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 ... Everything was fine in my world in the weeks leading up to September 21, 1999. My world was the Mets' world in those lilting days of late summer, and the Mets remained in bloom as they had from
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
Tonight I have leading off John Klima author of the book “Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend”.We will talk about the early years of Willie Mays career in the Negro leagues, some of the heated rivalries, the last Negro League World [ ... ] ...
Gary Gentry was just a 22-year-old in 1969, a rookie with a rocket right arm on a remarkable team. He was too young to understand the magnitude of what he and his young teammates were doing. It was all a whirlwind ...
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 [ ... ] ...
We have a smorgasbord of baseball tonight starting at 6pmDavid Allan of Full Count Pitch leads off the show. We will discuss Andy Pettitte’s Hall of Fame chances, Mariano Rivera’s Cy Young candidacy, and the development of Mike Pelfrey.Former big league catcher Brent Mayne returns to the show. He will chat about the importance of [ ... ] ...
A game-and-a-half out of the Wild Card in a five-way scramble. A magic number of 15 to clinch the National League East. A two-game lead on Philadelphia. One game up with 25 to play ... That's how we entered September these past four seasons, our first four seasons of Faith and Fear. We were in it; we were way ahead of it; we enjoyed an edge; we hung tough. Only once did anything good come of our position, but we didn't know that on September 1, 2005; September 1, 2006; September 1, 2007; or
In one of the legendary exchanges of 1969, Leo Durocher dismissed the challengers nipping at the heels of his frontrunning club after his team salvaged the final game of what must have been, from the standpoint of the visitors' clubhouse at Shea Stadium, a very demoralizing series ... "Were those the real Cubs today?" a reporter asked following Chicago's 6-2 win on July 10 ... "No," Durocher answered with his usual grace. "Those were the real Mets." ... Of course Leo Durocher was completely off
The Mets were losing 3-2 after three innings of my listening to them. Then I had to abandon their game so I could see an old friend of mine remarry. Then, during the cocktail hour, I checked the final from Wrigley: Cubs 11 Mets 4 ... You could have knocked me over with a feather. From the looks of the boxscore, the Cubs could have done the same to Bobby Parnell ... Ah, but there was a most delightful detail to the day (other than hearing "Dixieland Delight" at the wedding in honor of the