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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 17 February 2006 9:54 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.
One of the reasons it’s helpful to write something reasonably soon after you think of it is there’s a chance somebody else will come up with the same idea and beat you into print.
Example: Almost 20 years ago, I was reminded that in 1976, Jimmy Carter coined the phrase “misery index” with which to club Gerald Ford over the head. The misery index was inflation rate plus unemployment rate. It helped Carter win…and worked against him when Ronald Reagan noted the misery index under Carter had gotten more miserable.
There ought to be a misery index for baseball, I thought. Yeah, that would be a good barometer of who suffers most. I really should write that up one of these days.
Well, I waited too long. Last month, I was perusing Ryan McConnell’s Always Amazin’ blog and he reported that one of my favorite writers was as intrigued by the notion of the misery index as me. The brilliant Jim Caple of ESPN.com was, in fact, intrigued enough to beat me to the punch.
All right, Caple, you win this time…
Actually, it seems he did this bit once before, in 2004, and was just updating it in January to reflect the successes of various Sox thereafter, so I’m running out of legs to stand on here. At least somebody besides Reagan ripped off Carter and got some use out of it.
What warmed my heart, despite blowing the nearly 20-year head start, was that Caple saw fit to rank second among most miserable MLB franchise fan bases the followers of the Cleveland Indians. They finished just one notch behind those who live and die and die and die with the eternally dismayed Cubs. It’s not that I revel in the Tribe’s misery. No sir, sure don’t. My happiness on their account comes from the fact that they were recognized for their misery. They, you see, were the reason I wanted to devise a baseball misery index in the late 1980s. Before Major League brought their failures to everybody’s attention, I felt that the Indians were going underpitied.
The team that I thought was getting way too much empathy for their problems? The Red Sox. Especially after 1986.
As long as I’d been watching baseball to that point, the Red Sox were always pretty to very good. The Indians were never any to slightly good. I knew the Red Sox had had their share of heartbreak but better to have loved and lost, et al. Better to have gotten to the precipice and fallen off than to have never left base camp. Better to have the final out roll through your first baseman’s legs than have the out that ends your season arrive in June.
That’s how I look at it, informed by the Mets having alternately wandered through biblical spans of feast and famine.
1962-1968: Seven years of losing records.
1969-1976: Seven years of winning records (out of eight).
1977-1983: Seven years of losing.
1984-1990: Seven years of winning.
1991-1996: Six years of losing.
1997-2001: Five years of winning.
2002-2004: Three years of losing.
2005: The start of something big? Or a one-year trend, à la 1974? TBD.
I missed the first seven years, but I know I was way happier in the second, fourth and sixth epochs than I was in the third, fifth and seventh. Much happier. That 2002-2004 technically didn’t last half as long as 1977-1983 didn’t make it more than twice as easy to swallow. And though 1984-1990 included only two division titles and one world championship, it encompassed two more division titles, one more world championship and seven more seasons with the reasonable possibility of success than the seven years before it and the six years after it.
As a fan, that has to be satisfactory. I’m not suggesting a season that ends with a five-game losing streak that keeps your team out of the playoffs when two lousy wins would have assured you a berth is cause for celebration. No, I’m not suggesting that at all, particularly not after having lived through exactly that scenario in 1998. But it’s better than not sniffing a chance to choke.
Too much choking is unhealthy for baseball fans and other living things. It was not without merit that people who talked suffering after 1986 talked Red Sox. But the Red Sox’ big loss was in a World Series. Their patrons experienced a breeze to a division title, a spectacular comeback in the pennant round and three World Series games at Fenway Park.
In 1986, the Cleveland Indians were 84-78, a positive development by my code. Indeed, they spent a minute or two in first place in May and were forced to delay their start time at least once because fans were flocking in unforeseen, unmanageable numbers to cavernous Municipal Stadium. The Tribe was briefly a happening. Too briefly. They finished in fifth place and wound up 11-1/2 games out of first (pre-Wild Card). Though Sports Illustrated rather famously tabbed them to win the A.L. East in 1987, they took a giant step backwards, going 61-101.
That, unfortunately for Wahoo Nation, was more like it. 1986 was the first winning season in Cleveland since 1979, only the third in the era of divisional play. They wouldn’t finish over .500 again until the strike year of 1994, the first season in which they would legitimately contend since 1959.
1959! Thirty-five years without a sniff at the flag, 41 years, it would turn out, without capturing a flag (1954 to 1995), 58 years as of this year without a world championship. During their 1995-2001 mini-dynasty, the Indians somehow became the Braves. Most of us got tired of seeing them show up and fail every October. But they paid their dues and, for good misery measure, got kicked in the stomach in the seventh game of the 1997 World Series when they were — Red Sox style — two outs away from breaking their ultimate schneid. Six division titles in seven years were hardly a balm for four decades of utter, utter futility.
Now that’s what I call suffering, volume 35. What the Red Sox endured? One heartbreaking inning and a disappointing game two nights later. They had been perennial contenders and they would be again pretty soon. Their fans, too, would pay some horrible dues, but rarely wallowed in Indian territory.
The Red Sox, shed of the slight detail of no World Series win from 1918 on, no longer figure in this discussion of misery and won’t for an incredibly long time. They have a world championship under their belts, a world championship that can be recalled by every single one of their sentient fans. In ranking teams from 1 to 30, Caple places Boston in a three-way tie with the Jays and the Cards for 25th in terms fan misery. Only teams behind are the Braves (no sympathy for ten straight October boreouts), the Diamondbacks (the nouveau riche got wealthy in their fourth year) and the Yankees (Caple’s lovable shtick is hating the Yanks and hating them well). The White Sox and Marlins, recent champs, are just ahead of the Red Sox.
Every year is a potential dollop of misery, but it’s fair to exclude a team that’s five or fewer years removed from the brass ring. Both Sox, the Fish, the Angels (Caple somehow thinks their recent good fortune hasn’t made their un-sufferable) and the D’Backs are clutching an immunity stick by any reckoning. Your team’s won a World Series in the past half-decade, you lose the right to be taken seriously about them when you start peeling your bunch of gripes.
• Jeffrey Luria destroying your franchise? Shut up, you won.
• Ozzie Guillen courting disaster with his yap? Shut up, you won.
• “Los Angeles of Anaheim” kind of stupid? Shut up, you won.
• Woe is us in Boston because…shut up, you won.
The Diamondbacks are one year from falling out of this group. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2002. Just about everybody from the 2001 champs (they beat the Yankees, if you haven’t heard) is gone. They are a mess. If they don’t do some serious contending in 2006, they have a right to complain. A little.
Then there’s the 26-ring exception, meaning any team’s fans who think not winning a championship is the exception and not the rule also means they can’t complain, no matter how arid their drought becomes.
Ever.
As for the rest of us, it has to be an individual decision just how miserable we want to be. Caple rated the Cardinals and Blue Jays low on the sadness scale since one is generally successful and supported while the other can theoretically still suckle at the teat of two consecutive world championships in relatively recent memory. If I were a fan of one of those teams, I don’t know that I’d buy either, but I’m not a fan of either of those teams.
So, you may be wondering, where did Metsopotamia rank among the miserable? Not that badly, says Jim Caple. We’re No. 18, tied with Oakland, just behind the Royals (Caple’s too kind), the Nationals (more a sop to long-abandoned Washingtonians — I assume Expos fans feel a lot worse) and the Angels, and just ahead of the Reds and the Orioles. His very succinct explanation for why we’re not so bad off:
When you’ve witnessed two unqualified miracles (1969 and 1986), there should be no misery. Unless, of course, someone mentions Mo Vaughn.
