G-Fafif

John Koblin in the Observer, he who captured those damning "we're too good to care" quotes last September, frames the malaise...and will quote anybody in doing so: ]But the 2008 team has been disappointing in a totally unfamiliar way. They are boring and unenthusiastic and, as far as their famously passionate fans are concerned, they don�t inspire much of any emotion at all. �This year, I just don�t care if they win or lose,� said Greg Prince, the 45-year-old co-author of the Mets blog, Faith and Fear in Flushing. �This hasn�t happened to me before. You know what really bothers me? I think for so many Mets fans, the Mets are their identity. I�m not a religious person, and I�m not a God-and-country guy. So if I�m a Mets fan, and if I don�t care if they lose, I start thinking, �Am I doing this right anymore? Am I a bad fan for not caring?��

Wow, it's like listening to a baseball man, not a politician. Jay Horwitz had to have wished he brought one of those hooks from vaudeville listening to Omar. But Manuel's a godsend. If he manages like he talks, we might not suck nearly as much.

Alomar no longer third base coach, but bench coach. Hallelujah!

Benjamin Grimm wrote: That would make too much sense. I wouldn't put it past them to fire Willie (or a coach or two) upon arrival at the ballpark. Or maybe, if they decide that they don't want to look as dysfunctional as they probably are, they'll wait until after tonight's game, or before tomorrow's game. Grimmy's a visionary!

SI profile of Manuel, by William Nack, from the high-flying Sox summer of 2000. Key excerpts: ]"Jerry manages by the gut," says Ron Schueler, the White Sox general manager. "He does a lot of work on matchups, but then he says, 'I just got a gut feeling.' " Indeed, of all the things that define Manuel as a manager, that made him the American League's winningest skipper during the season's first four months, none describe the loft of his arc as clearly as his fearlessness in taking risks, his willingness to flout conventional wisdom. ]This is not the mind of a typical baseball manager at work here. Rather, Manuel suggests a kind of New Age Casey Stengel, that unending font of wisdom, whimsy and charm. A born-again Christian, Manuel neither chews nor drinks nor uses profanity, the old triple play of sins in his profession, but there is nothing rigid or self-righteous about him�he hides his piety like a steal sign�and humor is part and parcel of his grace. When told that one of his more intellectually challenged players had just had two wisdom teeth extracted, Manuel smiled and said, "Dang, they should have left those in." His humor, at times intended to lighten darker moods, can be charmingly self-deprecating. Like Stengel, he is not afraid to play the clown. On April 28, while serving the first day of his eight-game suspension for his part in the bench-clearing brawl with the Detroit Tigers on April 22, Manuel watched the Sox beat the Tigers 3-2 on the TV in his room at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn, Mich. That evening, as the coaches and players stepped off the team bus at the hotel, a uniformed doorman, looking ramrod straight in his jacket and hat, held the front door open as acting manager Joe Nossek swept past. "Welcome to the Ritz-Carlton," said the doorman. "Yeah, yeah," grumped Nossek, not looking up. "Hey, Joe!" yelled the doorman. Nossek turned back. It was Manuel, who had borrowed the uniform from the actual doorman. ]Manuel imported the philosophy, the intense, single-minded purposefulness, and the players have been implementing it. "It's not the swinging for the fences that has won us games," he says. "It's the guy taking the leadoff walk. It's the guy hustling into second base to beat a throw�or take a guy out. These little things have made the difference. This team has a strong bond. They like each other. They pull for each other. They want to win badly. They are growing up very quickly, right before our eyes."

