To Keith Hernandez… getting No. 17 retired is a quite an achievement—for a second choice! On that franchise-shifting day when he arrived out of the (baby) blue and put on a Mets jersey in June 1983, he knew he was going to need a new number to go with his new surroundings. He well knew that the Mets had retired No. 37 for Casey Stengel. Mex came up with a new number to honor childhood fave Mickey Mantle while maintaining his Keith-like individuality.

I don’t know how to say it without sounding like I’m bragging, so I’ll just say it—years ago I wrote a book with Keith on his view of the Mets and the last days of Shea from his unique perspective. He far eclipsed that book effort with his recent memoir, I’m Keith Hernandez, which I had nothing to do with—as far as I can tell, neither used a ghostwriter, nor needed one. I listening to the audio book, which has the added bonus of Keith reading Keith. I cannot recommend that book enough. He and I don’t cross paths much, but whenever I have needed to ask him something or interview him for a project, he has been nothing but kind, generous, and friendly. So I felt I owed it to Keith, the baseball gods, and myself to be in the “upper tank”—Keith’s term—for the occasion with a couple of old friends, trying not to get sunburned while taking it all in. What a ceremony! What a win!

Keith joins the retired numbers of Tom Seaver (41), Gil Hodges (14), Stengel (37), Mike Piazza (31), and Jackie Robinson (I was at Shea in 1997 for the surprise announcement that 42 would be retired forever throughout baseball). Honestly, I don’t think the Mets need to retire any more numbers. Keep it special. Keep it for the precious few. For the difference makers. The Mets don’t win in 1969 without Seaver and Koosman; they don’t revitalize the fan base without bringing in Piazza in 1998 and, like Keith, tying him up with a contract worthy of the man; and the Mets don’t win in 1986 without Keith arriving before almost everyone else in 1983 to set the groundwork and—using another Keith favorite—be on point. We were all on point for him at Citi.

The Ozzie Smith of first base, the perennial All-Star, the blue-and-orange icon, the broadcast legend—Keith belongs in the upper pantheon of Metdom. In case that was not obvious enough before, now it is official.

I relished the text I sent out to my hardcore foursome in the eighth inning on Friday, April 29, 2022. “Mets game on if possible. You’ve been alerted.” No other words were needed. All tuned in. The Mets got their second no-no. No lives were ruined in the attempt of watching a potential Mets no-hitter.

There was a time, long ago, when some of these same obsessed friends and I would freeze when a potential Mets no-hitter went beyond the sixth inning. Then you were supposed to hop into your car and drive to Shea Stadium, without tickets, with no word to loved ones as to where you’d gone, and be there in person when the impossible happened. Fortunately for me, it never came up. I never had to explain why I went to wash my hands and didn’t come back for three hours.

I was, however, actually sitting at Shea Stadium on June 9, 1998, when Rick Reed took a no-hitter into the seventh. Wade Boggs broke it up with a two-out double in the first game ever between the Mets and the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Reed completed the three-hitter, throwing 121 pitches.

The last part is the rub. Managers like Bobby Valentine were well aware of pitch counts in the 1990s, but they certainly were not married to them. In MLB in ’98, there were 302 complete games and 101 route-going shutouts. Last year there were 50 complete games and 29 complete-game shutouts—and I was surprised to see that many. The world is changing, baseball along with everything else. As lofty as those 1998 pitching totals were, go back a quarter century before that. With fewer teams and thus fewer opportunities in 1973, with the advent of the DH and lots of other interesting stuff, there were 1,061 complete games and 236 CG SHOs.

So what does that have to do with a combined no-hitter by the Mets? Well, some say that a five-man no-hitter is not as impressive as the one-man variety—and maybe it isn’t. Johan Santana’s 2012 gem also included a ball that clearly landed fair, but that was before instant replay was fully adopted. And while Santana went the distance in a star-spangled night, the reality is that he was never the same after the 134-pitch effort against the defending world champion Cardinals to end the Mets’ 50-year no-hit drought, at the time the longest any team had gone before finally tossing a no-no (the Padres had even more staying power before finally getting their first no-hitter last year). Johan’s previous outing before the no-hitter, a complete-game shutout against San Diego at Citi Field, was a much cleaner affair. He allowed four Padres hits and threw just 96 pitches, allowing fewer baserunners than he did in the no-hitter (when he walked five Cardinals).

Johan got the Mets’ monkey off their backs, but he was never quite the same. Santana went 3-6 with an 8.27 ERA in what were the final 10 starts of his career. He shut it down in August, never to fully ramp it up again. Johan attempted multiple comebacks, but he did not pitch again after 2012. I know Mets manager Terry Collins was worried about what might happen to Santana that night, and I do not blame him or any of us who so wanted Johan to finish it.

I love the days of the four-digit complete games in the big leagues, of the swash-buckling stud pitchers going toe to toe, of starters going 10, 12, 14 innings to get a win for their team. I appreciate that generational pitchers like Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan had body parts that wore out from age—finally—instead of from overuse. Just like Tom never expected to approach Cy Young’s career mark of 511 wins—he was exactly 200 short—maybe we too should adapt. Starting with me. Even if I don’t like it. A No-Han is more storybook, but I like it better when the story has a happy ending for the guy who made it happen.

You can’t have an active blog with Mets in the title and ignore the news that Gil Hodges is finally in the Hall of Fame. And who would want to?!