My first thought was to echo Ryan McConnell’s:
You’re telling me Mets fans have suffered less than the L.A. Angels, Minnesota Twins, and Washington Nationals fans?! He ranks the Mets “recent despair” (produced by losing seasons) and “historic pain” (defined as agonizing ends to winning seasons) as a mere 3 out of 10. Need I remind Mr. Caple of 2002, 2003, and 2004?! Losing to the friggin’ Yankees in the World Series wasn’t painful!? Armando Benitez wasn’t excruciating?! I demand a correction!
But given some time to reflect, I’m not so sure. Was I miserable in 1993? You bet. Was I miserable in 2003? Janet Jones would have to take that action. Was the way 1998 came crashing to the ground enough to make me swear off baseball for good? Yes, it was (though my swearing didn’t carry as much weight as I thought it would). Were four of the final five games played in October 2000 what inspired Messrs. Merriam and Webster to create new definitions for wretched? Yup.
All of that took place after 1986, long enough after so that I could no longer rationalize them away in the light of “well, at least I lived through one great year with an eternally happy ending.”
Wait a second…when did I ever do that?
Not in 1987 after Terry Pendleton and Darnell Coles and Luis Aguayo did their worst.
Not in 1988 in the wake of Mike Scioscia, Kirk Gibson and holy Hershiser.
Not in 1989 amid various pains in the Aase.
Not…well, you get the point.
Baseball’s time-space continuum is a forward-progress mechanism. As much as we flash back and wallow in nostalgia, it’s hard to save us from the present on those occasions when the present doesn’t work as we wish it would. If we take it seriously (and we do), we are going to react as if the world has ended again and again and again. By my count, the world has ended definitively 19 times since 1986. At no time from 1987 through 2005 did we dance off the field of play with clumps of grass, tears of joy and every single marble there was to be had.
But — aha! — we did exactly that in 1986. We who bore witness to it in full consciousness will always have that. When we’re looking back on our lives from an even greater distance than we are today, what will we remember about our having been Mets fans? Not, I will bet you, that we finished last in 2003 or embarrassingly last in 1993 or maddeningly short in 1998 or second of two in 2000. We will remember the best year of our lives.
We got one of those. We’ll take another one right away, but we’re not going to die without. We’ve been taken care of into perpetuity. Our fandom was sanctified forever in 1986.
I’ve been made Met-miserable since then and I have a hunch I’ll be made Met-miserable again. But I don’t mind us not being thought of as the most miserable fans in baseball. We were mathematically eliminated from that race 20 years ago.
by Jason Fry on 16 February 2006 1:25 pm Yes, Happy Anniversary, Blog Brother. So what's been keeping me up nights, other than Pedro's toe and the fact that our rotation's old and fretting that Willie might actually hit Lo Duca second? It's what anniversary gift to get you.
Finally I thought of the perfect thing and went down to the Baseball Store.
“I want to get a no-hitter for my friend and Blog Brother,” I said. “He's never seen one — well, not one that mattered.”
“No problem,” said the clerk. He typed for a moment, then looked puzzled.
“Did you say you're a Mets fan?” he asked. “Huh. Sorry, my computer system doesn't seem to have a SKU for METS NO-HITTER.”
“OK,” I said, not particularly surprised. “Wow. How about that big shiny World Championship over there on the wall?”
The clerk sized me up for a bit. I could tell he was wondering if this scruffy old bald guy could really pay for it. Then he typed some more.
“We're not stocking that right now,” he said. “That's just a floor model.”
“But you could get a new one, couldn't you?” I asked. “I know it would make my Blog Brother pretty happy.”
“There's a waiting list,” the clerk said, and when I looked dubious he pointed to his monitor. I took a peek.
“RED SOX? They just got one! WHITE SOX? They did too! What gives? YANKEES? They've got like millions of them, and they don't even really care anymore, the spoiled weasels. DEVIL RAYS? Yeah right, like that check will clear. CUBS? Well, OK, it's been a while, but they don't deserve one.”
“Do you want a spot on the waiting list or not?” the clerk said. “Sometimes things happen and people drop off of it.”
“I want one, but I need something more tangible. How about a new stadium?”
“We don't have those in yet,” the clerk said. “Check back in a couple of weeks.”
“You've been saying that for years,” I complained.
“Couple of weeks.”
And now I was stymied. I looked around the room. There was another bunch of new uniforms in garish, horrible colors, but I didn't think you'd like those. There were escalator repair kits, but a sign warned the installation was strictly DIY, which kind of frightened me. There was a CD of ballpark hits, but it was crap like “The Best” and “Lazy Mary” that I couldn't imagine anybody would want to hear more than they had to.
“Sir, there's a line,” said the clerk.
“What's the '162' package?” I asked.
“You get 162 games, plus a certain number of extra innings at the discretion of the Department of Fate,” the clerk said.
“Are they good games?” I asked, because I had friends in Detroit and Kansas City and Pittsburgh and other outposts who'd bought this plan and wound up enduring it more than enjoying it.
“We guarantee some very good ones and even a few unforgettable ones,” the clerk said.
“Like what?” I asked.
The clerk shook his head. “Further details only available upon purchase.”
“But they're not all good games, are they?” I asked. (I've been coming to this store for a fair number of years now, and I'm getting wise to its tricks.)
“Of course not,” the clerk said. “That's the way it goes.”
“Just 162?” I asked.
“There are March diagnostic tests that some people enjoy watching,” the clerk said. “And the Department of Fate may extend the subscription, certain conditions being met over the first 162.”
“Extend to what? I asked. “What are we talking? 163? 165? 167? 181?”
“Yes,” the clerk said, smiling mysteriously.
“I don't know,” I said. “I got this for my Blog Brother last year for us to watch and comment on, and there weren't any extra games and we barely won more than half of the basic package.”
“And did you enjoy it?” the clerk asked.
“Yes. Why, yes I did. I enjoyed the hell out of it, in fact. OK, I'm in. Sign me up. And while we're at it, put me on the World Championship waiting list, and put me down for a new stadium too. And I want to talk to the manager about that missing SKU.”
“Sure thing, sir. Enjoy your 162 package.”
“I will. I'm pretty sure Greg will too. In fact, I can't wait until we get to rip this thing open.”
by Greg Prince on 16 February 2006 11:15 am “Welcome gentlemen to New York Mets spring training for pitchers and catchers. We have already checked in Lo Duca comma Paul, Castro comma Ramon and the many other catchers we are going to require so each of you pitchers can display to us what you are made of. Please form a line, single file, and step forward one at a time for your instructions. Start now…
“Last name?”
“Martinez.”
“First name?”
“Pedro.”
“All right, Martinez. Here's that shoe you wanted. Put it on and don't ever take it off. Start throwing and don't leave camp. You're a member of the New York Mets from this moment forward. This is your nationality, this is your flag. Don't hurt yourself and save your strength. We're gonna need you for the whole season, maybe longer. You're our man…next!
“Last name?”
“Glavine.”
“First name?”
“Tom.”
“Glavine, we're gonna need you to age as slowly as possible. Says here you did a good job of that the last few months of last season. See if you can keep it up. We'll do what we can to help you achieve your personal milestone, you do what you can to help the whole organization. Remember, if the team wins and you don't, it's still a win. Everybody here's trying for the same thing…next!
