No Poormouthing.
No Apologies Necessary.
No Being Glad The Season's Ending.
Shea Is Readily Reachable.
High-Five The Good Things.
With an 0-2 count, Boyer tries to throw another meatball past the old man, the hobbled catcher, #31 who's trying to adjust to a bat that's slower, a swing that's longer and later. It's a battle no hitter ever wins — there's only one outcome possible, and the only question is at what point everyone acknowledges the day has arrived. CRACK! That day is coming for Mike Piazza. In fact, it's coming quickly. But it is not this day.
Good night to be a Mets fan, to be among Mets fans, to meet a Mets fan. Good night all around.
We should, however, fire the entire grounds crew.
The Mets' guess was on the nose when they signed Pedro Martinez. He's better off with us (and us with him) than trapped in somebody else's tired storyline.
I keep thinking we're just about to get on the roll that will put us well beyond .500 and turn us into the team that won't be caught.
An 8-1 win makes every glass of .500 seem half-full.
Like with most things in life, Alex, baseball is something you need to experience for yourself to know how good it really can be.
There was David Wright batting ahead of Piazza in the batting order. About time — let's hope it lasts longer than the Jose Reyes Bats Seventh experiment.
Good on ya, ya erstwhile Torontoan, for giving us a shiver in the dark in the eleventh inning and for reaching back more than a quarter-century for your intro music.
Bravo, Tommy. We might just come to like you yet.
It's all very nice, but I won't be wondering who let the dogs out for at least a little while.
Focus on this pitch. Then do it again until there are no more.
You stay classy, San Diego. And thanks for stopping by.
I've been cruising Retrosheet on party-pooper patrol.
I have no witnesses, but after Zambrano left — shame on anybody who booed him and still calls him or herself a Mets fan — and Bell gave up the hit that made it 6-0, I muttered, “great, now we'll lose 6-5.” Sometimes the gift of clairvoyance is pretty annoying.
I hate Merengue Night with a fiery passion.
He bunted, he hit, he ran, he stole, he tripled, he scored, all in one constant whirlwind of motion. It's days like this when you think they weren't kidding about this kid.
That kid sure is exciting!
Alex Wolf is 1-0 lifetime at Shea Stadium. I'm 169-131 there, including the post-season
I was at Shea Stadium at least once when Randy Tate started.
The mascot tapped his big feathery wrist and strode right past them.
I'd forgotten how insane this park is.
Just get us the hell out of this house of horrors.
I never quite figured out how Lou Brown knew the Tribe would need exactly 32 more victories to make it to the finish line, but I'm gonna give his style of strategizing a shot. Are you there God? It's me, Victor. We're playing tonight. I'm so scared God.
Something tells me that's not right either — but emotionally it feels about right, doesn't it?
Sleep tight in Houston city. Now we've got a different Pedro watchin' over us.
July may not be a very good time to trade for a savior, but January is hardly the month to identify which player will be your salvation.
The mystery isn't how we got stomped by Wandy Rodriguez, but how we ever beat Sean Henn.
Disgusting was my mother's word for anything she found the least bit disturbing. Friday night in Houston was disgusting.
Bat Bath & Beyond will cheerfully issue refunds for all 2005 New York Mets Contender Towels purchased between April 4 and July 31 when presented with a receipt by August 1.
We're four back of something worth being four back of as August approaches. The towel will throw itself in if necessary.
Let's start printing up garments that announce BELTRAN $OAR$.
Seriously, you were a starter in the All-Star Game? Which year? This year? REALLY?
Two hours and counting, oh Cammy
But then Theo called LaMar and LaMar he went too far
Good for Omar for not falling for the oldest trick in the book, the illusion that says because somebody tells you that you have to make a deal that you do.
Hey Mets, what are you ashamed of? Why are you hiding your Hall of Fame?
In the words of Linkin Park, what the hell are you waiting for?
If you can swim in your own perspiration, avoid drowning after being submerged on the scoreboard four separate times and come away soaked in glory, why the heck not? Believe, that is.
