I do
not count down the days until baseball season. In my own way, I dread
them. Trust me, this web site and these books aren’t part of some act, I
truly love the game of baseball with all my heart and soul.
In
the spring of 1978, when the New York area was hit by not one but two
major blizzards and the snow did not melt even as the beginning of
spring passed on the calendar—and the Mets promised nothing but 95-loss
pain—I went out in the yard on the first day of March vacation, by
myself, and hit fungoes in the snow. For two hours. Thirty years later,
I’m still just about there.
The truth is, winter is all that keeps me
sane. Keeps me away from the obsession. The mania, like Toad in The Wind and the Willows.
Most evenings from early spring to early fall develop a pattern: dinner,
kids to bath, kids to bed, Mets game, postgame (optional if they lose),
to my office to write, read, go to bed. And get up to put the kid(s) on
the bus. In the summer there’s other stuff that makes one long for the
regimen of the school schedule.
The
only time this changes is when I actually go to the game.
How I
love the unpredictability of winter. The storms that the weather mavens
miss (this occurs frequently). I admit that I have always been a winter
devotee. I know this makes me strange, but honestly, rooting for the
Mets in a world where any sane person should be rotting—I meant to type
rooting, I guess—for the armchair-easy, world champeens from da
Bronx…honestly, aren’t we all a little nuts to have wound up here? Let
it snow.
I
live near the mountains, so liking snow makes life more enjoyable. But
what happens come spring? Specifically, this spring? Will I care less
now that my viewing shed (emphasis on shed) has been transformed from
comfortable old shoe to a newly-built replicon of a 1913 park with all
the amenities of a toney downtown club? Will the change of venue change
my desire? Will I suddenly find myself walking out in the fifth inning
of a game? Can the spell be broken?
Doubt it. Even if the spell did somehow
break, I’ve got a responsibility to those two people waiting for the
school bus with me in the 10-degree chill. They’ll need to love winter,
too; lest they run away to some southern clime one day and find
themselves waiting 10 minutes to buy a Mr. Pibb at a Hop-In where only
one person is ahead of them in line. I’ve lived there, done that—maybe
not the Mr. Pibb
part—but it’s not worth it for a 50-degree January. And all they care
about is football; I mean Nascar. Not that there’s anything wrong with
it…
I
like the seasons. There’s baseball and snow. Yet if there’s a winter
with no snow, I don’t mope around two and a half months months later
about that time it snowed a little and then turned into rain. Like
Daniel Murphy waiting patiently for someone to bring him home. Waiting.
Who am I kidding with this Byronesque
baseball brooding. I’ll be there. You’ll be there. We’ll all be there.
New place, old place. Frosty night or sweltering afternoon. We are
creatures of our own shared habit. Some endure winter. Others endure
summer. Constantly waiting for resolution. Waiting for Gaspar.
December 16, 2008
Over 40
So the Mets have some new bullpen people
for the new bullpen at Citi Field, if that is its real name. It probably
is better that they start from scratch with the pen at the new playpen,
but there is one thing that this new Mets bullpen must do in 2009. Save
40 games.
Every Mets postseason club has saved at
least 40 as a team…except one. In 1969, the Mets didn’t save 40
games—they didn’t need to. They had 51 complete games, 28 shutouts, and
a manager who would’ve politely dismissed you if you’d tried to tell him
he was ruining the arms of Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Nolan Ryan by
having them pitch so deep into games. The ’69 Mets still collected 35
saves between Ron Taylor, Tug McGraw, and Cal Koonce in the first year
that the save was deemed an official statistic by Major League Baseball.
Since then, the save has become a
measuring stick for relief pitchers’ bank accounts. Today, most closers
will sit down once a lead of four runs has been attained. They probably
should sit down, but not based on a silly rule that only suits one
person and not the other 24 players or the front office or the throngs
of the team’s followers.
Dan Rosenheck put forth the smart math theory in
the New York Times recently that
a team’s best reliever could be better employed elsewhere than in the
ninth inning. The article also used probability theorems of the chances
of winning a game with a lead of such and such size, etc. That sounds
nice in theory, but if you’ve ever watched a Mets game, you know the
hardest out is the last out. You don’t need any theorem to tell you
that.
The Mets did somehow save 43 games in 2008
(they blew 29). So maybe the caveat should be that saving 40 is the
first step, but to take that anywhere you’ve got to keep the save
percentage—like your grades—somewhere on the good side of 60. Eight
times the Mets have saved 40 games and missed the postseason. I didn’t
say this theory was fool proof! Nothing is fool proof when it comes to
bullpens. There’s generally one overpaid guy and several other
overworked young or old guys making somewhere between the minimum and
the seven-digit threshold. If these nonclosers were so great, they’d be
starters with job security. Then they could spend parts of every
non-contract year on the disabled list and still have multiple suitors
ready to hurl eight figures a
year at them.
I won’t go into detail about the recent Mets
bullpen failings, which are too well known and too painful. While the
bullpen wasn’t the main reason for the ’07 collapse, a couple more
quality outings by the pen would have pushed the Mets jalopy over the
finish line…same goes for ’08, except this time the bullpen was
getting pushed across the finish line by Johan Santana, but the jalopy
kept slipping into reverse and running over Johan. Sort of like the
ending of an episode of Wacky Races, with the
Milwaukee Surplus Special stealing the
race at the end.
One last thing, don’t hit 50 saves. Both
times the Mets have hit that mark—1984 and 1987—it was second-place
city. A nice place to be in retrospect following the seven years in the
desert before ’84…or the year after a world championship that would have
to last you for a while. Of course, no Mets club has hit 60 saves yet.
Maybe that’s the ticket. But to be honest, I’d take the 51 complete
games from Gil Hodges’s club and take my chances with 35 saves. That’d
be a modern day miracle.
December 8, 2008
For Once, It’s in
the Cards
Forgive me going off topic, but this has
never happened to me before. In all my time watching professional
football, my team has never won a division title. You see, I…ahem…I’m
not sure how to say this…I am an Arizona Cardinals fan.
I didn’t start out that way. I was a St.
Louis Cardinals fan and then a Phoenix Cardinals fan and then after they
figured that they didn’t actually play in Phoenix and needed a larger
base from which to draw 30,000 fans per game, I became an Arizona
Cardinals fan. Each step along the way a humiliation.
And just this Sunday afternoon, while
driving from upstate to down, I heard them clinch their first division
title in my fandom the only way an East Coast Cardinals fan can: I
listened to the Jets game—against AZ’s closest competition, San
Francisco—and when Bob Wichusen stopped giving updates and it was clear
they Jets weren’t going to beat the 49ers and get the Cardinals their
division title in the only way I figured them capable of winning one, I
switched to the FAN and who else but Eddie Coleman told me rookie
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie had just run an interception back 99 yards
for a 34-10 lead over St. Louis—ah, the irony—with only a couple of
minutes left.
Sure, you say—for those of you who haven’t
moved on in search of the latest unappetizing Mets free agent tidbit—why
bring it up now? They’ve had that lousy division wrapped up for weeks.
Anyone can hop on the bandwagon after the fact.
All I can say to that is this: After the
last two Septembers of people assuring me my baseball team was a
postseason lock, forgive me for waiting until something was actually
clinched.
But the bigger question is: How does an
East Coast fan who grew up in the New York area wind up rooting for the
Cardinals? The oldest and lousiest team in NFL history.
It, of course, starts at Shea Stadium.
It’s August 1976 and my dad and four friends—the
giddy residue of a two-house slumber party—are strolling triumphantly
out of the big Shea after
a rousing win against the Dodgers.
Bruce Boisclair, whose splayed stance defied the law of physics, somehow
willed his first major league home run over the fence against Rick
Rhoden, who had far more power and batting skill than Boisclair. Felix
Millan, who choked up on the bat to such a degree that his power was
harder to come by than Boisclair’s, knocked in the game winner. I’m
feeling saucy. My friends stop at the only open souvenir stand and with
$5 bills from their dads—or what remained of this booty—to seek out exit
goodies to mark the last game at Shea before the trials of sixth grade
begin. I’ve got no folding money, as they say, but I have my dad right
there. I spot a flashy red St. Louis Cardinals hat and knowing full well
I have a Mets hat at home, I ask my dad if I might please get that hat.
