The last time the Mets opened the season on Sunday Night Baseball, it was a rematch of a heartbreaking loss to a Missouri-based foe. In 2007 it was the Cardinals. The Mets smoked them in the opener, swept the series, and looked great until the last frightening fortnight of the season. In 2016 it was the Royals. They smoked the Mets and Matt Harvey, the teams spilt the series, and New York turned it on in a final formidable fortnight of the 2016 season.

The Mets are a fickle bunch, and their fans can be, too. After a 2015 run where everyone was healthy and producing, where late-inning and late-season rallies happened with remarkable regularity, the Mets seemed rundown and out of luck for much of 2016. In 2015 they did not win a single regular-season game against either the Cubs or the Pirates, both playoff teams, but they overcame. In 2016 the Mets went a staggering 2-11 against the Rockies and Diamondbacks, teams that went a combined 36 games under .500. The Mets also had losing records against divisional foes Washington and Atlanta.

During the final homestand I sat in the upper deck and saw the last-place Braves sweep the Mets on a game-saving, over-the-fence catch by center fielder Ender Inciarte (he earned the 2016 Gold Glove right there). It left the Mets tied with the Giants and Cardinals for the two wild card spots. There were just 10 games left in the season, and given the Mets’ past history with the Cardinals, it was hard to think they’d steal a spot from them. But they did.

The Mets went 7-3 to finish the season, taking three of four from the Phillies, starting off with the best—and most important win of the season the night after that crushing loss to the Braves. Back and forth they went with the Phillies, Yoenis Cespedes tied the game in the fifth and then put them ahead in the seventh, only to see the Phils score three times in the eighth in a rare stinker outing by Addison Reed. The Mets rallied to tie it in the ninth on a Jose Reyes two-run homer. And then after Jeurys Familia faltered in the 11th and two runs scored, a three-run, walkoff bomb by Asdrubal Cabrera saved the day.

From that point forward, during a part of the season when Mets teams have faded badly over the past 20 years, the Amazin’s were, well, amazin’. Their only two losses in games that mattered: against the Phillies in Flushing, when they were down by 10 runs before rallying to make it 10-8 with the tying runs on base when the game ended, and against the Marlins on a night when Jose Fernandez was supposed to pitch but did not.

I was heading to Florida to visit my dad, with plans to see one of the games in Miami. Fernandez was scheduled to pitch that first game. He had never lost to the Mets, had a career 1.34 ERA against them, with the Mets hitting just .177 against him. Fernandez was cocky, but I liked him. He loved the game and it reminded me of watching young Pedro Martinez in Expos garb dominate a good Mets club. But Fernandez died in a boating accident the day before I left for Florida, the day before he was supposed to pitch against the Mets.

I walked around the mall-like stadium complex by myself that Monday night. It was somber but still had the bustle before a big-league game, especially with both teams still with a chance for the postseason. But when the Marlins took the field all donned in number 16 jerseys with Fernandez on the back, it was hard to think about a game. I don’t like Dee Gordon, or anyone who cheats the game (he spent half the year suspended for performance enhancing drugs), but it was hard to not feel something positive when he hit Bartolo’s second pitch over the right-field fence at that massive park. It was his only home run of the year. He cried when he got to the dugout.

The Mets put together a comeback, but lost that game. Against this team, playing the role of opponent in something bigger than the game, the Mets could have done their usual September slide. But they did not. The Mets were respectful of the Marlins the last two games, but they did not let down. Jay Bruce, who had been quiet as a dormouse since being acquired from the Reds for never-to-be Favorite Nonplaying Met Dilson Herrera, came alive the last week of the season. The Mets won those last two games in Miami and then won the first two games in Philly, the second of which clinched the top wild card seed.

