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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 4 January 2006 5:20 am We may be more than halfway home, but down in Met Hell we’ve still got a little ways to go. And two more permanent residents to confront.
In the non-baseball Inferno, the Eighth Circle of Hell was Malebolge, a domain of ditches separated by great folds of earth. The inhabitants of those ditches included hypocrites, thieves, false counselors, sowers of schism and falsifiers — all apt descriptions for the man who dwells forever in the Eighth Circle of Met Hell.
When he arrived in 2002, he seemed destined for a realm both loftier and gentler: He’d just turned 34 and had a fair amount of mileage, but hardly seemed like he was about to slow down. Why, the previous year he’d hit .336, driven in 100 runs, stolen 30 bases and won a Gold Glove. He was a sure-fire Hall of Famer and a member-in-waiting of the 3,000 Hit Club. It seemed quite possible that he’d reach that lofty plateau as a Met — after all, he had 2,389 hits on his resume already, and spent his first winter in Port St. Lucie talking about a contract extension.
When things hit a bump early, our latest Met hero kept talking a good game. Officially, anyway: “I’m happy here. I want to play here and I want to stay here and hopefully things can get better. There’s things said that I haven’t said. I haven’t opened my mouth, and then other people open their mouth and say, ‘Robbie’s not happy,’ this and that. Maybe there’s another Robbie Alomar out there.”
Hmm. If there was, it would explain a lot. Because the Roberto Alomar Met fans endured for 222 dismal games in 2002 and 2003 sure didn’t seem very interested in playing baseball.
In 2002 he hit .266, drove in 53 runs and stole 16 bases. Mediocre numbers, but rarely has a player shown so little in achieving mediocrity. Shea Stadium didn’t seem to agree with him: There were mutterings (always secondhand) that he was dismayed to see previous years’ home runs turn into flyouts, that he was miffed to find Shea’s thick grass turning ground-ball hits into 5-3s and 6-3s and 3-1s. Maybe that was the explanation for his mulish insistence on dropping down bunt after bunt, regardless of whether or not the situation called for one. And then plenty of times Alomar would snatch defeat from the jaws of questionable ideas, turning potential bunt hits, however ill-conceived, into outs by trying to dive head-first into first base.
In the field, that Gold Glove turned into pyrite. Balls that he snapped up in San Diego and Toronto and Baltimore and Cleveland skittered by him, but the worst thing was watching him turn the pivot. One of the most-acrobatic second basemen in the history of the game had turned into Gregg Jefferies: He’d take throws from shortstop with his rear end heading for left-center, shot-putting a lollipop throw that would float into the first baseman’s glove or bounce into it after the batter crossed first. It happened again and again and again, as Met announcers wondered what was going on and the boos came down from the stands.
But surely a lock for Cooperstown made his teammates better with his intangibles? Ha ha ha. Alomar sulked about being moving around in the batting order and took such umbrage to needling about his rookie card from Roger Cedeno (who may not be able to play baseball but has always been hailed as a prince of a guy) that Mo Vaughn had to intervene in the dugout in front of TV, God and everyone. Then in April 2003 he was part of the double-play tandem that blamed Jae Seo — a rookie — for the well-coiffed, Bentley-driving Rey Sanchez’s failure to cover the bag against the Expos. That’s veteran leadership! (Given that Jose Reyes’ first two double-play mates and counselors were Alomar and Sanchez, it’s a testament to his character that he isn’t Maurice Clarett.)
Then, in late June 2003, a miraculous thing happened. Suddenly Alomar was hanging in there on the pivot. Suddenly plays not made for a season and a half were being made. Suddenly he looked like…well, suddenly he looked like Roberto Alomar. The source of this miracle? The Mets were openly shopping him on the trade market. (Talk about testaments to character.) When Alomar was sent to the White Sox, he departed without mentioning the mysterious Other Roberto Alomar: “I didn’t feel real comfortable with the situation. Sometimes teams don’t work for you. I think the New York Mets weren’t the right team for me.”
Of course, sometimes players don’t work for teams. Gary Cohen, witnessing the Miracle of Robbie, turned the blowtorch on, offering a furious, dead-on indictment of his halfhearted play and famously calling him a disgrace. The response from Alomar (who was honoring the White Sox by showing actual interest in the game he was paid millions to play) was to boycott the New York media. “I heard the tape,” he said of Cohen, adding that “I did the best I could. It just didn’t work out. But to say I was a disgrace or I didn’t play hard, I don’t understand that.”
Perhaps he was also baffled by the Arizona Diamondbacks’ reaction to the mystery of Roberto Alomar. Alomar went to camp with the D’Backs in 2004, where it was hoped he’d tutor young Matt Kata. Instead, Arizona officials were left puzzled by his vanished range and lack of interest in fielding uncooperative grounders. He wound up back with the White Sox briefly, signed with the Devil Rays, then retired in March 2005, explaining (without apparent irony) that “I played a lot of games and I said I would never embarrass myself on the field.”
Alomar will undoubtedly be part of the 2010 Hall of Fame class, which means I will seethe at the voting results and again at whatever self-serving nonsense emerges from his mouth upon his induction. But I take comfort in this: No examination of his career that’s more than a couple of paragraphs long will fail to note his precipitous decline, or ponder the reasons for it. And no one who ever watched him play in New York will let a discussion of him go by without noting that he was a selfish, malingering washout in baseball’s premier city.
Robbie, I know you have to wait until 2010 to get to Cooperstown. But you don’t have to wait another minute for your induction into Met Hell, where your plaque will always be displayed. If you’re passing by, here are some words on it that might jump out at you:
HYPOCRITE
THIEF
FALSE COUNSELOR
SOWER OF SCHISMS
FALSIFIER
And finally, this one:
DISGRACE
by Greg Prince on 3 January 2006 3:55 am The final out of the 2005 season was made at approximately 3:56 PM, October 2.
The first pitch of the 2006 season is scheduled to be thrown at 1:10 PM, April 3.
Thus, the baseball equinox occurred at 2:33 AM, January 2.
At that exact moment, we were equidistant from Jose Offerman’s last swing and Pedro Martinez’s (toe pending) next pitch.
Barring weather, we are now closer to the Mets playing again than we are to them having played last.
I knew there was a point to January.
Some thoughts on the baseball media dynamic, particularly between the paper you just put down and the computer you’re now staring into, at Gotham Baseball.
by Greg Prince on 2 January 2006 11:51 pm How do you measure…measure a year? Here's one way:
In 2005, Faith and Fear in Flushing received 380,887 page views. Or roughly 380,886 more than we envisioned last February 16, Day One of the great Met dialogue.
All I can say is…
1) Holy Cram!
2) Just as many thank yous as there were page views from Jason and myself to everybody who was doin' the viewin'. Special acknowledgement goes to FAFIF's final visitors of '05, the rightly prioritized who registered 78 page views between 11 PM and midnight on December 31. The champagne industry's loss is our gain. In 2006, we'll do our best to make you skip other occasions that have been, to this point, mysteriously unaffiliated with baseball.
