Memories of Angel Pagan

[Guest themetfairy]

My favorite memory of Angel Pagan is better told by Greg

This is the ball that Angel tossed D-Dad -



After that I bought a game-issued Pagan jersey. I always got a kick out of walking around with the word Pagan on my back.

Good luck Angel - it's been fun having you around.

[metirish]

The designer beard, it was a superstars beard but he still wore it.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

And wore it well. Less so, of course, the baserunning boners and whatnot. But still... I'll think of him fondly.

Always seemed a sweetheart off the field; if I remember correctly, there were quite a few charity appearances 'round town during the winter doldrums the last few years.

Patron saint of Extraordinary Effort In Vain.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Splendid season in 2010 but more often than not a total moron, baseball-wise.

Won all the athletic skills competitions they used to hold in spring training.

Likeable sort who apparently lost his shit last year.

[Edgy MD]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr saw him in spring training and declared that he had shown up with the "Platonic ideal of 'beard'."

I think we're bound to learn that there was more to the 2011 dropoff than was apparent, even if it's largely exaggerated or wishful thinking.

[Fman99]

Grew hair on his face and gave about fifteen CPF men erections due to his prototypical manliness.

Not me, of course. I dig the broads.

[Vic Sage]

i remember mocking Ceetar for counting on Pagan as one of the cornerstones of the 2011 Mets championship season.
A guy with talent and no instincts for the game (Pagan i mean... not Ceetar).
...the Joel Youngblood of his time.

[MFS62]

There were many times that we were glad we had a reserve like him who could fill in for extended periods of time for an injured regular.
And then there was the fallen Angel, who would do things so bizarre that Wayne Hagin couldn't even find enough words to describe them.

Later

[ashie62]

The look on Pagan's face after a baserunning blunder.

[Guest attgig]

having a Pagan Church for 2/3 of the outfield.

that catch in dodger stadium where he wrecked his shoulder was a pretty great grab though.

[Edgy MD]

Until 2011, one of the greatest ballhawks the Mets have ever known. Check that inside-the-parker vs. Washington also.

[youtube:3a14mo59]8BsFyA0WlHM[/youtube:3a14mo59]

(Apparently, his greatest hits include spring training homers and scoring on wild pitches. but...)

[Gwreck]

Didn't he also start that triple play the same game as the inside-the-parker in Washington?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Gwreck wrote: Didn't he also start that triple play the same game as the inside-the-parker in Washington?

Yep.

LWFS wrote: Patron saint of Extraordinary Effort In Vain.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Another unused retrocard:

[Edgy MD]

Quite a signature.

He was continuously effective (if not excellent) starting the year as a bench player and entering the lineup after somebody got hurt --- producing like a full-timer until he himself got hurt.

In 2010, he entered the lineup for Gary Matthews and didn't get hurt at all, and when he excelled, close watchers didn't consider it a breakthrough at all, arguing that this is the guy he had always been, when health and opportunity hadn't conspired against him.

It was tempting to think that 2011 was a result of entering a season for the first time with the burden of expectations. That's speculative armchair psychology, but I couldn't altogether get it out of my head. Maybe it was the colitis.

[Frayed Knot]

So with Angel gone who's going to be in charge of missing the cut-off men?

[metsmarathon]

Frayed Knot wrote: So with Angel gone who's going to be in charge of missing the cut-off men?

duda. definitely duda.

[G-Fafif]

Always felt a little bad I didn't like him more, based primarily on a) his Original Cyclones pedigree; my having been at Citi Field when he hit what became the last Met grand slam for nearly two years; c) the ball thrown to D-Dad story referenced above; and d) Gary Cohen's description of Angel as the Met who more than any other reached out to the wounded veterans during the infamous Walter Reed visit of September 2010 -- he found the guy who'd been hurt worst and sat and talked with him a long time. (Although obviously he was doing that to make Beltran look bad.)

Witnessed quite a few of his high points, including the homer he whacked toward GKR to beat the Cardinals last July and his 4-for-4 finale in '09, same day Figueroa shut out the Astros.

Liked the short-lived "Angel wings" phenomenon that sprouted at Shea in early '08. Too bad it disappeared when he came back in '09.

Recall being surprised he was a Cub when he was a Cub. Saw him homer for them in what appeared to be a dreary Met loss in '07 before it became a stirring Met win when the Mets scored five in the ninth.

Wanted to join Beltran in strangling him at Dodger Stadium in '09 when he got in the way of Carlos catching a fly ball in the same game Church didn't touch third and Jeremy Reed flung a potential forceout to the backstop (good times). Angel did not experience Dodger Stadium happily -- it's where his season ended in '08 making a catch on a side wall and it's where I decided after a particularly at-bat where he looked particularly mopey and unshaven that he and Emmett Kelly, Jr., were separated at birth.

Hated whenever he was the leadoff hitter because it meant Jose wasn't. So there's one less thing to worry about.

Oh, and as mentioned by another, was a total dope when it came to baseball.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Ryan Church was never a Met. This is all booshit

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

He was my most successful adoptee.

[Ceetar]