He’d taken four 11-year-olds to Shea Stadium, made it through the whole
game, and is probably feeling a little saucy himself. He stands back and
lets me put my ordering hands on the counter. Moments later, the “S” and
“L” with the little “t” on a patch are all mine. Medium. You see, this
is a year before those mesh hats would come into power and you still
order hats in small, medium, or large. Yes, it cost less than $5. And
yes, the Mets actually sold hats and paraphernalia from other teams at
their souvenir stands. It was another lifetime. Tom Seaver and Dave
Kingman were several stories below me taking off their yet-to-be-traded
pants one leg at a time.
I wear the cap to Mr. Casetellano’s gym
class at Iona Grammar. He’s new and trying to get the names down of the
36 kids in our class. I’ve got the cap on—we’re outside that day, so
it’s all right—and I’m mouthing off to someone who’s annoying me and Mr.
Casetellano says, “Hey, St. Louis, pipe down.” Everyone laughs as good
naturedly as three dozen 11 year olds can. We play capture the flag and
I’m near the flag at the end of class. I take my hat and fling it at the
goalie, who goes for the hat; I dive for the flag. We win. The “St.
Louis” nickname catches on as well as Cardinals football did in their
hometown.
A month later, the Mets are long done, the Yankees
just pulled off their first pennant in my lifetime—ah, it was a long
time ago—and are getting ready to play the Reds that Sunday night in
Cincinnati in Game 2 of the World Series. I’m a little antsy, wanting so
much for the Big Red Machine to drub them. I was futzing around and
channel 2 was on. The Dallas game. I knew the Cowboys because I’d
watched them in the previous year’s Super Bowl, my first. (I was not
your average sports-overfed child.) One thing I did know, I didn’t like
the Cowboys. I happened to look up and saw Jim Hart unload a 50-yard
bomb to Mel Gray for a touchdown. “Touchdown, St. Louis!” Don Coryell’s
dynamic team went on to
win the game in thrilling fashion at
Busch Stadium. Mel Gray, Terry Metcalf, Jim Otis, Jim Hart.
A quick scan of the sports pages the next
morning—after seeing “Yankees Fall to Reds in 9th”—they’d be swept by
midweek—revealed this about the October 18, 1976 standings around the
NFL:
Cardinals 5-1
Giants 0-6
Jets 1-4
The Jets were playing the Patriots on
Monday Night, which was how the Teamster-like grip the New York teams
had on the 1 and 4 p.m. Sunday TV time slots actually allowed me to see
an out-of-town game. (The Jets would lose, 41-7, at Schaefer Stadium,
later known as Foxboro.)
A confluence of events changed my
football-living life. The Cardinals, the defending NFC East champs, went
10-4 in 1976 and did not make the playoffs. It was the year Bill
Arnsparger coached the Giants and Lou Holtz the Jets. Both teams were
bad. Cardinal bad as it turned out.
If only I’d worn my Mets hat to that game
against the Dodgers or that souvenir stand had been closed, perhaps I
could have been spared, but such is life when children are allowed to
pick their own favorite sports teams.
In all the years since that fateful
choice—and most of those have been in a 16-game schedule—the Cardinals
have not reached 10 wins since. They probably won’t reach 10 this year,
either. (Their defense is porous.) But they do have a division title.
And a home playoff game…something they’ve never had in all that time. Or
my lifetime. Or any of my siblings’ lifetime. My dad was 15 when it last
happened.
Cardinals history is pathetic, even if it does
stretch back a century. I’ve tried to quit the franchise. I went to Jets
games many times for eight seasons trying to get it to rub off. I sat a
few rows from
Fireman Eddie in seats we bought for
$20 apiece from a Stamford restaurant owner on a game-by-game basis. Had
some great times, but the Jets thing never took. And the Giants, it
always seemed like there were too many Yankees fans around for me to get
comfortable.
I’ve regretted my decision for many years,
but I do not regret a moment of the Jim Hart era. That guy could throw a
bomb like no one I’ve seen. A Jerry Koosman/Jon Matlack type of guy.
Classy. Talented. Unlucky.
I go to
Hart’s
restaurant for a drink my first time in
St. Louis, near closing time in August 1985. He owns the joint with
former Cardinals teammate Dan Dierdorf. Hart is retired a year or two.
My brother is oblivious. I say, “Do you know who that is?” And I tell
him my tale. He’s suitably unimpressed. “You’re a Cardinals fan? I
thought you were gaga about the Mets.” (You can see why I was so late
getting to the sports buffet of life.)
“Go over to him, say hello,” he says.
Hart was just sitting there doing nothing.
Place was kind of empty. (St. Louis may give standing ovations to every
baseball player they trade for in his first at-bat, but when it comes to
football they’re as impatient as any slob from anywhere else.) I stand
up. Finish my drink. Feel myself getting stagefright like in my senior
year play and walk out the door. I did one day get his autographed
picture via the internet, that’s been sitting in my desk…until now.
My other brother and two of my best college
friends live in the Phoenix area, so I do actually get to a Cardinals
game every couple of years during family visits. I went last year and
saw their last clobbering of the Rams, so barring some unforeseen
circumstance—like repeated wins—I won’t see them in person this year.
But I’ll be watching them on national TV wearing my old Cardinals logo
clothing (I dislike the
new bird to the point I sent a scathing
email to the team when they made the 2005 logo change that’s
imperceptible to everyone else.)
For all the 35-7 Giants drubbings when
they were in the NFC East, all the lost $20\full-beer chug\hour of free
drinking wagers to Giants fan friends that led me to give up all
gambling, all the highlight reels featuring Cardinals jerseys chasing
other teams’ stars, the last-second field goals made by opponents and
missed by the Cardinals, Jim Hart never being considered for the Hall of
Fame, Jackie Smith getting there but being remembered only for a dropped
pass as a Cowboy, O.J. Anderson being handed to the Giants in time to
help them win two Super Bowls, and me missing out on what being an NFL
fan can really be like.
Because this one time the Cardinal rule
has been broken.
Since it’s lonely being an Army of One,
anyone brave enough to lay claim to being an East Coast Cardinals/Mets
fan, please email me at the site. There may be a Diner-like quiz
for verification purposes (14 questions as opposed to 140), but those
who qualify will receive a book (whichever book you don’t have or
whatever I have the largest inventory of at the moment). Until proven
otherwise, I’m convinced this is a singular affliction.
November 26, 2008
Thankee
At this time of the year, it is a national custom
to give thanks. It’s something the Mets fan can identify with: No matter
how miserable things might be, it could be worse. Y’know, you could have
Bruce Boisclair as your first baseman.
In the world of the Mets rootification, we
should count ourselves fortunate. Yes, fortunate. Allow me to count the
ways.
THANKS…
That M. Donald Grant has gone to where
they took the first part of the Tampa Bay baseball team’s name.
That some other penurious owner or
pretender to same hasn’t taken hold of New York’s National Nine and sold
off the David Wrights and Jose Reyeses of the world because of their
arbitration eligibility.
That the taxpayers haven’t had to foot the
whole bill for the new stadium (they bought the last one).
That with less than five months to go
before its opening, the name of the new stadium has yet to change. (The
Citi better not sleep after ringing the tin cup while still insisting
they’ll make good on every one of the $20 million checks they promised
to the Wilpons.)
That Johan Santana is a Met.
That Jerry Manuel is still making out the
lineup card.
That the Mets front office has shown more patience
than the fans. You win today with the young people, friends. Not by
throwing money at every free agent that’s available. “But
I want an Oompa Loompa now!”
That we—as fans—have somehow not jumped
off bridges the past two Septembers. Let the team do the jumping.
They’re professionals.
That Mets Nation—or whatever you want to call
it--has more
class than the City of Brotherly Love will
ever have, even if they’ve finally caught the Mets in terms of
championships won. So much for the 79-year head start. City of Ben
Franklin, you are indeed the champions. Congratulations. Now please act
like one and stop reminding the widow in Queens that her husband is
dead. She may one day hit you with her cane.
That we won’t have to watch a Met jog in
from the bullpen for another four months. For that, we should all be
most thankful.
November 6, 2008
Making It to the
Hall
I don’t often have to authenticate why I
love baseball. To me, it’s like loving a parent or a dog. Sure they may
have taken away the car once or threw up just before you were about to
go to sleep—ideally, these commands did not all exit from the same
mouth—but the anger or frustration always subsides. You love them just
because…they’re there. Parents won’t always be there. A good dog has the
life expectancy of a solid major league career. Though not a Hall of
Fame career. No dogs allowed.
