G-Fafif

Whoops. Anxious double-click.

Once you get to Ralph's seniority, who's counting? But it will be, touch wood, Ralph's 46th season of Mets baseball. In other good Snigh news, Monday night at 7:00 we see Game 1 of the '06 NLDS, aka the Lo Duca double tag game.

Some old-media hands accept their absorption into new media kicking and screaming, apparently. Interesting what the lack of an editor between writer and reader can bring out. Justice is one of those go-to guys whenever the national press needs to interview someone about what's up in Houston. He's spewed mindless venom about Beltran taking the money and no-trade to come here but has generally come off as reasonably levelheaded if a little homerian. Without reading him regularly I couldn't say whether he's reinventing himself as a Wally Matthewsesque tool.

I think we're about five posts away from the bomb shelter episode of The Twilight Zone. I'm content to say that while there is no i in team, there were letters like t, e, a and m in suck where Game Seven was concerned.

Interesting that the Floyd component has come up (or been brought up by Ken Davidoff) in that the onus in the popular mindset has been on Beltran since the game ended. The guy who's ducked the fickle finger of point for the most part is Aaron Heilman. I mean Yadier Molina? That's when I paid my bill as well, only to come rushing back in the bottom of the ninth to see if my key card still worked. Not looking to point fingers, mind you. It was a team effort...on both sides. True the Cardinals were barely a .500 club (and limped into the playoffs like lame ducks), but with the exception of missing Isringhausen and Mulder , one of whom was replaced quite nicely, they were healthier by the NLCS than they'd been since the season began. That's not to say we shouldn't have frigging beat them, but they weren't the weak sisters they had previously masqueraded as either.

This quickly became a happy thread. The accusations leveled at various Mets were just that, weren't they? (That's not a rhetorical question; I'm trying to remember.) I don't believe a player was ever arrested in either case. We can draw our own conclusions through the press, but if nobody was arrested, you must acquit. Technically anyway. As for Mo/Cliff, in a perverse way (a very perverse way), I get a kick out of there being a legend growing from the ninth inning. I'd prefer the legend be one that involves an additional base hit, but it's more than just a rally come up short now. It's baseball lore. Was Willie really confused? Did Jerry Manuel pull the strings? Is Cliff remembering things the way he wants, facts be damned? From the other side, Adam Wainwright discusses the ninth inning (which I guess we should refer to forever more as The Ninth Inning) in this week's Sports Illustrated, admitting he was totally nervous for the first two hitters, was suddenly aware of his surroundings as "every fan at Shea Stadium was crushing me. All year I never heard the crowd. But I could hear them this time, and they were letting me have it." Then the kid decided he was going to get Beltran. Just like that. ]I knew I was going to get the job done. I said to myself, 'I am going to throw this curveball like it's the best curveball I ever threw in my life. And so he did. To the larger question of where this ranks as an on-field disappointment (leaving out deaths, trades and legal actions), I don't think we can say for sure until this year and maybe next year plays out. If this was our one shot at the big time, then it's perhaps as bad as anything. We remember Scioscia because after 1988 everything went downhill. If the Mets played a little more competently in a series at Wrigely the following summer, maybe they beat out the Cubs and who knows? Or a couple of hits here and there down the stretch in 1990 and 1988 is a footnote bracketed by two championships. I doubt Aaron Boone remained quite as horrendous for Red Sox fans as Dent and Buckner because it was avenged in a timely manner (even if one year is different from the next). If we go five wins further in 2007 than we did in 2006, we'll still gnash our teeth over The Ninth Inning, but it won't sting the same.

No, but now that you mention it, looks like I have my assignment. "Tall Cool One" isn't a TFS -- Top Five-Hundred Smash as it's known around the house (we also refer to the Top Five Hundred itself as the TFS, acronymic accuracy be damned), but I've always had a weakness for lyrical headlines. My first-ever FAFIF hed, at the beginning of Spring Training 2005, was "I Can See Carlos Now". Johnny Nash didn't make the TFS either.

Flashback Tuesday: 2006

Dick Selma and Gary Gentry. Remember it being noted at the time of Pelfrey's first two W's.