“Last name?”
“Zambrano.”
“First name?”
“Victor.”
“Zambrano, you can do some marvelous things and some not so marvelous things. We strongly recommend you concentrate on the former and forget about the latter. We like your talent. What we're not crazy about is the cut of your jib. Recut your jib this year. There are a lot of people counting on you. The sad part is there are going to be a lot of people counting on you to fail so they can feel better about themselves. Those are the people who didn't want you here in the first place, the people who it secretly pained to see you doing well for a while last year. Don't let them get to you. Do your best. And throw strikes…next!
“Last name?”
“Trachsel.”
“First name?”
“Steve.”
“Trachsel, you look familiar. Oh yeah, you've been here before. In fact, you've been here more than anybody else. You must've been doing something right to have lasted this long, though sometimes it's hard to remember. I'll tell you what I told Glavine, son. It's a team game. Don't sulk if things don't go well for you personally, we're all in this together. And take it easy on the back. We need you the whole year. Don't wanna have to go out and get another Ishii…next!
“Last name?”
“Heilman.”
“First name?”
“Aaron.”
“All right, Heilman. We're gonna send you over there with the starters. Think you can handle it? Your agent sure seemed to think so. Just keep doin' what you were doin' last year except more of it. This ain't no two good innings and out situation anymore. This is about length. Go stretch and good luck…next!
“Last name?”
“Lima.”
“First name?”
“Jose.”
“Lima…Lima…do we even have a file on you? Oh, here it is. What is this? Lima man, this thing is all over the place. You're good, you're bad, you're good, you're bad, you're an Astro, you're a Tiger, you're a Royal a couple of times, you're a Dodger, you're something called a Newark Bear. And you're a flake. A little personality is fine, Lima, but don't be a nut about it. See if you can be more like the Dodger you were than the Royal you've been. Maybe we can use you…next!
“Last name?”
“Iriki.”
“First name?”
“Yusaku.”
“Iriki, I don't know if you're going to understand a word I'm saying, but if you've got some funk, we like that sort of thing around here, provided it's good funk. You've got the power of the unknown going for you, not a bad thing for a pitcher. I won't lie to you, though. We haven't had much luck tapping the talent pool where you're from. May be a coincidence since we haven't had a lot of luck tapping a lot of talent pools. Go throw and maybe we'll come up with something…next!
“Last name?”
“Pelfrey.”
“First name?”
“Mike.”
“Pelfrey, it appears you're a blank slate. You won't be for long. A lot of folks who have never seen you and couldn't pick you out of a crowd are going to be pinning all kinds of hopes and dreams on you. I can hear the pencils sharpening. One wrong move by one of the older fellows and they're penciling you in. It's probably not going to be that easy. It rarely is. Listen carefully to the coaches here. Find out what they've told all the other prospects who have come before you and do the opposite. All of our other prospects suffered serious injuries listening to the coaches. Get advice from somewhere else. It has to be better. Have a good career, kid…next!
“Last name?”
“Bannister.”
“First name?”
“Brian.”
“Oh, a legacy. Hope your dad is well. You're not gonna make it here on your name, son. Just keep working hard and stay under the radar as long as you can. Get a little too well known, you'll either get hurt or get traded. Keep on pitching and you may get a chance…next!
“Last name?”
“Soler.”
“First name?”
“Alay.”
“Soler, you're overdue like a library book. Make sure your paperwork's in order before we worry about you pitching. I find it hard to believe you're actually here…next!
“Last name?”
“Maine.”
“First name?”
“John.”
“Maine, the main thing is you're a warm body. Your job is to become a hot body. Not like that sassy little number who ya got traded for — and ya know I'm not talkin' about her husband, heh-heh. Looks like you've got some stuff but you haven't really shown it. Well, here's your opportunity. You're young, Maine. Forget where you've been and show us where you're going. You may not figure in our plans right away, but our main, or should I say primary guys aren't getting any younger…next!
“Last name?”
“Julio.”
“First name?”
“Jorge.”
“Julio, you've got some problems besides having two first names. You've got experience but not much of it is good. Funny how everybody seems to know that about you. You've been compared to another guy who came here from Baltimore. Things didn't work out too good for him in the end, but I'll letcha in on a little secret. That fella pitched pretty well around here for a while before he imploded. What you've gotta do, Julio, is start fresh. When you hear 'New York,' remember you're on New York now. You're not pitching against some other outfit from New York anymore. We're gonna have your back here. I'll tell you what I told Zambrano: throw strikes and the rest'll take care of itself…next!
“Last name?”
“Bradford.”
“First name?”
“Chad.”
“Say, Bradford, you're that pitcher with the funny arm angle. I always get a kick out of that. I also read you're not too fond of big crowds. Well, we can use the arm angle but not the hangup about noise. People here like to hear themselves yell. But you've probably overcome a lot of that stuff. We don't necessarily have anybody to get lefties out, so if you can figure out a way to do that, you'll probably have yourself a role. I know how you bullpen guys like knowing your roles…next!
“Last name?”
“Schmoll.”
“First name?”
“Steve.”
“Another sidearmer, eh? Listen Schmoll, I'm not sure where you're gonna fit in around here, so you should probably try to make the most of spring training. You can open some eyes. This is no exhibition exercise where you're concerned. Every year we grab a couple of walk-ons and put 'em on the traveling squad. We had a fella last year, Roberto Hernandez, nobody thought they'd have much use for. He had himself a good year and got himself a nice contract in Pittsburgh. Maybe you've got something like that up your sidearmed sleeve…next!
“Last name?”
“Padilla.”
“First name?”
“Juan.”
“Padilla, I should just toss you a ball and say 'go get 'em' because you earned it. But things are never that simple in this camp. Look around here and you'll see we've brought in all kinds of competition for you. It's nothing personal, it's just business. Try and remember what helped you break through last year and just keep doing it. You'll be fine. But go see the eye doctor to make sure those specs are prescription…next!
“Last name?”
“Sanchez.”
“First name?”
“Duaner.”
“Sanchez, you've got a lot of promise. I like the way you filled in for that Gagne character in L.A. last year. I know a lot of people were upset we let go Seo to get you, but I wasn't one of them. You and I know what a difference the eighth inning can make in a ballgame. You've got filthy stuff, and though that sounds disgusting, we like filthy stuff. Stay focused and you'll be all right…next!
“Last name?”
“Bell.”
“First name?”
“Heath.”
“Bell, you're here again? Well, why wouldn't you be? Seems like we've seen you every year for about a decade but I guess it's only been a couple of years. Bell, you seem to have an unnatural number of supporters out there, folks who don't think you get enough of a shot to make it. I'm not sure I'm one of them, but spring is a good time to impress me and impress everybody. I know what you're thinking: 'I was great last spring and I didn't make the team.' Well, guess what, Bell? It's a new spring. Hasn't been the modern team that can't use another talented arm in relief. Careful with the rollerblades…next!
“Last name?
“Ring.”
“First name?”
“Royce.”
“First Bell, now Ring. What is this, some kind of gag? Apologies, Ring, if I've slurred you in any way. I see you're a lefty. Well, Ring, that's not a bad thing to be around here. You don't see many lefties, do ya? But Ring, you're gonna have learn some consistency. You had a clear field last season and you couldn't stick. We don't know what to expect from you anymore. But we didn't know what to expect from Heilman a year ago and now he's one of our big keys. Be a ring, Key. I mean a key, Ring. I mean…next!
