Every year at this time (or later) I toss out an idea for those looking to give the gift of Mets at holiday time. Often, the suggestion is books, because I know of no better way to say a lot about Mets for $20 or so and learn something at the same time. There are an absolute ton of Mets books due out next year, including three from your faithful servant (one new, and an update or two crammed with new material).

You could say the gifts have already been given for 2015. Mortgaging a small bit of future for a push to the postseason. The Washington Nationals not firing Matt Williams when he lost the team and lost tons of games with questionable moves. Knocking off the Dodgers in a tense NLDS. Sweeping the Cubs in the NLCS after Chicago swept the season series from the Mets. The thrill, never mind the outcome, of returning to the World Series for the first time in 15 years. You could even say that Michael Cuddyer retiring and freeing up a bunch of money for a cash strapped club is a gift under the tree. (Mike, you may not have been my favorite player, but that is a classy way to go out with your dignity in tow.)

But we are looking at something simple and even for under the tree. Getting your butt to Citi Field, or getting someone there who hasn’t gone in a few years due to some grand point. Here is the news: Your experiment has failed. The ship is leaving without you. And you are not hurting the Wilpons, you’re hurting yourself. Or your loved ones. The Wilpons will endure. So must you. We are not talking about season tickets, we are talking about a game or two. Get you back in flow, Joe.

I address all the reasons some may be reticent with a never-before-published segment to the new edition to 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die. This did not appear in the 2008 or 2010 versions of the book. It didn’t have to. It needs saying now.

Have the Mettiest of holidays.

Go to a Mets Home Game

The first two incarnations of this book did not include this recommendation because it seemed too obvious, but following the team’s financial miasma that took over the Mets conversation for much of the 2010s, it is worth advising now: See the Mets in person at Citi Field. If you don’t live near New York, see number 82 (Attend a Mets Road Game).

Many, many Mets fans have proclaimed that they will not attend another Mets game until the Wilpons sell the team. As of 2015, with a newly minted National League pennant and the floor of the Wrigley Field visiting locker room still sticky from the champagne from the giant bottle of bubbly Jeff Wilpon was last seen hoisting following the sweep of the Cubs, it doesn’t look like ownership is changing soon. So how many more pennants do you plan to miss? They don’t come around in Flushing too often, no matter who owns the team.

First, for those planning to raise a new generation of Mets fans, the best way for it to stick is to bring young kiddies and (if it applies) bring your wife, as the song goes. You can watch all the baseball you want on TV or buy tons of merchandise (and doesn’t that wind up in ownership’s pockets?), but it is much more likely to take hold in an environment with thousands of others with the same predisposition. If you want to raise Yankees fans, or worse, people who don’t care about baseball at all, the best way to do that is to not take them out to the ballgame. It can go a little far in the other direction, like the kids under 10 seen by the hundreds after midnight of a 13-4 lead in the eighth inning of Game 3 of the Division Series, but the Mets have been known to go long periods between sips of playoff bubbly.

Watching on TV is cheaper, but it’s not anywhere close to the shared experience of the ballpark. And here are a few hints on how to do so without costing an arm or a leg or bringing excess treasure to owners you don’t like. Here’s a five-step plan.

1. Buy from Stub Hub or similar secondary market sources—including people you know who have extra tickets. Stub Hub is partner with almost all major league teams, including the Mets, and there is a processing fee, but it is a great way to get tickets at a reduced price (like the $6 Promenade seats overlooking the infield purchased at the last minute for the final regular season game of 2015) or an incredibly inflated price (like the sum I cannot disclose for 2015 World Series standing room tickets, should the Mrs. reads this).
2. Take public transportation. This will keep you from paying $22 and up for parking at the ballpark, unless you are willing to get there early, park free on the street, and then walk a bit.
3. Bring your own food. The Mets are pretty good about letting people bring in food, so long as it is not in a cooler. As for drinks, the team website says, “Guests may bring in one, soft, plastic, factory-sealed water bottles of 20 ounces or less. Guests may also bring in one sealed, soft-sided child’s juice box. Note: Water bottles and juice boxes may not be frozen.” (Also be careful of metal containers, including aerosol sun screen, bring a plastic bottle instead.)
4. Give blood. New York Blood Center in recent years has given free Mets tickets to people giving blood during certain times of the year. Likewise, people donating to the team’s December coat drive and summer food drive (10 items or more) at the stadium receive free seat vouchers for future games at Citi.
5. Don’t confuse laziness or cheapness with some high moral stand.

To quote Auntie Mame, “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” And have you tried the Pat LaFrieda steak sandwich at Citi Field?

