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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Jason Fry on 19 June 2006 1:00 am …or we'll undress you on the scoreboard.
They say on any day or night you might see something in baseball you've never seen before, but a ball skipping up an outfielder's sleeve and rolling around inside his uniform as runners circle the bases? Never seen that before, can't imagine I ever will again. (Though, as Gary Cohen noted, the Mets won a game in 1992 when Daryl Boston got hit by a pitch that wound up in his shirt. Set your clock for 2020 and the Mets' next shirt-related adventure.) Actually, poor Ed Rogers did a pretty good job, all things considered, coolly reaching up and fetching the ball from behind his neck. He might have been better off having Julio Franco's single go up his sleeve too, considering his throw to the plate almost left Shea Stadium. (When the ump called obstruction on Miguel Tejada, I was briefly and intensely sorry that that sneaky traitor Lee Mazzilli wasn't still the O's manager.)
David Wright hitting a grand slam, on the other hand, is something I devoutly hope to see at regular intervals for the next two decades. Today's was particularly sweet for the way it erased all the frustration that had been building. Adam Loewen's “Bull Durham” level of wildness (Don't dig in there, boys!) made him appear ripe for a shellacking all afternoon, but it had been a weekend of waiting for shellackings that never came, hadn't it? Wright's drive (on a pretty good pitch) reversed all that in mere seconds, letting the crowd finally give the Mets the roar that a 9-1 road trip deserved. I won't ever understand people who think baseball's boring (which isn't the same as claiming I find every moment of it interesting), in part because all that nothing happening ratchets up the tension until it finally snaps with a big something happening. And then you think, “Oh, I see. The point of all that stuff was to make this a better story. Cool!”
Our lost Friday and Saturday night? We didn't even lose any ground, thanks to the Braves' continuing descent and the Phillies tangling with the juggernaut known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. And with that lead standing at a fairly luxurious 9 1/2, there wasn't even a thought of running the full varsity out there for a day game after a night game in wretched heat. That should be good for Delgado and Lo Duca at the tail end of the season, and it's not like we missed a beat with the JV: Ramon Castro looked like the 2005 edition, Julio Franco leapt and hit and ran like he was 27, and Eli Marrero made some nice plays out there in right. (Though his game saver in the 6th was mostly impressive because he had to salvage a bad route to the ball.)
And hey, points to Jon Stewart, who more than demonstrated his bona fides by recalling Jim McAndrew and Joe Foy. Stewart was the other end of one of my enormously rare NYC celebrity sightings: Emily and Joshua and I were walking through the Village when a guy who looked vaguely familiar glanced at my Met cap and touched the bill of his own with a smile. Waitaminute, wasn't that… I thought a few steps later. Yep, it was. He's one of us.
by Greg Prince on 18 June 2006 10:19 am Crappy losses to dismal opponents generate little cause for concern as regards our unassailable Mets, but they're still crappy. I didn't like 'em in '86 and I don't like 'em now. But they happen, sometimes in twos.
The second day of the rest of our lives went suspiciously like the first: flat and flat again. Maybe it's just some kind of delayed jet lag or bus lag or whatever weariness that kicks in after you've finished conquering your foes and elevating yourselves above the rabble. It may surprise some of our younger readers (or older readers with limited recall) to learn that the Mets can get beat in a pair of games and it's not a sign of the apocalypse, certainly not with the Phillies comatose and the Braves in the morgue…tied for last with the surging Marlins, in case you're wondering why you can't find Atlanta without a magnifying glass.
Need immediate gratification? The Nationals won in inspiring fashion Saturday to move into sole possession of third, about a hundred games behind the Mets. They are granted special dispensation on this Interleague weekend, as will be other NL East teams when they play the Skanks. Even in the heat of 1999 and 2000, even when it was the Braves, I've always given our intradivision rivals my blessings in those contests. Some matters loom larger than any displeasing, fleeting shift in the standings.
As for the Orioles, they're annoying. Brandon Fahey? Nick Markakis? Chris Ray? They're the new Expos, except we only have to play them three and out (and they'll still exist next season). Come to think of it, three encounters with Leo Mazzone's charges versus the traditional nineteen is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff. Kris Benson heating up like a hot tub instead of emitting the lukeyness to which we became accustomed? Well, you could see that coming from 200 miles down I-95.
Yellowing mental snapshots of Benson and Melvin Mora are two of the souvenirs I've kept from what I consider the best day I ever spent inside Shea Stadium, October 3, 1999. Benson pitched the game of his life to, thankfully, no decision. Mora emerged fully grown from obscurity and sparked the most crucial rally of the decade. The Mets won the right to play another day and then for another two weeks after that. Realizing they were both in the visitors' lineup last night made me smile just the slightest bit. It didn't, however, make me wistful as it would have at any point in the past five years. 2006 isn't about wist for the past. It's about thrust for the now.
I'm trusting we'll get back to thrusting ASAP.
by Greg Prince on 17 June 2006 4:18 am Well, the first game of the rest of our lives has come and gone and absolutely nothing has changed. The Mets lost; no biggie there. We didn't lose any ground. I'd argue there's no ground to lose. What hasn't changed is the Met fan reaction to anything less than eternal perfection.
I went to the game and there was a nice ovation when the Mets took the field, but eventually there was booing. Booing of Mets. Booing of the Mets. Booing of the team that just won eight in a row on the road and put away the Phillies and separated themselves irrevocably from the Braves. Booing of the team that ended Thursday with the best record in baseball and — the nerve of them — maintains the best record in the National League.
One unattractive loss to some unfamiliar opponent after a rampage across the continent requires a pass. If you'd been traveling nonstop for a week-and-a-half, would you be your sharpest the next night? Would you want someone to cut you some slack? Would you immediately point to what you've done for them lately?
Don't they have a term in golf for it…a mulligan? Give the Mets one of whatever it's called when you don't hold a mistake against somebody. Hell, we'll take the stroke penalty. It's a loss, the first one in a very long time. Suck it up and do like the people sitting in my row: buy something to eat (they bought one of everything; I love watching vendors make change instead of the pitch).
Aaron Heilman was the prime boo provocateur, giving back in the seventh the lead we squeaked out in the sixth. Didn't Aaron Heilman pitch a perfect inning the day before in a one-run ballgame against what had been our prime division rival? Didn't he help nail down a very important sweep of sweeps? And now you're letting him hear it because he sucked against the Orioles? He hasn't been a beauty lately, but hey, he's all right. Pedro has a lousy inning, he has a chance to make good. When a starter recovers, we're all “boy, you gotta get to the great ones early.” Aaron, who only gets one frame, has a lousy inning and he's the new villain in town.