“Last name?”
“Fortunato.”
“First name?”
“Bartolome.”
“Fortunato, says here you pitched pretty well for us in '04 but didn't throw a dadburn inning in '05. I'd prefer to think of you in '04 terms. Seems you made a pretty decent impression. But that was suddenly a long time ago. Work hard, kid, work hard. You never know…next!
“Last name?”
“Feliciano.”
“First name?”
“Pedro.”
“You again? Over there with the lefties…next!
“Last name?”
“Oliver.”
“First name?”
“Darren.”
“Oliver, you're not the Darren Oliver who's been around forever, are you? I guess you are. Good luck, old-timer…next!
“Last name?”
“Parra.”
“First name?”
“Jose.”
“You've been here before, you know the drill…next!
“Last name?”
“Santiago.”
“First name?”
“Jose.”
“You heard what I told Parra…next!
“Last name?”
“Koo.”
“First name?”
“Mister.”
“You're not pullin' that again, Koo. Frankly, I don't how you made it back here, but go grab a bat and make yourself useful…next!
“Last name?
“Perisho.”
“First name?”
“Matt.”
“Over there, lefty…next!
“Last name?”
“Gonzalez.”
“First name?”
“Jeremi.”
“Sigh, must be February…next!
“Last name?”
“Humber.”
“First name?”
“Philip.”
“You must have something in your contract, because otherwise you don't belong here, at least not yet…next!
“Last name?”
“Wagner.”
“First name?”
“Billy.”
“I see you're the last pitcher here, Wagner. I guess that's appropriate. You're the closer, so we're not going to need you until things get late, though they do have a tendency to get late early around here, so stay alert. I know you're going to represent our country in the World Baseball Classic and that's a very nice thing, but so help me if you strain one ligament, you're not going to hear the end of it. Obviously Wagner, you've been a pro's pro, a star's star in this man's league a mighty long time, so there isn't much I can tell you. I'd like to tell you nobody's expecting you to be perfect, but really, they are. You and I know you won't be. Just minimize the damage when you aren't and move on. You don't have to worry about following in the footsteps of the old closer. He didn't leave any footsteps behind. Watch those guys on your old team. There's a bunch of 'em our relievers never could get out in a tight spot. Otherwise, relax, have fun and did I mention throw strikes?”
by Greg Prince on 15 February 2006 10:42 pm Fifty-two weeks ago today, you said this and I said that, and we were rolling.
And Mettily, we roll along.
Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the birth of Faith and Fear in Flushing, coinciding conveniently with the reportage of pitchers, catchers and various uniformed authority figures to right where they belong, on a baseball field; David Wright, apparently, arrived on October 3 and has been presumably playing catch with a wall ever since.
You can’t wait and neither can I. As soon as we hear the first ball hit the first glove — it will echo loudly enough to make its way up the eastern seaboard — we’ll start looking ahead as the rule rather than the exception. But right now, at the risk of indulging in the kind of self–memorialization that a living person shouldn’t do as often as I do, I’d like to reflect.
Has it been a year? I mean has it been only a year? Gosh, it feels longer. I’m surprised our February 2005 dispatches are available electronically (and not just because of the myblogsite conversion disaster of January 30). They seem from a primeval time, as if they should be fetched by a reference librarian’s assistant who has to sternly remind us to be very careful with these pages, they might crumble if we turn them too fast.
Too fast…everything happens too fast. Except winter. That’s glacial in every respect of the word. That’s why it was either brilliant or simply fortuitous that you jumpstarted this thing of ours when you did, on the first day of spring training 364 days ago. Life doesn’t so much begin anew with pitchers & catchers as it finds its purpose and its meaning and its reason to be. Slogging through the snow Sunday, I hated winter, but lousy weather was only the second-most pungent reason I could conjure.
Yet in the winter of 2005-06, it wasn’t that bad. Not the weather, but the lack of ball. We had this right here…our blog and the other blogs and the sites devoted to baseball percolating as if a series with the Cardinals were about to open Friday night. I never felt as immersed in darkness this winter as I did in all the ones that came before it. Just as the 2005 season was special beyond what 83 wins should yield because of the advent of the Metsosphere and our participation within, this winter was that much milder given the games we’ve been playing here the past 4-1/2 months.
Nobody ever does, but if somebody asked me what the biggest difference Faithing and Fearing on a daily basis has made to my existence, I’d answer that it has skewed my thinking about the Mets. Every move they make, every breath they take, all I can think is how I need to express it here. I’ve lost the ability to be apathetic.
The night I knew for sure this was the situation came in July. It was a Friday night, a very calm Friday night by all prevailing indicators. The Mets were winning and I was formulating a storyline as I watched. Hey, nice game, nice start by this particular pitcher, the other team doesn’t look so good…it had all the makings of a very positive, rather unremarkable post.
Then the Mets fell apart, followed closely by my storyline. With each revolting development, I could hear every thoughtful element of that night’s blog collapse. The starting pitcher’s performance? Irrelevant. The opposition’s lowly status? Not so low anymore. Our team’s building momentum? What momentum?
I was dealing with two realities, the one that seemed so sure five minutes ago and the one that was emerging right this very second. I was worried about the game but I was more worried about what I was going to say once it was over. When, in fact, the new, crueler reality rendered the previous benign reality inoperative, I felt I was living through the opposite of a radio commercial I’d heard umpteen times, one in which an ill person is doomed if he follows the wrong medical advice and is saved if he visits the sponsoring hospital. In the Mets’ case, they decided to go against the cure and immerse themselves in the disease.
Whereas in any other season, I would’ve confined my emotions to how awful this was from a baseball standpoint, I was instead overwhelmed by the voice bellowing from my inner editor:
GET ME REWRITE!
The new post that I was constructing in my head hinged both on the sickeningly quick turn of events that ruined the Mets and my tentative first-edition story as well as my decision to cast it in the context of that commercial. I figured following my muse on this was a bit of a risk because I didn’t know if I was the only Mets fan intensely familiar with the idiotic advertisement I was satirizing; it ran all over New York radio but not during Mets games. The headline I came up with referenced a commercial for a different hospital that Gary Cohen and Howie Rose read frequently during the year, and I hoped that wouldn’t confuse matters further.
But by July, I was a confident blogger. My instinct has always been to err on the side of slipping in the potentially obscure reference and minimizing the explanation around it. If you get it, you’ll really love it for having gotten it; if you don’t, it won’t stop you in your tracks…I hope.
The result was my single favorite post of the first year of Faith and Fear in Flushing. Nobody ever asks me that either, but there it is. It captured not just the events of the game in question, but encompassed what it was like for me to be a Mets fan and a Mets blogger in 2005.
I wished we had won instead of lost on July 8, but I can’t say I was unhappy that this was left behind in the wake of agonizing defeat.
So anyway, happy first birthday to us. My continual thanks to our readers, to our commenters, to our e-mailers, to our blolleagues, to my friends who directly and indirectly inspired me to keep writing long enough to find this higher calling, to my lovely wife who reads all of these entries except for those that are too “heavy on baseball” and to the team that makes this blog necessary.
Oh, and to the other half of this exercise: You make blogging fun, and after nearly a dozen years, you still make me laugh about the Mets like nobody else can…except maybe when Diaz goes after a fly ball. Seriously, the only thing I like as much as writing Faith and Fear is reading Faith and Fear when you write it.