I drove to the Hall of Fame over the weekend to
witness statue dedications in the front entrance of three greats to the
character and courage of the game: Lou
Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, and Roberto Clemente. You can’t argue with the
selection of this trio. I’ve always been partial to Christy Mathewson
myself, but Matty played a full career without disease, discrimination,
or death keeping him from accomplishing all he could on the field.
Though Mathewson—like the three mentioned—met an untimely end far too
soon. So I went with
Gary
Gillette and pretended to be media,
listening to short speeches by Vera Clemente, Rachel Robinson, and Curt
Schilling; the latter, despite being an All-Star blowhard, has done
quite a bit for ALS and did haul his kids to Cooperstown for Halloween
so he could be at this event. Then I got to do my favorite things at
Cooperstown, like looking at Matty’s New York Giants cap and uniform
holding up well after almost a century and checking out stuff I hadn’t
even seen when I was there in June for the washed-out final Hall of Fame
Game. There was a room filled with
old-time board games dating back to the
1880s, plus the trophy balls from the original
Cincinnati
Red Stockings that went back two decades
further.
I’ve loved the old-time game since I first
discovered how far back baseball went. Honus Wagner and I share the same
birthday—Hans had me beat by 3,415 hits and 91 years—and when I first
saw that this shortstop listed on a 1976 baseball card was the
greatest shortstop of all time, I just
had to learn more about this game. I read everything I could find on the
game going back to
Candy Cummings and
Harry Wright. That fall my dad relented
and we drove up four-plus hours each way to Cooperstown (he had to work
the next day). That was a long time and eight or so trips to Cooperstown
ago.
This time I drove up by myself along a
blanket of snow. Sometimes it snows in October and sometimes the
Phillies rain on my parade, but both are generally rare, if
inconvenient. The snow occupied the landscape, not the road, and with
the still changing leaves, it made the backroads drive picturesque. The
Phillies’ win brought out more red caps in Cooperstown than I’ve ever
seen beyond Broad Street.
I returned home with a handful of trinkets, from a
large Hennepin bottle courtesy of
Omegang Brewery
(for consumption at a later date) and of course the requisite baseball
items. Save for the lack of a Book-on-Tape to bring me home through the
nonpicturesque darkness, I bought something I probably never would have
considered in the gift shop: a reproduction of the program—plus an audio
CD—from the baseball centennial ceremonies for Cooperstown in 1939. That
centennial is, of course, a joke. Even the Hall itself now acknowledges
that the Abner Doubleday myth lured everyone to Cooperstown under false
pretenses. Baseball is actually older than it lets on. Ageless, some
might say.
But I couldn’t think of a place that
exemplifies the charms of the game any better than Cooperstown. Some say
the city is where such a museum should be, but baseball thrived because
of small town America. And Cooperstown is the best small town I’ve ever
seen (and I lived in a few). The Cooperstown fathers took the ball and
ran with it…and then put it in an attractive display case
At the height of the Depression, $100,000 was
spent to construct the Hall of Fame at a time when there were no other
Halls of Fame to speak of for sport. The amazing thing about the opening
of the Hall was that it wasn’t just filled with fans and locals, the
greats of the game of the past and the present all streamed to the
little upstate town. They weren’t getting appearance fees and it doesn’t
even seem they were threatened into attending by
Judge Landis. They traveled to
Cooperstown on their own and seemed thrilled at the idea that there
would be a place where their great deeds might last forever. According
to the radio broadcast of the ceremonies on the CD, Ty Cobb missed the
induction ceremony because he was driving around with his family looking
for a hotel and forgot what time the shindig started. Now that we hold
Ty Cobb along with Christopher Columbus as monsters of revisionist
history, Cobb was probably drunk, cursing every minority under the sun,
and kept driving off the road between Utica and Cooperstown while
turning to turn around to beat various family members. Cobb still showed
up for the exhibition game, which is more than many players of recent
years have done when their teams were actually playing in it. This
year’s rainout in June was the last such exhibition game scheduled after
69 years due to a lack of interest. And that interest wasn’t from the
fans.
The CD of that first day in the Hall’s life
let in the voices of The Flying
Dutchman and Alex the Great and Cy and Nap and Spoke and Gorgeous George
and the Big Train and several guys that are not even thought of today by
people who pack the parks or collect the money. Thanks to an annual
award, people remember Cy Young, and they’ll always remember the Babe.
As well they should.
Thankfully, they started voting in people
a few years before the Hall opened, so for the grand opening on June 12,
1939, they had a gathering of probably the 10 greatest living players,
with the only players not there from that class the departed Matty and
Wee Willie Keeler. They even honored seven figures from the 19th
century: Alexander Cartwright (the true father of the game—or at least a
lot truer than General Doubleday), Morgan Bulkeley (a figurehead who
served as NL President at the whim of league founder and Cubs owner
William Hulbert), George Wright (a good player, but his brother Harry
probably should’ve been in there first), Henry Chadwick (the first great
sportswriter and creator of the box score and rule book), Ban Johnson
(hated by many but founder of the American League amid great opposition;
he did the dirty work to make it thrive), Connie Mack (no one will ever
manager one club longer than his 50 years and no one could act with more
dignity), and John McGraw (rough and tumble Oriole who made the Giants a
powerhouse in three different decades). Connie Mack was the only one of
this group to see the Hall open its doors. Umpire Bill Klem, firm
upholder of the rules over five different decades and a tough old bird,
cried on the air.
And that first game played at Doubleday Field,
with Wagner and Eddie Collins managing, featured a few future Hall of
Famers in uniform, including starting pitchers Lefty Grove and Dizzy
Dean, plus Mel Ott, Charlie Gehringer, and Lloyd Waner; Little Poison,
unlike the other four mentioned, shouldn’t have ever made the Hall, but
it was nice of him to come all the way from Pittsburgh. Everyone’s
favorite spy
Moe Berg was behind the plate—and
batting fifth—but for which team I can’t recall. They just threw
everyone together regardless of leagues, however the managers saw fit.
The action—and with two-minute innings it went quickly—was called by
scurrying go-getter announcers Mel Allen and Arch McDonald, who would
both eventually be honored in the Writers and Announcers exhibit (if you
saw
the modest wall where these guys are
honored in Cooperstown, you’d never confuse it with a “wing” again).
And then this priceless record of
first-pitch swinging and the 15-second induction speeches, where
humbleness and class were the operative words, abruptly ends with NBC
cutting away to something else after an inning and half with no score.
It’s hard for me to imagine what could possibly be more important, but
everyone listening at home needed to get in their fun back in the summer
of ’39. Before the pennant race was even decided that year, Poland had
been invaded; three years later, many of these same players tossing the
pill around Doubleday Field would be tossing hand grenades or at least
playing baseball in military-issue uniforms for Uncle Sam. You realize
that yes, everything was in the right hands. And you’re talking about
more than any game.
October 28, 2008
Metancholia
I know I haven’t written. My post for the
final day at Shea, now a month gone, has remained in this portal. I’ve
been writing about the Mets nearly every day for several projects and I
haven’t been able to muster the optimism and energy about the Mets
beyond that. The idea of a new stadium stripping away the familiar, five
and a half months of ecstasy overcome by another two weeks of agony, the
booing at the first sign of trouble, the tradings and firings. Maybe
I’ll be ready when the time comes. But not now.
I’ve tried. A piece on my outrage about
the Rays and Phillies (Kazmir vs. Hated Rival) in the World Series was
written ahead of time and all but posted the night of October 16 when I
discovered one small problem: a disappearing 7-0 lead by Tampa (I still
like to call them “Tampa” because original Devil Rays owner Vince
Naimoli had an absolute fit when the Mets didn’t put “Bay” on the
scoreboard in the expansion team’s first trip to Shea in 1998). The Red
Sox had a huge comeback and then won again before the Rays won Game 7.
(If only Naimoli had concentrated instead on losing the first half of
the team’s evil nickname, then maybe they’d have seen October lots of
times before now.) The piece I’d written, though still applicable,
seemed too stale.