On the day Derek Jeter was born, the Yankees hosted the Cleveland Indians at Shea Stadium and lost 3-2. But because he was born that day, June 26, 1974, Shea Stadium was actually Yankee Stadium and the spirits of Joe D and the Bambino merged with The Future Captain's and made the grounds sacrosanct. Bet it says that somewhere. Regarding the Pratt quote from 2001, it was uttered in advance of that year's home opener (following a foreboding sweep in Montreal): ]Anybody can say whatever about Shea -- I love it. When it's full and the fans are behind us, it's the best.

Put me down for a hundred shares of necrology.

I wish I had saved my Baseball Digest collection from the '70s and '80s because whenever they printed lists of stadiums by age, YS was always noted as having opened in 1976. No asterisks, nothin'. Royals Stadium 1973; Yankee Stadium 1976; Olympic Stadium 1977 (along with Exhibition Stadium and the Kingdome, I suppose). It wasn't considered a bad thing. New was good. Yankee Stadium was new. Somewhere along the way it became more appealing for the perception of it to be old. The Mets have wanted a new ballpark for more than a decade but they've never completely run down their setting the way the White Sox did when they were seeking a replacement for Comiskey or, for that matter, Steinbrenner with that awful place and that awful neighborhood when he wanted Taj Mahal on the Hudson. Once Wilpon unveiled his model in 1998, it was certainly implied that Shea had to go. If management wanted a new stadium, something must be wrong with the old one. But they never told the fans you're taking your well-being into your hands if you show up at Shea (and no accompanying threat to move elsewhere). Though it wasn't as dramatic as that chunk of YS that fell on the MFY fan in '98, I had a few dabs of concrete drop into my lap from the upper deck when I was in the mezzanine in 1999. It wasn't bat day or anything, it just came off. I turned it into security/maintenance who helpfully told me "that's why we need a new stadium." Always regretted not keeping the souvenir.

The fairest assessment I've ever read about Shea was in George Kalinsky's The New York Mets: A Photographic History, published in 1995, not a particularly fortuitous time to be a Mets fan. ]Empty, Shea Stadium isn't much to look at. Full, it's a vibrant, colorful, exciting place to be. Indeed, those words run alongside images of vibrant, colorful, exciting full Shea and, quite frankly, empty, not much to look at Shea. The pictures say at least a hundred words apiece. Taken a step further, it's full when the Mets are winning. And nothing succeeds like success. Other than physical factors like it didn't drain well and the winds were punishing (both addressed to certain degrees when renovations took hold) and the La Guardia landing strip situation (which I've either gotten used to or has been tamped down as part of a US Openish agreement I don't know about because I no longer notice the planes), I don't remember Shea being "dumped" on when the Mets were doing well. In the early '70s and the mid-'80s, Shea was the place to be, therefore Shea was fine. It was when the team went to hell that suddenly it was an easy step to look at the three-quarters empty shell and dismiss its possibilities when it's brimming to capacity. I don't remember the "dump" appellation, even the loving "...but it's our dump" rejoinder, coming along until fairly recently, like in this century. Reasons? 1) The inane YS comparison. YS '76 wasn't considered a palace or a jewel or even particularly old-timey until it was a brainless storyline to say Derek Jeter is standing in the same place as Joe DiMaggio, blah, blah, blah. It used to be understood that the YS that was rebuilt in the '70s was a substantively different entity than the one Ruth built. But success succeeds, making the current edifice holy, hallowed and historic and, by comparison (because as Mark Herrmann could tell you, nothing can stand on its own merits), Shea not that. Why, it's got orange seats and a top hat! How gauche! (Of course in the '60s, fun, colorful Shea stood as glorious counterpoint to rundown, depressing old Yankee Stadium.) In 1988's Wait Till Next Year, co-author and Yankee-leaning but reasonably Met-sympathetic William Goldman (the screenwriter) referred to Shea as antiseptic, something that's hard to believe now. It's many things, but even given its multipurpose beginnings, it's not what you'd immediately think of as sanitized for your protection. 2) The competition got tougher. As long as the Vet and its turf-encrusted cohort were on the scene, Shea's charms (or lack thereof) could fly under the radar. In a blink, no Vet, no Three Rivers, no Riverfront, no Candlestick, no Big O and so on. Shea wasn't old enough to be quaint. It was just old. My theory is the New York writers and broadcasters who travel the NL and liked the accommodations a lot elsewhere came to resent having to work in a place where the elevator didn't always rise to the occasion. I've only had glimpses inside the underbelly, but those, combined with the municipal concourses and the built-in lack of "amenities," are going to make Shea look worse next to the Phone Company Parks and such even as the Mets have done their best to spruce it up every season. 3) Younger media never experienced Shea as the antidote to the crumbling ballparks of yore. Shea was, when opened, a mega modern step up from the Polo Grounds to say nothing of Connie Mack Stadium and other ancient stops along the circuit. It probably didn't strike the beat writers of the '60s that they were in anything but the grandest of new stadia. 4) The bathrooms and the Jets didn't help.