Fifty-two weeks ago today, I mentioned that I saw a rainbow outside my window, which I took as an indisputable sign that a new season was at hand. I never would have guessed the rainbow would lead to where we are with this thing of ours, too.
by Greg Prince on 14 February 2006 5:01 pm On February 2, 2002, Stephanie and I visited Bobby V’s restaurant in Corona. Our hope was that by showing up on a sleepy Saturday before spring training, we would bump into the eatery’s star attraction. And we did. The man whose name was on the door and whose face was on the menu couldn’t have been more gracious, posing for photographs, dispensing autographs and indulging starstruck praise.
“Thanks for wearing your Mets stuff,” he said.
“Thanks for making us proud to wear it,” I said.
Did I really just say that?
I had never met a president but now I had met a Mets manager. The Mets manager, to my thinking. When I shook hands with Bill Clinton a year or so later, it was a rush, but not nearly as charged.
Two Valentines in this picture*, posted February 14, 2006. One used to manage our team. One I couldn’t manage without.
*Image currently missing following blog’s migration to WordPress.
by Greg Prince on 14 February 2006 4:48 pm Time's propensity to march on leaves so much in the dust. People and issues that we focus immense amounts of energy on matter less and less until they matter not at all. They become history. History's a blast, but it's not the same as being vital in the here and now.
Hence, it comes as a creeping surprise on February 14 that the subject of Bobby Valentine is not dripping with vitality. We almost never talk about him anymore.
Sure, the date is a rather obvious hook on which to hang a discussion of our old skipper, but with the slightest step back from the contemporary, it's amazing that he doesn't come up more often. Bobby Valentine was at the center of our thoughts and our lives as Mets fans for so long…and not all that long ago. We devoted who knows how many cubic yards of gray matter to figuring out what he meant, what he was doing, what his next move would be. He was as fascinating a character as we've ever had in our midst. Stengel-fascinating. Strawberry-fascinating. Hernandez-fascinating. Leiter-fascinating.
Say, when was the last time, outside the prism of nostalgia, that we gave those guys any deep thought either? Or Charlie Puleo? Exactly. Time does its number on everybody who's not connected to the 25-man roster, whether they're making it or managing it.
For my money, nobody ever managed one of those babies on our behalf like Bobby Valentine. When the Mets solicited our opinions in 2002 to create an All-Amazin' team, there were four legitimate candidates for manager. Casey Stengel all but created the Mets as we think of them. Gil Hodges is our eternal paterfamilias. Davey Johnson was simply the most successful of the bunch.
But I voted for Valentine. I knew Hodges would win (not altogether undeservedly by any means) and I always thought Johnson was criminally underrated, but I went with Bobby V. I'm not sure that he was the best manager we ever had, but I always felt he inhabited the job like nobody else.
Bobby Valentine loved being the manager of the Mets. He groomed himself for the role from the time he arrived via Kingman trade and once he got it, he ran with it.
I'm not sure what's more jarring, that he's been gone from the organization for nearly 3-1/2 years or that he became Mets manager a decade ago this August. He had one of those tenures during which you all but forgot who came before him and couldn't believe anybody would actually follow him.
Why such love for Valentine? I mean besides his late, lamented restaurant hard by the Grand Central? (Mets cards embedded into the tables, Tom Seaver book covers on display, a menu brimming with Toca Taco Salad and Ribant's Reuben Sandwich…I think I'm going to cry.)
Like I said, he wanted to be here. This wasn't Art Howe shocked out of his mind that somebody would hire him. As soon as Bobby was entrenched, he talked about a Mets way of doing things, about bringing back old Mets to instill a Mets spirit in new Mets. He wasn't close to Mookie, but he embraced having him as a first-base coach. He lured Keith to St. Lucie as an instructor. Rickey will be in camp this year in part, it is said, because Willie knew him from the Yankees. Davey Johnson was part of Cashen's Baltimore cabal. Gil Hodges and Rube Walker were Brooklyn Dodger heroes. Valentine got that we cared about a Mets connection. Maybe it was just lip service, but it made me happy.
Bobby V spoke his mind from the get-go. In Rey-Rey's first year, for example, the Mets had a coach, Rafael Landestoy, whose job was to serve as translator for the rookie shortstop. First spring under Bobby, no extra help. Ordoñez was told no more being an “independent contractor.” Learn English. Communicate with your teammates. Grow up. It's hard to swear that it took, but Bobby took a step.
There was little politic about how he expressed himself. He could have done the Howe thing when it came to the losing streak that greased the skids for his dismissal in '02. He could've said nothing (“we battled”) but he emoted. “It's killing me, it's killing my family, it's killing my dogs,” I believe was the litany of complaints. When asked to elaborate on why things were going so badly, he said he lost his disciples. What manager would admit to that? In happier times, he uttered stop-you-cold stuff as well. When he finally led a team into the playoffs in 1999, a reporter wanted to know if this was the most fun he'd ever had. Surely he'd say, “yes, this is the most fun I've ever had.” Not Bobby. His answer was along the lines of “no, it's not fun. Fun is skiing with my family.”
At least once a year, Bobby Valentine would put Mike & The Mad Dog in their place. He'd as much as tell them they were clueless idiots who couldn't manage a concession stand let alone a big league ballclub. Natch, they reciprocated by sniping at him and kissing Torre's ass that much more, but what savvy listener wouldn't tell Ego & The Idiot the same thing if given the chance?
I once heard Bobby rip into FAN management while on the FAN for not paying him nearly enough to do a manager's show, throwing out the figures that he was getting versus what Bruce Bochy was getting in San Diego, “San Diego” never sounding so contempt-filled as when he said it. That one outburst was more thrilling than anything Jeff Torborg ever said when he was in Jeff From Flushing mode.
Bobby V made enemies, as many on his own club as among the opposition and the media. I suppose that's not a desired attribute, but it was entertaining. Who didn't hate him by the time they were done being managed by him? When he identified one of his missing disciples as “Todd,” a gentleman named Zeile insisted he didn't mean me (no, Bobby said, I meant Pratt). Harnisch hated him immediately. Gilkey hated him eventually. Lance Johnson wasn't crazy about him. Todd Hundley famously feuded with him. And that was after one year! Franco — who with Hundley shoved his face into a heart-shaped cake as a “joke” around this date in 1997 — and Leiter almost certainly helped get him fired. I guess Mike liked him. And I would think those who owed their second chances to him didn't despise him.
That's another thing. Look at all the scrap heapsters Bobby Valentine revitalized. Rick Reed, Matt Franco, Todd Pratt, Benny Agbayani, Melvin Mora were the kinds of guys who were going opportunityless when Bobby decided to give them a shot. They all repaid him (and us) by contributing to the building of a contender. Bobby's the reason I stopped looking at names like Brian Bohanon with a smirk and a roll of the eyes. Bobby got a good year and change out of that guy. Every little bit helps.
And Bobby Valentine won here. He took a team that was demoralized by Dallas Green and turned it into something exciting. The Mets of '97 and early '98 were the eighth wonders. They were rarely out of a game and they were more dangerous than anybody when things got late. When he got some talent, he got to the playoffs. He steered a completely defeated bunch in '01 to a near miracle, all while expending himself to serve countless children of 9/11 victims.
That should be the best part, but to me the best part was that Steve Phillips hated him. Anybody Steve Phillips hates must have it goin' on.
