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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Greg Prince on 11 July 2006 7:42 pm When the National Leaguers take the field tonight in their previously futile quest for pride and home-field advantage, there will be a historic moment. David Wright will cross a foul line and position himself at third base as the first Met ever elected to man the hot corner in the Midsummer Classic.
Don’t think that’s significant? Then you haven’t been paying attention.
Perhaps the most amusing thing said by any Met since 2006 began was by Eli Marrero after he was acquired in exchange for Kaz Matsui. When told by Willie Randolph that one of the spots where he’d be filling in would be third base, Marrero confessed he had never played there before, but “how hard can it be?”
Oh Eli. We love that what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you. Perhaps you were basing your assessment on seeing who plays third base for the Mets most days. Despite how hard he works, it almost seems succeeding at baseball is easy for him. David Wright isn’t a perfect fielder, but the occasional rushed throw (short squibs, poor footing) hardly detracts from his status as the best all-around player in the game among those who call third home.
Who you like better? Scott Rolen? Aramis Ramirez? Morgan Ensberg? Miguel Cabrera? Larry Jones? Alex Rodriguez? Would you trade for any of them right now or next year or in five years if you had to give up David Wright? Is there anybody who’s as good as David Wright at third who figures to keep improving? Knowing what you know as Mets fans (61 homers, 216 ribbies, .306 average in essentially two full seasons), is there anybody you’d rather watch in all of baseball represent you and your interests for 162 games to say nothing of on a larger stage?
If the 2006 All-Star Game is David Wright’s coming-out party, then the home run hitting contest was his debutante pre-show. It’s not an event to be taken seriously, but the ESPN audience learned two things watching David swat horsehide at this exhibition within an exhibition.
• He takes everything that involves a baseball seriously — not Gregg Jefferies, I’m so angry I could stamp my little feet seriously but David Wright, I come to beat you, I come to kill you, no matter how wide my grin appears seriously. He displayed what he’s all about while waiting for his next ups last night. When one slugger is at the plate, the rest of the players, even the competing swingers, generally huddle on the grass and yuk it up. But while David’s rivals were batting, David’s eyes were on fire. He was focused on defeating them. Later he relaxed a bit and was a gracious runnerup when Ryan Howard took the trophy (the Home Run Derby seems to be the Phillies’ ceiling) but it was clear that David Wright doesn’t take part in activities and not plan to win them.
• You underestimate David Wright at your own peril. There were eight contestants in the Derby. ESPN’s crew looked everywhere but directly at David for their story. Why should they have bothered with Wright? He’s not a classic slugger; his righthandedness doesn’t play to PNC’s porch; he’s a line-drive hitter. By the end of the evening, there was still a tinge of disbelief that he was in the finals. It had only a little to do with power. If it had been a fungo contest, David Wright would have been in the finals. If it had been a sack race in the Bradys’ backyard, David would have taken Greg, Marcia and Peter to double-overtime. He may be relatively new to you in the rest of the world, but we know from what chant vis-à-vis M-V-P! M-V-P! So will you, soon enough.
Apparently the fans are ahead of the chattering classes on this one. He won the third base election going away. Topping Rolen was no easy feat; St. Louis comes out to vote. David Wright, as the premier player on the National League’s premier team, is too good to be ignored by anybody. So good, in fact, that it’s blessedly easy to ignore what has come before him.
Since his “sure, whatever” acceptance of his wide-ranging utility duties, Eli Marrero has, in fact, played third base for the Mets. With two innings at Yankee Stadium on July 2, he became the 133rd third baseman in Mets history. Earlier in the season, Jose Valentin became third baseman No. 132. Nothing much was made of it. Last year, Chris Woodward and Miguel Cairo played third as Mets for the first time. It wasn’t a story that the tally of Met third sackers had reached 131.
On July 21, 2004, David Wright became the 129th third baseman in the history of the New York Mets. That was also the day it became safe to stop keeping track.
It wasn’t always like that.
It used to be a matter of faith that third base at Shea Stadium was the hottest corner in the National League given the sparks that flew every time its door revolved. You couldn’t grow up on the Mets in the 1970s without being told third base had been trouble town dating back to 1962. You couldn’t celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Mets without a quick stroll down misery lane in An Amazin’ Era, the otherwise brightside VHS look at Mets history up to and including early 1986. The highlight of the tape was the ditty composed to honor “the 79 guys who played third for the Mets,” starting with No. 1 Don Zimmer and running up to No. 79 Tim Teufel.
Linz, Mantilla, part of the story
Randle and Phillips
And Youngblood and Torre
Moock, Hunt & Hurdle
No hoi polloi
Gardenhire and Klaus and Foy
The cassette wasn’t in stores two weeks when Gary Carter would make it 80. The list would hit 90 in 1992, 100 in 1995 and just keep shooting ever upward…Excelsior! as we say in New York.
Except we rarely said it about third basemen anywhere in this town. Quantity, yeah, but quality was a whole other thing. You know New York is the capital of baseball. You know we’ve had three storied National League franchises here plus a representative from the American League. You know we’ve had some of the most famous players and most famous moments in the sport. But did you know that when compared to other glamorous, Gothamous penthouse positions, third base has been a ghetto?
Quick: Where’s the Willie, Mickey and/or the Duke of third base? Who’s on the level of Yogi, Campy and Kid? Is there a Seaver vs. Catfish equivalent on the far left side? Hernandez-Mattingly even?
New York hasn’t been bereft of good third basemen, but they haven’t been a municipal landmark. The Dodgers were almost out of Brooklyn before their top tertiary defenseman, Billy Cox, displayed his line of leather. He was described by Roger Kahn in The Boys of Summer as “solitary, strange, gifted and troubled.” Before Cox, it was the names of third base Bums that were most intriguing: Jersey Joe Stripp, Cookie Lavagetto and the one my father liked to throw at me, Frenchy Bordagaray. I thought he was making that one up.
Actually, the most famous aspect regarding third base and the Dodgers was that they once had three baserunners stand on it. For what it’s worth, neither Dazzy Vance, Chick Fewster nor Babe Herman was a third baseman.
As for my Giants, their leading third baseman, probably, was Freddie Lindstrom, best known for being terribly young — 18 when he came up —and terribly unlucky — two bad-hop singles handcuffed him in the 1924 World Series which wound up transferring the title to the enemy Senators. He would recover, hit well and eventually make the Hall of Fame, but his induction is considered in some circles one of those Veterans Committee backslapping jobs.
Other greats who played third base for the Jints include Bobby Thomson and Mel Ott, but the fact that they aren’t really known for their third base tenures kind of proves the point that third base wasn’t a pressing priority at the Polo Grounds. Art Devlin played more games at third than any New York Giant; if you can find a bar that takes bets on such things, go win yourself a bar bet.
The Yankees? Jumping Joe Dugan…Red Rolfe…Clete Boyer…Graig Nettles…talents all. But were they ever the main men on the Bronx Bombers? Not in the shadows of the Babe, the Clipper, the Mick and Reginald Martinez Jackson they weren’t.
Today, third base is where it’s happening in New York. The Yanks have A-Rod, the most accomplished athlete in the sport. As a player, he’s excellent. As a personality, he’s eczema. But you can’t have it all.
Oh wait — we can. We do. We have David Wright. He hits and fields and talks like a human being and comes through in the clutch practically every time the clutch gets in his way. He’s a joy from every angle. And he plays third base for the New York Mets.
You kidding? He is third base for the New York Mets.
Smith and Jones and a Stearns named Dude
Samuel, Valentine, Reynolds, Bressoud
For the first time in 45 years, that’s an inarguable good thing. Not that there haven’t been fleetingly transcendent performers where Wright is now ensconced, but they never seemed to last. Perhaps Bill Shea made an indemnification payment of sorts to the other NL teams in order to secure an expansion franchise for New York…
Your fears about a large-market team automatically overwhelming the National League are unfounded, nevertheless we promise that for the first four decades of operation, we’ll take the field with no more than eight good players at a time. We’ll scrape by at, uh, third base. And if one of those fellas starts to succeed, we’ll move him or trade him.
