This whole Shea Stadium Billy Joel thing
kind of brought a little reality to this last year of the ballpark.
Sitting one row and one section over in the mezzanine from where I
watched the Mets of Keith and Mookie, Messy Jesse and Kid Carter, Bobby
O. and HoJo, Doc, Darryl, Dykstra, and Darling, I came to the
realization that Shea Stadium is indeed closing. It wasn’t the
cool logo, the stories I’ve read, the things I’ve written, or
the book I’m working on, but a few hours of driving music.
Speaking of driving, I’ve got to say that driving down was no problem
despite all the warnings, though there was some traffic for a game at
New York’s other stadium. Found a spot on the street a few blocks from
Shea an hour before the show was supposed to start (because it is a
musical act, of course it began an hour late). It was harder finding a
score of the Mets-Reds game inside the park, but they did flash a 2-1
lead shortly before the show began. As it turned out, I’m glad they kept
us in the dark about the score. I’ll take the 10 straight wins and the
special lightboards on the field showing montages of Endy, Casey,
McDowell, and other Amazin’s.
I wish they’d hire Billy Joel to
choreograph who should pull down the “days remaining signs” on the wall
in center. Someone who can get
Paul McCartney
and
Roger Daltrey,
singers in the signature acts in Shea’s rock heyday, to come out for
that last night, and also throws in Steven Tyler, Garth Brooks, and Tony
Bennett (plus John Mayer, John Mellancamp (nee Cougar), and Don Henley
in the first “Last Play at Shea”), is probably not going to be content
with having a Tri-State Chrysler-Plymouth dealer unveil another number
in the dwindling life of the ballpark we grew up in.
Billy Joel ceding the final song to
Paul McCartney is like Billy Wagner stepping off the mound in
the ninth inning on September 28 and handing the ball to Tom Seaver,
with Keith Hernandez, Edgardo Alfonzo, Bud Harrelson, Howard Johnson,
Cleon Jones, Mookie Wilson, and Darryl Strawberry taking the field
behind him. And Jerry Grote, yes,
Jerry Grote,
squatting for that final pitch.
When
I saw a young woman cry when Paul McCartney took the stage, I sort of
felt like it had all come full circle. We may all get there yet.
And
Billy Joel’s advice for anyone who gives you a hard time about enjoying
his music also works as a response to anyone who wants to dismiss a
person’s passion for Shea: “Eat me.”
July 16, 2008
Swing and a Long Drive
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 #7. October 4, 2006: You’re Out. And You’re Out! [Click here]
#6.
July 1, 2000: Fireworks!
In 2000 it got harder to go to a Mets
game. For the general populace? No. Attendance increased for the sixth
straight year, notching 2.8 million for the first time since 1989. The
Mets were a joy to see, winning 55 times at Shea, as many as the ’86
team and just one win off the club record set in ’88. They’d even win a
pennant there in 2000, the third time the place saw it live and the
first where the field lived to tell the tale. All was right at Shea that
year. But like getting used to Todd Zeile replacing John Olerud, the way
we got to the same place would be different.
I’d taken a promotion and moved the family from
one hour east of Shea to two hours north. I quickly got used to many
things being different in my new home and liked the change a lot, but
the drive to the ballgame was—and remains—the toughest adjustment. There
is no feasible mass transit option, though it’s been tried a couple of
times. So it’s a four-hour roundtrip drive. Or watch it on TV. Missing
homestand after homestand was not something I was comfortable with. I’d
been to two dozen games in person in 1999, experiencing the most
exciting season of Northeast baseball viewing of my life. (I’d spent
large chunks of ’86 and ’88 in both Colorado and Virginia, though I’d
caught a fair bit of the agony and the ecstasy of those two Octobers.)
The ’99 season had more drama than I think I could personally handle,
and when we hit the new millennium—or
didn’t hit it—I couldn’t just stop going to ballgames. With my
new home, young family, and increased responsibilities, I could have
cashed out, gone to one or two games a year, and started finding other
interests like most real adults. Or at least content myself with
watching every game on TV.
By the start of April 2000, I’d already woken up
at dawn twice to see the Mets play in Japan. I’d taken the day off to go
the opener on this soil and seen
Baggy
Pants Bell ring in with a key home run. I’d left work early on
the season’s first Friday to see
the Mets beat the Dodgers and receive a Gil Hodges pin. Those were the
only games they won on that homestand—both by 2‑1 scores—and to get an
idea of how nice the weather was, the last game of that homestand was
snowed out.
I was back at Shea when the Mets won their ninth
straight game on April 29. That was Ken Griffey’s first game at Shea as
a Red after he’d poopooed the Mets’ overtures for a trade. It was also
Frequency night—that somewhat bizarre
Hollywood tribute to the Miracle Mets and ham radio—and the Mets wore
1969 replica wool uniforms with that special yellow-ish hue that
polyester just doesn’t have. Robin Ventura tore his pants sliding into
third base. Guess they don’t make them like they used to. The pants,
that is. If the Mets had had Ventura and his Mojo Risin’ in 1969—two
years before
Jim Morrision’s lyrics hit the airwaves, mind you, but join
hands with me over the ham radio and feel it now—the Mets wouldn’t have
traded either Nolan Ryan or Amos Otis. Now that’s worth digging out the
old equipment and trying to channel
Jesus and
Jerry Lee Lewis. Or at least two actors and an overreaching
script. But hey, how many movies do the Mets get a co-starring role in?
Arriving back from Frequency night
with some guys from work to the office at 1 A.M., I then drove another
45 minutes north to the place where I was staying until the new house
was ready. Long night even after a win. Then the Mets went 5‑12 and our
parent company got severely splattered by the “tech bubble” bursting,
making for a turbulent May. I kept my job in a company restructuring. I
paid close attention to the Mets to take my mind off the fear that I’d
just moved in order to be canned. Like the ballclub cliché, I took it
one day at a time.
The Mets kept things interesting. Even
when they lost, it was still almost the most thrilling finish I could
ever expect to see. In the ninth inning against the Marlins on May 13,
pitcher Mike Hampton, serving as a pinch hitter after Bobby V. ran
through his bench, whacked a ball two feet wide of the foul pole with
the tying run on base in a one-run game in the ninth. He struck out and
the Mets lost, and by the time I reached the car I heard that Ricky
Henderson, who’d incensed everyone by going into a home run trot on what
turned out to be a single the previous night, had been released.
I turned a work event in the city into a
night at Shea. I thought I had a long ride home? I found out that
because of a makeup of a rainout the previous night, the Orioles
actually travelled all the way to Baltimore to spend the night and came
back the next night. They must’ve been exhausted because they lost the
makeup game on a home run by Kurt Abbott.
I rode down with Jed to meet DBird and see
the Mets beat the Marlins to go 12 games over .500 and pull within two
games of the Braves. I missed the John Rocker hoopla, but I was resting
up for the journey the next night. The biggest test yet. Fireworks
Night.
I’d gone to Fireworks Night many times and
had rarely seen a good game. The Grucci Bros. Fireworks? Always top
notch, but as I drove down for the first leg of the trip, the most
exciting on-field Fireworks moment I could think of had occurred the
previous year when Matt Franco had become the second Mets position
player to pitch in a game. Rick Reed had also played outfield that final
inning in a 16‑0 dusting by these very same Braves. Traffic for that
game had been horrific and we got there more than an hour after the game
had started. We somehow got the car onto a patch of grass only a few
hundred yards from the stadium. That spot had probably been vacated by
someone who couldn’t handle sitting through a 10‑0 game in the fourth,
forget what the Grucci’s might be providing later in the way of
pyrotechnics.
In 2000, I decided to forego the parking problems
and add two extra legs onto the journey. Jimmy Jim and I would meet near
where I would stay that night in Stamford, we’d take the train to Grand
Central, and then the 7 to Shea. It worked ideally—if not slowly—yet we
still found ourselves on the wrong end of a blowout. We arrived inside
the stadium in time to hear a collective groan of a packed house as
Piazza’s error allowed the third of three runs to cross the plate on a
single. What else was new? The Mets had lost 19 of their last 25 to
Atlanta, including an NLCS defeat so excruciating it might have been
taken as a small measure of retribution for
Sherman’s March. The South was rising again at Shea.