AG/DC wrote: ="G-Fafif"]That it never felt 100% right that a Yankee demi-icon was managing the Mets, even if it didn't really matter. See, to me, leaving his Yankee number behind was all he had to do. He had me at 12. I'll add that he kept himself in great shape, and that his playing tenure with the Mets was similar, in that he gave it an honest effort and more, but we were asking more of him than he had to give. As MFYs went back in the day, I never disliked Willie with particular intensity. The Mets fan background and general non-obnoxiousness was dispensation enough (sort of like Andy Pettitte bringing his kid into the dugout in spring training in his Mets cap). Yes, referencing Ken Boswell was a beautiful thing. But he's not on the scene without his MFY background and it never quite went away. The "I've always been a winner" didn't refer to his positive outlook or his knack for pinochle. Casey and Yogi may have earned their, uh, stripes there, but as a kid, I never knew them as anything but Mets. Dallas Green's cross to bear was the Phillies, not the Yankees. But with Willie, he was associated with not one, but two suffocating dynasties, both of which bloomed while we floundered. Willie Randolph was succeeding in 1977 and 1978 and 1996 and so on. He was a walking advertisement for bad memories. The only thing I dreaded as it became apparent this would happen sooner or later (other than the Mets would do it in absolutely embarrassing fashion in the middle of the night on the West Coast...and that seemed too absurd to contemplate) was that all the former MFY beat writers who became national baseball columnists would flood the zone with "Willie the great Yankee was too good for the Mets" martyrdom. I'm sure we're due a spate of those any minute now. Saddest part is I don't have the zest to take umbrage at anti-Mets diatribes like I used to.

That he'd always been a winner. That yes, Joe, it was toasted. That the double-switch at first flummoxed him. That he rarely congratulated starters after complete games. That he loved to bunt but hated to squeeze. That he sprayed Champagne in L.A. like it was the last time he would do it. That he never lost confidence in a team that didn't deserve it. That it was great that a kid who grew up loving the Mets got to manage the Mets. That it never felt 100% right that a Yankee demi-icon was managing the Mets, even if it didn't really matter. That hug he gave Cliff Floyd after the single most exciting game of his tenure, ironically against the Angels. That he didn't manage all that well but will now look really good because the Mets breakup with him was so incredibly bad.

It was June.

That's how all my 90s on the Regents became 75s.

'82 guy Rick Sweet?

The '99 guy Shane Halter?

Mark Little.

That obit was taped to the cash register at a midtown hotel barber shop nine years ago. I had to ask the barber if Mr. Grant was a customer. Sure was, he said -- and what a nice man. No man is a hero to his valet, but one villain wasn't Satan to his barber. Take from that what you will. Small irony, perhaps, on the Greenwich country club remark: Mets last week had their big, high-priced charity event in the very same upscale town where Grant would have blackballed Seaver. It wasn't at a country club, but given the stature and salaries of today's ballplayers, I imagine none of them (even those Grant probably would have restricted from membership) would have a problem joining one if the mood struck.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: So far nobody's tackled the question about what Nieto does, or what he's allegedly failing to do. Anyone? I'm still a little ticked off that Ed Lynch couldn't retire Nieto when Nieto was a sadsack eighth-place hitter for the Cardinals in 1985, but that's more of an Ed Lynch issue.

AG/DC wrote: I think it comes up again and again with most other teams. Making personnel decisions is always hard. In public, it is always ugly. Lousy trades and bad signings are a part of life. But the relationships of the owners, the GMs and the managers and how they're carried out -- does this happen like this everywhere? As frequently? There has been very little in the way of what you'd call stability with this organization. This is like Pittsburgh but with people paying attention and occasionally enough money to cover up the dysfunction. Probably the reason 2006 seemed so glorious was that we were not only winning but not subject to whispers and rumors of backstabbing. Willie was the right choice, Omar was the right choice, Jeff was the right choice. Everything for ten minutes was going swimmingly on the field and off. It was an oasis or perhaps a mirage.

="John Cougar Lunchbucket"]Nobody ever mentions how brutal the second half of 1971 was for Ryan: These are his stats from July on (he was 8-4, 2.05 thru the end of June) 2-10, 6.94, 44-62 K-BB in 59.2 innings -- 2.06 WHiP By the way, the Mets fell from 2nd place, 2 games out to 3rd place, 14 games back in that period. I dunno. A player in his 4th year of full-time work, with those numbers, are guys who get traded ... or released. Could you imagine that player with the Mets today? Don't take my judgment for golden because it was the judgment of a not-quite nine-year-old hung up on stats and skewed by the presence of a 20-10, 289 Ks, 1.76 ERA future Hall of Famer on the same staff, but I swear, when it was announced Nolan Ryan, I was fine with it. "This guy walks too many people and he doesn't win enough" was my nuanced take. To my credit, I asked, in the same breath, "Jim Fregosi? To play third? But he's a shortstop...and kind of old, isn't he?"

