Worst Game Experiences

[Centerfield]

Off the top of my head:

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=6193&tabno=A

We bought brooms and everything. Was a tight game, but the Mets were getting no-hit. Wheels came off for Reed and the game was over.

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=8444

Wheeler sucks.

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=8930

Wheeler sucks.

[dgwphotography]

Tom Glavine's debut. Enough said.

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=6576&tabno=A

[Guest d'Kong76]

Watching the Yankees hump each other on our infield late October 2000
was probably my most miserable Shea experience.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I was at Shea when Terry Pendleton hit his homer in 1987 that gave the Mets a serious setback in their quest for a division title.

And I was also there the following year when Mike Scoscia hit that three-run homer in Game 4 of the NLCS that, as much as anything, kept the Mets from advancing to the 1988 World Series.

This game also comes to mind. I think it was the only time I saw Johan Santana pitch in person, and he gave up a first-inning grand slam. The score turns out to have been a lot closer than I recalled, but it wasn't a fun day a the ballpark:

[seawolf17]

I'm tempted to say Game 5 in 2015 because of the outcome, but realistically, it was this one:

http://leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=7552&tabno=D

My last Shea game, which was emotional enough, and capped by a soul-crushing loss in a huge spot when the Mets strand Murphy after a leadoff triple in the bottom of the ninth and then lose in 10.

[Fman99]

Here you go.

http://www.ultimatemets.com/gamedetail.php?gameno=7267

When you only can make it to 1-2 games per year, it's a bigger downer when you go and they get knocked around. Worse yet, when the scheduled pitcher had sucked for several starts in a row, and you know he's scheduled to start that day.

Pelfrey had lost on April 20, April 25, May 1, and May 6. So we were driving all the way down there knowing he was most likely to get shelled. And looking at it, he actually didn't pitch as awfully as I remember (the bullpen gave up a lot of the runs that day too), but it was more about the fact that he did exactly what we expected. He got sent to AAA a few days after that, not to return in 2007.

This was my 6th wedding anniversary, that day, and the tickets were a gift from my folks. At least the weather was nice.

[Centerfield]

For me, nothing is worse than when your pitcher gives up a big lead early. Like yesterday.

It deflates the whole crowd, suddenly you notice now hot it is outside, the food doesn't taste as good. The beer is not as crisp. Everything sucks and you think about fighting traffic on the way home.

It's interesting because at home, these losses are the easiest to digest. You turn the TV off. Go do something else. Check in, if they make it close, you come back to it. If not, you go about your business. But when you are at the game, you are stuck. Made to suffer every laborious pitch thrown by the worst guy in your bullpen.

Late-inning losses are tough at home or at the park, but at least you get to enjoy the entire game experience, even if it ends in heartbreak.

[G-Fafif]

When I think of a bad game experience, these are the factors that spring to mind:

--Arriving late to seats that weren't as good as I thought they'd be to discover the Mets have fallen way behind early.

--Empty stadium in lousy weather in a lousy season watching lousy baseball unfold.

--Being with somebody who'd clearly rather be somewhere else.

--A sizable plurality not rooting for the Mets, if not necessarily rooting against the Mets.

--A blown lead when there's something to play for.

On a macro scale, it's hard to beat September 30, 2007, the day Tom Glavine was certified T#m Gl@v!ne, but even then, even with the 7-0 hole and the fucking Marlins being fucking assholes and the Phillies winning on the scoreboard and the collapse of collapses going final...well, it was fucking awful, but I still remember a certain doomed camaraderie leavening the fucking awfulness a little where I was in the Upper Deck. Several days before, I watched the Mets give up a large lead to the fucking Nationals when they totally sucked and fall out of first place and you knew the slide was irreversible and everything was wrong, yet that was my first game with Dana Brand and though we cursed it for as long as knew each other, it was a fun night to a point.

This one, though...

http://leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=5826

This one can totally go fuck itself.

It had the Mets in the Wild Card race but endlessly tripping over every opportunity to move up (the weekend before was when Angel Hernandez and Turner Field both became Angel Hernandez and Turner Field; the weekend before that was the first Subway Series at Shea, featuring the Mel Rojas-Paul O'Neill debacle). The night before, right after the All-Star Break, the Mets lost 9-8 in eleven. So you're already on edge about every game being the difference between making the playoffs for the first time in ten years and not making the playoffs.

It had me there with a certain buddy of mine who, for his many wonderful qualities as a person and as a Mets fan, can zone out to utter obliviousness and leave me feeling utterly alone when he's sitting right next to me.

It had fucking Merengue Night, which on July 10, 1998, meant hordes of people coming out of nowhere in the late innings (because the Mets would sell tickets that way), climbing over us in Loge to lower themselves down in to Field Level. While the game was in progress. While the Mets clung to a precarious 6-5 lead in the ninth.