I had planned another piece comparing the Mets vs.
the Phillies to the four-year conflict of the Civil War. Distant
relatives of mine fought on both sides and I actually bought tickets in
previews to the rather depressing
Civil War musical in 1999 in New Haven. Still, as a wannabe
military historian, I felt I could pull off the comparison between
division rivalry and division of a nation. But upon hearing the opening
strains of what has become known as the
Civil War theme used in the Ken Burns landmark documentary, I
could not bring myself to compare the sacrifice, death, and destruction
that occurred from 1861 to 1865 to the doings of a bunch of spoiled
ballplayers a century and a half later. And learning that the synonymous
Civil War music, called “Ashokan Farewell,” was originally written about
an area a few miles from where I now sit, a place near Woodstock where
several towns were flooded at the turn of the last century to create the
reservoir that still serves New York City—lives disturbed, houses still
under water, whole towns obliterated under millions of gallons so
someplace else could call it progress—that just drove the point home
even more.
I did come across something from a time
and date I cannot specifically date, but it describes the same malady
I’ve been suffering with these last few weeks. With all respect and
consideration, here is that long lost letter home.
My dearest love,
I hope this finds
you well and handling the deprivations of the situation as well as can
be expected. I wish I could be there with you, but circumstances keep me
otherwise engaged. Take heart, I have suffered no wound nor have I
visited the hospital, a place none of us plans to go. I must confide,
however, that I have incurred a disease that has inflicted many over the
past month as we make winter camp, with little to do but dwell on the
last engagement—a resounding defeat that has some wondering if what
we’re fighting for is worth it.
In short, I’m
suffering from acute Metancholia. Many of us have it now. Amnesia seems
the only known cure. Switching allegiances is as risky as transplanting
a pig’s heart for one’s own. Watching others enjoy their autumnal
pursuits may in fact only make the condition more calamitous. Throwing
oneself into other pursuits can put a soul into danger nonetheless
because a Sunday ritual cannot ease the daily pain that remains. Without
proper and an array of homemade medicines, the disease may become
terminal.
Symptoms include
moping, head tilted perpetually downward, and seeing spots where it all
could have turned around. I keep seeing the Murphy boy standing 90 feet
away, hoping to be rescued, only to be left standing helpless while the
whole camp watched in pain. Poor kid never made it. The final day of the
campaign began with such promise and hope, and by sundown there was only
the sad withdrawal, the honoring by the old guard—too old to fight but
all of us wishing their spirit could be imbued in the ranks. We marched
away from our home base, only to see the vultures swoop in and tear it
all apart the moment we left. Our foe boldly taking anything they could
while we made our retreat at double quick. It made some of us ill, but
there was no going back.
That’s the day
this Metancholia took root in a lot of us, though some had already
gotten sick from it long before then. Some veterans recall having it
last fall, too. Those men say it will fade with time and should be gone
by the spring offensive. I only hope they’re right. But once you have
it, I must confide, it’s hard to think that you won’t get it again.
I will be strong,
dearest, and I pray that you will remain safe through these difficult
times. It is my fondest wish that come next fall, I will be home for the
harvest, this Metancholia just a distant memory. And then we may embrace
in triumph.
Yours with
never-ceasing devotion,
Taylor Miller
Smith Hernandez Johnson III
1969th New York
Now listen to “Ashokan
Farewell” again. It’s not quite the haunting version with
the fiddle that Ken Burns commissioned, but this simpler and
lower-scaled version suits the Mets and the man with the five most
popular surnames in club history. The notes still allow one to picture a
black-and-white cleared field, the mountainous backdrops of Virginia or
Tennessee, tents stretched as far as the eye can gaze, the real work
ahead: life and death. And it’s easier to remember that we’re only
talking about a game. This latest outbreak of Metancholia will, somehow,
pass. Will burn away like fog on a sunny day. It just won’t be today.
No, it won’t be today.
To read about baseball and the Civil War, there
are many accounts that run from the lively to the stale, but the most
entertaining book I’ve ever read is the historically accurate account by
Tom Dyja surrounding the 1864 Wilderness Campaign in Play for a Kingdom.
All
this time I thought I knew about the Mets and Shea Stadium and what it
all stood for. The history, the numbers, the great players, the stellar
moments, and all that stuff. But I didn’t get it until the day the
stadium Shea-ed Goodbye. I don’t know if the team really knew it
before…because of the way they clumsily handled many potential
celebrations of Mets history, with numerous examples you can remind
yourself of. But as I left for the last time Sunday, I wasn’t as sad as
I thought I’d be. Not even with the humiliating defeat. We lost the
place whose existence put the Mets into existence. There’d be no Mets
without Shea Stadium. And the Mets said goodbye to the place the right
way—with a lineup as brilliant as any that ever took the field there—at
the very moment we needed perspective on our very fandom.
I
nearly lost it when several kids about my 10-year-old daughter’s age
started crying when the ceremony was over. I was that age when I went to
my first Mets game in August 1975. Craig Swan pitched. By good fortune,
he was there as well the day that Shea was laid to rest. Shea lived a
good, long time for a stadium of its type. I may yet drive by the
stadium before all’s said and done, but it lives only inside me now. A
loved one moved on. The family pet that got too old and ill and had to
be put down. I’m not comparing the end of a stadium to putting down the
family pet, but Shea—like Topper, the big black dog I had from age 4 to
17—will always be with me. And she’d love all that grass to run around
on.
Taking Topper to the vet for the final ride on a rainy afternoon a
quarter century ago was the first truly hard thing I had to do: knowing
it had to happen, doing the responsible thing, and trying to move on
from it. My mom and brother and I all cried. I will always miss that
dog. Likewise, I may always miss the place where I always felt at home.
Shea
is just a building, but its demise is something I’ve had to wrestle with
for the last year and a half. And I knew long before that that its day
would come. Shea is my touchstone for so many things and what’s kept me
connected with many people I’d otherwise have lost touch with. I will go
to Citi Field. I certainly hope to be there when it hosts its first
big-league game. I learned Sunday that nothing could shake me loose from
the Mets, practical as it might be to move on. Maybe in the future I
won’t go to as many games, but who dares tell the future?
Shea
is who I am. Who I was. Who I’ll be. I didn’t know that until Sunday,
though I probably should have. I’ll never forget what happened on
September 28, 2008—either before or after the final pitch. This is isn’t
some jerkwater town where football is what really stirs the passions.
It’s the Mets or bust for us. Hope the guys who played in that final
game understand what it means to be a part of something like that. Like
the guys who touched the plate at the end seemed to. The 50,000 people
who stayed and cheered after one of the toughest losses in franchise
history, well, they’re my heroes as much as the people they cheered on.
I’ll
have the seats in the basement to watch the games in. Along with some
dirt I snagged last week using a mint container, proof that there was
actually a place I once felt the need to steal a spoonful of now minty
smelling diamond dust. Home. A place where many non pro athletes I know
called home, too. I’ve written God knows how many words about great
games at Shea, but this is the first time I understand what the concept
of Shea means to me moving forward.
I get
it. It’s not gone.
September 28, 2008
’86ing Houston
Top 10
Shea Moments
(For the last go round
at Shea Stadium, I’m going to count down my 10 favorite games at Shea
that I have witnessed, with a side list or two thrown in to stretch it
out. I chronicle the greatest moments at Shea in both Meet the Mets and 100 Things Mets Fans
Should Know & Do Before They Die, but this list is based on being
there in the flesh. And what it felt like at Shea on that date.)
Recap:#10. April 5, 1983 Tom Seaver Returns [Click
here]
Recap
#4. October 3, 1999: My Kingdom for a Tie [Click
here]
Recap #3.
October 9, 1999 Catcher of the Day[Click
here]
Recap #3A. Three Reasons Never to Leave Shea
Early [Click
here]
Recap #2. October 17,
1999: The Grand-Slam Single
[Click
here]
#1. October 11,
1986: Nailed
It
was a hasty and far-reaching decision in 1986 that resulted in me
attending only two regular-season games in the most dominant season in
Mets history. The games were on successive days during Labor Day
weekend. They beat the Dodgers on Saturday for their 87th win—with
August on the calendar—a total they had not reached in my first nine
Septembers (or Octobers) as a fan. That number had, however, been
reached each year since 1984. And even the most superstitious Mets fan
could tell you that with a 20-game lead at the end of August, this thing
was over. It was.