One vote to change thread name to 2011 All-Star Game.

After Doc got his for the MFY, I picked Pulsipher to get it done for us. So I'm out of the no-hitter prediction business. Except for this: It won't happen at Shea. But it will happen within the first two years of CitiField. Which on one hand would be immensely sad in terms of Shea going 0-for-Mets forever, but on another hand would be wonderful because a) we'd have a no-hitter; it could conceivably usher in an era of no-hitters (at least the hope thereof); and c) Shea would be remembered a little for its mystical no-hitter curse as opposed to the canard that "nobody will miss it"/"nobody misses it".

Need crap? Mark Herrmann has a load of it. ]What the Mets carried into their first official workout on a Saturday in February was the memory of a particular Saturday in October. The soundtrack during batting practice at Dodger Stadium was the live showing of the Yankees getting splattered by the Tigers. The soundtrack in the postgame clubhouse was a live rendition of "Meet the Mets" by players getting spattered with champagne.For the first time since 1988, the Mets kept going after the Yankees had stopped. For that night - the end of the Division Series - and for the next two weeks, the Mets had the town to themselves. The Yankees couldn't even upstage them with a brief try at their golden oldie, "Steinbrenner might fire the manager!" That plot proved about as fresh as an 8-track. But two weeks in October don't change a tide, which is what makes this year so interesting and important. Here is the other thing the Mets' pitchers and catchers carried onto the field in Port St. Lucie: the chance to really be top of the heap in the city that never sleeps. That matters. We all know it. The two clubs are always in competition with each other, especially now that each has its own network, its own new ballpark on the rise, its own luxury suites to sell. Each side has a new generation of fans to recruit. This is especially important to the Mets. Even when they have been good in the past 20 years (1999, 2000), the Yankees have been better. Try to name the last free agent who chose the Mets over the Yankees in a bidding war. Listen to the applause at the annual New York Baseball Writers Dinner - even when the dais is filled with Mets - and you can tell it's still Yankees territory. The Yankees have been so superior for so long that we can't help but use them as a measuring stick. Be honest: When Carlos Beltran ended the season with the bat on his shoulder, you said it was hard to imagine Derek Jeter letting that happen. And it's hard to imagine the Yankees going into camp with the kind of iffy rotation the Mets have. In terms of acquiring starting pitchers, the Mets were like the person who buys dozens of $1 lottery tickets with the hope that one of them pays off. What the Mets didn't carry into their first workout was great momentum from the offseason. They didn't put a buzz into the winter, except possibly for fans of the Alou family who are dying to see if Moises can be better than his uncle Jesus was with the Mets or his father and uncle, Felipe and Matty, were with the Yanks. On the other hand, there is something to be said for being calm. By not going overboard for Daisuke Matsuzaka, Barry Zito or the likes of Jeff Weaver, the Mets showed they are willing to rely more on their brains than their checkbook. Better to sit on your hands than do something just for the sake of doing it (witness Roberto Alomar, Mo Vaughn, Art Howe, Victor Zambrano). The Mets proved a lot to themselves last year: Beltran can play in New York, Carlos Delgado can carry a team in the clutch, the club can thrive without Pedro Martinez, the bullpen is good. They built an air of stability. They established the feeling that they know what they're doing. "This spring is just a continuation of that," manager Willie Randolph said in his state of the Mets address Friday, displaying some of his old Yankees confidence. "I want these players, every year we come to spring training, to feel like we should be in the playoffs and in the hunt for the world championship. And if you don't feel that way, you might as well not show up here." And no whining. The Mets swallowed their loss to the Cardinals and moved on. In contrast, ever since that Saturday in October, there has been one discontentment after another on the other side of town: Gary Sheffield, Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, Carl Pavano's teammates, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera. What the Mets brought into their first official workout of 2007 was a taste of winning and being the toast of the town, however briefly. What they brought was a hunger for more. What they brought was the ambition to be on top of the world, and of New York, knowing you can't have the first without the latter. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll have to go think about Derek Jeter. And find out where that ticket to the baseball writers dinner went.