]I may have this wrong, but he once told a story of Aaron (I think) coming into the clubhouse, mistaking him for a clubhouse assistant, and telling Seaver to get him a Coke, and responding "Get your own fucking Coke; I'm on the team." Was that Aaron? Because that's not really a "scared to death" response." That was Lou Brock. Aaron had, at another time in his rookie year, left him a copy of one of his many autobiographies. The disdain for Grant is remarkably consistent for 31 years. Seaver said many of the same things in a postmortem Sport magazine ran in '77. Either Seaver is a world-class grudgeholder or Grant really was as bad as we've all assumed he was. Or both.

The word "shoddy" springs to mind in all this, and it's not the first time ownership has inspired it. Really, except for those few golden years when a championship team was being built with what we assume was patience and support from the top and vision from those steering the enterprise, shoddy has been the rule more often than the exception. Think back to Cashen trying to off Johnson in '87; Harazin kicking out Harrelson with a week to go in '91; the spectacular misreading of Torborg and Harazin's abilities; the mismatch of Green and McIlvaine; the infamous skill-sets dismissal of McIlvaine in the middle of the best season the team was enjoying in an eon; the coach massacre in '99; Phillips and Valentine being permitted to carry on a running feud; Valentine taking the fall while Phillips' team crumbled; the non-responsibility taken by everybody for Kazmir; the indecisive approach taken to trying to have both Duquette and Minaya; the abandonment of whatever team philosophy was allegedly being implemented by Duquette; the Howe is fired but not just now display at the end of '04; the press conference to announce Randolph still had a job in October '07; and now this circus of he will/he won't/he will/he won't/maybe we'll just take out Peterson and Nieto instead. Every team has turmoil, every team has moments when people look bad. But jeez, this comes up again and again. It may not be malevolent as with the Dolans, but boy is it chronic. The only constant for two decades is the Wilpon brand name.

Last week, Nolan was a guest with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts on the FAN, promoting the interactive Minor League FunFest (like All-Star FanFest). Joe asked about his problems with New York. Nolan said that wasn't what held him back, it was his military obligations costing him regular work. But the "mistreated" copy for Ruth's book along with Tom's allusions...hmmm...

Great find! I just added it to my long list of Met pop culture references (though not as long as Milton Bradley's 15th home run of the year). In that spirit, enjoy this Jackie Gleason clip, particularly around the 0:54 mark: http://youtube.com/watch?v=BO0hBNZCrsI

If we were playing "Gimme a Ranger who..." and the category were "fills in as host of 'All Things Considered' on NPR," I would have said Ian Kinsler. Gimme a Ranger with over-the-picnic power? I'd still say Jeff Burroughs.

Donn Clendenon, a respectable third in the June 15 derby. Bruce Berenyi finishes out of the money.