Apparently we need one.
by Greg Prince on 16 June 2006 6:37 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.
As the institutional kvelling over the 2006 Mets shifts into high gear, I listened to Tim Kurkjian on Baseball Tonight quote an unnamed National League manager on why our team is so thoroughly making this our time. The Mets, he said, have no weaknesses.
Could it be? In all phases of the game, the Mets do seem covered. Starting, relieving, lineup, bench, gloves, speed…not a weak link is apparent to me either.
Except for one. There’s nobody to boo.
Omar Minaya really undermined the roster on this count. When the season began, he had several candidates for mass scapegoating. But look what he’s done:
• Kaz Matsui: Traded for Eli Marrero.
• Jorge Julio: Traded for Orlando Hernandez
• Victor Zambrano: On the 60-day DL, out for the year.
• Jose Valentin: Crossed everybody up by succeeding.
Who’s your target now, boobirds? You don’t know Marrero well enough to be mad at him for anything. Beltran you’ve always loved by now. Trachsel? Not worth the trouble. Wagner? He’s been fairly flawless since his one flawful outing almost a month ago. Nady? I don’t think appendicitis will be held against him. Milledge? Even you can’t turn on a favorite that fast.
I wouldn’t put it past the terminally testy to find a foe, but face it: We don’t have anyone remotely booable right now. Great teams generally lack depth in this department.
Though not in 1986.
If you weren’t around then, would it surprise you to know that the team that romped through the regular season, the team that was setting all kinds of records to the good, the team that won the hearts and minds of everybody who saw it actually had players not named LOOOOOOOOOU but it sounded like it did?
It’s TRUUUUUUUUUE. Mets fans found Mets with whom to be upset. Don’t think Philadelphians cornered the market on expressing displeasure with the Santa Clauses of the world. If the Tooth Fairy had been hitting .205 for us in 1986, we would have kicked her teeth in.
That wasn’t my scene in 1986. I was too in love with the entire unit to pick out a bad guy and make him my bitch, even though there were popular candidates to be voted most unpopular.
I saw no reason to get on Doug Sisk, public enemy No. 39 two decades ago. Sisk was still paying for a meltdown from 1984. I thought he had done his penance and he was almost not bad sometimes.
Though I questioned his absorption of 1/24th of the roster, I never booed Randy Niemann. It would be like booing lint just because it couldn’t pitch either.
In 1985, I booed Davey Johnson’s use of Ray Knight when Howard Johnson seemed the clear third base choice, but by 1986, I was a big enough man to forgive Ray. I’m a big enough man to forgive any Met who homers six times in April.
I never booed Straw, whose treatment that August when he didn’t get a single hit at home makes A-Rod’s current reception in the Bronx sound like a tea party. Straw was going to be my Willie Mays and who’d boo Willie Mays?
And I never saw any point in booing George Foster. How would that help him hit?
Wow, I’m a great guy. I didn’t boo anybody on a team that won 108 games. What do I want, a cookie?
But don’t get me wrong. There was somebody on the 1986 Mets whom I didn’t like. Didn’t hate, but didn’t care for. Didn’t have it in for, but couldn’t particularly get behind. Didn’t want him gone, but didn’t necessarily mind if he were to take off.
Don’t get me wrong. I wanted all the 1986 Mets to succeed. But if there was one 1986 Met for whom I could generate no passion, it was Danny Heep.
What did Danny Heep ever to do me?
Nothing. But he never did anything for me, not viscerally. Though I never articulated it at the time, he was almost certainly my least favorite 1986 Met. Mind you, being a least favorite 1986 Met is nothing like being a least favorite 2002-03 Met. Danny Heep was no Roberto Alomar. He fielded better than Roger Cedeño. He ran better than Mo Vaughn. He struck out less than Jeromy Burnitz. He had better aim than Shawn Estes. He didn’t get as high as Tony Tarasco, Mark Corey and Grant Roberts allegedly did.
He was just…I don’t know. He was Danny Heep. On a team that ran hot and hotter, he left me room temperature. He was just so…Heep.
My mother figured it out first in her own, uncomplimentary way. There was no ramp-up for my mother as a Mets fan. She just kind of jumped on the bandwagon full-force in ’84 and knew what she decided she needed to know right away. She knew she loved Doc and loved Keith and thought Danny Heep looked like “a dunner,” one marked by dullness and drabness in dictionary terms. She threw that word around when she wanted to indicate someone was unnecessarily slow on the uptake. I considered that assessment harsh. Danny Heep didn’t seem like a dunner. But I really can’t argue now with the dullness and the drabness.
Danny Heep was a handy bat to have around his first year after coming over from Houston. Given the shallow state of the 1983 Mets, Heep made us deep, particularly early in the year. He was more or less the starting rightfielder until Darryl was deemed ready for recall. And he was a power pinch-hitter, four home runs that way that year. Between him and Rusty, we had the left side taken care of.
And if that was as far as Danny Heep went, I’d probably tuck him away under Players, Useful. But by being handy, he was handed more than he deserved. Specifically, he was handed starts in left field, which is where he began to bug me.
George Foster did not have a great Mets career, but while he was here, he could hit home runs. Not enough of them and not as many as he had with the Reds, but more than most Mets did. In ’83, more than anybody. In ’84, more than anybody but Straw. In ’85, more than anybody but Kid and Straw. He didn’t move well, he didn’t emote much, he didn’t live up to his contract, but he did hit home runs and we needed them. Yet he was never forgiven for his first season, 1982, when he was truly horrendous. Little power, evaporating average, long limo. It was not a recipe for endearment, let alone success.
I’m pretty sure I was at Shea the night the fans turned on Foster for good. It was early June against Atlanta. Phil Niekro knuckled a no-hitter into the eighth, broken up by Bob Bailor. Braves led 3-0 in the ninth when Niekro allowed leadoff singles to Mookie and Stearns. Phil then let loose a wild pitch, something I suppose he did a lot given what he threw. OK, so it’s second and third. After being impotent all night, we have runners in scoring position and our big import, our pricey bauble, our legendary RBI man George Foster coming to bat. This was the first year of DiamondVision and we were all stoked when the screen showed us images of the cavalry coming to our rescue. CHARGE!
Then Foster struck out.
