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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 20 August 2006 9:35 am A couple of months ago, I was asked to compare and contrast 1986 and 2006. This wasn’t long after L’affaire Lastings, the Milledge child’s breach of protocol when he hit a game-tying homer and then nervily accepted high-fives from the fans en route to right field. I suggested to my interrogator that instead of throwing cold water on his actions, the Mets of twenty years ago — the curtain-calling, bow-taking, fist-pumping 1986 Mets — would have made such a greeting part of their repertoire. Lenny would have fan-fived. Wally would have fan-fived. Mex would have fan-tenned. Kid would have started his on-deck wait in the mezzanine. And Straw would have invented an entire interactive body language of his own.
Damned if that’s not more or less what the whole lot of 1986 Mets did last night. I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to direct the Old Timers through the crowd and to the field, but it was one of the best things I’ve ever seen. The laying on of hands must have transferred some karmic electricity to Lastings Milledge who then went out and played the best game of his nascent career, sparking the first-place Mets of 2006 to another win.
That’s the Mets and the Mets fans, see? That’s the group hug that we are, all of us. That’s the teamwork that makes the dream work. It is dynamite that the 1986 Mets got to understand that either again or for the first time or forever last night. It’s no wonder they felt so blown away by the affection. When they were players, they needed to steer clear of wandering fan hands. That was a security risk. Last night it was a touchy-feely lovefest. I’m not surprised that they were surprised.
Having caught raw post-ceremony Keith in the portion of the broadcast that I recorded, I was overjoyed that he was overjoyed. My impression of Hernandez, certainly reinforced by his ongoing monologue on SNY this season, has always been that he saw us fans as a prop. His job was to field ground balls, hit line drives and ride herd on young pitchers. Our job was to attend his performances in adequate numbers, be antagonistic toward his opponents and slurp down the ice cream that would kill his waistline. When I met him seven years ago at a function designed to let fans have honest-to-goodness contact with retired players, Keith looked right through me and everybody else who fawned over him. I sensed he was only there because Rusty Staub, the chairman of the charity event, beseeched him to show his mustachioed face.
All I heard from Ron and Keith in the last week was how great it will be to see the guys, their old teammates. I didn’t hear anything about the fans. It was a 180 afterwards. Maybe because everybody who wore a uniform has spent twenty years doing other things besides being 1986 Mets, it didn’t dawn on them how important their being 1986 Mets is to the rest of us. It’s probably never dawned on us that they don’t realize they’re 1986 Mets 24/7. We met in the middle of our perceptions and everybody came away giddy.
From the Upper Deck, more so than I could get from TV, the applause just rose, ’86er after ’86er. Those most absent from the scene to date — no-shows on Ten Greatest Moments Day or All-Amazin’ Night — seemed to receive a little extra oomph (from me anyway). Kevin Mitchell in a Mets jersey? Hadn’t happened since October 27, 1986. That was big. Doug Sisk, who left behind a threat that he’d enjoy the World Series ring he was about to earn in Baltimore more than the one he got here? He’s forgotten he ever said it; I’m sure of it. Danny Heep, the minibane of my 1986 existence? Except for when Howie Rose mentioned he had been the Mets’ first designated hitter (Boo! on the DH), I greeted him as if he helped my favorite team win its last championship.
Two Mets from The Day stood out above all others. One was Wally Backman. The anticipatory reaction swelled when Howie began his introduction. This wasn’t the guy who had a murky relationship with the law. This wasn’t the guy who managed the Diamondbacks for four days, none of them during a season. This wasn’t the guy who’s been, if not blackballed, then probably grayballed out of his sport. This was our Wally. You could not take him away from us anymore. You were never traded to Minnesota and Gregg Jefferies never swiped your job. You were on when Lenny hit that home run off Dave Smith. Right here, at Shea Stadium, you’re good as gold.
The other was the Lastings Milledge of 1983, Darryl Strawberry. Damn it, you’re forgiven. You’re always forgiven. We forgave you slipping in and out of common sense and good behavior during your eight-year Mets career. We forgave you every time you made a wacky proclamation of loyalty to another uniform on this coast or that. We forgave you all your menace-to-society actions. I looked up at the DiamondVision four years ago this month when you had to thank the fans for voting you one of the Mets’ three greatest outfielders in a taped message wearing an orange jumpsuit. Whatever I was ambivalent about dissolved that night. And this week, after you characteristically left me rolling my eyes over your decision to absolutely not attend and then absolutely attend this celebration, all I had to see was you in No. 18, introduced last.
Darryl Strawberry is always welcome to be a Met at Shea Stadium. And forgiven in advance for whatever the hell he says or does next. It comes with the territory.
Impossible, of course, to look at the great but not Great homegrown Met of the mid-1980s and not think of the even greater but not Great Met of the mid-1980s. Twenty of the 24 Mets who made the postseason roster were at Shea Saturday night. One was utterly unavailable. Watching Darryl kept bringing me back to Doc. And going back to Doc will never not bum me out until Dwight Gooden goes back to where he needs to be. As the starting pitchers trotted out — Aguilera, Darling, Fernandez, the not-so-stubborn Ojeda — I joined in the applause, of course, but I wanted to tell my 55,000 soulmates to take a little something off their appreciative fastballs. Save something for Doc, he’s the ace. But Doc wasn’t coming out.
Roger McDowell and Lee Mazzilli are Major League coaches right now. You can’t tell me their teams couldn’t have gotten along without them for a game, but since they are employed by clubs perceived as Met rivals, I guess they have to make a living. Ray Knight and Davey Johnson, on the other hand, were ludicrous by their absence. Watching the tableau unfold, all those teammates in an embrace with all us fans, I couldn’t believe Ray or Davey would see a clip of it and not be filled with regret. It occurred to me that for all the 1969 reunions that have been held at Shea (four, by my count), Gil Hodges couldn’t attend any of them. I wish I could have mentioned that to Davey Johnson. As for Knight, maybe he’ll make it for the 25th, but as someone who just went to his 25th high school reunion and found it conspicuously lacking by comparison to his 20th, I can tell him he missed the good one.