On a personal note, I appreciate from all both the happy birthday wishes and the condolences on the USF Bulls' understated entry into small-time bowls (a 14-0 loss to the N.C. State Wolfpack). I overcame the football hurt pretty quickly — and I got, belatedly, what I wanted most of all for my big day very early this morning. I got a ballgame.
XM 175 came through with a rebroadcast of Game Four of the 1999 National League Division Series. You know it as the Pratt Game. It was the WFAN feed, so it was Murph and Cohen at their finest. Having been at that game (thanks to the largesse of my now second-year blogging buddy), I never bore concentrated earwitness to it until now. I only got to hear an inning-and-a-half between 5:30 and 6:00, but that's pretty good for January 2.
(And you thought this sort of thing happened only in the parallel universe.)
Things I learned or was reminded of:
• The first seven innings had gone by in less than two hours before things turned “riveting”.
• Todd Pratt had gone 0-for-7 in the series prior to his 10th inning at-bat.
• John Franco had waited his whole life for that week.
• Lenny Harris, then a Diamondback, nearly ruined Franco's week with a grounder that Franco had to make a sensational play on.
• Tony Womack, though the goat for dropping the crucial flyball that gave the Mets life, was in the middle of the eighth-inning rally that was briefly the Mets' undoing.
• With a runner at second and two out, there was actually some question about whether to pitch to John Olerud or Roger Cedeño.
• By the tenth, the only available player left on Bobby Valentine's bench was Bobby Bonilla.
• “Bucky” Showalter, as Murph called him, sprinted out to the mound when he wanted to annoy his pitcher.
• Fonzie can't be the hero every time (said before he didn't drive home the winning run in the ninth).
• Matt Williams' removal from that game in a double-switch while it was tied was insane.
• Todd Pratt was “downcast” between first and second when his deep fly looked Finleybound.
• Shea Stadium was “bedlam” after it was clear it had gone out. I didn't need to be reminded of that, actually, but it was good to be.
• Bob, observing how the Mets were pouring out of the dugout and jumping around, reported you never saw a happier bunch of fellows.
“I wish,” he said, “that you could be here.”
by Jason Fry on 1 January 2006 4:59 am
by Greg Prince on 31 December 2005 3:37 pm They’ll be amazing, amazing, amazing, and this year I want you to follow ’em. They’ll be known in all the periodicals because they’ll be in South America — New Year’s Day will be their best game. This year will be over in a hurry.
—Casey Stengel, 1969 World Series Highlight Film
The Ol’ Perfesser is right. (Is he ever wrong?). This year will be over in a hurry, so if New Year’s Day is going to be the Mets’ best game, they’re going to need to warm up. I know it’s a long flight to South America, but it can’t be as bad as the one to Japan in 2000. There’s still time to get a game in before the big one in Brazil or Paraguay or wherever Casey says we’re playing next.
The good news is we’ve got a game today, New Year’s Eve. Good news? That’s great news!
For just a little longer, the year is 2005. But no more am I 42. Today is my birthday. I’m 43. Seven years from Modern Maturity in my mailbox, but fresh-faced if I’m thinking about running for office. And only 14 in Julio Franco years.
I’ve always liked December 31st as a birthday and not just because I share it with John Denver, Donna Summer and Rick Aguilera among others (presumably 1/365th of the population). I like the finality. As you may have noticed, I’m good with the looking back, so being born on the final day of the year seems appropriate.
What isn’t right, barring a relocation to the Winter Leagues, is I will never get to go to a ballgame on my birthday. If that sounds like a rather childish plaint from such an antiquated man, so be it. It’s not like anyone’s done anything about remedying this injustice in the calendar on my behalf since 1962.
Until now. Thanks to Casey (who always has something insightful to add to even the bleakest situation), I’m going to a game for my birthday. It’s gonna be my kind of game. You’re all invited, of course.
Don’t worry that it’s December 31. We’ve got birthday weather today. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My game starts at the Polo Grounds. I haven’t been born yet, but it’s my game, so logic and chronology can take the day off. I get to see what all the fuss was about. The Mets are playing in Manhattan. I walk down Coogan’s Bluff to my seat. Centerfield is practically in the Harlem River. The foul poles are a Shell Creek Park poke in either direction. The air is thick with Chesterfields, but since it’s my birthday, it’s less sickening than charming. Best of all, Roger Craig is pitching, Choo Choo Coleman is catching and Ol’ Case is actually managing. Well, he appears to be napping, but he’s doing what we’ve only read about to now. Jim Haines — who shares my wistfulness at having missed the PG the first time around — and I unfurl a bedsheet urging the Mets to go-go-GO! But it’s not working. It’s the top of the first, Stan Musial has gone deep and we’re already losing 6-0. Maybe if Casey would pay less attention to our placard and more to his pitcher. Craig is getting shelled out there. Ken MacKenzie stanches the bleeding. (Is there anything these Yale guys can’t do?)
Let’s move this party to Shea. That’s brand new William A. Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, Queens. They just built it for the Mets, you know. Right by the World’s Fair. Wow, look at this place! It’s so clean! Gotta be the best ballpark in baseball. Too bad the escalators don’t work, but you can’t have everything. It’s the first game they’ve ever played here, so I decided to watch some of it with Joe, my friend who scores every game he goes to and fills me in on the minutia to the nth degree. Since it is, by definition, the first game we’ve ever been to at Shea, this, like the Chesterfield cloud, isn’t so bad. Joe just inked in HBP for Hunt. Anything to get on base. I wonder if it’s too early to buy tickets for the All-Star Game.
Onto the top of the second. It’s 1976, so I’m here with Joel Lugo, whom I’ve known since, well, 1976. We became friends at almost the exact minute the Mets began losing, but maybe today will be different from what we grew accustomed to. We’re in the left field boxes so we can get a good look at Joel’s favorite player Dave Kingman. Sure enough, a fly ball is hit to Sky King and…darn. Cesar Cedeño is on second with what they’re generously scoring a double, but at least Dave isn’t hurt. Kingman catches the third out of the inning fairly uneventfully and is careful not to throw it to us or anybody in stands. On the other hand, he doesn’t throw it at us.
In the bottom of the second, it’s a scoreless game (tallies don’t carry over from one half-inning to the next — I’m not spending my birthday down six or more runs because freaking Marv Throneberry couldn’t handle a simple popup). Leading off is Darryl Strawberry and he hits one a mile off of John Smiley. Wow! That makes it 1-0, but even with the bases empty that should be worth three runs. Chuck and I high-five in the mezzanine. I’m happy, but Chuck is practically swinging from chandeliers. This is funny because when my best friend and I went to our first Met game together in 1989, it was against the Pirates and Smiley. Chuck was looking forward to seeing Darryl but the Strawman sat it out. But not this time. It’s my birthday. I’m giving out Strawberry to celebrate. Chuck is still cursing out the Pirates like he was back then. That’s his gift to me.