Bobby V was, to invoke an overused invocation, larger than life. I was devastated when he was fired. It was as if he had been impeached by a hostile Congress. The combination of his and Alfonzo's dismissals (speaking of players maximized by the manager) left the worst taste I'd ever experienced in my Mets mouth. Art Howe was an insult to his memory.
Then time marched. It and life went on. Howe went off to wherever Howe went. Willie Randolph came in. He was OK. I don't love him, I don't hate him. When he was hired, it was reportedly instead of Valentine among others. By then, the fall of 2004, it had already seemed a mighty long time since it had been Valentine's day. It's only longer now. I don't miss him on a going basis anymore. He is history. Mets history, the best kind — but still history.
Funny how quickly that happens.
Some amateur psychology is applied to the New York baseball psyche at Gotham Baseball.
by Jason Fry on 13 February 2006 5:22 am Thanks for the silver lining, pal — it so happens I was already feeling sunny. There are Eddie Gaedel-sized drifts of snow in my backyard. Big whoop. Do your worst, Old Man Winter. Because you're going down.
Warm winter or no, this is the kind of storm that, had it arrived in early to mid-January, might have sent my usual mild case of seasonal-affective-disorder-induced grouchiness spiraling into something deeper and darker. But today? Ha. Pitchers and catchers report on Wednesday Thursday, and once that happens, any statistics winter should accumulate will go into the books with an asterisk.
Sure, there'll be another big storm in March — there always is. So what. A month from now, we'll be solidly into spring training and whatever additional delights/worries/novelties the WBC brings us. Mike Pelfrey will be looking good, Bret Boone will be in the best shape of his life, Kaz Matsui will have a new attitude, Billy Wagner will have found acceptance in a new clubhouse. Or maybe you'll see different names paired with those phrases, but we'll be repeating them nonetheless, seeking to wring whatever meaning we can out of them. (My Blog Brother, on the other hand, may be camped out in Eliot Spitzer's lobby by then, since this year, alas, looks like it'll be his turn to suffer the wickedness of the Dolans and Cablevision's flying monkeys.)
And two months from now? We'll have ridden spring training straight into the '06 schedule, eight games deep — deep enough to no longer quite be able to rattle off the outcome of every contest. The full roster will have taken the field, with the possible exceptions of a fifth starter, bullpen specialist or someone they can't decide to DL or not. Someone will look great, filling us with overconfidence. Someone will look decidedly less than great, filling us with agita. It'll be here before we know it.
Such predictions hardly make me Nostradamus (or his infinitely more entertaining descendent Metstradamus). These things happen every year, regular as clockwork, predictable as morning following night, which is simultaneously the delight of baseball for those who hear its call and the barrier to entry for those unfortunates who do not. It's just a roundabout way of saying winter is on the ropes, whatever tricks it's got left to throw at us. 26.9 inches in Central Park? Whatever — gimme 269 inches of slush and mess if you want, oh vilest and most useless of seasons. Because come the day after the day after tomorrow, we'll have won through your kingdom once more, to the place where real life begins again.
by Greg Prince on 12 February 2006 12:35 pm Well, at least your recurring gripe that it's warm enough to play ball so let's play ball is inoperable this morning.
Just looking for the silver lining inside the blizzard.
Snow on a Sunday morning, especially so close to moundsmen & receivers, takes me back to April 9, 2000. We were going to that game to get our Amazin' Again (amazingly bad, as it turned out) 1999 highlight cassettes. But it snowed big, wet, chunky flakes and we got snowed out. “Aw, it's not so bad out there,” I heard myself repeat again and again. In a rare fit of marketing acumen, the Mets actually put said tapes on sale in their Clubhouse Shops. Should you be driven to watch it again, note that the many and varied contributions of Darryl Hamilton and Kenny Rogers in an August game against the Brewers are spotlighted far more than anything John Olerud did in 1999. (Speaking of recurring gripes.)
Not a lot of snow-driven baseball memories otherwise. The '71 opener got cut short by a blizzard the Mets and Expos managed to play through…at Shea, not Parc Jarry. M. Donald clear wanted to hold on to his M. Oney. The doubleheader Tim Corcoran got to play in June '86 was made necessary by snow that wiped out the second game of the season in Pittsburgh; Doc said that was the first time he had seen snow. Gads, I wish it had been his last. When the Yankees opened their home schedule in flakes in April '96, I have a middling recollection that we got snowed out that night in Cincy. Or maybe it was just colded out.
Doesn't seem like they'll postpone a game for unbearable chill anymore. Nor would we have them do it.
Need something to look forward to besides the obvious. A piece of good news from Jon Heyman in Newsday. He reports that besides Ebbets Field, the Mets are modeling Shea's successor after my stadium crush, PNC Park. Jeff Wilpon says he'd take it whole if he could. Damn, it's not like the Pirates are doing anything with it anyway.
It's supposed to warm up late in the week when hurlers & backstops report. The temperature is predicted to rise as well.
by Greg Prince on 10 February 2006 10:46 am 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.
Shame on me for listening to WFAN, particularly when it’s before 5 but after 4 in the morning. Shame on me for retaining anything any caller says, especially the guy last night who, while guaranteeing the Mets would win the N.L. East, predicted Cliff Floyd was ripe for an injury.
Putting aside the dual and departing tracks of those projections (2006 MVP Endy Chavez?), I’m suddenly besotted by visions of what could go wrong going wrong. Gosh, Cliff was awfully healthy last year…so was Jose…and that toe of Pedro’s…
Stop! There’s no sense delving into the miseries of the potentially awful. They’ll reveal themselves in due course if they are destined. It’s a good slap in the face for someone who’s spent this endless winter on the upbeat. I don’t believe much good comes from feeling too good. Didn’t last year, don’t now, doubt I’ll change (but it is comforting to know I’m getting my head in its proper precautionary space; play ball already yet).
This is unlike 1986. There was nothing but optimism then. Second thoughts were for second place. Perspective was for Pirates. I knew we were going to smack the living daylights out of the National League. Spring training was welcome as always, but why couldn’t we just get to the business of throttling all comers?
We were loaded.
We were healthy.
We were invincible.
What could go wrong?
Seriously — name one red flag that could have slowed us down.
How about hearing “batting third, the first baseman, No. 29, Tim Corcoran” on a regular basis?
When the possibility unexpectedly reared its mediocre head, the sound you might recall echoing up and down the eastern seaboard was my head meeting the nearest available wall. If you didn’t catch it, maybe it was because it was drowned out by your own mix of cabeza and concrete.
No offense to Tim Corcoran. No offense from Tim Corcoran either. His name was familiar from his two previous seasons in Philadelphia, one mildly impressive (.341 in 208 ABs, albeit with next to no power), one decidedly dismal (.214 and absolutely no power in 182 trips to the plate). It was after the latter that the Mets picked him up in February of ’86.
The Mets — all teams — make a habit of signing fringe 4-A players in advance of spring. So what if the Mets were giving this lefty first baseman, this 33-year-old veteran of eight big league campaigns a look-see?
Because Tim Corcoran represented something far worse than Tim Corcoran. Tim Corcoran was brought in to replace Keith Hernandez in the event that Keith Hernandez would require replacing.
Shudder.
There was a moment in spring training 1986 when the chance that Mex would not be playing in the season ahead appeared all too real.
Shudder. Shudder again.
On a team that won 98 games a year earlier and was a universal pick to win more than that in the coming year, there was one indispensable man. He swung lefty, he played first base, he batted third and he was most definitely not Tim Corcoran.
