been washed away and you're left with injury reports to pore over, black clouds to stare at, magic numbers that can't shrink and the memory of last night's refund-worthy sleepwalk.
So, enough. There are things to look forward to, even before bunting and banners and being annoyed by FOX announcers. Here are a few of mine, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Our record books will be rewritten. Two current single-season record holders will probably wind up in third place before October comes. Todd Hundley's 41 HRs is a near-lock to be eclipsed by Beltran and quite possibly Delgado as well. Edgardo Alfonzo's 123 runs scored will likely be erased by both Reyes and Beltran. Mike Piazza's 124 RBI will be Beltran's mark. Roger Cedeno's 66 SBs will be Reyes's.
The Holy Books will be newly populated. By my count (which I trust my co-blogger to correct if it's wrong, as it often is), 798 men have played for the New York Mets. Tomorrow's incoming Tides will include just one new player: Philip Humber, being brought up for a taste of the Show and some clubhouse mentoring. (Kelly Stinnett has been here before.) Unless Willie gets ornery about his old-schoolness, I imagine Humber will get an inning in a blowout somewhere along the line, making him the 799th Met. But that's it — without another surprise, The Holy Books won't reach 800 until 2007. (And if Humber doesn't get a start? He'll join the less-illustrious cast of near-Mets, a gloomy fraternity populated by Jerry Moses, Mac Suzuki, Terrel Hansen, Justin Speier and Anderson Garcia.)
Our stadium will officially begin taking shape. I haven't heard of an official groundbreaking date for IRS Bond Tax Status Favorable Ruling Park, but it's coming sometime this month. Politicians will don very clean hard hats, move a few ounces of dirt with silver shovels, and make strained baseball metaphors. And I will bask in every doofy cliche and shameless bit of pandering.
We'll get a division title. Who knows when? It'll come when it comes. (Greg and I have tickets for Sept. 18, but if the Mets want to clinch on Sept. 17, that's just fine with me.) Despite the inevitability, we'll all be ludicrously happy. And we'll get to see it — or at least the first few innings of it — eight or nine rain delays running on SNY.
Rain delays…that reminds me. Presumably we'll get a game that isn't rained out. Tomorrow would be nice. Because whether you win a walkoff thriller or lose a Labor Day mail-in, whether a division title is clinched or a utility guy given a four-at-bat look-see, I still haven't found many better things to do with an evening than lose myself in three hours of baseball.
by Greg Prince on 5 September 2006 7:49 am Yes, perfect. Let's lull the Braves into a sense of vitality. Let Chuck James retire almost everybody he faces. Aim balls to fall just barely into the gloves of Matt Diaz, Andruw Jones and Jeff Francoeur. Allow bunts to become hits and mishandle anything around first base. Kudos all around, but save your heartiest “attaboy!” for Steve Trachsel.
What's that? You don't think Trax's game plan included walking seven Atlanta Braves? I beg to differ. Trachsel's been a Met longer than anybody else. He's been suffering at the hands of the Atlanta Braves since 2001. Most of the Mets have never suffered against this fourth-place fringe contender. Our first-place juggernauters generally chew up the Braves and use their bones as toothpicks. But for one nostalgic evening, Steve arranged for an informal Turn Back The Clock Night.
It wasn't sentiment that spurred Steve. He desired payback. He wanted the Braves to inch into September with a prayer of winning the Wild Card. He wanted to string them along. Hey, the Braves were thinking, as long as we're within shouting distance of the pack, we can still make the playoffs.
Steve's no dullard. He checked the out-of-town scoreboard. The Phillies won. The Marlins won. It was going to be tough to keep Atlanta's faint hope alive. He was going to have do it himself.
So he walked the ballpark. Inspirational figure that he is, he inspired his teammates to provide shoddy defense behind him and inept offense in support of him. Thanks to Steve's foresight, the Braves remain remotely plausible for the postseason, in seventh place for the Wild Card, five games behind the Padres while trailing the Phils, Fish, Giants, Reds and Astros.
They have no chance. But thanks to Steve Trachsel, they are deluding themselves that they do. When they discover they don't, it will be all the more disappointing to them and their dozens of loyal followers. It's up to the Mets to decide whether they want to create more twisted fantasy for Braves Nation tonight or if they want to start letting them down hard. Perhaps they'll turn to their sage ace for advice.
Steve Trachsel usually pitches just well enough to win. Monday night he did all he had to do lose. It's not for nothing that the man who leads the best team in baseball in victories also has one of his league's worst earned run averages.
Brilliant!
by Greg Prince on 4 September 2006 6:04 am Just enough magic to make Sunday worthwhile.
After the Phillies came back on the Braves after the Braves came back on the Phillies, and as Roy Oswalt earned his every penny, I thought we were going to be stuck on 12 as the day grew late. Then I discovered there was a second game to be played at Citizens Bank and listened as the Braves were kind to win for our betterment (not to be confused with what used to be their Betemit).
The subpar Braves sticking it to the mediocre Phillies means what was 12 is now 11 and we continue to spend each night in rapture. Beyond the dedigitizing of the magic number, we were rewarded in other ways.
• Carlos has a bruise, nothing more. Willie said he could play tomorrow. He won’t, but the point is he’s apparently close to OK.
• El Duque, the third lame and/or halting Met to return in three days, looked unhittable…often because he kept missing the strike zone but also because he’s El Duque. Maybe he was shaking off the rust or maybe that is El Duque at this point, finding what he has to find to retire as many as he needs to. Oswalt simply retired more at the right junctures (though we did record 300% more hits than Houston).