Steve Serby does Q&A with Tom Seaver. Seaver sounds like Seaver, which is always a bit more off-center than I'm prepared for. ]Q: Were you heartened by angry Mets fan reaction to your June 15, 1977 blockbuster trade to the Reds? A: I don't know, that's so long ago in a sense. All I remember I was just so cotton pickin' glad to get away from (then-Daily News columnist) Dick Young and (Mets chairman) M. Donald Grant. Q: Young? A: Not a nice man. Q: Why? A: Attacking my wife (Nancy, in print) and saying things that weren't true. Q: Grant? A: Had a real plantation mentality. Asked me: "Who do you think you are joining the Greenwich Country Club?" Q: Tell me what you see when Cleon Jones catches the last out of the 1969 World Series. A: A man down on his knees and a dream come true for the child that lives in all of us. It happens to other athletes, other individuals. And all of a sudden, it's your world championship. One of my favorite photographs is after all that celebration, Gary Gentry and I are back on the mound - it's littered with grass and there's nobody in the stadium - and we went back on the mound (in uniform), and we (each) have a cigar in our hand. . . . 'Cause that's where it all started. Q: Sum up the personality of the '69 Mets. A: Oxymoron - educated naivete. Q: Word associations . . . Jerry Grote? A: A pitcher's dream behind the plate. Q: Bud Harrelson? A: Same thing at shortstop. Q: Did you help pull Buddy off Pete Rose during their '73 playoff brawl? A: No. I was scratching the back of my head. . . . I'm on the bench, Pete's up, and I know Koozie (Jerry Koosman) is gonna hit him, and I know it's gonna be a fight, right? Here we go boys, strap 'em on, let's go. Boom, he hits him. Pete peels off and goes to first base. Well, I said a couple of uncomplimentary words - under my breath - about Pete. And I go to the clubhouse to get a cup of coffee. I open the clubhouse door and there's Murph (Bob Murphy) or Lindsay (Nelson) on the radio going, "And a fight breaks out at second base." I will ask you the question: Who got hurt more than anybody in the fight, in that scene? Me. Have you ever walked from the clubhouse to the dugout? So I open the door, I hear this on the radio, I run back, we have those concrete steps right, going down? Guess who slipped on the concrete steps going down trying to get to the fight (chuckles)? And if you watch this closely, all this commotion's going on, then all of a sudden here comes this one player in this blue coat (chuckles) with my number covered up trying to get to the fight. Q: Gil Hodges? A: At that point in time in my career, the one perfect person for me. Q: Because? A: Discipline, focus, concentration . . . the pro's pro, and (he) did not accept anything less than that. Q: The young Nolan Ryan? A: Frustrated me to death. Q: Why? A: As much talent as anybody's ever had throwing a baseball . . . he had some issues with somebody imposing on his family, I'll leave it at that. He had a very attractive wife (Ruth), and I think that bothered him . . . he couldn't deal with that in New York. I never got the full story from Nolan, but I think that was all part of it. Q: A fan who was badgering Ruth? A: I don't know if it was badgering or what, it was just somebody was in a place they shouldn't have been. I think that bothered him, that the safety of his wife potentially was compromised. We were all young . . . you hear all these horror stories. I think that rightfully bothered him. Q: Koosman? A: Big, strong German, and if hadn't gotten hurt, he'd have been in the Hall of Fame. Q: When the fading Willie Mays became your teammate? A: You're a kid in Fresno (Calif.), and you grow up and you go to San Francisco Giant games with your father who's in the raisin business, right? And all of a sudden Willie Mays is coming to me with (questions about the opposing) lineup . . . he's going, "Where do you want me to play him? Where do you want me to play him?" What's wrong with this picture? Q: Describe your mound temperament. A: Total control and disciplined. Q: Have you ever watched tapes of Jimmy Qualls spoiling your 1969 perfect game in the ninth inning? A: No I have not, no. I don't have to go back, I can see it (chuckles). Q: Tell me what you see. A: Warming up in the bullpen I knew that it was just (snaps fingers) boom, boom, boom. And the only guy I didn't know in the lineup was Jimmy Qualls and he hit the ball hard the first time. It was an out, but I didn't see an out. As a hitter, you can see an out when they walk up there . . . you can see outs - I can get you out here, I can get you out there, and get you out there and get you out there, whatever. I never saw an out with him. Q: How deflating was that? A: Pitch a one-hit shutout. Q: Your 19-strikeout game against the Padres? A: Conditions were perfect . . . I was throwing nothing but strikes, all on the black and right on the knees. Boom, boom, boom. Q: Does it get any better than that? A: It gets a helluva lot better - and you don't realize this 'til later, 'til you're down the road, and you beat somebody 4-3 . . . then you had to work your rear end off, both physically and mentally. When you walk away, you go, "Now that was a piece of art right there." It's not called throwing, it's called pitching. That's the fun. Q: Did the young Roger Clemens pick your brain with the Red Sox in 1986? A: A little bit. Q: Are you troubled by Clemens' steroid controversy? A: For the whole game. Is it true, is it not true, how much of it is true, etc.? Did it go on, did it not go on? Why did those in charge let it go on? Did it bring fans back into the game after there was a strike. And the home runs . . . was it monetarily driven? I don't know. Q: You were at the far end of the visiting dugout when Mookie's grounder got by Buckner. A: I was a bit in disbelief that Mac (Red Sox manager John McNamara) didn't take Buckner out. But he was such a nice man, warm-hearted man, I think he wanted to let Buck stay in the game. Q: The young Doc Gooden? A: You go, "Now there's Cooperstown right there." Q: Kiner's Korner? A: Ralph has been a jewel, as my mother would say, a jewel for years and years and years. The game's supposed to be fun for the fan, and that's what he did, he made it fun for them. Q: Were you ever tempted to borrow one of Lindsay Nelson's sport jackets? A: (Smiles) No, no . . . I had enough bad ones myself. Q: Bob Murphy? A: Murph was like this ball of energy. Q: Boyhood idols? A: Robin Roberts; Henry Aaron. Q: Was Aaron the toughest hitter you ever faced? A: No, (Willie) McCovey . . . and probably (Willie) Stargell. My true heroes when I was coming out of USC, Aaron was one, (Sandy) Koufax was the other. I was a year-and-a-half removed from USC playing for the Mets after a year in Jacksonville, and I go to the (1967) All-Star Game and my locker's here, and who do you think was right there? Henry Aaron. Scared to death. Q: Shea's last season? A: I keep saying it - let me push the plunger, you know? It's time to turn the page. There are great memories there (but) I will not be sad to see the stadium go at all. It's time to . . . light the fuse. Q: Reggie Jackson once said of you: "Blind people come to the park just to hear him pitch." A: Reggie is very eloquent. I asked him, "Reggie, how many blind people do you know for crying out loud go to baseball games?" Q: What would they have heard? A: (Chuckles) The subtle wafting of wind . . . in the middle of the infield. Q: Favorite movie? A: "To Kill A Mockingbird." Q: Favorite actor? A: Gregory Peck. Q: Favorite meal? A: Lamb chops with asparagus and some other vegetable. Q: What red wine would you pick to go with it? A: GTS, which stands for George Thomas Seaver (smiles). Diamond Mountain, California cabernet. Q: Your new venture? A: At the north end of Napa Valley, I have three acres of cabernet and I'm just finishing going through the first distribution of our '05 vintage. I employ two people, a vineyard manager and a winemaker, and I am the smallest client either one of them has. I enjoy the vineyard aspect of it, I enjoy the farming aspect of it . . . one of the things you learn, if you're lucky enough in your professional career to win a world championship - it is the journey, not the destination. What I'm doing now is fascinating. Q: And when can I get your GTS? A: (Smiles) As soon as I get the check.