Got any other explanations? I’m stumped.
I can accept that the first three years of Mets baseball offered a sideshow parade of Johnny Stephenson, Amado Samuel, Pumpsie Green, Ted Schreiber, Sammy Drake and fifteen others who followed Zimmer at third. They were losing 340 games and I was either too unborn or too insentient to suffer through it. Implicit in that is I’m accepting Don Zimmer as the first link in this chain of pain.
I understand that sometimes you have to toss a Phil Linz, a Joe Moock, a Bob Heise out there. Heck, I can even see that there might be a need for Jerry Grote, like Gary Carter would one Fight Night in Cincinnati, to take off the tools of ignorance and man the bag of bad vibes.
I can deal with the deal that brought us Joe Foy who brought us no joy and that Jim Fregosi wasn’t George Brett and that Roy Staiger never grew into Ron Cey and even that Phil Mankowski was undeniably Phil Mankowski. I can live knowing that Wayne Garrett proved remarkably difficult to supplant.
I survived an entire season of Richie Hebner.
Heidemann, Hickman, Kingman and Cook
The weird part is that starting late in 1980, our third baseman became less bizarre and more competent. We had good ones. I’d dare say we had one or two on the verge of greatness. But, in deference to Bill Shea’s codicil of concession, each of them had to be disappeared in undue time.
Hubie Brooks? Batted .307 as a rookie. Overcame jitters to become a reliable glove. Then he was moved to short. Then he was moved to Montreal for Carter. No complaints there per se, but I thought Hubie was the answer.
Ray Knight? Rough first full year in ’85. Excellent second full year in ’86. World Series MVP. Was not brought back in a haggle over veritable pennies.
Howard Johnson? Wasn’t even supposed to get the job for good. That was Dave Magadan’s. But HoJo homered and stole, homered and stole. Every other year he was an ungodly combination of power and speed for an infielder. Was the first Met 3B to make the ASG — even started as a replacement for Mike Schmidt in ’89 (only the Mets would wait 28 seasons to claim the best third baseman in the league and then see him lose the All-Star balloting to someone who retired in May). As his final wonderful season, 1991, wound down, the Mets knew exactly what to do with their best third baseman ever: make him an outfielder. The Shea outfield swallowed HoJo whole. His bat was never heard from again.
Dave Magadan? Terrific first baseman for a year. Fought off Bill Pecota at third for another year. Then he was gone in the ’93 expansion draft.
Bobby Bonilla? A third baseman who moved to the outfield who eventually moved back to third base. It was all management could do to make him the moveable object of Baltimore’s affections.
Jeff Kent? After he couldn’t play second and before he turned into the greatest-hitting second baseman ever, he tried third for us. He didn’t like it, which was OK since we didn’t like him.
Edgardo Alfonzo? One too many moves. He was the best-fielding third baseman we ever had before becoming the best-fielding second baseman we ever had until he was yanked back to where he started. Sadly, his back turned him into a range-free third baseman.
Robin Ventura? The cause of that first wave of deFonziefication. Ventura was as real a deal as there could be at third for the Mets. Won our first Gold Glove there. Hit like he never heard of Pumpsie Green. A dream. Must’ve been. Followed an MVPish ’99 with a so-so 2000 and a hurtin’ 2001. He was not asked to complete his contract in New York.
Hubie to Ray to HoJo to Mags to Bobby Bo to Kent to Fonzie to Robin to Fonzie Redux (with a touch of Butch Huskey, Alvaro Espinosa and David Lamb thrown in to keep us honest). These were good players. They were not Foygosis. All of them except for Magadan weren’t long removed in one direction or the other from All-Star status when they played third for the Mets, and Magadan had competed for a batting title in the very recent past. From 1981 through 2002, third base, for the most part, wasn’t the province of the Danny Napoleons.
Bailor, Moran, Boyer and Foster
Some are losers
Some are winners
Hiller, Schreiber, Staiger and Zimmer
I thought we had third base solved. And then came 2003 and Ty Wigginton.
I’m sorry, I really am. Ty Wigginton was a hard-nosed player. I never saw anybody corral a ground ball with more determination and less regard for his own well being than Ty Wigginton. And Ty was not beyond slugging here and there, which is good because it lends credence to a nickname me and some friends sitting down the third base line gave him one chilly April night. We called him Sluggo…not for his hitting, but because he looked like Nancy’s pal from the creepiest comic strip this side of Mallard Fillmore.
I hated the 2003 Mets because they had Rey Sanchez. I hated the 2003 Mets because they had Robbie Alomar. I hated the 2003 Mets because they had Mike Stanton. I hated the 2003 Mets because…need I go on? The point is I didn’t hate the 2003 Mets because they had Ty Wigginton. I was, however, crushingly depressed by the 2003 Mets because Ty Wigginton played 155 games at third base for them.
And because Jay Bell subbed for him 14 times.
But never mind that. And never mind the obvious good-guyedness of Ty Wigginton. Never mind the heat Wiggy generated in the home portion of the 2004 Subway Series and the hefty contribution — 6-for-12 and the Sunday game-winning dinger off Tom Gordon — he made toward sweeping the Skanks (donations like that usually get a hospital wing named after you). Never mind Ty Wigginton’s hard nose and shaved head and endless insistence on approaching the game the right way if not necessarily the spectacularly able way. Most of all, never mind that Scott Kazmir isn’t the only former Met property having a bang-up year in Tampa Bay. Ty Wigginton is down south hitting his share of homers (16) and holding down second base and relatively flourishing in obscurity.
Less than a month after dismantling the Yankees, we traded Ty Wigginton to the Pirates and I never minded one bit. Because it meant that David Wright was up to stay and David Wright, unlike his worthy predecessors of the preceding quarter-century, wasn’t going anywhere…in the good sense. With Wright’s arrival, the Zimmer-Wigginton epoch was over. With Wright’s recall, recalling Met third base travails became trivial, not troubling.
David Wright is the best third baseman in Mets history. When all is said and done, even though the saying and doing is barely out of the first inning, we will likely recall him as the best third baseman New York has ever seen. And as great as the feats in front of him will be, he is to be admired now for something he’s accomplished already: he has put all the laughable, cryable, mystifyable connotations attached to “playing third base for the New York Mets” far, far behind us.
It’s no wonder that so many of us are willing to wear his name and number on our backs.
by Greg Prince on 10 July 2006 7:30 pm Sometimes a player does something when you're young and you make that player your go-to example for that thing. It doesn't matter that generation after generation passes and the people to whom you're offering him up as an example have no idea about whom you're talking. Doesn't matter to you, anyway. He represents the personification of your point. You're going to use him.
That's me and Del Unser and the National League All-Star team. When selection time rolls around every July and a Met I find deserving gets passed over, I have one thought:
This is just like when Walter Alston screwed Del Unser out of the All-Star Game in 1975.
I should have business cards printed up that say that. I don't know if Del Unser was as bothered by his slight then as I continue to be now. I don't know if Del Unser had anything planned for those three days 31 years ago beyond golfing and grilling. I don't know if anybody else in the universe thought Del Unser was a dead, solid lock for the All-Stars in 1975.
I did. I couldn't get over him not being picked.
Couldn't?
Can't.
I've done a little checking to see if at 12 I was running special insight the non-outraged media was missing or if Alston, a Hall of Fame manager in the 21st year of a 23-season Dodger tenure, maybe had an edge on me in terms of perception.
I seriously doubt it.
