G-Fafif

Johnny Dickshot wrote: [Full disclosure: I ran like hell. LOL. Merely climbing the two flights of stairs at Woodside to get from the LIRR to the 7 platform exhausts me. If we're gonna start factoring in running, then your way is always going to beat mine.

Great link, Edgy. Thanks. There was surely no more intense time to be a Mets fan than the thirty days between the Mets going to Atlanta down one game (9/21) and the Mets heading home from Atlanta done at last (10/20). It had been a marvelous season right up to the moment that month started, but the losing streak which fed into the desperation which fed into the jubilation which fed into a series of ballgames and emotions unlike any that came before or have come since...well, it was somethin'.

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I tried to prove this once by leaving from the same place at the same time as co-workers on the way to same game (me on the 7, them on the N-to-7) though as I recall it, we wound up getting off the same train at Shea. It should be noted they boarded the N before I boarded the 7. So even though we ended up with the same times, I spent less time on the train, and wasted less time waiting for a train, which to me are bonuses. Not to mention they doubled their chances to get delayed. That was actually very funny, our exiting the same 7 at the same time from different cars. Mets beat the Mariners that night. When I worked very close to a 6-stop, it actually made more sense, 6 to N to 7. If everything worked right, I could get from Astor Place to Shea in 25 minutes. And if it didn't work, it took 40 minutes. Either way, it gave me something to do. E can stand for Erratic on weekends. If you're coming into Penn from Jersey, just take the 1 (or 2 or 3) uptown one stop to Times Square and board the 7 which, as has been pointed out, is local Saturday and Sunday no matter which train you get on. Whatever minutes you might not save will be more than made up by the lack of confusion. Unless you're hitting the LIRR on its once-hourly weekend run from Penn to Shea, it's not worth the extra fare or time. The New York Mets: Getting to the game is generally more interesting than the game itself.

ScarletKnight41 wrote: I actually saw the Mets win a game at Turner Field in July 1997. It was a game where Larry hit a grand slam, but the Mets scored a bunch of runs. At the time I had no idea that it would be such a rare thing. It's no longer relevant, but the Mets won three of the first four they ever played at said Ted. That was the tail end of the mythical "Mets always beat Atlanta" period. Prior to '97, we sucked but played them tough. Then we got good and played them badly. Then we got bad and played them badly. And now it's Thursday. I saw some symmetry in Kaz's alleged failure to get a grip on that double play ball the other night. The Mets' troubles at TF began on a night in September 1997 when Bobby Jones claimed he couldn't grip the ball and gave up like 8 runs without retiring a batter in the first inning. They lost then, they lost the next night and their slim Wild Card chances slipped from their grip. Same as it ever was.

It's a FAFIF exclusive: http://mets2005.myblogsite.com/blog/_archives/2005/9/8/1208606.html

="Yancy Street Gang"]If I remember right, and I think I do, Sisk was warmed up and ready to pitch the 11th. I don't think anyone else was throwing in the bullpen that inning. On May 7, 1987, the Mets and Red Sox played a charity exhibition game at Shea, the second half of their home-and-home from the September before when the Mets traveled to Fenway for a Jimmy Fund exhibition, the one that was hailed as a World Series preview. Needless to say, although '86 was history by May '87, there was more than the usual lack of interest for an in-season game that didn't count. It was played up in some quarters as Game Eight of the 1986 World Series. Anyway, the most notable thing that happened was Bill Buckner played and got a huge ovation from the Mets' crowd (bad karma to my judgment) plus the Mets won. But relative to this discussion is that on Mets Extra that night (it was in its first season), the trivia question Howie Rose asked was, if the Mets had left Game Six of the World Series tied, who would have pitched the eleventh? And the answer was Doug Sisk. I trust Howie's memory 6-1/2 months removed from the event in question than any ballplayer's nearly 20 years later (though to be fair I couldn't open the link to Gibbons' quote). Whether Doc should have been warming up is different from whether he was warming up. Hindsight aside, I can't imagine he ever would have been. It was a shock when Davey let Doc pitch 10 innings against Houston in the NLCS. They watched him like a hawk (at least when he was on the mound). Doc didn't make a relief appearance until Game 7 of the '88 NLCS when things were just about as hopeless. He did OK but it didn't matter against Hershiser. It would be interesting to see stats on starters who did nothing but start across a season when they were thrown into emergency-type relief in the post-season (as opposed to Sid being assigned to the pen as he was in the WS). It always seems like such a good idea but it also backfires at least (a guess) half the time. Charlie Liebrandt in the 1991 World Series springs to mind. Kevin Brown as a Padre made it work one game and then didn't the next game. Those who screamed for John Smoltz, then strictly a starter, in Game 5 of the '99 NLCS (instead of the parade of Kevin McGlinchys) were first satisfied then humbled when the Mets rocked him in Game 6. On the other hand, bleeping Mussina and Wells kept the MFYs alive in Game 7 against the Red Sox in 2003; Javier Vazquez did not do the same a year later. Edgy, thanks for taking our minds a little bit off current affairs, affairs which are mighty blowsome tonight.