It's August, and you can't play games in August with a 23-man roster.
They suck! They also blow like wind amid that logy Shea heat.
What I want out of this heartening, frustrating, topsy-turvy year is to see #400 sail over the wall at Shea and cheer for Michael Joseph Piazza as he puts his head down and stomps around the bases.
Did I just call Thomas Michael Glavine “Tommy”? I don't believe what I just heard.
Ever have one of those days that feels perfectly normal while it's in progress but is totally bleeping surreal once you take a step back from it?
Sometimes I wonder if I'd love baseball on the radio as much if I hadn't been spoiled for so many years by Murph, and Gary, and now by Gary and Howie.
Wish I could say more about Sunday night's game, but I have to pull a Phil Rizzuto on my scorecard and mark most of it WW. It was one of the few times all season when I wasn't watching. All apologies.
They're Zambranos/Identical surnames all the way /Venezuelan, yet not related/No matter what people say
This blog entry comes with a healthy portion of Jace Math (TM), meaning everything in it is probably wrong.
I can't stress how much I'm not kidding about how the Mets should not be allowed to cross west of the Mississippi River ever, ever again.
Don't they fly charter flights? Don't they stay in nice hotels? Are the bases 92 feet apart in San Diego and Houston and Denver and almost every place else when the Mets are batting?
Very nice catch. So very nice that San Diego fans stood and cheered. They could afford to. They were home against the Mets.
We weren't even impaled by human pitchfork Joe Randa.
Howie said of Beltran and Cameron “they dive” and “they collide” — verse as play-by-play — and that the ball wasn't caught. I could tell by his the tone of his voice that it was a lot worse than that but by then we were so deep into the tunnel that I lost WFAN. Obviously whatever the aftermath of the interaction was, it wasn't good.
It's astonishing to realize that Cameron has a broken nose, multiple fractures of both cheekbones and a slight concussion and that somehow counts as good news.
The first thing I heard when I tuned back in was, “Our prayers go out to Mike Cameron.”
Fives and Ohs. Ohs and Fives. Something happens to me in years ending in them.
I sincerely hope this link will magically become a happy recap, but what I did see would definitely count as an ughfest.
I could feel a Dioner Navarro home run off Braden Looper in my bones.
Now if Pedro Martinez can pitch like Jae Seo and Mike Piazza can hit like Ramon Castro, we could be getting somewhere.
Antonio Perez. Swear to god I pegged him early in the afternoon as the eventual culprit. How? Just pick the guy I've never heard of and assume he'll ruin things for the future Hall of Famer.
Tony, have a beer. We'll explain. I'm Jimmy. Been coming here since they opened the place in the winter of '71. Me and Ernie and Vic over there, we been here just about forever.
Gerald Williams is apparently determined to prove in every single game that he cannot play center field.
By the by, am I the ONLY person in all of Metsopotamia who remembers that Hershiser's very worthy foe on that tense afternoon of October 3, 1999 was a rookie named Kris Benson?
We're 3-1/2 back of a playoff spot with 44 to play. Trachsel's returning. Beltran's returning.
I actually heard myself call Glavine “Glavo” when he finished the seventh.
Hopefully Jacobs doesn't get Hietpas'd and gets an at-bat.
At least this wasn't the usual script of a shaking-in-his-boots rookie bringing in an ERA north of 5 and then beating us like rented mules. The kid was just good.
Games like this are good ones to go to with a pal with whom you can talk about other things.
I was 7.
He's been around so long it's even harder to grasp that this man on the mound with the deadly arsenal and the oodles of self-confidence is the same guy we've been tracking up and down through our system all these years. He also keeps Kaz Ishii far, far away.
Shea only has an upper deck, I believe, because it can't economically shove enough people in the lower levels.
Fortunately, we also have Chris Woodward. There aren't enough words to describe how grateful we should be for him. There aren't enough words because when Brian Schneider doubled in the tying run, I hurled the first thing handy in the general direction of the television and it happened to be a dictionary — ironic in that my vocabulary had just been reduced to a single f-word.