He was booed and booed and booed some more. The booing began on the night of June 2, 1982 and I’m not sure it’s stopped yet. George Foster was a bum. He wasn’t worth the millions (about 10 over five years) he was getting. He wasn’t even worth surrendering Greg Harris, Alex Treviño and Jorge Orta. The Reds weren’t any good without him but they sure seemed to have gotten the best of this deal.
Hence, anybody would have been more of the peepul’s cherce than George Foster. When Danny Heep would fill in for him, he was beloved out of all proportion to his Heepness. When Danny Heep drove in a run when he was in the lineup, he was hoisted on the collective shoulderdom as a hero. When George Foster would return to the lineup and strike out, the call would blare forth from all quarters: START DANNY HEEP.
I still have a slight red spot on my forehead from all the times I slapped it when I heard that. Danny Heep: Nice pinch-hitter. Decent fourth outfielder. But not George Foster. Not even the reduced George Foster. Perhaps I was still so enmeshed in the romance that surrounded the acquisition of Foster that I couldn’t let go of the idea that he was going to shake out of it one week and revert to being the Red menace he once was. Just get off his back and he’ll crush 52 and drive home 149 just like in 1977! Foster never came close to regaining his Cincinnati stature at Shea, but from 1983 until about the All-Star break in 1986, he did what nobody except Carter and Strawberry could do on a recurring basis. He hit home runs. Those are good things to hit.
Danny Heep wasn’t going to do that. That everybody acted as if Danny Heep was a viable everyday leftfielder struck me as delusional. It was the Foster hate talking. It was the booing masquerading as thinking. It was Danny Freaking Heep. Please.
While it wasn’t Heep’s fault that fans chose him out of a lineup to be in the lineup, he wasn’t doing much in those spot starts to engender that much enthusiasm. He did next to nothing in 1984, 12 RBI in 199 AB (let’s be precise — “nothing” is what Jerry Martin did, so “next to” shone by comparison). When Darryl went on the DL for half of May and most of June in ’85, we saw more Danny. It was dutiful fill-in work, nothing more. But people loved Danny Heep because he wasn’t George Foster and he wasn’t Darryl Strawberry. Foster and Strawberry had the capacity to disappoint. You expected little from Heep and if you got that much, it was a good day.
Did you know, according to Bats, Davey Johnson’s coaches wanted to insert Heep as pitcher in the 19th inning of the 19-inning game of July 4-5, 1985? Davey, who had been ejected, vetoed the idea. It would have been interesting, but it would have been so, so wrong.
Instead, Danny Heep’s most memorable moment from 1985 came facing Nolan Ryan. He went down as the Express’s 4,000th strikeout victim. When you saw video of triumphant Nolan, you saw helpless Heep. He had the company of 3,999 other victims, but there he was, over and over again, going down. Bad enough to see a Met get posterized. But the pitcher…not again. Nolan Ryan was a living, breathing, fireballing reminder of one of the worst trades in history, a Mets trade.
Oh, and so was Danny Heep!
It didn’t appear that way in 1983 when Heep was pinch-hitting helpfully and the guy we traded to Houston to get him was struggling to find the plate. But somewhere between 1983 and 1986, that pitcher we gave up, Mike Scott, learned the splitfinger fastball. He may have gone to Ace Hardware to do so — special on sandpaper — but he mastered it. While we were swooning over our extraordinary young pitching, Scott, a washout in New York in the early ’80s, was becoming the single most devastating hurler in all of baseball. In the second half of 1986, not Gooden, not Clemens, not anybody was more frightening to face than Mike Scott.
He was on the Astros, the team we’d have to go through to reach the World Series. And the Astros had him because we gave him to them. For Danny Heep.
It is remembered that the 1986 National League Championship Series was the very best the genre had to offer. It is also remembered that the nexus of that set was the extra-inning Game Six bloodfest the Mets just had to win even though they were leading three games to two and the untouchable Scott, looming as the unmovable object in a potential Game Seven. But it is not well remembered that we were put into extra-desperate straits that afternoon because, with the bases loaded, the score tied and Astro closer Dave Smith completely wild, the Mets sent up a pinch-hitter in the top of the ninth. All the pinch-hitter had to do was stand at the plate and hold his bat completely still. Since Smith had entered, he had walked Carter, walked Strawberry, surrendered a sac fly to Knight and walked Backman. He had accomplished nothing.
Facing Danny Heep, Smith was still missing the strike zone completely. But Danny Heep swung. He swung at ball four. He swung at ball five. I’ll have to check, but he might have swung at ball twelve. With the bases loaded and the pennant one disciplined JUST STAND THERE! away, Danny Heep swung and missed. The score stayed tied and the Astros were given a reprieve. Yes, we eventually won, and yes it’s a better story because it went sixteen innings, but Danny Heep came very close to costing us the entire 1986 season because he couldn’t lay off Dave Smith’s erratic, pathetic fastballs.
But we won and we made it to the World Series, and in the World Series for the first time, the designated hitter would appear in only the American League venue (from ’76 to ’85, the DH was permitted/required in even years in both parks; in odd years, they played baseball). That meant the Mets needed a DH, and who was more suited for DH than ol’ D.H. himself? It could have been Mazzilli or HoJo. If you weren’t a lefty/righty nut, it could have been Mitchell or Teufel. But, the first designated hitter the Mets ever used in a game without grapefruits was Danny Heep.
I detest the DH. Most National League fans do. Most American League fans, if they looked inside their souls, probably do, too. It’s a gimmick whose novelty wore off more than 30 years ago. But now the DH was invading the sanctity of the Mets’ lineup and it would fall to Danny Heep to bear the scarlet letters. Perfect.
Let the record show that Danny Heep’s first at-bat as a designated hitter was a success. Facing Oil Can Boyd, he singled home Hernandez and Carter as part of the crucial four-run first that roused the Mets in Game Three and got them back into play. That was also his only hit of the World Series. He went 1-for-11, .091.
Not that he didn’t play a role in the biggest game in Mets history. In Game Six, a contest we’ll dissect in more detail at a later date, he was called on to be a hero. After Roger Clemens held us hitless and hopeless for four innings, we mounted a rally, closing to within 2-1 in the fifth. Knight was on third, Mookie on first with none out when Davey pinch-hit Heep for Rafael Santana. Heep rapped into a double play. Knight scored to tie it, but the bases were emptied and there were two outs. A columnist — George Vecsey, I think — referred to it as a professional ground ball. Way too kind. Rafael Santana could have done that much (he had two hits off Clemens in Game Two).