Del Unser blew out of the gates in 1975 like you wouldn't believe. Originally penciled in as the lefty half of Yogi Berra's centerfield platoon, Del left righty Gene Clines eating his dust. April belonged to Del. He hit .349 (Clines? .077).
Though he cooled off in May, it was presumably the result of an unexpected increase in playing time. Maybe if somebody had told Unser that Clines would be such a washout he would have been better prepared by the Mets' training staff. Del's May of 1975 was superior, anyway: a .305 average.
June showed a dip, but by now Del was playing every single game; cut him some slack. With Clines offering no help, Del played in 31 games in the 30-day month and batted .259. Not as impressive, but after the June 29 doubleheader against his old club, the Phillies, Del Unser was batting a robust .300. Whatever Tug McGraw was doing in Philadelphia (5-3, 8 saves), Del Unser was making the trade that had the two switch cities look at least like a draw.
At least.
In 1975, we weren't far removed from the days the revered Tommie Agee roamed centerfield at Shea Stadium. A defensive wiz named Don Hahn had been there the year before. The great Willie Mays played some center for the Mets in 1972 and '73. And the Mets' very first All-Star was another future Hall of Famer, Richie Ashburn. Yet, with all those luminaries in their annals, who — according to the 1976 New York Mets OFFICIAL Yearbook — furnished the Mets with their “most reliable centerfield patrol in history and steady stickwork”?
Del Unser. That's who.
Usually he led off. Sometimes he batted third. You never knew where you'd find him, but you knew that once you did, you were in for a treat. He was, after the fourteenth season of the franchise's operation, declared the best ever at his position by a trusted and reputable source. This was the OFFICIAL yearbook, mind you, not some counterfeit knockoff sold in the parking lot.
You could trust the 1976 yearbook. On the same page where Unser's credentials are codified, there is an ad urging the reader to “eat a pretzel at Shea…it'll make for a nicer day.” I've eaten many pretzels at Shea and doing so has never actually ruined my day, so there ya go.
Against this backdrop, Walter Alston had to start making decisions. The Cincinnati Reds were running away from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West (back when geography made absolute sense). Alston certainly had no pennant race on which to concentrate, so he could put all his energies into selecting All-Star reserves and pitchers for the National League, a responsibility he earned when his team won the flag in 1974. His main task, as I saw it, was choosing outfielders who would accompany Del Unser to Milwaukee on July 15.
He didn't have to worry about Lou Brock. The fans, blinded by 118 steals the year before, elected him instead of Del Unser. He didn't have to find space for Pete Rose, a perennial vote-getter. Even though Rose had already switched to third base, the ballot had him in the outfield, giving him an unfair advantage over Del Unser. And if Alston was tempted to placate his own Jimmy Wynn — great '74, rough '75 — he needn't bother. Wynn won the third spot rather than Del Unser. It's true: America overlooked Del Unser, but America had overwhelmingly re-elected Richard Nixon three years earlier and regretted it immediately. Whaddaya want from America?
So Brock, Rose and Wynn were the monosyllabic starters. When it was time to get serious, Walter Alston, who had managed Duke Snider and presumably knew centerfield quality when he saw it, could insert Del as a pinch-hitter for starting pitcher Jerry Reuss and then double-switch Tom Seaver onto the mound. Seaver could bat ninth the rest of the way and the National League, with Tom Terrific protecting the lead created by Del Delightful's pinch-homer, could continue its streak of absolute All-Star dominance without breaking a sweat. If Walter Alston had been as wise as his résumé indicated — six pennants, four world championships — it would be a no-brainer. I could see it and I was 12.
Here is who Walter Alston took as his National League All-Star outfield reserves:
Greg Luzinski
Bobby Murcer
Al Oliver
Reggie Smith
Not Del Unser
No, you read that right. Walter Alston, in his last All-Star managerial appearance, made a mockery of the proceedings and forever sullied his own record by choosing four relatively empty uniforms. He had to take a Giant, so he took Bobby Murcer even though Murcer hated being a Giant. Oliver of the Pirates and Smith of the Cardinals came from teams that were represented by starters, so that was misguided. He took Greg Luzinski despite also taking McGraw, another Phillie. This made no sense because the trade of Tug McGraw, Don Hahn and Dave Schneck for Del Unser, John Stearns and Mac Scarce (who was wisely flipped for Tom Hall early in the season) was a wash. If McGraw was an All-Star, surely Unser was.
Surely.
Walter Alston, though he managed forever, wasn't really considered that much of a genius by his players. He is blamed by several Dodgers for blowing the 1962 pennant to the Giants. The final game of that year's best-of-three overtime playoff has been termed “the worst game of his managerial career”. His own GM, Buzzie Bavasi, castigated him, as recorded in David Plaut's 1994 book Chasing October:
Of all the games we ever played, this was the one we should have won…he shoulda brought in Koufax, he shoulda brought in Drysdale. You've gotta go with your best.
Yes, Buzzie, you do gotta go with your best. With the 1962 pennant on the line, he went with Stan Williams and he got beat. With the 1975 All-Star Game in the balance, Alston just as inexplicably picked the likes of Luzinski, Murcer, Oliver and Smith instead of Del Unser. The four of them went a collective 2-for-6 with no homers; Del alone had already hit four homers prior to the break…any one of them would have saved the NL a lot of grief. Without Unser, the County Stadium affair went unsettled into the ninth inning. So short of outfielders did Alston find himself that he inserted Expo rookie catcher Gary Carter in left for defense in the ninth. I know Kid played a little outfield in his time, but who would you rather depend on for reliable patrol out there?
Del Unser. That's who.
Alston got away with this one thanks to Jon Matlack's solid seventh and eighth innings. Matlack earned the win and shared the MVP with Bill Madlock, no doubt a typographical error. The National League extended its All-Star winning streak to four straight, twelve of thirteen despite the glaring omission on the NL roster.
The joy the Senior Circuit felt was obviously aberrational to the event. The All-Star Game should be fun, right? Well, I'm looking at the National League team picture that the Mets graciously published in their 1976 yearbook and I swear almost everybody on the squad looks glum. Most of the players are staring away knowing this could likely be the year the American League gets even. Even Tug seems downcast as if he knows something unfair is afoot. The only smiles are generated by Walter Alston (clueless), Steve Garvey (figures) and a trainer (he's thinking he'll have a light night because the National League probably isn't going to try very hard).
Perhaps Del Unser used his time away to work on his other swing. According to the Mets yearbook, he was an “excellent golfer,” one who had teamed with pro football star Leroy Kelly to win the 1973 American Airlines tournament. Maybe he made a few business calls; he was a real estate broker during the offseason. He understood the three most important things are location, location, location. He probably knew his location that week should have been in Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Milwaukee.
Del Unser likely used his days off to prepare himself for the second half of the 1975 baseball season. Pro baseball player that he was, Del entered the break batting .299 and raised his mark to .301 in the first game thereafter. Too bad it wasn't against the Dodgers. Later in July, he took out his latent frustration on Reggie Smith's Cardinals, collecting four hits off Ron Reed and John Denny in an 11-6 Met triumph.
Though Del was stoic and finished within six points of .300, there was an undeniable tear in the fabric of the New York Mets after Walter Alston's big mistake. Before the calendar turned its back on 1975, Yogi Berra would be fired, Casey Stengel and Joan Payson would pass away and Rusty Staub would be shipped to Detroit. A coincidence that four Mets icons would be gone from the Shea Stadium scene in the months following Del Unser's All-Star omission?
You can reach your own conclusions.
Del himself stuck around until just after the 1976 All-Star break when the team — which probably couldn't handle any more reminders of the sadness the Unser Snub symbolized — sent him and Wayne Garrett packing to Montreal for Pepe Mangual and Jim Dwyer.