]Easy enough to see Mookie's point. Some years ago, I was working on a story whose point of contact was an African-American executive whose first name was James. My dope of an editor for some reason got involved and, in this way he had of addressing people he didn't know in familiar terms, reached him on the phone and said "hi Jim." Silence greeted him. "Jim?" And the guy said, "there's nobody named Jim here. This is James." I thought of that when the Mookie-Cow Parade thing happened. Whether it's a "black thing" or just an individual thing, one should take care when messing with somebody's identity. ]Gerry Martire, DJ on Q104.3 and a family friend (he was roommates with my dad at SUNY-Binghamton) named his dog Mookie. Gerry Martire? Wow. I remember him from WBAB doing his "theater of the mind" Gerry's Gin Joint bit before the '86 World Series. He went on about how one of his unsmiling bartenders was stubbornly wearing a Yankees cap, how they unfurled the '73 NL Champs banner over the bar and how they loaded the jukebox with "Let's Go Mets". Although a friend of mine and I liked to poke fun at the clinking of glasses in the background ("clink!"), I get a little chill thinking of that particular broadcast. I still have my WBAB-Mets bumper sticker around here somewhere. If you speak to him, tell him at least one occasional listener remembers his work of 10/17/86 quite fondly.

soupcan wrote: On a related note - my dog Mookie turns 10 on September 7th. Remember the Cow Parade? In 2000 the city placed lifesize ceramic cows all over Manhattan and in prominent spots in the other boroughs. They were designed by a variety of artists to reflect any number of themes. One of them was the Moooookie Cow. It had a picture of William Hayward Wilson on the side and was placed briefly outside one of the gates to Shea. Why briefly? Because Mookie, then our first base coach, demanded it be removed (or remooooved). The artist had never contacted him, and Mookie seemed a little offended that somebody would do this. To the rest of the world, it looked like homage or at least good fun. Mookie told a reporter (paraphrasing) that "people tell me all the time that they name their dog or their cat Mookie. I tell them that it's your dog or cat but it's my name." He was a little mysterious about the whole thing. Maybe going through life being known primarily for having an unusual name and getting on base in an unusual fashion at a most critical time have worn on him. It shouldn't. We love him for both. In any event, Happy Tenth Birthday Mookie.

Strangely enough, one of the first things that occurred to me before New Orleans completely descended into hell was "Ron Swoboda is a sportscaster there." I had never seen him doing the sports as a New Orleans sportscaster but I knew that's where he wound up. Funny what you see when you look at the world through Mets-colored glasses. Here's hoping he and everybody find safety and their loved ones.

ScarletKnight41 wrote:North Haverbrook Pretty Much Sums The Place Up - LOLI've been there (I've been to every MLB park, as well as several former MLB parks), and you're not missing much, Greg. The place is functional enough, but not a great place to watch a baseball game.I haven't been avoiding it, per se. Just haven't gone out of my way to see it. If the Marlins and Devil Rays had come along earlier, no doubt their parks would be on the list, as I went to school in Florida in the '80s. But those two teams along with the Twins and the Mariners are the only four for whom I've never seen a home game. Seattle we're kind of saving for last. We have no short- or long-term plans to visit Minneapolis, Miami or St. Pete (where I caught my first foul ball during spring training) but sooner or later I'll feel compelled to get to them even if they're all North Haverbrook.

ScarletKnight41 wrote:North Haverbrook Pretty Much Sums The Place Up - LOLI've been there (I've been to every MLB park, as well as several former MLB parks), and you're not missing much, Greg. The place is functional enough, but not a great place to watch a baseball game.I haven't been avoiding it, per se. Just haven't gone out of my way to see it. If the Marlins and Devil Rays had come along earlier, no doubt their parks would be on the list, as I went to school in Florida in the '80s. But those two teams along with the Twins and the Mariners are the only four for whom I've never seen a home game. Seattle we're kind of saving for last. We have no short- or long-term plans to visit Minneapolis, Miami or St. Pete (where I caught my first foul ball during spring training) but sooner or later I'll feel compelled to get to them even if they're all North Haverbrook.