For the top of the third, we’re playing the Reds. We’ve been playing the Reds for as long as we’ve played ball, so I’ve decided I don’t need to see any particular Met team play any particular Red team. Koosman’s pitching. Keith’s playing first. Doug Flynn’s at second. Roy McMillan’s at short with Hubie at third. The outfield is Cleon in left, Lance in center and Joe Orsulak around in right. Grote is catching. Pete Rose leads off with a single. He claps his hands at first. Mex holds him on but then charges toward the plate. He makes a nice play to get Ron Oester but Rose goes to second. Chris Sabo doubles. Eric Davis drives one to the track but Orsulak makes a nice running catch. Sabo moves up to third. Kurt Stillwell sneaks one through the hole, just under McMillan’s glove. Damn! Kooz, who just doesn’t have it, departs with McMillan as part of a double-switch. Luis Lopez is at short. Deion Sanders steps in. Ray Sadecki, now pitching, brushes him back. Sanders takes a step toward the mound. Grote grabs him. Doug Harvey gets between them. Sanders walks. Woody Woodward is hit by a pitch. Bases loaded, two out, Joe Randa coming up, pinch-hitting for Mario Soto. Torre comes out and removes Sadecki in favor of Roberto Hernandez. Bert gets him to line to Mex. Inning over. I’ve seen worse Mets-Reds innings.
Between innings, I go out to the concession. Nothing’s more than a dollar, but since it’s December 31, I’m comped. I bring back one of those pizza rolls Rob Emproto’s wife Janet turned me onto in 1995. I haven’t been able to find those for a decade, but they’re selling them again for my birthday. I also get some of those Daruma of Great Neck California Rolls I ate regularly in 1999. Whenever I had them, the Mets would win. Sure enough, with all my rolls, the Mets get on a roll. They jump Tom Hume but good. Mazz singles. Hundley singles. Santana bunts them over. Rose orders Hume to walk Del Unser. Nice move, Pete. You just paved the way for Keith Miller to bang his first grand slam. The Mets take the lead! I keep eating. Don’t gain an ounce and suffer no indigestion. It’s my birthday. There’s the pretzel guy…only a quarter? And they’re warm?
Rose removes Hume for Rob Dibble. Tim Bogar triples. Rico Brogna singles. And Rose is suspended from baseball for good measure.
Top of the fourth. We’re winning. And will ya look at these seats? I’m right behind home plate thanks to Laurie and her friend Dee whose husband Rick is pitching for us again. I sat here a bunch of times in the late ’90s thanks to Laurie’s fabulous connections and it’s good to be back. You wouldn’t believe the gossip I’m overhearing. Incidentally, Rick just retired the Dodgers 1-2-3. Reeder, as ever, is the man.
I’ve never sat in the Pepsi Picnic Area but today it’s ours. I’m out here with every New York baseball fan I ever worked with in the beverage business, every Mets fan and every Yankee fan. It’s a great way to catch this Subway Series game, especially the two homers Ordoñez hit off Wells. Naturally the Mets are sticking it to the Yankees. All the Mets fans who stuck with me all those years are sticking it to all the Yankees fans who suddenly remember that they have to be up early. Diet Pepsis on me!
I don’t have to work on my birthday, but I decide to visit Bloggers Row. It used to be called the press box, but it’s been taken over by us today. Everyone from Always Amazin’ to Zisk Online is here typing away. It’s all great stuff. Uh-oh, Todd Zeile just made an error. MetsBlog has a rumor that he’s going to Colorado. MetsGeek has produced an equation to indisputably prove that he’s a better fielder than Vic Power. Metstradamus just remembered something truamatizing that a kid with a last name beginning with Z did to him in high school and links it to a picture of Luis Aguayo. Mets Guy in Michigan has an amusing anecdote about the time he passed Todd Jones in the carpool lane. Mets Walkoffs recalls Todd Haney never had a walkoff hit. Everybody’s got something. That’s why I love these guys.
The Mets overcame Zeile’s error (MetsBlog was right again — Zeile’s a Rockie) and maintain their lead in what I think is the bottom of the fifth. Joe may still be keeping score somewhere but I’ve pretty much given up. So has Cub pitching…Mets home runs, that is. First John Milner. Then Tommie Agee. Then Donn Clendenon. Gil has two relievers warming up in the pen. I can’t make out who from where I’m sitting, but Bob Murphy on WHN tells me it’s Danny Frisella and Tug McGraw.
Leo Durocher only looks worse when he steps outside the Cub dugout to have a cat cross in front of him. Everybody points and laughs, including me and Rob Costa, whom I haven’t seen since 1996. A black cat? From a distance. But on closer inspection, he’s black and white and mighty big. Hey! That’s my Bernie! I was wondering where he went. Agee, Clendenon and Tug, who just hopped out of the cart, hand him back to me. Murph chuckles on the air about it. Sorry about that, I tell the players. They’re cool with it. (Bad cat! But I forgive you.)
In the top of the sixth, Tom Seaver strikes out Jimmy Qualls. Pedro Martinez gets Chris Burke looking. And David Cone fans a helpless Benny DiStefano. Though it’s only the sixth, it counts as the first no-hitter in Mets history. For the first time since the clinching of the 2000 National League pennant, Rob Emproto shows emotion. He always said that when the Mets get that elusive no-no (in this case a perfect game), I could call no matter what time it was. On my birthday, it was our good fortune to be able to witness it together in person.
Between innings, our attention is directed to the DiamondVision so we can watch Dwight Gooden’s induction into the Hall of Fame live from Cooperstown. First unanimous selection, you know.
Next half-inning, Richie tells me something I don’t know about baseball. Doesn’t matter what it is. I’m better off for him having told me. I will use this knowledge in the coming years and pretend that I figured it out myself.
In the top of the seventh, Seaver gets Joe Wallis to ground out. Antonio Perez taps one back to Pedro. Doc, just off the plane from his ceremony, gets Keith Moreland on the fists. Moreland bounces to Knight at third who handles it cleanly and throws to first. Three out. Rob and I high-five some more. It never gets old.
Between innings, our attention is again directed to the DiamondVision so we can watch Bill Pulsipher’s induction into the Hall of Fame live from Cooperstown. It wasn’t unanimous, but you can’t have everything.
Seventh-inning stretch coming up. I put down my wooden spoon full of chocolate and vanilla ice cream (I haven’t seen those cups here in decades…thoughtful of Harry M. Stevens to bring them back for my birthday) so I can get up and sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with Jason, Emily and Danielle, arms over shoulders just like we did when had that season-ticket plan. As with every seventh-inning stretch, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is the only song that’s played. Except for “L.A. Woman” and “Who Let the Dogs Out?” of course.
Before the bottom of the seventh starts, P.A. man Roger Luce reads the lucky ticket number for the “special giveaway” they’ve been touting all game. It’s Mezzanine, Section 21, Row M, Seat 23. Jason won! It’s a rare set of baseball cards featuring Al Schmelz, Lute Barnes, Bob Rauch, Francisco Estrada, Tommy Moore, Greg Harts, Rich Puig, Brian Ostrosser and Leon Brown. They also throw in a snappy subset of Xavier Nady and Mike Cameron with a clever two-part story printed on the back (a Topps first). The cards are delivered to our seats by Rich Sauveur. See, I tell Jace — they have great promotions on New Year’s Eve.