Somehow Hampton went seven innings while
trailing 5‑0. The Mets finally scored in the bottom of the inning, but
Eric Cammack came in quasi-mopup role and got lit up. Jim suggested that
we go. The Promise of Grucci allowed me to seem morally superior as I
made a raspberry-like noise. I would not be appeased.
In the meantime, Johnny Ho, who’d driven from his
office in Stamford, had finally found a spot to park somewhere beyond
the World’s Fair. About the time Cammack was getting pummeled—after last
call, mind you—he showed us what he carried in his cargo shorts. Two
pint bottles of
Jack Daniels. I ran up to report this to an usher, but
finding none—it was after all, a nontipping opportunity—I bought several
Coca Colas instead. The mixture of black cola and brown liquor landed in
my souvenir cup and hence into my mouth. And seeing that John had to
drive us home, I did better than my fair share with this not so dark
liquid. In fact, the fireworks started going off early.
We three former roommates, now each married and
finding ourselves at these sort of events with great
inFrequency—feel
the ham radio: “Do you read me, Donn Clendenon?”—and we weren’t paying a
lick of attention when Don Wengert took the ball to start the bottom of
the eighth. We talked right through Derek Bell’s hit, and didn’t even
glance up at Fonzie’s flyout. Though it was entertaining to see Piazza
get credit for an infield hit and take second when Rafael Furcal made a
lousy throw. “Hotshot rookie, my ass!” Oh, yes, we were very much part
of the rabble.
Ventura’s groundout scored Bell to make it
8‑2 with two outs. The stories kept coming.
“Remember when we…” Todd Zeile singled in
Piazza. 8‑3.
“And then she said…” Jay Payton singled.
Kerry Ligtenberg replaced Wengert, providing time to have another little
sippee and a li’l bit more talky.
“And every party, you’d hide beers behind
every condiment in the fridge…” Benny Agbayani walked.
“You’d stash a full cooler in the back
yard…” Pinch hitter Mark Johnson walked. Zeile scored.
“The band wouldn’t play its first set
until like one o’clock…” Melvin Mora walked. Payton scored. Joe McEwing
came in to run for Johnson.
“The tying runs are on base.” Ligtenberg,
whose name in German translated on this night to “Dousing a campfire
with kerosene,” was replaced not by John Rocker but by Terry Mulholland,
a starting pitcher who’d thrown 8 1/3 innings in a win two days earlier.
Perhaps it was his throw day. As in throwing bundles of dry sticks into
the pyre.
“Ring my Bell! Ring my goddamn Bell!” Bell
walks. 8‑6. The high fives, half-hearted before, are now in earnest. One
of us gets a slap in the face by accident. We can’t even tell which one
of us got it.
“Yeah, Fonzie! Fonzieeeeeeee!” Alfonzo
singles to left. The game is tied. The voice is cracked now. Cracked but
good. Who cares?
Bobby Cox, as if in a trance or slurping
from the same cup that’s made my lips moist and my throat raw, leaves
Mulholland out there.
“Come on, come…yeah!!!!!!!!” Laser.
Mike Piazza. Gone in a split second down the line in
left. 10-run inning.
There are hugs, high fives up and down the
aisle to everyone and their Aunt Bessy. And the best part of all, it is
Fireworks Night. Any other game there would have been 15,000 people tops
who would’ve stayed. Now it’s like one giant blanket on the lawn with
even the boozy Total Baseball guy barely caring about the
official scorer’s decision to award Armando Benitez a win he’d probably
trade for a save; thus denying Cammack what would have been the only win
of his brief major league career.
Of the handful of the 52,831 who blew off the
fireworks to miss the traffic in an 8‑1 game, I can tell them that last
hour on the road is the hardest. Me? I got a ride and a bed and had too
much too dream last night. A Real Mets of Genius comeback. For
Mr. Leaving a Great Game to Beat the Traffic Guy, even if you
got home in time to watch it, everybody knows fireworks just aren’t the
same on TV. This you had to drink in.
Mr. Leaving a Great Game Early to Beat the Traffic Guy. Mike
Piazza: Flushing, New York.
July 11, 2008
Read and Done
Thanks to all who came down to Madison
Square Park Reads and for your attention in such a busy and beautiful
place. Attendance was great and would have been even greater if we’d
been closer to the Shake Shack, where there seems to be a perpetual line
exceeding the number of people at a Mets game in 1979. Still, looking up
from the book from my perch in front of the Farragut statue with a
perfect view of the Flatiron building on a perfect night is something
I’ll think about for a long time. And thanks to all at
Madison Square Reads
who set this up and keep it going. They have a great schedule and a
great time. (And if you don’t want to wait all night for a milkshake,
there is a very short “B-Line” that does not allow for shakes or hot
food, but I got a provocative and tasty float that I sipped while
listening to Scott Pitoniak’s reading about the
Old Ball Orchard in the South Bronx.)
Overdue in this space is a mention of the
Gary, Keith and Ron sitethat raises money
for charity. It is obviously named after the Mets announcing trio that
makes any game a treat. Their rain delay discussion about the state of
pitching during the Mets-Giants game was the most insightful and
interesting dialogue that I have heard on this city’s airwaves, which
seem more concerned about Madonna’s religious influence—no, this isn’t a
Renaissance paintingwe’re discussing—than they are about the
slow drain that the babying of pitchers is having on the game we follow
so intently.
Anyway, if you haven’t checked out
Gary, Keith and Ron’s site lately, they have some new
merchandise, which I bought on Wednesday and it arrived the next day.
All this while planning they planned the final stages of the group’s
first outing at Shea for the day game against San Francisco. And if you
contribute to this worthy cause, you could go to a future game and meet
the broadcasting triumvirate that is as good as this game has seen since
these three kings.
July 8, 2008
Madison Square
Park Gets Blue and Orange July 10
A few months ago I received one of the
most surprising unsolicited emails in my life. No, it was not for Viagra
or some other Balm of Gilead from cyberspace, but this was an extremely
legitimate request to do a reading at Madison Square Park as part of the
Madison Square Reads series. I immediately said yes, of course, and then
picked out several things from 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and
Do Before They Die and something from Mets by the Numbers to
read. As with everything in life and time, that far, far away event is
fast approaching: Thursday, July 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the park.
Don’t know about the park or haven’t been
in a long time? The park is a six-acre oasis of green encompassing a
square (not surprisingly) at Madison Avenue, 23rd Street, 26th Street,
and Fifth Avenue. Here’s some other historical stuff I learned on the
park’s informative web site.
--To begin on topic, Madison Square Park
is considered by some to be birthplace of baseball. Although Hoboken
gets a lot of street cred from those who insist the game has to have a
single specific “born-on date,” Alexander Cartwright formed his New York
Knickerbockers at Madison Square in 1845. About 115 years later, Casey
Stengel said he was overjoyed at being named the first manager of the
Knickerbockers. I’m pretty sure he meant the Mets, but it could be
awfully tricky to figure out the Old Perfessor’s meaning when he got to
talking.
--I know that the park is not where the
current Madison Square Garden is located, but the park was home to the
first two incarnations of the world’s most oft-rebuilt arena.
--Madison Square Park has been a public
space since 1686.
--The park was not named for
Oscar Madison, the fabled New York sportswriter, but rather
for the fourth President of the United States, James Madison. I guess
that makes sense, too.
--It was among one of the most elite New York
neighborhoods in the 19th century. The kind of place
O. Henry used as a setting for some of the swells in his
brilliant short stories that used a formula to nearly as successful an
end as
P.T. Barnum, history’s favorite huckster, who hosted his
little circus just north of the square in 1873.
--The Statue of Liberty kept the home
fires burning in the park. The big lady’s arm resided there for six
years to raise funds to get the rest of her aloft.
--The park was home to the first community
Christmas tree, in 1912.
--The park was restored a few years ago
and now features lush lawns and has many of the elements of its 19th
century design, plus a beautiful fountain and benches in the style of
the World’s Fair.
It should be a beautiful night to gaze at the
Flatiron Building and think about the way things used to be in the park,
the city, the game, and with the team Casey christened. Anyone who works
around there or would just like a fun, quick, and free activity in the
city—Borders is selling books, I must add—please come on down. Fellow
Triumph Books author
Scott Pitoniak will also talk about Memories of Yankee
Stadium,
but to paraphrase the words of the man whose statue we’ll be speaking in
front of—Civil
War hero Admiral David Farragut—“Damn the Yankees, full speed
ahead.” Bring the kiddies, bring the wife to Mets night at the park of
Madison, Cartwright, Barnum, and Farragut. Let’s knock this out of the
park.