While John Fucking Franco loaded the bases and Shane Andrews tripled to unload them and the Mets fell behind 8-6 and were quelled in the bottom of the ninth. Just loads of Merengue fans either not paying attention as they helped themselves to seat upgrades or some actively rooting for the Expos because of Felipe Alou and Vladimir Guerrero (and always a sprinkling of MFY dicks from every culture), and my pal being pissed off but being pissed off differently, which somehow annoyed me as much, and Jesus did we just lose another one of these goddamn things?

Out in the concourse as we made our getaway before the Merengue beat could captivate us, I found an open, mostly fully 20-ounce bottle of Pepsi and smashed it against the nearest wall. Cola exploded in all directions. That got my friend's attention. To this day, he asks me if I need to throw a bottle of soda when Met things go wrong.

The Mets, you might recall, missed a shot at a Wild Card play-in by one game in 1998. Might've been that game that did them in. Might've been any number of them. I'm gonna say it was that one.

I'm not sure this was the worst of the worst, but damn, it sucked.

[Centerfield]

dgwphotography wrote: Tom Glavine's debut. Enough said. http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=6576&tabno=A

Yup. 4-0 before you even sit down. Suck.

[Ceetar]

G-Fafif wrote: climbing over us in Loge to lower themselves down in to Field Level.

I'd forgotten about this 'secret' section upgrade.

[G-Fafif]

Ceetar wrote: G-Fafif wrote: climbing over us in Loge to lower themselves down in to Field Level. I'd forgotten about this 'secret' section upgrade.

You had to be pretty close to where orange met blue. Maybe if a stray miscreant tried it, that person might have been apprehended, but this was a stream of shall we say music lovers. The ushers were on an extended smoke break.

[G-Fafif]

Centerfield wrote: Tom Glavine's debut. Enough said. http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=6576&tabno=A Yup. 4-0 before you even sit down. Suck.

Well, it wasn't like everybody had been waiting all winter...oh, right.

[bmfc1]

I, a New Yorker living in the DC area, take Mets games in Washington, DC very, very personally. If the Mets win, I have reasserted New York's overall superiority in front of the residents of a second or third-tiered town and I have reaffirmed New York's greatness as a baseball city before the front-running and ignorant unwashed masses. If the Mets lose, it is as if evil has triumphed over good. Other than that, it's just a baseball game. I have witnessed Bobby Parnell coughing up 9th inning leads many times and yet, nothing compares to September 18, 2007
http://leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=7382&tabno=D

It's not like the Nationals were any good back then, it was the Mets descending into collapse (culminating in G-Fafif's game selection). I was there the night before to see the Mets lose so this was a must-win. The Mets scored early but it wasn't enough for John Maine who coughed it all away. If that was it, the game wouldn't have been as memorable but they came back and almost tied it in the 9th but for some reason, Carlos Gomez was held on third which left it up to Ruben Gotay who K'd.

I remember slumping in my seat with my hands over my head and the lame Nationals mascot (an effeminate owl) pointed at me and appeared to be laughing.

[seawolf17]

Centerfield wrote: at home, these losses are the easiest to digest. You turn the TV off. Go do something else. Check in, if they make it close, you come back to it. If not, you go about your business. But when you are at the game, you are stuck. Made to suffer every laborious pitch thrown by the worst guy in your bullpen.

We went to the Father's Day game last year when Teheran nearly threw a no-hitter. I was trying to teach my then-7yo how to keep score, and she kept asking "what happens when the Mets get a hit?" and that moment just never came. That was torture.

[G-Fafif]

Although I limited my parameters to home games, a special place in hell is reserved for June 10, 2000, at MFYS II: MFYs 13 Mets 5, the game that sent Bobby J. Jones in search of the Norfolk Miracle Cure. Lasting memory: some MFY a-hole (I know, redundant) barks at Jason Tyner, "HEY, TYNER, TIME FOR YOU TO MAKE AN ERROR!"

Tyner made an error.

[seawolf17]

G-Fafif wrote: Although I limited my parameters to home games, a special place in hell is reserved for June 10, 2000, at MFYS II: MFYs 13 Mets 5, the game that sent Bobby J. Jones in search of the Norfolk Miracle Cure. Lasting memory: some MFY a-hole (I know, redundant) barks at Jason Tyner, "HEY, TYNER, TIME FOR YOU TO MAKE AN ERROR!" Tyner made an error.

Ooh. I was at the Clemens/Piazza headhunting game at YS too. That was pretty awful.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

seawolf17 wrote: My last Shea game, which was emotional enough, and capped by a soul-crushing loss in a huge spot when the Mets strand Murphy after a leadoff triple in the bottom of the ninth and then lose in 10.