Johnny Dickshot wrote:The Mets roster lists Hamulack as No. 46 and, Shingo as No. 10 (the # he wore in Chicago).Did anyone see those guys in uniform? If so, Shingo overtakes Corey Lidle (No. 11) as the lowest-numbered Met pitcher in history! How about that?They were each up in the pen yesterday wearing those numbers. Gary Cohen said "Mike Hampton wore 10 and he did OK". I assume he meant for Houston. He wore 32 for us and 20 at his press conference (as well as a Cleveland Browns helmet in the dugout during a doubleheader against the Expos which always rubbed me the wrong way...baseball, gentlemen).I guess we're not counting Desi Relaford (No. 8) as a Mets pitcher per se?

It was 25 years ago tonight in Los Angeles that William Hayward Wilson became a Major League baseball player. That afternoon, the first baseman for the Cubs went 1-for-5 and didn't think about what awaited him six years up the line...rolling... It's Wally's anniversary, too. Who said September callups don't have a long-range impact? http://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B09020LAN1980.htm

A is for AtlantaAaah, here's the rest:[url]http://mets2005.myblogsite.com/blog/_archives/2005/5/24/881652.html[/url]

]I'm writing a new column for a magazine you never heard of and never willNew magazines are often unknown when they start. And a lot of them do fail. That's the business. But this one happens to be an enterprise being put out by dedicated people with a pretty reasonable goal, namely covering the rich terrain that is New York baseball by looking at its past, its present and its future. I don't know why serious fans wouldn't want to read that.I hope it succeeds. But I'm biased. I write for it.

mlbaseballtalk wrote:This topic damn nearly got me kicked off the AOL.com Mets Listserv because I dared questioned Mikey's ability to draw seats anymore at Shea and is being overated by the Mets PR hype machine at this stage of his career.Well it was back on 1050 ESPN Radio and the two biggest Piazza bashers, Michael Kay and Don LaGreca were once again greasing the skids for Piazza to spend the rest of his days as an AL DHI swear, if there is a segment that is anti-Piazza even at this point, its thanks to the anti-Piazza, anti-Met press like Kay and LaGreca whom for whatever reason want to downplay Piazza's role all time in this orgainzationAmong the points LaGreca makes is that there is no singlular "moment" in Piazza's career where he was the reason for winning a championship[...]basically LaGreca's point boils down to the fact that in his eyes (and for some reason he thinks he is talking for Met Nation) Piazza has done nothing that should make him rank with Seaver, Strawberry, Carter, Gooden, ect as the patheon of Mets history...SteveJust curious -- you seem to bring up Don LaGreca a lot, not just in this post. He strikes me as a glorified Boy Gary on a Yankee-dominated show on a station thatgenerally operates in a vacuum amid the NY sports landscape. Kay's show is practically the only regularly scheduled local programming they have. Why the emphasis on him?

]DiMaggio had a personal chronicler. Not much different to my thinking.Interesting point. DiMaggio, however, was from an age when the press was cooperative and complicit in building legends. After Dick Young, the tone changed. The players need PR people because the modern media is, at least in theory, more confrontational. It's more heat than light in my opinion, and there are surely columnists and broadcasters who are capable of kissing up to certain players but it's just a different world.Maybe there is no more "larger than life" because thanks to instantaneous communications, everything is delivered lifesized.

Today's great New York ballplayers are thoroughly demystifed by exposure. Jeter, A-Rod and Piazza are/were covered relentlessly so there's nothing left to wonder about. Piazza at least gives honest (as far as we can tell) quotes but they're about politics and heavy metal. It's just not the same as in those halcyon days. Those other guys are programmed by their PR people to not say too much and in general none of them wants to be bothered. And what ballplayer spends his evenings at a Toots Shor's type establishment and is lionized for it? Who has his own chronicler the way DiMaggio had Jimmy Cannon?Let's face it, ballplayers are businessmen and for the most part they act like it. When one of them doesn't (David Wells, for example), they're not hailed as colorful, they're derided as sociopaths.I would agree that Pedro has been the closest thing there is to a larger-than-life character since coming to the Mets, but he doesn't have that overwhelming presence that casts a mythic shadow across the landscape as he did in Boston, at least as it appeared from a distance.The most colorful thing about Randy Johnson is his nickname. Carlos Beltran just wants to be one of the guys. Sheffield is surly, not interesting. Wright may become a pop star but it won't be for any reason other than his playing and his youth. Giambi sold his soul. Latin players may be at a disadvantage because of cultural differences (though it may be different in the Latin community), but New York's best hope for a character may be Victor Diaz. He pretty much says whatever's on his mind. But Victor Diaz would need some staying power.He may be in winter, and not terribly popular in certain precincts, but Steinbrenner's press releases are a character unto themselves.