Tom Seaver’s the greatest Met that’s ever been, end of discussion. Given baseball’s tendency to view pitchers as something different from players, there’s never been quite the consensus on who is the greatest “position” or “everyday” player in Mets history…as a Met, that is.
• In the wash of sentimentality that greeted Mike Piazza’s bon voyage, he received not a few of those accolades. No doubt he was the headline player around here for a pretty long time.
• When Darryl Strawberry left the Mets after finally reaching his potential, it was not uncommon to refer to him in that manner. He was certainly the most talented player to develop as a Met and he owns the two glamour spots in the team record books, most HRs and most RBI.
• Among Mets non-pitchers (including Ashburn, Snider, Berra, Mays, Murray and throw in Rickey Henderson if you like) who have made the Hall of Fame, only Gary Carter truly burnished his Cooperstown credentials during his Met tenure. That makes him, technically, the only everyday player on the Mets to perform at Hall of Fame standards.
But if you were around to watch the Mets on a consistent basis while he put the full repertoire of his abilities and soul on display, you understand that this is Keith Hernandez’s gig. He’s the greatest Met position player that’s ever been.
End of discussion? No way. Considering Keith Hernandez was one of the privileges of having been a Mets fan from 1983 to 1989, particularly ’84, ’85 and ’86 when Keith was in full Mex, we could discuss Keith Hernandez all day and it wouldn’t do him nearly enough justice. Just a couple of thoughts from a couple of contemporary eyewitnesses to tide us over for now:
I have often written that Hernandez is the best everyday player the Mets ever had. Hernandez is also one of the most compelling athletes I have ever covered, a superb defensive player, a skillful hitter. It is like getting a master’s degree in baseball to stop by Hernandez’s locker after he has relaxed with a beer.
—George Vecsey
Keith Hernandez…is all edges and angles. He is a favorite topic of conversation and a source of fascination among the reporters who cover the team — at once prickly and cooperative, eloquent and saturnine, guarded about everything in his life except baseball, which he can discuss with rare insight.
—Joe Klein
I never played with anyone like Mex before. I mean, the guy’s been around the league a few times, he makes lots of money and all — you just don’t expect someone like him to be so fresh and exuberant and intense all the time, especially out on the field.
—Bobby Ojeda
Hernandez is dark, reflective, analytical, urban. Throughout the winter, you see him around the saloons of the city, sometimes with friends like Phil McConkey of the Giants, other times with beautiful women. His clothes are carefully cut. He reads books, loves history, buys art for his apartment on the East Side. Carter is the king of the triumphant high-fives; Hernandez seems embarrassed by them. In a crisis, Carter might get down on one knee and have a prayer meeting; Hernandez advocates a good drunk.
—Pete Hamill
It wasn’t his reluctance to be a holla back guy or his fondness for designer suits that made Keith Hernandez the best everyday player the Mets have ever had, but it added to the character and the legend that he created on the field. We could figure out from watching him hit .311 in ’84 and .309 in ’85 and drive in 94 and 91 in those respective years that he wasn’t one of those marquee types who misplaced his talent when he was traded to us. We could divine that he was clutch even without the meaningless Game Winning Run Batted In statistic (rendered meaningful when he led the world in it). We could see, even on the radio, that he defend field in a league of his own. And we couldn’t help but notice, especially in ’84 when the catcher was rookie Mike Fitzgerald, that he took it upon himself to nurse the kid pitching staff to maturity in the midst of a wholly unexpected pennant race.
His on-field persona was awesome. His postgame personality was brilliant. In an era when we were really beginning to be told what made athletes tick, nobody presented a more intricate or intriguing package to the beat writers day by day. Columnists like Mike Lupica built a cottage industry out of Hernandez envy. Tim McCarver, who was sold by St. Louis two days after Keith was first called up, spoke about him night after night with a reverence one reserves exclusively for a player you consider a true peer. The cumulative effect of the Keith coverage — not only could he play, but boy could he think — made those of us who were consumers of every word we could read about our team treasure him. Hernandez wasn’t the stud Darryl was, didn’t have quite the All-Star credentials Gary did and couldn’t match the phenomenon of Doc, but he was why those Mets were those Mets.
Keith Hernandez made us special, made us stand out, made us The Mets when that meant something entirely different from what it’s usually taken to mean. Other teams could have their superstars. Other teams could have Mike Schmidt and Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson. As long as we got to have Keith Hernandez, we’d win.
And without him?
Shudder. Shudder. Shudder.
Yet we were faced with at least the prospect of a Mexless 1986 at the end of that February when Commissioner Peter Ueberroth announced the penalties for a group of players who testified they had been drug users at the infamous Pittsburgh baseball drug trials the previous September.
Most significantly, a suspension of one year.
Shud…
But wait! There was an out! Ubie was no fool. Big names were involved in Pittsburgh. The commissioner, having assumed office during the “Just Say No” phase of this country’s ultrasuccessful War On Drugs (you can tell it’s successful by the way it’s gone on so long), needed to show he could be as tough as Nancy Reagan on the subject. Pete Hamill believed there was “something inherently unfair about punishing a man who came clean,” which is what the players in question — Keith Hernandez among them for his Cardinal sins — had done in ’85 in exchange for immunity, but the commish was lord of his own realm. He was going to make a statement and an example at the same time.
On the other hand, guys like Hernandez and the Reds’ Dave Parker were big players and star attractions. Had Ueberroth been serious, it would have been the one-year suspension he had meted out, good luck appealing, see you in court. Instead, it was a one-year suspended suspension with a hefty fine, a large dose of community service and mandatory, random drug testing. In other words, if you wanted to play ball, you’d have to play ball.
The Mets fan heard only this: “Keith Hernandez…suspended…one year…” The Mets fan then thought this: “Tim Corcoran…” And finally: “AAUUGGHH!!!!”
I’ve never used illegal drugs in my life. That’s not a boast, just a fact. I roomed with two guys in college, when I was a sophomore and when I was a senior, who smoked a little of this, snorted a little of that, maybe made a transaction or two on the side. It was around me, it just never appealed to me. I preferred liters of TaB over lines of coke. I mention this to indicate I had no tangible personal fallout from the evils of drugs except for the time the second roommate and his racist customer from down the hall woke me up with their high (on, uh, life) cackles and I responded by spraying something from an aerosol can that I thought was filled with Lysol but wasn’t, thus making the room stink worse than it had from just their smoke. I didn’t much care that Keith Hernandez had indulged a darker side as a Redbird. Hey, if it was drugs that moved Whitey Herzog to trade him to us for the paltry sum of Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey, then maybe drugs weren’t all bad.
I wasn’t at the game in September of ’85 that followed Keith’s testimony in Pittsburgh, but if I had been, I would’ve joined in the standing ovation he received. Not for his bearing witness, not for his personal rehabilitation but because he was the best player on my favorite team, one who by all indications had kicked the habit…and did I mention that he was the best player on my favorite team? Dick Young and others said those who thought like that were immoral. We were in the middle of a battle royale with the Cardinals. Nothing could have been more moral than wanting to defeat such evil.
When spring training rolled around and Ueberroth was pounding us over the head with Corc’d bats, I thought I might be hitting the pipe by the All-Star break. But there was more to this suspension. There was the out, and when we heard that, we breathed a Metropolitan sigh of relief.