That game badly damaged my faith in the whole enterprise and the Mets too. It was literally years before I cared as much again.

There was a double header vs Arizona August of 2002, I want to say. John Thomson pitched one of the games. Another awful midseason acquiree, Mark Little (?) hit into a force play that completely encapsulated how ineffectual all those Steve Phillips moves were. This the long home losing streak that cost Bobby V his job but should have cost Phillips his job.

[G-Fafif]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: There was a double header vs Arizona August of 2002, I want to say. John Thomson pitched one of the games. Another awful midseason acquiree, Mark Little (?) hit into a force play that completely encapsulated how ineffectual all those Steve Phillips moves were. This the long home losing streak that cost Bobby V his job but should have cost Phillips his job.

That was the tipping-point doubleheader. The Mets were within conceivable striking distance of the Wild Card as July was ending, 4 games over. Some 50,000 on hand that Saturday afternoon (it rained the night before). Alfonzo homers to put the Mets ahead in the eighth. Armando gives it back on a homer to Counsell in the ninth. Though it goes to a tenth, it was not unlike Game Five in the 2015 WS: once they couldn't nail it down in top of the ninth, you sensed it was a matter of time. Sure enough, the Diamondbacks strafe Strickland, we lose 8-5, and there are maybe, no exaggeration, 5,000 in the park for Game Two. As noted, Thomson sucked, the sweep was on, the life was sucked out of Shea (my friend who never wants to leave early suggested we leave in the sixth) and that was pretty much that for good competitive times until 2005.

Game Two highlight: I'd wandered over to the Mezzanine concessions behind home plate and, as I stood staring at all the exotic food choices, I heard a clanking sound. Rey Ordonez had fouled back a pitch that somehow squirted through one of the entry portals and banged off a trash can. I could've picked it up off the ground had I been standing where I was standing a half-minute before, but alas, another human being was closer to it and grabbed it.

[Guest themetfairy]

This wasn't exactly a game, and there's no box score, but D-Dad and I were at the intrasquad game in St. Petersburg 1986 when Mookie was hurt on the basepaths and suffered a severe eye injury. I don't remember actually seeing the play, but I will always remember the sound of the thud and seeing Mookie lying on the field for what seemed like forever.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Can't remember a lot of details, but I recall seeing the Mets beat the Phillies at Shea on a Sunday in September 1999. The Mets were hot and going into a series against the Braves. I was visiting my family in Virginia and changed my plans so that on my way back home I could stop in Philadelphia to see the Mets play the Phillies again on the following Sunday. After being so pumped after the first game, it was dreadful being in the nearly empty Veterans Stadium witnessing the Mets 6th consecutive loss and their playoff hopes seemingly going down the tubes. I don't think it was a particularly bad game in of itself but the circumstances of how far the Mets had fallen in one week was a killer.

[G-Fafif]

Mets Willets Point wrote: Can't remember a lot of details, but I recall seeing the Mets beat the Phillies at Shea on a Sunday in September 1999. The Mets were hot and going into a series against the Braves. I was visiting my family in Virginia and changed my plans so that on my way back home I could stop in Philadelphia to see the Mets play the Phillies again on the following Sunday. After being so pumped after the first game, it was dreadful being in the nearly empty Veterans Stadium witnessing the Mets 6th consecutive loss and their playoff hopes seemingly going down the tubes. I don't think it was a particularly bad game in of itself but the circumstances of how far the Mets had fallen in one week was a killer.

I was at both those games, the latter being what felt like the season-killer. Rickey Henderson didn't run as if the season depended on it on the game-ending double play. What I remember most is the plethora of thousand-yard stares amongst everybody in a Mets cap at the NJ Turnpike rest stop my friend and I stopped at on the way back.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't remember a September swoon in 1999. Do you mean 1998?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I guess I'm wrong! Since the 1999 regular season had a happy ending, I must have forgotten the losing streak.






Those graphs look so much better than this year's:

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Yeah, the September 1999 swoon had them going from seeming like a shoe-in for the Wild Card after that first game I saw against the Phillies to having win that dramatic game against the Pirates on the last day of the regular season and then playing a tie breaker against Cincinnati in order to make the playoffs.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