What else wasn’t perfect? The parachute bit was a little cheesy, especially since the Mets have always disowned Michael Sergio. But if you were going to honor his action, you couldn’t bring him out for a nod and a wave? You couldn’t shine a light on the likes of assistant trainer emeritus and our pal Bob Sikes? You couldn’t have convinced the most identifiable 1986 voice this side of the late Murph, Tim McCarver, to hop the shuttle from Boston? 1986 was more than just the 20 players, two coaches and one GM who were on the field.
Most glaring was the zero acknowledgement of the just-leaving, just-arriving, just-passing-through Mets of 1986. On an evening when Dave Williams came up from Norfolk, donned No. 32 and effectively channeled Rick Anderson, no Uncle Andy? No space for the man who single-handedly clinched the division, then-young Dave Magadan? Couldn’t give No. 48 once more to crazy Randy Myers? You singled out George Foster, Ed Lynch and Bruce Berenyi for rings even though they were brushed off the team before ’86 was out. You couldn’t single them back in for a night?
And you couldn’t arrange to hand out a pack of commemorative 1986 baseball cards to EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US? This “first 25,000” giveaway jazz is a disgrace worthy of the cheap-ass Chicago Cubs. In 1986, promotional items were handed out to every single fan. If the supply ran out, rain checks were issued. It was goodwill. The insidious plot to get you there early enough so you will stick around for two hours and buy $4.50 hot dogs is unbecoming an otherwise admirable organization.
Naturally, if I got my cards, I wouldn’t say boo. But for this particular game, I was picked up and driven by my friend and fellow ’86 scholar Rob Emproto. His failure to recognize and my failure to (sufficiently loudly) point out his lane on the Cross Island was, in fact, the entrance to the Throgs Neck Bridge gave us the unexpected pleasure of a detour across Long Island Sound and a cameo as one more bumper on the bumper-to-bumper Cross Bronx Expressway. By the time we turned around and doubled all the way back to the Grand Central, all the cards were gone (even though it was only 6:10). I was steamed at first, didn’t much care as the night wore happily on but am annoyed again, more on principle than the need for more cards.
One of the highlights of ’86 was flipping the Cards, you know.
Peeves aside, it’s a night that goes in my Treasured Memories book. I’ve stayed a fan of the New York Mets for all of my sentient life, I suppose, for three basic reasons.
1) I get to be a part of something bigger than myself.
2) I hope to see them win again.
3) I like reliving what I’ve loved living through.
Saturday night wove all of that together in a way a fan who takes it very seriously would script if he could. Well, this fan is always looking to make edits, so let me not get carried away and tell you it was perfect. It wasn’t. But it was as close as a 1986 postscript will ever get to such a state. When they have one of these pregame things that lives up to expectations and then they win the actual game, it’s like a doubleheader sweep. It felt that way eleven nights ago when I helped welcome home Mike Piazza and left with a W, too. It felt that way times ’86 last night. I wasn’t just glad I went. I felt thrilled and privileged to be at Shea Stadium.
And those racing stripes there I feel are pretty sharp.
by Jason Fry on 20 August 2006 4:02 am I'll leave the account of the feeling in the park to my co-blogger (probably making his way into the cheerfully crowded front car of a 7 train as I type) and concentrate (mostly) on the broadcast. Because the second Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling came back into the booth from the celebration on the field, I knew this was going to be a good one. Good with a slight chance of Rick Sutcliffesque greatness.
While Gary Cohen's partners were down below, it was time to marvel at what time has done to the '86 Mets. Some — Tim Teufel, HoJo, Greg Prince favorite Danny Heep, Bobby Ojeda — still looked thin and fit. Hell, HoJo looked like he could still play. Others — Doug Sisk, Ed Hearn, Kevin Elster (who appeared to be doing some kind of Buddhist thing with his hands) — had ballooned to El Sid levels. (By which no insult is meant: If transported through time from 1986 to the present day, my 17-year-old self would take one look at his future and burst into tears. And it should be noted that El Sid himself looked pretty slim.) And tonight demonstrates that Met fans do forgive: I was wondering if Doug Sisk might get booed.
No surprise, but Keith returned to the booth on fire. That was immediately clear when he answered Gary's rather straightforward question about how it felt to be down there receiving cheers by saying he felt like Scipio Africanus returning to Rome. Yes really. Then there was a nice moment. Keith was still wearing his '86 uni top, while Darling wasn't. When Gary asked about the discrepancy, Keith said they'd have to rip his off. Everybody laughed, but he meant it. Keith's sharp tongue, unvarnished opinions and libertine ways could make it easy to get lazy and assume he's too hard and cynical to be moved overmuch by a sentimental evening like this one; by the same token, you might assume that being in New York and connected with the Mets would make this night not as special for him as for someone who'd been away for years. Wrong on both counts — it was obvious this meant an enormous amount to Keith, and that was nice to see. (The jersey did come off later — they're being auctioned for charity.)
As the innings went by some of the '86ers dropped by the booth for an inning or two. Lenny Dykstra was funny, saying he'd dreaded facing Mike Scott in a Game 7 of the NLCS because that would have meant listening to Gary Carter moan about how Scott was cheating. Nails's response (paraphrasing): “We know he's cheating — we can't do anything about it!” He then looked at the camera and gave a rather nice speech, telling “all you little guys” that are told they can't do it not to listen to that, that if they worked hard enough they could do it. Moving stuff, except Gary then tried to work with Lenny by bringing up David Eckstein as proof. Nails was curtly dismissive, because Eckstein doesn't hit home runs. OK, Lenny. (Later, Keith offered a priceless, squeaky-voiced impression of Dykstra complaining about how starting pitchers made so much money working every fifth day.)
