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September 9, 2009 ‘I’m Wrapped in a Towel of Indifference’
The above is a line from one of my favorite Odd Couples. (Oh, who are we kidding, they’re all my favorite Odd Couples.) A pretty librarian Felix is dating turns out to be the lead in a Hair-Oh Calcutta knockoff and she utters that line as she drops the towel. I have to admit—while maintaining my wardrobe—that I’ve long since thrown in the towel on this season. Everyone has. A few sooner than others. This isn’t some news flash. And it’s something the Mets have done this time of year many times. In some cases, the year has been essentially dead before the leaves are even out on the trees. At this point I originally had a rant going about the 2009 Mets. While editing a book on the 1969 Mets, written by an army of fine writers, I’ve been able to shield myself from some of this misery while plunging myself deep into the life of Bobby Pfeil as a host of latter day Bobby Pfeil wannabes (Anderson Hernandez, perhaps?) got far more playing time than a fan should have to witness. I started on this litany of the current Mets’ problems with Al Yellon, co-author of Cubs by the Numbers and founder of bleedcubbieblue.com, who was in for the holiday weekend. The Cubs have had a bit of bad luck as well, though Chicago did make the playoffs and got swept in 2007 and 2008—what I would given to get swept in those two postseasons (really, you don’t want to know what I was willing to give if that had come to be). Al pretty much ended my Mets whining, with a simple declaration: “You know, the Mets are in a bad way right now, but you have two world championships in your lifetime…” I missed what he said after that because I looked at his scorecard, where he’d written down a notation that said 2,700-something. That number represents the number of Cubs games he’s attended in his life. He writes down the constantly changing number on every scorecard along with overall games he’s seen in 2008 (somewhere in the 80s) and, since it was a road trip, he also notes the number of Cubs road games he’s seen in 2009—13! And that number would quickly climb since he was following the club to Pittsburgh. How can one complain in the face of such loyalty? I felt about as small as Doubting Thomas when the line was dropped on him, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believed.” Not to get biblical or make Al into a prophet or a saint, but it was like a kid complaining about how annoying his parents are to a listener who is an orphan (to bring the conversation back around—the Cubs of the late 1890s were called the Orphans after Cap Anson’s dismissal). We Mets fans are spoiled. Not spoiled like Yankees fans, but that’s who we’re constantly comparing ourselves to. Like Jan Brady whining about Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! Compared to all the problems people who didn’t have Astroturf lawns were having when The Brady Bunch was made in the early 1970s, it’s not so bad. And Marcia wound up having her own issues. In the midst of a truly ugly Mets season, I’ll end up going to the new home of the Mets 20 times (plus the first-ever Citi Field rainout!). I’ll have attended games with Mets fans old and young; with people I’d never met in the flesh before (like Al); with childhood pal Rob Pizzella, who was also at the Cubs game, and whom I hadn’t been to a game with since 1976; and for the first time ever I attended one Mets game with my two older brothers. So what if this is a lousy year? It comes with the territory. We can’t all be Marcia. We can’t end any argument with pithy comments like “Got rings?” It’s who we are and why we’re here. The rest of my written whiny rant is deep sixed (glad I didn’t finish that post before I went to the game). So though I’m still wrapped in a towel of indifference, or have maybe even thrown in the towel, I know the towel is monogrammed “NYM” and will still smell Downy fresh when it comes out of the dryer next March. Even though this version of the Mets might have gone almost six weeks between winning series, glass half-full guy Peter Gammons says it’s fixable. And sometimes it’s nice to get an unbiased view around these parts. For those of you who have no Mets world championships in your lifetime—at least you’re young. Your dues are accruing and that will make your first world championship—which is all I have in the baseball attention-paying portion of my life—taste that much sweeter. If the championship drought reaches 100 years, feel free to bitch. Until then, stick a towel in it and park it. Like Felix and Oscar. |