I
left almost three hours early for the 25-mile trip to Shea to see the
Dodgers series, and I still sat in the clog of the Mets, U.S. Open, and
holiday beach traffic. I spent less time driving down to Virginia that
Tuesday than I did spending the weekend on the Hutch, Whitestone, and
Grand Central. I hadn’t been back to school since February, calling time
on my rickety course load there and spending most of that spring and
summer in Colorado. I took a course at the university in Boulder, and
decided what to do next. I lived in a pseudo city in a weird time zone,
read a lot, drank a lot, wrote a little, and played Wiffle ball on
Folsom Field while the Colorado football team, about to
emerge from the laughingstock bin of the Big Eight, practiced on the
other end of the field. I’d go back to Colorado a couple of years later
and work as a security guard while trying to find a newspaper job in
Anywhere, U.S.A. That was after CU wouldn’t touch me as a transfer, and
after I’d graduated from the school where I’d dug a huge hole for
myself. There were a lot of holes to dig out of in ’86.
The Roanoke Times & World News had a single paragraph about the Mets
clinching the NL East. On the Nightly News, I caught a glimpse of Shea
as a sea of celebration. How I wished I could be there. I had never seen
a postseason game at Shea—on TV or in person—because they hadn’t played
one in the 11 years I’d been following the team. I put together all I
had and made plans with friends at northern schools to meet at Shea for
the NLCS. I wound up with tickets to all three games, plus a flight back
after Game 5. That way—I assured my dad each night—I would only miss one
day of school. But the Mets were so good, it would be over in four.
Right?
Of
the 34 games at Shea I’ve written about in this list (way to pad a Top
10, huh?), Game 3 in ’86 was the fastest. Perhaps not in terms of
length, but in my mind it lasted all of three minutes. It must’ve been
years of anticipation that led up to it. Like all the times I walked
away sad because I wasn’t tall enough to ride Playland’s
Dragon Coaster (erected 1929). One summer I exceeded the
little cutout with a hand showing the minimum height. I got on line,
felt the bar come over my lap, watched as we clanged to the top of it,
peered onto Long Island Sound, plunged down at high speed, just missed
the dragon’s tooth, then over another hill pitching forward, until we
suddenly came back to where we started, and I stumbled off. It’s over?
Yes. What did you think?
We
were nervous that this 1-1 best-of-seven series (just two years before
it had still been best of five) might not be as easy as everyone assured
us. People like to do that with Mets fans. They tell them, “Oh, don’t
worry, you’ve got this game, series, season, division, wild card,
pennant, World Series, decade all wrapped up. What are you so anxious
about?” But they can say that because they are not Mets fans. We are a
separate species. No, not the Red Sox or Cubs fan of the 1980s, who,
though doleful that somehow they’d mess up at the worst possible moment,
they at least had the devotion of the general populace for several
states around them. The Mets are the children of a Giant-Dodger divorce,
stepbrother to the likes of the White Sox, Angels, and A’s—only with a
little more charisma—always having to prove themselves in their own
market, as well as in the baseball populace as a whole. The players
might have thought they owned New York—and they did—but deep inside
every Mets fan should be the Latin proverb that George Patton (or George
C. Scott as the general) interpreted simply as “all
glory is fleeting.”
The
state troopers weren’t taking anyone’s crap. They were on motorcycles,
blocking intersections, glaring hard, and handing out tickets to anyone
whose vehicle did not fall immediately into line. We parked on the outer
edges of the Marina, I think, but it was like a fog. This packed
stadium, people streaming in on a chilly Saturday afternoon…football
weather at Shea. Didn’t the Jets move out a few years back? What’s
everyone doing here? We all knew, but there was a crackle of
anticipation and nervousness in the air. No Dr. K Korner nor St. Louis
showdown had prepared the heart for this.
Because the Astrodome had to host a Bears-Oilers football game, Houston
got the four NLCS games (* if necessary) during the week and Shea—as a
dual-sport facility now in its single-sport prime—received the weekend
games instead. People in New York could growl that the NFL had stolen a
home game from the Mets this series—and because home-field advantage was
based on a rotating system, the Mets would essentially lose another NLCS
home game two years later because of this change—but in ‘86 I was
thankful because I wouldn’t have been able to go during the week. I was
lucky to be going now. Damned lucky.
For
the best game I’ve ever seen at Shea Stadium, I had probably as bad a
seat as I’ve ever had: last row of mezzanine almost even with left
fielder. Hey, there are lots of bad seats at Shea. Some would argue that
the top reaches of the upper deck are worse than the last row of the
mezzanine because they are that much more removed from the field, but
you can see the sky, a majority of the outfielders (usually), and track
balls hit to the field you are not sitting in. In the back of mezzanine
for a big game, you only see people standing up in front of you, your
back against the wire cage, unable to see anything that isn’t a grounder
or line drive at an infielder. But why quibble? For the first postseason
game at Shea since Game 5 of the 1973 World Series—which had been won by
Jerry Koosman, recently retired, who threw out the first ball against
the Astros—all 55,052 of us were happy just to be there.
Until
the game started. Ron Darling got rocked and it was 4-0 after two
innings. Bob Knepper kept setting down the Mets and their righty lineup,
keeping Dykstra and Backman on the bench. Knepper wouldn’t be so lucky
in the sixth. Kevin Mitchell and Keith Hernandez singled, and Craig
Reynolds let Gary Carter’s grounder get through him for a run-scoring
error. Strawberry was up. He took a good cut. The crowd’s timbre rose
several level in a split second and my eyes tried to confirm what my
ears were telling me. They couldn’t. The upper deck overhang blocked my
view, but I thought I saw a white dot land somewhere. No matter. I
listened. The noise told me everything I needed to know. I watched
Darryl touch all the bases. The game was tied and Shea was shaking. Six
innings into my first postseason game and my voice was completely gone.
Houston came right back and scored when Ray Knight flubbed a sacrifice
bunt as Bill Doran, who’d already hit a home run in the game, went to
third on the play. He came home on a groundout and the Astros set the
Mets down the next two innings. When Wally Backman led off the ninth
with a drag bunt single against Dave Smith, even from arguably the worst
seats in the house, we could see that he was out of the baseline. The
Astros, with presumably a much better view, argued about it as well. I
imagined how pissed the Astros must have been to have the leadoff man on
in the ninth when he had no business being there. Maybe Koosman might
have thought for a second about J.C. Martin’s out-of-the-baseline body
(bent at the wrist) deflecting a throw that won Game 4 of the 1969 World
Series. But I wasn’t thinking about that right then and Kooz probably
wasn’t either. Although he was always thinking about something and from
his spot he had a good view. I’m hoping he stayed because no one
associated with the Mets would want to miss the next five minutes.
Houston catcher Alan Ashby missed a pitch and it rolled to the backstop.
That worked as well as a bunt, which was something we didn’t expect from
the Earl-Weaver-Wait-for-the-Home-Run School of Baseball Law that Davey
Johnson adhered to. It was a good school.
After
Heep lined out, Lenny Dykstra stepped in. An old school guy, the type
they called a gamer, and other trite expressions that were nonetheless
true (before circumstantial evidence changed that word to “juicer” at
the end of the 1980s). You knew, sipping from the blue Harry M. Stevens
cup as he stepped in, that Nails was the kind of guy you wanted at the
plate. Duck, Pepe, and Mike Kaplan of Wayne, N.J. (email me if you ever
come across this, Mike, wherever you may be), mumbled to ourselves,
because we wouldn’t dare jinx him or state the obvious: “Just a little
bloop, a little gork, an error, anything; just tie this game.”
Dykstra swung and the noise level surged. Having done this all day, I
knew not try to find the ball. I looked at Kevin Bass in right field. He
went back to the wall, moved his gloved hand upward…and then his head
went down. This guy who was smaller than me had done it. The postseason
comes to Shea and we are it!
We
banged on the wire fence, high fived, jumped up and down, and did what
it is you’re supposed to do in moments like this. We didn’t have that
kind of training. We had crowded nights in summer, Curtain Calls, and
the Wave, but not Saturday afternoons in October, when baseball is on
every New Yorker’s mind. We were out of the box here. We were out of our
minds here. The Harry M. Stevens cup spilled all over my program. That
was OK, too.
After
the game, it was time to savor it. We went to the Sports
Page, once an ice cream/hot dog place our family went to every Saturday
as kids (Dad’s excellent idea of fixing lunch!), but now as I had grown
older it had become a bar/restaurant. I didn’t go there much, but it was
two or three miles from my house. The people there didn’t even ask where
we’d been. These strangers saw us enter and came over and slapped our
backs like we’d just crossed home plate. Even now, boarded up, weeds
growing out of the pavement, and given up for dead, it is still a
personal testament to that day. As if I could use bolt cutters to crack
open the lock and walk in and someone would hand me a beer and shake my
hand. My throat burning, unable to speak, and not wanting it any other
way.
