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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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Holy Timoniel!
by Greg Prince on 5 October 2006 7:09 am Great Timo’s Ghost! After following Jason’s suggestion and reading Jayson Stark, I just realized the Double Tag Double Play was the spiritual undoing of the last Game One the Mets were in. This time it was our outfielder and our infielder who executed beautifully, and this time it was the other team’s baserunners who looked clueless, presumptuous and defeated.
The Kent-Drew Kamikaze also echoed the first regular-season game Paul Lo Duca caught as a Met, when everything turned on his WHOA! play at the plate. Then he knew exactly what he was doing. Here, he had no idea what was going on, yet the result was twice as great. May this first postseason game Paul Lo Duca caught as a Met set the same kind of tone he and his teammates set six months and a day earlier.
I had just settled down. Now I’m revved up again.
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I wouldn't have been surprised in the least if both runners scored on that play. LoDuca, bless him, had experienced all kinds of trouble this year handling that relay from the right side and turning to tag this year — there was opening day, which he got away with, and 2 other occasions which I can't remember other than that they happened.
I happened to be rushing to the subway along 3rd Ave. when this play occurred and so saw it on the radio — Howie's call was terrific, check it out if you can — and thought for a moment that the Dodgers may have recognized LoDuca's tendency for flubbing these plays and evil-geniously tried to exploit it.
The Timo Perez play was a million billion times worse than Merkle or Buckner — it just doesn't get enough credit for the monumental screwup it was. Easily the dumbest thing a Met ever did, and by far the costliest.
If we truly erased the karma, wow.
I doubt the Timo gaffe is well known throughout baseball as the boners you mention but it should be. It should be posted on every clubhouse wall right next to the NO GAMBLING notice. Even if the DTDP has wrung the karmic cloud dry of its darkness, I doubt we will ever forget it.
It didn't appear Jeff Kent was taking anything for granted, per se, but he sure was hauling a piano around third.
I had the fabulous good fortune to sit in a field box seat behind the plate (that's me on page 105 of the Post, right above the “Not Done Yet” caption box, hands in pockets sporting my Kingman jersey). As such, I had pretty much a perfect view of the play. Like everyone else, I was thinking “Oh no, keep it to one”, couldn't believe the awesome relay throw, and then my line of sight was spot-on looking directly at Drew as he headed to the plate. The “Oh shit!” look of horror on his mug was priceless. We all roared, Paulie saw him just in time, and the rest is history.