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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 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!
by Greg Prince on 1 September 2006 8:55 pm In lieu of a pennant race, I've been taking this magic number thing pretty seriously. I was flipping madly between the Mets-Rockies and Phillies-Nationals games last night as if a lead, not a countdown, was in the balance. When Marlon Anderson dashed home for the winning run, I treated it as if it were 1973 or 1999, not 2006. (The Nationals treated it like any other day and traded Marlon to the Dodgers afterwards.)
So I'm looking in the paper to see who the Phillies are playing tonight, who becomes our second-favorite team for the weekend, who's going to help us roll toward our inevitable clinch.
The Phillies are being visited by the Braves.
THE BRAVES?
Oh yeech! I don't wanna root for the Braves except maybe to fall down a hole. Which I suppose they have this year. Yes, I will favor a victory by them in Interleague play against one particular opponent, but that's an issue of moral clarity. This is expediency. But it's also icky as all get out.
The Braves are still mildly alive for the Wild Card, so I wouldn't want to endorse anything that would aid them for a single, solitary extra second in their fight to remain on life support. Pull the plug! Pull the plug! But I want to clinch this baby as soon as possible and, quite frankly, I don't care for the Phillies one little bit. We just saw them 10 times in August. I have no need to see them four to seven times in October. I plain don't like them.
But I hate the Braves. We all do. Yet to root for them to lose to the Phillies would be self-defeating. While we may be inevitable, math is math and our job is to encourage subtraction. Ernesto may make my dithering moot, but they'll have to play sometime. (After seeing what tropical storms can lead to a year ago, I won't make any flip remarks about hoping both teams are blown away. But, uh, you know…)
What to do? What to do?
by Greg Prince on 1 September 2006 5:31 am Stop.
Listen.
What’s that sound?
BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP!
That’s the unmistakable noise the Mets express makes as it backs into a magic number of 15. Unpleasant loss for us in Colorado but a crushing defeat for Philadelphia in Washington. The Nats’ hero was Marlon Anderson, tagging up from second to third and then practically stealing home on the passingest of passed balls. I guess all that experience Marlon Anderson received as we got our spoil on last September is paying off.
Thanks to him (and no thanks to Oliver Perez), I have 15 things to do right now.
15.01: Paging Mr. Warhol. How big will our roster be by next week? In the near future, everybody will be a Met for 15 minutes.
15.02: Give Us 22 Minutes. As long as WINS has been all-news, we’ve always been able to rely on sports at 15 after and 15 before the hour. The same could be said for WCBS, I suppose, except they air Yankee games, so WCBS isn’t listened to much here.
15.03: Grab Some Pine, Bench. No catcher was better at catching than our No. 15, Jerry Grote. Threw runners out, grabbed every popup, cultivated one of the Terrific staffs of the era. Didn’t hit on the level of The Great J.B., but that’s hitting, not catching.
15.04: Move Over Jerry Grote. Carlos Beltran is making 15 all his in the Met uniform pecking order. He’s making everything else his, too.
15.05: Stay Where You Are George Foster. Was there a bigger disappointment in Mets history? How the hell did that happen? He was so great wearing 15 in Cincinnati, then he was so awful wearing 15 in New York. Why, why, WHY does that ALWAYS happen to us? Oh, except with Carlos Beltran, I mean.
15.06: Why He’s Talking To Us Now. Ron Darling won 15 games in 1986, a year after he won 16. Ron Darling becoming a Mets announcer in 2006 still feels as weird as Jerry Koosman becoming one out of nowhere around 1989 would have. Out of sight, out of mind, suddenly on SNY. He’s getting better at it, though.
15.07: More Than Enough. The 1986 Mets carried 15 position players into the postseason, using only 14, with Ed Hearn lingering as god-forbid insurance for Carter. That means only 9 pitchers. There’s no telling how many we’ll carry this year. Seems we’ve never had less than 12 at any given moment.
15.08: A Little Cliqueish. Remember how in the spring of ’87, the Mets starters got together and decided it would be way cool if they all wore numbers in the teens? Doc, Ronnie and Bobby O were already there. El Sid went to 10 and Rick Aguilera wore 15. Alas, Fernandez couldn’t be anything but 50 once the season started. Would have you guessed Aggie would go on to have, arguably, the most successful long-term career of the five?
15.09: Positively Gumpy. Two baby boomer touchstones converged on October 15, 1969: Moratorium Day, dedicated to protesting the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, and the fourth game of the 1969 World Series. Tom Seaver started against the Orioles. He was also recruited by peace organizers to speak out against the war. Seaver stuck to pitching, going 10 and defeating the Orioles 2-1. The Mets won the Series the next day. America wouldn’t withdraw from Vietnam until January 1973.