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September 14, 2009 Forty Years Gone
I find myself unable to pay attention to the NFL while the hardball’s still being tossed around. I’ve got to see the whole MLB season played out—all the way until the last out. The Mets have essentially been done for months. I can only view football distractedly until the World Series ends—though this schedule alters dramatically for each postseason series won by the Yankees. I like football a lot. Love, well, love’s a hard thing to quantify. Being at the Super Bowl and seeing my team’s first shot at the brass ring since the Truman Administration was both thrilling and agonizing. Was that loss as painful than Game 7 against St. Louis, Game 6 against Atlanta, Game 5 against Satan, Game 4 against Los Angeles? In a way, yes. But it was a more lonely kind of pain because there’s no one I know that I can share that recurring “you know, we probably should have pulled that one out” pain when it comes to the Arizona Cardinals. As for shared Mets anguish, well, just look at yourself. We’ve all ridden that one-stop transfer ticket from postseason glory to October hell. That fly ball, that walk, that curveball looping over the plate at an unhittable break. I was really upset at the end of Super Bowl XVIII—ask DBird, if you doubt that—but spring training started less than two weeks later. When baseball’s been stripped from you just when you seemed it was all going to finally pay off, that’s a kind of pain that’s hard to express, but we’ve all felt it. I’ve worked on a bunch of NFL books over the years. In fact, my interest in football history got me my first job writing about pro sports (I had to prove myself with football history before I was trusted to do baseball). Besides being the only Arizona Cardinals fan I know, I’m also the only person I’m aware of who’s more interested in the transference of old-time franchises like the Portsmouth Spartans (Detroit Lions), Decatur Staleys (Chicago Bears), and Racine Cardinals (they played on Chicago’s Racine Avenue—not in Wisconsin) than whatever ESPN breathlessly has to say about the latest Tony Romo or Terrell Owens rumor. And since I’ve been working on a book on the Mets of 40 years ago, it occurred to me that it might be fun to look at what happened in football 40 years ago, when teams threw a handful of times per game, running backs were the true stars, yellow flags remained in pockets on hits, and replay was an experiment in the booth rather than a cop-out for officials. What a different game it was. Look at the AFL map at the top of the article from recent find billsports.com and this corresponding NFL 1969 map to get an idea of the landscape four decades ago. In 1969 the AFL and NFL were still separate and not necessarily equal. Yes, the Jets were coming off their Super Bowl win—you talk about a jarring blow; Colts fans never saw that one coming—but most people believed, or at least told themselves, that that was just a one-year guarantee. Because of the Mets’ trek into deepest, darkest, uncharted October, the defending world champion Jets did not play a home game until the ’69 World Series ended. The Jets were just 3-2 before winning four straight at Shea. Exactly one month after Cleon took a knee, the 8-1 Kansas City Chiefs came in and kneed the Jets to the groin in a 34-16 trouncing. The Oakland Raiders, who’d been knocked off at Shea in an epic battle the previous winter to put the Jets in the Super Bowl, were still plenty tough. They went into Kansas City and ended the Chiefs’ seven-game winning streak and then the next week came to New York and knocked off the Jets on the last day of November ’69. The Raiders were the best team in the AFL’s final regular season. Their only loss was to an expansion franchise, Paul Brown’s second-year Cincinnati Bengals, who amassed two of their four ’69 wins against the Chiefs and Raiders. The AFL had a two-division, two-round playoff system. It gave the 12-1-1 Western Division champion Raiders the 6-6-2 Houston Oilers, second in the Eastern Division (geography has never been a sports league priority). Final? Oakland 56, Oilers 7. The Jets had a rematch with the Chiefs at Shea. With future Hall of Fame receiver Don Maynard injured and barely able to play, the Jets managed just a field goal through the better part of three quarters and trailed, 6-3. The Jets pushed the ball to the Kansas City 1, but three plays produced nothing. Jim Turner kicked the game-tying field goal—the smart move—but Len Dawson, with the wind at his back, conjured up the game’s only touchdown after just two throws on the ensuing drive. The