Bonus Paragraph Not Available in Book (or sold in stores, to use holiday speak)

If I may digress, I came from a household where baseball was not big, but I suddenly got into the game and the Mets at age 10 in 1975. That year both the Mets and Yankees played at Shea Stadium, and I first saw the Yankees play at Shea against the Indians on Oldtimers Day, with all the pomp and circumstance moved from the Bronx to Flushing. And I pulled for Cleveland the whole way. A few weeks later my father took me to the same place to see the Mets, and that beat-up old stadium was the only structure I loved as much as the house where I grew up. As bad as the Mets were in the years that followed, I cherished going to those games with my dad—mostly losses—almost as much as the postseason games I was later privileged to attend with my friends. I can’t be the only one who feels this way. Take your kid to the ballgame. Or take yourself, for your own good. You’re guaranteed to have the time of your life. (Disclaimer: Guarantee not valid in Flushing.)

Well, hey there! I know you were worried. Yes, I took the Mets loss in the World Series kind of hard. You get so close to the whole thing and then it comes down to a few bad plays that if they are made, maybe I’ve been on a happy bender for the last month. But we all know that didn’t happen. Though I wasn’t sitting around the house all depressed watching Mets Classics, eating Haagen Dazs, and every few minutes bawling, “Aw Murph!”

There was some business to attend to. First came the finishing touches on One-Year Dynasty: Inside the Rise and Fall of the 1986 Mets, Baseball’s Impossible One-and-Done Champions, which originally had numerous opinions stated and interviews done about how the Mets would never match ’86 and could not win with current ownership. So that needed some massaging, but not as much as if the Mets had won the whole thing. I was ready to do the work. I really was, but… “Aw, Murph!” And I know if I’d made the throw Duda made when I was in Little League, I would have spent part of every offseason day throwing the ball against the garage door until I made the perfect throw. Every time. But where are we? Oh, that’s right, plugs!

We will have some report card grades, along with the Mets Gift of the Year, Favorite Nonplaying Met, Met’s Mets Log, and other features you have come to cherish (or scroll past when they are plugged on Facebook and Twitter). Just give me some time and space to get all this done.

Since I went so long between posts I have some bonus text for you. The book I wrote in 2008 that spurred the launching of this site, 100 Things Mets Should Know and Do Before They Die, will see its third edition in March of 2016. (new edition available for pre-order or old or previous edition because Santa’ll tell you those pre-orders do not always stuff stockings to the level he likes.

Here is a piece I wrote for the new edition of 100 Things that kept me from writing on this site. I have been rather critical of Terry Collins on this site—but he is getting his due in the latest version of 100 Things. You’ll have to pick up a copy to find out where T.C. ranks among the other four pennant winning Mets managers, plus Casey Stengel, the only Mets manager older than Teflon Terry is less than a decade from surpassing as oldest Mets manager in history. But I will say with all sincerity, 2015 was a superb job, Terry. You came awfully close to The Only Thing This Mets Fan Wants to See and Experience Before I Die. And for that we thank you.

Terry Collins

Frankly, if someone had told me in July of 2015 that I would have to clear room in this latest book update for a Terry Collins entry, I would have told the person that they were crazy. Who’s crazy now?

Terry Collins became the fifth Mets manager in history to win a National League pennant. The Mets, who had the most anemic offense in the National League when July began, became overnight thumpers following the arrival of Yoenis Cespedes, the headliner among several key acquisitions by Sandy Alderson around the July 31 trading deadline. Collins, who at 66 was baseball’s oldest manager in 2015, could have remained old school and followed the path that resulted in brief tenures with the Astros and Angels in the 1990s. But he embraced new methods.

One such development was “The Matrix,” not a confusing Keanu Reeves movie but a system created by the Mets front office profiling how hitters did against comparable pitchers. It paid dividends once the Mets roster acquired enough legitimate hitters to give Collins real lineup options. Those combinations differed almost nightly through the last two months of the year, but the results were consistent: 37-17 from the day the Mets made the Cespedes deal to the weekend they clinched the NL East.

It was an odd year in many ways. The Mets, who hadn’t been no-hit in 22 years, were no-hit twice in one season for the first time. No Met had ever homered three times in a game at home—it happened twice (Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Lucas Duda). Queens native Steven Matz drove in a major league record (for a pitcher) four runs in his major league debut and got the win. And Collins, who in June 2015 surpassed Mets managing legend Gil Hodges for third all-time in team victories, won a career high 90 games. He joined Hodges and Yogi Berra, along with the two men ahead of him—Davey Johnson and Bobby Valentine—as Mets managers to win a National League pennant.

Collins never reached the majors as a player, but the Michigan native landed in New York after managing in Japan and guiding China’s inaugural World Baseball Classic team in 2009. He served as Mets minor league field coordinator in 2010 and, after Alderson replaced Omar Minaya as GM, became the 20th manager in Mets history.