Energized, Jason gives extra oomph to his standard taunt of a new enemy reliever, something I always enjoyed when we had the Tuesday/Friday deal. “BRING ON JOHN ROCKER!” he shouts.
Indeed, Bobby Cox has brought on John Rocker to face the Mets in the seventh. Lenny Dykstra leads off with a bunt down the first base line. He runs over the lefty, stepping on his shoulder with his spikes in the process. Rocker is forced to leave the game. Cox then brings in the recently signed Roger Clemens who decided he wanted to pitch one more year. Backman bunts, Clemens fields and…yup, same thing. The Mets score 10 in the inning. Rocker and Clemens are never heard from again.
I’m so delighted that I arrange for the eighth inning to be played in the Mets’ new ballpark, the one that’s not supposed to be built until 2009. Jason and Emily are in awe (and not just because it’s named Stengel Hodges Stadium and not after some faceless corporation). They barely tolerated Shea all these years, but now they’re showing Josh all the great postmodern Ebbets touches. See, Jace tells me — there’s life after Shea. Unfortunately, Braden Looper surrenders a bomb to Pat Burrell. We have a big lead but the unfortunate aspect is the old Mets top hat, which they brought over from the old place, has an apple rise out of it to salute the visitor. Looper departs and Wagner gets the Phillies in order.
I get one more half-inning in the new place so I decide to spend it with Jeff from Chicago. He’s not a Mets fan but we share a love of ballparks. We wander around the concourse and decide it compares favorably to PNC (where we rendezvoused in ’02) and Camden and the Jake where his beloved Tribe plays. Jeff especially likes how the ’85, ’99 and ’06 WORLD CHAMPION banners sway in the breeze and how each week’s issue of Gotham Baseball is sold throughout the stadium. He asks what happened to that rule from Shea about not being allowed on the field level without field level tickets. Oh, I blogged about that the first season we did Faith and Fear and Fred Wilpon read it and changed it. We get back to our seats in time to see Reyes steal second, Beltran double him home and Wright, Delgado and Gary Carter homer back-to-back-to-back.
Is it the ninth inning already? Gosh, that was quick. Back to Shea. Since it’s my birthday, I reserved the entire Diamond View Suite level. Everybody I’ve ever known and cared about who has any connection at all to my love of the Mets is here. My parents are watching on one of the monitors. My mother always felt she understood the game better with Tim McCarver explaining it. My sister and brother-in-law are availing themselves of the buffet. They hate baseball but love buffets. My four cats are sleeping oblivious in a corner, rousing occasionally to crowd noise but otherwise ignoring it.
All the folks from my e-mail group are here. Frank swore he’d never set foot in Shea again I don’t know how many times, but he’s here cracking everybody up with his reminders of how bad the Mets were going to be. Joe Dubin is remembering the Polo Grounds. I told him I finally know what he’s talking about. The two Dans are making perfect sense, but they always do. Gary and the real Jane Jarvis are having a go at dueling organs. I think Gary’s winning. The music drowns out the Crane Poolers’ friendly debate over whether Kevin McReynolds was a better clutch hitter than Cliff Floyd. At least I think it’s friendly.
One Met after another does something to elicit a cheer and Laurie cheers with them. There’s nothing to boo. Only to moo. Mookie Wilson just ripped a grounder down the first base line. Clean single. Randy Myers came in to strike out Mike Scioscia. Roger McDowell coaxed an innocent fly to right out of Terry Pendleton. Kenny Rogers has exceptional control.
On the radio that I have turned up in the background, Gary Cohen just mentioned to Howie Rose that not only were the Yankees eliminated again but that they’re still having no luck finding a shortstop. “It’s been a long time since Russell Earl ‘Bucky’ Dent,” Howie notes. “And about that long a time since they played in New York,” Gary adds. “Life’s very different for the Utah Yankees these days.”
I’m having a great time seeing everybody, from the kids who lived down the block from me when I was starting first grade (which happened to be 1969) to the Faith and Fear commenters. Albertsonmets came from Albertson. J M made it from Massachusetts. Metlady516 left her area code. Doobie is scouring the out-of-town scoreboard to see how the Royals are doing. CharlieH just showed up but he’s more than welcome. And the anonymii, in all their nameless glory, are out in full force. (I really shouldn’t have made registering for this affair so difficult.) I didn’t know any of these people before my last birthday but I feel I know them now.
Having greeted all my guests, I grab a Kahn’s Hot Dog and find my seat next to my wife.
“What’d I miss?” I ask.
“Mora singled,” she tells me. “Then Fonzie singled him to third. Oly was intentionally walked. Now they’re bringing in Clontz to face Mike.”
“Wow, Sweetie” I say. “This level of detail is uncommonly precise coming from you.”
“Happy birthday.”
When action resumes, Clontz throws one in the dirt. Mike reaches down and it golfs it anyway. Five-hundred sixty-six feet if it’s an inch. Grand slam! The Mets have tied the Pirates in the bottom of the ninth.
Tied? Yeah. It’s up the next batter to win the game. And he does. With his one swing, he sends the Mets to victory. Aguilera gets the W (it’s his birthday, too). I accept congratulations all around. Stephanie and I hug.
“I guess you were right,” she says. “Having a son and naming him Darryl Strawberry Prince really did guarantee we’d raise a superstar slugger.”
As the chants of DAR-RYL! Eventually wind down, Stephanie gathers her things, including the two foul balls she snagged (Robbie Alomar is good for something after all). “Time to go,” she said.
“Are you kidding? This is my birthday. We’re definitely staying for the nightcap.”
by Greg Prince on 30 December 2005 6:55 pm I’m amused to read the stories of “what are people who want to watch the Giants-Raiders game on New Year’s Eve going to do?” Watch it, of course. Or keep up as best you can via radio. If it’s important to you, you know what you have to do.
This blog, as our longtime readers know, endorses following baseball games to the exclusion of all civility and good manners no matter the event into which you’ve been sucked or the people who might take offense; it is you who should take offense that anyone should try to keep you from what matters to you as long as what matters to you isn’t blowing somebody’s head off or other hurtful activity. We make an exception from time to time as sensitivities and considerations warrant, but we try to follow our own advice. Football is not baseball (boy is it not ever), but it has its place and time and that place and time is approximately here and now. The Giants have a big game. Do what you have to do.
Speaking of big games, New Year’s Eve starts at 11 AM on ESPN2 as the North Carolina State Wolfpack take on the (be still my Golden Brahman heart) UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA BULLS in the (I better hold tight to something) MEINEKE CAR CARE BOWL.
I may even wake up for this.
When I attended USF from 1981 to 1985, we didn’t have a football team, and that was fine with me. I actually preferred it that way. The whole notion of being on the inside of a college football school turned me off. I pictured such a campus as one big fraternity, one from which I would somehow be blackballed. (And Revenge of the Nerds didn’t even come out until the end of my junior year.) Besides, being in Florida, one had his choice of top-notch college football, a fact and a sport of which I was barely aware before I headed south. I became a U of Miami fan during their Bernie Kosar age of enlightenment — they were new at being a powerhouse and they threw the ball a lot, both of which seemed appealing — and that contented me just fine from a short distance.