Kids, doing drugs is bad...unless it might contribute to your becoming a New York Met and winning us a World Series. (Only kidding, kids -- just say no). Steve Marcus traces the possibly powdery genesis of the Keith Hernandez deal, consummated 25 years ago today. Most shocking revelation? Joe McDonald is still a scout. ]The 25th anniversary of the most significant trade in Mets history includes a historic footnote. It might never have occurred if the Mets' front office knew why the Cardinals were unloading Keith Hernandez. Years before he became a central piece of the 1986 world champion Mets and gained iconic status in team history, Hernandez abused cocaine, an issue not publicly confirmed until Hernandez and several other players testified in the 1985 Pittsburgh drug trials. The back story of the trade offers a look at the major-league baseball climate in the pre-steroid and largely ignored substance-abuse years of the sport. Hernandez, now a popular analyst for Mets games on SNY, said the Cardinals undoubtedly suspected his drug use before trading him to the Mets for pitchers Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey. "They couldn't have traded me if it got out," Hernandez said recently as he reflected on the deal that brought him to the Mets on June 15, 1983. Hernandez rarely has discussed his past addiction, which he has said lasted about three years and ended before his arrival to the Mets. "It was a difficult time in my life. I was in and out of my first marriage," Hernandez said. "I was fooling around with drugs, the coke, we all know that. I don't want to say on a recreational basis -- I hate that word. There were some nights when I was up all night. I didn't sleep. It was very destructive. This is not a performance-enhancing drug; this is a performance-destructive drug. I just made up my mind I wanted to stop." It wasn't easy, Hernandez said, adding, "It is that alluring." In June '83, Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog couched the trade of Hernandez as saying the Cardinals needed more pitching. At worst, Hernandez was pictured as having an attitude problem, which Hernandez agreed was part of the issue. But it went deeper than that. Herzog never has publicly discussed his suspicions about Hernandez. "I can't say I knew Keith had been doing drugs," Herzog said in his 1988 book "White Rat, a Life in Baseball," which was co-authored with St. Louis columnist Kevin Horrigan. "What the hell," Herzog was quoted in the book, "unless you spot a guy snorting coke or smoking marijuana, or unless some reliable witness comes to you or it blows up in the press, you never know for sure ... There were things about him that made me suspicious, but I can live with suspicions. What I couldn't live with was his attitude." Herzog went to Cardinals owner August Busch and, according to Herzog's book, the beer baron told him to "trade the son of a bitch." Busch died in 1989 at age 90. A spokesman for Anheuser-Busch refused to respond to what role Busch played in the Hernandez trade. Speaking on the topic today, Herzog still avoids the drug issue. "Keith was a hell of a ballplayer," he told Newsday. "I didn't want to trade him, I was ordered to [presumably by Busch]." Asked the reason, Herzog snapped: "I haven't talked about it in 25 years, I'm sure as hell not going to talk about it now." Hernandez said the Cardinals never directly asked him if he had a drug problem. Then-Mets general manager Frank Cashen said he had heard some issues about Hernandez's marital problems and "that he was not getting along with Whitey, but I had not heard that rumor [of cocaine use] at that point in time." As the trade deadline approached, Herzog dispatched Cardinals GM Joe McDonald to offer Hernandez to Cashen. "I was sitting at my desk one day and Joe McDonald called me," Cashen, now 82, said from Port St. Lucie. "He said, 'Have you ever thought about trading Neil Allen?' I said 'Why would I want to trade him?' He said 'Well, if you talk about Neil Allen, we'll talk about Mex [Hernandez's nickname].' I was stunned. The whole thing was done in a couple of phone calls at a total time of about 10 minutes." McDonald, 79, a Red Sox scout, refused comment. Cashen's staff members were equally amazed that Hernandez, a former co-National League MVP and five-time Gold Glove winner, was being made available. "I was standing by Frank and he had this huge smile on his face," former vice president of administration Jim Nagourney said. "I said, 'What's up, Frank?' He told me. I said, 'For gosh sakes, take that smile off your face and make the phone call.' He was so hysterically happy that he was having a hard time .dialing to say yes." The baseball environment was not used to dealing with drugs. Alcohol and, to a lesser extent, amphetamines -- which the players called greenies -- were the only known problems in the baseball culture. And they were given scant attention. "In the '80s, trades were not based on that stuff ," said Joe McIlvaine, who was the Mets' director of scouting at the time. "The Players Association had such control that we absolutely had no way of testing or proving or getting information. We weren't even allowed to discuss those kind of things." Hernandez said he did not cry uncontrollably over the trade (as was reported at the time), but he wasn't thrilled with it, either. "Maybe I needed a new challenge," he said. "It definitely rejuvenated my career." He learned to love New York and was looked up to by the young and talented Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden. "Looking back," Hernandez said, "I have to sometimes pinch myself" for the good fortune of the trade. Hernandez has repaired his relationship with Herzog. When Hernandez was inducted into the Missouri Hall of Fame last winter, he gave an impassioned speech about Herzog's influence in his career, calling him the best manager he ever played for. "Hernandez also wrote to Herzog. "I got a beautiful letter from him," Herzog said. "He is a heck of a man."