Jets had another chance, but Broadway Joe threw his third pick of the day. There would be no repeat, and as it turned out, no postseason for the Jets for the entire 1970s. Going against all we’ve come to know, the 1969 season was played with two opposing schedules. With no interleague games then, the AFL opened in mid-September and completed its 14-game schedule 10 days before Christmas; the NFL started a week later and was still playing the regular season while the AFL had its playoffs. (The St. Louis Cardinals, by the by, were 4-9-1.) Ergo, the Jets’ playoff game was over and season done before the Giants finished 6-8 after a meaningless win against Cleveland, which had already clinched a playoff berth. The AFL took two weeks off before its championship game (there was only one week off before the Super Bowl). The last AFL game ever played was a dandy at the Oakland Coliseum. Although the Raiders had won eight of the last nine meetings with the rival Chiefs, Kansas City’s top-ranked defense once again held a prolific passing power—Joe Namath was the AP Player of the Year and Oakland’s Daryle Lamonica was UPI’s choice—to single digits in the big game. Len Dawson had only seven completions (the two teams combined for just 440 yards of total offense) but KC’s QB hit Otis Taylor from his own end zone on third-and-long as the Chiefs snapped a tie with a 94-yard drive in the third quarter. John Madden’s first Super Bowl as a head coach would have to wait; Hank Stram, meanwhile, had his second trip to the big game. The only thing lower than the temperature at Metropolitan Stadium was Cleveland’s scoring in the NFL title game: Temperature 8, Browns 7. Minnesota’s 27-7 trouncing would be Cleveland’s final NFL game before being switcherooed into the AFC, where they have yet to win a title after earning 8 prior championships (4 in the NFL and 4 in the All-America Football Conference—all under namesake Paul Brown). The Vikes were the easy choice in the first Big Easy Super Bowl. Minnesota of the seemingly superior and still smug NFL was a 14-point favorite, yet they didn’t even score 14 points, the third straight postseason opponent held to a touchdown or less by the Chiefs. Coach Hank Stram made Tulane Stadium his own. Miked by NFL Films and talking nonstop on the sidelines, he banged a rolled up program for emphasis. His Chiefs beat the old NFL badly in the last game ever played under the old system. After the 1969 season, it would all be one league, one way of doing things…uniform. A little of the fun and flair that had made the AFL so vibrant in its decade of existence died that day, but it made the two leagues one in the eyes of everyone. The AFL did pulled off that rarest of feats: going out as the best team in the world. Yet the two AFL Super Bowl winners, the Jets and Chiefs, haven’t been to the big game since the merger. Jinx? Stinks? But I guess today’s game is so much better. They’ve lifted the arcane blackout rule—magnanimously showing a replay for three days on computer after the game’s been played—for those fans who can’t shell out $50 parking and four- and five-figure seat licenses. And who wants to hear about that old 1969 stuff when there’s Sean Merriman and Tequila (apparently a questionable choice for both a date and a beverage). See you in November, NFL. If it’s sooner, this baseball season will have taken an even uglier turn. |
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September 17, 2009 Still Keith After All These Years Because we worked on a book together, people sometimes ask me what Keith Hernandez is really like. I always say, “He’s great.” And it’s totally true. He’s not quite the ultra-competitive guy who fielded the position as well as anyone who’s ever played. (Hal Chase played six decades before Keith, but I’ll give KH the edge because Chase was crooked.) Keith’s no longer the party guy who ruled the clubhouse and Manhattan nightspots back in the day. He’s not the intense guy you wanted more than anybody up with the tying runs on base. If he came up in that spot and the other team got him out, you didn’t boo—and you never boo someone on your own team (Keith’ll tell you that straight out)—you tipped your hat to the opponent and said, “Tonight just wasn’t our night.” He’s about four years older than my brothers and reminds me a bit of them. He laughs with you and at the same time keeps you focused; “on point,” his favorite term, is what you need to be when you’re on the clock with Keith. Yet he’s as relaxed and as natural as his retriever Duncan—how he loves that dog. He’s very family oriented. This post was spurred on by a