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ABOUT US

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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Welcome, THB Class of 2015!

Those of you who’ve waited with bated breath for this annual feature (pause for crickets), my apologies — blame paid work competing for my time and the curdling of my attitude about the 2015 World Series from acceptance to anger, a psychological ambush I’ll delve into one of these days.

Background: I have a trio of binders, long […]

The Ballad of Salty Parker

A week and a half ago I finished the manuscript for the third book in my Jupiter Pirates series, capping a fairly exhausting run of writing and travel that began last August. (Which is one reason, besides Wilpon-related apathy, that Greg — APPLAUSE!!! — has been a full-time presence at the helm this offseason.) While laboring, […]

Farewell to the Father of Baseball Cards

Sad news out of Long Island: Sy Berger, the father of modern baseball cards, died today at 91.

Berger didn’t invent baseball cards — they date back to 19th-century “trade cards” and were first popularized by cigarette companies. But Berger made them the empire they became. In 1947 he started working as a marketer at Brooklyn-based Topps, […]

Welcome, THB Class of 2014!

My goodness, is it really the 10th time we’ve done this?

Background: I have a trio of binders, long ago dubbed The Holy Books (THB) by Greg, that contain a baseball card for every Met on the all-time roster. They’re in order of matriculation: Tom Seaver is Class of ’67, Mike Piazza is Class of ’98, […]

Not Particularly Fun Circus Seeks Desperately Needed Tent

For that, I need the Mets to keep playing well against lousy competition and hold their own against mediocre foes, to say nothing of taking on the big boys of the NL. I need to watch a lineup that scares somebody other than me. I need a whole lot that this team shows no signs […]

Past, Present and Future

Past

Here’s a sign of spring: The 2014 Topps cards are out.

Let’s not go overboard: This isn’t the greatest set. The photography’s good again, but Topps has developed an unfortunate predilection for novelty shots, with far too many players romping with teammates (and often on dreaded horizontal cards), getting doused with Gatorade or showing off Oscar […]

Welcome, THB Class of 2013!

Well, Yankees fans hate the Red Sox … if the Cardinals win again at least Carlos Beltran gets a ring … Hmm.

You know what? Never mind that for now. It’s time to welcome the latest budding immortals and dudes you’ve already forgotten who make up the THB Class of 2013.

Background: I have a trio of […]

Living and Dying by Inches

After last night’s thriller, today’s game was almost certain to be a letdown — but unfortunately it was worse than that. It was the inverse of last night, with the key plays going minutely but decisively the Giants’ way. Omar Quintanilla and Daniel Murphy were just a bit slow trying to turn the double play […]

Happy Is Better

After eight and a half innings, I had a little roadmap of tonight’s post scrawled on a bit of scratch paper:

Another chapter of Mets payroll football, starring Sandy Alderson as Charlie Brown
Criticism of/sympathy for Matt Harvey, with Qualcomm jokes
Tip of the cap to Gary Cohen, memories of his jubilant calls from 1999
Oh yeah, the game […]

The Limits of Nostalgia

We’re into the mid-’90s, and the makeover of The Holy Books … well, it’s dragging a bit.

I’ll sum up the problem with a string of numbers: 45, 22, 19, 20, 17, 35, 8, 9, 10, 8, 13, 13, 9, 17, 9, 14, 16, 14, 13, 15, 13, 12, 15, 12, 10, 13, 4, 14, 20, […]