Rain, rain made Joe Pigantano go away. Hope he comes back. Real life Game One number handled, for Father's Day, by Sandy Alomar, Sr., Sandy Alomar, Jr. and some other Alomar whose Met tenure I'd prefer to not acknowledge (Robbie Alomar...George Foster...the Lincoln Mercury Countdown has a sense of humor). We made Sandy Sr. representative of the MFY's two years in Queens when we saluted Shea's busy four-team 1975 back at number 53. Real Life Game Two number listed as Mr. Met's. I think that's a placeholder since they weren't expecting a doubleheader. They've used Mr. Met before. If you had a Mr. Met, wouldn't he be your go-to guy. In Oughta Be matters, today's number is 47, and since today is Father's Day in Oughta Be land, we remember the most memorable of all Shea Father's Days, its first Father's Day, June 21, 1964 when the visiting pitcher dropped a perfect game on us. Our guests: � Phillies catcher Gus Triandos � 27th Met batter Johnny Stephenson � And of course Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning But why stop there? Since the topic is hitless games and since the Mets have welcomed in the Texas Rangers for the first time in Interleague play, we thought it would be nice if Gus, Johnny and the senator had some company en route to removing number 47 from the right field wall. Thus, we asked the president of the Rangers, the author of seven no-hitters of his own and a valuable member of the 1969 world champion New York Mets to join them. Please welcome back to Shea Stadium, the hardest thrower this ballpark has ever known as its own, Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan. Relive the entire countdown for the homestand that ends today here.