G-Fafif

Jimmy Kimmel, who threw out the first pitch for Game Two of the NLCS, is making the most of his week of shows from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. [youtube:2hsjtkxu]pSLQlQnCsT8[/youtube:2hsjtkxu] Mr. Met also stood in for Jimmy's third-grade teacher, Mrs. Metz (real name), in a recreation of his class picture from 40 years before. [youtube:2hsjtkxu]Ejiw_YWmrF0[/youtube:2hsjtkxu]

I get the hesitation on some level. My Football Giants fandom in the Parcells era was fairly intense but I drifted away in the ensuing years. Still liked them, still hoped they'd win, was still sorry when they lost, didn't suddenly start rooting for the Cowboys or Eagles -- on paper they were still my team -- but I didn't live and die every Sunday with them. It just wasn't the same. When they got on their run to Super Bowl XLII I felt like a bit of a fraud compared to those who treated the Giants the way I treated the Mets. But in the course of that January and February, I felt it all come back to me and by the end of their upset of the Patriots, I was as thrilled as I could possibly be over anything that wasn't the Mets. Perhaps Zach Lowe will be overcome by that sensation in the next four to seven games. (Katz, OTOH, seems proud that he doesn't care.)

Zach Lowe, Grantland's NBA writer, writes a touching piece on how he couldn't have been a bigger Mets fan, but once he lost the handle, he just couldn't get it back. I remember the exact moment my Mets fandom crested: September 16, 1998, when Todd Hundley cranked a pinch-hit solo homer to put the Mets up 4-3 in the 11th inning in Houston. Turk Wendell, that rosin-tossing freak show with the lethal slider, blanked the Astros in the bottom half to clinch the win. The Mets were 86-68, just a half-game behind Chicago in the wild-card race. I sprinted upstairs, busted into my parents� bedroom without knocking � what in the world was I thinking? � and announced, breathlessly, that the Mets had won on a Hundley homer. I had been watching the game 45 minutes earlier with my dad when Mike Piazza, the long-lost superstar New York had acquired in the middle of that season, came up with two on and two out in the ninth and the Mets trailing 2-0. I was shaking on the couch. I felt the home run coming in my bones. I told my dad. He laughed at me. Piazza smashed a laser-beam line drive over the right-field wall to put New York up 3-2. Hundley winning the game two innings later was poetic. He was the incumbent All-Star catcher; Piazza had displaced him. I owned an official Hundley jersey. He was the team�s best player as the Mets crept up from mediocrity starting in 1997. I had already bought a Piazza batting practice jersey, but I wouldn�t spring for the real thing, because in my head, that would have been disrespectful to Hundley�s tenured status. The Mets had tried to play Hundley in the outfield, but it wasn�t working. I couldn�t say it out loud, but I knew on that night that Hundley was done as a Met � that the game-winning homer might be his last great moment in New York. I loved Hundley. The Lowes were a baseball (and basketball) family. My parents would get why I had to wake them up and tell them what Hundley had done. They were still awake, and demanded the details. The Mets won games that were more important, and did so in more thrilling fashion, the next year, when they advanced to the National League Championship Series, and then in 2000, when they lost to the hateful Yankees in the Subway Series. But every fan gets amped for playoff games. The pure joy I felt over a regular-season game, a joy that still courses through my body as I close my eyes and recall sprinting around the house, is something more special. It is representative of how much that team, and that particular group of players, meant to me. And it�s all gone, and has been for years. The Mets are doing the very thing I lived 25 years hoping they�d do, and it is absolutely killing me inside. Never let your passions die. Sort of in that realm, if not as touching, Jeff Katz, Mayor of Cooperstown and author of Split Season, says he can't quite get it going again for his childhood team. In June 1977 I watched in horror as the Mets sent Seaver to the Reds and I realized at that moment that I loved Tom Seaver more than I loved the Mets. It became clear to me that the game was the players, not the owners, not the team names, not the stadiums. It was a minor epiphany, a liberating one which allowed me to enjoy the game itself without the drag of rabid, team-centric, interest. [...] Once that bond was broken, that deeply felt emotional tie, it couldn�t be repaired, it couldn�t be reclaimed. I came out of a spell. Do I wish the Mets ill? Nah. Do I wish them well? Sure, for whatever that�s worth. I simply have no feelings about them.