• Cliff is making a bid to be Cliff again. Got short-circuited on two nice Astro fielding plays but is hitting the ball well. I hope that somehow inspires the pressing Shawn Green.
• Oswalt suffocated a lineup that included Mike DeFelice catching and Chris Woodward playing third. He’s a very good pitcher, but should our paths cross next month (I kinda doubt it given the Houstons’ stubborn insistence on not hitting), the plan calls for Beltran, Lo Duca and Wright in the lineup. I’ll take my chances.
Even with our Sunday snooze, we almost pulled it out. I thought we might blow it Friday and came a Beltran heartbeat away from doing that Saturday. Two of three in enemy yahoo territory is sufficient. This 4-2 tour of time zones other than the normal one (nothing outside EDT on the schedule) is fine given our elevated state.
The lead is 16, better than every Mets team has ever had except for 1986. We entered 34 over .500, which was the 1999 team’s peak position. After reaching it 7 years ago, we lost 7 in a row. That’s not gonna happen now.
I’ll accept all comers, but I’d prefer not to play the Astros again. Though they’re nothing alike, Minute Maid’s vibe recalls the Astrodome 20 years ago. I’d also prefer not to play the Phillies or Marlins — tied in our magic rear view mirror with 68 losses, so watch ’em both. Either one would be on a ’99/’00 Wild Card roll like us if we were to see them in the NLCS. I can see the Reds being that way, too. They’re all scrappy. We were scrappy in ’99 and ’00. It worked to varying degrees. Then again, we didn’t play the 2006 us then. The Padres don’t scare me but they do have pitching and they must be doing something right. The Braves are behind six teams for a playoff spot, including the incomprehensible Giants. We play Atlanta this week and can get them started on their tee time right away.
‘Cause this is our time.
11.01: No, I Hadn’t Heard. Please, please, please stop making Gary read those insipid promos for the all-new CW 11 which is really the who-cares WB 11. Why does Channel 11 air a newscast anyway? And why does Jim Belushi have a sitcom on any channel?
11.02: I Swear, I Was Just Looking for The Magic Garden. All those years when Channel 11 was the home of that other New York-based ballclub, I always felt a touch disloyal watching it. Thank goodness Oscar Madison usually wore a Mets cap.
11.03: That Guy Blew. If not quite on the order of an ohmigod, we just traded for Willie Mays/George Foster/Gary Carter shock to the system, I was pleasantly surprised when the Mets picked up the discredited Lenny Randle and stuck him in No. 11. Randle instantly became the best everyday player on the 1977 Mets (a little like saying tater tots were the most excellent side dish in the school cafeteria) and carried none of the taint associated with his punchout of his Texas manager Frank Lucchesi. It just seemed odd the Mets of M. Donald Uptight would sanction that kind of acquisition. Maybe Grant was so busy slurring Nancy Seaver that Joe McDonald snuck it by him.
11.04: This Guy Stuck. The Mets never could rid themselves of Wayne Garrett, no matter how hard they tried. A little bit of Joe Foy in our lives, a little Aspromonte on the side, a trade for Fregosi we didn’t need… The Hot Corner Hasbeenery had a dependable client in Bob Scheffing, but every time you looked up in the early ’70s, an imported third baseman was failing and it was No. 11 standing tall.
11.05: Are They Still Loose? Second-string catchers should either be skilled or personable. In 2005, Ramon Castro was both. He practically platooned with a Hall of Fame-bound catcher, but what you heard mostly was what a cutup No. 11 was in the clubhouse. He’s off recovering from what I don’t remember. His teammates don’t seem all that morbid without him, though I imagine they will be should DiFelice be starting the third game of the National League Division Series.
11.06: But That Wouldn’t Happen. When the Mets played their first postseason series in 11 years, the 1999 NLDS, the 3rd game was started by their second-string catcher, someone who never platooned with a Hall of Fame-bound catcher. He started Game 4, too. How did that work out for Todd Pratt against Arizona? Regardless, get well Ramon. And stay strong Paul. I believe in you both.
11.07: And I Know You Believe in Me. On the very first American Top 40 countdown I ever heard, August 5, 1973, Chicago had the No. 11 record in the land with “Feelin’ Stronger Everyday”. Casey Kasem said it was knocking on the door to the Top 10.
11.08: Too Much Knowledge Was a Dangerous Thing. In 3rd grade, I taught myself to recite by rote the presidents of the United States, from Washington to Nixon. When I was a senior in college, I took a class in the presidency, one in which the professor, Dr. Levy, lumped together a bunch of first-half 19th-century chief executives as, essentially, losers: Van Buren (8th president), Harrison (9th), Tyler (10th), Taylor (12th). I smugly called out that he forgot the 11th president, James K. Polk. He shot back, “I didn’t forget Polk. I have more to say about him tomorrow.” Dr. Levy said, essentially, that Polk wasn’t a loser. His tone, however, implied that I was.
11.09: Couldn’t Get It Right. The Mets played their first game ever on April 11, 1962. They lost.
11.10: Couldn’t Get It Right Again. The Mets played their first World Series game ever on October 11, 1969. They lost.
11.11: And a Pattern Took Hold. The Mets played their first game in front of me at Shea Stadium on July 11, 1973. They lost. Dr. Levy would laugh if he remembered me at all.
by Jason Fry on 4 September 2006 1:25 am This year vacation's hardly a vacation, Metwise: LBI's cable system has SNY and the WB, the FAN is audible, and there's high-speed Internet access. Add that up and subtract Braden Looper, and you've got a recipe for the perfect vacation, at least in my book.