Collins was a seen as a company man who would take the long view in rebuilding, but what had felt as endless as a Department of Transportation highway project was suddenly complete. To his credit, Collins still gave answers that made reporters chuckle and the internet buzz, even as some grandstand managers scratched their heads. Should he have taken out Matt Harvey earlier in Game 5 of the World Series? It seems so in retrospect, but he had successfully rolled the dice in Game 5 of the Division Series, bringing in rookie phenom Noah Syndergaard for his first major league relief appearance in a one-run game. Collins looked brilliant when Syndergaard was perfect and the Mets won the deciding game at Dodger Stadium. Collins’s club then took on the Cubs and everyone’s favorite managing genius, Joe Maddon, winning four straight after going 0-7 against Chicago in 2015, B.C.—Before Cespedes.

Maybe the clock struck midnight on Cinderella in the World Series—two losses to Kansas City did come after midnight in extra innings. But if there was a fairy godmother/father for the 2015 Mets, it was Terry Collins. For a team that Sports Illustrated picked to finish fourth in its division, with a manager that many pundits thought would be among the first fired in ’15, Collins was the only NL manager still in a dugout when October was pulled off the calendar.

—From third edition of 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die (2016)

It is so much easier to think of stuff to write when all goes badly for the Mets. That is normal. This is strange. But fun.

I am used to putting Mets pennant winners in a formatted scenario in my writing, place on pedestal and watch. The most recent team was in 2000. The most recent postseason team was 2006. I had written about these and the other “special” Mets ballclubs 10 times over in books and on this site. Now, it’s like starting over. I don’t know nothin’. Except this:

• I have been trying to come up with a name for the youth movement or the new age rotation for the update of 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die. I’ve got nothing as far as names go. Just call them rather successful.
• Daniel Murphy. No Met has ever reached this level of white hot. Hell, few players ever have. Even Reggie Jackson, when he was undeservedly named MVP of the World Series by Sport Magazine in 1973—I’ve written about this before—did not hit at all during the night games in New York (1-for-12) and 8 for 14 in his last three games in the Oakland sunshine after taking the collar in the opener against Jon Matlack. Mr. October had one home run. Murph does that for daily exercise.
• Yoenis Cespedes and Travis d’Arnaud. It is a strange pair, but when they hit, the Mets are unstoppable. Throw in Lucas Duda. Daniel Murphy can’t possibly stay that hot, but if these three can combine to bring what Murph brought during the playoffs, you’re gonna like the way you look.
• Defense. This team has made some Amazin’ plays of late. The Murphy stop to end Game One. The Duda dives. (Say it fast and it sounds like “The Dude Abides.”)  David Wright playing third base like someone who earned his two Gold Gloves rather than receiving them as consolation prizes for the incredibly productive offense and bitter endings to his team’s 2007 and 2008 seasons.
• And the relief pitching coming through when it was needed. Jon Niese getting the one big out needed in the series (though Bartolo Colon earned the win in Game Four by getting an out that seemed huge to Mets fans used to everything going wrong, but it was a 6-1 lead). Tyler Clippard and Addison Reed holding serve and Jeurys Familia, which is Spanish for whatever über Methead Jim Bruer says it is on a given night. And if there if there is ever a direct-to-video sequel to The Big Lebowksi (Lebo Large Dos: The Quickening?), I would actually watch it just to see him. And I promise to finally sit down and watch his classic performance in Half Baked. (The sequel he’s got to do, Twice Baked—dude….!)
• Terry Collins has to keep being the lucky leprechaun whose every move transforms into a pot o’ gold. I never thought the Mets could win with him. Well, shut my mouth.
• And Sandy Alderson, who some call the grandfather of Moneyball, has out Billy Beaned Billy Beane when it comes to October. Those A’s teams only made it out of the Division Series once, and that year they got smoked by a Detroit Tigers team the Mets should have smoked in the World Series. But the Mets got knocked off before they could reach the 2006 World Series. Well, here we are now.

There is one other thing I know, and this I know from experience. None of this means anything now. For the Mets to end a 29-year championship drought, they have to start from scratch and hold the Royals insert AL team here at bay, get clutch hits, prevent clutch hits, and win on  the road in a hostile environment full of people as hungry for a title as we are.

The World Series is upon us and for once we are not watching it like the dutiful fans we are, respecting the baseball gods rather than loudly ignoring it because our team isn’t there. We’d miss a lot of World Series that way. And if you haven’t ventured up late to see it lately, or endured the braying in the Fox booth—Tim McCarver retired, in case you weren’t aware—the World Series is what baseball is all about. Numbers are great, but winning ends arguments. It might even shut up a Yankees fan. But I’m not sure. It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten what that sounds like.

