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Mets seem very done.They come back from this?Then what?Well?

Yancy Street Gang wrote:How about opposing players who've done good deeds for the Mets?Like Bill Buckner.And, in the wild pitch category, Bob Stanley and Brad Clontz.Maybe Clontz would show. He was one of us.

Edgy DC wrote:You got credit for the win, though, right?I was going to mention that, but I've already made myself clear: I was there, I write down a W. But to ease your mind, the Mets had taken the lead of an official game for good before we bailed.

Ten Who Get Inducted Into the Mets HOF Ahead of M. Donald Grant:1) Roger Clemens2) John Rocker3) Chipper Jones4) Mike Scioscia5) Terry Pendleton6) Luis Sojo7) Luis Aguayo8) Pete Rose9) Leo Durocher10) Genghis Khan

Edgy DC wrote:Now that I'm caught, I must acknowledge the obvious --- that this topic is a spinoff of Greg's essay and our subsequent exchange.And my essay was inspired by an entry in Mets Walkoffs...http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/08/tommie-terrific.html...so don't sweat it on steamy afternoon.I've wondered about Doubleday. He may be a difficult electee given his and Wilpon's emnity though one would like to believe differences can be put aside given their dual role in resuscitating the franchise. I've always considered Doubleday more dotty than venal. He's also been the one credited for yelling "swing!" on the Piazza trade.Piggy's not a no-brainer but there is something to be said for essential Metsiness, especially in uniform. I honestly have no idea if bullpen coaches actually coach the bullpen or just answer the phone, tend the tomatoes and flick spit sunflower seeds off their personages, but Pignatano must've been considered somewhat essential to span Hodges, Berra, McMillan, Frazier and Torre.M. Donald Grant played a key role in the building of the foundation of the franchise. But any attempt to induct him into anything but the 41st level of hell will be strongly opposed by all who are sentient.

Iubitul wrote:So I think that employeeship is a standard.I think the Mets can be flexible about the rules. It's their Hall of Fame. I want to see them be expansive, not restrictive about it. Technically, Gammons and Jerry Coleman didn't go into the National Baseball HOF this past weekend, so do something similar for the writers who did so much to popularize and celebrate the Mets. Create the Jack Lang Award and give the first one to Jack, the second to Marty Noble and take it from there.Don't give one to Dick Young.

I've been trying to imagine Rube Walker in the Mets HOF for more than a decade. When that happens, I'll be able to think about inductees for the 19 years that follow. (Though I'm already on record as being immensely down with Cashen and D. Johnson.)http://mets2005.myblogsite.com/blog/_archives/2005/8/2/1100101.htmlCome to think of it, if we're inducting Rube, why not Piggy? He was here as long and he did plant the tomatoes, a crop I'd like to see tended in NuShea if and when that's ever built. He also has the added asset of being alive to enjoy it.

Why is bue the American League color but black the National League's? Why aren't baseball shoes as good as they were prior to World War II? What sporting goods manufacturer's name was literally the name of the man who manufactured the sporting goods?The answers to these questions and so much more are in Frank Deford's fascinating piece on Bob Feller in the new Sports Illustrated (August 8, NFL Training Camp Kickoff on the cover). Rapid Robert, at 86, continues to lead a life worth living and Deford, as usual, makes us care.Highly recommended.edited for getting my A.L. and N.L. colors wrong

I was at that game, field level, short right field. HOT! It was so hot (how hot was it?) that the Mets were actually handing out cups of water FOR FREE. Packaged hydro remained $3.75 or whatever the going rate was in 2001.It was the hottest I ever was at a Mets game with the possible exception of sitting in the same seats two years earlier for a day game (Pirates, 7/28/99). On both occasions, I brought along my West Coast friend who had traveled back east for his first game in quite a while. And on both occasions, he plead uncle and we had to leave for his air conditioned rental car to hear the end on the way back to L.I.Apparently too much time away from Shea makes a man soft.

[url]http://premium.si.cnn.com/pr/subs/siexclusive/2005/pr/subs/siexclusive/07/27/the.veeks0801/index.html[/url]Here's two cents for Gary Smith of Sports Illustrated as one of the best active writers in the game. His article in the current issue (August 1) on Mike Veeck and his 13-year-old daughter Rebecca who has lost almost all of her sight. Here is a most priceless quote from the girl:]The world is stupid, so stupid -- it fights and kills over land. I look at a baseball field, and I see this piece of land that's everybody's land. And every field I see has a piece of my family in it. I know this sounds corny, but I see my grandfather out there walking on the grass on his peg leg. I see this place where you can run and be a child somewhere besides your own home. And who made this place that way? My dad! I love him for that.Smith also wrote some tremendous stuff during the McGwire-Sosa chase and a pretty good followup after the steroid revelations.