Anytime the Mets make the postseason, it is a real achievement. The way this season looked, it was a grand achievement. Beating out the Cardinals, not beating themselves, and holding it together when they had to with a pitching staff made of Noah Syndergaard, Bartolo Colon, and three guys I hadn’t heard of before the year began. I thought Terry Collins deserved Manager of the Year, but for the second year in a row, he didn’t even come close in the voting. And I did not think much of the man’s managing ability (and occasionally still have questions) until last year. After so many things went right in 2015, so many things went wrong in 2016. Reaching the postseason at all was amazin’ indeed.

Now look, the one-game playoff/playin/playwithyourself game had its chance to convince me of being a worthy postseason format for baseball. A homer by a banjo-hitting third baseman against the league’s best closer did not change my belief that the wild card teams (if two such teams are really necessary) should play a best-of-three format reminiscent of the old way that the National League handled ties at the end of the Year (see “Shot Heard ‘Round the World, The”).

The Mets were bounced from October quick as a wink, but it was still a tremendous October. The Indians had their best team in years and with a little luck might have ended a drought that stretches to when my Dad, who just turned 85, was a teenager. (Happy birthday, Pop!) My grandfather, who has been dead for two-thirds of a century, was seven years old when the Cubs had last won. Something had to give.

But I would not give back one iota of the 2016 Mets season. Wright gets hurt, Reyes comes back. No deGrom? We get Gsellman. Duda and Walker are out? Loney and T.J. Rivera are in. Rene Rivera takes over when Travis d’Arnaud turns as small as the letter that starts his last name. Seth Lugo, for crying out loud. Josh Smoker, for corn’s sake. A team that has done nothing but frustrate me for a long time made me proud. They played exciting, meaningful baseball, and I walked out of there thinking the season was over the Wednesday night Inciarte stole that would-be home run. I walked out of there two Wednesdays later knowing that their season was done, but having no doubt they had given their best.

We want a world championship, just like everyone else, but barring that we’ll take a fun season. And these Mets gave us that and more in 2016. Here’s to even more in 2017.

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You want fun in 2017? Well, how about the Queens Baseball Convention this Saturday at Katch Astoria at 31-19 Newtown Avenue, Queens, NY 11102. I’ll be on Greg Prince’s 50 Years of 41: Tom Seaver Panel at day’s end, about 5 p.m. Be there or be square.

Just came from the mall where I bought… a bunch of crap. It’s nice that the Newburgh Mall has a branch of the library there, with lots of people sitting and reading. For shopping it would have been nice to have an actual bookstore to browse through titles in hardcover, softcover, and CD, but you still might order your favorite Mets book online if you don’t mind getting it after Christmas. But if you are reading this, I am assuming you already have One-Year Dynasty covered. Thanks so much.

Anywho, going to the mall is a pain. An hour and 15 minutes spent there feels like 15 hours and 1 minute to me. I can think of someplace where standing for 75 minutes waiting in line feels mighty fine: The Queens Baseball Convention. I’d gladly wait that long for two former Mets infielders and third base coaches in Bobby Valentine and Tim Teufel.

And the Queens Baseball Convention will have me, too. I have been asked by Mets author and blogger extraordinaire Greg Prince to take part in a panel on Tom Seaver, who became a Met 50 years ago. Whoa! I get a lot of anniversary numbers thrown at me, but that one made my knees buckle a bit. I’ll hopefully have recovered enough by Saturday, January 28, at Katch Astoria, 31-19 Newtown Avenue in Queens. This is inside information since I’m not listed on the QBC web site. So keep it under your (blue) Mets hat.

And what does this have to do with holiday shopping? Well, since we all waited too long to order our stuff online, my recommendation for your Mets Christmas gift of 2016 is to buy a ticket to QBC, print it out, and put it under your favorite Mets fan’s tree. I attended the first two QBCs put together by Mets Police and many other dedicated volunteers. I was monumentally bummed out that last year’s QBC was snowed out—the one storm all year! Bobby V. and Timmy T. won’t let that happen again.