great piece on Keith in Newsday by Neil Best—article and video too. It must be a great piece for me to post it because it doesn’t even mention our book! But Neil Best did recommend Mets by the Numbers the weekend before Father’s Day last year and authors never forget a favorable or well-placed notice. Best really captured the essence of the modern Keith. And his video showed off Keith and Kai’s home, that great bobblehead collection, his MVP trophy, and his dad’s artwork made with rocks Keith and his brother collected as kids at nearby Pebble Beach—my kids collected rocks there too and I don’t think they made the plane flight home. It also afforded a glimpse of Keith’s eclectic and dog-eared library, including noticeable covers for The Godfather, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Baseball Encyclopedia, and Richard Ben Cramer’s Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life—a cautionary tale of how a New York sports icon shouldn’t live. Still opinionated, sharp, and urbane, I wish to God the Mets had an everyday player who had half the skill and spark of Mex. Getting to spend a few hours with him and his public this summer, it’s amazin’ how people still adore him despite his not playing an inning for the Mets in 20 years. We should all remain so revered. And happy. |
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September 22, 2009 Cancelled The creator of his network’s top-rated program—Omar Minaya Presents Mets Baseball: See What I’m Saying walks toward the office door of a studio exec. He pauses for a moment, adjusts his jacket, and enters. “Omar, great to see you. Thanks for coming down. Have a seat. Coffee? Mineral water? You sure you don’t want anything? No? Okay.” An audible sigh by the man from behind his desk. “Let’s get down to it. The show has gone in a different direction than we were hoping. The first couple of seasons, boffo. Getting Pedro…every time he was on camera you could hear a sizzle. Must-see stuff. That kid with the mole, what’s his name…Beltran…he looked good, too. The collision in San Diego right at dinner time gave it a serious tone. Willie with the big Q ratings. People even liked Victor Diaz and Mike Jacobs! Everyone who went on that show was great. The Christmas episode with that Benson chick falling out of her top. Ratings never higher. It was great. Great! Best new show of the ’05 season. “Goodbye Piazza” in the season finale and “Welcome Back, Mike” in the middle of the next season. Brilliant. “I didn’t agree with the ending for year two—it was like when they killed off McLean Stevenson on M*A*S*H. Big downer, but people couldn’t wait for the next season to begin. Great start in ’07. It was knocking off shows that had been hot for years. Big, big numbers. I didn’t agree with the ending. I still wished I’d stopped you. You tried to squeeze out too much drama and the whole thing fell apart. Delgado, Pedro, and that Wagner kid sounded stupid on the talk shows. Willie looked like he was at a funeral. Not your finest hour. “But we had an audience. You brought in Johan. Biiig star. Willie…that was your call. It was tough, but there was a lot of buzz about that and Jerry was like Bill Cosby early on. That laugh, those monologues! But we still had those script problems and the cliffhanger season finale. Do they always have to end with some kind of tragedy? Can’t anyone walk away happy? The script almost ignored the location. You tried to make up at the end, a weepy credit close. Could have been handled better, but it was what it was. “This year, big budget, new studio. You got J.J. what’s his name and um, K-Rod. He was solid. Wasn’t on camera as much as we expected. You brought Ollie back. It seemed like the right move at the time. But what happened to the stars of this show? Where was Johnny Maine? Reyes. He’s supposed to be the star! He was on camera, what, three times all year. Every episode was about David Wright and it got stale. Really stale. When you focused too much on him, you lost the audience. You lost me. “It’s hard to say this, Omar. But we’re not renewing the show. It’s cancelled. Sorry.” “Cancel. You mean Robinson Cancel?” “No, cancel cancelled…Listen, it’s been a nice five years. Enough for syndication, so you’ve got that. But See What I’m Saying has run its course.” The phone rings. The executive rubs his hands together, says, “I’ve got to take this.” He picks up the phone and swivels around to face the window. “Bobby! Long time no speak…” Omar looks at a framed picture of Reyes dancing, puts his head down, and walks out the door. Another once-great show cancelled by a network stooge.