One more thing about Heep and Game Six…and I admit this is really looking for something to pick on, but it’s stuck with me. In one of the countless accounts I have read of the tenth inning, Heep was among the Met personnel who gathered in Charlie Samuels’ office to watch the Mets’ last gasp on television. Samuels, the eternal equipment manager, had a collection of NFL helmets. In this particular telling, each man grabbed a helmet and put it on, sort of like a hard-shelled rally cap with facemask. I don’t remember who else exactly was there, but each donned a helmet of a professional team. Except for Heep. He wore the helmet of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes.
I have no idea why this bothers me, but it does. Maybe Iowa was all that was left. Maybe it had some meaning to Danny. Maybe he’s the one who gave it to Charlie. Maybe nobody was giving it a lot of thought amid a frenzied comeback of comebacks. But when I read that many years after the fact, all I could think was, geez, Heep wears a college football helmet when everybody else goes pro…figures.
Danny Heep and the other Mets took off their protective headgear and won a World Series that Monday night. Heep didn’t play in Game Seven, but he was part of the team. He deserved to celebrate. I imagine he did, though I have a hard time doing so. Did he ever smile? Was he ever happy? Did he ever look like he was enjoying himself? Granted, he hadn’t done anything spectacular since joining the Mets in ’83 and he was never any kind of a full-time player since his arrival in the Majors in ’79, and he was overshadowed by Mazzilli and Mitchell among extra outfielders as ’86 wound down, but geez, Danny Heep, you just won the World Series! What are you going to do now?
File for free agency!
Yes, Danny Heep was out of here on the first plane to greener pastures. There was no effort to keep him and there was no Knightlike hue or cry about him going. Collusion screwed with him a bit, keeping him from making his debut with his new team, the Dodgers, until June 1987. He didn’t do much more with them than he had with us, but he did win another World Series ring in 1988, one that his ex-teammates in New York didn’t: another reason I can’t quite get it up nostalgically for Danny Heep.
He often showed acumen for being in the right place at the right time. He played in the riveting 1980 NLCS for the Astros against the Phillies. He made it to the playoffs with the Red Sox in 1990. And a year later, he was on the burgeoning Braves until mid-season when he was released. Maybe the Atlanta dynasty began to bloom the day he retired, though that’s pure speculation.
There. I admit it. I had a least favorite ’86 Met. But to be the least favorite among ’86 Mets was still to be held in reasonably high esteem, no matter how catty I seem about it now. I sure as hell wouldn’t throw back any of Danny Heep’s hits or homers from that or any other year based on principle or personality defect (mine, not his).
Don’t get me wrong — I never rooted against Danny Heep while he wore the colors (whereas I did go anti-Alomar and -Sanchez toward their tenures’ ignominious ends). I didn’t boo Danny Heep. Never, no way, no how. I don’t boo my own unless I’m strongly provoked. But I didn’t do much of the opposite on Heep’s behalf either. And that was very unusual behavior on my part in 1986.
by Jason Fry on 16 June 2006 2:06 am Well, hell. You beat me to it. But since we're in agreement, let's walk down memory lane for a moment.
This is from Keith Hernandez's excellent If at First…, one of the better year-in-the-life books written by a pro athlete. It's from the 1986 chapter, found in the paperback edition. I've been thinking about it for a couple of days.
After we beat Montreal two out of three games our second trip in there, in early August, Backman snarled, “They're buried.”
“Hey, Wally, cool it,” I urged him. “That'll just steam them.”
“Tough,” he snapped.
August, June.
1986, 2006.
Doesn't matter.
They're buried.
by Greg Prince on 15 June 2006 11:08 pm I’m going to Friday night’s game against the Orioles. I have three standing ovations planned.
One will be for the home team, returning to its headquarters office after the road trip from heaven.
One will be for Melvin Mora. It will be his first appearance at Shea since he was traded away in 2000. He was one of my favorites long ago and I always like to let my favorites from long ago know that I haven’t forgotten them.
And a completely non-sarcastic one is reserved for the pitching coach of the Baltimore Orioles, Leo Mazzone. THANK YOU for taking your current position. THANK YOU for leaving your former employer. THANK YOU for packing up your genius and leaving none of it behind in Atlanta.
Leo Mazzone’s in Maryland, which means the lights have gone out in Georgia. And that is why I am as sure as one can be without being totally sure about anything in life (a blanket “just-in-case” for injuries, lightning, falling objects from the sky…because you truly never know) that the Mets will win the National League East.
Mike’s Mets had the headline of the week this morning: Things To Do in Atlanta When You’re Dead. It’s not like the Braves “faithful” really put baseball games high on their agenda to begin with, but I anticipate backyard barbecues and trips to The World of Coca-Cola will increase exponentially down Peachtree way over the next few months. And October? Well, I don’t know who’s going to win the Wild Card, but let’s just say Turner Field appears available for dances, Youth for Christ jamborees and rock ‘n’ roll shows when Games One and Two of the National League Division Series will be going on elsewhere. That thing the Braves do in the Eastern Division? It’s done.
Any team can get ungodly hot for a few days as we did in Arizona and continued to be for the first two games in Philadelphia. But wins like today’s, the one that sealed the sweep and, for my two bits, the fate of the Phillies, are what separates the top of a division from the remainder of a division. Forget Trachsel’s serviceable six innings (subtract Pat Burrell and they’d have been tremendous) and forget the four-run first if you can, even though four-run firsts have become a Met trademark. Dig on this sequence from the top of the fifth when the Mets were leading 4-2:
• Reyes doubles.
• Chavez bunts him to third.
• Beltran drives him home with a fly to right.
There. That’s it. That’s the beauty of these Mets. That’s what I like to call the Build-A-Run Workshop. During a pause in our ongoing offensive onslaught — I was a bit nervous that Lidle had calmed down since Wright’s three-run blast in the first and that Burrell hadn’t yet been arrested on charges of cruelty to Met pitchers — we manufactured a score when we needed one. Nothing fancy; everybody did what he had to do. Jose hit and ran. Endy executed. Carlos B. drove a ball.
5-2…boom! Those actions provided Trachsel enough breathing room to give into Burrell when it got to 5-4. From there, we were revisited by our old friend, the invincible back end of our bullpen. Remember that? Remember Heilman, Sanchez and Wagner from early in the season? Remember when we played one-run games and usually won them? It was the big three from the seventh, eighth and ninth innings who made the difference.