(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]
An
hour into the opening game of the first postseason series at Shea
Stadium in six years, a boy about 10 stands near a sink in the crowded
bathroom, his dad beaming and close by. The kid is talking to everyone
in sight. “What about that double play by Lo Duca?” he shouts. “Have you
ever seen a play like that?” It’s his first postseason game and he can’t
wipe the smile off his face. You tell him to enjoy the feeling. That
when you were his age it was 11 years until you saw your first
postseason game. These moments are rare. You are a curmudgeon. This
place makes them.
You
leave the kid and his father but as you walk back into the masses, the
place is alive in the early evening. People shout. Strangers high five
like it’s 1999. The tumult and the shouting fill the place again. A
little more than a David Wright smash away is the replacement for Shea,
which has gone from state-of-the-art to seventh-oldest stadium in
baseball by this, October 4, 2006. Shea is maligned from the
know-it-alls who equate convenience with charm and quirky dimensions
with functional history.
A few
hours later, you will descend the ramp that filters everybody into the
Long Island night. The posters of hugging Mets, slugging Mets, draw your
eye with every shuffle of your feet. There have been a lot of wild times
at this place, a lot of good and a lot of bad. Hundreds you’ve seen and
thousands you haven’t. A few of them don’t even involve the Mets. But
there are some you don’t want to forget when the wrecking ball turns the
maligning of Shea into just memories. It’s not just your team’s home,
it’s your home, too. Houses are sold, babies born, jobs come and go, and
still you walk in and out of this giant slab of concrete. Maybe that’s
why there’s 56,979 people are all trying to get out at the same time. As
they make their slow, happy procession out of the 43-year-old venue, you
think about how long it has been in coming to this day.
The
last time you left the building after a postseason game you were alone
on the ramp, moving quickly yet obliviously, wife in tow, unsure of what
you might do next, hurrying into the Shea night. An eerie glow emitted
from the stadium, but you could not look back. Like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Looking back to see the stadium that the Yankees had now forever
colonized into their Army of the Living Dead, along with San Diego
Stadium, Dodger Stadium, Candlestick Park, Crosley Field, County
Stadium, Ebbets Field, Sportsman’s Park, Wrigley Field, and where it all
began, the Polo Grounds. All these great stadiums—well, maybe great
doesn’t apply in every case—were forever hijacked by the Yankees as a
celebration board. A place where their seed was spilled. If you’d owned
the team, you’d have asked the bishop, a priest,
those nuns who used to
hang out at Shea, to convene a blessing on the field before the
2001 season could commence. Bobby Valentine surely could’ve gotten
someone.
I was
in the car for the whole perverse coronation in 2000. Numb. And far from
comfortable. Only the radio tuned to WFAN and Bob Murphy could talk you
through it. If Murph can endure this, so can you, so can anybody. You
listen to Murph until he goes off the air. The office the next day is
like death.
Much
has happened in that time. Bobby V., who seemed like he could take the
most talentless Mets team and mold it into a contender, had a bad year
and lost out when Fred Wilpon backed the wrong man. Everyone associated
with the Mets lost out as it went from Valentine to Howe to Randolph.
Anything was better than Art Howe. You always had to have faith that
things would work out, but you weren’t wrong about Howe. No one was
wrong about him. Only the owner.
Again
the team was broken down and built back up. Free agents arrived in new
tax brackets and toting new slogans. David Wright and Jose Reyes came
into their own. Pedro truly lit up Shea when he wasn’t in the doctor’s
office. Trades brought Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca from Florida, you
questioned it then and you’d question it later, but 2006 belonged to
these two. Billy Wagner came to sew up what had been too, too many ugly
ninth innings. You winced at the Duaner Sanchez for Jae Seo deal and
also at Xavier Nady for Mike Cameron, and winced again at the Nady for
Roberto Hernandez deal after Sanchez’s taxi accident, scoffing at the
washed-up Oliver Perez tossed in by Pittsburgh. All proof that your
place is in the stands. He gets Shawn Green’s contract for nothing and
Guillermo Mota for less than nothing. Omar Minaya knows his stuff. His
trades are all one-way deals, you just never know which way they’ll end
up going. Though when he dumps the annoying Bensons for young John Maine
and inconsistent Jorge Julio and later foists Julio on the Diamondbacks
for Orlando Hernandez, it doesn’t take a genius to see which way those
deals are heading. In Omar we trust.
You
watch on television during the thrilling extra-inning wins, you watch as
Wright’s brilliantly-turned double play buries the Phillies for good. In
June. In June! You hold your breath at every infrequent two-game losing
streak, but there is nothing to fear. Even a three-game sweep to Nady’s
Pirates works out because you have tickets for that Monday night game.
At Shea.
You
meet people from your former job from hell at Shea. An extra person buys
a ticket at the game and you do the old stub switcheroo and the only
empty field level seat is right next to you and the fifth man sits right
down. Jose Valentin, off the scrap heap, looking like he should’ve been
cut in April, homers twice. Steve Trachsel, the only straggler from the
Bobby V. regime, wins the clincher. You leave the stadium moments before
Lo Duca and Wright come out and spray down the fans. It’s all right, you
say. It’s a long drive home and you’ll be back for Game 1 of the
Division Series.
You’ve been busy in the days leading up to the game, writing versions of
Mets past for a past-deadline book. You hear something about El Duque,
but you don’t know the extent until you’re in the car, cooler full,
hours before the friendly 4 p.m. start to the Division Series. Maine
will now start the opener against the Dodgers. Good thing you brought
beer.
If
they can just get through these two games in New York, maybe split in
L.A., and then you’ll have Game 5 and the full bullpen ready to go at
Shea. This place can’t be the same burial grounds for overreaching
dreams as 2000. It just can’t.
But
it’s a beautiful fall day. Paul’s waiting for you in the Marina Lot.
Boother’s calling in. Duck’s on his way from the city. You’ve all seen
enough games at Shea to know the fates are fickle and uncertain by the
Bay. And Maine shows promise. Throws a lot of pitches, but he has hard
stuff. And balls.
Earlier in the day you’ve signed a contract for Mets by the Numbers and you take to the stadium early and
make your way down the first row at Shea to take photos. Some will
actually make it into the book a year into the future. But it’s just fun
now seeing the bunting. The sun hits the tri-color sashes and suddenly
you feel like it must’ve for that first Championship Series in 1969. The
players work out on the field. Line up for the introductions. The
stadium fills. You’ve underestimated the crowd. Not the size, but the
intensity. Because it’s a late day start, you know there’ll be a lot of
kids. Good for them. Every postseason game should start at four
o’clock—EASTERN TIME—if you’re not home in time, listen on the radio,
follow on the computer, whatever, but let the kids see the game. They’ll
be watching long after you’re dead. You hope. Then you pray that won’t
be for a long time. Then you look at the bunting some more.
The
roar during the introductions is unbelievable. So what if El Duque’s
out? Pedro’s in a sling? Duaner is done? We’ve got playoff baseball.
People in wigs. Faces painted. Overpriced beers at the ready. Bathroom
lines cuing up. The entire place is standing for Maine’s first pitch.
And his first strike. And his first two-strike count. You’d think people
had been waiting six years or something.
Maine
gets the Dodgers out in order in the first and the place is roaring like
a DC-10 is passing overhead. The Mets put a couple on in the first but
can’t score off Derek Lowe. The Mets take the field for what seems like
an innocuous second inning. You don’t know that this will be the most
memorable second inning you’ll ever see. Certainly the most memorable in
which just a single run crosses the plate.