This announcement marks 10 years to the day after another head-scratching snub, Cubs rival Ron Santo, got into Cooperstown. The wait for Gil has been far longer. Hodges died 50 years ago this coming April. To some newer fans who barely remember Shea Stadium or didn’t know that the place once had colored panels on its exterior, Gil might seem like simply some old-time figure reduced to a one-off statement when answering questions about those number in the far reaches of Citi Field: “Casey Stengel was their first manager,” “Tom Seaver was their greatest pitcher,” and “Gil Hodges managed the Mets to their first world championship.” All that is true, but those names are so much more than that.

When people ask who was the team’s greatest manager, to me it seems almost as obvious as asking who was the franchise’s best pitcher. The lineup of the 1969 Mets looks like a great candidate to be shut out. In fact the ’69 Mets were shut out 14 times—twice as many times as the Cubs, who surpassed the Mets in almost every offensive category and led New York by 10 games in mid-August of ’69. Besides having a manager who relied on 25 players instead of 12, as Leo Durocher did to his detriment in Chicago, the major reason the Mets won is because they shut out opponents 28 times, the most in baseball. The most memorable was Seaver’s “Imperfect Game” against the Cubs, which went from perfect game to one-hit shutout in the blink of a Qualls. (Second and third of most impressive Mets 1969 shutouts: the magical doubleheader sweep in September at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, both won by 1-0 scores with the pitchers driving in the only runs in each.)

Gil got the most from his talented club, and then he squeezed a little more. He platooned relentlessly, he had the ultimate faith in his young pitching staff, he made erratic starter Tug McGraw into a reliever, and though he never seemed to know what to do with wild Nolan Ryan, he utilized him in crucial moments, especially during the postseason. Ryan won the pennant clincher against the Braves with seven innings in relief at Shea and put out the Orioles’ uprising (with a lot of help from Tommie Agee) in Game Three of the World Series. Stricken with a serious heart attack at the end of the 1968 season, it was no sure thing he would be able to manage at all in 1969. A heavy smoker, he quit—alas, but not for good.

His greatness as a player could have gotten him into the Hall of Fame while he was still alive, but starting with his first year of eligibility, which was, ironically, 1969, bigger names took precedence. Stan Musial and Gil’s Dodgers teammate Roy Campanella got the 75 percent of the vote needed to enter the Hall that year. Gil’s vote total doubled to 48 percent in 1970 after the Mets won the World Series, the third-highest total on the ballot after the only inductee, Lou Boudreau. (Mets broadcaster and Pirates slugger Ralph Kiner, whom Hodges passed as the NL’s most prolific right-handed hitter, was second in the balloting that year—Ralph finally made it six years later.) Gil’s total remained the same in 1971, but even his Mets first-base coach Yogi Berra, a three-time AL MVP and 10-time world champion catcher, didn’t get in—nor was anyone else voted in; though eight men, including original Mets GM George Weiss, went into the Hall through the Veterans Committee, while Satchel Paige got in via the new Negro League Committee. Berra, Early Wynn, and another Dodgers teammate, Sandy Koufax, were all voted in during the 1972 election, announced a couple of months before Hodges’s tragic death in front of his coaches (except for Berra) on a golf course in Florida. Ironically, Hodges had that Easter Sunday free to play golf because of the MLB work stoppage. He was voted in 49 years later during a lockout.

Hodges hit 60 percent of the vote in the years after his death, reaching a high of 63.4 percent in his 15th and final year on the ballot in 1983. If you go by Wins Above Replacement, a formula that can be used to measure players from different eras, Gil’s numbers were lower than players who never made the Hall, including Vada Pinson, Jimmy Wynn, Thurman Munson, and Dick Allen, who was again denied access to Cooperstown despite being one of the game’s best players during the early 1970s. But whereas Allen—and the likes of Albert Belle—were considered to have attitude problems, Gil’s mind-set was off the charts. Hodges was the team’s first base anchor and never booed at Ebbets Field—and I think we all know how New Yorkers aren’t afraid to boo—and Brooklyn fans famously prayed for him during a postseason slump (the title of a very good memoir by Tom Oliphant).

Many of Gil’s young Mets players considered him a father figure. He was a World War II Marine sergeant who led his squad through hellacious fighting in the Pacific. And he didn’t take crap. Amos Otis and Nolan Ryan were Mets Hodges wasn’t sure what to do with when they chafed at his quiet but demanding way of leading that dictated he lead and you follow. Though these are the two poster boys for worst Mets trades, it also didn’t work out for Ron Swoboda, who still regrets his impetuousness that led to his being banished to Montreal not long after his 1969 World Series glory. Those are the exceptions. The Hodges Way worked ideally for many Mets. Cleon Jones was one of his biggest supporters despite being pulled from a game mid-inning when Hodges walked out to left field and removed him after not hustling as the Mets slumped during the summer of ’69. They played about .800 baseball down the stretch after that week.

Few messed with Hodges in matters of leadership. Even buttinsky and Mets uber-villian M. Donald Grant deferred to Hodges on all matters. If Gil had lived and continued to run the Mets, maybe Grant would be forgotten instead of loathed for what happened in the wake of Gil’s death. Had he lived, maybe Hodges would have ascended to GM and named Whitey Herzog as his replacement in the dugout. No one will ever know. But what we do know is that thanks to the Golden Era ballot, Gil is finally a member of the Hall of Fame. And that is a truly wonderful thing.

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It’s been a privilege to have written about Gil Hodges and the wonderful team he led many times over the years. And with holidays coming up, a reminder to go here if you want to check out some of my books.