That
is what it’s all about. That first taste. I did not know what October
really meant until that afternoon. I’d watched every World Series and
playoff series—we didn’t have to use the term postseason then because
there wasn’t any Division Series, otherwise we would have felt this in
’84 and ’85—but seeing other teams do it didn’t count at all. It wasn’t
in the same ballpark.
That
beer tasted so good over my hoarse, caked throat. I drank a lot of beer
that year, but I don’t think anything ever quite tasted like that one.
Like I’d earned it.
I
had.
September 25, 2008
You People Are
Great!
Thank you one and all for coming to
Metsilverman.com Picnic Area night. I really had no idea what to expect,
from the people to the players, but I think everyone had a fine time.
And now you’ve seen a game from the Picnic Area, which hasn’t always
been there. And it won’t be there much longer. I’ll upload a few photos
some nasty day when I’ve caught up with all the work and gotten over
whatever there is to get over.
For those of you who won’t be at Shea
again, I’m sincerely glad that I could help. And for some of you I
hadn’t seen in a long time, it was great catching up. Thanks to the gang
from Last Play at Shea, too. Regardless of what happens on the
field, I will miss the old place and all the good times I’ve had here.
It’s just an old building, really. The people have given it whatever
personality it has. Same with the new place. I can only hope.
Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to,
but you wanted to. And that’s why Mets fans will always be the best
people I know.
September 23, 2008
It’s Time, Boo Boo
The Picnic
Area Game is Wednesday, Sept. 24. You can start entering at 5:40
p.m. Food is served at 6 p.m. It will be served until 8:30 p.m. Snacks
and light beverages are available until the seventh inning stretch. Beer
and other concessions can also be purchased there. I originally planned
to have beer tickets for the event, but upon further review—plus a high
minimum that had to be purchased—everyone’s on their own for the beer.
(I’m reimbursing anyone who paid in advance for these when they arrive.)
I haven’t been to a game in the Picnic
Area in a while (they make you buy a lot of seats!), but from what they
tell me: You walk in and you’ll receive a bracelet—pink, I believe—that
will allow you to go to the buffet. You sit wherever seats are available
and have a great time. I’m hoping there’ll be a nice little group of us
sitting together and complaining—it’s what Mets fans do—and yes,
cheering. But please no spitting or booing. Think of the children!
One last note, I do have a handful of
extra tickets
for $70. Please email
me as soon as you can if you want them
because the extra tickets will be scattered to the four winds once I
reach Shea. I’ll also have a couple of my books if anyone is in need.
As an added bonus, the makers of the documentary
film Last Play at Shea have asked if
they could interview some of the group about their fondest Shea Stadium
memories. (Thanks to
Faith
and Fear for the referral.) So the Mets
will get some play in this film and you can perhaps have a part in it.
Think about something you want to say about the old place and maybe
you’ll get a chance to speak your piece on film. Keep it clean.
Have a great time! I’ve only been looking
forward to this since February. I’m not going to let anyone—least of all
the Mets—ruin it now.
Picnic Clock and
Movie Star
The Picnic
Area Game is now less than a week away. Tickets for the
Wednesday, September 24 game against the Cubs are nearly sold out. Since
some people have asked me for a specific count of how many are left. The
number is: 9.
Tickets are $70 each and include buffet
and soft drinks. Beer tickets are also available for $7.50 apiece.
Email if you want to
go. (There’ll be slightly more info next week about what to do when you
get to the Picnic Area.)
As an added bonus, the makers of the documentary
film
Last Play at Sheahave asked if
they could interview some of the group about their fondest Shea Stadium
memories. (Thanks to
Faith
and Fear for the referral.) So the Mets
will get some play in this film and you maybe can have a part in it.
Think about something you want to say about the old place and maybe
you’ll get a chance to speak your piece on film.
Let’s keep a stiff upper lip and do what’s
been done at Shea since 1964: Cheer for the boys. They need us now more
than ever.
September 22, 2008
Yankee Stadium:
The Shea Eye View
I
never made it to the Yankee Stadium of Ruth, DiMaggio, Ford, Berra, and
Stengel. Pity that, because I heard it was something to see. My great
grandmother was apparently quite fond of the watching Ruth and Gehrig
and went frequently. I only made it to the refurbished stadium. I
thought about taking my kids this year, if only for a tour, but my heart
wasn’t in it.
Though I haven’t been there this century, I went to my share of games at
the new Yankee Stadium because I grew up in the 1970s as the biggest
baseball fan on the block. I got a lot of invites because the dads knew
I wouldn’t ask for something to eat every five minutes or say I was
bored and wanted to leave an hour after the anthem. And I could fill
them in on who was good and who wasn’t or on rules interpretations.
Baseball geekdom has its privileges. Saw a lot of good games that way
and got in the door a few times with business contacts later. Note that
number one on this list is the only game that I’m sure I actually paid
to attend. To all who actually put the money into Steinbrenner’s pocket
for me, a belated thanks.
Since
I’ve been turning in some LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG tales about my favorite days
at Shea, it seems only fair I give a thumbnail sketch of the games I
remember best from Yankee Stadium as its doors close (a second time). Of
course, this is from a Sheasian point of view, so there’ll be no
genuflecting.
10.
April 30, 1993: Yankees 3, Mariners 0
Rob
Cooke got tickets from his company and we tooled down to the Bronx in
his convertible. The seats were right behind the Yankees dugout. This is
one of the very few times I’ve ever seen the Mariners in person—it’s
that other league thing—and I had the good fortune of glimpsing Wally
Backman’s brief Marinership. He played third base, struck out three
times, and would make his final career appearance two weeks later. I
also saw Mattingly and Griffey during the last full season before the
Yankees started making me angry again.
9.
May 22, 1983: Dodgers 5, Mets 0
Yes,
this is a Mets game at Shea Stadium—and a bad one—but it has a pre and
post Bronx twist. After a very long night in the waning days of high
school senior year, we drove into Manhattan on a Sunday to pick up
unused tickets for a Mets game (Tom Seaver was pitching). We weren’t
good with directions, so we asked a cab driver how to get to Shea
Stadium. He gave us perfect directions…to Yankee Stadium. A couple of
weeks later, we went to Yankee Stadium on purpose, thanks to Durkin, but
I really can’t recall what team it was against, only that the ushers
forced us to sit in the occupied parts of the upper deck rather than let
go out near the foul pole, like I wanted to.
8.
April 23, 1978: Brewers 3, Yankees 2
I
think Peter Rossi’s dad got us these ducats right over the Brewers
dugout just after Milwaukee went to the ubercool ball-in-glove logo.
(Yankee Stadium actually used to sell hats of all AL teams and was the
only place I knew to get the adjustable-mesh Blue Jays, M’s, and, of
course Brew Crew hats.) Paul Molitor was the rookie shortstop and George
Bamberger was showing what he could do as a manage if his heart was in
it. Gorman Thomas walked back to the dugout after a whiff and I called
out to him, “You’ll get ‘em next time, Gorman.” He looked up at me and
nodded, probably shocked that he wasn’t being cursed out. Though he
struck out the other two times he batted that Sunday, I was a huge
Stormin’ Gorman fan from that day forward.
7.
June 30, 1999: Tigers 8, Yankees 2
Total
Sports Field Trip. I didn’t like the concept, but a paid-for Wednesday
afternoon at the park beats sitting in front of a computer. Took the
subway with Mike Gershman and it was during that ride that we planned a
pilgrimage to Detroit—and Toronto—during the final weeks of Tiger
Stadium. Glad we did that. He died surprisingly of cancer a few months
later.
6.
October 27, 1999: Yankees 4, Braves 1
I was
very busy at the office when John Thorn said he had seats to the World
Series. I said I had too much work. He paused and said, “The World
Series. Go.” He handed me two tickets for Game 4 in the upper reaches of
the upper deck courtesy of Major League Baseball. Witnessed a sweep the
Braves just over a week after they’d broken my heart in the NLCS. This
was the last game I went to in the Bronx.
5.