I admit I cringed when HoJo (who didn't visit) came up for discussion and the conversation turned to Whitey Herzog doubting how Howard could hit all those home runs. Darling started talking about how deceptively strong HoJo was, and I realized he wasn't around a couple of years ago, when Keith stunned the booth by matter-of-factly discussing HoJo's bat-corking prowess. Uh-oh. But Keith, for once in his life, was diplomatically silent.
Jesse Orosco's visit was interesting, too. I confess for years I've watched the image of Jesse flinging his glove into the air after striking out Marty Barrett and looked for one thing: The Glove That Never Came Down coming down. Because obviously it did, and I was sure that if I looked at the peripherals instead of the obvious, I'd see it. I never have, but Jesse discussed what happened to it: Buddy Harrelson retrieved it, and it was given to Steven McDonald, a police officer who was shot while trying to stop a robbery in the summer of 1986, an injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down. (As recorded here.) It was tempting to imagine The Glove somewhere above our heads in low orbit, but this is nicer.
Orosco also said he got “smoked by Gary Carter” in the celebration and wound up pinned in the celebratory pile, which led Keith to recount being stuck in that same pile, nose-to-nose with Kevin Mitchell. He said neither of them could move and just started laughing. “It was a good pain,” said Keith.
The last visitor was Darryl Strawberry, who spoke movingly about trying to help people by recounting his own experiences going from the top to the bottom and then clawing his way back again. (Well, it sounded good. Not to be unfair, but Darryl's off-field walk hasn't always kept up with his talk.) After Milledge tried and failed to corral Garrett Atkins' at-the-time-fatal-looking home run, Straw muttered that he still thought he might have caught Mike Scioscia's decidedly fatal homer off Doc in the '88 playoffs if only he'd gotten back to the fence quickly enough. Straw also dissected his '86 postseason homers off Nolan Ryan and Bob Knepper. It always amazes me how players remember the small details of key games, at-bats and even pitches so well years after the fact. Maybe they do nothing but watch old game films, but I'm inclined to take it as a reminder that this game demands more than physical gifts. Many of these guys are stars because they can also summon up superhuman focus.
Anyway, it was a nice coincidence that the on-field Mets, the 2006 variety, were extraordinarily quiet while honored guests were parading in and out of the booth and there were tales to be told. Then, once the visits were over and the present-day Mets had the stage to themselves again, they took full advantage, cold-cocking the luckless Jeff Francis and his hapless Rockie teammates.
It was odd to see them in racing stripes, down to the blue button on the caps and the patch on the sleeves. (Even the gilled Jetsons helmets were all blue for the night.) I'm glad those uniforms are gone, but I suppose it isn't shocking that for at least one night they looked absolutely appropriate, and made me feel sentimental.
And whether it was Jose Reyes working back from an 0-2 count to draw a bases-loaded walk, Lastings Milledge shaking off all the dirt kicked on him by the fan base, Dave Williams answering the bell before a packed house on a mound he'd never seen before, or Carlos Delgado playing first like he should have worn #17, the current edition of the Mets earned those stripes. Save me a seat for the 20th anniversary of this very special team, willya?
Postscript: Oddest sight of the night? Glenn Close singing the national anthem (very well, too) in the horrifying '93-'94-style uni with the tail. I decided against immediately pouring Drano into my eye sockets in hope that some reasonable explanation for this might be offered. And, happily, one was: The back of her uni said CLOSE 94. 1994 wasn't particularly close — we were mediocre and 18.5 out when the owners tried to kill the game — but good enough for me.
by Greg Prince on 19 August 2006 12:34 pm The last time the New York Mets played a game against the Colorado Rockies, Victor Zambrano was our starting pitcher, Mike Piazza our starting catcher, Mike Jacobs our hottest hitter and Jose Offerman our final batter of the 2005 season.
That's how long it's been.
Also, the last time the Rockies visited Shea, the series — even the bittersweet farewell to a legend (no, not Offerman) — went undernoticed because the Yankees and Red Sox were in Boston throwing down for all the marbles.
That's how long ago it wasn't.
Of course you'll recall that in the aftermath of their historic battle royal, all the marbles were absconded with by the Chicago White Sox. That's the sort of thing we hoped for, somebody who was Not The Yankees to win it all. It was October 2005 and the Mets were going into hibernation and then to the salon for a semi-complete makeover.
That spunky sophomore David Wright is still here, or finally returned, judging by his emergence last night from that strange thing that begins with an 's', ends in a 'p', and was presumed to happen only to hitters not named David Wright. And still-wet-from-rehabbing Steve Trachsel's physical health isn't an issue at all almost ten months later. It's just his endurance, his competence, his Trachselness that tends to make those who wish to pull for him nervous. He had all three going on Friday for his would-you-believe? twelfth victory.
Not pictured in your 2005 end-of-season team photo were Endy Chavez, Michael Tucker, Carlos Delgado, Chad Bradford and Billy Wagner, all of whom played a role in the first Mets game versus the Rockies since 10/2/05 and first Mets win over the Rockies since 10/1/05. Barely pictured because he was only a ghost of himself was Carlos Beltran. He photographs real sharp now.
With the bump in the New Jersey Turnpike behind us, we can get on to our countdowns, which are 28 in Magic Number form or 0 in newfangled calculation. However you cook the books, we won't have to sniff around to adopt a Not The Yankees horse to ride in October. We'll have our own thoroughbred in that derby.
Though who would know such a thing given the saturation overcoverage (that is too much of too much) of this particular weekend's remake of Apocalypse Now in Boston? Given that the conventional wisdom insisted the Yankees and Red Sox would be battling it out for leadership of their division by now, why is it news that they're doing just that? It may no longer be news that the Mets are very good, but doesn't a team that is 14 games ahead of everybody in its realm — and is celebrating its last champion — merit at least half the print and talk this weekend?