Their role has been diminished of late. The games haven’t been close, so it’s been starters and long/middle relievers keeping opponents at bay while our ridiculously awesome lineup took center stage. Yet it was somehow appropriate on the afternoon that we clinched all there is to clinch in the middle of June that we resorted to our core competency as the difference-maker.
It was more than competent.
Whether it was a restored arm angle for Aaron, necessary rest for Duaner or mental replenishment for Billy (those phans really got to him, huh?), it worked. Nine Phillies up, nine Phillies down in the final three innings. Those guys can hit, but they didn’t. With every opportunity to pull one of those patented Vet/Cit comebacks on the Mets — for whom a one-run lead has never seemed to be enough in that part of town — the home team couldn’t do spit.
The Phillies may rally for a run at the Wild Card, but the East is out of their reach. The Braves have enough talent to find second place and make it count, but Leo Mazzone is in Baltimore and Roger McDowell, whom we’ll always love, ain’t no Leo Mazzone. The Braves’ viability in 2006, from what I’ve seen, hinged on their ability to outlast the Marlins whom they beat in three walkoff heartbreakers last month. Last night, the Marlins turned the tables on the Braves, making Atlanta look like the all-rookie, all-thumbs, all-out-of-their-element pretenders. It wasn’t the first time the Braves looked that way either. The Nationals? There’s only so much Alfonso Soriano can do before he’s traded.
The Mets have no genuine competition in their division. Now that I’ve said that, those words are on my head. I’ll accept them. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll steamroll through The Ted on our next trip south. It doesn’t mean Jakey & The Fish won’t annoy us as they gain experience. It doesn’t mean Frank Robinson won’t order some green kid to throw at one of our heads. And it doesn’t mean the Phillies or Braves won’t reappear amid some October situation. But I don’t see any of these teams being a problem in the big picture, the one that’s developed over the course of 162 games. I only see the National League East title back where it originated in 1969, back where it hasn’t been since 1988, back where it belongs.
I see no competition from our competitors and I see no letdown from us. Again, allowing for ugly acts of nature or a horrible two-bus pileup, this team, our team, gives me no reason to doubt them. What if one or two of the pitchers has a poor stretch? We’ve already persevered through that sort of bump in the hump. What if one of the big bats slumps? We’ve lived through that, too. What if the bullpen…seen it happen and survived quite nicely.
I don’t shout out loud proclamations of practical infallibility lightly. I have the longest, deepest, most tortured memory of any Mets fan you’ve ever Met, and my catalogue of things that have gone wrong can fill three Camden Yards warehouses. But I also remember what it was like to know that things were going to go well. I remember September and October 1969, culminating in the first time we played the Orioles for real. I remember the stretch drive of 1973. I remember all of 1986 and the awesome parts of 1988 and how we took off in 1999 and how we did what we had to do in 2000.
I also remember 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005. Those were seasons when I thought — sometimes for a moment, sometimes for six months — that something capital-S Special might happen. It didn’t. I know capital-D Disappointment. I know all about tempting fate and not wanting to say too much and not wanting to feel too happy only to regret something too awful to contemplate.
I know that’s not the case this year.
I know we’re going somewhere we haven’t been in quite a while.
I know we’re gonna win something we haven’t won in quite a while.
And in the name of the Casey, the Gil and the Holy Murph, I know that from now until the end of the regular season — at least — that they’re not gonna get us.
First pitch of the rest of our lives, 7:10 Friday night. Stand up and cheer.
by Greg Prince on 15 June 2006 8:42 pm For the first time in public, I will now reveal my theme song for the 2006 Mets. I’ve been using it in my head since Saturday but have hesitated to mention it here because of loads of bad precedent where me and adopted Mets theme songs are concerned.
But bad precedent has left the building. Just like the Phillies’ chances of overtaking us, just like the Braves’ divisional streak, just like any doubt I had that the New York Mets are on their way to greater and greater things.
From the summer of 2003 — though far more appropriate to the baseball summer of 2006 — I give you t.A.T.u.
Not gonna get us
They’re not gonna get us
Not gonna get us
Starting from here, let’s make a promise
You and me, let’s just be honest
We are gonna run, nothing can stop us
Even the night, that falls all around us
Soon there’ll be laughter and voices
Beyond the clouds over the mountains
We’ll run away on roads that are empty
Lights from the airfield shining upon you
Nothing can stop this, not now I love you
They’re not gonna get us
They’re not gonna get us
Nothing can stop this, not now I love you
They’re not gonna get us
They’re not gonna get us
They’re not gonna get us
They are not gonna get us
We’ll run away, keep everything simple
Night will come down, our guardian angel
We rush ahead, the crossroads are empty
Our spirits rise they’re not gonna get us
My love for you, always forever
Just you and me, all else is nothing
Not going back, not going back there
They don’t understand
They don’t understand us
Not gonna get us
Not gonna get us
Nothing can stop us, not now I love you
They’re not gonna get us
They are not gonna get us
Nothing can stop this, not now I love you
They’re not gonna get us
They’re not gonna get us
They’re not gonna get us
They’re not gonna get us
by Greg Prince on 15 June 2006 5:51 am Time's up. Pencils down. Please pass your papers forward.
Let me look these over…hmmm…no…no…NO.
Class, the Regents is coming up next week and this practice test indicates to me that none of you are ready. I'm not going to embarrass anybody by name, but for the good of everybody, I'm going to read aloud some excerpts from your essays and discuss why they are wrong.
“The Mets won their seventh game in a row ON THE ROAD last night.” Now, can anybody tell me what's wrong with that sentence? Anybody? We should all know by now that the New York Mets rarely win seven games in a row at all and virtually NEVER do so on the road. The Mets are traditionally a very mediocre road club.
“With the win, the Mets raised their mark on the road trip to 8-1.” Again, that would be impossible given what we just went over.
“The Mets began the road trip by taking two out of three in Los Angeles and then sweeping four in Arizona…” Class, what did I tell you about injecting fantasy into your essays? These have to be supported by fact. The Mets do NOT go to the West Coast and enjoy that kind of success.
“…before taking the first two games in Philadelphia, 9-7 and 9-3.” This shows not only a poor grasp of the subject matter, but little relation to reality. The Mets wouldn't travel all the way across the country as is suggested here and score that many runs, even in that ballpark.
“The first-place Mets…” Please, students, ground your work in probabilities, not wishful thinking.