I'm feeling a little tired. Might not be ready for another Mets game until Tuesday night. Anyone know if they'll have one then?

Would having Utley kill the "they're all so likable" narrative or would we admire his never-say-die fighting spirit? The latter, I assume.

I thought Granderson was a waste of resources. He's a bargain. I thought Collins was a caretaker in over his head. He's a leader of men. I thought Colon was taking starts better given to younger pitchers. He's a stabilizing force. I thought Murphy couldn't do anything right. He can't do anything wrong. I thought 2015 might be somewhat better than 2014. It's proving better than almost everything. Met-a culpa. And happily so.

At home after school in '69. Second wild celebration on TV in two weeks. Seemed the norm to a six-year-old. In a Lamston's (like a Woolworth's) in Manhatan in '73. Transistor radio reported last out. I stepped outside to take in the commotion, which there was just enough of. In front of a television for four hours and forty-two minutes in '86, fielding steady stream of OHMIGOD phone calls. At Shea in 2000, Mezzanine. Like something out of a dream. Television again in 2015, synced to radio feed as best as could be. Quite happy with the outcome as was the case the previous four times. There are now five, you know.

Confirming that this is fun.

The Mets are in the World Series. That was fun to type. I think I'm gonna type it again. The Mets are in the World Series.

Hi, I'm a Mets fan and I root for a league champion.

Still the best thread title ever.

A fifth Mets pennant is within reach. In the spirit of the "Where Were YOU?" thread, any memories specific to where YOU were when the first four (or the only four, to date) were achieved? October 6, 1969. October 10, 1973. October 15, 1986. October 16, 2000.

My dad -- a.k.a. Mr. FaFiF from the Game Seven 1986 thread -- enjoyed NLCS Game Three, though probably not as much as he did NLDS Game Five (he didn't nod off during the Dodger clincher). He did think he was witnessing another clinching when it was over. "A great tradition since 1908 has been maintained," he declared. Had to break it to him that he was either prescient or 24 hours early. Also had to report three times in the five minutes that followed the last out -- because he kept asking -- that a) the game was indeed over and the Mets had indeed won. So he needs a little reinforcement these days. OTOH, this time, per special request, I brought pizza, and pizza makes everything championship.

I fucking love semi-colons; I also love Daniel Fucking Merciless Murphy and his Kustom Kard.

Home, a year and a half after college, watching with my parents, both of whom I converted from obliviousness to rabid fandom during that era (though I also have to credit their bandwagon instincts). October 27, 1986, was the last time I willingly hugged my mother as an adult. The only two previous times were the clinchings of the division and the pennant. Tonight, though his Met interest was completely dormant between 1990 and 2015, I'll be watching Game Three with my father, who is now in a hospice-care facility following the removal of a brain tumor, treatment for it and the lousy aftereffects of the treatment. He decided he enjoyed the ritual of us watching the Mets while in the hospital over the summer. When he was basically giving up, I promised him if he kept working at getting better (which seemed realistic for a while), I'd come over and watch the World Series with him. He didn't get home, per se, but he's still hanging in there, just like team we rooted for in 1986. A week from tonight, the 29th anniversary of Game Seven, I look forward to our getting together for Game One.

It was, as the meteorologists say, fucking cold, but manageable. Just wear two to three of everything and you're good. Matt Harvey is very popular in the stands these days. Amazing what pitching well and his agent S'ingTFU will do for a guy's Q rating.