Now that I’m long graduated, I can be one of those alumni who dresses up in a raccoon coat and cheers his alma mater’s pigskin accomplishments in a fashion completely hypocritical to his younger self’s values. USF started a football program in 1997 and I’ve followed it lightly but loyally. The Bulls’ promising 2005 Big East debut, primarily the taking out of Louisville (the Phillies of the conference), gave them every opportunity to become something called bowl-eligible, assuming they didn’t trip up late to Connecticut (the Expos) or West Virginia (the Braves). Of course they did both but fortunately managed just enough wins before that to eke their way into the Muffler Shop championship.
The Meineke Car Care Bowl, played in Charlotte, is one of those bowls that everybody with any sense makes fun of as soon as they hear of it. That’s all right. I’d scoff, too, if USF weren’t a participant. But you have to understand that this is a program (how come college sports teams are “programs”?) that is nine years old. Nine-year-old programs don’t go to bowls, not even silly, obscure ones played before noon when sensible people are out stocking up on mixers. So I’m as excited just for the invite as I was the night Miami beat Nebraska to win the ’83 National Championship…and I was pretty excited then.
School spirit. Better late than never.
Let’s not kid each other, though. I’d drop the Meineke Car Care Bowl, let alone the Super Bowl, in a Temple Terrace minute if there were a Mets game on, even an old Mets game. There isn’t. Not a good one anyway.
In case you’re desperate, YES is showing Game Five of the 2000 World Series between 1 and 4 PM. And XM 175 is airing between 3 and 6 AM (I assume after midnight tonight) Game Two of that fetid Fall Classic. No, you’re not that desperate.
Don’t forget — we offer the pleasing alternative of sublime play-by-play of “ordinary” baseball action to get you through these alleged holidays. Theater of the mind and all that.
MSG and FSNY used to favor us once in a great winter’s while with a vintage Mets game, but they’re out of the Us business. Snigh, whatever they wind up doing, isn’t doing it yet. And ESPN Classic is plugging away with old college football games, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Show old college football games to college football nuts when there’s no live college football on every five minutes. Show baseball fans baseball games when we don’t have any. Logic would tell you that.
What’s wrong with people?
New Year’s Eve means a lot to me. I wouldn’t be here without it. It would mean more if I could go to a ballgame just once on December 31. Hey, maybe I can…
by Greg Prince on 29 December 2005 9:21 am 
| Mr. Met gets a little wistful this time of year, realizing that though another season is just around the corner, it means he’s gotten a little older and he has to put one more year in the books.
Wow, Mr. Met’s been thinking, 2005 was a heckuva time for him. He made new friends from Boston and Houston and is looking forward to making newer ones from Miami and Philadelphia. His head swells with pride when he looks at the left side of the infield and he’s reduced to stitches every time he thinks of the time that fellow from Korea hit a double off that overly tall drink of water who came by sneering one Saturday afternoon. And what about that nice man who ran around the bases blowing bubbles but never stopping until he scored?
Yeah, Mr. Met’s sentimental. He’ll miss all the guys he came to know last year who won’t be here anymore. No, most of them weren’t going to be of very much help in 2006, but Mr. Met likes to think of all 771 Mets as family, so it deflates him just a bit every time one of them has to leave. But he knows that’s baseball. He just hopes his pal Omar doesn’t see him as one more chip to be thrown into the pot. A lot of teams could use a good mascot, but Mr. Met is a 10-and-5 character. He would have to approve any trade and he’s not planning on going anywhere.
Mr. Met says Happy New Year to all Faith and Fear in Flushing readers. He’ll probably be hanging around here right up until the ball drops on Saturday night. If there’s one thing Mr. Met doesn’t like to see, it’s a ball drop. It gives him a sympathy headache.
Mr. Met’s priceless expression courtesy of Jim Haines and Zed Duck Studios. |
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by Greg Prince on 29 December 2005 12:02 am It’s been more than a year since they played baseball in Montreal or, as they did the last time they ever saw daylight, Flushing. Yet the Expos continue to lurk among us. The streets of baseball are too crowded with Expos tonight.
While the Washington Nationals go about not being sold, not building a ballpark and not wearing a W that doesn’t immediately make me think “Senators” when I see it, the Montreal Expos knock about in the semi-consciousness. I’ve tried to forget them, or at least not think about them. But they don’t quite go away.
I’m practically alone on being concerned with Metspo matters, I realize. Nobody else cares. Everybody else on both sides has moved on. Youppi works for a hockey team, and if Youppi’s put it all behind him…well, that’s some behind.
I imagine there must be a few sad Expophiles still suffering from a case of the berefts in Quebec, but there were only a few fans of any kind who visited Olympic Stadium in the final years of its baseball existence. Sparse attendance was the only reasonable response to the accelerated death throes that MLB inflicted on Montreal, but things weren’t going so swimmingly up there before contraction chat commenced.
Whatever. Somebody needs to keep a menorah burning in the window for departed franchises and it oughta be a Mets fan. We were born of departure, of course, of Giants jetting to San Francisco and of Dodgers darting to L.A. We were also the final home for the last active New York Giant, Willie Mays in 1973, and the last extant Brooklyn Dodger, Bob Aspromonte in 1971. That’s likely the final time you’ll see those two in the same sentence…what, Sandy Koufax couldn’t have gone in for Tommy John surgery and come back with us at 45 after his buddy Fred Wilpon bought his hometown team?
The Mets tend to harbor lasts. The last Houston Colt .45, Rusty Staub, retired a Met in 1985. The last Seattle Pilot pitcher, Mike Marshall, ended his days here in 1981. The last Milwaukee Brave catcher, Joe Torre, was decommissioned from active duty at Shea in 1977, albeit as a player/manager who hadn’t caught since 1970. I don’t know who the last Montreal Expo in MLB captivity circa 2018 will be, but chances are he’s a deteriorating Met by then. (Two cents says it’s John Patterson and his right arm, likely off a lengthy rehab stint, six years removed from his last double-digit win season.)
Already the Washington Nationals resemble less and less their Expo forebears and not just because paying customers were spotted at D.C. home games. The Nats recently traded Brad Wilkerson for Alfonso Soriano. The Expos would never acquire Soriano and nobody was more of an Expo from a Met standpoint — guy the rest of the world barely knew but was constantly sticking knives in our hopes and dreams by slugging .639 against us in ’04 — than Wilkerson.
Save for Endy Chavez. Now that was an Expo who gave me night sweats. That was a borderline Major Leaguer who fantasy and roto players no doubt tossed in the take-’em pile. That was a card that serious collectors shoved in their spokes without a second thought. Who the hell was Endy Chavez?
A Met-killer, that’s who. An absolute pain in the Astacio. A .364 hitter versus the Mets in the Expos’ final season. Ninety-three points better against us than against the rest of baseball. Endy Chavez connected for 37 hits in 2002. A full 15 — 41 freaking percent — were accumulated in the service of ruining what was already a disastrous Mets season. The foundation of Endy Chavez’s big league career was forged on the dubious backs of John Thomson, Mike Bacsik and Pat Strange.