May 7, 1995: Brewers 9, Yankees 1
The
Brewers, still an AL team, put a thumping on the Yankees in my first
game from the Yankees’ press box. I was gathering quotes for a radio
station and it was just after the strike, so they actually sat me in the
press box proper with the subsidized hot dogs and all. I’ll admit their
locker room is better than the one at Shea. A week later I went back and
saw Jeter’s first career multi-hit games. I had to slap myself to keep
from getting tractor beamed into his aura. I was shocked when they sent
him down in favor of Tony Fernandez, a fine player who dogged it like
Richie Hebner as a Met.
4.
September 17, 1978: Red Sox 7, Yankees 3
Eck
was brilliant and Yaz homered as the Red Sox ended the 1-9 funk that
frittered away their huge lead. Boston then went 12-2 and wound up
forcing that fabled one-game playoff. We had great seats over the dugout
and a bat slipped out of Chris Chambliss’s hands, flew past us, and
clocked an old lady. She seemed OK at first but was carried out a few
innings later.
3.
April 21, 1976: Yankees 10, White Sox 7
My
first time at Yankee Stadium was the fifth game after it re-opened, a
day game during spring vacation. The previous summer I’d seen Yankees
Old-Timers Day at Shea, so I’d seen black pinstripes before. What made
it memorable was the White Sox had Cleon Jones, who, like Wally Backman
17 years later, wouldn’t have much longer in the bigs. I at least got to
say a proper goodbye to Cleon after his abrupt departure from Queens in
’75, though he looked mighty silly in pajamas the White Sox wore. My
dad, who’d done business at a South Bronx property that had been torched
a couple of years earlier, took a look around the neighborhood and said,
“We’re not coming here again.”
2.
October 14, 1978: Yankees 4, Dodgers 3
The
World Series changes things, though. When someone dropped upper deck
seats for the 1978 Series in my dad’s lap, we headed to the Bronx for
Game 4. (Though if it had been a night game, I’m not so sure.) My first
World Series game is best remembered as the game when Reggie stuck out
his hip and let a throw deflect off it to spoil a double play, inciting
a huge argument and a game-tying rally. We were right over first base
and I still don’t know what the umpire was thinking on that call. A
sensitive older Yankees fan waited until my dad went to the bathroom and
then told me, a 13-year-old: “You keep rooting for the Dodgers, I’ll
pitch you over the side.” And I hated the Dodgers.
1.
June 16, 1997: Mets 6, Yankees 0
Though I’d seen Pink Floyd from the first row at Yankee Stadium three
years earlier, no Bronx experience compares to this one. I used the
automatic redial button on our otherwise useless company phones to get
through and get tickets for the first two rows in the loge—four and
four—for the first-ever game between the Yankees and Mets. We were stuck
in traffic forever, but got a laugh when a fellow down on his luck, but
not on his chutzpa, charged people that came in after us $10 to park in
an unattended lot. One of two soakings Yankees fans would get that
night. The series between the teams has been all downhill for me since
then, but we’ll always have Dave Mlicki.
September 19, 2008
Moon for the
Misbegotten
Top 10
Shea Moments
(For the last go round
at Shea Stadium, I’m going to count down my 10 favorite games at Shea
that I have witnessed, with a side list or two thrown in to stretch it
out. I chronicle the greatest moments at Shea in both Meet the Mets and 100 Things Mets Fans
Should Know & Do Before They Die, but this list is based on being
there in the flesh. And what it felt like at Shea on that date.)
Recap:#10. April 5, 1983 Tom Seaver Returns [Click
here]
Recap
#4. October 3, 1999: My Kingdom for a Tie [Click
here]
Recap #3.
October 9, 1999 Catcher of the Day[Click
here]
Recap #3A. Three Reasons Never to Leave Shea
Early [Click
here]
#2. October 17,
1999: The Grand-Slam Single
The so-called Mets-Braves rivalry (c.
1997-2002) was a one-way event. Just when they Mets were about to make a
move to the penthouse, the Braves strutted by and flipped them a coin
and told them to follow, like a bellboy waitingin the lobby. He thinks he’s something
special, but he’s always put in his place by one look from the big shot.
“Bellboy!
I’ve
got to get runnin’ now.
Bellboy!
Keep
my lip buttoned down.
Bellboy!
Turn
the bloody baggage out!
Bellboy!
Always running at someone’s bleedin’ heel,
You
know how I feel,
Always running at someone’s heel.”
But
in 1999, no matter how often the Braves put the Mets in their place (9
of 12 times, if you’re scoring), the Mets still somehow snagged the
extra postseason spot and beat Arizona in the Division Series while the
Braves knocked off the Astros and shuttered the Astrodome. Now the
bellboy and tycoon were in the elevator together en route to the top
floor.
And I
had tickets for all games at Shea. Then why was it so hard to
concentrate?
The
1999 Mets-Braves NLCS disturbingly morphed from the most important thing
in my life to a distracting interruption. I was standing in the new
Total Sports HQ in Kingston, New York, when a list of sweeping changes
was announced for our company. I was suddenly an associate publisher, a
position that had been discussed but I thought was far down the road.
Now I was in the road.
I
lived 100 miles south of Kingston and had been dragging my feet in the
transfer from home office to our publishing HQ (the parent corporate
office was located in North Carolina). I continued coming up to Kingston
two days a week: coming up in the morning, staying overnight at the
sumptuous
Kingston Holiday Inn, and then driving home the next day
after work. The rest of the time I worked from an office in my home in
Connecticut, a state where I’d lived for several years, gone to high
school, and where I met and married my wife—a Nutmeg native herself (as
was my daughter). We weren’t really anxious to move, but when someone
offers you a big boost in pay to create sports books, you know it’s
something you probably won’t get asked twice. From the moment the room
was informed of my promotion—at the same moment I realized it was
happening—that Nutmeg life was over. I needed to move up there and fast
and come into the office every day. I had a place to spend the next six
months that was 45 minutes north of Kingston, where I could sleep and
commute from; then I’d come to Connecticut on weekends and see the wife
and baby and dog. We’d do all the rigmarole involved in moving and
getting a new place, but we’d do that in the spring, after my massive
project was done.
My boss, John Thorn, came to me and we
talked about the my new benefits and responsibilities. Applying
captain’s bars to my trembling shoulders. To me it was like a
battlefield commission. Ready or not, it was my duty to take the next
objective. And that objective was sitting through a long meeting and say
that,yes,
Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia would meet all its
dates and the 1,300-page book would be in stores a few weeks before
Father’s Day. I was also introduced to publishing contracts and a few
other large undertakings. Two hours later, I struggled out into the
sunlight. Oh, and the Mets were down to the Braves by a game and a run.
And in came
John Rocker.
Yes,
this was fatheaded Johnny Rocker’s series in the sun. Where his left arm
actually moved as fast as his mouth in denigrating all thing diverse
and/or New York. This was Game 2. Eighth inning. Before he’d insulted
every fan of decency or the Mets. And the tying run was at second.
Johnny Olerud up. Johnny Olerud down. He walked Mike Piazza, putting the
go-ahead run on base for Robin Ventura. Robin Ventura! Mr. Mojo Risin’ (sing
it loud and proud), who’d taught us about staying cool in the
midst of a red-hot and then Reds-not-so-hot Wild Card chase, who’d
driven in 120 runs, more than any Met in history—except for the guy they
walked to get to him—and whose presence gave the Mets a power trio (and
with Alfonzo, the runner on second, it was a quartet). He’d show this
Rocker a thing or two. He went down on strikes, too.
Then
Bobby Cox was crazy enough to take Rocker out…and bring in John Smoltz.
Game over. Mets down two. I had another 90 minutes in the car to think
about all the changes in my life away from the Mets.
“OK,
here’s what I’m going to do when I get home…” I won’t bore you with the
details—because there were 2,000 of them (the number of player bios in
the book)—and it was the type of deal where something you thought would
take five minutes turned into five hours. I did not emerge from my
office—other than to sleep fitfully—until Friday afternoon, when it was
time to go to Game 3. I battled traffic with Smitty and Jimmy Jim and
got inside Shea in time to see the Braves scratch a chintz run in the
first inning without even getting a hit as the Mets made two errors. Tom
Glavine made it stand up and John Rocker rubbed their face in it. Al
Leiter pitched great and Armando Benitez retired all five he faced.
You’d want this game back 1,000 times in a few days. Or just a couple of
those outs Benitez or even Leiter made look so easy.