Maine
is not as sharp in inning two and it shows when Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew
single. The crowd is shifting in its seats. This is what we all feared
on our way to the park. Russ Martin, the latest in a line of homegrown
Dodgers catchers with superior hitting prowess, laces a drive to the
wall in right. Shawn Green takes it on a hop, gets it to Valentin, who
fires to Lo Duca at the plate. That much you can see. Except the crowd
immediately stands when the ball is hit and you’re ducking your head
around shapes and glimpsing the echoing green. You listen for the
reaction and you spy a runner getting tagged out at home. It’s always
exciting when a runner is gunned out at the plate. The stadium shakes
and you say, “Well, they only got the one run.” But you quickly survey
the bases—one runner, not two—and the outs on the scoreboard. The board
reads “two” under “outs.” A tape delayed secondary cheer, that you are
indeed leading among the blocked and the oblivious, ripples through the
stadium even as Maine prepares to pitch to ex-Met Marlon Anderson. While
still basking in this once-in-a-generation play, Marlon doubles in
Martin. Maine walks Wilson Betemit—you heard that when this Glenallen
Hill-looking dude gets into one he can launch it a long way—and then up
comes Lowe. Maine whiffs Lowe to get through an inning where the pitcher
was the only batter he actually retires. The 1‑0 deficit feels like a
10‑0 lead.
The
Mets will go ahead on Carlos Delgado’s four-hit postseason debut (that
guy is so clutch!) and they’ll maneuver through Willie Randolph’s many
pitching changes (his daily handling of the pen is, in a word, deft) and
they’ll even survive rocky outings from Guillermo Mota and Billy Wagner
(those guys are always reliable). Though you can’t see into the future,
it is fate that the Mets will win this game. No Mets team could turn in
a defensive gem like that one in the second inning and lose the game.
Never happen. At least not this year. You can see that, can’t you?
June 22, 2008
Matty’s
Tix Don’t Come Off
Among the 3.8 million Shea Stadium tickets
sold—or to be sold—this year, is a small parcel metsilverman.com has
reserved in the Picnic Area for the night of Wednesday, September 24,
2008 against the Cubs. It’ll be the last week of Shea—five days from
closing time—and it should be a lot of fun. Who knows? Maybe we’ll win
the lottery and Moises Alou will actually be standing in front of us in
left field.
If you’ve never sat in the Picnic Area, it’s a
great place to see a ballgame. The ticket comes with a buffet and the
food is actually, to quote Rob Reiner from The Odd Couple, “good,
hot, and plenty of it.” The Mets have reserved the remaining dates in
the Picnic Area that week for “friends
of the Scotts.” This is the your last
chance to go where the home runs go.
For the whole shpiel about how to get the tickets
you can go here.
I’ve pointed this out before, but the Aramark
people have put a
vigorish on this thing like nobody’s
business. Just having some fun with the situation, though the surcharge
does make them seem like “unconscionable ballbreakers.” You can see
Morrie below for a demonstration of how less reputable institutions
collect such fees. (If you don’t like bad language, wait for
Goodfellas to come on TBS or some other cable outlet and the scene
will be chopped to sugar.)
Point is, after July 1, I’ve got to make the fee
for the game $65 to break even. And after September 1, it’ll be $70.
Just giving fair warning to everybody, and I mean everybody. If you send
an email reserving
the tickets or go through Paypal before July 1, I’ll process the tickets
quickly for $60. And then I’ll get my shinebox.
June 17, 2008
Little Willie
Goes Home
I think I’m like a lot of Mets fans who,
tired of the constant West Coast start times for games, woke up to learn
that the Mets won and Willie Randolph had been fired. A few coaches also
hit the road, as is the Mets way (though rather than confuse anyone,
they decided to keep both Sandy Alomars). I believe the ax came at 3 in
the morning. Or, on Mets Standard Time, midnight. In Anaheim on Los
Angeles.
As far as firings go in franchise history, this is
pretty bad. Probably the worst. You know it’s pretty high on the list
when Daily News writer
Bill Madden, who’s been with the Yankees so long, says that
“in the history of New York baseball, there has not been a more
cowardly, indecent, undignified or ill-conceived firing of a manager.”
The Mets do have a precedent for bungled firings,
however. The first ownership regime horribly handled the Yogi Berra
terminus by first siding with him after a standoff with Cleon Jones, and
then firing Yogi at the first opportunity after Cleon was released. M.
Donald Grant reduced the franchise (both small and big “F”) to rubble,
but the regime he presided over went through just eight managers in 19
seasons (including interims). The current regime has gone through
managers at a similar pace: 12 in 29 seasons since 1980 (including Jerry
Manuel). I’m counting Joe Torre on both lists because while the Grant
regime hired him—flying Torre the washed-up player home for an interview
while manager Joe Frazier had the club on the road in May of 1977—Fred
Wilpon was president when the Mets fired Torre. And that firing was long
overdue, I’ll add. (Willie had 12 more wins in 151 fewer games than
Torre did with the Mets; it wasn’t only about horses, Torre’s genius
only came to light when he made his
Faustian
pact to end up in the Bronx.) The point is, when Torre was canned in
1981, they did it the right way. On the day another miserable season
ended. No airplane flights to California with an “aching
in my heart.”
If you’re going to fire a manager during
the season, look to the firing of Dallas Green. His old-school ways seem
to lose some of his young players in August 1996 and, frankly, a team
that hit as well as the ’96 club (the .270 average was the highest in
club history to that point) and pitched that badly (the 4.22 ERA was the
worst in 22 seasons) should probably axe the manager. Especially when
that manager was a pitcher in his playing days. And when they replaced
Green, they brought in a guy they believed in and let him bring his own
pitching coach.
But what of Willie? I came across this
program cover from Port St. Lucie last year that features some of the
plotters who would do him in. He never lost faith in them, despite all
signs to the contrary. They had a hiccup at the worst time in October
2006, and then the 2007 club had a prolonged and severe case of diarrhea
in September. While wearing a white suit.
Now we say goodbye to the Willie era.
Farewell the New Mets. Forever remembered for losing out in 2007 and not
for burying the competition in 2006. Nothing else seemed to matter even
though Randolph had the second-best percentage in club history (.544)
and was 10 wins ahead of Yogi for fourth-place on the list behind Davey
(595), Bobby (536), and Gil (339). All first-name guys.
Willie deserved to last the season. The
general manager needs to show he still has full autonomy. Because that’s
severely in question. The Wilpons may be looking for GM number seven
soon (the Payson regime went through five). Someone has broken this one.
And the players have won. Other than a few massive contracts and some
different privileged players, is this club all that much different than
2004? That would be the year before Willie was hired for any of you Shea
booers with short memories. Maybe you saw Art Howe when he was in with
Texas the other day. Gary Carter was unavailable for comment.
I’ll admit Willie lost me a few times this
year and I too pondered a change. But this change was handled even worse
than the May 1990 drawn-out canning of Davey; he of the .588 winning
percentage in New York. From the day Johnson was fired, it was sure as
shooting that the team was heading toward a cliff and wouldn’t be
content until it was rid of nearly everyone who’d helped get that second
helping of world championship for the franchise. Thirds, anyone?
June 9, 2008
Dad, You’re the
Best
I read the local national baseball writers and TV
guys every Sunday—the Times Book Review I’ll get to when I get to
it—and so after blinking in disbelief at the television screen after the
latest lost weekend, I got around to Neil Best’s Sunday column in
Newsday. He recommended
Mets by the Numbers for a Father’s Day gift. Not a quotable
quote from Neil, but a hearty endorsement nonetheless, along with some
other great Father’s Day stuff like the Mets DVD, some interesting
football books, and Jim Nantz’s book. (One of my first big interviews
back when, Nantz later saw my wedding announcement in the paper and
greeted my fiancé like a long-lost sister when we ran into him, and he
even recalled from the paper where she went to grad school; I didn’t
even know it was
WestConn. Nantz was a Jim McKay fanatic and he must be quite
down.)
Anyway, I recommend that any loyal reader
who’s of a mind to should read Neil Best. Not to blow smoke up anywhere
it shouldn’t be, but New York’s four major papers each have some of the
best sports TV columnists in the country. Those of you who consistently
complain about Best, Mushnick, and yes, Raissman (Sandomir at the
Times is beyond reproach), should spend time in some other “big
league” city and try reading that crapola.
A few days after Father’s Day, Greg Spira
and I will be doing a day-night doubleheader tour of Queens libraries.
On Thursday, June 19, the Whitestone branch is hosting Greg Spira and I
at 2 p.m. (151-10 14 Road, 718-767-8010) and then we go over to the
Richmond Hill branch at 6 p.m. (118-14 Hillside Avenue, 718-849-7150).