Where did this guy come from? The Mets, of course. He was one of those players who slipped out of the system when nobody (Steve Phillips) was paying attention, taken by the Royals in the 2000 Rule 5 draft. When Chavez wound up in Montreal, he abided by Rule 1: Make the Mets pay for giving up on me.
Good to great news: Endy Chavez, who so owned the Mets before he moved to Washington and was then traded to Philadelphia, is once more Met property. Omar Minaya, who brought him to Montreal has brought him home, signing the outfielder to a one-year deal just before Christmas (the news surprisingly got a touch lost amid Johnny Damon’s, uh, fashionable haircut). He is likely to compete with Tike Redman, an honorary ex-Expo Met-killer — Pittsburgh essentially being Montreal South in baseball terms — for a spare OF slot.
He will also likely cause the name Ender Chavez, as pronounced by the wonderful Warner Fusselle, to resonate in my head every time he comes to bat should he make the band. Ender Chavez is Endy Chavez’s brother, a Cyclone in 2002, the one year the ‘Clones were smart enough to have their games broadcast on a real radio station so I could drive around the South Shore of Nassau County on summer Sunday evenings and listen to them via the voice of Fusselle. Last I checked, Ender was in the Nationals’ system. If he ever makes the bigs, I hope his vengeful streak doesn’t run as deep as that of his older sibling.
And I hope neither of the Chavezes befall a fate along the lines of what has landed upon Jeff Reardon. Reardon wasn’t a cult ‘Spo. He was the real thing, one of the best closers of the 1980s. He achieved fame in Montreal. He did so after leaving New York.
By now you’ve likely heard Reardon’s alleged and bizarre tale: the armed jewelry store robbery, the peaceful apprehension, the claim that antidepressants popped in the name of salving personal tragedy (the O.D. death of his 20-year-old son in 2004). The whole episode is hard to fathom, more difficult than the recurring misadventures of Darryl and Doc even, since until yesterday the only ill will any of us could have possibly drummed up regarding Jeff Reardon was the trade that made him a former Met.
Before he grew grumpy beyond practicable redemption, Frank Cashen was a whiz. His trades worked splendidly (Allen and Ownbey for Hernandez), equitably (Brooks, Fitzgerald, Winningham and Youmans for Carter), temporarily (Scott for Heep) or theoretically (Treviño, Harris and Kern for Foster). Swapping Jeff Reardon and Dan Norman for Ellis Valentine was an early misstep of the Bowtie’s, but even it can get a hindsight-pass if one remembers that Ellis Valentine was Vladimir Guerrero when Vladimir wasn’t two. He was the Montreal rightfielder who had each and every tool and wielded them brilliantly against us. In his first four full seasons, Ellis Valentine batted .335 versus the Mets. He was pretty good against everybody else, too.
So on a Friday night in late May 1981, when the Mets posted on the big Shea scoreboard in the eighth inning of their game with the Cubs that they had acquired the Ellis Valentine, it was, like, Wow! We got one of the best players in the National League! Sure, he wasn’t having a particularly good season — .211 — and hadn’t yet overcome a severe fractured cheekbone from the year before (he wore one of those batting helmets with the protective mouthguards that you used to see but don’t seem to anymore), but c’mon. This was Ellis Valentine, not yet 27 years old. He could hit, he could run and he was legendary for how he threw. This was like taking Joel Youngblood and multiplying him by Claudell Washington.
Giving up Jeff Reardon bothered me some, though not as much as it should have. I have a vague recollection that I had it in for him in 1980 for giving up gophers (10 in 110.1 innings), but knew he could throw hard. He could’ve been our closer but Neil Allen had wrested that mantle. Reardon was either going to be one heckuva setup man for the Mets or tremendous trade bait.
Scoring this deal was easy. Expos by a first-round TKO. Valentine was just as crummy for the Mets as he was for the Expos in ’81. Reardon blossomed in Montreal, serving as the missing ingredient that the theretofore close but cigarless ‘Spos lacked in 1979 and 1980. I can still see the wire-service photo that ran in the Tampa Tribune of him and Gary Carter embracing after clinching the second-half title of the split-season National League East. They did that at Shea Stadium on the second-to-last day of the year as the Mets were engaging in a battle for fourth place.
(The next day, the dismissal of former Milwaukee Braves catcher Joe Torre as Mets manager was announced on the same scoreboard that heralded the arrival of Ellis Valentine in May before the season finale was complete. Those are the only two flashes of the Mets breaking relevant transaction news to their crowd mid-game that I can recall. Such transparency seems to have gone the way of the protective mouthguard.)
Reardon kept getting better, saving more than 40 games three times and closing out the Cardinals to seal the Twins’ 1987 world championship. Ellis Valentine kept getting worse. The Mets’ attempt to market him, Kingman and Foster as some kind of all-powerful electric company in 1982 fritzed out immediately. Valentine’s career arc served mainly as a Ghost of Juan Samuel Future, but Cashen didn’t bother to notice. In the offseason that followed, just after Valentine filed for free agency, I found myself flying between New York and Tampa in a seat next to an honest-to-goodness advance scout who would go on to somewhat bigger things and who was kind enough to indulge my in-flight questions after I discovered his occupation.
I asked, essentially, what’s wrong with Kingman, Foster and Valentine? The scout told me Kingman’s a creep, Foster’s washed up and Valentine…let’s just say he intimated some habits that would have led you to believe that if an Ex-‘Spo with Met ties would get into deep, deep trouble late in December early in the next century, it wouldn’t be Jeff Reardon.
Funny how that works.
by Greg Prince on 26 December 2005 8:56 pm Back and back together by popular demand. Schlep your tree to curb. I think I just saw the sun.
GARY: Be sure to join us Sunday, October Second, for Fan Appreciation Day when the Mets close out the 2005 regular season. The first 25,000 fans attending the game with the Rockies on the Second will receive a blue fleece Mets cap, compliments of I Love New York. For tickets, stop by the advance ticket window at Shea or Keyspan Park, visit the Mets Clubhouse Shops, log on to mets.com or call 718/507-TIXX.
Lefthander Jason Vargas takes the mound for the Marlins with a one-nothing lead. Well, this WAS to have been the night when Mike Lowell played his first-ever game at second base in the Major Leagues, but it's not gonna turn out that way. Because Miguel Cabrera, after being hit on the knee by his foul ball has come out of the game. So Lowell has moved to his natural position at THIRD base and Joe Dillon is gonna play second base instead.
So Lowell's big night at second base is short-circuited. So Dillon is now the number THREE hitter in the Marlins' order, he's playing second base.
Jose Reyes leads off against the lefthander Vargas. First pitch, looped in the air, shallow centerfield, that may fall in, and it will for a BASE hit. Played on a couple of hops by Juan Pierre, and Reyes aboard with a bloop single to center.
So after Pierre led off the TOP of the first inning with a BUNT single, Reyes, the only player in the league with more stolen bases than Pierre, leads off the BOTTOM of the first with a bloop hit and we'll see how quickly he can run.
