G-Fafif

Every year there's at least one guy I keep forgetting is on the team. This year there were several. But Jeremy Reed led the pack in this obscure regard in 2009. No offense...which seems appropriate where Jeremy is concerned. Here's to one-year wonders from the Noughties/'00s -- Mets who spent a FULL year on Mets' active roster, no more, no less, no call-ups, no send-downs, no DL 2000: Mike Hampton (Derek Bell removed from postseason roster after NLDS for injury; Kurt Abbott had DL stint) 2001: Desi Relaford, Kevin Appier 2002: John Valentin, Mark Guthrie 2003: Tony Clark, Jay Bell 2004: None 2005: None (Doug Mientkiewicz and Miguel Cairo each had DL stints) 2006: Chad Bradford, Darren Oliver 2007: Aaron Sele (David Newhan sent to minors) 2008: None 2009: Jeremy Reed (Tim Redding, Gary Sheffield and J.J. Putz each had DL stints)

Some others that have been ruminated upon and emerged (all wins): 9/25/08: Shea's last walkoff win: Beltran gets one past the lethal Micah Hoffpauir in the rain, scoring Reyes. Featured big hits by Robinson Cancel and Ramon Martinez, plus Pedro's farewell. 8/21/08: Delgado goes 5-for-5, his fifth hit one Omar Infante falls down on, scoring Wright in the bottom on the ninth to beat the Braves 5-4. 7/24/08: Delgado goes the other way, to left, scoring Cancel and Wright (David captured inadvertently posing like Captain Morgan after crossing home plate, one knee in the air), beats Phillies 3-1 to take series in which the two rivals came in tied for first...first time since September 1985 Mets entered a three-game series tied for first to play the team with whom they were tied. 8/2/07: Damion Easley's inside-the-park home run breaks tie, keys Brian Lawrence (!) to victory over the Brewers, 12-4. 7/7/07: Mets win longest game of the decade, 17 innings, 5-3 over the Astros. Marked by Beltran's diving catch onto Tal's Hill in the sixteenth; he drives in winning run in the seventeenth. 6/25/07: Shawn Green's singular moment of triumph, walkoff eleventh-inning blast off Russ Springer to beat the Cards 2-1. 6/23/07: What had been El Duque-Joe Blanton 0-0 duel heads to ninth. Ramon Castro, the slowest man alive, doubles. The only way to get him home without a homer, it appears, is to hit a ball where the worst fielder alive can't quite catch up with it...which is what David Wright does when he dunks a double out of the reach of Jack Cust. Mets beat A's 1-0. 7/30/06: Strike 'em out, throw 'em out double play ends long overdue sweep of Braves at Turner Field, 10-6. 7/16/06: Floyd grand slam...Beltran grand slam...Wright two-run homer...all in the same inning. Mets put up an 11-run sixth, a team record, beat Cubs at Wrigley 13-7. 6/10/06: The moment of Alay Soler: Two-hit shutout that cements his place in the Met rotation (until he completely disappears by July, not only never winning another game, but never pitching in another win). 4/20/06: Weird home run incidence: Julio Franco becomes oldest man to hit a home run AND Kaz Matsui hits a home run in his first plate appearance of the year for the third consecutive year in a row. Mets beats Pads at Petco, 7-2. 8/24/05: The Mike Jacobs rookie rampage crests with a 4-for-5 night, two homers, four RBI. Mets establish residence in Arizona, sweeping four from the Diamondbacks, 18-1. 5/18/04: At virtually the same moment Randy Johnson is finishing off his perfect game in Atlanta, Cliff Floyd caps ninth-inning rally with two-out single to beat Jason Isringhausen and Cards 5-4. Mets move to within one game of .500 and, for what it's worth, shake me out of my default "I don't really care if they win or lose" funk I'd been in ever since they'd fired Bobby V and let Fonzie walk. (I did care, just not as much as I had before Art Howe...I was so pissed for so long.) 5/23/03: Mets somehow up 6-5 at Turner Field. Bottom of the ninth. Armando gets two outs. Then a walk. Then a balk. Then a walk. Two on. Julio Franco, then a bad guy, singles to center. Here comes Chipper Jones with the tying run and...HE'S OUT! Tsuyoshi Shinjo, in his otherwise hollow second go-round as a Met, throws him out at the plate to end the game. It wasn't much, but it was 2003. 9/21/02: Brady Clark reaches on an Andres Galarraga error to tie Expos 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth. In the eleventh, Esix Snead launches a three-run blast to win it, 6-3. Brady Clark? Esix Snead? The 2002 Mets winning in dramatic fashion in September? Lost in the shuffle: a Met killer is born, as Endy Chavez goes 4-for-5 for Montreal. 9/3/01: These are supposed to be memorable, yet one might have to call this the forgotten gem of the 25-6 tear that catapulted the Mets back into contention in this star-crossed season. Mets trail Philies, one of their two competitors for first place, 7-5 entering the ninth at the Vet and score five runs on six hits and two Philadelphia errors. Mets pull to within a not altogether improbable 8-1/2 of first with 24 games to go. Two remain with the Phillies, six are left with the Braves. 7/29/01: Mike Piazza beats Rheal Cormier in the bottom of the ninth with a home run, 6-5, which in itself was great, but was that much greater because... 7/28/01: Robin Ventura beats the returning Turk Wendell in the bottom of the ninth with a home run, 4-3, 24 hours earlier. Two Mets walk off bombs against the Phillies in two days. 7/18/01: Bobby Valentine outargues Marlin skipper Tony Perez and umpire Kerwin Danley into a favorable call at third (something about "abandoning the base") and it's eventually all for the good as Shinjo singles home the winning run in the eleventh, keeping the Mets' faint midsummer pulse ticking. 4/9/01: Shinjo introduces himself with two orange wristbands and one home run. Mike reintroduces himself with a pair of dingers. The Mets raise their 2000 pennant and bop the Braves at the Home Opener, 9-4. 4/3/01: Mets open league title defense at Turner Field. Instead of folding per usual at the Dread, Robin Ventura takes John Rocker deep in the eighth, Kerry Ligtenberg the same in the tenth. Two two-run Robin eggs laid on Atlanta win it 6-4. 9/13/00: Slumping Mets down 1-0 (Jeff D'Amico outdueling Mike Hampton) with two out in the bottom of the ninth when Robin Ventura drives home Jay Payton with a double. With two out in bottom of the tenth, Payton ends it with three-run bomb off Juan Acevedo. Snaps the Mets out of their morass and points them toward October. 7/27/00: Emergency starter Grant Roberts buries Mets early. They're down 4-0 after a half inning, 7-2 after an inning and a half. Yet a slow, steady comeback commences, climaxing in the bottom of the eighth with a tie-breaking single from Matt Franco. Mets win first game of makeup matinee doubleheader 9-8 (and go on to sweep the twinbill).