] �This is the way old Casey Stengel ran yesterday afternoon, running his home run home. This is the way old Casey Stengel ran, running his home run home in a Giant victory by a score of 5 to 4 in the first game of the world�s series of 1923. This is the way old [he was 34] Casey Stengel ran, running his home run home� This is the way--His mouth wide open. His warped old legs bending beneath him at every strike. His arm flying back and forth like those of a man swimming with a crawl stroke. His flanks heaving, his breath whistling, his head far back� The warped old legs, twisted and bent by many a year of baseball campaigns just barely held out under Casey Stengel until he reached the plate, running his home run home. Then they collapsed."Old Mole,Runyonesque homage was paid recently at Faith and Fear in a review of events that defined the third sixth of the season:[url]http://mets2005.myblogsite.com/blog/_archives/2005/7/4/994489.html[/url]]Most Runyonesque* Episode 1. This is the way old "Marlon" Anderson ran last month, running his home run home. This is the way old "Marlon" Anderson ran running his home run home in a Met victory by a score of 5 to 3 in the second game of an interleague series in 2005. This is the way old "Marlon" Anderson ran, running his home run home, when there was one out in the ninth inning and the score was Angels 2 Mets 1 and the ball was still bounding inside the Met yard. This is the way -- 2. His mouth wide open. His warped old legs bending beneath him at every stride. His arms flying back and forth like those of a man swimming with a crawl stroke. His flanks heaving, his breath whistling, his head far back. 3. Angel infielders, passed by old "Marlon" Anderson as he was running his home run home, say "Marlon" was muttering to himself, adjuring himself to greater speed as a jockey mutters to his horse in a race, that he was saying: "Go on, Marlon! Go on!" People generally laugh when they see old "Marlon" Anderson run, but they were not laughing when he was running his home run home last month. People -- 34,000 of them, men and women -- were standing in the Met stands and bleachers out there in Flushing roaring sympathetically, whether they were for or against the Mets. "Come on, Marlon!" The warped old legs, twisted and bent by many a year of baseball campaigns, just barely held out under "Marlon" Anderson until he reached the plate, running his home run home. Then they collapsed. 4. They gave out just as old "Marlon" Anderson slid over the plate in his awkward fashion with Jose Molina futilely reaching for him with the ball. "Larry" Young, the Major League umpire, poised over him in a set pose, arms spread wide to indicate that old "Marlon" was safe. 5. Half a dozen Mets rushed forward to help "Marlon" to his feet, to hammer him on the back, to bawl congratulations in his ears as he limped unsteadily, still panting furiously, to the bench where Willie L. Randolph, the chief of the Mets, relaxed his stern features to smile for the man who had tied the game. "Marlon" Anderson's warped old legs, neither of them broken not so long ago, wouldn't carry him out for the top half of the next inning when the Angels made a dying effort to undo the damage done by "Marlon." His place in the lineup was taken by "Braden" Looper, whose legs are still unwarped, and "Marlon" sat on the bench with Willie Randolph.The caveat:]*A classic play deserves a classic description. Damon Runyon penned this account of Casey Stengel's game-winning inside-the-park homer in the 1923 World Series when the Giants took on the Yankees. Eighty-two years hence, only the salient facts have been altered.

[url]http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?show=HARDCOVER:NEW:0151008248:25.00&page=excerpt[/url]Roger Angell. Best. Baseball writer. Ever. Even in spring training. Full excerpt click above. Here's a taste:]The Mets went ahead, 3-2, in the sixth inning, on two Yankee errors, two walks, and Zimmer's single. After that, the St. Petersburg fans began a nervous, fingers-crossed cry of "Keep it up, Mets!" and welcomed each put-out with shouts of incredulity and relief. In the ninth, though, the Mets' second pitcher, a thin young left-hander named Al Jackson, up this year from Columbus, gave up four singles and the tying run after Neal messed up a double play. With the winning runs on base, Stengel showed how much he wanted this game for his team, for he came out to the mound and relieved Jackson. (Pitchers are almost never yanked in mid-inning in spring training.) The relief man, Howie Nunn, retired Blanchard on a pop behind second for the last out. More wonders followed. Joe Christopher, another unknown, led off the Mets' ninth with a triple, and after Zimmer had fouled out, Stengel looked into his closet of spare parts, which is far less well stocked than his old Yankee cornucopia, and found Ashburn there. Richie hit the first pitch into right field for the ball game, and George Weiss nodded his head, stood up in his box, and smiled for the first time today.I doubt whether any of the happy six thousand-odd filing out of Al Lang Field after the game were deluding themselves with dreams of a first-division finish for the Mets this year. The team is both too old and too young for sensible hopes. Its pitchers will absorb some fearful punishment this summer, and Elio Chacon and Neal have yet to prove that they can manage the double play with any consistency. Still, the Mets will be playing in the same league with the Houston Colt .45s, another newborn team of castoffs, and with the Phillies, who managed to finish forty-six games out of first place last year and will have eight more games this year in which to disimprove that record. The fight for the National League cellar this summer may be as lively as the fight for the pennant. What cheered me as I tramped through the peanut shells and discarded programs and out into the hot late sunlight was not just the score and not just Casey's triumph but a freshly renewed appreciation of the complexity and balance of baseball. Offhand, I can think of no other sport in which the world's champions, one of the great teams of its era, would not instantly demolish inferior opposition and reduce a game such as the one we had just seen to cruel ludicrousness. Baseball is harder than that; it requires a full season, hundreds and hundreds of separate games, before quality can emerge, and in that summer span every home-town fan, every doomed admirer of underdogs, will have his afternoons of revenge and joy.