Though we’ll have books available for purchase, please bring your own
books, your library card, and your Aunt Maggie the Mets fan. I’m sure
the Mets will provide plenty to talk about because…oh, goody, there’ll
be on yet another western swing.
June 5, 2008
You Can’t Always
Get What You Want
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: #8. May 23, 1998:
Welcome Home, Mr. Piazza [Click here]
#8A. Losers
Bracket
By
the time I get all the way down to the end of the list of the best games
I’ve seen at Shea, you’ll note that they are all wins. (Not giving away
any state secrets.) While SNY shows only “Classics” that are victories,
I’d like to pay tribute to what all of us have witnessed numerous—yea,
even countless—times at Shea: The “L” word. (Hey, I’m not talking about
that show on
Showtime. Jeez.)
Like
all Mets fans, I’ve seen the Mets lose many a game at Shea. Some just
stick with you. The last five on this list are permanent stripes that no
one can ever take away. Though I wish someone could.
There
are actually 11 games on this list, meaning there’s a tie—that’s better
than a loss, right? And while it would seem that all of these game
should have come against the Yankees and Braves, each signature “L”
actually is against a different team. The Mets like to spread the love.
10. September 21, 1975
Phillies 4, Mets 2
This is where it all started. My second
Mets game and my first Mets loss. This one, though, is what I would
call, with all due apologies to South Pacific
Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy loss. My dad promised to take me to
Fan Appreciation Day so I could get a cool bag that I would use to
transport my fifth-grade gym clothes until disintegration occurred. My
dad wound up having to go on a business trip, but he arranged for
Charles Moses Walker, a surrogate grandfather, to take me to the last
home game of the year against the Phillies. He’d never been to a game
and I’d been to two (I’d witnessed a Mets win in August and Yankees
Old-Timers Day at Shea). It rained all morning but stopped an hour
before game time. We had a Pleasant Valley Sunday at sold-out Shea. I
still smile thinking about it. Jon Matlack pitched well but got no
support until Ron Hodges homered in the last inning for the second
straight day. Only this time it simply avoided a shutout.
10. June 4, 2006
Giants 7, Mets 6
Like
the above game, this was a Mets loss where we went home feeling all
right. This time I took my family. We were on our way to get in line for
the Mr. Met Dash when Lastings Milledge slapped hands with the fans
after his game-tying homer. We didn’t see the dramatic clout or the
rook’s first failure to know his place, but I could tell the ball was
gone by the cursing usher whose day just got longer. After the Mets lost
in 12 and the kids ran the bases on a delectably cool Sunday, we stopped
at a park in Corona where everyone played softball on turf, picnics were
the rule, the people spoke Spanish, and we communicated with smiles.
Such a great day and the Mets still had the largest lead in baseball,
yet all we heard on the radio on the way home was how “bush” the best
prospect in the organization was. We put on some music.
9. June 11, 1981
Reds 5, Mets 2
Nothing good about this loss. Tom Seaver beat Pat Zachry—as if I needed
a reminder about the worst trade in my Mets existence four long years
after the fact—and this was the last game anyone in New York saw for two
months. The first prolonged strike in sports history happened just at an
age when I needed all the diversion I could handle, even if the
Torre-ibble Mets were 17‑34. I got into so much trouble that summer
despite being constantly grounded for numerous transgressions. Enough
about my miserable teen angst, the Reds got screwed, too. They were a
half-game behind L.A. when the walls came down. Then they finished
behind the Astros in the B.S. “second half” standings. They saw as much
postseason as the Mets did despite winning the most games in the league.
Seaver was 7‑1 in each half and was jobbed of his fourth Cy Young by
fading Fernandomania. When I left Shea the night of June 11, I could not
imagine what Armageddon—or, to be less dramatic, summer without
baseball—looked like. On the plus side, Retrosheet says Dave Kingman
both homered and stole a base in the game!
8. September 23, 2001
Braves 5, Mets 4
We
were all contemplating more important things just then. My drive to the
game gave me my first view of the skyline laid bare. In this kind of
world, an Armando Benitez meltdown just as the Mets were poised to sweep
the first-place Braves shouldn’t matter. But two outs, one on, up by
three in the ninth, and the Mets still lose in 11. John Smoltz threw
three innings in relief and probably could’ve pitched through the night
if not for the Brian Jordan vs. the Mets home run rule. I hit a deer on
the way home. The car was OK, but my mind was not. I didn’t sleep a
wink.
7. October 2, 2005
Rockies 11, Mets 3
Let’s
wash out the harmful thoughts with the most lopsided loss on the list.
This is the game where the result mattered the least: Mike Piazza’s
final day as a Met. I already wrote a couple thousand words on his first
game in the uni; this sunny afternoon seven and a half seasons later
provided closure. The cheers he got, wave after wave after wave, remain
indescribable. When people wonder why any player would want to put up
with the demands of New York, this is the reason. Yet even then there
was still testimony about New York being a results town. Victor Zambrano
was booed off the hill even though the Mets had won 11 of their previous
13 to finish over .500 for the first time since 2001. Yet the cheering
was so draining that we left after Piazza was removed—Willie never gave
a good reason why he didn’t let him bat one last time in the eighth—and
we listened to the end in the parking lot. Lost in the Piazza moment: It
was also the last Mets action for Danny Graves and Shingo Takatsu. Now
there’s a cause for an ovation.
6. October 18, 1986
Red Sox 1, Mets 0
My
first World Series game at Shea and second in person. I’d sat in the
upper deck above first base with my dad for Game 4 of the 1978 World
Series: aka “The Reggie Hip Check.” (We had a perfect view of what
happened on that play; a drunk threatened to throw this NL-sympathizing,
13-year-old kid over the railing when my dad left for the bathroom. Stay
classy, Bronxy.) Anyway, my first Mets World Series game was thrilling
in the getting there: still feeling the effects of a pulsating NLCS,
travelling from school in Virginia to Shea, going to the Series with a
brother whose last Mets bandwagon ride was in 1969, and meeting my buddy
Paul after his own odyssey from the South (a first-person guest tale in
100 Things Mets Fans Should Know…). The game itself, though, was
the coldest I’ve ever experienced at Shea—and that takes a lot of poor
weather into account. Tim Teufel, who played the first inning in short
sleeves before switching to a turtleneck, made the error that allowed
the only run to score. It would all become just preamble for the legend.
5. September 28, 2007
Marlins 7, Mets 4
Um,
do I really have to go into the details about this game? Sure, it wasn’t
the final, Glavine-detonated debacle, but at least you could walk into
that game with a little hope. The stink of death wafting from Shea for
this one could be smelled several counties away hours before gametime. I
haven’t booed since I had a revelation while booing Brian McRae in 1998
(and really, wouldn’t you like to say the last Met you booed was
B-Mac?), but I did shout myself hoarse as the ’07 Mets fell out of first
for the first time in five months. Oliver Perez was as bad in this one
as he was good in another game yet to come on this list. I temporarily
lost my sanity during this Friday night from hell against Byung-Hyun Kim
and the friggin’ Marlins. I was working on three books set to come out
about what was now to be the greatest choke team of all time! Thanks to
the resiliency of Mets fans—and Johnny Lerno, who drove me back to where
I was staying after we were the last ones in the Marina Lot—we’ve all
moved on to the next chapter.
4. September 23, 1998
Expos 3, Mets 0
See
above. Your first experience with cataclysmic failure while hosting a
fifth-place team is always the hardest. This inexplicable loss to Carl
Pavano and last-place Montreal came just hours after Cubbie Brant
Brown’s botched flyball in Milwaukee seemingly handed the Mets the wild
card. When this one ended, there was no doubt we would not see Shea
again until the next spring. The Braves made that official soon enough.
Thanks to Jimmy Jim for the chauffer service on this one. You get the
idea: excruciating Mets loss late in the year, look for me in the
Marina. Late. Tanksfuraridehomedamnyoualltohell!