But it was also fun to look at the Mets from a fictional and animal perspective in Out of a Dog’s Mouth, a novel I wrote under the pseudonym McNally Berry. There are dogs named Choo Choo and Kooz, and, not surprisingly, the family we follow for 70 years is filled with Mets fans (after switching allegiance from the Brooklyn Dodgers, natch). You can find it on Amazon in paperback or e-book form here. Or get a signed copy here in time for Christmas.

Howard Cosell. Growing up in the 1970s you could not get away from the man. Yet unlike, say, Joe Buck who today has a similar gig to Cosell, you felt like it was worth putting up with the annoyance factor of “The Mouth That Bored.” Howard was annoying, but he was good.

In another “I Watched This Moldy Old Game So You Don’t Have to” presentation, we go back to 1978 with the Mets in Philadelphia making a rare Monday Night Baseball appearance on ABC.  Maybe I watched it. Maybe I was at baseball camp. It was a long time ago. But Howard was there, as well as Keith Jackson, and Don Drysdale, and don’t forget Billy Martin. How big was that broadcast booth at Veteran’s Stadium?

However many people they could cram into the booth at the Vet, the real star of the broadcast was Pete Rose, who was playing several hundred miles away in Atlanta. Jim Lampley was there giving at bat by at bat updates as Rose tried to match Wee Willie Keeler’s National League 44-game hitting streak. And in the crowded booth in Philly, they were making news, too. Billy Martin, who a week earlier tearfully resigned as Yankees manager, only to be named the new manager starting in 1980 at Old-Timer’s Day, was on the ABC telecast. (Billy would take over for reigning world champion manager Bob Lemon in 1979 and be fired again after the season, only to spend 1980 in Oakland instead of Yankee Stadium.) As for managing Reggie Jackson—one of the main reasons he left in 1978—Martin tells the ABC audience, “I’ll manage anybody if he can get us to win.” (I wish Howard had broken in with a nasally, “A ringing endorsement if I have ever heard one!”)

Enter into all this excitement the ultimate party pooper: the 1978 Mets. At 45-61 they are in fifth place, having been swept in Houston following a series victory against the Reds in New York in which Shea disturbingly broke character and fawned all over Rose. Ovation after ovation rang from the second- and third-largest crowds of the year at Shea as Rose pursued his hitting streak. Pat Zachry summed it up for most hardcore fans stuck in Mets prison when he kicked a step in disgust and broke his toe. He was out for the season. Mets fans were stuck watching a slow fade to last place. Cue Howard’s yellow jacket—the same one he wore several years earlier in the Monday Night Football booth with famed New York sportswriter Oscar Madison.

July 31, 1978: Mets at Phillies

Before the Mets-Phillies game even starts, Pete Rose is up, so we zip down to Atlanta. He walks amid hometown boos to future Hall of Famer Phil Niekro at Fulton County Stadium, where, like Shea, the fifth-place club has a Rose-inflated crowd figure (Fulton County’s 45,000 is bigger than Shea managed a week earlier). With far less fanfare in Philly, Mets third baseman Elliot Maddox grounds out against Dick Ruthven. The Phillies also have a Maddox leading off—Garry; he flies out to open things against Nino Espinosa.

The Mets are so unworthy of prime time. Keith Jackson, fresh off a 17-day vacation, has to wonder why they summoned him from Hawaii for this. Jackson, whom I always felt was a very underrated baseball broadcaster, ponders New York’s future as Joe Torre gazes across acres of Philly AstroTurf and concrete. “Grim visage most of the time,” Jackson says of Torre, “because he’s deeply involved.” Jackson, already the voice of ABC college football, is much more upbeat about Mets catcher John Stearns because he was a star defensive back in college at Colorado—“busting helmets in Boulder.” Stearns is only a few weeks removed from the game-ending collision in Pittsburgh when Dave Parker tried to bowl over the smaller catcher. Stearns got the out, the Mets won the game, and Parker spent the rest of the year with a football facemask on his batting helmet as he recovered from a fractured jaw and cheekbone. (A major league first according Paul Lukas, with his usually exhaustive info on that uniform breakthrough.) Parker was still named MVP. Stearns got his own baseball card the following year for his 1978 shattering of the then-major league record for steals by a catcher.

Speaking of records, Cosell crowed that “one record that will never be broken is Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game streak.” In a way he was right—he never saw it. Cosell died in April 1995, a few months before Cal Ripken finally toppled the mark.

Cut to: Pete Rose in Atlanta. He tries to bunt his way on in his second appearance. Would Joe D. have done that to keep his hit streak alive? Anyway, Rose then swings away and lines to Jerry Royster at short.

Shifting back to Philly, Jackson relayed a story from the previous day in Cincinnati, where the Reds tried the novel idea of playing three infielders on the right side of the infield and shifted the third baseman Rose (who had two hits to continue the streak) playing in the shortstop spot to negate Philadelphia pull hitter and future Mets prisoner Richie Hebner. Hebner foiled the defense by bunting three times for base hits before the Reds relented the shift; he added two more hits for a 5-for-5 day. That is the elusive proof I’ve been looking for about how the shift wouldn’t have lasted a day if they tried that crap in the 1970s. A bunt would still work now.

Hebner was a better thinker than base runner. Against Espinosa on Monday in Philly, Hebner had his sixth straight hit (pulled to right field, by the way) and then was deked by Mets shortstop on a hit-and-run. Lee Mazzilli caught the ball in center and fired his patented 12-hopper to first that hot dog Willie Montanez somehow never touched. Nino backed up the play and stepped on first for the only 8-1 double play I’ve ever seen. And Hebner made it happen against the man he’d be traded for the following spring. And Pete Rose, of all people, joined Nino and replaced Hebner at first in Philly in 1979.