I remembered Jacobs — how could you not remember the guy who won the first home game in extra innings?
I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell… HEY METS! YOU SUCK! BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
At the risk of jinxing the whole thing, I think we've collectively come around on Glavine.
Seeing as how this is the first two-game winning streak the Mets have put together west of the Mississippi all season (7-14 out yonder), I do insist that making our boys feel as if they are at Shea — where they are cheerlessly chastised despite posting an outstanding winning percentage — is what's doing the trick.
It is Victor Diaz's obligation to hustle every moment he is on the field unless his manager or a designated lieutenant informs him it is not in the team's best interest to do so (for example, not flashing the steal sign when up 17 runs).
Wham! Biff! Sock! Pow!
Seriously, we'll just trade locales with the Diamondbacks. How does Faith and Fear in Flagstaff grab you?
Hell, we swept. Roll me away. It's here.
2:19 am: Ponder mystery that what I do 2,000 miles away does not, in fact, affect what baseball team does. Who knew?
I was 12.
This game'll kill you. And that's when you win.
Michael Fucker (whose name is somehow always misspelled) is at the plate.
A couple of innings in, I realized it wasn't Trachsel's fault that he didn't get to be part of a good Mets team until now.
Welcome back the New York Mets to the Fraternal Order of Teams Who Are At Least Eight Games Over .500, an organization from which its membership had lapsed since October 1, 2000.
Of course if we lose four in St. Louis in September, we're pretty well screwed.
Hell, compared with Terrell Hansen, Moonlight Graham looks like a lucky guy.
Twenty years ago, all I wanted to tell him was “DOC! WE LOVE YOU!” Now if I could send him a message, it would be, “Get better, Stupid.”
Makes me wanna walk down the street patting dogs and handing out flowers and candy.
Lee Iacocca and Chrysler: If you can find a worse commercial, air it.
Why is every possible move that Willie Randolph might and often make doesn't so relentlessly skewered before it's shown to work, not work or never take place? Are we really that incapable of entertaining ourselves on off-days?
The Mets are playing the Phillies toward the end of the year in a game crucial to each team's fortunes. You knew that? Did you know it's the first time in the shared history of the two teams that this has happened?
Welcome back, Mike Cameron. You do realize that now you have to bring out the lineup card every night, right?
Ramon Castro's blast off Ugueth Urbina will surely stand the test of time as a touchstone in Mets history. It was a game-, season- and life-altering event. Unless we lose the next two. So let's not do that.
No reason to freak out. We go into September 1.5 games out with a chance to make it .5 before the day's done.
I will never again say nice things about a future Hall of Famer unless he's up by eight runs after six.
And then the Mets lost like they usually do. And they still suck. There. Can we go now?
I was 17.
It's possible I doomed us by not having a big enough piece of paper
The Marlins, no matter how many World Series they accidentally win or no matter how much they wipe the Soilmastered floor with us, were a bad, freaking idea.
I haven't been called gay for liking the Mets since about 1981.
“Aside from that, Mrs. Takatsu, how did you enjoy the game?”
This was even worse than the Rutles.
We have to win games in Atlanta. Plural.
An end to '05 would just be finally coming back to earth, even if it were Schuerholz's Slaughterers offering the coup de grace.
Hello, Finazzle? I want my money back.
Just hearing the name “Marcus Giles” during the post-game incited gratuitous violence against innocent furniture.
All I want for Christmas is Billy Wagner.
Twenty-three games to go. I'll watch. I'll write. I'll care. But I'll no longer believe. Not this year.
The New York Mets will indeed wear commemorative patches on the right sleeve of all five versions of their uniform tops next season to mark the accomplishments garnered during their first decade as a visiting team at Atlanta's Turner Field.
I know I said I'd care, but I didn't.
I was 22.