15.10: New Sensations. By going 15-10, Jon Matlack earned the National League Rookie of the Year award in 1972. John Milner finished third. And if you knew Dave Rader finished between them, you’re a crazier motherfucker than I am, Gunga Din.
15.11: Whither the Moonmen? MTV’s headquarters is 1515 Broadway. The MTV Video Music Awards were Thursday night. I completely forgot they were on. I used to know stuff like that. I used to know who was nominated and who was presenting and who was doing the outrageous stunt. I used to be young.
15.12: Watching The Mets Wake Up From History. It was 15 years ago that Jesus Jones had a big hit celebrating how the world was changing for the better. Heard it the other night and was impressed how it was really a song anticipating the 2006 Mets: “I was alive and I waited, waited. I was alive and I waited for this. Right here, right now, there is no place I’d rather be.” Bob Dylan never blogged about this.
15.13: Let’s Never Party Like It Was 1991. At this moment 15 years ago, any combination of Pirate wins and Met losses adding to 20 would eliminate the fourth-place Mets from contention.
15.14: Except For One Thing. Our 15th wedding anniversary is this November. I wanted us to wait until November because, honey, the Mets could be in the World Series again in October.
15.15: Encore For Andy. Gotta go. Warhol says my 15 minutes are over.
by Greg Prince on 1 September 2006 4:25 am It's September 1, so you know what that means. It's the day blogs get to expand their rosters. In preparation for this day, I asked several prospective Faith and Fearers to send me a sample of what they could see themselves writing about the Mets at the beginning of September. I haven't looked at any of them since soliciting them before the season started, so the best way to go about this would be to print the first paragraph from each of them and see if any of them has the insight it takes to cover the daily ups and occasional downs of our powerhouse team on its way to the playoffs.
Here's the first one.
Well, it's September for the Mets and you know what that means. Another lousy season is nearing its end.
No, that's no good. Maybe the next one.
Whatever hopes the Mets had of calling this a good season are about to go down in flames as their annual September swoon takes hold.
That's not gonna do it. Maybe the one after that.
As September gets underway, the only thing there is to look forward to is which minor leaguers get an overdue shot from the Mets. It will be refreshing to see some youngsters play while the struggling veterans sit.
That doesn't apply at all. Fourth time's a charm?
I can't wait to see what deadwood the Mets clear out and who they'll target for acquisition in the offseason. That's what September is for around here, imagining who will be on board next spring and who will be gone after the 162nd game.
Fifth time?
With the Mets hopelessly playing out the string, let's examine what kind of progress we can expect from Eli Manning this fall.
Boy, that's totally inappropriate. Hopefully the next one…
We enter September wondering again where the annual game of managerial and GM musical chairs will take the Mets. Who will Fred Wilpon be introducing in the Diamond Club come October as the next 'savior'?
Or the one after that…
Circle those three dates in the last week of the season, the ones on your pocket schedule, the ones in the white boxes that read ATL. It's where the Mets will go to go down to their annual appointment with disappointment.
Wrong again. I have one more here. If this doesn't work, just forget the whole thing.
Is it just me, or is the race between the Yankees and Red Sox for American League prominence way more interesting than anything the Mets could possibly be involved in?
Wow. I really shouldn't have solicited September blog entries before the season started. Guess we won't be expanding our roster after all.
Preparation is overrated.
by Greg Prince on 31 August 2006 8:12 am The world’s our Rocky Mountain oyster.
Hits don’t lie. Neither does endlessly errorless fielding.
I particularly liked Valentin’s second homer. It smacked square off the CR on the Rockies cap billboard above the right field fence. That’s a message hit.
In handicapping the Wild Card race, don’t put your money on the Astros, the Braves, the Dodgers or the Marlins. Why not? They all still have to play us.
With our 82nd win, we secured a winning record for the second straight year, about as suspense-free a milestone as we’ll ever achieve. With nine more carefully chosen wins (one over Houston, one over Atlanta, two over Los Angeles, three over Florida, two over Washington), we’ll have managed to have won or split every season series with all our National League opponents.
Gotta stay motivated. Then again, I ain’t ‘fraida no coast. But if the Mets don’t do something well, it’s coast.
Phillies won, so we move magically by but one.
16.01: Present at the Creation. Faith and Fear in Flushing was founded on February 16, 2005. The very first words I wrote: When is Omar going to get off the stick and sign Jose Valentin, Endy Chavez, Darren Oliver, Guillermo Mota and Dave Williams? We’re never going to win until we have guys like those!