This just in: Chevy Monza is one ugly car. The ad should be—“Hey, we have a stick shift! And it beats walking!!”

A better case for speed was made by Dick Ruthven. The Phillies starter threw 89 miles per hour and the crowded booth went ga-ga over his zip on the ball. He tied the Mets in knots—not that that was hard during this period—but he was a key piece for the Phillies, acquired from the Braves during the trade deadline for reliever Gene Garber—who would end Pete Rose’s streak, but not tonight. Because in Atlanta, Rose tied Wee Willie Keeler’s 1897 mark of 44 straight games with a groundball single to right—a routine out today in the shift that only Richie Hebner could out-think.

Back in Philly, Cosell lamented about Torre’s torture when Bob Boone snapped a scoreless tie in the fifth with a home run. “This is what’s driving Joe Torre crazy,” Howard pontificated. “Torre has to put together architecture of a ballclub with the personnel given to him… They reveal their vulnerability at given points.” In a less hopeful review of the Mets, shortstop Larry Bowa of the first-place Phillies said in a pregame interview that the Mets were the kind of “noncompetitive club we need to beat up on.” The Phillies would win their third straight division title and take 12 of 18 games against the 1978 Mets. (Though somehow Kevin Kobel would beat Steve Carlton the following night at the Vet.) On this night the Phils knocked out Nino with four runs in the sixth. The Bull, Greg Luzinski, had the big hit, a two-run double after architect Torre walked Mike Schmidt in front of him.

The network started getting a little antsy at that point and switched to the White Sox-Red Sox game at Fenway Park. The once impenetrable Boston AL East lead was down from 14 games to four. Jim Rice, who would join Dave Parker as an MVP in 1978, was in the midst of a 1-for-23 slump. He’d recover but Boston’s error was fatal. It would end on an October afternoon with one of best and most heartbreaking games I’ve ever seen.

To my surprise, ABC switched back to the Vet, where Ed Kranepool came off the bench to hit a long fly to plate Doug Flynn with the only Mets run. Philadelphia immediately got the run back en route to the 6-1 win, but Mazzilli’s popgun arm actually nailed Hebner at the plate, with the Hacker spiking the Bad Dude. And then the tape ends. The crystal ball back to 1978 goes fuzzy. The entire crowded booth now dead. Nino is gone, too. The Vet is kaput. Who the hell ever thought we’d miss 1978?

The weekend of October 2-3, I will be a vendor to kick off Walktober at Walkway Over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie. This landmark joins Highland and the city of Poughkeepsie and is as cool a place as any to get some walking or bike-riding in while taking in Amazin’ autumnal views. I will be offering selected copies of my baseball books (selected means copies I have at hand). I will also be selling and signing copies of my new novel under my new pseudonym, McNally Berry. The book is Out of a Dog’s Mouth. Dogwalkers are very much welcome. So join me. I’ll be there both afternoons with free bookmarks, pens, and dog treats!

Listen and Learn

Thanks, as always, to WKNY Kingston Radio’s Dan Reinhard, who had me on a recent show. We talked the Mets as well as baseball in general and my recent Midwestern/Southern journey to ballparks and places of historical significance.

Being a Mets fan can make you crazy. Being a Mets historian—or whatever this is—can make you look at every event and try to compare it to something that happened long ago. The 2021 season has been strange in many ways, but it reminds me a little of a year that was outlandish as it was happening: 1984. No, the 2021 team won’t win 90 games like the 1984 version, but it likewise came to earth with a thud in August. The ’84 Mets finished second to the Cubs, who rode the tails of the “Red Baron,” Rick Sutcliffe, one of the great midseason acquisitions (back when the trade deadline was June 15, so you could win one league’s Cy Young Award despite spending the first two months in the other league).

After the seven years in the desert that coincided with my childhood, I was thrilled the 1984 Mets had finally shown that all the years of waiting were not in vain. There was a future at Shea Stadium. And it would be good.

But after so many ego bruisings as a kid, I still worried that this was another tease.

When I came across this game for those early heady days of 1984, I did not remember this game at all. I watched an inning per day, as I have with the other games in my rewatching history series: a September Mets-Cubs game I attended in 1981, the loss at Candlestick that would have been completely out of character if the 1979 Mets had pulled a win out of the year of Mets hell, and the 1983 opener that remains fully justified hooky all these years later.

April 18, 1984: Montreal Expos at New York Mets, Channel 9

The Mets had been pounded by the Expos in the Shea opener the previous afternoon, 10-0. This was a new day, a Saturday afternoon. As had happened when the 1983 season opened, Pete Rose led off. Now he was an Expo. It would be his last stop before heading back to the Reds to manage later in 1984—we know how that stint ended: the all-time hits record and a lifetime ban for a manager gambling on his team.

Rose was a left fielder with the Expos. A Montreal writer said, “Pete Rose in left field covers as much ground as any other flower.” Hotshot Expos shortstop Argenis “Angel” Salazar (one of many reasons Montreal would trade Gary Carter for Hubie Brooks and three top prospects and move Hubie to short) didn’t read the local papers about Rose’s range. Salazar gave way to Rose on a catchable pop fly by Wally Backman that fell between them. Keith Hernandez knocked Backman home with a seed off the wall in right and was thrown out at second by Andre Dawson—part of the Expos Hall of Fame outfield with Raines and… oh, that’s right, Rose isn’t in Cooperstown, just hawking products at the gates of the door they won’t let him into.