And you can't beat a 2:05 start for one's first day at the beach. Broil for long enough to get some color, get smashed around in the surf, dabble with sand castles, come in at the day's halfway point before you go from “some color” to “burned and regretful,” take a leisurely stroll to the deli for a sandwich and a Barq's and whaddya know — there's a ballgame on! If not for the whole having to work/Emily has to work/kid has to go to school thing, a fellow could get used to things down here.
Combine vacation and a whatever-it-was-this-morning-game lead, and today's game seemed more like a classic that one could appreciate than a missed chance to gnash teeth over. El Duque was good, but Roy Oswalt was at least flirting with Destiny. (Oswalt strikes me as one of those guys you dislike if he's on the other team but come to regard as gutty or gritty or some other baseball compliment if he's on your team.)
The whole game read like one of those improbable wins the '69 Mets achieved (I'm thinking in particular of Steve Carlton striking out 19 but losing on two Swoboda HRs), typified by that sixth-inning rally: Flyout, walk, walk, HBP, perfect suicide squeeze, intentional walk, groundout that should have been an infield hit. Not only did the Astros win despite getting one-hit, that lone hit (Aubrey Huff, leading off the second) had nothing to do with the scoring. Conjuring a run without a hit is tough enough; try doing it twice.
At the end, when Cliff had almost had a single and Delgado had a cosmetic home run and Green almost had a single, Joshua was aghast that we'd lost and began to cry. I explained that you couldn't win every day, and he countered by saying, “But I want them to win the game every day.” Sensible enough, and led me into a soliloquy about how it wouldn't be fun if you always knew you'd win and the Astros have fans and just think how happy they are and sometimes you just have to appreciate a really good game and other associated bullshit.
What the heck. When your magic number's hurtling toward the single digits before Labor Day, you can afford to be magnanimous.
by Greg Prince on 3 September 2006 4:29 am The skies, they drench, but the magic number, it drips. Saturday afternoon, it dripped from 14 to 13. Though it was possible more could have been done about it, it only dripped from 13 to 12 Saturday night. Mets won but so did the Phillies. Not a biggie, though. Who wants the Braves to sweep anything? Both they and Philly could feel diminished while we (pending our MVP’s knees) just get enhanced.
12.01: Manager of the Year. While it’s not as impressive in some minds as guiding a crew of teal children to almost .500, Willie Randolph, No. 12, has done the best managing job in the National League in 2006. Joe Girardi will get the award because what he’s done is also impressive but also the sort of thing that gets voters’ attention. All Willie has done is exceed expectations and overcome obstacles and succeed to the maximum level in the toughest market in America. He’s not a touch-feely guy but I find myself respecting him more every week.
12.02: Another Trivia Question Already. The player who used to be known as the first Brooklyn Cyclone to reach the Majors should also be thought of as the last Met to wear No. 12 before Willie Randolph. Danny Garcia hit .227 as a Met in 2003 and 2004. Willie Randolph, in 1992, hit 25 points higher. Willie’s always been a winner.
12.03: Forever Linked. When the Mets acquired a reluctant Shawon Dunston for the 1999 stretch drive, his eyes lit up when he was handed his uniform. 12? That’s Ken Boswell! I’ll bet not even Jack Heidemann, who followed Kenny into the number, knew that.
12.04: He Liked It A Lot. Shawon Dunston’s leadoff plate appearance in the bottom of the 15th inning of Game 5 of the 1999 National League Championship Series lasted 12 pitches. He singled and scored the tying run. The Mets won when Robin Ventura also singled. Dunston was making “I love you, man!” speeches in the visitors’ clubhouse two nights later, a Met fan who grew up to be a postseason hero. In 2000, he was a Cardinal…and we booed him like the Houston crowd boos Beltran. (No we didn’t.)
12.05: A Comfortable Margin. The Phillies kept our magic number at 12 by beating the Braves by 12, 16-4. On consecutive Saturdays in July 1985, the Mets beat the Braves and then the Astros by that identical score. We were in the middle of a run in which we won 30 of 37. We finished 98-64. And there was no Wild Card.
12.06: Know Your Limits. In 1969, 1972, 1986 and 1990, the Mets forged 11-game winning streaks. Each attempt to extend those skeins to 12 failed, by scores of, respectively, 7-2; 2-1; 7-2; and 7-4.
12.07: Good As Over. In the 12th game of the 2006 season, Pedro Martinez defeated the Atlanta Braves 4-3 for his 200th victory, raised the Mets’ record to 10-2, increased the team’s lead in the East to 5 games and, in my eyes, clinched the division. Seriously, I never had any real doubts after we started that strong.
12.08: A Real “This Date” Buzzkill. Remember that great Mets game 12 years ago today? If you do, you’re a stone liar or a Strat-O-Matic junkie. The strike of ’94 was in full effect.
12.09: Sandpapering Over Our Differences. On October 12, 1986, Mike Scott worked his scuffy magic and defeated the Mets in Game 4 of the NLCS, 3-1. Except for Jim Bouton gaining fresh perspective for the latter portion of Ball Four, have the Houston Astros ever served any purpose?
12.10: More Like It. On October 12, 1969, the New York Mets recorded their first World Series victory, 2-1 in Baltimore. The winning pitcher was Jerry Koosman, No. 36. Kooz won 3 World Series games as a Met. 36 divided by 3 is 12.