Apparently not. If Friday's day-night doubleheader should have been covered to excess by any outlet, it should have been by the NFL Network as an advertisement for why baseball isn't a very good sport. I didn't see the first game, but I understand it was ridiculously long. I tuned in well after the Mets game was over to the second game and saw that it was meandering through the fifth inning around 11:00.
There was no rain delay, no power outage, no bench-clearing brawl. It was just American League baseball at its deadly dullest. The Yankees scored. The Red Sox scored. The Yankees scored. The pitchers went back to the hotel. That second game began a little after 8:00. The Dodgers and Giants started in San Francisco a little after 10:00. They both ended at 12:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time by my cable box clock.
I wouldn't care much except the Yankees and Red Sox, playing for all the marbles and settling nothing because there's always another round of marbles for these two, suck up valuable oxygen. I could finger many examples; I'll choose one.
Friday's Times splashed a cutesy feature on the front page of its sports section about where precisely in the state of Connecticut Red Sox Nation begins and the Evil Empire ends. I learned that New England is home to many colorful townfolk who wear baseball caps of different teams but not a damn definitive thing otherwise. And this wasn't the only Yankee-Red Sox coverage in the Paper of Record by a long shot.
As for New York's only truly dominant team, the one that had won a game on Thursday? It got one story, accounting for a quarter of a page inside the sports section and contained passages such as:
• Did Thursday’s eruption herald the end of a vicious slump? Or, did it only temporarily brighten a dreadful month of Delgado’s uneven season?
• Pedro Martínez’s injuries have prevented him from getting into a rhythm. Orlando Hernández has surpassed expectations but, as witnessed Tuesday night, he can throw a few clunkers, too. Steve Trachsel, though he has 11 victories, puts too many runners on base to be considered truly dependable.
• Needing a strong performance Thursday to avoid a four-game sweep in front of 45,775, the largest crowd ever at Citizens Bank Park, the Mets got one.
• The trade of Xavier Nady and Cliff Floyd’s recurring Achilles’ tendinitis have thinned the Mets’ lineup, and Delgado’s problems in the cleanup spot have not helped matters.
• Going into Thursday’s game, the Mets had scored 12 runs in their past six games, and Delgado was batting .133 in August (6 for 45) with one extra-base hit, a double.
• The Mets were still undecided as to who would start Saturday against Colorado, but Willie Randolph called Dave Williams the front-runner.
All accurate, but you know what wasn't in the story? That the Mets extended their lead over the team they beat to 13 games. Nothing acknowledging that this slump-ridden, pitching-starved, minors-scavenging, sorely limping, barely standing collection of sad sacks was actually in first place, had been all season and will be for the rest of the season. Now fit the tone of this Mets Lucky to Finally Win One and Even Luckier We Gave Them Any Play at All piece into the context of a pinstriped, red-socked sports section whose sensibilities must have sprayed the Times' elitist instincts with a double contact-high…well, forgive me for mistaking 2006 for 2004 from reading page D3 Friday. All that was missing was a quote about how “we really battled out there.”
Now that I've been a snarling media watchdog turning an unsparing spotlight on the wrongs related to overdoing the Yankees and Red Sox at the expense of the Mets and Rockies, let me turn hypocritical cat for a moment. There's a fun new book out called How to Talk to a Yankee Fan. It was written by a couple of Red Sox diehards following their triumphant 2004 campaign. They interviewed a slew of Yankee-haters for it, including yours truly. I'm quoted on four separate occasions, so the least I can do is urge you to check it out.
Lest you think its premise is completely irrelevant by our sophisticated 2006 standards of not giving a damn about the Yankees and Red Sox, consider the other day that we were having a little squabble over whether the Yankees should be permitted to remain in New York, exiled to New Jersey or deported from the Face of the Earth. According to me in How to Talk to a Yankee Fan:
They should move to Utah and become the Salt Basin Bombers.
Admit it. Utah Yankees has a nice ring to it. Besides, it would give Colorado somebody to play between October and August.
by Greg Prince on 18 August 2006 6:01 pm Welcome to Flashback Friday, a weekly feature devoted to the 20th anniversary of the 1986 World Champion New York Mets.
Twenty years, 43 Fridays. This is one of them.
Yay! Darryl Strawberry is coming to Old Timers Night!
Unless he’s changed his mind again. If he has, would you be surprised?
Of all the things that have changed in our world since 1986, one of them is not the capriciousness attached to the actions of Darryl Strawberry. We never knew what we were getting then. We don’t know what we’re getting now.
Difference is it’s almost never our problem now. Except on twentieth anniversaries of world championships. We need him Saturday night to step to a foul line and tip a Mets cap and be beloved. Then he can go back to fuming at whomever owes him money or he thinks owes him money or whatever it is Darryl does between sucking up to the Yankees and engaging the law enforcement community. And we can go back to not thinking about him all that often.
In 1986, we needed him to be Darryl. Sometimes he was. When he was, it was awfully special.
When Darryl came up in 1983, one of the lazy man’s comparisons made over and over again was to Willie Mays, especially that Willie took the collar a few times before collecting his first hit, a homer off Warren Spahn. Darryl needed a few swings before getting it going, too (his first hit, a single off the decidely non-Spahn Ben Hayes, came in his twelfth at-bat, one fewer than it took Say Hey). Plus he had lots of talent. And he was black. There — Darryl Strawberry was the latter-day Willie Mays.
Worked for me. I decided that as my contemporary, Darryl would be the player with whom I’d mature. I’d watch him become one of the greats, deep into his and my 20s and 30s. By the time he was retired, having broken all kinds of records, I’d have a lifetime of crystal-clear baseball memories to share with the next generation. I’d have Darryl Strawberry stories that would make your head spin. I’d have my own Willie Mays. We all would.