Not going to argue for the 12-year-old Yankees fan who's had six postseason appearances, that's for sure. But just in terms of perspective, he's been told all his life how disappointing his team has been, how he's entitled to something better. It's obviously a very different situation from the two playoffless interregnums (that I fervently hope become three), but one wonders if it's a slightly different insufferable (if not long-suffering) breed coming through the MFY ranks of late. In the other major sports, we readily accept the notion that a team that consistently comes up short in the playoffs (say any football team coached by Marty Schottenheimer) has suffered. Yet, perhaps because baseball still attaches genuine cachet outside of Atlanta and the Bronx to making the playoffs we don't look it at that way. Well, we Mets fans certainly don't. I pose the question in the context of higher expectations for those brats. And also as a cheap excuse to note that the Yankees haven't met their quota of jewelry for six going on seven years.

Trachsel became that rare Met (for me at least) whose moments of bad outdefined his general years of good. The two playoff appearances were so dreadful that it's already obscured the clinching game. I wished no ill will on Kris Benson but anything that facilitated the expulsion of Steve Trachsel from the free agent market was cheered in this corner. I didn't think he was coming back but I didn't want to take any chances. On a more positive note, he did hit a home run last June. Not too many Mets pitchers swinging the big lumber in recent years.

I'm still associating it with the Association. And Windy's got wings to fly.

Kid is born in 1995. His dad is a Yankees fan. He turns six in 2001. He adopts his dad's favorite team. Dad tells him how the Yankees always win the World Series. But in 2001, the Yankees lose in the ninth inning of the seventh game. The kid is confused, sad. Don't worry, Dad says, this was a big disappointment but our team will go get more great players and we'll win next year. Next year, they don't win. Kid is dismayed, but Dad says it's OK, we're the Yankees, we always win. It will be better than this year when all we did was win a division title and go to the playoffs. Next year, the kid understands a little more. He sees his team win the pennant, beat that team he's been told he hates but then sees his team, the Yankees who always won before he knew about them, lose in the World Series. Buncha losers, his Dad yells. But then Dad has good news over the offseason. We just got the best player there is. We're gonna be unbeatable this year. Except the year unfolds and that team the kid is supposed to hate comes from way behind and ruins the Yankees' chances at a championship. Another bitter playoff disappointment. Another year follows. Another playoff loss. Another year after that. And another playoff loss. It is now 2007. The kid is 12. He is plenty old enough to call himself a fan with a past. He has never known a Yankee team to have not won a division title but he has never known a Yankee team to have won a World Series which is what his dad and everybody who ever talks about the Yankees from a pro-Yankees slant says they are supposed to do. Six division titles, six playoff appearances, two American League pennants, no world championships. So is this kid a long-suffering Yankees fan?

"Rock the Boat" by Hues Corporation and "Rock Your Baby" by George McRae always call each other to mind. Whoops. Wrong topic. Cleon and Tommie seem most inseparable. Izzy and Pulse, too. Mario Ramirez and Jose Moreno, to be esoteric about it. There was a time I would have said Brian Giles and Jose Oquendo, skilled and athletic double play combo for a generation to come, but then they stopped being that altogether. I continued to link them lost past their expiration date. But now Oquendo makes me think of the "Cheap Seats" episode in which the Sklar Brothers attempt to win him induction into Cooperstown as the ultimate utility infielder (he winds up with a plaque in a utility closet) and Giles is synonymous with "not the one who played for the Mets, he'd be way too old to suddenly be hitting all those home runs for Cleveland, there's another Brian Giles," who in turn is synonymous in my mind with Marcus Giles who is synonymous with great annoyance and, to a lesser extent, Mark DeRosa.