This being the holiday season and me having books to sell, I figure why not combine both sentiments? I have included links below to click on to order from Amazon, but feel free to break out on your own and buy it from Barnes & Noble or your local book shop, like my favorite new place, Postmark Books in Rosendale.

My latest book is about everyone’s favorite insufferable Mets team, the ’86 world champs. It’s called One-Year Dynasty: Inside the Rise and Fall of the 1986 Mets, Baseball’s Impossible One-and-Done Champions. I also updated a couple of old stand-bys, 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die and Mets by the Numbers (which I co-authored with Jon Springer). I also updated Cubs and Red Sox books with my co-authors in the By the Numbers series. So I did books on three teams this year and all of them made the postseason. One even beat a 108-year curse and ended the San Francisco even-year, Ho-Jo-like domination thingee. Not too shabby.

If you want autographed copies, email me at matt@metsilverman.com.

Thanks for listening and no matter what gifts you choose, have a Metty Christmas and Happy Harvey Year!

It’s with a heavy heart I pen this tribute to Ralph Branca, who died the day before Thanksgiving at age 90. He will be forever known for allowing the home run dubbed the Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff on October 3, 1951—“The Giants win the pennant,” over and over, and Branca splayed across the steps at the Polo Grounds sobbing.

Before I even knew what baseball was, I knew that story. It was whispered around our house like the tale of someone who had killed someone in a tragic accident. Ralph Branca lived near us in White Plains, at first in the neighborhood next to my aunt’s house, and then moved a couple miles closer to where I grew up. He overcame his inglorious moment and his injury-shortened career to become a successful life insurance agent, who was still going to the office every day and calling clients in his late 80s, which I saw in the documentary made on him, Branca’s Pitch. My mom and Ann Branca were best friends. When I hear Ann Branca talk even now, I can hear strains of my mother coming through her voice, even though my mother was from Birmingham and she from Brooklyn.

Ralph was not just the nicest person I knew in baseball, he was the nicest person I knew. And when it became known that the Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff was the endgame of an elaborate sign-stealing system instigated by Giants manager Leo Durocher and perpetrated by coach Herman Franks, along with assorted bullpen scrubs, I realized he had the most integrity of anyone I’ve known. Joshua Prager’s initial Wall Street Journal story about the scheme came to light 50 years after the Giants stole the pennant. And Ralph had never said a word despite people calling him for years at all hours to tell him what a bum he was. And he was married to the daughter of the Mulveys, part owners of the Dodgers at the time, so it wasn’t like losing the pennant to their closest rival was easy to forget.

Prager’s The Echoing Green is the story of that season, that game, and the life that Branca and Bobby Thomson lived in the years that followed and how it changed with the revelation about the sign stealing. The Brooklyn Dodgers may have moved, but the team never left the hearts of its fans. Just ask the Wilpons. When you think of best known Brooklyn Dodgers, you—or at least I—number them like so: 1. Jackie Robinson, 2. Gil Hodges, 3. Duke Snider, 4. Pee Wee Reese, 5. Roy Campanella, and 6. Ralph Branca. Ralph isn’t there on ballplaying merit with four Hall of Famers and a should-be Hall of Famer, but when it comes to integrity, he was cut from the same cloth.

The New York Times obit goes into great detail about Ralph’s life, his 16 siblings, finding out decades later that Ralph, a devoted member of our church, Our Lady of Sorrows in White Plains, had a mother who was Jewish and never told him about that or her family in Hungary had died in the camps during World War II. But I can tell you that in a family where everyone’s name began with an “M,” he never once called me by my brother’s name, which was more than my parents could say; he arranged for me to go to Vero Beach and meet Tommy Lasorda and play catch with Steve Garvey during spring training in 1979; he provided tickets to my first baseball game, box seats at Shea Stadium for Yankees Old Timers day (yes, the Yankees at Shea) where he and Thomson performed their shtick; he sang at my sister’s wedding, a smooth voice that had once resulted in a side light career in an era when ballplayers had to have other ways of making money; and he put up with requests from my friends for autographs whether it was at Camp Pelican or my wedding. My way of paying him back was to respect his privacy and I never one asked him to do business or an interview (though I admit, I did ask once).