We didn’t get that, though to be fair, Darryl didn’t get to be that. Darryl was occasionally plenty, but he wasn’t the immortal I was banking on. I got over it as best I could and found less promising, less exciting, less disappointing players to grow old to. I still do. They stay young. Darryl and I age. I don’t know if either of us ever matured. He’s not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I didn’t get to see him inducted and I won’t get to see his plaque. A tip of a Mets cap to me and other Mets fans Saturday night will pretty much be it as far as post-career Strawberry ceremonies go.
Showing up for Old Timers Night at Shea is the least he can do. It’s the least every 1986 Met can do. I can’t believe they don’t all come home for this. Doc Gooden has an excuse of sorts, though if he’d taken a differently structured sentence, he could have been with us tomorrow. Instead, he chose to be scared straight; it’s worked so well for him before. Without being completely glib and superficial about his addiction, couldn’t have Doc resisted temptation until the twentieth anniversary of his first positive test? It’s not like they’re going to hold a 1987 Mets reunion.
I’ve read Ray Knight has a paying commitment but have also heard that he’s “angry” at someone in the front office. Unless the Mets have hired Eric Davis as strength & conditioning coach, that’s no excuse.
The ’86 Mets who are now uniformed authority figures — McDowell, Mazzilli, Gibbons (essentially the 25th man on the 24-man playoff roster) — should have carte blanche to abandon their posts for one lousy night. It should be part of the Basic Agreement and social contract. Teams can’t keep players from on-field championship reunions and former players must attend them. Would anybody hire Roger McDowell to coach anything but Rock ‘N’ Jock Softball if it weren’t for his Mets career? Would Lee Mazzilli have been enticing enough to get not one, but two jobs with George Steinbrenner if his employment hadn’t been viewed as a tweak of the Mets? Get over yourselves. Get to Flushing.
Is Bobby Ojeda coming? He had a falling out with the Wilpons. Who was right? Who was wrong? Who cares? Twenty years ago, he was our biggest starter. Twenty years later, he was still our biggest starter. I read he was coming but I don’t see his name on the guest list. Surely he can peel himself away from the Worcester Tornadoes to swing by for the evening.
And Davey. Oh Davey. How are you ever going to be remembered as the most successful manager in Mets history if you won’t let us remember you? Team USA can drill without you for one night. You’re a players manager. Come be with your players.
I’ve been looking forward to a full-blown salute to 1986 by the Mets probably since 1987. It took forever for them to truly embrace their greatest team. But the team has to join in and get embraced. If we have to settle for most and not all of the roster, then that’s what we’ll do. But it’s too bad. I hate to find reasons to be snippy toward players whom I’ll always owe the biggest debt of gratitude a fan can carry. They won me a championship. It pains me to have to remind them the championship and its attendant memories are bigger than any single one of them.
If you had told each of them twenty years ago, “you’ll win a World Series but you have to agree to stop by Shea Stadium in twenty years to be fussed over,” think any of them wouldn’t have agreed to the terms? I dunno. Perhaps their first question would have been “what do you mean a World Series? We win a lot, right?” Or maybe it would have been, “depends…how much do I get?”
One of the undercurrents of 1986, a real sidebar to the season in progress, was that there was finally about to be another year in the pantheon. All doting to date was for 1969 or, if people were in a generous mood, 1969 and 1973. That era stood alone in Mets history. When the Mets had Old Timers Day in 1986, themed to celebrate the franchise’s 25th anniversary, rain limited the celebration. But I don’t remember much fretting about it. There were some ’62 types on hand and the rest were from the ’69-’73 axis. We saw them all the time. The Mets were very good at nurturing the connection to Cleon and Kooz and Buddy and Rusty and Felix and Tug. It was to their credit that they did.
The ’86 Mets, when asked, admitted they looked forward to joining or even supplanting ’69. I recall a Marty Noble article that dwelled on the then-current cast betraying a bit of dismay that everything was always ’69-this and ’69-that. Keith Hernandez, in An Amazin’ Era, said as much in relatively diplomatic terms, mentioning he looked forward to the day ’69, ’73 and ’86 would be spoken of in the same breath.
He got his wish at last and then some. Time, more than perspective, has taken care of that. 1986 is having an anniversary and 1969 is, painful to say, ancient history. The Mets are 45 years old. Their youth is, not so suddenly, their ancient history.
Our ancient history.
A couple of months ago, Mets Weekly on SNY did a segment about the ’69 Mets that was sort of 1969 Mets 101, kind of explaining who they were and why you should care. Having grown up with the ’69 Mets as the literal foundation of my baseball life, it was stunning to me that a Mets show treated the Miracle Mets as some dusty, old relic.
Then I remembered. They are a dusty, old relic. In chronological terms, they were 37 years ago. If this were 1986, they would be a team from 1949, and in 1986, 1949 was the stuff of dusty, old relics. While it’s taken the Mets too long to out-and-out honor 1986, it’s downright bizarre to realize they are going to hold an Old Timers Night that will have nothing to do with Ron Swoboda or Tommie Agee or, most stunningly of all, Perennial Eddie Kranepool.
I’ve always loved Old Timers Days. The second Mets game I ever went to was Old Timers Day 1974. I got to pick the game and I picked that. Same thing next year and the year after. Made it to another in the early ’80s and almost every Shea event in that vein in the past fifteen years. I suppose I’ve never gotten over the childlike fascination I had with the way they could get baseball players from a long time ago to dress up like baseball players again. I didn’t care about the Old Timers games, which were routinely embarrassing to watch. I cared that the names from the books I read came to life. They put on a uniform, got announced over the loudspeaker and waved while we clapped. It became more meaningful as the retirees were guys from our childhoods, then our adolescences and, with the tribute to 1986, our young adulthoods.
Saturday night, Darryl Strawberry has one more chance to be the player I always wanted him to be. I’ll be there to applaud you, Straw. Don’t leave me hanging.
by Jason Fry on 18 August 2006 4:31 am All hail our most-reliable pitcher, the glue of the rotation, the man we turn to in times of need. All hail…John Maine?