Unser would never again be a full-time player. He wound up returning to Philadelphia in 1979 and served as a pinch-hitter deluxe on their 1980 world championship club, the only one the Phillies have ever had. By then, the Mets were deep into a rebuilding program, their only perennial All-Star John Stearns…the same John Stearns who was icing on the Del Unser trade cake in 1975.
This would be a sad story without a happy ending, so let's give it one.
Maybe I haven't convinced you of Del Unser's 1975 All-Star credentials. But I'm dealing in statistics. I'll leave it to someone who had a better view of what Del Unser meant to those Mets. His name is Charlie Hangley, “CharlieH” if you're a regular reader of our comments section. Charlie sent this in a little while ago, and I think he confirms everything that was stellar about Del Unser if you were a kid who loved the Mets in 1975:
Greg, I recently read your reminiscences of the 1975 campaign and your affinity for Del Unser. Got a Del Unser story for ya…
I was 10 years old in 1975. At the time, my Dad worked in the City as the sales manager for Dudley Sporting Goods (“The World's Best-Selling Softball!”). The main rep for the Midwest territory was none other than Al Unser — NOT the IndyCar driver, but a former Major League catcher and father of…well, you know…
So Al was in contact with my father a lot. I had met him a couple of times over the years, most notably in early 1974 at the huge sporting goods show in Anaheim. We spent my 9th birthday at Disneyland with Al, his wife (her name escapes me now) and their “other” son Larry, who had just washed out of the Cleveland bushes.
Fast-forward a year, and Del gets traded to the Mets. I was pissed that Tug was gone, but I was ecstatic that I had somebody I “knew” playing CF. That summer, Al & Larry came out to NYC for a sales conference. Lo & behold, the Mets were home that week. So a couple quick phone calls and we're going to a Wednesday night game vs. the Cubbies. Me, my dad, Al & Larry. COOL!
So we made a day of it. I commuted to my father's office with him, had fun playing with the calculators and was then sent as an envoy to escort Larry to the top of the Empire State Building (right across 34th from the office). When we got back — sales meeting presumably complete — it was time to head for the Park.
We drove into the parking lot, but we weren't waiting in line for tickets, as I was used to. We went over to the players entrance (really? Is this REALLY happening????????? Holy CRAP!), through the double doors and found ourselves at the entrance to the clubhouse. Del came out and greeted his relatives in FULL UNIFORM! MAN, those colors look a lot brighter than on TV. We were then invited and escorted into the INNER SANCTUM by none other than Del Unser himself. Remember now, I'm 10 FREAKIN' YEARS OLD, ok? You can only imagine…
So we go in. There's TOM SEAVER getting dressed! Holy Jeezum, it's EDDIE KRANEPOOL! Ohmigodit'sJOHNMILNER! Del then introduced my Dad and I to people I'd only seen in the yearbooks: traveling secretary Lou Niss, trainer Tommy McKenna, etc. I was allowed to peer into Yogi's paneled office and caught a glimpse of the runway to the dugout.
The final piece came most unexpectedly — as if I'd had ANY expectations left by this point — when a bucknekkid Willie Mays came trotting past us with an embarrassed grin on his face and large brown hand covering something else that I can only imagine was also large and brown. My father, of course — Long Beach wisenheimer to the end — nodded at him and yelled, “Say HEY, Willie!”
After all of this, there was still a game to watch. We sat in the players' family section behind home plate with Del's wife Dale. We were right behind Jerry Grote's family and two rows behind Bob Apodaca and HIS family. Bob was on the DL at the moment and was modeling his newly reconstructed schnozz. He generously signed an autograph for me in my 1975 yearbook (Seaver behind that big number 7 made out of baseballs on the cover).
Matlack shut down the Cubs and our party — now including Dale — waited outside the clubhouse for Del to emerge, as we were going out for Chinese dinner at Lum's in Flushing. While waiting, I got autographs from Felix Millan and George (Yes, I'm Hurt AGAIN!) Stone.
Del came out & we went to Lum's — also notable as this was my first time eating Chinese food! I don't really remember much about the meal, because when we got to the door, Del asked the maitre d' if Bud Harrelson had come in yet, and my head nearly spun off my shoulders.
Del signed my yearbook, of course, and I can recite his inscription without even looking: “To my good buddy CA [my dad called me CA, as my middle name is Arnold], Best of Luck, Del Unser, Mets '75”.
31 years ago and it's like yesterday…
Just thought I'd share.
by Greg Prince on 9 July 2006 10:52 pm [CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP]
Wins: 53
Lead: 12
Magic Number: 63
David Wright: Only one.
And yes — he's priceless.
It takes a Metropolis to be as good as we've been throughout the first half, but sometimes you have to call on Superman to bail you of a pickle, especially one of your own making. Stuttery defense and unfocused baserunning made it look as if Marlin hustle and determination could outdistance Met miasma. But one swing from Diamond Dave cleared our heads and scattered those Fish back into their Tankersley.
They're a plucky bunch all right, but there are days when it's good to see the Mets, one in particular, put his foot down and declare in action if not words, “That's it. They're the Marlins and we're the Mets. Let's make that count.”
For our readers in Maine, it had all the makings of a quietly celebratory All-Star sendoff, the Mets definitely being the Mets early, particularly Nady and Glavine. But geez, the Marlins never give up. After slapping each other around a bit (Scott Olsen is not reticent to express his displeasure with teammates who don't measure up to his high standards, in this case Miguel Cabrera), they directed their aggression toward the Mets. First they tied us. Then they passed us.
But they didn't beat us. We tried to help them do that but Wright put a stop to that in the eighth. Wright and Ol' Sol, shining in the eyes of Reggie Abercrombie, the centerfielder who Joe Girardi called “all tooled up” in the Times' Play magazine last month. That was when the Marlins were profiled as underpaid, undermanned and decidedly underwhelming. “Our kids work so hard,” Girardi said then. “But half the time they're working hard at the wrong things.”
The Floridians have come a long way since then, but in Abercrombie's case, it doesn't look he's put in a lot of time on shielding his eyes from the sun. If he had, I'd be groping for excuses as to why losing a four-game series to these never-say-die comers wasn't a bad thing. Instead, Abercrombie groped and didn't come up with the fly hit by Lo Duca. Only one of those two gave up on the ball and, unfortunately, it was Paul who stood sheepishly on first while Jose Valentin (leadoff walk) dashed to third. Carlos Beltran brought home Valentin on a smash through the middle — 5-4 Marlins — but Paul's pinch-runner Jose Reyes, his splint downgraded to a bandage (Play Jose Play!), did not tag up on a Delgado shot to medium-deep right.
It was one out, runners on first and second, us down by one. It should have been at least first and third, probably just a man on first because the Lo Duca run should have scored on Beltran's smash.
You following this in Maine?
Well, doesn't matter. David Wright took Logan Kensing — isn't that a town outside of Kennebunkport? — deep into the Picnic Area. After that, with a two-run lead, Billy Wagner could give a run back (he did) but, again, it didn't matter. The Mets not only were the better team but they managed to play like it. The Marlins can go work on their grittiness and such. They're not gonna get us either.
That's the last baseball that will matter between this moment and 2:20 Friday afternoon, almost 116 hours from now. So savor the details, revel in the context and make with an ovation. The New York Mets are more than halfway to their seventh postseason appearance and fifth division title. We have 116 long hours to think about that. 116 hours of not gaming the Wild Card race. 116 hours of not wondering which vets we can trade for prospects. 116 hours of not not being securely in first place.
We pick nits (11-13 since The Road Trip), but how can you not applaud what they've achieved and what they have such a great chance to accomplish? One hand against the other makes a very nice, very appropriate sound.