But what mean the most to me were the phone calls. After almost every book I wrote, I got a phone call from Ralph Branca saying how he’d heard about the book in the news and how it sounded like a winner. And sometimes he said how much my mother would have been proud of me. The kind of answering machine message you don’t need to save forever, because it is forever saved in your heart.

The last time we spent much time together was in October 2013. My son was stunned to learn that we knew the pitcher who was first to welcome Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers in 1947. So after one of his congratulatory calls, I talked to him about his book, A Moment in Time, and how much I liked it. I asked if we might arrange a meeting with my family. He said he would love to, and insisted on paying. I went to lunch with him one day to talk baseball and family. The next day he signed balls and books and he and Ann told my children about the grandmother they never knew.

You can’t say they don’t make ballplayers like that anymore; they don’t make people like that anymore.

For all its managerial misfirings and ridiculous bullpen moves, Cubs-Indians was the best Game Seven I can recall seeing. There have been 38 deciding Game Sevens in the World Series. The crème de la crème begins with a Game Eight, due to a tie, in 1912 (Red Sox over Giants in extras), 1924 (Senators over Giants in extras), 1926 (Cardinals over Yankees), 1955 (Brooklyn over Yanks. At last.), 1960 (Mazeroski HR sends Bucs over Yanks), 1964 (Cards beat Yanks in their last WS for like ever—or 12 years for those of you who can only count rings), 1971 (Pirates over Orioles by a run in the Roberto Series), 1972 (Hairs 3, Squares 2), 1975 (Reds over Red Sox in my first World Series and still maybe best I have seen), 1982 (Keith comes through for Cardinals over Brewers), 1986 (Keith comes through again. Natch.), 1991 (Twins over Braves in maybe the best Game Seven pitching duel ever), 1997 (another really touch one, Cleveland), 2001 (Diamondbacks over Yankees with the best bloop ever), and 2014 (Bumgarner 3, Royals 2).

Just the idea of Cubs and Indians playing for all the marbles, that something’s got to give with the BS curses, should have had you tuning in. And Game Seven drew the most eyeballs for a World Series game since 1991 (though this could be be bad because it might only encourage Fox to keep carrying baseball and hiding the playoffs from large swaths of the country without top tier cable). But it was worth the exhaustion.

For all my Chicago friends, especially my Cubs by the Numbers co-authors, Al Yellon and Kasey Ignarski, who rarely miss a game at Wrigley, congratulations. They each have attended thousands of games there and have seen and put up with a lot crap through the years. As much as I think I know about baseball, I have no idea how good this feels for them. The one time I attended a Mets game with  Al, in 2009 at Citi Field, he stopped me in my tracks when I complained about the lousy team the Mets had that year. “Listen, your team has two world championships in your lifetime. I just hope for one in mine.” Well earned.

Best stadium, best celebrity fan (Bill Murray), and now best team. That’s some hat trick. Hats off.

It was 30 years ago that the Mets won the world championship. I almost did something for the site on the 30th anniversary of Game Six, but I fought the urge. To me, Game Six means nothing without Game Seven. Without fulfilling the destiny, the glory of Game Six is the Carlton Fisk home run in the 1975 World Series: a tremendous moment, but invariably anticlimactic because Boston blew a 3-0 lead in Game Seven in ’75. And the Red Sox blew a 3-0 lead in Game Seven in 1986.