I’ve seen worse. Many legitimately great shows never came to close to lasting as long as See What I’m Saying. Shows that should have lived long and prospered. Or allowed second chances (some got reprieves but short leashes). Each of the below shows were a lot easier to watch than Omar’s work—shows that didn’t have the maestro of the tragic ending. I watched a lot of TV and like to fancy myself a minor expert. Indulge me. So now in order of execution, the metsilverman.com top 10 cancellations that cheesed off this writer the most…along with the Mets team that best corresponds with the show. 1. The Twilight Zone (1959-64) This show lasted five years and there were a few stinkers in the batch, but no program took ideas and twisted them as brilliantly as The Twilight Zone. Great performances from the likes of Burgess Meredith, Jack Klugman, Roddy McDowell, Sebastian Cabot, Claude Aikens, Telly Savalas. Who loves ya, baby? Apparently not CBS, which cancelled the show a year before I was born. (The date of cancellation isn’t as important as its effect on future TV viewing.) I watched this faithfully as a kid and the annual New Year’s marathon is still better than 9 out of 10 bowl games. A pity creator Rod Serling sold the rights that would eventually generate hundreds of millions in syndication. Mets season this show most reminds me of: Davey Johnson’s 1984 Mets Just when it seemed that the Mets would be the perpetually lousy franchise I already had in the then-St. Louis Cardinals football team, they turned it around at Shea with Doc, Mex, Darling, Mookie, Rusty, and the whole gang. The Cards also just missed the NFC playoffs that year. I could have used some Rod Serling narration after the field goal try sailed right on the season’s last play. 2. The Famous Adventures of Mister Magoo (1964-65) This cartoon was cancelled when I was an infant, but I watched the re-runs religiously. The adaptation of famous literature into taut, entertaining, 25-minute episodes is still unparalleled in my TV experience. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, which inspired the show, is still shown annually but the rest of the episodes are buried. I bought tapes and a bootleg DVD; my kids love the character created by Jim Backus and the stories he brings to life. Magoo’s adaptation of Moby Dick would have made Melville proud, his Cyrano is second only to Jose Ferrer, and his Gunga Din makes you choked up. Shakespeare in 25 minutes? Lord, what fools these mortals be. Cancelled? Damn you, NBC! Mets season this show most reminds me of: Bobby Valentine’s 1997 Mets Unappreciated but brilliant. Generation K doesn’t work? No problem. John Olerud, Rick Reed, and a spit polish turns a 91-loss team into an 88-win contender. Bravo, Bobby V! 3. Combat! (1962-67) Since this show lasted more years than the U.S. involvement in World War II, this hour-long ABC drama may have run its course before cancellation…but I would have killed for more episodes. Re-runs of this came on Saturday morning after The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. Put that with the great Saturday night programming of the era, and TV has never had a better day for me. Vic Morrow was the man on Combat!, along with Lt. Hanley, Caje, Kirby, Littlejohn, and Doc (who looked like future Mets catcher Charlie O’Brien). There were G.I. guest stars like Jim Colburn, Lee Marvin, Mickey Rooney, and even Hall of Famer Warren Spahn (like a lot of the people in the show, he was a WWII vet). The enemy spoke German without subtitles, so you had to pay attention to future stars like James Caan, Ted Knight, Roddy McDowell, and Robert Duvall speaking in tongues and trying in vain to knock off First Squad. Mets season this show most reminds me of: Davey Johnson’s 1985 Mets A dynamic squad battles tough foes and usually finds a way to pull it out (think of Keith Hernandez as Sgt. Saunders). But there were no guarantees and you had to watch the shifty enemy platoon led by Herr Leutnant Herzog. 