Faith and Fear has the finest readers anywhere, we say with total objectivity, thus we thought we’d let you fine people about some Mets-related projects a few of our friends on the other side of the screen have lately crafted or are in the midst of crafting.
• Michael Elias has published the relationship-driven novel Two For Tennis (The Adventures of Mark), though don’t be thrown by the sport in the title. The book includes a generous dose of Metsian angst from the period Shea was closing and Citi was opening. We’ll share more come Oscar’s Cap season, but I can tell you there’s a nice nod to No. 41 about which one can’t say a cross word. Learn more about Two For Tennis here.
• Nick Davis, who you might remember from his wonderful 2018 American Masters portrait of Ted Williams, is back in the baseball documentary game in a very big way, directing a multipart series on the 1986 Mets and the city that surrounded them under ESPN’s 30 for 30 banner. It’s coming to the Worldwide Leader in the hopefully not too distant future. Nick is enough of a lifelong Mets fan to not only read FAFIF regularly but wish for and be granted dinner with Bruce Boisclair as his twelfth-birthday present (Bruce called him by the wrong name and then ate the fries off his plate), so you know his head and heart are already tied for first place. Further, Nick’s dedicated crew clearly has the teamwork to make the dream work, as I learned when I had the privilege of seeing them in action prior to quarantine, when they teased hopefully coherent thoughts from some guy who watched a lot of Mets games 34 years earlier.
• James Schapiro, a contributor to FAFIF in the worst of Met times, has written a masterpiece about one of the Mets’ predecessors in their absolute best of times. To earn his master’s degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism, James delved into the events of October 4, 1955, the day the Brooklyn Dodgers won their only World Series. Through a spate of eyewitness interviews and a ton of diligent archival digging, James has brilliantly recreated a lost world in the Borough of Churches. It will have you rooting your heart out for Dem Bums and everybody who ever loved them. Take the trip to “The Day the Earth Sorta Stood Still” in the Delacorte Review and feel what it’s like when baseball dreams come true.
Congratulations to Michael, to Nick and to James. Thanks for reading, thanks for creating.
What a piece of baseball history,what a piece of Brooklyn history! Many thanks to FAFIF and hats off to Mr.James Shapiro. Gil drove in two runs and scooped Pee Wee’s throw out of the dirt.The Pee Wee Reese recap of that last out is quite poignant to those of us who were children when Gil led us to the promised land.
Gil Hodges belongs in the Hall of Fame! Time is running out. Perhaps Mr. Shapiro’s piece will help the cause.The recounting of what happened in different neighborhoods in Brooklyn after the Dodgers won is pure poetry.
Thank you Greg,Jason and Mr. Shapiro Let’s Go Mets!
Glad you read and loved it, Paul.
When I was a kid, I had a buddy who was a huge Bruce Boisclair fan. He was convinced that if the Mets only gave him some more playing time, he would be a star. So Mr. Davis was not Bruce’s only 12 year old fan. (Me, I wasn’t so sure Bruce should be taking away any playing time from Maz or Hendu, but what did I know?)