Playoff baseball has been a solitary experience for me or a long time, watching other teams play and other fans celebrate while a dog slept near me and the family snoozed out of yelling range. But it never meant as much as it did Thursday night in Los Angeles. In California it was over by 8:30 p.m. Let them all hug communally in despair. Let them hold Chase Utley’s hand as he awaits sentencing 10 days after he broke lil’ Ruben Tejada’s ankle on that dirty slide. Let Utley rot.

Here it is after midnight and work first thing in the morning, but I had to put pen to paper, so to speak, to tell you about a memory. I’m not really sure how it goes, but it’s sad and it’s sweet… well, you know.

P. and I were in the upper tank at Shea Stadium, October 9, 1988. We were just so sure that the Mets were going to wipe the floor with L.A. and then beat Oakland as revenge for the 1973 World Series. Instead we saw Mike Scioscia smoke a ball into the bullpen over the head of Randy Myers, who should have been in the game pitching to the squatty body catcher not known for power. We stayed for extra innings. We sipped from a flask, poured it into Cokes in Harry M. Stevens cups. P. tumbled down the emptying rows, stopped by a couple from Commack before he reached the bottom. (P. gave me permission to retell this after finally beating L.A.–somehow 2006 does not feel like it counts because it was too easy.) We all got beat up by L.A. that week. At the time my sister and brother lived in Los Angeles and I’d spent a couple of weeks traveling around out there after graduating college, but you know what, I hate L.A. As we all sang to parody the Randy Newman song. (Don’t look for a link to “I Love L.A.,” I got your link right here.) I haven’t been back to L.A. since my siblings moved away in the 1990s. Those Dodgers fans are so disappointed they want to go to bed… but it’s only 9 o’clock. Sleep tight.

I’ll be out late Saturday night for the NLCS opener, my treat to myself for prudently ending a streak of 23 consecutive Mets home postseason games I’d attended, a streak that started the day before P. and I climbed (and barely stayed in) the upper tank in 1988 and ended Tuesday night, which was good because Monday was the worst Flushing traffic I had ever encountered at a non U.S. Open, fireworks, or Shea closing forever game. I got home at 3 a.m., another record for nights that did not involve a few bar hop stops on the way home. But they won and I did get to work at 8 the next morning. We’re all working hard this time of year.

Forcing myself to end the silly and costly streak was the best thing I could do. Like Cal Ripken, suddenly our voice of October with Ron Darling, taking himself out after proving his point 2,632 games later. It doesn’t matter how many you go to in a row. It matters how many you win. And though the Mets went 15-8 during my run, we know where it got them. The last time I had missed a postseason game was 1986, and they managed to win those last two games without me around.

What I love about now is that you don’t know what the future will bring. That’s OK. Enjoy Murph and Yoenis and Clippard and Kelly and Uribe and everyone who’s having to call the landlord and tell them they will be staying another week.

We’ve heard for years about how great it’s going to be when everything comes together for the Mets. The future is now. Who knows when it ends? Drink it in.

This has been a crazy time. On Wednesday I was being interviewed by John Delcos for Mets Report about the decision-making in the 1973 World Series (RIP, Yogi Berra, George Stone or George Thomas Seaver, you were still a top five Mets manager), and as Freddie Freeman came off the bench and knocked in five runs over the course of our conversation, I thought for the world the Mets and Nationals would play a do-or-die series next weekend. Three days later a tear is trickling down my face as my son and I sit in the orange seats from Shea and watch Jay Bruce strike out.

And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

No one in the clubhouse interviews thanked the people that truly helped most—and trust me, I watched ]all the champagne soaked, translator-aided interviews on SNY and had to tear myself away from the replay to write this. “First, I want to thank the Nationals for making this easier than even the people at Optimistic Mets Fan could have imagined.” Melissa, can you translate?

Scroll down a little here, on the feed. (I am permanently behind in updating the site technologically). I thought this season was over months ago. I challenged Sandy Alderson to make the moves needed. I gave some tough grades on my first half report card and said this of Terry Collins, “Players like him, but he’s outlived his usefulness here. It is time to win and he’s not the man.” Well, shut my mouth. Don’t translate that, Melissa.

The other night, coming off that terrible homestand that left me with dueling nightmares from 2007 and 2008, Gary Cohen boldly said, “Saturday might be the day.” That was, of course, after the Orioles completed a sweep of the Nationals, in D.C. The Nats looked so much like the 2007 Mets: Unfinished business arrogance, telling everyone they were better than them, in a word: complacency. And just like the 2007 Mets, these Nats didn’t win one game when it counted against the team they had to beat. That series in D.C. that began Labor Day is one of the most remarkable regular season series I have ever seen. They should have lost each game, and instead won all three. And that was coming off a horrendous series in Miami.