16.02: Doc. On July 30, 1985, Dwight Gooden, No. 16 in your programs and No. 1 in your hearts, raised his record to 16-3, shutting out the Expos, striking out 10. Joel and I heard the score on WINS driving back from Boston having watched Tom Seaver raise his lifetime win total to 299.
16.03: No Scrubs. Unlike the neglect he has piled on the Hernandez legacy, Charlie Samuels has protected Doc’s. Since Gooden left in ’94, 16 has been issued only to experienced players with a legit claim to it: Hideo Nomo, Derek Bell (Doc tribute), David Cone (Doc tribute), Doug Mientkiewicz, Paul Lo Duca. I’d like to think Charlie made up an ’86 model for its proper bearer a couple of weeks ago just in case.
16.04: Another Fallen Idol. For my high school graduation, I was given a baseball shirt with a Mets 16 insignia on the left breast. It was to honor the Mets’ only marketable player, Lee Mazzilli. I wore it in 1981 for Mazz. I wore it in 1982 and 1983 for nobody. In 1984 it became my Doc shirt.
16.05: It Still Adds Up, But Not For Us. Kaz Matsui wore 25 as a Met because 7 was taken and 2 plus 5 equals 7 in any language. As a Rockie, he’s No. 16. And we’re still better off without him.
16.06: Turn Around Now…Switch! Felix Millan wore 16 in 1973. Then he grabbed 17 from Teddy Martinez and Martinez took 23 in 1974, which Dave Schneck wore in ’73 before going with 16 in ’74. In 1976, John Stearns wore 16 and Lee Mazzilli wore 12. In 1977, John Stearns wore 12 and Lee Mazzilli wore 16. Names were added to the backs of Met uniforms in 1979 when everybody in one would have preferred anonymity.
16.07: Chuck Berry. Sweet Little 16. She’s just got to have. About half a million. Framed autographs. How much of her allowance did she spend on framing anyway?
16.08: Dream Date. I’ve never picked up an issue of 16 magazine, but 35 years ago in late August I will cop to a copy of Tiger Beat because David Cassidy was on the cover and the Partridge Family, briefly my favorite show, was inside. These days, I’m swooning over David Williams, who must think he won a contest. In 200 words or less, tell us why YOU deserve a promotion to the best team in baseball! If you win, you’ll get to pitch with AWESOME defense behind you and GROOVY offense supporting you! You even get to RUN THE BASES! The contest has expired, as Williams has been sent down, but he’ll be back next week. And speaking of Tiger Beat, isn’t that Craig Monroe dreamy?
16.09: Lucky Cat, Lucky Us. On September 16, 2005, we adopted a kitten and named him Avery. Before he showed up, the Mets had been dragging through their traditional August-September slide, 3-16 at that point. On the first night of Avery, Pedro beat the Braves, sparking a 12-4 finishing kick that clinched a winning season and augured better things for 2006. Since Avery made his debut, the Mets are 94-53. He hasn’t slowed down either.
16.10: Quickly Consistent. The first 32 victories of Tom Seaver’s career came in two sets of 16 — 16-13 in ’67, 16-12 in ’68. More than 10% of his lifetime victories (311) were earned on teams that finished a cumulative 56 games under .500.
16.11: Up The Dial. On Friday, Air America Radio moves to 1600 AM, WWRL. WWRL was my favorite station between 1997 and 2000 when it played soul classics. Then: Al Green. Now: Al Franken. Elusive: Al Schmelz.
16.12: Dr. Hook. She was only 16, only 16, but I loved that girl so. We were too young to fall in love and I was too young to know.
16.13: Where Was Jay Hook? When I was only 16, only 16, the Mets won only 63, only 63. The Mets’ deadline deals were for Dock Ellis and Andy Hassler, both more comfortable over the hill than on it. I ran into a Mets fan that hideous summer who told me he loved those trades and that in five years we were gonna be real good. It was 1979; he was half-right.
16.14: Where Was The Humidor When We Needed It? That infamous 26-7 rout at the Vet makes our nightly blowouts in Denver look like we’re in the Year of the Pitcher. On June 11, 1985, the Phillies ran up a 16-0 lead after two innings. I think I’m gonna call the FAN right now and fret that we haven’t done that yet.
16.15: Prove It All Night. Everybody remembers that on July 4 and 5, 1985, the Mets and Braves played 19 innings and until 3:55 AM in Atlanta. Does anybody recollect the final score? We won 16-13. The Braves were so embarrassed, they vowed to eventually build a new stadium and beat the Mets senseless for nearly a decade.
16.16: Ringo Starr. You walked out of a dream, peaches and cream, lips like strawberry wine. The Mets are 16 from clinching, they’re beautiful and they’re mine. And yours.
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