3. October 26, 2000
Yankees 4, Mets 2
Gil
Hodges removed Jerry Koosman with two down in the ninth in Game 2 in
1969. Davey Johnson knew when it was time to bring in El Sid for Ron
Darling in the deciding game in 1986. Bobby V. may be firmly lodged as
number three among all-time Mets managers, but Valentine had no business
leaving Al Leiter in Game 5 after 130 pitches. When Luis Sojo beats you,
it’s pretty clear you have nothing left. All we asked for was a win at
Shea and then let them tear out our hearts in the Bronx. Anything so we
didn’t have to see it in the flesh, with all those pariah Yankees fans
in every crevice of Shea. I have not been to a Mets‑Yankees game since
that night. And for those of you wondering how this loss isn’t number
one, consider that even defeat at the hands of the Yankees in the World
Series is still better than not getting to the Fall Classic at all.
2. October 9, 1988
Dodgers 5, Mets 4
Game
4 of the 1988 NLCS was going to be a coronation. I even snuck in the
flask that I’d gotten for being in my sister’s wedding a few months
earlier. The game was speeding along with the Mets up by two, though it
could’ve been more. Doc was firing away, but I wondered why Davey didn’t
bring in southpaw Randy Myers with lefty-swinging Mike Scioscia up. I
will always wonder why. I could take any “true Yankee” managing the
Mets, but I don’t think I could hack Scioscia calling the shots in
Flushing, despite his being one of the best managers in the game. Like
my pal P. in the upper deck that night, the Mets tumbled off their high
perch in extras. I did not bring a flask to the nooner game the next day
against the Dodgers. The party was over.
1. October 19, 2006
Cardinals 3, Mets 1
It
was extremely close trying to pick between the Scioscia and Molina
games, but having lived through the Dodgers disaster 18 years earlier,
Game 7 against the Cardinals pushes past it in the pain department.
Especially after I saw how lousy Detroit was in that World Series (not
that the ’88 A’s lived up to their press clippings). And at least the
Dodgers had an otherworldly Orel Hershiser watching the back of that
Punch-and-Judy bunch. The must-win game against St. Louis had…Jeff
Suppan. The worst part was that after Endy’s catch—the greatest catch,
bar none, that I’ve ever seen at Shea or any other place in the flesh—I
actually believed the Mets would win. My Shea shield of titanium
pessimism was down long enough for Jose Molina to pop one over the top.
Shea was so silent after the called strike three to Carlos Beltran, I
could hear the Cardinals shouting on the field. No other noise. And that
may just be my final Shea October memory.
Hey,
you knew going in that this entry wouldn’t have a happy ending. The beat
will be up for number 7 later this month.
May 28, 2008
Overnight
Jon Springer and I were on the Joey Reynolds Show
last night on WOR Radio. An interesting 20 minutes on the air. Joey,
among the last of the overnight hosts who brings guests into the studio,
has quite an eclectic show. Mets by the Numbers was sandwiched
between musical group
Nu Millenium A Cappella Soul and
Ippy and the Project . Ippy was going on as we were leaving,
around 2 a.m., but Nu Millenium gave us a green room serenade of “Take
Me Out to the Ballgame” that was worthy of Jack Northworth and Albert
von Tilzer’s songwriting of a century ago. They then sang on the stoop
at the Trinity building with Ippy’s gang.
While George is a big Mets fan, Joey
doesn’t much care about sports. To be fair, we weren’t that aware of his
show before we
were booked. I think we all walked away better for the experience,
though it’s been a while for me between weeknights that ended at 5 a.m.
It was quite cool being in a studio with roots that go back to advent of
radio and the granddaddy broadcaster Red Barber.
A better gig for our sleep habits will be Friday,
May 30, at the
Holiday Inn LaGuardia . The event, a few minutes’ walk from
Shea, starts at 5:30 p.m. Have a drink, get a book, and prepare thyself
for the invasion of the Torres—I mean Dodgers; a Freudian slip I made
last night while at the game. My buddy Paul and I wound up with tickets
for the nether reaches of Shea for $7.50 a pop from a couple of guys
willing to wait to see if we were hung out to dry at Will Call for a
bleacher promotion from mets.com (note to Mets, in this day and age,
maybe have more than one “internet sales” booth open when there’s a
dozen people in line; we would’ve missed two more innings if we’d waited
in that line). We then just availed ourselves to very nice seats in the
Loge, following the plan put forth in number 88 in
100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die.)
Relatively affordable Shea tickets and a Mets win. How many more nights
will there be like this? At Shea? In our eternity? I will let a much
deeper thinker, the late Paul Bowles (from his landmark book The
Sheltering Sky), handle the counting.
“Yet everything happens only a certain
number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times
will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon
that is so deeply part of your being that you, that you can't even
conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more,
perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon
rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”
May 22, 2008
Wantonly
Omitting
Restraint
And to think,
the latest burning in Atlanta all began with a match struck by little Tommy Glavine.
And then his old mates gathered around and blew and blew on it while
everyone watched. Me included.
I was
putting dishes away when I heard the recap of how Tom Glavine got
out of trouble with two hard-hit shots in the opening inning of the
opening game of the day-night doubleheader in Atlanta. I was
contemplating why in God’s name they had to make this a
split-admission twinbill on a Tuesday afternoon in May with 7,000
people in the house, when suddenly I was overcome.
“Way
to pitch out of first-inning trouble, Glavine, you…” Crash!
The
blue plastic dish—used to spoon feed our kids since midway through
the Bobby V. era—exploded on the countertop with probably more force
than Glavine has exerted on his throwing arm since about 1999.
Little pieces of blue plastic were scattered about. The bowl had had
a good run. Luckily, I was alone.
I
have a temper—obviously—but I’m not generally given to such
outbursts. I had admittedly contemplated smashing something as the
inevitable occurred to the Mets last fall, but when one gives great
thought to such matters, planned destruction seems pretty foolish.
What am I, Talia Shire in The Godfather? But this, I hate to
admit, felt therapeutic. At the same moment I realized the bowl was
toast, as if on cue, a Met swung and missed. Glavine retired the
last 17 as if the Mets had never once contemplated how Glavine
retired batters who weren’t Marlins with his Wiffle ball delivery
and speed.
But don’t tell my wife about the bowl and
whatever you do, don’t call
Sonny Corleone.
You can wake the kids and phone the neighbors
for our next appearance. You’ll have to. It’s at about 1 a.m. on
Tuesday night/Wednesday morning (May 27/28) on the Joey Reynolds
Show on WOR radio.
For those of you who didn’t grow up in a four-transistor radio
household where the women always had them all tuned in perfectly on
the left side of the dial, only to have your disturbingly
Mets-obsessed narrator spin it down to the bottom of the dial at
WMCA to hear the latest loss to the Phillies or the Pirates or the
Braves…WOR was, is, and always should be at 710 on your AM
frequency. You may be able to download Jon Springer and me with Joey
if you miss it while doing something selfish…like sleeping.
I’ll
try not to throw anything.
May 20, 2008
Welcome Home, Mr. Piazza
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. I chronicle the greatest
moments at Shea in both Meet the Mets and 100 Things Mets
Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, but though these games all
have some historical significance in Mets history, 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]
Almost
exactly a decade after he debuted as a Met, Mike Piazza officially
retired as a player. How he began his life as a Met is a day I will
never forget. For a lot of different reasons.
Nineteen
ninety eight had begun in a haze. My mother died at Christmas and my
first child was born a little over a month later. If you asked me
anything else that happened during the four-month span that bridged 1997
and 1998, old life and new, I could have easily and truthfully answered,
“I don’t know.” Baseball, or maybe it was time, finally started to peel
away the covering from interrupted sleep and troubled thoughts. Starting
the baseball season with summer-like conditions helped the mind begin to
work again. The 14-inning Opening Day win over the Phillies ran the
gamut of emotions just as the temperature had gone from 87 to 57 over
the course of the afternoon.
Despite
that thrilling start, no one really seemed to care about the Mets. After
a night game in which short-time Mets Rich Becker and Jim Tatum provided
late-inning home runs to beat the Astros, Bob Murphy wrapped up the
happy recap with a melancholy tone: “The game was exciting, but the
crowd was small, just 12,772.” When Bob Murphy speaks like that, you
almost feel ashamed. “But I was there last night, Bob,” I told the
radio. A Wiz commercial was the only response.
The
Mets continued to play well and draw almost no one. After sweeping a
doubleheader from Cincinnati on May 19, Debbie and I went to the game
the following night, a Wednesday—a rare night out for the new
parents—and Shea had all the buzz of a movie theater playing Deep
Impact.