4. Star Trek (1966-69) Though never a Trekkie, Star Track and Star Wreck, as I called it, was a nightly fixture on 11 Alive. The films and other Trek spinoffs became a bit much (though this year’s film was entertaining). A show that became this popular only lasting three years? For NBC to cancel it seems…illogical. Mets season this show most reminds me of: Gil Hodges’s 1968 Mets A ship of souls on the verge of unknown greatness with a strong guiding hand. You might have to reverse the roles with Hodges as Spock and Seaver as Kirk, but how about Grote as Bones, Koosman as Scotty, and maybe Bobby Heise as one of those guys in the yellow uniform who doesn’t usually make it back from a mission. Set phasers to stun. 5. Get Smart (1965-70) Would you believe it was cancelled by two networks? NBC gave it the axe in ’69 and then CBS did the same a year later. Like a couple of others on this list, maybe it was getting stale at the end, but with a great theme song and excellent writing by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart was one of the funniest shows ever. Get Smart was a can’t miss for me: it was re-run on Saturday morning in between Mr. Magoo and Combat! Saturday keeps getting better. Mets season this show most reminds me of: Casey Stengel’s 1962 Mets C’mon, this one’s easy. Great slapstick, a spy who mangles syntax, and a generally pervading wackiness? Just insert Marvelous Marv, Richie Ashburn, and Choo Choo Coleman. Fortunately for America, the Mets weren’t Control, or else Siegfried would rule the world. “Shtarker, this is Kaos, we don’t ‘Metsie, Metsie, Metsie’ here!” 6. Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-75) Three previous Night Stalker movies had been made with Darren McGavin as investigative reporter Carl Kolchak, in his trademark dingy white suit and straw hit—even during the Chicago winter he was on the air. Each week he’d find, say, a werewolf on a cruise ship, or a very large—and dead—Indian, or a monster that took on the image of your best friend or mom or (in Kolchak’s case) the helpful hints columnist at Independent News Service. He’d not only track down the story, but he usually killed the monster as well…and his paper never ran the stories he risked his life for. That’s journalism! The show inspired a ripoff play I wrote, produced, and starred in (as the monster) performed for our fourth-grade class entitled Kodiak: The Monster Exterminator. Rather than sue me for plagiarism, ABC cancelled the show. Mets season this show most reminds me of: Yogi Berra’s 1973 Mets Going up against dangerous Pirate Ghosts and Big Red Bloody Machines, Tug McGraw is Kolchak (McGraw-McGavin). Yogi is Simon Oakland—a Twilight Zone vet who was Kolchak’s editor and shared a name with the city that eventually stuck the stake in “Ya Gotta Believe.” 7. The Odd Couple (1970-75) If I come across The Odd Couple—especially on Channel 11 after a Mets win—that’s the pinnacle of channel surfing. After its cancellation by ABC—it’s the first of these shows I watched regularly while it was still on network—11 Alive grabbed it and ran with it, putting TOC on five and six times a day at its peak. Brilliant interplay between the roommates, their recurring ensemble actors, and guest stars juxtaposed against a deteriorating New York of the 1970s that was portrayed as a dirty yet vibrant place that still beat anyplace else. The Odd Couple aired its last episode the same month Kolchak bought it. Tough year for TV and me. Thanks to my newfound prime time viewing alternative emanating out of Flushing, it would be a while before a network show’s cancellation hit me so hard. Mets season this show most reminds me of: Gil Hodges’s 1969 Mets To me, both the show and the ’69 club are the unquestionable peaks. That the show came out when the Mets were still world champions and ended when I was first watching the team makes it even more of a touchstone between these two rocks. 