Raines had become the first player with 70 RBI and 70 steals in the same year—in 1983 Rock actually stole 90 and also scored 133 runs, both career highs and best in the NL. Expos manager Bill Virdon moved him to third in the order and placed him in center field (allowing the ailing knees of Andre Dawson to cover less ground in right field). Though batting in front of Dawson and Gary Carter did not afford him as many chances to steal, Raines still swiped 75 bases in 1984 to lead the NL for the fourth straight year.

With two Expos on in the fourth and the Mets clinging to a 3-2 lead, Raines bunted. The throw hits Raines and the tying run scored, but first base umpire and crew chief John Kibbler overruled home plate ump Lenny Harris. Raines was out and the runners were sent back to first and second. That proved a huge break when Dawson singled and Rose tried to score from second on Mookie Wilson’s arm. Charlie Hustle tried to “Ray Fosse” the youngest catcher in the majors, but Gibbons, who’d broken his cheek in a home-plate collision in spring training, outmaneuvered Rose and slapped a tag on the staggering 43-year-old’s side.

Not only were the 1984 Mets suddenly coming into their own, Tim McCarver showed why he would be everywhere on TV before the 1980s ended. Familiarity and endless I-told-you-so’s made McCarver annoying later on, but this was his prime as an announcer, just as the Mets were coming into theirs.

• During the game McCarver revealed that on a Channel 9 broadcast during Fernandomania in 1981, famed director Bill Webb was the first to note that the rookie phenom’s eyes rolled heavenward before each pitch.
• McCarver was ahead of the curve on on-base-percentage bandwagon: “Something you don’t see every day, Mookie Wilson taking two pitches in a row.” Steve Zabriske, who had a good game in the booth as well, chimed in, “He saw five pitches!” They discussed the improved selectivity of Mookie batting lower in the order—Johnson had Backman leadoff (against righties) while Mookie mostly batted second or sixth. His walk total rose all the way to 26 in ’84. Their theory was logical, though.
• When Hernandez, who made a lunging tag on a bunt earlier in the game, wheeled on a slow grounder and gunned out the lead runner at second base, McCarver astutely observed that he “made a play no other first baseman would make.” Lauding Mex at the plate, McCarver noted that he had “the best bat control in the National League.”

After so many down years, it was good to have an announcer confirming to Mets fans that what they were seeing was indeed good. We had gotten so used to bad.

A few observations that—looking from a fan’s perspective in the 21st century—proved both strange and welcome:

• Starter Walt Terrell was still pitching in the seventh inning despite allowing 11 hits.
• When Terrell came out a few batters later—after Raines crushed a two-run home run to give Montreal the lead—reliever Doug Sisk arrived in the bullpen car.
• Ex-Met/Expos closer Jeff Reardon came on in the bottom of the seventh and remained in the game until a fateful decision by Bill Virdon in the ninth.
• In April 1984 this college freshman committed the thoughtcrime of worrying bad things might yet happen during this titular year of the grim George Orwell book. But the year 1984 would turn out fine. The true parallels of repressed society and evil leaders would come later.
• The April 24 Mets game would not be on TV because either the New York Islanders or New Jersey Nets would be playing a playoff game. You can imagine the vitriol spewed today if a Mets game was not on the tube on a Friday night.
• Oh, and Dan Tana and VEGA$ appear every night at 6 p.m. on Channel 9.

After reeling off six straight wins in the first week of the year, the Mets reached the home ninth looking like they would drop their fourth straight to fall to 6-5. How many Mets teams had we seen start out hot, only to melt like April frost and be buried in the basement by Memorial Day? Yet there was hope.

Darryl Strawberry singled to start the ninth. Of course, Davey didn’t bunt, and Mookie flied to center. Bill Webb caught a great shot of an intense Keith cursing in the dugout when Hubie Brooks, who’d crushed a homer earlier against Expos starter Bryn Smith, fouled a Reardon fastball straight back—Mex knew Hubie had just missed it and was unlikely to get another fat pitch. Hubie didn’t. He struck out on a ball way out of the strike zone.

Straw stole second, just beating Carter’s throw, to reach scoring position. With Danny Heep and Rusty Staub already used as pinch hitters, the Mets had no choice in their last chance at bat but to send up Jay Gibbons, with exactly one career hit. He fell behind Reardon 0-2 before putting together a great at bat and earning a walk. With the go-ahead run on base, Ron Hodges batted for Ed Lynch. He worked out a walk. Virdon came out and made a controversial but seemingly wise choice to bring in lefty Gary Lucas to face Backman.

Backman had been exiled to the minor leagues, where he fell under Davey’s spell and became one of “his guys” at Tidewater, because he was a switch-hitter who could not bat right. Backman hadn’t had a hit off a major league lefty since 1982 and he looked completely befuddled by the Lucas slider.

But Backman lined the fifth straight slider from the southpaw into the left-field corner. The tying and winning runs scored! A game-winning hit from Wally? Batting righty? Watching vintage baseball in 2021 on a computer was as alien in 1984 as was the idea of the Mets contending. Despite knowing all that would transpire in the third of a century to come, I was as stunned now as if it had just happened. I was filled with the good feelings of that year when the Mets Renaissance broke through the seemingly endless Dark Ages of Shea.