12.11: Privileged Character. Why is 12 a dozen? There’s no special name for 11. 13 is a baker’s dozen, which strikes me as coattail-riding. And how come no 6 contiguous states outside New England are labeled with a formal title? I don’t mean Mid-Atlantic States or the Upper Midwest. I mean something that’s accepted as a defined multistate geographic entity. (Delmarva doesn’t count.) When I was a kid, I’d occasionally see my hometown referred to as Long Beach, Long Island. Is there another region that gets to stand in as a quasi-state jurisdiction? You could address mail to Long Beach, L.I. and it would get delivered. They don’t say “Syracuse, Upstate,” do they? And what’s the deal with this airline food?
12.12: Punch The Clock. Negotiations that go down to the 11th hour imply a 12 o’clock deadline. But as Kent Brockman once pointed out, the 11th hour is, literally, 10 o’clock.
by Greg Prince on 3 September 2006 3:16 am I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on TV, I don't pretend to be able to make diagnoses while watching TV which also means I'm not the Majority Leader of the United States Senate. But never mind that right now. What's important is what condition Carlos Beltran's condition is in. Because when he went down on the Minute Maid grass in the ninth inning after making one of the Web Gemmiest, game-savingest catches you'll ever see in a critical moment, all I could think was…
…so much for winning the World Series.
My lack of medical training notwithstanding, seeing him not being on carried on a stretcher or lifted onto a cart was a positive sign. Seeing him walk through the dugout was encouraging. And hearing him afterwards on WFAN, all things considered, was very good news.
He says he can't bend his left knee. That doesn't sound helpful for a centerfielder and third-place hitter who uses his knees a lot. But if I had just run into what he had run into, there'd be a lot I couldn't bend. Carlos Beltran's condition is better than the condition my condition is in. Ed Coleman said he sounded fine. Indeed, the should-be MVP of the National League was quite with it, answered things calmly and, from the sound of the audio, without his teeth clenched. (Maybe Bill Frist can divine whether, in fact, he was clenching his teeth.) He's going for tests and, well, we'll see. (X-Rays In: Negative. It's called a bruise for now.)
The beauty of a 16-1/2 game lead with 28 games left is he can ice it, whirlpool it, tape it, whatever it takes. In the short-term, it barely matters. Endy Chavez will never lose playing time on this club because there's always an outfielder who's going down. Appendectomy? Achilles? I just saved Billy Wagner's bacon by crashing into the chain link fence of that funhouse yahoo excuse for a regulation baseball facility? It's Endy to the rescue. I'm not worried about tomorrow or this coming week.
Of course we need Carlos Beltran for October. I'm not a doctor, but I'm going to cross my fingers and be confident that we can be hopeful that our luck will hold out. We got Tom back last night. We got Cliff back tonight. We got a lot going for us. Much of that is Beltran's doing.
It was, incidentally, nothing like that disaster in Petco Park from last August except for one thing. In San Diego, Willie gave Jose Reyes a rare day off. In Houston, Willie gave Jose Reyes a rare day off. If Beltran is our MVP, Reyes is his facilitator. Stop resting him twice a year.
Oh, and I hate the fans of Houston more than ever. Yes, there was some obligatory applauding the guy who had given his body over to baseball when he showed he wasn't dead, but I'm sure I heard booing. People who boo Carlos Beltran yet value Roger Clemens? I can't say it enough: Bunch of yahoos. Hey, I'm sure there's a football game going on somewhere down the block. Maybe you'd be happier there. Or at a two-way rifle range.
Minute Maid is a farce. Maine pitches beautifully but is burned on a Lance Berkman pop fly to left that goes into something called the Crawford Boxes. Does anybody check with MLB to ascertain whether dimensions are regulation anymore? (The answer is no.) This series is now about more than reducing our magic number even more. I really hope we beat these SOBs in their useless, overly humid, backwards, nothing-to-do cowtown with their rodeo fans and their tightwad management.
You wanted to keep Beltran? Then you should have given him the no-trade clause he wanted. He only led to you to the edge of the promised land and you treat him like dirt. Yes, there were idiots here who did that last year. It's inexcusable, but it was a plurality, not a majority. I'm not a doctor and I'm not a hearing technician, but I could tell last season and this that it's an overwhelming percentage of Astros fans who can't get over Carlos Beltran, their rent-a-player who gave them everything he had, leaving them because he couldn't get the deal he wanted from Drayton McLane.
I've been trying to put this in a Met perspective. The obvious correlation is Mike Hampton, ironically an ex-Astro. Hampton came for one year, the last year on his contract. He was very effective for most of 2000, especially the NLCS. The Mets negotiated a little with him but he never showed much interest in sticking around. I think he's reviled here — though not nearly as much as Beltran there — for the schools crack, because it was so transparent. Did Beltran ever say anything that stupid about Houston or give the impression that he was going to dedicate his life and future to Harris County, Texas?
Mets fans booed Ken Griffey for vetoing a trade that would have brought him here. I was among them. It was kind of silly. But Ken Griffey was never a Met. Carlos Beltran was an Astro. He didn't make lifelong proclamations of loyalty to Houston the way Johnny Damon did with Boston, and Beltran didn't go to a blood rival of the Astros, if in fact the Astros have a blood rival (besides apathy). Him making that catch was very sweet. Of course he won't play Sunday, which is too bad, because I'd love to see him do more damage to their dwindling playoff chances.
Oh well. If not him, then there's a couple dozen other Mets who can pick up the slack.