Many people forget that the Mets were down by three runs in the sixth inning and were dominated by Bruce Hurst in the deciding game, who’d already beaten them twice in the Series. Then in the span of just over a dozen pitches, the Mets rallied to tie the game. Keith Hernandez’s two-run single to put the Mets on the board may be the biggest hit of his Mets career. And during our interviews for One-Year Dynasty, Keith still couldn’t believe that it was almost the exact same situation as Game Seven in the 1982 World Series, when Keith the Cardinal got the big hit with his team trailing the Brewers in the deciding game. “I just did what I always did in a tight situation,” he said, “which is take a couple of deep breaths and count to ten, slow everything down and get in the box. I mean you can’t run and hide. There I am. I’m either going to do it or I’m not.”

If he’d hit into a double play, the inning is over. Maybe Hurst pitches a complete game like he did in Game Five. Then there is no Curse of the Bambino and perhaps Boston has an even more inflated image. It’s possible. Hurst had already been voted Series MVP. But of course, Keith got the hit, Ray Knight got the Series MVP, and Hurst and the Red Sox got the short end of the stick. But who cares about them? It’s the Mets who have had to hold onto that moment, milk it, have people not yet born accept it as their team’s greatest moment. It was a superb moment. The team didn’t have staying power but the moment certainly did.

I still have a pennant from that season—as do the Mets—but all the swag I received at Christmas disappeared over time. And while I have bought a couple of Mets NL Champion shirts and Division Series shirts over the intervening three decades, I rarely wear them. I am holding out for the real thing. And I am going to make sure I don’t let it out of my sight. With the Mets you never know how long you’re going to have to make it last.

One of the tenets of being a diehard fan of a team is that you are rooting for that team, no matter what. If Damien Satan III was called up from the minors and got on base every time up, while at the same time All-Stars on your team’s rivals began dying, a hardcore fan might say that’s some extraordinary luck and change the subject to how cute Damien’s rottweiler is and how he helps the poor trade their souls for goods and services. As a Mets fan I have rooted for some loathsome characters and players I just did not like, only to cheer them without a second thought when they came through at a key—or even not so key—moment.

Postseason battles between other teams are a different matter. Most of the time, who cares who wins or who doesn’t? Unlike the Super Bowl, which is just a day (thankfully), sometimes you never really get behind either team and instead put much of your energy into devouring guacamole or your favorite intoxicant at the party spread before one team takes a 32-0 lead. But to watch the World Series—and what red-blooded baseball fan does not? (though if the Yankees are involved you do what you have to do)— is a four- to seven-night commitment. It’s hard to watch for that long while staying objective. Just ask Joe Buck! (And thank you, Fox, for finally deeming this round of baseball competition worthy of a channel not numbered in the 400s, where people staying in hotels or living within their means might have access.)

I used to pick my rooting interests before the World Series and stuck by them. Then the 1993 World Series happened. I have loved the Blue Jays since their first-ever game in 1977, played in a snowstorm, when I spent hours willing the broadcast beamed onto my black-and-white TV in New York by an ESPN that did not yet exist. The 1993 pennant winner was the Phillies, a team I have never liked since much of my baseball fan apprenticeship in the 1970s and early 1980s, was spent watching the Phillies serve as the boxing glove to the Mets’ punching bag. Yet there I was in October of ’93, rooting for the Phillies to come back on the Jays in the butt ugly 15-14 Game Four that Toronto held on to win. I was never so relieved in a non-Mets rooting/non-Yankees loathing postseason circumstance as when Joe Carter hit that walkoff home run, touched them all, and put an end to Philadelphia’s and my misery. I felt dirty when it was over. Or maybe that was the bender I was on from my high school reunion that weekend. But that is nothing compared to the impending benders throughout parts of the Midwest if either the Cubs or Indians take the title they have been cumulatively been waiting 174 seasons for.

The Cubs have not won since 1908. You may have heard this. Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown and Orval Overall won the four games against the Tigers, whom the Cubs had beaten the previous year for the world’s championship, as they possessively called it then. Three Finger and Overall each pitched complete games shutouts in the final two games of the World Series. The 2016 Cubs had that many complete-game shutouts all year. It was a different time, but as forever Cubs fan and forever funnyman Bill Murray said, most people don’t get what it’s like to root for a team that never wins. “It builds character.”