Many years ago I decided that my main bucket list item would be to spend a night in all 50 states. Living out west briefly and meandering around a bit in my early 20s, I pulled over and spent the night in 30-something states—campgrounds, motels, hotels, friends’ couches, etc. While others wanted to visit all the different baseball parks, going to places like the Trop or retro replica Corporate Name Here parks wasn’t how I wanted to spend my vacations. Not that I haven’t been to a bunch of different stadiums anyway. New stadiums go up all the time, but last I looked we’ve been stuck on 50 states for a while. (Just in case we make Washington D.C. a state—and it’s long past time we did—I have that one covered.)

My college buddy, Paul, who now lives near Salem, MA, was formerly in Astoria and a frequent companion at Mets games. He wanted in on this journey, so we pooled ideas and resources. We wanted to hit all the states by the time age 50 came along. Well, that sailed right past. So we extended it to our 50s. By February of 2020 we had a schedule, flights booked, reservations made, and a route all planned for summer. I think you know how that turned out.

One thing that helped pass the pandemic time was fine-tuning the new plan for 2021. There are enough logistics that a travel agent, Destinations Uncharted, helped book flights and rooms while saving us money, aggravation, and worry if something goes wrong (like last year!)—I can’t recommend Barbara Rossi-Skonberg enough. But before this turns into a commercial, here is a rundown of some of our battle plan:

Battlefields + Baseball Tour 2020 2021:

Davenport (IA) Quad Cities River Bandits

Field of Dreams (IA)

Omaha (NE) Storm Chasers

Kansas City Royals (sleeping on KS side)

Negro League Museum (MO)

WWI Museum (MO)

Putting down a pillow in AR

Oklahoma City (OK) Dodgers

Shiloh National Battlefield (TN)

Vicksburg National Battlefield (MS)

Following U.S. Grant over the river to LA

Memphis (TN) Redbirds

St. Louis Cardinals (MO)

And home we go.

Of course, since we finalized these plans, Covid-19 rates spiked, especially in the very areas where we are going. Paul and I are vaccinated, and—well, I know I am a writer, but words fail me here. I don’t really know what else I should say about this right now, but you can follow my personal account on Facebook for updates as they happen and maybe even a Facebook Live or two. I plan to document the trip and the state stats more fully later.

This has been a long time coming. Some states my parents took me to when I was almost too young to remember—but I never forgot. Others were knocked off by the carload when I helped my brother Mark move from CA to NY in 1985—he led my only journeys to see the wonders of Lake Powell, Four Corners, and not one but two nights with his college roommate in NM. There is not much that compares with the boundless freedom and fun of being young and on long trips with few plans with my late dog Gilbey and friends like Dave, Linc, and Parrish; those guys now live far enough away where I don’t see them much, but you always remember who is with you when you see something cool and unique that many will never get a chance to see.

I traveled with my wife and kids to several states—AK and HI were predictably unbelievable—but going on an RV trip with another family to pre-oil boom ND is still my favorite vacation ever. That never would have happened if I wasn’t so dead set on seeing all the states and trying, if only for a night, to understand a little more of what they’re about. When you are in the car the states don’t look so red or blue, and if something annoys you, it’s easy to just turn up the CD player (yes, we still use arcane media) and drown it all out with bad singing.

Wish us luck. You never know what the road will bring.

The first half of the season ended with a thud for the Mets, who allowed a big early lead to get away and split a four-game series with a bad Pirates team. That loss is something you can complain about. Everything else in the first 87 games of the Steve Cohen Era could not have gone much better and could be far, far worse. Sure, four NL teams have better records than the Mets, including three NL West teams. But last time I looked New York was in the East.

The Mets have a paltry 19-26 record on the road, but they own a 28-14 mark at home, have endured more injuries than I can tally, have been forced to play 10 of these unpalatable seven-inning doubleheaders due to an inordinate amount of rainouts and a season-opening series postponed due to a Covid-19 issue by the Nationals. (There is hope we can return to doubleheaders of the nine-inning variety, but one benefit of these seven-inning twinbills is it has caused me despise the day-night doubleheader a little bit less.)

The Mets own a 47-40 record despite scoring only nine more runs than they’ve allowed, the players seem to adore  manager Luis Rojas and they have only recently started to hit. Yet some supposed Mets fans still complain. To those people I recommend you take up another hobby, root for another team, and stop polluting Citi Field with your petulant booing. Maybe there is an alternative reality where you can watch the 2021 Mets in a world where the bungling Wilpons still own the team.

Yet even with a guy named Cohen who makes life even better than Gary, I remain deeply dissatisfied with the state of baseball as it has been run by commissioner Robert Manfred before and after Covid. (Loved the booing every time he stepped to the mic at the new and improved 2021 baseball draft.)

Let’s Go Mets; LFGM for short. Now please pick up your grades, Metsies. And get some well-earned rest. Overall Class Grade: B+.

Students who have not accrued 50 at bats or 15 innings pitched as a Met, please stay in your seat. That means you, Misters J.D. Davis, Brandon Drury, Albert Almora, Mason Williams, Johneshwy Fargus, Khalil Lee, Wifredo Tovar, Travis Blankenhorn, Jake Hager (who?), Cameron Maybin (so impossibly bad over 33 PAs his numbers must be shown: .036/.182/.036!), and the groundout magic of Pat Mazeika. And we’ll pretend we never saw you pitch, Corey Oswalt, Jarad Eikhoff, Tommy Hunter, Yenssy Diaz, Jordan Yamamoto, Robert Stock, Thomas Szapucki, Trevor Hildenberger, Nick Tropeano, Dellin Betances, and Stephen Tarpley, he of the infinity ERA.

