The Mets were meandering through their most arid major award season since 1993 — the last time no Met scored a single vote for MVP, Cy Young, Manager of the Year or Rookie of the Year nor nabbed a Silver Slugger or Gold Glove — when it appeared we'd have nothing more to sate our perilously low self-esteem than Luis Castillo's fantastic seventh-place finish in voting for mlb.com's National League Comeback Player of the Year balloting (six points behind the decreasingly heartwarming return of
Rarely has anything I've anticipated surpassed my expectations the way SNY's Mets Yearbook did Thursday night. The 1971 highlight film immediately became the second-best thing ever aired on the channel, behind only the 2006 division clincher ... The film was titled The Winning Way , which in itself is beautiful given that the 83-79 Mets were as mediocre as all get-out in 1971. But the first installment in this series of vintage propaganda pieces is a victory in SNY programming. It's like they
Welcome to Flashback Friday: I Saw The Decade End , a milestone-anniversary salute to the New York Mets of 1969, 1979, 1989 and 1999. Each week, we immerse ourselves in or at least touch upon something that transpired within the Metsian realm 40, 30, 20 or 10 years ago. Amazin' or not, here it comes ... The 1969 baseball championship, won — not stolen — by the New York Mets, stands unquestioned as the greatest sporting achievement of the year. Yes, some will say "of the century" ...
Shockingly enough, the Mets lost. They started feebly, offered a little spurt of purposefulness, then rolled over and died ... Which was actually an improvement from the night before, when they expired in a fashion that should have been gut-wrenching but instead was just numbing. Not so long ago, the Mets losing on a game-ending error would have left me fuming for hours on end. Last night, it barely registered. And tonight? I barely remember tonight ... At Amazin' Tuesday I was chatting with
There's a lot of talk going around about all-time franchise records for hits. I assume this has something to do with the eternal appreciation fans and media have for true legends of the game. Given that the subject is in the air, I thought it would be fun (my kind of fun, at any rate) to explore how the vaunted Met record for most hits in a career came to be ... The first Met to hold the all-time franchise record for hits was Gus Bell. He produced the first Met hit ever, a one-out single to
Former Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman was sentenced to six months in prison for failing to pay income taxes. It was just a little over a week ago that Koosman was appearing at Citi Field to commemorate the 1969 championship team.It was that weekend that Koosman admitted to selling the ball which Cleon Jones caught for [ ... ] ...
Welcome to Flashback Friday: I Saw The Decade End , a milestone-anniversary salute to the New York Mets of 1969, 1979, 1989 and 1999. Each week, we immerse ourselves in or at least touch upon something that transpired within the Metsian realm 40, 30, 20 or 10 years ago. Amazin' or not, here it comes ... They checked Nolan Ryan's schedule. They didn't check mine ... Go figure ... Normally, I'd applaud the Mets' diligence regarding Ryan and not giving him any excuses to avoid the Mets the way
Well, thanks Ollie. That was memorable ... What better time to rewind for a belated look at last night's celebration? (Apologies for the "belated" part -- your correspondent arrived exhausted and slept like a dead thing.) ... The Mets did a nice job with the ceremony: There was Howie Rose behind his podium, scenes from '69 on the big board, and other little touches -- I particularly liked that the 2009 Mets appeared on the scoreboard in replica 1969 baseball cards, with images of Topps' real
Welcome to Flashback Friday: I Saw The Decade End , a milestone-anniversary salute to the New York Mets of 1969, 1979, 1989 and 1999. Each week, we immerse ourselves in or at least touch upon something that transpired within the Metsian realm 40, 30, 20 or 10 years ago. Amazin' or not, here it comes ... If the Mets, with their reputation as beloved fools, could win a World Series in only their eighth season, why anything could happen — the Vietnam War could end; cancer could be cured; the
Carlos Beltran was 0 for 4 last night, reducing his average from .404 to .388 – it was the first game this season he did not reach base.According to Steve Popper in the Bergen Record, Beltran is the first Met since Cleon Jones, 40 years ago, to hit .400 or better this deep into the season.…i have always wanted [ ... ] ...