Yep, John Maine. Who should stand as just the latest reminder that as a collective fan base, we say a lot but know a little.
Consider the many lives — in 2006 alone — of John Kevin Maine, born May 8, 1981 (your blogger's 12th birthday, by the way) outside Washington, D.C.
January-March: The “Who?” Months. Meet the other guy in the Kris Benson trade, if you remember his name. The five-second scouting report: Did well in the minors, got shelled in the bigs. If his name was spoken at all, it was as an ironic counterpoint to ranting about Jorge Julio. “…AND THE GUY CAN'T PITCH, HE'S A FREAKIN' HEAD CASE, AND HE EVEN FRIGGIN' LOOKS LIKE ARMANDO BENITEZ!” At which point the other guy would add, “But we got John Maine!” Rimshot. The best I could muster was that he'd always had trouble initially moving up a level, and then found himself. That and the fact that the Orioles were stupid. I'm sure I was crossing my fingers while typing it.
March-May: The “Where?” Months. Jorge Julio was a disaster. Kris Benson was Kris Benson. John Maine was in St. Lucie and Norfolk. Boy was he old for 25.
May-June: John Maine Gives Us the Finger. With Brian Bannister on the shelf for a couple of extra weeks (hahahaha!), Maine was a surprise starter. Greg's postgame take after his National League debut: John Maine pitched OK. I guess we'll see him again. He wasn't really all that interesting. No, he wasn't. Then he was gone with some nebulous finger injury. When he came off the DL five weeks later, we packed him back off to Norfolk. By then Jorge Julio had gotten just good enough to send off to Arizona for El Duque. Our great hope at the back end of the rotation? It was Alay Soler. John Maine was back in his native Virginia, next to be glimpsed in St. Lucie or on the waiver wire. If we thought of him at all, it was grumpily while Kris and Anna celebrated his win and his homer and her mouth. “John who? Oh yeah — the other guy in the Benson-for-El Duque swap. Man, not sure that one was worth it. Maine, Maine…wasn't there something wrong with his finger?”
July: The Maybe Month. First Maine was bad. Then he got tired with too much game to go. Then he was lights-out. Then he was lights-out again. Hmmmm. You know, I never liked Kris Benson anyway.
August: We've Loved John Maine Our Whole Lives. Three in a row lost to Philadelphia, Pedro back on the shelf, Wright exhausted, Delgado lost, Cliff in St. Lucie, Jose all by his lonesome. Granted, not a situation dire enough to reconsider October plans, but all of a sudden baseball wasn't the giddy pleasure it's been most of this remarkable year. With a day game on tap, I found myself walking to the subway this morning thinking dark thoughts about our offense, about the Phillies, about whether Lastings could really learn on the job, about a hundred other Met-related anxieties medium and small. And then I heard a most unexpected little voice in my head, offering a bit of Faith amid all this Fear.
I like our chances — Maine's going today.
Yes, the same John Maine who'd been the other guy and one of the anonymous guys and the forgotten guy and the guy with the finger and the guy who replaced Soler after he was undressed by the Yankees because…well, because we didn't have anybody else.
And that same John Maine throttled the Phils, the lone blemish a Ryan Howard dinger. (Which is the kind of blemish that's had a lot of pitchers reaching for the Clearasil this year.) Wasn't nervous, didn't rattle, had a plan and stuck to it, showed his usual swing-and-a-miss stuff — the kind of stuff only El Duque has on this staff, and then only sometimes. Beat the Phillies like the Phillies deserve to be beaten. Sent us home (with some help from the Carloses) happy. Restored order. Left us thinking about the '86 Mets reunion (Strawberry flavoring added back in!) instead of about Bad Things.
The regular season has six weeks to go, and a lot can happen. So I'm not going to speculate on future acts in the American life of John Maine. But let's leave a placeholder for him, one we never thought we'd need, but that he's shown us he deserves.
October: __________________.
by Greg Prince on 17 August 2006 8:10 pm NEW!
FROM SHEA-TEL!
IT'S THE SMASH-PACKED '70s HITS COLLECTION YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!
SINCE MONDAY!
YOU'LL GET!
John Sebastian's unforgettable Number One theme from “Welcome Back 'Gado!”
“Run Jose Run!” by the amazing David Geddes!
The stupendous Elton John's “Philadelphia Freedom…At Last!”
“Maine Street!” by Boppin' Bob Seger and the Throwing Bullets Band!
The lovely ladies of Heart and “Magic Number Man!”
“Let Your Runs Flow!” by the sensational Bellamy Brothers!
“First Place Long Time!” as prescribed by the incredible Dr. John!
And if you order this very minute, you can ride C.W. McCall's mighty “Convoy!” clear to the postseason!
by Greg Prince on 17 August 2006 2:56 am The only entertaining, non-Reyes aspect to Tuesday night's blowout loss (to be confused with Monday's night's blowout loss, but try to keep them separate) was a conversation between Keith and Gary that led to a startling revelation:
Keith Hernandez was upset that the Shea DJs That Be blasted “Who Let The Dogs Out?” after the Mets won Game Three of the 2000 World Series.
Gary Cohen seemed startled. I was actually shocked into laughing, something I hadn't done any of since the Mets boarded the Acela in Washington.
Keith's got it in for the Baha Men?
Yes, our Mex was hot (in the non-Paris Hilton usage sense) that the Mets were somehow rubbing it in the Yankees' face that they had just won a game. Never mind that this had become the Mets' anthem across late September and October. Never mind that the Yankees assaulted every victim with Frank Sinatra's latter-day warbling. Never mind that baseball stadia play songs after baseball games. Keith thought that “Who Let The Dogs Out?” fired up the Yankees, that the playing of a team fight song (you can debate among yourselves the efficacy of the song in question) slapped them in the face, that it was inappropriate given that the Mets still trailed the Series one game to two, that is was no wonder Derek Jeter hit Bobby Jones' first pitch over the fence the next night.