First-Half 2019 Report Card

Jacob deGrom A+ As automatic as they come. Sometimes Mets even play well behind the game’s best pitcher.

Taijuan Walker A- Nice consolation prize for “losing out” on Trevor Bauer. Bonafide All-Star and remarkably consistent.

Dominic Smith B+ Dom is becoming the heart of the Mets. And he has unexpected wheels and leather in LF. Sometimes.

Brandon Nimmo B+ Sorry, haters. Offense hit new level when he returned. Second all-time in career Mets OBP (.392).

Aaron Loup B+ This guy never seems to throw a strike, but he gets people out. Mets need another lefty.

Pete Alonso B Some bitching about his at bats, but I’ll take a homegrown slugger with first half of 17-49-.254/.332/.817.

Seth Lugo B The team’s success in 2021 rides on his arm, which is fragile. Go easy on him and go get ’em, Seth.

Edwin Diaz B Borderline All-Star. Dominant at times. Other times reminds you of 2019 debacle. Need him to be solid.

James McCann B Some have complained about his bat. Don’t know if they’ve noticed how few catcher can hit. Or throw.

Marcus Stroman B- He’s local and a little loco. Nice to have him back but watch out for the longball.

Jonathon Villar B- Ball jumps off his bat. He has been a lifesaver this year and has good speed and glove at 3B.

Tylor Megill B- Looks like both names are spelled wrong. Out of the chute with numbers comparable to Mets royalty.

Drew Smith B- Throws hard and is a little wild. Rays traded him for Lucas Duda; more accurate arm than Dudabides.

Jose Peraza C+ Best .210 hitter in baseball. Backbone of a solid bench and group that’s always ready when summoned.

Tomas Nido C+ Team was so depleted in May that Mets moved James McCann to 1B to get more Nido in the lineup.

Robert Gsellman C+ He was actually pitching well. Then went on the 60-day DL, so we’ll see if we see him again.

Jeurys Familia C He may make Mets fans nervous, but having a closer pitching the sixth or seventh is not all bad.

Francisco Lindor C Even in a monumental slump, OBP is still 100 points above AVG. Great glove. Steal more!

Kevin Pillar C Stats not great, but 200 PAs exceeds full season expectations. And bounced back from beaning with gusto.

Luis Guillorme C Good eye, good glove, good backup. Need a player like him on a team with lots of injuries.

Billy McKinney C Best move of first half was getting him from Brewers when Mets had no outfielders. Good pinch hitter.

Jeff McNeil C- Squirrel is not the same since the injury. Went 60 ABs after his return before notching first RBIs.

Michael Conforto C- Tough call with free agency pending. Mets don’t grow many studs; can’t afford a big contract dud.

Trevor May C- His numbers don’t look terrible (3.58 ERA), but 6 HRs are scary. Unreliable since blown save on Day One.

Miguel Castro C- His numbers don’t look as good as May’s, but he’s had some strong outings. And a few nightmares, too.

Joey Lucchesi C- Eight starts (and 3 relief outings) and didn’t reach 40 innings. Now he’s gone until God knows when.

Sean Reid Foley D+ This long man is like Dr. Reid and Mr. Foley: Either excellent or excrement.

David Peterson D Another Met who seems to be either tremendous or terrible. He’s young and he’s lefty, so there’s hope.

Jacob Barnes D- Who? I’m slowing down when I admit this guy isn’t ringing a bell. Safe to say his numbers are not great.

Manager/GM

Luis Rojas and Zack Scott B Both get the exact same evaluation: Thinks things through—a far cry from the last two embarrassments that preceded him, including one who had to be dismissed before his first season by actions away from Citi.

I have been sporadic in posting on metsilverman.com for good reasons—things have been really busy! I have, however, been following the Mets somewhat closely this year after taking last year off. I got into a habit early in the year of following games I could not watch by looking at comments on Facebook. That was actually fun at first: “Ha. Ha. I thought the Mets were down 5-2 based on the 400-level bitching on social media; they’re winning, 5-2!” The constant complaining about a good team has stopped being entertaining.

We are past one of the major MLB milestones of the year: July 4. And the Mets reached it in first place! All this despite an unfathomable number of injuries from the scrubbiest of scrubs all the way to Jacob deGrom. I know that many people don’t like the Mets manager. Luis Rojas is no John McGraw. He’s not even Felipe Alou, but he is the son of that wise manager of the Expos and Giants, giving him a baseball pedigree that few in the game (and even fewer sitting at home) can claim. That Rojas was one of the few management guys that Sandy Alderson didn’t fire upon his return says that people in the know are pretty sure Luis is major league caliber.

But the Mets have been wrong before. Countless times. In my quest to continue to love the game despite the best efforts of commissioner Robert Manfred, I have been watching old games to try to get back my baseball mojo. This time I stumbled on a random Mets game from 1979 just to see if the reality was as bad as experiencing that year in person. The short answer: Hell yes!

Murph and Ralph Take Us Back to Mets Hell

The 1979 team could not hit a lick, the pitching was mediocre, the team had absolutely no power, its third baseman told anyone who’d listen that he didn’t want to be there, and the bullpen was in the opening stage of a turnover that would culminate in the team’s ultimate resurgence… in five years! The 1979 Mets had their fewest fans over a full season and somehow missed 100 losses (they lost 99). Ownership was as bad as it would be in the 20th century—the 21st century is another matter. The 1979 Mets had no money, and they played like it. The pitching staff was so depleted they did not even have any young arms left to call up; so the Mets resorted to washed-up stars like Dock Ellis and Wayne Twitchell, (star may be pushing it with Twitch), both of whom were soon sold off and never saw the big leagues again. The Mets also purchased lefty Andy Hassler, who had several good years left, but he vamoosed as a free agent as soon as possible.