Cleveland fans would know all about that. Cleveland has not won the World Series since 1948, with a team managed by Lou Boudreau. The 30-year-old player-manager had come up with the first widely discussed shift for Ted Williams and Lou was 1948 AL MVP (when only one manager was honored by The Sporting News, Billy Meyer was named TSN Manager of the Year with Ralph Kiner’s ’48 Pirates). Boudreau did lead the league in WAR, which in 1948 he might have thought was a slight at being declared 4-F during World War II because of arthritic ankles.

There are the silly curses: Billy goats in Chicago, Rocky Colavito in Cleveland. There is the Midwestern sturdiness aspect. And there are the nicknames that are the last in a long line for these franchises. “Cubs” stuck as the name after the White Stockings, Colts, and Orphans came and went. Cleveland started with Blues and went with Bronchos (not sure of why it was spelled that way) and Naps (for the great Napoleon Lajoie, long forgotten despite his stellar name and game). “Indians” has been the name for more than a century, but I can’t say it’s right. Charles Bender was already a stellar member of the Philadelphia A’s for a decade and had long been known as “Chief” when “Indians” became the official name for Cleveland’s team. I’m sure he kept calling them “Cleveland” or “Naps,” just as he kept signing his name “Charles Bender” for autographs until the end of his life in the spring of 1954, a year after he was elected to the Hall of Fame. That the ’54 Tribe won an AL-record 111 games and were swept in the World Series is a coincidence, I’m sure.

I’m not here to talk about the team nickname. That it is offensive to a people that has so much dignity is enough for me. I will try avoiding using the word “Indians” here and in speech, but it will be difficult. You see, when I was in my back yard, throwing a ball in the air and hitting it, I made up not just a whole cast of teammates, but an entire  American League of fictional stars. (I picked the Indians for my fictional career because beiong on the Mets seemed too far-fetched.) And I was third baseman when the Indians finally won the World Series. This was in the 1970s, but given that I was 11 and 12 at the time, their championship was projected as around 1990. And now we’re 40 years past me teaching myself to switch-hit so I could be a switch-hitter in my pretend American League. And we’re 26 years past the projected date of that world championship. (By the way I hit the Series clinching inside-the-park homer, lefty, naturally—and don’t think the hair didn’t prick up on the back of my neck when Cleveland’s Tyler Naquin ended a game with a touch-’em-all home run earlier this year.

Just like I don’t summarily discount clutch hitting because the player at the plate believes it exists, I am not going to assume that because I may be OK with a nickname that the group it targets isn’t deeply affected. My family goes back far enough in this country that I am not sure if we are more German or Irish or Spanish or whatever. But whoever it was carrying my genes was a newcomer next to the natives. And they may be as insulted as they might be if Cleveland’s team was called Krauts or Micks or what have you.

But this is about taking sides in a ballgame. And I remain torn. I have numerous friends—and some relatives—who are Cubs fans. I have a new edition of a book on the Cubs I co-wrote that you can buy while supplies last. And they play in the best ballpark still in existence, though I have not been to Wrigley Field since it had its up-do.

On the other side, I know just one Indians fan, and the book I was paid to work on about the Indians is 20 years old and so long out of print I can’t even find a mention of it on the internet. Though I may have gone the other way on the nickname, I am not opposed to the ballclub. They pitch, they hit, they run, they win, they are not the Yankees.

But I am a prisoner, awaiting my heart to tap me mid-game and say who I am rooting for. A prisoner of baseball. And happily so.

Favorite Nonplaying Met has been a favorite noncrucial award doled out by yours truly dating all the way back to the early 1990s. It began as a way for me to subtly posit that I could be the manager if I had A. played minor league ball, B. endured 10,000 bus rides between Cedar Rapids and every Springfield ever made, C. knew what I was talking about, and D. had the power to make out a lineup.