Until we heard that Keith Hernandez was the one player offered the deal who wasn’t sure he was going to take it. Mex objected to being lumped in with the group of players saddled with this particular penalty. It was for those who “in some fashion facilitated the distribution of drugs in baseball”. That’s not me, Mex wrote in If At First: “I never sold or dealt drugs and didn’t want that incorrect label for the rest of my life.” He was willing to accept the punishment handed out to another group of players who had copped to drugs, players more lightly sentenced because Ueberroth couldn’t link them to dealing.
Hernandez didn’t like having to ante up $100,000 to pay the proscribed fine (1986 salary: $1.65 million), didn’t relish committing to 200 hours of community service — presumably anti-drug speeches — over two years on account of shyness, and wasn’t crazy about the invasion of his privacy when it came to peeing on demand; yes, Virginia, there was a time Americans objected to infringements on their civil liberties. But mostly, Keith said, he didn’t feel he warranted inclusion in the dealt-drugs bunch.
Ueberroth announced his decision on a Friday. Keith left the Mets complex in St. Pete to go home and think about what to do. On Saturday he issued a statement allowing he was “not pleased with the decision of the commissioner”. During the ensuing week, Hernandez continued to think and while he did, he was vilified in most corners. You mean they’ll lift the suspension as long as you pay a fine and talk to kids and whiz now and then? For the kinda money you make? Why you rotten druggie, what’s wrong with you? Go be our hero, ya bum.
I sort of admired Keith’s refusal to immediately give in, especially on the drug testing, It’s an accepted part of sports and other employment now, but then not everybody was on the side of invasiveness. If Keith Hernandez did anything else for a living or played for another team, I’d have urged him take that principled stand and sit out the year.
Especially if he played for another team
But my principles ran approximately the length of .095 points in batting average, the base difference between Keith Hernandez and Tim Corcoran in 1985.
On March 8, eight days after they were offered, Keith Hernandez accepted Peter Ueberroth’s terms. He publicly objected to his classification as a dealer, but acknowledged he had made a mistake when he took drugs and emphasized that he felt “an obligation to my team, the fans and to baseball to play this year”.
Keith Hernandez played 149 games in the 108-win season that followed, batting .310, finishing fourth in league MVP voting, starting the All-Star game in Houston and collecting his ninth consecutive Gold Glove.
Tim Corcoran was purchased from Tidewater right after the season opened. His first appearance came in the Mets’ eleventh game. He was announced as a pinch-hitter in St. Louis but then removed in favor of Kevin Mitchell when Whitey brought on a lefty. Five days later, he grounded out in Atlanta. Ten days after that, he was outrighted to the Tides. He returned more than three weeks later. Pinch-hit three times (no hits, one walk) and was given a start at first in the second game of a doubleheader in Pittsburgh. Went 0-for-4 with a walk and a run scored. Three days after that, he was put on waivers and never played in the Major Leagues again.
Final totals: 6 games, 7 at-bats, 0 hits, .000 batting average.
Tim Corcoran, sparest of 1986 spare parts?
Like, whatever.
Tim Corcoran, Plan B first baseman in lieu of Keith Hernandez?
Just say no.
Schedule advisory: Saturday night, August 19, Mets vs. Rockies. Wait! Don’t yawn! It’s Old Timers Night! Or whatever they’re calling it this year. Surprisingly, the Mets will be devoting it to the 20th anniversary of the 1986 Mets. Seemed too obvious for them to get it right, didn’t it? Club says everybody’s been invited back. Wanna bet they lost Tim Corcoran’s address?
by Jason Fry on 9 February 2006 4:02 pm On my bookshelves you'll find a fairly random assortment of Met media guides from various years. (I don't bother with them much anymore because all this stuff is now online.) The other night I was looking through an old one in search of biographical information about the immortal Brian Ostrosser (don't ask) and was surprised by how thoroughly the tone of these things has changed.
Sure, recent media guides still have some of the goofy features of media guides since time immemorial: And the Name Is…, Mets/Shea Stadium Firsts, Road Hotels, Last Time That X Happened, For the Cycle, Mets Triple Plays, Last Trade With, Mets Who Played for Yankees, etc. But the bios? Well, they're a bit different.
Here are some musings about Roger Cedeno, from the 2002 media guide: His wife is named Thais, his daughter is Michele. In 2001 he led the Tigers with 41 multi-hit games and registered a career-high 48 RBIs. In 1999 he led the Mets with nine outfield assists. In 1997 he hit in a then career-best 10 consecutive games. In 1994 his .321 average was the fifth-highest in the Dodger organization. In 1993 he was the youngest player to play in the Texas League since Bobby Tolan. His brother Nolys Solarte played in the Pirates' organization. He donated $10,000 to charity after 9/11.
Yawn. You get the idea — cherrypicked positives. The only hint of something less than ideal is a mysterious note from 2001: Did not play the final 19 games of the season (manager's decision).
Now, let's look at the much-thinner, not-so-glossy 1975 Press-Radio-TV Guide. It's impossible to miss the generational oddities, like the eight scheduled doubleheaders or the need to note on the schedule that certain games are televised (TV) and others are night games (N). But just wait.
There's the rather odd-sounding biography of Yogi Berra, described at various points as “the fire-pluggish open-faced son of Italian immigrants,” “the piano-legged paisan” and “the shy recruit whose face has been likened to a fallen souffle”. Oh, and that bio opens with this: “The fortunes of Yogi Berra represented a series of emotional peaks and valleys in fateful 1972. There was January's joy, generated by Destiny's touch of immortality, and April's anguish and appreciation, stoked alternately by the hands of tragedy and opportunity.” Whew! (Apparently that's the work of Harold Weissman and Matt Winick, who seem to have been paid by the eye-roll.)
Now, some tidbits that the media guide saw fit to include in scouting reports on the players who wanted to be Mets in 1975:
Bob Apodaca: “Completely ignored in 1968 draft following conversion from third baseman at Cerritos Junior College (where coach decided he 'couldn't hit or run good enough to be an infielder'); subsequently transferred to California State.”
Benny Ayala: “after hitting safely in first four games he steadily lost ground and confidence; and powerful, compact swing that fascinated Yogi Berra and Rube Walker during winter tour had vanished.”
Gene Clines: ” 'Super Sub' label failed to placate one-time Bay Area wunderkind who openly voiced displeasure over frustrating inability to win full time status … Brightest stat of 1974 campaign, dimmed by request to be traded, was 14 steals in 16 attempts”
Wayne Garrett: “One of few positives of negative 1970 that followed Met Miracle”
Bud Harrelson: “1974 wasn't a total loss. … One of few bright spots to penetrate gloom of 1970” (Jeez, you can't win every year!)
Felix Millan: “Soft-spoken Beau Brummel of Mets”
Rich Puig: “Personable youngster has yet to live up to billing as 'one of the organization's better hitting prospects,' or to develop in manner that attracted the attention of pro scouts when he was 14 … accompanied Mets to Japan, but limited to three pinch-hit appearances because of intestinal infection which was cleared up before tour's end.”
Rusty Staub: “Spent most disciplined culinary winter of career in determined effort to regain heralded form”
Joe Torre: “Swarthy local product”
Hank Webb: “Opportunity, afforded by fascination with 'one of organization's liveliest arms,' has been there for three years, but indifference last season continued to represent the distance separating free-spirited local product from predicted major league stardom; hopes are renewed now that responsibility of post-season marriage will help close tantalizing gap”
They don't make 'em like they used to. Sometimes that's not a bad thing.
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