“…opened up an 8-1/2 game lead…” I'm sure you mean “closed to within an 8-1/2 game deficit”.
“…on the Phillies.” What's wrong with this passage? Anyone? That's right, it doesn't mention the Braves. The Braves are ALWAYS the first-place team. This whole paragraph needs rewriting.
“The Mets jumped on losing pitcher Brett Myers right away.” You have to refer to Brett Myers as a winner and explain how he beat them as per usual.
“Rain fell on Citizens Bank Park, interrupting the game while the Mets built up a large lead…” You can't use the word “interrupting” when you mean “postponing”. They're not synonyms. We all should know by now that the rain does not cooperate with the Mets in Philadelphia. I mean if that's your proposition, that the Mets were actually winning in the first few innings against Brett Myers, which can't possibly be right.
Here's something that looks promising: “The only problem the Mets faced was when rookie Lastings Milledge did not run hard on a fly ball to right that was mishandled by Bobby Abreu…” Well, that part is wrong, since Bobby Abreu is a Gold Glove fielder. But a Mets rookie not running hard is correct. Let's read the rest of the sentence.
“…and Milledge was thrown out at home.” Good! Good use of fact.
“However, the incident had little effect on the outcome of the game.”
No, no, NO! When a Met rookie doesn't hustle and is thrown out at the plate, it turns the entire game around. People, we spent a week studying the Timo Perez chapter. Frankly, I expect better from you.
I don't see anything in anybody's essay about how Chase Utley broke the Mets' heart. Nothing about Jimmy Rollins running wild. No Pat Burrell home run. Not even a big pinch-extra-base-hit for David Dellucci. And where's the climax in which a Mets reliever comes in and gives away the winning run? Very sloppy work, class.
And what are these references to “41-23”? This may not be a math class, but you have to be accurate when using numbers. How is it possible that all of you made a 10-game error? Perhaps the Mets are 31-33. But how am I to believe they're EIGHTEEN GAMES over .500?
Did anybody get this essay right? I'm looking through your papers…everybody got a hit…everybody scored a run…the bullpen was nearly untouched…the Mets score at will…the Mets make great plays…the Mets pitch…the Mets win…the Mets have the best record in the baseball…the Mets appear to be the best team in baseball…
Class, this is extremely disappointing. The academic year is coming to an end and I thought we had made some real progress on the subject of the Mets. We are going to have to really hunker down and review the material once more. Let's open our textbooks again. I'll just grab my teacher's edition here, the one with the answer key…
Wait a second. This is an OLD version of the book. These answers are out of date. This text isn't applicable at all to the Mets we're studying now. Everything you learned about them before June 2006 has been rendered invalid. The Mets have rewritten what it means to play textbook baseball.
Class dismissed.
by Jason Fry on 15 June 2006 5:15 am The Mets beat the Phillies silly! Survived a rain delay before things were official, the short porch and the Satanic ministrations of Angel Hernandez! Thrived under those conditions, even!
Hush.
The final West Coast swing of the year, a harsh road trip with a jaunt to Philly as a chaser, ends tomorrow and the worst we can do is 8-2!
Shhhh.
We're 8 1/2 games ahead of Philadelphia and 12 ahead of Atlanta!
Nuh! Don't say nothin'.
We're 41-23, 18 games over .500!
Bite your tongue.
The only teams to reach 40 wins faster were the 1986 and 1988 squads!
Inside voices, please.
On this trip we've outscored our opponents 73-35 and blasted out 108 hits!
You can whisper. We're right here.
The last time we didn't score in the first? June 6th! I can barely remember June 6th!
Yes. We know. Shhh.
But…but…but….
I know. Listen. Hear how quietly I'm talking?
Yes.
But you can still hear me, right?
Yes.
OK. Listen. I'm going to say something. The New York Mets are the best baseball team on the planet.
YES!
Shhh. No need to shout. Can you say what I just told you? But quietly this time.
No need to —
No, you incredible goof. The thing before that.
Oh. The New York Mets are the best baseball team on the planet.
That's right. Good night.
by Greg Prince on 14 June 2006 5:45 pm Glad you liked what you saw in every sense of the word. I had to miss the ninth last night while on a train, too. But I was coming at it from another direction. From the north. From the past.
It was New York Giants Fan Club Night in Riverdale, my once-a-year day of paying live homage to the team I dote over in absentia. To retrace my tracks, it is best to go inside the numbers.
49: Seasons since the Giants left the Polo Grounds. I hate Horace Stoneham.
33: Seasons since I first read about their leaving and decided I was one of their decade-displaced followers. We wear the same NY!
7:00: Meeting time in the northernmost Bronx, inconvenient in the sense that it coincided with meeting time in Philadelphia, but it was the consensus choice.
4: The LIRR to Penn Station, a 1 to Times Square, the S to Grand Central, the 6:25 Metro-North to a magical-sounding station on the Hudson called Spuyten Duyvil. Four trains to get to a gathering of baseball fans at a Chinese restaurant where there's no TV to watch a mildly crucial baseball game in progress. What's wrong with this picture?
20: That's approximately how many of “the guys,” or old-time Giants fans, showed up (though one of the guys was a gal). Bill Kent, our organizer, had predicted “15 guys” would make it.
15: Copies of various Giants and Polo Grounds articles, written by me and others, that I had made and put into snazzy Staples-bought folders to give out. What I can't offer in first-hand anecdotes I can least make up for in Xeroxing. I figured there'd be leftovers. Instead, there's a shortage. To those whom I was able to hand out bulging folders, I am a hero. To those I shortchange, I am a cad. I feel guilty.
2: Guys Bill picks up at Spuyten Duyvil. Me coming from the city, Ed coming from Tarrytown. Bill's a full-service welcoming committee. His car is filthy, he apologizes, because he doesn't drive much. There are no cabs at Spuyten Duyvil. And he's apologizing?
1: Giant fan, Neil, who greeted me as “Mr. Met,” based on his having seen me and/or my writing credit on Mets Weekly. Me, Mr. Met? It's enough to give a fella a big head.
1: Yankee blogger (and Curt Flood biographer) in attendance, Alex Belth of Bronx Banter. We have maintained back-channel diplomatic relations via e-mail over the months, linked in part by our mutual fondness for Bill Kent the Giants guy. It's our first face-to-face. Hands are shaken. Peace in our time. Alex is one of those reasonable Yankees fans who make you feel small for hating his team. I already feel guilty about not having enough copies of articles and such, so I don't mind feeling small.