But I remembered ’07 and how just when it looked like they caught themselves and ran off a seven-game win streak, there was 7 games with 17 left, and, you know. Well, I don’t know about you, but that will never leave me. But it’s gone this year. It’s all gone.

I have been lucky to write a bunch of Mets books. It sometimes feels like I’ve been doing Mets books since time began. I have been fortunate. I’m editing my eight one—cover looks good!—but listen to this, when the Mets were last in the playoffs I was still writing my first book! That… is … a … long … time. I keep thinking the next one will be the big one. That’s why I write, that’s why I watch. Today the slot machine paid off. Whether it will pay off again, who knows, but there are enough quarters stored up to last me a week.

With the Mets, you know there’ll always be something new to lament. Another, woe is us. But the schneid is off. Best of luck to us all. See you in October. Yes, I said October!

I make pronouncements about the Mets’ past. Their future is for everyone else to argue about. You say seven-game lead? I can speak of doleful precedents that no one wants to hear. And having grown up in the 1970s watching the Mets play like someone who’s been kicked in the head repeatedly, I do not count anything before it’s official. The 1999 season? One of my favorite years ever because of its rare redemptive quality: The Mets had a playoff spot wrapped up, screwed the pooch, and then stole it back by winning the last three games followed by a one-day playoff in Cincinnati. For my money, those are the best regular season Mets games ever played.

These three games against the Nationals, though… Wow! And completing the sweep on the 46th anniversary of the black cat stepping out on the Cubs at Shea Stadium in 1969. Purrrr-fect! Drew Storen looked spooked in Washington.

Even I had a hard time containing myself after the Mets got Yoenis Cespedes—was that really just six weeks ago? Even Terry Collins—not my favorite manager—has turned into Nostradamus. Pinch hit for Mets second-half turnaround poster boy Wilmer Flores? And the pinch hitter, Kelly Johnson, belts a game-tying home run in the eighth. Of course! And doing it off Stephen Strasburg, who looks like a team’s ace is supposed to look in a big game? Speaking of young stud aces…

Matt Harvey: I am still not on speaking terms with you. After letting you down for many, many starts, the Mets are picking you up after you let everyone down by not taking the high road. Or saying the right thing. Or shutting up. Or telling your agent to step the Francoeur back. But the Mets had your back this time. And I think whatever war chest the Mets had been piling up with the renewed interest in the team, may now be earmarked toward a Cuban outfielder who looks like a man who may just have found a home in the States. Remember Carlos Beltran when he was traded to the Astros and he tore the National League apart before he signed with the Mets? This is what it looked like. (Nice calls, Josh Lewin.)

Anyway, it’s not my job to get too far ahead or drift too far behind. I am getting ready for the playoffs! The New York-Penn League Class A playoffs for my summer job with the Tri-City Valley Cats in Troy. What did you think I was talking about?

I hate to start a long overdue post with a “sorry,” but it’s been a busy summer. It hasn’t, however, been one of those summers that’s suddenly gone before you realize it. Each day, at least on my end, has been monitored and checked off dutifully. I’ve watched each day go by, inning by inning, from a ballpark in a city that had National League success before New York. (The New York Mutuals, an amateur team turned pro and member of the National Association (1871-75), did not survive past the inaugural NL season of 1876.)

In 1879, when Providence had the National League’s best team, Troy, NY, had an NL franchise. They weren’t good, but they existed before most of the teams we know today, including the Giants, who took Troy’s spot in the NL in NY state, and took three of the Trojans’ future Hall of Famers: Buck Ewing, Roger Connor, and Mickey Welch. Many of the “little” eastern cities faded from the NL in the 1880s—besides Providence, teams from Buffalo, Syracuse, and Worcester came and went—but Troy still loves its baseball. I do, too. Another former NL club, the Houston Astros, operate the Tri-City Valley Cats in the Class A New York-Penn League. Tri-City (for those keeping score, it is the cities of Albany Troy, and Schenectady) is the jumping off point for players, many of them fresh out of college, into the world of professional ball. And it’s my place of pro baseball embarkation, and probably my lone stop. I always wanted to work for a pro team, and this is as close as I will get. I am in service relations, or more succinctly, an usher. I have tried to do a good job. Whenever I wonder what I should do, I just think of rude treatment received from Mets ushers through the years, and I’ve just done the opposite. It has worked, for the most part.

It has been a great summer. And having started a 9-5 job as well, I have spent many evenings driving an hour up to Troy as soon as I get off work, eating in the car, listening to books on CD. (I especially enjoyed this big one.) And then I get to the park and assume my small part in professional baseball. And they have spent much of this summer in first place.

The Mets’ NY-Penn club from Brooklyn arrives—if you find yourself in the mists of time in Troy, stop in at the Joe. Section 150. We keep an eye on how the Mets are doing in New York, too.