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NOTE TO OUR READERS: We're in this together, Mets fans. Stay with your favorite blog through this interminable desert of All-Star inactivity and we'll deliver you safely and sanely to Wrigley Field with a full complement of Faith and Fear. We'll take our break in October November.
by Greg Prince on 9 July 2006 5:45 am Jose Valentin is the Comeback Player of the Year, assuming he was ever this good before. Cliff Floyd's wakeup call couldn't have come at a better time; may his alarm stay on no worse than snooze through the break. John Maine is probably looking for something to mix with his Poland Spring. Carlos Delgado needs to stretch out on a hammock or something. Jose Reyes can slide with one head tied behind his back. And Mike Pelfrey is as tall as the tales made him out to be.
The Mets make good copy, yet I spent Saturday's doubleheader amazed by the Marlins. Aren't they something?
I wouldn't be surprised if they go back to their losing ways of the first quarter of the season when they were 11-31 because that's been known to happen to overachieving youth (see the 1980 Mets). Who knew at the outset of 2006 that they had ways in them that were anything but losing? I didn't give them a second thought after watching them trip over themselves in April. They had one pitcher, Willis, one player, Cabrera, about 20 clueless rookies and a handful of Wes Helmses. They played like it. We took two of two.
We caught them next in late May and were irritated that some nobody named Josh Johnson was outpitching Pedro Martinez. We beat them two out of three but it wasn't effortless.
Now, the season is older and the Marlins are older and, whaddaya know, they're on a 27-15 roll even after receiving an overdue (we were more due than them) 17-3 pummeling in the second game Saturday. That's 42 games when they were hapless and 42 games that they're happening.
And Josh Johnson, who outpitched John Maine in the first game, leads the National League in earned run average.
Is it too late for Florida to sink its line into contending waters? Probably. Their surge still leaves them 12-1/2 police barricades behind us. Though they play with the hunger that Clubber Lang displayed and the reigning champ lacked in the first third of Rocky III, there's no script that's going to catapult a team nine under .500 on July 8 past one that's sixteen over, certainly not a team as callow as that one. The '06 Marlins make the '69 Mets look like grizzled vets.
But they are not too many backstrokes removed from the Wild Card, which at the moment resides in L.A. They're six behind the Dodgers. At this stage of 2003, when they won a glorious World Series, the Marlins were 5-1/2 being the Phillies for the golden ticket. Surely if we were six behind anybody with almost half a season remaining you can bet we'd be contorting ourselves through the standings at every waking moment trying to figure out how exactly we might pass the eight teams ahead of us. Six out with 78 to play is the stuff that improbable dreams are made of, but what is summer for if not to dream?
The real problem, besides the immense lack of experience (though that also means they're too young to know they're not that good) is the nine-under. The '03 Marlins were a .500 club by now. This school of Fish is never going to shake that particular piece of toilet paper off its collective sole.
We know from personal experience how a wretched start can torpedo everything else that follows. In 1997, we went 80-60 over our final 140. If only we hadn't gone 8-14 at the beginning, that would have been us Wild Carding our way through the playoffs and perhaps the World Series. Instead, it was…the Marlins.
Those adorably resilient guppies have historically morphed into fiercely fighting hellfish when they're Wild. There's something about teal that makes a man who wears it bulletproof in the tenth month of any given year. I wouldn't bet on them right now but I wouldn't overlook them, not in this final game against us, not over the next month. They could just as easily regress but it won't be for lack of hustle or determination.
If my visions seems a little Marlinsighted, it's probably because when I added up the damage at the end of Saturday, I realized we outscored Florida 19-6 and still managed to lose a game. Fortunately, it was the first game, meaning we can dwell on that whale of a win in the second game as our most recent sample data.
The failure to hit in support of Maine in the opener? That was so two games ago. The latest OUCH! to Delgado? He's sat for an entire game since then, so surely he's on en route to healing. Reyes pinch-running and leading with his head into third base despite that charming splint on left hand? You can't tame a wild horse, can you? It's now appears rather likely that Jose will not start in the ASG. I blame Mike Jacobs for twisting himself into a soggy Shea pretzel, sticking his spike where Jose's hand was bound to land. A little lack of hustle or determination would be appreciated.
And how about that late dustup? Did you notice how quickly Girardi's charges rushed out of the dugout when the ump started flailing warning signals? There was nothing going on but a tiny, uh, tit…for tat, given the HBPs absorbed by C-Del and Cliff, but go tell a bunch of overeager neophytes about The Code that said Sanchez should sting Cabrera and everything would be even. They were ready to rumble like it was intramural softball and somebody had knocked over the keg.
Good to see that non-event took the fight right out of them before the sun rose on the nightcap. Liked the five in the first. Loved that it wasn't the last five they tallied as was the case against Pittsburgh Wednesday night. Still rubbing my eyes from Jose Valentin — not over the seven ribbies in the first two innings but that it's the second week of July and Valentin's the starting second baseman and we're solidly in first place because of that and not in spite of that. He's been in the lineup more often than not for two months. As with the Marlins, he no longer a fluke.
Hope Cliff's big day (five RBI) means the same thing. I'm already 80% resigned to his not being re-signed after this season in light of Lastings, C-Bel and Xavier tentatively accounting for three outfield slots in 2007. I didn't want him here when we got him. Three-and-a-half years later, I'm rehearsing my regret for the day he goes somewhere else. Cliff Floyd's a Met though. A Met for the ages. The guy would be the team captain except he's too cool for shit like that. It's been depressing amid night after night of general euphoria to watch him ache or slump or both. If we get the Cliff Floyd who was our Monsta last year in the second half, then it's going to be quite a finishing kick…for us this year and for him if he isn't asked back.
That leaves us Mr. Pelfrey's debut. All you need to know?
Six feet, seven inches; 22 years, six months; 96 miles per hour, 104 pitches, five innings; one win, no losses.
Mike Pelfrey is, by definition, our stopper. Upon early inspection, he's also pretty much everything for which one could have hoped. Allow for some nerves and jitters and it was a tremendous debut. Unafraid, no nibbling, stronger as his day grew longer (as if he himself could grow any longer). If he's not ready to stay on a permanent basis — John Maine, despite reminding me in aura if not stuff of John Mitchell, is more polished at this point — he will be very, very soon. He is as good as we hoped and dared to suspect.
His postgame press gaggle was almost as much fun to watch as his pitching. The kid not only answered in complete sentences (as did Milledge in May), but he never ceased smiling. Why should he? He's a big leaguer with a perfect record for a team in first place and his future has every likelihood of improving from there.
The denizens of the visitors dugout can be forgiven if they are teal with envy.
by Greg Prince on 8 July 2006 6:22 am Lima Culpa. He's worthless. Get him out of here. I don't just mean DFA'd, which he's been. Jose Lima can be of no help whatsoever as a pitcher in this organization. That spicy meatball he threw Dontrelle Willis with the bases loaded? I can't believe he hit the whole thing. Nice fella, Lima, but let him loosen another team's dugout. Good night, funny man.
Jose Lima has to go and Jose Reyes has to go. No, not the same kind of go. Young Jose has to go to Pittsburgh Tuesday. Though the nick he took from the Marlin first baseman's spike (thanks a bunch Jakey — don't come back now, y'heah?) on that somewhat ill-advised dive into first was described as a fairly insignificant cut to the left pinky, I just heard on Geico SportsNite that he'll be sat through the weekend. Unfortunate, but if necessary, we can get by with Chris Woodward for a few games.
His trip to the All-Star Game may also be in some jeopardy. That I can't abide.
I understand I probably have it bass-ackwards, that it's the divisional showdowns (or what passes for them) that matter and that a contest with no impact on the standings, even if it “counts,” isn't high-priority. But fuck that. I want my boy in Pittsburgh. I want all our boys in Pittsburgh, but I get that won't happen. No Pedro, no kidding. Glavine won't throw, no biggie. Lo Duca still has thumb issues? I can live without him taking more than a bow. But not Jose.