I'm too worked up to salute the delightful dozen right now. Before the next game, I promise.
by Greg Prince on 2 September 2006 10:27 pm The day portion of our day-night magic number watch has scratched another notch off the countin’ wall. I won’t exactly say, “thanks Braves,” but, uh…never mind. A digit is a digit. This afternoon’s Phillies loss means we have but 13 left, at least until evening.
13.01: Fonzie. Until we started growing great Mets in the Dominican Republic and the Old Dominion State, was Edgardo Alfonzo the greatest homegrown everyday Met in team history? Using the handy guide provided by The Hundred Greatest Mets of the First Forty Years, only Buddy Harrelson (ranked 8th) and Darryl Strawberry (4th) are ahead of Fonzie, who’s in 9th. But Buddy didn’t hit much and Darryl was known to take it easy now and then. Fonzie, No. 13, did some of everything and most of it extraordinarily well. Maybe not the greatest homegrown everyday Met as a matter of Met lore, but probably the soundest. Even if we never see him in his rightful colors or number again, he remains secure in my personal holy trinity: Tom-Doc-Fonzie.
13.02: Anderson Hernandez Can’t Hit. I know he’s not the Edgardo of the Valentine Years, but he is experienced, righthanded and, if I’ve been reading the Tides stats correctly, not completely washed up. Seems like a good guy to have around as long as there’s a big, stretchy roster to enjoy. Has Omar just forgotten that he signed him? Can’t we bump some suspect off the 40-man? No. 13 doesn’t deserve to end his season, maybe his career, wearing No. 9 in Norfolk. Bring him up. Now.
13.03: Precedent! Theretofore washed-up scrubeenie Lee Mazzilli was brought up from Tidewater in August 1986, donned No. 13 and contributed to a world championship drive. Say, anybody know why the Tides started being Norfolk and stopped being Tidewater? I think it was around ’93. You can tell the old-timers by their insistence on calling it Tidewater. Bob Dole referred to the Los Angeles Dodgers as the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1996 and came off as out of it. I imagine he got Fred Wilpon’s vote.
13.04: Tornado Warning. The geography of the Dodgers came up in the first place for Dole because he was trying to make a cheap political point on the back of future Met Hideo Nomo’s no-hitter in Coors Field, still — pre-humidor (or “humididor” as Keith would say) — one of the remarkable feats in pitching. I saw the Mets score 13 runs against the Rockies in 1995, but that was at Shea.
13.05: My Opponent Has Nothing To Say. Once upon a time, Channel 13 wasn’t public television but a commercial outlet broadcasting in New Jersey. On the eve of the 1957 governor’s race, each candidate bought an hour of time, one at 10 o’clock, one at 11 o’clock. The one who spoke first finished with a playing of the national anthem and an airing of the test pattern. Viewers thought that meant the broadcasting day was over and clicked off their sets. The one who spoke second ended up talking to himself and losing. That candidate was zillionaire Malcolm Forbes, so it’s hard to say he didn’t wind up winning in the long run.
13.06: This Seat is Taken Of course should my Alfoznorian dreams come true, he’ll have to grab another number. I don’t think Billy Wagner is giving up 13. If he had a sense of Mets history, he would, but Billy Wagner’s not about that.
13.07: Every Ninth Inning is Christmas. I, like my co-blogger, asked Santa to slip No. 13 onto Billy Wagner’s torso for us. That was after I decided Aaron Heilman wouldn’t be the best option as long as the fireballing lefty was out there. Remember how great Heilman was last September, though? Him and Bert and Juan Padilla? Would have been interesting to see if that would have worked. Moot now, and not just because Padilla is off on the 60- or 600-day DL. A year after we got all funked up by Shingo Takatsu, I’m not giving back Billy Wagner.
13.08: He Loves Bulletin Boards. One thing that makes me alternately fond of and nervous about Billy Wags is the way he speaks his mind regarding the teams for whom he used to wear 13. Earlier in the year, he wasn’t shy about sharing his opinion of what a bunch of losers the Phillies were. I read this morning he took extra glee in retiring the Astros last night. He’s still sore at Drayton McLane for letting him go. I feel ya, bro.
13.09: Would You Trade Billy Wagner for Albert Pujols? Not a real tight analogy but close enough: The Mets sent their closer, No. 13, Neil Allen to the Cardinals for their all-world first baseman Keith Hernandez in 1983. Hernandez seemed so reluctant to come here that Joel and I imagined him saying, well, just give me my Mets uniform with my number, 37, and I’ll see how it fits…you can do THAT much for me, can’t you? You can’t? God, I hate the Stems.
13.10: Going Up? A lot of buildings avoid 13th floors, which is a good way to perpetuate fear and belief in dark magic. A company I worked for had its executive offices on the 13th floor. They perpetuated fear and a belief in dark magic.
13.11: Don’t Blame Felix Millan and Kenny Rogers. The Mets have played two postseason games on October 13. They lost the first game of the 1973 World Series and the second game of the 1999 National League Championship Series. October 13 this year falls on a Friday during the NLCS. There may or may not be a game scheduled. I’d rather be eligible to play on October 13 than stay home and avoid ladders and mirrors.
13.12: The Dark Ages, Indeed. Roger Craig wore No. 13 in order to break a losing streak in 1963. Roger Craig taught Mike Scott how to scuff a baseball. Rain postponed Game 5 of the 1986 NLCS, slated for October 13. Anthony Young never stopped wearing No. 19. AY’s 12th consecutive loss in his string of 27 came on September 13, 1992.
