Good Afternoon, Good Night

Marcus Stroman, intermittent instigator of excitement, monitored a Wednesday afternoon nap in Cincinnati as if moonlighting as a day camp counselor for the six-and-under set. He authoritatively lulled the Reds’ offense to sleep and relaxed Mets fans no end with eight innings of shutout ball. Marcus plunked leadoff hitter Jonathan India to begin the game, allowed a single to Aristides Aquino to start the third, walked Joey Votto with two out in the seventh, and…that was it. Mr. Sandman sprinkled his changes of speed in the home team’s eyes all day and, from there, it was off to never never land.

Never did you think the Mets could play a simultaneously rewarding yet placid game on this road trip, yet there they went, winning with ease — and homers. Three homers. A solo shot from Jonathan Villar in the second. A grand slam from Dom Smith in the third. A two-run job from Luis Guillorme in the fifth for the infielder’s first circuit clout in two years. Each homer cleared the Great American Ball Park Fence by barely more than a few rows, if that. One inch over the line, of course, is all it takes for four bags. The Mets wound up a three-run blast short of the home run cycle, but the 7-0 win needed no further power embellishment.

Likewise, what Marcus did, shutting out the Reds on one hit for eight innings, didn’t need to go one inning further. Maybe in another era eight wouldn’t have been enough. A full-fledged shutout might have been sweeter than the Graeter’s Ice Cream Gary Cohen recommended as an alternative to his culinary bête noire Skyline Chili on the menu of high-profile Cincinnati delicacies. Either way, Marcus wasn’t getting a chance at that final scoop of outs, as Luis Rojas and whoever confers with Luis Rojas on how pitching is managed calculated the greater good would be served by limiting Stro to 90 pitches and getting Jeurys Familia a dollop of work.

So it was a combined one-hit shutout, which, after the five tense, wacky, frustrating and what have you games that constituted the first five-sixths of the Mets’ jaunt to Western Pennsylvania and Southern Ohio, was simply delicious. What did Stroman think of not going nine when nine was within reach? Don’t ask. Seriously, don’t ask. Somebody did and the pitcher’s answer was, “Next question.” Not the most helpful response to a reporter who was just trying to glean insights for the fans back home, yet as unhelpful responses go, it was better than the rat/raccoon sighting Francisco Lindor cooked up (with Jeff McNeil as sous chef) in May. Lindor appeared to be obfuscating. Stroman, I thought, shifted, however tersely, into “ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies” territory. Publicly concurring with Rojas’s decision may not have jibed with his honest emotion. Taking issue with the manager over Zoom could have stirred a pot he judged best left to simmer on low. The man preaches positivity through his social media. “PITCHER RIPS MANAGER” doesn’t exactly mesh with the profile he strives to put forth. One would infer it doesn’t help him pitch better, either.

Wednesday’s was the kind of game where if your only issue was Marcus Stroman not going all the way and not opining on not going all the way, then it was a pretty delightful Met afternoon. Marcus Stroman has been responsible for many a splendid day and night in 2021. When the games haven’t definitively gone his way, he’s generally kept the Mets close. That’s what he was doing in his previous start, last Friday in Pittsburgh. In that game, Stro worked out of a touch of trouble (runner on third, two out) by coaxing a lineout from John Nogowski to end the fifth. Stroman emoted as Stroman does when he finishes an inning unscored upon. Nogowski barked. Stroman noticed. Benches emptied. Neutral corners were eventually returned to. Then a little more yammering was exchanged, but nothing physical. Marcus didn’t mind expressing himself to the media after that dustup. “He’s just a clown,” the pitcher said of the hitter.

What struck me most about the contretemps, besides how ridiculous Nogowski looked for acting insulted by a pitcher exuding in an age when hitters are regularly lauded for celebrating themselves and their achievements, was how this wasn’t new. It was almost a latter-day facsimile of something I recalled from nearly four decades prior. On July 18, 1982 — 39 years minus one day before Nogowski v. Stroman — a Met pitcher heard from an opposing batter that he needed to behave himself. Then, as now, the batter should have concentrated on his stance, his swing and his business.

The Met who ruffled feathers way back when was an unlikely candidate when viewed through history’s sometimes fuzzy lens: Terry Leach. If you remember Terry Leach, chances are you remember him for his baseball-heroic performance across the injury-pocked Met summer of 1987. That was the year when the Mets never had their vaunted starting rotation in one workable piece. Literally never. The arms that carried the Mets to a world championship in 1986 last threw as a unit in Spring Training. The sure thing that was supposed to be Gooden, Ojeda, Darling, Fernandez and Aguilera (with dashes of David Cone if there was room for March’s surprise pickup) became an exercise in improvisation. A dash of Don Schulze here. A sprig of Tom Edens there. Glaze with John Mitchell.