8. Tour of Duty (1987-90) So I’m a sucker for war shows. I was living alone in rural Massachusetts with only three channels during the last year and a half of this show’s run. TV had long since given up on Saturday night, but Tour was the best network show since CBS’s dominance of that night in the early ’70s. Focusing on an infantry squad in Vietnam, it was gritty like Combat!, but it had better sets and wasn’t all shot in the same back lot like my favorite World War II drama. And it had the opening theme of “Paint It Black” by the Stones and frequently used songs from Jimi Hendrix, The Band, and Creedence. I was bummed when CBS cancelled it and I moved on to China Beach, though that show saw more action with nurses than soldiers. Mets season this show most reminds me of: Davey Johnson’s 1988 Mets It was a mismatch on paper and should’ve been over quickly, but you never underestimate your foe. The favored and cocky Mets—and their followers—went into L.A. and got ambushed. Mike Scioscia, Kirk Gibson, and Orel Hershiser undermined Mets strongholds and morale. Bobby O. was wounded when they needed him on point. Mex got hurt, too, and couldn’t lead. Coney couldn’t do it alone. A damned shame. 9. Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993-1999) The only police drama of the group, this cancellation really burned me up. Every year NBC acted like they were doing a favor by keeping this superbly-produced, award-winning show on the air. The cast included Ned Beattie, Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, Melissa Leo, Yaphet Kotto, and several lesser-known quality actors. Based on a book by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, Homicide lasted longer than any show on this list, but its life was tenuous from its first airing after the Super Bowl XXVII. I never watched the more sensational NYPD Blue, but I never missed Homicide. Outrage was so great about the abrupt end to this series that a film tying up some of the loose ends aired on the network in 2000. Mets season this show most reminds me of: Bobby Valentine’s 1999 Mets Clueless commissioner Steve Phillips takes away captain Bobby V.’s top lieutenants and then orders him to solve more murders. The drama is intense and the season ends when Kenny Rogers’s sorry carcass is found in an alley with a Braves hat stuffed in his mouth. 10. Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000) If you don’t remember this show, just look at the link from the first episode. NBC moved the show around like a Three-Card Monty game. The mix of undesirables and smart kids coexisting in a 1980 Michigan high school was something I knew about—maybe not the Michigan part—and the cast was stellar: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segal, Linda Cardellini, and SCTV veteran Joe Flaherty. Judd Apatow, who’s gone on to a few things that did all right, spent most of the budget getting The Who, Dead, and Billy Joel’s music on the show and even made me enjoy a Joan Jett song, which I previously thought impossible. I eventually saw all the episodes the next year when it was aired on the Family channel. I might have to get that F&G DVD with features almost as long as this post. Bite it, Peacock! Mets season this show most reminds me of: Davey Johnson’s 1986 Mets That club was nearly cancelled in late October, but those partiers did things their way and—like the show’s creators and stars—were ultimately successful. NBC tried to play up the opposition’s angle in the World Series until there was no choice but to accept the bad guys as heroes. Bite it again, Peacock!