13.13: Pushing It. I don’t believe there’s anything unlucky about 13. But I’d hate to think saluting the current magic number while there’s a Met game and a Phillie game yet to be played this Saturday gets in the way of immediate good fortune. See you later…I hope.
by Jason Fry on 2 September 2006 2:13 pm Last year when Labor Day arrived Emily and I packed the kid into the rental car and we headed for Long Beach Island. It was a lovely week filled with lovely weather, lovely friends, lovely kid activities on a lovely beach, and really, really, really unlovely baseball. That was the week we went 1-6. The week Shingo Takatsu served up a huge, fat, juicy meatball to Miguel Cabrera. The week Braden Looper managed to blow a save in Atlanta not once but twice on the same night. (“All I want for Christmas is Billy Wagner,” I typed. Hmmm.) The week our flickering postseason hopes went out.
Today we're getting in the car to go to … Long Beach Island! Same beach house, even. (This year it reportedly has high-speed Internet, so you won't be rid of me so easily.) The weather's not looking lovely, at least for the beginning of the week. That's OK. Because I'm relaxed about the baseball .
Case in point: Last night Emily and I were lounging around watching the game. We remained calm when Glavine imploded — not particularly helped when Delgado followed a nice stab of a liner with a speed-of-continental-drift move in the general direction of Chris Burke, just missing an inning-ending double play. No matter — as you've taught me this year, it's about Ws and Ls, not style points. We watched the Mets coolly take the lead on a smash by Wright (whom I seem to recall was slumping once upon a time) that Jason Lane played off his lower back. The Astros, not to be denied just yet, tied it at 6. Still we remained calm.
Digression: What was up with that ridiculous poll on what fans want most in the new park? Who wouldn't pick legroom/better seats? More concessions is too iffy — definitely a case of quality outweighing quantity, as more opportunities to buy rock-hard/wet-tissue-paper pretzels is not a selling point. More restaurants? Again, nice in theory; possibly dangerous in practice. More parking? Not essential for part of the audience, and it's not like a crappy day at the park was ever redeemed by a really great parking spot. Better, roomier seats are the safe choice, because it's pretty hard to screw them up. How boring. So I got to wondering out loud: Couldn't they have done better? Why not a question to make people pay attention? Something like…I dunno…Should the new park have hookers? They'd wear bright green so you could see them from far away, kind of like vendors but not to be confused with vendors, because if a bunch of drunken frat boys goes several sections over in pursuit of a neon jersey and finds the Pepsi guy, it's gonna get ugly.
At this point Emily raised a very important point: Could you trust the Mets to supply good hookers? What if what was available turned out to be the Aramark equivalent of hookers? An excellent question, and proof that my wife remains wise even when not exactly in her element. Just the thought of an Aramark hooker had me imagining Fran Healy declaring without a hint of shame that if you haven't tried an Aramark hooker, you sure don't know what you're missing.
Huh? What's that? We should really move along? Why? … Oh. Jeez, you're right. I do seem to still be talking about hookers. You're right, I really should stop. OK, sorry. Um, where were we?
(For the record, of course I don't think New Shea should have hookers. I just thought the poll was silly and needed a little livening up. Though I bet Keith would have had something amusing to say on the subject.)
Anyway, before the 7th I calmly told Trever Miller that we were coming to get him. (I don't think he could hear me, being in another time zone and all.) I was wrong. Wrong, but not worried. Chad Bradford survived a night when his pitches were sailing a bit high, thanks to one to Orlando Palmeiro that was perfect. So before the 8th I calmly told Russ Springer that we were coming to get him. And I was right. Wright with the double after narrowly missing a monster HR, Valentin with the go-ahead run, Endy with some insurance. Insurance that made Billy Wagner's extended confrontation with Lance Berkman far less worrisome. Entertaining, even.
So off I go to the beach. No Shingo Takatsu or Braden Looper or Fran Healy in sight. Just the best baseball team on the planet, racking them up and counting them down.
by Greg Prince on 2 September 2006 4:45 am Glavine looked good. Then he looked bad. Wagner was a little shaky but all right in the end. In between, Bradford, Mota and Heilman got the job done. None of the Mets’ pitchers, however, was as effective as that kid from the Caribbean League, Ernesto. He blanked the Phillies, but that didn’t help us because he also whitewashed the Braves.
Our bullpen and bats got our magic number down to 14. A tropical storm ensured that’s as far as it would get.
Add Houston to the growing list of teams I don’t want to win the Wild Card. Part of that is a longstanding distaste for the Astros on many levels. Part of that is the disgust associated with anything associated with Roger Clemens. But most of that is I don’t want to listen to that bush bzzzzzzzzz crap and hear those yahoos whoop it up under that unnaturally closed roof. We fear no team, but I’d prefer to not start getting nervous over competitive environs. I don’t like Minute Maid Park. I don’t like Minute Maid juice.
Willie, no doubt ignoring the milestone the Mets reached Friday night (last year 83-79, this year 83-50), is using these games to see what he’s got. Glavine didn’t have it after the third, but the skipper wanted to see him handle a fifth after being out for more than two weeks. With a lead in the stratosphere, why not? Same with Perez last night. Seeing Glavine, no doubt needing to build his endurance, is humongously vital these days. Still, I’d have hated to have lost to the Astros and hated to have missed a chance to lop off another digit.
No worries. One more is gone. 14 remain.