Keith is very fucking weird sometimes.
Of course this was also the same postseason in which the Athletics apparently had the inside track on the ALDS in Oakland until someone behind the scenes brainlessly beamed the pregame press conference onto their DiamondVision during Game Five BP. Eric Chavez was up on the big screen answering a question with a little youthful bravado, declaring the Yankees had been great but now it was the A's time to shine. Down on the field, the doddering Yankee dynasty turned up its hearing aid and was aghast, just enough to have a big first inning and hold on for dear life. That helped gild their path to the Subway Series if you believe in the power of video board material.
I don't know what Citizens Bank Park plays when the Phillies win, as they've been doing with alarming regularity this week. Given the Mets' failure to do anything with Cole Hamels, Randy Wolf or Jon Lieber — cumulative score: Phils 27 Jose 4 — it oughta be “It's The Same Old Song” by the Four Tops.
Shea blares BTO's “Takin' Care of Business” for wins, an excellent tune if a dubious message. It's very presumptuous and not a little generic, but at the last two wins I attended, I couldn't not rock out down the exit ramps and neither could my companions. In that sense, I suppose it works and I wouldn't screw with it. But they've gotta do something about the loss music.
Where is it written in the unwritten rules that we have to leave Shea like Schleprock? The two songs used to see us to our cars, trains and ferries this year have been Natalie Imbruglia's melancholy “Torn” and Coldplay's wistful “Clocks”. I like them both in other contexts, but quit dictating my emotions. Quit telling me that in a little while now, if I'm not feeling any less sour, I promise myself to treat myself to a visit to a nearby Serval Zipper tower. I feel bad enough as it is without the manipulative musical accompaniment.
It was worse in 1998 when, for reasons known only to the person who chooses these babies, every loss brought on a recording of the theme from Jurassic Park. It was mournful and instantly reminding that we had just been stomped back to the Stone Age by the Braves or Expos or somebody. “New York State of Mind” was a more benign bye-bye. One assumes somebody said to somebody else, “The Yankees use 'New York New York' whether they win or lose. We should do something like that.” Yeah, but you only used it when we lost. Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from watching Kevin Appier or Bruce Chen get lit up. Thankfully, we're no longer in a “New York State of Mind”.
Unfortunately, we still do lose home games from time to time (or in my case, a lot of the time). I humbly suggest to Mr. Vito Vitiello, Shea's producer, video/entertainment services and the guy who I believe makes these choices, to try “Right Back Where We Started From” by Maxine Nightingale the next time our boys fall short.
Ooh and it's all right
And it's comin' 'long
We gotta get right back
To where we started from
Love is good
Love can be strong
We gotta get right back
To where we started from
Between the indefatigable lyrics and the deft deployment of what sounds like a beta version of The Clapper, this is the happiest goddamn song I know. It's like “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy” without Ren & Stimpy irony. My dear friend and our occasional illustrator Jim Haines once told me I like happy, snappy songs as if I needed to get vaccinated for it. Well, yeah, I like happy, snappy songs and there's nothin' wrong with it (Ms. Nightingale's 1976 smash is No. 262 on my All-Time Top 500). At the risk of shoving a happy helmet firmly onto everybody's head, I think everybody should be happy when happy songs are heard.
But we're not happy when we don't win? Yes, that's exactly it! We need something to boost us out of our orange-and-blues, something that tells us the sun will come out tomorrow without explicitly using that saccharine number from Annie. Getting back to where we started from this year means getting back to our winning ways. And most of the time those winning ways are only a day away.
Or, if you're waiting for a wakeup call from the operator at the Westin Philadelphia, maybe never.
by Greg Prince on 16 August 2006 10:13 pm Pedro Martinez is on the DL again. Perhaps we should abbreviate it to the PM. Ice that calf, get well and…ah, you know what to do, Pedro. You always do.
Heath Bell will be killing time with the Mets until he is allowed to go home to Norfolk. Taking Pedro's place in the rotation will be somebody wasn't all that great to begin with or somebody who used to be but hasn't been lately. But it won't be Lima.
Think we need pitching depth after the last two episodes of corporal punishment? The Cubs used all 25 players in an 18-inning win over the Astros last night/this morning. How is that even possible? How can you leave yourself without a bench and without a bullpen? One line drive pings off the wrong wrist and you're gonna lose 9-0. I only watched the final six innings, so I didn't see all the buttons Dusty pushed to get to the 13th, yet, it's practically unbelievable. Bobby Valentine and Davey Johnson managed historic, marathon wins in the postseason and held a body or two in reserve. Bobby Valentine also outmanaged Dusty Baker in the postseason.
Cubs beat the Astros 1-0 in a day game today. They used a pitcher called up from Iowa to start. And coffee by the potful.
As you may have heard, the Rockies and Diamondbacks also went 18 innings. Watched it sleepily to get my money's worth out of the aptly named MLB Extra Innings. First time four teams have played two games that went 36 innings in the same day ever…on the same day a National Leaguer hit three home runs in the same year he hit for the cycle and his team lost both games. And just now, with the Dodgers succumbing to the Marlins after winning 17 of 18 (best NL stretch since our own in early '86), Vin Scully said, “the wheels have come off the golden coach.”
Do other sports have stuff like this? Are there such angled oddities in football or the indoor activities associated with winter? Or legendary platinum voices who slice glittering phrases paper-thin like an expert deli counterman? If there are, I've missed them.