Still, the lineup from the game in question against the Giants at Candlestick Park on May 5, 1979, was better than the lineup I saw in person during a doubleheader at Citi Field against the Rockies on May 27, 2021. Here’s a comparison:

May 5, 1979                           May 27, 2021 (Game 1)

Frank Taveras, SS                   Jonathon Villar, 3B

Alex Trevino, 3B                    Francisco Lindor, SS

Lee Mazzilli, CF                     James McCann, 1B

Steve Henderson, LF              Billy McKinney, RF

Willie Montanez, 1B               Tomas Nido, C

Joel Youngblood, RF              Brandon Drury, LF

John Stearns, C                       Jose Peraza, 2B

Doug Flynn, 2B                      Cameron Maybin, CF

Craig Swan, P                         Marcus Stroman, P

You should note that both versions of the Mets had a catcher playing an unfamiliar infield position and each lineup featured a recently acquired player: Frank Taveras from the 1979 Pirates (still so new that he did not have a name on the back of his jersey in the first year the Mets felt obliged to tell fans which nobody was which), and Billy McKinney from the 2021 Brewers (a player Milwaukee didn’t have room for on its roster, yet he hops a flight to New York and bats cleanup in his Mets debut). One Mets team above was tied for last place (tied, it should be noted, with the “We Are Family” Pirates, who would win hearts and a World Series come October), and the more recent Mets club was in first place. Lesson of the day: Be thankful for what you have; you could be in Mets Hell—even if the guy making out the lineup was a future Hall of Fame manager in Joe Torre (not for what he did for the Mets, of course).

Bob Murphy was doing TV. The following year he switched to radio for good—for very good. Murph’s 1979 TV partner was Steve Albert—not to be confused with Marv, Al, or Kenny Albert. Steve-o broke up the golden-throated triumvirate of Murph, Ralph Kiner, and Lindsey Nelson. Lindsey had opted out of Flushing, its penny-pinching ownership, and its lousy team to join the Giants. Wish they could have piped Lindsey in to work that day with Bob and Ralph on Channel 9.

And then the game started at Candlestick Park. It was raining, which may be the most noteworthy part of this game. (In the first 21 years San Francisco had just 17 rainouts.) Ralph got to use some of his intentional weather quips. “Out here they call this mist—it missed Oregon and wound up in California.”

The Mets went down harmlessly in the first, but the Giants scored three times off Craig Swan, who’d won the 1978 NL ERA title and somehow would win 14 games with the punchless ’79 team. As Murph offered, the only category the 1979 Mets led the National League in—besides walks issued—was mustaches (this is not an official stat). Maybe they were trying to disguise themselves. Richie Hebner, a Mets killer while playing on the team, may have been at his happiest as a Met in San Francisco with a bad back that allowed him to watch rookie backstop Alex Trevino to play third base. Willie Montanez, the team’s resident hot dog and .160-hitting power source, showed off his snatch catch antics. And circle the calendar, because Lee Mazzilli Poster Weekend is coming up. Boys, tell your sisters! Please!!

Murph called Jack Clark, Jackie Clark so often that Steve Albert started doing it. Then Steve spilled a soda all over his scorecard. To their credit, neither Ralph nor Bob discussed kidnapping Lindsey from Candlestick’s press row and smuggling him back to Shea.

Torre’s managing brilliance took another day off. He intentionally walked light-hitting Rob Andrews to pitch to Giants rookie hurler Phil Nastu, who grounded to short and Taveras committed his second error of the day, allowing the fourth Giants run to score. To complete an awful afternoon, the newly-acquired Taveras reached base on a Giants error and was promptly picked off first; Alex Trevino then tripled and was stranded at third on a nice stop by Darrell Evans. John Stearns finally got the Mets on the board, and even then the original Dude had his hands up in the air wondering why the runner was held at third base.

A seventh-inning rally was created by a very unlikely source: pinch hitter Bruce Boisclair. He singled and came around to score on another hit by the young Trevino. Then it was Joe Altobelli’s turn for questionable managing. After Doug Griffin started Mazzilli off with a ball, the Giants manager yanked Griffin for Gary Lavelle. Now turned around to bat right, the Amazin’ Maz clobbered a pitch over the tall wire outfield fence and the game was tied. It was the 11th home run of the year by a Met… in their 22nd game.

Unfortunately, or mercifully—I can’t quite decide—the bottom of the inning was not recorded properly, so I missed Jackie Clark (that name is contagious) launching a two-run home run off Mets rookie Jesse Orosco. Messy Jesse got the first of his 167 decisions (80 losses) that day at the Stick in the seventh appearance of a career that would last into the 2000s and result in a record-setting 1,252 games pitched. Trevino fanned to end the game—the only strikeout by a Giants pitcher all day. (The Mets also did not draw a walk.) The Giants fanned five times in the game. Compare that to the 18 strikeouts per game we are seeing in 2021. I would like to compare this figure with the number of K’s I witnessed in the first game against the Rockies in May 2021, but that was only a seven-inning game. I wish Murph, Ralph, and Lindsey were still with us, but I’m glad they do not have to see this inane rule bending.

Soooo…. it sounds like it may be time to watch another old game.