As Jeff Fassero and Vinny Castilla hang 'em up for good -- and Bernie Williams is left to consider his options -- the Hartford Courant reports David Cone continues to attempt to embrace retirement and his kid: ]Cone Admits, Leaving Baseball A Difficult Proposition February 9, 2007 By DOM AMORE, Courant Staff Writer MONTVILLE -- There comes a point when athletes have to let go, but putting off that day has become fashionable. "It's tough," said former Mets and Yankees pitcher David Cone, who finally retired after a brief comeback in 2003. "You go through a panic. Self-doubt creeps in. `What am I going to do? I'm a baseball player. That's all I know.' You don't have any practical experience in the real world, and you panic. You're prone to mistakes." Cone, 44, who was honored Friday night at the Connecticut Sports Foundation Against Cancer's 20th anniversary dinner at the Mohegan Sun, has been peripherally involved in several projects, but not until his son, Brian, was born last March 23 did he find his true post-baseball calling. He gave up a chance to work on Mets broadcasts last year to spend as much time as possible raising his son. "My wife [Lynn] and I had been trying for a long time, but we'd had problems," Cone said. "We feel blessed that it finally happened. That put a lot of things into perspective for us. You don't want to feel helpless; you want to learn how to change diapers, how to care for a baby. I really have an appreciation now for what mothers do. First thing I did was call my mom and say, `I'm sorry.'" Cone has a number of ideas, including an oral history project on Marvin Miller and the Major League Baseball Players Association, and is involved with several charities, including his own foundation. But he still misses the days when he was a top pitcher with the Mets, Yankees, Blue Jays and Royals. After a 4-14 season with the Yankees in 2000, he refused to hang it up. He pitched for the Red Sox in 2001, and after a year of retirement, came back in '03 with the Mets. "This time of year, with pitchers and catchers reporting, I still get the itch," said Cone, who had a 194-126 career record. "'How's my arm feel?' I miss being good at it. I don't miss the physical pain I had at the end of my career." David Wells, Cone's longtime teammate and close friend, nodded and smiled when he heard that. Wells intended to retire after last season, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He signed a one-year contract with the Padres, his career record at 230-148. "I should quit lying to you guys and just admit that I'm going to go until they kick me out," said Wells, who has had back and knee surgery in recent years and will turn 44 in May. "After last season, I was 99 percent sure I was going to retire. But I spend some time hunting and I start thinking, `What am I going to do?' I could play golf, but that must get tired after a while. All my friends work, so I'd be by myself. Finally, I asked my wife, `Is it OK if I play again?'" John Franco, who was also on hand to roast Cone, played 22 years before retiring two years ago, just weeks short of his 45th birthday. Brett Favre had twice dallied with retirement, but will return to quarterback the Packers. Bernie Williams, a Yankee since 1991, doesn't want to retire either, and is likely to accept an invitation to spring training as a non-roster player. That undisputed champion of retirement procrastinators, Roger Clemens, 44, said last week he was "failing at retirement," and kept the door open for a return to the Astros, Yankees or Red Sox. "I think Roger is reveling in all this," Cone said. "I think deep down he wants to return to the Red Sox. I think that would bring his career full circle, to go back to where it started. That's what I did [with the Mets]. There's a certain appeal to that." Wells, Cone and Don Larsen, the three pitchers to throw perfect games for the Yankees, were there Friday, along with Yogi Berra, who caught Larsen's gem in the 1956 World Series against the Dodgers, and Joe Girardi, who caught Cone's on July 18, 1999, against the Expos. The foundation, started by former Yankee John Ellis and his wife, Jane, was expected to raise more than $1 million for cancer patients and their families from the 2007 dinner. "I have a great deal of respect for what Mr. and Mrs. Ellis have accomplished here," said Cone, who was also to receive proceeds for his foundation and charitable endeavors. "I'm honored to be a part of it."

Ken Levine, modern-day renaissance man (sitcom writer/baseball PBPer), recounts his experience directing the short-lived series Lateline in 1998: ]There aren�t too many multi-camera shows filmed in New York. So there aren�t a lot of cameramen familiar with the form. Of our four cameramen, two primarily covered Mets games on Channel 9. If a character reached for a phone they zoomed in on his hand. I had to tell them, this was an actor not a shortstop.

Because Harazin was the business guy by the late '80s and he had a big say in turning down the ASG. Also, I can be small about these things.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: I don't think it's a matter of Shea getting passed over, it's a matter of the Mets not wanting the game. Teams have to apply for the game, and of course having a new stadium weighs heavily. But I remember a story once where the Mets said they weren't interested, saying it was too much work for the home team. Al Harazin said the Mets considered making a bid for 1988, the 25th anniversary season of Shea but decided, as MGIM noted, it was too much of a hassle. One of many things I've never forgive Al Harazin for.