Meanwhile, right around the time the Minute Maid Park grounds crew was simultaneously punching out and punching in, shovels were hoisted and cameras were mugged for in advance of the erection of a facility somewhere in northern New York City. Comedian Billy Crystal was on hand, so you know it was a somber affair. Hours later, an official with the team that will use said structure told its sycophantic announcer (who masquerades as a sports talk host on an obscure staticky frequency), that if his employer didn't get to begin construction right this very minute, it would have very possibly forced his team to very seriously consider moving to the state of New Jersey.
How's that?
That Yankee COO Lonn Trost would address Michael Kay's softball with anything but WE HEART NY makes me wonder if something can still go wrong with the burgeoning blight in the Bronx. Trost used very peculiar language like “if we couldn't start in the next 24 hours…” before making his weird retro threat (just in case the state supreme court changes its mind?). Maybe we should all hop the 4 and form a human chain to stop this project in earnest. Call their bluff, pay their toll and get them out of our Metropolitan Area once and for all. Or as Trost's intrepid interrogator would put it, See Ya!
I have mixed emotions about watching the current Yankee Stadium close up shop…half of me wants to see it imploded in one grand swallow; half of me wants to see it knocked down arrogant piece by arrogant piece with a dynamite-packed wrecking ball. All of me says atta way to Piscataway, fellas.
by Greg Prince on 16 August 2006 1:51 am Jose Reyes hit for the cycle in June. It was the first time the Mets ever lost a game in which a Met cycled.
Jose Reyes hit three home runs tonight. It was the first time the Mets ever lost a game in which a Met hit three home runs.
Jose Reyes will throw the first no-hitter in Mets history tomorrow and will lose on an error by Chris Woodward.
Jose Reyes will turn eight unassisted triple plays on Thursday and the Mets will lose on a fly ball mishandled by Lastings Milledge.
Jose Reyes will walk, steal second, third and home four times on Friday and the Mets will lose 5-4 because they were no-hit.
Jose Reyes will fill in for Darryl, Doc, Davey and Ray at Old Timers Night on Saturday, retroactively win the 1986 MVP award and the Mets will lose the World Series to the Red Sox. They'll also lose to the Rockies despite Jose Reyes' five inside-the-park homers.
Jose Reyes will break ground on the new ballpark, construct it to make it triple-friendly and triple nine times Sunday and the Mets will lose when he passes Mike DiFelice on the basepaths during his last triple.
Jose Reyes will sit out next Tuesday. Then maybe the Mets will win.
by Greg Prince on 15 August 2006 8:47 am You already know Monday night in Philadelphia was a bad dream. Monday morning in my subconscious was just a weird dream. In lieu of anything remotely pleasant to talk about from Monday night, thought I’d let you know about what I dreamt Monday morning.
This isn’t a bit. I really had this dream.
Stephanie and I, after spending some time in a presumably local dry cleaners that let us linger about its premises like it was a Starbucks (after midnight, no less), were visiting another city, some combination of Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, maybe more. Though it didn’t look like Chicago, for at least a little while it must have been because I wanted to swing by this one particular spot under the El to show Stephanie the House of Blues Hotel, where I stayed on a 1999 business trip, the same one that allowed me to grab a foul ball off the bat of Carlos Lee at Comiskey Park.
But the House of Blues Hotel wasn’t where I brought us to, which was more under a freeway than under an El. We took a cab to find it, but once it became clear we didn’t, we were now on bicycles. And we were lost. Worse yet, it was dark out. So dark that we couldn’t see much beyond what our flashlights and/or none-too-powerful bicycle headlights would allow. A scary situation.
Still we pedaled. Glided on our ten-speeds was more like it. Found ourselves in a neighborhood of rowhouses near the water. Maybe that was the San Francisco part. In any event, it didn’t feel like we were finding our way back to our hotel in, ostensibly, the city that we were visiting.
Next thing I knew, the three of us — my high school buddy Larry Russo, the auteur from my high school reunion had somehow joined us — had climbed the steps from somebody’s basement to somebody’s kitchen. It was setup like the house I grew up in. There was a see-through door between the stairs and the kitchen, also like my house. I rapped on it.
There was a family inside. Big family. Three generations maybe. Nobody recognizable to me. As you could imagine, they were startled that three strangers had entered their home, but I explained that we were biking around (Larry was still wearing his helmet), had gotten lost and needed directions to our hotel. Stephanie explained that we were staying in “the baseball district”.
They accepted the explanation immediately and couldn’t have been friendlier. Come on in, they said. We’re watching the ballgame.
So they were. It was the Giants and Dodgers, the same matchup from ESPN Sunday night. This is where I got the feeling we were in Los Angeles because they were cheering for the Dodgers, who were winning. I think they were because I was a little uncertain of what was going on in the game and I was more uncertain as to where in California we were, so I hedged my bets. I said something like, “Hey, you must be happy with the way this is going.” Indeed, they were happy.
I explained again why we had entered their home. We were visiting town and had gotten lost on our bicycles and it was really dark out and if you could just give us directions, that would be great.
An older man, the father or perhaps grandfather, laughed: “I guess there’s no 7 train around here!” It wasn’t foreboding or anything. In fact, it was comforting. He kind of nodded at the rest of the family and indicated implicitly that he knew who I was, that he knew I blogged about the Mets, giving me the sense that maybe he, like the guys from Entourage, was from New York originally. For an instant, in their kitchen, I saw a sign that pointed to where the platforms for the 7 train and the Long Island Rail Road at Shea were. But we were still in their kitchen.
Almost verybody was having a good, friendly time: me, Stephanie, the unknown family. Larry, still wearing his helmet, however, was disengaged from the conversation. Instead, he asked a direct question of the man.
“Do you have a car?”
“Oh sure.”
“Could we put our bikes in your trunk and could you drive us home?”
“Sure!”
Oh good, we were going to get a ride home or back to our hotel from the nice man in, uh, Los Angeles who didn’t mind us entering his house unannounced and knew of my apparently mildly famous Mets fandom.
That’s the last I remember of the dream. Most dreams that I can remember are disturbing. This one was actually pretty OK.
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