Al Harazin, with Jim Baumbach in Newsday. He seems more likable now that he's not generating the party line. On the wall of Al Harazin's home office in his Amherst, Mass., home, the former Mets general manager says there are two framed newspaper covers. One newspaper cover lauds Harazin for his off-season acquisitions of Bobby Bonilla, Eddie Murray and Bret Saberhagen before the 1992 season. The other page, however, shows Harazin with a doctored dunce cap on his head, in the wake of his trade of David Cone. As Omar Minaya's approval rating among Mets fans plummets with each transaction-less day, there are few people out there who understand the pressure he's under better than Harazin. Because those two framed newspapers serve as a daily reminder of just how quickly a general manager here can go from hero to zero in this baseball-frenzied town. "I put them side by side," Harazin said by telephone Thursday, "because I thought they represented pretty well the nature of the beast." As the winter meetings wind down Thursday in Indianapolis, Harazin couldn't be further from the baseball world. The 67-year-old instead had his own busy week. He's an adjunct professor of political science and American history at Holyoke Community College, and finals are about to begin. It's a far cry from where he was some 18 years ago, when he was in a similar spot to Minaya. With the Mets coming off their first losing season in a while, Harazin set out to make a big splash, retooling the Mets by signing Bonilla and Murray and trading for Saberhagen. The trades were well received by an impatient Mets fan base eager to return to winning, but in reality things couldn't have turned out worse. The Mets went 72-90 in 1992 and then 59-103 in 1993, with Harazin resigning midway through that downtrodden season. It's not hard to make the connection to the decisions Minaya has facing him this off-season and the moves Harazin made leading up to the 1992 season. Throw in the temptation to please an impatient fan base and you have the potential of an off-season that could make or break an organization for years to come. "It is very difficult to preach patience, and being in the same town as the Yankees makes it even more so," Harazin said. "But the role of the general manager is to balance the short-term and the long-term, for better and for worse. You can't mortgage your future to make people happy in the short term. You have to keep weighing what's good for the organization immediately without selling your soul for your future." Even though Harazin hasn't had ties to the Mets since resigning midway through the 1993 season, he said he keeps tabs on them. He did work there for 13 years, after all. And he has a World Series ring from 1986, though he admits he didn't always wear it when he moved to Massachusetts in 2002, for obvious reasons. "At the start of the year it looked like the Mets were going to have a really strong year and then people started getting hurt," he said. "Boy, I went through it. I understand completely how these things happen. It's amazing how all your wonderful plans can turn to sand very quickly by events out of your control." Some of his students know his background, he said, but most don't. He doesn't seem to mind. "I'm ancient history," he said, laughing. But as this off-season continues and the pressure on Minaya to make a big move grows more intense by the day, it seems fitting to think back to Harazin's off-season spending-spree and how it seemed so good at the time. Only it obviously didn't turn out that way. Sometimes, maybe, it pays to do nothing. "You're in a human being business," Harazin said. "You're betting on human beings. You're betting on fate to a certain extent. You're betting on the good health of people. There's so much that's unknowable. You just try to get yourself the best opportunity to be successful but it doesn't guarantee a darn thing."