Honestly, the world wasn’t going to be hit by a comet—as reported by Tea
Leoni to President Morgan Freeman with Leelee Sobieski thrown in to lure
in the teens to see the world get drilled—but there were days when it
felt like it might.
And all
the while that we watched a loss to Harnisch the Red thanks to Hudek the
Lousy in front of another 12,000 crowd that was barely half that size in
actual body count, there was a comet indeed hurtling toward Shea.
As
I read the well-documented,
jaw-dropping account in Sports
Illustratedof Mike Piazza’s departure from L.A. that previous week, Steve
Phillips—yes, that Steve Phillips—was putting together what would be his
signature deal and one of the franchise’s greatest trades (a book called
Mets Essential by some hack ranked it as second only to the Keith Hernandez heist of
1983).
The
Friday afternoon of Memorial Day found me finishing work early so I
could avoid the holiday weekend traffic for the Mets-Brewers game at
Shea and hook up with some friends. I got a call on the work line at the
home office in Connecticut that afternoon. There was no caller-ID—at
least not on the expensive but useless office phones I’d been equipped
with—and
I could only hope it wasn’t someone thrusting a four-hour project on me
while I had already checked out of the office mentally on a holiday
weekend. This was not a call from clueless corporate HQ in Raleigh, it
was
Mike Gershman,
a huge fan of the New York game and PR, calling from his home office in
the next town.
“Did you
hear,” he said excitedly. Mike often got excited, but this was a happy
excited.
“Hear
what?”
“The Mets
got Piazza!”
I
dropped the phone, forgetting he was my boss and dashed a few steps to
turn on Debbie’s mid-1970s “hi fi” that acted as the office sound
system. It was tuned to WFAN. I hustled back while Mike was still
talking and I began soaking in the details. Mike Francessa, for all his
lack of charm to Mets fans, had been pounding the drums all week on the
radio for the Mets to get Piazza. Steve Phillips had originally said the
Mets would wait for Todd Hundley to return from yet another extended
stay on the DL. Nelson Doubleday, who often went months without being
heard from publicly, had made it known that
Stevie’s stance was B.S.
No more Tim Spehr, Rick Wilkins, or even Alberto Castillo (the hero of
the Opening Day marathon), and no more waiting for Hundley. The future
was now. Actually tomorrow.
“Mike,
you still on?”
“Yes!”
“You
wouldn’t still have those tickets I arranged for you for tomorrow, would
you?”
You can’t
have everything. He had plans for the Piazza debut and I was still quite
content to be at Shea for what was now New Year’s Eve Eve. It was, after
all, the first Mets-Brewers game at Shea. (The Brewers, who had been an
American League team and played at Shea against the Yankees in the
1970s, suddenly transformed in an NL team because MLB let new guy Jerry
Colangelo talk his Diamondbacks into the senior circuit. So Bud Selig’s
Brewers made the first-ever move from AL to NL and suddenly started
selling out games against the Cubs. Well, that worked out nicely, huh?)
The first
Mets game against the Brewers at Shea was so significant it sold the
usual 12,000 seats, but the number of walk-ups added about 10,000 to
that total. Dennis Cook had one of the most remarkable two-thirds of an
inning in Mets history. He allowed a hit and walk and then picked off
both runners during Jeff Cirillo’s at-bat. Then he walked Cirillo and
allowed another hit before he was finally taken out and replaced
with…Tug McGraw?
In one of
the great moments in Mets numbers history, Franco came in and the
reliever, number 31 for lo these many years, had moved it on over to 45
as a tribute to both Piazza and McGraw. When he got the last out he
slapped his glove on his leg just as Tug had done on the same earth in
the days before the Brewers had even been to Shea as an AL team.
Our
extended gang celebrated long into the morning and I stayed over at a
friend’s house, as planned, and headed back home in the morning,
newspapers in hand to read every word about the stunning deal. Our new
family of three was going to spend the day together, also as planned,
but what we originally had scheduled fell through. Mike called and said
someone else’s plans had changed as well and he suddenly had three
tickets available to the game. But we couldn’t go; not with a
three-month old, I insisted on the phone. Deb chimed in behind me. “Why
not?”
She was
an awfully big baby and could sleep through anything and she’d just
passed the 100-day mark on this planet (comet free for 65 million
years—maybe longer). We were off to Shea and didn’t even need to hurry
because of the four o’clock start.
There were 10,000 more than the night before, but this time the
announced crowd (32,908) actually seemed too low a number. Everyone with
extra tickets likewise quickly filled out their twosomes or foursomes or
sixsomes. It was tough lugging the baby seat through the crowd on the
way to Gate B, but once they opened the side gate for us and we were
finally in, a young man handed me a piece of clothing. While on the
escalator I unfolded this odd package and realized what it was. Kids
Shorts. I’d stopped acknowledging the youth giveaways when I could no
longer pass for same. Now here I was on the other side. It was almost
like Julio from Easy Money whispering in my ear,
“Can I call you
Dad?”.
I glared at someone who bumped the baby seat as I got off the escalator.
Mike
Piazza’s day was far more hectic. He was whisked by escort from
LaGuardia to Shea to meet his new teammates. The catcher and Al Leiter
quickly devised a plan for a four-hit shutout. Piazza was cheered wildly
as his name was announced in the starting lineup and the third spot on
the scoreboard read “31 C.” People cheered when he came out to catch in
the first inning, crouching down in the same spot where he would receive
the loudest ovation this side of Tom Seaver when he got out of that
crouch in a Mets uniform seven-plus seasons later. I bought a scorecard
and for the first time in years scored a game without a professional
reason to. Fans held up pizza boxes and a slew of homemade signs that
read, “Piazza Delivery.” Even Karl Ehrhardt, the Sign Man, would have
had trouble coming up with something tremendously clever on such a tight
deadline. There was one memorable banner, though: “If you buy them…we
will come.” Steve Phillips was taking notes, too.
Piazza
grounded out his first time up as a Met shortly after Brian McRae had
stolen second, which prevented him from debuting with a double play
grounder. (something he would do 132 times, more often than any Met
other than Ed Kranepool.) After being called out on strikes by Jeff
Juden his second time up, he batted with two outs in the fifth, Matt
Franco on first, and the Mets leading, 1-0. Piazza launched a drive to
center that enabled the plodding Franco to score from first, with Piazza
taking third on the throw. A generous official scorer might have awarded
him that rare triple, but did it matter? No. Shea was on its feet and
Piazza soaked it in at third base. That wasn’t just “thanks for knocking
in the run, dude”; that was New York’s version of the St. Louis welcome.
Only earned. More than a few yahoos would boo Piazza despite a
spectacular summer, but when it came time to sign for the big money that
fall, he remembered the ovations and figured the people who booed were
just a few jerks who’d go away. The man seemed right about everything.
My
daughter slept through it all. Debbie was thrilled with both Piazza’s
and her little girl’s debut. Mike—an old Dodger fan from
Flatbush—beamed. It was a perfect day.
Al Leiter
finished the 3-0 shutout—of the now rare complete-game variety—and he
allowed so few Brewers to reach base that no one tried to steal and
point out the new catcher’s greatest shortcoming. It was a weird year.
Todd Hundley played left field when he did come back and looked worse
there than Piazza would at first base in the distant future. There was
the home run race that saved baseball, though it later turned out these
heroes actually stained the game. There was the bizarre booing at Shea
and a race among the mediocre for the postseason. Cub Brant Brown
dropped a flyball in Milwaukee that seemed to hand the wild card to the
Mets and the Mets responded by not winning another game.
Yet while
the Mets did not earn the right to be swept in the Division Series by a
superior foe (that honor went to the Cubs), they did get Piazza at Shea
through 2005. He was the face of the team in good times and bad. His
last game at Shea was another stellar moment, but that was goodbye. Life
has too many goodbyes. We’d say goodbye to Mike Gershman a year and a
half after we welcomed the other Mike to Shea. I learned to try to focus
on new starts. And say goodbye when it’s time.
May 16, 2008
From Dos Carlos to D’oh,
Carlos!