26: The number on the wrong NY t-shirt Alex is wearing. It says HERNANDEZ, for El Duque. He's Alex's favorite pitcher. He's my No. 4 starter. More common ground! Alex is gracious in his praise toward the 2006 Mets. I don't say a damn thing about the 2006 Yankees.
75: Willie Mays' latest birthday, a fact commemorated by another author, Gary Brown, who is writing a book about the '54 Giants. Gary has prepared a list of 75 feats accomplished by Willie Mays as genius-in-residence at the Polo Grounds. Gary and I acknowledge 75 is lowballing.
6-5/8: Bobby Thomson's cap size. Charlie from the Staten Island Advance has brought along a number of artifacts ex-Richmond County resident and all-time Giants hero Thomson recently donated to the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame. His cap. His glove (it's tiny!) from his rookie season. His warmup jacket from 1951 (1951!). A framed Willard Mullin original cartoon sent by the artist to the slugger. We pass these around and ooh and aah and I try not to drop any of them into the wonton soup.
4-3: Mets lead Phillies the first time I furtively sneak a bud into my ear. Gary had been kindly answering my question about how a staff consisting of Lemon, Wynn, Garcia and Feller could get swept in 1954. There was a long enough pause when dinner started coming out so that I thought I could check the score. Gary continues his analysis and then apologizes when he sees me listening to the game. I apologize for my rudeness but only half-mean it. We're baseball fans. We should all have buds in our ears.
5: Approximate minutes between the next-to-last person being brought his entrée and me being brought my entrée. There's always somebody whose dinner doesn't come with the rest. Tonight it's me. When it is, I always feel it's intentional. Perhaps karma is upset with me for not making 20 copies.
4-4: My steamed chicken and vegetables come but they can't be as steamed as Jason and Emily, I'm thinking, at Glavine for not having it. How many home runs did he give up? FOUR? But Jason is probably so busy sharpening his Shea axe that I'm guessing he's compartmentalized his anger.
140: Giants games Bill tells Chris, who has come from San Francisco, he is able to watch by satellite. Bill is miffed that he doesn't get all 162, a perfectly good miff. I attempt an explanation, based on my Extra Innings experience, as to why he doesn't get all 162. Chris asks me how many Giants games I get. Chris came late and doesn't know I'm Mr. Met. I tell him, despite the black cap with the orange NY on my head, that I'm not a San Francisco Giants fan. He asks me what I'm doing here. I explain I stopped rooting for the Giants five years before I was born.
0: San Francisco Giants fans at the table who were happy that Barry Bonds hit his 715th homer. I think I got a bigger kick out of it than they did. But then again, I was mostly rooting against Babe Ruth.
2: Platters of complimentary Hunan Balcony ice cream that arrive after dinner. Bill reminded the hostess that he had brought in a party of 20 and with 20, you get ice cream. When it arrives, he proudly announces he had “finagled” us dessert. At first I thought he said “enabled,” but really, in this case, it meant the same thing.
6: Ibuprofen I had taken in the course of the day. I thought I had shaken my headache but the sun glinting off the Hudson and shining into my eyes on the way up and glancing through all the thoughtful articles being passed around without my reading glasses exacerbated it. I love the New York Giants, I dig the mementoes, I like The Guys, but I'm itchy to get out, get on a train, get back to the Mets. (I wonder if the real Mr. Met has headaches that match the size of his head.)
2.5: Milligrams of Zomig that I will take as soon as I get home. If I have a cluster headache, that stuff's da cluster bomb.
1: Very tall gentleman who showed up as the party was breaking up. He brought a duffelbag of framed photos. Of Thomson and Branca, of the PG, of Mel Ott. Promised to bring copies next time, 10 bucks each.
24: Willie Mays' number, yes, but also minutes remaining before the 9:39 to Grand Central. I want to linger over the treasures of the duffelbag as much as any of the guys, but I also want to make my train. When I politely mention to Bill, who is our host but also Ed's and my ride, that there is a train to catch, Bill takes off like the gray tornado. Bill walks up and down the hills of Riverdale every day. Bill is in better shape than me. Bill is like a half-block ahead and on his way to the parking lot before I realize where he is. I rush out after him, rudely not saying goodbye to Gary Brown. Gary should be used to my rudeness by now.
11: Mets who came to the plate in the sixth, according to Tom McCarthy, whom I plug into en route to Bill's car. I let out a WOO! while digesting the wonton, the chicken, the vegetables, the quarter-scoop of finagled pistachio I managed to lay my spoon into and the brand new score, Mets 9 Phillies 4.
3: Quick arithmetic reveals to me a problem. If we sent eleven men to the plate and we scored five runs, that means with three outs, we left the bases loaded. I know we're the greatest team in the world, but I don't like leaving the bases loaded. Not in Citizens Bank Park. Not in Shibe Park. Not in Silver Lake Park where Stephanie and I used to feed the Baldwin ducks.
1: Bump my head takes on the sloping roof of Bill's Acura as he speeds us back to the Spuyten Duyvil station. McCarthy mentions a five-run lead isn't all that comfortable at Citizen's Bank. Bill's back seat isn't all that comfortable either. That Zomig's looking better and better.
10: Minutes approximately that I have to sit at Spuyten Duyvil before the 9:39, thanks to Bill's diligence. It's idyllic. Warm evening, calm Hudson, sizable if not comfortable lead. Commuting on the LIRR is work. Commuting on Metro-North is a busman's holiday.
2: Innings Willie wants to get out of Pedro Feliciano, so he lets him bat. Middle relief has been Amazin' of late. Tom and Eddie C. explain over and over again what a job Chad Bradford did cleaning up Glavine's mess. I'm more impressed with Bradford than I am concerned about Glavine. He and Pedro are entitled to a couple of bad starts, a dead arm period or whatever they would call it. Just don't let it become a habit.
100: Yards, no more it appears, that separate the Hudson line tracks from Yankee Stadium. On the Harlem line, I'm usually staring across the River for a long glance at the four towers that stand where the Polo Grounds used to sit. But on this trip, we wind perilously close to the House that Malice Built. I have to admit I like the idea that big league (even American League) baseball is being played so close to where I'm riding. I finally understand all those complaints about the lack of a Metro-North Station for Yankee Stadium. These tracks are closer to that building than the LIRR's Shea Stadium station is to Shea. Then again, what do I care if Yankee fans are inconvenienced? (Except for Alex…good guy.)