14.01: Gil. To have been around for any of Gil Hodges‘ Mets managerial tenure, to have a tangible memory of it, you couldn’t be any younger than 41. Yet No. 14 for the Mets continues to be understood by every generation of Mets fan as the manager in Mets history. He was voted the All-Amazin’ manager in 2002 and that was voting that was notoriously short on long-term perspective (witness the election of Lenny Dykstra over Cleon Jones to the outfield). Hodges is, simply, immortal here.
14.02: Inimitable. Every now and then, a manager who comes off as stern but avuncular (or avuncular but stern) is appointed and he is compared to Gil Hodges. I heard it about Roy McMillan in 1975 and I may have even heard it about Art Howe in 2002 (though I may be thinking of a joke I made). Nobody’s allowed to wear 14 anymore because nobody can be compared to 14. My favorite story about him comes from his Washington Senators days. He knew 4 of his players had broken curfew during Spring Training. He called a meeting and announced that he wasn’t going to embarrass anybody in front of the team, but you know who you are and I expect a check for $50 from each of you on my desk in the morning. The next morning, it is said, 7 different Washington Senators paid the fine.
14.03: Pitchers Who Could Hit. On September 12, 1969, Gil Hodges directed his Mets to a doubleheader sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1-0 and 1-0, the famous incidence of Jerry Koosman and Don Cardwell each driving in the only runs in games they won. Koosman won the opener, earning his 14th win of the season. Cardwell’s victory in the nightcap was the Mets’ 87th win…or 14 more than they had the year before.
14.04: He Could Pitch, Too. When I think of living, breathing Gil Hodges, I see him walking through the Mets clubhouse, fully dressed in No. 14, urging us to take our banking business to Manufacturers Hanover Trust.
14.05: Not Bad At All. The other image comes from The Boys Of Summer by Roger Kahn. Gil is managing the Mets. His 19-year-old son, Gil II, brings a friend and gets permission for the two of them to work out at Shea. The friend changes into spikes with white tops, a no-no, the son tells him. “You can’t use them here. My father’s a kind of conservative man.” The friend says that he doesn’t seem so bad. “He isn’t,” says the son. “He’s just kind of conservative.”
14.06: Boys Of Bummer. In addition to permitting Mike Piazza’s 31 to circulate to Brad Penny but not Greg Maddux, the Dodgers let 14 rattle around in their wardrobe. Mike Scioscia wore it when he hit a 9th-inning home run off Doc Gooden in Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS. And Fred Wilpon’s still googly eyed over that franchise?
14.07: They Wouldn’t Have Had They Known He’d Be Back. Two Mets wore 14 between Hodges leaving the Mets as a player and returning as a manager: Ron Swoboda and Ken Boyer. Boyer would have 14 retired on his behalf by the Cardinals. Swoboda switched to 4 in deference to the 1964 MVP and later earned a rather superfluous mention in Frequency. I take that back: No mention of Ron Swoboda is superfluous.
14.08: Context. Gil Hodges, our immortal, our No. 14, our Mets Hall of Famer (inducted 1982), isn’t up to Cooperstown snuff. His numbers look a little pale compared to other immortals. If I was to tell you that when Gil Hodges retired in 1963, his 370 home runs were the 10th-most in baseball history, is that something you might be interested in?
14.09: You Want Quiet? In 1991, Marino Amoruso authored a biography of Gil Hodges called The Quiet Man. Seven years later, a veritable mute named John Olerud was playing Hodges’ old position for Hodges’ old team and reached base 14 times in 14 consecutive plate appearances.
14.10: Another Laugh Barrel. Steve Trachsel has 14 wins. And he’s deserved every last one of them.
14.11: I Remember It Like It Was Four Months Ago. On May 5, 2006, the Mets defeated the Braves 8-7 in 14 fabulous innings. It took 4 hours and 47 minutes. And I adored every last one of them.
14.12: The Longest Time. I’ve been to a pair of 14-inning games. On March 31, 1998, the Mets beat the Phillies 1-0, and yes, that was the Bambi Castillo affair. On June 9, 1999, the Mets beat the Blue Jays 4-3 and yes, that was the Bobby Valentine fake mustache and glasses caper. Gil Hodges would have fined Bobby V a hundred bucks for that stunt, but I revere them both.
14.13: Wayne Manor Was Conveniently Located. When the Batmobile zoomed out of the Batcave, it passed a sign noting Gotham City was 14 miles away.
14.14: Wayne Garrett Was Conveniently Located. Gil Hodges gave Wayne Garrett his first Major League job. In the three seasons Wayne Garrett played for Gil Hodges, he hit 14 home runs.
by Greg Prince on 2 September 2006 2:18 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.
So you’ll be hanging out Monday afternoon, thinking, “Labor Day…holiday…Mets game!” Rethink it. Mets are scheduled for Monday night. You’ll have nothing important to do all day long.
But now you will. Because I’m here to remind you that Monday is the perfect time to haul out your nine-disc Mets World Series box that you bought the moment it was released in March.
What? You haven’t bought it? Well get out before the weather gets too bad and pick one up. There’s no time like the present to lose yourself in this particular past.
Confession: I did buy my box on March 28 but except for the extras, I haven’t watched much of it. A little something called the current season got in the way. I can think of a few years when this boxed set would made nice midseason replacement programming. Who wouldn’t have rather watched Roger McDowell instead of Roger Cedeño in 2003? Unfortunately, it wasn’t available in 2003.
Fortunately, this isn’t 2003.
Still, since the extras are smokin’ — mic’d up Mike Piazza asking Mookie Wilson about Bill Buckner during batting practice in 2000 and going “dude!” this and “dude!” that like he’s Lenny Dykstra’s illegitimate nephew is priceless — and since Flashback Friday comes around every seven days, it seemed a good idea to pop in one of the eight games and tell you what’s great about it.