Curtis Granderson � RF David Wright � 3B Daniel Murphy � 2B Yoenis Cespedes � LF Travis d�Arnaud � C Michael Cuddyer � 1B Wilmer Flores � SS Juan Lagares � CF Matt Harvey � RHP No Duda.

Content aside, this thread's title is my favorite in CPF history.

Rose also hit three home runs one day at Shea as he was closing in on his 3,000th hit. The story of breaking the modern National League record here. On July 25, 1978, Shea Stadium�s diehards forgot who they hated more than any single visiting player and gave him a standing ovation nobody could have possibly envisioned five Octobers earlier. Pete Rose was Public Enemy No. 1 in Flushing dating back to the day he slid a little too hard into Buddy Harrelson in the 1973 NLCS. A steady stream of flying debris greeted him when he took his position in left field after that brawl for the ages concluded. The venom might have faded over time, but the thought that Rose would someday be vociferously cheered at Shea was absurd. Then came the 1978 hitting streak that captured much of America�s attention. Charlie Hustle topped thirty games and kept going. Joe DiMaggio�s standard of 56 was off in the distance, but the modern National League record was clearly in sight, and it lay straight ahead at Shea Stadium. Rose came to New York having hit in 36 games in a row; the mark at which he was aiming (for the time being) was 37, set by Boston Brave Tommy Holmes in 1945. And wouldn�t you know that Tommy Holmes, generations later, was an employee of the Mets, working in their community relations department? Thus, Holmes was on hand the Monday night Rose tied him at 37 (as Mets fans stood and applauded their archvillain for three minutes). The old Brave outfielder and native of Brooklyn was there on Tuesday night, too, as Pete attempted to oust Tommy from the record book. Which he did, in the third inning of a scoreless game against Craig Swan. Rose, improbably, was feted lavishly by a crowd comprised of many of the same folks who no doubt called for his head in the not altogether distant past. But 1973�s evildoer knew how to win over a hostile throng. Sweetly, Rose shared his big moment with Holmes. Both men stood at first base and basked in the appreciation of 38,000-plus history-minded New Yorkers who normally would have no use for any Red not named Tom Seaver. When the impromptu ceremony ended, Rose went back to collecting base hits. He got two more off of Swan, but that was OK, because his teammates registered only four hits among them, while the Mets did their best to overshadow their unusually celebrated visitor by pounding out a dozen safeties. That provided plenty of support for Swannie, who got over his incidental place in history and went nine to beat Cincinnati, 9-2.

MLB will hear his appeal Monday. Big help.

Matty R will wear No. 56.

He's been taxi-squadding w/o fanfare in PSL. Maybe Sandy has a lefty specialist warming up down there as well.

Sources reporting 1970 pennant drive Met Dean Chance passed away this morning at age 74.

Matt Reynolds is the replacement. Would be 2nd modern-day player to make MLB debut in postseason.

That Marlon Anderson bullshit call here, from August 29, 2007. Marlon Anderson's slide kept the Mets sliding. Anderson was called out for interference trying to break up a double play for the last out of the game, wiping out the tying run as the Mets lost to the Phillies, 3-2, last night. The loss was the Mets' fourth straight and third in this four-game series that wraps up today, allowing the Phillies to pull within three games of first place in the NL East. The Mets went down fighting - and arguing. Pinch-hitter Anderson's one-out single off Phillies closer Brett Myers pushed Endy Chavez, a pinch-runner for Paul Lo Duca, to third base. Shawn Green then grounded into a disputed, game-ending double play. Second base ump C.B. Bucknor ruled Anderson had gone out of the basepath to interfere with second baseman Tadahito Iguchi as he crossed the bag and prepared to throw to first. With Anderson's interlocked arms striking Iguchi in the hip, Iguchi's throw had no chance to get Green at first. Anderson and Willie Randolph argued to no avail, and the Mets lost another game off their lead. Thing is Anderson was a lot closer to 2B (if I recall) than Utley was. Also, fuck Utley.