And on a night off in Troy I was off to New York to see the Mets and Red Sox. It was a 29-year reunion of a brief, bloody war between two allies in the never ending war against Yankeeism. To me it is like I have been reliving 1986 every day, as I am in the process of editing One Year Dynasty, now available for pre-order. (Actually this is my first look at the subtitle. Comments welcome.)

And while Mets-Red Sox refueled thoughts of a glorious past beyond the lifespan of more than half of the people in the park Friday night, it was like breathing life into an NL franchise that seemed as dead as the Troy Trojans until a few weeks ago. I have been to several dozen games in the life of Citi Field, and I have never seen it brim with life like it did of a Friday night in late August. Every time the Mets take the field at Citi Field now, it is the most significant game they have ever played there. Even the waving of T-shirts on Free Shirt Friday, the waving of such in headier days at Shea Stadium sent me into diatribes like—“maybe that works in Providence or Worcester, but not in New York”—but on this night I was seeing something I had not seen before at Citi: The loading of the bandwagon. The people who might have worn Red Sox—or Yankees—shirts on other Fridays in Flushing, wore their new Mets T shirts proudly over whatever else they were wearing, or waved them in hopes of another walk to another Met. New, crisp Mets hats were creased, or left flat as a pancake. It was the end of a seven-game winning streak, but the continuation of and a lead that, at that moment, at least, could be counted on more than one hand was embraced, cherished.

Who knows what the future will bring? Will Murph be back? Will Cespedes be a Met after 2015? Will the Mets be able to scratch up the cash to keep their stud pitchers around for Free Shirt Fridays in the years to come? Will I have to write an addendum to One-Year Dynasty based on 2015? I don’t know the answer to any of this.

Right now is living history, a captivating novel whose ending you just can’t picture. I like novels as much as I do history. I especially like novels that turn into history. I just hope I’m not disappointed in the ending. It has me captivated right now. And I can’t wait until the next chapter.

I took the time to call out Sandy Alderson last week for letting great pitching go to waste, even after he picked up Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson, so I need to say he has stepped up with the acquisition of Tyler Clippard and—after making me (and all of franctic Metdom) insane by not pulling the trigger on Carlos Gomez due to concerns about the former Met’s hip—picked up the slugger the Mets have been needing since Carlos Delgado’s hip gave out on him a few weeks after Citi Field opened.

Having gone over the moon—and yes, that is Keith Moon singing Beach Boys in our title link—for American League stars Carlos Bearga and Roberto Alomar and being proved very wrong, I won’t say too much. Yoenis Cespedes (I spelled it right the first time without looking!) has impressed me with the way he plays ever since I saw him three straight nights in Oakland when I was there gathering quotes and intel for Swinging ’73 during his rookie season in 2012. Cuban refugee athletes seem to be a volatile group on the whole because they have been through so much more than I think I could endure. Just to get to this country they have to leave behind family and friends, escape by tricking a totalitarian government, and then embrace the kind of decadent lifestyle Cuban handlers always preached against. And then there is the curve ball, not mention the language barrier.

I “studied” French for four years in high school and never mastered much beyond a few weeks speaking coherently in Luxembourg when everything clicked—but that was so long ago Davey Johnson had yet to manage his first game and I am now not sure exactly what the “Je Me Souviens” Quebecois license plates say that fly by me on the New York Turnpike. Oh, I remember, but I have not been to a foreign country—besides said Canada—in 20 years, but speaking for all Americans who couldn’t spell “chat” if you spotted them the C and the A (how about the H to keep it sporting for the kitties out there?), I welcome Cespedes to the Mets lineup. Because we all speak offense. And conversation has been stilted.

I do not know if the Mets have traded the next John Smoltz in the past week, but I will say at this point I am happy to be rooting in the present. The Mets, and all of us, have been living so long in the past and the future, it’s just good to be here right now—even if we can’t take heartbreak. You’d think we’d be good at that emotion by now. Don’t cry, Wilmer. You walk off stud—we always loved you! We have seen the future. And Keith Moon says everything will turn out all right.

In this combination book review and front office editorial, I am going to critique both Steve Kettmann’s recent book about Sandy Alderson and the Sandman himself (disclaimer: he is not called Sandman in the book, but do not let that influence your purchasing decision). Alderson has had a long and varied career. He has graduated both Dartmouth and Harvard, been a Marine officer, Vietnam veteran, corporate lawyer, world championship general manager in Oakland, MLB chief executive of baseball operations, the CEO who brought in the fences in San Diego, MLB Latin American coordinator, and finally, off what had to be some kind of a bender, he decided to come to New York to take over the Mets in the fall of 2010.