Why? 'Cause he's my favorite player. He's been my favorite player since June 10, 2003 when he was called up to replace some chump named Rey Sanchez as our shortstop. He was the bridge from my post-Alfonzo depression to our 2005 revival. I love David Wright as every Mets fan does, but it was Reyes, not Wright, who gave me someone and something to believe in. Jose was here first. Jose showed me that there was going to be amazing talent on at least 1/25th of our roster. It was Jose who made the Art Howe Era something more than death's waiting room. Many celebrate the feats of Wright and Reyes. I revel in Reyes and Wright.
I've waited for the day when my favorite player would be voted to start for the National League All-Star team. I don't mean three short years, but all my life. Technically, it's never happened. Seaver and Gooden started All-Star Games but weren't voted on because they're pitchers. Fonzie was added to the roster once but never elected. Jose isn't quite in that personal pantheon yet, but he is the first “my favorite” to be chosen by the fans at large for something. So there was an extra jolt of emotion for me last Sunday when the starters were announced and my man, Jose Reyes, was revealed as the pick of a wide swath of baseball fans. Someone else noticed my favorite player besides us…besides me.
Hence, with a lead so bulgy that a virtual forfeit to our most serious rivals barely registers, I'm primarily caught up in whether Jose Reyes is capable and/or permitted to play in a meaningful exhibition. I don't demand nine innings Tuesday. Let him go out into the field and avoid charging baserunners. Let him lead off for the Senior Circuit, bang a line drive and, if he's not held on, slide feetfirst into second. Let Carlos or David drive him in. Then take him out, ice his pinky and get him ready for the Cubs on Friday.
Jose has earned his star. He has built on everything that was said on his behalf leading up to June 10, 2003. He overcame all the pulls, pops and strains that tripped him up. He learned. He gets on and he runs. We've never had anybody like him. I want the world to see him: Now Tuesday in Pittsburgh, then October at Shea. One inning is all I ask.
Confidential to our Maine readers: After one perfect, hard-throwing appearance, Henry Owens has been handed the seventh inning in my head. Heilman is free to resume starting after the break. Oliver deserves all emergency starts pending the fortunes of John Where You Are in the opener today. You may now return to wrestling bears or whatever it is one does there in Southern Canada.
by Jason Fry on 7 July 2006 3:25 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.
But this is not your regular memoirist — you’ve bought a ticket for the Flashback Friday equivalent of Lima Time! I’ll try to go five and get us out with nothing worse than a tie.
In 1986 I was 17 years old, a privileged high-school senior with the beginnings of a drinking problem, an overinflated sense of drama and a desperate love for a baseball team. It was an unhappy year, one I look back on with a mix of horror, mild amusement and relief that it’s far, far behind me. And gratitude — gratitude because it all turned out OK, thanks in no small part to that baseball team.
I was in prep school about an hour north of Boston, a Mets fan in the heart of Red Sox Nation. In truth, I’d only recently returned to the fold: Somewhere around the ’81 strike I’d drifted off into rock ‘n’ roll and far geekier pleasures, only to be summoned back by Dwight Gooden and the ’84 team’s desperate run at the Cubs. This was before WFAN or the Internet, let alone blogs put together by fellow crazies, so it was a rare treat to get to see or hear the Mets outside of the very occasional Game of the Week on the dorm TV. I’d rely on the one-paragraph summary and box score in the Globe, or wait up to hear the score mentioned in passing on news radio. Mostly I’d read: There was Sports Illustrated in the school library, and I wore out my copies of Bats and If at First…, mainlining Davey Johnson and Keith Hernandez.
I did get to see the Mets live that year, but it was at Al Lang Field in March — we’d just moved to St. Petersburg, and the Mets hadn’t yet departed for Cliff Floyd’s favorite hole on the other Florida coast. (I don’t remember if that was the year Wally Backman charged off the field in full uniform as I was exiting and spiked my foot en route to the bus while I stared at him in awe and then realized he wasn’t any taller than I was. Oh, let’s just say it was.) Cut off from the vast majority of regular-season games, I watched the Mets through standings and box scores during April, May and June. And then I went away, and things got strange.
I went all the way to Asia, sent there by my grandfather in what he probably saw as a last bid to save me from a uselessly blinkered, loutish existence. He coached me on Guilin and calligraphy and the Ming and Xian and other things I’d see. And I did see those things. But hazily — because mostly I drank. In hotel bars and hotel rooms and restaurants and casinos. On boats and buses and planes. I fell in with a bunch of college kids and made it my mission to outdrink them all: Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and China were basically one big binge, broken by occasional looks at the International Herald-Tribune. The Tribune didn’t have game stories or box scores, but it did have the baseball standings. And I couldn’t believe what they told me. The Mets were up by nine or so when I left, but every time I peeked at the standings they seemed to be ascending. 13.5 games. 17.5 games. 19 games. That wasn’t possible, I thought — what on earth was going on with my baseball team?
It was possible. But then came the postseason.
By then I was back at school for my senior year, still drinking. I was drinking because I was young and dumb, but I was also drinking because there was a girl — the other half of a ridiculously overdramatic teenage relationship that had gone bad in that ridiculously all-consuming way teenage relationships do. (It didn’t help that I’d become a Bruce Springsteen disciple.) Things had gone awry during the summer, in that helpless way long-distance relationships did before cellphones and email (and perhaps still do — I’m immensely relieved to say I don’t know), but when I returned things were worse. And they were worse at a time when I was supposed to be working on college essays, realizing I couldn’t hack pre-calc, and feeling like I was on the verge of screwing up a decent-sized portion of the next chapter of my life on multiple fronts. (Which, in retrospect, I was.) My reaction to all this was to slowly and thoroughly panic, an unraveling I attempted to hide and wound up accelerating by consuming whatever quantities of booze and pot I could get my hands on. I’d write incoherent drafts of college essays, stay at the school paper abusing substances until absurd hours, somehow avoid or talk my way past campus security in staggering back to my dorm, have ridiculous fights via payphone with my semi-ex-girlfriend, and then start over.
The only thing that made me happy was the Mets, and as the playoffs arrived I clung to them like I was drowning. But that raised the question of whether they’d stay above water.
The team got through Houston, somehow: I spent 16 innings pacing and writhing and hiding behind a scruffy dorm couch until Jesse finally struck out Kevin Bass, then wound up running down the hill into town because dinner was long past over. (Then, I’m sure, I got good and drunk.) Nothing remained but a World Series, against the Red Sox.
Our history teacher was a World War II vet with visible, ghastly war wounds who’d begin each class with a disquisition on the Sox, their long, storied and tragic history, and their current chances for escaping that history. I was too scared of him to trumpet my Mets fandom and too ignorant to understand why the kid next to me came in for particular needling during these sessions. (Eventually I realized he was a Doubleday. Oh.)
I would definitely mix it up with my Red Sox friends, though. I heard Game 1 on car radios and watched it on TV at the house of a day student’s parents: I was the lone guy screaming in drunken agony amid whooping Sox fans as the ball went though Teufel’s legs. Game 2 grew more and more awful as I glowered at it from a dorm couch. Then the games in Boston: Game 3 felt different from the second Dykstra snuck one over the fence. One of my dormmates went to Game 4; when he returned he just shook his head and muttered, “Gary Carter hit the longest home run I’ve ever seen.” Game 5 ended with me hiding under the covers listening to the radio, having retreated to my own bed in a desperate effort to change the luck. (Everybody remembers Hurst in Game 5, but nobody seems to remember Lenny ended the game as the tying run.)
And Game 6. Game 6 fell on Parents’ Weekend; I high-tailed it back to my parents’ motel with my friend Pete in tow. (A pass letting you off-campus for the night was a welcome change of pace even if it was just to a motel in Lawrence.) My dad fell asleep. So did Pete. My mom and I didn’t — we wound up sitting on the edge of our respective double beds screaming and howling at the TV, in pain and then in disbelief and finally in amazed glee. Then Game 7, back in the dorm basement. With the Mets down 3-0 and things looking dire, Pete chuckled and mentioned that the Mets never won if he was watching. Realizing he’d fallen asleep shortly before Buckner’s flameout, I immediately threatened him with whatever bodily harm I could do to him unless he went the fuck upstairs right now. He did and we won. (To be fair, Pete hasn’t always been bad luck.)