So I pick out a player each year to be FNP Met. Maybe he is in the real manager’s doghouse, or maybe he is stuck behind someone I think he’s better than, or I am just using the power of what might have been to make my point. Sometimes, such as the rare case of Heath Bell, I was right (for a while, at least). But when you look at the long list of scrubinees and the many “they were Mets?,” you’ll see that every skipper from Bud Harrelson to Terry Collins might have known something. Past winners have included Chris Donnels, Todd Pratt, Dicky Gonzalez, Anthony Recker, Kirk Nieuwenhuis… you get the idea. Nick Evans was the only two-time winner, that says a lot about this award right off the bat. One of the first, if not the first FNP (even my memory gets fuzzy about something that was invented after about 10 beers) was Mackey Sasser. Mackey couldn’t throw but sure could hit; he can scout, too, giving the Mets the scoop on his former Wallace College player T.J. Rivera, who had been undrafted and now looks to be a start in at least one postseason game.

Last fall I was up to my ears in editing and updates and there really was no good choice because everyone played so well and just about the right amount, So after the postseason I went with Jose Uribe, who got a little forgotten after David Wright came back. Then Jose got hurt and didn’t play the last few weeks of the season. Sort of like Wilmer Flores now. My biggest beef about Jose’s playing time was how he was not chosen to be DH in the first two World Series games in Kansas City. When he pinch-hit in Game Three in Flushing, he looked plenty healthy as he rocketed an RBI single. And he didn’t play again. Uribe only played in every game during the curse-ending World Series titles by the White Sox and Giants. Surprised he wasn’t on the Royals roster the way they broke their own 30-year drought. Now the Mets’ drought has reached 30, you may have read about that.

Well, let’s give Terry Collins credit this year—and if T.C. gets ripped off for the Manager of the Year Award like he did last year, you’ll hear a distant upstate scream some time next month. Terry could have and maybe should have benched Curtis Granderson this summer, but despite sitting him for a brief time, he stuck with Grandy, who responded with 30 homers (his record-low 59 RBI for a 30-homer guy is not all his doing). Terry likewise stuck with Jay Bruce and it paid off in the crucial final week of the year. Asdrubel Cabrera went two months (and 32 at bats) between hits with a runner in scoring position. Nobody is complaining about that now.

Wilmer Flores saw more bench time than he should have—playing only against lefties for much of the year—but when he was injured and knocked out for the season in Atlanta, he was playing second base every day. Wish he was still available for October.

But it is October now and I am going to go with an FNP that as of this writing I am not sure is on the postseason roster. And I’m not even sure he deserves to be on it. But I am still picking Michael Conforto with an even more half-hearted vote than last year. I almost went with Brandon Nimmo for the award because he’s almost exclusively been a pinch hitter—and pretty good at that role—but Nimmo was not up for very long this season. Conforto was in New York enough to come to the plate 348 times—way more than any past FNP—but I am granting Michael dispensation for his long exile in the minors, especially for someone who looked so good last October and looked great making that sliding catch to clinch the 2015 postseason berth.

So come claim your prize, Conforto. And lay off those pitches in the dirt! I’m out on a limb for ya. Let’s go Mets!

Nothing makes me more nervous than the Mets in contention in the final week of the season. But this week, it really has taken a back seat to what happened in Miami.

I was traveling and did not tune into last Sunday’s 17-0 win over the Phillies until the final inning. A couple of times Howie Rose referred to the tragic death of Jose Fernandez. It did not seem real. The guy is 24. The guy is a star. The guy has a good shot of winning the Cy Young Award. Yes, all those things. Only in the past tense.