The final score: NBC 5, ABC 3, CBS 3 (Get Smart counts twice) Davey 4, Bobby 2, Gil 2, Yogi 1, Casey 1 I no longer give my heart so easily to networks—though I hesitantly trust AMC not to screw up Mad Men. It will at least see a fourth season. As for the Mets…what, like there’s another channel? |
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September 28, 2009 FNP Met What the F is an FNP Met you ask? The answer lies in the seemingly endless pauses in the ballpark experience: between innings, between batters, between pitches…there’s time. Time enough to talk out all kinds of stuff borne of both fact and fiction. You complain, “This guy stinks”…moments before this guy hits a home run. Or “You know, he’s been lights out lately”…just before he allows a two-run double. Hunches will cost you in this game, just as cockiness will. That’s one of the reasons many baseball followers—and front office folks—rely so heavily on numbers. But numbers aren’t worth diddley if you don’t play. Hence the FNP Met. FNP stands for Favorite Non-Playing Met (sure, it should be FNPM, but we don’t need a four-letter word…we’ve already got M-E-T-S). Parrish and I came up with it on a late September afternoon almost 20 years ago. He fancied young Chris Donnels—dubbed The Rookie Donnels—and I was a Mackey Sasser man. Which guy was better? It didn’t much matter. Neither one played. Yet born that day was the Favorite Non-Playing Met Award to honor Mets of great promise whose ass was glued to the bench, by reason of stubborn manager, personality flaw, or hole in his game that our eyes could not detect. The Mets traditionally aren’t great talent judges, but in the long run they were probably right to limit the playing of such past FNP recipients as Tim Bogar, Chris Jones, Jason Hartke, Todd Pratt, Joe McEwing, Mark Johnson, Jeff Keppinger, Chris Woodward, and of course, Mackey Sasser. Heath Bell was one of the only FNPs who was not a position-playing scrub, and one of the few that shows that I actually know something. There was also Dicky Gonzalez, further proof that I don’t. Some have been traded before qualifying—like Mike Kinkade and Melvin Mora, both dealt in the same asinine Steve Phillips deal in 2000. Mora was never a true FNP because by the time I realized he was on the team in ’99, he was playing a key role every day. Bobby Valentine was the golden age of the FNP. He regularly cobbled major league players out of career minor leaguers. Look at the ones above who got the nod and then think of players who saw too much PT for FNP: Matt Franco, Benny Agbayani, Timo Perez, Desi Relaford, Tyoshi Shinjo. These guys were big-time scrubs who barely stayed in the majors after they left the organization. With Bobby V. they had a home and made the home fans proud. For my money, Mets managers are ranked 1. Gil Hodges, 2. Davey Johnson, and 3. Bobby V. Everyone else can pick a number out of a hat. I admit, some years there’s been too much going on to pick an FNP. And I’ve forgotten which year some guys won. And the last two years were too painful to pick out an FNP. So with the new ballpark, and not much to worry about, we’re documenting it all starting this year.
The first “official” award is pretty easy,
since every breathing Met has played regularly at one point. So who
would qualify for The numbers aren’t final, so forgive me if I’m off, but according to my calculations, Evans will bat less than 70 times on a team in which mid-season acquisitions Anderson Hernandez and Wilson Valdez combined for over 200 meaningless, difficult-to-watch, power-free at-bats. I know someone had to play shortstop and Evans plays positions where they have a lot of bodies…but come on! Do we really have to watch the man with the worst instincts in baseball, Angel Pagan, every single friggin’ day? Or Fernando Tatis, the go-back player of the year for 2009, prove why he was out of baseball entirely three years ago? And is it some kind of punish assignment that makes us witness Daniel Murphy’s continued loss of strike zone judgment against lefties as well as righties? (Corey Sullivan I like. His game-winning hit in the ninth against the Marlins aside, I enjoy the Volunteer Fire Department ring to it when Jerry bats Murphy, Frenchy, and Sully all in a row.) Anyone who rots on the bench on the 2009 Mets doesn’t have a future in the organization. With Tatis, Pagan, and Sullivan logging time in the outfield, I guess it’s not worth finding out if Evans will ever be any good. His stats stink because he bats twice a week. In a good week. If more than one of those other backup outfielders makes the squad in spring training next year, it’s gonna be a looooong year. So sure Nick Evans, you rode the pine while Wilson Valdez was used as a pinch hitter and you kept your superior first baseman’s glove tucked in a bag while the ball clanged off Murphy’s mitt repeatedly, but Nick, you are this year’s FNP. For the first time there’s an actual prize: a photograph of a platter, suitable for framing, emblazoned with the image of Gil Hodges, a manager who knew what to do with the Nick Evanses of the world. If Nick Evans were a ’69 Met, he would have batted cleanup once a week. And he’d have sung on an album. Unlike past winners, whose identities were soon forgotten, your FNP is documented forever via the world wide web. So you got that goin’ for ya, which is nice. |