Three
games to none. It was over. But we still went to the Shea funeral on
Saturday night with my wife. We were sedate. My thoughts drifting to all
that I had to do on Sunday and should I really go to that Jets-Colts
game at 4 p.m. Game 4 of the NLCS was just close enough where you knew
the Braves would figure out a way to steal it. A 1-0 Mets lead just
wasn’t like a Glavine lead of the same score—though I’d still take Rick
Reed in a big game any day of the year over the Bastard of Billerica—and
that foreboding came to pass when Atlanta hit back-to-back homers off
Reeder in the eighth.
Smoltz—starting this time—allowed a single
to Roger Cedeno to open the bottom of the inning, but Rey Ordonez popped
up a bunt. They brought in Mike Remlinger to face Matt Franco, who was
pulled for Benny Agbayani. As action resumed, I stepped into action.
Cupping my hands to my mouth, I yelled asloudly as I
could—shocking Duck’s mom a little—“Steal! Steal!!” The guy had broken
Mookie’s club steals record. He was a good player in ’99. And he did
steal. Agbayani also struck out at the same time, but the tying run was
in scoring position. Melvin Mora walked and Remlinger walked off. In
came Rocker to face Johnny O. Again.
I
didn’t yell anything at them, but Cedeno and Mora took off. They were
now both in scoring position with Olerud up. This time he hit one
through the middle. Ozzie Guillen, not yet a loud-mouthed manager but an
aging shortstop, couldn’t knock it down. Both runs scored. It’s moments
like that, a decade after he so sadly left, that make me proud to say
the only Mets T-shirt I possess with a number on it is No. 5 with Olerud
on the back. If the Mets could’ve had Moises Alou in his prime to go
with Fonzie, Olie, Mike, and Robin, Atlanta would have been torched. But
I digress. Actually this whole thing is a digression to this point. What
about the frigging Grand-Slam Single?
Patience,
Grasshopper. The Grand-Slam Single is an eternal Mets mystery
whose power can only be revealed through a series of phrases. In
headlines. From newspapers. That never existed. But are like those in
the days when papers had many editions. With an extra now and then when
there was something big happening. Here are the many editions of Sunday,
October 17, 1999, from the retrospective Shea Stadium
Gazette.
AM Edition
Forget
Football; Mets All the Way
And I
did forget about the Jets game. I wound up walking into Shea with that
Jets ticket in my pocket. The Colts weren’t a draw back in
’99—regardless of second-year
Peyton Manning. The previous year, when the Colts wound up
3-13 in Peyton’s rookie season, I picked up a discarded Jets-Colts
ticket off the asphalt while waiting in line to enter the Meadowlands
and auctioned it to all comers starting at $5. $4. $3. $2. And finally
$1. When I went through the turnstiles, I released the ticket to the
wind (that’s not littering; that’s karma). The Colts would start an
11-game winning streak that Sunday in ’99, propelling them to a 13-3
season, and the Manning boy to stardom. La di da.
“Damn the Cholesterol,
Full Speed Ahead” Edition
Fried
Chicken, Lerno Picked Up
Young Tom showed up at my house and pried
me out of my office. The babysitter was already there so I could dither
on my computer about the careerbenefits of
Frenchy Bordagaray. We took my car. A brilliant choice if for
no other reason that there was—under a bunch of stuff in the back seat—a
dry sweatshirt. You never know what you’ll need after a Mets game. We
stopped and picked up Lerno, who’d gotten back a few hours earlier from
a concert the previous night in a state that did not neighbor his.
Really, though, what we wanted was some food and he lived near one of
Stamford’s top restaurants:
Pudgies. We got the large bucket. Good decision on the size.
“Oh Yeah, the Game”
edition
Johnny O.
You Kid!
The
man crush on Johnny Olerud grows and grows. He socked a home run off
Evil Maddux. Worthy of its own edition because it would be more than
five hours until the Mets scored again.
“Insult the Famous Met”
Edition
Duck Angers
Mex; No Rain in Forecast
Duck,
who had gone to function in Florida between the end of Game 3 and the
early innings of Game 5, had landed at LaGuardia at game time and cabbed
it to Shea. The rain commenced falling and among Duck’s possessions
lugged into Shea, a hat was not among them. So he improvised with a
cardboard Shea tray as protective headgear. (Good move not using the
Pudgies chicken bucket. Besides, we’d eat the bones and skin like a
rugby team stranded in the
Andes.) Two well-known New York sports figures used our row
to make a getaway from the inclement weather. One was John McEnroe, and
the other Keith Hernandez. As they passed us, drawing adoring stares on
either side of us, only Duck managed to say something that got anyone’s
attention. “Hey Keith, going out for a cigarette?” Duck, voted “Most
Obnoxious” in our high school yearbook—a distinction that could have
covered the whole New England Region, caught the 11-time Gold Glover
like a perfectly-executed “butcher
boy” play. Keith stopped, turned, looked Duck in the eye,
and told him crossly: “I haven’t had a cigarette in eight years!” And
Mex and Mac were gone. The game continued.
“Bobby V. Outsmarts Bobby
Cox” Edition
Dennis Cook
Used; No Fatalities, Strikes
In a
moment more stunning than when Bobby Valentine put on the fake mustache
and glasses and sat in the dugout following an ejection, the Mets
manager outsmarted Bobby Cox. Bobby V. knew/knows his stuff, but there
still wasn’t much you could slip by Bobby Cox. Here’s how it went. Watch
carefully. Turk Wendell replaced Orel Hershiser, who was miraculous in
avoiding runs in a 3.1-inning outing that was the longest by any of the
nine pitchers used (including starter Masato Yoshii). Wendell struck out
Chipper Jones—no easy feat—but he fell behind on Brian Jordan as pinch
runner Otis Nixon stole second. Bobby V. removed Wendell and brought in
Cook, who couldn’t have gotten an out in a Wiffle ball game despite a
0.00 NLCS ERA. The Mets then threw the last two balls to Jordan
intentionally, setting up a force with Ryan Klesko up. Except we all
knew that Klesko couldn’t hit lefties and Bobby Cox wouldn’t let him. So
Brian Hunter came up to bat and Cook had to pitch to him because the
rules state that a pitcher who enters the game must pitch to one batter.
But he did throw the intentional walk (though it was charged to
Wendell). So Cook left the game having not thrown a single pitch near
the plate on purpose (I could have done that, y’know). “Perfect” Pat
Mahomes (8-0 on the year) entered and walked Hunter to fill the bases,
but Andruw Jones flied out. The chess match in the seventh cost each
manager four players. And players would be hard to come by.
Extra Extra: “Eureka
Moment for Narrator” Edition
It’s Not
About You; It’s About Us
It
was the Dennis Cook move that flicked the switch. Through this chess
match, my mind still worked over work. How I had to be in Kingston the
next morning, of the meeting I wasn’t prepared for, of the contracts I’d
never worked on before, of all the…yes, of all the lame-o things that
I’d ever done, this had to be up there. I’d waited a dozen seasons to
see another postseason at Shea. Had been to two dozen games in ’99 and
spent two of the best weekends of my Shea-going life there since October
had begun, and I’d sat through four of the last five excruciating home
games in ’98 (the Mets lost all but one that I was at, though they did
win the day I went to Jersey instead for the Jets-Colts game where I
couldn’t give away the ticket). Yet here I was standing in the rain
thinking about the office.
This
must be the way Yankees fans think (a lot of them at least). “Yes, yes,
we’ll win, but I’m concerned about the traffic.” Or like the 49ers fan
who sat next to DBird at Candlestick and said to his girlfriend as the
Niners started an improbable comeback against Peyton’s Colts the
previous fall: “I don’t have time for a close game; I’ve got to be in
Marin for dinner at six.” I’d gotten a promotion and some extra
responsibility? Deal with it. Others have achieved far more and
forgotten about everything else while at the game. THAT’S WHY YOU GO,
DUMBASS! There’s plenty of time to think about and deal with that other
crap. The season’s hanging by a thread. You’re a Mets fan. Act like one!
My
interior monologue switched to baseball the adventure, not the job. The
monologue became: I’ll be damned if I’ll watch the Braves cavort on my
field, Rocker making more faces at the fans and slurping champagne.
No
more work tonight. No dinner in Marin. “Lerno, are one of those
last-call beers for me? We may be here for a while.” And I settled in to
watch the best extra-inning game I’ve ever attended.