HOWIE: Is this not the way things have gone for the Marlins lately? It's bad enough that they lose Cabrera, but because he was hitting third, they are forced to put Dillon, a very inexperienced player at the Major League level, into the THREE spot, and that hampers the Marlins in a couple of ways, not the least of which is you lose Cabrera's bat, and now who knows for how long?
GARY: Reyes leads at first, the pitch coming to Cairo, taken outside, one and oh. Cairo, just six for his last sixty-one, getting a start at second base tonight after Anderson Hernandez started the last two days.
Cairo hitting just .241, two home runs and only FIFTEEN runs batted in in two hundred and NINETY at-bats. With a lefthander that he's probably never seen before, it's gonna be difficult for Reyes to get a read here. Basestealers will tell you lefties are either very easy to run on or almost impossible.
Here's the one-oh, he's RUNNING, and a foul ball back into the crowd, and Reyes did not have ANY jump at all. Not sure if that was a hit-and-run play, because Reyes did not have any kind of a jump. Had Cairo not swung at that pitch, he could've been out by a mile. Even with Lo Duca struggling right now with that hamstring.
It'll be interesting to find out after the game if that was a designed hit-and-run because that was the jump Reyes had, a hit-and-run jump where you make sure you don't get picked off.
Reyes with fifty-five steals, he's been caught thirteen times.
Vargas with the one-one, check swing on a changeup and he went around, and now Cairo in a one-and-two hole.
For Jason Vargas, this is his ELEVENTH Major League start. He also has made four relief appearances. Got off to a TERRIFIC beginning, but he has struggled lately, and that's kind of been his history. They feel as though he wears down late in seasons, and over his last four starts now, Vargas is oh and three with a 7.41 ERA. Lost to the Astros his last time out.
Throw to first, not in time.
Vargas overall five and four with a 4.37 ERA. He's walked twenty-six batters in sixty innings, and that's a few too many. But the Mets are seeing him for the first time and generally that has not worked in the Mets' favor.
Snap throw to first and Reyes falls back into the bag.
The Marlins' defense is now Carlos Delgado at first base, Joe Dillon at second, Robert Andino the shortstop and Mike Lowell at third. Jeff Conine in left field, Juan Pierre in center, Juan Encanarcion in right, Paul Lo Duca catching. And another throw over and this time Reyes is back easily.
So Vargas spending a lot of time working on Reyes at first base. Carlos Beltran waits on-deck.
One-nothing Florida as the Mets bat in the bottom of the first.
Vargas stepped into the number five spot in the Marlins' rotation around the first of August.
One-two to Cairo taken high as Reyes runs, the throw to second is over the head of Andino and backed up by Dillon, and Paul Lo Duca just couldn't stride at ALL as he made that throw to second base and he sailed it, and Reyes has his fifty-sixth stolen base of the year.
HOWIE: And that TIES Reyes with Scott Podsednik of the White Sox for the Major League lead now in stolen bases.
Remember last night on a stolen base attempt Lo Duca came out of the chute and threw SIDE-arm and FLAT-footed and here he got up a little better but had nothing on the throw.
GARY: It's awfully difficult for him to come out of his stance to make a throw with that hamstring injury.
Two-two to Cairo, fouled back underneath us and out of play, still two and two.
And YET, when the Mets were down in Florida a couple of weeks ago, Lo Duca after throwing from his KNEES once and throwing poorly, was able to gun down a couple of Met baserunners, but there he made a bad throw.
So the Mets have the tying run in scoring position with nobody out, Cairo trying to get the ball to the right side if nothing else to get Reyes to third with Beltran on-deck.
Vargas the lefthander looks to second, Andino makes a run to the bag, but Vargas holds the ball as Reyes wasn't far away.
Time for the Home Depot Hit For The Cycle Contest. Home Depot: You Can Do It, We Can Help. Tonight's contestant, Sean Campanella from Mount Vernon. If a Mets' player hits for the cycle in tonight's game, Sean will win a new 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo.
Two-two to Cairo, swing and a foul ball back. And of course it's courtesy of your Tri-State Jeep Dealers.
So Cairo, with a long turn at-bat here, hangin' in, tryin' to move the runner up. And if he can, then Beltran will get another chance to get a runner home from third, and that has really been bedeviling Carlos lately, trying to get that runner in from third with less than two out. He's been so impatient in those spots.
The outfield a step to right, here's the two-two to Cairo, SWING AND A MISS, he got him with a changeup away. Vargas, with a strikeout, fans Cairo for the first out of the inning.
Let's pause for station identification on the WFAN Mets Radio Network.
VO: Second inning, Yankees and Orioles are scoreless. Same scoreless game, Red Sox and Devil Rays are also in the second. Indians and White Sox coming up at eight. We'll have more later on WFAN New York.
GARY: Gary Cohen, Howie Rose with you from Shea Stadium in New York. Bottom of the first inning, Marlins one, Mets nothing, Reyes at second and one out, Carlos Beltran the batter, Reyes runs, pitch inside, THROW TO THIRD is offline and Reyes steals third base!
Lo Duca had a chance because Reyes did not have a great jump, but his throw was way to the inside of the bag and he was fortunate that Lowell was able to lunge and grab it to keep it from going down the line, otherwise Reyes would have scored.
So Reyes, who stole second, steals third as well, now has the Major League lead in steals with fifty-seven. And the Marlins are gonna bring the infield in here in the first inning with a one-nothing lead.
The pitch to Beltran, swing and a ground ball off the pitchers' glove, TRICKLING into centerfield, a base-hit! In to score is Reyes, Beltran takes a turn at first, holds on with an RBI single, and the Mets have tied the game at one and one.
So, Carlos Beltran, who has had SUCH problems getting runners in from third with less than two out, that time BANGED one right back toward the middle, and Vargas got his glove on it, slowed it down so that Andino the shortstop was able to make a dive, but he came up empty as it trickled into the outfield. And the Mets have tied it.
And now Jack McKeon is heading to the mound to talk to Jason Vargas. And it is not often that McKeon goes to the mound in these situations, but he is delivering a tongue-lashing right now to his rookie lefthander.
HOWIE: And this is really hot stuff, literally, coming from Lo Duca, hot in terms of the anger and, I tell ya what, Jack looks like a bobblehead doll right now. His head's goin' up and down, up and down, he's doin' all the talking. Vargas just standin' there with his glove to the side of his mouth absorbing it…
And I tell ya, if you can remember back to the Dodgers-Mets championship series of 1988, when Tommy Lasorda came out and READ Jesse Orosco the RIOT act, that's about how this looked. I mean McKeon did all the talking just now. And that's, y'know, one batter after he struck out Miguel Cairo with Reyes in scoring position, so exactly what message he was delivering, I'm not sure, but he delivered it with a lot of GUSTO.
GARY: He was angry, no question. Now Beltran at first and one out, Cliff Floyd the batter, the game tied at one. Pitch by Vargas, fastball call-strike, nothing and one.