The next day our history teacher had written “Confucius says: ‘Wait till next year’ ” on the blackboard. (He died long before 2004, I’m sad to report.) At lunch a Bosox fan of my acquaintance — who’d taken great pleasure in mocking me and the Mets after Game 2 — arrived sheepfaced and invited me to take my best shot. “There’s no need for that, Betsy — the Sox played a great Series,” I assured her. Then I paused and let the needle slip in: “You should be proud to be a fan of the second-best baseball team on the planet.”
And then I stopped drinking and smoking pot and shaped up and…well, no, I didn’t. In fact I’d get busted for drinking just a couple of months later, the thump at the end of a long, exhausting spiral. But it was different after October 27. I was still a mess, but I had a little euphoria to cushion me. Somehow, amid binges and gratuitous stupidity, I wrote my college essays. Somehow I managed not to flunk pre-calc. Somehow I realized a confused semi-ex-girlfriend shouldn’t be granted such power over my emotions. Somehow I managed not to get kicked out of school. A lot of that somehow came from the fact that my baseball team had won the World Series. It wasn’t a smart gamble to let my sense of well-being get hijacked by a baseball team, but it paid off.
Years later I was a few weeks into a new job in lower Manhattan when I read that Mookie Wilson was signing autographs at the Winter Garden, just a short walk away. I rushed over there and found Mookie, his rounds almost done, talking patiently with a couple of Met fans. I wound up being the last guy, and stuck out my hand, which vanished into his.
“Thanks for getting me into college,” I said.
That startled Mookie: I told him a highly abbreviated version of the above tale. He looked taken aback, maybe a bit annoyed. (And justifiably so: Mookie Wilson dealt with a lot more and worked a lot harder for his own college education than I did.)
“That’s a lot to put on a person,” he said finally, smiling a bit.
Yes, it was. But it was a lot more taken off young, stupid me, who’d had too much to carry and left it up to the Mets to bear the load for us both. However improbably and excruciatingly, they did. That winter they were the World Champions; I was pretty far from that, but I’d hit bottom and started to find my way back up.
by Greg Prince on 7 July 2006 5:36 am What were we even worried about? We can beat the worst team in the National League three in a row. And since everybody but us is pretty much the worst team in the National League, I think we can still project a 142-20 record. Well, on nights like this, it feels like it will be 142-20, and Stephen Colbert would tell you to overlook mathematics because how it feels is what really counts.
It was a night to fret needlessly and drink beer in the upper deck. I did both with my friend Jon, a Mets fan who can be summed up in four words: He's one of us. I would know that even if I'd never met him because the damning evidence is right here.
Anyway, Jon and I hadn't taken in a game together at Shea in nearly two years. Then it was an evening of Art Howe Must Go and Take Joe McEwing With Him. So much has changed.
Or has it?
Practically the first words out of Jon's mouth, maybe eight seconds after hello, were “I don't like Willie Randolph.” Not much later, I wondered when Carlos Delgado was going to start getting booed; I wouldn't boo him but I would understand if others are fed up by the way he continues to eat shift. We watched Cliff Floyd gather another ache and/or pain and Jon opined that Cliff overreacts. We agreed that we love him but I didn't disagree that he's a touch dramatic in his presentation. Neither one of us is a professional athlete, but we sure know how they feel, huh?
Elsewhere, Chris Woodward irked us, Aaron Heilman annoyed us, Eli Marrero got under our skin and Billy Wagner and his trumped-up, justly failed All-Star bid put us on perilous edge.
This is how two P1 Mets fans treat a team that never trailed and was in the midst of extending its divisional lead to a season-high 12-1/2 games. Our criticisms, sprinkled in among less pointed, more relaxed conversation, weren't bristling. It was just our Mets fan instinct kicking in. There's still enough 2004 and other such years stuck to our souls to betray dissatisfaction and expectation of imminent disaster. We assumed Joe Randa would do us dirt at any moment. We were ducking for cover from Ronny Paulino and Nate McLouth. We concluded that Armando Benitez and Billy Wagner were practically synonymous, except Armando didn't blow as many saves before September.
At the end, we were giddy and high-fived and that sort of thing, perfectly happy to have completely misread the team we obsess on 25 hours a day (which I assume is how long Jon's nights are since the May 12 birth of his son Ivan). I was even more perfectly happy around the fifth inning when Jon bought me a Bud Light in a blue aluminum bottle emblazoned with — and elevated by — a Mets logo. I don't really drink beer but I wanted the container for my BevMet collection.
“I'll just have a sip,” I thought. “I'll just have another.” As I tend to do with beverages, I just kept drinking until I was gulping. I've spent 17 years making my living in and around potable liquids, so I'm highly beverage-conscious. I no longer remember if I'm thirsty or just on a two-decade taste test. Whatever, I found myself downing the icy cold Bud Light in pretty short order.
To look at me you wouldn't know it, but I'm kind of a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. So for about two innings, I was floating a tiny bit above the upper deck. Not crazy buzzed or anything, just a little less anchored than my public reserve normally dictates. I don't really drink beer, but I can sure see why others do.
The beer bliss has worn off but even Pedro's hip trip to the DL can't kill my baseball buzz. We root for a very, very good team. Rest assured, however, that people like Jon and I (and my co-blogger, natch) will by habit or impulse continue to put a damper on our own good times as the second half unfolds.
Guys like us, we have incredibly long memories but remarkably short attention spans.
by Jason Fry on 7 July 2006 3:21 am I hereby interrupt this return to our normal winning ways to announce in advance that yes, it's all my fault.
Last year at about this time I went off to Maine behind the wheel of a Mo Vaughn-sized U-Haul truck and terrible things immediately started happening to the Mets: Looper and Pirates and Cota, oh my! I ignored my co-blogger's urgent pleas and returned home after the break, when it was too late to do more than kick at the ground and act chastened.
Well, tomorrow night Emily and the boy and I are headed back that way, about 90 minutes before the clock inexplicably strikes Lima Time! again. So of course I kept this from my co-blogger until the last possible moment, knowing his likely reaction. Didn't matter: The Mets decided to get their licks in first.
Jace? It's Omar. We're calling up Mike Pelfrey. Yes really. Go to Shea to see his debut? Ha. You're not even going to get to see it on TV. You're not going to get to hear it. Carve a Pelfrey totem out of birchbark and pretend it's on the mound, you stupid woods-loving sonofabitch.
Gulp. But family being family and plane tickets being expensive, I accepted my fate. Pelfreyless it would be.
Of course that wasn't enough.
Jace, Omar again. Just wanted to tell you we also decided to call up Henry Owens. Triple-A? Nah, we're bringing him right to the bigs. That K/IP was just too ungodly for us not to see with our own eyes. Oh, did I say 'see?' Because you won't get to see or hear his debut either, will you? Have fun cavorting with bears, dumbass. Oh, we'll make sure Howie and Keith show him on TV just to torture you before you go.
OK, OK, I get it. But family's still family and plane tickets are still expensive, so off we still go. (Not being completely insane, I've got a line on borrowing somebody's XM radio for the duration. At least I think I do. Wish me luck.)
At least it won't be the Pirates doing terrible things to us while I gaze into the unfathomable darkness of the non-city and one or both of my parents say helpful things like, “I thought they were doing really well this year.” (The Marlins are more than capable of doing terrible things to us — more capable then the Pirates, no doubt.) Leaving aside greed, taking three out of four from the doormats of the NL Central was the kind of tonic we needed to feel better about ourselves. “We'll worry about October in October” now sounds properly swaggering again, instead of kind of pathetic the way it did when we were crawling away from the AL East.