I was doing the Mets Annual at the time and there was so much said about how wonderful a move it was going to be and the Mets were going to build the right way, from the ground up. Some of his trades of veterans for prospects have gone from highly-criticized to brilliant maneuvers in short order—his R.A. Dickey to Toronto for Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard is up there with the fleecing of the Blue Jays of John Olerud in the 1996 offseason. But what the Mets really need right now is a Johnny O. They need a game changer in the middle of the lineup, not just for this year but for however long this window of opportunity is open for the Mets—or will be allowed to remain open by ownership. The money part is not his fault—the Wilpons never even uttered the name “Madoff” in their interview with him in 2010. There are plenty of other things that are Alderson’s fault.

Just look at Friday night’s game against the Dodgers, at which I was, unfortunately, in attendance. The wives of both of Friday night’s starting pitchers, Jon Niese and Zack Grienke, had babies that night. Grienke was in California for the birth. Niese was in the bowels of Citi Field watching it on FaceTime after being rocked by the Dodgers. L.A.’s emergency starter, Ian Thomas, who looks a lot like Clayton Kershaw facially and the way he handles the Mets, pitched great. The Mets emergency starter, Carlos Torres, pitched three superb innings—only they came in mop up after Niese missed both the chance for a win and to see the birth of his second child.

As GM this is what you do: You tell Niese congratulations and inform him he’ll pitch in the new Dad Sunday special against Grienke and then have a PR lackey escort him 10 minutes to the airport. You take the high road. You do the right thing and maybe you pull out as unlikely win as happened last Sunday when the Mets won Niese’s start 18 innings after it began. Apparently, Alderson was too involved scooping up the unwanted debris from the Braves bench (Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson) to have taken a leadership position, and you can’t expect Terry Collins to make a decision that comes out right.

One of the revelations of former San Francisco Chronicle beat writer Steve Kettmann’s well-researched book on Alderson, is that the “Baseball Maverick” himself actually thought about firing Terry Collins last summer. He did not. It leads to me to a quote about Alderson from the author that is both impressive and frightening: “A Marine never retreats.” You’d think that facing overwhelming odds and after slowing the enemy, retreat would be possible if the other option was complete annihilation. And not to mix my war and baseball metaphors, but the Mets are on the verge of being completely overrun. Their skeleton crew cannot hold off a superior force, which is pretty much any team with a pulse, and Colonel Collins needs to be relieved of command if they plan to keep this hill of contention.

If Alderson and the Mets aren’t careful, a season that has featured some of the best Mets pitching I have seen since the mid-1980s will be washed away amid the increasing number of shutouts—not by the Mets’ overpowering staff, but by the opposition throwing up zeroes on this creampuff lineup. The Mets have been blanked 11 times in their first 96 games, and that doesn’t even count Niese’s start against in St. Louis where his team was held scoreless for the first 13 innings before they somehow scraped together a win in 18.

I will bypass the author—whom, I will add, did not write this book with Alderson, other than talking to him dozens of times—and I will speak to the GM directly. Sandy Alderson, you have built up an impressive résumé getting to this point, but it won’t mean diddley in terms of New Yorkers or anyone else if the Mets go down in flames and continue to be the worst offensive team with the best pitching. (Baseball-reference’s simple rating system lists the Mets as the 22nd best team in baseball. However that is derived, it can’t be good.)

If the Mets continue to languish, or make excuses about playing the tougher teams (imagine who they’d play if God took pity on us, and Sandy, and randomly tossed the Mets into October), or if the team does not take advantage of the lousy division and the lousy way Washington has played, then it shouldn’t just be the roster or the manager’s office that needs shaking up.

You need to do something substantial that does not gut your future but assures it. You need to put your signature on a prospects for veterans deal like you have the veterans for prospects deals that have been your forte in New York. You need to do something before this season gets away. A baseball maverick would.

In this, my 40th year following the Mets, I have seen a team that reminds me a lot of that first team I ardently watched in 1975: great pitching, abysmal hitting, though the ’75 crew at least had Dave Kingman slugging home runs and Yogi Berra managing. Never a huge fan of Yogi, but even my fourth grade self would concur that he had a lot less reason to be fired than Terry Collins. I’ll save my summation of Collins for the end. But while it’s hanging there let me say this: If you are going to play all these 2-1 and 1-0 games, you need a manager who can occasionally steal such games by making good decisions. Yanking Jacob deGrom at 99 pitches after retiring 15 in a row and then letting Noah Syndergaard throw 116 pitches in the next game makes absolutely no sense. So much for not saying much here about T.C.