Cliff has driven in nine runs in his last five games, now has ninety-four runs batted in for the year. With a dozen games to play, including tonight, Cliff has every shot to get to a hundred. He's hitting at .276, thirty-two home runs. That's a career high.
The oh-one pitch, swing and a miss, good slider by Vargas to get ahead on Floyd.
Now Vargas has been very tough against left-hand batters. The lefties are hitting just .200 against him, and that pitch, the slider that breaks away from the left-hand batter, has been his big pitch against lefties.
The Mets have a couple of lefties in the lineup tonight.
The oh-two to Floyd, swing and a MISS, he got him with that slider, and Vargas strikes out Floyd on three pitches, and he was very tough.
So the second strikeout for Vargas, now there are two away, Beltran still at first and David Wright coming up.
You know, it's interesting, watching Vargas go after Floyd there with that slider because Mike Jacobs tonight is in the lineup for the first TIME against a left-hand pitcher, and it's hard to think of a lefty who has made Cliff Floyd look worse than Vargas just did. We'll see how Jacobs is able to handle him later on.
HOWIE: Go get 'em, kid.
GARY: Yup.
Well, here's David Wright. Wright doubled and scored the winning run in the twelfth inning last night, driven in by Jacobs. David now hitting .310 on the year, sixth in the league.
And a throw to first and Beltran is back.
Wright with twenty-one home runs, eighty-nine runs batted in, now has FORTY-one doubles, that's tied for fourth in the league and he's been the Mets' best hitter all year against lefties, hitting .347 against southpaws.
Now Vargas delivers to Wright, swing and a miss at an offspeed pitch, nothing and one.
Mike Piazza, hitting sixth in the order, is on-deck.
So, Jose Reyes with a bloop single, stole second, stole third, scored on Beltran's base hit, and the Mets have tied it up. Here's the oh-one to Wright. Fastball strike on the inside corner, and Vargas gets ahead on Wright nothing and two.
Vargas throwin' that fastball at eighty-nine miles an hour.
Jason Vargas in just his SECOND year of pro ball. He came out of Long Beach State University. He's just twenty-two years old.
The oh-two pitch, popped up foul off to the right out of play.
Vargas had a college baseball odyssey. He played for national power LSU as a freshman, then TRANSFERRED to a junior college for his SOPHOMORE year before moving onto Long Beach State, another national power for his junior season. Then the Marlins took him in the second round in the draft last year.
The oh-two pitch, fastball misses inside, one and two.
The biggest question about Vargas was that they questioned his ability to stay strong late in the season because he wore down last year in the minors. He's got something of a hefty body.
Fastball WAY inside, and Wright has to jump out of the way, and you wonder if that was a message pitch there. Remember that Jae Seo threw high and tight to Miguel Cabrera in the top of the inning. But Wright jumping back from that knee-high, inside fastball, two balls, two strikes.
Beltran at first has not attempted to run.
Here's the two-two pitch to Wright, swing and a ground ball to second base, a grasscutter right to Dillon, he makes the toss to first in time to get Wright, and that retires the side. But the Mets fashion a run to tie it. Two hits and one man left.
One inning complete at Shea. Mets one, Marlins one on the WFAN Mets Radio Network.
The year in New York baseball? Look at it through Gotham eyes.
by Greg Prince on 25 December 2005 10:16 pm A year after making my musical theater debut and farewell simultaneously in a tenth-grade production of Li’l Abner, I volunteered to review that next spring’s show, Once Upon A Mattress, for the school paper. High school musicals being what they are, there was a lot of double-casting for the leads — the people in the key roles on Friday were different from those who were in them on Saturday. The director and head of the music department asked me one favor: say what you want, but don’t compare the kids in the same roles.
So I didn’t. Whoever was really good on whichever night they were I gave thumbs-up to, and whoever wasn’t all that great, I acknowledged with a parenthetical “…played the role Friday/Saturday.”
Thus was I introduced to the world of being despised for what I wrote.
School theater productions, as I should’ve understood from firsthand experience, exist so the students in them can harangue their friends and parents into coming and telling them how wonderful they were. Afterwards, everybody goes to the East Bay Diner for sundaes. They aren’t performed so an amateur drama critic can not pay homage to everybody in the cast.
The biggest complaints I got for anything I wrote in that review (or in high school…or at any time in my entire journalism career) were for not mentioning “me” or “me” or “us”. “We worked really hard!” was the biggest protest I received. “How could you not mention me/us?”
This crosses my mind a quarter-century or so later because I want to tell you about my three favorite Met bloggers, but I do so with trepidation because it implies that there are dozens and dozens of Met bloggers who aren’t my favorites. That’s hardly the point of this. We run a whole list of our fellow bloggers over on the sidebar (under the heading The New Breed) because we have a ton of respect and admiration for what all our peers do in the name of keeping up on and figuring out this silly team of ours. Anybody we don’t list isn’t there probably because we haven’t found him/her/you yet or because we generally update the links the way I tackle everything that requires constant vigilance — sporadically.
That sincere disclaimer in place, I send a holiday salute to three Met bloggers who make the Metsosphere a better place for us all. I’ve gotten to know each of these three wise men to varying degrees since we all began making our respective rounds, and I’m fond not only of their work but of them. You can take that as a disclaimer, too, but I see it as my good fortune.
Mets Walkoffs and Other Minutiae is a concoction that could only be mixed in the mind of a Mets fan, and not just because of the team in the title. Yet there are few Mets fans, I’ve learned, quite like Mark of MW&OM. His grasp of Mets history is practically, well, me-like. I was blown away by his concept when I first stumbled across it in the middle of the season and I never find myself not amazed by it. Who knew that a game the Mets won in their final at-bat could just keep getting better? That’s Mark’s impact. He finds contemporary tie-ins, he tracks down yesterday’s heroes, he keeps the magic alive. For Christmas, he wishes his historical spotlight upon a most unobvious yet homophonic star.
The Musings and Prophecies of Metstradamus slays me. The author is, night in and night out, the funniest person I’ve ever read on the subject of the Mets and associated ephemera. He provides that rarest and most aspired-to attraction, the curiosity of “I wonder what Metstradamus is going to write about this game.” It’s a rare enough talent to reel off great lines on the same recurring subject, but Metstra (he prefers to go through this phase of life by his nom de plume, so I’ll respect that) brings insight to each of his zingers. When he pokes fun at the Mets, he does so knowingly and achingly. His Christmas gift to his readers comes in 50 tantalizing pieces which, unlike the toys in the hands of so many parents last night, he had no problem assembling in advance and leaving under the tree for the rest of us to enjoy.
Mets Guy In Michigan piles Massapequa savvy on Midwestern wry. Dave Murray’s Long Island background is leavened by a humanity that’s hard to find around these parts, though I suspect he had it in him all along. Dave’s heart is clearly tied to the Mets but he uses baseball mostly as a jumping off point to what he calls his adventures in life. They’ve taken him to fascinating places actual and spiritual, visits that I’ve enjoyed tagging along on in completely vicarious fashion. For Christmas, he doesn’t just watch It’s A Wonderful Life, he discovers who’s caused it to be one for him.
Good guys. Good blogs. And to all, a good read.
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