Gammons captured the feeling of being so absorbed in a post-season that you thought you were going to need a ride to the emergency room no matter who won and who lost:]So, if the honey and lemon works on the throat and the Alka-Seltzer does the same for the heads, Fenway will not be alone tonight.Wonderful link, Mr. D'Shot. Wonderful story. It's nice to be reminded of how somebody gets revered in the first place. Same can be said for Game 6 and 1975, the first World Series during which I can recall the phrase "greatest ever" being thrown around. Seems to me that was the fall when we lost patience for appraising what we'd just seen. Nowadays, everything gets ranked for posterity the moment the last out is recorded, a phenomenon that tends to do a number on perspective. But in the case of 1975, particularly Game 6, that rush to judgment was perfectly valid.With the gift of hindsight, I'd give the edge to '91 over '75 ('01 a close third) among World Series that leapt out as Instant Classics. But I don't know that I read anything as unself-consciously spine-tingling in '91 and '01 as that Globe article.I'd give Peter Gammons a J.G. Taylor Spink Award, too.

Edgy DC wrote:Her ex James Taylor is a Red Sox man, so 1986 must have been something else for her.I think we know who was singin' "Mockingbird" to whom when James came over to pick up the kids the first weekend of that November.

Carly Simon, one of my all-time favorite recording artists, was briefly romantically linked to Keith Hernandez. In 1986, she recorded a song called "Two Hot Girls," in which the concurrent object of affections was a boy named Dwight -- Gooden wasn't specified, but c'mon. I scanned an interview with her in a magazine called New York Woman in which she confessed her fantasy was to have an affair with Darryl Strawberry. So I assumed she was a Mets fan.In November 1990, shortly after Frank Cashen gave away the things we loved and one of them was Straw, Carly was doing a record signing at the Sam Goody near Rockefeller Center. I went, stood in line and handed her my copy of Have You Seen Me Lately? to autograph. She smiled and said hello. Instead of helloing her back, I asked, "Can you believe the Mets let Darryl go?"Her face shifted from smile to grimace. "I know," Carly Simon told me. "It's like they�re not even the same team anymore."Carly Simon was right.

]6. When did they add the All-Star rule allowing a catcher to re-enter a game in the event of an injury to the last catcher in the game? (no idea on this one)I semi-remember this as a response to the 1981 All-Star Game when Jim Frey wound up using Dave Stieb to bat with two outs in the ninth because he ran out of players, though the two circumstances wouldn't necessarily jibe.A few years ago, when players were jetting off to the ESPYs or their vacation homes as soon as they were taken out of the ASG, it might have been interesting to see this rule put into play, only for the manager to find Mike or Pudge or whoever had already left the building.

Like minds are thinking great on the subject of the trade deadline...http://www.gothambaseball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=807Keep it in your pocket, Omar.

Greg: That's me. Hi.Ears: Mine have been burning. I don't know if you were talking about me, but I lit a Q-Tip on fire 'cause I wanted to see inside my ear.Lurk: I've been known to do that here to keep up on Metsiana and simply be entertained. You guys generally rock.Blog: That's what me and my cohort at Faith and Fear in Flushing do. Don't be thrown off by the B-word. It was a turnoff to me at first, too. Conjures polemics by twitchy, hypercaffeinated loners who must always be right. But a blog is like a sandwich -- there are good sandwiches and bad sandwiches. It depends on what you fill it with. (It may be like a box of chocolates, though I haven't thought it through that far.) What my pal Jason and I fill Faith and Fear with daily is a mixture of the personal, the analytical, the historical and the funnical, all of it Mets. It's what is done here except in longer form. I veer to lengthy posts. I'm kind of a diva that way.Mets: I've been a fan since 1969, making me the ultimate frontrunner at the age of six. I think I've since shaken the tag based on continuous service to The Cause.Geek: I used to find this term patronizing. But honestly, for the time people like us spend on stuff like this, what else could we be?Exit: Once in a blue and orange moon, I leave a game early. Rarely, but it happens. I'm still gonna say I was there, Edgy.Edgy: Good guy, however we differ on my record-keeping.Roll: I hope we're on one, though I'd like to see Colorado get beaten up a couple of times.Rain: Wish it had continued to do so last night given the result. Nah, not really. A lousy game's always better than a steady rain.Game: So relieved there's another one tonight.Late: Which it gets early sometimes. Thanks for all's indulgence and please come on over to Faith and Fear when the mood strikes.Ciao.

]Greg just switches from logical appeal to emotional to humerous. Slippery devil.