Ah, but which one? The set includes all seven World Series contests plus the clincher from Houston. Since we’re all familiar with the biggies — the Sixes, the Seventh — and I hadn’t much desire to sit through the three World Series losses (why are they here exactly?), that narrowed down my choices to Game Three and Game Four of the World Series. I went with Game Three, one I hadn’t seen in any meaningful form since 1986.
Just one inning for now. First I’ve got a season to finish. Then a nice, long, rewarding postseason, then all the commemorative 2006 product they can churn out. Winter will be endless enough.
Things that struck me:
• Fenway Park was “the dowager queen without a hair out of place,” according to Vin Scully. “And at least for tonight, she goes to the ball like a young lady once again.” Take that, Joe Buck. Vintage Vin was awesome, very evocative of the Harry Shearer impression in the final episode of last season’s Simpsons: “And if you’re scoring at home, that saddens me.”
• The Green Monster was green. Not a speck of advertising. Fenway wasn’t a metaphor or an experience. It was a park. A slightly shabby one at that, but lifesize. I know it’s small now, but it appeared tiny then.
• Joe Garagiola said Oil Can Boyd has six pitches. Does anybody have six pitches anymore?
• The 23 on Boyd’s back practically enveloped his front. Were the numbers bigger then or was Boyd — “built like the hour hand on your watch,” according to Scully — that thin? No wonder he came apart so easily.
• Tip O’Neill threw out the first pitch from a box seat with little fuss. He was cheered. A politician cheered? Vin explained he was retiring.
• Lenny Dykstra’s leadoff home run rated one replay. ONE! And it was a reaction shot, Lenny pumping his fist when he saw it was gone. Foul pops get three replays these days.
• The homer was the Mets’ first extra base hit of the Series. Two games, no doubles, triples or homers to that point. No wonder we were down two-zip.
• No promos for new NBC shows. Any talk of 227 relates to the Mets composite average, not the hilarious Saturday night sitcom. There are also almost no graphics. Those there are are too big, but they’re not torrential and they’re not intrusive. I like the score boxes of today, but you can keep most everything else.
• When a bat split, Vin said it was like “that old song”. What old song? Why, “Celery Stalks at Midnight”. Vin and Joe, a duo I really didn’t care for back in the day, are rather comforting 20 years after the fact. They don’t overwhelm you. They’re older men explaining baseball to you. If not just like Lindsey, Ralph and Bob, then close enough.
• The early 1986 equivalent of “Spahn and Sain and two days of rain” was, noted Scully, “Clemens and Boyd and fill the void.” I’ll bet it wasn’t.
• With Boyd in trouble, McNamara got up Sammy Stewart. Sammy Stewart was a Red Sock? I knew that then, hadn’t thought about him since.
• The Sox bullpen, in right field, was in the area that “will forever be known as Williamsburg,” Vin said. He told a story about Ted Williams and 1940. For all the nationally televised October games I’ve seen in Fenway Park the last few years, I don’t think there’s been a single reference to Williamsburg or 1940. So much for forever.
• Darryl struck out for the 17th time in the postseason. Now it’s commonplace for the LDS, the LCS and the WS to be lumped as a single entity. Then it was unusual. And depressingly visionary.
• Dykstra’s homer notwithstanding, the signature play of that inning and that game came with Keith on third and Gary on second, one out. Knight bounces to Boggs. Boggs throws home to Gedman. Hernandez is in a rundown. Gedman throws to Boggs. Boggs tosses to the shortstop Owen, covering third, where Carter is approaching. Hernandez slips back into third. Owens turns around. Starts to chase Carter back to second. Turns around to make sure Hernandez doesn’t take off for home. Carter retreats successfully to second. Knight? He’s on first with a 5-2-5-6-4 fielder’s choice. Bases loaded, one out. Then Heep singles home Hernandez and Carter. Mets 4 Red Sox 0.
• Owen was the goat. If you’re him, Joe said, “you ask for the salt and pepper and take a bite out of it.” Huh? He means ’cause you have to eat it. Vin tut-tutted how sloppy rundowns have become.
• We got two entire replays of one of the oddest, sloppiest rundown —in the World Series, no less — you’ll ever see, one before Heep came up, one in the bottom of the first.
• Just before the bottom of the inning commenced, you could hear organ music. Baseball fans were otherwise left to talk amongst themselves between frames.
• As Ojeda began throwing, Scully referred to the 33-inning game he pitched in in 1981 as a Pawtucket Red Sock. “Rather than send you to the history books,” he gave us some details. I had the same reaction to “history books,” as I did when I watched Good Night and Good Luck and Murrow’s boys waited for the early editions to come out: “Why not just go online?”
• “Buck” was “hobbling” but “playing and playing well.” Buck was first baseman Bill Buckner. It’s impossible to look at Bill Buckner in a Red Sox uniform four days before Game Six and not think of the gleaming ship at the beginning of Titanic. A watery doom awaits both, they just don’t know it. The Queen of the Ocean sank the same week as the dowager queen of Boston opened, no?
• Most of all, as I watched this DVD (or any Mets Classic), I responded to every Met move like one of Pavlick‘s Dogs. Yes, I know the night ends 7-1 and the Series ends 4-3. So what? A Met bats, I tense up. A Met hit falls in, I raise my arms. A Met makes an out, I groan. What’s the point of reliving 1986 if you’re not going to relive 1986?
Dude!
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