Did his job on Opening Day, giving up only a bases-empty walk in the eighth with a 2-1 lead. Frankie got the save, but I remember some "I have nothing else to write about" columnist the next day making a big deal that Putz had tougher hitters than Rodriguez, so...I don't remember the point, other than the columnist had nothing else to write about. Saw exactly one dude at Citi Field wearing a PUTZ 20 shirt. Man, I thought, he must really like him. Or be related.

Poll or don't poll these, Irish, but I do find them memorable in the course of ten years. 6/4/06: Lastings high-fives the fans following first ML home run (such a contretemps). 5/30/00: Pratt slam beats L.A. in ninth (longest ninth-inning game in N.L. history to that point, 4:09 9/27/00: Mets clinch playoff berth for second consecutive year for first time ever. 7/22/07: The Chip Ambres Game. Every decade needs one of these. 5/21/00: Joe McEwing takes ownership of Randy Johnson (Mike takes him very deep, too) 5/20/08 (N): Ryan Church second concussion, beginning of end 4/30/08 Water main break delays start, Pirates wallop Ollie 13-1, Billy rags on Ollie thereafter

J.J. goes to Chicago's South Side. One year, $3M, another $3.25M in incentives. My wife observed of the scoreboard lightning theatrics when he entered a game, "He can make the weather change."

Will it go round in circles?

Another milestone: Lenny Harris breaks all-time career pinch-hit record, 10/6/01. I swear they treated it like it was Cal Ripken Night (which was going on some 200 miles to the south).

Speaking of milestone HRs, Mike breaks catcher longball record, 5/5/04. Not a milestone, but plenty dramatic: Mike comes off DL after three months with a resounding blast, 8/13/03 (next day the lights went out in NYC). Same pitcher -- Jerome Williams of the Giants -- gave up both. And no discussion of the decade's homers could be complete without acknowledging Mo Vaughn's 505-foot detonation off the Budweiser sign, 6/26/02. Plus latter day horror show of note: Phillies 11 Mets 10, 8/30/07 after we had a 5-0 lead, trailed 8-5 and led 10-8. Yet we were still stunned one month later.

They'll trickle out of me all day if somebody doesn't shut the spigot. But since it would take only two more games to make it a just about even 5%, I'll nominate two more and stop thinking about it: 9/25/03: Bob Murphy Night meshes with Piazza's first appearance at first base...in relief of Mike Glavine. A sad and weird evening at Shea. 9/12/09: Mets forge unlikely as hell comeback versus Phillies, from down 8-4 after blowing 4-0 lead. David wins it 10-9 on two-out homer in top of ninth at CBP. Nice antidote to unassisted triple play game, 8/23/09 (whoops, I just mentioned another one).

1. Darryl Strawberry 2. Dwight Gooden 3. Davey Johnson 4. Frank Cashen 5. Rube Walker 6. Jane Jarvis 7. Mike Piazza 8. Bobby Valentine Ideally, the first six would go in in 2010; let Rube and Jane ride the coattails of the attention that would be given Darryl and Doc. A few outsized classes are in order to make up for the lack of action since 2002.

Four-time All-Star, too. Here's what came after his flashy '84 and '85: 17-6 15-7 18-9 9-4 19-7 13-7 10-13 12-15 3-4 Even if he was never quite Doc the way we choose to remember him, Dwight was pretty darn good for an awfully long time.

On the downer side of memorable, 9/23/01 and 9/29/01, the two Brian Jordan games. Super sigh...