Is there
anything Aaron “You Know His Middle Name” Boone can’t do to make me
unhappy? We all remember that homer during his otherwise miserable
Yankees tenure in 2003 and then there was the Mets-Nats finale Thursday,
where in the space of an hour he broke up the 7,359th unsuccessful Mets
attempt at a no-hitter and then snagged Carlos Delgado’s liner and
doubled off the Mets’ best baserunner like he was someone on my
four-year-old T-Ball team who didn’t know all the rules just yet. I had
a great view, actually. I had to get from there to Toms River, New
Jersey for a talk and sign at the Ocean County Library and didn’t want
to get caught in traffic or miss the spine-tingling conclusion. The Mets
were helpful on both counts. The game was over in just 142 excruciating
minutes and the they made sure there’d be plenty to talk about.
In order
to get closer to the egress, I bid farewell to Mets blogging All-Stars
Greg
Prince and
Dana Brand,
plus Meet the Mets co-editor Greg Spira, in the stunning
seconds after the Willie Harris catch that I still think would’ve been
an inside-the-park, run-off homer had he missed it. But Willie Harris
doesn’t miss anything. Not against the Mets. None of the Nationals do.
I snagged
a seat right behind home plate a moment after Carlos Beltran stole
second and continued to third on the errant throw, and had a perfect
vantage point for Carlos Delgado’s liner and Beltran’s Blunder (sorry,
Carlos, Fred Merkle cornered the G-rated use of the word
“boner” a century ago). Shea Stadium became one of those
scenes from
Bewitched, where everyone is frozen in place by a spell
while Elizabeth Montgomery moves about freely and wiggles her nose in a
let’s-not-burn-the-pretty-witch sort of way. I weaved through people as
dumbstruck as Beltran at the sudden turn of events and in minutes I was
at my car and soon I was crossing every bridge known to man on my way
down south in Jersey. From what I heard later—sorry, after an ending
like that, only
Pete Townsend’s Scoop on the CD player can get
my mind right, boss—Billy Wagner managed to aggravate people at home by
wearing a Patriots hat and his teammates by asking why none of them had
anything to say. Everyone was struck dumb, apparently.
All I can
say is, at least it was quick. And thanks to all those people at the
Ocean
County Library—and to Scott Rodas for coordinating it—who made
it a night to remember after a game to forget.
May 13, 2008
One Numbered
Up Bluenatic
For those
of you who missed the Mets Weekly gig with Jon Springer and I
discussing Bill Shea and the retired Mets numbers this past weekend,
here’s what it looked like.
Don’t worry, I’m getting help for that facial tic. Actually, I thought
the camera was on Jon, but it got me working that jaw like it was the
dawn after a five-kegger in 1987. Thanks again to Max Seigal and Mets
Weekly. While tooling around on the SNY.tv site, I came across
this piece by
Meet the Metscontributor Ted
Berg that gives some insights and options on how the Mets might be
better served by dumping Jorge Sosa and his 7.06 ERA. As if to
illustrate how random the
wins statistic can be for pitchers, Sosa was
the team leader in wins with four until Johan Santana and John Maine
caught him.
The logic was so sound,
theMets went ahead and did it. Although the feel good story
of Nelson Figueroa sort of came to a sudden halt.
Just added to the world tour is an appearance
on
Bluenatic radio. It’s a good place to go for all Mets fans,
but for those whose blue and red hue goes with your blue and orange,
it’s an ideal destination on your procrastination rotation. The
radio show will be on Sunday, May 18, at 11 a.m. on 91.9 FM in
Manhattan and available any time after that with iTunes on
http://amber.streamguys.com:4920/listen.pls.
This
and everything else on the Metsie tour can be found in more detail
in the Events portion at this site. You’re here already, you
might as well look.
May 9, 2008
We Want the
Airwaves
After
a few weeks without a lot of promotional activity, we’re preparing
for another onslaught. Even non electronic media are included.
Listen to the Ramones and the namesake song of this post while
reading.
METS
WEEKLY: Saturday (5/10) at noon, Sunday and Monday (5/11-5/12) 1:30
p.m.
Why: When the Mets add Bill Shea to the wall in left, Jon
Springer and I explain what the others numbers mean, who’s up there,
and other minutiae. Jon is slated to be on Mets Weekly next
week as well. Thanks to Max Seigal and SNY for contacting us. As
Bing Crosby told Danny Kaye in White Christmas: “It’s one
great big plug for the show.” Ba-ba-bum.
May
14, Wednesday, 4:40 p.m.: Ocean and Monmouth Counties, NJ, 1310AM
and 1160 WOBM-AM
For those of you in New Jersey, I’ll be in the
Locker Room. That’s code for Fox Sports Radio 1310AM and 1160
WOBM-AM for Locker Room with Kevin Williams, which is
available via the Internet atwww.shoresportsnetwork.com.
May
15, Thursday, 7 p.m. Ocean County Library, Toms River, NJ
The
radio gig will be followed the next day by an appearance at the
Ocean County Library, 101 Washington Street, Toms River, NJ 08753.
Phone: (732) 349-6200, (609)971-0514
May
18, Sunday 7 a.m., WTNH-TV (Channel 8) New Haven, CT
Bright Lights, Elm City. It will be an early day to get to New Haven
in time for the show, but when someone wants to book Mets by the
Numbers on TV, you set that alarm clock and smile the whole way
there.
Book
signing plus pregame schmoozing. Come have a drink, a bite, say
hello, perhaps purchase a book, talk Mets, then make your way to
Shea. They tell me it’s less than a 10-minute walk: 37-10 114th
Street Corona, Queens, NY 11368, (718) 651-2100
May 5, 2008
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. I chronicle the
greatest moments at Shea in both Meet the Mets and 100
Things Mets Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, but though
these games all have some historical significance in Mets history,
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]
#9. October 3,
2004 Les Morts
“…by
this consideration of another’s danger I take mine own into
contemplation…”
Baseball helps us mark the time when things are good and pass the
time when things are not. This little universe is a constant of
teams and cities and people dating back many years. When that order
is upset, it is like seeing an old, trusted, and often busted
neighbor lose his home of longstanding. A hole in memory.
I
still recall my awe and wonder when I first turned on WOR and
realized the Mets were playing baseball in Canada. (Wow! This game
is everywhere!) I still visualize our slow drive past Parc Jarry on
a family trip to Montreal in April 1976 (retrosheet.org
disabused me of my long-held belief that the Mets had been there and
we hadn’t gone just because the temperature was 2 degrees…Celsius,
of course). Or the pang of remorse when Rick Monday homered off
Steve Rogers in the ninth to win the 1981 pennant for the Dodgers;
it would be the last postseason game in Montreal. My pilgrimage to
Stade Olympic in 1991 avec retractable roof, finally functioning
some 15 years after I’d first seen it under construction (it
wouldn’t last). The signed Expos ball my friend Duck got me after
our Flushing Bay dip in ’93; the memorabilia dealer he got it from
clearly couldn’t tell the difference between a Marlin and an Expo.
That
begs the question: What is an Expo anyway? It is Canada’s 1967
version of the World’s Fair (unlike the unsanctioned Queens
adaptation held two years earlier). Montreal was still so thrilled
about the event that when the major leagues awarded them a team for
the ’69 season, they went with the hot name…as a hockey team would
stick with the hot goaltender in the playoffs. Like the World’s
Fair, baseball in the hockey belt started out with a lot of hope and
promise and ended up maligned and forgotten.
From
the day the 1994 strike wiped away Montreal’s best record in the
majors, baseball was on its way out in Quebec. There are many
complex reasons why the game was doomed there, but Montreal baseball
always seemed so different, so French…and it had been that way for
me from the first time I saw bespectacled Tim Foli artfully turning
a double play wearing that tri-colored chapeau at Parc Jarry.
I
like the underdog. That’s probably why I’ve always remained so loyal
to the Mets despite countless signs that I should cut and run. The
Montreal Expos are the ultimate underdog franchise. Or, how do they
say in English, were.
The Expos had been “dead club walking” since
Bud Selig first uttered the words “contraction” in the wake of the
2001 postseason. Bud made it no secret that he wanted Minnesota and
Montreal out of the baseball business in what would be the first
elimination of franchises since 1899. Yet the Twins refused to die
and it wouldn’t be good business to kill just one franchise. So MLB
instituted Plan B to starve the club out of Montreal. A franchise
swaperoo gave the Marlins to Jeffrey Loria, who’d fired the great
Felipe Alou in Montreal and replaced him with buddy