G-Fafif wrote: There was a double header vs Arizona August of 2002, I want to say. John Thomson pitched one of the games. Another awful midseason acquiree, Mark Little (?) hit into a force play that completely encapsulated how ineffectual all those Steve Phillips moves were. This the long home losing streak that cost Bobby V his job but should have cost Phillips his job. That was the tipping-point doubleheader. The Mets were within conceivable striking distance of the Wild Card as July was ending, 4 games over. Some 50,000 on hand that Saturday afternoon (it rained the night before). Alfonzo homers to put the Mets ahead in the eighth. Armando gives it back on a homer to Counsell in the ninth. Though it goes to a tenth, it was not unlike Game Five in the 2015 WS: once they couldn't nail it down in top of the ninth, you sensed it was a matter of time. Sure enough, the Diamondbacks strafe Strickland, we lose 8-5, and there are maybe, no exaggeration, 5,000 in the park for Game Two. As noted, Thomson sucked, the sweep was on, the life was sucked out of Shea (my friend who never wants to leave early suggested we leave in the sixth) and that was pretty much that for good competitive times until 2005. Game Two highlight: I'd wandered over to the Mezzanine concessions behind home plate and, as I stood staring at all the exotic food choices, I heard a clanking sound. Rey Ordonez had fouled back a pitch that somehow squirted through one of the entry portals and banged off a trash can. I could've picked it up off the ground had I been standing where I was standing a half-minute before, but alas, another human being was closer to it and grabbed it.

I'd completely forgotten losing the first game in the way you describe it but man what a terrible day. It was hot and sticky too. My affection for the club was still quite strong then and the idea of ever walking out was abhorrent to me but walk out I did.

Early this year in the bone-chilling cold, getting skunked by Zack Eflin as Terry ran 7 relievers out there until Montero coughed up 4 in the 9th

[Chad ochoseis]

http://ultimatemets.com/gamedetail.php?gameno=4182&tabno=D

October 2, 1987, Busch Stadium. The opening game of the last series of the season. It wasn't necessarily such a bad game in and of itself. But I'd just started grad school at Wash U, and my roommate was from upstate NY and also a Mets fan. So we got advance tickets to the game - my first ever trip to Busch - figuring that series would decide the NL East.

You all remember what happened. The Cardinals clinched the night before. Or maybe the night before that. So the game turned into a throwaway game a la that Braves game that Big Al writes about. Except there was no Weissman, no Stockard Channing chick, and certainly no Airstrip. Just me and a bunch of asshole Cardinals asshole fans, one of whom yelled "FUCK THE METS" in the middle of the national anthem, watching a dull, nondescript game that the Mets lost by doing something that I have absolutely no memory of. But I remember lots of "THE METS ARE POND SCUM" during the game (asshole Cardinals asshole fans really need to hire some writers). And it was windy. And freezing. And I was wearing a t-shirt.

And, on the way out, while I was stuck in miserable pre-light rail downtown St. Louis traffic, a bunch of asshole Cardinals asshole fans saw my New York license plates and started chanting nasty stuff and making "flip the car over" motions.

Also, it was Kol Nidre night. To this day, I'm convinced that the evening was God's punishment for putting the Mets ahead of my religion. Or possibly for every sin I'd ever committed during the 22 1/2 years that led up to that point of my life.

Fuck you, St. Louis.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Great story! I can remember that series and trying to ape Thomas Boswell trying to write about it. I gave up having nothing to say.

[Frayed Knot]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: There was a double header vs Arizona August of 2002, I want to say. John Thomson pitched one of the games. Another awful midseason acquiree, Mark Little (?) hit into a force play that completely encapsulated how ineffectual all those Steve Phillips moves were. This the long home losing streak that cost Bobby V his job but should have cost Phillips his job.

That Game 1 of the DH was also a big source of the 'Armando Suxx' and "Big Game" memes.
AB had blown only two saves to that point of the season and was on a run of a dozen straight successes but that didn't stop of the cries of 'why did he have to blow THIS one?!?' in the
now-famous standard of retroactively assigning the 'Big Game' label only after they were lost. Had he come through unscathed it would of course been just another mid-summer game.
He'd go on to blow just one more for the remainder of the season but naturally that didn't stop him from being blamed for most of the subsequent losses.

[MFS62]

Don't remember the date, but it was a double header against the Pirates on a Sunday. It was blistering hot, high 90's, and the only available seats were in the upper deck at Shea. The Mets lost the first game something like 10-9. So, MMYF said it was too hot to stay, I reluctantly agreed and we left.

When we left the ballpark, we decided to get some pizza, so we went to a place on Northern Blvd. in Flushing. We had ordered, sat down and tried to relax. Then, we realized that the air conditioning was broken and we were too drained to leave. So we ate, sweated, and then went home.

We later found out the Mets went on to win the second game with a similar high score. That might have been fun to watch.
Sigh.

Oh, we also were at another game at Shea that included the longest (at that time) rain delay in Mets history.

Later

[TransMonk]

Every game I've attended this year has been a dud. I don't know that any one of them has been the worst singular experience, but all-in-all, my 2017 games will be the worst as a group.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIL/MIL201705120.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIL/MIL201705130.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN201706150.shtml