Let The World's Greatest Fans remember that once upon a time we were worthy of being jealously derided as pond scum.
Total record when I'm outside the Empire State: 2-12.
Was this trip really necessary?
The Mets insist on traveling poorly at any distance.
Twelve fucking days turned summer into winter. What the hell happened to us?
Please, you Mets, at least let me cling.
But really. Thrown out at second on a single to center?
“Come on out to Shea,” urged New York Mets eulogist Fran Healy, “and watch the Mets lie in state.”
How about Danny Graves, who has exactly as much chance of collecting his $5 million option for 2006 as I do of receiving it through some spectacular bank error?
Did you know that the Mets haven't won two in a row in three weeks?
Armando Benitez can be a powerful, destructive force in one's life.
Remember when our biggest problem was Victor Diaz taking an extra base with a 17-run lead?
I was 27.
Pedro Martinez. He ensures history. He foils enemies. He celebrates my cats. And every five or so days, he makes me do this: Purrrr…
If we hadn't imploded at the end of August, yesterday's game would have been agonizing.
What I can't get over in absorbing the news that Donn Clendenon has passed away is that the '69 Mets have 70-year-old men.
It's a special day, indeed, when the Mets find their way over the Braves more easily than their fans find their seats.
Man, it's getting dark at like 6:30 and there were a couple of trees shedding leaves today and we've got 13 left to play.
There's a reason football starts with an “f”. So do all the other sports as far as I'm concerned.
But still…take THAT, Marlins!
I hope our team doesn't disappear out from under us and give us nothing more than a Chinese restaurant in Riverdale three or four times a year.
For one night (or at least for two plays on one night) Cairo was everything we'd hoped to have this year.
OH! YOU COULD DO BETTER THAN CARLOS BELTRAN? YOU COULD? REALLY?
I was 32.
We don't like the Yankees.
No, we sure don't.
It's up to us to give a Pratt's ass.
They've revived themselves nicely to win six of their last eight, most recently Saturday night's triumph at the Federal Baseball Penitentiary in Washington.
RFK's a dump. It looks like a domed stadium with the dome missing. It looks like the Vet on downers.
You know why I'm positively wallowing in the small, ugly joy of playing spoiler? Because we know exactly how you feel. And you're the ones who made us feel that way.
The monumental thing is there was no Looper in sight. He has become as invisible as Heath Bell. Bartolome Fortunato. Mike Draper.
And we're now down to the know-it-by-heart part of the schedule during which wins and losses become secondary to the fact that games are games.
Stupid definitive towel. Now it's a shroud.
Shut up, Fran. Let Ralph talk as long as he wishes.
I'm much more pissed at him now than I was when I just thought he was having a crap year.
So he didn't suck, he was just a liar.
When Mike Piazza leaves, an epoch of Mets baseball goes out the door with him. Save for what we can piece together on our own, that's all gone after Sunday. It's like a set of Mets media guides will have burned to the ground.
The Manchurian Brave has been reassigned. In his stead, we have a future Hall of Famer on our hands with him and at long last I have no compunction about admitting it.
SportsNet New York, the kind of name you need a room full of marketing drones, lawyers and miscellaneous suits to come up with, provided you prime the pump with tens of thousands of dollars worth of Cosi and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of salary time.
I was 37.
82 Wins!
We are over five-freaking-hundred once and for all!
Finish in third place. Screw draft picks; our drafts all stink anyway.
I've tipped my cap to these cretins so much over the past decade that I've got carpal-tunnel in my cap-tipping wrist.
I don't know why more people don't cherish Closing Day. It's the last chance to sit in the sun for several hours, to wear a cap for a reason, to eat ice cream out of a helmet, to retreat for a few more hours into this Brigadoon of ours that thrives over a six-month clip.
I ask nothing of Mike Piazza. He's given us everything.
But oh well. It was a .500 day for what was basically a .500 team.
We're not bad. We're not great. We're all right. On the final day of the season, that, lovely weather and a few friends are really all I need.
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