Tonight's game was properly reassuring: This time, our offense didn't get off to a roaring start and then come to a screeching halt for seven innings. Reyes ran wild (and Joshua gulled me into delaying bedtime for 10 minutes by craftily announcing he wanted to learn the “Jose! Jose! Jose! Jose!” chant), Wright hit an opposite-field homer, Floyd (apparently) survived another HBP and Wagner refused to be unmanned by some defensive lapses behind him. Even the immortal Jonah Bayliss beaning Trachsel was more odd than troubling: Trachsel himself seemed baffled by it, as if he might say, “Are you kidding? It's me, Steve Trachsel — the patron saint of all things tepid. You think you're going to start some kind of beef by hitting Steve Trachsel? You or some other alumnus of the Altoona Curve want to get me worked up, send over a bottle of something corked.”
Keith Hernandez had quite a night, by the way. Our own Captain Jack Sparrow came over from the radio side feeling feisty, cracking that his rainbow of highlighters was so he could recreate the cover of Cream's Disraeli Gears. That was the equivalent of Bette Davis warning everyone to buckle up for a bumpy ride: Within a couple of innings Keith was ranting that no one played 162 games anymore, that Trachsel should go nine, and that everyone in Triple-A was a useless junkballer. By now he's probably running around the parking lot spray-painting cars.
I love Keith when he's being coolly analytical. I also love Keith when he transforms randomly into your crazy uncle.
I'm gonna miss him up in the Pelfreyless State.
by Greg Prince on 6 July 2006 7:18 am Those commercials in which Tom Glavine and Duaner Sanchez awkwardly and unconvincingly invite us to Discover Queens must be rubbing off on the Mets. No longer mercenaries, they and their teammates are playing like genuine homeboys.
Take Wednesday night when the Mets (no doubt sufficiently loosened by the unifying presence of Jose Lima) plated five runs in their half of the first and then, in the best tradition of the playgrounds of New York, told the Pirates to go ahead and take your ups. Sure enough, the Pirates essentially batted for 24 straight outs and never produced a thing.
This was high-priced stickball — the overmatched team extended the courtesy/insult of being told to stay at bat and try to hit it if you can. Don't bother pitching to us. We've scored all we're gonna need.
Yes, five in the first held up quite nicely. The story would be perfect if the Mets hadn't actually gone through the motions of taking their own ups. We were no-hit from the second through the eighth, mostly by Kip Wells, the same rehabbing chap who was so utterly clueless in the first. Perhaps The Kipper was suddenly a helluva hurler. Perhaps the Mets were conserving their excess thunder for Trachsel (they usually do). Perhaps Travelocity was featuring great fares for Sunday evening, cracking our lineup's concentration a few days before the break. Whatever it was, I was a little disturbed at how effectively we shut down our own attack.
Not to be lost amid discerning this silver cloud's dark lining was the rendering irrelevant of Buc ups by Orlando Hernandez. If he's gonna be as effective as he was over seven shutout innings, call him El Duque if you must. Call him “Chief” like the countermen in any good deli would and include a sour pickle with his corned beef sandwich. He already knows about pitching in New York and against the Pirates, he was the toast of the town.
Duque, Chad and Duaner — we can be familiar with them since they're now so woven into the fabric of the neighborhood — combined to give the Mets their first second-consecutive win over the same opponent since we swept Philly. Neat trick that a team that's been so darn mediocre for almost three weeks still maintains a luxurious double-digit lead (11-1/2 sewers) over everybody in its own division. It's nice to live in the penthouse when everybody else is confined to a basement flat.
Take Pittsburgh. The Pirates were awesome Monday night. They were feisty Tuesday afternoon. They were what their record says they are Wednesday. Their record indicates a success rate of 33.7%. The record of the entire National League is abysmal. We're the only team that is as many as eight games over .500 — twice that many, actually. I note this to counteract any suggestion that there's nothing impressive about beating the team with the worst winning percentage in baseball. There are a lot of Pittsburghs who will be coming onto our playground between now and the end of the season. We have to beat them all. Some nights it might even take more than one inning.
by Greg Prince on 5 July 2006 10:06 pm Having been granted my wish that Heath Bell be dismissed from the premises, I’ve been reminded to be careful what I wish for.
My reminder: Jose Lima has taken Heath Bell’s spot.
I really want to believe there’s nothing wrong with a second helping of Lima Time provided it is served by the thimbleful and at off hours. I assume this particular Jose (we sure have a lot of them) is on hand to be the seventh man in the bullpen and grab those innings that hopefully don’t need to be pitched, the ones that arise when our starters falter. Darren Oliver has been used a lot lately — if not enough to Pedro Feliciano’s way of thinking — and he could use a breather. If Lima gets the fourth and fifth in a 9-1 blowout…well, no biggie except I don’t want to be on the Lima-usin’ end of a 9-1 blowout.
The easy analogy to make is recalling Jose Lima is to inane pitching transactions what Gerald Williams was to fortifying outfield depth. What the fudge are we doing bringing up Jose Lima when we could instead use…uh…er…um…
…who do we have anyway?
Oh that’s right. We’re kinda screwed for pitching right now. If Pedro comes back Saturday (which is something I really want to believe), then things are pretty darn rosy. He pitches one game Saturday and John Maine, who went from hot to hapless in a matter of pitches Monday, gets the other. That’s not Lima Time. Reports indicate Mike Pelfrey, surely the greatest Mike P. we’ve had since Mike Piazza, will be up Friday night. That’s not Lima time. Barring whatever seems to befall Mets starters until then, we have Orlando Hernandez tonight (still can’t quite bring myself to spit out his nickname given its unfortunate association with the past) and Steve Trachsel tomorrow. Those are not Lima Times. Glavine goes Sunday. Finally, that’s not Lima Time.
Thus, if Jose Lima lingers for a few days as a long-relief stopgap, doesn’t get into more than a game or two when it’s not terribly crucial and then enjoys an extended All-Star break, I think we’ll get by. No, that’s not optimal thinking, but it’s the way it is after Bell and Soler proved themselves incapable of helping their team at all Sunday and Feliciano gave Willie every excuse to bury him (hope the manager’s a bigger man than that). If something goes wrong with Pedro, or Maine finds another finger that’s not quite right, and Lima takes the ball Saturday…well, he does have experience.
I would have been content to have never been party to the return of Lima Time, but I’ll admit I’m rooting for the guy to have one solid outing and not just because a guy in a Met uniform having a solid outing benefits us all. Both in spring training and during his last stay, Lima was a unifying force in the clubhouse. Everybody seemed to like him in a big way. Yeah, they said the same thing about Gerald Williams, but ya know what? This seems like a good time for a unifying force. For a team with a double-digit lead, its players have betrayed a touch of crabbiness. And who can blame them, with their record having loitered at convenience store level (7-11) since The Road Trip ended? If Lima can keep ’em loose for a few days, maybe that’s a contribution.
Not at the expense of effective pitching, mind you, but I don’t see a lot of obvious options otherwise. Pelfrey coming up is a separate issue and one we’ll all embrace if/when it happens. As for the ever popular Anybody But, I confess I’m not familiar with his stats or qualifications. Yeah, Anybody But Jose Lima sounds good, but maybe there are a few machinations at work that we or at least I don’t see. Maybe Lima — who is motivated enough to keep pitching at AAA after his Major League embarrassment in May, so he must have some pride in avenging his prior performance — hangs through Sunday and we see one of the other Tides roll in after the break. After being certain the deployment of Jose Valentin was complete folly, I’m not going to kneejerk any veteran player move Omar makes, certainly not one that isn’t likely to amount to a hill of beans in the long run.
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