33: Minutes between my alighting at Grand Central and my train at Penn Station. Choice: Walk the 15-20 minutes to 34th and 7th and enjoy the play-by-play of what is surely going to be a calm and happy ending (it was still 9-4 when we went into the tunnel) or take the Shuttle and the 1 back to Penn to be on the safe side because I really want to make the 10:34 home. I choose the Shuttle.
Several: Yankees fans who have returned from their game against Cleveland. Seems early. I'm assuming the Indians were winning 14-0 and they all bailed out, the front-runners.
1: Older man in Carolina Hurricanes t-shirt, UNC baseball cap, St. Louis Cardinals pin on cap sitting across from me on the Shuttle. I was going to wish him luck with the Stanley Cup except a) hockey? and b) I carved out a quick backstory in which he and his wife, both easily impressed tourists from the Raleigh area, were coming back from the Yankee game and didn't know enough to be in New York to see a real team play. The hell with him and the Hurricanes and everybody else on the train. What are you all doing here? Unless you were at a meeting of fans of a defunct franchise, you should all be home or in Philly watching the Mets.
1: Lady with rolled up fatigue pants and a RIVERA 42 t-shirt in Times Square station. I rudely cut in front of her on the way to the red line, but it's not rude if you cut in front of someone like that.
1910: Year Penn Station opened. Though it is a most depressing terminus, especially when compared to my beloved, restored and maintained Grand Central, there remain a few bits and pieces of its glorious heritage barely above the surface. For example, if you get off the 1 train in the right spot, you walk down a corridor that has tiles that survived the hateful 1960s renovation and a sign pointing you to the R.R. I can never remember which exit takes me there, but that's where I got out last night. Since I tend to forget this pathway is there, I also forget a relatively new restaurant's back end is visible, a place called Tracks. Tracks has these wide windows intended to replicate a classic train. And through those windows you can see a television. The television is tuned to SNY. There is a real clear view.
9-7: 9-7?!?!?! How the fudge did it get to be 9-7? It's the top of the ninth, according to the upper left hand corner of the screen, so I blame Heilman or Sanchez. What's with these guys? But the Mets are threatening, so maybe Citizens Bank Park will be no more comfortable for the Phillies than it is for me.
13: Minutes before the 10:34. Plenty of time to stand and watch if I so choose. Why wouldn't I choose? I like to jump on my train as early as possible to get a window seat to get optimal FAN reception, but there's a TV showing me the game right here and we can put it away, so just stand here. Something will happen.
2: Commuters who settle in to watch Paul Lo Duca bat: me and a guy headed in the other direction for the subway. He asks for confirmation that the score is indeed 9-7. I confirm and then give him a recap as best as I've been able to absorb it along the way. Lots of home runs. Glavine not sharp. Beltran hit one out. We scored five in the sixth but left the bases loaded. And now Lo Duca is hit to load them again. And Carlos B is coming up!
2: Waiters who keep finding reasons to service the empty section of Tracks with the flatscreen TV. They peek at every other pitch.
2: Yankee fans down from (genuflection alert!) The Stadium who wander by and note the score without rancor. I sense a bandwagon effect. Or perhaps more of them are reasonable like Alex and less like the lady in fatigues. But then my worldview would need adjusting and I'm not ready for that.
9…8…7…: The minutes until the 10:34 tick off. Surely they've called my track by now. Surely the train is filling up. Surely this at-bat is taking forever. Surely I'm already in Penn Station and it's not going to kill me to wait for another pitch and then another. Surely I'm not going to miss my R.R. train. There's a TV with a Mets game in front of me and I'm watching it with a total stranger and we're both into it. What's the rush?
3: Called strike on Beltran. How could he take that pitch?
1: DAMN! that I let out before bolting for the 10:34.
5: Minutes before my train. Yeah, I'll make it.
1: Empty window seat in the second-to-last car that I grab. My head is pounding. Long Island Yankee fans, my least favorite substrata of the genre, are on board, but they're quiet (wow, they must have really gotten their asses handed to them by Cleveland). I'm in a seat behind one of those facing seats and the guy who's facing me is leaning into talk to his girlfriend but it feels like he's leaning in my face. And he's wearing an Astros cap. I'm annoyed.
10: Reasons I'm annoyed. The headache. The lack of Mets company on the 10:34. The high-pierced shriek of static that buzzes through the earbuds until we start rolling. The uncertainty of what's going on a hundred miles away. The near certainty that Billy Wagner's coming in. The fear that Billy Wagner is rusty and will treat his return to Philadelphia like he did the ninth inning of that Yankees game. The suspicion that Tom McCarthy is half-rooting for the Phillies, his employer of the last five years, the way Ted Robinson never stopped talking about the Giants, the San Francisco version (Tom sure knows a lot about the Citizens Bank comfort level). The missing of Gary Cohen and Howie Rose who I know would get me through this, who I know would find me in this tunnel (I'm sure spending a lot of time in tunnels). The dread that Eddie and Tom call every fly ball like it's an out and yet in Citizens Bank Park it's a homer because Citizens Bank Park is built on top of an old air hockey table. The dread that it's 9-7 and that the Phillies have a way of turning 9-7 deficits into 10-9 victories and that they'll be 5-1/2 out and the four-game sweep against Arizona will be for naught and maybe the Braves came back and it was all looking so good and why did I have to schlep all the way to that meeting tonight when I could've been home at least finding out that everything had gone wrong, cripes it's not like the New York Giants are going anywhere?
0: Change in the score from the window of Tracks to out of the East River tunnel. Mets win 9-7. It apparently took some fancy defense, but fancy defense is allowed. Mets finagle a win. Phillies lose by extension and trail by 7-1/2. Braves lose and are 11 back. Nationals lose and are 11-1/2 back. We pick up a game on everybody except the Marlins, who are as relevant to our standing now as the Nationals and the Braves and almost the Phillies. Yankees, it turns out, won 1-0, but I don't much care. Giants are playing late in Bill Kent's apartment in Riverdale. He invited everybody over but I doubt anybody took him up on it since I practically chased him out of Hunan Balcony to the Spuyten Duyvil station. I get home, pop my Zomig and wonder why SNY doesn't show the game over and over again like a Mets channel should.
3-0: Mets record when I make my annual New York Giants Fan Club pilgrimage. I'm not sorry I schlepped before I slept. But I still hate Horace Stoneham. And Walter O'Malley.
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