The Mets enter the All-Star break on a 7-2 surge, but they entered the break with an 8-2 push last year and it did not end in glory. If they score four runs they win. And they average 3.48 per game, second worst in baseball, and only two runs behind the Phillies for that distinction. Imagine if the Mets played in the DH league? They’d have no offense since their pitchers are some of their most consistent batters. They must find more hitters. And they must find who they can afford to get rid of. Squandering this pitching would be worse than squandering being 10 games over .500 just 16 games into the year, as this team already did. They must play better on the road. They ended the first half one game out of the second wild card. One game behind the Cubs, a team they inexplicably went 0-7 against. They are just 8-15 vs. the Central, but are tied with Washington for most wins in the NL East (23-15) and trail the Nationals by two games. Enough! To the grading.

To be included, players must accrue 50 at bats or 15 innings pitched. This prevents Stephen Matz, Logan Verrett, Bobby Parnell, Jack Leatherstich, Rafael Montero, Buddy Carlyle, Jerry Blevins, Akeel Morris, Jenrry Mejia, Johnny Monell, and Danny Muno from getting grades. Hopefully all the pitchers will qualify for a writeup at year’s end. And the hitters get replaced by people who can hit. David Wright deserves a writeup because the end may be near. But right now the only end is the first half.

First-half 2014 Report Card

Jacob deGrom     A       Not the best stuff on staff, but deGrom performs, perseveres, and adjusts. Good job, All-Star.

Jeurys Familia      A       Should be All-Star and first half MVP. Stepped up for Mejia. He’s reason they have winning record.

Noah Syndergaard   A-       As good as advertised. If only Mets could score for him or bat him cleanup. Best. Shrug. Ever.

Matt Harvey        B+      Harvey could learn a lot from kids. Like how to shut up and pitch. Harvey has the mojo, though.

Bartolo Colon       B+     Said it last year, I’ll say it again: Bartolo is entertaining and effective. Good role model, batting star.

Jonathon Niese     B       I love how Matz has higher WAR in just 2 starts than Niese in a whole season. Jonny Trade Bait.

Sean Gilmartin      B       Has great numbers, but I don’t trust him. Maybe I’ve only seen his bad games. Good Rule V guy.

Wilmer Flores       B       An offensive guy on the list. Finally. But if Wilmer he does not play shortstop, he is not as valuable.

Daniel Murphy      B-      I don’t believe Murph will be here after 2015, but with Wright, who knows? They need any hitter.

Travis d’Arnaud     C+    He is getting a reputation as constantly hurt player. Mets need him to catch or they’ll go nowhere.

Curtis Granderson     C+     A .119 average vs. LHP; .163 BA in July. Walks and hits solo HRs. Can’t believe 2 1/2 more years.

Eric Goeddell         C+     Thought former UCLA stud was out of the system and here he is excelling at Citi, when not hurt.

Lucas Duda          C       Stop swinging at pitches in the dirt! Let them walk you. Not your fault Cuddyer bats behind you.

Michael Cuddyer    C       Must be good clubhouse because he’s bad middle of order. Poor use of limited resources, Sandy.

Juan Lagares        C       Has taken a step back on defense and offense. Hope it’s just the elbow; hope it will one day heal.

Kevin Plawicki        C       I like a kid who is from Purdue, is a hard worker, and plays through vertigo. But he needs to hit.

Carlos Torres        C       Lucky his arm ddn’t fall off in 2014 from TC abuse. Manager runs CT out there despite results.

Alex Torres           C      Like Carlos, you don’t know which Torres will come out of pen. Hard to trust, but good when on.

Ruben Tejada       C-     If Tejada is your regular SS, you are not playoff team. Even front office hates him, yet he stays.

Dilson Herrera       D+    Got in a slump, but gets on base and can play defense. Problems would be solved if he played SS.

Kirk Nieuwenhuis    D+     A year ago he had B- at ASG. I thought he should play LF. This year he had F till 3 HR Sunday.

Darrel Ceciliani        D+    Not a fan. It’s nice to have speed, but I’d rather have Nieuwy, with the K’s and sudden power.

Anthony Recker     D      Another guy stuck in Vegas. Can’t hit, but which Met can? Brings chance of power every 4 days.

Hansel Robles        D      You know Mets are getting better when their bad relievers look like him. Familia started slow, too.

John Mayberry      D-     Won a game with extra-inning hit and his dad was a KC stud. Other than that he’s been worthless.

Eric Campbell         D-     Can you believe EC was hitting .340 at 2014 ASG? Looked great during April run, abysmal since.

Dillon Gee              F      I’ve always liked Gee, but on a team with these young studs, Mets can’t carry his 5.90 ERA.

David Wright          Inc    Will he ever play again/be any good again? That may sound alarmist some day, but not now.

Manager/GM

Terry Collins          C-        Players like him, but he’s outlived his usefulness here. It is time to win and he’s not the man.

Sandy Alderson      C+       Gets an A+ for the pitching and an F for the offense. As if moving in the fences would solve it.