Johnny Dickshot wrote:Met/Giant and Jet/Yankee fans just ain't right. Theyre like, inbred or something.My dad was a football Giants fan when I was coming of age, so to the extent that I liked football, I was a Giants fan who never hated the Jets. (He didn't much care about baseball and I found the Mets on my own.) The Shea connection between the Mets and Jets actually turned me off to the Jets for a number of years. What business did they have using our baseball stadium for football? I softened on that around 1978 when the Jets changed uniforms and became in football what I could never be in baseball, a "New York fan". I've remained so ever since. Like my dad, I've veered a little more to the Jets in the past decade. Win or lose, they're just more interesting. Besides, it's only football.I long ago gave up on trying to link baseball preferences to those in other sports. I know Yankees fans who like the Jets, the Ravens or the Redskins, and Mets fans who go for the Dolphins, the Bucs or the Saints.Football should start the week after the World Series. Then I wouldn't resent it so much.

All Wright Now, baby it's All Wright Now.

mlbaseballtalk wrote:Maybe its been too many years listening to callers call up WFAN/1050 ESPN Radio, or hearing hosts like Don LaGreca and Wally Mathews talk up various issues with the Mets such as :1) Anytime the Mets trade or just simply chose not to sign a young prospect and/or a popular player that player will go on to have a successfull Major League career2) Anytime the Mets trade for and/or sign a big name talent its always a year too late and that player begins a decline as a Met3) Conspiracy theories about various moves that have been made due to various political, social, and economic reasons rather than flat out baseball reasons (some of the more popular ones are the trade of Kevin Mitchell due to his being a bad influence on Doc and Darryl and various theories on why the Wilpons wanted no part of ARod)4) The Fallacy of the Predetermined Outcome allways pops up as someone like Don LaGreca would say that the recent explosion in Arizona would be without fail followed by losing three straight shutouts in San Fran because "a Met fan is trained for this kind of thing, especially the 2005 Mets" Leaving no room for hope that maybe the team has broken out of the visious cycle, its like when Joe Beningo of WFAN said he would have wanted the Redsox to get swept by the Yankees rather than be on the edge of his seat during the rest of the series (which the Sox won of course) because he (a Met fan) wouldn't want to go through knowing that his team was just teasing him AGAIN5) And during the last ten years it seems a major topic is the Met fan "whining" about either the MFY being such a high payroll team saying that the Mets just can't compete or the fact that the Mets are playing in the same town as the Yanks, yet play with a small market mentalitySo, have Met fans really been this pessimistic all along, or is this just a by product of a "fringe" segment calling radio stations and/or posting on internet places.SteveI think part of this is the cumulative effect of post-1986 failures in terms of not winning series, not making playoffs and not having personnel moves pan out; part of it is a perverse desire to take part in the fan-victim culture (one that lends a touch of romance and greater purpose to having been a diehard for a team that "never wins") and part of its the magnification by megaphone of the outlets you describe. Having the Yankees around doesn't help either, particularly for those too young to remember the two extended periods when the Mets were the bigger deal in New York.Traditionally and mythically, we're the team whose fans never give up. Funny how that translates in real life.At the risk of double-plugging myself, I wrote a piece on the ever-popular gothambaseball.com on fans who insist they've got it worse than everybody else:[url]http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4852[/url]Good question(s).

Came as close as I ever got to a Shea Stadium foul ball during the second game of that twinbill. Disgusted and dismayed with the way things were obviously turning, I left my seat and wandered over to the concession behind home plate on the mezzanine level. While I stared at the menu board, Rey Ordonez fouled a ball up the runway which clanked off a trash can and rolled over to some kids standing where I had been maybe 15 seconds earlier. It would've been a cheap way to get a foul but everything about the Mets that afternoon was cheap, save for the nachos.Concession -- a perfect place to be in August 2002.

It was twenty years ago today that Doctor K became the youngest 20-game winner in the history of baseball. He was 20 and 20-3, on a 14-game winning streak.Who knew the winning streak would ever end?

I offer a theory here:[url]http://mets2005.myblogsite.com/blog/_archives/2005/8/22/1160565.html[/url]

ScarletKnight41 wrote:Damn Greg, This is beautiful!Thank you, Honorable Knight. Stay tuned and we'll eventually get to the present.