Hence, thank goodness for the extra-large serving of Terry Leach, unassuming submarining swingman who emerged from the bullpen at midseason, took the ball regularly, and did nothing but win. Three wins in relief in May. Seven wins as a starter in June, July and August, highlighted by a two-hit shutout at Cincinnati on Independence Day weekend. A reassuring, low-key veteran presence all along. Terry was 33 in ’87. None among the Mets, the Braves and Cubs ever gave him a real shot as he drifted through their organizations for a decade. He never much impressed Frank Cashen, not even after throwing an emergency start at the tail end of 1982 that became the only ten-inning one-hitter in Mets history. “Don’t worry, Leachie,” the GM told the righty by way of consoling him when it appeared there’d be no room on the post-championship Opening Day roster for him. “You’ll always keep showing back up around here. You’re like a bad penny.”

Some pep talk, eh? Nevertheless, Leach maintained his demeanor, his dignity and his determination. The ten-game winning streak that kept the Mets afloat followed. But that was 1987. That was five years after the aforementioned incident from the summer of ’82. Back then, Terry wasn’t exactly what you’d call an instigator of excitement, yet he wasn’t reticent about demonstrating satisfaction for a job well done. We’d seen somebody like that in our distant past. His name was Tug McGraw. A gesture of exultation was part of our physical vocabulary.

Less prone to kindly interpreting an opposing pitcher’s body language was Dusty Baker. The same Dusty Baker who today is the almost universally revered wise old head who has managed the almost universally reviled Houston Astros into first place, the same Dusty Baker who’s taken five franchises in all to the postseason. In 1982, Baker was an All-Star outfielder for the second season in a row, a pro’s pro who’d been on the scene since 1968, an essential member of three Dodger pennant-winners, including the club that captured the World Series the October before. By the middle of July the year after, which is to say when Leach and Baker crossed paths at Dodger Stadium, L.A. was flailing in the NL West, failing in their quest to pick up ground on the surprising Atlanta Braves. The Mets were having a much lousier year, but they weren’t expected to do much. Thus, when a middle reliever with little in the way of reputation notched a big out against a big star from a big team, could you blame him for a little bit of a big reaction?

Leach, you see, had struck out Baker while protecting a one-run lead in the seventh. He pumped a fist. Heaven forefend! Wheel out the fainting couch at once! Baker took exception to being what he thought of as shown up, one of the no-nos of twentieth-century sporting sins. Everybody in days of yore had to act as if he’d been there before. Leach, however, had mostly been in the minors since 1976. To not have been excited by succeeding in the major leaguers would have indicated being a little dead inside.

The 1982 Mets being the 1982 Mets did not hold their lead against the Dodgers that Saturday night. Leach left the mound in the ninth, with the bases loaded and one out, entrusting what was now a 5-2 lead to Neil Allen. Allen was the Mets’ closer, one of the few bright spots to light up our perpetually dim early 1980s. Alas, Baker singled home two runs off Allen and, after Pedro Guerrero walked, Ron Cey singled home the tying and winning runs, the latter carried across the plate by Baker himself.

Did Dusty high-five his teammates and head directly to the home clubhouse to spout platitudes to the Southern California press? Not without a detour. The veteran saw fit to, as the Daily News put it, “derisively thr[o]w up his arm with an extended finger at the Mets’ dugout.” Specifically, the Times reported, “Baker pointed at Terry Leach, the rookie relief pitcher. […] Baker had been upset when he took a called third strike earlier in Saturday night’s game and watched Leach punch the air in celebration, something Leach says he has done since he played in high school.”

“The only thing I’m mad about,” Baker reflected a day later, “is that I stooped as low as I did, to his level,” meaning Leach’s. All Leach was doing was being happy and showing it. That sort of crime against baseball decorum was treated as a felony in 1982. It selectively provokes a misdemeanor citation in 2021, as evidenced by Nogowski bristling that Stroman pulled what for our purposes we’ll call a Leach — even if Leach, save for a fist pumped on a long-ago Saturday night, lingers in the mind’s eye as the epitome of mild-mannered.

In case you’re wondering, the Mets would exact a little revenge the next afternoon, pounding the Dodgers, 8-3, and letting Baker know they didn’t care for his act. “This was a good win,” manager George Bamberger affirmed, according to the News, “because of that bleeping finger Baker gave us last night,” though one assumes Bambi didn’t say “bleeping”. “That kinda spurred the boys on. They were telling Baker something after that bleeping finger. Added catcher John Stearns, “When Baker came to bat in the first, I told him, ‘A lot of our guys were mad at you for last night.’”

So much anger can be ginned up over a kids’ game, all regarding who’s excited and who’s offended. That’s why when you get a 7-0 one-hitter, combined or otherwise, it can really soothe the soul.