Better Days, Better Days

[Guest Edgy DC]

My funny Valentine, my vulgar Piazza, and an 11-pitch at-bat by Rickey Henderson.

All this and more as Allen St. John drives the Way Back Machine.

They never should've let the record reach "The End."

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I've said this before (often) but it seems to be truer and truer as time moves on: 1999 was really extraordinary for the Mets -- more than I could even tell at the time.

[Elster88]

]Mets assistant GM Omar Minaya grabbed a bottle of Cooks champagne (with the $3.95 sticker still attached) and playfully sprayed a throng of reporters trying to huddle outside the line of fire. Everyone (well, almost everyone) smiles. A second later, manager Bobby Valentine saunters past and smirks, "That wasn't good clothing, was it?"

I love Bobby V.
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This post had the designation 153) Matt Franco

[Elster88]

]"I'm walking down First Avenue with my wife, holding hands," says Orel Hershiser after Game 3. "And this guy comes up to me with this real heavy New York accent and he yells, 'C'MON BULLDOG, GO GET 'EM!' And I say, 'I can't. There's no game tonight.' So he stops and thinks for a second and he goes, 'OKAY, THEN GO HOME AND REST!'

That same guy probably would've tried to kill Orel in '88.
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This post had the designation 153) Matt Franco

[metirish]

Great find and a great read, like JD said 1999 was extraordinary, and even more so because of recent years..great stuff.

[Guest Rotblatt]

I was an avid Mets fan as a kid and I followed them casually through high school, but once I went to college in 94, I had pretty much stopped. By the time I graduated in 98, I was only vaguely aware of who was on the team. That all changed in 99, living in Minnesota of all places.

I started going to Twins games with friends that year and remembered that I liked baseball, and started checking Mets box scores and watching the standings. Next thing I knew, it was October and I was driving around late at night, listening to the games (I didn't have a decent radio in my apartment), pounding on the steering wheel.

A great season to reintroduce myself to Mets baseball.

[G-Fafif]

Great link, Edgy. Thanks.

There was surely no more intense time to be a Mets fan than the thirty days between the Mets going to Atlanta down one game (9/21) and the Mets heading home from Atlanta done at last (10/20). It had been a marvelous season right up to the moment that month started, but the losing streak which fed into the desperation which fed into the jubilation which fed into a series of ballgames and emotions unlike any that came before or have come since...well, it was somethin'.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I might argue the "unlike any that came before" part of that statement, but 1999 was a terrific year.

My favorite 1999 moment: Todd Pratt's homer. (Runner up: Ventura's Grand Slam Single.)

And while we're at it:

My favorite 2000 moment: Benny Agbayani's homer, narrowly edging John Franco's strikeout of Barry Bonds.