His death, along with two friends—one of whom he’d met for the first time that night—shocked the baseball world. But it has stunned Florida far more. I headed to South Florida the day after the news broke to visit my father. When I had booked the trip a few weeks earlier, it had not even occurred to me that the Mets would be in the area at the same time. I decided I’d sneak off one night to go to a game. When my Dad had an appointment Monday afternoon that did not require my assistance, I made a move south to Miami.

Outside the main gates of Marlins Park was a shrine begun the previous day, with flowers, posters, stuffed animals, and posters; even a Mets hat left as a salute. People stood quietly or took photographs somberly. Inside it was quiet, except for the sounds of batting practice: fellow Cuban Yoenis Cespedes, the leader of the Mets mourners for Jose, launching balls into the farthest reaches of the giant stadium.

I was walking around the stadium when I heard cheers. I did not know why. When I checked on the field, a player had just exited. And then it got loud again when another Marlin emerged before I could get a look. It was not until the Marlins took the field all together that the reason for the cheers became obvious: The Marlins were all wearing number 16. Fernandez’s number would never be worn again, but every member of the team wore it that night. Those were the only Fernandez jerseys to be had as there was not a piece of Fernandez memorabilia left at any concession stand, though there were fans all over the stadium wearing his jerseys and “Jose’s Heroes” shirts for the charity he put so much effort into. Even the “K” signs handed out were marked “Jose’s Heroes.”

Everything about the story was sad. Fernandez had been imprisoned as a teenager for repeatedly trying to flee Cuba. And then he tried again. While escaping, someone fell off the boat he was on, and he jumped into the ocean not knowing who he was risking his life to save. It was not until he swam to the person that he realized it was his mother. He was 15 years old. More of a man than most of us will ever be.

He wound up in Miami, graduated high school there, and was a first round pick in 2011 by the hometown Marlins. (The Mets selected Brandon Nimmo one pick earlier.) Fernandez debuted against the Mets at age 20 in April 2013. He was brilliant in that game, though he got a no decision. He never got a decision in any of his four career starts at Citi Field, even though his ERA at the place was 1.23. It was his lowest ERA for a stadium where he pitched more than once, including Marlins Park, where he had a 1.49 ERA. And a 29-2 record.

He was supposed to pitch against the Mets at Marlins Park on Monday. The Marlins had even moved him back a day after a brilliant eight-inning effort against the Nationals in his last start. More irony. If he’d been pitching Sunday, on Saturday night he would never have…

Let’s not go there. It will keep a body up nights, torments of what might have been. Jose Fernandez’s brilliant young career is now reduced to what might have been. How much he would have made in the open market in a couple of years? How much he might have taken to stay in Miami? How many awards he might have won? How many championships might he have been a part of? Instead it was how many smiles he brought to the faces of people in South Florida, the Cuban community, and all over the country.

I am a bit of a baseball curmudgeon, and sitting through the entirety of a Mets loss can make me angry about wasted time when I had so much I should have been doing instead. But Fernandez’s 1-0 win over Matt Harvey and the Mets in June in Miami was an absolute thing of beauty. I was lucky to have caught most of his starts against the Mets on TV, though I never got to see him in person. A guy having fun and being the best he could be. “The Bird” 40 years later with a shorter haircut and an even more tragic end.

I sat in the stands for the entire game Monday night, a bit perturbed that the Mets lost a game they needed badly, but the Marlins needed it more. You had to be a tougher guy than me not to feel for Dee Gordon crying as he rounded the bases, hitting his first home run of the year as the first batter in the wake of the tragedy. The entire lineup responded, battering Bartolo all over the place. And then they gathered on the mound after the game. It was inspirational. I think even the Mets were inspired by it, and they were lauded by the Marlins broadcasters, which includes old pal Al Leiter, the next two nights while I watched with my Dad from his home.

Family obligations kept me from seeing the 1986 reunion game or the Piazza number retirement, but I was glad to be in Miami to honor Jose Fernandez. Unlike the ’86 Mets or Piazza, Jose Fernandez will be remembered mostly for what might have been. And that is saddest of all.