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Greg Prince and Jason Fry
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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The 12 Minutes of Dunston

by on 13 September 2007 4:10 am

Magic Number 12 had a shelf life of about 12 seconds — the score from Philadelphia went to “F” on the Shea Stadium scoreboard with a pitch left in the Mets’ game, and that pitch advanced our magic-number countdown to 11. Eight years ago, with the Mets’ season facing extinction, Shawon Dunston (who wore No. 12 for Miracle Met Ken Boswell) batted for about 12 minutes. He worked the count full, and turned Kevin McGlinchey’s 10th pitch into a single up the middle. Not long after that, Todd Pratt’s bases-loaded walk would make Dunston the tying run — and not long after that, Robin Ventura would hit one back to Georgia.

The Mets’ next game would be their last. Afterwards, Dunston — who’d never wear the uniform again — offered a requiem for the season. Lisa Olson of the Daily News recreated his speech to his drained, broken-hearted teammates, a column that still leaves me blinking away tears.

“I am so proud to be a Met … You guys made me believe again. You made baseball fun for me. I will never, ever forget what this team did.”

Neither will we, Shawon. Neither will we.
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2 comments to The 12 Minutes of Dunston

  • Anonymous
    September 13th, 2007 at 11:44 am

    Thank you for linking to the Lisa Olson column – that was one of my favorites, and I hadn't seen it in years.

  • Anonymous
    September 13th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    You're welcome — I think Olson's column may be my favorite piece of Mets-related writing not penned by Greg Prince or Roger Angell.